Second Sunday of Easter: How We Build Matters

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John 20:19-31

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning dear friends. Happy second week of Easter.

         Just this last week I was working from my office when I heard a knock on the window. One of the preschoolers, who is friends with our son, wanted to tell me something. I opened the window and she said, “Morgan, we are building a track to run on but we need sticks to make the track.” She had only found one, and she knew that my son and I like to hike, so she assumed I would know where to find sticks. I encouraged her to look under the trees. She found some sticks, set up her race track, and she and her friends ran and enjoyed running in the beautiful Springtime sun. Some days I really long for the times where my greatest challenge in a day would be where to find sticks to make an imaginary racetrack. But as time goes on, life gets more complex, we are given more responsibility, and we have to make harder decisions. If that weren’t challenging enough, we live in a world on this side of Eden, where people continue to walk along ancient, broken pathways, apart from God, cloaked in darkness and deception, looking for a way home.

         It’s into this brokenness that Jesus enters our humanity to deliver us from sin and death. This deliverance wasn’t just for the wealthy who could buy their way out of trouble, or the intellectually superior who could rationalize their way out or the darkness. This gospel of king Jesus came to every man, woman and child; slave and free; Jew and Gentile. But as people began to follow this resurrected Lord, it began to put them on a collision course with the ways their families, subcultures, neighborhoods, and nations were impacted and influenced by the kingdom of darkness. There is a risk of exclusion for the follower of Jesus as they hold out what is ultimately good in the face of deception. This was the experience of the early Christians to whom the letter of 1 Peter is addressed. What this letter shows us is that God is building a new family in Christ for a new hope where trials become a strange gift that burns away and purifies our distractions, clarifies our mission, and helps us hold out the goodness of Christ for the world. As we look at the beginning of this letter, let me pray for us.

         “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer, Amen.”

1. The resurrected Christ has begun a new family of hope (3-5).

         The resurrected Christ has established a new family. Peter had been set up as a leader among the apostles, an ambassador of Jesus for the church. He served for a time in Jerusalem, but this letter is written a few decades later, probably just prior to Nero’s persecutions which would bring Peter to his death in the mid-60s. The church is about 30 years old at this point and Peter commissioned this letter to be written down and circulated by his ministry partner, Silvanus. He writes from Rome, which identifies with Babylon of old. He is in a pagan  city, part of a pagan empire and is aware that he is a pilgrim and not at home. He writes as an exile to others who are exiled, whom he calls the Diaspora (1:2) who are in various cities in Asia Minor, which is in Modern-day Turkey.

         The Christians he writes to are likely Gentiles that were converts to Judaism, then came to believe in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. They would come to be persecuted by both Jew and Gentile as a result.[1] These were not influential and wealthy people. Peter even mentions slaves and women, who would have been expected to worship the household gods of the father of the family. These Christians, who were following Jesus, though they weren’t highly influential or of high status, were a part of the new Israel, the people of God, those whom God had called and set apart to make his glory known!

         It’s these people, of which also are you and me, that have been born anew by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are all looking for the promised land together as exiles in a foreign land. The church is at its best when it becomes a community that provides refuge for the vulnerable rather than those who misuse power. I can appreciate this. It is hard to build the kind of performance that will attract and maintain the  presence of high profile individuals in a church. Some churches try; but for me, the most fulfilling moments of ministry have been with individuals or in smaller groups: coming to your homes for a house blessing, or visiting you with communion in the hospital, or sitting with you in the office and hearing your stories and praying with you, or hearing your confession. I love seeing the church enter into this with one another: creating a meal train so that you can bless one another with your cooking and your presence to one another, the ways you open your homes to one another for hospitality — including Formation Groups, watching the BBQ team smoke a brisket for the church, weeping with one another in prayer, encouraging one another, having vulnerable and sometimes hard and honest conversations, and making repair with one another when harm has been done or relational rupture occurs. This is what creates a stable outpost of the kingdom when the culture continues to shift and change. It is a gift to see this church become such an outpost of the kingdom of heaven, a divine family which provides comfort for the vulnerable and that provides an appropriate amount of discomfort for those who are far too at-home in this world.

         How one builds the household of God matters. We can say the right words to articulate a great goal, but if the means to getting there are not the way of Jesus then we have missed it. The goal of the church is not to do something, but to become something. “Success”, then, is measured by how one experiences Christ when they meet us rather than average Sunday attendance. If the pastor or leaders are abusing power, or if the church’s activism is divorced from the theology of the church, or if a church focuses all its efforts on issues of secondary or tertiary theological importance while being divorced from seeing the kingdom come in the neighborhood, or neighborhoods, around her, then how is she a community of hope where the resurrected Jesus is made known as a comfort for the vulnerable? 1 Peter reminds us to slow down and consider how we build.

2. Trials are a strange gift of purification and opportunity (6-9).

         We have seen first that the resurrected Christ has begun a new family. This is the family we need to feel “at home” in our pilgrimage in this world. Second, trials are inevitable, but they are also a strange gift. St. Peter helps the church avoid two extremes: attempting to overthrow the Pagan culture through political violence, and viewing the ethical demands of the Gospel as inconsequential and capitulating to culture. Because the church seeks to engage the world with the transforming love of Christ, they will experience some amount of persecution and trial as they hold out the goodness of the Gospel of Christ in a world content with its self-deception.

         This reminds me of a quote from one of the apostolic fathers, the Epistle of Diognetus, which says, “...They live in their own countries, but only as nonresidents; they participate in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign...”[2] The text also describes the ways that Christians safeguard their allegiance to Jesus by refusing to use their bodies and creation for disordered purposes. It says “They marry, like everyone else, and have children, but they do not expose their offspring. They share their food, but not their wives.”[3]  In other words, Christians bless what is good and walk with others as far as they can without doing harm to themselves or others as image-bearers of God. Jesus ate with sinners, but did not join their sin. He held out the goodness of the kingdom and invited them in. Those who follow Jesus will walk with their neighbors as far as they can, but will have to draw the line of shared culture somewhere. And when a follower of Jesus puts up a boundary, they risk exclusion and persecution.

         Peter’s audience became scapegoats for the ills of the area. In their day, the refusal to worship the local gods may have been seen as the reason for a lack of prosperity in a village, so it would be easy to lay any misfortune on the shoulders of the Christians in the village. But this suffering, Peter says, is hopeful. Suffering brings clarity to our mission as followers of Jesus and purifies us from what distracts us. This doesn’t mean we delight in the suffering itself, but it does mean that entering trial well reminds us that redemption is coming. It also invites the community of Jesus to come and support us in trial as family.

         It means ultimately that we live with integrity as people whose guiding principle is the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of Jesus. Nothing else deserves our ultimate allegiance other than king Jesus. We have responsibilities to our church, our country, our earthly family, and our neighbors, but everything is rightly ordered by the guiding principle of Jesus’ life, death resurrection, ascension, and his coming again — The Gospel.

         I don’t want to cheapen the persecution of these Christians by comparing religious persecution to the stripping of privilege or inconvenience. I remember a discussion once of America taking away tax benefits from clergy and churches. Would that strip away of some of our privileges as Christians? Yes. Inconvenient? Yes. Is it persecution? No. Babylon is going to Babylon and Rome is going to Rome.  

         There will be times where allegiance to Jesus puts us at odds with our community and leads us to exclusion. Be mindful that exclusion does not occur because of an indignant or combative spirit. Come with curiosity about someone’s story. Ask good questions, present gospel convictions with clarity, but in a way that allows others to experience the discomfort of contractions in a disordered world. Spirit-led, compassionate questions hold out the goodness of the kingdom and they don’t merely win an argument. Go slow, be patient, and be compassionately un-anxious like Jesus if they refuse to change. There may come a time when one has to risk losing a job, face legal challenges, or upset someone close to them because of their ultimate allegiance to Jesus. The hope in 1 Peter is that in the church you are part of a privileged community because it is a saved community. As we fulfill the god-given task of announcing the good news of Christ, the church becomes the ark of salvation where deliverance is found and we will experience the tender compassion of the Good Shepherd.

Conclusion

          Jesus in his resurrection has created a new family. As we show forth in our lives what we profess by our faith, we may experience some amount of persecution, or exclusion because Christians will be those who welcome other sojourners and invite them to follow Jesus too. Be encouraged if you don’t feel “at home” right now. We are those who feel like foreigners in our homeland and at home in foreign lands. We invite people to come as they are and to be changed by the power of Jesus. May those who long to be comfortable, gain power, garner influence, and be at-home in this world, find the church to be a community where they are disquieted and made to know that this world is our place of pilgrimage to discover Jesus. May the church become that place where those afflicted because of following Jesus find life and comfort from their new family in the outpost of the kingdom of God.

         Let us pray:

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[1]                Scot McKnight, 1 Peter (The NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 23.

[2]                Epistle of Diognetus, 5.4-5.

[3]                Ibid., 5.6-7.

Easter Sunday: Jesus the King and Cultivator of the Garden of God

St. Ephrem the Syrian's Second Hymn on the Resurrection

CONTENT

Introduction

                  Good morning dear friends. The Lord is risen! This is our second year of hearing a homily from the ancient church. One of our values at this church is to live out the church’s tradition. We do this in the way we use the Book of Common Prayer, sometimes we’ll do a study, and this morning we will hear an ancient teaching-hymn, called a madrasha, from St. Ephrem the Syrian. The female choirs would have sung this as a form of teaching to build up the church.

Who is St. Ephrem?

         St. Ephrem was born in the 300s in a town called Nisibis, which is modern Nusaybin in Turkey. This was a border town which went back and forth in its allegiance to either Rome or Persia. He lived there until Persia took it in 363 and forced out the Christian population. Ephrem and others headed west to the city of Edessa, or modern Şanli Urfa, in Turkey. He lived there for 10 years and died in 373.[1] He was a deacon and catechetical teacher under four amazing bishops.

Our Hymn

         Ephrem sees two books of revelation: the Scriptures are one, and the natural world is a second book to learn and study. There are two dimensions for him: spiritual and earthly. The spiritual dimension is pictured through the lens of the Garden of Eden. The two dimensions, of paradise and physical earth, exist side-by-side, overlap, and interlock. The natural world then becomes a tapestry of divine gestures to help us adore the mystery of God. Because of this theology, Ephrem’s poems are filled with natural and biblical imagery. Ephrem’s second hymn on the resurrection, which we will read this morning, is about the celebration of Easter. I made my own translation, but then realized the other day that the amazing Sebastian Brock had also made a translation back in 2006 in a book of assorted Syriac writings.[2] I’ll put a link online to where you can find his translation. This morning I’ll read my translation for us. There are twelve stanzas to this hymn. We are invited to meditate on the Scripture and the cross through the spiritual Garden. It’s as though we see Eden’s realities as we look at earth’s realities. Paradise is filled with blooming flowers, but then as we zoom back out at earth, these blooms find their counterparts in the people of God and their praises. We are all flower arrangers in the garden of paradise through the resurrection. Stanza 2 invites us into the celebration of the Easter festival, much like we are doing this morning. Everyone has a part to play in the worship of the resurrected Lord. The reference to chaste women are the female choirs. There are children singing, lay people offering righteous lives, and clergy fulfilling their functions in the church. All of this is compared to flowers in paradise.

         Ephrem mentions Nisan, which corresponds to our month of April; Passover occurs in Nisan, which is when Christians celebrate Easter, or Pascha. I was excited for some thunderstorms today because the month of Nisan and its thunderstorms form a counterpart to the thunderous praises of God’s people celebrating Easter. As thunders produce earthly flowers, praises produce the spiritual flowers of love and good deeds. In stanzas 6-8, he moves to the interweaving of the flowers of paradise into crowns that will be set on the heads of those who enter paradise. Ephrem, in entering worship, is given a crown; the donkey from the triumphal entry is crowned with them; every person in the worshiping assembly is crowned with them. But the flowers are not just flowers, they are the beauties of the obedience of the disciples of Jesus from every age and stage woven together into a celebration of God’s paradise in the lives of the saints (stanzas 9-10). The poem ends in stanzas 11 and 12 with a contrast of the victorious and resurrected King Jesus with all the kings of the earth. Jesus is the great king of flowers and his crown is perfect in its beauty, which feels redemptive as he has now traded his crown of thorns with the flowers of paradise. He has commissioned God’s people to weave the crown. The final stanza is a prayer for our king to accept the crown we weave and to “give peace to the lands that were destroyed,” and to “rebuild the churches which were burnt...” This likely means that this madrasha was composed in Nisibis in a period following one of the devastating raids of the Persians. God can make the barren places fruitful again. It is true in the war-torn and oppressive regions of the world, and it is true in the places of the human heart that have been ravaged by sin and death. We long for Christ in his resurrection to make all things new and to give us flowers that we can continue to weave into a crown for his glory.

         None of us will fully grasp this hymn on the first read through. Don’t worry. I’ll put the whole transcript online when we post the audio. Here’s the hymn:

Ephrem Hymn on the Resurrection II[3]

1) Your law was my chariot

which revealed paradise.

And your cross was my key

which opened paradise.

I gathered fruit from the garden of delights;[4]

I came from paradise and amassed

roses and eloquent blooms 

which are scattered throughout your festival,

in the songs, over the people.

Blessed is He who crowns and was crowned

2) Behold, the joyous festival

which consists entirely of mouths and voices.

The chaste women and men were in it 

like trumpets and horns.

Infant girls and boys were in it

like harps and lyres.

Their voices were woven together and they ascended,

and all of them reached heaven.

They gave glory to the Lord of glory.

Blessed is He for whom the silent have thundered.

3) Behold, earth thundered below

and heaven thundered above.

Nisan mixed together the [thunderous] sounds

above and below.

The voices of the holy Church mixed

with the thunder-peals of Divinity.

And amidst the glow of her torches,

the flashes of lightning mix;

the tears of sorrow were with the rain

and the Paschal fast was with the new growth.

4) In the ark shouted

all the voices from every mouth.

Outside of it were strong waves,

while inside were pleasant voices.

Voices, according to each pair,

sang in it together in purity;

Our festival is a type of this,

in which the unmarried boys and girls

have sung in a holy way.

Glory to the Lord of the Ark.

5) In this festival, which each person offers

his victories as his offerings,

it grieves me, my Lord, to see

that I stand here empty-handed.

But my mind has been soaked by your dew

and it experienced a second Nisan.

Its flowers became offerings for me:

braided together into all kinds of wreaths,

and placed over the door of the ear.

Blessed be the cloud which rained down upon me.

6) Who has seen flowers being collected

from the Scriptures as though from hills?

With them the chaste women fill

the spacious recesses of the mind.[5]

The sound [of the songs], like a servant,

scattered holy blooms over the assemblies.

The flowers are holy;

receive them into your senses

as our Lord [received] the anointing of Mary.[6]

Blessed be the One who was crowned by his handmaids.

7) Flowers, beautiful and eloquent,

children have scattered before the King.

The colt was crowned with them,

the path was filled with them.

They scattered praises like flowers

and hymns like lilies.

Even now in the midst of the festival

the assembly of the children have scattered for you, my Lord,

hallelujahs like flowers.

Blessed is He who was praised by the children.[7]

8) Behold, our hearing is like an armful,[8]

of the voices of children.

The recesses of our ears, my Lord, are also filled

with the hymns of the chaste women.

Let each one of us gather up all the blooms,

and intermingle them with his own

flowers that bloomed in his own land,

so that for this great festival,

we might weave a great crown for it.

Blessed is He who invited us to weave it.

9) Let the bishop[9] weave into it

his homilies as his flowers;

the priests, their stories of victory,[10]

the deacons, their readings,

the young men, their alleluias,

the boys, their psalms,

the chaste women, their hymns,

the leaders, their charitable deeds,

and the laity, their manner of life.

Blessed is He who has multiplied victories for us.

10) Let us prepare to recount the victorious ones:

the martyrs, apostles, and prophets,

whose flowers are like them,

their blooms are shining,

their roses are abundant,

the fragrance of their lilies is sweet.

They gathered from the Garden of Delights

and brought the choicest of flowers

to crown our beautiful festival.[11]

Glory to You from the blessed ones!

11) The crowns of kings appear poor

before the wealth of Your crown.

Into which purity is interwoven,

in which faith shines,

in which humility emanates,

into which holiness is mixed,

in which great love shines forth.

Great King of flowers,

how perfect is the beauty of Your crown?

Blessed is the One who has commissioned us to weave.

12) Our King, accept our offering

and grant us salvation in return.

Give peace to the lands that were devastated,

rebuild the churches which were burnt,

so that when great peace comes,

we might weave together a great crown for You,

as flowers and those who weave them

come from all sides

that the Lord of peace might be crowned.

Blessed is he who has acted and is able to act.

[1]                Reader more at https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/entry/Ephrem

[2]                Ephraem, et al. Select Poems. 1. ed, Brigham Young University Press, 2006. Eastern Christian Texts 2. Pages 169-179.

[3]                TJ Lamy, Sancti Ephraem Syri hymni et sermones quos e codicibus Londinensibus, Parisiensibus et Oxoniensibus descriptos edidit, Latinitate donavit, variis lectionibus instruxit, notis et prolegomenis illustravit. Volume 2 of 4. Pages 750-756. Hymn 19 <https://archive.org/details/sanctiephraemsy02lamygoog/page/n405/mode/1up>

[4]                A play on words with the garden of Eden. ‘edne (delights) sounds like ‘den (Eden).

[5]                A reference to the madrashe sung by the women’s choirs for the instruction of the people.

[6]                John 12:1-3

[7]                Matt 21:15-16

[8]                The idea is like having an armful of flowers.

[9]                i.e., the chief shepherd

[10]              A type of homily like an encomium or panygeric. This may also refer to a successful life of ministry as a priest.

[11]              The word ܟܘܠܠܐ refers to the crowning that happens when someone is victorious. It is a short-hand way of referring to martyrdom “Receiving the crown”. The festival of receiving the crown is attested elsewhere as a commemoration of a martyrdom. In this stanza, the idea is that the martyrs, prophets, and apostles are the ones who frame the festivities. It is their lives and deeds that frame the work of the church and how this festival calls them to the same works as the saints of old, whose deeds are pictured as flowers blooming from Eden.

Great Vigil of Easter: God at Work In the Darkness

Matthew 28:1-10

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good evening friends. On Thursday we were reminded of Christ’s institution of the Eucharist and what it means to serve Christ and one another in the kingdom of God. Last night’s service drew us into the mystery of salvation in what happened on the cross. This morning we joined together to walk the way of the cross through the stations of the cross. When Christ died on the cross, creation responded with darkness, and yet God was not absent. Into the darkness, the light shined and the darkness did not overcome it. Jesus was at work in the darkness, conquering Sheol and rescuing humanity from the clutches of sin and death which would ultimately be done in the triumph of His resurrection. 

         There is an ancient Christian baptismal hymn from the 2nd century, part the Odes of Solomon, which sings of Christ’s victory. This hymn says, “And I opened the doors which were closed. And I shattered the bars of iron, For my own shackles had grown hot and melted before me.”[1] The early church has always made this connection between the death that Christ died, the work of his conquering of Sheol, the victory of his resurrection, and how you and I are joined to Christ and his work through our baptism. Tonight we had the privilege of praying for Les as he has walked with Jesus into baptism; in doing this we also renewed our own baptismal vows. We have died and risen with Christ.

         From our passage tonight we see two important truths: 1) God is at work in the dark, and 2) Christ’s resurrection is our commission to the work of new creation.

         As we look at Matthew 28, let me pray for us, “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.”

I. Earthquake, Angel, guards, and empty tomb — God is at work in the dark (1-6)

         God is at work in the dark. When we left St. Matthew’s Gospel text Last Sunday, the final verse was that the stone had sealed the tomb and guards were there to guard it. The extra measures of security were because of fear and unbelief. Under the cover of darkness, just as dawn was about to begin, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come to the tomb. As they arrive on scene, there was an earthquake. And as the earth is shaking, an angel descends from heaven to roll back the stone. Heaven and earth are both testifying that the Lord is risen. 

         The angel of the Lord proclaims the good news to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come see the place where he lay.”[2] Far from abandoning the one who died on the cross, God heard his prayer. Jesus the Lord of heaven and earth, who had created all things, had been crucified on a pagan cross. After Jesus was buried, the disciples head off. How could the joy of those travelers on Palm Sunday ended with this? I can imagine that over several days they were processing their grief, feelings of guilt over abandoning their teacher, wondering what they had just been through over the last several years, and still holding onto some slight hope that maybe Jesus would actually rise like he said.

         Satan has been working hard from the beginning of humankind to weave sin and death into the fabric of all humanity. The work of God in the darkness of Jesus’ death is the dismantling of the systems and powers of the kingdom of darkness. The stone is rolled away to reveal what God has done for these faithful women searching for him. This testimony that Christ has risen has changed their fear to joy and has changed their story forever.

         Jesus had given glimpses of new creation and the kingdom of God in his ministry. His resurrection from the dead shows his followers that the age to come is here. Death is defeated and sin is no more. The systems and structures of evil present outside of us and at war inside of us no longer have the final word because Jesus is alive. One church father says, “Pray, brothers, that the angel would descend now and roll away all the hardness of our hearts and open up our closed senses and declare to our minds that Christ has risen, for just as the heart in which Christ lives and reigns is heaven, so also the heart in which Christ remains dead and buried is a grave.”[3] Where are these places of doubt where we need the revealing of the resurrection? I remember a friend saying they never wanted to have kids because they were afraid of what this world would do to them. It was a place of doubt and unbelief. Some doubt that God will begin to heal them if they begin to get honest about the parts of their stories that shaped them. Some are afraid to apologize to their kids because they’re afraid they’ll lose a sense of authority. Some have addictive coping strategies to keep them from facing their fear of vulnerability about what hurts. Disordered fear and unbelief are two sides of the same coin; and they are pervasive, but they’re also a defeat-able enemy. I don’t want to pass over the risk involved in each of these kinds of scenarios, but I do want to name that these are the dark places of doubt where Jesus’ triumph will put death to death. And because Jesus is alive, we can pray for God’s help in rolling back the stone to reveal the goodness of Jesus’ living presence in these places where fear and darkness reigned.

II. Commissioning of new creation (7-10)

         The empty tomb is a place of commission. The women are charged with the task of going to gather the disciples to tell them to meet Jesus up in Galilee. They leave the tomb quickly with fear and great joy: fear for the magnitude of the miracle they’d experienced, and joy for what the resurrection means for them and the world. As the women travel on the way to meet the disciples, Jesus meets them. Our text says that Jesus greeting them by saying “Greetings”. If this were 21st century America it would feel like “Oh hey”! The women recognize who they are speaking with and they take hold of his feet and worship him.

         Worshiping Jesus is a beautiful paradigm for following Jesus. Grab hold of his feet and worship him. Come to know him. Read the Gospels, hear what he has to say. Read the rest of the Scriptures. Create spaces of silence and stillness in his creation and know his love for you. Discover the ways he fills out the Old Covenant in Scripture; look for his unsearchable glory that is sung by multitudes of heavenly choirs of saints and angels around his throne. Join this song in the mystery of the Eucharist; discover the resurrected Jesus in everyday moments. Discover and name the places of darkness, fear, and doubt. Hold them in the presence of the one who has conquered the kingdom of darkness.

         After worshiping Jesus, he tells them not to be afraid, but to go and tell his brothers that he’s risen. That Jesus calls the disciples his brothers here is significant. It follows on the heals of their utter failure and their desertion of him in his time of need. Jesus had predicted their failure in Matthew 26:31. But in 26:32, Jesus predicted that after their failure he was go to Galilee after he was raised up. His mention of “brothers” here is gently restorative. He is restoring to brotherhood those who had deserted him. The good news of Jesus’ resurrection is the good news that death is defeated, sin has no more power, and the age to come has broken into this present evil age. The new day has dawned in the darkness of an empty tomb, these women were entrusted with this news by a heavenly messenger and Jesus himself. These apostles to the apostles would bring this good news to the twelve, and from Galilee, the new creation of the kingdom of Jesus would go forth to all the world.

Conclusion

         This night reminds us of the power of the resurrection. God is at work in the darkness to overcome the power of darkness with the light of the resurrected Christ. All things will be made new. Our places of doubt, death, and fear will be transformed into the places where the glory of God shines forth. As we walk along the paths God has called us to, we take hold of the risen Christ and gain perspective for the journey. He has commissioned us to live into the age to come, the life of new creation in the resurrection, and to bring this good news to others as we live it out for ourselves. This is what we have renewed in our baptism vows. As we celebrate the mystery of the resurrection, remember that Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of new creation: God is at work in the dark, and Christ’s resurrection is our commission to the work of new creation. Alleluia!

Let us pray:

O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that we, who have been raised with him, may abide in his presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever.  Amen.

[1]                Odes-Sol. 17:8-9. Charlesworth, pp. 74–5, and 76, n. 11.

[2]                Matt 28:5-6.

[3]                Peter Chrysologus, Sermons 75.4; Manlio Simonetti, ed., Matthew 14-28 (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture; Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2002), 306.

Palm Sunday: Palms, Praises, and the Death of Tyranny

Matthew 21:1-11

CONTENT

Introduction

         We began our time together today shouting hosannas with the crowds and then moved quickly to the Passion reading which gives us a sense for how quickly this all took place. The great complexity in Matthew 21 is that the Hosannas are completely appropriate as praises even against the backdrop of the crucifixion and that the entry into Jerusalem would appear to be anything other than triumphant. And yet this is the way that leads to eternal life. God can honor the peoples’ good longings and desires while also seemingly saying ‘no’ to them in order to say ‘yes’ to something better; God is dealing with a problem far deeper than any of them comprehended through a story that no one anticipated.

         As we look at Matthew 21, let me pray for us, “We praise you, Almighty God, for the acts of love by which you have redeemed us through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. On this day he entered the holy city of Jerusalem in triumph, and was hailed as King by those who spread their garments and branches of palm along his way. Grant that we who bear these palms in his Name may ever hail him as our King, and follow Him in the way that leads to eternal life; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

I. The paradox of Jesus’ kingship  vv. 1-9

         Jesus and other Galilean travelers from the north are heading to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover festival. They are near the Mount of Olives, just over the Kidron valley, and Jerusalem begins to come into view.

         There is a buzz and excitement about the ministry of Jesus. Is someone coming who will finally overthrow the political corruption that is ruining people’s lives and causing so much pain? Is there finally a king coming who will straighten out the factionalism that is exploiting people in the temple system in Jerusalem? Everyone has ideas about what the age to come will look like when Messiah reigns from Jerusalem.

         The disciples are asked to borrow a donkey for Jesus to ride on and they retrieve a young colt and its mother. Matthew says that this was to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah, “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”[1] There are several allusions here: After David’s son, Absalom, had taken over the kingdom by rebellion and was later killed, David rides a donkey back into Jerusalem to reclaim the throne.[2] Solomon, who succeeds David, rides on David’s donkey to be anointed.[3] Just before the time of Jesus, Simon Maccabeus had cleansed the temple and Jerusalem and the Jews entered it with praise. Simon decreed that each year they were to celebrate the removal of Israel’s enemies with praise and palm branches.[4] If riding on a donkey shows the paradigm of a humble, davidic ruler, then the palms become the symbol to commemorate and anticipate God’s victory over his enemies.

         While it is true that this rider on a donkey felt very Davidic, it is also very curious how the donkey-rider of Zechariah will be the one to overthrow the Roman Empire! Jesus did not ride the donkey into Jerusalem to be enthroned like David or like a Maccabean ruler, but to be killed on a pagan cross; but this enthronement was overthrowing a tyranny much deeper than the one they could see.

         This reminds me a little of a car we used to have. We had a car that used to leak so much oil. I was buying motor oil in costco packs! Who should be buying that much oil? Mechanics — To use on many cars. You know who shouldn’t be buying that much motor oil? One person, for one car. I took the car to the mechanic and come to find out, the engine block was cracked. At the time I think they quoted me about $4k for parts and labor, which is about as much as we paid for the car! This spurred us on to getting something new. The leaky oil was an indicator — the problem was way deeper than an oil leak. There was no way to fix the surface problem without going in and replacing the whole engine.

         Rome’s corruption was not actually the root problem. It was indicative of a deeper and more cosmic problem that had affected Jew, Gentile, and all creation! The answer was not merely the overthrow of a pagan nation. This cosmic problem required cosmic kingship to bring union to heaven and earth.

         Jesus wasn’t riding a golden chariot, wearing expensive purple, a ruler who loved a good fight with other aspiring rulers or nations, someone who loved to boast about his accomplishments, who sought after war, or looked for a bloody battle to fight in. Instead, he is a friend of peace who rides a donkey in tranquility in the face of spiritual opposition.[5]

         I think the way that Jesus subverts others’ expectations is instructive for us today. We all have dreams of what the age to come should look like right now. What this passage teaches is that those are good and God-given desires and longings. The way that God brings those things about is likely not what we’d expect. There is no glorious enthronement, no new creation, no kingdom, no resurrection, without the way of the cross. Jesus’ way to the cross was a slow dismantling of the kingdom of darkness as death itself was being destroyed.

         Practically, what this means is that no family dysfunction, no empire, no individual brokenness gets the final word anymore. Jesus has conquered and will conquer. Rome was only a problem insofar as it was doing the work of death, but a foreign enemy was not the ultimate enemy. God is bringing about new life: the palms are promises and the Hosannas ring true; but it is in a more cosmic way than any of the Galileans would have anticipated. Our praises are never hollow, but we will often find ourselves in the midst of the process of salvation we don’t fully understand.

         I see glimpses of new creation in your stories. As you follow Jesus, I love hearing your testimonies: Every time you tell me about a breakthrough in a conversation you’ve had with a spouse, every time you tell me about an answer to prayer, every time you tell me about a child who is doing hard things or helping others, every time you share how Jesus has shown up in your grief or in other unexpected ways. There might be ways that we want Jesus to show up, like “fix my marriage, or fix my job situation, or fix my child, or fix my finances, or fix this country”. We long for new creation in lots of places. These are good longings, but we cannot control the trajectory of how new creation comes about. The dysfunctions might just be the indicators that God is at work below the surface and deliverance might be something far deeper than we expected. These moments might be the road to the cross and ultimately the road to resurrection where we see the glory of Christ as the victorious king.

II. Power and the submission to enemies vv 10-11

         In verses 10-11 Jesus comes nearer to Jerusalem. While the Galilean Jews are excited travelers who have come to know Jesus’ importance, Jesus remains less known and less trusted by the Jews in Jerusalem — up to, and including, the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. We often think that the crowds who celebrated were the same that flipped and shouted ‘crucify him,’ but these were different Jewish communities from different regions. The Southern Judeans shared the apostle Nathanael’s original prejudice: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

         Judea was under the rule of a Roman prefect whereas Galilee was under the Herodian dynasty at this point. Seeing this Galilean coming down south and claiming to be king may have felt like an overreach to impose authority over the southern district. The title of King of the Jews would be a very destabilizing claim. This is what would get brought up again at his trial. This is a threat to Roman rule, it is a threat to the temple religious system, and to the Sanhedrin. The folks in Jerusalem have every reason to be suspicious of this exuberant Galilean crowd bringing “their” prophet into Jerusalem with a royal procession.

         Jesus’s kingship can certainly feel destabilizing, but the Jerusalemites and the Galileans give us two paradigms of how to receive it. We can either give God praise with an openness to what Jesus’ kingship might mean, or we can hold onto everything tightly no matter how broken it is and view Jesus with suspicion. The Galileans would have to continue to hold onto hope in the kingship of Jesus even as he is handed over to those who will crucify him. Those from Jerusalem would have to open their hearts to the idea that maybe God is doing more than what I can see right in front of me.

         All of us struggle with wanting to control things to varying degrees. Sometimes it’s wise, but sometimes it’s a refusal of Jesus’s kingship. It can feel safer to hold onto what is broken or is hurting us than to hand it to Christ. We try to curate our lives on social media so that we can control what people think of us. We can try to control the situations our kids will encounter or keep them on a rigid routine to avoid feelings of parental guilt. We can occupy ourselves to death, using workaholism to mask the difficult realities we don’t want to talk about. As Jesus rides in, whether it is through reading Scripture, hearing someone speak hard truth, or a still small voice that is whispering “God is doing something better than this,” do we receive it with Hosannas, trusting in Christ as king to lead us to somewhere ultimately good? Or do we receive it with suspicion clinging too tightly to what is broken because we don’t trust that Christ’s kingship is better than the system we’ve propped up?

Conclusion

         Palm Sunday invites us into into a week of walking the way of the cross with Jesus. This road to the cross is the humble road to kingship where the Son of David, the Son of God, will bring about new creation where sin is no more, and even death will die. Our temporal and earthly sorrows are indicators that the kingdom of darkness is still active in the world; yet the surprise of Jesus’ kingship is that his victory reaches to the depths of the cosmos even as it touches the human heart. Our deliverance from sin is a foretaste and deposit of the ultimate goodness that will reign over all things. The Hosannas remind us that a new day of salvation is dawning for those who follow the way of Jesus.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the Cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

[1]                Zech 9:9

[2]                2 Sam 19.

[3]                1 Kings 1:38-40.

[4]                1 Macc 13:51.

[5]                cf. an incomplete patristic work on Matthew: Manlio Simonetti, ed., Matthew 14-28 (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture; Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2002), 125.

Lent 5: Seeds of Joy in the Soil of Sorrow

John 11:18-44

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning friends. Today is Passion Sunday. It begins this two week time within Lent that includes Holy Week. If we have joined Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days, we are beginning to narrow down now to the road to the cross. This is why we veil the cross. As we look at the events that happen on the way to the cross, what will eventually be accomplished on the cross can be seen, but only dimly, as through a veil.

         Today’s passage is all about God’s presence in our “if only” moments. We all have these “if only” parts of our stories: if only I could have said these or those words before my loved one had passed, if only I could have parented differently, if only I had understood my family system before I entered marriage, if only I had made better vocational choices, if only I had gotten married earlier or started trying for kids earlier, if only I had made better financial investments before now. All these “if only” parts of our story involve real grief and at the same time they are not the end of God’s will or goodness for us. They are the spaces we sow with tears where we can anticipate Jesus bringing a harvest of joy.

         Today’s passage is what God does with “if only” moments. Jesus comes and raises Lazarus as a 7th and final sign in the Gospel of John. This story reminds us that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. In him death will be overcome and those “if only” moments are places of redemption where God’s good kingship will be known where we once saw them as a place where hope had failed. The raising of Lazarus will be the moment that Jesus will cling to to know that the Father hears him even as he is about to enter Jerusalem to meet death.

         Let me pray for us as we look at St John’s Gospel: “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.”

17-27 Naming where we need Jesus to show up (If only....)

         The scene opens in Bethany, which is a short distance from the city of Jerusalem. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus live there. This is a family that Jesus loves. They were well-known in the area. Jesus hears that Lazarus is ill, and yet he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. I’m sure he was praying for Lazarus and for God’s will, but in his decision to wait two days, Lazarus succumbed to his illness and dies.

         When Jesus approaches Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Jesus missed the funeral. Mary is still in a period of grief for her brother and is remaining at home. Martha and Mary are upset. Martha does something about it, leaves the house and meets Jesus to get some answers. She essentially says, “Jesus, if only you had gotten here earlier; my brother would not be dead.” You can feel the tone of her question: “Jesus, where were you? I thought you cared?” The exchange between Jesus and Martha gets into the theological reason this story is included. Jesus tells her that her brother will rise again. Martha, like the Pharisees, believes that her Bible teaches a general resurrection of the faithful. She believed her brother would be a part of that, but that doesn’t give much comfort right now.

         Jesus is not skipping past or bypassing her pain. When I lived in Dallas I had a 19 year old coworker who tragically took his own life after battling with mental health issues for a long time. I went to his funeral which was held at a megachurch that met in a mall-turned-church in one of their “side chapels”, which was an old movie theater. The pastor’s sermon felt so hollow. He basically told the congregation all the ways my friend lived such a full life and that we should be joyful that he is in the presence of Jesus. But his life had just begun. I would much rather have my friend back and figure out how to address his mental health challenges. Sometimes I also want to come to Jesus and say “Jesus, if you had been there my friend would not have died”. And it is also true that I can say that God has used the memory of this young man to help people: I’m sure he made an impact on people he knew, money was donated on his behalf to bless others, the few years I knew him have shaped how I view mental health, and I have so much more compassion for what it is like to be a lost 19 year old boy who is struggling to ask for help. Jesus didn’t make the situation better, but he was present to redeem a tragic end. This young man’s life and story have within them the redemption of resurrection life because Jesus is present.

         Jesus is telling Martha that our hope is not just in some far off general resurrection. Our hope is in Jesus, who is the resurrection. The resurrection isn’t just a concept, it is a person — and that person is Jesus Christ. Martha believes that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world. Jesus brings the age to come into the present evil age. And the reason why this is our hope is that Jesus bore our griefs and carried our sorrows — and he triumphs over death. To enter into the age to come does not deny the reality of suffering and death. Jesus redeems suffering and death as the places of redemption where His kingship comes to be known.

28-37 Jesus bears our sorrows and knows our grief (Jesus wept...)

         Martha calls for her sister Mary to come because the Teacher is calling for her. Jesus meets them outside the village and those who were mourning with Mary come with her to see Jesus. They thought she was heading to the tomb to go and weep there, so they follow her. This is part of early Judaism’s mourning rituals. There were family and friends who surrounded her to weep and they often hired professional mourners.

         Notice that when Mary gets to Jesus she says the same thing “Lord if only you had been here my brother would not have died.” Jesus was moved very deeply at the sight of Mary crying and all those who were mourning with her. He asks where they have laid Lazarus. On the way to the tomb, verse 35 says Jesus began to weep. What was he weeping for? Jesus had just given sight to a man born blind! And Jesus knows what he’s about to do. And yet, I do think these are real tears. I love the explanation of the 4th century Potamius of Lisbon and I’ll summarize it: Jesus wept in fulfillment of this aspect of human love, offering sympathetic tears. He wept to moderate the grief of those mourning. He wept because of the extent to which humanity had fallen under the shadow of sin and death. He wept because God had given humanity every beautiful fruit and flower of the garden and they’d been cast out and exiled because of sin.

         Jesus knows our tears and has borne our sorrows. In reflecting on this passage, NT Wright says, “The Word, through whom the worlds were made, weeps like a baby at the grave of his friend. Only when we stop and ponder this will we understand the full mystery of John’s gospel. Only when we put away our high-and-dry pictures of who God is and replace them with pictures in which the Word who is God can cry with the world’s crying will we discover what the word ‘God’ really means.” He is truly a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And while there is grief, the grief is productive and the sorrow is redemptive.

38-44 The Father hears us in the face of death (the Father hears...)

         Jesus comes to the tomb and tells them to remove the stone. It’s been four days and people have no expectation that Lazarus will rise. In fact, they believe he has begun to decompose. However, in the days where he would have been decomposing, Jesus had been praying for this moment. Jesus reminds them that belief is the precursor to seeing the glory of God — much like the story of the man born blind who had to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. Jesus says something  striking. Knowing what he is about to do he enters into prayer: “Father, thank you that you have heard me”. This is a moment he’d been praying about even though everyone thought he was two days too late. He was right on time. God hadn’t heard his prayer just for Lazarus to be raised, but for the right moment and opportunity for the glory of Jesus’ connection to the Father to be made known. He says “Lazarus, come out.” In a culture that knew about incantations, Jesus offers no spell. He names his friend and gives a simple command. Lazarus obeys his Lord and rises up out of the grave. This moment would be the sign that though Jesus enters our sorrows on the way to the cross, he would return them to us as the joys of redemption. The cross and resurrection are why the Psalmist can rightly say that those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.[1]

         St. Ephrem says, “[Jesus’s] tears were like the rain, and Lazarus like a grain of wheat, and the tomb like the earth. He gave forth a cry like that of thunder, and death trembled at his voice. Lazarus burst forth like a grain of wheat. He came forth and adored his Lord who had raised him.”[2].  

Conclusion

         In this final sign Jesus has taken our moments of “Jesus if only you had been here”, then he weeps with us, and turns our griefs into moments of redemption where the Father hears us and his glory is made known. As we close, I want to pray the chorus from a song I love from the Porter’s Gate that summarizes what I’m saying. Please pray with me:

“The kingdom’s come // and built upon

wood and nails // gripped with joyfulness,

So send [us] out, // within Your ways

knowing that // the task is finished.

The dead will rise // and give You praise -

wood and nails // will not hold them down!

These wooden tombs, // we’ll break them soon

and fashion them // into flower beds,

The curse is done, // the battle won

swords bent down // into plowshares,

Your scar-borne hands, // we’ll join with them,

serving at // the table You’ve prepared.” Amen.[3]

[1]                Psalm 126

[2]                Commentary on the Diatessaron.

[3]                From Work Songs, released October 6, 2017 . WOOD AND NAILS. By Keith Watts, Isaac Wardell, and Madison Cunningham; Vocals: Audrey Assad and Josh Garrels; Guitar: Isaac Wardell; Piano: Tyler Chester; Celesta: Orlando Palmer; Bass: Jay Foote

Lent 4 (Laetere Sunday): Light From the Dust

John 9:1-13, 28-41

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning friends. It is great to be with you this morning. Today is the fourth Sundxay of Lent, or Laetere Sunday, which means “rejoice”. It is a bit of reprieve that reminds us that hope, preparation, and penitence, can all sit together in the same space. The rose vestments also remind us that we’re nearing the end of Lent.

         The questions raised in today’s Gospel are a warning not to search for someone to blame when it comes to others’ suffering. It doesn’t produce anything helpful. Christians don’t believe in Karma, but sometimes they can say things that feel like it. I remember hearing about someone who, when something negative happened to him, he turned to a religious interrogation of himself to try and find some sin that might be in his life that was the cause of his suffering. Imagine how cruel it is to apply this logic to the problems that arise in the birth of children and all that can go wrong in that process. It feels extraordinarily cruel. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, comes to a man born blind in John 9 and does not confront him with religious scrupulosity. He comes to address the man’s healing as a platform for God’s glory.

         Instead of any hint of blame, this is actually an opportunity for new creation. Suffering is a reality we cannot avoid, nor can we explain in our narrow understanding of the world. The blind man ends up seeing more than the teachers of Israel, and like him, our good shepherd comes to bring new creation in our places of suffering.

1-7 The Light in the Darkness

         Jesus and his disciples encounter this man born blind. The disciples look at this man and ask, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Obviously the man could not have sinned since this blindness had been from birth. They are thinking about verses in the Bible about God visiting the iniquity of the parents on their children. If I could bless something in their question, it is that they don’t want to attribute this tragedy to God. But their explanation feels a bit like Job’s friends who keep asking Job to repent or figure out what he’d done to tick God off. It makes our relationship with God very transactional: If I do the right things, God will bless me, my family, and my country. If I sin, God will bring calamity to my life, the life of my household and my country. This isn’t true. And it is because of this logic that St. Augustine has to write the city of God. If Rome, a Christian empire, falls to the Goths, is Jesus still Lord of all? His answer to this question is yes, and the City of God fleshes that out.

         Instead of answering questions of theodicy, God’s role in human suffering, Jesus comes with his presence as both Good Shepherd and Light of the World. The world and its systems are bound up with the kingdom of darkness. Because of this bondage, suffering will be a reality, and things will not always be as they ought to be.

         The blind man’s suffering and pain were not an opportunity for philosophical speculation, but an opportunity to anticipate new creation. Jesus brings light from dust: he spits on the ground, makes mud, wipes it on the man’s eyes, and tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam. St. Ephrem, in his commentary on this passage, says it this way: “And he brought forth the light from the dust, just as he had done in the beginning, when there was a shadow of the heavens. “Darkness was spread out over everything.” He gave a command to the light, and it was born from the darkness. Thus also here, he formed clay from his saliva, and he supplied was what lacking in creation, which was from the beginning, to show that what was lacking in nature was being supplied by his hand.”[1]

          I love how small this man’s faith is and how great God’s work of new creation is. It does not take a great amount of faith to open ourselves up to the grace of God. This is a picture of what God wants to do in a newly created people. People who had been bound to spiritual blindness can now see and while they may not have all the answers, they do know that it is Jesus who is the one who makes all things new.

8-13 Jesus makes things new: Can this be the same person we knew before?

         We see how Jesus is the light of the world who brings new creation where darkness had once reigned. Second, the response of the people is to wonder if this was even the same person they knew before. This is the kind of thing Jesus does. Not everyone has a momentary conversion story, but we all go through daily conversion. I’d encourage you to look at 3-4 major moments that shaped your life in Christ. There was likely some amount of suffering. How did Jesus bring light from dust? I can think back on a dinner that changed my life when I was 14, the death of grandparents, health crises within my family, the birth of our son, moments of financial instability, painful moments at the hands of church leadership, difficult and painful arguments with those close to me, and hard vocational decisions. I would not be who I am without Jesus being my Good Shepherd in these moments. The light of the world will make something new, heal what is broken, and rightly order what has been dis-ordered. People who knew us before these moments and then encounter us afterwards might say “Are you the same person”? And the answer is yes, but now I’m more myself than I was before because I have been with Jesus.

         I want to be a church where we are constantly surprised by each others’ transformation because of being with Jesus; a place where we become more ourselves because of having been with Jesus and one another. This is the curiosity involved in discipleship. As you are in your formation groups or playdates, the teams you serve alongside on Sundays, or other times together, walk with one another, and be the presence of Jesus to each other, not providing explanation, but inviting Jesus to be present. Resist the temptation to interpret others’ experiences for them. And certainly don’t waste time on speculating on answers for why they’re suffering. To do that is to heap shame on an already broken heart. Come with a loving and curious presence, sometimes offering prayer, sometimes just offering a listening ear, but always offering an empathetic witness to your brother or sister’s pain and joys. As St. Paul says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”[2]

28-38 Hold onto Jesus in the face of darkness: The blind man becomes teacher and the teachers become blind

         We have seen how Jesus is the light of the world who brings new creation where darkness had once reigned. Second, the response of the people is to wonder if this was even the same person. Finally the blind man becomes the teacher to spiritually blind teachers. The Jewish leaders had decided that anyone who confessed Jesus is Lord would be put out of the synagogue. The parents of the blind man had been put out as a result of the blind man just saying that Jesus helped him see. In verse 28, where our reading picked up, the leaders reviled the blind man saying that they were followers of, and disciples of, Moses. They were all out of logical arguments, and when civic discourse broke down, they resorted to exclusion, dehumanization, and violence. This is what the leaders of the synagogue had done and it is what happens today.

         You can see this in children. When they are mad, and start to get hostile, they punch, kick, bite, or use words like “I hate you” and “your not my mom or dad”. What they mean is “I am angry and I can’t think clearly and I don’t have the right words right now and I need to get this energy out and then I need a hug”. I would expect to find this paradigm in the world, but God help the church to be different. I would love to see the church become a place where following Jesus means that we are self-aware enough to name things accurately within us and outside us and to bless other image-bearers with our words, holding disagreement with compassion; or if cursing occurs, that we would repent and make amends quickly.

         Here the healed man takes on this sardonic tone; he may sound slightly cynical, but his aim in the text is to invite the leaders to open themselves to the work of Jesus. The healed man is amazed that these people did not know what to do with Jesus, but he experienced something no one has ever heard of — that someone born blind has been healed. The only conclusion to draw is that this man is from God. The man is not yet a disciple of Jesus, does not even quite know who exactly Jesus is, but his testimony alone was so threatening that he is thrown out of the community.

         Then once he is thrown out, Jesus comes after him like a good shepherd. After hearing that he’d been driven out, verse 35 says that Jesus went and found him. It’s at this point that Jesus follows up and tells the man that He is the Son of Man. The healed man believes and worships Jesus. Then we get to the punch line of the story. There are Pharisees nearby who overhear the conversation and say “Surely we aren’t blind, are we?” The story began with people asking if family sin had resulted in a man’s blindness. The story ends with those who seem to have it all together becoming spiritually blind with the result that sin reigns. The cause and effect is reversed. Sin does not cause the blindness; spiritual blindness keeps us bound to the darkness of sin.

Conclusion

         Today’s passage fits the theme of “rejoicing”/Laudete, because it is all about the light of the world bringing about new creation to anticipate what is to come. He is the one who works in us to bring about the goodness of new creation in the face of darkness around us. He is the Good Shepherd who comes to us when others have cast us aside. We cling to him in worship and hope as we share our stories of what Jesus has done in us. This is a story of the God who brings light from dust; He may not give us answers, but he gives us his presence as the troubles of this world become a platform for the Glory of His new creation. We become more fully human because we have been with Jesus.

Let us pray:

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

[1]                Ephrem, Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron 16.28.

[2]                Rom 12:15

Lent 2: Jesus Answers What We Haven't Yet Thought to Ask

John 3:1-16

CONTENT

Introduction

Good morning friends. It is great to be with you on this second Sunday of Lent. Over the next several weeks we will look at snippets from the Gospel of John. These different vignettes challenge some of the assumptions that people had about the Messiah. Today we encounter Nicodemus coming at night to speak with Jesus. He thought he was solving one problem, but in the discussion he learned about a problem greater than he understood. Jesus then solves for the problem that Nicodemus didn’t even know he was asking about.

         Like a good spiritual director, Jesus pointed out how Nicodemus needed more than what he was asking for. In our life with Christ, this is a helpful paradigm for prayer. We come to God with our sincere questions, but fully ready to embrace an answer to a question much deeper than the one we we’re asking.

         As we look at John 3, let me pray for us. “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.”

I. 1-2  Naming the problem

         This motif of light and darkness is all throughout the Gospel of John. This week we encounter Jesus meeting with a religious leader in the dark. He comes in spiritual darkness to the light of the world; he also comes under the cloak of darkness because of the risk to being associated with Jesus. John 3 calls Nicodemus a leader of the Jews which I take to mean he was likely a member of the Sanhedrin. This is sort of like a small-scale coalition government. This was made up of different parties that were at odds with one another. Nicodemus knew about Jesus’ cleansing of the temple in John 2 and as a Pharisee, he probably wouldn’t have been bothered that much about it; he may have even cheered him on. Only the Sadducees benefited from the economics of the temple system.

         Nicodemus is risking something by coming to Jesus in this way. I’m sure the Sanhedrin has had discussions about Jesus. Jesus is a threat to one group because he is trying to overthrow well-established religious systems in the temple. He is a threat to another group because he claims to be a king and son of God. He is a threat to another group because he claims to be the rightful interpreter of Moses. Yet there is something in Nicodemus that is so curious about Jesus that he is willing to come and find answers for himself.

         Nicodemus meets Jesus and says, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus doesn’t have a famous teacher He followed and He doesn’t really fit anyone’s paradigm for what a teacher in Israel should look like; nonetheless, Nicodemus recognizes that there is something about Jesus’ ministry that comes from God. I wonder what he was hoping to discover? Was he hoping to discover someone who could tell him the future, or innovative hot takes on the law, or a plan to overthrow Rome, or justification that his political faction was right amidst the coalition group of the Sanhedrin? I can’t help but wonder if there were some mixed motives? Yes, he wanted to know more about Jesus, but I also wonder if he wanted to know more about how Jesus viewed his particular tribe. We cannot be certain.

         We all come to Jesus with good desires clouded by mixed motivations. I think it is encouraging to see Jesus’ posture. He doesn’t turn Nicodemus away, but invites him into a better question. You and I will come to Jesus with very good longings and desires to see something of the kingdom of God. And sometimes, and maybe often, those good desires are clouded by all kinds of unhelpful beliefs, values, and misguided assumptions. Jesus doesn’t say “come back when you’re a bit more grown up spiritually.” He blesses the desire with a question to help us see the kingdom more deeply.

II. 3-13 The Spirit’s Deconstruction and Reconstruction — Problematizing the problem

         Jesus tells Nicodemus that no one can see the kingdom unless they are first born from above. Some translations will say “born again”, but there is some intentional ambiguity in the Greek word that allows for both. I think the emphasis lies more on being born from above. Nicodemus asks Jesus how it is possible to be born from above. We cannot crawl back into our mothers wombs!?! This concept of being born from above is a new category for our friend Nicodemus. It doesn’t compute.

         Jesus then mentions the Holy Spirit, comparing the Spirit’s work to the wind which blows where it wishes. In our house, when it gets to be about 65-70 degrees, I love to open up our door to our backyard and open up our window to the front yard to get the cross breeze to blow through our house. The problem is that the wind will blow through our nice, tidy piles of papers on the desk or artwork from our son. When the wind blows, those piles go everywhere!! I remember one day I had the windows open and the wind blew everything. I started putting the piles back together and I found a few important papers that I’d been looking for. I like thinking about the Holy Spirit in this was as a gentle disruptor, taking down our neatly stacked ways of being for the purpose of illuminating something we’d forgotten about or lost.

         Nicodemus was an older man with an air-tight theology — until he met Jesus. It wasn’t about which tribe of Judaism got it right. It wasn’t about being in the right family, or among the physical children of Abraham. God was doing something new. The need was deeper than a correct interpretation of Moses, or a just sacrificial system, or the overthrow of foreign aggression. The need went to the darkness of the human condition as an invitation to all peoples to experience the light of the world. It’s an invitation to become what God has made us to be as his image-bearing children. And when this is true, some amount of deconstruction has to take place. And the Holy Spirit is a gentle and wise disrupter.

         We all have places that need to get reconstructed. When I was in an evangelical and very baptist seminary in Dallas, I remember being very curious about this Anglican tradition. I had some questions and my pastor at the time connected me with a friend of his who was an Anglican priest. When I met him, he very kindly gave me a Book of Common Prayer and I said, “You know, I like everything about this, but I just can’t get over this infant baptism thing. Is it possible to be Anglican and not hold to infant baptism?” He smirked, and kindly said, “Well I haven’t really met any clergy that oppose it before.” I could have carried on with my trajectory assuming that I knew something that the church was ignorant about, but the Holy Spirit began to blow over the caverns of my soul and I started researching the logic of infant baptism. This opened a whole new world to me and it opened me up to the Spirit’s work in baptism. And now as a dad, it has changed the way I parent. Contrary to some of the toxic teaching out there, a child is not a viper in diapers and all the other bad parenting philosophies that flow from such an anthropology. That theology has been completely deconstructed by infant baptism. Instead, these are little image bearers baptized in the Holy Spirit whom God has given his grace to. Each one of us in our baptism is an adopted child of God, born from above, and the sins and disordered affections and attachments are not who we are, but outside distractions that distort God’s image in us and pervert our view of the world. We all have our own places that need deconstruction and reconstruction. It is the work of the Spirit to blow through and disrupt the piles so that we discover important things long forgotten on our journey of discovering the kingdom of God.

         Nicodemus, in the darkness of night, was meeting the light of the world. And when the light goes on in the darkness it is painful to our eyes and takes us time to adjust. And Jesus is patient and kind as Nicodemus will definitely need time for his spiritual eyes to adjust.

III. 14-16  Solving the real problem

         Our passage ends with Jesus teaching Nicodemus something about Israel’s Scriptures. He brings up an episode from the book of Numbers[1] where after complaining in the wilderness God sends poisonous snakes which bite the people and they are at death’s door. God has Moses erect a bronze snake on a pole. People are to stare at the snake and they would be delivered. Nicodemus came wanting to talk about Jesus’ educational background and Jesus is like “actually let’s talk about new birth, wind, and snakes”. This is not about Jewish tribalism or the overthrow of an earthly empire. Humankind has been infected with a disease of wickedness more insidious and pervasive than anyone is aware of. Jesus’ ministry as the light of the world is related here to his death on the cross. I like what one writer says, “The darkness (and those who embrace it) must be condemned, not because it offends against some arbitrary laws which God made up for the fun of it, and certainly not because it has to do with the material, created world rather than with a supposed ‘spiritual’ world. It must be condemned because evil is destroying and defacing the present world, and preventing people coming forward into God’s new world...”[2] And the new world that Jesus is talking about is explained in one of the most famous verses in all of the new testament, which we read this morning. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.”

Conclusion

         Nicodemus came in the darkness to mitigate the risk from his colleagues who embraced the darkness as he engaged his questions with the light of the world. In this conversation, his questions, which represented his good desires clouded by mixed motives, were given space by Jesus, who welcomed them and used them to invite Nicodemus into something far more deeper and transformative. Nicodemus needed to let go of his tight theological grid in order to allow the Spirit to show him the work of Jesus and if he would do that he would begin to see the problems of the world as they are so that in Christ he could begin to see himself and the world around him rightly ordered as it should be. As we consider John 3 this Lent hold onto it as an invitation from Jesus to come to him with your questions, to begin to trust the Spirit to deconstruct the darkness and let the Holy Spirit rebuild us as we embrace the light of the world.

Let us pray:

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices; that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path we may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

[1]                Numbers 21:8-9.

[2]                Tom Wright, John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-10 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 34.

Lent 1: God's Testing is Formative, Not Punitive

Matthew 4:1-11

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning my friends. It is great to be with you this morning. This 40 day season of Lent is where we join Jesus in the wilderness. We are invited to be cleansed of the unhealthy things that have taken root in our lives. The wilderness is a place of preparation for deeper life with God in the mission he calls us to. Today’s Gospel passage is all about Jesus in the wilderness and the clarification of his call in his baptism. As we look at this text together, let me pray for us.

         “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.”

I. Preparation— Into the wilderness to be tested — 4:1-2

         Jesus had spent almost 30 years living in his hometown, taking up the family trade, and preparing for all that God had in store for him in his public ministry through decades of everyday life. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus had just been baptized by John and experienced the manifestation of God affirming his sonship as Messiah and the one Israel had been looking for. Right after Jesus’ baptism, Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness. And why? This was preparation. The English translation of “tempting” and “temptation” is pretty unfortunate here. This Greek word, like any foreign word, has a whole range of meanings when it comes into English. God is not leading Jesus to the wilderness to be tempted with evil. God is not tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone with evil. He does, however, allow us to be in situations where we are tested. It is like a parent helping their child gain independence through trying something hard. Imagine a parent helping their child ride a bike. The child is nervous and says “what if I fall?” The parent tells them that that might be the reality, but even adults fall. Then the parent assures their child that figuring out that bike will open up a whole new world of fun and possibilities; the fall will be worth it. The child finally figures it out and the joy that moment brings is only surpassed by the joy they get when they’re out riding. Testing from God is not punitive, it is formative.

         And this is what Jesus is brought to. The Spirit brings him to the wilderness to be tested. Jesus has not done anything wrong to deserve it. In fact, this testing was to the end that Jesus would know his sonship and connection to the father more fully.

         This narrative is supposed to bring our minds back to Deuteronomy where Israel is tested over the course of 40 years in the wilderness prior to entering the land of Canaan. In all the ways they had failed the test, Jesus would be victorious.

         Jesus reminds us that being in the wilderness is no fault of our own and that in wilderness seasons, when our faith is tested, God’s love still rests on us and his aim is our preparation for a deeper experience of His presence and to become fully human in Christ. Seasons of testing and hardship, or privation and destitution, are the seasons that will ultimately strengthen our relationship with Jesus and our resolve to live into what God is calling us into. 

II. Being Lured away with temptation 4:3-10

         In the wilderness we will find ourselves subjected to demonic distractions like Jesus was. Satan uses three partial truths to attempt to derail Jesus from the mission God has called him into. First, he points out a good, god-given need and invites Jesus to meet the need in the wrong way. Second, he asks Jesus to test God. Finally, Satan invites Jesus into the right ends through the wrong means. All of these are instructive for our formation in seasons of trial.

         a. Meet good needs the wrong way 4:3-4

         Satan comes to Jesus in verses 3-4 nearing the end of Jesus’ time of testing in the wilderness. Jesus has a very real human need — to eat. Satan, recognizing this need, invites Jesus as the Son of God to turn the stones into bread. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 to say, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus submits himself to this hunger in order to learn dependence on the God who takes care of his people.

         Jesus did not overcome the devil through miraculous shows of power, but through humility and forbearance. This makes me think back to about 2019 when we were considering planting a church. I remember someone telling me “it will be hard and it will take years”, but they were telling me this to tell me not to do it. They provided me with two different job openings where I could take an easy way out and get a nice rector job somewhere. As Ashley and I prayerfully considered and talked, we felt like God was really calling us to do this. It would be hard, but if I had taken the easy way out I would have missed good, hard, albeit sometimes painful, and necessary lessons in God’s love and my formation. I would have also missed the goodness of what God is doing in this church. When you prayerfully step into the hard thing God is calling you into, whether that is mending a relationship, humbly admitting fault for something, writing and advocating for vulnerable people at great cost to yourself, or stepping into a new vocation, there will be voices that encourage you to look for shortcuts. Instead, it is in our spiritual hunger that we humbly learn dependence on the God who loves us and we learn to overcome our adversary through patience and humility, in companionship with Christ.

         b. Putting God under my authority and on my terms (making myself Lord) 4:5-7

         After one failure, the Devil comes again to Jesus and in a vision he brings Jesus to some pinnacle on the temple. Jesus is still in the wilderness, not actually in Jerusalem.[1] Satan tells him to jump off because Scripture says that for those who trust in the most high, the angels will catch them so they don’t dash their foot against a stone.[2] He isn’t totally wrong. There has to be some truth to this verse and God’s protection of his people for this to be compelling enough to be a test. Jesus answers by quoting Deut 6:16 about not putting the Lord to the test.

         I find it insightful that Satan and the powers of darkness that war against our souls can do so using what seems like a “plain reading of scripture”. Here is where their Scripture interpretation fails: they are using Scripture to try and place God under our Lordship and authority. It’s like thinking that if we do everything just right, then we’ll avoid suffering. We might use a verse like Prov 3:5 “in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.” However, to claim these kinds of maxims as a promise is to attempt to place God under our authority. It ignores the suffering that Jesus went through and does not make space for our own.

         Instead, we join in the patience of our Lord to hold space for waiting on God and not claiming proof-texts to test God in our impatience. There is a deeper formation that we’re often not aware of.

         c. A Faustian Bargain 4:8-10

         Having gone through two somewhat subtle temptations, Satan comes less subtly. In another vision, Satan brings Jesus up to a mountain where he can see all the kingdoms of the earth. If Jesus would bow down to worship Satan, all the nations of earth would be given to him. He is offering him dominion as king of all kings, and the proposed route to this ultimate goal is to bow down before God’s enemy. Jesus quotes again from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 13 where worship and allegiance is to be ascribed to YHWH alone.

         There is something called a Faustian bargain, which comes from a 16th century German legend. A man named Johan Faust trades his soul to the devil for 24 years of absolute pleasure. The essence of a Faustian bargain is to sacrifice ultimate good for short-term gain. Jesus’ baptism had committed him to the path of servanthood and the path of the cross as the ultimate path to redemption, resurrection, and the glory of kingship. Would this be given up by switching allegiances to gain it quicker and circumvent suffering?

         Satan comes to us with similar compromises. Some would rather bring christendom through physical force than compel people by humility and a life transformed by Christ. Some might avoid productive personal conflict by taking personal grudges to the impersonal sphere of social media. Some would rather spend their mental energy on the evils “out there” to keep from looking at the brokenness “in here”. Some resort to high-control in our relationships or belongings to mask how out of control we feel inside. All of these things are a faustian bargain as we long rightly for the blessing and glory of God, but do so without the suffering and cross of our Savior.

         Our baptism calls us to renounce the devil and turn to the Lord who saves us daily. Satan’s aim in the wilderness is to distract us and take us fully off course from God’s purpose in each of our lives.

Conclusion: The devil leaves, God attends, we are prepared. 4:11

         Jesus didn’t defeat the devil by his own show of strength or bravado. He defeated him through humble, patient, dependence on the Lord who delivers. And ultimately the devil left and he was attended to by God’s angels. Jesus’ testing, and our testing, is not punitive, but formative. This season ultimately allowed him a deeper experience of the love and presence of God even though in the midst of it God may have felt very distant. His constancy, clear sense of mission, and humility allowed him not to get distracted by the voices telling him to take the easy way out, or to lean on God’s “clear” promises about success without suffering, or to make a bargain with evil for short term gain. These voices are very active for each one of us, but God calls us into the wilderness because like a parent who loves us, he wants us to grow and to experience something deeper of his presence than we would have understood before. He wants to make us fully human in the Messiah. And in this patient dependence, the devil will eventually leave. Let’s come clean to Jesus about the ways we’ve tried to take our destiny into our own hands and learn dependence on the Lord who loves us as we we bless the wilderness for what God will do in it.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities that may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. 

[1]                Cf. another visionary visit in Ezek 8:1-3; 11:24.

[2]                Psalm 91:11-12

Ash Wednesday: God's Nature is the Foundation of Forgiveness

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good evening friends. Welcome to Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season. I find this to be a helpful 40 days each year to pause, examine, and recalibrate. It is a chance to make sure we’re on the right track. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the opportunity to put together furniture from that blessed Swedish store, but I have. And I can remember starting the process of putting together a dresser. I spent about 45 minutes putting things together when I realized that I reversed two of the boards and so all the work I’d done had to be completely undone before it could be redone again. Oh how frustrating it was. And sometimes life happens this way as well. We start off following Jesus, making decisions and forming habits each day. Our vocations, prayer lives, our friendships, the daily routines, our parenting patterns, habits of leisure, exercise, and coping patterns become hardened as we grow comfortable with the composite results of the many decisions we’ve made over the course of years. We find ourselves heading the wrong direction and we have to start over.

         Tonight we remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return. And yet, God is the one who formed us from the dust of the earth and loves us, dusty icons though we are. This season begins with the God who created us in love and whose love invites us to turn towards him and return. The ways we have gotten off track, the things we’ve built incorrectly, the harms we have caused in thought, word, and deed, are not beyond God’s grace to heal. Contrition, almsgiving, fasting, and prayer are not displays of piety to bypass our pain and harm, but invitations to be restored by the God who loves us and gave himself to death on a cross for us, to raise us with him and restore us to perfect communion with him that begins now and lasts eternally. He invites us to reorient ourselves to his kingdom through rhythms that lead to genuine repentance.

God’s love is the basis for our repentance

         In Joel 2, which we read earlier, the prophet describes the Day of the Lord, and compares it to a locust plague. The destruction of the Babylonians was described like locusts who would come into Judah’s territory and decimate everything. The text says that before the locusts the land is like the garden of Eden and after they pass through they leave a desolate wilderness and nothing escapes them. There is a concept scholars talk about though with Old Testament prophecy, which is the concept of conditional prophecy. Sometimes when things sound like promises in prophetic literature they’re actually invitations for Israel to repent so God may do the opposite of what was predicted. And Joel 2 is an example of conditional prophecy.

         This is why we encounter verses 12 and following, where the LORD tells Judah to return with all their heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning. They are called to rend their hearts and not their garments. They are familiar with what religious rituals to carry on doing, but God isn’t interested in empty ritualism; instead, His is interested in a heart that is beginning to turn towards him for his help. And all of this is possible because the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounds in steadfast love. He relents from punishment. This is who he is. It functions like an old covenant creed and it shows up in the torah, here in Joel, and in our Psalm reading tonight. God’s character is the foundation of the possibility of forgiveness.

         I like the way that verse 14 is rendered in the New Living Translation, “Who knows? Perhaps he will give you a reprieve, sending you a blessing instead of this curse. Perhaps you will be able to offer grain and wine to the LORD your God as before.” It is more certain than it sounds. The idea is that they need to begin the process of repentance and see what God will do.

         Sometimes we become aware of our brokenness and we get really comfortable with it. I was listening to an interview where they were talking about people who appear successful. Their superpower is that they can do a lot and do it well. And yet doing a lot and doing it well is often a drive and addiction, or coping strategy for keeping someone from dealing with the heartaches and hurts so that they become truly human again in Christ. Our allergy to suffering is mitigated by our drive to perform. And then we learn to believe that if we just keep going we’ll be fine because beginning to repent and heal is to admit that we’re broken and that kind of vulnerability is scary because we might lose our superpower. Lent is a great invitation to become fully human, admit the brokenness, and begin turning toward the Lord and to rest on his faithfulness. His character is the foundation of our hope.

Repentance and spiritual rhythms are to orient us to God’s kingdom

         Jesus teaches us something very similar in Matthew 6 which we read tonight. He cautions his follower to watch how they keep their religious observance and spiritual rhythms. There is a way to do a checklist of duties that make us look alright and completely miss the substance of the real work of repentance. The nature of prayer in the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 6 is to form us and reorient us to the kingdom of God and where God is at work in our world. Fasting, giving alms, and prayer are the three spiritually foundational habits of Lent. In the end, they are for our formation more than appeasing God’s desire for moral people.

         Their aim and goal is to attune us to God’s work. It reminds me a bit of when Ashley and I had a community garden plot a long time ago. The whole thing was covered in crab grass and we both recognized the problem. Because she and I are wired the way we are, I started scraping off the grass at the surface level with the broad end of a pick axe. I was perfectly happy to throw some seed down and some top soil on it. Now I did do that for part of it, but within a few weeks, plants came up, but so did the grass. Ashley, on the other hand, took to the shovel and went deep. It was slow work, but substantive work. Her work did not cover as much square footage, but where she dug, the grass did not grow back. And in the long run, I had to go back and do it her way. It was harder to see the progress on the slow and substantial work in the short-term, but in the long run, this was the only way to have a healthier garden. I think we often just scrape at the surface spiritually. 

         When someone comes to me for confession, if they say “I want to confess my pride,” then I will invite them to tell me what pride looked like for them. Vague senses that something is wrong is a good start, but the roots go deep. We need to spend time with where our overreactions and deep sensitivities are. We need to examine our places of insecurity, fear, and cynicism. How many times do we make a joke about something and with a smirk on our faces, we subtly communicate that someone’s opinion is not only unwelcome, but that they are a deeply flawed individual for holding to their conclusions? The religious habits that form us and please God are the ones done with integrity. They work heuristically. As we come to an awareness of how we are going the wrong way, then we begin to honestly come to the Lord with a desire for him to rightly align our desires, thoughts and loves. Even the smallest of desire for repentance is met with the fullness of the grace of God because of who he is. Then as we are formed through these rhythms, we begin to move the right direction, build the right way, become rightly aligned with God’s love and his will. In other words we learn to long for God’s will and love what God loves.

Conclusion

         This Lent, let me encourage us to be vulnerably broken before the Lord because God’s very self is compassion and he longs to meet us in his grace. Admitting our brokenness is not to give up our superpowers; it is to become fully human. As you receive a bit of ash on your forehead this evening and you hear the words “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”, be encouraged that God longs to restore you to the dusty, image-bearing, icon he has made you to be.

Transfiguration: Fellowship on the Mountain of God

Matthew 17:1-9

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning friends. It is great to be with you on this final Sunday after the Epiphany. This morning we have some hills and mountains talked about from our Scripture passages and I want to tie together some of what happens on these mountains to help us see how following Jesus is connected to his glory, his rule and reign, being made known among the nations.

         When I was about 18 or 19, I lived in Sonoma County in California. I used to mountain bike a lot, and I would often my bike out and ride this 10 mile course along a vineyard-lined highway from Santa Rosa to Kenwood, to a mountain called Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. Once I got there, the last mile and a half would be rough as I made my way straight up the mountain. I loved climbing that mountain on my bike. My legs burned as I went up through the dappled light of tree-lined mountain road. I’d crest the final incline where the trees would break, the sun would shine through, and I found myself on the top of a mountain range that overlooked another two smaller mountains. You can see the view up on the screen. This is is a picture from that mountain.

         I’d sit and look out at Mount Hood with the breeze blowing in my face and cooling me down. I loved the opportunity to sit in the dirt, hear nothing but the wind, feel the sun on my body, the dirt on my hands, and watch the world continue to move along below my feet. I don’t know about you, but I often need moments like these in God’s creation that remind me that I do not make the world turn. When I bike or hike I make it a point to stop at some point, breathe deep, and remind myself of this. I can really appreciate the ancient world who would often build worship places on mountains because there was this sense of the mountain being the place where God dwells. Even in the early church, some of the Fathers picture Eden being planted at the top of a mountain.[1]

         Our mountain passages this morning remind us of the God who is at work, that we can trust, and that it is not us who make the world turn, but Him. On these mountains, God’s glory is made known, covenants and people are established, and the way of Jesus is clarified. God’s rule and reign, and the glory of his resurrection, is extended to all, through our participation in Christ’s death and sufferings. To join in the glory of the transfiguration, we must understand both mount Sinai and the hill of Galgotha. These mountains give us a composite picture of a life of following Jesus. As we look at these passages together, let me pray for us: “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.”

1. Exodus — Mt. Sinai — The Meal on the mountain and salvation to the nations

         In Exodus 24, God has delivered his people out of Egypt, and now invites them into a covenant. God comes to Mount Sinai in a cloud with thunder and lightning. The people go up, the elders go a bit further, other leaders go even further, and Moses goes up alone to write down God’s words. God has taken the initiative to establish this agreement with Israel as their God and king. Moses is going to take God’s words and read them to the people and they will agree to this agreement.

         The agreement is solemnized and ratified in verse 11 between the two parties with a covenant meal.[2] The people said yes to following the LORD who wanted to make them into a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, and a royal priesthood, a people who would display the goodness of God and invite others into this life. The meal on a mountain is extended to all nations in Isaiah 25:6 when God says, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” The meal on the mountain becomes a theme that is found in the book of Revelation and is extended each week in our Eucharistic celebration.

         God is establishing a people for his own possession, to display the goodness of his glory as king. Every language, people group, race and heritage, and family is being brought under the rule of our Lord Christ to become one people who are to the praise of his glorious reign. I think sometimes we’d rather push someone off the mountain than invite them to sit next to us at the table. Consider the spaces we find ourselves in deep disagreement; bring them to the level of conscious awareness; and begin to engage one another with curiosity. I know there are a million and one hot-button issues, like gender and sexuality, immigration, parenting styles and education choices, etc. Sometimes, even as the priest here, I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, but I’m trying to work on allowing someone to talk and then to enter into some of these spaces with curiosity rather than an agenda. It’s like the prayer of St. Francis: I want to seek to understand more than to be understood. It is totally countercultural, but if we need to start here to invite people to the table rather than pushing God’s image-bearers off the mountain.

2. Transfiguration — Mt. Tabor — Jesus is one greater than Moses to deliver his people

         The one greater than Moses has come to us on a new mountain in the Gospel this morning. Jesus invites Peter, James, and John onto the mountain with him. This is either on Mount Hermon or Tabor, we’re not sure. There are several parallels to the Sinai event: Certain companions come up the mountain, there is a cloud that overshadows, and an appearance of the glory of God. The details aren’t meant to be a one-to-one connection. This Jesus is the prophet like Moses, but greater than Moses. This was a taste of the glory of the kingship of the son of Man that was prophesied about in the book of Daniel.

         If you want to know the way of this Son of Man, we are reminded to listen to Him. He is the one who gives God’s commands in this new covenant. As they descend the mountain, there will be a lot of things the disciples will not understand and their only hope to seeing God’s kingdom in the valley of demons is to listen to the Son. We all need rhythms of stillness and silence to be saved and delivered from the daily darkness. I don’t mean physical silence necessarily. I mean that we need regular rhythms of handing over to God what feels turbulent and grievous, to name sin that has gotten calcified, and to meditate on how Jesus is God’s love revealed to us. I was talking with someone the other day about how these rhythms remind me of going to the dentist. I go every 6 months because I need someone with special tools to chip off all the stuff from my teeth that has hardened. Even though that plaque feels like it is part of my teeth, it isn’t! Spiritually, sin and disorder attach to our selves like plaque and calcify and we need regular rhythms of being with Jesus who wants to scrape it off and say “This is not you. Let me take that from you.”

         The way we access those spaces is by being honest with ourselves about what’s broken. I remember someone telling me a story from when they spoke to their counselor about why they was getting a certain reaction from their child when they said things a certain way. I have permission to share this. The counselor told them, “Hey, you’re kid is two. You probably look big and scary.” My friend was so embarrassed by not figuring that out himself. Once he brought that to conscious awareness he could begin to ask the Lord why his reactions were a certain way. Was he wanting to feel in charge to compensate for feeling weak and out of control? Was he worried his child would turn out a certain way if he didn’t react with some harshness? Eventually he realized that there was an insecurity there and in an attempt to feel in control, he asserted himself a certain way that made his child feel scared. This was pride and manipulation that was not him, but it had perverted and distorted how he was showing up. He worked on this with Jesus so he could recognize that feeling before it manifest in words or bodily reactions. It started to get better. Listening to Jesus can be so hard, but it is the only way to make it through the valley of demons below.

3. The Cross and Resurrection — A Hill outside Jerusalem

         The mount of transfiguration is necessary in light of one more hill mentioned in Scripture: the hill on which Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem. Jesus’ glorious reign as king over all and his reign going to the nations was not accomplished through a blood bath against the rebellious, but through his own death on the cross.

         N.T. Wright says it this way, “Learn to see the glory in the cross; learn to see the cross in the glory; and you will have begun to bring together the laughter and the tears of the God who hides in the cloud, the God who is to be known in the strange person of Jesus himself. This story is, of course, about being surprised by the power, love and beauty of God. But the point of it is that we should learn to recognize that same power, love and beauty within Jesus, and to listen for it in his voice—not least when he tells us to take up the cross and follow him.”[3]

         In this week, as we move from the glory of Jesus on the mountain, to journeying with Jesus, to obedience to the point of death on the cross, I invite us to consider what it means for God to be made glorious in people who take up their cross with Jesus; people who risk humiliation to follow God and love like Christ; people who long for the glorious vision of resurrection and are willing to listen to Jesus when it is costly in order to find his glory in the kingdom of God. 

Conclusion

         On this day which focuses on the transfiguration, we’ve looked at three important mountains. We have looked at God’s desire for relationship with his people on mount Sinai, we’ve seen the glory of God revealed in Jesus on Tabor, and we’ve considered the glorious cross on a hill outside of Jerusalem. God is creating a banquet to bring all kinds of people into, and we are reminded of it each week. Let’s become a people who invites others to the table in curiosity rather than pushing them off them mountain; a people who spend time listening to Jesus, seeking to understand more than to be understood; a people who take seriously the call to follow Jesus and love well in obedience when it is potentially humiliating and costly. It is in doing these things that God’s glory is made known in these weak vessels and will go to the nations in our lives and in the lives of the people around us.

Let me pray for us:

O God, who on the holy mount revealed to chosen witnesses your well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening: Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

[1]                St. Ephrem, Hymns on Paradise.

[2]                NIV Application Commentary.

[3]                Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 16-28 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 15.