Into The Midst of Wolves

Sunday, June 12th, 2005
Pentecost +4
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 9:35-10:23

35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. 36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’ Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. 5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” 8Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. 9Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. 11Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12As you enter the house, greet it. 13If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of Judgment than for that town. 16 ‘See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. 19When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; 20for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 22and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

It’s been an interesting week. In part really, events over the last 48 hours, but in many ways, it’s been a memorable week.

As I’m sure most of you know, I will be flying out of Richmond in the morning to spend most of the day tomorrow traveling, but the following 10 days working on the Mission for Romualda, in Chimalhuacan, outside Mexico City.

When I first turned to the passage for this morning, it triggered the thought that maybe, just maybe, this morning was to be about what it means for me to be stepping out of what has become my ‘comfort zone’ in terms of ministry experience, and step out into something new, something untested, something … that I can get my hands dirty with -- LITERALLY.

You need to know something about me – something ELSE about me. As the time for this flight approaches, I’ve been thinking a lot about … mortality. About how fragile life is and about how many things could go wrong.

Friday, Leslie and I had just finished lunch, and while she went to pick up the kids from school, I drove on home to work on preparations for the upcoming time away. As I came down route 3, just up here at the bottom of the dip, where Foley Neck Rd. comes out, I saw a white van stuck in the ditch between the Queen’s driveway and our cemetery road, nose down. A woman was pushing against the front, while the driver of the van was trying to gun it out of the ditch. I came on down to this closer entrance, and turned back down the road and pulled in behind the other woman’s car and began to help. To make a long story short, we didn’t get very far. Just a few minutes later, a couple (the Balls) in a pickup truck pulled in and got out. They pulled a big chain out of the bed of the pickup and within a few minutes had managed to pull the minivan out of the ditch.

Somewhere along in there I had called Soozin to ask her if she was in a place where she could bring their small pickup to do the same thing, and after we got it out, I got back on the phone standing on the side of the road to let her know that she didn’t need to come. As my call was connecting, I heard a fairly loud “whump”, and looked to my left, towards Foley Neck, and saw a full-size white ford pickup barreling down on me, having slammed across the ditch with one of it’s wheels, just in time to take two quick steps back and let it pass in front of me by what seemed like just a few inches.

The truck kept going and ran down into the ditch that runs along route 3 in front of the cemetery, and finally came to a stop about 30 or 40 feet up the rise towards the parsonage. I ran up to the driver’s side to see if HE was okay, and as I did, the man’s wife stepped out of the passenger side, while he squeezed out of the driver’s side door – it was hard to open, since there wasn’t much room for him to open it with the truck kind of settled down in the ditch as it was.

It turned out that they were just returning from a dialysis session, and the man had suffered some momentary spell that kept him from driving the truck as it came down the incline towards Foley Neck. The husband of the couple that stopped to help with the minivan got in the truck and drove them the rest of the way home. I followed and then brought him back to his wife and their truck. We said our goodbyes and thank you’s and went on about our respective ways, but it was probably a good half hour if not a little longer before my heart settled down to a normal rhythm.

Then yesterday afternoon, I got a call from the ER over at Riverside Tappahannock, asking that I come over to interpret for a man who was involved in a single car accident up in Westmoreland County. There were 4 men in the car, heading from Manassas to Westmoreland State Park for an afternoon of fishing and relaxing by the water, when the car drifted off the side of the road onto some gravel, the driver overcorrected, and spun the car around, and ended up slamming into a tree on the other side of the road. The man in the front passenger seat was thrown part of the way out of the car and was caught between the car and the tree and was pronounced dead at the scene.

It would have been a normal workday for him, but the bricklayers he assisted had gone on a drinking binge on Friday night, and didn’t report to work yesterday morning, so they decided to take advantage of the unexpected day off to come down to the water and do a little fishing.

The man I was called to interpret for was the dead man’s brother. Within a few minutes of arriving at the hospital, I had to tell him that his brother had not survived the accident.

In a split second, the day had gone from being a relaxed getaway to a family tragedy.

Some of you may know Teresa Williams, from Beale Memorial, Hutt Williams’ wife. She was third on the scene, and stopped to help and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and evening with the two younger men – both at the scene of the accident and at the ER in Tappahannock.

*****

Jesus chose twelve apostles, and then he sent them out to do work. This work was not religious in the sense of leading people to prayer and good works, but it was very religious nonetheless. The apostles were charged with changing people’s lives, removing the obstacles that kept people from living full lives. They were told to cure the sick, raise the dead, heal the leprous, expel demons. Their task, in other words, was to make a difference in people’s lives.

*****
Teresa was on the scene within seconds of the accident. I was called at about 4:15, left the house about 10 minutes later, and arrived at the hospital a few minutes before 5. It was about 5:15 when I was telling Juan that Polo didn’t make it. We left the hospital with the three men about 9 O’clock and drove the Garner’s Produce stand to meet up with Juan’s son Juan, HIS wife, the driver’s wife and a couple of other family members and friends who’d come down.

As we stood there in the dark, going over what was going to happen over the next few hours, and recapping the care instructions for Juan’s broken wrist, there were tears of both relief and sorrow. The younger people were all friends of Polo, the man who’d died, leaving a wife and 2 children back in Mexico. There was a palpable sense of relief, of course, in that THEY had been able to basically walk away from the accident with hardly a scratch.

In the course of the afternoon I’d had a chance to answer the men’s questions about who I was and what I was doing there. At the end of the evening Jorge, the driver, came up to Teresa and me, away from the others, and tried to express his thanks to us for what we’d done.

*****

What difference does our practice of Christianity make in the lives of people? Are the suffering and dying better off because we follow Christ? Are the hungry and homeless finding their lives improved because we follow Christ? Do children have a brighter future because we follow Christ?

It’s still early, but in the lives of those three men, I would venture to guess that what they saw in Teresa’s presence and manner, her joking and loving, and caring and hugging and crying … is going to make a huge impact on them. It is not for me to say what impact I might have had on them.

As we began to say goodbye, I explained to the rest of the family that I was a Pastor, and I asked them if it would be okay if we prayed together before they got on the road. As we stood between the cars and prayed, and cried and hugged I realized that though we may live our lives as unto God in a daily routine, it is in the times of tragedy and despair that we can make that light shine oh so much more brightly.

Let’s pray.

Love and Sacrifice


Sunday, June 5th, 2005
Pentecost 3
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Hosea 5:15-6:6, Matthew 9:9-13

Hosea 5:15-6:6

15I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face. In their distress they will beg my favor: 1"Come, let us return to the LORD; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. 1After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. 3Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth." 4 What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early. 5Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. 6For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Matthew 9:9-13

9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him. 10And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ 12But when he heard this, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’

Yesterday, while driving up to Fredericksburg, I was listening to a program on National Public Radio out of Washington, and the program was ‘This American Life.” The program has a format that is infinitely variable. The producers apparently ask for people to tape their stories – the stories of their American lives – and send them in.

Yesterday’s was by a woman who had been raised in the Christian faith, and was visited one day by a couple of Mormon missionaries. In the course of their visit, she began to realize that some of the things they believed seemed a little “different”. That prompted her to begin to dig a little deeper into her own faith, her own scriptures.

Over the course of several months of attending Bible Studies led by her parish priest, the woman became less and less impressed with the stories of the Bible. As they delved into the New Testament, she began to find things in the life and words of Jesus that didn’t match the Jesus she grew up loving.

By the end of the piece, she came to the point of discounting scripture altogether, as well as the notion of God.

It was a terribly sad thing to listen to.

The truth of the matter is that there are parts of scripture that are difficult, to put it mildly. I think that’s why there has been such a controversy between people who WILL NOT take those passages literally and people who WILL NOT take the Bible as ANYTHING BUT literally.

Both sides of the issue have extreme and not-so-extreme proponents. I don’t really want to get into a discussion about inerrancy – a word that is nowhere in scripture and a term that the writers of scripture made no claim to. So let’s just leave it at this: there are passages of scripture over which we will disagree. Any two people in this room this morning, however much alike they think they may be, will most likely be able to find something in here (hold up the Bible) over which they disagree.

So my question to us this morning is painted with a broad brush: what is the overall theme of what we call the Bible, our Holy Scriptures? If you were asked to name the recurring theme of the Bible, what would you say?

Is it judgment? Is it the wrath of God? Is it genocide? Is it justification for slavery, or fraud, or rape, or the killing of women, children and babies, much less men? I’m asking because we can find each of those in the Bible.

We can talk all around them, and we can interpret them in figurative ways, we can dig into them and find the kernel of truth that still applies today on some conceptual level, and set aside the actual facts involved, sometimes. We can talk about differing cultures and changes in the understanding of the way the world works, and all kinds of things, but after all that is said and done, we still have the text. We still have the words. We still have the context and the passage, and the language that spells out on the face of it what becomes for us such a difficult thing to deal with.

So I guess my first question leads to this question: what is our Christian faith about? Is it about knowing the Bible inside and out? Is it about understanding it all? About being able to interpret it all? Is it about having all the answers?

I think Jesus was saying no.

Human nature hasn’t changed much at all, if any, in the two thousand years since Jesus walked among us. As we’ve seen in other passages on other occasions, Jesus was constantly dealing with people wanting to attain … whatever you want to call it – salvation, righteousness, redemption, holiness, by DOING something. At the time, it was meeting the letter of the law – following every jot and tittle and meeting the requirements of righteousness by offering sacrifices – animals, birds, grain, whatever.

Paul Colbert, an Episcopal Priest who serves two Filipino congregations in Las Vegas, says it this way:

Sacrifice is linked to judgment and correcting wrongs. At root, our theology shows us that while we were created good, we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Reconciliation with God is needed to restore our relationship. The ways and means of that reconciliation are what continue to trip us up and often lead us further astray.

Biblical sacrifice of animals or other offerings was intended to be atonement to restore broken relationships, restoring justice and righteousness. Those of us in a modern or post-modern mindset balk at this concept as outmoded and too bloody. We also use the word "sacrifice" in different ways in our language, ranging from the traditional sense, to a voluntary yielding of something we value, to forcing someone else to yield what they value. With disagreements rampant in the church, various factions appear ready to sacrifice the opposing point of view or party. Ignoring Paul's description of us all being part of the body, we would sacrifice a limb thinking it has caused us to sin.

For Christians, the death of Jesus on the cross is the sacrifice that restores our relationship with God. Too often we have a hard time accepting that gift to us and continue to try and make our own sacrifices to earn favor with God. By accepting that gift of love and mercy, we can continue to act with love and mercy in our own lives. We can accept the godly judgment that comes our way, knowing that the mercy of Christ has restored the relationship.

We as humans are fundamentally uncomfortable with not knowing. How many times have you heard, or even had the thought yourself – after having had some diagnostic testing done – the test was easy, it’s the not knowing – the waiting – that is hard.

We would much rather choose to DO something – occupy ourselves – fill our days with busyness – even business that is in an altogether Holy endeavor, than to sit down and heed the words of Jesus to “go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy (or steadfast love in Hosea), not sacrifice.” For I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.”

Let’s break that down: when Jesus quotes the passage from Hosea, he is quoting God’s words – God is the one that is saying “I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice”. God didn’t say “I require that in order to commune with me you maintain yourselves pure by doing thus and such, that you not eat pork, that you not walk more than so many feet on a given Sabbath, that you cook your foods ‘this’ way, that you do not touch people who’ve done this and this and that … “ No. None of that. God uses a relational term. God wants our steadfast love. He just finished saying that the love he WAS getting from the people of Judah was “like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early.” God loves us, and wants us to love back just as strongly – just as steadfastly.

So where does that leave Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

When we give up the idea that we can somehow attain that communion by SHOWING God how righteous we’ve been, or we are … by SHOWING God all the good we’ve done … we’ve missed the point. God wants our hearts to be fired by God’s love for us – and our love for God. God wants us to BE children of his. That’s all. Not that God wants us to STOP doing stuff – things get DONE that way – but God wants us to understand that he wants our hearts more, he wants us to BE in relationship with him MORE.

Let’s pray.

Question: Authority?

Sunday, May 29th, 2005
Pentecost 2
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 7:21-29

21 ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” 23Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.” 24 ‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. 25The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. 26And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell--and great was its fall!’ 28Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, 29for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

There’s a white strip of plasticized paper on the rear left bumper of the little black Mazda 323 that is parked here in the back parking lot. By the time we moved here, the words on it were already faded away to nothing. The bumper sticker, when I first bought it and put it on, was a SLIGHT reflection of what I was dealing with at the time I bought it.

I purchased it during my last semester on campus at Southern Seminary. Though I lived on campus, I was not attending classes. I spent my time working, for the most part, and contemplating whether or not to start back to classes, and the further into that spring I got, the more I realized I would NOT be going back to classes. So everything was up in the air. My 5 year-plan to be back on the foreign mission field after serving as a journeyman was not quite working out as I had … planned it. I was faced with the prospect of really not knowing WHAT was coming next, much less where I would end up being in the next two years.

The words that have faded out were just two: ‘Question Authority’.

I had been an observer, over the previous ten years, and especially over the most recent three years, of the fracturing of the Southern Baptist Convention. The leadership that had gained control of the convention in 1978 was much more focused, much more intent on the concept of Pastoral Authority than Baptists had historically been up until then, where the hallmark had been the priesthood of the believer, and I was, frankly, skeptical, to put it mildly. Southern was still a place that allowed and even encouraged the free expression of dissent back then, and my bumper sticker was hardly radical. There were others that were a lot more … explicit in their views expressed.

I remember expecting to be questioned, if not challenged, about having it on my car, and being prepared to tell whomever it was that “it was either that or the bumper sticker that said “‘Stuff’ Happens”, so I went with this”. The thought process behind the calm exterior was at times fairly contrary, though it never got to an ‘in your face’ level, except on rare occasion, and with just a few close friends.

It struck me as odd that it wasn’t until six or seven years later that I was finally asked about what was up with the bumper sticker by some friends at our church in Virginia Beach. By then, I suppose I’d mellowed somewhat, so that first answer didn’t pop out, but the kernel of truth that made me put the bumper sticker on to begin with was still there. I explained that it was a call to be wary of accepting unquestioned authority, of blindly following someone or something because of a few key words or phrases, or ‘hot button’ topics chosen for their emotional appeal. It wasn’t, in my case, a blanket call to anarchism – the LACK of ANY authoritative structure – but a call to REASONED acceptance of authority, with a clear understanding by both parties that the authority came … what’s the phrase, “by consent of the governed” – something very fundamental in both our nation’s history and our history as Baptists.

In our text this morning, we find Jesus teaching about what it means to be true followers of his – true lovers of God and it can be a scary scenario. Think of it. Prophesying, casting out demons, doing deeds of power – in the name of God – and having it all come down to this – hearing him say “I never knew you – go away from me you evildoers.” The question then becomes “if not that, then what DOES it mean to be your disciples?” in our study on Wednesday nights, we’ve read of how Peter and James and John performed miracles in Jesus’ name, and just this past week we read of how Stephen did the same thing. So what is the difference? How can we tell?

The fact of the matter is, we can’t. We can’t tell genuine Christ followers from fake ones. There may be hints, there may be clues, but in all honesty, aside from outright confessions, there’s no way we can know what ultimately motivates someone to either really become or pretend to become a follower of Christ. There’s no way to know what’s going on inside someone else’s skin, inside their head, inside their HEART.

Here’s the word of … grace, yes, but the word of CAUTION as well:

We are not called to do that.

We are ultimately responsible solely for our own response to God’s call on our life. Yes, we are called to bear witness, we are called to live out our lives as Christ lives and the Holy Spirit acts through us, but as far as motivation goes, we are only answerable to God for what moved US to follow HIM.

We read a couple of weeks ago at the end of the 4th chapter of Acts of how Barnabas, sold some property that he owned and gave the proceeds over to the disciples to be distributed as needed among the followers of Jesus. In the very next sentence, at the beginning of the 5th chapter of Acts, we read of a man named Ananias and his wife Sapphira, who decided to do something similar.

Similar yes, but not the same.

They DID sell their property. They DID bring the proceeds to the community. But they kept some of the money for themselves and presented the donation as being the full price paid for the property. They did something good; they did something noble, helpful, and even selfless. But in the process, they lost sight of where the act needed to come from. They were looking for more than the simple gratitude of a needy group of people. They were looking for the recognition, the applause, and the adulation that can come when people do big things for good causes. And that was their fatal mistake. That was their house on the sand. When confronted with what they’d done, each of them died where they stood. Whether out of guilt or shame or some other element is not detailed, but the fact that they performed the act of charity and twisted it into something blasphemous was enough to stop them in their tracks when faced with the truth – in front of the very people they were trying to impress. THAT is what Jesus was condemning in the passage.

Our nation will be observing Memorial Day tomorrow. By definition, we will be remembering and honoring – appropriately so – the men and women of our armed forces who, following their orders from the chain of command, from those authorities above them, ended up surrendering their lives in the process of bowing to that authority.

We are not honoring the orders, what we are honoring is that giving. The selflessness shown in stepping into harm’s way for the sake of others. Sometimes, those ‘others’ were right next to them. On our bulletin board right through this door to my left are pictures of the D-Day memorial in Bedford, Virginia. Bedford sent 35 men in that single battle, out of a total of 21 who died that day, 19 were killed in the first 15 minutes of action. Those men hardly had time to even get off the transports, maybe they didn’t even reach the beaches. and probably had even less of an opportunity to make any headway against the defending forces at Normandy. And yet, they are honored. Not for what they accomplished, but for what they gave.

So what does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton? It is like that for us as followers of Christ as well. I was looking through the Sunday school register from 1948 that is downstairs in the history section last night. I turned to the back of the book, where the totals were listed. The numbers were not that dramatically different from the numbers we see today; slightly higher, but not significantly so. Offerings were not that much different either. Some would see that as a bad thing. Especially those who would preach that bigger is better. There is, of course, truth in the fact that in order to survive, a church must grow. I am not saying that I want us to stay just as we are now. I don’t think any of us want that. I would HOPE not, anyway.

But what we DO want is growth in truth, growth in trust, growth in fellowship, and growth in LOVE.

We have before us a monumental task in the fullest sense of the word. To honor those who’ve given their lives so that we could be HERE. Those who have given of their time and energy, who’ve followed that prompting, that still small voice, that breath of fire of the Holy Spirit telling them to invest their lives in this community of faith – not for what THEY will get out of it, but for what we, and our children, and their children, will get from it – a chance, an opportunity, the possibility to somewhere, someday have an encounter with the living, loving God who has the authority to call them into being, but who calls them by name and waits for the answer.

Let’s pray.

… Therefore …

Sunday, May 22nd, 2005
Trinity Sunday
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 28:16-20

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’

The choir had been working toward the competition for months.

The children – nearly a hundred of them – all elementary age – had been looking forward to the trip all year to the amusement park – the place where the competition was held.

The day finally arrived, a perfect spring day – sunny and relatively warm – and they set out. Arriving at the school early that Saturday morning, they piled into the school buses and accompanying vehicles, and set out for the park. They were as excited at the prospect of riding the rides and playing in the water park as they were about competing.

They arrived at the park and they began to prepare themselves for the competition. The kids had been singing the different pieces to themselves and their families more and more as the day approached. They’d done well – extremely well – in the past, and were ready this time as well. Their director was an amazing blend of musical talent, professional expertise, and childlike silliness – all rolled into one.

The moment finally arrived, and the hardest piece – one that began with four young soloists: three girls and a boy– was due to begin. The young boy who had the voice, and the ability, and who had practiced hard, opened his mouth to sing his part and …


***

Turning to our text this morning, we find the disciples on something of an anticipated trip themselves. They’ve been in Jerusalem, the site of Jesus’ arrest, trial, crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection, and the place in and around which he’s spent the last almost two months teaching and spending time with them – POST resurrection. He’s appeared to them as well as to others – later references mention that the number of people who saw the resurrected Jesus was somewhere north of 500.

Although there were a few instances during his earthly ministry of Jesus’ taking time to actually ‘train’ the disciples – the sending out of the 70 is a case in point – most of their time was spent observing, listening, and trying – unsuccessfully most of the time – to understand what Jesus was showing and teaching them.

Aside from a couple of appearances, the bulk of that time that Jesus spent with the disciples and the other followers is undocumented. The Biblical record carries precious few details of what was spoken or of what transpired in those 50 days.

Imagine if you will, it was a rehearsal. More than a normal ‘get it wrong now and we’ll work out the kinks as we go along’ rehearsal, it was … more like a dress rehearsal, everyone off book and in costume, lights and sound and everything. Except for the audience, this is what it’s going to be like.

***

It was nerves, everyone agreed. It HAD to be. When the boy began to sing, the note he started off on was not even CLOSE to where he needed to be. There was really no way to disguise it, diffuse it, cover it up OR ignore it. He was just OFF. WAY off.

It didn’t look like they were going to make the grade this year. The coveted
‘Superior’ rating was finally going to elude them.

Then the miracle happened.

***

The disciples had seen what happened to Judas, who, torn with guilt over what he’d done, tried to return the blood money he’d been paid to betray Jesus. He’d finally chosen to end his life rather than live with the knowledge of what he’d done.

The disciples had also seen what had happened to Peter, who on some level similar to Judas, denied Jesus not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES on the night he was arrested.

But Peter had found redemption. He’d faced his weakest self, and Jesus was right there beside him. Jesus asked him three times if he loved him, and each time, Peter had affirmed that he did. It might just be a literary device that represents the spiritual resurrection that Peter experienced after his spiritual death, the mirror image that negates the darkest hour and those three denials that threatened to weigh Peter down for eternity, but they are, nonetheless, redemption.

***

He stopped the performance.

The choir director stopped the performance.

He knew, first off, that the error was one from which they could not recover. He also knew that he loved those children. He loved hearing their voices and watching their faces when they got it ‘just right’, the utter joy that came through working with them, and getting their attention, their hard work, their following his lead, down to the last note.

And he also knew that for the boy to not be scarred for life by the experience, he had to stop the performance.

The boy was so nervous he didn’t even realize he’d sung the wrong note. He was at first confused by the director’s action. The director turned to the Judges of the competition and spoke to them directly. He said “I’m not going to let this happen. I’m not going to let his nerves do this to him. You can take points away if you want, but HE CAN DO THIS.” In making that declaration, the director was saying in essence, “It’s more important to me that THIS BOY realizes that HE matters more to me than receiving a superior grade in this competition. We’re going to do this for HIM.”

He walked up to the soloist, stood behind him leaned in, and sang in his ear the notes the boy would need to repeat in order to begin again. Then he walked back in front of the choir, drew their attention, and signaled the soloists to begin again.

***

That’s where we are in the story – here in Matthew. It’s commonly referred to as “THE GREAT COMMISSION”. Just like it sounds, all three words capitalized.

It is Jesus leaning over behind the disciples and singing in their ears, “You know that Messiah you’ve been hearing and reading about all these years, the one who will come to set you free? Well, I’m the guy!” The one who has come to set you free from your anxiety, your pettiness, your pride, I’m the one who has been pointing to the loving creator for the last three years and saying, ‘God wants your HEARTS, not your performance!’ In the text, Jesus says – “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” And here’s what you do with that: BECAUSE I am – that’s what the ‘therefore’ means – ‘go for that reason’ – and tell people I love them – THEY MATTER SO MUCH TO ME THAT I GAVE MY LIFE FOR THEM – and God loves them – and they are not alone – and they never WILL be alone. You need to tell them that the Holy Spirit will always be with them.

***

And the boy NAILED IT. He opened his mouth and he hit that first note flawlessly. He carried through to the end of the solo and the audience went wild. They gave him a spontaneous ovation so loud that the rest of the choir could not at first be heard when they started in on THEIR part.

Even after having received the applause, it was a tough pill to swallow for the boy. He’d been known for riding others unmercifully when they made mistakes – whether in singing or baseball or at school. He was overcome with shame – at getting it wrong to begin with, and at the embarrassment of being singled out by the director – and at first he was sullenly closed off from the other children after the performance. But one of the chaperones called him over afterwards to speak to him. She told him that he had a choice to make. Only he had the power to make it a negative experience or a positive experience. He could sit and sulk and dwell on the fact that he sang it wrong, or he could concentrate on the fact that the second time he not only sang it correctly, he NAILED IT! He had the choice to take the experience for what it was – an incredible opportunity to learn how precious second chances are.

So how are you with second chances? Have you gotten one recently? Have you looked back and realized “there’s no way I’m going to recover from that”, only to be confronted not with the expected consequences, but a moment of reprieve – a moment of grace so pure that you understand there is something more going on here. It’s not just a bunch of words. There really is a God who gives second chances! And God’s leaning over and singing in your ear the note you need to begin again.

Let’s pray.

By The Spirit of God

Sunday, May 15th, 2005
Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
1 Corinthians 12:3-13, Romans 12:6b-8

3Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Let Jesus be cursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit. 4Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

What is your gift? What is your spiritual gift? Is it one of those that Paul listed in this letter to the church in Corinth, or perhaps in his letter to the church at Rome (Chapter 12), where we read:

6We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Does the question alone make you uncomfortable? Does the topic set you on edge, wondering if you actually HAVE a gift to share, wondering if there is anything of value you could bring to the table?

Or are you at the other extreme of that particular spectrum, sure of your gift, or perhaps talents … whether you believe it is on loan from God or not, you are aware of your worth, and confidently and proudly stand forth, chest out, head held high.

How many of us have seriously taken the time to do a Spiritual gift inventory? Though I’ve not asked outright, my suspicion is that, if you’ve been involved in church at all over the last, say twenty to twenty-five years, if you’ve lived through what some have called the Charismatic Renewal, the chances are pretty good that at some point you’ve gone through some study of some kind where you’ve answered a series of questions and worked out some sort of formula or diagram that gave you an indication of what your spiritual gift most likely is.

The questions in your mind today may be ones that fundamentally trump the whole issue: What’s the big deal? Why should I need to know? And what difference does it make?

So let’s go with the first question: What is the big deal with spiritual gifts? We need to step back and consider the basic assumption first: that of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

IF you agree with the assumption that the Holy Spirit comes to live in you when you become a follower of Christ, then you go to the next step. If you don’t, then there’s not a lot of ground we might be able to call ‘common’ between us on the issue. So let’s stipulate, let’s agree on that as a basic assumption, for the sake of argument … or for the sake of getting through the next few minutes. J

What’s the big deal with Spiritual Gifts? The big deal is this: it is by the gift that we identify the presence of the Holy Spirit. There are arguments on whether or not these lists are exhaustive. They do slightly overlap, with the gift of prophecy being mentioned in both passages, but besides that, they seem to list different gifts. To be completely honest with you, I don’t know if they are exhaustive. My inclination is to believe that they are not, simply because I don’t like to put limits on how, when or where God will manifest God’s self. I speak here simply as an individual, not as one who has studied the topic in depth to any degree but the slightest. In other words, I believe there are gifts of the Spirit that are not mentioned here that do exist. It may in fact be a question of semantics – it might be that the words that I would choose to describe a particular gift would fall under one of those terms listed here as a subheading, and I’m simply not in a frame of mind to think that way. That can sometimes happen with words.

What’s the big deal? The big deal is that these are gifts God wants us to have – to use, not for our personal benefit, not for our personal gain, but for the uplifting and the strengthening – the common good – of the body of Christ – that is, the church – THIS church, Jerusalem Baptist, and through it, the Church … universal … the Church around the world, in all it’s glorious diversity of languages, and cultures, and forms and methods and colors.

Pentecost is symbolized by the color red, and the yellow and gold of the flame of the Spirit, but it might just as well be symbolized by the rainbow – it is, after all, the day we remember that the Spirit of God descended on ALL those who were gathered, and they began to speak in the languages of ALL the people who were visiting Jerusalem at the time of the feast of Pentecost, and they came from ALL over the known world. And God sends us into ALL the world to bear witness to him.

So I guess it is a pretty big deal.

Second question: Why should I need to know? That’s actually kind of tough to answer. There’s a part of me that wants to say “who wouldn’t want to know?” Maybe it WOULD be better that you not know your gift, that you go on about your business, living your life for Christ, and letting your gift show itself … naturally … in the normal course of events. As the need arises, the Spirit prompts you to move forward, say, into a situation that you’re really not sure why you are there, but to which for some reason you’ve been drawn. And then something happens and you say or do something that triggers a cascade of events that results in … everyone involved catching a glimpse of the Kingdom, unexpectedly, serendipitously, and coming away all the richer for it. Why should we at least try to have an idea of what our spiritual gift might be? I think maybe because we are called to be intentional in our living. We are called to be prepared to testify, whether by word or in deed, in that, I think we’re called to reflect God’s intentional movement in humanity to draw us to God’s self.

Last question: what difference does it make?

This is the one that you get to answer. What difference has this church made in YOUR life? What difference has being a part of THE church, wherever you attend, or if you attend occasionally or regularly, made to YOU?

Understand that what I am asking goes deeper than simply what difference has it made to your schedule of activities in any given week to walk into a building, meet with a group of people, hear a few songs and read from a passage of scripture and listened to someone speak on it on any given Sunday or weeknight.

What I am asking is this: assuming that you believe that following Christ involves some openness to the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life, can you honestly say that you have spoken, thought, or acted differently than you might have had you NOT at some point chosen to allow Christ to be Lord of your life?

The second part of verse 3, chapter 12 of 1st Corinthians:

No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.

So it seems that there is one gift before all the others: the gift of faith. Faith the make that statement: “Jesus is Lord.” There’s a reason we have the candidate for baptism give their confession of faith before being baptized. It is a proclamation of the Gospel in three words. No qualifiers. Simply the full story: Jesus is Lord. And according to Paul, that cannot be said – and believed – except by or through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

For Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton, that means this: We rely ONLY on the Holy Spirit, not only as a person of the trinity, but just as significantly, through the Spirit’s presence in each other to serve as the SOLE provider of our strength, to be the encourager of our OWN spirits, to affirm us when we are unsure of ourselves, to surround us when we feel overwhelmed, and to comfort us when we are heartbroken.

Let’s pray.

Motherly Father, Fatherly Mother

Sunday, May 8th, 2005
Easter 7
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Proverbs 31:10-15a, 20, 25-28, 30

10 A capable wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. 11 The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. 12She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. 13She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. 14She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from far away. 15She rises while it is still night and provides food for her household 20She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy. 25Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. 26She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. 27She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. 28Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband too, and he praises her: 30Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

E Frank Tupper was one of my theology professors at Southern. He also happened to be a fellow member at Crescent Hill Baptist Church while I was there. His was the first class I took in “the big room” next to the student lounge and above the old post office. It was a huge auditorium, really, where the seats and desks were arranged in an ascending arch going all the way to the back, where the sound and tech support desk was.

I had Introduction to Theology there with Dr. Tupper. He is from Mississippi, and loves country music. He used to quote Willy Nelson freely, both in class and from the pulpit. And had a sense of humor that always drew a laugh from most of those seated before him.

One of the earlier sessions we had dealt with basic language about God. Specifically, the use of the male pronoun “he” when referring to God, and the inadequacy of human speech to portray or address a transcendent God. The discussion revolved around the fact that God is neither male nor female, but that over the course of history, that “he” has become the common method by which to refer to God in the pronoun form. Dr. Tupper was intentional in mixing pronouns, or in eliminating them altogether, by using the word “God” again and again instead of using the pronoun. To be honest, it was cumbersome to listen to, as well as to use. There are times when it is just easier to use the commonly accepted forms when referring to God.

But the point was driven home to me through friendships with women whose stories made it sometimes difficult if not impossible for them to think of God in male terms, because of terrible things that had happened in their lives, and it is one I hope I don’t neglect. The morning that Dr. Tupper referred to God as neither Male nor female, but one whom the Bible describes as a ‘Fatherly Mother, and a Motherly Father’, was one of those times that I realized that what I’d just heard would probably stick with me for the rest of my life.

There are, of course, plenty of examples in the scriptures of God displaying attributes we generally associate with masculinity, but there are, amidst the images of an avenging, wrathful, angry God, images of a God who gathers his children under his wings, like a mother hen protecting her chicks, images of a God who sets a table for us in the presence of our enemies, or grieves like a mother who has lost a child. And there are images, those that have become so familiar and even the favorite to some, of a God who will do whatever needs to be done to rescue a lost sheep, or a God who wipes every tear away.

So our images of God trigger in our minds not only pictures of the men in our lives, but of the women as well. Can any of us here today recall a special Sunday school teacher who expressed her concern to and for us in such a way that it has made an impact on our lives ever since then? Can we point to some event when an aunt, or a grandmother, or a mother, or even a sister made a statement, whether in word or deed, which fleshed out what living by faith the life of Christ meant to the point where we have carried that with us for the rest of our lives?

You’ve heard me share stories of my mother, my Sunday School teacher, my aunts over the last couple of years. I don’t especially want to repeat them. I want you to picture in your mind such an event, or such a person, whether she was related to you or not, and acknowledge her … to God.

How many women in your life can you think of right now that you can thank God for putting there? How many of those events can you think back on and say to yourself, ‘yeah, God really was present there.’

I had the profound privilege to be present early Friday morning at the birth of Cesar Cervantes, born to Elvira at 3 AM at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, 15 or 20 minutes after we got into the Labor and Delivery room (but that’s a whole other story). Elvira has another son, who is two, whom she left back in Mexico with her parents while she came here to make some money to support her family. She’d been told after HE was born that she’d be unable to bear any more children. So Cesar was unexpected.

The situation he has been born into is not an easy one by any stretch of the imagination. His father vanished shortly after finding out that he was going to BE a father. Elvira was taken in by a couple of her uncles and a cousin, and they have become both father figures to her and her cousin has already dropped into the role of doting uncle to Cesar.

I can’t say from here what kind of a mother Elvira will turn out to be. That has yet to be seen. What I can say is that motherhood comes naturally to her. She has a huge dose of common sense, which goes a long way towards balancing out any lack of education in her background. She is courageous, insofar as she chose to travel to this place so far from her home in order to support her family and her son, and she is honestly straightforward in her dealings with me. She speaks simply, doesn’t try to couch things in nice words when she is trying to get her point across. I think Cesar has a good chance. Just as he will have a strong mother, he will also have plenty of men who will be father figures for him. My hope is that, in the absence of the real deal, they, the family, will draw a balance. He will be exposed to both a fatherly mother and motherly fathers. Men who care for and tend to him as much as women would, who will show him the value of being part of an extended family, and women who model for him as much as men would what it means to be strong and self-reliant.

Speaking of families, our family of faith here at Jerusalem was blessed this past week in a way that might have gone unnoticed. Some of you may have noticed the National Day of Prayer flyer and sign-up sheet on the bulletin board in the hallway. Some of you who were here Wednesday heard me say that you could sign up for half-hour slots during the twenty-four hour period the day of prayer lasted, from Wednesday evening through Thursday evening. You also heard me say that signing your name wasn’t necessary in order TO fill a particular slot with prayer. I didn’t get a chance to check the sign up sheet until late Thursday evening.

There’s another image of God that we find in scripture, of the one who waits for us, the one who stays up and watches for us to come home. In a similar fashion, those persons who committed themselves to a dedicated time of prayer – whether they put their names down or not, were fleshing out that image of God in my mind. There were about six or seven slots filled, spread throughout the twenty four hours.

I caught a glimpse of God when I looked over the names. I’m not going to name them to you. They know who they are. But YOU need to know, as a congregation, that if we ever lose sight of a God who loves us like a mother loves her children and gives herself to them, or spends her time praying for the family of faith that we call Jerusalem Baptist Church, we will have lost a part of our souls.

So be thankful to God for the way God shows God’s self to us – whether through men or women, God is God, and God uses us ALL to make God’s presence known. But especially today, be thankful for the women through whom God has shown God’s self to you.

Let’s pray.

IF You Love Me

Sunday, May 1, 2005
Easter 6
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
John 14:15-21

15 ’If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. 18 ’I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’

The setting is in the hospital room where Debra Winger’s character, Emma, will soon be dying. The father, Flap, played by Jeff Daniels, brings the three children in for one last goodbye time with their mommy. The daughter, Melanie, is barely a toddler, so there’s no real understanding of what is about to happen to her. The younger son, Teddy, is probably 6 or 7, maybe a little older, and all he can do is cry. The oldest son, Tommy, is supposed to be maybe 10 or 11 years old. He is old enough to understand, old enough to hurt, and old enough to be angry.

What makes movies so compelling, I’ve come to understand, is the luxury of time and thought. Events are scripted, scenes are thought out and measured, each word weighed and pondered. The result is a portrayal of a life we WISH we could live. I don’t mean that we wish we experienced or had everything we see on the big screen or watch when we pop in a video tape or a DVD, but it is in the fullness of the thoughts expressed in supposed times of tragedy, stress, or calamity that we wish we could live. It’s the sense of “I wish I had thought to say something like that in … such-and-such a situation” … or … “why didn’t THAT come out of my mouth instead of the blank stare they SAW?” Emma, after saying goodbye to Melanie and Teddy, asks Tommy to stay behind. The younger children have both had their cry, Melanie cried mainly because Teddy was crying, but Tommy stood back, sullen, silent and withdrawn. When they are alone Emma starts to talk to her son, and it is one of those speeches that you rarely get to hear in real life, unless you happen to be very lucky, or very blessed. She speaks to him in a straightforward, reasonable tone of voice, and quickly lets him know that she realizes exactly what he is feeling and why he is feeling like that, and tells him that it’s okay to feel that way, that even though he is probably going to hate her for dying for a long time, he needs to know that it doesn’t change the fact that, HOWEVER he feels toward her, she will always, always love him. To be honest, I don’t remember if he breaks down and cries and falls on her bed hugging her or if I just remember that in my head, and he actually just stands there and looks at her in that somewhat coolly dispassionate way young boys have sometimes.

What stands out in my memory is that Emma was making the most of the time she had left with her family.

Jesus seems to be doing something similar throughout the 14th chapter of John.

He’s trying to pry the disciples’ heads open and pour as much of himself into them as he can. Last week we heard his words of reassurance telling the disciples that, even though HE wouldn’t be staying with them, he was going to prepare a place for them, where they, and by grace we, will one day join him.

In this second group of verses, he continues in the same vein, telling them again of what – and more importantly who is to come: the Holy Spirit.

As you may note from the title of today’s message, what struck me was that first two letter word in verse fifteen: IF. The great conditional conjunction.

Did you know that “if” can also be written with two f’s? IFF. It’s an abbreviation used in mathematical language, including Logic. I took a class in logic in college the same semester I started working as a night clerk. It was an Eight O’clock class. It’s a wonder I remember ANYTHING from it.

But IFF (spell out IFF) is the abbreviation of the phrase “IF and ONLY IF”. It signals a biconditional statement. In other words, the ONLY WAY that either of the two statements can be true is if the other is true.

So here’s a question: was Jesus using “IF” in a biconditional way?

If you love me, (then) you will keep my commandments.

In reading it, how much weight do you give that little word? Does it stop you, or do you read on to the rest of the verses, dwelling on the coming of the ‘Advocate’, the ‘Spirit of Truth’, the one whom you know because he abides in you? Do you hear him saying “the ONLY way you’ll keep my commandments is if you love me?”

What kind of a burden does that place on us? As believers, as followers, as imitators of his, as disciples, as ‘little Christs’ … do we take on the weight of that expectation unthinkingly, haphazardly, with little thought to the consequences of dropping that ball, or do we take it on knowing ahead of time that we are bound to fail at one point or another? That we are, after all, human, frail creatures of dust?

I think Jesus was presenting us with the goal, and at the same time letting us know that HE knew we wouldn’t always be there for HIM. After all, as we read last week in the last verses of chapter 13, he’d just told Peter that he would betray him three times before the rooster crowed that very night.

This is in the same conversation.

And that conversation continues today. Every time we read scripture, and open ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s guidance in our reading, we pick up that thread. Every time we enter into prayer we pick up that thread. Every time we extend a helping hand, share a kind word, of hope, of encouragement, of love, we are weaving that thread into the tapestry that is the glory of God, the body of Christ, on earth.

Jesus tells us that he will reveal himself to us and that in that revealing we will know that God is in him, and that He, Jesus, is in us, through the Holy Spirit. In some sense, that means we are witness, we are participants, in the trinity, not as equals, but as servants and disciples. We have a high calling. To speak grace and live love to a world that in truth, knows neither.

When we join together in prayer, we are communing not only with each other, but with the Holy Lord God. There is nothing more important for us to do but to spend time with the one who made us and loves us.

This Thursday, we have an opportunity to join with other people of faith across the nation and lift up prayers for the people, for the world, and for our future. Though there will be a meeting at Beulah Baptist Church that evening, it is not necessary that you attend. I’d encourage you to list your name on the sign up sheet for a half-hour session of prayer. You can do that from wherever you happen to be at that hour of the day. You don’t have to be here to do it. As we know, prayer can happen in any context.

What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means we get to consciously, intentionally, purposely connect with fellow Christians in a concentrated effort to make a difference … perhaps in our world at large, but on a local level, and more specifically, on a personal level. We’ve heard or read the saying “Prayer changes things”. I think prayer mostly changes the one praying.

Let’s pray.

Father & Son

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.

Life Abundant


Sunday, April 17th, 2005
Easter 4 (Good Shepherd)
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
John 10:1-10

1‘Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’ 6Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

We’re getting into a rhythm of sorts in the Park household. School during the day, gymnastics or softball practice in the evenings, and game one, game two, and game three on the weekends. I think before it’s all over, there may be a few weekends where we’ll have more than one game per child. Granted, it’s only been two weekends now, but I can already sense the rhythm starting: a rush to get ready, arrival, getting the kids to their teams, and then sit and watch, and cheer the team, shout words of encouragement to your child or the children on each team, and make quiet conversation with other parents, or friends, or meet and befriend people who you recognize, but can’t quite name. Then wander over to the concession stand for a hot dog or some chicken wings and a coke. And the whole day is bathed in sunlight, and a brisk wind that keeps your hands in your pockets more often than not pulling out a tissue to blow your nose with. Before long, the sun will overpower the wind, and we’ll be dealing with the HEAT much more than with the cold. There truly is something idyllic in the scene. It reminds me of something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I’ve had several moments like that since we’ve been living here. It’s not a bad thing, not at all. In fact, if I had to characterize it, it would be easy to say we were living the abundant life. When friends and family have asked how we’re doing here, I always answer that we’re doing good, we’re doing fine. And I can’t help but tell them that it sometimes gets to the point where it is scary how good things are.

But what is an abundant life? We’d surely find different definitions of that within the lives of those of us sitting right here. Is an abundant life one that is long-lived? Probably not. We heard just this past week of a young mother, the sister of a young lady who has visited here in the past, barely in her thirties, who was found by her six year old daughter lying on the floor when she got home from school. Can her life be DISqualified from having been abundant just because it was cut short at so young an age?

Is an abundant life one full of unforgettable experiences? If we were to ask our Hispanic friend, who lost her twins twenty-three weeks into her pregnancy last Sunday, certainly an unforgettable experience, but I’m not sure she’d say that her life is more abundant because of it.

Is it a life marked by significance, or impact, or one that is memorable to more than just one’s immediate family? Tuesday evening I met a man who was in the final stages of a terminal disease. Though he is barely ten years older than I am, his life would certainly make a much more interesting read than mine would. With a history of alcohol and drug abuse, poverty and homelessness, he somehow managed to find the strength to straighten himself out, and begin to live what might be called a normally productive life. In the process, he met and straightened out his wife, who was a crack addict and an alcoholic. Working together, he got her off drugs and sobered up. But then last September, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and she began drinking again. Tuesday he had asked to stay in the hospital for pain management, but she did not want him to stay there and die. Her beloved husband belonged at home with her, surrounded by his animals and the love of a devoted, though alcohol-dependent wife. He definitely made an impact on HER life, insofar as he was the reason that she cleaned herself up from all the other drugs save the alcohol. Talking to their friend who’d driven the wife the 45 miles to the hospital, and hearing HER story about losing her sister, her husband, AND her mother within the last year, there was definitely more than just friendship that prompted her to stand by this couple in the midst of what is not only devastating to THEM, but which must surely reopen painful wounds left by her own losses. I came away with the impression that this man had a way about him that drew people, not just those two women, to him. When he rallied enough to speak clearly and directly, in a strong voice, to his tearfully combative wife, she quieted along with everyone in the room. It was certainly an example of a life that had an impact on everyone else in the room, but whether or not it has been an abundant life was not for us to say at that point.

The scene in the Gospel passage this morning is … pastoral in the fullest sense of the word, parts of it might be referred to as something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, what with a shepherd leading the flock of sheep around the pasture, the sheep somehow … tuned into the shepherd’s voice, or a sound, a whistle, a call, or a specific, identifying noise made whenever he wants their attention.

We have the image of Christ as the Good Shepherd, and he himself is portraying himself as that. A man who lies down across the gate to the sheepfold and guards against wolves and marauders, whose sheep follow the sound of his voice, rather than push from behind, he leads. The sheep follow because they recognize HIM, not because he forces them in the direction he wants them to go.

What is it that we seek if we set out on what Robert Frost called ‘the road less traveled”? Christ promised life abundant in this passage, but in others he admonished us to take up our cross and follow him. And yet in another, he warned that if any man loses his life for his sake he would gain it. He wasn’t speaking of a life of ease. He wasn’t promising freedom from pain and suffering … in fact, he did the opposite. He promised a life fraught with peril, with rejection, even with bitter disappointment, but he still calls it an abundant life.

So we have to look elsewhere, perhaps even elsewhen. We have to look for another reason why he would say our lives would be “abundant”.

What are we left with?

We’re left with him. We’re left with Christ. We’re left with the Son of God, calling us to himself, and loving us and cradling us like a Shepherd calls his sheep when they are lost and holds them when they are found. To live in the full knowledge that what we do and who we are is defined not by what we accomplish or accumulate, but by whose we are, and who loves us, and who we love, THAT opens us to an abundance of life the likes of which we cannot wrap our brains around in a lifetime.

Jesus calls himself both the gate and the gatekeeper, the gospel of John is known for Jesus’ “I am” sayings. In this Gospel, Jesus will use "I am" to identify himself as "the resurrection and the life" (11:25)—the "way, and the truth, and the life" (14:6)—and the "true vine" (15:1). It is John’s way of highlighting, of echoing for us that much earlier “I Am” that we hear from the burning bush in the desert. There is no missing the point for John’s listeners and reader: Jesus and God are one.

Life, colored, molded, and formed around the presence of the living God in our hearts is the most abundant life we can hope to experience. It is for us to take that abundance and share it, spread it, release it into the world and into the lives of those who so desperately long for it.

Tonight we begin a four-night Revival campaign. We will share in worship with Farnham, our mother church, Cobham Park, Mulberry and Ebenezer, our daughter churches, a family gathering in the broadest sense of the word.

I’ve seen abundance of life. I’ve seen it reflected in my parent’s faces when all of their children and their families have otten together for a special holiday. I’ve seen it in the faces of my father and mother-in-law, when THEIR three children and THEIR families have been able to manage to be together with them for a special occasion. I saw it in Leslie’s face, last night, after a long and harrowing week, topped off by a day spent at the ball fields watching our kids play, and sitting down to the dinner table groggy after having fallen asleep on the couch, and we were all grumpy and tired, but for a minute, just a second, the children mercifully bounced back from a totally inappropriate tongue lashing from me, and Caleb was sitting in her lap, and Judson and Hannah were chomping on Oreos, and we looked at each other over their heads and that look that says ‘This is what he was talking about. THIS is life abundant’ crossed between us.

May these next four nights with family be so marked.

Let’s pray.

Hearts on Fire

Sunday, April 10th, 2005
Easter 3 (Communion Sunday)
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Luke 24:13-35
With deep gratitude to Dr. Brett Younger, pastor, Broadway Baptist Church, Ft. Worth, TX

13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. 18Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ 19He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’ 25Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ 27Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. 28As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. 30When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 32They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ 33That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ 35Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Last Sunday was a pretty stark contrast to Easter, wasn’t it? As you might know, historically, the highest attendance Sunday of the year is Easter. Would you care to venture a guess as to which is the lowest attended Sunday of the year? (The Sunday after Easter)

All the special music, the children singing, the sunrise service, the banners and pageantry can make you forget that at Easter, all we’re really hoping for is a moment when we believe, when we feel, when we know deep down that it’s true. If all goes well, we catch a glimpse, just a glimpse.

We’re here again, hoping for a moment, a hint of hope, a glimpse of grace, a sign of life, but we have to pay attention.

The first Easter began without anyone even imagining they would catch a glimpse. On Sunday afternoon, which was like Monday afternoon for the Jews, two dejected disciples are walking the dusty road home to Emmaus. They want life to go back to what it was before. But they know it will never be the same. They would like to believe that Jesus’ life and death are going to make some difference. But their chins are on their chests, their eyes are blank, and their faces are empty.

They don’t even hear his footsteps. Jesus joins them incognito and asks what they’ve been talking about. They can hardly believe it. ‘Where have you been? How can you NOT know what’s been going on?” They explain to the uninformed stranger that a prophet has been executed. They tell him about the hope that they had for Jesus, how they had followed, and how their hope had been crushed when Jesus was arrested and crucified. They had never known such a wonderful person. Jesus was gracious in everything that he did. He spoke as no one had ever spoken. He loved as no one had ever loved.

Some women are spreading rumors about an empty tomb and angels, but they know hopelessness when they feel it.

Then it’s Jesus’ turn to marvel at how they can be so completely uninformed. Now you wonder how long it takes to explain the scriptures, but the stranger lays it all out for them … and they don’t get it. Jesus himself leads a Bible study and nothing happens. This story is a source of great comfort for anyone who has ever led a Bible study for people whose eyes are glazed over.

When they arrive at the couple’s house, the risen Christ seems to have things to do and places to go, but they ask him to stay for supper. They can’t let him go, whoever he is. They ask him to say grace, and the stranger is suddenly in charge. The house may not belong to Jesus, but the supper does. He breaks bread, blesses it, gives it to them, and they open their eyes. They see that Jesus is with them … and then he’s GONE. Just a glimpse and he vanishes.

Then - and this part is worth noting - they walk the seven miles back to Jerusalem. By this time it must’ve been dark, except, in a way, it was during the day as they walked TOWARD Emmaus, that they walked in the dark. Now, at night, they’re walking in the light. That moment at the table has changed them, turned them around.

Now it’s easy not to notice, but there’s a worship service going on here. The preacher interprets the Bible; he takes the bread, blesses, breaks it, and gives it to them.

Scholars suggest that Luke has given us the order of worship for the early church. The scriptures are read and discussed, and then they share the Lord’s Supper. Justin Martyr wrote the oldest surviving account of a Christian worship service about sixty five years after the Gospel of Luke. Justin describes their Sunday service:

“And on the day called Sunday an assembly is held and the records of the apostles – we call them the Gospels and Epistles – or the writings of the prophets – the Old Testament – are read for as long as time allows. (For some of you, twelve O’clock is as long as time allows) Then, when the reading has finished, the one presiding, in a discourse, admonishes and encourages us to imitate these good things. Then we all stand up together and offer prayers, then bread and wine are brought forward, and the one presiding offers thanksgivings. And the wealthy who so desire, give what they wish as each chooses, and what is collected helps orphans and widows, and those who through sickness or any other cause are in need, and those in prison, and strangers sojourning among us. In a word, it takes care of all those who are in need.”

Now, they didn’t chime the hour, or have an organ on one side and a baby grand on the other, but the order of worship two thousand years ago is a lot like ours. We worship as they worshipped in the belief that we will meet God here. When the scriptures are preached, and the bread is broken, Luke says that Jesus is present.

We come each Sunday to this sanctuary, but it’s easy to miss Christ in worship, in part because we forget that Christ comes not because we make it so, but because this is Christ’s church. Sometimes we act as if WE make worship happen. If the preacher says something profound for a change, if the choir enunciates perfectly, if we get a seat right in front of a speaker, if the children in the row in front of us will sit still … if the deacons are sufficiently somber during communion, then we’ll have worship “right”.

We ARE here to give our best to God, but we do so understanding that we will not coerce Christ into our presence. Christ comes as a gift; he comes suddenly out of nowhere. We don’t even hear his footsteps. We’ll miss the sacred moments if we don’t look with more than our eyes, and listen with more than our ears. But if we seek God with our hearts and souls, we may catch a glimpse.

God comes in a phrase in a hymn, a word from the scripture, a hope during a prayer, a moment when we feel God with us, a moment when we are truly alive. And we shouldn’t expect much more than a moment. God is with us for the whole journey, but we feel it only in partial, obscure, muffled experiences of the sacred.

What we hope for is a fleeting glimpse that takes our breath away, makes our hearts burn within us. For, if we catch a glimpse, it can turn us around; if we look with all of our being and imagination, what we may see is God. What we may hear is the faint sound of a voice; somewhere deep within us, saying that there IS a purpose in this life, in OUR lives, whether we understand it completely or not.

Christ comes to explain our lives and our world in the light of the sacred stories; Christ joins us at this table, and gives us his life, so that we might share life together in his name. It’s all a gift.

Worship is a gift.

Christ’s presence among us is a gift.

And if we pay attention, and feel God with us, when God sets our hearts on fire, it’s a gift.

(Communion)

Life in His Name

Sunday, April 3rd, 2005
Easter 2
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton, VA
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.’ 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ 24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So 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.’ 26 A 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.’ 27Then 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.’ 28Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ 29Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ 30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But 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.

I’ve often wondered what Thomas’ voice sounded like when he uttered that ultimatum.

More often than not, the words have been spoken in a sarcastic ‘yeah, RIGHT - I wasn’t born yesterday’ jaded tone.

But as I read over the passage again in preparation for this morning, I thought that perhaps his was in an altogether different tone.

Imagine yourself hoping against hope for a reality that cannot objectively become fact, a hope on which you have built your life, a hope born out of three years of living, and eating, walking and talking with and learning from the most amazing man you’ve ever known; Jesus of Nazareth. And not just a man, but you’ve almost come to believe him to be the Messiah, the Son of God.

You’ve seen him heal the sick, silence the storm, cast out demons, cast out the money changers and call the priests and rulers to task for making the desecration of the temple possible, and you’ve seen him raise the four-days dead Lazarus.

But you have also seen him arrested, beaten beyond recognition, and finally crucified. And you’ve gotten the report that he had died.

You’ve only gotten the report because, in that darkest hour of your life, you ran and hid. You didn’t want to end up on the cross like him, with him. You’d heard Peter vow that he would die first, before he would betray the Lord, and just a few hours later you heard the betrayal from that same mouth.

And now, on the third day from that hellish event, everyone is telling you that they’ve seen him – in PERSON, and you dare not believe it.

You don’t dare because if you do and it is NOT true, you have only set yourself up to plunge again into the pit of despair from which you so desperately want to climb, but in the face of unending hate and violence, and callousness, you find yourself completely overwhelmed.

In the last 72 hours, your world has become a place devoid of truth, devoid of grace, and devoid of hope. You’ve been confronted with a world that rolls over dreams and visions and faith as indifferently as a wave crashes over a grain of sand on the beach.

You are angry. How can they play with that which has become so sacred to you??!! How can they so blithely prattle on about having seen him when everyone who was there saw him die? And though he may have been able to raise someone else from the dead, how could he act to raise himself from the dead when there was no breath left in his body?

What he did, what he said, what he taught, none of it belonged in the world after all, even though he tried. YOU tried. You really did. After he sent you out, along with the other disciples, to cast out demons and heal the sick in his name, you watched it happen with your own eyes. You couldn’t believe it at first, but it kept on happening. And when you came back together, you compared notes with the others, and they told of the same thing happening to them.

And so, hope was born.

Against all odds, against what your logic told you, you began to believe. It was tiny at first. No bigger than that mustard seed he’d mentioned. If you hadn’t known what you were looking for, you would have missed it.

And the seed grew, just like he said it would, into that huge bush.

And it started taking root in you, and reaching its branches all through you.

Into that place where you were thinking “It’ll never work HERE,”

And there, where you couldn’t help but wonder “what world is he living in?”

And over there, in that far corner, where that hissing, slithery whisper was telling you “perhapsss, but YOU could never measure up to THAT.”

And the roots and the branches were pushing those voices out. You found yourself smiling a little more often, believing a little more deeply, questioning a little less frequently. And the world started to seem like a different place. It seemed like there was something new happening in the world, something magnificent, and magnificently different.

Then, in a night and a day, the hope was dashed to pieces. It was beaten and crucified and died just as surely as Jesus was. And you heard that slithery voice inside say “see, I TOLD you so.” And as much as you hated it, you found yourself agreeing, realizing that a part of you always held back, always reserved judgment, always sat back and just watched.

And now, your hearing that he’s back, “We have seen the Lord!”

And your heart starts beating faster and faster, and you can’t catch your breathe and your mind is trying to wrap itself around the news and then you can almost HEAR the fist slam down in your head.

“NO!” It can’t be true. It’s too good, too good to be true. And like they say, if something is too good to be true, then it most likely ISN’T. And you’re thinking,

“DON’T MESS WITH MY HOPE. I ALREADY LAID IT TO REST, AND IT IS TOO PAINFUL TO TRY TO RESURRECT IT ONLY TO HAVE IT DIE AGAIN. I CAN’T KEEP MOVING THAT STONE BACK AND FORTH”

And the words spill out of you in a furious torrent:

‘"UNLESS I SEE THE MARK OF THE NAILS IN HIS HANDS, AND PUT MY FINGER IN TH E MARK OF THE NAILS AND MY HAND IN HIS SIDE, I WILL NOT BELIEVE!!"

You see, the voice that is crying out of you is the voice that did not want to give up hope, but is finding it so hard to FIND, it is setting itself an impossible barrier to cross – the barrier of the tomb, the one that was sealed with that stone, the one that is separating you from Jesus.

And then it’s a week later, but it feels like an instant, and just like that, he’s there, in front of you, plain as day, but different. The door was closed, but he is THERE. And his first words are: “Peace be with you. Shalom.”

Then, “Okay, here’s what you asked for. Here’re my hands. Here’s my side. Go for it. TRY ME.”

And your heart slows, and you breathe deeply, and the air seems purer, and the light seems brighter.

“My Lord and my God.”

And like he always did, he snaps it into perspective. “Do you believe because you see me? Was your hope born of what you see, or was it born from what you now understand to be the endless possibilities for life in my name, what you know can happen but which you CAN’T see?

Let’s pray.