Holy Saturday

 

Faith from the Silence

4-5-2022

 

Where was Jesus, on Saturday? In the Apostles creed worshipers recite, in the fifth line, “He descended into Hell.” But did he? We Baptists don’t generally recite traditional creeds of the church. We don’t feel bound by them. ‘Descending into Hell,’ seems to say Hell is a place that is reached by descent (stairs, a downward climb or something else?). That understanding of a three-tiered universe, which requires a flat earth, by the way, is incompatible with our present day understanding of space-time.

First Peter 3:19, which tells us that Christ was put to death but then preached to “spirits in prison,” evokes images of Christ’s Saturday work without locking the story into a first century worldview. If prison = souls cut off from God because of sin and Christ, as 1 Peter says, preaches as a spirit, then this passage can account for his activity. Still, it is not a concrete, specific explanation.

Holy Week is a big deal. Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday each have special names. Monday through Wednesday seem appropriately pregnant with anticipation. But Saturday is just silent. I think that’s where we live our faith lives, on Silent Saturday.

We live after the crucifixion, the ascension, and Pentecost, but before the second coming of Christ. We live in that in-between time, and it’s a long time: two thousand years and counting. The silence of it, the waiting, the want for tangible, measurable certainty can be the soil in which our faith grows. We have to take on faith that the stories of the Bible happened and that the promises of scripture can be trusted. We have to believe that the Holy Spirit is active in the world and in us.

The Spirit cannot be weighed, fingerprinted, or tested for DNA. God acts in our world, but exists beyond it. God transcends our experience of reality. As we sing the anticipation of Palm Sunday, walk in the heavy sorry of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and rejoice in the piercing, life-giving light of Easter, we do well to pause on Saturday. We sit still. We listen. God may speak. God may not. Either way, because of faith, we live the only possible reality we know: God is with us, loves us, and will guide and bless our lives. We bank our very existence on the faith we have, a faith that spend most of its time growing on Silent Saturday.

Maundy Thursday Monologues - Simon the Zealot

Holy Thursday Monologue – Simon the Zealot

If you read your Bible in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 10, or Mark chapter 3, you will find there a list of the disciples who followed Jesus.  In that list, you find the name Simon the Cananean.   That’s me.  Luke lists me differently.  He calls me, Simon the Zealot. 

You think you know all the disciples.  James and John were fishing brothers.  So were Peter and Andrew.  Nathaniel, he was the straight shooter.  Whatever was on his mind, he said.  Philip, well, he was a kid.  He and John and Andrew, they were pretty wet behind the ears. I am not much older them, but I had seen things they had not. 

Thomas what a brain on that guy.  He was always thinking, always questioning.  I know he came to be called a “doubter.”  He was much more than that.  He was a thinker.

I think Matthew had the most fun of all the disciples.  That guy could party, almost as much Jesus. 

Of course history shows that Judas Iscariot was a schemer.  We didn’t know it at the time.  We thought he was a brilliant in practical thinking as Thomas was in theoretical thinking.  We deferred to Judas because he was so confidant. 

In some ways he and I were kindred spirits.  Both Judas Iscariot and I were committed to the overthrow of the Romans and the overthrow the corrupt leadership in the temple.  He talked and made strategies and argued with Jesus.  He always thought he knew better than Jesus what we ought to do.  And then Jesus would work a miracle and Judas would shut up and fall in line.

For my part, I was not interested in Peter’s outbursts or Judas’ scheming or Thomas’ philosophy or Nathaniel’s mouth.  I like Matthew’s parties, but even that, I thought, was the wrong priority.  Before I followed Jesus, I was party of a group of revolutionaries.  We weren’t Sicarii.  We did not commit assassinations.  But, we watched closely because we thought the Messiah was coming to call us to arms.  We were ready.

I was at the wedding in Cana when Jesus turned water into wine.  I knew what happened.  So, I left some of my Zealot pals behind and started following Jesus.  I didn’t even realize he noticed me, and then he asked me to be one of his 12 disciples – like the 12 tribes.  Yes, I was sure, he was going to restore Israel to the people of God.

But boy did I have trouble with some of his teaching.  Turn the other cheek?  Love your enemy?  I didn’t understand and he could see that.  He knew how frustrated I was.  He didn’t kick me out.  Neither did he make it any easier on me.  I did not confront him like Peter.  I did not question like Thomas.  I didn’t argue with him the way Judas did.  But sometimes I wanted to.

Things were really heating up when we came to Jerusalem for the Passover.  His confrontations with legalists and priests were edgier.  We were all tense.  Then, when we gathered for the meal in that upper room, well, I can’t describe it.  When he took the wine and said, “This is the new covenant that is my blood,” everything changed.  That night, I could not have told you how, but something happened when he said that and we were never the same.

Later on, when the soldiers came to arrest him in the garden, I just ran.  I don’t even know why.  I, who had been so eager to fight the Roman and fight injustice; when the fight came I ran.  Thinking back now to the wine, the new covenant, it is like I was empty and full all at the same time. 

I haven’t picked up a sword since.  Oh, I’ve used knives and axes, as tools.  But since I followed Jesus, I who had built my life on being a revolutionary, never again thought about fighting or killing anyone.  You follow him, it will change you.  It did me.

I think it about it every time I drink that wine.

Maundy Thursday Monologues - Simon Peter

http://captainsacrament.blogspot.com/2004/04/maundy-thursday-2004.html

My name is Simon Peter.

You know me from the stories about me in the Bible.  You know I was the one to walk on water to Jesus.  Well, I walked until I sank and Jesus pulled me out.

I’m the one Jesus trusted with the keys to the Kingdom.  It was also to me that Jesus said, “Get behind, Satan.”  He said that when I tried to talk him out of going to the cross.

When they came arrest him, I whipped out a sword and start swinging.  I was there, when Jesus said ‘turn the other cheek.’  But in that moment in the garden, I just forgot.  I started swinging the sword and Jesus healed the man I hit.  Then he was arrested and I ran.  To my shame, I denied knowing him just as he predicted I would.

After he rose, he forgave me.  He restored me as one of his followers.

Now, it’s been many years.  I don’t how I’ve survived this long.  James was beheaded by Herod.  John was exiled to Patmos.  Stephen was stoned to death.  I carry on.  Now, I lead the church at Rome. 

We tell a lot of stories this time of year.  We tell these stories to remember the death and new life of our King and to remember who we are. 

This night is Passover.  When we celebrate, we remember that we were created by God’s saving act. Our Master Jesus became the Passover lamb, sacrificed for us, and by his resurrection saved us from the darkness of sin. Many of you who were not of Israel became his because of this. We have been created by his saving act.

Tonight, I remember clearly that Passover before everything happened.  It was the night he was betrayed – by all of us. We gathered in an upper room to share the meal. Our feet had gotten dusty, and needed to be washed before we gathered at table. We were talking, cutting up and just enjoying being together. It had been a dark week, and we needed to celebrate.

But then we suddenly quieted; we could have heard a feather hit the ground. Not many things can silence a room of rambunctious fishermen. I looked about to see what had happened. Jesus had taken off his robe and put on a towel. He filled a basin and began to wash our feet. We were completely speechless, and I was incensed. We had gathered to celebrate our identity as the free people of God, and he was doing what would have been disgraceful even for a slave!

I asked him just what he thought he was doing. “You don’t understand now,” he said, “but later, you will.” I refused him: “You’re never going to wash my feet!” He was patient and adamant as always. “If I don’t do this, you can’t be my disciple.”

I was shattered. I had spent three years of my life with this man, given up everything to follow him. But... if refusing this meant refusing him, I had missed something. I loved him, so I obeyed, even though I didn’t understand.

As the rough hands of the carpenter cradled the rougher feet of this fisherman, I was struck by the tenderness of the act. Feet are very basic things, right? They’re just there. But as his fingers moved between my toes to wash, I was devastated by the intimacy. I began to understand. On that night in a little room in Jerusalem, just before all hell would break loose, this is what it meant to love us to the end. He was dedicated to me and to each of us. There were no lengths to which he would not go to love us, heal us, and set us free. This lowly service showed me the very heart of God.

He told us that this would be the pattern for our lives. This is a symbol of how he bears us up in all of our sins, failings and idiosyncrasies.

We remember this tonight. We confess our needs and submit to his washing—submit to his tenderness. We will leave and remember that our brothers and sisters have dusty feet also. We will wash them.

So in this story, learn who you are.  Let the Lord be with you in the weak places, in the dirt. Then go, take up your basin and towel, and be who you are.

In the name of Christ. Amen.

Maundy Thursday Monologues - Thomas

Doubting Thomas: Monologue

‘Doubting Thomas’? Yes, that’s me! Do I mind being called that? I suppose it could be galling to have gone down in history as a doubter, but in a way I’m glad, you know. How can I explain?

You see, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doubts. Oh, I’m not talking here about the excuses we palm off as doubts: it’s not the same as uninformed prejudice, a sense of guilt or the fear of change. No, I’m thinking about good, honest questions. There’s a lot to be said for them, in my opinion.

Some of the other disciples never really understood that. Maybe they were just upset with me for not believing them - but then they’d already seen Jesus alive, you see. I hadn’t.

Anyway, as I told them at the time, all this stuff about Jesus rising from the dead was just too important to accept uncritically.  What if it was all just a cruel joke, or they’d imagined it all, had group delusions or whatever you call it? We loved him so much, you see…We’d followed him; listened to him; eaten with him; shared our lives. Seeing him die was worse than anything I’d ever experienced – worse than anything I WILL ever go through, I dare say. And we were desperate: grief-stricken; lonely; terrified. Of course I WANTED it to be true! But how could I be certain without seeing him for myself?

Being a Christian is no bed of roses, I can tell you, and I could never have coped with the past few years if all I had to go on was a faded dream or a vague hope. But Jesus, he put up with me and my doubts.  He gave what I needed and took me beyond what I thought I could become.  I ended traveling all the way to the nation you know as India and establishing the Christian faith there.

That all came after the resurrection.  On the night of the Passover meal, before Jesus was arrested, none of knew what was coming.  He held the bread of Passover up before us and said, “This is my body, broken for you.”  What did that mean?  We didn’t know. 

He got on his knees to wash our feet. What was he doing?  Peter, as always, speaking without thinking, argued with Jesus and then did what he said.  Judas, slipped out after the foot washing.  I was never sure about what he was up to.  He always seemed to his own agenda on the side.  I had no idea he was set to betray Jesus that night.  No idea at all.

I didn’t have any side agenda.  I had side conversation.  That night Matthew had the misfortune of sitting beside me.

“What’s he doing?”  I asked Matthew.  He told me to ‘let it go.’ 

“What’s he talking about?” I asked when Jesus said the bit about not drinking the fruit of the vine again until he drank it in the Kingdom.  I was pestering Matthew with questions.   

That Matthew!  So good with numbers and money, but he never questioned anything.  If Jesus said he was the bread of life, Matthew just accepted it. I knew he didn’t understand it.  None of us did.  But not understanding didn’t bother Matthew. 

If I understood, I would go to the ends of the earth for Jesus.  And in the end I did.  At least India seems likes the opposite end of the earth from Jerusalem.  But that night, the night of the Passover, I lost all my boldness. 

We all acted so tough.  “No, no Jesus, we won’t betray you.  We’re with you to the end.”  We all said that.  James the rugged fisherman; Simon, the wanna-be rebel; the all-too-honest Nathaniel.  We were all so courageous in our own minds.  At least Peter picked up a sword before he fled into the night. But in the end, that’s what we all did.  We ran just like Jesus knew we would. 

But, after it was all over, he welcomed us back.  That’s what Jesus does.  He takes you at your worst and helps you become your best.  Now, whenever I lead a church in worship and I break the bread before the congregation and together, we drink the wine, I remember that night.  I also remember seeing Jesus a few days later.  And I remember him loving me in my doubts.  And I remember him changing the direction of my life. 

That’s Jesus.  He turns us around.  

Maundy Thursday Monologues: Martha

Monologue for Maundy Thursday

HillSong Church, 4-13-17

My name is Martha.

You may have heard of me.  But you probably haven’t heard from me.  When the Master, that is, Jesus, came to Jerusalem, he often stayed with our family.  That’s my sister Mary, my brother Lazarus, and me.  When he came, crowds came with him.  We were happy to be hosts, but it was a lot of work.  I felt like I was constantly cooking and then cleaning and then doing the wash, and then cooking again. 

Often, I felt like it was just me.  Lazarus of course reclined with the men to hear Jesus teach.  And so did Mary!  A woman is to manage the home and make sure everyone is cared for.  What did Mary do?  She sat with the men, taking in the Master’s teaching.

I complained to Jesus about – once.  He said Mary chose the better part, leaving me all the work.  She often has that faraway look in her eyes, like she knows something the rest of us don’t know.  It’s like there’s music playing only Mary can hear.  It might be true, but that doesn’t get the dishes washed or the meal cooked.  Jesus said Mary made the right choice.

See if I speak up again!  Actually, Jesus has always encouraged me to speak.  He treats us with a respect no other man have ever given woman.  I do love him deeply.  And like everyone else, I am amazed by him.  I was there when he brought my brother Lazarus back to life.  We all believed the resurrection would come for everyone on the last day.  He raised Lazarus and after he did that, I wasn’t sure what to think.

I know Jesus has tremendous power and I know he is very close to God.  But he says things I don’t understand.  He said to me “I am the Resurrection and the Life and who believes in me will never die.”  What does that even mean? 

Tonight, I am especially worried.  There’s something in the air.  Normally, this is the kind of thing Mary would fret about.  In fact she has been, not exactly fretting, but … She’s been staring into the distance, toward Jerusalem.  Her gaze pierces the wind as she goes away in her head.  Normally, I would say that’s just Mary being Mary, but here’s the thing.  I feel it too.

Tonight is the Passover meal.  We were going to have Jesus and disciple to our house, but he’s meeting somewhere else, in the home of a disciple I don’t know.  I thought I knew all who followed the Master. 

The disciples have been acting funny.  Yesterday, I asked Nathanial about it, but he just joked and complimented me on my soup.  This morning, I said something to John.  He admitted something is up, but he said he didn’t know what.

The Romans have increased their guard in the city.  And the high priest in temple is on edge.  Everyone can feel it.  Something is going to happen, tonight, and I know it has something to do with Jesus.  I just don’t know what.  I do wish he were having the Passover here.

I have to make bread and get the wine ready.  Our old uncle and some cousins are coming.  We have to get ready.

(Exits stage with a look of worry)

Hearts Ripped Open

            “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and mourning; rend your hearts and not your garments.  Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing” (Joel 2:12-13).

            Isn’t it hard to open one’s heart before God?  Every day, it seems, I say something or do something that makes me look weak.  Or, my words or actions in some way hurt someone else.  If I open my heart before God fully, I have to be completely open about my shortcomings.  It doesn’t feel good.  Who wants to look at his own flaws?  Not me.

            The prophet doesn’t shy away from this.  Joel urges us to turn to God “with fasting, with weeping and mourning.”  If anything, Joel deepens the shame and despairing sense that sin produces.  We are to grieve the condition in which our failures leave us.  A traditional form of grief in ancient Israel was the ripping of garments and this was significant.  Many people only had one or two garments of clothing. Sin was so grievous they did something costly. They rent their garment.

            But no, says, God, that’s not enough.  Rip open the heart!  In turning from sin to God, we rip ourselves wide open.  It sounds unbearable.  What good can come of such raw, honest confession?  Only this: New Life!

            Besides saying what we are to do in confession, Joel describes the character of God.  Joel tells us who God is.  The Lord is the one who says to us “return to me with all your heart.”  The Lord is gracious and merciful … and relents from punishing.”  What the Lord has waiting for us when we come with hearts ripped open, tears shed, and body weakened is forgiveness and new life.  God takes all our shame and makes us new. 

            This Sunday is Palm Sunday and next week is holy week.  What if you and I rip our hearts open and come before God.  We come in raw, exposed confession as we worship, as we sing, as we enter the church building, as we take communion, and as we bow our heads to pray.  What if we open the closet in the interior of our hearts and empty it before God?  What will God do with all our junk?

            Look to the words of the prophet Joel, who tells us God is “abounding in steadfast love.”  God will take the messes of our lives, will wash us, and will replace our baggage and burdens with blessings.  Look to the cross where your sins are nailed to Jesus.  And look to the horizon.  That light that’s breaking through the black shadows of shame is the eternal life that springs in his resurrection.  You and I are beckoned by our Lord to walk in that light.

            Our first step is the step of confession-repentance; full repentance and complete confession.  It isn’t easy.  But it gets easier with each step.  And before we know it we are walking quicker, running, flying, soaring on the wind of the Spirit of God.  I pray this Easter you will know the glorious freedom of forgiveness.

Rituals of Holiness - Maundy Thursday (based on John 13)

March 24, 2016

            Has Jesus become a brand or a cultural-political mascot?  Theologian Michael Horton suggests as much in his Christianity Today article analyzing why people who call themselves ‘evangelical Christians’ give their votes and support to candidates who curse, advocate torture, don’t attend church, don’t confess sin, and remain unrepentant in spite of numerous divorces and affairs.  How is it that such candidates can use Jesus’ name for their own purposes and supposed Christians line up behind them and declare them to be Godly leaders?  Horton, professor of theology at Westminster Seminary in California, thinks pragmatism is the reason believers tolerate and even promote for president individuals who are antithetical to ways of Jesus.  They think certain people “get things done.”

            Jesus got things done, but he also paid attention to how he did things.  He did not surrender compassionate methods to achieve Kingdom results.  Every act portrayed the new reality God was in the process of creating. 

When Jesus knelt and washed his disciples’ feet, he demonstrated life in the Kingdom of God.  We are humble before one another. We serve one another for the sake of love of the other.  Michael Horton writes, “Jesus enacts a performance parable about power.  … Taking off his out garment, he wraps a towel around his waist and begins to wash his disciples’ feet.”[i]  Horton refers back to John 10 where Jesus asserted that there is no power that takes life from him.  Rather, he lays his life down (10:17-18). 

Horton then points out that the kingdom of God is founded in blood, but not the blood of the people, the subjects.  This kingdom is founded in the shed blood of the kingdom who led through compassion and sacrifice.  This contrasts the stance of many in American politics who claim the name Jesus, but then grasp desperately for earthly power that is divisive, destructive, and temporary.  “When Christian leaders are drawn to breath-taking expression of ungodly power, it raises questions about which kingdom and which sort of king they find most appealing.”[ii]

Our practices this evening are rituals that show what sort of King has our allegiance and what kind of life will be lived when the Kingdom comes in full.  We sing in worship.  In this way, our voices are joined to one another’s so that the worship we offer comes not from me but from us.  It is a communal act that says our hearts are joined out of love for Christ and for those around us and we are one in Christ.  We are invited into mediation – quiet prayer in which we invite God to fill us.  We don’t empty ourselves for the sake of being empty.  We empty our minds of the noise of the world in order to be filled with the peace of God. 

Also we have opportunities to see the story of our faith through windows, also called icons.  There is art – creative use of photography and other mediums that invite us to see Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.  There is creative writing, a practice that helps us awaken our own imaginations as we pray.  Our cultural currency sways back and forth from the gut to the intellect back to the gut – head and heart.  Both matter very much, but so too does the emotion, and our imagination awakens our emotion.  The creative writing station gives voice to another part of our selves as we pray.  And then there is enactment – as Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, we wash one another’s.  The story comes alive.

Finally, the offering and the receiving.  We have stones, the burdens we carry, and we drop them at the cross, offering our sins, our hesitations, our doubts to God.  We give God our mess and God takes it.  We receive from him bread – the broken body of Jesus, the removal of our sins.  We receive from him juice – the shed blood in which we have eternal life.

What do all these rituals reveal about the kingdom of God?  When we sing, when we pray, when worship through art and writing, when we wash feet and release burdens as we drop stones in a bucket at the cross, when we eat bread and drink juice, when we do all these things, what of the kingdom is seen in these experiences? 

The Kingdom is a place of space – space to be and grow in Jesus.  The Kingdom is a place of beauty.  We serve each other.  We honor and care for each other.  God is present.  There are no presumptions, no prerequisites, and no regrets because we are free and made new in Christ.  All are welcome, all are forgiven, and all have life because Jesus has made a way.  Our participation in the worship practices is one way God prepares us to live in His kingdom.  I think we’ll find that this Kingdom is richer and more joy-filled than any kingdom we might build.  How could it be otherwise?  This is the kingdom of a loving God who desires to welcome us into His embrace.

AMEN

---

[i] M. Horton (2016) - http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/march-web-only/theology-of-donald-trump.html?start=2

[ii] Ibid.

Good Friday Message - 2014

God on the Cross (John 19:28-30; Psalm 69)

Friday, April 18, 2014 (Good Friday)

        As Jesus was dying on the cross he said “I am thirsty.” The author of the 4^th gospel adds the editorial comment that he said this in order to fulfill the scripture.  That notion, that Jesus did things to fulfill scripture, is sprinkled throughout the gospels.  What scripture was fulfilled when he said, from the cross, “I am thirsty?”

          Psalm 69:21.  It is from a prayer of David who says in this verse, “they gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” 

          The Psalm begins “Save me, O God, from the waters that come up to my neck” (v.1).  Early in David’s life, he stared down lions as he protected his flock.  He battled the Philistine giant Goliath.  Then, as he rose to prominence, the jealousy of King Saul led him to repeatedly attempt to kill David. 

          After Saul’s death and David’s rise to the throne, problems continued.  He fell into deadly conflict with his son Absalom.  At times, Saul had armies hunting for David.  Later, it was Absalom with armies on the hunt.  More than once, surrounded by enemies David felt himself to be as good as dead unless God saved him.  And God did.

          The Messiah was to be a descendant of David.  Raised by Joseph who was in the line of David, Jesus met the requirement.  As a ‘son’ of David, Jesus had the qualification needed to be the Messiah. 

Jesus was also David’s Lord.   He lived differently than the great king.  David, in desperation, prayed that God would save him.  God did as David made it through many treacherous scrapes.  In the end, David died of natural causes.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus likewise asked God to take the cup of suffering from him (Luke 22:42).  This time, God did not. 

Another difference was the attitude toward tormentors.  Both had enemies intent on killing them.  Who was it that hated David (Psalm 69:4)?  The Psalm does not say but in his life, we see many candidates.  Any number of people might be opponents who David, in the Psalm, asked God to punish severely. 

Let their table be a trap for them, a snare for their allies.
²³ Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually.

²⁴ Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them.

²⁵ May their camp be a desolation; let no one live in their tents.

²⁶ For they persecute those whom you have struck down, and those whom you have wounded, they attack still more.^[b]

²⁷ Add guilt to their guilt; may they have no acquittal from you.

²⁸ Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous.

        When the mob came to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter using a sword, cut off the ear of one of the men.  Jesus healed the man as he rebuked Peter (Luke 22:51; John 18:10-11).  When the soldiers whipped Jesus, crowned him with thorns, and nailed him to a cross, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).  Unlike David, he did not pray “May their camp be a desolation … let them be blotted out of the book of the living.”  Jesus did not ask for God’s wrath to fall on those who were so cruel.  He asked God not to hold their sins against them.

          Yes, David lamented that his tormentors gave him vinegar.  Obviously he spoke poetically using metaphor to pour his heart out to God.  Yes, Jesus fulfilled that line from David’s poem, not in metaphor but literally.  As he hung dying on the cross he said “I am thirsty.”  A soldier jammed a vinegar soaked rag in his face.  The Fourth Gospel rightly sees the threads of Israel’s scriptures in Jesus’ story. 

          David was a man of his times, an era of visceral, up close violence.  He could not launch missiles that would kill his enemies who were 100’s of miles away.  He could not stay safely out of sight as warriors do today.  He had to look them in the eye as he stabbed them in the heart.  David’s prayer that God blot out his enemies may not sound holy, but it was honest.  The Bible calls him the one after God’s own heart; but not the Savior.

          That’s Jesus.  Yes, as John says, his actions fulfilled scripture.  What he demonstrated in word and deed and heart also re-imagined the Bible.  Jesus cast a new light on everything humanity thought about God.  In Jesus, we see God working in new ways.  People knew of God’s mercy and love prior to Jesus but he brought God closer than ever before.  Because of him, the path to God was opened to all people.

          “It is finished,” he said.  Then he died.  The old day was done. 

          In our somber remembrance we are painfully aware that like David we would like to call down curses on our enemies.  Like the religious authorities who killed Jesus as a matter of convenience, we would remove anyone who obstructed our path and foiled our personally made planes.  Like the Pilate, we are blind to truth.  Like the rage-filled Roman soldiers, violence pumps in our veins.  Jesus hangs crucified because of sin – because of my sins.

          Remembering, we grieve how our sins crucified him.  We also do well to set our hearts’ attention on the one who died for us.  Think about whom he was, who he is.  He did not die so much as he, as the gospel says, bowed his head.  Even in this moment, nailed to the cross, seemingly immobile, shamed, and beaten, it is Jesus who is in control. 

          Jesus provided for his mother’s care as he hung cross (John 19:25-27).  Nothing more happened until he determined it would.  He said, “I thirst,” and then scripture was fulfilled.  Jesus declared, “It is finished.”  Only after making that statement did he give up his spirit (v.30). 

Yes, God is the one who flooded the earth but protected Noah, split the Sea so Moses could pass through, stopped the sun in the sky for Joshua, and closed the lions’ mouths for Daniel.  God is the mighty God of the whirlwind in the book of Job, the God praised by the most powerful forces of nature in the most thrilling of Psalms, Psalm 148.

          God is also the humble savior who washed his disciples’ feet, who healed the ear of one of the guards sent to arrest him, who shared truth with the governor who tried to intimidate him, and forgave the soldiers who mocked and crucified him.  We can see God in the scriptures leading up to the Gospels but we are invited closer in the Jesus we meet in the Gospels. 

          Good Friday is a day to be as honest as David was.  We come fully clothed in sin and hang our sins on him as he hangs.  Naked we stand before him.  He drapes a robe of light onto us, his divine light.  We shine because his name is affixed to us.  It is a day of sadness on one level.  We enter that sadness and do not minimize it.

But, it is a remembered sadness, not a felt one.  We know where story goes.  More importantly, entering it at this point, at the cross, we know that is a day that we see God.  This is a day we understand how it is that God loves us. 

          The gospels tell us nothing of the Saturday after the crucifixion.  I do not know the proper spiritual practices for that day.  I do not believe there is any one way to observe ‘holy Saturday.’  I offer this.  Why not spend that Saturday quietly, fixing our minds on the crucified God.  Do it early, so that the sense of Jesus being for you sets in.  Do it intensely enough so that truth that you are forgiven and free becomes so real, you live it.  Saturday is a day for washing; Jesus cleanses our hearts, polishes our souls, renews our minds.  He brightens our smiles.  We are bathed in the redeeming, creating love of the crucified God.  We come out new because Jesus makes all things new including you and me. 

AMEN 

Maundy Thursday Message - 2014

Jesus the Giver (John 6:35-51; 13:1-11)

Thursday, April 17, 2014 – Maundy Thursday

            Nelson Mandela spent years and years in prison in South Africa, yet he survived that ordeal, made it out, became president, and forgave those who unjustly imprisoned him.  He gained a reputation for courage, grace, focus, and great inner strength.  Martin Luther King Jr. is known for non-violence.  He dreamed of an integrated America before it happened.  He spoke with charisma and people wanted to follow him; or kill him.  They did both.

            Here in our own town, there are stories of men and women of great character and integrity.  One example of many is former basketball coach Dean Smith.  He is known as much for his faith and social conscience as his brilliance as a coach.  He is respected for his character.

            I could go on with examples.  The one thing others cannot take away is integrity, yet people compromise their own values far too often.  Though it cannot be taken, we give our integrity, we forfeit our reputation, and as a result we struggle to trust one another.  Jesus’ character was never in question.

            This may sound like an example of stating what is ridiculously obvious – Jesus was a good man.  Well, no kidding!  Was that even in question?  And yet, to look closely at why we accept this without question helps us know how to stand before Jesus.  We take up a vulnerable posture in which all we can do is present ourselves fully exposed, our souls completely bare, and then receive whatever he dishes out.

            Why?  It begins with what Jesus did in gathering his disciples for a meal the night he would be arrested.  The gospels indicate strongly he knew what was coming.  Whether he knew it would be that evening or sometime very soon, he knew.  His actions were intentional, done so that after the crucifixion/resurrection dust had settled; his disciples could look back, remember, and learn from what he did.  

            They would have reclined around a table kind of at the height of a coffee table.  And Jesus washed their feet.  I thought why is it such a big deal that he washed their feet?  Along with that question, I wonder, why do I feel compelled to wash feet just because Jesus did it?

            In his culture it was an act of service done by a servant or in many cases by a slave.  It was a lowly chore.  That was a world where people traveled by foot; they walked dirt roads; and they wore sandals.  I would guess those feet were a kind of dirty we rarely see, we of shoes, sock, carpets, pavement, and bathtubs.  It was lowly and here the master lowered himself in a shocking way.

            In our culture the issue is intimacy and self-reliance.  I’ll wash my own feet, thank you.  I’ll do it at my house and then I’ll hide them.  If you must look down there, notice my shoes.  I love you, but I don’t know if I want us to move to that level of intimacy in our friendship.  I’m not sure I want my foot in your hands.

            In Jesus’ day, they did not want to wash the feet of others.  In our day, we don’t want others to wash our feet.  In both cases, the act is a significant step out of normal.  And there’s the genius of it.  Jesus said to his contemporaries in this act, you are no better than the servant who washed feet.  In our day he says to us, you need to open your hearts and let me in and let your brothers and sisters in Christ in. 

            Sure, we are capable of washing our own feet.  But are we vulnerable enough to let people into our hearts to the point that we truly are a family in Christ.  Will we allow him to smash down the barriers we erect to keep everyone, sometimes even our spouses, at a safe distance?  Can we invite Jesus so deeply that we have the intimate love here in our family of believers that Jesus insisted be what defines us?

            In the account of the foot washing in John 13 and in our acting it out, we see Jesus character.  He, the Lord, is a servant.  He models servant-love and demands that we give servant love to one another, to those society would call the ‘least of these,’ and to our enemies.  The foot washing is one way Jesus breaks us down so he break into our lives, our hearts.

            Because of his willingness to show servant-love as he calls us to servant love is one reason we admire Jesus’ character.  Another is his sacrifice.  When we gather around the communion table, we take the bread.  We hold it up and say, ‘this represents the body of Christ.’  We eat it because he said, ‘do this in remembrance of me.’  The broken bread is his body, broken by our sins.  The wine or grape juice represents his blood – the blood of the New Covenant.  Because he died for us and because we confess our sins and receive forgiveness, we have life in the New Covenant. 

            The Gospel of John is abundantly clear that Jesus the man knew exactly what he was doing.  Yes, he was fully God.  At the same time, he was fully human.  When nails drove through his hands, it hurt as much as it would hurt you or me.  Yet, he knew it was coming and went to it for the world, for you and me.  In chapter 10, he says, “I lay down my life.  … No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord” (10:18). 

            In John 19, having been arrested, the beaten, poor Galilean rabbi stands before the splendor and might of Rome, an inquiry from Governor Pontius Pilate.  Yet, Jesus seems to control the entire dialogue.  Frustrated, Pilate asks, “Do you refuse to speak to me?  Do you not know that I have the power to release you and the power to crucify you?”  Already bloodied from the thorns and the whip, Jesus says back, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above” (19:10-11). 

            Jesus chose the cross.  It was God’s plan from the start.  I don’t think God forced Judas to betray him or forced the chief priests to hand him over to Pilate.  I think each player in the drama made his own choices.  But God knows the human heart and the human weakness when it comes to sin and temptation.  Jesus took the sin on himself. 

            When we talk about his great character, we can say many things.  I have chosen to focus on how he expressed servant love, and how Jesus gave of himself as an act of sacrificial love.  Service and sacrifice:  these attributes are what Jesus is all about and they indicate how we are to stand before him. 

            When Jesus knelt, Peter protested.  “You will never wash my feet,” he told his master (13:8).  “Unless I wash you,” Jesus responded, “you have no share with me.”  There is nothing we do.  We present ourselves as we are in all our dirtiness, shame, and failure before God.  There’s no initiative from us; no skill or exceptional achievement.  There is no gain or hard work that gets us there.  Broken, we come and Jesus is the actor, the doer.  He washes.  If we do not come in this way, receiving what the giver gives, we never can be one with him.

            Similarly he says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  Nothing in any of the four gospels means literal cannibalism.  Joined with the bread and cup accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we know that here in John 6, Jesus meant we eat the bread and cup as a symbol of us taking him into ourselves.  But when I say, “taking in,” I mean receive.  We accept that we are sinners, but that his body scarred and blood spilled make a way for us.  If we do not, then we do have the eternal Jesus gives. 

            At the foot washers’ basin and at the communion table, we are receivers and Jesus the giver.  Our hands are open as are our hearts.  Nothing is held back or hidden.  We come acknowledging that we belong to him.  We are his and the best that is in us is what he gives. 

            This is not necessarily easy.  People who work hard and achieve a lot want take pride in standing on their own accomplishments.  Taking on the posture of receiving may be one of the biggest obstacles blocking the path to life-changing faith.  We are forced to trust.  Many will not.  Pride is a root cause of sin, yet many of the proudest people in the country sit in churches every week.  We are proud of our children, proud of our families, proud of churches, and proud of ourselves.  Nothing any pastor says will dent that pride in the least.  That entrenched pride produces unmovable wills which is sad because it means people bearing the identity of a Christian are in fact keeping themselves from God.

            I pray tonight, Maundy Thursday, you and I would not be among the proud.  I know we have been.  I wrestle with pride and tonight, I am asking God to help me let it go.  Would you do that?  Would you ask God to free you from having to stand on your own?  Would you look to Heaven and in your spirit confess your sins and your helplessness?  Having confessed would you then open yourself to Jesus and receive what he gives?  In washing feet and being washed, we honor our servant God and we are cleansed by him.  In eating bread and drinking juice, we take him into us as we admit that we are nothing without him.

            He is the great giver, giving life to all who will die to self and receive from him.  Can we do that tonight?

            We will have silent prayer and then be invited forward for the Lord’s Supper.

A Pastor's Mind during Holy Week

                I don’t know why I cannot sleep.  More and more lately, I have found myself awake at times when I ought to be sleeping, like now, 11:25PM.  Last night, from 2-4AM, it was fitful, odd dreams, waking every 20-30 minutes.  I have consumed a lot of coffee lately, but at other times in life, I have drunk just as much and without the sleep problems.  Am I (at 44) getting older and processing caffeine differently?  My 70-year-old father drinks coffee like water and it seems to have no effect on him.  I don’t get it.  I don’t know if it is the coffee.  I don’t know what it is.

          I know I am having real anticipation regarding Easter.  I have spent the last year reading a lot of the writing of N.T. Wright, and in the process, I have re-read many passages of scripture.  I think Wright is right (I had to!).  Christianity is not about ‘going to Heaven when we die.’  It is about declaring Jesus is Lord and living in the Kingdom of God as made possible by Jesus’ coming.  I don’t know if Wright would say it exactly that way.  I do think though that his writings clearly determine the pivotal event to be Jesus’ bodily resurrection.  For Wright, and he believes for the Apostle Paul, the resurrection has to be a bodily resuscitation, one fully dead then fully alive in a risen body that cannot die again.  And the resurrection of Jesus changes everything. 

          We live differently because the future (we followers of Jesus being resurrected) breaks into the now.  Jesus has been raised so we can live as raised people and we must, even though our resurrection is a future event.  I have been thinking a lot about this, trying to preach it, and I don’t understand it.

          I do know this, though.  All this pondering of resurrection, Jesus’, and because of his my own, leads me to long for it.  It also colors my mind in the days leading to Easter.  For me Easter is more of a New Year’s celebration than January 1.

          The dictionary reference website defines the word ‘new’ in many ways including the following: “unfamiliar or strange;” “occurring afresh;” “other than the former or old.”  If these descriptions were tacked onto the word life, they would describe resurrected life.  It is not like the old and it is quite strange.  I fully believe in resurrection, something I was not there to see and have not yet understood.  Increasingly, I understand my own life in terms of resurrection.  And Easter is a time for me to rethink about what it means to live resurrected even though my own future life is just that, in the future.

          It’s almost like experimenting, almost.  I recall being engaged.  My fiancé and I ate meals together.  We cuddled on the couch together.  There was hand holding and kissing.  We did not go beyond that until our wedding night, but beside being in love and thoroughly enjoying every second together, we were practicing our future lives together.  We were anticipating our lives together.  Being engaged was almost like being married, almost.

          Yet, it was nothing like being married.  After the wedding, when the evening ended, I did not return to my apartment.  We went to bed together.  After the wedding, I did not wonder what life with her would be like.  I discovered it.  And what a time of discovery it has been and continues to be.

          I imagine that step from anticipating life together to living it serves as small hint of anticipating life in the resurrection and then living into it.  Of course my metaphor may be woefully off.  I can’t know until I die and am then raised.  But I am so convinced that it will go that way and that I and all who follow Jesus will be resurrected, that as I know think toward Easter, I am full of excitement. 

          The excitement is not for all the worship services.  At our church, there are three worships times we do not normally have and I am eager for each.  I think they will be special and I am giving my own effort to be at my best for each.  Anticipating these extra times, times when the people of the church seek an extra special worship experience, probably is one reason I am struggling to sleep.  But it cannot be the only reason because this is my 17^th holy week as a senior pastor.  It is always an adrenalin time for me, but one I have been through before.

          The anticipation is maybe a minor cause for my insomnia, but only a minor cause.  The excitement of resurrection, I think, is a bigger matter for me.  What will it be like?  I don’t know.  Yet, I think it is the biggest news we have and I want to tell it.  As a pastor, I preach weekly, so I have the opportunity to tell it.  How do you tell something you think is more important than anything else and yet you don’t understand it?  How do you do that?

          I don’t know. 

          It is 11:50PM.  My kids will be up for school in about 6 hours.  I am going to go and try to sleep.  Maybe God will give me Easter dreams.  

Following the NCAA Tournament from Africa

My heart just is not in the NCAA tournament this year.  Usually, I love men's college basketball and especially the tournament.  This year, my favorite team, the Michigan Wolverines, have had a good season.  They were even ranked #1 one week.  Yet, I cannot get myself up for the tournament.  

Every year, I invite my church members to turn in their brackets.  It is not gambling because no one turns in money.  Whoever gets the highest score (scoring is based on picking correctly and in the later rounds, you get more points for correct picks) gets a free lunch, courtesy of the pastor (me).  Last year, I won the pool and treated myself to Mexican food.

I am doing the pool again this year, but with very little zeal.  Like my overall interest, my energy in the church bracket pool is low.  Why?  Why am I so apathetic about this?

There are two reasons.  First, I just returned from 9 days in Ethiopia.  We made our second annual trip to the Children's Hope Chest care point (http://www.hopechest.org/) and spent 4 days with the kids at that care point.  Without going into details, I will say it was immensely frustrating and rewarding all at the same time.  The frustrations included just a small bit of tension within the team (I emphasize, this was small, but present) and lost bags.  The usually reliable Ethiopian Airlines failed to deliver 10 of our bags, many of which were filled with items we needed for the Bible camp we were going to run for the kids.  Those bags finally came, but by then I was into hour 72 of the same outfit (same underwear, socks, etc).  

Then the care point itself, which is undergoing transition, was also frustrating.  We probably should not have come until the children had been at the new site for another month and the transition was farther along.  But we did not know the transition schedule when we set the trips dates a year ago.  So, we ended bringing a group of Americans at a particularly bad time for the care point.

Still the week went well and new friendships were formed (both among team members who hail from 7 different states and with people in Kombolcha, Ethiopia).  The children were beautiful, loved seeing us, and we enjoyed them right up to the teary-eyed goodbyes last Friday (3/15).  On the flight back to the U.S., all our bags made it!

But, adding to the (very minor) team-tensions, lost bags, and on site frustrations, I picked up  an annoying cold on the return flight that is exacerbating my jetlag.  I know I am whining here, but isn't that what blogs are for?  My heart is not into basketball or preaching or reading or studying.  I want to lay down and sleep.  But when I try, all the Ethiopian coffee I have consumed keeps me awake.  I feel I am walking in an emotionless fog.

There is emotion though and much of it relates to those kids (about 80% of whom are Muslim, probably 75% undernourished, and 100% below any poverty line we might draw).  Will the sticky issues at the care point be resolved?  Can we actually take a team from here and not have unresolved issues clouding our purposes next year?  Are we doing any good?  With these questions on the mind, it is very hard to care about basketball.

And did I mention preaching?  Yes, next week is Holy Week.  As a Christ-follower, I am acutely aware of the importance of the crucifixion and resurrection.  My attentions to this is heightened as I ponder how the resurrection informs evangelism and apologetics.  When I think of Jesus on the cross and then the empty tomb, and I think of what that means for the world, and I think of intelligently, persuasively making the case for Jesus in conversation with Muslims and with atheists, it becomes hard to care about basketball.

Don't misread any of this.  I love basketball.  I love, love, love the NCAA tournament.  If Michigan wins the whole thing, I will enjoy that.  But then again, this year, I might sleep through the whole thing.  Or, I might be wide awake but with my attention elsewhere.  I just have weightier matters on my mind and I don't think basketball merits that much of me right now.