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
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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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