Fifth Sunday in Lent
Jeremiah 31:31-34 Psalm 51:1-12 Hebrews 5:5-10 John 12:20-33 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who draws us to himself. Amen “We wish to see Jesus” the request the Greeks make to Philip seems so simple We identify with these strangers who have heard great things about this teacher and even though they are on the outside -they’re not Israelites, nor any close connection to the people that Jesus has been living and working among- they want to be included, they want to see Jesus, they want to believe that Jesus could be something for them as well as the disciples gathered around him, the ones who have seen the miracles and traveled with him. We want that too. We wish to see Jesus We never actually find out if their request is granted, Philip goes and tells Andrew and Andrew and Philip go and tell Jesus and Jesus starts teaching right away. But I’d like to think the Greeks were there to hear the teaching that their request set off, that they were part of the crowd. Philip goes and tells Andrew and Andrew and Philip go together to tell Jesus, and upon hearing the request of the Greeks Jesus says “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” All throughout the gospel Jesus has been saying “it’s not time yet.” Now the time has come, people from other nationalities are starting to seek him out, and in response to the Greeks, whose simple open ended request is not attached to preconceived visions of a messiah or anything else, Jesus gives the unvarnished truth that what he means by glorified is to die for the sake of the world. And he does this because of who he is, the Word made flesh dwelling among the people, Jesus is the unmediated presence of God, all along Jesus has been teaching that to see him is to see his Father, to know Jesus is to know God, to serve Jesus is to serve God, the God who chose to become human, embracing the entire experience, even suffering and death. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. We wish to see Jesus But are we prepared to see Jesus as he is rather than as we want him to be? The Jesus who says that death is a necessary reality The Jesus who says the way to eternal life is to reject the life of the world The Jesus who washes the disciples’ feet and says that those who serve him will do the same to those they encounter Whether it is what we want or not this is Jesus As Jesus teaches the crowd who has come to see him the voice of God comes from heaven, and even though the voice speaks for the sake of the crowd they are unable to understand what the voice says, to some it sounds like thunder, others interpret it as an angel speaking. They don’t understand the unmediated voice of God just as they don’t understand that Jesus is the unmediated presence of God. Many times we are like the crowd, we seek Jesus, we even follow him, but we miss the message when the voice of God speaks and we fail to see Jesus right in front of us. And Jesus know this, and he prays for and dies for those who wish to see, those who are unable to see and those who do not yet know what it is they seek. Jesus prays for all, dies for all, for the whole world “and I when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” he tells the crowds knowing that they have already felt his pull even if they are missing exactly what is going on, even if they will only understand what he was telling them after his crucifixion when he was lifted up from the earth on the cross, and after his resurrection when he was lifted up from the earth by God and after his ascension when he was lifted up from the earth to be seated at the right hand of God. We wish to see Jesus We are drawn to him Like paperclips are drawn to a big magnate We feel the pull of one stronger than ourselves and Jesus calls us to himself, even if we are not prepared to see him as he truly is, even if we struggle to resist the temptations of the world, even if we balk at washing one another’s feet, even if we’re not sure of who Jesus is, Jesus draws us to himself offering life in the presence of God, eternal life, to all no questions asked, a gift of grace. We wish to see Jesus And Jesus prays for us and draws us to him In the waters of baptism, in the bread and wine at the table, in the words of scripture and the hymns, in our neighbors near and far Jesus is present So Come, come and see Jesus.
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Fourth Sunday in Lent
Numbers 21:4-9 Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 Ephesians 2:1-10 John 3:14-21 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who is unpredictable but always present and always faithful. Amen John 3:16, probably the most well-known Bible verse in the world and as such probably the most misused Bible verse in the world. Seen on signs at sporting events, or at protests, sadly usually held by people advocating hate, scrawled as graffiti or on billboards by the road John 3:16 has become shorthand for the idea that unless you believe in Jesus you’re going to hell. Frankly, I’ve never understood this evangelistic strategy using God’s ultimate act of love to inspire fear that leads to someone “accepting Jesus as their personal savior” so that the evangelist can add another tally mark in the “souls saved” column and all this happens because eternal life has been come to be understood as the reward of the next life after this life has been endured. I don’t know about you but that doesn’t sound like particularly good news to me. So what are we to do with John 3:16 and it’s offer of eternal life especially if that doesn’t mean going to heaven while everyone else goes to hell? We have to revise our understanding of what God’s love does and what is meant by salvation, that big loaded church word that gets tossed about all the time. When we take these questions to the Bible and begin to look through scripture we find this: that salvation is not seen as a future reward but a present way of life, to be saved is to live life in the presence of God. Each of our readings for this morning illustrates this view which can be summarized as: some ways lead to death, God’s way leads to life. Take for example our first reading from Numbers, this is the time in the story of the people of Israel where they are in between, God brought them out of Egypt but they are not yet at the promised land, they are wandering in the wilderness, and in the wilderness they’ve quickly forgotten just how hard life was in Egypt and they find ways to complain about everything to God and Moses culminating in this story where their complaints no longer make sense, there’s no food, there’s no water, and we hate this food that appears everyday they whine. And this seems to be the last straw for God, who sends poisonous serpents among the people who when they start dying from snake bites realize that they have sinned against God with their complaining so they go ask Moses to pray to God for them to take away the serpents, they wish to be saved from the serpents. And God delivers them, but not in the way that they expect, God tells Moses to make a serpent and put it on a pole and when someone is bit, if they look at the bronze serpent they will live and the thing that has been an instrument of judgment is now the instrument of salvation. God does not undo the snakes that the Israelites let loose in the world with their complaining, but God gives them a way to endure the consequences and now whether the snake means life or death depends on the actions of Israel, turning away from God leads to death, turning toward God leads to life. This still happens when we indulge in self-involved complaints or speak ill of another person, we unleash the poisonous serpents of words into the world that come back to bite us and when we realize our mistake and we confess to God and ask for forgiveness God does not undo what we unleashed on the world but God does forgives us and shows us a way to live that leads to healing and life. Some ways lead to death, God’s way leads to life. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians approaches things a little differently, Paul defines alive and dead not based on whether our heart is beating but on our relationship to God. Paul considers death being apart from God and life to be in the presence of God. The trouble is as humans we can’t seem to stop sinning and separating ourselves from God. In fact God knows that it is impossible for us to do and say all the right things that would lead to being in the presence of God, of bridging the gap between human and divine, so God takes care of it all for us. God works through Christ to make us alive, and through Christ brings us into the presence of God as a gift, and that gift becomes a reality for us when we trust that it is so and begin to live in the presence of God. We are saved by grace through faith. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” adding John 3:17 makes a difference God wants the same quality of life for all creation, abundant life lived in the presence of God and God offers this life to all, freely, it becomes a reality in our life when we trust the promise and begin to live in the presence of God and even this trust is a gift of God who continually reaches out to us, calling us, turning us toward God. But there’s still the talk of judgment in John and in this talk the point that John is trying to make takes us back to the image of the bronze serpent, remember how it became both an instrument of judgment and of salvation at the same time Depending on how the people related to the bronze serpent? That’s how the judgment John is talking about works Jesus lifted up on the cross an instrument of death becomes the way to life lived in the presence of God and whether Jesus means life or death, salvation or judgment depends how people relate to Jesus, turning to Jesus means life -life lived in the presence of God, turning away from Jesus means death- life lived apart from God. Salvation and judgment are present ongoing realities, and God is always reaching out, offering life abundant, to us and all creation and the way God reaches out is through us. When we share the good news of life lived in the presence of God with others, the loved God has for the world and we share it because we have experienced the gift of life that God has given us, we share it because we know that God offers that gift to everyone, no matter what snakes we’ve unleashed on the world, we know God will find a way for us to live with them and while that way is unpredictable, God is always present and always faithful. God’s way leads to life. Amen Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 20:1-17 Psalm 19 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 John 2:13-22 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ grace and peace to you from the one who is found among us. Amen Where do you go to find God? In Jesus’ day if you wanted to go spend time with God, you went to the temple in Jerusalem and the way you communicated with God was by offering a sacrifice, certain animals depending on what you wanted to say or if you were poor you could substitute some doves. That was it. Very clear. It all started back at Mt. Sinai when God claimed the Israelites as the people of God. This was particularly unusual at the time, People chose which God to pray to, usually the one thought to be most helpful in that moment, having troubles with your crops? Pray to the fertility goddess, need some help winning a battle? pray to the God of war and so on but God tells the people of Israel that from this point on God, I am who I am who appeared to Moses in a burning bush will be the God of the people and outlined how the relationship would work in the ten commandments. Fresh out of slavery from Egypt God gave the Israelites structure and direction for the newly freed life, life that had meaning because it was a life claimed by God and directed by laws written on stone tablets by the hand of God and brought down off the mountain by Moses. And these tablets came to signify not just the covenant between God and the people but also the place to find God. The tablets were placed in the ark of the covenant, (yes the one Indiana Jones was looking for) it was the home of God and because the Israelites were a nomadic people they carried the ark with them, wherever they went, even into battle, because it meant that God was present and if the ark was there, if God was present the Israelites would win, even against much larger armies. Eventually, 40 years later, the Israelites enter and settle into the promised land and once the question of leadership was settled King Solomon built a more permanent home for God, the temple in Jerusalem, which by all accounts would put the most baroque palace to shame, covered in gold and silver, the finest linens and most expensive decorations and that was where God lived, that was where God could be found. When the Babylonians came and conquered Israel and sent them into exile they destroyed the temple, but the tragedy of the Babylonian exile was not only that the people had lost the promised land but that the Israelites were physically separated from their God. Eventually the Israelites were allowed to return home, they were reunited with their God and they began rebuilding the temple, the home of God. All this to put in perspective what Jesus does in the temple today in our gospel lesson, he brings the whole system to a screeching halt, calls into question everything the temple stands for, interrupts people’s communication with God and when confronted makes the outrageous claim that if the temple were destroyed he could raise it in three days. That’s it, centuries, generations of tradition Wiped out with the crashing of a few tables And a wild claim to some priests. but in this claim Jesus shifts the location of God from the temple to himself. Jesus is the new temple, the new home of God. If you want to find God, know what God thinks, go to Jesus, if you want to talk to God, talk to Jesus because Jesus is where divine and human meet. This is the claim that John has been making since he started his gospel “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” God has gone from residing in the temple to residing in Jesus, as a human, with humans, experiencing all the joys and sorrows of what it means to be human even the experience of death, death on a cross, utter foolishness as our reading from 1 Corinthians puts it, and yet that foolishness is how God brought us back into a healed relationship between divine and human. It’s as simple as that, and of course more complex. Our relationship with God has been healed but as we have daily proof the perfection of the world has not yet come into fullness, those original covenant laws are broken daily. So where do we go to find God? Especially post ascension Some days it seems like God is both everywhere and nowhere at the same time. We go to Jesus who meets us at the font in the waters of baptism, who comes to us in the bread and wine of communion, his body and blood forgiving and strengthening us. Who speaks to us through the words of scripture and preaching. who makes himself available for us to serve in the bodies of the least of these, the hungry, poor, sick, imprisoned. And while it may not make sense according to our human wisdom this is how God has chosen to work in the world always present in and through us. Some days we may wish that it were as simple as offering a sacrifice at a temple, and other days we get distracted by life swirling around us and we fail to see Jesus right in front of us that is why our yearly calendar includes the season of Lent, the season that invites us to return to God, to become aware once again of the places God comes to us in our lives, to renew that covenant relationship and bask in the foolish love of God that makes us whole. To find Jesus among us. Amen |
AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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