How Then Shall We Know Him? (Luke 24:13 - 35)

      This Easter, we heard Matthew’s version of the resurrection story, but John’s is perhaps the best loved . . . remember?  Mary Magdalene finds the empty tomb, and brings Peter and the beloved disciple, but when they leave, she stays behind . . . and suddenly there’s Jesus, but at first she doesn’t know him, she thinks he’s the gardener or something . . . and last week’s story takes place in the home where the disciples had gathered in fear, and they believed in him, they recognized him as the risen Lord only after they'd touched and seen his crucifixion wounds, still visible in his resurrected body . . . and now, we come to the familiar story from Luke, perhaps the most beloved post-resurrection story of all . . . two disciples are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and Jesus joins them along the way . . . he seems like them, just another weary traveler – and like those other disciples in the upper room, they don't recognize him right off the bat, it isn't until later, when he shows them hospitality at their destination, that they know he is the savior.

      And so, these three resurrection stories – Mary in the garden, the disciples behind closed doors, the travelers on the Emmaus road – these three stories are in one sense about recognition or – more precisely – misrecognition of their Lord and savior . . . and of course it's eminently applicable today . . . when he was a young pastor, before he became the pre-eminent theologian of the last century, Karl Barth knew this as a seminal problem in Christianity today – we misrecognize the risen Christ, we see him as something he is not . . . Barth thought about it in terms of God's "otherness," saying that God is "wholly other than" the God of our religion.

      We can see that theme in these stories . . . just why did Mary, who knew Jesus as well as anyone, just why did she not recognize him?  Why didn't the disciples in the locked room – it's clear that they don't recognize him until after they've seen the wounds?  Here on the Emmaus road, Luke gives us the biggest clue . . . he says "their eyes were kept from recognizing him."  Note the passive construction of the verb – "were kept."  The disciples were prevented from recognizing him, as in by something or someone . . .  the question is, by whom? or by what?  Well, this being the Bible and all, we immediately jump to the conclusion "well, it was God of course, who did the preventing" . . . and that may have been what Luke intended to imply, but I wonder . . . why would God do such a thing?  Just for laughs?  So God could say to Gabriel "Did you see the look on their faces when they found out it was Jesus?"  Could be . . . I rather think God does have a sense of humor—after all, God did make me a pastor—but, I don't know, it seems to be a rather trivial thing, a rather childish thing for the Creator and master of the Universe to do . . . Maybe it was Jesus himself . . . maybe he shaved off his beard or averted his face or something . . . but again, why?  What earthly – or heavenly – reason would he have to do such a thing?

      Maybe our passage can give us a clue . . . he joins them on the road, and they're discussing everything that's happened – and Luke uses three different phrases for discussing, a total of four times, so he really means it, they really are deep in conversation – and Jesus asks "what are you discussing" and they come to a standstill, there on the dusty road, it was like they couldn't walk and confront the thing at the same time, and they're looking all downcast and Cleopas says "are you the only stranger who doesn't know the things that have taken place in Jerusalem these days?"  And Jesus says "What things?" – and note that he doesn't deny knowing about them, the Greek can mean just as easily which things – but they take it to mean that he doesn't know what went on, and this of course doesn't help with the recognition problem – surely Jesus would know what had been done to him . . .

      So they tell the whole sad story in a nutshell – Jesus was a prophet mighty in deed and word . . . the chief priests and leaders handed him over to be crucified . . . and here we thought he'd come to redeem Israel, but he up and got himself killed instead  . . . and to make matters even more confusing some women came to the tomb early this morning, when the dew was still on the roses, and they didn't see his body there, and they told us there were some angels who said he was alive. And when some of us went to the tomb, they found it just as they said, but they didn't see the Savior, and so there.  You'd be talking about it too.

      And I can just picture Jesus standing there, with an incredulous look on his face, How foolish you all are, how slow of heart to believe . . . here you've had the prophetic works right in front of you, and you still don't know what's going on . . . "Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?"  Note the interchange here – they had told him about Jesus, a prophet mighty in deed and word, who they thought had come to redeem Israel, but he'd been crucified instead . . . and Jesus counters this vision with reality . . . the Messiah – the one who would redeem Israel – would have to suffer before entering into his glory.  So it's the same old same old, the same old story we've heard before . . . the disciples thought him mighty in word and deed, that he was going to lead a revolutionary charge to redeem Israel . . . when in actuality, he displayed weakness, he allowed himself to be humiliated on a cross.  The Messiah they knew was one they'd constructed in their minds, built by their hopes of an Israelite nation restored to the glory of the house of David . . . the Messiah they knew was mighty in deed and word, but the resurrected Messiah, the one standing right in front of them on the Emmaus road, was a Messiah who'd suffered and died an ignominious death, who'd suffocated, nailed to a tree  . . .  was it any wonder they didn't recognized him?

      And so, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them all the things in the scriptures that were about him, all the predictions, all the pointers, all the precursors to him that were in the Hebrew Scriptures, that body of work we call the Old Testament . . . all the prophetic utterances – a man of constant sorrow . . . my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me . . . all the way back to the Torah, the books of Moses, he shows them how to interpret all their scriptures in a new light . . .  in light of himself, in what theologians would call a Christological light . . . how the Messiah must suffer these things, and enter into his glory.  And although they don't recognize him right there – that had to wait for one more sign – they looked back on it and said to themselves "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was opening the scriptures to us?"  Jesus' explanation had the force of revelation, it re-ordered the way they looked at scriptures, re-orientated their suppositions about the nature of the one they had followed in life.

      Have you ever had such an experience?  Have you ever read something or seen something or heard something that changed the way you looked at things, that affected you so much that you didn't look at the world the same from that time forward?  I have . . . I once read a book by a New Testament scholar that re-oriented me in the way I read the Gospels, that seemed so right and so explanatory that it changed the way I do exegesis, the way I interpret scripture.  It provided me with another filter, another lens through which to view Gospel and the world, and I remain changed by it to this day . . . and it was this kind of experience  – only infinitely more radical, after all it was Jesus himself – that the disciples had there on the Emmaus highway.  Jesus' teaching re-oriented their thinking, it related a new paradigm, a new way of connecting to scripture – and the world – that forever changed the way they operated.  "Were not our hearts burning within us?"

      But – like last week in the upper room – it wasn't until Jesus showed them the nail-scars and the sword-pierced side that they recognized him, it wasn't until he demonstrated the breaking of his body and the spilling of his blood by serving them bread and wine that they got who he was.  Luke is very clear about it . . . "he took bread, he blessed and broke it, and gave it to them."  Took, blessed, broke and gave, the four movements of the Lord's Supper . . . it had been only four days since the disciples had seen the same thing before the crucifixion in the upper room . . . and for Luke's congregation, hearing the Gospel read straight through fifty-odd years later, it had only been about five minutes since they heard the same words during the Last Supper scene, and so nobody had to be told twice what this represented . . . it was the Eucharistic scene all over again, the movements that Jesus himself had instructed them to do in remembrance of him, as a reminder of what the Messiah is really like, and from whence their redemption really comes.  Far from being a mighty-in-deed leader of a glorious militant restoration of Israel, the Messiah's body was taken and blessed, broken and given so that they might have life.

      And for the past 2000 years, Christians have faithfully repeated what Jesus did on that Emmaus day . . . they interpret the scripture, relating it all to our story of Jesus, who is God with us – they call that preaching – and then they demonstrate, with concrete action the Lord’s Supper, just who Jesus is, and what his redemption means . . . Christians have been doing this for two millennia, and yet . . . how come they still misrecognize Jesus when they see him in their lives?  How come they confuse the Jesus of scripture – who came to bring good news to the poor and freedom to the oppressed – with some god who justifies an unprecedented concentration of wealth, of God’s good creation, intended for everyone, in the hands of so very few?  How come they misrecognize the Jesus of the upper room – nail scarred hands and sword-pierced side – with a God who bestows on their country some manifest-destiny, divinely-inspired right to use force to impose their way of life on those who don’t want it?  How can they confuse the Jesus of the Gospel, of the cross, whose body was taken, blessed, broken and given, with a violent, retributive god, a god of power and might, who favors a tiny handful of the world’s people at the expense of suffering billions?

      If, as Karl Barth thought, Jesus Christ is "wholly other" than the god of our religion, how then shall we know him?  How shall we quit misrecognizing him, how shall we know him when we see him, separate him from the false gods of our religious construction?  Jesus himself gave us the interpretive key – in Matthew he instructs us to see him in the "least of these," in the very people excluded by our idolatrous, false conception of god.  Irony of ironies . . . seeing him precisely where we refuse to look, exactly in those away from whom we turn our eyes . . .

      Ironic perhaps, but strangely fitting . . . on the Emmaus road, the disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, that four-fold sacrament we celebrate once a month.  In that sacrament, we re-member (among other things) the self-giving act of ultimate service that our Lord performed for us, scapegoat for our culture of violence and sin.  So it is only appropriate that we see, that we remember Jesus every time we see one of our own scapegoats . . . a mother with two jobs, working for minimum wage so that we can have cheap designer clothes . . . a mainstreamed psychotic, wandering the highways so society won’t have to pay for his hospitalization . . . a drug addict, languishing in prison, so we won’t have to pay for his treatment . . . a church worker, scapegoated, hung out to dry, so we don’t have to be involved in the program.

            Brothers and sisters, as we travel down our own Emmaus roads, every time we see one of the least of these, try to recognize Jesus there.  Try to see the risen Savior in her face, to feel the nail scars on her hands and observe her sword-pierced side.  If we try, if we really make an effort to do what after all, Jesus commanded us to do, we might just be surprised that it really works.  Amen.

Sunday at the Tomb with the Marys (Matthew 28:1 - 10, Easter A)

     “After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.”  What a lot is packed into that one, terse statement.  What a lot of sorrow, what a lot of pain, what a lot of good, old-fashioned chutzpah. . . Here they were, Mary and Mary, two women, status barely above slave, heading to the tomb of an executed criminal.  You didn't see Peter doing that, or James or John or Andrew . . . They were hiding out, shaking like rabbits in some dark hole or another.  But the Marys go, even though they know what they'll find, because hadn't they been there, huddled across from the tomb when Joseph of Arimathea placed the body in it?  Hadn't they been there when he rolled a big old rock in front of its entrance?  Why did they feel the need to see the tomb?  It surely didn't look any different than it did two days before, on that Friday Christians would eventually call “good.”

The Marys wouldn't have called it that, of course; they doubtless would have thought it pretty perverse . . . Of course, that morning, they were on the other side of the resurrection, so they wouldn't have seen the good in it, just the suffering, just the pain as the nails were pounded in, just the gasping like a beached fish as he drowned in his own fluids.  And can I tell you a secret?  I've always thought calling that Friday “good” to be a little perverse myself . . .

Anyway.  The women were afraid, of course they were, but they went anyway, and was it just the grief of loved ones, not able to stay away?  Is it the desire common to the bereaved, then as well as now, to simply be where their loved ones are?  They had to know it was dangerous, they had to know it was guarded . . . They had to know that they might be branded as insurrectionists, guilty by association . . . That was why Peter and company were hiding out so courageously.

And as they crept out of their home, tendrils of mist wrapped around their legs, and they pulled their cloaks tighter at the chill.  The shops and houses around them were dim and indistinct, shadows looming in the silence.  A dog barked nearby, a half-hearted yip, just doing its job, you understand, just going through the motions before slinking back to its master’s bedside.   Nobody wanted to be up on this morning after Sabbath, this first day of the week, not even the dogs.

Nobody except the Marys, who slipped along like wraiths in the dawning, not speaking but communicating nevertheless: by attitude and gesture and the unspoken intuition of long association and love.  As they got closer to the tomb, the light brightened and a stone settled in their stomachs, a heavy, leaden feeling of hopelessness, and once again they wondered what they were doing, why they were reliving the anguish . . . what possible good could it do to look at the tomb one last time?

They rounded a corner, and there it was, cut into the hillside like a wound, and they have a split-second image of the stone and the half-asleep guards then behold! the earth began to shake and ripple like water and they were knocked to the ground.  When it was over, they picked themselves up and saw that the guards—the big, tough Roman guards—had fainted dead away, and the stone had been rolled back.

But that wasn't the most amazing thing, for there, perched on the stone was an angel, crackling like lightening yet white as snow.  His movements were quick and birdlike, and he looked pretty self-satisfied, just sitting on top of that rock, flicking his wings to get the feathers just so.  He cocked his head at the Marys, fixed the them with a beady eye, and said “Do not be afraid” and the women thought “Yeah, right, that ship has already sailed,” but as if he divined their thoughts, the angel said “No, really . . . Do not fear.  I know who you're looking for, I know you're looking for Jesus the crucified one.” And sure enough, the women’s fears abated, just a little—after all, if this creature knew their beloved, why maybe it wasn't going to eat them just yet.

“I know who you're looking for,” the angel said “but he is not here.  For he has been raised, as he told you.”  And at the word “raised” the Marys’ hearts skipped a beat, and the air was sucked from their lungs and they bent over to recover.  The angel smirked a little as he saw the effect of his words.  Well, they were told, he thought . . . It shouldn't have come as that much of a surprise . . .

“Come,” he said, jerking his head toward the mouth of the tomb, “come see where he lay.”  And as the women peered into the darkened maw and saw that indeed he wasn’t there, the angel gave them the rest of his message: “go quickly and tell his disciples ‘he has been raised from the dead, and he is going ahead of you, into Galilee.  There you will see him.’  That's my message to you.”  And the angel began to preen again, shaking his feathers, no longer acknowledging the women’s presence.

Which didn't hurt their feelings any, because they were so excited at the thought of seeing Jesus again, being bathed in his presence again, that they were shaking.  When they finally got their wits about them it was fully daylight, and they began to run back to town, heedless of the still-groggy guards, heedless of any religious authorities that might be prowling around, heedless even of the rough ground they had to traverse.

Well.  By some miracle, neither of them fell in their headlong flight, neither of them took a header, but they were brought up short one more time, for Behold! Jesus himself appeared before them, big as day and said “Greetings!” as if he'd never been gone, as if they hadn't seen him nailed to a cross, as if they hadn't seen that big old stone rolled in front of that tomb.  “Greetings,” he said, and they fell down on the ground at his feet in love and gratitude, then he, like the angel, told them not to be afraid, and again they were taken aback, this time because how could they be scared?  How could they be afraid of their beloved?

But Jesus said “Do not fear, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”  And those last words hung in the air like a brilliant flare, “see me.”  See me!  And suddenly the women understood, as do we, why they'd stumbled out of their warm beds on this first day of the week, why they'd given up their restless mourning for action, why they had braved the authorities and their own renewed pain to be there on that first morning of the new creation: to see.

And we should have known, we should have known . . . The scene is full of seeing, it's wrapped in it . . . It's in the first verse and the last, and in ten verses it appears in some form or another no less than eight times (including four times that it's hidden in our translation … though it doesn't read as sight to us, it would have to Matthew’s congregation).  The Marys went to see the tomb, to behold it in sorrow, and they saw it all right, but it wasn't what they expected . . . They expected to see the tomb unmolested, they expected to see it sealed . . . They expected the body of their beloved to be safely inside, where they could always come to see him, or at least where he lay . . .

And that’s sad. That’s heartbreaking, but it's also safe, it’s expected, they know what to make of it.  They’d come and see the tomb—often at first, but with decreasing frequency—and they'd put flowers on it or little flags, and they could compartmentalize their memories of him, keep them in a little box, away from their everyday life . . . “We knew this guy once named Jesus, and we thought he would change the world, but he died instead . . . Funny, we try to conjure up what he looked like, but can’t . . .”

They’d come to see a memory, something already in the past, something they could enshrine in their hearts, maybe embellish a little—that Jesus . . . What a kidder.  They'd come to see a memory, but what they saw was anything but.  What they saw was God’s new thing, a living, breathing embodiment of Paul's exclamation:  “See?  A new creation!” Right there before them, in front of their very eyes, they saw.

Sisters and brothers:  on this beautiful Easter morning, what have you come to see?  Have you come to see the choir sing?  Have you come to see the strings play, or my stumbling efforts at a sermon?  Maybe you've come to see the lilies, they're gorgeous, aren't they?  And the strings were fabulous and the choir was glorious, and it sure wouldn’t be a worship service without them.

And . . . If you've come to see the living Christ, you've come to the right place.  If you've come to see God's new thing, welcome to the party.  If you've come to see all things made new, Christ through and through, infusing everyone, inhabiting everything, if you've come to relish and experience and encounter Jesus of Nazareth, have I got a deal for you.

But this isn't the only location, it's not the only place.  The angel told us that Jesus goes before us, to Galilee, to the place where dwelt his earthly mission, and so he does today.  He goes ahead of us, into all of creation, into mean streets and palaces, markets and residences, bars and bar-mitzvahs.  He goes before us into the world, where the ministry is, and spreads his arms, and do you know what he says?  Come see.

Palms Up (Matthew 21:1 - 11, Palm Sunday Year A)

      We open with a wide shot of beautiful – but desolate – mountains, with a small dusty town in the foreground, an on-screen caption tells us it’s New 'Salem Arizona and the camera swoops on into town, and we see the towns-folk going about their business, the blacksmith and saloon keeper and ol' Doc Roberts . . . but we soon learn that all is not well in New Salem . . a ruthless cattle baron – Jacob McCreedy by name – lives just outside of town, and he's bought and paid for just about anybody who's anybody in these parts . . . the Sheriff is his creature, the judge his poker buddy . . . the mayor owes his job and his high standard of living and his Kansas City girlfriend to the cattle baron, and the city aldermen?  Well, let's just say they know where their bread is buttered.  Even the local preacher is beholden to the cattleman, because his is the biggest annual pledge and the brand new church-house – built with a generous donation from Missus McCreedy– stands on McCreedy land.  And all the townsfolk and the local dirt-farmers buy their food at the general store – owned by McCreedy's brother Will – and prices are just a little too high so that in bad years folks can’t earn enough to make ends meet, so they're in debt to the McCreedys a little more each year, some have lost their farms to the McCreedy Savings and Loan, and if anybody complains about it, they find themselves in the poky mighty quick . . .

      And there's a rumor – just a hint blown in on the Autumn wind – of a mysterious stranger from the wilderness, he's thought to be a gunslinger from up North, a town cleaner-upper.  Doc Roberts says he rode into Mt. Tabor, Kansas and faced down the crooked marshall and a whole passel of hired guns, just faced 'em on down and ran 'em out of town . . . and Mrs. Barton's brother’s cousin arrives full of excitement and stories about how this stranger did the same thing in his home town of Dothan and he says rumor has it he’s heading this way!

      Then they hear that he’s right outside of town, and they quiver with excitement, because they long to be shut of Jacob McCreedy and all his toadies . . . but the sheriff and the judge and the preacher – and all their hired guns – wait in calm anticipation, biding their time, sure that they can handle an itinerant rabble-rouser and his mangy followers.

      At Bethphage, on the Eastern outskirts of the City, within an arrow's flight of the Temple walls, this stranger reclines in the shade of a fig tree. . . and by and by he sends two of his followers into town to inquire about a ride into town. "Go into the village," he says, "and you'll find a donkey tied and a colt with her . . . untie them and bring 'em to me.  And if the owner asks what you’re doing, tell him the Lord needs them . . ." and so they do it – they go into Bethphage and sure enough there are a couple of pack animals tied up, and sure enough, as they start to untie the animals the owner comes out and asks "what do you think you're doing, untying my animals?"  and the disciples say they're for the Lord, and they bring them back to the stranger who immediately climbs up on top of them and makes a pronouncement: "Tell the daughter of Zion," that’s Jerusalem "tell Jerusalem: see! your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of the donkey."  And he starts into town.

      Out of the New Salem dust rides the stranger, with his hard-luck companions at his side.  The camera follows them as they ride, and then suddenly we're overhead, looking down onto the street as they enter town . . . townsfolk lining the road, some of them hollering, some just standing and staring, and as the camera pans across their faces we can see the hope . . . it’s in their eyes, in the way they hold their heads . . . expectantly, with anticipation . . .

      But we can also see, lurking in the background, leaning insolently under the eaves, gunmen, thugs on the McCreedy payroll, their dead eyes following the stranger's progress . . . up on the roof-tops other men crouch behind the false store-fronts, Winchester repeating rifles in their hands . . . some of them have badges on their shirts . . .

      The stranger rides slowly into town, looking neither left or right, and stops in front of the hotel . . . he swings his leg over his horses' back and lowers himself from the saddle, and his companions do the same . . . out into the street steps the sheriff, to confront them. "This here’s a peaceful town.  We don't want no trouble."  The stranger glances at the gunmen on the roofs – he knew they were there all along – and says "I don't want trouble either."

      "Then you won't mind giving up your guns," says the sheriff, and they can all hear the ratcheting click of cocking firearms, and the stranger slowly unbuckles his gun-belt and lets it drop, and his companions do the same.

      As Jesus rides into town, people line the dusty street . . . and you can see the hope on their faces, feel it bubbling up inside . . . and they throw their cloaks on the ground before his donkey, their cloaks, the most expensive clothing they own, and they wave palm branches and throw them on the streets, so that not one spot of bare roadway is showing, and they’re shouting "Hosanna!  Hosanna to the son of David!  Blessed is the one that comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"

      And the centurions are lurking under the eaves, waiting for things to get ugly, and they’re up on the mud roofs, and they’re nervous, because the city's already in turmoil . . . after all, it's almost Passover, and its packed with Jews from all over Palestine and the middle east . . . but it seems worse than usual, more on the edge of violence . . . and there's a question going around, it's on everyone's lips: Who is this guy?  Who is this stranger who rides into town, not on a white stallion – like Pontius Biggus Maximus, the last Roman general who paraded into the city – but on lowly pack mules like some servant . . . who is this guy?  And an answer was making the rounds: It's the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.

      In the saloon, the stranger is playing poker with his companions . . . there are townsfolk looking in through the windows, reporting everything that goes on to their friends, and inside, hard-looking men with guns and badges, lounging at the bar, openly hostile . . . and one by one, they pick fights with the stranger’s companions, and arrest them and haul them off to jail . . . and each time, the stranger looks up from his cards, and asks what the charge is – each time the answer’s the same "disturbin’ the peace," and each time his remaining companions look to their leader in supplication – do something, their looks say – but he just returns to his cards.  "I'm a man of peace," he says.

      Outside the saloon, the crowd is taken aback.  What kind of town cleaner-upper is this?  What kind of savior lets his guns get taken, then his buddies drug off to jail, and doesn't do a thing?  And as the hours progress, one by one the companions are taken away, and the murmuring in the crowd gets louder and more hostile, until there's only the stranger left and one other – young Billy, son of his sister Maggie, just barely out of his teens . . . and a deputy saunters over to the table and says to the boy "You're under arrest . . ." and Billy gives his uncle an anguished look, lunges for the deputy's gun, and is shot square in the chest.  And as he cradles his dying nephew in his arms, the stranger’s face bears the sorrow of the world, but we can see something else there as well . . .

      In the garden, Jesus prays while Peter and James and John sleep . . . three times he wakes them up, telling them "watch with me awhile" but each time they fall asleep . . . on the third time, he tells them "get up, my betrayer is at hand."  And just then, at the entrance to the garden, a jangling commotion is heard, and a large armed crowd appears with Judas at it's head.  He strides up to Jesus, kisses him on the cheek and says "Greetings, Rabbi!"  And the armed men lay their hands upon Jesus and they arrest him.

      Suddenly, a disciple draws his sword and cuts off the ear of one of the crowd . . . but Jesus says "put away your sword back into it's place, for all who take up the sword will perish by the sword," and his face bears the sorrow of the world …

      As the life drains from the boy's eyes, the stranger's face is dead calm, but we can see something there . . . we can see a steely hardness forming, first in the eyes, then in the set of the mouth, and as the armed men lay their hands on the stranger, he springs into action, goaded into it at last . . . he grabs a gun from it's holster – they react too slowly, they're not expecting it – and starts shooting . . . first one, then another . . . and before he has to reload – after all it is a movie  – he's killed every gunman in the bar.  The bartender tosses him a shotgun and he strides into the street, and shoots with uncanny accuracy all the bad guys converging on the saloon.  Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jacob McCreedy duck into the barbershop – coward that he is – and without a moment’s hesitation goes in after him, ducking just in time to avoid the rancher's shotgun blast, and blows him away –  in self defense, of course.  As he walks out of the barbershop, he can hear the cheers of the crowd, and the town of New 'Salem becomes peaceful and prosperous, and never is heard a discouraging word.

      Jesus’ face bears the sorrow of the world as he's taken away to appear before the chief priest Caiaphas, who's in the pay of the McCreedys, I mean, the Roman oppressors.  On Friday morning, Caiaphas and the chief priests of the corrupted temple authorities bind Jesus hand and foot and deliver him to Pilate, the governor of Judea.  Pilate pronounces him innocent, but giving in to the crowd – which by that time had turned on Jesus – sentences him to death.  Trying one more time, and being warned by his wife to have nothing to do with this Jesus person, Pilate offers the crowd a choice: either Jesus or the brigand Barabbas . . . "Let us have Barabbas," they shout. "What then shall I do with Jesus?"  Pilate asks.  "Crucify him," says the crowd.  "Crucify him."

      And so they do.  They lead him out to Golgotha, making Simon carry his cross, and when they get there they offer him wine mixed with gall, to ease the pain – he refuses – and then they crucify him between two thieves, pounding the nails into his hands and feet.  Over his head they nail a sign: "This is Jesus, King of the Jews."  And the crowd is mollified, and order is restored, and there is no uprising against the Romans by the Passover revelers.  Peace reigns.

      What are we to say about these two stories?  One is repeated over and over again, in multiple genres – cop shows, science fiction, ancient spectacle – with only slight variation . . . our hero, a man of peace, is confronted with a great violent evil . . . and he doesn't want to get violent in response – did I mention he's a man of peace? – but things build up, he's pushed to it, and finally, he just has to fight back.  He just has to duke it out with the bad guys, or have a gunfight on the streets of New York, or duel mano a mano with the emperor in the Roman coliseum.  He doesn't want to do it, you understand, he's a man of peace, all he wants to do is live quietly with his family, but they push him to it, it's the only way left to him, it's violence as a last resort.

      This myth of redemptive violence, the notion that, in the end and as a last resort, it's ok to use violence to attain justice, pervades all the world’s literature, and all of our stories are molded by it, our foreign policies are governed by it – Saddam Hussein just pushed us too far – and even our theology is shaped by it . . . One of the criteria for just war theory – first developed by St. Augustine 1600 years ago – is that a war is just only if it’s the last resort.  The notion that violence can be redemptive is a foundational myth in human history, so fundamental that we rarely question it . . .

      And yet Jesus, in his last hours, said that those who take up the sword die by it . . . and as he rode into Jerusalem, the crowd went wild . . . they thought he’d come to clean up the town, to end the oppressive rule of the Roman overlords and their hired hands . .  . Hosanna, they cried, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  And there in the garden, when they came to get him, the disciples thought it was surely time, that the last extremity had surely come . . . but Jesus said put down your sword . . . and finally, when he was nailed onto the tree, as he gasped and struggled and breathed his final breaths, surely he could have called down angels – as Satan suggested, back at the beginning of Lent – to save himself, but he wouldn’t . . . he wouldn’t retaliate, even as a last resort, even to save his own life.

            Jesus chose non-violence, he chose not to retaliate, and thereby we all are rescued from bondage to evil . . . it was his choice not to defend himself with force that did it.  The way of the world is that violence begets violence, it’s used to stop itself, so that it really never ends, it just repeats itself in an endless spiral.   But the way of God is that power is perfected in weakness, and that weakness, that non-retaliatory, non-threatening, non-militant story has saved the world.  That’s the way of the Cross, and what we remember at this, Christianity’s holiest time.  Amen.

Enough to Wake the Dead (John 11:1 - 45)

      I’ve always been bothered by this story, especially at the beginning . . . something seems not quite right about the way Jesus reacts to Lazarus, who was very ill. Lazarus – whom Jesus loved – was ill, near death, and it was so bad that Mary and Martha – his sisters whom Jesus also loved  –  sent for him, where he was preaching by the Jordan. And the message said “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” And here’s where it starts to bother me . . . Instead of rushing to Bethany to heal Lazarus, he makes a theological statement: “This illness doesn’t lead to death, but it’s for God’s glory, so that the Son of God might be glorified.” Now, we know what the story’s about, we know that the illness did lead to death, but that ultimately, paradoxically, it didn’t. We know – along with John’s readers – that Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb. But what’s this about his illness being for God’s glory, and what’s more, so that Jesus himself might be glorified? I don’t know about you, but to me at least, this sounds just a bit . . . callous, maybe even a bit self-serving.  Lazarus’ illness – all the worry and pain and then crying and weeping and wailing for four days – all of that just to glorify himself?

      And Jesus doesn’t come right away, he doesn’t rush to Lazarus’ side . . . our translation says that “accordingly, although Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,” he stayed two more days up on the Jordan. And what we get when we read this, at least on the surface of it, is a picture of a guy who places his own glorification ahead of his flock . . . Mary and Martha and Lazarus, whom he loved, seem less important than his own exaltation. What kind of pastoral care is that?

      The Master had become increasingly harried, because things had been heating up for Jesus in Judea . . . the last time he was in Jerusalem, he’d healed a guy who’d been blind since birth, and the religious authorities were furious . . . and when they called the guy in and questioned him, he rubbed their noses in it, and they threw him out of the temple . . . and when they questioned Jesus about it, his answer made them so mad they wanted to stone him . . . but he got out of town and went up North to the Jordan and began preaching to the crowds.

      And that’s why when he does decide to go back South to Judea, to Lazarus and his family, his disciples think he’s nuts. “Rabbi,” they say, “the Jews were just now trying to stone you and you’re going there again?” And he tells them “Lazarus has fallen asleep,” he says, “but I am going to awaken him.” And the disciples misunderstand him, they think he's talking about normal sleep, and so still they protest . . . “If he's fallen asleep, he'll be all right,” and Jesus has to spell it out for them . . . As the ever-helpful John tells us “they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.” But he had to tell them “Lazarus is dead.”

      And this whole scene should be read on more than one level . . . remember that to John, Jesus is the light of the world, so when he says if they walk in darkness he means not with him.  If they walk without him, they'll stumble, but if they walk in the light, with him, they won't.  And he’s talking about more than sleep and awake, death and life, ‘cause the disciples say “if he’s fallen asleep, he'll be all right," and the Greek for “to be all right” is the same as for “to be saved” . . . so one translation is “if he is merely asleep, he will be saved” and Jesus says “for your sake I'm glad I wasn't there, so you may believe” and on some level, we see that Lazarus' death – or rather Jesus raising of him – will help the disciples to believe. But in what?  In Jesus' Messiah-hood?  In his God-hood?  Life and death are the province of God . . .

      And so they go to Jerusalem, and Jesus is right . . . Lazarus is dead. In fact, he'd been dead for four days, and therefore by Jewish standards he was good and dead . . . they believed that the soul hangs out around the body, until it sees that the face has changed color, and that the person is well and truly dead, and this takes four days . . . and so Lazarus is definitely dead, nobody can accuse Jesus of merely waking up a coma victim, and Martha goes out into the road to meet Jesus and she's thinking what we all are: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” and we can hear the reproach, the complaint in her voice . . . but she still has faith, and she says “even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask . . . " And Jesus says “Your brother will rise again.” And she agrees with him, and says “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” She thinks he’s talking about a common belief of the day, belief in a final, bodily resurrection . . . but what he says next  shows her she’s not in Kansas anymore . . . “I am the resurrection and the life, I am.” And it recalls a time in Hebrew history where God says simply “I am” and although there it’s unqualified, God just . . . is, here, it’s almost as sweeping, almost as absolute “I am the resurrection . . .” I am . . .

      Jesus personifies resurrection and life, for humans on this planet, there’s not much else . . . And then he asks “do you believe this?”  And Martha answers “Yes Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”  And right here is the beating theological heart of this passage, the hinge upon which it all rests, upon which everything rests.  I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.  It’s a creed, a confession of faith.  Jesus is the Son of God, and for John that means Jesus is divine.

      This scene is the center of the story . . . before this scene, everything points to it . . . after it, everything points back to it . . . as Mary comes out to meet Jesus, she says the same thing Martha did . . . “Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died,” but now we see it in a different light, in the light of Jesus, the Son of God . . . Jesus is the resurrection, he is the life . . . he’s in charge. Even now, even after Lazarus has been in the grave for four days, what he says goes . . .

      And that’s a central, Christian belief, isn’t it?  Jesus is in charge, he’s at the center of everything . . . he is the light of the world.  And like the light, without him nothing is illuminated, nothing is seen . . . Christians believe categorically that only in the light of Christ can the world be seen clearly, that things only make sense in light of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ.  All the wars and rumors of wars, all the calamities, all the joys, nothing can be seen clearly except in the light of Christ, and yet, here in the West, where the separation of church and state has been raised to the level of dogma, many of us have managed to separate our own faith from how we view the world . . . but separation of church and state was never meant to keep committed Christians from viewing the world through the lens of Christ, and acting out of their Christian beliefs in how they live and love and, yes, vote.  And at the center of it all, as at the center of this story, is tearful confession, “Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

      And the resurrection of Lazarus is vivid, if a little anticlimactic . . . Martha warns him that after four days there’ll be a stench, and again it’s to remind us that he’s well and truly dead . . . and Jesus answers “Did I not say that if you believed you would see the Glory of God?” and all of a sudden it hits us . . . way back at the beginning, Jesus had said “This illness doesn’t lead to death, but it’s for God’s glory, so that the Son of God might be glorified through it.” God’s glory is conquering of death, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the victory over death that is at hand . . . God’s glory is the “I am” of Jesus . . . “I am the resurrection, I am the life” . . . that is God’s glory.

      But how is it the glory of the Son? How does God’s glory result in Jesus’ glorification? God’s glory – that Jesus is the resurrection and the life – God’s glory leads to Jesus’ resurrection. Lazarus points to God’s glory, which ends in Jesus’ glory, which can only take place through the crucifixion. Just as Lazarus’ death, with its undeniable pain and bitterness, is necessary to show the brilliance of God’s glory, Jesus’ death, horribly and on a cross, is necessary for his own glorification, his own resurrection.

      And you may be sitting out there in the pews, with your heads spinning . . . now, Jesus is God, and is the resurrection, and God’s glory is that death is conquered, and Jesus’s glory – who is the Son of God – is that he will be resurrected, but . . . isn’t he the resurrection and God at the same time? . . . and you may be thinking “isn’t that just a bit circular?” and the answer is yes, it is circular. The fact of the matter is, Jesus is resurrection and life in the fullest, most complete sense . . . he is both and at once the author of life and the recipient of it, he is the resurrection and he will be resurrected . . . he is the glory of God and he will be glorified . . . he is the Word become flesh, which dwelt among us.

      And after Lazarus comes, blind and shuffling, legs bound yet able to walk, himself a paradox, after he stumbles out of the darkness and into the light, the religious authorities are finally pushed over the edge – they meet in secret council and swear out a warrant for Jesus’ arrest, and the final irony becomes clear . . . Lazarus’ death, burial, and resurrection, which makes clear the glory of God, makes it possible as well . . . it leads in a very tangible, very unambiguous way straight to the cross.

      I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord . . . Jesus is the whole ball game, the whole shooting match . . . and here in his final days, as he does his final and most spectacular sign, he demonstrates to us what it means to be God. He shows us what ultimate creative power is all about . . . everyone who believes in Jesus will live, even though they die . . . and we are made aware anew just who and what we follow when we say we follow Jesus.

      And here at Lent, it shows us the magnitude of what has been killed, what has been sacrificed. As we meditate in this season on pain and loss, it is well to remember that . . . Jesus was human in the fullest sense, and fully God in full at the same time . . . resurrection and life, God and human. Jesus wept in frustration, in rage at the loss . . . can we do less?

      And at the same time, Jesus’ obedience to his fate, to his God the Father is stunning . . . as he waits on the Jordan just long enough to raise Lazarus, it’s also just long enough to seal his own fate. And so this story, about glorification at heart, is about sorrow as well . . . Jesus shows us what it’s like to be God, master over life and death and resurrection, and what it’s like to be God’s Son as well.  In this age of consumer religion, when we come to church for what we can get out of it, when we expect church to be therapy for whatever ails us, we would do well to remember that we are also Daughters and Sons of God, and while that may mean following Jesus in glory and resurrection when that final trumpet sounds, it also means following him in obedience, obedience even unto death on a cross.

Amen.