“Footsteps”

Habakkuk 3:17-19

1 Peter 2:21-25

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            When I was in seminary and attending the chapel service, a choir from a local Bible college came to share their musical gift.  They were all 19 or 20, fresh-faced and clean-cut with matching blue blazers and saffron skirts.  They sang through smiles about their love for God and Jesus.  At the conclusion of the service they fanned out into the congregation to greet those who were there and witness to their faith.  It was kind of like a traveling altar call.

            Now remember, everyone in those pews was preparing to become a minister.  All day, every day, we studied the Bible and theology. Our goal was to one day stand in a pulpit and proclaim the gospel. So, when one of these 19-year-old fresh-faced and clean-cut kids came to our row and asked, “Are you a Christian”, a class-mate sitting closest to the aisle responded, “I try to be. I try to be!”

            Well, as soon as I heard him say that I thought to myself “uh-oh”. I knew what would come next because this was not the answer that 19-year-old fresh-faced clean-cut kid was looking for.  I knew the theological framework of his school would see salvation as either/or.  You are either saved or you’re not; you are either a Christian or you are not.  If you are just trying you are not there yet, so this 19-year-old fresh-faced clean-cut kid saw my class-mate as a hot prospect and proceeded to recite a carefully memorized gospel presentation that culminated with the question, “If you were to die today, do you know for sure that you would go to heaven?”

            So, do you?   Do you know for sure?  How do you know?   

That got me to thinking, “what do you have to say or believe or feel or do to really be a disciple of Jesus Christ?”  What is God looking for in us?  What does God expect to see?  How does God decide?  Is there a litmus test to determine if you are in or out and what might that be?  How would you really know for sure?

            In my seminary days I would have answered these questions up here – in my head.  I would have said this is determined by what you believe.  You can separate those who are Christians from those who are not by asking “What do you believe?” Doctrine describes faith and it begins with the verse in the Book of Acts that says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”[1] 

           

            The very first faith statement was simple – Jesus is Lord – period, end-of-sentence. Everything that follows is an attempt to understand what that means, and some of those conclusions are non-negotiable, or at least we used to think so.  Christians, I thought, are people who believe and acknowledge certain truths about the nature of God and Jesus and salvation.  In the Presbyterian Church the sovereignty of God, the uniqueness of Jesus in salvation, the authority of scripture, God understood as Trinity- as three-in-one, the responsibility of stewardship and our call to mission are just a few of these bedrock principles. So faith in one sense is an expression of belief and agreement with certain theological statements.

            I began to wonder about those times when I saw in others and sometimes in myself behavior and actions that contradicted those beliefs.  For example, I would say with great confidence that I believed in God’s love for me and God’s call for me to love others, but then in my most honest moments recognize that my words and actions didn’t reflect my beliefs.  I did not act in ways that demonstrated a love for God and for others.  My walk did not match my talk, so I wondered, was my talk genuine?  Was my faith authentic?

Jesus once said, “No every one who says to me Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven.”[2]  Saying something is so doesn’t necessarily make it so.  

            So, Christian faith must be more than just saying “I believe in this or I believe in that.”

            That’s when I moved the eighteen inches from the head to the heart.  Faith, I thought, must be something you feel in order to be real.  Paul hints at this in Romans when he wrote, “If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, then you will be saved.”[3]

            The problem with equating faith with feeling is that my feelings bounce all over the place and they are often influenced by events that have nothing to do with God.  Some days I just wake up on the wrong side of the bed.  Some days it’s just too cold and windy.  Some days someone says something to me that I find hurtful and so feel bad for the rest of the day.  Some days are just “one of those days”.  Does that mean some days I have faith and some days I don’t?

            When I look into the scriptures I find great men and women of God who at times did not feel all that great about God.  Jeremiah, who did more for God than I ever will, cried out in despair;

“O Lord, thou hast deceived me and I was deceived. I have become a laughingstock all the day.  Everyone mocks me.  Cursed be the day I was born.”[4]

Jeremiah felt bad about God and he thought it was God’s fault.  The reason he thought it was God’s fault is because he had been doing what God asked him to do, but all he seemed to get out of it was hardship and heartache.  Whenever he stood up in the market place to proclaim the word of God people responded with criticism and persecution. The fruit of his faithfulness was more bitter than sweet, more sacrifice than blessing.  With so much going wrong it was hard for him to feel right about God.

Yet, right after he dumped on God this litany of woe Jeremiah still found faith within and shouted, “Sing to the Lord, Praise the Lord.”[5]

So, faith must be something more than what you feel.  It must transcend the heartache and worry, anxiety and grief.

Next, I looked at my hands.  Maybe faith is measured by what you do with time and talent and treasure.  Talk is cheap.  Actions speak louder than words.  Jesus said as much in the twenty-fifth chapter of the gospel of Matthew.  In the parable of the Talents, the master said to those who used well what they were given, “Well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master.”[6]  Then he says to those who feed the hungry, who give water to those who thirst, who visit those who are sick, “as you have done it to the least of these you have done it unto me.”  Those who do right he said shall have eternal life and those who do not – shall not.[7]

So, faith, I thought, must be something more than believing, something more than feeling; it must be something you do.  But, what if you can’t do?  What if for reasons of age or health your abilities and resources are few?  What about those times when God may want you to stop what you are doing so that you may simply settle in his presence and pray.  Sometimes God says, “Be still.”[8]  Often the Bible says, “Stop! Wait upon the Lord.”  The most faithful response may be to do nothing at all.  Faith must be more than doing.

Finally I looked to my feet.  When Jesus said to Peter on the shore of the Galilean sea, “Follow me”; Peter had a decision to make.[9]  He could move his feet or keep them firmly planted in his boat. He could follow or not.  If he followed, everything would change.  If he would not, everything would stay the same. Following Jesus involves head, heart and hands. 

I think Peter always remembered that day he first met Jesus by the lake.  I believe he remembered every word, every moment, and every footstep of Jesus’ three-year journey to the cross.  That’s why he wrote:

“For to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in his footsteps.”[10]

            So where do these footsteps lead?  Sometimes they lead us to the green pastures and still waters.  Sometimes they lead through the dark valleys.  Sometimes they lead us to a place of worship, and sometimes they lead us to a place for work. Sometimes they lead us to the quiet place and sometimes to the crowd.  Always they lead to the cross. 

            There are at least fifteen recorded occasions when Jesus goes to a quiet place to pray.  Following the footsteps of Jesus should lead us to that place as well.  So, the first indicator I use to measure my own walk with the Lord is prayer.  That is something you can measure.  You either pray or you don’t.

            I find my faith will become dry and brittle when not quenched with prayer.  As it is with physical thirst, spiritual thirst is only gradually realized.  It sneaks up on you when you are not paying attention.  You just drift away from the Lord without even knowing it.

            Probably my favorite pastime is hiking in the woods.  In my younger days I used to hike a great deal on the Appalachian Trail, which extends some 1800 miles from Maine to Georgia.  It is a well-known and well-mapped trail, but there are sections which are little more than a bare patch in the woods. On an idyllic day, when you are looking at the birds and blue skies, it is easy to wander off the path.  At first you don’t even notice it.  You took a wrong turn, but it is still beautiful, so you keep on walking.  Then you hit a stream that’s not supposed to be there or a mountain that is in the wrong place and then you know you’re lost because you had not been paying attention.

            Prayer is paying attention to the footsteps of Jesus.  Prayer is looking back to see where you have strayed from the footsteps. Prayer is looking forward to follow where the Lord leads.

            Following the footsteps of Jesus may lead us to the quiet place – sometimes it leads us to the crowd.

            If ever there was a person with places to go, things to do and people to see, it was Jesus. He understood a bustling, bursting calendar.  Time after time we see him surrounded by crowds, pushing, pulling, tugging and tearing for a piece of his time, a slice of his day, a word from his mouth. 

            Jesus was immersed in his world.  He was involved.  He cared and cared deeply for the needs of people, of all kinds of people.  If there was a need for food he fed them, if there was an illness, he healed, if someone was grieving, he comforted.

            Robert Shuller uses a slogan that describes this:  “Find a need and fill it, see a hurt and heal it, find a problem and fix it.”  And don’t worry about who gets the credit.

            Following the footsteps of Jesus leads to the marketplace and school yard, to the factory floor and the halls of Congress.  Following the footsteps of Jesus leads us to commitment to our community.

            Eventually the footsteps of Jesus will lead us to the cross and that’s usually where we pull up short.  Jesus said, “Whosever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”[11]  Following the footsteps of Jesus will lead us to Gethsemane and that means we must face fear that paralyzes, temptation that taunts, or a decision we want to avoid at all costs.  Following the footsteps of Jesus sometimes requires sacrifice of personal desires for the needs of others.  Following the footsteps of Jesus is hard.

            That’s exactly when we need to lift our eyes to our final destination.  There’s a bit of prophecy in Habakkuk that carries this promise:

            Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines;

Though the labor of the olive may fail, and the field yield no food;

Though the flock may be cut from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls-

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

The Lord God is my strength; he will make my feet like deer’s feet,

He will make me walk on the high places.”[12]

That is exactly where the footsteps of Jesus lead – to the high places.  When we follow him we will find the best that is within ourselves.  When we follow we will find the best that God has for us.  So follow Jesus with your head and heart and hands.

Let us pray:

Lord, you have bid us come and follow.  Open our eyes to see where you would lead and our hearts to feel your love and our hands to serve and your call.  Help us to pick up our feet when we are tired, and hold us when we stumble and when we fall lift us up once more.  Amen.

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[1] Acts 16:31

[2] Matthew 7:21

[3] Romans 10:9

[4] Jeremiah 20:7-8, 14

[5] Jeremiah 20:13

[6] Matthew 25:25:22

[7] Matthew 25:46

[8] Psalm 46:10

[9] Matthew 4:19

[10] 1 Peter 2:21

[11] Luke 14:27

[12] Habakkuk 3:16-19

Witness of the Women

Luke 23:54-24:12

            Almost every Pastor I know loves to stand up in the pulpit on Easter Sunday and see the church filled and overflowing.  We anticipate a big crowd and so spend the week in a flurry of preparation. Easter lilies adorn the sanctuary and we set up extra chairs. We add brass to our choir to lift up our hymns.  In fact, the entire Lenten season is spent preparing for that moment when our call to worship proclaims:  “Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!”

            All this stands in stark contrast to the backdrop we see in the first Easter Sunday.  Then there was no anticipation and no expectation that Jesus would be found anywhere, but lying dead in a grave.  The only preparations made were the spices mixed to anoint a corpse.

                                                                                     

            Resurrection took everyone by surprise.  It shouted to the world that God remains in control of life and death and everything in between.  Before we peer in the empty tomb, let us pray:

            We’ve colored the eggs and hid them in baskets.  The ham is in the oven and our little ones wear their Easter finest.  We’ve prepared for this celebration in every way we can imagine.  Forgive us if we have not prepared the heart to receive you the risen Lord.  Help us in this time and place so that we may recognize Christ in the lives of others and in our own.  Roll away the stone that guards closed hearts and come forth.  Amen.

            “It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning.  The women who had come with him from Galilee followed.”[1]  Who did they follow?  They followed Joseph of Arimathea as he carried the body of Jesus to the grave.  Now Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council and the Bible describes as a “good and righteous man”.  He alone stood up and spoke up and asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. 

            This was no small thing.  There was some risk involved.  That’s why Peter didn’t do it and neither did James and John.  None of the Apostles come forward to give Jesus a proper burial.  Why not?  They were afraid.  They were hiding.  They thought they might be next; that Roman soldiers might haul them off and do to them what they did to Jesus.  They had seen what men of power could do when they are riled up so they got out of their way. But, Joseph could not bear to see the soldiers cast Jesus body over the cliff onto the town trash heap, which was the custom, so he took the risk and stepped up.

            One preacher observed, “Dante says that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.”  They remain silent. Robert Kennedy said as much, “Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, or the wrath of their society.  Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence, yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world, which yields most painfully to change.”[2]

            Joseph demonstrated that kind of courage when he carried the body of Jesus to the tomb. The women did as well when they followed, but it was getting dark and the Sabbath would begin so they saw the tomb and marked it in their memory so they might know where to return for the final preparations for the body and so they could hold a “decent burial”.

            These small details, the witness of these women, Mary Magdalene, and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the others, speak to all who have been disappointed and discouraged and to all who have faced great loss. 

            Note – in their darkest hour and deepest grief they remain faithful.  They do what needs to be done.  They don’t cower in fear or collapse in self-pity. They leave that to the men.  The women, even in grief demonstrate faithfulness to God and fidelity to the spiritual practice that provides structure in the midst of a chaotic world.

            Funerals are perhaps the most ancient of religious ceremonies. From earliest times, every culture and every people have followed some kind of customary form and practice.  Rituals are followed both in the disposal of the body and the words that are spoken over the grave, because they provide some structure when everything else has been turned upside down or lost altogether.  There is some small comfort in that.

            That’s why these women prepared the spices and ointments and then rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.  Now, more than ever they needed familiar customs they could follow almost without thinking because the memory of their loss was too painful to consider.  This practice was an expression of faith in God who will still stand by them

            Though the loss of a loved one often challenges faith, faith is the only thing that can get you through your grief.  For many though, faith falters and fades or outright collapses over an open grave.  There are more questions than answers and more sorrow than solace.  People ask, “Why?” and “Where was God?”  Doubts begin to prick the soul.  I think that’s what happened to Peter and the rest because they were nowhere to be found.

            “But, on the first day of the week, at early dawn, Mary Magdalene, and Susanna, and the rest of the women, went to the tome, taking the spices which they had prepared.”[3]

            There are two significant details in this verse remarkable to anyone hearing this story in the first century.  The first is the women and the second is their purpose for being there.

            Today we rush right over this verse to get to the part about the empty tomb, but most in that first century audience would have raised a hand and protested, “Wait a minute! You mean the primary witnesses to this event were women?” 

            This would have been puzzling because women, in that time and culture, were not allowed to vote or even to testify in court.  If a woman saw an accident between two chariots at an intersection, even if she were the only witness, she would not be allowed to describe what she saw, because the chariot drivers and the judge would have believed her incapable of rendering an objective description.  We even see that rather sexist attitude among the Apostles later in this story, for when Mary Magdalene and the rest tell them what they saw, they discount it as an “idle tale” – women’s gossip.[4]

            But, this detail is repeated in all four of the gospels.  The women are the primary witnesses and that speaks against those who believe the Apostles made up this story because they so wanted to believe it themselves, or because they thought it might persuade others to their cause. If you were making up a story like this in the first century, women, especially a woman like Mary Magdalene, would be the last one you’d call to testify.  Yet there she is, first on the witness list.  Why would that be, if for no other reason than it is true and the way it really happened.

            The second detail mentioned is their purpose for being there.  They came with the spices and ointments needed to give Jesus a proper burial.  They did not come to take a picture of an empty tomb or sell tickets to the tourists.  They did not come to see the resurrected Lord.  No one did.

            It was kind of like that old preacher’s story about the country Pastor who called a prayer meeting to ask God to end a long crippling drought.  All the farmers showed up because they needed the rain, but before the prayer service began the preacher immediately cancelled it and told them all to go home.  They protested and asked him why?  He looked around the congregation and said, “Just look at yourselves, not one of you brought an umbrella.”

            Jesus had told them, told all of them on more than once occasion that he “would suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”[5]  But, not one of them brought an umbrella.  No one came with a basket of colored eggs and chocolate bunnies to celebrate this joyful day.  No one, not one, came expecting to see an empty tomb or the risen Lord.

            I’ve heard people say the women and the Apostles just saw what they wanted to see, because sometimes believing is seeing, so this was some kind of mass hypnosis.  The problem with that argument, and on this scripture is completely clear and unambiguous, is that no one expected the resurrection.  No one anticipated the empty tomb.  This was not a case of wishful thinking because no one was thinking about this at all.

The women came to anoint a dead body.  The Apostles cowered in the shadows, because as far as they were concerned the cross was a period and not a comma. They didn’t talk each other into believing it because they didn’t believe it possible. They were as skeptical as any agnostic today.  Thomas spoke for a lot of them and us when he said, “Unless I see in his hands the print of his nails, place my finger in the wound on his side, I will not believe.”[6] For Thomas seeing is believing.  It’s not the other way around.

In fact, the only ones who even mention Jesus’ prophecy about his resurrection were the chief priests and the Pharisees.  They didn’t believe it, but they were aware of it, and that’s why they asked Pilate to place a Roman guard at the grave.[7]            

“Now, when the women arrived they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body.”[8]  While the women wondered what had happened, two in dazzling clothes stood beside them and asked, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”[9] 

That’s a good question.  To put it another way, “How often do we spend Easter looking for Jesus in the wrong places?”  Many come to a place like this, and as I said at the beginning of this message, I’m glad of it.  But, next Sunday we  those who come won’t find it so hard to park.  That can only mean some you won’t find him today. 

I don’t think it is because he’s not here, because he promised that when two or three are gathered in his name he will be there, and we have a lot more than that right now.[10]  No, I believe people fail to find Jesus because they don’t really look for him to transform lives, but rather see this Sunday morning experience as only another egg to put in a basket to make the day complete.

Throughout his ministry Jesus spoke against the tendency we all have to do that, to make of God’s blessing an idol we control and so find comfort on our own terms, but then wonder why the power of God is absent. He criticized those who made the spiritual rest of the Sabbath into an onerous custom of dread.  He turned over the tables of those who tarnished worship with trade.  Every time anyone took a law given by God to build people up and use it to tear them down, Jesus stood up and said stop!  This refusal to compromise life lived holy in the sight of God and compassionate toward others led him to the cross, but it was the price he was willing to pay so that we might experience God’s forgiveness for our sin and his power to live more loving lives.

If you saw “The Passion of Christ” with all of its stark violence and suffering, with agony painted with blood; I want to make sure that you don’t for a minute see Jesus as a victim to the power of politic or sword.  Jesus did not die because he was betrayed by Judas.  He did not face the lash because his friends faded into the shadows and let him down.  He did not lie down on crossed beams because he miscalculated the will of Caiaphas or the political weakness of Pilate.  The responsibility for his death does not fall upon Jew or Roman.  It rests upon us all and pushes us all toward the grave.

That’s why he willingly gave his life to forgive sin and to forge faith so strong it can face all eternity. This was God’s plan and purpose. Easter morning confirmed this for all who are willing to look into the empty tomb and into their own hearts. That’s the place we go to find Jesus this Easter morning or any morning.

Resurrection then does not just follow death.  In a way it precedes it.  One Catholic monk put it this way:

Every departing missionary is an act of faith in the resurrection.

When you forgive your enemy,

When you feed the hungry

Whey you defend the weak

you announce your faith in the resurrection.   

When you wake at peace in the morning,

when you sing to the rising sun,

            when you go to work with joy,

you announce your faith in the resurrection.[11] 

Christ is risen!  He is risen in the hearts and minds and lives of all who follow him to the cross and back again.

Lord, you have said, “I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in…”[12] Come Lord Jesus into each life that stands before the empty tomb in wonder.  Come into each one who has come here today hoping to find you.  Come, Lord Jesus, come.  Amen. 

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[1] Luke 23:54

[2] Larson, Bruce: The Preacher’s Commentary. Nelson Publishers. Pg 342.

[3] Luke 24:1

[4] Luke 24:11

[5] Mark 8:31

[6] John 20:25

[7] Matthew 27:63

[8] Luke 24:2-3

[9] Luke 24:5

[10] Matthew 18:20

[11] Carretto, Carlo:  Blessed are you who Believed.”

[12] Revelation 3:20

Glory!

Psalm 118:20-29                               

John 12:12-26

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            The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, that we mark as Palm Sunday appears to be the brightest day in Jesus’ ministry.  Not many preachers receive this kind of ovation.  Most of us consider ourselves lucky if we hear a “nice sermon reverend” at the end of the worship service. None of us expect a standing ovation. But, on this day people cheered, waved branches, threw their coats on the road and shouted, “Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”[1]  It was truly a glorious day.

            All of this hoopla, John records, came as a result of Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead and out of the tomb.[2]  So, these palm branch people were not so much true believers as they were simply curious.  In their minds Jesus was just the “latest thing”.  He had become an instant celebrity. This was his fifteen minutes of fame, and I think Jesus knew it, because the roar of the crowd, the glory of that day definitely did not go to his head, nor divert his attention from his real goal.

            How do we know that?  Right after John described the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, he portrayed a scene where the first “groupies” start to gather.  They were Greeks who had come into town for the Feast of the Passover, which is a distinctly Jewish holiday.  We don’t know what prompted them to come.

            They could have simply been tourists who wanted to taste the flavor of a different culture.  The Greeks of that period were well known for their inveterate curiosity.  So, when they asked to see Jesus, they may simply wanted his autograph or a story to tell back home.  Or, they could have been spiritual seekers, who found the Parthenon of their gods to be empty, and so were searching for answers to their questions, for peace of mind and soul; who were searching for God.  When they ask, “We wish to see Jesus”, they may be doing so out of the same spiritual hunger that has brought some of you here today.

            That’s what makes the response of Philip, Andrew, and even Jesus so puzzling.  First, they ask Philip to introduce them to Jesus, because Philip was a Greek name, and so they thought they had a sympathetic ear.  But, Philip is unsure of the protocol, so he asks Andrew, one of the 12, “What do you think?  Should we let them into see Jesus or keep them in the waiting room?”

            As far as church growth theories go, this doesn’t follow the current trend to make church membership as easy and painless as possible.  Jesus also, when he hears of their presence, does not rush out with a pledge card and box of offering envelopes.  Rather, he uses their request for an audience to launch into an explanation of what glory is all about.

           

            This was the hour they were waiting for and what the Palm Sunday crowd hoped for, that Jesus would reveal his power and call down the heavenly host of angels to use the power of the sword to bring justice to their troubled land, and drive their Roman oppressors out.  That is where they believed the glory of God would be revealed, with a victory on the battlefield.  God’s banner would be proudly waved over the bodies of dead Roman soldiers.

            But, Jesus knew that the sword brings not so much glory, as it does death, that real glory is found in a just peace.  And victory in God’s eyes is not so much in vanquishing an enemy as it is in overcoming sin.  As every military veteran will tell you, the glory of war is not found in the victory.  It is seen in the sacrifice.

            Perhaps some of you have seen the Civil War drama called “Glory!”  This film starred Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington and Jerry Brown.  Jerry wasn’t exactly a star, but he was in the movie and he was a member of the church I served at the time.  He played one of the African American Union soldiers you see charging down the beach and attacking the Confederate Fort Wagner. 

            Jerry and spoke to me about the historical reality behind that movie.  It was based on the creation of the Massachusetts 54^th regiment created in 1863 as a result of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which allowed, for the first time, African Americans and former slaves to bear arms in service for their country.  The 54^th was the first all black unit created in the Civil War, but it wasn’t the last.  Some 200,000 thousand served their country in that war.

            As we spoke I asked Jerry, if anyone from the film had spoken of the title, of where they saw the glory to be?  Jerry said, “In fact he did.  It was something we all discussed.  The glory wasn’t in the victory, because the concluding battle scene ended in a draw.  The glory was found in the sheer participation.  This is what made them men, to participate in this privilege of citizenship. Frederick Douglas summed it up the process from slavery to freedom in this way:  “First the cartridge box, then the ballot box, and finally the jury box.”

            Jerry and I concluded, “The glory was received in the recognition that the black man was created in the image of God as surely as the white, and the acknowledgement that the one who had been enslaved was as fully human as the one who had been the master. The glory was found in their new found freedom to give one’s life for a just cause.”

            This is the glory Jesus describes.  He said, “Truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”[3]  This spring planting description foretells the cross. The fruit that rises from the death of this seed are the billions of lives who have been changed and saved by the power of this sacrifice.  Jesus said, “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.”[4]  This is a reference to the cross.  It is the cross that will draw people to Jesus.

             The glory, Jesus said, is not found in palm branches or empty cheers.  The glory is found in the fulfillment of God’s will and plan and purpose, even if that will or plan or purpose is difficult. 

            Jesus acknowledged that struggle, “Now my soul is troubled, so what should I say?  Father, save me from this hour?  No, for this purpose I have come to this hour.  Father, glorify thy name!”[5]     Have you caught the meaning of Jesus’ prayer?  It is in fulfilling the will of God, that God’s name is glorified.  Giving glory to God is not just a vocal expression; not just shouting “Praise the Lord”. It is in being what God created you to be and doing what God has called you to do that gives God the glory.  God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

            Years ago, another movie came out you may have seen called “Chariots of Fire”.  It portrays the story of a Scotsman named Eric Liddell, who happened to be a world-class runner and a committed and dedicated Christian.

            He had grown up in a strong Presbyterian family and felt called to serve God in the mission field.  He eventually moved to China in the 1930’s to preach the gospel there.  But, in his early twenties he ran, and eventually represented his country in the 1924 Olympics.

            I remember one scene, where Eric was discussing his future with his family, who believed that all this running was a distraction from his serious calling to preach the gospel.  They wondered if it wouldn’t be better to give up all this dream of Olympic glory and focus instead on the glory of God.

            Eric responded with one line I’ve always remembered.  He said,  “I believe God created me to run, has given me this gift, so when I run and the wind brushes against my cheek, it is as if I can feel God’s pleasure.”  He believed, as do I, that God is pleased when we use the gifts He has given to us.  He believed, as do I, that God takes pleasure when we become the people God created us to be.  He believed, as I do, that we best glorify God by living our lives with “faith and hope and love.”[6]

            In the seventeenth chapter of John Jesus offers a prayer for all those who would follow him.  It speaks much of “glorifying God” in manner I have described, and then he offers a startling benediction or blessing for us.  He prays, “Father, the glory, (the honor, the recognition, the splendor) that you have given me, I give to them.”  Brothers and sisters, them is us!  Jesus asked his Father in heaven to give us glory, in fact he passes it on.

            Look around this room today.  Do you see the glory of God in the lives of these people? Take your time. I’ll wait.  Do you see it? If not, why not?  Jesus has promised he would pass it on to those who live their lives in him, who abide in him, who yield their hearts and minds and strength to him.[7]  Have you ever recognized the glory of God in anyone?  Have you ever acknowledged the glory of God in anything?

            If you’ve answered “No” to all of the above, the problem may be with them or even with God. It may be with you.  You may be suffering from the malady known as “presbyopia”, which is a fancy ophthalmological term, which means that you can’t see things that are close up.  Now, Presbyterians aren’t the only one to suffer from this.  Anyone who needs reading glasses endures this in one form or another.

            I think we sometimes suffer from a form of spiritual presbyopia as well.  We don’t recognize the glory of God revealed in the people and things that are standing right in front of us.  As a result, we don’t recognize the blessing that Jesus promised even within ourselves.  So, all of life becomes drab and gray and ordinary and routine.

            A psychologist Walter Trobisch chronicled a case study of patient he treated that lived this way. He wrote,

            She was a beautiful Scandinavian girl.  Long blond hair fell over her shoulders.  Gracefully she sat down in the armchair offered to her and looked at us with deep and vivid blue eyes…

            As we discussed her problems, we came back again and again to one basic issue which seemed to be the root of all the others.  It was the problem, which, we had least expected when she entered the room.  She could not love herself.

            To point out her the apparent gifts she had – her success as a student, the favorable impression she had made upon us by her outward appearance – seemed to be of no avail.  She refused to acknowledge anything good about herself.  She had grown up in a tight-laced religious family and had learned that self-depreciation was Christian and self-rejection the only way to find acceptance by God.

            We asked her to stand up and take a look in the mirror.  She turned her head away.  With gentle force I held her head so that she had to look into her own eyes.  She cringed as if she was experiencing physical pain.

            It took a long time before she was able to whisper, though unconvinced, the sentence I asked her to repeat, “I am a beautiful girl.”[8]

            This is why good theology matters, and why bad theology is so dangerous.  How many have grown up thinking they didn’t matter in the eyes of God, so they can’t matter to anyone else, and so live gray and drab lives.  They recognize no glory in God, and so settle for vainglory that quickly fades.

             Are you not sure what I’m talking about?  Well, many of you watched the NCAA basketball tournament and know that the University of Connecticut won both the men and women’s championship, and saw the hype and hoopla and glory of that event.  But, how many can name last year’s champion or the year before or the year before that?  Human honors and glory quickly fade in our memories. Even our own achievements can quickly lose their luster.

             But, those who recognize the glory of God in the miracle that takes place each time a larva transforms into a butterfly find that life is filled with more color than they thought.  Those who recognize the glory of God revealed in cross of Jesus Christ find that life is filled with more meaning than they thought.  Those who recognize the glory of God that Jesus promised to give to those who follow him find that life is filled with more love than they thought.

            So, glorify God with heart and voice.  Glorify God by living the life God created you to live.  Glorify God by learning to love even those you find hard to love.

Lord, we praise you in this sanctuary.  We praise you for your mighty deeds; we praise you according to your greatness.  Let everything that breathes, praise you Lord.  Amen.[9]

           

           

           

           

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[1] John 12:13

[2] John 12:19

[3] John 12:25

[4] John 12:32

[5] John 12:27-28

[6] 1 Corinthians 13:13

[7] John 15:4

[8] Stafford, Tim: Knowing the Face of God.

[9] Psalm 150:1-2,6

Can These Bones Live?

Ezekiel 37:1-14

click to listen

            Over the past four weeks I led a Bible study focused on the tension in all of us between faith and doubt. I began by asking what prompts us to question our faith?  Where does doubt come from?  The class came up with a number of good observations.  The culture around us doesn’t seem to share our convictions as it once did. Fifty years ago the majority of Americans could be found in worship each week in some kind of faith community, but it is not that way now, so we wonder sometimes, do they know something we don’t? Scientific discoveries to some challenge the words of scripture and so some question, “Is this really the Word of God?”  But, far and away the most common reason cited for faith faltering and failing is a crisis of some kind:  loss of a loved one, loss of a job, an illness, a marriage breaking up.  Something bad happens and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.  We’ve prayed and prayed but our circumstance doesn’t change and we begin to wonder if it ever will.

We find ourselves in the midst of the Valley of the shadow David described in the twenty-third psalm, so we see no light at the end of the tunnel.  We ask ourselves, “Is God really there?  Does God really care?”  That’s when we have more questions than answers, more doubt than faith.  So, we are tempted to give in and give up and make do with what we have and where we are.

We are not the first to feel that way.

Round about six hundred years before Christ a priest named Ezekiel looked over the walls around Jerusalem and saw the cooking fires Babylonian army. Some in Ezekiel’s circle calmed the fears of the King and country by saying they were God’s chosen people and God was stronger than any army and would protect them.  Ezekiel was not so sure.  He believed that God’s people made more time for themselves than for God.  He saw them sacrifice their moral conviction on the altar of convenience and comfort. The rich seemed to be getting richer and the poor were getting poor and he was not so sure that God would overlook the suffering brought on by injustice and oppression.  So Ezekiel that that God might let this foreign army breach their walls as an expression of judgment upon a people. He saw bad times a coming and he was right.

The army conquered Jerusalem and carried off the best and brightest, Ezekiel included.  These Hebrew exiles were not kept in prisons or in concentration camps. They were free to marry, build homes, plant crops, buy and sell.  In other words they could make a home far from home.  They were also free to gather and worship their God, but many had a hard time doing that because they could not reconcile their circumstance and situation with a God who was really there and who really did care.

They were not where they wanted to be.  They were not where they were supposed to be, so they lived with a sadness that ran down to their bones.  The Bible says they refused to “sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.”[1]

I’ve seen this happen before.  Sometimes when people’s lives have been interrupted by a great tragedy, they stop coming to worship.  At exactly that moment when folks need God the most, they walk away from him.  I suppose there are many reasons for this, but I wonder if they do that because they have lost their vision of God. They’re not sure if God is really there or if God cares or if God is fair.  They no longer see any light and so they have no hope. They believe the way they feel now is how they’ll feel always.  Life has lost its flavor and joy so they cannot stand next to others who are singing their praise to the Lord because that does not jibe with their feelings or their experience.

So, they do what the exiles in Babylon did.  They tried to numb the spiritual pain by making life more comfortable.  We do the same.  We work hard.  We gather lots of stuff to feather our nests and make our homes as nice as we can. But, however nicely we do decorate it, Babylon is not our home.  As we deaden our longing for God we die spiritually day by day.  We die from the inside out.

That’s what happened in Babylon.  They no longer thought of the Promised Land.  They made due where they were.  So, one day the Spirit of the Lord came upon Ezekiel and set him down in the middle of a valley full of dry dusty bones.  And God said, “Ezekiel, what do you think?  Can these bones live?”  Ezekiel, no fool, said “Only God knows”.

Flipping the question back to God did not get him off the hook, because God next says, “Ezekiel, preach to the bones.”

Now, there’s not a pastor alive who has not had the feeling Ezekiel must have had at that moment, who has not at one time or another stood in a pulpit and looked out and wondered is there any life here?  Am I talking to myself?  Is anyone listening?

There are many today who think there is not life anymore in the church, who believe that the church is dying and so God must be dead or at least not very relevant to our modern world.  Those who study such things run the numbers and see for example the membership losses in the Presbyterian Church over the past few decades and carry that rate of decline into the future and conclude in only a matter of decades we will no longer exist.  We are not the only ones who have seen these hard times.  It is clear the culture is becoming more secular and the number of people who list no religious affiliation is growing.  There doesn’t seem to be the spiritual vitality there once was, so the valley is filling up with dry bones.

Still God says, “Preach to the bones.”  Now, if it was me, I’d be thinking, “God bring those bones to life and then I’ll do a little preaching.”  But, that is not the way of God, who calls us to believe without seeing and to step out in faith. That’s because the Lord’s word always makes room for hope, and it is hope that brings us back to life.  Hope rises up from our bones and chooses to believe no matter what circumstance or situation we find ourselves in.

Hope tells us that today will last for today but it does not have a hold on tomorrow or for eternity. Working in concert with God we can make a better tomorrow. That’s why hope is revolutionary. It is not locked into today.  It envisions a better tomorrow.

America used to be like that.  People used to think life will be better for their children than it was for them, that the brighter days are before us and that’s why they were willing to work so hard and sacrifice so much.  Today many believe that is not so.  They don’t think that what they believe or do will matter or affect any kind of outcome, so they don’t work as hard, sacrifice as much.  Instead it is eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die.  If we turn against tomorrow, we turn our back on hope.  That’s when the human spirit begins to wither and die.

This is what the church has to offer and this is why I believe that though the forms and structures of churches may need to change or they will die, the message remains the same and that will not change and will not die.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Rome that the one “who raise Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies and through his Spirit dwell in you.”  The church has always found its life not in what it sees today but in the spirit of God who raises dead hopes.  The day we lose our ability to envision a better tomorrow is the day we deny the resurrection.

That’s why we keep trying.  That’s why we keep pouring hope out of our little cups, why the Deacons lead worship at Kingston manor, why we bake brownies for a soup kitchen downtown, why we support a health ministry for those who cannot afford it, why Sunday school teachers show up every Sunday, why youth leaders give their time and effort.

Meanwhile, back in my Bible Study, I began by asking what prompts you to doubt your faith and I concluded with what encourages your faith?  Both classes morning and evening responded by saying community.  Gathering with other people of faith encourages our faith.  Being with like minded people strengthens your thinking.  Both classes said prayer encourages faith because it connects us to God.

Now the morning class then said music, while the evening class said preaching and Bible Study.  Obviously the evening class was correct in their priority, but music is important also.  It does touch our souls in a way the spoken word does not.

Finally, each said service encourages faith.  When we give to others we do receive.  Why?  Image of God…...

So we will take our stand beside Ezekiel and proclaim our hope to the dry bones, “Thus says the Lord, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live!”  You who gave up hope, who gave up dreaming; your who think your best years are behind you, you who think the lord God has forgotten all about your little life.

To you we say, “Arise!” Arise from the heap of discard dreams. Arise to discover the Holy Spirit is breathing life back into you.  Arise to live with magnificent hope!  Because the world is dying for you to believe God is not done.

           

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[1] Psalm 137:4