This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday May 30, 2010, Trinity Sunday. Nineteen footnotes is excessive, but some of the notes are comments for readers that I did not make from the pulpit. What is in parentheses was spoken.
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Several years ago, the Comedy Central cable channel premiered “The Colbert Report.” No, not Colbert, like Jim the golfer, but Colbert—with a French pronunciation. In an interview with Bill O’Reilly on The Factor, Colbert stated that he is of “Irish descent and only adopted the French pronunciation of his surname to ‘get the cultural elites’ on his side.”[1] Pronounced this way, the name of the show rhymes; it’s “The Colbert Report,” not “The Colbert Report.” What’s funny about that is…[2] never mind, it’s the cornerstone joke of this satiric farce.
In the premier episode, Colbert introduced a feature segment that would define his show called “The Wørd” where the host takes a common, or not so common, word or phrase and defines it in novel and hilarious ways. The first word to enter the lexicon was "truthiness."
Truthiness is defined as “‘truth’ that a person claims to know intuitively ‘from the gut’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.[3] Webster's has sanctioned truthiness with two definitions: “truth that comes from the gut, not books” and “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts of facts known to be true.”[4]
In a BBC editorial,[5] Drew Westen cites the first debate of the 2000 Presidential campaign as an example illustrating the perils of trying to persuade voters with truth verses truthiness. In the debate, Vice President Al Gore explained how Governor George W. Bush’s health care plan would be more expensive to persons on Medicare including the worst phrase ever used in a political debate. Vice President Gore said, “Under the governor’s plan, if you kept the same fee for service that you have now under Medicare, your premiums would go up by between 18% and 47%, and that is the study of the Congressional plan that he’s modeled his proposal on by the Medicare actuaries.”
Medicare actuaries? Mr. Gore, you had me at (insert snoring sound here).[6] Muddled would be more like it to most debate watchers.
With this response: “Look, this is a man who has great numbers. He talks about numbers. I’m beginning to think not only did he invent the internet, but he invented the calculator. It’s fuzzy math. It’s trying to scare people in the voting booth.” Mr. Bush established himself to be one of us, not one of them; one of those Harvard educated cultural elites.[7]
The Vice President talked numbers and policy. The Governor countered with stories of what would happen “to you.” Westen points out that “stories always trump statistics, which means the politician with the best stories is going to win.” It’s little wonder the nation elected President Bush instead of President Gore.[8]
Stories over facts, anecdotes over data, gut feelings over measured research; this is the essence of truthiness. But heaven forbid; truthiness and being a follower of our Lord and Messiah do not mix well.
On this day, on this Trinity Sunday, the disciples are told “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide [them] into all the truth.” The disciples are told that the Spirit will hear the truth from the Father; this truth will glorify the Son. The disciples are then told again that the Father has given all truth to the Son; and this truth he will share with the Spirit who will share it with them.
The Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit who was at the creation of all that was created, the Spirit who descended upon Jesus like a dove, the Spirit that roared through the house where the disciples were staying on that first Christian Pentecost; the Holy Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth.
So here’s a good question for us: “What is truth?”
It’s a good question, deceptively good. Pilate asked Jesus this question. We read that passage from John’s gospel every year, every Good Friday. And considering that the 117th meeting of the Presbytery of Arkansas is coming up next weekend, the Session meets with the General Presbyter the next day, and the 219th General Assembly meets in July, it’s a darn fine question. These church leaders meet to do the church’s work in the name of the Lord. So again I ask: “What is truth?”
Being the stickler that I am, I start with what truth meant for the people who heard these words from the lips of Jesus. In the Hebraic understanding, truth is firm, solid, valid, and binding. When it is applied to people, and we do say that the Holy Spirit is a person, it characterizes their speech, action, and thought. It describes someone with integrity.[9]
In the Jewish legal sense, it means that the truth rests upon authentic facts. Truth is factual, impressive. It is beyond trivial objections. It is undisputable.[10] I guess that’s the Al Gore sense of truth. Of course in ancient Israel, the Rabbis were the arbiters of God’s truth, and they saw the Torah as its ultimate expression. By this truth, they found evidence of the Living God and that God is the everlasting king.[11]
Of course, legal truth is not the same as religious truth. Truth goes beyond legalistic definitions making it a mark and goal of divine action. Because of this truth, God is worthy of absolute confidence.
To those who wrote Hebraic law, truth has an element of transparency; it carries a meaning of not concealing. Truth declares itself that it really is the truth. (By the way, my English teacher always told me not to use the word while defining the word. Then again, this definition comes from the Greek, not the English. Let’s go on.) Of course, there is an implication that people might try to conceal, falsify, truncate, or suppress; of course that’s the nature of sin. So truth must encompass the full most real state of affairs.
In legal affairs, this is the difference between “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” and “don’t give more answer than the question asks.” The truth demands the whole truth. Lawyers and their ancient counterparts don’t want anymore truth than is necessary.
Truth has certainty of force. It has judicial righteousness. People on whom you can rely are people of truth. It denotes a sincerity and honesty that like any virtue is public, not private. Truth is an authentic teaching of faith, something that I have endeavored over the past five years behind this pulpit. The truth has the ability to show the full difference between the divine and what isn’t divine.[12]
My English language bible dictionary elaborates on truth. It says that biblical people who spoke the truth often used metaphors, expressions to tell the truth of the glory of God. They had to do this because the realities of the truth were too difficult to express and be understood in literal language.[13] Maybe this is what Jesus meant when he said the disciples could not bear to hear the truth at that moment. I’m just guessing here.
It also says that truth is defined by a pattern of action. Truth is not established in a one-off sort of experience. It must be continuously told, it must be continuously lived. It is a characteristic of our actions, not our words. By this definition we cannot tell the truth without living the truth. Since actions speak louder than words, “do as I say, not as I do” is not an option.
In teaching, truth is teaching reality, not myth to the listener. It teaches reliability of the message as a guide for life. It recalls the Jewish characteristic of reliable teaching as truth and as another way of expressing what is held dear in the Torah, in the Law.[14]
John’s writings take all this and wonderfully distills it saying that truth is God’s faithful commitment to God’s people. This is where we get into one of the most glorious answers to the question of “What is truth?” John’s gospel teaches that “the incarnate Word makes God’s truth accessible in the sense that Jesus displays the reality of the divine person. Jesus is at once the manifestation of God’s faithful character and the divine reality.”[15]
Now we are getting to where the rubber meets the road. Pardon me for backing up into my opening story, but I am about to introduce a grain of truthiness into worship this morning. I thank you for your rapt attention to my excursion into the dictionary answers to the question “what is truth?” I don’t blame you if your eyes glazed over either, even if just a little bit, as I entered into the hallowed ground of my “inner Al Gore.”
If truthiness has taught me one thing it’s that all of the facts in the world don’t matter when something more powerful is at stake. I can give you all of the facts about truth in the world, but it is the stories resonate more than the data ever will.
R. Buckminster Fuller teaches “Truth is completely spontaneous. Lies have to be taught.”[16]
William Sloane Coffin has written “Fear distorts truth, not by exaggerating the ills of the world… but by underestimating our ability to deal with them… while love seeks truth, fear seeks safety.”[17]
Acting in truth is the focus of this expression from Mennonite writer John K. Stoner: “Speaking the truth is the most significant political action available to any of us—not voting, but speaking the truth. This view is based on the familiar biblical notion that the Word is central. The Word is the truth; the expression of the truth by human lips moves culture and history toward the government of God. There is no higher form of political action, nor is there one that can contribute more to the wholeness of the human community.”[18]
In their own way, in their own incomplete way, there is an element of truthiness in all of these examples, but I will admit, they do give us a bit of traction into the question “what is truth?” that straight data lacks. So let us turn from truth that is not quite the truth and move to that most basic source of truth, scripture.
Let us return to Jesus’ long teaching during his final meal with his disciples, the lessons he gives the eleven remaining disciples during his last supper. Our reading today comes from this speech, also in this teaching is John 14 where Jesus tells his disciples “I am the truth.” This is our answer, Jesus is the truth. Jesus is the truth.
Still, there is something devilish about thinking that we have fully received the whole truth. It’s not that the truth ever changes; it’s that our understanding of the truth does. This is what it means to be reformed and continually being reformed. “When we claim to have arrived at the Truth, capital T, we cheat ourselves. Finality of understanding, closure of interpretation, shuts us off from further insights, illuminations, inspirations, and so on. When it comes to Truth with a capital T, we spend our lives in waiting rooms on our knees. There are no ‘immaculate perceptions.’ We all walk into the dark.”[19]
Yes Jesus is the truth, and if we think that in our lifetime, with scripture, with 2,000 years of interpretation of the New Testament and 2,000 more of the Old, and even with the gift of the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Truth indwelling us since that first Pentecost, we will never know the whole truth. The truth is just too big to be known by us, that is the mystery of the Triune God.
The answer to the question what is truth is often in front of us. It calls us to know the truth that we are saved by grace through faith. It calls us to act with the integrity of Jesus in all situations so that our actions will glorify the Son as the Spirit glorifies the Son; not to earn our salvation, but to respond to it. It calls us to act in truth humbly, because Jesus was humble.
So let the answer to the question of what is truth mean one thing to all of us. Let the answer mean that all spiritual truth in the world is nothing if we do nothing with it. We must remember the ancient Hebrew definition that truth is in action and the teaching of Stoner that the Word spoken is central. Virtue requires public action, there is no such thing as a private virtue.
Seek truth, act in truth. Remember love seeks truth, fear seeks safety. Jesus is the truth, as lavishly bold as a flash of lightening and as sublimely humble as the distant rumble of thunder.
[1] Stephen Colbert (character), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_(character), citing “Stephen Colbert Enters the No Spin Zone”, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,244882,00.html, retrieved May 28, 2010.
[2] Homage to the Reverend James “Skipper” French.
[3] Truthiness, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness, retrieved May 28, 2010.
[4] The Truth of Truthiness, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/12/opinion/meyer/main2250923.shtml, retrieved May 28, 2010.
[5] BBC News, “Why Do People Vote Against Their Own Interests?” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8474611.stm, retrieved May 28, 2010.
[6] Yes, it’s a “Jerry Maguire” reference.
[7] This is where I mention that George W. Bush went to Yale University and was a member of one of its most famous secret societies, Skull and Bones, but does anybody say that Bush was an Ivy Leaguer just like Gore, nooooooo.
[8] Please, don’t get started on popular vote vs. Electoral College, I get it, I get it. So as a registered Democrat, let me just say for the record that the 43rd President of the United States is George W. Bush, not Al Gore, Jr.
[9] Kittel, Gerhard, “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.” Volume I. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964, pages 232-233.
[10] Ibid. 233.
[11] Ibid. 237.
[12] Ibid. 242-245
[13] Truth, “New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.” Volume 5 Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2009, Page 675
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] HomileticsOnline.com, keyword search “Truth”, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=859, retrieved May 28, 2010
[17] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Courage to Love.” New York: Harper and Row, 1982, 60.
[18] Stoner, John K. in “Mennonite Life.” quoted in The Other Side, March-April 1997 and in Context, August 15, 1997, 4.
[19] Ibid.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Unforeseen Hope
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday May 23, 2010, Pentecost Sunday.
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17, 25-27
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 want to read those last two verses again, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
In John’s gospel, the disciples were promised someone who would be alongside them when the world prosecuted them and persecuted them. They were promised one who would serve as their advocate. As our reading from the Book of Acts begins, the disciples need an advocate.
As Acts begins, Jesus tells the apostles not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This, he said, is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” This wait could not have been comfortable. Given the events of the Passover, they were marked men. The Romans knew this crew as rabble rousers. The temple leadership knew them as the worst kind of heretics. Yes, Jesus had returned to them, but he had ascended to the Father. He was gone again. He had promised to return again, but he gave them no estimated time of arrival.
They had received great promises. They had high hope. But the advocate was still a promise, not a reality; not to them, not yet. They may have had all of the hope in the world, but with the reality of living in Palestine at that very moment, they would have been foolish if they had not felt fear.
It was at this very moment, on the day of Pentecost, that they were assembled together in one place. It was at this very moment that from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
This must have been even more frightening. They knew to be leery of the princes of this world. They knew the Governor and the Tetrarch and the Prelate and the Sanhedrin had them in their sights, and now the violent winds rushed down on them. I was watching the Weather Channel on last week, and I saw what was happening in Norman and Oklahoma City. I saw Mike Bettis with the VORTEX2 storm chasers tracking down the big storms; but I can’t imagine what it’s like to see that live from the front porch.
We may be talking about this scripture and praising God for the glory of the coming of the Holy Spirit, but on that day, they were in the midst of a violent wind filling the house where they were sitting. We talk about joy, they experienced terror.
Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared on them. By this gift, the apostles were able to communicate with the Jews from every nation under heaven who were living in Jerusalem. The crowd gathered and they were bewildered. Nobody needed a translator anymore. Nobody needed to find a common tongue, not anymore. The apostles spoke to the masses in their own tongues, the curse of Babel was broken for a great shining moment. There was joy and glory was given to God.
The people asked what this meant. And they heard the response of the informed crowd. They’re drunk. Peter said that they weren’t drunk; after all it was only nine in the morning. Let’s remember, I grew up in Kansas City where the bars open at 6:00 am six days a week. I’ve seen drunks at nine in the morning. But none of them could quote the prophet Joel.
In the June 8, 2009 issue of the Presbyterian Outlook Magazine, Jack Haberer writes:
There is a new wind blowing through the sometimes musty halls of American Churches, and it is sweeping away the hypocrisy, lack of social concern, and unnecessary cultural baggage accumulated by the mainstream churches through the years. Thousands of people, young in spirit, are turning away from the anti-intellectuality of separatist fundamentalism and from mainstream ecumenical liberalism…[and to]…a vital, open, and truly revolutionary answer to Christ’s call to “go and teach all the nations.”[1]
The Good News is that these words come to us with a joy and determination to leave unproductive church-ianity in the wake of a spirit led revival. The bad news is that these words don’t come from a new missional group. They don’t come from the writings of the emerging church either. They come from the pen of Richard Quebedeaux and were written 35 years ago.[2] Asking “What happened,” Haberer pines “The young evangelicals [of the 1960’s and 70’s] grew older.”
We know the statistics; the church has lamented them for over fifty years. You’ve heard me quote these numbers from The Mainline Evangelism Project. In 1960, twenty-six million people were members of the seven mainline denominations. That comes to 14.4% of the population.
In 2000, the number of people who were members of the mainline churches fell to 21 million folks and the percentage of people who were members of these churches fell to 7.4% of Americans. The fall in the mainstream ranks is in raw numbers and even more so as a percent of the population. Our only consolation is that there is company in this misery; these numbers pertain to all of the mainline denominations.[3]
Haberer does not see us as hopeless though, he continues in the Outlook, “We all do well to re-read the gospels’ stories. The clarity of Jesus’ vision, the strength of his resolve, the power of his appeal, the cost of his summons to follow … such words and actions have stood the test of time. Let us all catch that vision together and refuse to let it fade.”[4]
To recapture the Spirit of Pentecost, we must again learn to speak so that those who will hear us will understand we have something to say. And what a thing we have to say. We believe that faith makes a difference in our lives.
As the apostles shared with the world on the day of Pentecost, we too are called to share. Our stories tell others about who we are and whose we are. We all have stories, but we only share in the Pentecost when we share the stories of our faith. We are called to know our stories, the stories that show others the difference a relationship with the triune God makes in our lives. And we must be able to communicate this story so that those with ears may hear.
We, we who carry the cross of Christ into the world must learn to speak so that the world may hear. The blessing of the Pentecost is the immediacy of the ability that the Galileans received to speak to the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, and so on. But going back to what I said earlier, about the decrease in members in the mainline Christian churches, we don’t need to speak to just Asians, Arabs, Egyptians, and Libyans belonging to Cyrene; we need to speak to our neighbors.
We can gain wisdom on this matter from ancient Celtic Christianity.[5] In 563 AD, about a century after the death of St. Patrick, Columba sought off to an island off of the western Scottish coast. This isle would be his base to reach the Picts of Scotland. Columba took a sizeable corps with him and they learned the culture of the Picts. They chose to pay the price to understand the Picts. Columba’s way of doing mission was the opposite of the model James Michener presented in his novel “Hawaii.” They learned about the people, their language, and their culture. They sent out teams from their island settlement—a little place called Iona—and in 100 years the Picts were significantly Christian.
The lessons we take from this is that there people close to us who do not know the Word of God. We need to learn about how they speak and show them the Gospel in words they understand. Peter and the Apostles did this miraculously; Columba and the Iona community did this diligently. We need to learn how to share the story of faith so that those with ears may be able to hear the word of God.
We talk about speaking in tongues, this gift of the Spirit being the one most accented during Pentecost, but where at Pentecost we talk about speaking in foreign tongues, we have to remember that there is an entire generation of people in America who don’t hear the word because we don’t speak their language. In this social networking world of blogs, Twitter and Facebook, we need to learn how to take the message of God into the world in a new language, without compromising the cross of Christ.
So today, let us all regain the elemental presence of worship. We come to the font of many blessings overflowing with living water and remember our baptism. We come to the table with the cup and the plate to partake in the food that feeds our bodies and our souls. We hear the Word proclaimed and even more so, we come to know the Word Incarnate, the Son of God, the one who the Lord has set aside since before the creation, Jesus the Christ.
And today, especially today, we need to allow ourselves to be consumed by the fire of the Holy Spirit so that as steel is forged in the furnace, we may be made strong for the Lord’s service. And we do this so that in the words of our Lord, “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” By this, our hope is anything but unforeseen.
[1] Haberer, Jack, The Presbyterian Outlook. Vol. 191-20, June 8/15, 2009, page 5.
[2] Haberer cites Quebedeaux, Richard, The Young Evangelicals: Evolution in Orthodoxy. H&R, 1975.
[3] Reese, Martha Grace, Unbinding the Gospel, 2nd edition. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2008, page 25.
[4] Ibid, Haberer
[5] Hunter, George C. III, The Celtic Way of Evangelism. Nashville: Abingdon, 2000, page 36.
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17, 25-27
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 want to read those last two verses again, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
In John’s gospel, the disciples were promised someone who would be alongside them when the world prosecuted them and persecuted them. They were promised one who would serve as their advocate. As our reading from the Book of Acts begins, the disciples need an advocate.
As Acts begins, Jesus tells the apostles not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This, he said, is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” This wait could not have been comfortable. Given the events of the Passover, they were marked men. The Romans knew this crew as rabble rousers. The temple leadership knew them as the worst kind of heretics. Yes, Jesus had returned to them, but he had ascended to the Father. He was gone again. He had promised to return again, but he gave them no estimated time of arrival.
They had received great promises. They had high hope. But the advocate was still a promise, not a reality; not to them, not yet. They may have had all of the hope in the world, but with the reality of living in Palestine at that very moment, they would have been foolish if they had not felt fear.
It was at this very moment, on the day of Pentecost, that they were assembled together in one place. It was at this very moment that from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
This must have been even more frightening. They knew to be leery of the princes of this world. They knew the Governor and the Tetrarch and the Prelate and the Sanhedrin had them in their sights, and now the violent winds rushed down on them. I was watching the Weather Channel on last week, and I saw what was happening in Norman and Oklahoma City. I saw Mike Bettis with the VORTEX2 storm chasers tracking down the big storms; but I can’t imagine what it’s like to see that live from the front porch.
We may be talking about this scripture and praising God for the glory of the coming of the Holy Spirit, but on that day, they were in the midst of a violent wind filling the house where they were sitting. We talk about joy, they experienced terror.
Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared on them. By this gift, the apostles were able to communicate with the Jews from every nation under heaven who were living in Jerusalem. The crowd gathered and they were bewildered. Nobody needed a translator anymore. Nobody needed to find a common tongue, not anymore. The apostles spoke to the masses in their own tongues, the curse of Babel was broken for a great shining moment. There was joy and glory was given to God.
The people asked what this meant. And they heard the response of the informed crowd. They’re drunk. Peter said that they weren’t drunk; after all it was only nine in the morning. Let’s remember, I grew up in Kansas City where the bars open at 6:00 am six days a week. I’ve seen drunks at nine in the morning. But none of them could quote the prophet Joel.
In the June 8, 2009 issue of the Presbyterian Outlook Magazine, Jack Haberer writes:
There is a new wind blowing through the sometimes musty halls of American Churches, and it is sweeping away the hypocrisy, lack of social concern, and unnecessary cultural baggage accumulated by the mainstream churches through the years. Thousands of people, young in spirit, are turning away from the anti-intellectuality of separatist fundamentalism and from mainstream ecumenical liberalism…[and to]…a vital, open, and truly revolutionary answer to Christ’s call to “go and teach all the nations.”[1]
The Good News is that these words come to us with a joy and determination to leave unproductive church-ianity in the wake of a spirit led revival. The bad news is that these words don’t come from a new missional group. They don’t come from the writings of the emerging church either. They come from the pen of Richard Quebedeaux and were written 35 years ago.[2] Asking “What happened,” Haberer pines “The young evangelicals [of the 1960’s and 70’s] grew older.”
We know the statistics; the church has lamented them for over fifty years. You’ve heard me quote these numbers from The Mainline Evangelism Project. In 1960, twenty-six million people were members of the seven mainline denominations. That comes to 14.4% of the population.
In 2000, the number of people who were members of the mainline churches fell to 21 million folks and the percentage of people who were members of these churches fell to 7.4% of Americans. The fall in the mainstream ranks is in raw numbers and even more so as a percent of the population. Our only consolation is that there is company in this misery; these numbers pertain to all of the mainline denominations.[3]
Haberer does not see us as hopeless though, he continues in the Outlook, “We all do well to re-read the gospels’ stories. The clarity of Jesus’ vision, the strength of his resolve, the power of his appeal, the cost of his summons to follow … such words and actions have stood the test of time. Let us all catch that vision together and refuse to let it fade.”[4]
To recapture the Spirit of Pentecost, we must again learn to speak so that those who will hear us will understand we have something to say. And what a thing we have to say. We believe that faith makes a difference in our lives.
As the apostles shared with the world on the day of Pentecost, we too are called to share. Our stories tell others about who we are and whose we are. We all have stories, but we only share in the Pentecost when we share the stories of our faith. We are called to know our stories, the stories that show others the difference a relationship with the triune God makes in our lives. And we must be able to communicate this story so that those with ears may hear.
We, we who carry the cross of Christ into the world must learn to speak so that the world may hear. The blessing of the Pentecost is the immediacy of the ability that the Galileans received to speak to the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, and so on. But going back to what I said earlier, about the decrease in members in the mainline Christian churches, we don’t need to speak to just Asians, Arabs, Egyptians, and Libyans belonging to Cyrene; we need to speak to our neighbors.
We can gain wisdom on this matter from ancient Celtic Christianity.[5] In 563 AD, about a century after the death of St. Patrick, Columba sought off to an island off of the western Scottish coast. This isle would be his base to reach the Picts of Scotland. Columba took a sizeable corps with him and they learned the culture of the Picts. They chose to pay the price to understand the Picts. Columba’s way of doing mission was the opposite of the model James Michener presented in his novel “Hawaii.” They learned about the people, their language, and their culture. They sent out teams from their island settlement—a little place called Iona—and in 100 years the Picts were significantly Christian.
The lessons we take from this is that there people close to us who do not know the Word of God. We need to learn about how they speak and show them the Gospel in words they understand. Peter and the Apostles did this miraculously; Columba and the Iona community did this diligently. We need to learn how to share the story of faith so that those with ears may be able to hear the word of God.
We talk about speaking in tongues, this gift of the Spirit being the one most accented during Pentecost, but where at Pentecost we talk about speaking in foreign tongues, we have to remember that there is an entire generation of people in America who don’t hear the word because we don’t speak their language. In this social networking world of blogs, Twitter and Facebook, we need to learn how to take the message of God into the world in a new language, without compromising the cross of Christ.
So today, let us all regain the elemental presence of worship. We come to the font of many blessings overflowing with living water and remember our baptism. We come to the table with the cup and the plate to partake in the food that feeds our bodies and our souls. We hear the Word proclaimed and even more so, we come to know the Word Incarnate, the Son of God, the one who the Lord has set aside since before the creation, Jesus the Christ.
And today, especially today, we need to allow ourselves to be consumed by the fire of the Holy Spirit so that as steel is forged in the furnace, we may be made strong for the Lord’s service. And we do this so that in the words of our Lord, “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” By this, our hope is anything but unforeseen.
[1] Haberer, Jack, The Presbyterian Outlook. Vol. 191-20, June 8/15, 2009, page 5.
[2] Haberer cites Quebedeaux, Richard, The Young Evangelicals: Evolution in Orthodoxy. H&R, 1975.
[3] Reese, Martha Grace, Unbinding the Gospel, 2nd edition. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2008, page 25.
[4] Ibid, Haberer
[5] Hunter, George C. III, The Celtic Way of Evangelism. Nashville: Abingdon, 2000, page 36.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Love and Unity
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday May 16, 2010, the 7th Sunday in Easter.
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26
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 Biennial meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) begins on the third of July, on this day the Assembly will elect its new Moderator. The Moderator conducts the business of the meeting and then serves the church for two years as the denomination’s representative to the world. Following the election of the moderator, along with worship, fellowship, and celebration, there will be business.
Ah, the business of the PC(U.S.A.)…[1]
As of this moment, there are 122 overtures for General Assembly action. That’s right, there are 122 distinct motions to be presented to and debated by this august group of church elders, and so far thirteen of them have to do with the definition of marriage and no fewer than fourteen of them have to do with ordination qualifications, predominately about sexuality as a qualification for ordained office in the denomination.
If you think I am making light of twenty percent of the docket, well, I am. These items are the off-spring of things that have been discussed at every General Assembly in the past forty years; and they will quite probably be debated long after my death.
As I make light of these, there are some items that are important in their own right. There is an overture calling for partnerships for peace in the Sudan. There is an overture calling for a denominational day of prayer for healing. There are several motions concerning the strengthening and use of Commissioned Lay Pastors. There is even an overture encouraging Presbyterians to know their HIV status. Each of these overtures has value.
They deal with health, leadership, and peace. They deal with how the denomination spreads the gospel in the church and in the world, things the church should be about. But when I read the list, I am reminded of issues that the Church universal has dealt with and the councils that dealt with them since time immemorial and wonder if in a relative way the issues we are dealing with aren’t a little small.
The Council of Jerusalem met in 48 AD[2] and discussed what was required to be a Christian. When we talk about what it means to be a Christian, we talk about affirmations and beliefs, volunteering at the food bank and such. These guys had a completely different question to answer. Christianity was an off-shoot of Judaism at the time. These were the Jews who believed the Messiah had come. So most who believed were Jews, but the most heavily reformed of Jews.
So when the Gentiles heard the Good News and believed, the question became, “Did they first have to conform to the tenets of Judaism?” Another way to ask the question was “Could the new believers be “Christians” or did they have to be “Jewish Christians” like the heart of the church. The council decided that Jewish believers had to maintain the practice of circumcision along with the Mosaic Law and the Gentiles did not. It also decided that all believers, Jewish and Gentile alike, had to maintain Jewish dietary regulations. So it was “circumcision-no; bacon-no.”
This is big stuff, we talk about who can get married in the church and they are battling with who belongs in the church at all. This turn toward grace to the Gentiles had one very important outcome; it enabled the church greater growth and more inclusiveness beyond the walls of Jerusalem. Without this decision, it is quite possible that the Jesus movement would have remained a reform impulse in Judaism.
There were other councils too. In 325, the Council of Nicaea met to discuss whether Jesus the Christ is God or not. The assertion that Jesus is not God was led by a presbyter, elder, from the church in Alexandria named Arius. He was popular and had a way with words. Many followed his teachings. So when the orthodox wing of the church, the group that declared and continues to declare “Jesus is God” won the day, Arius was branded a heretic and exiled. Because of the work of this council, we say Jesus is God.
In 381, the Council of Constantinople declared that Jesus was human, while reaffirming that Jesus is God. In a way, it’s like saying that when the Christ became incarnate, he took on human essence while maintaining divine essence. Those whose stand did not take the day (please--let's not call them "the losers") believed that the incarnation was more like the Christ putting on a “Jesus of Nazareth Halloween costume.” This council also amended the Nicene Creed to affirm the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
Because of the work of this council, we continue to declare the divinity and humanity of Jesus and truly established for the first time a real theology of the Trinity; that the one Lord God has been revealed in scripture in the persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In 431, the Council at Ephesus and twenty years later at the Council at Chalcedon, the church debated another splitting of the “Jesus is Lord” hair. To make a long story short, this is where we declare that the Christ was of two natures, fully human and fully divine. These natures are distinct, yet inseparable within the body and life of the Lord Jesus Christ. You have often heard me describe Jesus as fully human and fully divine, it is from these councils that this description of the Lord was declared.
So don’t get me wrong, I believe the work of our General Assembly is important. It is important to the denomination, to the Body of Christ, and to creation. But please; even if you don’t agree with me, I ask you at least consider that comparatively speaking, when you look at what we are debating and what was debated 1,500 years ago, we aren’t doing much heavy lifting.
Our gospel reading is the third part of the High Priestly Prayer, the prayer which comes at the end of the Lord’s Supper.
During the supper, Jesus has broken bread and shared the cup with the apostles. He has given his disciples instructions and warnings. He has told them to abide in his love.[3] He has told them “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”[4] He tells them that he is the way, the truth and the life.[5]
He has explained that he has chosen them out of the world, with everything that means and everything that requires.[6] He has washed their feet[7] and he has fed Judas,[8] the one who even as we hear today’s reading is returning with a detachment from the guard to arrest Jesus.[9] So to end this meal, to end this part of Jesus’ life and ministry, to close this chapter of history, Jesus offers a prayer for all of creation.
Jesus offers prayer for himself, the apostles, and in today’s reading, Jesus offers prayer for the church; “for us and all others in all times and places who believe in him, so that we may all be one in the same way the Father and Son are one.”[10]
And now, Jesus prays that we be one so that the world will know God; knowing the Father has sent the Son, and knowing the Father loves the world as the Father loves the Son.
Jesus prays that we may be where he is, now and forever in his presence and in the presence of the Father. And yes, Jesus knows the world does not know the Righteous Father, but Jesus knows him and the apostles know that the Father has sent the Son. Jesus finishes his prayer, “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
The song you heard coming into the sanctuary today is called “Future Love Paradise”[11] by the British soul and rhythm-and-blues singer Seal, and yes, that is his real name. In fact, his full name is Seal Henry Olusegun[12] Olumide[13] Adeola[14] Samuel. He sings:
But if only you could see them,
You could know by their faces,
They were kings and queens,
Followed by princes and princesses.
There were future power people
Throwin’ love to the loveless
Shining a light ‘cause they wanted it seen.[15]
To me, this is a way of imagining the triumphant entry into Jerusalem; it’s another way of imagining the dawn of the New Jerusalem. It is another way to hear the voice of our Lord cry to all creation in the testimony of John the Revelator saying:
“It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
Seal imagines:
One day
All the queens will gather ‘round
Spreading love and unity so we can be found.[16]
Our Lord who offers the gift of living water and cries out “Let anyone who wishes take the water of life.”
It is by the glory that God has given Jesus which he has given us that we are united in Christ.
It is as in the words of Jesus, “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
It is as Seal sang, “Spreading love and unity so we can be found.”
By this love and unity we are called to shine the light of Christ. Like the princes and princesses, the children of the Holy God are called to shine the light because we want it to be seen. We want to share the love of God in the world not because it is the right thing to do, but because we want to do it. We are to hear the Spirit call the bride of Christ, the church, “Come.” We are to then call to the world, “Come.” We are to call to the thirsty that the gift of living water is available to all who seek it.
Now, theology matters, truly it does. But as the bride of Christ, as the church, we should also us know that it is not by right theology that the world will know God’s grace and love, but by shining God’s light, and sharing the living water of Christ with the world. The councils and general assemblies affirm, but it is Christ who commands love and unity. The Reverend William Sloane Coffin said it best saying, “The purity of dogma is second to the integrity of love. Creeds are the sign posts, but love is the hitching post.”[17]
Let us know and behave in a way that we reflect the glory of God and the love of Christ that brings us together as one. Let us shine the light of God, the light of love and unity. And let us cry out the great benediction of all scripture, “Amen, come Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen”
[1] All 2010 overtures are from: PC(USA), “Overtures to the 219th General Assembly (2010),” http://www.pc-biz.org/Resources/1833da6e-8c14-4c51-a3b1-49a53737279a/2010%20lis.pdf, retrieved May 14, 2010.
[2] Many thanks to the Rev. Dr. Ellen Babinsky and her Theology 100 class on Church History. Class notes and the 2001 version of her course pack were used as reference for the church council information.
[3] John 15:1-17
[4] John 14:12-24
[5] John 14:1-11
[6] John 15:18–16:4a
[7] John 13:1-11
[8] John 13:21-30
[9] John 18:1-12
[10] Bower, Peter C., Handbook for the Revised Common Lectionary. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996, page 231.
[11] Samuel, Sealhenri, “Future Love Paradise,” Beethoven Street Music, 1991.
[12] “God is Victorious” in Yoruban, http://www.nigerian.name/w/index.php?title=Olusegun, retrieved May 15, 2010.
[13] “God is Come” in Yoruban, http://www.nigerian.name/w/index.php?title=Olumide, retrieved May 15, 2010.
[14] “The Crown Has Virtue and Respect” in Yourban, http://www.nigerian.name/w/index.php?title=Adeola, retrieved May 15, 2010.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin.” Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1987, page 177.
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26
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 Biennial meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) begins on the third of July, on this day the Assembly will elect its new Moderator. The Moderator conducts the business of the meeting and then serves the church for two years as the denomination’s representative to the world. Following the election of the moderator, along with worship, fellowship, and celebration, there will be business.
Ah, the business of the PC(U.S.A.)…[1]
As of this moment, there are 122 overtures for General Assembly action. That’s right, there are 122 distinct motions to be presented to and debated by this august group of church elders, and so far thirteen of them have to do with the definition of marriage and no fewer than fourteen of them have to do with ordination qualifications, predominately about sexuality as a qualification for ordained office in the denomination.
If you think I am making light of twenty percent of the docket, well, I am. These items are the off-spring of things that have been discussed at every General Assembly in the past forty years; and they will quite probably be debated long after my death.
As I make light of these, there are some items that are important in their own right. There is an overture calling for partnerships for peace in the Sudan. There is an overture calling for a denominational day of prayer for healing. There are several motions concerning the strengthening and use of Commissioned Lay Pastors. There is even an overture encouraging Presbyterians to know their HIV status. Each of these overtures has value.
They deal with health, leadership, and peace. They deal with how the denomination spreads the gospel in the church and in the world, things the church should be about. But when I read the list, I am reminded of issues that the Church universal has dealt with and the councils that dealt with them since time immemorial and wonder if in a relative way the issues we are dealing with aren’t a little small.
The Council of Jerusalem met in 48 AD[2] and discussed what was required to be a Christian. When we talk about what it means to be a Christian, we talk about affirmations and beliefs, volunteering at the food bank and such. These guys had a completely different question to answer. Christianity was an off-shoot of Judaism at the time. These were the Jews who believed the Messiah had come. So most who believed were Jews, but the most heavily reformed of Jews.
So when the Gentiles heard the Good News and believed, the question became, “Did they first have to conform to the tenets of Judaism?” Another way to ask the question was “Could the new believers be “Christians” or did they have to be “Jewish Christians” like the heart of the church. The council decided that Jewish believers had to maintain the practice of circumcision along with the Mosaic Law and the Gentiles did not. It also decided that all believers, Jewish and Gentile alike, had to maintain Jewish dietary regulations. So it was “circumcision-no; bacon-no.”
This is big stuff, we talk about who can get married in the church and they are battling with who belongs in the church at all. This turn toward grace to the Gentiles had one very important outcome; it enabled the church greater growth and more inclusiveness beyond the walls of Jerusalem. Without this decision, it is quite possible that the Jesus movement would have remained a reform impulse in Judaism.
There were other councils too. In 325, the Council of Nicaea met to discuss whether Jesus the Christ is God or not. The assertion that Jesus is not God was led by a presbyter, elder, from the church in Alexandria named Arius. He was popular and had a way with words. Many followed his teachings. So when the orthodox wing of the church, the group that declared and continues to declare “Jesus is God” won the day, Arius was branded a heretic and exiled. Because of the work of this council, we say Jesus is God.
In 381, the Council of Constantinople declared that Jesus was human, while reaffirming that Jesus is God. In a way, it’s like saying that when the Christ became incarnate, he took on human essence while maintaining divine essence. Those whose stand did not take the day (please--let's not call them "the losers") believed that the incarnation was more like the Christ putting on a “Jesus of Nazareth Halloween costume.” This council also amended the Nicene Creed to affirm the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
Because of the work of this council, we continue to declare the divinity and humanity of Jesus and truly established for the first time a real theology of the Trinity; that the one Lord God has been revealed in scripture in the persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In 431, the Council at Ephesus and twenty years later at the Council at Chalcedon, the church debated another splitting of the “Jesus is Lord” hair. To make a long story short, this is where we declare that the Christ was of two natures, fully human and fully divine. These natures are distinct, yet inseparable within the body and life of the Lord Jesus Christ. You have often heard me describe Jesus as fully human and fully divine, it is from these councils that this description of the Lord was declared.
So don’t get me wrong, I believe the work of our General Assembly is important. It is important to the denomination, to the Body of Christ, and to creation. But please; even if you don’t agree with me, I ask you at least consider that comparatively speaking, when you look at what we are debating and what was debated 1,500 years ago, we aren’t doing much heavy lifting.
Our gospel reading is the third part of the High Priestly Prayer, the prayer which comes at the end of the Lord’s Supper.
During the supper, Jesus has broken bread and shared the cup with the apostles. He has given his disciples instructions and warnings. He has told them to abide in his love.[3] He has told them “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”[4] He tells them that he is the way, the truth and the life.[5]
He has explained that he has chosen them out of the world, with everything that means and everything that requires.[6] He has washed their feet[7] and he has fed Judas,[8] the one who even as we hear today’s reading is returning with a detachment from the guard to arrest Jesus.[9] So to end this meal, to end this part of Jesus’ life and ministry, to close this chapter of history, Jesus offers a prayer for all of creation.
Jesus offers prayer for himself, the apostles, and in today’s reading, Jesus offers prayer for the church; “for us and all others in all times and places who believe in him, so that we may all be one in the same way the Father and Son are one.”[10]
And now, Jesus prays that we be one so that the world will know God; knowing the Father has sent the Son, and knowing the Father loves the world as the Father loves the Son.
Jesus prays that we may be where he is, now and forever in his presence and in the presence of the Father. And yes, Jesus knows the world does not know the Righteous Father, but Jesus knows him and the apostles know that the Father has sent the Son. Jesus finishes his prayer, “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
The song you heard coming into the sanctuary today is called “Future Love Paradise”[11] by the British soul and rhythm-and-blues singer Seal, and yes, that is his real name. In fact, his full name is Seal Henry Olusegun[12] Olumide[13] Adeola[14] Samuel. He sings:
But if only you could see them,
You could know by their faces,
They were kings and queens,
Followed by princes and princesses.
There were future power people
Throwin’ love to the loveless
Shining a light ‘cause they wanted it seen.[15]
To me, this is a way of imagining the triumphant entry into Jerusalem; it’s another way of imagining the dawn of the New Jerusalem. It is another way to hear the voice of our Lord cry to all creation in the testimony of John the Revelator saying:
“It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
Seal imagines:
One day
All the queens will gather ‘round
Spreading love and unity so we can be found.[16]
Our Lord who offers the gift of living water and cries out “Let anyone who wishes take the water of life.”
It is by the glory that God has given Jesus which he has given us that we are united in Christ.
It is as in the words of Jesus, “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
It is as Seal sang, “Spreading love and unity so we can be found.”
By this love and unity we are called to shine the light of Christ. Like the princes and princesses, the children of the Holy God are called to shine the light because we want it to be seen. We want to share the love of God in the world not because it is the right thing to do, but because we want to do it. We are to hear the Spirit call the bride of Christ, the church, “Come.” We are to then call to the world, “Come.” We are to call to the thirsty that the gift of living water is available to all who seek it.
Now, theology matters, truly it does. But as the bride of Christ, as the church, we should also us know that it is not by right theology that the world will know God’s grace and love, but by shining God’s light, and sharing the living water of Christ with the world. The councils and general assemblies affirm, but it is Christ who commands love and unity. The Reverend William Sloane Coffin said it best saying, “The purity of dogma is second to the integrity of love. Creeds are the sign posts, but love is the hitching post.”[17]
Let us know and behave in a way that we reflect the glory of God and the love of Christ that brings us together as one. Let us shine the light of God, the light of love and unity. And let us cry out the great benediction of all scripture, “Amen, come Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen”
[1] All 2010 overtures are from: PC(USA), “Overtures to the 219th General Assembly (2010),” http://www.pc-biz.org/Resources/1833da6e-8c14-4c51-a3b1-49a53737279a/2010%20lis.pdf, retrieved May 14, 2010.
[2] Many thanks to the Rev. Dr. Ellen Babinsky and her Theology 100 class on Church History. Class notes and the 2001 version of her course pack were used as reference for the church council information.
[3] John 15:1-17
[4] John 14:12-24
[5] John 14:1-11
[6] John 15:18–16:4a
[7] John 13:1-11
[8] John 13:21-30
[9] John 18:1-12
[10] Bower, Peter C., Handbook for the Revised Common Lectionary. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996, page 231.
[11] Samuel, Sealhenri, “Future Love Paradise,” Beethoven Street Music, 1991.
[12] “God is Victorious” in Yoruban, http://www.nigerian.name/w/index.php?title=Olusegun, retrieved May 15, 2010.
[13] “God is Come” in Yoruban, http://www.nigerian.name/w/index.php?title=Olumide, retrieved May 15, 2010.
[14] “The Crown Has Virtue and Respect” in Yourban, http://www.nigerian.name/w/index.php?title=Adeola, retrieved May 15, 2010.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin.” Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1987, page 177.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
The Least Expected
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday May 9, 2010, the 6th Sunday in Easter.
Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 21:22-22:5
John 5:1-9
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, or rock and our redeemer. Amen.
My favorite word in Hebrew is ruach. I love to hear it, I love to say it. I love what it means, both its simple definition and all of the wonderful meanings it carries with it. In Genesis 1:2, this is the word our bibles translate as “the Spirit”[1] or “the wind.”[2] Listen to the word again, ruach. It sounds like wind and spirit. There is a breathy, otherworldly quality to this word that mystifies me, ruach.
In Genesis, this breath of God, this spirit is imparted just before the light is created. It is the breath that blows across the chaos, across the darkness, across the void. This is the breath that precedes life. This is the breath that gives life to all creation.
This is the wind that comes off of the water in the morning. It’s the cool breeze that brings the dew that falls on the grass. It’s the summer breeze that rustles the leaves in the trees and tells us that all is right in the world. It is the Spirit that reminds us that God is in charge and regardless of the chaos of the world around us, it is the Spirit that says Emmanuel, God is with us. This is the same wind, Spirit we read about a couple of weeks ago from John’s gospel when the disciples received the breath of Jesus. It’s the same wind that will blow in two weeks on Pentecost.
Our gospel reading this week begins during one of the Jewish festivals and Jesus is walking by the Sheep Gate by a pool called Beth-zatha. In some translations this pool is called Bethesda. The Sheep Gate separated the North Eastern part of Jerusalem from the Temple Mount. The pools at the Sheep Gate were used to wash the sheep prior to their sacrifice in the Temple. This use of the pools gave the water a halo of sanctity.[3]
Many invalids came to the pools to be healed Local legend said that when the pool was stirred, its healing power was activated, and the first person in the waters would be made well. Legends from the third century said the ripples in the pool were caused by angels bathing in the waters. Since the pool was surrounded on all sides by the city walls or the surrounding slope of the hills, breezes in the pool would be infrequent, so the waiting game had to be played with great patience.
The name of this spot means “House of Grace.” The name of this spot would be appropriate for a group of invalids who seek the unmerited favor of healing by the restorative, mystical powers of the waters. Is it any wonder a Presbyterian Church was founded near the sight of a bubbling spring in rural Maryland in 1820 would be called Bethesda? Is it any wonder one-hundred-and-twenty years later a Naval Medical Center built nearby would come to be called Bethesda?[4] A place named for the House of Grace would be the place to receive special treatment, both medical and spiritual.
So Jesus arrives at the pool seeing the sick: the blind, the lame, and the withered. There, Jesus spotted a man he wanted to know more about. He was probably one of the oldest men at the pool. He learned that this man had been lying there for a long time, thirty eight years to be exact. So Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be made well?”
Oh what a wonderful question! “Do you want to be made well?” Imagine how you would answer this question. “Oh my Lord, yes, I want to be made well!” I can imagine people being asked this question all over the world and just as easily imagine people crying from the roof tops, “Oh yes Lord, I want to be made well!” But you know, this isn’t the answer Jesus gets.
The man tells Jesus, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”
So, is that a yes or a no?
No, really, I want to know.
Is this a yes or a no?
It really isn’t an answer at all. It is an explanation. The man explains to Jesus that he is unable to reach the waters. He tries. He really tries to make it on his own, because there is no one at the pool to help him. Alas, woe is he. He is unable to make it to the waters first.
So Jesus says to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”
This man has waited thirty-eight years for the wind to blow across the pool. He has waited so very long for the wind to blow and for the healing power of the water to be activated for him. He waited to be caressed by the ripples in the pool caused by angels bathing.
Instead, he got something different. He got the thing he expected least in this world. He didn’t feel the wind blow causing the pool to ripple. He met the wind.
He met the wind. He met the living God. He met the one who caused the healing wind to blow. He didn’t meet an angel, he met God incarnate. He was waiting to feel the breeze so that he could race to the pool. Instead he met the one who is the wind. In the most real and least expected way, he met God with him; he had a personal encounter with Emmanuel.
For this man, there was no more need for the Pool of Siloam. In a way more real than I can imagine or expect, he was baptized not in water, but in the Spirit of the Lord, by which he took his mat and walked. That day, that Sabbath day, Jesus proved that he was present to reconcile all creation into right relationship with him. As the wind blew across the water in Genesis beginning all creation, Jesus blew across this man who was not able to get himself into the pool and gave him new life.
Our Lord, our Messiah is the one who is able to do more than we could ever hope or imagine. He is able to do what we least expect him to do. We read about this in Acts. We read about Paul’s first missionary journey into Europe. We are so familiar with our modern geography that it may be a surprise that this is the first recorded Christian mission to Europe, but this is not the big surprise.
No, verse 13 tells us that on the Sabbath, Paul and his traveling party went down to the river, down to the place of prayer, and spoke to the women who had gathered there. I am not going to go into the big explanation about why the women are the people we would least expect Paul to speak with on that day, we know about the subordinate roles women played in ancient times. Paul had crossed into Europe to share the Good News of Jesus Christ in the Roman Empire and chose to share it with women.
This slice of Bethesda, this slice of the “House of Grace” comes again to the water and the wind blows across it bringing the grace and peace of God to the world where it is least expected. By the grace and peace of God, these women are reconciled to all creation and begin their relationship anew with Jesus Christ.
This leads us to again, the thing we least expect. One of the women in the group, a believer in God named Lydia, was listening to Paul at the river. She was a dealer in purple cloth. To decode this phrase, she was rich and powerful. We know that she had very rich and powerful clients because only the richest people could afford to purchase purple and only the most powerful were allowed to wear it.
This woman, rich and powerful in her own right, brought her household to Paul for baptism. In effect, her household is the first toehold of Christianity in Europe. A woman’s home in Thyatira becomes the site of the first European Christian church. This easily qualifies as one of the things we least expect from this world.[5]
Even more unexpected is the vision of New Jerusalem that we saw in our reading from Revelation. The winds of change, the winds of reconciliation, the winds of life blow across the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. If you noticed, there is no temple in the city, simply because there is no need. You see, there is no need for a temple because New Jerusalem, the city where nothing accursed will be found any more becomes the new temple.[6]
This is the wonder and the glory of new life in Christ. The most glorious things we could least expect are just the beginning. The wind of new life blows across Bethesda lifting a man who had not walked in thirty-eight years. The wind blows across the river where the women pray and opens Europe to the gospel. The Gospel Incarnate, the Lamb of God will be seen again on the day of the New Jerusalem when there will be no more night.
This is the wind that blows. This is the ruach.
Pope John Paul II took the opportunity to “put Bob Dylan right” when the two megastars headlined a gig together in Bologna.[7] Dylan met His Holiness on stage during a Catholic youth event before playing three of his best-known songs. After the two men had shaken hands and exchanged a few words, the Pope stepped up to the microphone and took the singer to the theological cleaners.
“You say the answer is blowing in the wind, my friend,” he observed. “So it is. But it is not the wind that blows things away, it is the wind that is the breath and life of the Holy Spirit, the voice that calls and says, ‘Come!’”
Clearly enjoying the thunderous applause that greeted these words, the Pope continued in a style that would not have disgraced a television evangelist: “You ask me, how many roads must a man walk down before he becomes a man? I answer: One! There is only one road for man, and it is the road of Jesus Christ, who said I am the Way and the Life.”
As the wind blows, let us be blown by it.
[1] Jerusalem Publication Society, New American Standard Bible, New International Version, New Living translations
[2] New Revised Standard Version
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Bethesda, accessed May 12, 2007
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethesda%2C_Maryland and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Naval_Medical_Center accessed on May 12, 2007
[5] Cousar, Charles B, Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, Jr., J. Clinton, Newsome, James D. “Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, Year C.” Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994, pages 314-316.
[6] Ibid, pages 318-320.
[7] Ship of Fools Magazine Online, September 29, 1997 as found at HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1887, May 7, 2010.
Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 21:22-22:5
John 5:1-9
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, or rock and our redeemer. Amen.
My favorite word in Hebrew is ruach. I love to hear it, I love to say it. I love what it means, both its simple definition and all of the wonderful meanings it carries with it. In Genesis 1:2, this is the word our bibles translate as “the Spirit”[1] or “the wind.”[2] Listen to the word again, ruach. It sounds like wind and spirit. There is a breathy, otherworldly quality to this word that mystifies me, ruach.
In Genesis, this breath of God, this spirit is imparted just before the light is created. It is the breath that blows across the chaos, across the darkness, across the void. This is the breath that precedes life. This is the breath that gives life to all creation.
This is the wind that comes off of the water in the morning. It’s the cool breeze that brings the dew that falls on the grass. It’s the summer breeze that rustles the leaves in the trees and tells us that all is right in the world. It is the Spirit that reminds us that God is in charge and regardless of the chaos of the world around us, it is the Spirit that says Emmanuel, God is with us. This is the same wind, Spirit we read about a couple of weeks ago from John’s gospel when the disciples received the breath of Jesus. It’s the same wind that will blow in two weeks on Pentecost.
Our gospel reading this week begins during one of the Jewish festivals and Jesus is walking by the Sheep Gate by a pool called Beth-zatha. In some translations this pool is called Bethesda. The Sheep Gate separated the North Eastern part of Jerusalem from the Temple Mount. The pools at the Sheep Gate were used to wash the sheep prior to their sacrifice in the Temple. This use of the pools gave the water a halo of sanctity.[3]
Many invalids came to the pools to be healed Local legend said that when the pool was stirred, its healing power was activated, and the first person in the waters would be made well. Legends from the third century said the ripples in the pool were caused by angels bathing in the waters. Since the pool was surrounded on all sides by the city walls or the surrounding slope of the hills, breezes in the pool would be infrequent, so the waiting game had to be played with great patience.
The name of this spot means “House of Grace.” The name of this spot would be appropriate for a group of invalids who seek the unmerited favor of healing by the restorative, mystical powers of the waters. Is it any wonder a Presbyterian Church was founded near the sight of a bubbling spring in rural Maryland in 1820 would be called Bethesda? Is it any wonder one-hundred-and-twenty years later a Naval Medical Center built nearby would come to be called Bethesda?[4] A place named for the House of Grace would be the place to receive special treatment, both medical and spiritual.
So Jesus arrives at the pool seeing the sick: the blind, the lame, and the withered. There, Jesus spotted a man he wanted to know more about. He was probably one of the oldest men at the pool. He learned that this man had been lying there for a long time, thirty eight years to be exact. So Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be made well?”
Oh what a wonderful question! “Do you want to be made well?” Imagine how you would answer this question. “Oh my Lord, yes, I want to be made well!” I can imagine people being asked this question all over the world and just as easily imagine people crying from the roof tops, “Oh yes Lord, I want to be made well!” But you know, this isn’t the answer Jesus gets.
The man tells Jesus, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”
So, is that a yes or a no?
No, really, I want to know.
Is this a yes or a no?
It really isn’t an answer at all. It is an explanation. The man explains to Jesus that he is unable to reach the waters. He tries. He really tries to make it on his own, because there is no one at the pool to help him. Alas, woe is he. He is unable to make it to the waters first.
So Jesus says to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”
This man has waited thirty-eight years for the wind to blow across the pool. He has waited so very long for the wind to blow and for the healing power of the water to be activated for him. He waited to be caressed by the ripples in the pool caused by angels bathing.
Instead, he got something different. He got the thing he expected least in this world. He didn’t feel the wind blow causing the pool to ripple. He met the wind.
He met the wind. He met the living God. He met the one who caused the healing wind to blow. He didn’t meet an angel, he met God incarnate. He was waiting to feel the breeze so that he could race to the pool. Instead he met the one who is the wind. In the most real and least expected way, he met God with him; he had a personal encounter with Emmanuel.
For this man, there was no more need for the Pool of Siloam. In a way more real than I can imagine or expect, he was baptized not in water, but in the Spirit of the Lord, by which he took his mat and walked. That day, that Sabbath day, Jesus proved that he was present to reconcile all creation into right relationship with him. As the wind blew across the water in Genesis beginning all creation, Jesus blew across this man who was not able to get himself into the pool and gave him new life.
Our Lord, our Messiah is the one who is able to do more than we could ever hope or imagine. He is able to do what we least expect him to do. We read about this in Acts. We read about Paul’s first missionary journey into Europe. We are so familiar with our modern geography that it may be a surprise that this is the first recorded Christian mission to Europe, but this is not the big surprise.
No, verse 13 tells us that on the Sabbath, Paul and his traveling party went down to the river, down to the place of prayer, and spoke to the women who had gathered there. I am not going to go into the big explanation about why the women are the people we would least expect Paul to speak with on that day, we know about the subordinate roles women played in ancient times. Paul had crossed into Europe to share the Good News of Jesus Christ in the Roman Empire and chose to share it with women.
This slice of Bethesda, this slice of the “House of Grace” comes again to the water and the wind blows across it bringing the grace and peace of God to the world where it is least expected. By the grace and peace of God, these women are reconciled to all creation and begin their relationship anew with Jesus Christ.
This leads us to again, the thing we least expect. One of the women in the group, a believer in God named Lydia, was listening to Paul at the river. She was a dealer in purple cloth. To decode this phrase, she was rich and powerful. We know that she had very rich and powerful clients because only the richest people could afford to purchase purple and only the most powerful were allowed to wear it.
This woman, rich and powerful in her own right, brought her household to Paul for baptism. In effect, her household is the first toehold of Christianity in Europe. A woman’s home in Thyatira becomes the site of the first European Christian church. This easily qualifies as one of the things we least expect from this world.[5]
Even more unexpected is the vision of New Jerusalem that we saw in our reading from Revelation. The winds of change, the winds of reconciliation, the winds of life blow across the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. If you noticed, there is no temple in the city, simply because there is no need. You see, there is no need for a temple because New Jerusalem, the city where nothing accursed will be found any more becomes the new temple.[6]
This is the wonder and the glory of new life in Christ. The most glorious things we could least expect are just the beginning. The wind of new life blows across Bethesda lifting a man who had not walked in thirty-eight years. The wind blows across the river where the women pray and opens Europe to the gospel. The Gospel Incarnate, the Lamb of God will be seen again on the day of the New Jerusalem when there will be no more night.
This is the wind that blows. This is the ruach.
Pope John Paul II took the opportunity to “put Bob Dylan right” when the two megastars headlined a gig together in Bologna.[7] Dylan met His Holiness on stage during a Catholic youth event before playing three of his best-known songs. After the two men had shaken hands and exchanged a few words, the Pope stepped up to the microphone and took the singer to the theological cleaners.
“You say the answer is blowing in the wind, my friend,” he observed. “So it is. But it is not the wind that blows things away, it is the wind that is the breath and life of the Holy Spirit, the voice that calls and says, ‘Come!’”
Clearly enjoying the thunderous applause that greeted these words, the Pope continued in a style that would not have disgraced a television evangelist: “You ask me, how many roads must a man walk down before he becomes a man? I answer: One! There is only one road for man, and it is the road of Jesus Christ, who said I am the Way and the Life.”
As the wind blows, let us be blown by it.
[1] Jerusalem Publication Society, New American Standard Bible, New International Version, New Living translations
[2] New Revised Standard Version
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Bethesda, accessed May 12, 2007
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethesda%2C_Maryland and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Naval_Medical_Center accessed on May 12, 2007
[5] Cousar, Charles B, Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, Jr., J. Clinton, Newsome, James D. “Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, Year C.” Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994, pages 314-316.
[6] Ibid, pages 318-320.
[7] Ship of Fools Magazine Online, September 29, 1997 as found at HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1887, May 7, 2010.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Not Like Any Other Saturday
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday May 2, 2010, the 5th Sunday in Easter. Thanks to the Reverend Doctor Ellen Babinsky for teaching me the Reformed Confessions.
Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
On Wednesday evening, Lucille and I were discussing this passage, which is what we always do on Wednesday nights, but aside from that, we started to focus on the end of verse 33; “Where I am going, you cannot come.” As I started to wonder what this meant, Lucille asked, “Where is it that Jesus is going that the disciples cannot come? Is it hell or somewhere else?” Well, like I said, I had just begun to wonder myself just where Jesus was going that the disciples cannot come, but I wasn’t thinking anything so provocative.
My thoughts were more mundane, more physical. Jesus would go before the courts and the rulers. Was this where they could not come? Well, on that day, on the day that we commemorate as Maundy Thursday that was surely true. The path Jesus walked that day he would go without his disciples. But according to the Book of Acts, Stephen, though not one of the first twelve but still a disciple; Stephen would be found guilty before the Scribes and Pharisees. In the years to come, the Apostle Paul would be bound and jailed and appear before several Near East and Roman rulers and magistrates. He would eventually be taken to Rome for trial.
Jesus went to the Tetrarch, the local ruler, but Paul went all the way to Caesar.[1]
While the twelve would not go with Jesus that day, they would go before the rulers and governors and emperors spreading the gospel. Not on the same day as the Lord, but they would appear before them soon enough. In their own day and time, many, many disciples would appear before rulers and magistrates. In our own day and time, many, many disciples continue to appear before rulers and magistrates.
The more obvious answer is to the cross. The accounts of the crucifixion teach us that the disciples would scatter, like sheep when the shepherd is struck, before Jesus would be taken to the cross. Only one of the gospels places even one disciple, the beloved disciple, on Golgotha when Jesus was placed on the tree.[2] In fact, the scriptural witness shows that it was the women who were present when the Lord was on the cross. Was this where they could not come?
We know well that while no other disciple would be crucified on this day, we know that many would face a martyr’s death. After Stephen was found guilty by the Sanhedrin, he was stoned on the spot.[3] We are told that Peter would go to the cross, and in true Petrine style, he would declare that he was not worthy to die in the same way as his Lord. This is the reason we are told Peter was crucified upside-down,[4] with his feet to the sky and his head to the ground. Peter’s brother Andrew also was crucified in a novel way. The cross he was hung from was shaped like the letter “X”. This shape would come to bear the name “St. Andrew’s Cross.”[5]
Again, the crucifixion of the disciples would not happen on the day we call Good Friday, but they would hang from their own crosses soon enough. A martyr’s death and even crucifixion itself was not where the disciples could not come.
So much for my mundane suggestions. I think they’re pretty interesting. It is interesting enough that I wanted us to know that Jesus had laid out many footsteps that the disciples would eventually follow. These are places of honor and horror, agony and ecstasy, glory and shame that the disciples would follow in the same way as their Lord. So where was it that the disciples cannot come? This brings me back to Lucille’s wonderful suggestion: Hell.
As for what hell is, since the first century B.C., the Greek word gehenna was used in a “metaphorical sense to denote the place of fiery torment believed to be reserved for the wicked either immediately after death or ultimately after the Last Judgment.”[6] This word is the major New Testament source of our images of hell. So this is where we begin answering the question “Where’s Jesus” and what it means to say “He descended into Hell.”[7]
In the years that passed, since the ascension of Christ and the death of the first generations of disciples, the church sought to figure out what it meant to be the Church. The first major council of bishops of the church came together in the 300’s and developed the Nicene Creed. Begun in 325 AD and reaching its final form in 381, this creed tells us that Jesus suffered and was buried.[8]
It wasn’t the Apostles’ Creed, a writing begun in 180 AD and not finalized until the eighth century, that the phrase “he descended into hell” was added This line was actually added to the creed in the fifth century, making it one of the creed’s latest additions.[9]
So we have an interesting premise, thanks to Lucille; and a bit of history, thanks to me. We got him in hell, but this doesn’t help us much when we ask “What does it mean?” and “What does that mean for us today?”
For the first question, we can look at other places in The Book of Confessions. The Confessions aren’t the same as scripture, of course. The purpose of the Confessions is to interpret scripture for a specific time and place. The Nicene Creed was the way that fourth century Christians interpreted their faith. The Apostles’ Creed was the second major creed and was held as an authoritative interpretation of the faith for European Christians. The Eastern Orthodox Church had some issues with this creed beginning the granddaddy of all church splits that would come in 1054 when the Eastern Orthodox Church would branch from the Church of Rome.
Creeds had continued to be written through the ages, but one of the most important creeds is The Westminster Standards. The Reformation was 120-some years old when the “English House of Commons adopted an ordinance calling for the ‘settling of the government and liturgy of the Church of England (in a manner) most agreeable to God’s Holy Word and most apt to procure the peace of the church at home and nearer abroad.’” If you can explain what this means in one paragraph, you have done better than the Book of Confessions by five.
In short, between 1643 and 1649 a group of English politicians, theologians, clergy, and others wrote what would “represent the fruits of a Protestant scholasticism that refined and systematized the teachings of the Reformation.”[10] Or in my words, defined what it meant to be a Christian, a member of the Church of England, since the mid 17th century.
In the Westminster Standard’s Larger Catechism, the fiftieth question asks: “Wherein consisted Christ’s humiliation after his death?” (Between you and me, some might say the King’s English has more pizzazz, but I understand the way we speak much better.)
The respondent answers the question: “Christ's humiliation after his death consisted in his being buried, and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day, which hath been otherwise expressed in these words: ‘He descended into hell.’”[11]
Jesus was under the power of death, under the power of death. Whatever those medieval artists rendered as being under the “powers of death” is what that meant. Every scary story about the dead ever written comes to mind, and the renaissance flare makes it special. The plagues of Revelation without the redeeming presence we read this morning, this is what we’re talking about as being “under the powers of death.”
This is how the church interpreted Jesus descending into hell, but how does this play into him saying, “where I am going, you cannot come?”
The Heidelberg Catechism was completed about 100 years before the Westminster’s by two young men, theologian Zacharias Ursinus and preacher Kaspar Olevianus. They were asked by Frederick the Elector, ruler of Palatinate, to create a creed acceptable to the new German Reformed Churches and the only slightly more established Lutheran churches.[12]
The Heidelberg Catechism offers three questions and answers that I share with you now:
The question “What further benefit do we receive from the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross?” is answered “That by his power our old self is crucified, put to death, and buried with him, so that the evil passions of our mortal bodies may reign in us no more, but that we may offer ourselves to him as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.”[13]
This question comes first reminding us that Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried. By the power of Christ, our old self dies with him even before we are born. In response to this gracious act taken on our behalf, we may offer ourselves in thanks to God.
This question also helps reinforce the importance of the next two.
The next question is “Why is there added: ‘He descended into hell’?” To this we respond, “That in my severest tribulations I may be assured that Christ my Lord has redeemed me from hellish anxieties and torment by the unspeakable anguish, pains, and terrors which he suffered in his soul both on the cross and before.” [14]
By Christ’s descent into hell, we are redeemed from the horrors of our lives. By Christ’s descent into hell, we are saved the horrors of unredeemed death.
Finally, we ask “What benefit do we receive from ‘the resurrection’ of Christ?” The glorious answer is, “First, by his resurrection he has overcome death that he might make us share in the righteousness which he has obtained for us through his death. Second, we too are now raised by his power to a new life. Third, the resurrection of Christ is a sure pledge to us of our blessed resurrection.[15]
By his resurrection, his departure from hell, his conquering death, Christ offers us a share of what he has obtained in his death and being raised to new life, we receive the pledge, the promise of our resurrection.
Yes, I like Lucille’s style. She asks what it means that the disciples cannot come where he is going. By the Confessions we learn that Lucille’s question about hell has wonderful and glorious insights. You see, because of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the redeemed church, the blessed people of God will not be found in Hell because Jesus went there so we would not have to. Jesus conquered hell so that we would not have to follow.
We read this in The Revelation of John today:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’
And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’”
The next question, the one that matters for us today, is “So what does this mean to us?” How’s this for the quick answer: No matter how horrible, how terrible, how painful and how terrified our lives become, Jesus has been there. Jesus has conquered life and death that bad and worse. With thanksgiving, I have great hope in this; Jesus knows how bad I feel, how difficult life is; and has nothing but grace and peace for me. With thanksgiving, we have great hope in this; Jesus knows how bad we feel, how difficult our lives are; and has nothing but grace and peace for us. How’s that.
In Christ, because he descended into hell, death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more.
This is the peace we are to share with one another and the world. Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
We receive the love of Jesus Christ that comes from hell and back. We receive the love of Jesus Christ that was refined in the fiery torment on the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, a Saturday not like any other Saturday. This is the love that we are called to share with one another and the stranger in our midst. We are called to join the stranger in their walk through their hell for the heavenly cause.[16]
We may say it’s not easy to live that way today, but honestly, humanity didn’t make it easy for Jesus either. But by the powerful grace, peace and love of Jesus Christ, it is our call, our vocation, and in that way we will know we are his disciples; and the world will know we are his disciples.
[1] Note: I resisted adding the joke that Paul played “the original Caesar’s Palace.
[2] John 19:26-27
[3] Acts 7:54-60
[4] St. Peter, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peter, retrieved May 2, 2010.
[5] St. Andrew, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Andrew, retrieved May 2, 2010.
[6] Gehenna, Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible
[7] Note: Is this the only answer to the question of where Jesus went where the disciples could not follow? The Right Hand of God is another viable answer. God’s imagination is far better than mine, but I like this answer and think we should explore it.
[8] The Book of Confessions, The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part I. Louisville, KY: The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2004, page 2.
[9] Ibid, page 6.
[10] Ibid, pages 118-119.
[11] Ibid, page 201, Book of Confessions section 7.160.
[12] Ibid, page 28.
[13] Ibid, page 35, Book of Confessions section 4.043
[14] Ibid, page 35, Book of Confessions section 4.044
[15] Ibid, page 35, Book of Confessions section 4.045
[16] Paraphrase from Leigh, Mitch and Darion, Joe. “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” from “The Man of La Mancha.” 1965.
Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
On Wednesday evening, Lucille and I were discussing this passage, which is what we always do on Wednesday nights, but aside from that, we started to focus on the end of verse 33; “Where I am going, you cannot come.” As I started to wonder what this meant, Lucille asked, “Where is it that Jesus is going that the disciples cannot come? Is it hell or somewhere else?” Well, like I said, I had just begun to wonder myself just where Jesus was going that the disciples cannot come, but I wasn’t thinking anything so provocative.
My thoughts were more mundane, more physical. Jesus would go before the courts and the rulers. Was this where they could not come? Well, on that day, on the day that we commemorate as Maundy Thursday that was surely true. The path Jesus walked that day he would go without his disciples. But according to the Book of Acts, Stephen, though not one of the first twelve but still a disciple; Stephen would be found guilty before the Scribes and Pharisees. In the years to come, the Apostle Paul would be bound and jailed and appear before several Near East and Roman rulers and magistrates. He would eventually be taken to Rome for trial.
Jesus went to the Tetrarch, the local ruler, but Paul went all the way to Caesar.[1]
While the twelve would not go with Jesus that day, they would go before the rulers and governors and emperors spreading the gospel. Not on the same day as the Lord, but they would appear before them soon enough. In their own day and time, many, many disciples would appear before rulers and magistrates. In our own day and time, many, many disciples continue to appear before rulers and magistrates.
The more obvious answer is to the cross. The accounts of the crucifixion teach us that the disciples would scatter, like sheep when the shepherd is struck, before Jesus would be taken to the cross. Only one of the gospels places even one disciple, the beloved disciple, on Golgotha when Jesus was placed on the tree.[2] In fact, the scriptural witness shows that it was the women who were present when the Lord was on the cross. Was this where they could not come?
We know well that while no other disciple would be crucified on this day, we know that many would face a martyr’s death. After Stephen was found guilty by the Sanhedrin, he was stoned on the spot.[3] We are told that Peter would go to the cross, and in true Petrine style, he would declare that he was not worthy to die in the same way as his Lord. This is the reason we are told Peter was crucified upside-down,[4] with his feet to the sky and his head to the ground. Peter’s brother Andrew also was crucified in a novel way. The cross he was hung from was shaped like the letter “X”. This shape would come to bear the name “St. Andrew’s Cross.”[5]
Again, the crucifixion of the disciples would not happen on the day we call Good Friday, but they would hang from their own crosses soon enough. A martyr’s death and even crucifixion itself was not where the disciples could not come.
So much for my mundane suggestions. I think they’re pretty interesting. It is interesting enough that I wanted us to know that Jesus had laid out many footsteps that the disciples would eventually follow. These are places of honor and horror, agony and ecstasy, glory and shame that the disciples would follow in the same way as their Lord. So where was it that the disciples cannot come? This brings me back to Lucille’s wonderful suggestion: Hell.
As for what hell is, since the first century B.C., the Greek word gehenna was used in a “metaphorical sense to denote the place of fiery torment believed to be reserved for the wicked either immediately after death or ultimately after the Last Judgment.”[6] This word is the major New Testament source of our images of hell. So this is where we begin answering the question “Where’s Jesus” and what it means to say “He descended into Hell.”[7]
In the years that passed, since the ascension of Christ and the death of the first generations of disciples, the church sought to figure out what it meant to be the Church. The first major council of bishops of the church came together in the 300’s and developed the Nicene Creed. Begun in 325 AD and reaching its final form in 381, this creed tells us that Jesus suffered and was buried.[8]
It wasn’t the Apostles’ Creed, a writing begun in 180 AD and not finalized until the eighth century, that the phrase “he descended into hell” was added This line was actually added to the creed in the fifth century, making it one of the creed’s latest additions.[9]
So we have an interesting premise, thanks to Lucille; and a bit of history, thanks to me. We got him in hell, but this doesn’t help us much when we ask “What does it mean?” and “What does that mean for us today?”
For the first question, we can look at other places in The Book of Confessions. The Confessions aren’t the same as scripture, of course. The purpose of the Confessions is to interpret scripture for a specific time and place. The Nicene Creed was the way that fourth century Christians interpreted their faith. The Apostles’ Creed was the second major creed and was held as an authoritative interpretation of the faith for European Christians. The Eastern Orthodox Church had some issues with this creed beginning the granddaddy of all church splits that would come in 1054 when the Eastern Orthodox Church would branch from the Church of Rome.
Creeds had continued to be written through the ages, but one of the most important creeds is The Westminster Standards. The Reformation was 120-some years old when the “English House of Commons adopted an ordinance calling for the ‘settling of the government and liturgy of the Church of England (in a manner) most agreeable to God’s Holy Word and most apt to procure the peace of the church at home and nearer abroad.’” If you can explain what this means in one paragraph, you have done better than the Book of Confessions by five.
In short, between 1643 and 1649 a group of English politicians, theologians, clergy, and others wrote what would “represent the fruits of a Protestant scholasticism that refined and systematized the teachings of the Reformation.”[10] Or in my words, defined what it meant to be a Christian, a member of the Church of England, since the mid 17th century.
In the Westminster Standard’s Larger Catechism, the fiftieth question asks: “Wherein consisted Christ’s humiliation after his death?” (Between you and me, some might say the King’s English has more pizzazz, but I understand the way we speak much better.)
The respondent answers the question: “Christ's humiliation after his death consisted in his being buried, and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day, which hath been otherwise expressed in these words: ‘He descended into hell.’”[11]
Jesus was under the power of death, under the power of death. Whatever those medieval artists rendered as being under the “powers of death” is what that meant. Every scary story about the dead ever written comes to mind, and the renaissance flare makes it special. The plagues of Revelation without the redeeming presence we read this morning, this is what we’re talking about as being “under the powers of death.”
This is how the church interpreted Jesus descending into hell, but how does this play into him saying, “where I am going, you cannot come?”
The Heidelberg Catechism was completed about 100 years before the Westminster’s by two young men, theologian Zacharias Ursinus and preacher Kaspar Olevianus. They were asked by Frederick the Elector, ruler of Palatinate, to create a creed acceptable to the new German Reformed Churches and the only slightly more established Lutheran churches.[12]
The Heidelberg Catechism offers three questions and answers that I share with you now:
The question “What further benefit do we receive from the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross?” is answered “That by his power our old self is crucified, put to death, and buried with him, so that the evil passions of our mortal bodies may reign in us no more, but that we may offer ourselves to him as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.”[13]
This question comes first reminding us that Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried. By the power of Christ, our old self dies with him even before we are born. In response to this gracious act taken on our behalf, we may offer ourselves in thanks to God.
This question also helps reinforce the importance of the next two.
The next question is “Why is there added: ‘He descended into hell’?” To this we respond, “That in my severest tribulations I may be assured that Christ my Lord has redeemed me from hellish anxieties and torment by the unspeakable anguish, pains, and terrors which he suffered in his soul both on the cross and before.” [14]
By Christ’s descent into hell, we are redeemed from the horrors of our lives. By Christ’s descent into hell, we are saved the horrors of unredeemed death.
Finally, we ask “What benefit do we receive from ‘the resurrection’ of Christ?” The glorious answer is, “First, by his resurrection he has overcome death that he might make us share in the righteousness which he has obtained for us through his death. Second, we too are now raised by his power to a new life. Third, the resurrection of Christ is a sure pledge to us of our blessed resurrection.[15]
By his resurrection, his departure from hell, his conquering death, Christ offers us a share of what he has obtained in his death and being raised to new life, we receive the pledge, the promise of our resurrection.
Yes, I like Lucille’s style. She asks what it means that the disciples cannot come where he is going. By the Confessions we learn that Lucille’s question about hell has wonderful and glorious insights. You see, because of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the redeemed church, the blessed people of God will not be found in Hell because Jesus went there so we would not have to. Jesus conquered hell so that we would not have to follow.
We read this in The Revelation of John today:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’
And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’”
The next question, the one that matters for us today, is “So what does this mean to us?” How’s this for the quick answer: No matter how horrible, how terrible, how painful and how terrified our lives become, Jesus has been there. Jesus has conquered life and death that bad and worse. With thanksgiving, I have great hope in this; Jesus knows how bad I feel, how difficult life is; and has nothing but grace and peace for me. With thanksgiving, we have great hope in this; Jesus knows how bad we feel, how difficult our lives are; and has nothing but grace and peace for us. How’s that.
In Christ, because he descended into hell, death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more.
This is the peace we are to share with one another and the world. Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
We receive the love of Jesus Christ that comes from hell and back. We receive the love of Jesus Christ that was refined in the fiery torment on the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, a Saturday not like any other Saturday. This is the love that we are called to share with one another and the stranger in our midst. We are called to join the stranger in their walk through their hell for the heavenly cause.[16]
We may say it’s not easy to live that way today, but honestly, humanity didn’t make it easy for Jesus either. But by the powerful grace, peace and love of Jesus Christ, it is our call, our vocation, and in that way we will know we are his disciples; and the world will know we are his disciples.
[1] Note: I resisted adding the joke that Paul played “the original Caesar’s Palace.
[2] John 19:26-27
[3] Acts 7:54-60
[4] St. Peter, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peter, retrieved May 2, 2010.
[5] St. Andrew, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Andrew, retrieved May 2, 2010.
[6] Gehenna, Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible
[7] Note: Is this the only answer to the question of where Jesus went where the disciples could not follow? The Right Hand of God is another viable answer. God’s imagination is far better than mine, but I like this answer and think we should explore it.
[8] The Book of Confessions, The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part I. Louisville, KY: The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2004, page 2.
[9] Ibid, page 6.
[10] Ibid, pages 118-119.
[11] Ibid, page 201, Book of Confessions section 7.160.
[12] Ibid, page 28.
[13] Ibid, page 35, Book of Confessions section 4.043
[14] Ibid, page 35, Book of Confessions section 4.044
[15] Ibid, page 35, Book of Confessions section 4.045
[16] Paraphrase from Leigh, Mitch and Darion, Joe. “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” from “The Man of La Mancha.” 1965.
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