Sermons

This Friday, we wrestle with the ending of Christ’s life and ministry here on earth. For we are still held captive to the limits of this world’s thinking. Caesar has condemned Christ to death on a cross, a fate that cannot be reversed. And another earthly system, our grammatical system, tells us we must punctuate Christ’s last phrase with emphatic finality: “It is finished.” PERIOD. But how soon we forget. Christ declared bankruptcy on the systems of this world, even its grammar. And with the boldness of grace, he tells us to rethink our punctuation: “It is finished…”(ELIPSIS). It’s mysterious. And it’s a mark that bids us to stay tuned.

On Palm Sunday, the world needs someone who can understand a vision much bigger than any of ours: God’s possibilities extend beyond the farthest reaches of our imagination. High on that hill, Jesus has his mind set on such possibilities. It will be an unlikely coronation: a common donkey; a carpet of palms and peasant coats, and eventually a crown of thorns with mocking jesters, and a cruel ending. But Jesus knows it’s just the coronation we need. For this is a coronation that ends not in dominance, but in love. Who is Jesus? He is Messiah? And what sort of man is he? He’s the kind of man we need him to be. He’s the kind of man who knows how to properly translate our cries of loud hosannas. Save us! And save us, he shall – with love, with love, with love, with love – love that never ends!!!

But they do not stand alone. The processors, the tire-kickers, the more anxious decision-makers, the disciplined disciples, the timid seekers, are also, slowly-but-surely coming to see and believe, and their belief will also be lasting and profound. Resurrection has plenty of room for Nicodemus, and Peter, and Thomas, and Martha, and all the others, whose faith expressions aren’t always normative, don’t always fit neatly into compartmentalized boxes, don’t always take shape in an instant.

That’s the challenge, and here's the question it poses. When basketball players levitate, and acrobats tight-rope tall buildings, and blind persons find sight, and God somehow stirs inside each of us, will our belief extend only as far as our neighbor’s skepticism?  Or will we embrace the unexplainable, and believe what we have seen for ourselves?  And in a single moment, will we let God transcend our need to be right, our need to know everything, our need to say, “We told you so.”

This isn’t THE story of Resurrection, but it’s got a resurrecting quality. You see, so often, I find myself occupied with how something new birthed within me might bring some balm to a broken world. How might I of Jerusalem, help heal you of Samaria. When all the all while, a reciprocal quality exists: They of Samaria are also healers of me of Jerusalem. Lord, give us the courage to seek water in noonday heat, to make friends with unlikely conversation partners, to worship on different mountains, to glean new wisdom together, and to experience the One who will set it all straight, not just THEN, but right NOW, too.

To read John’s gospel is to engage in a faithful process.  To read John’s gospel is to hear confirmation that Jesus lived and dwelled and still lives and dwells among us.  To read John’s gospel is to hear how the story transformed and still transforms the lives of others.  And to read John’s gospel is to place ourselves into the story, to be people who experience the presence of God.