Faith On Our Foreheads

Psalm 1, Revelation 22:1-5

                During worship one Easter morning, a fellow pastor sat down on the chancel steps with a group of children to offer a special message just for them.    She started their time together by asking, “What do we celebrate today?"  One of the kids happily replied, "It's when Jesus rides around the world on a sleigh giving gifts to good children?"  "No," said the pastor, "You are thinking about Santa Claus and Christmas."  A different child piped up, "It's when Jesus flies around shooting arrows at people so they'll fall in love?" "No," came the reply, "You are thinking of Cupid and Valentine's Day."  The pastor was almost afraid to call on the next child raising her hand.  But this child said, "It's when Jesus died on the cross. They buried him in the tomb. And then Jesus arose from the dead."   The pastor smiled with enthusiasm for this faithful answer and with relief that she didn’t have to talk about leprechauns and lucky green clovers.  “Yes, that’s the right answer to what we celebrate today!  Thank you!”  But the girl’s hand shot right back up as she blurted out, "Oh, and pastor, I forgot to say that if Jesus sees his shadow today we'll have 6 more weeks of winter."

                Oh, so close!   What a shame.  Especially since the fully faithful answer was written on the forehead of every child sitting there, the answer revealing that Easter is about being released from sin and death to be fully and newly alive with God.  It wasn’t physically written there, of course, as if with permanent marker.  Or, at least I hope not.   That would lead to some serious questions about Sunday School best practices!   I mean that if anyone of any age is seeking to answer the question about what is celebrated on Easter, they need only look at one another’s foreheads and be reminded.  In doing so, a fresh remembrance about the deep and practical meaning of baptism should always be found.

                In our Presbyterian tradition, a sacrament is an earthly sign associated with a promise from God (John Calvin).   There’s really nothing quite as earthly as water.   About 71% of this world’s surface is water covered.  Add to this the water that exists in the air as water vapor, the water in the ground as moisture, and the water that’s within each of us.  About 55-60% of our bodies are made of water.   So, as a sign of God’s intimate connection with us and this whole world, water is symbolically quite perfect.

                The amount of water used in the sacrament of baptism is not as important as understanding the spiritually symbolic mark it leaves upon us forever.  As we just experienced a few beautiful minutes ago, I use very little water.    And while I wasn’t trained to do this, it’s a matter of personal preference that I always make the sign of the cross with the water after naming the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  I do so while declaring the traditional language about how the person being baptized, be they two, twenty or many decades old, has been “signed and sealed as Christ’s own, forever.”   In this way I remember, and help us all to remember, that baptism is “the sign of the birth that is not of flesh and blood but that comes as a gift [from Christ].”  

                By the sacred signpost of our baptisms, we locate ourselves.  We identify how and where we are truly alive.   Biblically speaking, we find ourselves living “between the river of Eden and the river of the heavenly city.”   We are not “wandering aimlessly” but moving from one to the other” because “God has a purpose, and pursues it relentlessly.  In this assurance we have hope and life.  In the water of baptism, God sets before us both the start and the conclusion of the divine story, thus revealing the purpose of this movement from creation to consummation.”[i]   

                The purpose, of course, is the promise of Easter.  It is the almighty, liberating, life-affirming power of our Lord in action.  We who are baptized into the life and the death of Christ share in new life with Him through His resurrection.   This new life is shared on earth as it is in heaven.   Baptism is not, therefore, just a blessed assurance of eternal life.    It’s the here and now, deeply personal, daily influence that inspires us to live into our release from the destructive power of sin that’s been freely gifted to us by our Lord.   It’s about constant spiritual cleansing through the Holy Spirit.  It’s about being Jesus’ disciples in our homes, in the company of friends, in our places of education and vocation, and most especially through active participation in congregational community.

                The profound and practical power of baptism is stunningly, symbolically depicted throughout the Bible.   We see it as bright, clear crystal waters.   These pristine waters stream through the center of our lives, splashing and cleansing us all day long, all this life long and on into eternal life.   They wash away the ash marks of our sin so we can see our common identity in Christ indelibly imprinted upon us.

                When we daily pay attention to the flow of this crystal bright, cleansing river of life, we can’t help but delight in the Lord.   And as Psalm 1 teaches, we then consciously choose to live into all the ways we are being deeply nourished and sustained by the promise of Easter.  As the Holy Spirit streams this Good News through the world-wide community of Jesus’ disciples, they cease acting hostility toward God and one another.   They grow to bear God’s good fruit.  This produces healing for all people.   As bearers, we see the radiant, resurrected, life-restoring face of Christ everywhere.                  

                There’s a great song about this written and performed by a favorite Christian artist of mine named Chris Rice.  It’s called, sensibly enough, “The Face of Christ.”    His musical style is catchy folk very similar to the style of James Taylor and David Wilcox.   And most all of his lyrics and tunes are hauntingly beautiful.   In this song, this baptized brother in the faith sings about spending time with a homeless person and a person in prison.  He does so to illustrate the words of this chorus -- “How did I find myself in a better place? I can’t look down on the other guy’s face, cause when I stoop down low, look him square in the eye, I get a funny feeling, I just might be dealing, with the face of Christ.”     This realization, of course, leads to learning to love selflessly and sacrificially, to truly loving our neighbors as we ourselves want to be loved.

                All fruit holds seed.  And so “As our lives are lived out for Christ” bearing good fruit, “the seed of the Gospel is “released into the world so that it will land on others, prayerfully taking root.[ii]    By faithfully being together as individuals and families in worship, study and service, we keep ourselves rooted and grounded in Christ.    This is why it’s vitally important to be part of a church community.   Every congregation is a Gospel grove!  And thus a place of secure spiritual growth for many generations of family.  Just look at all the good fruit in this place!

                Devotional writer Gerald Whetstone reminds us exactly how being in a Gospel grove gives us strength for our entire life journey.   He does so in a way I can really relate to, since I’ve been blessed to stand amidst the giant redwoods found in Muir Woods National Park in Marin County, CA.    Anyone else here been there?    We would expect that these magnificent trees would have a very deep root system.   I can’t imagine trees that are 200 to 300 plus feet tall would be loosely anchored.   Yet it turns out they actually have a rather shallow root system.    So how do they stand so big and strong for very many years?   They grow in groves – “Each tree intertwines its roots with the others, giving them tremendous strength.”   

                Much the same, we should never live a solitary life as baptized disciples of Jesus Christ.   The good fruit spoken of in Psalm 1 -- the good fruit of happiness, of not following the advice of anything hostile to God, of meditating day and night with delight in the Lord – is best achieved within faithful community intertwined by the common root of Christ’s love.   To put this in the more formal way I studied some twenty years ago, “Because baptism is incorporation into Christ’s church, it is inescapably a corporate rite.  Baptism without a congregation present is a bit like a wedding at which only one of the prospective marriage partners arrives.”[iii]

                Praise God, we aren’t going to have six more weeks of winter.  It’s going to rain a lot, I’m sure, but welcome the wet upon your foreheads.  Be reminded of your baptisms.    And don’t fret if you see shadows.  This is actually a good thing, a sign of new life always springing forth, for it means we are standing in our Lord’s light.   Amen!

                 

                               

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[i] Laurence Hull Stookey, Baptism: Christ’s Act in the Church, pp. 16-18

[ii] http://home.pausetoponder.org/liketree.htm

[iii] Stookey, p. 69

Holy, Forgiven

Psalm 32; John 20:1-10

Easter 2014

            With great humility, love and joy I have wonderfully good news to share with you all this morning.   It’s the good news of why we are faithfully gathered this hour.  It’s the good news that forever forms and reforms us as Christians.   It is quite simply, yet also profoundly, this – in Jesus Christ you are wholly forgiven!

               You are totally and completely forgiven of the sin you spiritually inherited as part of the human race.   You are forgiven for worshipping false gods, for living in self-righteousness, for failing to daily demonstrate what you faithfully profess.    You are forgiven of that which you feel convinced you can never forgive about yourself or about another person.   Every aspect of sin’s rebellious influence on your heart and mind and unique soul has been ultimately covered and conquered by the amazing grace and endless love of God in Jesus Christ.   You are wholly forgiven, and thus, you are called upon to live a holier life after the example of our Lord.

            This blessed gift of forgiveness did not at all come about according to our understanding of “fair play.”   We can thank Shakespeare for first putting the words “fair” and “play” together in print.   It was used to convey a courteous rapport between opponents in a confrontation.   It went on to influence the rules of conduct expected of Medieval Knights.  They were, for example, never to attack an unarmed enemy or the weak and innocent.   

            It suffices to say that what the powers of the Roman Empire and the Jewish Temple did together to Jesus of Nazareth was not fair play.   He had not led an armed rebellion.   He had fulfilled, not forsaken, the ancient laws of Israel.   Yet he was arrested and did not get any kind of fair trial.   And adding insult to injury, what his closest disciples did at the end of Jesus’ life was also not fair play.   They denied ever knowing him and thus sold out his message of God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.   The absence of fair play led to Jesus being arrested, flogged, mocked and crucified. 

            Had you been there when they crucified our Lord, wouldn’t you have expected Him to have decried this grave injustice from the Cross?  To openly lament, dare I even say “preach” about how unfairly he’d been treated?  Don’t we all do this when we are even slightly wronged?   

            Yet there is no written record of such words.   Instead, heard from the Cross were words that convey the very heart of our Savior’s work, the very words that should be forming and reforming all aspects of our lives.  These are the words found in Luke 23:34 – “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”    

            Didn’t know what they were doing?  Really?   It sure seems the Roman soldiers and the self-satisfied religious leaders knew what they were doing.  It sure seems their plan had gone quite perfectly.   But Jesus wasn’t referring to what they knew of their plan and how very well they had executed it.   He was referring to the fact that none of them, nor any of the disciples up to that point, had truly known God’s plan.   They had not fully understood their sin or Jesus’ identity.   Nor had they recognized that their actions were helping inaugurate the Messiah’s reign.   They’d been too lost in sin, too obsessed with their self-righteous, self-aggrandizing notion of fairness.   The only fairness they could see was to do away with the man so offensively challenging their steadfast traditions, their entrenched authority, their violently successful power plays.    

            Jesus alone knew the devastating depths of holy judgment against all the accumulated sin of humankind.   Instead of executing it according to His authority as the Son of God, he chose instead to empty himself of holy power and allow himself to be executed for it.   He sacrificed Himself for your salvation and of all humankind.   So it was that with his final breaths, and with supremely selfless love, Jesus spoke aloud of forgiving our sin.

            It’s really important to realize that this meant more than giving humankind an eternal mulligan for all that had ever been done against God.   As prominent Bible scholar N.T. Wright has pointed out, to be forgiven of sin is the same as being released from death.[i]  Jesus’ prayerful proclamation from the Cross announced that he was in the process of personally securing our release from all that causes spiritual and physical death.  And so when Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter and another disciple Jesus loved found Jesus’ tomb empty, they realized he’d risen from the death-grip of sin and the Good News became wonderfully clear – all God’s children had been wholly forgiven.   

            As Jesus’ followers, fair play goes beyond our abiding by long standing cultural rules about how to treat one another equally well.    The measuring stick for what is fair and what is unfair in all our human relationships and for God’s relationship with us is the Cross of Jesus.    As Easter people, as people who believe in the forgiveness of sin, in life beyond death and in Christ’s kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven, how are we to apply this eternal measure to our everyday lives?   Through our Lord’s ongoing saving grace and through our steadfast faith, we will do so by striving to live holier lives that above all exhibit our belief in the forgiveness of sin.   Again, this means more than absolving guilt, it means helping ourselves and others experience spiritual release from the constantly present, life-oppressing, fear-inducing and destructive power of death.    In the love of Jesus Christ, when we say “I forgive you” it’s really the same as saying “I release you to be more alive.”  

            I dearly wish this Easter Good News meant that none of us on this earthly plain would ever again have to suffer sin and its consequential spider-web ways that cause us to die a little every day.   I wish our holy release was complete, that we all were not stuck waiting for a final culmination when our Lord comes again in glory.    We are in the great company of every Christian in the world over the past couple thousand years on this count.   

            What I believe can help us all is to feel a kinship with the earliest followers of Christ.  Theirs was a very pregnant expectation of the Risen Lord’s return.  But time passed on and on.   Rather than growing in disappointment and resentment, instead of daily decrying that the delay just wasn’t fair, they instead kept striving to live holier lives.   They kept increasing their faithful trust in the Holy Spirit driven, living and liberating presence of the Risen Lord.   They perhaps realized, as I encourage us all to do today as well, that’s God’s eternity can’t be measure by our sense of time and that Jesus Christ is indeed the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).  Indeed, as the Psalm 90 declares, a thousand years in God’s sight are like a day just gone by.   

            And those first church members understood that being forgiven, released from sin and it’s ultimate consequence of death, was about more than just getting “individual sinners right with God.”  They understood Easter as a “whole way of life, the new covenant way of life in which the restoration which God offered to all who believed in Jesus was to characterize families and communities, worldviews and life-paths.”   When coming upon “anything amiss in human relations or society” they expected one another to “move heaven and earth to put it right, to restore things to the way they should be.”[ii]    One of my favorite N.T. Wright quotes says it this way – “Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.”[iii]

            Practicing forgiveness as we’ve been forgiven is never easy.    We are generally more adept at holding fast to our hurt and grief, at fearing and avoiding the topic of death then accepting and feeling degrees of release from it all with faith and love.   I promise that you’ll have a front row seat to the myriad of complex human emotions and ways they can deeply complicate our relationships, especially with family, if you attend our upcoming production of the play Lost In Yonkers.  

            Yet what Marjorie Thompson in her Lenten study on the topic of forgiveness says is also most definitely true.  She declares that if we care to listen, there are countless stories of forgiveness all around us and that “we are resilient creatures, capable of throwing off shackles of bitterness and discovering more about ourselves and others over time.”   She further affirms that we can all “begin to see that rage, grief and lust for retaliation can easily trap us in a self-imposed prison of hate that corrodes our soul’s energy and peace” and that “choosing forgiveness is one of the most freeing and healing choices we can make in life.”[iv]

            Hear again the Good News that makes every single day Easter day.  He is Risen!  You are released!  In Jesus Christ we are all wholly forgiven.   May we joyfully depart from this gathering with spring in our steps, eternal hope in our hearts, a desire to be in constant worship, and eager to express our gratitude for this most holy gift of forgiveness through daily life-affirming, Lord praising words and actions.  Amen!

           

    

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[i] N.T. Wright Evil and the Justice of God, p. 90

[ii] http://ntwrightpage.com/sermons/Easter07

[iii] N.T. Wright Surprised by Hope

[iv] Marjorie Thomson Forgiveness: A Lenten Study, chapter 5

What Does the Lord Need from You?

Palm Sunday 2014

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Matthew 21:1-11

            We are gathered here this morning to cheer!  We are here to express hope and sincere encouragement for a great victory.  We have lifted up this cheer from our hearts and embodied it in voice and procession and waving.    

            More on the obvious reason we are cheering here this morning in a minute.  Let me first ask this – generally, what do you find yourself cheering for?     Many of us cheer for those who entertain us through sports and the arts.  Did any of you do some of this cheering recently at a sporting event or theatrical performance?  More personally, we also cheer on the people we love and support through various experiences.    Will anybody be cheering on a graduate in the coming months?   Or is anyone trying to cheer on a loved one going through a personal crisis?    Overall, our cheers are fired up by faith in positive, beneficial outcomes.  

            And so here we are, remembering and re-enacting one long ago day in an ancient land when there was a parade of cheers and hopes full of faithful conviction.   Did you know the historical moment of which I speak was one of two parades happening at that time?[i]    One was happening at the west gate of Jerusalem, the other at the east gate of Jerusalem.   We are most definitely not celebrating the west gate parade today.  But we do have to acknowledge it to appreciate the significance of this parade we are in today.

            The west gate parade had been a very imposing thing for everyday citizens to witness.   This was the parade of the Roman army marching into Jerusalem.  They did so because it was the time of Jewish pilgrimage to the Great Temple to celebrate Passover, the great festival commemorating their divine liberation from slavery in Egypt.   During Passover, the holy city population would suddenly swell by over 150,000 people.   The Roman army was thus called in to maintain order.  This meant displaying its mighty authority to strike down any and all public disturbances by locals or pilgrims.    So they proudly paraded before the public astride their handsome warhorses, wearing polished leather, brandishing shiny lances and lifting high the fear-inducing symbols of the Roman standard and eagle.    The army paraded their authority over any and all possible resistance to the Empire with “the clank of armor, the stomp of feet, and beating of drums.”[ii]    Were we standing there on the west side, we would have fully understood.   We would have had no vision but of Caesar, felt the mass of imperial power reverberating through our bodies and penetrating our psyches.

         That’s what was happening at the west gate while a reasonably small disturbance was approaching the east gate.  I say “reasonably small” in comparison to the masses arriving for the Passover pilgrimage.   With faithful imagination, we are united with this crowd today.  We are part of their parade.  

            Over here, on the east side, where the sun of course always rises, we have paraded down from the Mount of Olives.   We have left behind the magnificent view over the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea.    We have remembered that long before us King David once fled in the opposite direction, going up this over 300 foot slope to escape certain death at the hands of  his rebellious son Absalom.   On that route, he had wept and hidden his royal identity under cloak (2 Samuel 15).   We, on the other hand, are joyfully, loudly, very openly displaying symbols of Jewish royalty as we head into Jerusalem.   But whether ascending or descending, the purpose was the same: to be closer to and to praise the power of our God.

            Over here, on the east side, in our simple and celebratory parade, we are rolling out the red carpet as we go.    Well, the ancient equivalent of it.   The carpet is made from common folk cloaks we’ve laid out along with some additional color; not red, but the yellow-green of the palm branches we’ve cut down and brought with us to the parade.   These are long standing symbols, we know, of goodness and victory such as were carved into the doors of Solomon’s great temple (1 Kings 6:1-9).   Over there, at the west gate, folks were more focused on keeping palms down -- the palm of their hands, with fingers held tightly together at the end of a straightly held out arm as they shouted “Hail Caesar.”  

            God knows, we aren’t parading to hail Caesar.   We are heralding Jesus of Nazareth and him alone.   We know this man is more than the latest prophet to come down the pike.   We call to him with cheers of “Son of David” and “Hosanna!”   We do so believing He is our truest hope, our ultimate liberator from all worldly oppression, the true king of our lives and our nation.  We do so declaring Him our long-awaited Messiah.   Our shouts of “Hosanna” are shouts of “Save us!”     

            But there is a little confusion among us.    What’s the deal with the donkeys?  Why isn’t our true King, the one we anticipate will overthrow the occupying Roman Empire, arriving on the back of a strong white stallion?   Doesn’t our Savior know what’s going on over at the west gate?    What kind of powerful message, what kind of heralding of this most holy moment and divinely revolutionary movement, does it send to be moseying into Jerusalem on some lowly, laboring beast of burden?

            We pause our cheering long enough to ask one of His twelve disciples about this.  We are told, with eyebrows raised in a way that communicates acceptance without full understanding, that Jesus simply “had need of it.”     We are told how as the twelve got closer to the holy city, they were sent ahead to a village to find a foal and its mother.   Once found, they were instructed to take them and bring them to Jesus.   And if anyone at all -- especially, say, their owners -- had a question about it, they were to say, “The Lord needs them.”  Upon those words, they were told, the person inquiring would immediately agree to the request.

            Of all the Palm Sunday drama and pageantry, I feel deeply drawn to reflect on this part the most.   This is because I immediately identify with the person questioning what sure seems to be some blatant donkey theft.   I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure my initial response would have been something like, “That’s all well and fine that Nestor and Eeyore are needed, but their mine.   I need both of them more.”    Just imagine some folks coming to you out of the blue and saying, “Jesus needs your minivan.”    How would you respond?  Would you be immediately willing to make that sacrifice?   Back then, to let go of two generations of donkey was to let go a pair greatly needed for plowing, carrying heavy grain packs and provisions, and for personal travels.    Even if there was some faith in Jesus of Nazareth,  questioning his need for our property and for us to make a personal sacrifice sure seems like it would have been in order. 

            But Jesus knew what he needed and why.   He knew that donkeys were reliable for their strength and for their loyalty to their master.   He also knew they were held in low regard when compared to the pomp and circumstance pride of a warhorse.    He knew that when it came to his followers, he needed to them to be strong, loyal, humble, and hardworking in character.   Fetching animals of this ilk, therefore, perhaps was a bit of a test for his first disciples.  And it reinforced that immediate, sacrificial, faithful trust in Jesus’ divine purposes and plans is a requirement for discipleship.   Even if what’s happening is unclear and confusing, out of sync with common expectations.   Even if it gives us great pause in cheering Him on to victory.          Jesus also knew he was fulfilling the ancient prophecy of Zechariah 9:90, which foretold that Israel’s future king would come not astride an impressive beast of war, but upon a meager creature of peace, “humble and riding on a donkey.”   

            Does Jesus need your “donkey” today?   Something for you to give up this final stretch of Lent?   Something that helps Him parade into the awesome and awful and utterly necessary week ahead?    To humbly go through the east gates of this world according to the providence of God Almighty as the most powerful forces of this sinful, fallen world steadily march on?    

            Yes, we are here now, at the east gate, where the sun always rises.  We are cheering.    Once inside the city, however, there will be jeering … mockery … betrayal … blood.  Whether or not we are willing to admit it, there will be dismissive taunts and cries for crucifixion and deep fear fueled denials falling out of our mouths soon enough.   As this holy week unfolds, we’ll realize just how much we want Jesus to be an old world emperor instead of a new world, game-changing King of all love, peace, forgiveness and justice.    But for today, our hope is in place.  We joyfully cover the ground with our common cloaks and royal branches.    We see our true king “humble and riding on a donkey.”    Today, we shout, “Save us!”

            Amen.

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[i] http://www.progressiveinvolvement.com/progressive_involvement/2014/04/lectionary-blogging-palm-sunday-matthew-21-1-11.html

[ii] ibid.