More Than a Piece of Paper

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Genesis 2:18-25; 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

April 27, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

An elderly couple was headed to bed one night, and as he got under the covers, he heard his wife sigh. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Do you remember how, when we were younger, you would snuggle close to me at night?” she said. The man sighed now, and then he scooted closer to his wife. Then he heard her say, “And do you remember, when we were younger, how you used to hold my hand?” The man sighed again, a bit frustrated, as he reached out and took his wife’s hand. The woman smiled, and then said, “I remember, when we were younger, how you used to nibble on my ear.” And at that, the man angrily threw back the covers, got out of bed and stomped away. “Where are you going?” she asked. The man looked back at her and snapped, “To get my teeth!” (Hamilton, Love to Stay, pg. 14).

Ah, yes, the good old days! In just a couple of weeks, as I mentioned in the newsletter this week, Cathy and I will be passing a milestone of sorts. On May 20, we will be celebrating twenty-five years of marriage. A quarter of a century! Can you believe she’s put up with me for that long? If you want to say, “No,” I’d agree with you! It's not easy to be married. People will say that marriage has changed, that our culture makes it hard, but I’m going to let you in on a secret: it’s never been easy. It wasn’t designed to be easy. Two people who are often very different come together and try to build a life. And we are different. No matter how similar you think you and your beloved are, there are differences. If you were exactly the same, one of you would be unnecessary! What’s changed in our day is not the difficulty of marriage. What’s changed is our willingness to live out the vows that we make: for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others. Marriage is hard work. It requires sacrifice and compromise. It will be and is the most joyous and the most emotionally painful of your experiences.

I’m curious—how many of you here this morning have been either directly or indirectly impacted by divorce? How many have either gone through a divorce yourself or someone in your family has? [Show of hands] It’s something that affects most of us in one way or another. Divorce rates peaked in the 1980’s, but they are still high. Somewhere around 40 to 50% of couples married today will divorce, and the statistics are even higher for second or third or more marriages (which is odd, you’d think by the second or third time, we would get the hang of it). Some think the solution is to simply live together before marriage, a trial run of sorts, but that’s not the case. Couples who cohabitate have a higher rate of divorce, often breaking up within the first five years. In addition, the average age of couples getting married is older now, somewhere around 28 years old. People are delaying marriage for a variety of reasons, some of which include our culture’s uncertainty about how to have healthy, successful relationships—married or otherwise. In this age of texting, social networking and computer dating, we simply don’t know anymore how to maintain strong bonds, whether we’re talking about friendships, dating or marriage (Hamilton 15).

And yet, it’s fairly easy in Indiana to get married. All you need, if you are an Indiana resident, is $18 and a copy of your birth certificate, and you’re able to be married. To drive a car, you have to pass a test, but to get married you only need to be willing. Here at the church, we require couples to engage in marriage mentoring over a period of three months or so before we will do the ceremony in the church. And it's true, as my friend Terry Rhine once said, premarital preparation is 100% effective…for the pastor. Couples are more focused generally on the cake and the details of the wedding than they are on preparing to make a life together. I know that was the case for Cathy and I. We had some premarital counseling, but I couldn’t tell you a thing the pastor said to us. There are things I wish I had known, and maybe he did say those things to us. Who knows? Somehow, we’ve muddled through, and learned so much along the way.

But I’ve heard people say, and you likely have too, “Why do we need a piece of paper to prove we love each other?” Which makes us ask if marriage is obsolete, as 40% of people say it is (cf. Hamilton 17)? Or does God still have a place for marriage in his grand plan? That’s the question we’re going to be looking at for the next few weeks, as we discover what it takes to create a love that will last, a love to stay. And along the way, my hope and prayer is that, even for those of you who are not currently married, you will discover principles that apply to all sorts of relationships. Our goal in this series is to strengthen marriages, to strengthen other relationships, and thereby to strengthen our community, because we believe such relationships are at the heart of a strong community, nation and world. So we begin by asking if marriage is more than just a piece of paper. Is there a mission for the covenant of marriage?

In the very beginning of the Bible, we begin to get an answer to that question. The first several chapters of Genesis tell stories that are meant to help orient us to the Bible’s world as well as help us ask some very important questions about God, creation and our place in the world. In the first creation story, basically Genesis 1, we learn one very important fact about the world: it’s good. No matter whether you take creation as happening in seven literal days or over a longer period of time, the truth remains: God created it and it is good. And, in fact, at the end of chapter one, God creates humanity—male and female, we’re told—in his image, and then creation is declared “very good.” Now, that’s an important truth to hold onto, that men and women are both made in God’s image.

Genesis 2, which we read part of this morning, is a different, more “earthy” version of the creation story. We get a picture of Adam, whose name means “man” (very original!), being created and having the chance to name all the creatures of the earth. You know, just as an aside, I don’t think I could have done that. I’m not that creative. I mean, seriously, where did he come up with names like “hippopotamus” or “armadillo”? Anyway, after all that naming, Genesis says there was no one suitable for Adam. This is the very first time in the creation story something is declared “not good.” God says, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (2:18). The actual text says something like this: “It is not good for the man to be alone, because he will never ask for directions and wander around lost all of his life.” Okay, so that’s not really in the text; it’s implied, though. No, God says it’s not good for Adam, for the man, to be alone. It doesn’t say Adam is lonely; what the word implies is that he can’t, by himself, complete the task God has given him, to care for and steward or “rule over” creation. He needs help (Goldingay, Genesis for Everyone, Part One, pg. 38), so God says, “I will make a helper suitable for him” (2:18). I will make an “ezer.” What’s that?

Unfortunately, this passage is one that has been often misunderstood and mispreached, and still is today. It’s been taken to mean that women are somehow inferior to men, that a woman’s job, a wife’s job, is to be subservient to her husband or to men in general. And sometimes it’s paired with out-of-context passages from Paul to reinforce that idea. At the worst, these verses have been used to justify abuse against women, as if the husband needed to use force or violence to make the woman “submit.” But that is not what Genesis says. An ezer is not someone who is subordinate. We should already understand that from the statement that men and women were both created in the image of God, both have inestimable worth in God’s eyes, and both make creation “very good.” An ezer is someone who is “in front of you or in sight of you or opposite you” (Goldingay 39; cf. Kidner, TOTC: Genesis, pg. 65). An ezer is someone who complements you; not someone who says nice things about you. Someone whose strengths make up for your weaknesses, someone who helps make you complete, and the word is used more in the Bible to refer to God than to human beings. Remember how Jesus described the Holy Spirit as a helper (cf. John 14:16)? But when it comes to humans, “neither has authority over the other; neither is inherently the leader or the led” (Goldingay 39). Both together represent God to the world. That’s what God promises to make for Adam in this passage.

And when he does, Adam recognizes right away the complementary nature of Eve. When he wakes up from the deep sleep God puts him in, he sings, “This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (2:23). This is someone who completes me, finishes me, and will help me live the life God has called me to live. So, Genesis says, “that is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (2:24). The “one flesh” image certainly at least in part refers to sexual union, a subject we’ll tackle another week, but it also refers to how two become one is mission and ministry to the world. That’s the goal when I pronounce someone husband and wife: they will be one in ministry to all the world. Maybe you recognize that language from our communion service; marriage is just one more way people reflect the image of God and a relationship with Christ.

So, one flesh, united in mission and ministry. But what is that mission? From cover to cover, the Bible is clear that “marriage is a calling from God to care for, bless and serve another.” As Pastor Adam Hamilton writes, “We are called to channel God’s love and kindness to all, but marriage calls us to do it in a special, intentional way toward someone with whom we will partner in life” (18). That description of marriage in Genesis 2 indicates that it is meant to be an exclusive (the man “leaves”), permanent (he “is united,” which really means “joined with”), God-sealed bond (the “one flesh” thing). It’s a relationship in which we are meant to be mutually “helpful” toward the other, in security that the other is always going to be there. That word “security” is why marriage is more than just a piece of paper. It’s a covenant, a binding together, a promise not to get up and walk out after you have the first fight. It’s security for children, for individuals, and is becomes a safe place where you can share all that you are with someone. Marriage is meant to be a safe place, a source of security, reflecting the image of God.

Now, let me say quickly, that’s the ideal, and I know that in these chairs this morning there is all sorts of brokenness because of divorce and abuse and broken vows. I recognize that, and we’re going to talk about healing in the midst of that in a few weeks. This morning, we’re focused on the ideal, the mission, and no matter what stage in life you are, this is something we need to support and pray for and encourage, especially in our younger couples. Our world needs to hear that there is an ideal to strive for. It’s a message that gets lost, sometimes unintentionally. Several years ago, when I was in seminary, our pastor preached a series of sermons like this, and in one of them he was preaching about the ideal and in the last part of the sermon he planned to talk about healing and acceptance in the wake of divorce, which he did, to most of us. The service was broadcast on the local cable channel, live, and unfortunately, they ran out of time just before he got to the healing and hope part, so it was cut off. He told me later he wished he would have said it differently, so I don’t want you to tune me out or hear me saying if you’ve been through that kind of brokenness, you’re somehow less valuable or less loved by God. That is not what I’m saying, and I want you to stick with me for the next few weeks as we work through these messages. Today, though, we’re focusing on this mission of blessing, encouraging, supporting and helping the other. And to be able to do that is going to take something more than what our culture is willing to give.

Paul talks about this in his first letter to the Corinthians, in a passage we often read at weddings, though Paul didn’t write it with that audience in mind. However, he does give one of the most beautiful and lyrical descriptions of love in all of human literature. As I’ve shared before, the Greek language has at least four words that are translated into English as “love,” and two of them in particular apply to marriage. One of those words is eros, which, as you might guess, describes sexual, passionate love. We get the word “erotic” from eros. And that is the basis upon which many people build a relationship today, even start a marriage or a life together: eros. And while that is a part of marriage, it is not a foundation upon which you can build a life, mainly because it inherently leans toward the selfish. Just look at our world and our obsession with eros. It’s always about my needs, what I can get, how I feel, and so on. And, the reality is, eros fades, if for no other reason than our bodies get older. There has to be something else a marriage is built on or it will never last.

That “something else” is what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13. The word for “love” there is agape. Agape is best described as “no-strings-attached” love. It’s not “I’ll love you if…” It’s “I love you because you are.” Agape is the kind of love God has for us, most demonstrated in the cross. Agape is selfless, sacrificial, wishing the best for other (cf. Hamilton 23). Listen [again] to the way Paul describes it: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (13:4-8a). That’s a tall order, isn’t it? Love is patient; it doesn’t lose heart. An older translation says it “suffers long.” Love is kind; it offers a hand of help. Love does not envy; we wish the best for the other by putting own ego aside, and we’re glad when they succeed. Love does not boast; we remember it’s not about “me.” Love is not proud; that’s not saying we can’t recognize when we’ve done something well. This is a prohibition against the kind of pride that is destructive to other people. Another way it is translated is that love is not “puffed up.” Love does not dishonor others; it doesn’t behave in a way that embarrasses or tears down the other person. It is not self-seeking; it does not demand is own way. Love is not easily angered; this is a hard one. We live in an angry world and it doesn’t seem to take much to provoke us. Love calls us to learn to listen and restrain our anger when things don’t go our way. Are we meddling yet? We’ve only begun! There’s more.

Love keeps no record of wrongs; you know those times when you’re tempted to bring up something that happened six years ago? Love doesn’t do that. There is no list, no holding onto something until just the right time. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth; love isn’t happy when someone hurts or is hurting, when evil seems to win the day. And love certainly doesn’t set out to cause hurt; that is evil. It’s not love, no matter how much we couch it in Christianese. There is no such thing as “I’m going to hurt you for your own good.” Love wants the best for the other, wants to bless the other and not cause hurt. Love always protects (or covers over the faults of others), always trusts (places confidence in the other), always hopes (patiently), always perseveres (bravely). And ultimately, love never fails. Love is never without effect. Love will win the day. Now, Paul is writing these words to people in the church that are having trouble getting along, and if this definition of love applies there, if it describes how they are to get along, then how much more does it describe the ways husbands and wives are to get along? Agape is the standard for the Christian in all relationships. It’s the way we are called to live with each other, and it must be experienced and expressed in Christian marriage.

None of this comes naturally. Or easily, for that matter. That’s why, as I said at the outset this morning, marriage is hard work. And we live in a culture that doesn’t want to have to work hard. Food, we think, should be fast and delivered through a drive-through window. We want the stuff we ordered to arrive overnight. We hate to be put on hold, and we want everything to go our way, right now. We don’t want to have to wait, and we don’t want to have to work at anything. So it’s no surprise that marriage has become disposable. Is an agape relationship even possible anymore? Yes, it is. I’ve seen it. Several years ago, in my first church, we had a wonderful lady named Linda who was part of the office staff. She was a very faithful, dedicated Christian woman who always had a kind word for everyone. One day, she shared with us that she had been diagnosed with brain cancer, and that it had already metastasized to other parts of her body. She worked for a while yet, but then she had to retire and stay home so her husband, Charlie, could take care of her. And he did, without a word of complaint. Every time I saw Charlie, he had a smile on his face, and when you’d ask how he was doing, he’d assure you he was just fine. He wanted to make sure Linda was taken care of. Even when the time came that she went home to be with Jesus, Charlie never wavered. He faithfully did whatever she needed, walked with her through that time, and when she died, he celebrated her life and her home-going. Certainly there was much grief in his life, but he held firmly onto his faith and the knowledge that he had been given the opportunity to share agape with this one whom he loved so much. For better or worse, indeed.

When I came to serve here, our first marriage mentors were Toby and Eloise Bivens. I had known Toby and Eloise through Emmaus before arriving here, and I had always been touched by their faith. I came to realize, as I served here, that deep faith and deep commitment came from walking together through many difficult trials. Out of those experiences, they mentored many couples who were preparing to begin their life together. Toby once told me that he didn’t hold back; he’d tell them the good and the bad about marriage, and I have no doubt that’s true! Yet, the most difficult trial was yet to come, because a few months ago, Eloise fell, hit her head and was rushed to the local hospital. From there, she was taken to Christ Advocate Hospital where she responded very little during the days she was there. When I had a chance to visit, or talk with Toby, I always expressed concern for him, want-ing to make sure he was taking care of himself. He said everyone was asking him that, but he was fine. She had taken care of him for all of these years; now it was his turn. And he barely left Eloise’s side during those days. Now, do you think it was a piece of paper that kept Toby in that hospital room? Absolutely not. Marriage is so much more than a piece of paper. It’s a calling to love, agape love, and a calling to bless the other person. Toby and Eloise lived that out, as have so many others of you in other difficult or similar circumstances. When Eloise died, I was given one main instruction by Toby and the girls: celebrate Eloise’s life. And we did, because that’s what love does and that’s how love responds.

So, we are a mixed bag this morning: some of us are married, some want to be, and some aren’t and have no plans to be. Here’s the question, though, that I believe comes out of these passages for all of us: what do you need to do to better become a person who reflects and lives out agape? For those who are married, how can you live agape better toward your spouse? One way to get at this is to consider the vows you made to each other. For most of us, that’s some variety of “I take you…to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death” (UMH 867). But time, perhaps, has worn the shine off of those vows. As life settles in, we forget to live out those vows, we forget how to live the agape we once promised. If that’s the case for you, and maybe even if it isn’t, consider writing new vows to one another. Take these words that were promised and put them in your own language, your April 2014 language. How would you want to express your agape commitment to your spouse today, if you were getting married all over again? Another way to get at this is to ask this question: what would you want your spouse to say about you at the end of your life? Let’s say you die first; what do you want them to say about you, about the kind of person you were, at your funeral? That might be a dangerous question for some of us right now! But that’s exactly the point: in what ways do you need to better live out agape in order that you are who you want to be, and more importantly who God wants you to be, when you come to the end?

If you’re single, whether you’re hoping to be married or planning to stay single, the same sort of question applies. Being a person of agape is what Jesus calls us all to. So what kind of person do you want to or hope to become? How can you become better a person who lives out agape? Especially if you’re hoping someday to be married, what do you need to do to be the person Paul describes in that “love chapter”? You won’t magically become a different or brand new person just by putting a ring on your finger. Character and values are developed over a long period of time. The character you develop now will be what you bring to a marriage, if and when that day comes.

All of this made me think of a young lady I once knew, years ago. She was a beautiful girl, but couldn’t see it. When she looked in the mirror, she saw someone who was unloveable, unwanted. She had been adopted, and had always felt like her birth mother had abandoned her. Her adoptive mother gave her much love, as did her church family, but there was this hole inside of her that she wouldn’t let anyone, least of all Jesus, fill. She kept it locked up tight. We were at Senior High camp when she shared with the whole group that she was pregnant. She had given herself away in an attempt to find some sort of love, and she was convinced that this baby would love her like she had always wanted to be loved. Now, we who are parents know that’s not true. Oh, babies love you, but mostly for what you can do for them. Those first several years are very, very difficult. And she found herself again wondering if there was anyone to love her. She did marry quickly, but that did not last because neither of them were willing to work on the brokenness that they both brought to the marriage, to the relationship. It wasn’t until she began to open her heart to Jesus, and to others, to let them show her agape, and to make up her mind that she wanted to be different, that things began to change. It’s not that her circumstances instantly were better. She’s been through some difficult times. But she made up her mind what kind of person she wanted to be, someone who lives out agape. Now she’s raising her children in the church, helping them to love Jesus, and to become the person she always hoped she could be. Life is not always easy, but she’s happier and more content as she allows God to shape her and mold her and her husband into the people he designed them to be.

The mission of marriage is to care for, bless and serve one another as God would do in the context of a lifelong, secure commitment. It’s to be helpers to one another, companions on the journey. As our Book of Discipline says, “We affirm the sanctity of the marriage covenant that is expressed in love, mutual support, personal commitment, and shared fidelity between a man and a woman. We believe God’s blessing rests upon such marriage, whether or not there are children of the union…God’s plan is for lifelong, faithful marriage” (2012, paras. 161.B and 161.C). Now, again, we’re going to look at the broken places in a few weeks, but this morning, I just wanted to lay a groundwork for our time together, to put a focus on the mission of marriage lived out in agape love. At the end of this series, we want to invite those who are married to join us for an evening celebration of that covenant, a chance to reaffirm your vows and, even perhaps, to make new ones to each other for the future. That will be taking place on June 1 at 6:30 p.m. hopefully at Crossroads if the weather permits. Punch and cookies will be served—or some sort of food will be, that is.

My prayer, as we go through these next few weeks, is that all of us, and especially husbands and wives, will find, discuss and implement new ways to live out agape toward each other, recognizing that all of us are a work in progress. I love the story of Ruth Bell Graham, wife of Billy Graham, who died in 2007. Ruth and Billy had been married for 63 years, and Rev. Graham once described their relationship this way: “Ruth and I don’t have a perfect marriage, but we have a great one. In a perfect marriage, everything is always the finest and best imaginable; like a Greek statue, the proportions are exact and the finish is unblemished. Who knows any human beings like that? For a married couple to expect perfection in each other is unrealistic. We learned that even before we married.” He went on to say they were “happily incompatible,” a work in progress. In fact, when Ruth died, she was buried on the grounds of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina, and she herself chose the words that were put on her tombstone. They give testimony to the imperfections of her life and of their life together. Her tombstone reads, “End of construction. Thank you for your patience” (Sweet, I Am a Follower, Kindle version, loc. 3388).

A love to stay is one built on agape, a love that is patient, kind, forgiving and all the rest. How are you doing at becoming that sort of person? Let’s pray.

More Afraid

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Mark 16:1-8

April 20, 2014 (Easter) • Portage First UMC

I enjoy going to zoos, and when the kids were younger, we would hit up the zoo in most any city we visited. I once chaperoned Christopher’s class trip to the Indianapolis Zoo, and I was assigned to a small group of boys who all were, shall we say, very energetic. We saw the whole zoo…twice. And we ate lunch along the way. It truly was the ADD version of the Indy Zoo, and I could barely keep up! But what makes the zoo safe for us to visit, for schoolchildren to run through without any worries? How are we able to go and view all these wild animals, many creatures that we would be afraid of if we ran into them in the wild? It’s because of the bars, the cages. We know we’re safe because the animals are contained, right? But what if they got loose? What if the bars of the cage swung open? What would happen then? People would run, most of them frightened, some of them just trying to get out of the way. But there would definitely be fear in the air because something wild had been set loose.

In a very real way, that’s what Easter is all about. On Easter Sunday, something wild got set loose, something that had been caged up, cooped up for all of human history until that point. Something changed on that first Easter Sunday, something broke loose and got into the world, and the world has never been the same since. On that first Easter, close to 2,000 years ago, everything was quiet, over, done with. Jesus had been arrested, put through a mock trial, and executed by one of the cruelest means possible. Late on Friday, just before sundown, he had been put in a borrowed tomb and a stone had been rolled in front of it. And that was it. His friends had hastily prepared the body for burial; normally, there was more time, but the sabbath, the day of rest, was quickly approaching. Sabbath began at sundown on Friday. And so Nicodemus and Joseph of Armiathea, two influential people in Jerusalem, had come together and asked for the body of Jesus. Normally, crucified criminals would have been thrown in a mass grave, but Pilate, the Roman governor, was really done with this Jesus. He didn’t care what happened to his body, so he gave permission for the two men to bury it. What did he care? But, again, sundown was coming soon, so they had to do it quickly. They would have wrapped the body in strips of linen, putting ointments and spices in between the layers. They would have to use only what they had on hand, because no one had expected this to happen. No preparations had been made. So they do a rushed job wrapping Jesus’ body, and then they would have performed one final ritual. A feather was placed on the dead man’s face, under the nose, and they would have waited fifteen minutes. If the feather moved, it would mean the man is still alive. But the feather did not move, and so they sealed the tomb with a large rolling stone and began their sabbath observance. It was over. Jesus was dead. Everything was done, or at least as done as it could be for that day (cf. Mansfield, Killing Jesus, pg. 194).

At sundown on Saturday, the sabbath was over and some of Jesus’ friends went out to buy the spices and oils that were needed to properly finish the burial. Those things were necessary not so much to control the body’s decay but to mask the smell of it. Judaism in that day practiced a two-stage burial. The body would be placed in a tomb—a tomb that would be used by others as well—and then, after a year, the bones would be collected and put in an ossuary—a bone box—so that the tomb could be re-used. The spices would control the smell for those times when others came to this tomb to bury their loved ones. So the materials are purchased on Saturday evening, and at first light on Sunday morning, the women head to the tomb. Mark records three women who go: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome. There is no mention of the men being interested in going to the tomb at this point. Sorry to say, guys, but most likely they believed taking care of the body was women’s work, so they stayed in bed, sleeping their grief away. What’s evident is that these women go to the tomb to finish the burial; the Gospels all agree on this point. They do not go looking for a risen Jesus. It’s almost as if he had never spoken about being raised after his death. Or maybe they thought he was deluded because they knew, every bit as much as we do, that dead men don’t rise. The dead stay dead. And so they go to anoint their friend, to care for his body. They expect that the cage which holds death will still be closed, locked and sealed (Card, Mark: The Gospel of Passion, pg. 188; Wright, Mark for Everyone, pg. 222; Walker, The Weekend That Changed the World, pg. 42).

In fact, as Mark tells it, that’s what’s on their mind as they make the short journey from Jerusalem to the tomb. Not any conversation about Jesus, what he said or what we did. They’re not even really talking about what’s happened in the last couple of days, though I’m sure it’s on their minds. Instead, they’re wondering who is going to roll the stone away. They know it’s heavy; archaeological records indicate the average stone size in that time period was 2,750 pounds. Of course, it’s a round, rolling stone, but to seal a tomb, it would have been rolled downhill and set into a groove at the door of the tomb. That would hold it in place, and at least two of these women watched that happen on Friday evening. They know that to move the stone is going to take a lot of work, more than they are capable of. They need a lot more people than just three women. (One later Christian document says it took twenty men to roll away such a stone, though that may be an exaggeration.) Nevertheless, these women are focused on a problem, a huge problem (Peterson, Living the Resurrection, pg. 17). Who will roll away the stone (16:3)? Then, they turn the corner and find that problem has already been solved for them. The stone is rolled away (16:4). In fact, it’s nowhere in sight. And more than that, the job they came to do doesn’t exist anymore because Jesus’ body is not in the tomb. It’s gone. And even then, they don’t stand there and think, “Oh, of course, resurrection! He’s alive!” Nope, they wonder instead where the body went. Isn’t it interesting that this most important event in history has no eyewitnesses? Even Matthew, which gives the most graphic description of what happened at the tomb, doesn’t tell us anyone saw Jesus raised. The most, he says, they saw was the angel coming down and rolling the stone away (Matthew 28:2). But the stone was not rolled away so that Jesus could get out; other accounts later in the day tell us about how his new body passes through walls and locked doors. No, the tomb was not opened to let him out. The tomb was opened to let us in, to let us see in and realize that he is not there any longer (cf. Walker 46).

So the women see the empty tomb and they also encounter an angel, who explains the whole thing to them: “He has risen! He is not here” (16:6). And so then they dance and sing and rejoice and get excited and buy a billboard to tell everyone the good news. Right? I mean, that’s the reaction we’re supposed to have, correct? Easter is a day of joy and celebration and proclamation. But that’s not what happened to these first visitors to the empty tomb. Mark says this: “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid” (16:8). Even though the angel had told them not to be afraid (16:6), they did the exact opposite. And so, I would imagine, would we. Do you know why? Because the cage has been opened and something has been set loose in the world. The tomb is empty and the world will never be the same again. No wonder the women were terrified. No wonder they run. Much like we would run from a wild animal set free, these women are running in fear because something deep inside them tells them life will never be the same again.

Times of great change naturally bring great fear. I remember as a kid having this recurring fear of having to move. It seemed like every time there was a budget cut at my dad’s work or some change in the economy, there was always the possibility that he was going to lose his job. I remember hearing my parents talk in hushed tones about what they would do, where we might go. And every time, Dad seemed to be just one position higher in seniority than the group they laid off, so he never did lose his job, but I remember well that fear. Of course, God’s irony is that he called me to a career in which moving is part of the deal! God has a strange sense of humor!

Maybe you’ve known that fear when the doctor comes in with a serious look on his face. It’s at least as bad as you thought it might be, or maybe worse. The diagnosis means you’ll face a long treatment, or a serious surgery, or both. Life is changing, and the fear makes you want to run away. Even when you’ve been pronounced cured or healed, even when the treatments are over, for many there is a lingering fear that “it” might come back, or the pain might return. You’ve lived with “it” so long that you’ve forgotten how to live without “it,” and the fear remains. Or maybe you’ve known that fear when two people you love tell you they are going to get a divorce. Kids especially go through great fear at that time, wondering what life will look like, how will things change, and so many other questions that they often stuff deep down inside. I remember experiencing that kind of fear, too, when 9/11 happened, as most of us did. The world changed literally in seconds, and we woke the next morning to a whole different kind of world, a world that’s never fully recovered from the events of that day. This week, we remembered the first anniversary of the bombing attack at the Boston Marathon, and we remembered the fear that surrounded that event, fear that directly stems from 9/11 all those years ago. Where would there be an attack next? We live right next to Chicago—would someone target our area for an attack? Here’s the point: there are lots and lots and lots of reasons to fear in our world. There are plenty of places and situations that cause or bring fear into our lives. We know what the women were feeling. We’ve felt that kind of fear—fear that the world has been turned upside down and nothing will ever be the same.

When we come to Easter, we expect people to rejoice and celebrate, but the reality is that the Gospels tell us the most common reaction to resurrection was fear. “In fact, people were more afraid after the resurrection than they were before” (Ortberg, Who Is This Man?, pg. 187). Fear is the most frequently mentioned reaction in the Gospels. In the four accounts, fear is mentioned six times. Life has turned upside down and they didn’t know how to react, what to do (Peterson 27). Death they understood. Jesus’ death on the cross, horrific as it was, they could deal with. But an empty tomb? That’s truly terrifying. Part of their fear came from the realization that they were, most likely, still in the crosshairs of the political and religious leaders. I mean, if Jesus’ body is missing, then someone has to account for that. It would be likely that the followers of Jesus would be blamed, maybe even hunted down, arrested and killed themselves. The cross failed, Pilate failed, Caesar failed, the religious leaders failed—and those in power hate to fail. Who might they come after next?

There’s also the lingering question: where is Jesus’ body? At this point, all they have is an angel’s word to go on, an angel who claims he has been raised. Yet that flies in the face of—well, all of human history. Like I said, dead men don’t rise. So where was the body? In fact, in John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene runs back to the disciples and says to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” (John 20:2). She doesn’t tell them he is raised. She says “they” have taken him. Whoever “they” are, they’re up to no good. Others are asking the question too. In Matthew’ Gospel, the guards are paid a “large sum of money” by the religious leaders in order to say that the disciples stole the body. It’s another reaction out of fear; the guards could be killed for failing in their duty, and the religious leaders don’t want Pilate’s wrath to come back on them (cf. Matthew 28:11-15). So they collude and come up with a story to cover both of them. You see, there’s plenty of fear to go around because Jesus is missing. His body is gone. Life is changed, in some way none of them can begin to imagine right now.

Though they didn’t realize it at the time, what they were really running from was the thing that got released on that Sunday morning. And what got released was hope. As John Ortberg puts it, “Not hope that life would turn out well. Not even hope that there will be life after death. Hope that called people to die: die to selfishness and sin and fear and greed, die to the lesser life of a lesser self so that a greater self might be born” (190). Hope was released on that first Easter, and it continues to transform people and, indeed, has transformed the whole world.

They didn’t know it on that morning, but what those women witnessed in the garden was hope for life beyond this. The writers of the rest of the New Testament spent a lot of time reflecting on this truth, especially Paul. He said that if only for this life we have faith in Christ, we are the most pitiful people on earth (1 Corinthians 15:19). But, he goes on to say, that’s not the case. Christ’s resurrection is the “firstfruits” of our own (15:20). In other words, because Jesus was raised from the dead, we will be, too. And we will have a body like his, a resurrection body, made to last forever. You know, as a pastor, I have done a lot of funerals over the last twenty-one years. I’ve stood beside a lot of caskets, and people sometimes think I’m crazy when I say that I enjoy doing funerals more than weddings. But it’s because of this hope, this hope for life beyond this life, this promise that we will be made new, whole, healed. There are so many times I’m standing by the caskets of dear saints who have suffered greatly, whose bodies have been torn apart by cancer or other diseases, or who have been sick for a long time. Not too long ago, I stood by the bedside of one of our members who was in the hospital and, as it turned out, in her final days, and when I called her name and told her I was from the church, she just kept repeating, “I pray Jesus take me home. I pray Jesus take me home.” And what would there be to say to people who are suffering in this life if there is nothing beyond this? Too bad, tough luck? No, absolutely not. I love being able to stand there and say with confidence that there is hope beyond this life, there is healing beyond this life, that because Jesus was raised, we can be too when we put our trust in him. There is no fear in death anymore because Jesus was raised.

I sometimes get asked what life after this looks like, and I honestly don’t know. We’re only given glimpses throughout the Scriptures. The idea of streets of gold or sitting on clouds strumming harps are taken from brief snatches of Scripture that, I think, aren’t meant to be descriptive as much as they are metaphorical. I don’t think it matters what it looks like, because what we are told is that Jesus will be there and that we will made whole, given a new body that is “imperishable” (15:42). Those of us who get up in the morning and have to stretch the back out so that it doesn’t hurt, or those who walk with a walker or ride in a wheelchair, those who have hidden pains, those who have been abused, those who have been scarred in both visible and invisible ways—all will be healed by the Jesus who is there in the midst of it all, the one who was raised so that we will be raised. That kind of hope gets me out of bed in the morning, even when my back hurts. There is hope for life beyond this life.

But Jesus’ resurrection also gives us hope for this life. Paul didn’t say we should only have hope for the next life; he only said that has to be a part of it. In fact, at the end of his discussion of the resurrection life and body, he says this: “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Hope for this life was also released on that first Easter. Those early Christians didn’t just go back to their upper room and keep this good news to themselves. Even with the threat of death and persecution hanging over their heads, they continued to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen. In fact, those early Christians were compelled by their faith in the risen Jesus to make a difference in people’s lives and in their deaths. John Ortberg points out that the world they lived in was desperately afraid of death, so much so that no body was allowed to be buried in Rome. We also live in a culture that tends to deny death, but we have nothing on the Roman Empire. They didn’t want anything to do with dead bodies, so the church eventually allowed people to be buried on their grounds because they believed death was simply a sleep from which we will one day all wake when Jesus returns. In fact, the word they chose for those places of burial, “cemetery,” is actually a borrowed Greek term for dormitory (Ortberg 191), a place to sleep. More than that, they fed the hungry and cared for the poor, tended the sick and took care of the widows because life here matters. They sought to offer hope and healing and strength to everyone they came in contact with. Hope was released on that first Easter, and it transformed the world.

Still today, we don’t believe we’re just hanging out here waiting for heaven. We don’t believe you just tear this world up because someday it’s going to burn. No, the Bible says God has a plan for creation and that one day it will be redeemed and even resurrected. So we feed the hungry and care for the poor. We tend the sick and take care of those in need because life here matters. We have been, for the last several years, sponsoring food for the “Feed My Lambs” ministry, which has as its goal making sure every child in Portage Township Schools has food on the weekends. The Car Show this fall will be dedicated to that ministry as well. We collect food for the Portage Township Food Pantry and for First Contact, so that those whose money doesn’t make it to the end of the month don’t have to go hungry. We visit in the hospitals and in the nursing homes, and our Congregational Care Team is busy reaching out to those who are going through difficult times, so that the sick are prayed for and the dying are valued. And we send teams to Red Bird Mission, Royal Family Kids Camp and, next year we hope, to El Faro Mission in Guatemala so that those who are on the underside of life know that Jesus loves them. Hope got released on that first Easter, and it must make all the difference in the world in the here and how. Give yourselves fully to God’s work, Paul says, and know that it is not in vain.

The first time I really remember losing really someone close to me was when I was in high school. I had been to the funeral home with my parents many times, visiting friends of theirs who had lost someone, but when I was a sophomore in high school, my Grandma Ticen died. Grandma had been a big part of our lives, having lived just a couple of blocks from our house when we were little. Later, when she moved to the “big town” of Rossville, her house was where we often walked to after school on the days Mom was working. She was very important to Doug and I, and it was hard to imagine life without her. Then she had a stroke and everything changed. She struggled for many years with the after effects of that stroke and several others she had after, and then she got sick and just wasn’t getting any better. So I can’t say I was surprised when Carolyn Mosson, the school nurse, came into Mr. Reed’s geometry class and asked me to come with her. On the way to the office, she told me what had happened. The next several days were a blur, and I don't really remember much about them, nor do I remember much about the funeral itself. What I do remember is standing by the graveside at the Geetingsville Cemetery, and even more than that, I remember not being able to walk away when the committal was over. I couldn’t believe she was gone, and suddenly the tears just started to come. Gary Hunt, a friend of our family, took me in his arms and just let me cry it out, then whispered words of reassurance to me. Just what I needed at that time of incredible loss—someone who would be “Jesus with skin on” to me. His presence, and the presence of so many other people in the next few weeks, planted the seeds in me to be able to believe the words once attributed to author Frederick Buechner, that the worst thing is never the last thing (Hamilton, 24 Hours That Changed the World, pg. 131). That because of Jesus’ resurrection, even death is a defeated enemy, and I can live in hope and not in fear. The worst thing is never the last thing because hope was unleashed into the world on that first Easter and the world has never recovered. Thank God!

So the Gospel of Mark ends, appropriately enough, with fear. In your Bibles, there are probably several other verses after verse 8, but scholars are almost completely agreed that what we have as verses 9-20 were added later. The original Gospel ends here at verse 8, with the women running out of the garden, terrified. Some suggest that the original ending might have been lost, like having a page torn out of a book. But, for me, I like the ending of the Gospel this way, whether that’s the way Mark intended it or not. I like that it’s uncertain, and more than that, I love that the story is left open so that you and I can finish it. The ending of Mark’s Gospel asks us: how will we react to the resurrection of Jesus? How will we respond? In what ways will we complete the story, tell the good news, offer hope and make a difference in the world around us? Resurrection is something we are meant to live out each and every moment of each and every day, not just on Sunday and certainly not just on Easter. For those who trust in Christ, resurrection is the way we live every day, bring new life to every situation: life out of death, hope out of hopelessness, victory out of defeat. Hope has been set loose, and the world has never been and will never be the same. And that, my friends, is a reason to sing, to dance, to celebrate, and to no longer be afraid. Hope is running amuck through the world! Let’s go catch up and share it, shall we? Thanks be to God!

Just Another Cross

Mark 15:6-15, 25-32

April 18, 2014 (Good Friday) • Portage First UMC

It was a horrible way to die. It was intended to be. It was a punishment meant to terrify people, to keep them in line lest they find themselves next in line. One writer of the time said that if you knew there was a chance you might be arrested and put to death by crucifixion, it would be better to commit suicide. Another called it the “extreme and ultimate punishment of slaves” and the “cruelest and most disgusting penalty.” A third writer called it “the most pitiable of deaths” (Hamilton, 24 Hours That Changed the World, pg. 96). It was so horrible that, early on in the Christian faith, no one represented this faith by placing a cross around their necks or in their places of worship. In fact, crosses were not represented in Christian art until everyone who had ever seen a real crucifixion was long gone.

In order to be an effective crime deterrent, crucifixions were generally held along main roads, so that as many people as possible could see what happened to those who got on the wrong side of Rome. And while Rome did not invent crucifixion, they certainly perfected it, making it a mode of death aimed primarily at producing the maximum agony for the longest possible time. Contrary to what you see in most of the movies, the vertical beam was left at the execution site; condemned criminals would only carry the cross beam from the judgment hall to the site (Wright, Mark for Everyone, pg. 212). There, they would have their wrists nailed to the beam, and their feet nailed to the vertical pole, and then they would be left to hang in the sun, listening to the jeers and taunts of the crowd, who loved a good execution.

On a spring afternoon somewhere around the year 30 A.D., a crucifixion took place outside of Jerusalem—three of them, in fact. And while we don’t know the names of the ones on the outsides, the middle cross has continued to fascinate, repel and intrigue human beings for centuries. But there was nothing special about the cross itself. It was just one of many crosses the Romans had. Crucifixion was common in those days. When Jesus was a boy, the Romans had crucified thousands of Jewish rebels all over Palestine; they would crucify thousands more when the Jews rebelled forty years after Jesus’ death. In fact, they crucified so many that the soldiers got bored and began to experiment with different positions—hanging people upside down, for instance. They crucified so many that they ran out of wood (Wright 207). That one in the middle on this day in the year 30, outside a city well known for rebellion and causing trouble, was just another job, just another crucifixion, just another cross.

So many people, though, had a stake in the death of the one in the middle. For them, it was not just another cross. For them, it was personal, essential that he must die. One of those people was Herod, the “tetrarch” of Galilee. Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, had hoped to be named king after his father’s death, but instead he was only given a quarter of his dad’s kingdom and made a functionary, a man with a title and very little power. He had heard of Jesus before this week, but had not had the chance to see him, so when Pilate sends Jesus to him, Herod asks him to perform some sort of miracle. Jesus refused, and Herod, who could have stopped the execution, instead mocked Jesus, ridiculed him, and sent him back to Pilate without comment (Luke 23:8-12; cf. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, pgs. 322-324). For Herod, Jesus was an irritant, a man who stirred up trouble in his little kingdom. It would be good to get rid of him. Actually, Herod probably cared little either way, but he wouldn’t stand in the way of Jesus being killed.

On the other hand, Pilate, the Roman governor, had sent Jesus to Herod in hopes that Herod would do something so that he wouldn’t have to. I mean, if you can get someone else to do your dirty work, why not? The religious leaders had approached Pilate early in the morning, interrupting his plans for a day of organized leisure, and asked him to put Jesus to death. He had tried in many ways to put them off, but they kept pressing the matter, and Pilate was a savvy enough politician to know that he was already on the brink with his superiors. Any more trouble in his area and he might find himself without a job, or without a head. Pilate represented the Roman Empire, the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, and he was charged with keeping the peace, a task that wasn’t always easy in such a hotbed as Judea. Jesus was fast becoming a threat to that peace, though Pilate believed him to be innocent. Then the moment came when he tried to release Jesus, and the crowds told him, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar” (John 19:12). Pilate knew he was cornered. He couldn’t risk this rabble complaining to Caesar about him again.

You see, Rome needed Palestine. The Empire was vast, and they needed food. In those days, the Middle East was sort of the bread basket of the Roman Empire. Grain was grown in Egypt and in Galilee. Anything that threatened to upset the political situation or the production schedule had to be dealt with quickly. Caesar needed grain; he needed food to feed his empire. On some level, Jesus died to make sure people had enough to eat, to protect the fragile peace that existed in Palestine (Ortberg, Who Is This Man?, pg. 169).

But Pilate had one more “trick” up his sleeve, one more attempt to free Jesus. Mark tells us there was a custom during the Passover festival in which Rome would release one of their prisoners as an “act of goodwill.” It was sort of like a presidential pardon, except that the people got to choose who would be released. Now, there is no record of how this went down in other years; we only know of this custom because of the Gospels. But Pilate decided to use it against the people. It was, after all, their choice. He would let them have Jesus of Nazareth, a teacher and healer and would-be Messiah, or he would let them have another man by the name of Jesus. Barabbas is his last name; it means “son of the father.” Matthew tells us his first name was Jesus (27:16). Unlike Jesus of Nazareth, though, Jesus Barabbas was a revolutionary, determined to do whatever he needed to do, including murder, to free Palestine from the Romans. Some might have called him a patriot or a freedom fighter, but in reality, he was a terrorist, not afraid to repay violence with violence (Ortberg 168; Wright 209). In Pilate’s mind, the choice was clear. Who would you rather have roaming around free? A murderer or a teacher? A violent man or one who said, “Blessed are the peacemakers”? The choice was clear, or so Pilate thought. The crowd thought it was clear, too: “Give us Barabbas!”

You see, Jesus Barabbas we understand. This other Jesus makes us too uncomfortable. Give us the violent Jesus. We understand taking things into our own hands. We understand anger and doing whatever it takes to make sure we win. Jesus Barabbas we understand. So what should I do with the peaceful Jesus? Pilate asks. Put him on the cross. Repay his peace with violence. Repay his teaching with death. And so Pilate gives in and orders Jesus to be nailed to one of the crosses, the one meant for Barabbas. Barabbas, who deserves to die, is set free. And Jesus, who deserves to be set free, is murdered.

The ones who started all this, though, were the religious leaders, the ones who were the guardians of truth and the preachers of holiness. They made sure Jesus was arrested. They paid one of his disciples, Judas, to take them to him. They put him on trial, illegally, in the middle of the night. They took him to Pilate and demanded the death sentence. And as if that wasn’t enough, they are there at the cross, taunting and ridiculing him. Mark tells us they used his death as a chance to point out how un-Messiah-like he was. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe” (15:31-32). Threatened by Jesus’ teaching, put off by his challenges to their interpretation of the Scriptures, angered by the people’s initial love for Jesus, they set their sights early on bringing about his death. He would not conform to their image of the Messiah. He would not be who they thought he ought to be, and he dared to speak of God as if God were close, near, a daddy. No one could speak about God in that way. And so they looked for ways to get rid of him, and when they finally succeed in seeing him on a cross, it’s still not enough. They make fun of him, demanding that he come down from the cross to prove he is who he says he is. And, of course, the irony is that it's on the cross where he’s doing his saving work. Were he to come down from the cross, he could not accomplish what God the Father sent him to do. To the bitter end, they are demanding signs that contradict what God is up to in Jesus.

So Herod, Pilate and the religious leaders all have their agendas on this day, agendas centered around this cross in the middle. But there’s someone else with an agenda this day, someone whose agenda trumps all of the others. Jesus comes to Calvary with an agenda, and that is the salvation of every single person on planet Earth. Jesus dies on the cross for Herod, for Pilate, for the religious leaders, for Caesar, for Barabbas and Judas, for the disciples, and for every person gathered at the foot of the cross that day. And he died for every person who came after them, all the way down to you and me. In some way we can’t quite explain or understand, what Jesus is doing there on the cross is taking the punishment for our sin, for our brokenness, and offering healing for the wounds that break the world. Jesus’ agenda on this Good Friday is one of love, giving his life for the sake of others. Paul put it this way: “At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).

As a father, I know there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my children. I would give my life if it would save theirs. Most parents I know feel the same, and that feeling, that passion is an echo of God’s great passion for his children, for you and me. It’s only an echo. There isn’t anything God wouldn’t do to save us, to rescue us, to show us his love. To the Romans, that cross Jesus was on may have been just another cross. It may have been just another day at the office for the soldiers who nailed his hands and feet to the wood. But to us, and to all who have chosen to follow him throughout the centuries, those two beams can never be just another cross, for that instrument of death became the hope of the world. That tool of torture became the means by which I am saved, and you are saved, and my sin is washed away, and your sin is washed away. At the heart of the cross is the love of Christ, and the only thing that can keep that love from invading your life is you. If you look at those pieces of wood and see just another cross, just an historical oddity, then you’ve missed the point.

Who is this man, the one hanging on the middle cross? He is the one who loves you and me more than we can ever imagine, and who would do anything to win your heart back. He is the Lord, the crucified one, the returning savior. If you were to ask him, “How much do you love me?” he would stretch both arms out and say, “This much. Enough that I would go to the cross to show you how much I love you.” Have you accepted his love? Are you willing to let him save you once again? He chose the cross, he died for me and you, and for all the world, and the world has never been the same since. It wasn’t just another cross; it was a cross of love. Thanks be to God!

Remember

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

April 17, 2014 (Maundy Thursday) • Portage First UMC

The day was over and the evening was quite pleasant, but it wasn’t the weather that had him in such a good mood. Tonight was the night they would gather and celebrate. He made his way through the city streets of Corinth to the home of their hosts, a very spacious home by Corinthian standards. That was why they met there, because as the group had grown, they needed more space to be able to all be together. This home was perfect. Most of the group could gather in the central courtyard, which was partially open to the sky, and others would spill into the surrounding rooms. As he made his way to the home, he saw others he knew arriving—some coming from the baths, some coming from the market, some coming from work as he was. No matter what their place in life, they came together this night on equal footing. Everyone was welcome, and everyone was included. This was the night when they worshipped and celebrated the meal.

Everyone brought dinner to share, and if someone couldn’t bring food, they were still welcome to share the meal. Some of the brothers and sisters simply didn’t have the resources; they could barely feed themselves many days. But on this night, they ate together. Then someone would get out the instruments and they would begin to sing. Someone would share a story about how Jesus had touched their life, and then someone else would repeat an ancient Scripture or they would sing one of David’s psalms. Then the leader would share a bit about how the Scripture they had heard found its fulfillment in Jesus. One or two more people might share a story or a message they believed they had received from the Lord, and then the most important time came. The leader for the evening would stand and say, “We mustn’t go away without recalling what Jesus did to make us his people. Let us, then, do as he did: take the bread and the cup. Remember what he said and what he did. And then go from this place to serve him faithfully.” And the bread would be passed, and then the cup, and all would partake. And after a blessing, they would all depart into the cool night air, determined to serve Jesus better the next day (cf. Green, To Corinth With Love, pgs. 43-44).

At least, that’s how it might have gone, from what we know of the early church’s worship habits. They gathered in homes, and every time they gathered, they remembered this night, a night that, in Jewish custom, includes the question, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” The Passover celebration is a remembrance of God rescuing the people from slavery in Egypt. In our communion celebration, we remember God rescuing us from slavery to sin, and that he did that through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Why is this night different from all other nights? Why do we set up the sanctuary differently on this night? Why do we face each other? Because this night is a night meant for community, for celebration, for communion with Christ and with one another. This night we remember, as Jesus told us to do.

In the short passage we read this evening from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we not only have the earliest account of the Last Supper, we also have the earliest written down words of Jesus (Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, pg. 103). This letter predates the Gospels by ten to fifteen years. Paul says he received this tradition “from the Lord” (11:23), which doesn’t necessarily mean he got a vision from Jesus. It probably means this tradition was handed down to him, maybe from many sources, and that it goes all the way back to what originally happened in that Upper Room on that last night Jesus was with his disciples. That night, “the night he was betrayed” (11:23), Jesus gathered all of his friends in a borrowed room for one final Passover meal, one final remembrance of the way God saves his people. Only Jesus changed the equation. There was a very distinct way of celebrating Passover. There was a script you followed closely, and most likely Jesus had done that in Passovers past. But not tonight. Tonight, even as he helped them remember God’s action in the past, he pointed them forward toward the cross, toward his death for them and for all of us.

On other Passovers, it’s likely that there were larger groups, possibly even crowds, who came to be with Jesus for this high, holy moment. But on this night, Jesus only wanted his closest friends there. Who would you want present if you knew it was your last night, that you would die the next day? You would only want those who are closest to you, those who love you and support you and care for you. You would want your family and maybe only your closest friends (cf. Hamilton, 24 Hours That Changed the World, pgs. 28-29). That’s who Jesus called to himself—the friends, the disciples who were his family. Peter, James, John, Matthew and the rest—including Judas. Judas, who as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, is always labeled from the beginning of the story as the betrayer. It’s a murder mystery in which we know the murderer even before the deed takes place. But Judas was there, and from our best reconstruction of the night, he was probably sitting next to Jesus, in the place of the intimate friend (cf. Card, The Parable of Joy, pg. 171). In fact, during the meal, Jesus breaks off a piece of bread, dips it into the common dish and offers it to Judas. This is a Middle Eastern way of expressing deep friendship to another person, and usually when you do that, you say, “Eat this for my sake.” In the midst of Jesus telling them they will fall away, that one of them will betray him, Jesus continues to offer friendship and love to Judas. In fact, he offers Judas something he offers no one else at the table, and Judas rejects it. He prefers his own choice of deception and death to Jesus’ friendship (cf. Bailey, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes, pg. 320). And so Jesus turns to the rest of the disciples and offers them the bread and the cup. “Eat this, drink this for my sake. Do this and remember.” Remember. It’s what we do. In fact, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “Much of what the Bible demands can be comprised in one word: Remember.”

Twenty or so years after that meal in the Upper Room, remembering is what those early Christians in Corinth were doing. And Paul wants this holy meal to enrich their souls, so he gives them direction in the verses surrounding the ones we read. First, he tells them to look back, and not just to the Upper Room, but to the original Passover itself. It’s all part of God’s great drama in rescuing the human race. Of course, Jesus’ sacrifice makes the Exodus look pale by comparison, because Jesus is about the business of saving people from sin and death and hell, from guilt and doom, but that began in the Passover. Jesus is completing what was begun then. So look back with gratitude, Paul says. Give thanks that God loves us enough to rescue us, to save us (Green 48).

Then, look in. Paul says we must not approach the table lightly. Rather, he says, “everyone out to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup” (11:28). Author Michael Green says that perhaps behind Paul’s words here is the traditional search for leaven or yeast that was part of the Passover ritual. When the Hebrews had to flee Egypt, they didn’t have time to let the dough rise, so they made bread without yeast. And yeast came to represent all those things in our lives, those sins, that just keep coming back, keep rising up. Just as yeast or leaven is always swelling and you have to punch it back down, there are some sins that just keep rising up in our lives and we need to deal with them, to examine ourselves, Paul says. Look at it this way: no one comes to the table for dinner with dirty hands. What was your mother always telling you? “Wash your hands.” “Don’t sit down at my table without clean hands.” In the same way, Paul says, we shouldn’t come to the Lord’s table until we’ve looked in and repented of the sin we find there (Green 48-49). This is serious business; don’t bother repenting of that sin if you’re just planning to do it again once you get up from the table. Jesus’ sacrifice calls us to deal honestly with the sin that so easily ensnares us (cf. Hebrews 12:1). Yet, lest we become discouraged, remember again who was at that first table that night: imperfect disciples, squabbling over who is the greatest. Their presence reminds us that no perfect people are allowed. In fact, if the table were only open to perfect people, it would remain forever empty (cf. Barclay 105). So, to the best of our ability, we look in and let Christ cleanse us of our sin.

Next, look up (cf. Green 49). Coming to the table is not just something we do lightly, and it’s not just an ordinary meal. One time, when I was asking a group of children what communion was, one little boy piped up saying, “It’s a snack in the middle of the service!” For a child, that’s a fine understanding, but if we never get beyond that understanding, we’ve failed to grow in our faith. This is the Lord’s Table; Paul reminds the Corinthians of that over and over again. It is Christ who feeds us here. That’s why it’s not up to me or to Pastor Deb or anyone in the church leadership to determine who can and who can’t receive communion. Jesus welcomed all of the twelve, even Judas. We welcome all who love Christ or who want to love him. It’s his body, his blood. It’s his table; it’s his supper, so look up. Look toward Jesus. It’s him and his sacrifice we remember.

Once you’ve looked up and set your eyes on Jesus, then look around (Green 49-50). This is a communal meal, not a solitary action. This is not about “me getting my communion.” This is about Jesus’ family gathering around the table. One of the reasons we rearrange the chairs on this night is so that you can see each other. Uncomfortable looking at another person? Probably, and that’s good. There was an ongoing struggle in the Corinthian church that Paul is addressing. Part of it was bitterness that had grown, and questions about who was on who’s side. And there was also the issue of the meal before communion. Some would arrive early, most likely the rich who had leisure time, and they would eat all the food. Others, the slaves and the working poor, would arrive later and there would be nothing left for them (11:17-22). It’s sort of like when someone goes first in the potluck line and takes most of the food, leaving none for those who are yet to come. Paul says that won’t do. Take care of one another. This table is meant to bring you together. Even Jesus had told the disciples that if they came to worship and realized they had something against a brother or sister in the community, they should leave worship and make it right before they come to the table, before they came and offered their gift or even offered themselves (Matthew 5:23-24). Look around. Look into the eyes of your brothers and sisters. Christ died for them, too, so look around and remember.

Fifth, then, is the call to look forward. Paul says, “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (11:26). The coming of Jesus is the great hope of the Christian, and the communion table is a foretaste of the banquet that is promised in the kingdom of God. So it is a snack, a foretaste, getting us ready to be in Jesus’ presence. The Corinthians lived in a world of political upheaval, uncertainty, economic injustice and even difficult personal circumstances. In other words, they were no different from you and me. When they gathered around this table, they were grasping onto the hope that one day, all of this will be redeemed, made new (cf. Green 50). We’ve been studying the book of Revelation in our Disciple 4 class the last few weeks, and even with the best scholarship available and our good discussions, it’s still a confusing and perplexing book. Sometimes, we just try to hard to figure it all out, but I can tell you without a doubt what the message it. The whole book is boiled down to this: Jesus is coming and he will win over sin, death and the grave. He is returning; he promised. It may be tomorrow or it may be a thousand years from now, but he is coming. And when he comes, all will be made right. That is the hope of the Christian, the hope we look forward to when we gather at the table. In fact, at the table, everything comes together. Communion is “the moment at which the past event [the crucifixion] comes forward to live again in the present, and the future moment of the Lord’s return comes backwards in time to challenge us in the present” (Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians, pg. 150). The table of Lord brings hope as we look forward.

And finally, we look outward (cf. Green 50). There’s that word “proclaim” in Paul’s description. It means to preach, or to announce publicly. We ought to be changed because we’re at the table, enough so that when we leave this place, people notice. There’s something different about us because we’ve been in Jesus’ presence at the table. The food provided here—Jesus’ very presence—is meant to strengthen us so that we can “proclaim” his mercy and grace and love with our lives. Communion is a sending. As Michael Green puts it, “The eucharist is battle rations for Christian warriors, not cheesecake for lazy Christians” (51). In fact, the next part of Paul’s letter focuses on spiritual gifts, those abilities God gives us to be able to reach the world. Communion changes us, equips us, enables us to move outward and proclaim with our lives, our actions, our words the salvation found in Jesus Christ and in him alone.

That was certainly true for those first disciples, gathered in the Upper Room. Oh, not this night. This night they all did exactly what Jesus said they would do: they deserted him. One betrayed him blatantly, but they all left him in one way or another. Peter pledged to defend him to the death, but by sunrise the next morning he had denied Jesus three times. In the darkness of the Garden of Gethsemane, they all ran away. But in the wake of that failure and in the bright light of the resurrection, to a man they gave their lives for the sake of sharing the good news about Jesus, proclaiming his death. Who is this man? He is the one who was about to give his life for them, and for every person throughout all time, to save us from our sins and rescue us from death. He is the one who, this night, is giving them a tangible way to remember that death, that sacrifice. And so every time these disciples gathered at the table, they remembered, they gave thanks, and they celebrated, and they then rose from the table to proclaim his death.

I invite you, then, on this holy night, to look back, look in, look up, look around, look forward and look outward. For their calling is ours as well: to proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Amen.

Overturned Tables

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Matthew 21:1-11

April 13, 2014 (Palm Sunday) • Portage First UMC

It is a scene that is both simple and profound. It’s also a scene that we watch every year, and it’s easy to begin to think we know everything we need to know about how it comes out and what it means. Sort of like that movie your family watches every year, and you can all repeat the words line for line: you know how it comes out, and yet you still watch it. We sort of approach Palm Sunday and Holy Week that way. Here we go again. Jesus is headed down the hillside, and we know that by Friday he’ll be hanging on a cross, but even that doesn’t bother us or affect us all that much because we know by Sunday he’ll be risen. So here we go into Holy Week again, one more time. And we miss the wonder of this story. Yes, Jesus enters Jerusalem on this day and he knows he has come here to die. But this week is about more than a donkey ride, a last supper and a horrible death, because Jesus, along the way, is about to upset everyone he comes in contact with. And if he doesn’t upset something in our lives during this week, maybe we’re not paying attention.

So, it’s Sunday, and Jesus has probably been in Bethany on the other side of the Mount of Olives since at least Friday. He’s spent the Sabbath rest there (cf. John 12:1), and on Sunday morning of the week before the Passover celebration, he makes arrangements to enter into the city. Other times he has come in secret, but this time, he intends to make a statement. He sends two disciples into the city to arrange his transportation, and while we often read this as “Jesus the Clairvoyant,” it’s just as likely he had this set up ahead of time (Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 184). He intends to act out a parable, a living lesson, as he enters the city on this day (Carson, “Matthew,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pg. 437). You see, the rabbis had taught that the Messiah, when he came, would enter Jerusalem either on a white horse or on a donkey. If he came on a horse, they said, he would be set on conquest and coming in judgment. (In Revelation 19:11, the returning triumphant Jesus is pictured as coming on a white horse.) But if he came on a donkey, he was coming in peace. Matthew even quotes the prophets Isaiah and Zechariah as a reminder of their hope and prayer that the promised one would come on a donkey, in peace. So Jesus arranges for the disciples to get a donkey and her colt and bring them to him for the so-called triumphal entry.

And so Jesus rides into the city proclaiming peace. He has not come to judge the people; he has come to save them, to rescue them, to pass judgment on their sin to be sure, but to defeat it by giving his life. And I have to wonder if there were at least some in the crowd who got it. Of course, we’re not sure how big a crowd was there. The movies always show it as rather large, but it wasn’t large enough to attract the attention of the Roman authorities. There’s no account of soldiers being sent to control the crowd or of the Romans being overly concerned. To them, it probably looked like just another Passover pilgrimage. And in the middle is Jesus, on a colt with its mother walking alongside to calm it, people waving palm branches, and other shouting traditional words from the psalms: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (21:9).

But the whole city is not on board with Jesus. In fact, we’re told at the end of this passage that the city is asking, “Who is this?” It’s not that they didn’t know his name, or where he came from. Matthew really tells us what’s at the heart of that question when he says the city was “stirred.” The word literally means “agitated” or “trembling.” It’s no coincidence that the last time we read about the city being upset like that is at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, when the Wise Men come looking for the “king of the Jews” (2:3). The city was disturbed when Jesus was born, when the status quo was threatened. Now, again, as he enters into this last week of his life, the city is “agitated.” Once again, he’s threatening to upset things, to overturn the way things are. King Herod tried to kill him the last time the city was upset. The Jewish leaders will succeed in doing just that this time (cf. Card 185). So let’s not assume everyone is on the same page with Jesus. There are people celebrating. There are folks who assume he is coming to town to throw out the Romans, to take over power. There are lots of people who are waiting along that route for Jesus to do what they want him to do, what they hope he came to do.

And isn’t that the way we often approach Jesus, even in our day? We want Jesus to do for us what we want. We come to worship or we open our Bibles and we want Jesus to be who we think we is, to do what we think he ought to do in our life. Consider how people turn to God in droves when there is a crisis, whether that’s a crisis in our personal lives, or a national crisis like a time of war or an event like 9/11. Suddenly, people show up at church, or Congress gathers on the steps of the Capitol to sing, “God Bless America,” and the rest of time we want nothing to do with Jesus. In times of crisis, we want Jesus to ride into town and be the sort of king we want him to be, to do what we want him to do. Give us peace, pay our bills, heal my child, give me a job, help! Author Chuck Gutenson describes it this way: “There's the Prosperity Jesus, the Right Wing Jesus, the Left Wing Jesus, the Libertarian Jesus, the Capitalist Jesus, the Socialist Jesus, the Communist Jesus, and untold others. What do they all have in common? There are our creation of a Jesus made in our image.” And Jesus refuses to stay molded into the image we make of him.

Most of our disappointment with Jesus stems from the fact that he refuses to be bound by our agendas. He refuses to do things the way we think they ought to be done. He insists that we come along with him and bend our plans to his agenda rather than the other way around. And so people walk away, accusing Jesus of being unfaithful. But who is really the unfaithful one in that scenario? Why do we think we have the right to dictate to the Lord of life how things ought to go? You see, the people here in this crowd want Jesus to come and rescue them from evil and oppression, and Jesus will do that, but it doesn’t involve overthrowing the Roman Empire like they thought it should. Jesus’ mission is much deeper. He’s come to rescue them—and us—from evil in all its depths, not just on the surface. He doesn’t come to give us what we think we want, as if he were a cosmic vending machine. He comes to give us what we need (cf. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part Two, pg. 68).

And there are times when he has to help us see him as he really is, rather than as we wish he were. That’s much of what Jesus spends the first part of this week doing. And he begins in the Temple courts. Either later on Sunday or on Monday morning, Jesus goes into the Temple courts. Now, you’ve got to remember that the Temple, for the Jewish people, was not only a worship center. It was the center of life. To them, this was the place where God lived, where God dwelt on Earth. They came here to offer sacrifices, to give their offerings, to renew their relationship with God. And there were, like it or not, various levels of Temple participation (http://followtherabbi.com/guide/detail/temple-courts). The most inner court was the Court of the Israelites, where Jewish men could go. Next out was the court of the women, where Jewish women could worship. Still today, in Israel, at their most sacred site, the Western Wall, the remnants of the first-century Temple, women and men are divided in their space for prayer. Women have a much smaller area, and men have not only an outdoor place, but an indoor place where study of the Scriptures happens. Then, there was one more court, the outermost court, called the Court of the Gentiles. This is where people like you and me could worship—people who were not Jewish by birth but wanted to worship the God of Israel. And this is where Jesus finds the marketplace. He’s found it here before; this is the second time, according to the Gospels, he does what he does here (cf. John 2:13-17). The first happened near the beginning of his ministry, and this second one happens at the end. Jesus comes in, finds this place of prayer full of vendors and money changers, and it makes him angry. Can you picture Jesus angry? I had a friend once who couldn’t, who wouldn’t accept that Jesus is responding out of anger here. But I don’t picture him doing what he does kindly. Jesus overturns the tables of the money changers and the benches of those who were selling doves for the sacrifice. Jesus is angry because the place of prayer has been made into a market, and beyond that, it’s a market that’s taking advantage of the poor. So he clears it out and reminds them, “My house will be called a house of prayer” (21:12-14).

Can you imagine the confusion and chaos Jesus has created? But what he does next is even more daring. Matthew says, “The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them” (21:14). What’s so strange about that? I mean Jesus was always healing those sorts of people. Yes, he was, but not here. The blind and the lame were not allowed, by the religious leaders’ rules, to be in or near the Temple. They were “imperfect,” and it was the common practice that anything or anyone imperfect was excluded from the Temple, because you could only offer to God that which was perfect or whole (cf. Card 186). And yet, Jesus lets in the blind and the lame, and the children, and all the ones the religious leaders have excluded. Jesus welcomes the ones who have never been able to worship or pray in this place of worship. This is not primarily a story about whether or not we should sell things in church, though that’s often the way we take it. This is a story of our savior turning the tables over in our lives, welcoming the outcast and the stranger and the one who isn’t yet old enough to quite understand it all. This is Jesus upsetting the way things have always been and establishing a new reality—which ought to cause us to ask who we exclude. Who are the “blind and lame” in our own world, the people we overlook or ignore or don’t think ought to be included in the kingdom of God? Who are the “second-class citizens”? Now, I’m not talking about overlooking or condoning sin in the name of “welcome.” That’s not what this passage is about. It is about Jesus welcoming anyone who wants to come and allowing them the opportunity to follow him. Jesus overturns the tables and welcomes those who were once excluded. For us, following Jesus on the road to the cross might cause us to overturn some tables and upset some Sadducees. You see, those are the ones who were in control of the Temple, and by the end of this day, they were upset with Jesus. Something has to be done.

A bit later in the week, we’re told, two other groups who often aren’t seen together come to try to trap Jesus. The Pharisees were the precursors to modern-day rabbis. They were largely laypeople who taught the Scriptures and urged people to follow the Law of Moses closely. In terms of what they believed, they were probably closer to Jesus than any other group of that time, but they were also the group Jesus fought with the most. While they shared belief and theology, Jesus often argued with the way they were so legalistic in the way they practiced their faith. The Pharisees were very strongly anti-Rome and had little patience for those (like the Sadducees) who cooperated with the empire, which is why it’s strange for them to be seen here, in Matthew 22, with the Herodians. As their name suggests, they were friends or followers of Herod, the Roman-appointed king of the Jews. The only thing that could have brought them together was their mutual hatred of Jesus. And so, one day, they approach Jesus and attempt at first to butter him up: “Teacher,” they say, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth” (22:16). Please! Have you ever had the occasion where you wanted to say to someone, “Cut it out. I know that’s not how you really feel!” I imagine Jesus is much like that at this point. “Just get on with it, and leave out the flattery.” But he patiently listens, and eventually they get around to their question, a question we all have especially with April 15 looming in front of us this week: “Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” (22:17).

We often hear this passage as an endorsement for paying taxes, but Jesus doesn’t really answer the question. He doesn’t tell us to pay taxes or not to pay taxes. There are other passages in the New Testament where we are told to obey the government, to pay what we owe, but that’s not what happens here. Instead, Jesus calls them on their deceit and then asks for a Roman coin. The irony, of course, is that the Pharisees shouldn’t even be carrying such a coin if they are so opposed to the Roman government, and yet they seem to have no trouble giving him one. He looks at it, and he would have seen two things on that coin: a portrait and an inscription. The portrait would have been of Tiberius, the reigning emperor. That was offensive to Jews because they didn’t believe in images of human beings. But even more offensive was the inscription: “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus.” In other words, the coin proclaimed Caesar as the son of a god, divine. Caesar is not claiming that the coin belongs to him; Caesar is claiming that worship belongs to him. When Jesus says, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (22:21), he’s actually drawing a line in the sand. Caesar is demanding worship and does not deserve it. Only God deserves worship. The whole tax discussion is moot as far as Jesus is concerned. What’s on the line here is who your first allegiance is, who your worship is given to. And with that statement, he’s upset the Herodians and the Pharisees alike, because he has supported neither one of their causes—and he has escaped their trap. Jesus has overturned the tables of their well-ordered lives, and they are left, as Matthew says, “amazed” (22:22; Card 197).

So, Jesus has alienated the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Herodians so far this week. Who’s left? Oh, yes, there are those guys who have been following him around for three years, the disciples, the ones who on Thursday night will share a Last Supper with him. But they also shared a next-to-last Supper with him that Matthew tells us about in chapter 26. He’s back in Bethany, but this night he’s at the home of another friend, Simon the Leper. Now, we have to assume this is Simon the used-to-be leper, otherwise they wouldn’t want to be around him because of the contagious nature of the disease. Jesus most likely was the one who healed Simon, and so Simon is throwing this dinner in appreciation. Jesus and the disciples are all there, and during the meal, a woman comes in “with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume” (26:7). We have to get the picture a bit because Matthew says Jesus is reclining at the table, which means this is somewhat of a formal meal, and the participants are reclining at the three-sided table, with their feet out behind them. This means if the woman is going to anoint Jesus’ head, she has to come all the way into the room, into the center, into full view of everyone there, and pour this very expensive oil on his head. It runs down his head and his beard, probably dripping onto the table and the pillows, much like the Old Testament describes the anointing of a priest for service. Some scholars estimate this perfume may have been worth somewhere around twelve thousand dollars (Card 225). And in a moment, it’s all poured out onto Jesus’ head.

I know in our house how just a little bit of perfume that Rachel squirts on will fill the room. Imagine how this rich, expensive aroma would fill the house and linger for a long time. Now the disciples are upset. It’s a waste, they say. She could have sold that perfume and done a lot of good. The poor could have been helped with that money. Yet, as they’re grumbling around the table, Jesus becomes very protective of the young woman. “She has done a beautiful thing to me,” he says. “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me…She did it to prepare me for burial” (26:10-12). And it’s this act, the Gospels tell us, that causes Judas to make up his mind. After this, he goes to the religious leaders and agrees to hand Jesus over to them. He agrees to betray Jesus, and the price they agree on is thirty pieces of silver. In modern money, that’s about five thousand dollars. It’s the price of a slave in the Old Testament, making you wonder if Judas agreed to this amount thinking that if Jesus was going to act like a slave, he would sell him as one. But the even stronger contrast here is between the woman and Judas. The woman extravagantly gives up twelve thousand dollars, while Judas makes a five thousand dollar profit (Card 226). What is Jesus’ life worth? It depends on where you sit, and it depends, it seems, on how much he has overturned the tables in your life.

You see, Jesus’ act of turning over tables didn’t stop early in the week when he left the Temple. All week, he did that in people’s lives. Things they thought were settled, things and ideas and notions they believed they could count on, depend on—Jesus turned all of those things upside down. We know that for the religious and political leaders, Jesus became a target. For Judas, he became—what? An opportunity? An obstacle? A friend Judas believed he needed to push to become what he thought Jesus ought to be? Whatever was going through Judas’ mind, we know he sold Jesus out. And what about the rest of the disciples, the last friends it seems Jesus had? Well, most of the disciples don’t say too much, but if we jump a bit further ahead in the week, we do know about Peter. After Jesus’ arrest, John and Peter follow him into the courtyard of the high priest’s house, where he is on trial for his life. John seems to know people there, but others are trying to figure out who Peter is, and why he’s there. Three different times, someone identifies Peter as having been with Jesus, and each and every time, Peter says, “I don’t know the man.” It’s easy to criticize Peter for saying that. He’s spent three years with Jesus; how could he deny him now? But I think we’re too hard on him. After all he’s experienced in this last week, after all the ways he’s seen Jesus intentionally upset tables and anger people, it may very well be the truth that Peter has no idea who Jesus is anymore. He thought he did. He alone, out of all the disciples, was bold enough to say that Jesus was the messiah, the savior, the Son of God. But the Messiah was not supposed to serve, and Jesus had just washed their feet that night. The Messiah was not supposed to surrender, and yet he watched as Jesus allowed himself to be taken away in chains. And most of all, the Messiah was not supposed to die. And in the darkness of that courtyard, it was evident Jesus had no hope of escaping death. I don’t think Peter was lying in those dim morning hours before the rooster crowed. When he said, “I don’t know the man,” I believe Peter was telling the truth. Everything he thought he knew about Jesus has been overturned. Nothing is certain anymore because Jesus is not who he thought he was.

And that brings us back to the scene at the beginning of the week, on that first Palm Sunday, to the people crying out “Hosanna!” and demanding that Jesus be who they say he will be. King? Messiah? Religious figure? Teacher? He may indeed be all of these things, but he will be them on his own terms. How often do we insist Jesus be who we say he will be? If we look carefully, we can find our own faces in that Palm Sunday crowd. Hosanna—Jesus, I want you to provide me comfort, to make sure that I never suffer. Hosanna—Jesus, I need you to give me assurance of going to heaven. Hosanna—Jesus, I need you to fix that other person. Hosanna—Jesus, I need you to answer this prayer request the way I think it ought to be answered. Hosanna—Jesus, I need more money! Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna! And if you don’t give me what I want, Jesus, I’ll be among the crowd shouting, “Crucify!” by the end of the week. Well, maybe we wouldn’t be that blatant, but we do insist that Jesus do what we want or we’ll walk away. The world is full of people who are angry at Jesus because he didn’t come through, or because his people hurt them, or because they swallowed a lie and when he wasn’t what they expected, they walked away.

You see, when Jesus comes into our lives, he overturns the tables. He upsets the market. He throws out the ways of the world and calls us to a new, radical, Christ-like life. There should not be room for Jesus’ ways and the world’s ways to coexist in our lives. Growth in Christ is a matter of giving him more and more place, room, in our lives. As we pray in our Wesleyan Covenant Prayer, the prayer that we share every year around New Year’s, “Christ will be all in all, or he will be nothing” (UM BOW 292). He enters the city on Palm Sunday just as he enters our lives when we invite him in. He comes to be king over all, not just over an earthly kingdom. That is far too small a vision. Jesus comes to be king over a kingdom that is coming, a kingdom of righteousness and peace, a kingdom that will last forever, a kingdom that he desperately wants you to be part of. Not “part way in.” All in.

All throughout Lent, we’ve been asking the question, “Who is this man?” It’s a nice academic question, and scholars throughout the ages have wrestled with it. Along the way this season, in sermons and in FISH groups, we’ve looked at the various ways Jesus’ life and his followers have made a difference in history and culture. We’ve talked about how Jesus brought a new way of living to the world, and how he taught us about forgiveness and reconciliation and welcoming all people and healing and hope. And all of that is true, wonderfully true, but the question remains: who is this man? This week, of all weeks, forces us into a place where we have to answer that question on a personal level: who is this man to me, to you? If all we do is answer the question by saying that Jesus is an historical oddity, or even a profound historical influence, we’ve not taken the path the Gospel writers intend us to take. These books are not biographies. They are witnesses, testimonies, intended to help us not just know more about Jesus, but to know Jesus. They are meant to move us from the crowd shouting, “Hosanna,” to being one of the people whose tables Jesus upsets, whose life Jesus rearranges, because when he does that, our lives begin to better match what God the Father intended for us from the beginning. So let me ask again: who is this man, for you, for me? As we head into Holy Week, will you walk with Jesus to the cross or are you content to stay behind in the Palm Sunday crowd, disappointed that he’s not who you want him to be?

Listen again to these words from the Covenant Prayer: “Christ will be the savior of none but his servants. He is the source of all salvation to those who obey. Christ will have no servants except by consent; Christ will not accept anything but full consent to all that he requires. Christ will be all in all, or he will be nothing” (BOW 292). Who is this man, to you?

I’m going to ask you this morning as we pray to place your hands, palms up, in your lap, in a posture of being open to whatever God might have for you or might say to you. And as we pray, allow the Spirit of God to search your heart and mind. Who is Jesus to you? As we enter this Holy Week, my prayer is that he will become more Lord and Savior and all to you. Let’s pray.