First, a little background.  In the opening chapters of Acts, Luke tells about the ministry of the disciples in the days following Jesus’ resurrection and the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost. The disciples’ ministry was growing, and now they needed help.  So it was decided that seven others would be appointed to serve as deacons.  These newly chosen deacons would attend to the needs of the widows, carry food to the hungry, manage the distribution of goods to the poor, and so on.  Well, Philip was among the seven chosen, and various details of his work as a deacon are recorded in Acts.

Most notable, though, is Luke’s description of Philip as a Spirit-led person.  In the book of Acts, Luke describes the Spirit’s presence among the disciples in bold, explicit, even mystical terms. In today’s reading, for example, an angel of the Lord appears to Philip…the Spirit tells Philip where to go, what to do and say…the Spirit even whisks Philip from place to place, making him mysteriously disappear and then reappear in another locale.  Make of that what you will, but do be sure that you get Luke’s intent.  His point is that these early church leaders were caught up in the life and work of the Holy Spirit.  After Jesus’ resurrection, the Spirit came upon the disciples and sent them out as witnesses and emissaries of God’s ever expanding love and grace.  Whatever else leadership in the church entails, it entails, first and foremost, a willingness to be guided and empowered by God’s Spirit.

So in our reading this morning, an angel of the Lord appears to Philip and instructs him to take a desert road, the road from Jerusalem to Gaza.  Philip may be stunned to receive this instruction, because he has been having such great success in his ministry. Everywhere Philip goes, great crowds come to hear him. Healings, miracles, and mass conversions accompany him.  When the angel of the Lord appears, Philip may well assume he is about to be sent to a place of prominence, a major urban center perhaps, where his talents can be employed and appreciated fully.  Yet the Spirit sends him south to Gaza along a deserted road.

But the road Philip is instructed to take isn’t completely deserted after all.  Philip meets up with an Ethiopian Eunuch, an official in the court of the queen of the Ethiopians. This eunuch has been to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple, and he is now returning home.  Chances are the eunuch had not been welcomed into the Jerusalem Temple. Eunuchs were castrated males, and the Law of God, as stated in the book of Deuteronomy makes it clear that no one who is sexually mutilated “shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.”  Given this verse from Deuteronomy, the eunuch has likely been given the impression that, according to Biblical teaching, he and his kind were unwelcome in God’s court.

But when Philip encounters the eunuch, he’s not reading Deuteronomy. He’s reading Isaiah.  Isaiah is more generous regarding foreigners and others who may be sexually different. Our Call to Worship this morning from Isaiah promises that  “eunuchs who keep my Sabbath” will be welcome in the house of God, and will receive “a name better than sons and daughters.”

So what is the word of God to this marginalized, pushed-aside person?  Do we find God’s will in Deuteronomy, or Isaiah?  Are people like the eunuch in, or out?  Are they welcome in the household of God, or not? How can this eunuch know what is true, how can he understand unless someone guides him?  The theologian Tom Long wrote that the eunuch needed to be taught by someone who has felt “the embrace of God, who can read the cold ink on the page in the warm light of God’s Spirit. He needs, as all of us do, a Philip to guide him.”

This morning our new church leaders will answer several questions regarding their acceptance of, and obedience to, the authority of Scripture.  But this story of Philip and the eunuch reminds us that if all we have is the written word of scripture, the eunuch’s acceptability can be argued either way.  That’s why we need leaders who not only know scripture, but also know the God of scripture.  The more we as church leaders feel embraced by God’s love and grace, the more we can guide others into that same embrace.

Which, by the way, is exactly what Philip does for the eunuch.  As they sit together in the chariot, the eunuch reads from Isaiah 53, the scripture that describes someone who “like a sheep…was led to the slaughter, and in whose humiliation justice was denied.”  The eunuch asks Philip, “About whom is the prophet speaking—himself, or someone else?”  At this point in the conversation, the eunuch almost surely means, “Is this only about Isaiah and his situation, or is this passage about me as well?” After all, the eunuch has been humiliated and denied justice.  He wants to know:  Is this word from God for someone else, or is this God’s word for me?

And that’s the point at which Philip, led by the Spirit, shares the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ.  He tells the eunuch how Jesus, the man sent from God, himself suffered injustice, humiliation and rejection. Philip explains that Jesus was shorn of his dignity, humiliated, and denied justice in order to identify God’s love for the world, especially for those who question their acceptance by God and their place in the assembly of the Lord.

At that moment, the eunuch stands up in the chariot and shouts, “Look! There’s water.  What’s to prevent me from being baptized?”  Well, Philip could have ticked off a number of things that might prevent this baptism.  He was a eunuch and thus in violation of the purity code.  He belonged to the wrong nation, held the wrong job, and possessed the wrong sexuality.  Philip could have reminded him of all these things.

Instead, Philip hears the voice of the Holy Spirit speak a different answer to the man’s question.  “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” asks the eunuch.  “Absolutely nothing,” whispers the Spirit.  “Absolutely nothing.”  So the eunuch commands the chariot to stop, and he is baptized right then and there.  Walls of prejudice and prohibition that have stood for generations come tumbling down, blown away by the breath of God’s Holy Spirit. And with the help of one of the church’s first officers, one more person who has felt lost and humiliated is found and restored in the wideness of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

Now, friends, new officers, that’s spiritual leadership at its best.

You, Me, All Y’all – Youth Sunday Sermon – Rachel Chao

“How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”

He was questioned this at the well. I’m sure he was thirsty. If someone questioned my motives asking for water during that hot, Texas-y afternoon, I’d be tempted to throw them in the well.

Oops. The Samaritan woman asked the elephant in the room.

Hey, you’re seemingly different from me in every way. Why on earth are we even conversing?

There are those awkward stand-offs in social faux-pas daily. Between the wealthy businessman and the homeless guy on the street. Between the dorky clarinet player and the star football MVP in the school hallway. Between the Jew and the Samaritan.

I have these moments as much as anyone, if not a million times more. I hate those times where you’re aware that the human being standing right across from you and yourself have nothing (I mean NOTHING) in common, and you’re both thinking, “So… What now?”

Moments, faux pas, standoffs, whatever you call them, like these on a hot day at noon at the well are what makes us human and awkward.

But, oh dang, Jesus. He does not really pay attention to those social rules that others covet, heck no. When Zacchieus was up in the tree, he didn’t do the calm thing of making a mental note to talk to him later. No, he yells at the guy and asks for a dinner invite.

(I don’t think Jesus feared the moments where others wanted to kick him and say “Jesus, that’s weird, cut it out.”)

See, I think he was aware of this thing you and I don’t enjoy recognizing.

We’re all in the same herd.

You. Me. The man that raps to himself on the bus. The girl that posts too many photos of her cats on Facebook.

Same flock. All of y’all.

Here’s the other thing we fail to pay attention to: every sheep knows the shepherd by name. Every. Single. One. The Lord knows each and every one of us, and protects us.

We are awkward humans. We draw these lines and say, “You stay there, I’ll stay there, and it’ll be fine.” We ignore the fact that we’re all connected. We’re all aching for love and hope and celebration. We all need a hug from a stranger once in a while, we all want to get flowers, we all mourn over a loss.

The shepherd calls us (Us, PLURAL) by name and protects us (plural again!). Protects you, loves me, welcomes all y’all.

When someone says God only loves certain people that act a certain way and believe a certain thing, I call it a load of bull, in complete honesty.

The God I love, the God that loves you too, is too darn big and too darn loving to make a VIP list. The God that calls us loves all of us. Not just Americans, not just liberals, not those that make more than 400K a year.

Whether you are gay, or straight, or finding your way, you’re loved.

If you update your Facebook status way too constantly, you are welcomed.

Youth Sunday Sermon – Joshua Turpin

“The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

Nearing the culmination of Jesus’ ministry, John records this important parable. Important, because Jesus tells it in three different ways. There seems to be a desperately important message somewhere underneath these simplistic concepts.

“My sheep know my voice, but not that of a stranger”. We know that Jesus is the shepherd, and that we want to be His sheep, but what does it mean for us today to know Jesus’ voice?

One Thursday a few months back, I was picking my mother up from Community Bible Study and overheard a conversation that spoke directly to my soul. A lady was giving advice to a friend. She was talking about how important it was to read the bible every day, that without that immersion into the word, she would lose her godly focus and be open to spiritual deception. These words convicted me on the spot. My earlier dedication to daily study had waned and the time I had set aside had been conscripted by other things, good things; but as I later thought, what could be more important than reminding myself of GOD’s words.

There are so many voices today, calling us to follow: money, beauty, fame, acceptance, to name only a few. So many rival shepherds, who lead us astray; and when trouble comes, they abandon us to the painful repercussions of our foolish decisions.

The word made flesh no longer walks among us, but GOD’s word is still available to us through the bible. Each of us has the opportunity to listen to Jesus, meditate on his words, and act out their bewildering truths. Too often we take these words for granted; too often we let our laziness smother the fire that the Spirit would kindle in our hearts. Jesus said,“The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life”. They are the one life-line, in the midst of a sea of deadly lies.

Have you ever seen a hand crank radio. You see them in camping stores, usually about yea-big, and you turn the crank and set your station. Now imagine that you somehow get lost in a massive forest. And as just you luck would have it, there is a flash-flood raging your way. Now, while desperately wondering from one twisting path to the next, a park ranger finds you and hands you one of these devices, telling you the one station that directs you to the nearest shelter. Moving on to find others, you are left on your own holding this device. You find the channel, but also discover that, surprisingly, to either side are stations broadcasting music, soothing conversation, and even an engaging discussing of the up-coming election. To tune into the directions to safety, you must tune out the other voices. And to make matters more complicated, the sound of music has made the trees less menacing, the danger less real. It would be nice to let go of this fear, you think, easier, pleasanter, to tune out the raucous, demanding voice of the operator. Not only that, but you find that as the charge on the radio runs out, the voice of direction begins to fade, imperceptibly at first, into stillness. Will you find a way to justify stalling the remorselessly steady recharging required to keep direction alive? Will you let the other, sensible, enjoyable voices tune out the only one that leads away from death?

As I look down the path ahead of me, I see that there will be trials. No matter where I go, I know that phony shepherds and the looming wolves who haunt their deluded flocks will always be dangerously near. It will be up to me to choose Jesus, to the spend the time and effort to know his voice and follow his lead by reading and living out his word. There are many uncertainties that lie in the path before me, but this I know for sure. That Jesus will never let those who follow Him come to permanent spiritual harm. Bumps and bruises I will suffer, but he will safely guide my spirit home.

Following his lead – Youth Sunday Sermon – Natalie Caballero

Jesus is our good Shepherd! He calls each of us to follow him by name. He gives us clear direction and speaks to us every day. When we hear his voice we know him and know exactly what he intends for us to do. Simple enough, right? We just listen for Jesus’ voice, and do exactly as he says and our life will be sweet. Except it seems like it doesn’t quite work that way. I don’t know about y’all, but haven’t ever heard Jesus, himself, personally calling me, by my name.

So, if I am not sure that I am hearing the voice of Jesus, how am I supposed to know if I am following him? How can I be certain of what he wants for my life?

The most difficult thing for most people to-do is to live their life, as a follower of God by not only coming to church and hearing the word, but by living the word in their daily life. So how do we live the word?

“Being uncertain of our calling is entirely natural” or at least that’s what my college councilor told me, when I was deciding where to apply for college last fall. She told me to start by looking where I had leadership positions; she said that my commitment to certain activities showed where my interests and passion truly lied. So, that is the key to finding my calling, looking in places that I felt comfortable enough to lead others. This seems to be a normal assumption in our society, that you are what you do. Maybe that’s why people feel pressured to gain the prestige associated with leadership like titles and scholarships or raises. Colleges now look for people that have leadership positions in the activities they are involved in, as if the pressure to lead weren’t already strong enough. I was told to really work a leadership angle in my college essays and use words like manager and organizer to describe my roll activities I had been a part of.

As a senior this year, I have had a lot more leadership than I ever have before. And while I was blessed with rolls such as cake club president and editor-in-chief of the yearbook, these titles also came with the responsibility of managing large groups people every week. And when you get 20 high school girls in a club devoted to baking, there is bound to be some sort of drama. I had to deal with not only organizing the club but also dealing with the commotion of leadership transitions, who got to bake for what teacher, and finalizing hundreds of layouts. At times the stress associated with these rolls overwhelmed me to the point that I was no longer leading the club with a clear mind and strong focus. I no longer was leading with an open mind or kind heart; I no longer was leading as one of Jesus’ followers.

How can we lead and follow at the same time? It seems impossible, being both a leader and a follower.

But there is a large group of people in our society who do just that on a daily basis, teachers. Teachers that have made impact on my life have lead because they love what they are doing. Based on the current salaries of a teacher we know their actions are not based upon greed, they work for the greater good of those they are teaching. They work so that those around them will better understand the world. While still some teachers like my government teacher, like their job because it has good vacation options, insurance and a steady salary, these are the few that do it not for the security offered by a federal job, but in order to better the community around them. These teachers live their lives for others, reflecting the image of Jesus whether they realize it or not. Their strength, power, sympathy, kindness and mercy that they display in the classroom directly mirror that of our ideal leader.

Jesus tells us in this passage that we are his sheep. I take this as a very generous complement. Sheep are ideal followers. They are such great followers that if their shepherd tries to lead them by applying pressure to side or behind them, they will attempt to go back, behind their shepherd in order to better follow his lead. By comparing us to these overly committed followers, Jesus describes our natural desire to be lead. But if we can’t hear Jesus at all hours of the day, how are we supposed to follow him?

I think the best way to follow Jesus is to mirror him and lead his sheep.

AMEN

To begin, ponder for a moment the first words that the risen Jesus speaks to the disciples when he appears to them:  “Peace be with you.”  Give that greeting some thought.  Recall that the last time Jesus saw these disciples they were all failing him in one way or another.  These are the men who betrayed, denied, and deserted Jesus the moment their expectations of him weren’t met and their lives were endangered.  When the risen Jesus came into their presence, he would have been justified to say something like:  “Shame on you.  After all the time we spent together, after all I taught you, you scattered like rabbits at the first sign of danger.  You are no longer my disciples!”  Such an outburst of anger would be understandable.  But no.  The one they had failed and disappointed came into their midst, and his first words to them were, “Peace be with you.”  He was saying to them, and to his disciples of every age, “I forgive you.  I still love you.  Peace be with you.”  Amazing!

Of course, the disciples were startled and terrified because they thought they were seeing a ghost. But Luke dispels the notion that the risen Jesus is a ghost.   Jesus invites the disciples to touch him, to feel his flesh and bones. He even asks for something to eat. Clearly the risen body of Jesus is neither a disembodied spirit nor a resuscitated corpse. It is, rather, a glorified body, one that is both similar and dissimilar to the body of the historical Jesus.  It is something new and different.  Call it a new creation.

Even so, the disciples aren’t sure what to make of the risen Jesus.  We moderns sometimes tend to think that we invented religious doubt.  Yet Luke acknowledges that the resurrection was hard to believe for the first disciples. In fact, all the Gospel accounts of resurrection contain an element of doubt, disbelief, confusion and fear. Luke pusts it this way:  “…in their joy they were disbelieving, and still wondering…”  News of the resurrection elicits not one, but several conflicting responses.  Joy leaps into our hearts at the very thought that life is more than we’ve calculated, that death does not have the final word, that goodness and truth are not ultimately overwhelmed by evil and untruth.  Yet at the same time, this good news has always been hard to believe, and so, like those first disciples, we are still wondering, still trying to take it in, still scratching our heads and asking “How can these things be?”

And listen to what Jesus says to his sometimes joyful, sometimes disbelieving and still wondering disciples.  He says, “You are my witnesses.”  What a liberating, empowering announcement.  Jesus doesn’t require absolute certainty among his disciples.  He doesn’t  tell his disciples that they cannot be his witnesses until they have resolved every question and put to rest any lingering doubt. It’s as if Jesus said to his first disciples, and to disciples of every generation, “I know you’re having trouble believing. I know you have doubts, but take heart, ‘you are my witnesses!’”

So what does it mean to be a witness to the resurrection?  There’s a line in the play, The Lion in Winter, in which Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of King Henry II of England, says, “In a world where carpenters get resurrected, anything is possible.”  The resurrection of Jesus shatters our notions of reality. In a world in which a resurrection has happened, anything is possible.

The past week was the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and a host of articles and television programs revisited this tragic event of 1912.  On one of these programs, James Cameron, producer of the most recent movie on the Titanic was interviewed. Toward the end of the interview, he became pensive, philosophical. He observed that the Titanic was a great ship, but it had one fatal flaw:  it was so massive that it could not turn.  Those who piloted the ship on that fateful night disregarded that flaw, and when an iceberg appeared in the path of the ship they were unable to steer clear of disaster. Cameron then made a metaphorical link with modern civilization.  “As with the Titanic,” he said, “there is unprecedented greatness in our civilization, but our massive appetites, greed and hubris have put us on a collision course from which we are unable or unwilling to turn.”

Given how unsustainable and environmentally destructive our civilization has become, the fear that we are heading toward some Titanic-sized shipwreck seems reasonable.  Yet as witnesses to a resurrection, we are never without hope. A world in which a resurrection has taken place is not a world locked in an inevitable death grip.  If Christ has been raised, anything is possible.

This week our church hosted the Congo Network of the Presbyterian Church.  We watched a video that featured various church leaders in Congo.  One of these leaders chronicled the massive problems facing the Congolese people—poverty, challenges of education, health care, a prolonged war.  Then he said, “Still we are a people of hope because of the resurrection of Jesus.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks had a column this week titled, “Do-gooder Dreams Don’t Take Reality Into Account.”  Brooks wrote about the service mentality and idealism of many of today’s young people.  While Brooks applauded their service ethos, he wondered if they are naïve, short on realism, and too unwilling to confront the larger political and institutional realities that are so crucial to the well-being of any society.  As usual, Brooks has a good point, but how does our analysis of reality change when we take into account the resurrection?  If Christ has been raised, then working for peace, justice and reconciliation is never foolish naïveté, but rather it is holy work.  And no act of kindness, no matter how large or small, is in vain.

Friends, now that Easter Day is past, Easter living begins.  We are the joyful, sometimes disbelieving, and still wondering disciples that Jesus calls to be his witnesses.  May the resurrection of Jesus fill us with hope and send us out rejoicing.  A resurrection has happened; therefore, anything is possible.

The opening of this morning’s text stands in sharp contrast to the overwhelming joy of last week’s Easter Sunday celebrations.  A day marked with lilies, brass, shouts of Alleluia, and those startlingly white cloth accents that seem to revel triumphantly against the darkness and dirtiness of death.  We greet our friends, those remaining eleven disciples in a locked and shadowy room.

We imagine them huddled together in fear, hardly chancing a whispered discussion between them about what their next move is.  This doesn’t make sense to us. The announcement of Jesus’ resurrection had surely reached them by now.  Shouldn’t they be celebrating, partying in the streets, proclaiming this raising of their Lord with bouquets of flowers, trumpet blasts, new clothes, and hot crossed buns?  This is Easter for goodness sakes! This is no time for gloom and fear! Jesus has risen! Death is defeated! The Easter bunny left you a basket full of candy eggs at your doorstep! Come on people! Get with the program! But for those first disciples, the fullness of what had occurred had not yet sunk in.

As we imagine these remaining disciples sequestered up in their safe house, we see Thomas, antsy with cabin fever, pacing the room.  Clearing his throat, we hear him announce to the others that he is stepping out for a moment to clear his head, get some air, to take a walk.  Thomas walks along the darkened streets of Jerusalem.  The questions come like a swarm of gnats in his mind.

How could this have happened? Weren’t we just getting started? Why didn’t he resist? What happened to the mission? But the question nagging in the deepest part of Thomas’ soul commands our attention.  “Where is God now?”

Imagine the shock on Thomas’ face when he walks back through the door of that upper room.  The smiles, the laughing, the excited voices.  The disciples round on Thomas, talking so fast that their words become a blur.  “He was here” “Just appeared out of nowhere” “talked” “walked around” “it was really him” “I saw him breathing” “Peace be with you” “Holy Spirit”.  Silencing the ruckus, Thomas shuts his eyes and tries to make sense of it all.  He tries to understand, to believe the words of his friends, that Jesus was really alive and had been here, in this very room.  But Thomas had seen too much. He had seen the lashes cut into the sides of Jesus. He had seen his friend carrying that wretched cross through the streets. He had heard the jeering of the crowd and the hammering of nails in the distance.  He had seen the spear in his side. He had seen the limp body of Christ carried into the tomb.

He had seen death, and death it seemed, was all too convincing.  “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

It is here in the story when we all breathe a sigh of relief.  Whew. Thank heavens that someone else isn’t buying all this.  I thought I was the only one.  It is all too appropriate that on the Sunday immediately following Easter, that we take a moment to recognize that many of us, and if I were a betting man, the majority of us, have experienced the same degree of skepticism that we see in Thomas.  Oh Thomas.  We love Thomas, the patron saint of the thinking Christian – the defender of righteous doubt.  It seems that our human nature comes standard with this fundamental ability to question, to doubt.  Our ability to doubt didn’t start with Thomas, and it certainly didn’t end with him.  Serene Jones recounts how we have seen glimpses of our doubting human nature throughout history.  In the early church, doubters questioned whether God, as eternal and divine, could die and still be God.

Later, Medieval scholars depicted Thomas’ doubt as logical, putting in this mouth the question “Is resurrection metaphysically and analytically intelligible?”  For the mystically oriented, doubt is described as the “dark night of the soul” where, in the midst of unbelief, belief germinates in the shadows.  More recently, Enlightenment theologians used rational, empirical arguments to craft their brand of Thomastic doubt.  When they asked, “Who has actually seen the dead rise?” they turned the resurrection of Christ into a mere symbol of our misguided human hopes for a life after death.  I secretly love perusing the magazine racks at HEB the week before Easter.  It seems every year there is a new Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, or Discover Channel special trying to unpack the complications of the resurrection or someone trying to wheedle their way around Jesus’ actual death.  I remember watching a special on TV a few years back that gave a bunch of other possibilities of how Jesus could have come back from the dead… or in this case, never really died in the first place.

They speculated that due to the lack of advanced medical practices, Jesus could have simply lost consciousness on the cross, had such a faint heart beat that the soldiers couldn’t detect it, then in three days regained consciousness and bounced out of the tomb good as new.  They even brought in an organic chemist to explain how the mixture of sour wine offered to Christ on the cross could have contained a powerful substance that temporarily made his heart beat undetectable.  I love this stuff, as silly as it seems, because it points to our inherent desire for proof, for an explanation, for a way around the impossible.  But at the end of the day, we can recognize all we want that we are creatures predisposed to doubt, but it doesn’t take away the pain that doubt causes.

For some of us, doubt comes at those tragic moments in our lives. The loss of a loved one. A natural disaster that wipes out entire groups of people.  The witnessing of starvation, genocide, war, and sickness.  The question overwhelms us, “Where is God now?”  For others, the doubt comes on more subtly.

In those dark, silent moments, laying in bed awake, wondering if all this is truly real.  Looking up into the stars and thinking about how small and insignificant we are – wondering if there really is a God out there.  Reading the scriptures in light of scientific discovery and questioning if this is all just a big fairy tale told to children to make them behave in church and obey their parents.  Now I wont ask for a show of hands here, but think to yourself about a time when doubt consumed you. It is a difficult task, especially here in church.  As a teenager, I was constantly plagued with doubt.  I often would feel miserable about going to church, wondering if it was real or not.  The thing that kept me in the Presbyterian Church was that I came to realize that my doubt was validated, something to be recognized, to be worked through, to be taken as a normal human experience.  I realized that the church, throughout history, was full of people who doubted, who questioned, who didn’t take things at face value.

I still experience doubt from time to time, but what has changed is that

I don’t feel as bad about it. In fact, I feel closer to those around me in the church who embrace me, who carry me through.  So to all those out there this morning wondering if this is a safe place to question, to doubt, we resoundingly answer, we are with you.  And, as our Gospel illustrates, so is God.

We return to our disciples in that upper room, poor Thomas, still pacing, frustrated, anxious, doubting.  A noise perks his ears and he turns around.  Jesus stands before him, hands outstretched, cloak pulled aside.   Wide eyes.  Sheer silence.  Carpenter’s kind face.  Peace be with you. Hands trembling. Permission given. Thomas sees. “My Lord and my God.”  Belief.

It is in the conclusion of this story that we understand how God meets us in our doubt.  We realize that this story has never really been about Thomas.  This story is really about Jesus.  It is here that we find the real point of the Gospel story – the story about God’s coming to us, wherever we might be, in whatever state we find ourselves in.

We see this in the otherwise unremarkable detail of the locked door.  Instead of depicting a Jesus who knocks, opens the door, walks up to Thomas and starts to argue with him by trying to answer his rationalist queries or trying to scientifically prove how he did it, we see a Jesus who is determined to reach this skeptic right where he is.  It is a Jesus who refuses to let dead bolts or chains block the movement of love toward the one who lacks faith.  We hear Jesus’ first words to Thomas, “Peace be with you.”  We find that Jesus does not offer a logically argued response to his questioning faith, but a surprising proclamation of peace and touching love that is stronger than even death itself.  In the end, the story doesn’t even say that Thomas touched the wounds of Christ.  Jesus says to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me?” We are given to think that it is the mere fact that Jesus was once again with him that brought him to faith.  It is this act, God with us, that pulls us from our unbelief.  It is no mental exercise, no running blind into self convincing arguments, no empirical proof that reaches out.  Rather it is the presence of Christ that brings us home.

In his Easter Vigil sermon, Ted Wardlaw recounted the story in Tom Long’s new book on theodicy, “What Shall We Say.”  Tom ends the book by reflecting on John L’Heureux’s story, “The Expert on God.”  The protagonist, a Jesuit priest, has spent a lot of his life plagued by various doubts having to do with various articles of belief.  Apparently, he has chosen one doubt after another by which, for a season, to be plagued—for a while, the Trinity, and then Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, and then the virginity of Mary, and then the divinity (and later humanity) of Christ—all of these things he has doubted, always one at a time.  Finally, though, the priest develops a doubt that will not pass: he begins to doubt the love of God. The love of God!  In spite of prayers for faith, and then for hope, nothing comes, so the man settles simply into the rhythm of his duties—teaching, preaching, saying mass—pretty much devoid of any real faith.

But then, one bright, clear day, after saying mass at Our Lady of Victories, he is driving home to the Jesuit house, marveling in his ironic and doubtful way over the absence of God in the world, when he comes across an automobile accident.  A young man lies dying in the overturned car, and the priest works to free the man from the wreckage, and finally, with holy oil from a vial in his pocket, to anoint the dying man.  “I absolve you from all your sins.  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.”

In spite of this action, nothing happens other than the young man’s helpless, shallow breathing, and so the priest begins to pray every recited prayer and every other rote prayer he can think of.  Then come the final lines of L’Heureux’s story, as the priest wonders what to do:

“What would God do at such a moment, if there were a God?  ‘Well, do it,” he said aloud, and heard the fury in his voice.  ‘Say something.’  But there was silence from heaven.

“…What could anyone say to this crushed, dying thing, he wondered.  What would God say if he cared as much as I?…The priest could see death beginning across the boy’s face.  And still he could say nothing.

“…The boy turned—some dying reflex—and his head tilted in the priest’s arms, trusting, like a lover.  And at once the priest, faithless, unrepentant, gave up his prayers and bent to him and whispered, fierce and burning.  ‘I love you,’ and continued until there was no breath, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’”[1]

Tom Long then ends his book with these words:  “L’Heureux’s character of the priest can be understood in two ways.  Either he is finally the secular man who at last rids himself of the burden of his failed mythology and acts lovingly on his own, or—and this is my own wager—he is a converted man, a man who moves from a childish faith to a mature and hopeful one.

In this latter view, the priest gives up his immature idea of a God who comes when we whistle to make everything all right in favor of a God who is at work in suffering as the hidden and loving warrior, summoning the faithful to join their actions with God’s, calling them to be in the present world of pain and what all humanity shall be in the end: those whose righteousness shines like the sun in the victorious love of God.”[2]

Friends, hear the Good News of the Gospel: when God comes, we will recognize God’s presence in those moments when peace is offered, in those moments when life’s most brutal violence is honestly acknowledged, and when, in the midst of this bracing honesty, we realize that we are not alone but have, in fact, been always, already found.  The point of our story this morning is not that Thomas doubted, for that is unremarkable and all too common.  The message is that God is with us, wherever and in whatever state we find ourselves in.

In those dark nights of the soul, in those moments of intellectual override, in those doubting moments of pain, tragedy, and even in the face of death, God is with us, whether we realize it or not, offering peace, and whispering the profound and abiding truth in our ears, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Amen.

Well, Easter is our day of triumph.  After trudging through the painful days of Holy Week—days of betrayal, conflict, suffering and death—Easter morning breaks forth with singing: “Jesus Christ is risen today, alleluia! Our triumphant holy day, alleluia!”  On Easter the songs, the trumpet blasts and the timpani all sound a celebratory note of triumph.  In fact, the only somber, less than triumphant aspect of our Easter worship this morning is in Mark’s telling of the Easter story.  In Mark’s account of the resurrection, there are no cheering disciples, no group hugs or victory dances. There is only stunned silence, terror, and retreat.

Think for a minute about the men and women who are included in Mark’s Passion/Easter story.  To a person, Mark’s cast of characters is made up of sinners of one variety or another.  Through the span of Jesus’  anguish in Gethsemane, to his arrest, trial, crucifixion and even on into Easter morning, no heroes or heroines emerge.  The Romans are there. Their approach to political challenge is to squelch it with violence.  The chief priests are on the scene, but their jealousy and desperate desire to hang on to power has led them astray.  Of course, Jesus’ own disciples each fail in one way or another.  Judas has betrayed Jesus for love of money.  Peter has denounced his relationship with Jesus after promising his loyalty.  And as soon as the sword-wielding soldiers arrive to arrest Jesus, the other disciples flee like scared rabbits.

But what about the women who come to the tomb–Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome? These are surely strong women who have birthed the babies, raised the children, tended the sick, fed their families, and, when necessary, prepared the dead for burial.  Yet as the Easter story unfolds, they, too, falter and flee. The fact that they have come to the tomb planning to anoint the body shows that they either don’t understand, or don’t believe, the promise of resurrection Jesus has repeatedly made.  When the women enter the tomb, the young man in a white robe specifically tells them not to be afraid.  “Jesus is not here,” he declares to them, “he has been raised.”  Then he instructs them:   “Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”  Yet instead of announcing the resurrection as instructed, they are seized by terror, and they run from the tomb. The last sentence in Mark’s Gospel puts a fine point on Mark’s bleak assessment of human nature: “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” The women were our last hope to find someone in the Easter account who triumphed over difficulty, someone who carried the banner of faith without stumbling.  But alas, Mark’s Gospel concludes without giving us a single hero or heroine.

In this way, Mark’s story is very unlike the wildly popular trilogy titled The Hunger Games, which is also now playing as a movie. Anyone heard of The Hunger Games?  If you haven’t heard, just ask the nearest teenager or young adult to fill you in. The books in this trilogy are popular, in part, because of the engaging, courageous characters who make up the story, especially the heroine Katniss Evergreen.  Against terrible odds, this heroine prevails and triumphs. Such triumph of the human spirit against great odds is what typically sells books and holds readers’ interest.

So here’s my question:  Why would Mark, in his account of the Easter story, show us person after person who disappoints, flees, or fails in some way?  It’s as if Mark is intentionally surrounding the events of the passion and resurrection with sinners of all kinds.  The Romans, the religious leaders, the disciples, the women—all are stand-ins for a fallen humanity.

And we could add:  they are stand-ins for our world today.  The Roman Empire is long gone, but the myth of redemptive violence continues to govern the affairs of nations, leaving an unbroken trail of blood and misery across the centuries and across the landscape of every nation.   And the long shadow of Judas’s betrayal still falls over our lives and world, as money, greed and the lust for material security take precedence.  Institutional intransigence and corruption didn’t end with the chief priest and Pharisees. These failings continue to mar our religious and political institutions today.   And the fear, fickleness, and lack of understanding that characterized the first disciples are but a mirror of our own.  Mark’s stark account of the resurrection may be lacking in reader satisfaction, but there’s something raw, realistic, and sadly timeless about it.

Yet In spite of the human failures that punctuate Mark’s story, and that characterize our human story, God’s promise to redeem the fallen creation remains alive and irreversible. The resurrection assures us that God’s good intentions for the world will not be revoked.  “He is risen,” shouts the young man from the empty tomb, “and is going before you to Galilee.”  True, there are no heroes or heroines in Mark’s Easter story, but there is great, good news. Human sin does not repeal God’s promise.

A couple Sundays ago, a hand-out from one of our adult church school classes included a quote by Karl Barth, who wrote,  “Whoever, whatever, or however Christians may be, they must be themselves a people for whom the act and revelation of God are neither dream nor illusion nor the subject of mere theory, but a reality believed, known and experienced, either in power or in weakness.”

It’s Barth’s last phrase that gives us our Easter hope: “or in weakness.”  Hasn’t Mark just told us about people who experienced the reality of the resurrection not in power, but in weakness?  Mark names some of the people for whom Jesus died and rose again in spite of everything done against him. He died and rose for the Romans who beat and killed him, for the religious leaders who despised him, and for the disciples who betrayed and deserted him.  He died and rose for each one of us, even though we are not heroic disciples.

Friends, today is our triumphant holy day. But as Mark makes clear, we are not celebrating human accomplishment, potential or creativity.  Instead, we are celebrating the good news that God is faithful, the creation is being redeemed, death and futility have been overcome. It is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

11When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples ²and said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. ³If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” ’ ⁴They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, ⁵some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ ⁶They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it.

⁷Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. ⁸Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. ⁹Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
¹⁰ Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Why are you doing this?  We get an unusual amount of detail from Mark here about the preparations for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Mark’s Gospel is the concise, no-frills one, but here he slows down long enough to provide an exact location for this episode, long enough for Jesus to give precise instructions to his disciples, even extending to a hypothetical conversation the disciples might have with people they might encounter.

And that conversation centers on the question, “Why are you doing this?”  In the immediate context, the question and response pertain to securing a colt for Jesus to ride as he enters the city. Jesus tells the 2 disciples sent on this errand what they will find and how they are to justify their actions to anyone who questions them.  Has Jesus made arrangements with the owner to borrow this colt? Does he instead have prophetic knowledge of what the disciples will find? None of that interests Mark.

The question Mark cares about is “Why are you doing this?”  And that is a question which escapes this context and confronts all of us who follow the One we remember this morning with palm branches and loud hosannas.

In the immediate context, the disciples were prepared to explain why they were untying a colt and leading it away. But under that explanation must lie a larger, stronger one – why were they there at all? Why had they left behind families, jobs, homes to travel with this man? Why had they stayed with him, even as he said, and said, and said again that he was traveling to his death?  What compelled them to join Jesus? What held them to him?

What compels us to follow Jesus? What holds us to him? As we wave our palms and sing our hosanna’s, we should consider this question for ourselves – Why are we doing this? Jesus tells the disciples to reply that the Lord has need of the colt. The Lord has need of us too. We are members of the Body, tasked with serving the Kingdom which Jesus has proclaimed throughout his ministry. May we, like the disciples and the humble colt, serve faithfully.

John Leedy – Mark 11: 7-10: ⁷Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. ⁸Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. ⁹Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
¹⁰   Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

Two worlds crashing together. We stand dumbstruck at how stark the present realities are. The crowds gather, shout, cheer – Hosanna! This ancient cry, Hosanna, the ancient pleading of the people, shouted, wept, and sighed throughout the course of human history. Hosanna – Save us! This cry must have struck a nerve with the on-looking Romans stationed in Jerusalem.  The crowd of Jews proclaiming “Save Us” to their rumored Messiah – the one known all too well as a threat to the Rome’s occupation of Israel. It had to have been clear to both the Romans and to the gathered Jews, that this Messiah had come to liberate them from the government’s oppression. This mighty king of the Jews, riding triumphantly into the city, had come to topple the powers that be.  Blessed be the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest!

Yes, Jesus has come to Jerusalem to liberate the people. Yes, Jesus has come to free the people from oppression. Yes, this king of the Jews has come to topple the powers that be.  But Jesus has his eyes set not on the throne, but on the cross.  You see, throughout the scriptures, we witness what happens to those who “come in the name of the Lord.”  The prophets of Israel came in the name of the Lord – and they were pursued, tortured, and ruthlessly killed by the people they came to save.  John the Baptist came in the name of the Lord, and he was imprisoned and publically beheaded.  No, those who come in the name of the Lord do not sit in thrones of earthly power. Those who come in the name of the Lord come to die.  Jesus knows that the liberation he has come to enact is not freedom from Roman occupation, but liberation from the bondage of sin.  The powers that Jesus has come to topple are far beyond emperors and Caesars, but the powers of darkness and death.

While the cries of Hosanna coming from the mouths of the people are misunderstood, they could not be more profound.  The joy that overflows on Palm Sunday is shocked and rattled by the reality of the coming crucifixion and death of their Messiah, their anointed one, the one who came in the name of the Lord.  Their jubilation at the sight of their savior entering Jerusalem is rocked by the execution of the one who they thought would save them.  It isn’t until these two worlds, these two expectations crash together that the full message of Jesus’ ministry becomes clear. The one who comes in the name of the Lord comes not to save Israel in the immediate, but to save the world throughout eternity.  This is why in our Great Prayer of Thanksgiving before we take communion, we proclaim the Sanctus – Holy Holy Holy Lord, God of Power and Might, heaven and earth are full of your glory, hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.  Although the true meaning of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on that Palm Sunday was misunderstood by those gathered, we understand today in utter clarity.  So today, we make our cries of hosanna – save us, not in the vain hope of an earthly ruler, but in the hope in an eternal savior who’s kingdom shall have no end.

San Williams – Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

The word of the Lord…

Talk about an anti-climactic ending.  A day that begins with such intrigue, mystery and fanfare ends inconclusively, unsatisfactorily.  As the day of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem draws to a close, the parade route has grown quiet, the shouts of “Hosanna” are now silent, and the crowds have dispersed.  As the sun sinks below the horizon, Jesus walks into the empty Temple. He looks around, and then he leaves. Lights down. End of scene.

Of course, we know the events of Palm Sunday are just a prelude.  The day ends without incident, but we get the impression that much is about to happen. In fact, the days between Palm Sunday and Easter morning are the most poignant, action-packed days of Jesus’ entire ministry.

Yet in truth, these last days in the life of Jesus are seldom closely observed by contemporary Christians.  In recent years, churches have experienced sparse attendance at Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services.  Some say attendance is down because people today are simply too busy.  Others suggest that the story of Christ’s final days is too much of a downer, in a culture that savors a more upbeat religion.  Whatever the reason, many Christians prefer to go from the parade of Palm Sunday directly to the party of Easter without journeying along the rocky trail of Holy Week.

But why is this a problem?  What’s lost if we pole vault over the events of the Passion—arching from one celebratory Sunday to the next?  Well, what may be lost is a faith that can endure even through conflict, challenge, suffering and loss.  After all, life is not one long party, and if we don’t have a faith that can show us how to cope with defeat, disappointment, and trial, we probably don’t have a faith that will last.

In recent years, churches have tried to address this issue with a kind of compromise.  Facing the fact that most people aren’t going to show up at Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services, churches will begin worship on the Palm Sunday theme and then move into the Passion story.  The rational is that since most people aren’t going to attend Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services, they can at least hear the Passion on Palm Sunday. For several years we’ve done just that at UPC.

But this year we’re letting Palm Sunday be Palm Sunday, the prelude to the beginning of Holy Week.  And in so doing, we’re raising our expectations of the congregation.  We’re expecting you to read the daily scriptures and prayers that have been prepared for Holy Week.  We’re making an earnest plea for you to join us for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services.

Granted, the events of Holy Week are full of conflict, suffering, betrayal and death—all of which we’d rather avoid.  But we can’t avoid these things.  They are part of the reality of our lives and world.  Without identifying our faith with the suffering of Jesus, we’ll never be able say with Paul:  “Nothing in all creation, not even death, is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Friends, Palm Sunday is only prelude.  It’s the first day of Holy Week.  Please stay tuned for the rest of the drama.  If you do, Easter morning will burst forth with unspeakable joy.

Starting with his prologue, John acknowledges that the world’s true light came into the world but the world did not recognize him.  Two chapters later, John introduces Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus in the darkness.  Nicodemus engages Jesus in conversation, but he ends up scratching his head and muttering, “How can these things be?”   Next, John introduces the Samaritan woman.  In a drawn-out conversation with Jesus, the woman first identifies him as a kind man, and later perceives that he is a prophet. Finally, just before she exits the Gospel narrative, we read that she asks, “He couldn’t be the Messiah, could he?”   Of course, in numerous episodes in his Gospel, John pictures the leaders of the religious establishment as the epitome of faith blindness.  These religious leaders are so taken with their own authority and power that they see Jesus only as a threat, a heretic and rebel.  John tells us that even some of Jesus’ own disciples turn away from him when he no longer fits their description of how God’s Messiah is supposed to act.  So person after person parades across the pages of John’s Gospel, and all are unable, or unwilling, to see Jesus as God’s chosen servant through whom God is reconciling the world.

Well, this general theme of faith blindness that weaves its way throughout John’s Gospel comes to a head in the episode we read today. Our reading opens when some Greeks approach one of Jesus’ disciples and say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  We know nothing about these Greeks.  Many have assumed that they are Gentiles and that their presence signals that the Gentile mission is about to begin.  But it’s just as likely that they are Diaspora Jews, which might explain why they would be coming to Jerusalem to worship during Passover.  In any case, they appear in the opening sentences of the episode, make their request, and then disappear from the narrative. Their wish to see Jesus goes unfulfilled.  When Philip and Andrew tell Jesus that there are some Greeks who wish to see him, Jesus ignores the request and launches into a sermon about the meaning of his death and about what it means to be his disciple.

Now we’re puzzled.  Why does John depict Jesus as giving these Greeks the cold shoulder?  He ignores their presence, as well as their request to see him. I don’t know why John introduces and then dismisses the Greeks so abruptly, but I do have a hunch.  My hunch is that John’s concern lies elsewhere. Namely, with those of us who will never have an opportunity to see Jesus in person.  Consider the suggestion that the Greeks’ comment, “We would see Jesus,” foreshadows the encounter between the risen Christ and Thomas, which takes place at the very end of John’s Gospel.  Recall how, for Thomas, “Seeing is believing.”  Thomas declared, “Unless I see with my own eyes, and touch his wounds with my own hands, I will not believe.” Jesus responds to Thomas:  “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

So friends, Jesus’ final blessing is aimed at us.  If Jesus were sitting in the sanctuary this morning, we would have no way to identify him.  His face is not recognizable to us. But John’s point is that we don’t have to see Jesus to believe that in him—his life, death and resurrection—God is reconciling the world unto himself.  John declares that in Jesus the world is judged and the ruler of the world driven out.  By “world” John doesn’t mean God’s good creation. Instead he is referring to that fallen, distorted, misshapen, and rebellious world that rules through violence, injustice, and oppression. But through Jesus, John declares, God is overcoming evil and drawing all people back to one another and to God. That’s good news for all of us who without seeing, believe.  We believe that Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection are the means through which God is putting the fractured creation back together.

What’s important, then, is not seeing Jesus but joining with Jesus in God’s mission to reconcile and set right all that is wrong.   Jesus calls disciples of every age to become part of God’s compassion reaching out into the world.  “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.”  Servants of Jesus are those who are trying to shape their lives around Jesus’  command to love and serve our neighbors. Such service often go unnoticed. The mother who is up all night with a sick child; the husband who cares tenderly for his wife whose Alzheimer’s is so advanced that she no longer know his name; the sister who prays for and seeks to help her alcoholic brother; the office worker who risks her job by speaking out against racial injustice in her company; the father who proudly takes the hand of his autistic son and walks with him to the first—frightening—day of school. . . .Wherever people in need are treated with compassion, the  Jesus is there.

In a moment you’ll be invited to the Lord’s Table.  Bread will be broken, wine poured and held up for all to see.  To the untrained eye the bread is just bread and the wine only wine.  But to the eyes of faith, when the bread is broken and the wine poured out, the crucified and risen Lord is recognized. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, his life continues to shape those of us who believe in him and who join with him in his ministry of reconciliation. “Blessed are those who have not seen, yet have come to believe.”

Let’s start by naming some of our own fears.  What are we afraid of? In a recent Christian Century article, Katherine Willis Pershey writes about what she calls the terror of the dark unknown.  Pershey is a pastor and author, and she is a self-described highly anxious person.  She writes that she was an anxious child who became an anxious adult.  When she married, she became an anxious wife.  Then she had a child, and her anxiety went viral.  She confesses to leaving no potential tragedy unanticipated, no catastrophe unexplored.  When the baby slept, she feared he wouldn’t wake up.  When he ate, she was afraid he’d choke.  Every time she put him in the car, she worried that they’d crash.  On trips to the mall, she kept her eye out for possible kidnappers.

Thankfully, few of us live with such high anxiety, but we all live with a certain amount of fear. After all, as the famous hymn declares, our world is full of dangers, toils and snares. Articles abound on the subject of our most common fears:  flying, public speaking, heights, death, failure, rejection and so on.  Yet according to a recent Harris Poll on “What We Are Afraid Of,” the number one fear of those surveyed is ophiophobia—fear of snakes.  36% of all adults said that their number one fear was those slithering, sometimes poisonous creatures we call snakes.

Well, our widespread fear of snakes may be one reason this Old Testament episode about the poisonous serpents in the wilderness is so disturbing.  This incident is one of the so-called “murmuring stories.”  Recall how almost from the beginning of their liberation from slavery in Egypt, the people began to murmur and complain.  They griped because the water in the desert tasted bitter.  They complained about the lack of food. They fussed about being thirsty.  They whined because they didn’t have meat. But in today’s reading, they aren’t content with complaining about their condition—lack of water and food. Now they actually turn against God and his servant Moses.

In their defense, the people in the wilderness had plenty of reasons to be afraid, and to complain about their plight. After all, they had been in the wilderness for 40 years without making much progress toward the land that God had promised.  The exodus generation was dying out without having arrived in the new land. No wonder they were becoming impatient.  To put it bluntly:  they had lost their trust in God.

And that’s the point at which the snakes began to slither onto the scene.  When they bit people, those people died, which brought the living abruptly to their senses. They repent of their impatience, and pled with Moses to intercede on their behalf.

Now in what is admittedly a very odd episode, God’s response to their prayer is oddest of all.  God tells Moses to make a fiery serpent of bronze and set it on a pole.  Anyone who had been bitten by a serpent could look at the serpent on a pole and live. Immediately we scratch our heads in dismay.  This sounds a lot like magic, idolatry, or superstition—all the things God had commanded his people to avoid. Weird though it is, let’s push through our questions and ponder the peculiar and wondrous way God heals and saves. You see, God doesn’t exterminate the poisonous snakes. He doesn’t remove the danger, but God does offer life and healing in the presence of danger. When the people in the wilderness gazed upon an image of the very thing they feared—in this case, snakes—they found an offer of grace and healing, and they found the power to go on.  God took that which they most feared, raised it before them so that they could see it in the light of God’s grace.

Now, fast forward about 1200 years, to first-century Palestine.  What were first-century Jews most afraid of?  They were no longer facing snakes and the other deprivations found in the wilderness, but they were living under the heavy hand of oppression from Rome. Rome’s primary method of striking fear and terror in the hearts of Palestinian Jews was to place crosses along well-traveled roadways. These cruel instruments of death were a vivid reminder that anyone who dared defy the rule of Rome would meet the most painful death imaginable–death on a cross.

Yet once again God took that which was most feared and transformed it into a sign of God’s grace. That must be why John declared “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  Through the image of Jesus being lifted up, John has in mind not only his being lifted up on the cross, but also his being lifted up to God in resurrection and ascension.  Thus everyone who looks at the cross with the eyes of faith can see through it to God’s gift of eternal life.

Friends, we all live with fears. But today’s passages encourage us to look at our fears through the eyes of faith. With that in mind, let’s go back to the fear I confessed at the beginning of my sermon.  If there is a visitor this morning who wonders how in the world God could be active in something as fearful as snakes in the wilderness or as terrifying as a Roman cross, you’re in good company.  Yet you’re visiting a congregation that is learning to expect to find God in the oddest places and mostly unlikely circumstances. And we’re learning to trust that, however strong our fears, God’s healing grace is stronger still.  After all, God is love, perfect love, and perfect love casts out fear.