Father & Son
Sunday, April 24th, 2005
Easter 5
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
John 14:1-14
The last few times I’ve heard this passage read has most likely been in the same context in which most of us in this room have heard it read: a funeral. The words certainly provide a measure of consolation in the midst of grieving the loss of a loved one. To have Christ himself say he is going ahead to prepare a place for us signals to us not only that we will be with him, but that there is in fact, something beyond the pall! Having said that, in order to begin at a place where the funerary connotation is avoided from the beginning, we need to sometimes hear the words in a different way, with a different cadence, as it were.
That is why I chose to read the passage out of ‘The Message’ this morning instead of the more familiar New Revised Standard version. As you may have heard me mention before, humans are nothing if not creatures of habit, and even to begin to hear a familiar passage in known and expected phrasing will sometimes cause us to shut down or shut out any new understanding that may result from a different reading.
So we are here, at the point in the Gospel of John where Jesus has just shared the last supper with the disciples. Judas has just left the room to meet with the high priest, and Peter has just sworn to never deny the Lord, to which Jesus has responded that before the night is out he’d do it three times. Though we are past Easter by almost a month, in the context of the reading, we are just heading into the passion and crucifixion.
THAT is the context with which we begin today’s reading. Jesus has just dropped a couple of bombs in the middle of the disciples’ lives, by telling them first that one of them will betray him, and second that another will deny him. They are scrambling to understand what he’s saying. And having heard him speak in parables before, their initial response seems to indicate that they are HOPING, anyway, that he may have been speaking to them in parables this time as well.
He’s not.
His words are of assurance and affirmation. “You trust God, don’t you?” The implication in the question is that “yes, of course we trust God.” His statements carry with them the weight of an empowerment … a blessing, if you will, at the same time calling out and bestowing what the disciples themselves did not realize they had … or would have, shortly.
It might be called a literary device used by John to emphasize the point: the fact that first Peter, then Thomas, and finally Phillip ask questions that serve only to allow Jesus to restate his answer three times, a number not lost on the early church or, I would hope, on us here today.
The point is taken, isn’t it? We have Jesus speaking of being in the Father, and referring to the comforter, that is, the Holy Spirit, who will follow his departure. John is making that necessary but difficult to understand point of Christian Doctrine: God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the three parts of the triune God; the three parts of the trinity.
The most significant difference between John and the other three gospels is …? Remember from last week? What phrase did Jesus use in referring to himself in the Gospel of John? “I AM.” In Greek, “Ego Emi” "the resurrection and the life" (11:25) — what we just read here: the "way, and the truth, and the life" (14:6)—and the "true vine" (15:1). Jesus is in many ways much more of a compelling figure in the Gospel of John, insofar as he speaks of himself. That may be why it has been common practice to have copies of the Gospel of John to hand out on evangelistic campaigns, or when visiting or canvassing an area … people get a glimpse of a Jesus who did not back away from the fact that he was God incarnate. Growing up, I never remember a time when we didn’t have at least one box of a couple of hundred copies of ‘El Evangelio Según San Juan’ (The Gospel according to St. John) sitting around. If beggars came to the door, we would regularly give them food, and more often than not we’d include a copy of the Gospel in the bag we gave them.
Back to the passage: Jesus is telling us that he is the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the father except by him. That is the one point of exclusivity of the Gospel. To some, it is a hard pill to swallow. We live in a world where the prevailing culture has presented a view of religion – not faith – and certainly not an ongoing relationship with the living God -- as universally adequate. “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe”. On some level, that is true. But only in the sense that it is better for our spiritual and emotional, and even physical health to hold some things as core values, as a centering point for our souls.
But what can make us uncomfortable in the face of that broadcasting of the net … is that Jesus didn’t say that. His contention was, at this point, exclusive. But his emphasis was on the ME part, not on the NO ONE, or on the EXCEPT. He’s in the middle of trying to explain the fact that he and God the Father are one, and by implication, the Holy Spirit as well.
So what do we do with that? What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church in Emmerton?
This is, again, the basics of the Good News – the Gospel of Jesus Christ – that God was in Christ reconciling the world to God’s self. This is instruction for us. This is fundamental. It leads into what Paul later called “foolishness to man”.
So in a sense it is a sendoff. A commissioning snuck in before the great commission we find at the beginning of Acts. Jesus is telling US – yes, he was talking to men and women two thousand years ago, but his words apply to us as well – we are his disciples today.
Jesus tells Phillip and the others they will do “Greater things” than even HE, JESUS himself, had done.
So we shrink back from that, don’t we? Can we truly imagine ourselves doing greater things than Christ himself? Humanly speaking, it’s impossible. To be honest, I don’t know if Christ was including in that his acts of healing and miracles. Perhaps, if the need arises, we would find ourselves calming the storm or healing a paralytic. I don’t know. I suspect that where we find ourselves doing greater things is in the living out of our allegiance, our devotion, our surrender to Christ. In doing that, in allowing him to live through us, we become him.
On some level, it is simple math: there are more of us, so there is more of HIM.
We are getting ready to send one of our own out to do that this week. She’s flying out on Tuesday to be Christ’s presence to the women and families whose husbands and sons and brothers are here working.
Leslie, could you please come to the front?
(Prayer of commissioning)
May the Lord bless you and keep you
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you
And be gracious unto you.
May God give you grace never to sell yourself short,
Grace to risk something big for something good,
Grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth,
And too small for anything but love.
So may God take your mind and think through it,
May God take your lips and speak through them,
May God take your heart and set it on fire
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Sunday, April 24th, 2005
Easter 5
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
John 14:1-14
1 "Don't let this throw you. You trust God, don't you? Trust me. 2 There is plenty of room for you in my Father's home. If that weren't so, would I have told you that I'm on my way to get a room ready for you? 3 And if I'm on my way to get your room ready, I'll come back and get you so you can live where I live. 4 And you already know the road I'm taking." 5 Thomas said, "Master, we have no idea where you're going. How do you expect us to know the road?" 6 Jesus said, "I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You've even seen him!" 8 Philip said, "Master, show us the Father; then we'll be content." 9 "You've been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don't understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can you ask, 'Where is the Father?' 10 Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you aren't mere words. I don't just make them up on my own. The Father who resides in me crafts each word into a divine act. 11 "Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can't believe that, believe what you see - these works. 12 The person who trusts me will not only do what I'm doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I've been doing. You can count on it. 13 From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I'll do it. That's how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. 14 Whatever you request in this way, I'll do.
The last few times I’ve heard this passage read has most likely been in the same context in which most of us in this room have heard it read: a funeral. The words certainly provide a measure of consolation in the midst of grieving the loss of a loved one. To have Christ himself say he is going ahead to prepare a place for us signals to us not only that we will be with him, but that there is in fact, something beyond the pall! Having said that, in order to begin at a place where the funerary connotation is avoided from the beginning, we need to sometimes hear the words in a different way, with a different cadence, as it were.
That is why I chose to read the passage out of ‘The Message’ this morning instead of the more familiar New Revised Standard version. As you may have heard me mention before, humans are nothing if not creatures of habit, and even to begin to hear a familiar passage in known and expected phrasing will sometimes cause us to shut down or shut out any new understanding that may result from a different reading.
So we are here, at the point in the Gospel of John where Jesus has just shared the last supper with the disciples. Judas has just left the room to meet with the high priest, and Peter has just sworn to never deny the Lord, to which Jesus has responded that before the night is out he’d do it three times. Though we are past Easter by almost a month, in the context of the reading, we are just heading into the passion and crucifixion.
THAT is the context with which we begin today’s reading. Jesus has just dropped a couple of bombs in the middle of the disciples’ lives, by telling them first that one of them will betray him, and second that another will deny him. They are scrambling to understand what he’s saying. And having heard him speak in parables before, their initial response seems to indicate that they are HOPING, anyway, that he may have been speaking to them in parables this time as well.
He’s not.
His words are of assurance and affirmation. “You trust God, don’t you?” The implication in the question is that “yes, of course we trust God.” His statements carry with them the weight of an empowerment … a blessing, if you will, at the same time calling out and bestowing what the disciples themselves did not realize they had … or would have, shortly.
It might be called a literary device used by John to emphasize the point: the fact that first Peter, then Thomas, and finally Phillip ask questions that serve only to allow Jesus to restate his answer three times, a number not lost on the early church or, I would hope, on us here today.
The point is taken, isn’t it? We have Jesus speaking of being in the Father, and referring to the comforter, that is, the Holy Spirit, who will follow his departure. John is making that necessary but difficult to understand point of Christian Doctrine: God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the three parts of the triune God; the three parts of the trinity.
The most significant difference between John and the other three gospels is …? Remember from last week? What phrase did Jesus use in referring to himself in the Gospel of John? “I AM.” In Greek, “Ego Emi” "the resurrection and the life" (11:25) — what we just read here: the "way, and the truth, and the life" (14:6)—and the "true vine" (15:1). Jesus is in many ways much more of a compelling figure in the Gospel of John, insofar as he speaks of himself. That may be why it has been common practice to have copies of the Gospel of John to hand out on evangelistic campaigns, or when visiting or canvassing an area … people get a glimpse of a Jesus who did not back away from the fact that he was God incarnate. Growing up, I never remember a time when we didn’t have at least one box of a couple of hundred copies of ‘El Evangelio Según San Juan’ (The Gospel according to St. John) sitting around. If beggars came to the door, we would regularly give them food, and more often than not we’d include a copy of the Gospel in the bag we gave them.
Back to the passage: Jesus is telling us that he is the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the father except by him. That is the one point of exclusivity of the Gospel. To some, it is a hard pill to swallow. We live in a world where the prevailing culture has presented a view of religion – not faith – and certainly not an ongoing relationship with the living God -- as universally adequate. “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe”. On some level, that is true. But only in the sense that it is better for our spiritual and emotional, and even physical health to hold some things as core values, as a centering point for our souls.
But what can make us uncomfortable in the face of that broadcasting of the net … is that Jesus didn’t say that. His contention was, at this point, exclusive. But his emphasis was on the ME part, not on the NO ONE, or on the EXCEPT. He’s in the middle of trying to explain the fact that he and God the Father are one, and by implication, the Holy Spirit as well.
So what do we do with that? What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church in Emmerton?
This is, again, the basics of the Good News – the Gospel of Jesus Christ – that God was in Christ reconciling the world to God’s self. This is instruction for us. This is fundamental. It leads into what Paul later called “foolishness to man”.
So in a sense it is a sendoff. A commissioning snuck in before the great commission we find at the beginning of Acts. Jesus is telling US – yes, he was talking to men and women two thousand years ago, but his words apply to us as well – we are his disciples today.
Jesus tells Phillip and the others they will do “Greater things” than even HE, JESUS himself, had done.
So we shrink back from that, don’t we? Can we truly imagine ourselves doing greater things than Christ himself? Humanly speaking, it’s impossible. To be honest, I don’t know if Christ was including in that his acts of healing and miracles. Perhaps, if the need arises, we would find ourselves calming the storm or healing a paralytic. I don’t know. I suspect that where we find ourselves doing greater things is in the living out of our allegiance, our devotion, our surrender to Christ. In doing that, in allowing him to live through us, we become him.
On some level, it is simple math: there are more of us, so there is more of HIM.
We are getting ready to send one of our own out to do that this week. She’s flying out on Tuesday to be Christ’s presence to the women and families whose husbands and sons and brothers are here working.
Leslie, could you please come to the front?
(Prayer of commissioning)
May the Lord bless you and keep you
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you
And be gracious unto you.
May God give you grace never to sell yourself short,
Grace to risk something big for something good,
Grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth,
And too small for anything but love.
So may God take your mind and think through it,
May God take your lips and speak through them,
May God take your heart and set it on fire
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
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