This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on March 30, 2008, the 2nd Sunday of Easter.
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Psalm 16
1Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heats be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
If you’re wondering why this passage is familiar, it’s because we hear this passage on the first Sunday every after Easter. I am often curious about why the committee that put together the lectionary uses the passages it does, but using a passage every year that isn’t Luke’s version of the Christmas story reeks of a lack of imagination. It could be asked how many ways one passage can be preached. Well, we’re about to find out if I can make it three with this one.
I have talked about Jesus giving the Holy Spirit to the disciples—what bible scholars call “John’s Pentecost.” I have also talked about the forgiveness of sin part of this passage, saying that while it is God alone who forgives sin, sin is retained if we don’t forgive. When someone else’s sin is retained, they don’t retain it, we retain it ourselves. By retaining someone else’s sin, we are damaged.
Every time a sermon is written and heard, the goal is to make the gospel reading new again, like we’re hearing it again for the first time. This passage and this reading of it are no different. And when I read this passage this time, these things didn’t impress me at all.
What rang out when I read this passage was when the narrator reported, Jesus “showed them his hands and his side.”
When the disciples saw his wounds, when they saw where the nails secured his hands and where the spear pierced his side; I imagine they were able to see the remnants of pain, the torture, the horror that God incarnate knew upon the cross. I think they were beginning to come to grips with the price of his sacrifice.
Jesus was betrayed by one of his own. He is interrogated by Annas and tried before Pilate. The Jews in the street could have cried for his freedom, instead they cried for the death of Jesus and the freedom of the bandit Barabbas. His clothes were taken and split among the guards who led him to his death. He was hung from a tree, taunted. Only one of his disciples was addressed from the cross, John. Whether the others were there or not, the Gospel is silent, but our reading begins with the eleven in hiding so I would be inclined to guess they were nowhere close.
Jesus had taken on the greatest pain and humiliation the kingdom of humanity could heap upon another, crucifixion. Death by crucifixion is particularly gruesome. It is a slow death. Placed on a pole in the mid day sun, the body will begin to burn like a day at the worst beach on earth. Breathing becomes difficult and only when the victim stands, in Jesus’ case on impaled feet, can a full breath be taken. The pain of the piercings is almost negligible compared to the rest of the torture. Ultimately, when unable to stand, the body’s weight is supported by its outstretched arms, and breathing becomes impossible. Blood loss and dehydration are just little additions to steady drum beat of asphyxiation.
After this trial, after this deceit, after this horror; Jesus comes and stands among them and says, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus says to them again, “Peace be with you.”
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life and humanity inflicts its worst upon its Lord and God. Still Jesus offers humanity his peace.
An old story…
One day a young man was standing in the middle of town proclaiming he had the most beautiful heart in the valley. A large crowd gathered and they all admired his heart—for it was perfect.
There was not a mark or flaw on it. Yes, they all agreed—it truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen. The young man was very proud and boasted more loudly about his beautiful heart.
Suddenly, an old man appeared at the front of the crowd and said “Why your heart is not near as beautiful as mine.” The crowd and the young man looked at the old mans heart… it was beating strongly, yet full of scars. It had places where pieces were removed and other pieces put in but they didn't fit quite right—and there were jagged edges. In fact in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces were missing. The people stared… “How could he say his heart was more beautiful?” they thought.
The young man looked at the state of the old man's heart—and laughed. “You must be joking,” he said. “Compare my heart with yours. Yours is filled with scars and tears.” “Yes,” said the old man. “Yours is perfect looking, but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love—I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them and often they give me a piece of their heart which fits into the empty space in my heart. Because the pieces aren't exact, I have some rough edges, which I cherish because they remind me of the love we shared.
“Sometimes I have given away a piece of my heart and the person hasn't returned a piece of his heart to me. These are the empty gouges— giving love is taking a chance. Although these gouges are painful, they stay open and remind me of the love I have for these people too—and I hope some day they return and fill the space I have waiting.
“So now do you see what true beauty is?”
The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the old man, reached into his young perfect heart and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the man with trembling hands. The old man took his offering—placed it in his heart and then took a piece of his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man’s heart. It fit, not perfectly as there were some jagged edges.
The young man looked down at his heart, not perfect anymore—but more beautiful than ever since love from the old man's heart flowed into his.
They embraced and walked away side by side.[1]
Jesus Christ entered into the place where his disciples had gathered in fear of the Jews, their hearts cowering in the darkness. Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.” He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus gives them his peace, and shows them his scars and there is great rejoicing when they recognize him. Jesus offers them his peace and then his spirit, and he offers these same things to us who continue in their stead today.
The scars on his hands and side are for his love for all of creation. And by taking these wounds he has done what is necessary to make us well. I beg now ask you, are we willing to make the same sacrifice for Jesus and for others Jesus made for us? Will we offer the Lord a piece of our heart to fill the void left when he took the shame of crucifixion? Will we give our hearts to him as he gave to us? Will we give to one another as he gave to us?
This sacrifice is difficult. This sacrifice can only be made out of love, the perfect love Jesus makes available to us through his sacrifice. We can never make this sacrifice for ourselves; we can only make this sacrifice to give glory to God.
Will there be gouges left where others fail to return your giving? Surely there will. Will there be pain? Yes, after all, we can only be hurt by those we love. People we don’t love don’t have the power to take a piece of our heart. But with the Lord as our example, when we give our lives for others in the name of Jesus Christ, there is life eternal.
[1] This is an old story; I don’t remember where I read it first. This version was found on line at http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/npd/53426/385254 in a discussion thread on narcissism.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
See Go Tell
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas during the regular 11:00 serivce on Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008.
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 18:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4
Matthew 28:1-10
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
He is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Now come on, who talks like this? We might say “he is raised,” this is the suggestion Microsoft Word gives me. He has risen is another possibility. He was raised is also in line with the grade school grammar.
Who talks like this? Nobody in regular life talks like this. He…is…risen.
He is risen indeed!
In “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” Douglas Adams writes that in the future, when time travel is possible and ordinary, the most difficult thing about time travel won’t be accepting the fact that through your travels you have become your own grandpa. Actually, Adams asks what truly well adjusted modern family won’t be able to come to grips with this little anomaly of time and genetics? No, the most difficult issue with the future will be grammar.
How do you conjugate with all good grammar something that happened and then didn’t happen because somebody chose not to put jam on their biscuit this morning? Adams comes to the conclusion that in the future, grammarians will ultimately be able to come to one decision. They will decide that “future perfect” is not.
So, in a way, this little piece of sentence is right out of nouveau grammar. This little odd piece of grammar is not present tense; it’s not past tense either. It’s got an element of either the imperfect or the passive, not both. It’s also got a bit of the present perfect and past perfect, but isn’t either one. It’s not even pluperfect, whatever that is. By now if you aren’t a wordsmith or recovering English teacher, this is probably just making your eyes glaze over as I speak. Really, this is not how people talk to one another in this day and time.
So who talks like this?
We talk like this.
Christians talk like this and we talk like this every Easter.
“He is risen/He is risen indeed” is an ancient liturgical formula. It’s a call and response we use to declare to all who will listen that our Lord Jesus Christ lives. He is as alive today as he was the day he was born. He is as alive today as he was on the day of his resurrection, the first Easter. This is one of the many ways we rephrase Matthew’s gospel when the angel says, “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here for he has been raised, as he said.”
He is risen.
He is risen indeed!
And because he is risen, the angel gives the two Mary’s three instructions. See, go, and tell. Instructions we are called to follow nearly two thousand years later.
The angel invites the two Mary’s to see for themselves, “Come, see the place where he lay.”
See where he lay. This is the spot where he was placed, but he is there no longer. The Mary’s know he was placed in the tomb. They had been there when Joseph of Arimathea placed his body into it. They were sitting across from the tomb, watching this happen.
Then the tomb was sealed, and guards were placed to protect it. Nobody was getting in or out of the tomb, at least not through the mouth of the cave.
So after the Sabbath when the Mary’s came to the tomb, the ground shook, the angel descended, and the stone rolled back.
Jesus was no longer in the tomb and there was no humanly way he could have left it.
I have backed up in our reading because the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the foundational event of Christianity. In this single event, we testify that God incarnate walked the earth, was put to death, and conquered death to rise from its clutches.
In the words of the ancient creed of the Church, we say that he was “crucified, dead, and buried he descended into hell; [and on] the third day he rose again from the dead.”[1]
We don’t testify that Jesus was “almost dead” like the nearly dead man said to the Dead Collector in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” We don’t even testify that Jesus was “mostly dead” as Billy Crystal said in “The Princess Bride.”
We testify that he died, no “almost” about it. Crucified, dead, buried, descended, and rose again. This is how we define the Jesus the Lord, the incarnate person of God who walked the earth and shared creation with those he loved and with those who both loved him and hated him. This is who we see.
The next instruction the angel gave the Mary’s was to go. He told them to go quickly.” In this way, we are told to go too.
Often though, when we think of going because an angel of God told us to go, we think about going to exotic lands and learning some odd dialect, eating some strange food, and doing things we read in books about missionaries like James Michener’s “Hawaii.” But this is not what the angel tells them to do. The angel’s instructions are far closer to home. This “Go quickly” is not intended for the world, not yet. That comes next in Matthew’s gospel with the Great Commission.
No, this sending is back to the disciples. They are not told to go to the ends of the earth. They are told to go to their friends, the people they love. They are sent to the people who all ready knew who Jesus is. They were not told to go to strangers, they were told to go to their best friends.
The final command from the angel was to tell the disciples that the tomb was empty. Indeed the tomb was empty; Jesus has been raised, and is going ahead of them all to Galilee. In Galilee, they will see him again.
The final command is not to regurgitate some elaborate theological truth. Shoot, I have at least 200 feet of shelf space dedicated to theological truth. I have on the order of a half ton of books about scripture and theology and worship and church growth and so on. None of these vast tomes can say what the angel says so splendidly to the Mary’s, “Jesus lives and he wants all of his disciples to come and join him in Galilee.” No greater truth than this, the groom calls the Church, the bride of Christ to come and join him in the splendor of the new age.
The angel tells the Mary’s and continues to tell us today to see that the tomb is empty, go to those you love, and tell them that God is calling us to join in the celebration of new life in him. This is our story, this is our song. The angel tells us all to see, go, and tell.
Then, suddenly as their trip takes them down the path, Jesus himself meets them and tells them, “Do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Jesus repeats the angel’s command, if in a slightly different order. Go, tell, and see.
On this Easter morning, this is our call. We are the Easter people, the people who the living God has called to continue to live and to tell this story. The people who are called to see that the tomb is empty, go to our dearest friends, and tell them that he is risen.
He is risen indeed.
[1] The Apostles’ Creed, paragraph 2
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 18:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4
Matthew 28:1-10
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
He is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Now come on, who talks like this? We might say “he is raised,” this is the suggestion Microsoft Word gives me. He has risen is another possibility. He was raised is also in line with the grade school grammar.
Who talks like this? Nobody in regular life talks like this. He…is…risen.
He is risen indeed!
In “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” Douglas Adams writes that in the future, when time travel is possible and ordinary, the most difficult thing about time travel won’t be accepting the fact that through your travels you have become your own grandpa. Actually, Adams asks what truly well adjusted modern family won’t be able to come to grips with this little anomaly of time and genetics? No, the most difficult issue with the future will be grammar.
How do you conjugate with all good grammar something that happened and then didn’t happen because somebody chose not to put jam on their biscuit this morning? Adams comes to the conclusion that in the future, grammarians will ultimately be able to come to one decision. They will decide that “future perfect” is not.
So, in a way, this little piece of sentence is right out of nouveau grammar. This little odd piece of grammar is not present tense; it’s not past tense either. It’s got an element of either the imperfect or the passive, not both. It’s also got a bit of the present perfect and past perfect, but isn’t either one. It’s not even pluperfect, whatever that is. By now if you aren’t a wordsmith or recovering English teacher, this is probably just making your eyes glaze over as I speak. Really, this is not how people talk to one another in this day and time.
So who talks like this?
We talk like this.
Christians talk like this and we talk like this every Easter.
“He is risen/He is risen indeed” is an ancient liturgical formula. It’s a call and response we use to declare to all who will listen that our Lord Jesus Christ lives. He is as alive today as he was the day he was born. He is as alive today as he was on the day of his resurrection, the first Easter. This is one of the many ways we rephrase Matthew’s gospel when the angel says, “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here for he has been raised, as he said.”
He is risen.
He is risen indeed!
And because he is risen, the angel gives the two Mary’s three instructions. See, go, and tell. Instructions we are called to follow nearly two thousand years later.
The angel invites the two Mary’s to see for themselves, “Come, see the place where he lay.”
See where he lay. This is the spot where he was placed, but he is there no longer. The Mary’s know he was placed in the tomb. They had been there when Joseph of Arimathea placed his body into it. They were sitting across from the tomb, watching this happen.
Then the tomb was sealed, and guards were placed to protect it. Nobody was getting in or out of the tomb, at least not through the mouth of the cave.
So after the Sabbath when the Mary’s came to the tomb, the ground shook, the angel descended, and the stone rolled back.
Jesus was no longer in the tomb and there was no humanly way he could have left it.
I have backed up in our reading because the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the foundational event of Christianity. In this single event, we testify that God incarnate walked the earth, was put to death, and conquered death to rise from its clutches.
In the words of the ancient creed of the Church, we say that he was “crucified, dead, and buried he descended into hell; [and on] the third day he rose again from the dead.”[1]
We don’t testify that Jesus was “almost dead” like the nearly dead man said to the Dead Collector in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” We don’t even testify that Jesus was “mostly dead” as Billy Crystal said in “The Princess Bride.”
We testify that he died, no “almost” about it. Crucified, dead, buried, descended, and rose again. This is how we define the Jesus the Lord, the incarnate person of God who walked the earth and shared creation with those he loved and with those who both loved him and hated him. This is who we see.
The next instruction the angel gave the Mary’s was to go. He told them to go quickly.” In this way, we are told to go too.
Often though, when we think of going because an angel of God told us to go, we think about going to exotic lands and learning some odd dialect, eating some strange food, and doing things we read in books about missionaries like James Michener’s “Hawaii.” But this is not what the angel tells them to do. The angel’s instructions are far closer to home. This “Go quickly” is not intended for the world, not yet. That comes next in Matthew’s gospel with the Great Commission.
No, this sending is back to the disciples. They are not told to go to the ends of the earth. They are told to go to their friends, the people they love. They are sent to the people who all ready knew who Jesus is. They were not told to go to strangers, they were told to go to their best friends.
The final command from the angel was to tell the disciples that the tomb was empty. Indeed the tomb was empty; Jesus has been raised, and is going ahead of them all to Galilee. In Galilee, they will see him again.
The final command is not to regurgitate some elaborate theological truth. Shoot, I have at least 200 feet of shelf space dedicated to theological truth. I have on the order of a half ton of books about scripture and theology and worship and church growth and so on. None of these vast tomes can say what the angel says so splendidly to the Mary’s, “Jesus lives and he wants all of his disciples to come and join him in Galilee.” No greater truth than this, the groom calls the Church, the bride of Christ to come and join him in the splendor of the new age.
The angel tells the Mary’s and continues to tell us today to see that the tomb is empty, go to those you love, and tell them that God is calling us to join in the celebration of new life in him. This is our story, this is our song. The angel tells us all to see, go, and tell.
Then, suddenly as their trip takes them down the path, Jesus himself meets them and tells them, “Do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Jesus repeats the angel’s command, if in a slightly different order. Go, tell, and see.
On this Easter morning, this is our call. We are the Easter people, the people who the living God has called to continue to live and to tell this story. The people who are called to see that the tomb is empty, go to our dearest friends, and tell them that he is risen.
He is risen indeed.
[1] The Apostles’ Creed, paragraph 2
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Conspicuously Meek
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on the Sixth Sunday of Lent--Palm Sunday.
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 21:1-11
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
What a wild scene we read here. Many of us know this as the “Triumphant Entry.” My bible also calls this the “Spectacular Entry.” It is triumphant; Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem to people laying their cloaks and palms before him crying “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven! This is the prophet Jesus!”
Hosanna—what a wonderfully glorious call, a sort of a “holy hurrah.” But let us not forget what Hosanna truly means: “Lord, we beseech you. Lord we beg of you.”[1]
It is spectacular in the way the crowd is assembled, people who know and people who are curious surround the Messiah. They come from all around to be a part of the scene. People are climbing the trees and cutting down palm branches. Others are taking off their cloaks and spreading them on the road. The city was in turmoil, the simple entry of this one man stirred the pot of Jerusalem. Everything was being shaken up by Jesus’ entry into the city of David.
The history of the Jews is steeped with parades of Kings. In Ancient Israel before the reign of King David, the Philistines had captured the presence of God, the Ark of the Covenant. After the Ark was retaken by the Israelites, dancing, David led its return to Jerusalem with a procession. A parade of 30,000 men accompanied the Ark on its return to Jerusalem.
After a false start, the parade started and once it did, it stopped after six steps so that David could make an offering of an ox and fatted calf. David led the procession of men and Ark wearing a linen ephod dancing with all his might.[2]
In its way, this entry into Jerusalem wasn’t so different from this procession. It wasn’t just spectacular, it was a spectacle; people hanging from the trees, people throwing their clothes everywhere. With two differences, it reminds me of the Kansas City St. Patrick’s Day Parade[3]. The first, and this is just my suspicion, there wasn’t as much beer in Jerusalem as there was on the parade route in KC; and the second, this parade had only one float, a humble man meekly riding a colt.
And that’s the difference here. In the midst of this chaos, in the middle of this spectacle, in the words of the gospel, Jerusalem is shaken by the entry of Jesus coming to fulfill the word of the prophet Zechariah;[4] “he comes humbly mounted on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Jesus does not come dancing in a tiny little tunic like David with the Ark. Jesus doesn’t lead a procession of 30,000 men. Jesus doesn’t bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem; he is the New Covenant coming to Jerusalem.
The people of Jerusalem had long expected the coming of the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed. They expected the coming of the one who would save Israel from its oppression. Egyptian, Babylonian, and now Roman, the people anxiously waited for the one who would save them from their enemies.
They waited for the new David, the one who would ride triumphantly, a warrior king who would come on a great war steed to save the people from their oppressors. They were waiting for someone like Moses who took them from Egypt to the Promised Land. They were waiting for a political leader to restore the nation to its proper place in the land.
But this is not the Messiah who comes to town.
Our reading is different, instead of the box that was the place of the presence of God; Jesus, the true presence of God, comes to Jerusalem. Fully human and fully divine, God comes to town in the person of Jesus Christ. In David’s time, God is returning to Jerusalem as the glorious center of the pageant. In our reading from Matthew, Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of Man, God in flesh on earth, comes to Jerusalem humbly in the middle of a celebration.
Paul tells us about Jesus, and how he walked the earth. Paul tells us that though Jesus was in the form of God he did not regard his equality with God as something to be exploited. He did not take the power at his disposal and use it to subdue the earth and all that inhabits it. Jesus emptied himself, taking the form not of a king but of a slave. He humbled himself to the point of death, even death in the most degrading and humiliating way imaginable, death on a cross.
Yes, Jesus could have come to town in all of his glory and all of his power. On this the last Sunday of Lent he could have exercised all of the power Satan tempted him with in Matthew 4:1-11, our Gospel reading from the First Sunday in Lent. He could have come to town like David, dancing for joy in a linen ephod. He could have ruled forever from the temple in Jerusalem and the people would have rejoiced. His kingdom is not of this world.
This is not how he was called to come into his glory.
Jesus knows his glory is not to be found in the courts of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He is not one with the scribes and the lawyers. Neither is his place with the Zealots who would conquer Roman rule in war and violence. His kingship is in neither of these places, neither prestige nor force. His place is found in the beatitude, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
So Jesus comes not in the way the people want or expect. He comes in the way of the prophet, meek and humble, not on a war horse but on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
The bit of this that is upside-down is that the people are hailing the coming of the one who has healed and fed and brought new life to the people of the land in a parade that would have rivaled David’s. Yet, here comes Jesus, not dancing like David, not riding high as a foreign ruler, he comes humbly. He is the one who created the earth coming as one who will inherit it.
He rides humbly into Jerusalem while all around him has all of the revelry of a Kansas City St. Pat’s Day Parade. His meekness is conspicuous in the midst of the carousing that surrounds him.
The Lord our God is doing the same thing the Lord our God has always done. God is in relationship with the people and the creation. But now, God is doing this in a new way, a way the people did not expect. God comes to earth and lives among the creation. Oh, that was expected, how he comes is the new work.
He comes with full power and authority, but he comes emptying himself of these things. He comes as a king, but not as a king of an earthly kingdom. He comes not in glory and ostentation, but humbly and meekly.
In a world that is wrapped in the turmoil of life, we are called to celebrate the coming of the Lord who comes in his way, not the way we impose. We are called not to proclaim the coming of the warrior king; we are called to shout “Hosanna, loud hosanna.” But we are to shout it as the cry of “Lord, we beseech you. Lord, we beg of you.” and not as some sort of “holy hurrah.”
We point to Jesus who comes humbly on the back of a colt, the foal of a donkey. And Jesus points back at us, beckoning us to join him not in the conspicuousness of the festivities, but in the meekness of the beatitudes. Let us join him as the meek who will inherit the earth.
[1] New Interpreters Bible, vol VIII, Keck, Leander, Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 403.
[2] 2Samuel 6
[3] At one time in the 80’s it was said that the Kansas City St. Patrick’s Day Parade was the second largest in the nation. I don’t know whether it was behind the New York or Chicago parade, but to beat either of these cities to be the #2 parade was an accomplishment.
[4] Zechariah 9::9
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 21:1-11
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
What a wild scene we read here. Many of us know this as the “Triumphant Entry.” My bible also calls this the “Spectacular Entry.” It is triumphant; Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem to people laying their cloaks and palms before him crying “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven! This is the prophet Jesus!”
Hosanna—what a wonderfully glorious call, a sort of a “holy hurrah.” But let us not forget what Hosanna truly means: “Lord, we beseech you. Lord we beg of you.”[1]
It is spectacular in the way the crowd is assembled, people who know and people who are curious surround the Messiah. They come from all around to be a part of the scene. People are climbing the trees and cutting down palm branches. Others are taking off their cloaks and spreading them on the road. The city was in turmoil, the simple entry of this one man stirred the pot of Jerusalem. Everything was being shaken up by Jesus’ entry into the city of David.
The history of the Jews is steeped with parades of Kings. In Ancient Israel before the reign of King David, the Philistines had captured the presence of God, the Ark of the Covenant. After the Ark was retaken by the Israelites, dancing, David led its return to Jerusalem with a procession. A parade of 30,000 men accompanied the Ark on its return to Jerusalem.
After a false start, the parade started and once it did, it stopped after six steps so that David could make an offering of an ox and fatted calf. David led the procession of men and Ark wearing a linen ephod dancing with all his might.[2]
In its way, this entry into Jerusalem wasn’t so different from this procession. It wasn’t just spectacular, it was a spectacle; people hanging from the trees, people throwing their clothes everywhere. With two differences, it reminds me of the Kansas City St. Patrick’s Day Parade[3]. The first, and this is just my suspicion, there wasn’t as much beer in Jerusalem as there was on the parade route in KC; and the second, this parade had only one float, a humble man meekly riding a colt.
And that’s the difference here. In the midst of this chaos, in the middle of this spectacle, in the words of the gospel, Jerusalem is shaken by the entry of Jesus coming to fulfill the word of the prophet Zechariah;[4] “he comes humbly mounted on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Jesus does not come dancing in a tiny little tunic like David with the Ark. Jesus doesn’t lead a procession of 30,000 men. Jesus doesn’t bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem; he is the New Covenant coming to Jerusalem.
The people of Jerusalem had long expected the coming of the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed. They expected the coming of the one who would save Israel from its oppression. Egyptian, Babylonian, and now Roman, the people anxiously waited for the one who would save them from their enemies.
They waited for the new David, the one who would ride triumphantly, a warrior king who would come on a great war steed to save the people from their oppressors. They were waiting for someone like Moses who took them from Egypt to the Promised Land. They were waiting for a political leader to restore the nation to its proper place in the land.
But this is not the Messiah who comes to town.
Our reading is different, instead of the box that was the place of the presence of God; Jesus, the true presence of God, comes to Jerusalem. Fully human and fully divine, God comes to town in the person of Jesus Christ. In David’s time, God is returning to Jerusalem as the glorious center of the pageant. In our reading from Matthew, Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of Man, God in flesh on earth, comes to Jerusalem humbly in the middle of a celebration.
Paul tells us about Jesus, and how he walked the earth. Paul tells us that though Jesus was in the form of God he did not regard his equality with God as something to be exploited. He did not take the power at his disposal and use it to subdue the earth and all that inhabits it. Jesus emptied himself, taking the form not of a king but of a slave. He humbled himself to the point of death, even death in the most degrading and humiliating way imaginable, death on a cross.
Yes, Jesus could have come to town in all of his glory and all of his power. On this the last Sunday of Lent he could have exercised all of the power Satan tempted him with in Matthew 4:1-11, our Gospel reading from the First Sunday in Lent. He could have come to town like David, dancing for joy in a linen ephod. He could have ruled forever from the temple in Jerusalem and the people would have rejoiced. His kingdom is not of this world.
This is not how he was called to come into his glory.
Jesus knows his glory is not to be found in the courts of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He is not one with the scribes and the lawyers. Neither is his place with the Zealots who would conquer Roman rule in war and violence. His kingship is in neither of these places, neither prestige nor force. His place is found in the beatitude, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
So Jesus comes not in the way the people want or expect. He comes in the way of the prophet, meek and humble, not on a war horse but on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
The bit of this that is upside-down is that the people are hailing the coming of the one who has healed and fed and brought new life to the people of the land in a parade that would have rivaled David’s. Yet, here comes Jesus, not dancing like David, not riding high as a foreign ruler, he comes humbly. He is the one who created the earth coming as one who will inherit it.
He rides humbly into Jerusalem while all around him has all of the revelry of a Kansas City St. Pat’s Day Parade. His meekness is conspicuous in the midst of the carousing that surrounds him.
The Lord our God is doing the same thing the Lord our God has always done. God is in relationship with the people and the creation. But now, God is doing this in a new way, a way the people did not expect. God comes to earth and lives among the creation. Oh, that was expected, how he comes is the new work.
He comes with full power and authority, but he comes emptying himself of these things. He comes as a king, but not as a king of an earthly kingdom. He comes not in glory and ostentation, but humbly and meekly.
In a world that is wrapped in the turmoil of life, we are called to celebrate the coming of the Lord who comes in his way, not the way we impose. We are called not to proclaim the coming of the warrior king; we are called to shout “Hosanna, loud hosanna.” But we are to shout it as the cry of “Lord, we beseech you. Lord, we beg of you.” and not as some sort of “holy hurrah.”
We point to Jesus who comes humbly on the back of a colt, the foal of a donkey. And Jesus points back at us, beckoning us to join him not in the conspicuousness of the festivities, but in the meekness of the beatitudes. Let us join him as the meek who will inherit the earth.
[1] New Interpreters Bible, vol VIII, Keck, Leander, Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 403.
[2] 2Samuel 6
[3] At one time in the 80’s it was said that the Kansas City St. Patrick’s Day Parade was the second largest in the nation. I don’t know whether it was behind the New York or Chicago parade, but to beat either of these cities to be the #2 parade was an accomplishment.
[4] Zechariah 9::9
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Romance
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on the Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 9, 2008.
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
I have been thinking about romance lately. Sort of a Valentines Day hangover if you will. I’m sure part of it has to do with Marie’s niece Valerie getting married in Portland next month. It reminds me of our wedding and the romance of our lives. I hope this recollection is helping you remember the romance in your life, whether it be the puppy love of days long ago or the touch on your cheek when you awoke this morning. There are few more wonderful feelings than romance. The love that sprouts from romance should forever nurture the joy of our relationships.
As I read the story of the rising of Lazarus from the depth of his tomb, I was struck by the love Jesus shares with his friends, and his friends with him.
“Lord, he whom you love is ill.” The sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, send word of his illness to Jesus. “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” Lazarus is very ill, debilitatingly ill. He is weak and needs assistance.[1] Mary and Martha hope and pray that Jesus will come before it is too late to save their brother.
Jesus declares Lazarus’ illness does not lead to death. Instead his illness is for God’s glory, so that the Son may be glorified through it. And somehow it is for this same glory that Jesus spends two more days in the wilderness before going to Lazarus’ side.
Jesus knows it will be dangerous to go to Judea to see Lazarus. The previous chapter told the story of how the Pharisees tried to stone Jesus the last time he was in Judea. Just so that we don’t forget this nugget, the disciples remind him of this too.
But Jesus is the light of the world; he reminds the disciples they must travel while it is still light so they do not stumble.
So when they arrive in Judea, Lazarus has been dead for four days. His body has been prepared and was laid in his family’s tomb. The stone over the mouth of the tomb has been replaced and his body has begun to return to nature.
Hearing that Jesus was on his way, Martha goes to meet him. Our reading goes like this, “Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” I read this and I can’t help but feel the emotion welling up within her. Is she angry at her Lord for not coming sooner, before Lazarus died? Was she in deep sorrow and grief that he had passed? Was she worried about her future now that her brother had died? Anger, grief, sorrow, uncertainty; yes I am sure she felt all of this. And in addition scripture reflects she felt a deep abiding love and trust in Jesus.
She trusts in the resurrection, a resurrection that will one day be known by all who trust and believe in the Lord. But Jesus tells her something new. He tells her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who believes in me will never die.”
What more profound love can Jesus have for his people than to give them the gift of life eternal? Such is a love, broader and deeper than we can ever hope or imagine. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”[2] Those who believe will never die.
When Jesus asks Martha if she believes, reflecting the love of the Lord, she said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
Martha returns home to Bethany to tell the grieving Mary the teacher is calling for her. She leaves and finds Jesus in the same place Martha found him.
Weeping, she repeats her sister’s lament word for word, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
On his prompting, Mary takes Jesus to her brother’s tomb. Mary was weeping. The Jews who accompanied Mary were weeping. Now, Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”
God’s love can defeat anything the powers of earth and hell can place against it, but that doesn’t stop people from trying. The Pharisees say to no one in particular “If Jesus could restore the sight of a blind man, surely he could have prevented Lazarus from dying.”
When we think of romance literature, we think of stories of great love and sacrifice. Webster calls romance “a narrative dealing with heroic or mysterious events set in a remote time or place.”[3] The story of the rising of Lazarus qualifies as a romance tale. There is love and sacrifice. There are heroic and mysterious events in a remote time and far away place.
Yet, it is important to separate this sort of romance from a Harlequin romance. This is an epic tale of devotion in the face of death, a tale we tell again and again. This is a tale of great romance, of legend and lore and so much more.
In his touchstone work “Life Together,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes of the difference between human love and the love of God. “Human love lives by uncontrolled and uncontrollable dark desires;” he writes, “spiritual love lives in the clear light of service ordered by the truth.” The love of God creates freedom from the dark and uncontrollable desires humanity is so apt to seek.[4]
Using botany to illustrate theology, he says that human love breeds “hot-house flowers,”[5] the sort of flower with huge buds, but with stems that cannot support them. “Spiritual love creates fruits that grow healthy in accord with God’s good will in the rain and storm and sunshine of God’s outdoors.”[6]
Jesus said that Lazarus’ illness would not end in death rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” That possibility seemed to fly out the window four days ago. So at Lazarus’ open tomb, Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”
Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” He confirms his place in the world and as the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world; and he calls us to believe by his words and deeds as he approaches the tomb crying with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
And Lazarus does. Because Lazarus is raised many believe.
When we read this passage, the obvious question is “did this really happen?”
It’s like last week when we read in John 9 when the disciples asked Jesus “who sinned?” “Who sinned” is an interesting question; it just isn’t the important question. The question “did this happen” is one of history. If we use the tools of historians; considering the oral tradition and the recording of events in its day, historians can’t deny that these events happened in the way they are described.[7] But of course, considering these questions in the light of reason verses faith, reason will always be able to raise the specter of doubt.[8]
But you know, this really isn’t the question we want answered, is it?
The question we want answered is beyond the history, the question we want answered is not “did this happen.” The question we want answered is the one Jesus asks: “Do you believe this? Do you believe I am the resurrection and the life? Do you believe that those who believe, even though they die, will live, and that everyone who lives and believes will never die?”
We want to know that the breath of God can breathe new life into these old bones just like the prophet Ezekiel describes.[9]
We want to know that as Paul told the Romans, we are in the Spirit since the Spirit of God dwells in us and though we are dead to sin, because Christ is in us the Spirit is life.[10]
Martha said that she knew her brother would rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus tells Martha and then shows the world that he is the resurrection and the life. This is the first of the last days; and the power of God walks the earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. “His full share in God’s power over life and death marks the beginning of God’s new age, the age in which God’s hope for the world becomes reality.”[11]
The miracle is glorious, but it is only a sign. The promise that Jesus is the resurrection and the life is the reality of our lives and the truth we must live. It is the truth, not the miracle which we must keep dear. Only because of the truth that Jesus is the resurrection and the life can we answer the question: “Was the hope of the miracle of new life possible for Lazarus two thousand years ago and is it still possible for us today?” Because Jesus is the resurrection and the life, our answer is yes and amen.
By the truth of the resurrection, Jesus identifies himself with the power of God. By this power, through his love, our sickness in sin will not end in death. Rather we receive the gift of life eternal for the glory of God.
The white hot heat of romance cannot burn forever. It was never intended to burn forever. If it did it would consume everything in its path, especially the lovers. If the love of God was a human creation, it would produce buds our stems could never be able to support. It would never be able to bear the fruit of the Spirit. The love that sprouts from God’s romance with creation forever nurtures the joy of our relationship with the Lord. The flames of that romance put the glow of the fire of Christ into our eyes.
It is by hot wind off of these flames that our dry bones feel the warmth of God, and by this breath from the Lord we live the life in the resurrection. May the glow of this romance continue to warm us as we live the eternal life of the resurrected people of God. May the witness of our lives reflect the warmth of the fire that burns in the fire and the love of the passion of Jesus Christ.
[1] “asthenew,” The Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, edited by Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metzger, and Allen Wikgren, in cooperation with the Institute for New Testament Textual Research, Münster/Westphalia, Fourth Edition (with the same text as the Nestle-Aland 27th Edition of the Greek New Testament), Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft; Stuttgart, 1966, 1968, 1975 by the United Bible Societies (UBS) and 1993, 1994 by (German Bible Society)
[2] John 3:16, NRSV
[3] Merriam-Webster Dictinary. Henry Bosley Woolf, Editor in Chief. Pocket Books, Springfield, MA: Simon and Schuster, 1974, page 607.
[4] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Life Together, New York: Harper and Rowe, 1954, page 37.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 684.
[8] Ibid 693
[9] Ezekiel 37:5-6
[10] Romans 8:9-10
[11] Ibid. New Interpreter’s Bible, page 693.
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
I have been thinking about romance lately. Sort of a Valentines Day hangover if you will. I’m sure part of it has to do with Marie’s niece Valerie getting married in Portland next month. It reminds me of our wedding and the romance of our lives. I hope this recollection is helping you remember the romance in your life, whether it be the puppy love of days long ago or the touch on your cheek when you awoke this morning. There are few more wonderful feelings than romance. The love that sprouts from romance should forever nurture the joy of our relationships.
As I read the story of the rising of Lazarus from the depth of his tomb, I was struck by the love Jesus shares with his friends, and his friends with him.
“Lord, he whom you love is ill.” The sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, send word of his illness to Jesus. “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” Lazarus is very ill, debilitatingly ill. He is weak and needs assistance.[1] Mary and Martha hope and pray that Jesus will come before it is too late to save their brother.
Jesus declares Lazarus’ illness does not lead to death. Instead his illness is for God’s glory, so that the Son may be glorified through it. And somehow it is for this same glory that Jesus spends two more days in the wilderness before going to Lazarus’ side.
Jesus knows it will be dangerous to go to Judea to see Lazarus. The previous chapter told the story of how the Pharisees tried to stone Jesus the last time he was in Judea. Just so that we don’t forget this nugget, the disciples remind him of this too.
But Jesus is the light of the world; he reminds the disciples they must travel while it is still light so they do not stumble.
So when they arrive in Judea, Lazarus has been dead for four days. His body has been prepared and was laid in his family’s tomb. The stone over the mouth of the tomb has been replaced and his body has begun to return to nature.
Hearing that Jesus was on his way, Martha goes to meet him. Our reading goes like this, “Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” I read this and I can’t help but feel the emotion welling up within her. Is she angry at her Lord for not coming sooner, before Lazarus died? Was she in deep sorrow and grief that he had passed? Was she worried about her future now that her brother had died? Anger, grief, sorrow, uncertainty; yes I am sure she felt all of this. And in addition scripture reflects she felt a deep abiding love and trust in Jesus.
She trusts in the resurrection, a resurrection that will one day be known by all who trust and believe in the Lord. But Jesus tells her something new. He tells her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who believes in me will never die.”
What more profound love can Jesus have for his people than to give them the gift of life eternal? Such is a love, broader and deeper than we can ever hope or imagine. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”[2] Those who believe will never die.
When Jesus asks Martha if she believes, reflecting the love of the Lord, she said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
Martha returns home to Bethany to tell the grieving Mary the teacher is calling for her. She leaves and finds Jesus in the same place Martha found him.
Weeping, she repeats her sister’s lament word for word, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
On his prompting, Mary takes Jesus to her brother’s tomb. Mary was weeping. The Jews who accompanied Mary were weeping. Now, Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”
God’s love can defeat anything the powers of earth and hell can place against it, but that doesn’t stop people from trying. The Pharisees say to no one in particular “If Jesus could restore the sight of a blind man, surely he could have prevented Lazarus from dying.”
When we think of romance literature, we think of stories of great love and sacrifice. Webster calls romance “a narrative dealing with heroic or mysterious events set in a remote time or place.”[3] The story of the rising of Lazarus qualifies as a romance tale. There is love and sacrifice. There are heroic and mysterious events in a remote time and far away place.
Yet, it is important to separate this sort of romance from a Harlequin romance. This is an epic tale of devotion in the face of death, a tale we tell again and again. This is a tale of great romance, of legend and lore and so much more.
In his touchstone work “Life Together,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes of the difference between human love and the love of God. “Human love lives by uncontrolled and uncontrollable dark desires;” he writes, “spiritual love lives in the clear light of service ordered by the truth.” The love of God creates freedom from the dark and uncontrollable desires humanity is so apt to seek.[4]
Using botany to illustrate theology, he says that human love breeds “hot-house flowers,”[5] the sort of flower with huge buds, but with stems that cannot support them. “Spiritual love creates fruits that grow healthy in accord with God’s good will in the rain and storm and sunshine of God’s outdoors.”[6]
Jesus said that Lazarus’ illness would not end in death rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” That possibility seemed to fly out the window four days ago. So at Lazarus’ open tomb, Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”
Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” He confirms his place in the world and as the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world; and he calls us to believe by his words and deeds as he approaches the tomb crying with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
And Lazarus does. Because Lazarus is raised many believe.
When we read this passage, the obvious question is “did this really happen?”
It’s like last week when we read in John 9 when the disciples asked Jesus “who sinned?” “Who sinned” is an interesting question; it just isn’t the important question. The question “did this happen” is one of history. If we use the tools of historians; considering the oral tradition and the recording of events in its day, historians can’t deny that these events happened in the way they are described.[7] But of course, considering these questions in the light of reason verses faith, reason will always be able to raise the specter of doubt.[8]
But you know, this really isn’t the question we want answered, is it?
The question we want answered is beyond the history, the question we want answered is not “did this happen.” The question we want answered is the one Jesus asks: “Do you believe this? Do you believe I am the resurrection and the life? Do you believe that those who believe, even though they die, will live, and that everyone who lives and believes will never die?”
We want to know that the breath of God can breathe new life into these old bones just like the prophet Ezekiel describes.[9]
We want to know that as Paul told the Romans, we are in the Spirit since the Spirit of God dwells in us and though we are dead to sin, because Christ is in us the Spirit is life.[10]
Martha said that she knew her brother would rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus tells Martha and then shows the world that he is the resurrection and the life. This is the first of the last days; and the power of God walks the earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. “His full share in God’s power over life and death marks the beginning of God’s new age, the age in which God’s hope for the world becomes reality.”[11]
The miracle is glorious, but it is only a sign. The promise that Jesus is the resurrection and the life is the reality of our lives and the truth we must live. It is the truth, not the miracle which we must keep dear. Only because of the truth that Jesus is the resurrection and the life can we answer the question: “Was the hope of the miracle of new life possible for Lazarus two thousand years ago and is it still possible for us today?” Because Jesus is the resurrection and the life, our answer is yes and amen.
By the truth of the resurrection, Jesus identifies himself with the power of God. By this power, through his love, our sickness in sin will not end in death. Rather we receive the gift of life eternal for the glory of God.
The white hot heat of romance cannot burn forever. It was never intended to burn forever. If it did it would consume everything in its path, especially the lovers. If the love of God was a human creation, it would produce buds our stems could never be able to support. It would never be able to bear the fruit of the Spirit. The love that sprouts from God’s romance with creation forever nurtures the joy of our relationship with the Lord. The flames of that romance put the glow of the fire of Christ into our eyes.
It is by hot wind off of these flames that our dry bones feel the warmth of God, and by this breath from the Lord we live the life in the resurrection. May the glow of this romance continue to warm us as we live the eternal life of the resurrected people of God. May the witness of our lives reflect the warmth of the fire that burns in the fire and the love of the passion of Jesus Christ.
[1] “asthenew,” The Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, edited by Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metzger, and Allen Wikgren, in cooperation with the Institute for New Testament Textual Research, Münster/Westphalia, Fourth Edition (with the same text as the Nestle-Aland 27th Edition of the Greek New Testament), Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft; Stuttgart, 1966, 1968, 1975 by the United Bible Societies (UBS) and 1993, 1994 by (German Bible Society)
[2] John 3:16, NRSV
[3] Merriam-Webster Dictinary. Henry Bosley Woolf, Editor in Chief. Pocket Books, Springfield, MA: Simon and Schuster, 1974, page 607.
[4] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Life Together, New York: Harper and Rowe, 1954, page 37.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 684.
[8] Ibid 693
[9] Ezekiel 37:5-6
[10] Romans 8:9-10
[11] Ibid. New Interpreter’s Bible, page 693.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Trading Places
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday March 2, 2008, the Fourth Sunday in Lent.
1Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 58-14
John 9:1-41
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
The concept of trading places has an honored place in literature and the movies. In “The Prince and the Pauper” Mark Twain explored how two young boys; a commoner named Tom Canty and the son of Henry VIII, Prince Edward; function in a world native to the other when they trade places. While there is some fish-out-of-water humor, it also served as a scathing social satire of class inequality in Tudor England.
Another example is the Disney movie “The Parent Trap.” Whether you prefer the original with Hayley Mills or the 1998 remake with Lindsay Lohan, this story gives us twin girls separated at birth by their divorcing parents who unexpectedly meet again at summer camp. They hatch a plot to reunite their parents by trading places.
This reading of chapter nine of John’s gospel, the story of the man born blind, is loaded with trading places.
The first transformation comes to the disciples when they discuss the situation of the man born blind. The reading begins with the apostles asking Jesus “who sinned; this man or his parents that he was born blind.” This question is couched in traditional Jewish speculation about the relationship between illness and sin[1] because in this time and place, being born blind was considered more than a physical malady; it was seen as a spiritual malady too. But Jesus’ response tells the disciples that their question, shrouded in rabbinic tradition and Jewish history, isn’t the question.
Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” John’s gospel sees sin differently from Jewish tradition. Sin is not a moral category; it is a theological category about how we respond to the revelation of God in Jesus.[2]
Nobody sinned so that this man may be blind. How this man and the people around him respond to this miraculous healing, this will become the answer to the question “who has sinned?” So the first example of trading places in our reading is ancient Jewish theology transformed into new questions about how we are to respond to Jesus.
With the healing of the man who was born blind, he is trading places in several ways. First, he is miraculously given the gift of sight. Then he trades places in society. With his new found sense, he is no longer the sin stained pariah his ailment made him. The gospel tells us this when the neighbors ask “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some don’t even believe it is him, but some sort of look alike; twins separated at birth. With his sight, his status has changed in the community. He is no longer a pitiful soul; he is now a man of full standing in the community.
That new status, trading places from misfit to regular guy, causes the next round of exchanges. He is called into the synagogue where he is examined by the Pharisees not once but twice. The power elite want to know where Jesus is. They want to know how he did what he did; and the man doesn’t have the answers to their questions. Honestly, the man doesn’t know where Jesus is or how he did what he did.
Jesus throws the Pharisees into a tizzy. Some want to know how a sinner who heals on the Sabbath can do such miraculous things. Others aren’t sure if he is a sinner or not; because if he is a sinner, how could he do the things he has done? Since they are divided, they ask the man with new vision what he sees. He has seen a prophet.
When the newly sighted man is recalled before the Pharisees they declare Jesus a sinner and demand that he give glory to God. But at this point, the man still doesn’t completely know who Jesus is. He doesn’t. He does know the gift he has received and from whom he received it. He knows what Jesus has done for him and is thankful.
He answers the Pharisees, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
Unsatisfied with these impertinent words, they ask him again what Jesus did to him, how he opened his eyes. He has nothing new to add, but figures if they want to know they could ask the source. “Do you want to become his disciples too?”
This is the wrong question to ask these keepers of the faith, these disciples of Moses. They know what they know, they do not know of a new thing being done in Jesus. Seeing the irony, the man revels in the truth that Jesus opened his eyes, yet the Pharisees’ eyes have been closed, trading places again.
With this, the man with new sight is driven from worship. He is driven from the synagogue. He is driven from the faith of his Fathers. Trading places again, he is now a man seemingly without God. So now, for the first time since verse seven from our reading, Jesus reappears and asks “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Oh, how he wants to believe, but in whom can he believe? “Tell me,” he begs, “tell me so that I may believe in him.”
Jesus tells him he is speaking with the Son of Man. The man believes and worships Jesus. He has traded places for the last time. He is now a disciple of the Lord, the Lord who heals, the Lord who comes, the Lord who saves.
John’s gospel tells us that sin is a theological category about how we respond to the revelation of God in Jesus. The Pharisees, the keepers of the faith become the ones soaked in sin when they fail to see the light of the world. Their place in the world is changed by the sin they commit. The man who receives the gift of God, the gift of sight, sees; and sees the one who is worthy of worship.
Our prayer for illumination today ended:
Banish in us the blindness
that prevents us from recognizing truth,
so we may see the world through your eyes
and with the compassion of Jesus Christ who redeems us.[3]
We have received the greatest gift of all, the compassion of Jesus Christ who redeems us. From the blindness that prevents us from recognizing truth, we are given the gift to see through the eyes of Jesus. Not because we deserve it but because he freely gives the gift of grace which we receive by faith, just like the man who was blind.
We receive this because like the blind man we were born entirely in sin, Jesus becomes sin for us and bears it to the cross. So like the man with new vision, in Jesus Christ our sin is taken from us and lifted upon the cross with him. This is trading places. Jesus takes our sin so that we may have his life. Jesus takes our sin to the cross so that we don’t have to perish by the hands of our own sin. We then are called to respond to this gift of salvation so freely given.
There is a lot of talk today about the way to salvation. And this needs to be said, I wholeheartedly believe that the mystery of God is more than we will ever know or imagine. But the immenseness of this mystery cannot cause us to waver from sharing what we do know. Like the blind man before the Pharisees, we cannot speak to the mysteries we do not know, but we must share what we do. We say that Jesus is the Son of Man and the light of the world. We say he is a prophet. We say this because we were once blind, but now we see.
And with certainty we say that we believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; and in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic[4] church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.[5] Amen
[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, p 653.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Reprinted from Revised Common Lectionary Prayers, Lent 4, Year A Prayer of Illumination, copyright 2002.
[4] In this case, “catholic” means “universal.” When we recite the Apostles’ Creed this note is found in the worship bulletin.
[5] Edited from “The Apostles’ Creed”
1Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 58-14
John 9:1-41
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
The concept of trading places has an honored place in literature and the movies. In “The Prince and the Pauper” Mark Twain explored how two young boys; a commoner named Tom Canty and the son of Henry VIII, Prince Edward; function in a world native to the other when they trade places. While there is some fish-out-of-water humor, it also served as a scathing social satire of class inequality in Tudor England.
Another example is the Disney movie “The Parent Trap.” Whether you prefer the original with Hayley Mills or the 1998 remake with Lindsay Lohan, this story gives us twin girls separated at birth by their divorcing parents who unexpectedly meet again at summer camp. They hatch a plot to reunite their parents by trading places.
This reading of chapter nine of John’s gospel, the story of the man born blind, is loaded with trading places.
The first transformation comes to the disciples when they discuss the situation of the man born blind. The reading begins with the apostles asking Jesus “who sinned; this man or his parents that he was born blind.” This question is couched in traditional Jewish speculation about the relationship between illness and sin[1] because in this time and place, being born blind was considered more than a physical malady; it was seen as a spiritual malady too. But Jesus’ response tells the disciples that their question, shrouded in rabbinic tradition and Jewish history, isn’t the question.
Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” John’s gospel sees sin differently from Jewish tradition. Sin is not a moral category; it is a theological category about how we respond to the revelation of God in Jesus.[2]
Nobody sinned so that this man may be blind. How this man and the people around him respond to this miraculous healing, this will become the answer to the question “who has sinned?” So the first example of trading places in our reading is ancient Jewish theology transformed into new questions about how we are to respond to Jesus.
With the healing of the man who was born blind, he is trading places in several ways. First, he is miraculously given the gift of sight. Then he trades places in society. With his new found sense, he is no longer the sin stained pariah his ailment made him. The gospel tells us this when the neighbors ask “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some don’t even believe it is him, but some sort of look alike; twins separated at birth. With his sight, his status has changed in the community. He is no longer a pitiful soul; he is now a man of full standing in the community.
That new status, trading places from misfit to regular guy, causes the next round of exchanges. He is called into the synagogue where he is examined by the Pharisees not once but twice. The power elite want to know where Jesus is. They want to know how he did what he did; and the man doesn’t have the answers to their questions. Honestly, the man doesn’t know where Jesus is or how he did what he did.
Jesus throws the Pharisees into a tizzy. Some want to know how a sinner who heals on the Sabbath can do such miraculous things. Others aren’t sure if he is a sinner or not; because if he is a sinner, how could he do the things he has done? Since they are divided, they ask the man with new vision what he sees. He has seen a prophet.
When the newly sighted man is recalled before the Pharisees they declare Jesus a sinner and demand that he give glory to God. But at this point, the man still doesn’t completely know who Jesus is. He doesn’t. He does know the gift he has received and from whom he received it. He knows what Jesus has done for him and is thankful.
He answers the Pharisees, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
Unsatisfied with these impertinent words, they ask him again what Jesus did to him, how he opened his eyes. He has nothing new to add, but figures if they want to know they could ask the source. “Do you want to become his disciples too?”
This is the wrong question to ask these keepers of the faith, these disciples of Moses. They know what they know, they do not know of a new thing being done in Jesus. Seeing the irony, the man revels in the truth that Jesus opened his eyes, yet the Pharisees’ eyes have been closed, trading places again.
With this, the man with new sight is driven from worship. He is driven from the synagogue. He is driven from the faith of his Fathers. Trading places again, he is now a man seemingly without God. So now, for the first time since verse seven from our reading, Jesus reappears and asks “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Oh, how he wants to believe, but in whom can he believe? “Tell me,” he begs, “tell me so that I may believe in him.”
Jesus tells him he is speaking with the Son of Man. The man believes and worships Jesus. He has traded places for the last time. He is now a disciple of the Lord, the Lord who heals, the Lord who comes, the Lord who saves.
John’s gospel tells us that sin is a theological category about how we respond to the revelation of God in Jesus. The Pharisees, the keepers of the faith become the ones soaked in sin when they fail to see the light of the world. Their place in the world is changed by the sin they commit. The man who receives the gift of God, the gift of sight, sees; and sees the one who is worthy of worship.
Our prayer for illumination today ended:
Banish in us the blindness
that prevents us from recognizing truth,
so we may see the world through your eyes
and with the compassion of Jesus Christ who redeems us.[3]
We have received the greatest gift of all, the compassion of Jesus Christ who redeems us. From the blindness that prevents us from recognizing truth, we are given the gift to see through the eyes of Jesus. Not because we deserve it but because he freely gives the gift of grace which we receive by faith, just like the man who was blind.
We receive this because like the blind man we were born entirely in sin, Jesus becomes sin for us and bears it to the cross. So like the man with new vision, in Jesus Christ our sin is taken from us and lifted upon the cross with him. This is trading places. Jesus takes our sin so that we may have his life. Jesus takes our sin to the cross so that we don’t have to perish by the hands of our own sin. We then are called to respond to this gift of salvation so freely given.
There is a lot of talk today about the way to salvation. And this needs to be said, I wholeheartedly believe that the mystery of God is more than we will ever know or imagine. But the immenseness of this mystery cannot cause us to waver from sharing what we do know. Like the blind man before the Pharisees, we cannot speak to the mysteries we do not know, but we must share what we do. We say that Jesus is the Son of Man and the light of the world. We say he is a prophet. We say this because we were once blind, but now we see.
And with certainty we say that we believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; and in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic[4] church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.[5] Amen
[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, p 653.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Reprinted from Revised Common Lectionary Prayers, Lent 4, Year A Prayer of Illumination, copyright 2002.
[4] In this case, “catholic” means “universal.” When we recite the Apostles’ Creed this note is found in the worship bulletin.
[5] Edited from “The Apostles’ Creed”
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