Why Do You Believe?


Sunday, April 23 2006
Easter 2B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
John 20:19-31

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” 26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” [PAUSE] 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

It’d been fourteen years. For someone who is 42, fourteen years is still a pretty long time. I’m beginning to gain a sense of perspective on it, but it still represents a pretty sizeable chunk of my time so far on earth.

I shared with some of you some of my fears in traveling to Chile at the beginning of the month, being worried about feeling out of place, of being disconnected, of no longer feeling like I did while I was growing up there – as though it was the most natural thing in the world for me to be there – that I BELONGED there.

That was why it was with an incredible sense of relief that I walked out of the customs area of the airport and started walking along the concourse without seeing my brother Jimmy in the crowd. I wasn’t worried. I knew where I was, I knew I could find my way, and I knew where I needed to go if for some reason they weren’t able to get to the airport.

They came through the doors I was approaching and we climbed into the van they came in and started back towards Santiago. They were in and out of the parking lot in less than 15 minutes.

Digital cameras have done wonders for my picture-taking. Ours is about 4 years old. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that high-end cameras do, but it does have one really cool thing that we found early on. When you take a picture, the image stays on the viewfinder screen for about 10 seconds. In that time, you can review your shot and decide if you want to keep it or not. If you don’t, there’s a button just to the right of the display window that serves a dual function – it will help you white balance, if you are using the camera in anything other than the automatic mode, and it will, with a single push of the button, let you decide if you want to keep the picture you just took. If you don’t, all you do is push the ‘set’ button at the lower left and the picture … goes away.

The settings on the camera allowed for four hundred and four pictures to fit on the memory card we have in it. When I left for Chile on the fifth of April I had room for three hundred and eighty-five pictures, since I’d forgotten to download the pictures we’d taken at Caleb and the other second graders’ performance at school the Monday night before I left.

You’d think that would be more than enough room to take all the pictures I wanted, wouldn’t you? You’d be right, THIS time. I did have a few frames left when I got back, but it was less than 70, if memory serves. I took some … shall we say “interesting” pictures while I was there. I took pictures of cars in traffic, blurred shots of city parks as we drove by, a street vendor selling ‘barquillos’ – a baked tube similar to an ice cream cone in texture with ‘manjar’ – caramelized sweetened condensed milk – packed in the middle of it. I took sequential pictures of a trolley climbing up to the observation area on San Cristobal Hill, overlooking the city, so that if you click through them really fast you can see the car climbing towards you. Never mind that the camera HAS a video setting, where I could have ACTUALLY recorded the trolley COMING up the hill.

I also took some other pictures that are a little harder to explain. I took pictures of the church where my friend and fellow MK Todd and his wife attended the funeral of their two year old daughter after she drowned in their pool right before Christmas of 1999. I took pictures of my feet walking on the sidewalks of my old neighborhood. I took pictures of the bell tower of the catholic church that is two blocks from where we used to live, as I approached our old house, I also took pictures of the block in FRONT of our house, which used to be full of older apartment buildings, stores, several houses and a theatre. The entire block has been razed. They are getting to build something else, most likely a couple of larger, taller apartment buildings. I took pictures of the view from the front of our house up the street, towards the park, where the weekly open air market – the feria – came and set up, and I took pictures of the mountains I grew up with as a constant backdrop, always reminding me that there was something bigger out there than me.

And I took a couple of pictures of myself reflected back in a convex mirror that had been set up so that people pulling out of their driveways could see if someone was coming down the street or the sidewalk.

You see, it’d been so long, and my sense of connection with Chile had grown so tenuous that I wanted to have some kind of proof that I had actually BEEN there. So I have this picture of a mirror, with the blue sky behind it, and me reflected in it, holding the camera.

Proof is a big deal when it comes to some things. Proof was a big deal to Thomas. Actor and Playwright Craig McNair Wilson put it this way:

If Thomas were alive today, [he’d be from] Missouri. His favorite phrases were, “Oh Yah?” and, Really?” and “”You’re kiddin’!” Some folks believe anything they hear. Not Thomas. He wanted a second opinion. He wanted to hear it from a more reliable source. Thomas also said, “Seeing is believing.” When Thomas finally saw Jesus – after the resurrection – Jesus said, “Not seeing, yet believing – that’s believing!” (YHWH Is Not a Radio Station in Minneapolis And Other Things Everyone Should Know, Harper & Rowe, San Francisco, 1983)

Let’s unpack the story a little more. Last week we read from the gospel according to Mark that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome …

“went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Remember, we talked about that being the place where it seems like the earliest rendition of the Gospel according to Mark ended? There were no resurrection appearances, there was no Emmaus Road, no Peter running to the tomb … and no Thomas.

Here today we jump straight TO that story. John goes directly from the scene at the tomb, much richer in detail and dialogue than the Mark account, and puts us in the upper room with the disciples, who are still quaking in their sandals in fear of the Jews – the ones who had just worked it so that their master, their Rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, would be crucified and killed, and as far as they knew, was still laying in the tomb. It bears mentioning that even though the disciples had been told that Jesus had arisen, that news alone had not transformed them. They had received the word from the women after THEY left the tomb, but that could be explained away as a hysterical hallucination. The empty tomb could just as well be the work of grave robbers.

And in that first appearance, Thomas was not there.

Right there we need to stop. I suspect we have more in common with Thomas than we might care to admit, but here is one thing that is fairly objective – in other words, neither here nor there on the value judgment scale – let’s have a show of hands, was anyone in this room present at this first appearance of Christ after his resurrection? See? We, like Thomas, were not there when Jesus first appeared to his disciples. So is it any wonder that we encounter some of those same reactions that Thomas had when we present the story of the Gospel to an otherwise unbelieving world?

How is it then, WHY is it that we believe? Or do we?

Thomas’ response to the reports from his fellow disciples – and their response to HIM – would serve us well as an example of how to treat skeptics in our midst. In the other three Gospels, Thomas is simply named among the other disciples as they are listed. In John, we have his character developed in a way that prepares us for this scene: in 11:16, after Lazarus has died, Thomas is almost as impulsive as Peter has been shown to be, encouraging his fellow disciples to go with Jesus to where Lazarus is buried so that they, too, can die with him, in order to believe. In 14:5, after Jesus has told the disciples to not worry, that he is going to prepare a place for them, Thomas comes out with the classic thick-headed response – we don’t KNOW where you’re going, how are we supposed to know that? In short, we have a picture of a man who was loyal to a fault – doggedly loyal is the way the commentator put it – willing to die for his Master, and somewhat slow on the uptake when Jesus started speaking in conceptual terms rather than concrete ones. Thomas was nothing if not literal-minded.

What is interesting to note is that, despite his disbelief of their report of Jesus’ having appeared to them, Thomas was still part of the fellowship a week later, when Jesus made his second appearance. To be honest, I would think most of the other disciples probably recognize that, had THEY not been in the room when it happened and seen him with THEIR own eyes, their reaction to the news would have been similar if not the same as Thomas’.

And then there’s the conclusion to the passage. Most of us know it by heart. Jesus answers Thomas’ request to put his fingers and hand inside the wounds he bore by walking right up TO Thomas and saying “Okay. Go for it. Here they are, have at it.” Thomas’ confession is recorded with no mention of whether or not he actually touched Jesus. It would seem that it is NOT necessary, after all, to actually touch the wounds in order to believe.

Jesus’ question to Thomas after his resounding confession – “My Lord and My God!” – is one that we are confronted with in some cases each day of our lives. “Have you believed because you have seen me?”

The blessing is for us to receive in Christ’s next statement: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

So let’s go back to the original question: Why Do YOU Believe?

Can you say you have not seen Jesus?

In Matthew 25 Jesus tells us that when we feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome a stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit those in prison, we are doing it to HIM, not just those who are at that moment suffering.

And if, at some point in your life, you have received that presence through a visit, through a gift, through a meal, a drink, a word of welcome, can YOU truly say you did not see Christ in that person, offering that grace in the name of our Lord?

Can you truly say you have not seen Jesus?

Jesus was letting the disciples know, in these appearances, that although he was in fact still the same person they had known and followed for the previous three years, their relationship was changing – he had been, up until the day before – a physical presence, someone with whom they could sit and speak face to face, toe to toe, eye to eye. For these few brief days and weeks, Jesus continued to interact with them on that level, but in the course of that time, he was making it clearer and clearer to them that he was now more than he had been – as Thomas confessed – he was now Lord and God.

As the Gospel spread, more and more people who had never had a chance to meet Jesus personally, as the disciples had, came to believe. Think about it, all these people believing in a man they’d never met, whom they wouldn’t recognize even if he DID appear to them, but who they accepted … on faith … as their Lord and Savior.

Is it that different for us today? Whether you find it easy or hard to believe, there’s a place for you. Perhaps you’ll step into our midst and say ‘I have to put my finger … there before I believe.’ That’s okay. Or maybe you’ll step into our midst and come right out with ‘My Lord and My God!’ … and that is welcomed as well. Either way, just like Thomas, Jesus will meet you where you are.

Let’s pray.

The Sabbath is Over


Sunday, April 16th, 2006
Easter
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Mark 16:1-8

1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

The Gospel according to Mark is a challenge in many ways. It is blunt. It’s almost staccato-paced delivery is short on style as well as abrupt in manner. Read through the text and you will find more uses of the word ‘immediately’ within the span of the 16 chapters than in any of the other gospel accounts. Mark is not nearly as well written as is Matthew, nor as detailed as Luke, nor as theologically profound as John.

What Mark DOES have is immediacy. There is a sense as you read it that you are almost right there, in the middle of the action, as it were. It’s a short read. It can be read from beginning to end in the course of a couple of hours, at most, usually less.

So the writer has told the story up to this point, zapping Jesus here and there throughout Galilee and Judea, healing, preaching, teaching and walking, always walking. It stands to reason, actually, since, other than an occasional boat trip or a ride on a horse, or a donkey, walking was THE primary form of locomotion in first century Palestine.

And the style of writing doesn’t actually change as it draws to the end of the story.

There’re some pretty interesting things going on at the end of the Gospel of Mark. With the version authorized by King James at the beginning of the 17th century, scholars of the day who worked on that first English translation of the scriptures worked with the manuscripts they had available at the time. Those they had at their disposal included the text of the Gospel through verse 20 of chapter 16. Since that time, Biblical scholars have approached the text in different ways, in addition, further discoveries have uncovered earlier manuscripts than the ones with which scholars were working at the turn of the 1600’s.

The oldest manuscripts that have been found of the Gospel of Mark ALL end with the last verse I read a couple of minutes ago.

8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

It is, don’t you think, something of an inauspicious ending to the greatest story ever told? It doesn’t have the sweeping majesty we find in the Great Commission at the end of Matthew, or the fantastic scene of Jesus being taken up into heaven we have at the end of Luke, or the oddly introspective comments at the end of John – about the fact that Jesus did many other things, and that if they were all written down, the world could not hold all the books that would be written.

Mark is generally agreed to be the earliest Gospel written. It was put down in writing between 50 and 70 AD, in other words, within the generation following Jesus’ public ministry, death and resurrection. The person who wrote it is most likely the person who actually lived through the events described. It almost has the feel of someone trying to put everything down before they forget it, in some ways. It’s a very human rendition of the story of Jesus; a very earthy tale of a sometimes unearthly series of events.

So let’s just take at face value for a while, the assertion of Biblical scholars that the last twelve verses of Mark were not there during the first, say, fifty to a hundred years that the gospel was being copied and circulated around and read to the groups of believers who were popping out all over the middle east and southeastern Europe.

What kind of an ending is that?
What kind of an ending is that?
What kind of an ending is THAT?

There’re are no resurrection appearances, there’s no doubting Thomas saying he’ll believe only when he can place his hand in Jesus’ pierced side, and put his fingers in the nail holes in Jesus’ hands. There’s no Peter running to the tomb, to be confronted by Jesus. There’s no gathering of followers, or a mention of Jesus’ appearing to more than 500 of them before his ascension. There’re no travelers on the road to Emmaus meeting up with Jesus and having their hearts burning within them as they listen to him explain the scriptures.

Nope. None of that. Mark is not interested in making the telling of the Gospel literature. He is more interested, it seems, in getting the stories down in such a way that the reader, or the listener, is confronted in as close a way as possible with that with which the writer himself was confronted – not just with the Christ who practically ran from town to town, faced down injustice, hatred, prejudice, sin, and showed through his acts and words what God wanted for this world from the beginning, and for US – his children, from OUR beginning, but also with the RISEN Christ. Who through that single act proved all he’d said to be true.

I think the writer of Gospel meant for the telling to end that way: abruptly, suddenly, without warning, without flourish, without fanfare, without any of the usual clues you’d get if you were simply reading the story.

But it changes if you read it as a part of an ongoing story … a story that really HASN’T finished … it hadn’t finished when the first author dictated the last word back 20 or 30 years after Jesus’ resurrection, the writer knew that the people who would hear the gospel read to them would readily step up and continue to tell the rest of the story. What had happened SINCE the women fled from the cemetery, the first evangelists with the news that Christ had risen, that he was going to meet them in Galilee … only THEY, the readers, and hearers, would insert the name of the place THEY met Christ at that point in the story. For some, Christ met them right there in Jerusalem, on the day of Pentecost, for others, it was 15 years after that event, somewhere on the coast of Syria, or on one of the Greek Islands, or in the interior of Turkey, or in Damascus, or on Crete, or Cyprus, or in Rome.

You see, the Gospel writer didn’t want to tie everything up in a neat little package because his experience of Jesus was anything BUT a neat little package.

This past Thursday afternoon I drove to the airport in Richmond and dropped off a package, a manila envelope that held some letters and other documents that needed to get to Chimalhuacan, Mexico. I came home that evening and began tracking it online. It left Richmond that evening, was in Ohio just after midnight, and by midmorning the next day it was in Mexico City. It is now just a few miles from its final destination. It’s amazing how manageable a neat little package is if you know what to do with it.

As humans, we have a tendency to think that if we understand something, then, what is the term? If you know something inside and out, you are considered to have MASTERED the subject. The Gospel of Mark makes it clear that what he lived through was something that, though experienced, did not lend itself to complete understanding, did not submit to being ‘known’ in the fullest sense of the word – though God DID make God’s self known THROUGH Christ, at some point this side of heaven we cease to understand. And that point came this past Friday. When the package we thought we understood, the package of platitudes and good thoughts and reasonable and appropriate ideas on treating others with respect and kindness, and standing up to falsehood and vanity and pride and whatever other sin you’d like to fill in, all that fell away when Jesus took the cross upon himself and told the writer and the readers “this is for you, THIS is how much the Father loves you”.

And he did away with our need to meet requirements, to fulfill expectations, to follow a set of laws in order to be acceptable to God. The children he so deeply loved had been struggling – for centuries – to reach across an infinite gap. A gap so deep and so wide that only God God’s self was able to cross it – through the cross.

The radical Gospel of Jesus is that the Sabbath is over. There is no need for a sacrifice that was completed once and for all time. There is no need to meet strict rules of cleanliness and holiness because we take on Christ’s own holiness when we ask him to be Lord of our lives.

The cost of following is another thing. Salvation is the gift, discipleship is the cost, but it is in no way a hidden cost, unless you come into the relationship unwilling to accept the consequences of MAKING Christ what the word means – LORD of your life. Christ calls us to a life of service, of sacrifice, of giving, and of loving.

So what does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we need to live out the fullness of what it means to say that the Sabbath is truly over – we need to get rid of any vestige we may cling to of trying to somehow EARN our way to worthiness. I can say with full confidence that there is not a single one of us in this room who has gained worthiness of salvation through being a good person, through being involved in church all our lives, through memorizing passage after passage of scripture, or better yet, through memorizing all the hymns in the 1956 Baptist Hymnal (except for the third verses, of course).

It means that we rest – we rest in the assurance of pardon that we find through Christ, we rest in the knowledge that God loved us so much that God made himself human in order to be with us, and call us to God’s self.

A short while ago we shared in the baptism of Brandon Harcum. As Baptists, we do not believe that the act of baptism itself is anything other than an outward representation of what the inward self has done – died to the world, and risen in Christ – it is an echo of the resurrection of Christ himself. It is a commemoration, a signal event in the life of the believer. It marks a continuing, public commitment to follow Christ. The observance of the ordinance gives us an opportunity to reflect, to ponder, to review our own commitment made when WE followed Christ in asking him to be Lord of our lives. While the waters themselves hold no power, we do want to make that same water available to you at the conclusion of the service in these two bowls on the communion table. The invitation is to come forward and, whether with a brief prayer, or by dipping the tips of your fingers in the water and returning to your seats, you can, IF YOU WOULD LIKE, make a publicly quiet statement of your faith. I realize that this is not a very Baptist thing to do, and it’s not. But we want to recognize the need to publicly profess a faith that we sometimes practice a little too privately.

Aside from that, our invitation time is, as always, an invitation to make a decision public that you’ve already made in private, whether during this service or before; to ask Christ to be Lord of your life, to join with this family of faith on the journey to which Christ has called us, or to work at putting aside our own Sabbaths, whatever they may be.

I will be standing at the front if you would like to come share that decision with me or with the congregation.

Please stand and sing our hymn of invitation, Oh How I love Jesus.


WORDS OF DISMISSAL

Now you are freed,
Let loose
Upon and unsuspecting world
That assumed
Nothing happens here.

The music sung
The preacher has said the best he can
The clock has rounded its circuit
And now no further conformity
Restrains you.

The world waits
With nonchalant welcome,
Not knowing that
You reached for
And touched
GOD!

And now you are free,
Let loose
To break upon the earth
With a Holy surprise.

Heart Cries, Heart Prayers


Sunday, April 2nd, 2006
Lent 5B, Evening Lenten Community Service
Warsaw United Methodist Church, Warsaw
Psalm 51:1-12

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

It was late March, 1988, near as I can remember. The text was Luke 15, the story of the man with two sons. That is how Jesus introduces the parable: “There was a man who had two sons” … it’s commonly known as the parable of the prodigal son … but the main character is the father.

The speaker was Steve Shoemaker; the location was Crescent Hill Baptist Church, on Frankfort Avenue in Louisville, KY. That morning, the worship service seemed to have zeroed in on me personally, for the full hour and fifteen minutes that it lasted. I was not raised in a tradition that observed or practiced worship liturgy in the sense that we are observing this evening – the prayers, the collect, the confession, the pastoral prayer, in Chilean Baptist tradition, you start the service with a 45 minute song service, followed by a 45 minute prayer service, and ending with an hour or more preaching service. So when I began attending Crescent Hill, and joined in the congregational prayers and readings, and listening to the pastoral prayers intentionally crafted to address the needs of the congregation, they struck a chord deep inside, and on that particular morning the worship seemed to be tuned to my heart specifically.

***

Don’t you think it’s interesting that in the Psalm, the writer does not specifically name his or her sin? Yes, we have the superscription, the explanatory subtitle assigning it to David, as having been written by him after Nathan exposed him to himself with regards to the adulterous affair he had with Bathsheba, which we can find in all it’s sordid detail in 2 Samuel 12, but in the text of the psalm itself, there is no spelling out of what sin the author has committed. What is most evident in the reading of the psalm is that the author is VERY aware of the WRONGNESS of what he has done, of the RIGHTNESS with which God would judge, and the inevitability of that judgment.

We speak of hellfire and brimstone preaching, and in some circles, it is frowned on … even demeaned, made fun of. While it is not “my cup of tea”, there is something to be said for it. It makes us aware, if we are at a place where it touches on our life, of just how slimy we can be. Of just how broken we are. Of just how far from the mark we can fall. We are very good at separating our actions and motives from those we observe in others, however similar the outcome may be. We leave the timber in our own eyes to point out the splinter in our brothers’ and sisters’.

We all judge. As much as we may fight against it, and even train ourselves not to, we stratify ourselves and those around us. Just listen, sometime, to the inner dialogue that takes place while we’re watching the news on TV, or listening to it on the radio, or reading the story in the paper. The dialogue is usually sprinkled liberally with phrases like “I would never” … “what were they thinking?” … “I can’t imagine…” … “If they’d only STOPPED …”

There’s an element of objectivity that we can all develop, that we can all employ, but there is an equally strong element of SUBjectivity to which we are all susceptible, of which we are not necesarilly aware, which plays into our sense of self-worth, to boost our ego, more often than not. It plays itself out most readily when we try to rationalize something we want to do but are less than certain of its ethicality, to not say outright sure of it being the WRONG thing to do. And yet we do it.

And that is where the author of the Psalm was on point when he did not mention the sin. He did not mention it because the sin itself was immaterial. The attitude TOWARD the sin, the fact that it was recognized that, as John Durham wrote,

“Whatever its motivation, its passion, its effect, in self and in others, it is always basically and finally a sin against God, against God alone. As it is God who is the norm and reason for humanity’s righteousness, so it is God against whom every sin is an attack, to whom every sin is an affront. This is not to say, of course, that no others are hurt by the sin, one’s self, indeed most damaged of all. It is to say that whatever the harm to neighbor or self, it is God who suffers most of all and always … it anticipates the concept of the Servant-Redeemer who suffers, and indeed Christ’s death on Calvary as well.”

The writer knows God. One might argue the fact, based on the acts, if they were noted, but they are not. So we find ourselves sneaking our own experience into the text. “THAT’S how I feel about having done thus and such or about having said this and that … about NOT having spoken up in that meeting when I KNEW I should have …” it is that element of universality that draws us into the Psalmist’s lament.

How do we know he knows God? It’s in the first verse of the prayer:

“According to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy” …

This person knew whom he was approaching … and knew the condition in which he was approaching. If it WAS David, then he realized how horribly he had acted. When it IS us, then we are so very, very aware of just how much wrong we’ve done. And yet, we call on the goodness of God, on the love and mercy of the one who made us and called us his own.

What is it that brings us to the point of recognizing our sinfulness? A dear friend quoted a saying to me earlier this week: “when you get to the end of your rope, you tie a knot and hang on”. It is a somewhat overused and trite saying, but only for those who have not felt that scratchy, rough rope slipping through their hands at what sometimes feels like an ever-increasing speed.

Several months ago, I was driving to one of our Hispanic friend’s house in the Hague area, and as I turned down her road, I noticed a woman walking toward the main highway. After stopping at the destination, I headed back up the road, and passed the same woman walking determinedly towards the highway. I stopped and asked if I could give her a ride anywhere. She asked if I would take her to the gas station just a few miles down the road. As we drove down the road, I found out that the reason she was going there was to try and find a ride into Richmond for an urgent errand. As it worked out, I was able to free up the afternoon and make that run with her. She was at the end of HER rope, and by stepping out and walking down that road, God set in motion a way to bring her some relief. The conversation to and from Richmond ranged the gamut of human experience, from the joys and frustrations of child rearing to the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’, as Shakespeare wrote.

I think we all have similar stories to tell – times when we weren’t planning on being somewhere, or doing something, and yet, in finding ourselves in that particular place at that particular time, we end up being in the presence of Grace, or if we are fortunate, we find ourselves being the CONDUIT of that Grace, or maybe even, possibly, if we are VERY fortunate, the RECIPIENTS of that Grace.

It is comforting to me to know that King David is still considered the greatest king Israel ever had. He is still referred to as ‘A man after God’s own heart.’ Sometimes we stop and shake our heads … and wonder how that could apply – after some of the things David did … not just the episode here ascribed, but other things as well, the rages, the murders, the lying … you wonder if God might have set the bar a little low by setting the definition by David.

That was what I experienced that Sunday morning in the spring of 1988. As Steve told the story of the prodigal son, the dialogue that was going on inside me was one that more closely followed the psalmist’s plea as we’ve read here tonight. I was made aware in the course of that hour that it was God whom I’d sinned against, ultimately. It was God from whom I needed to seek forgiveness, in addition to setting things right in the relationships involved. “And when his son was still a long way off, the father saw him and ran to him and threw his arms around him” and covered his face with kisses … and the calf was slaughtered, and the celebration ensued…

The truth is, David isn’t the one defining who is a person after God’s own heart. He’s just an example. The point of the moniker is to highlight the fact that we can all be ‘after God’s own heart’ – whatever our particular mistake, misstep, error in judgment, loss of perspective, however we want to euphemize our sin, we find ourselves approaching the presence of the Holy one and seeking forgiveness and redemption. We all have the chance to utter this cry, this prayer from our heart of hearts – our ‘secret heart’ as the psalmist wrote.

And the mystery is that we can, and the mystery is that God will, and the holiness of the moment is translated into joy and gladness, cleansing, and communion.

Lets pray.

A Kind of Death


Sunday, April 2nd, 2006
Lent 5B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
John 12:20-36

20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. 27 “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. 34 The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” 35 Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.

Did you notice it as you came in this morning? Sometime during the day on Thursday or Friday, our Easter harbinger, that little sparrow that makes her home on whatever wreath happens to be hanging on the front left door settled in for the next few weeks. I had started to wonder if she might not come back this year, since she’d been here earlier, it seems, the last couple of years. No eggs yet, but the nest went up in record time.

Have you enjoyed the warming days, the sunshine, the blooming trees and flowers? I realize for some of us with seasonal allergies, spring is a mixed blessing, but I guess we can’t have everything, huh?

Watching the fields start to turn green with the shoots coming up, when just a few weeks ago they were brown and bare, and the trees likewise, watching bare scraggly branches grow heavier and heavier and fuller and fuller with buds of leaves and flowers makes a clear parallel with what our passage includes this morning. Jesus is presented with a request from the Hellenized Jews – that is, Jews who lived outside the Palestinian homeland of the people of Israel, who had been raised exposed to the prevailing culture of the previous several centuries – the Greeks – one which still, in Jesus’ day, and in decreasing increments over the next three hundred years, would influence the ROMAN culture, they have come asking for an audience with Jesus.

Who they direct the request THROUGH is telling – Philip first and then Andrew, whose names were both Greek, and who were both from Bethsaida, a town that, though within the borders of Palestine, was nonetheless a Hellenized city – it was on the northern boundary with Syria, and because of that proximity to such a strongly Hellenized culture, it had become Hellenized as well.

What’s interesting about the encounter is that we’re never told if Jesus met with them or not. The gospel is silent with respect to the question of whether or not these particular Greeks met Jesus. Instead, we are given Jesus’ response to the request – “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” – the thing is, that glorification he was talking about was not what we would normally consider a glorification – were we coming from a worldly perspective – he was not made famous through the adulation of crowds, through becoming the political and military leader of the people of Israel, through the defeating and eviction of an occupying army, but through his loneliness and isolation – and ultimate rejection – from his own people.

Jesus was glorified – and the world was judged – by and through his death.

That would seem, as Paul said, to be foolishness to the gentiles, and a stumbling block to the Jew.

In all honesty, it WOULD seem to be that. Think about it. How could the execution – as a common criminal – of the leader of a scruffy band of religious nuts possibly have any lasting impact on the world? It would stand SOLIDLY to reason that once the event was done and over with it would be left behind in the rapidly-fading dustbins of history.

What was different about this, then? What made it significant? What set Jesus apart from all the other religious zealots who came before him and who appeared after him?

Just this: Jesus was who he said he was.

As I’ve said before, if we are to hold to the central truth of the Christian faith, it is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to God’s self, and that manner of reconciliation was through his self-offering, God’s self-sacrifice in Jesus, God’s building the bridge that spanned the gap between God and humanity so that the relationship could be reestablished. God made a way for us to once again encounter the creator of the universe in a personal way, to walk together side by side.

24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Here’s a perfect picture of the reason Christ died – not JUST for his own people – the Jews, but also for the rest of the world. That was why it wasn’t so important to know whether or not those Greeks that came looking for Jesus at the beginning of the passage spoke to him or not – it was in his answer – in his description of the death of a seed – something we see evidence of all around us as spring … SPRINGS forth – all around us… Jesus died in order that ALL might receive salvation through him.

Jesus wasn’t speaking, though, only of HIS OWN death. He was speaking of the nature of discipleship. What it means to follow Christ. We read a similar passage a few weeks ago, from Mark 8, and indeed, it’s a recurring theme not only in the Gospels, but in Paul’s writings as well. To die to self, to give up one’s own life for the life of others, for the life of Christ, is the daily office, if you will, of a disciple, of a follower of Christ.

In describing it as his own death, Christ ended up confounding those who were listening to him. The concept just couldn’t be grasped by the ones who had spent so many years looking for one thing, only to be faced with the very thing they were looking for – in a form completely the opposite of what they were expecting.

32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

When Jesus said those words – ‘lifted up from the earth’ – it was a literal description of what would be happening to him on the cross. Jesus knew what he was facing. He knew the kind of death he would be suffering. And yet, even in the full knowledge of the kind of death he would die, he willingly accepted it.

What does that mean, what does that imply for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton today; knowing what kind of death is to be expected, what kind of death WE have to die in order to follow Christ?

It means we don’t back away from the commitment, we don’t shirk the responsibility, we don’t shrug off the duty of examining ourselves DAILY … we read about it in our responsive reading a few minutes ago – ‘blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me’ that is a prayer we must pray daily, not just when we are feeling especially sinful. And it’s not purely an introspective exercise. It can’t be. The ‘seed bearing fruit’ through being sown requires what? ACTION! The act of sowing – whether by hand, by machine, or by heart, is one that comes part and parcel with being a disciple of Christ. In dying to ourselves, we are giving our lives to Christ. In giving our lives for others – in meeting needs, in a helping hand, in giving a ride to a friend for her doctor’s appointment, in giving another a ride to the hospital, or the grocery store, in working out the details to have running water in the building when the well goes out, and just as true, in being willing to PROVIDE that water to neighbors, we are living out what it means to give your life to Christ through serving others than ourselves.

So we will, HOPEFULLY, not get in the way of lifting up Christ – and drawing all people to him. Jesus made a point of NOT distinguishing who he was doing it for – not for the Jews alone, but for the whole of HUMANITY.

So our calling is both specific and general. Specific in terms of where we are to carry out the acts that will point people to Christ, and general in terms of whom we are to carry them out FOR; RIGHT here, RIGHT NOW, and FOR EVERYONE.

Let’s pray.