Author: Linda Rozumalski

John 20:17-31 

“Mary!”

She turned and said, “Rabbouni!” (which means Beloved Teacher). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”    

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them what he had said to her.

 It was still the first day of the week. That evening, while the disciples were behind closed doors because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities, Jesus came and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. When the disciples saw the Lord, they were filled with joy.  

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Thomas, the twin, the one called Didymus, wasn’t with the disciples when Jesus came. The others told him, “We’ve seen the Lord!”  But he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger in the wounds of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in a house and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus entered and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Put your hand into my side. No more doubt. Believe!” Thomas responded to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus replied, “Do you believe because you see me? Happy are those who don’t see and yet believe.”

Then Jesus did many other miraculous signs in his disciples’ presence, signs that aren’t recorded in this scroll. 31 But these things are written so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, God’s Son, and that believing, you will have life in his name.

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That evening, while the disciples were behind closed doors because they were afraid .., Jesus came and stood among them. 

We’re back at Easter night, the first day of the week, the day creation began. Or re-creation. Or our creation. The first thing I noticed is that the disciples have regrouped. Three nights before, at Jesus’ arrest and trial, they scattered like quail in the face of danger. But, by Sunday evening, they are back together. No texting or tweets, those who loved Jesus just knew to go back to the last place, go back to the house, lock the world out, gather all the bits together, compare memories, and grieve. Jesus created a new family at the foot of the cross with his mother and the beloved disciple, but his love and the disciples’ loyalty have joined them together, too. Fearful, but together. Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit onto/into his disciples is a second creation reminding us of God breathing life into the first human beings. The image of new life provides an important link with Jesus’ announcement that those who believe in him receive new life as children of God. The Holy Spirit is the breath that creates and sustains this new life, like it did long ago, in a garden called Eden.

Thomas, the twin, wasn’t with the disciples when Jesus came. The others said to him, “We’ve seen the Lord!” But he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger in the wounds of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

Doubting Thomas. Some days are more Thomassy than others, for me… Some days the wounds of the world or ourselves would swallow us whole, and believing in the goodness and power of God’s love is difficult. Some days I would dearly love a little solid proof, a little less mystery, less reason to wonder.

To believe in Jesus is not to say you believe in the truth of the story. To believe in Jesus is to say, “I abide in you, my Lord and my God, and you abide in me.” It affirms an on-going, whole body, mind and spirit relationship between Jesus, the Word of God, and you as the believer. It’s not factual truth that we’re believing in, it’s more real than facts or proof.

Jesus’ first resurrection appearance is to Mary in the garden, she runs back to the disciples saying, “I have seen the Lord!” But they don’t say “Great! That’s amazing!” Instead, Jesus finds them huddled together with the doors locked in fear. They, too, could be thrown out of the synagogue, they, too, could be crucified or stoned.

Jesus appears to them and they rejoice when they see the Lord in his death-revealed body. They repeat Mary’s exact words to Thomas when he comes, but, like them, Thomas also requires a personal encounter. Actually, we all do. That’s how faith happens. I can’t teach faith in confirmation class. I teach a bit about the Bible and how Lutherans interpret it. I teach a bit about the communal nature of worship and service and fellowship. But the experience of God has to be theirs at some point if it is to catch hold. When the Samaritan woman left the well and ran back to her townspeople telling of her meeting at the well, they went to Jesus themselves.  They said, “It is no longer because of what you said, but we have heard for ourselves.” This isn’t a slight against her. Believing in Jesus is not about believing in someone else’s experience. Belief is in having your own encounter with the Word made flesh. Belief is not aimed at eternity, it begins with the fullness of life and grace here, now. An actual experience, an epiphany of God in your own life.

Because, the resurrection is not just the resurrection. Jesus said, “I AM the Resurrection and the life.” God is both glory and earthly. Belief and life are synonyms in this Gospel, and together they form the groundwork for a relationship that sustains and sends out disciples of all times and places and styles.

After eight days his disciples were again in a house and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus entered and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.”…
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Put your hand into my side.”

Thomas wanted to touch the wounds; to see and feel, and experience for himself. We get that.
But, have you ever wondered why Jesus still had wounds?

It doesn’t seem to occur to Thomas and the others that the risen Lord should now appear to them perfect, whole, unblemished.  That’s interesting.  Unlike his other signs and healings that were characterized by restoration and wholeness, the resurrected Jesus is not pristine. He still bears the marks of death.

It is this wounded Savior, then, who is the standard for the coming kingdom of God. Through Thomas, we witness the wounds of the body of Christ. And, actually, of course, they are all around us. 

Too often, in our real lives, we don’t want to see them, we don’t want to touch them. We don’t want to get that involved, or be that vulnerable.  We usually try to ensure that marks of imperfection and pain (ours and those of others) be kept covered, as if such “not seeing” will help in some way, will preserve dignity or prevent embarrassment at being seen for who we are, as we are.  

But, if Jesus is raised with wounds, maybe that – and not perfection – is what God prefers to work with; maybe our wounded-ness is where transformation and transcendence can take root – like a seed falling on soft, broken ground, not onto hard-packed, perfected ground. Seeds need the soft earth to open. Earth needs seed to fall, to become something new.

Jesus’ bodily appearance is full of mystery – how did he walk through locked doors, yet allow Thomas to touch his physical wounds? But, we see in this story the tender compassion of the living word of God. Jesus knows his disciples are afraid for their lives—he grants them peace. He knows they need his continued presence and power—he breathes the Spirit into their flagging hearts. He knows they have lost their way, their sense of purpose—he commissions them to a ministry of witness and reconciliation. He knows they can hardly believe their eyes that he is their Jesus, the same one who was nailed to the cross—so he shows them his wounds. He knows Thomas is missing—he comes back the next week to make sure the Twin is not left out. He knows the last thing they need to hear is that they failed him miserably and he is disappointed—he utters not a single word of recrimination, but grants them the kingdom.

It is not surprising then, that in the presence of such immense tenderness, the reading says the disciples rejoiced.  Easter, in these terms, is the breaking-in of a new age to come in which there will be only compassion, peace, restoration and love like this, love for all the wounded and broken, for the afraid, believing, skeptical, strong, and faithful – love for all. It is ours to practice this living, this loving of imperfect, ordinary – to become Easter people, rising anew and going out into the world with joy and good news. 

Christ is risen. Alleluia

John 20:1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran… and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 

Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.  Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there,  and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 

Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;  for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.  

Then the disciples returned to their homes. 

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb;  and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”  When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.  

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 

Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabbouni!” (which means beloved Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”  Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

 

In the beginning . . . was the Word. 

“Woman why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” 

In the beginning was the Word. 

“Mary.” 

In the beginning when darkness covered the face of the earth and the world was a formless void…. The word of God brought light into the darkness and life out of emptiness. 

In the beginning there was a garden, and on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went there in grief.

John presents us with a narrative that, in its end, circles back to its beginning – that circles back to creation, to incarnation, to the coming of God in Jesus to bring light to our darkest days and life to the emptiest places and love into the void of despair. 

We know this story. We watch as Mary discovers Jesus’ tomb – the tomb that should be filled to overflowing with death and burial spices and linen shrouds and grief, the tomb that should be sealed, should be cold, dark, stone – is open…is empty. We see Peter and the other disciple run to see that what the woman has told them and they find that is indeed true – the stone has been rolled away. Why? By whom?  John tells us that the beloved disciple “saw and believed.” But, he saw nothing – no angels, no body, so what did he believe? Perhaps simply that Mary was correct — that someone had stolen the body of their crucified teacher, that the tomb was empty. 

Peter discovers the linen burial wrappings and notices the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head has been rolled up and lies in a place apart, by itself. These are not yet clues to the greatest masterpiece of all mysteries. They are simply the facts. The tomb is empty.

Having felt this void, this kind of darkness and hurt in our own lives, we understand their confusion and anger, their disappointment and doubt. Why is this tomb empty? Who would do this?  Why must they now endure this new burden added to their defeat? 

When there is no body, there is no closure. When there is no body, there can be none of the comfort that can be gained from the certainty of death. When there is an empty grave there is no location for grief to dwell.               Unenlightened, the two of them go home. 

Our focus returns to Mary. Neither Peter nor the other disciple have offered her words of comfort or encouragement. They have not persuaded Mary to return home with them. So she stays.

Weeping, she looks into the cave. She hears an echo from within the tomb and from behind her – from the place of death and endings and shame, and from the garden of new life … “Woman, why are you weeping?” 

Really? Well, let us repeat the litany of grief, guilt, and heartbreak that fills our human frames, that marks our earthly days.    Death, betrayal, abandonment, illness, anxiety, failure, fear… how’s that for a start?

“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” 

“What are you looking for?” These were the first words Jesus spoke in this gospel, way back in the beginning, when a few of John the baptist’s disciples followed him.  “What do you want?” Jesus asked them, and then invited, “Come and see.”

Jesus asks Mary the same question, “Who are you looking for?” 

Well, what – or who – are you looking for? You’ve come here for a reason – – presumably for more than breakfast. Whom do you seek? What is it you hope to find here? What do you need to find – and hope it might be found here?

There is work here that needs to be done… you probably didn’t come looking for work. 

There is sickness and death and birth and growth and friendship here; there is fellowship among the saints; good food is shared here, peace is shared, stories are shared and heard.  There are a few noisy children underfoot (when we’re lucky). There’s curiosity, and laughter, and prayer, a bit of sarcasm now and then. There is encouragement and nurture, a lively concern about injustice and the future of the planet. There is music for our souls.  There are various vocations being lived out in important, intentional, and earnest ways. There are memories to hold, traditions to build on, and a future to imagine our way into.   These are thing you might discover and share. 

Did you come seeking them? If so, you’re welcome to them. Although, since they aren’t commodities, engagement is required.

What – or who – are you looking for? 

I can’t promise that you’ll find God here, or that you will be warmed or enlightened by the Holy Spirit, that here you will find the One in whom your soul finds its rest and goal. I can’t conjure God. But, I can promise you welcome at Christ’s table of grace and mercy. I can promise you an opportunity to search your conscience, offer confession, and receive release for the burdens you carry. I can promise that whether or not you find God, you can be known – fully, truly, and forgiven and loved by this gardener God, this Savior, this Christ among the crocuses. And I can promise you that it is good news of great joy for you.

With a word, Mary realizes her mistake. This is not a gardener, nor a thief.  “Rabbouni,” she says –  a term of endearment for a much loved teacher. She might as well have called him Good Shepherd, for she turns at the sound of her name. She turns toward Jesus in a moment of recognition that encapsulates all of the joy, all the expectancy, all the incredulity of resurrection. 

I’m still thinking about those fragrant burial spices – 100 pounds of fragrance now scattered on the ground? Was it trailing out on the disciples feet, were the angels sitting on it? A hundred pounds of scent filled the morning where the tomb was empty. It had to be a heady accompaniment to a mystifying encounter.

In the beginning . . . was the Word. 

“Woman why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” 

In the beginning was the Word calling her by name.     “Mary.” 

In the beginning when darkness covered the face of the earth and the world was a formless void…. The word of God brought light into the darkness and life out of emptiness, and even now, the darkness has not overcome it.

In the beginning there was a garden, out of which God sent Eve and Adam to know death and grief, to work and toil, to live (not in the absence of God, but) estranged and apart.

In the beginning there was a garden, and on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went there in grief. We know that garden, that pre-dawn chilling darkness.

But from this Easter garden Mary Magdalene is sent out rejoicing.

This is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: Life wins. God reigns: rains down mercy, sprinkles down hope, pours out possibilities…where none seem to exist.  The Word has spoken through the ages, spoken through the dark night, has broken through the stone wall – the Word has spoken…. a name –  your name, my name, and has turned our death into life. 

Jesus, who was crucified, who was buried, has been raised! He has ascended to his father and to yours, his God and to yours, so that where Jesus is, there you may be also.   Alleluia!

John 19:28-42

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said, “I thirst.”  A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.  When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

31 Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.) These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, “None of his bones shall be broken.” And again another passage of scripture says, “They will look on the one whom they have pierced.” 

38 After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. 

39 Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

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The gospel of John narrates Jesus’ death with simplicity, dignity, solemnity. Here there is none of the turmoil or violence of the other gospels – no jeering crowds at the trial before Pilate, Jesus carries his cross bar by himself to Golgotha and without the crowd looking on. There is no conversation with crucified criminals or mocking by soldiers. Jesus does not cry out to God or make a loud cry at the end – in fact, the Synoptic gospel’s quotation from psalm 22 – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” is a theological impossibility for Jesus of this gospel. He and God are one from the beginning, united in work and in love. Their unity is strengthened, not broken, at Jesus’ death. The natural world perhaps pauses, waiting – but does not shake or moan or give in to the darkness. 

There is poignancy and sadness at this scene, but there is not despair, not abandonment. Jesus is the mystical, incarnate Son of God, the one sent by God into the world to save the world by revealing God’s love. And this is Jesus, the man who dies on a cross, bleeding from his wounds and pierced side, wrapped in linen cloths and laid to rest in a garden tomb. In his death, Jesus lives out the life for which he was born and into which he was sent by bearing ultimate witness to the truth: that through him we are given what is most precious – true incorporation (being brought bodily into) the love of God. 

The abundance of scriptural cross references confirm that this death is part of God’s plan for salvation from the beginning. His unbroken legs lead us to the psalter (psalm 34), his pierced side to Zechariah, but they also prove that he is truly dead… “and at once blood and water came out.” The emphasis on the eye witness is to confirm to readers that this actually happened…. and it is physiologically accurate of a chest wound after crucifixion. 

The significance of water and blood is only partly for proof. The context from Zechariah (12:10) is both mourning and hope. In the midst of death God pours out “a spirit of compassion and supplication to the house of David, so that, when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps for a firstborn.”  In citing this passage, John both implicates those who remain blind to the presence of God, and offers hope, that even in death, when we look on the one who was pierced we see God’s only child, the firstborn of creation, who transforms death in love into life. 

Jesus told the Samaritan woman he is the source of living water – in death, life flows from Jesus’ wounded side; his blood – linked to the original Passover – is not for forgiveness of sin, but to provide life – as blood from the original Passover lamb saved the Israelites from the final plague of death.

John is a master of evocative language – with words that conjure the imagery of salvation history in promises and hope.

Hope may seem a strange thing to be talking about on Good Friday, but it is true for this gospel.

We’ve been singing a few Advent hymns in Lent because they are appropriate for this gospel’s telling. Here’s another one: “All earth is hopeful, the Savior comes at last, furrows lie open (for the seed to be planted and grow) for God’s creative task; this, the labor of people who struggle to see how God’s truth and justice set everybody free.”

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are the characters of this struggle to see. Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin – the Jewish Supreme Court – and a secret disciple of Jesus. He represents those who fear losing political power and influence within the synagogue and community if they openly confessed belief in Jesus. At Jesus’ death, however, Joseph is emboldened by the truth he now believes and makes his faith public. He embodies the risk, and openly claims discipleship. This was a hugely significant challenge for John’s original audience – the cost could involve being shunned, stoned, or killed as we know from the apostle Paul’s story and Stephen’s stoning.

The willingness to bury Jesus is seen by John as a confession of faith. Nicodemus first came to Jesus at night and left very much in the dark about Jesus’ identity. He later stood up for Jesus on the basis of fairness in hearing him out in a discussion among the pharisees. But here, now, Nicodemus abandons neutrality and secrecy and acts out of love and with great reverence.

The prodigious amount of burial spices – 100 pounds – could be again seen as a proof offering – it would be enough to keep Jesus pinned down … but consider its fragrance.  100 pounds of myrtle, of myrrh, of sweet aloes. That fragrance would have filled and overpowered, and out-flowed this newly carved cave like the excess of pure nard that Mary poured over his feet, anointing them with her hair. This is an act of utter devotion and all-in love.

Joseph, Nicodemus, and Mary prove themselves to be true disciples as they live out of love. Jesus’ body is handled with care and dignity in its preparation. John makes note that it is the Day of Preparation – on one level it is the day before sabbath begins at sundown, on a higher level, it is the day Jesus is prepared. Linen burial cloth was normally accorded only to those of wealth and high standing, the pristine condition of the garden tomb adds to the dignity and beauty of their treatment of Jesus’ body. 

The scent of burial spices, the scent of earth, fresh clay, the garden setting pull us back to the beginning. “In the beginning, when the world was a formless void…” pull us back to the beginning -“In the beginning was the Word….and the Word was with God in the beginning and through him all things were made… In him was life… 

It is over, but it’s not. There is sorrow, but also the new beginning, deepening commitment, growing awareness of the scope of God’s involvement and presence. How are we to live in this love? 

There is no single or simple answer.

 But there is this story of Jesus’ life and death, and the characters who fill it, who, in one form or another all live within us. These gospel characters are part of each of us. Their motivations and fears and excitement and hesitancy, doubt, blindness – are ours as well. To this story we come back to again and again in the words of liturgy, in song, and faith. 

Through the story of God’s love for the world – often hostile and apathetic – Jesus’ love comes as a glimmer of what it means to be community, what it means to beloved,  what it means to know God in the midst of life and struggle, pain and death. 

“From his fullness we have all received… grace upon grace.

John 19:23-30

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top.  So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.” This was to fulfill what the scripture says, “They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.”  And that is what the soldiers did.

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.  When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.”  Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.  

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I thirst.”  A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.  When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

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“After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished…”

Written probably 60 years after Jesus died, 20-some years after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, John is a theological, not an historical gospel. As I said before, it is stained glass, not a photo. The being, life and death of Jesus are interpreted, not reported. And so, the human elements of his crucifixion are not the focus. Jesus goes willingly to his death. That is a key point of the gospel. He knows this to be the completion of his hour, the time of his exaltation and glory in the Father.  The other gospels don’t make this the claim of crucifixion. They wait for Easter and the resurrection to talk about God’s glory. In them, his death is a painful tragedy, final proof of the unrequited love of God for the world. But for this author, the incarnation is the beginning and crucifixion the completion of Jesus’ mission.  He tells his disciples, “What should I say – Father, save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” 

Death by crucifixion is not defeat in John’s gospel, but rather, is terrible, costly, beautiful love – a part of God’s plan of salvation. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…” Those are the opening lines, and it is a summary given in advance of what we are to experience as the gospel unfolds; that’s the interpretive lens of this author. And from chapter 3: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved though him. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light…” 

The light, however, does not go out as Jesus dies on the cross, “the darkness did not overcome it”. The light grows brighter – I imagine God’s glory is blindingly bright in this moment. Jesus gives up his spirit and the light of God reveals Jesus as the Christ, the savior of the world who, for love of this oppositional world, died so that a new seed might grow.

“Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”  Four women to counter the four soldiers. Four women to indicate the kind of servant-led community that Jesus established. Not the powerful, not the noteable, not the expected, not ones who had any station or ability to lord it over another, but four women and an unnamed, beloved disciple who watched and listened, who loved and grieved.

Jesus’ mother bookends his ministry in earthliness, in mothering awareness, holding the incarnation before us. There were thoughts in the early church that Jesus wasn’t really human. That God assumed humanity as a disguise, without really being human or suffering human death (because how could God suffer and die?). Mary stands at the cross to help us behold her suffering, human son, and to see it through.

She was the first to believe in Jesus, back at the wedding in Cana, leaning in to say to him, “They have no more wine,” and to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” This scene at the cross is a refraction of the first of Jesus’ signs. There at Cana he turned water into the finest wine. The steward noted this, that the inferior was served first, the really good stuff appearing at the end. At the wedding, wine served as a return to Eden, a sign of unreasonable abundance, celebration of life and the creative union of man and woman in one. God was joyful! Through it, God’s glory shone.

On the cross, Jesus says, “I thirst,”  and sour wine is lifted for him to drink. He takes the inferior wine, saying, “It is finished.” And we are left to wonder about the finest of wines still to come, a foretaste of which we sip in communion.

“Seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.”  Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.” 

Jesus has created a new family from the first person who believed and the last to be mentioned, but not named. We know from the other gospels and the writings of Paul that Jesus had brothers.  As the first born, Jesus would be the one expected to provide for his widowed mother. This responsibility would fall to the next oldest brother upon his death. So John is telling us this on purpose – to indicate something unusual the community experienced in life after the resurrection. 

A new family had formed. Back to the prologue: “..to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born not of blood or of the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but of God.” 

No longer was it through obligation to the law that the needs of widows and orphans and sojourners were to be met.  In Jesus’ death we belong to each other. Jesus gives himself away to us so that we might give ourselves to each other. Jesus unites all people as he gathers us to himself. In the language of this Gospel, Jesus makes us all someone’s mother and someone’s son. Outsiders are welcomed in, outcasts are seen, cared for, included, widows become mothers, individuals become a community. “No more a stranger, nor a guest, but like a child at home,” a favorite hymn says. That is the new community of Christ – one that transforms and binds people together in love and servanthood. 

“When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

In John, there is no conversation with the others crucified on each side, there is no earthquake or thunder, no darkening sky, the temple curtain is not torn in half. That would be a return to chaos. Here, Jesus maintains his dignity and his initiative, his control of the final hour. He bowed his head and gave up his spirit; an active agent to the very end, the crucifixion did not take it away from him, but he offered it up.  “Greater love has no one than this,” Jesus told his disciples – “that he will lay down his life for a friend.” Jesus lays down his life for all – friends and enemies alike.

This gospel wants us to step into the light. But, it also recognizes that we don’t, or can’t. The Jews, as they (or as we) are called, were not evil, corrupt or ignorant or greedy in this gospel. They might have been those things, but that’s not the point. They do not hear Jesus’ voice. They do not see the glory of God. They are not moved by the Spirit’s nudging. They are they enemy, but they are those for whom Jesus died. They are those for whom this new life is needed and given. Jesus didn’t die for the sake of the good, the holy, the open-hearted. He died because of, and for the sake of, those others who are not in communion with God. “Not to condemn, but so that the world might be saved.” Right? Do you get that? So that, throughout all of history, those others, those oppositional or ignorant or willfully closed minded ones are brought into God’s gracious loving presence, as well. This gospel kind of turns our expectations upside down. Jesus didn’t die for the good, for the beloved insiders, but to bring the outsiders in.

The incarnation ended with Jesus’ last breath, but the impulse of incarnation – of God entering ordinary, abiding with us through sin and sorrow and celebration and uncertainty does not die on the cross. It comes to birth through the new family of Christ, “born not of blood or of the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but of God. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”

Tonight we leave in darkness. But this fourth gospel would not have us leave in despair.

John   12:12-16 

12 The great crowd that had come to the Passover festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. ¹³So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting,

‘Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the King of Israel!’ 

¹⁴Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it; as it is written: ¹⁵ ‘Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!’ 

 ¹⁶His disciples did not understand these things at first (at the time); but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him. 

John  19:16b-22

 So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.'” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

___________

Does that seem too abrupt?  It does, doesn’t it. What about the parade? What happened to the singing and dancing and happy shouts? What are we supposed to do with our palms of victory at a crucifixion? Let them fall to the ground to be trampled on and forgotten?  Hide them away out of shame and embarrassment? 

John’s gospel is bottom heavy. The first ten chapters cover 3 years of his ministry. The next nine chapters cover one week. It’s been a long week since Lazarus died. Spread out over these six Sundays, we’ve heard about Lazarus, Jesus’ arrest in the garden, the betrayal by his disciples, his trial before Pilate, and the Jewish opposition demanding his death, and we’ve had to skip pages and pages of his last evening with the disciples, his long farewell — but still, now that we’ve arrived at this crux, it seems there should be more narrative, more words to postpone it. The other gospels all have descriptive stories at this point to help us prepare. John doesn’t describe the scene, only the facts.

“They took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.”

The reminder that the palms you hold in your hand today become the ashes smudging your foreheads eleven months from now on Ash Wednesday is an appropriate tonal modulation. John doesn’t let us enjoy that triumphant arrival in Jerusalem. It, too is brief— just a single sentence, a bit of psalm 118, a short quote from the prophet Zechariah, and the key line, verse 16: “His disciples did not understand these things at the time; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.”

It’s all been aiming at this: Jesus’ hour, the glorification, the lifting up on the cross, the manner of divine love revealed in this.

We’ll hear his last words on Thursday, see him taken down and buried on Friday, and leave that service in silence, in the dusky gloaming of twilight. 

Jesus’ death was abrupt. In this gospel’s telling, it’s also secretive – the events of the last 6 weeks were mostly held in the cover of darkness – pushed along by the Sanhedrin to get it done before the Passover Feast. They wanted to be able to eat their sacrificial lamb, ritually slaughtered at the temple for the forgiveness of sin. They needed to stay pure, stay apart from death. They had to get this legal affair tied up, and they didn’t want the crowds involved.

So, this is it. Jesus goes from Pilate’s headquarters to Golgotha and the cross, accompanied only by soldiers, four women and one unnamed disciple. Pilate orders the inscription to be written in the languages of the empire. He does what the Jews were unwilling to do. Pilate proclaims Jesus as a king for all the world to see. But what kind of king is this? What of our hopes? What has become of the promise that Jesus is the light of the world that the darkness cannot overcome? He seems overcome.

We want to think that life and death are two separate things. John wants us to see that they are not. They are intertwined. Like most of Jesus’ dialogues that begin on one plane and spiral to some other reality, some other conceptualization, that is how life and death are treated, too. Life and death are manifestations of the same thing: the glory of God. The incarnation of God in human form necessarily requires a death: God’s death, because God took on human flesh. If you believe that, then whether you begin with life or begin with death you’ll end up in God.

Jesus was crucified just outside of the city; and the inscription of his crime was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek for all the world to read. The chief priests tried to get it changed, but Pilate was done with them. The inscription the last twist of mockery. “What I have written I have written, The king of the Jews.” Once again, Pilate speaks the truth without realizing it.

Just six days earlier, Jesus had been in Bethany and called Lazarus out of the tomb. That seems a long time ago now to us. But, the crowd who witnessed Lazarus stumbling out of death into daylight kept talking about it. They came to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover and heard that Jesus was coming.  They took palm branches and went out to meet him, like a hero, like a victorious king, and they shouted “Hosanna! (which means, save us) Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord— the King of Israel!”  Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, riding into the city in true kingship form as prophesied by Zechariah long ago.

“Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”  “This is our scripture,” the disciples would say. “Look, Jesus on a donkey…it’s a sign… of royalty and peace, of God’s favor – our victory has begun.”  Horses and chariots are used for warfare, but the donkey was the assurance of stability, of righteousness and rule. Jesus rode it into Jerusalem holding the reins of peace.

Even the Pharisees felt it – they said to one another, “We can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!” Five days later, the world has turned and this king is hung on a cross to die.

What kind of victory are we talking about? Death is not a victory we can recognize, holding these palms in our hands, or at least not one that satisfies our struggle with mortality.

As Jesus passed by, rocking side to side on his donkey, his feet scuffing along in the dust on either side of the little beast, did the palm waving stop and the crowd go silent – suddenly disappointed by this sight? And what kind of King is it that you expect Jesus to be? What powers or protections do you expect faith in him to provide? What insulation from the pain and heartbreak of the world?

This divine and human verb of a God, this Being who is One with the Father remains a mystery in plain sight. We want one who helps us deal with living: one who heals our loved ones and ourselves. One who feeds the hungry real food, blesses the poor with real benefits, inspires governance with real wisdom and compassion, one who saves us from ourselves… because, Jesus came into this life as though this life matters, right?

And then, in John’s gospel, Jesus certainly does suffer, but seems fine with the unfolding of this hour. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  Those who love their life lose it, and those who lose their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. it is for this that I have come to my hour.” Dang. I mean, I like planting seeds and seeing what comes out of the warm, moist earth, but I don’t want to be one.
In the gospel of John, Jesus enters willingly into this hour. He goes willingly into death – it is for this reason that he has come and he seems to know it.  It is to glorify God. But to our eyes and hearts it looks a lot like defeat. It’s not the resurrection that Jesus claims as the glory, but his death. That is the hour this has all been driving toward.

The fallen seed reveals the upside down nature, the profound mystery of Jesus’ divine mortality. We think of life as preceding death; it seems obvious. But Jesus looks at the natural world and says that it is in fact the other way around: Death comes before life, as the seed is buried in order to grow. The source of our life is Jesus’ death.

It is a hidden victory; it’s glory in disguise.  That is the triumph of Jesus’ death – that life comes from it, that we require death in order to fully live. That something in us must die to full live. It is a pattern the disciples finally understand at the end of the story.

Those who make their own self the focus of love lose themselves. If you never move beyond loving yourself, you will live in isolation, lacking what relationship, what true communion with others and with God can offer. To make the ‘self’ the ultimate focus of love, means that you can’t really be yourself, because it is in loving others that you are drawn out. This death of self absorption draws us into the world and the messy, real lives of people and into beauty.  Jesus’ death and resurrection patterns this strange growth in which you find yourself by losing yourself. We come into a place where living and dying become all one, because we are in God.

That is the kind of king that rode a donkey into the city. Not one that charges in with horse and chariot, not one that challenges the power of Rome; but the kind of king that challenges the assumptions of self. One that rules in the heart, and whose power is revealed in acts of service and justice and hospitality and compassion. And who glorifies God in the disguise of daily life and faithful love and even in death.

Hosanna! Save us, good Lord, from ourselves…and Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Amen

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Last week’s scripture passage was the foot anointing / footwashing story and Jesus’ commandment to love as he loved us. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” That intimacy is the introductory scene of Jesus’ passion – or as this gospel calls it, his hour. Strictly speaking there is no passion story in John – if passion is defined by his suffering and death. That isn’t what this gospel depicts. It repeatedly makes the point that Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God, that Jesus does the Father’s bidding, speaks the Father’s word and is the good shepherd who willingly lays down his life for his flock, and he will take it up again with the Father. No one takes his life from him. Jesus is in control. The story picks up with two betrayals. This from chapter 13:

 ‘²¹ Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. ²³One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus.  “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered him, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into Judas. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you will do.”

‘No one at the table knew why Jesus said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. ³⁰Having taken the piece of bread, Judas immediately went out. And it was night.’

I want to point out that in John’s gospel at least, it is clear that Judas is chosen for this task. It’s not greed or anger or impatience that steels his heart. He isn’t paid 30 pieces of silver. He isn’t given a motive. John doesn’t allow us to make it Judas’ story. It is, simply, betrayal. We are given room to grapple with why an insider chose to leave the flock of Jesus’ shepherding. Judas was one of the beloved, offered relationship with Jesus, a place at the table, he received the same teaching, his feet were washed with those of the others, and yet he chose to get up from that meal and go out into the night, to stand with those who would arrest Jesus.

Near the end of his farewell prayer Jesus says of his disciples, “I have guarded them and not one was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.” Judas is assigned a necessary role in the play of God’s salvation story. And I think the story would not be the same if it had been an enemy – the betrayal needed to be one whom Jesus loved, one of the inner few. It had to be, in order to account for our betrayals and our steeled hearts. The Greek phrase translated as “the one destined to be lost” is literally “the son of destruction.”  

The child of destruction could be the name of our evil twin, our shadow side, perhaps the opposite end of the continuum of intelligence and creativity. Self destruction is something we’re pretty good at. From addictions and abuse, to lifestyles and entitlements that are not economically, socially, or environmentally sustainable – we’re quite good at playing in deep shadows. The part that is stubborn, fearful, greedy, too wounded to trust, too accustomed to the darkness is vulnerable, and it’s not only Judas who shows us that. “31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ^…33Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” ³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’ 36 Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus answered, ‘Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterwards.’ ³⁷Peter said to him, ‘Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ ³⁸Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.”

As I’ve said, the characters depicted are not intended to be accurate descriptions of real people. Every character in the gospel is as an icon – pointing to a wider truth or characterization than that of a single individual. So Judas is a type, the counterpart to Mary’s loving anointing of Jesus’ feet. John is written theologically, not historically, in order to tell the truth about who we are and who God is for us in Jesus. Judas brings us to the precipice – just like Adam and Eve – he is a character of The Fall. Once this act of betrayal is accomplished, Judas disappears from the scene. John, as the one telling the story, isn’t interested in what became of him. We don’t hear anything else about him in this gospel, his purpose in the story is accomplished: he is to bring down the curtain of darkness: And it was night…the night in which Jesus was betrayed, twice.

In the dark, Jesus and his disciples make their way across the Kidron valley to a garden where they had often met together. Judas knew the place.

The gospel according to John, from the 18th Chapter:

“Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with temple police, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus replied, “I am.” 

Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, “I am,” they stepped back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” 

Jesus answered, “I told you that I am. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.”    

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear.   Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”  So the soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him.

¹³First they took him to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. ¹⁴Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people. ¹⁵Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard, ¹⁶but Peter was left standing outside at the gate. So the other disciple went out, spoke to the slave girl who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in. ¹⁷But the slave said to Peter, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” 

He said, “I am not.” ¹⁸Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it and warming themselves. Peter joined them and warmed himself.

¹⁹Inside, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. ²⁰Jesus answered, “I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. ²¹Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what 

I said to them; they know what I said.” ²²When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest?”     ²³Jesus answered, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” ²⁴Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas.

²⁵Meanwhile, Simon Peter was standing outside and warming himself. They asked him, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you?” 
He denied it and said, “I am not.” 

²⁶One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?” 
²⁷Again Peter denied it,  …       and at that moment, a rooster began to crow.

Of the male disciples, Peter comes the closest to being faithful.  However, that’s not saying much.

The rest of the disciples disappear after Jesus’ arrest – it’s just the two who follow him now. Peter has been following Jesus since the beginning. When others are offended by Jesus’ claims to have come from God, Peter declares, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”  At the last supper, Peter objects when Jesus washes his feet, but then asks for a complete bath if that is what it takes to be one of his own. Peter vows that he will follow Jesus anywhere, lay down his life for him.  Instead, however, ignoring Jesus’ commandment to love, he brandishes a sword in the garden. Jesus has already stepped forward to surrender himself and knocks all the armed soldiers off their feet with a word. The sword was not needed.
But fear has settled in under Peter’s collar and he can’t shake it.

In the courtyard of the high priest, when a young servant girl at the gate asks whether he is not also a disciple, Peter says, “I am not. I am not with him.”

Jesus, at his arrest in the garden, says three times, “I am.”
Peter, in the high priest’s compound, three times says, “I am not.”

While he stands waiting for some unknown event or ending, as he’s warming his hands around the charcoal fire, maybe the reality – the gravitas – of his situation standing between soldiers and slaves in the courtyard of the high priest sinks in. Maybe he began rationalizing … what help he could be if he was also arrested. Maybe the maybe’s turned his resolve into smoke. Peter is asked a second time if he is Jesus’ disciple.  “I am not. I am not who you think I am.” Then, to make it impossible for Peter to deny his relationship with Jesus, a relative of the man whose ear Peter cut off asks whether he isn’t the one who was there beside Jesus. Peter says it a third time. “I am not. I wasn’t there, I don’t know him. I’m not who you say that I am.”        And in that moment, the darn rooster crows.

We try to shape our identities so that people see us in certain ways. We market ourselves a bit. The way we arrange items on our résumés or Facebook pages creates an image of ourselves we would like others to see.  The way we dress and do our hair. The way we introduce ourselves. The vehicles we drive. The stories we tell about ourselves or our abilities. The stories we don’t tell. The humility we assume  — all of that is chosen to make an impression. For the most part, we try to show our best sides: noble, intelligent, peaceful, funny, strong, capable, soft-spoken, loving… whatever matters to us at the time. The good things we are and do is what we present, what we want the world to know about us.

In silent confession, in support groups, with trusted friends we might admit to some of the other stuff – some of the things we try to keep hidden.  Pretensions, pretendings have a way of coming to light – like shrapnel, they work their way up through layers of skin – whether tough and thick skinned or tender, what is buried works its way out.  And, although they can be painful and embarrassing, we need our failings and our flaws. They also make us who we are. Speaking them brings them out of the dark, allows them to teach us what it means to be forgiven, what compassion feels like. We need to know that – that we are accepted, tolerated, loved. 

“I’m not who you say that I am, I’m not who you might think I am,” is a familiar phrase to us, too.

Some of us might talk to therapists, or share within an AA or Alanon group, some practice daily confession as a spiritual discipline, some use activities as self-reflective meditation like carrying buckets of compost, or splitting firewood, or kneading bread, or preparing fields for seed, or folding laundry. “To thine own self be true,” Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet. That presupposes an inner knowing of our true self. These activities might help us keep our self image in focus and to size.

What did Peter experience when that cock crowed? What knowledge of himself dawned bright and clear, and unwanted? Where did he go? He disappears from the story at this point. He won’t be there when Jesus drags his cross up the hill, he won’t be there at the foot of the cross with the women and the other disciple. He denies and then deserts his friend, his lord, disappearing.

Is it fear for his own life? Is he wondering whether it has been worth it? Is he in despair over events that he is powerless to stop? Is he railing against God for not stepping in to fix it? Is he overcome with guilt? 

Would our responses be any different? 

In John’s gospel, Jesus knows all that will befall him; what Jesus said will happen does happen. The rooster’s crow confirms this. So, when Jesus tells the high priest, “Ask those who heard what I said to them,”  he knows that the time will come when those who heard him will proclaim it. Jesus knows that the betraying, denying disciples will, in turn, teach his teaching. Even more importantly, these failed and refurbished disciples will be able to speak of Jesus’ unconditional love for them, and how Jesus made God known in that love because of their failures. God is more than simply the creator of an awesome and intricate cosmos. That is not the full revelation. It is in response to these deep, intimate betrayals, in response to death, in response to vengeful and senseless violence — a response of forgiveness and repurpose and transformation beyond any imagination —that is where God is most fully revealed — in costly love for a broken world.

Jesus seeks Peter out after the resurrection. We’re jumping way ahead here, but the next time Peter finds himself around a charcoal fire, the risen Christ will be there. Three times Jesus will ask Peter if he loves him, once for each of these three denials. Each time Peter says, “Lord you know everything, you know that I do,” Jesus will instruct him, “feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep.”

The good news of this part of an awful night is that it isn’t Judas’ or Peter’s story. They disappear into the night. The good news is that it is Jesus’ story, and in this gospel, he’s got it all in hand. What we are to believe, to really trust from this whole passage, is that Jesus knows who we are – like he knows Peter through and through. He knows that we are sheep, easily led astray, tempted by fresh clover, we easily loose the path. And, that Jesus loves us anyway – or maybe exactly because of that:  Jesus happens to love sheep … more than roosters.

That love is finally the hope for Peter and for us, and perhaps for Judas in his end… God loved the world in just this way… and love is the lasting word.

In John’s gospel, the end has come — although it will take us another four weeks to get there. In narrative time, three years have passed in 12 chapters between our first sighting of Jesus walking along the Jordan river among the newly baptized and the beginning of the lengthy, narrated night that begins now. Jesus’ public teaching is now complete. The majestic, mystifying I Am statements have done their work – and many have come to believe. Seven signs – seven divinely powered events of healing and feeding ordinary people he met along the way, walking on water, turning water to wine, calling Lazarus out of his tomb – these are all now complete. The remainder of his conversation will be among those whom Jesus calls his “own.”  

The basic plot line of these years has not strayed from what we learned in the beginning. Jesus provided an abundance of finest wine from well water at a wedding feast, and Nicodemus came through the darkness of night, wanting to know, yet not able to see that God’s love is not limited or defined by laws and rituals and prohibitions. That pattern of amazing grace and conflicted belief has been repeated throughout the chapters with various groupings of conversation partners.

But now, the high priest has called for Jesus’ death. The raising of Lazarus was the final straw. There is too much buzz, too much proof that something new (that God) has appeared, too many witnesses – and there is Lazarus, himself, walking around and talking about it. The inner circle of Jews fear for their nation. They fear recrimination from their Roman oppressors, and they fear this unpredictable, table-turning, exuberance of grace they cannot envision or make room for in the structure of belief. They fear what they cannot control among the crowds.

“Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews,” we are told at the end of chapter 11, “but went from [Bethany] to a town called Ephraim in the hill country near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples.

“Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. ⁵⁶They were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, ‘What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?’ ⁵⁷The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.”

———

Outside, it is night and the powers of darkness churn. Inside the narrative, a single evening stretches for five chapters until a cock crows at daybreak and Jesus is handed over to Pilate. This is a long goodbye in which Jesus comforts his friends and prepares them to live as he has loved.

It begins with a foot washing –  but not the one best known for its place on Maundy Thursday. It occurs earlier, in chapter 12.

“Six days before the Passover Jesus returned to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, she anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped his feet with her hair. The entire house filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
(Hold that in mind.)

Now from the 13th chapter, the proper reading for the day:

Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.And during supper, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel he had tied. 

Jesus came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”  Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said, “Lord, not only my feet then, but also my hands and my head!”  Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean.  And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew one who was to betray him….

After Jesus had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord — and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. ^….If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

Love is the first main verb in Greek of the opening sentence of this chapter. It comes at the very end of the sentence, rising out of a sea of subordinate clauses. “Before the feast of the Passover, having known that his hour had come, that he should pass from this world to the Father, having loved his own in the world, to the end, he loved them.” Love governs all of that, all that has come before, and all that is still to come. Everything is subordinate to love. 

Kneeling to wash his disciples’ feet is Jesus’ knowing, intentional response to it all: 

to the festival of Passover that commemorated how the ancient Israelite people were saved – delivered out of death’s hand by the blood of the slaughtered Passover lamb; to the unfolding of Jesus’ hour;  to the world beloved and dark outside the door;  to Satan and Judas within the room, within the circle; to Jesus’ own, his beloved.

The word for end (telos in Greek) in the phrase “he loved them to the end” will appear again in Jesus’ last words from the cross: “It is finished.” That completion, fulfillment, perfection of love is anticipated in the love enacted here, in Jesus washing the dusty, sweaty, nervous feet of his beloveds.

Because he wasn’t supposed to. We get that from Peter’s shocked refusal and then extreme turn-around. Free people did not ever, under any socially acceptable standards, wash another free person’s feet. A basin of water and towel to wash one’s own feet was the expected duty of a host. In a wealthy household, a slave – typically the lowest female slave – might be on duty to wash the guest’s feet, but even that was rarely done. It was terribly shameful, denigrating behavior. And yet the gospel describes it in detail for us to notice.  “Jesus rose from the meal, took off his outer robe, tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin, knelt and began to wash the disciples’ feet and wiped them with the towel he had tied.” 

Then Jesus offers the commentary: that he has radically altered the model of teacher and Lord and service, offering a new view into the mystery of love’s fulfillment on the cross. We are to love one another as Jesus has loved us.

And as Mary has already loved him.

What Jesus did for his disciples, Mary did for Jesus without instruction or demonstration at the meal held in his honor six days earlier. She fulfills Jesus’ commandment to love before he even teaches it.  She becomes a true disciple, a servant of devotion and ego-emptying love in anointing Jesus’ feet. Much of the same language ties the two episodes together. Mary’s adds a sensory overload, an act of self-abandon – kneeling before her beloved Lord, pouring expensive perfumed oil over his feet, using her hair in place of the towel… can you imagine what that would feel like? We are told the smell of nard – the perfume of her love and devotion – overwhelms the house. Mary’s act illustrates the gospel’s vision of the new life of lavish, slavish service to be lived by those who would embrace Jesus’ life and death and become children of the living God.

I’ve been noticing and wondering about the role of women in this gospel. They seem to be the ones who know intuitively that Jesus is the Son of God. They always seem to be the true disciples. Without a birth narrative of any sort, we don’t have any way of knowing what Jesus’ mother knew or didn’t know about him. But she was the start of it, telling the servants at the wedding in Cana to do whatever he told them. The Samaritan woman at the well presents the exact opposite image of Nicodemus in receptiveness to Jesus and acceptance of his truth. Martha is the one to say, “Yes, Lord I believe that you are the Messiah, the son of God.” Her sister Mary demonstrates this model of true discipleship in taking the form of a slave at Jesus’ feet. Women stand at the foot of the cross as grieving witnesses of his death, and Mary Magdalene is the one who discovers the empty tomb, runs to the tell the others and then stays weeping in the garden. Therefore, she is the first to see the risen Lord when he calls her by name.

We can’t know why the author of Johns’ gospel wrote it this way – what the role of women was in the early Christian Jewish communities. I suspect, however, that, rather than elevating women (which might be our hope or agenda), the intention was to do the opposite – to show the scale and scope, to show how low, the incarnate word of God would sing. 

The apostle Paul had written by the time of this gospel of the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love, the fulness of God’s grace. In Philippians he recorded an early Christian hymn that ‘Christ, being in the form of God, did not exploit his divinity, but emptied himself, and taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.’ 

And since characters in this gospel of John are representative forms, not necessarily historically accurate individuals, women, too, fill a symbolic role. Because it isn’t only the women who get it – it is women and the weak and wounded, the broken and outcast. It is those who fill in the bottom of society’s fruit bowl – fishermen, lame, blind, hungry, Samaritans, a royal official who came to Jesus to beg for the life of his son – and these mostly unmarried, marginalized women. In part, the prominence of women shows that discipleship doesn’t conform to stereotypical assumptions – there is no naming the twelve male disciples in this gospel. Jesus is teacher to individuals whom he loves and who love him and then live out of that love. It is perhaps more true that Jesus makes sense to those who desperately need a change in the system, a light shining in their ashamed darkness, and have no ego or education or standing to blind them. They are primed by the hardship of life to awaken to love.

There is a radical equality in what Jesus does bending to wash our feet – in effect saying we are all equal here at the bottom. All equal in the eyes of God, not at an elevated status, but at our basic creaturely status.

Jesus insists on washing the feet of Peter, knowing full well that Peter will deny him when the pressure is on. Jesus stoops to wash the feet of Judas, knowing full well that Judas has already conspired to betray him to the Pharisees and Jewish officials.

Meda Stamper wrote a commentary in the Narrative Lectionary series, saying:

“How hard it can be to accept that we are Jesus’ own, that we are already clean, and then to accept that God continues to cleanse even the parts of our lives and actions that we consider most unworthy of his gaze, the less lovely parts we’d prefer to hide away under the clothing of our best selves. But God who sends light into the impenetrable darkness of the world is certainly not daunted by our small brokenness, and love is the best answer to every hurting stinky thing in the world. It is God’s answer and Jesus’ answer, and it is to be our answer, too.”

Love is to be our answer. 

All of John’s gospel is the story of God’s love for the world. Our participation in the vulnerable, mysterious, life-giving love of God begins with Jesus humbling himself and us, making it possible for us to function as his servants, his sent ones, his friends – as reflections of his light in this conflicted world God loves. It’s not necessarily going to make us feel good. 

Clearly from all we know about Jesus, the love God sent him to bear for the world was not an emotional high. There aren’t “How to” manuals for servanthood, no self-help books for serving the reign and realm of God. You will need to find your own way of living into this costly, fragrant love. But openness to Christ, to the Spirit’s urging, lessening the pull of ego-maintenance and self-entitlement are helpful first steps. Stepping outside of yourself, to truly see — someone else’s experience, someone else’s need, someone else’s worldview, some other creature’s value and life and worldview, is how we begin. Looking to truly see.

Those who want to walk the path of Jesus, will find the Way. 

Shake off your expectations and blinders. They prevent you from being true to yourself.  Don’t be afraid or ashamed of your broken spots, they are what will connect to others and allow you to see. But, mostly, look down. Down is where God’s love is always leading.

 A reading from the gospel of John, the 11th chapter:

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ³So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ ⁴But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ ⁵Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

7 Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ ⁸The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’ ⁹Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. ¹⁰But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’ ¹¹After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ ¹²The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ ¹³Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. ¹⁴Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. ¹⁵For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ ¹⁶Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. ¹⁸Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, ¹⁹and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. ²⁰When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. ²¹Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²²But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ ²³Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ ²⁴Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ ²⁵Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, ²⁶and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ ²⁷She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ ²⁹And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. ³¹The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. ³²When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ ³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ ³⁵Jesus began to weep. ³⁶So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ ³⁷But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ ⁴⁰Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ ⁴¹So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ ⁴³When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. ⁴⁶But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. ⁴⁷So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, ‘What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. ⁴⁸If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.’ ⁴⁹But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all! ⁵⁰You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.’ ^…53So from that day on they planned to put him to death.

This is a story about love. But it’s a love story the way John always seems to tell love stories – with a trailing edge of death, like Lazarus walking around trailing his shroud.

“For God so loved the world…” we keep circling back to that, “…that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will have abundant life.” “No one has greater love than this,” Jesus says in his farewell discourse, “than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” 15:13

Love is linked inextricably to death in John, and that is also true in the story of this family.  Their intimate relationship with Jesus doesn’t provide immunization from sickness, death, grief, or questions.  His love for them doesn’t hurry him along at the first news of illness to prevent Lazarus from dying.  But, so that God’s love may be made real, visible, startling enough to change us, Jesus acts in inexplicable ways. In time, their sorrow and pain turn to wonder, belief, and joy as they participate as extraordinary exemplars in God’s glory.

Like the wine ran out, like the man was blind, Lazarus is dead. This is the reality, but it is not a limitation to God.

The danger is in reading this – as in the healing of the man born blind – is in thinking that God caused their suffering so God could show off through Jesus – as an orchestrated occasion for a blitz of glory and front page headlines in the Jerusalem Times. It is helpful information to remember that this gospel is beautifully woven theology. It’s not history. It’s not a first hand account. It’s not a biography. That doesn’t necessarily mean the characters aren’t real, but it helps us see them as players in this divine comedy – an apparent tragedy that turns at the last moment to joy.

And it helps to look carefully at what Jesus said to Martha.

When Jesus says to her, “your brother will rise again,” she hears only the promise of a distant future, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day,” she says. This was a common belief among first-century Jews. But Jesus seems to correct what she knows by saying, “I am the resurrection and the life.” 

We, too, tend to pair the raising of Lazarus with the resurrection of Jesus – as I’m sure we are meant to – and hear in it a promise for us, of salvation, of eternal life with God and Jesus one day, in the fullness of time. 

But what difference does Jesus’ correction make – and the life? Can we see that in believing in Jesus, we are raised to life, not a future one, but vibrant life right here; transformed as though from death to life right now? Lazarus is raised back to his actual life, goes on with his normal activities – although he has gained a certain notoriety. One day, at some point in the future, Lazarus will die again. But don’t you imagine this in-between life he’s been given will reflect some of the glory of that love borne of death?

In the next chapter, Jesus returns to Bethany and the home of this trio for a dinner at which Martha serves, Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with costly perfume and wipes them with her hair in an act of extravagant love, and Lazarus alive and well, reclines at the table with Jesus, sharing food and fellowship. New life in Jesus is this intimacy, this closeness, this dwelling. It is here and now, because in the Gospel of John, it is not primarily the death of Jesus, but his life that makes the difference, that brings us life and salvation.

When Martha hears this, she moves beyond what she knows to what she sees before her. She responds with a confession of faith akin to Peter’s confession in the other gospels. “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

Jesus not only brings resurrection, and can perform resurrection, but he is it – the real deal, the life of God for us. 

It is living out of the spirit of God that is authentic life – with all of its risks and surprises. Lazarus, briefly, becomes the example. He is raised … not to God, not to eternal bliss … but back to life! That is the point of rebirth, of life in the spirit, of life from above. This life! 

Belief in Jesus doesn’t resuscitate us, or protect us from illness or damage or death.  It sends us into the world! Lazarus was truly loved by Jesus, and truly died anyway. And he was raised only to die again – at some point. 

But after his rising, Lazarus lived outside of himself. That’s what we didn’t hear at the end of today’s reading. It wasn’t long before Lazarus had a price on his head. He was too bold, too dangerous, too popular – he was the living proof that God has power in this world. People were coming to faith because of his mere existence. 

But for the rest of his days, Lazarus knew the source of his life…he knew it was Jesus. The Samaritan woman knew it was Jesus, the man born blind knew it was Jesus. That is perhaps more of a challenge for us…

Much of the time, honestly, it does not feel like death has been defeated. Like Mary and Martha, we ask our agonizing questions — about job loss, wayward children, financial crises, chronic illness, loss of loved ones, war and terrorism — whatever casts death’s shadow across our lives.

We look for miracles and trust in an ending, but fail to see that this life is a gift of resurrection, too. We are called by name to come out from under the shroud of our fears and our reserve and complacency, our hesitancy to commit, our busyness with things (that maybe don’t matter that much after all). Rise up! Come out of a mindset of comfortable disbelief or apathy – come out and risk living. Live as though you bear the image of God! Live! fully, abundantly, openly, generously, unashamed, alive in the spirit of Christ.

Although some of the bystanders at Lazarus’ tomb believe, others go and report Jesus to the authorities. It is based on this, that they decide to put him to death. In the other Gospels, Jesus clearing out the temple is the impetus for the plot to kill him.  The irony of John’s timing is that the way to the cross and Jesus’ own tomb starts here where Jesus does what only God can do. He recreates life from death.

 If we can manage to trust, taking Jesus at his word despite our questions, would the depth of God’s love for the world, for our neighbor, for our enemies, for we, ourselves, change anything about how you live? 

Don’t you think it should?

“…from his fullness we have all received – grace upon grace.”

This is the last week of Epiphany: next week is Transfiguration Sunday, and then we are into Lent.

Despite the darkening content of the gospel as we go forward, I would say that the whole of John’s gospel belongs to Epiphany, to the ways in which God becomes visible in earthly life, because we are continually encountering ‘signs’.  If Jesus isn’t performing them, he or others are referring to those we read about only obliquely. The other gospels relate miracles, John does not call them that. In John, performing a miracle isn’t enough. It has to be recognized, interpreted and, through it, people brought to faith in God. That makes it a sign of the reality of God. Belief in Jesus is belief in the One who sent him into the world, not to condemn it, but so that we might have life. And signs are the conduit to faith and thus to life.

A reading from John, chapter 4 

From Samaria, Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. ⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” ⁴⁹The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” ⁵⁰Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. ⁵¹As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. ⁵²So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” ⁵³The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household. ⁵⁴Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

Hymn response   #485 I am the bread of life

“Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”  That sounds like scolding to me. But, we can’t know the tone of voice or emotion Jesus is expressing. It may very well be sadness, futility, “when will they ever learn.” Either way, I’m digging in.

This man, a royal official – quite likely a Gentile since Capernaum was a border town – heard that Jesus was back in Galilee and came running. It’s a sixteen mile trip through the hill country. He came begging for his son to be healed. As usual, Jesus’ words don’t appear to fit the situation. Why would this father come that far, risking that his son will die while he was away on a fool’s errand (instead of being there by his side), if he didn’t actually believe that Jesus can bring the nearly, quite-possibly-already dead child back to life? This father is looking for signs and wonders because he believes Jesus is the only hope he’s got.

Maybe desperate hope is not yet faith. Maybe he would not believe in God’s power if his son had actually died and Jesus had told him his boy will live again in eternity. Maybe we still don’t come to faith based on that hard word.  Signs and wonders are still what we hope for, pray for. How much more true would that be had you been there in person, watching or hearing of miracle healings when you have a loved one in need of just that very thing, and Jesus is there in person? Of course he wants a sign and wonder.

I’ll get back to this, but I want to bring in the next episode because, once again, John is comparing and contrasting, so that we ‘see’ what’s going on.

 John 5:1–18
After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
 ²Now at the temple by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethsaida, which has five porticoes. ³In these lay many invalids — blind, lame, and paralyzed. ⁵One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 

⁷The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” ⁸Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” ⁹At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath.¹⁰So the Pharisees said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” ¹¹But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.'” ¹²They asked him, “Who is the man who said this to you?” ¹³But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. 

¹⁴Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ ¹⁵The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. ¹⁶Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. ¹⁷But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ 

¹⁸For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

¹⁹Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. ²⁰The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.” 

___________________________

According to this gospel, a sign is not a miracle, it may include a miracle, but it is more. The purpose of a sign is that it leads to faith – it moves one to a new reality. The signs point through the miracle to God acting through Jesus. The prologue to this gospel says that no one has seen God, but the Son came to make him known. The Son does this by speaking and acting as the Father does, as we have just heard Jesus say, ‘Truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing;… and he will show greater works than these, so that you will marvel.’ 

With last week’s story of the Samaritan woman meeting Jesus at the well, and Nicodemus the week before her, we now have four compare and contrast stories in a row. Two of them are about miraculous healings; two of them are about people coming to faith; two of them are included in the traditional listing of seven signs in the gospel. BUT, I think, we are supposed to compare and contrast and read all of them carefully so that we ‘see’ what’s happening.

The last lines of the royal official’s story say: ⁵³The father realized that this (the hour his son’s fever broke) was the time that Jesus had said, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household. ⁵⁴Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.”

We’ve got here a miraculous, long-distance healing, sight unseen on Jesus part, and a household coming to faith who have never even met Jesus. They come to believe based solely on the word of the father connecting what Jesus said with what they observed. “Blessed are those who do not see, and yet believe.” That is a true sign. 

And it says this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.  I think this is an important detail. 

The first sign of the gospel was the wedding feast at Cana. From there, Jesus went south to Jerusalem in Judea for Passover where he cleared the Temple marketplace and met with Nicodemus. Then he started back north to Galilee through Samaria where he met with the woman, and continued now back up to Cana bringing us to the royal official and his request. But, it says this is the second sign since he came back from Judea, since he left Jerusalem.  Hang on to that for a minute.

Today’s second story is about Jesus back at the Temple in Jerusalem where he finds a paralyzed man lying at the pool of Bethsaida. Although the man is miraculously healed, there is no mention of faith. The man does not seek Jesus out, he responds to Jesus’ question “Do you want to be made well?” with a statement of how impossible it is to be healed in his condition, and then, when it turns out that he is healed, he walks away carrying his mat as instructed. Even when he meets Jesus again afterwards, he doesn’t thank him or follow him. Yet, the tradition lists this as a sign. I think this is incorrect. It is a wonder, a miracle, but it brings no one to faith, and actually becomes the point at which the Pharisees openly reject Jesus and begin to persecute him. That’s the opposite of coming to faith. This shows what a miracle without faith looks like. We’ll see this dynamic again when Jesus complains that the crowds are following him simply because they want free bread. They benefit from the wonder, but don’t see through it to acknowledge God’s power or glory or love. It doesn’t move them to belief. It is just a supernatural occurrence, and they’d like more, please.

The story of the Samaritan woman didn’t have a physical miracle, but it had a conceptual one, a conversational miracle about living water and the presence of God in Jesus that brought her and her villagers to faith in God.  That is a sign according to this gospel’s own definition. And it agrees with the count. The royal official’s son “was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee,” making hers the first. 

I don’t know why the tradition left it out of the list of seven signs and instead includes a miracle that leads to lack of faith — it  makes no sense, except that the interpretive tradition, whenever it started, missed the point and couldn’t see her story, her situation as equal to a physical healing. She is the first person in the gospel to name Jesus as the Messiah – to ‘see’ that, and through her many came to faith, just like the royal official’s household came to faith through his description of what had happened. 

It is, possibly, probably, also because she is a woman and because she had an interesting marital history and was now living with someone who was not her husband. Tradition has not dealt fairly with her. It doesn’t surprise me that the patriarchal church couldn’t see hers as the second sign of the gospel. But, we have the freedom to take a more generous view of her life, and to see what Jesus saw in her and what John implied.

So, why does any of this matter?

It matters because in these stories, beginning with Nicodemus, we are presented with options, with different scenarios of engagement with the living word of God. All of these signs and would-be signs are occasioned just by the spoken word. Nicodemus sought out Jesus, struggled to make sense of the conversation, but stayed on the outside, his faith uncertain. The Samaritan woman met Jesus apparently by chance, got wrapped up in the wonder, came to believe and brought in all of her neighbors. The royal official sought Jesus in desperation, left the encounter trusting that Jesus would be true to his word, and along with his whole household truly came to believe. The man whom Jesus approached in the temple pool was healed ‘in person’. No doubt he appreciated the miracle, but he didn’t seem to get what it meant. He didn’t know who it was who had healed him.

We could chart these variables, interactions, and results. They serve as templates, perhaps, for our patterns of belief. There are more to come. The disciples are too close to bring things into focus. Each of them has a rather dense moment in the gospel. They are confused by the details like observing an impressionist painting up too closely where all you see are splotches of color and heavy paint. They see what Jesus does and yet they don’t ‘see’ who Jesus is. They can’t yet see that it is God doing the signs and wonders through him.

I asked last week what creates faith in you, and it is a serious question. You may not choose to tell me, but I hope you will spend time thinking about it. And asking yourself what difference it makes to the way you live.

It also is a good lead-in to our Lent Wednesday theme of Heaven in Ordinary – the sacraments of daily life.

The earliest Jewish Christian community called themselves, “The Way” – probably as in, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” The way we live, the way we follow Christ, the way we come to faith and share that faith with others is still part of our identity. Or, possibly, part of our current identity crisis as modern American Christians. Hopefully, we still catch glimpses, get some hints along the way, still see things that look like God’s fingerprints might be on them, and try to find the path. The Way is venturing out as pilgrims by paths that look untrodden through perils unknown, not knowing, but only believing that God’s hand is leading us and that God’s love is supporting us.  Faith is not an answer to life’s questions: faith is a way of dealing with the uncertainty.

Healing stories and miracles form an interesting intersection with faith even in this age of reason and very rational medical “miracles.” There are clouds of prayers that rise in the space of illness, in the time after a diagnosis, during treatment. We have great diagnostic tools and medicine, surgery and skills to treat almost everything, but most people – religious or not – add prayer to the therapeutic regime. 

Faith, prayer, miracles are still is a bewildering enterprise to me, because, based on John’s gospel, the efficacy of prayer and faith is both dependent on belief and has nothing to do with belief. Jesus seeks out some of these conversation partners, one paralyzed person among the many who lay by the Pool of Bethsaida, and he healed the one who didn’t really respond. Others seek him out – some of them come to faith as a result, some don’t. Large crowds follow Jesus, we are told, because of the signs he worked, but not everyone was healed in Galilee, not everyone who hungered was fed. The oppressed remained oppressed. It’s a bewildering mix. The same is true today. There is not one way, one holy door. It’s not the fault of our prayers. It’s not the capricious nature of God, it’s just… what?  Life and bodies and the nature of things?  And as the quickly souring relationship with the Jewish authorities reminds us, Jesus’ own prayers and faith won’t save him from the cross. But, ultimately, it is his enemies who cause God’s greatest love to be revealed.

Signs point us to God, to a greater mystery, to love revealed in a broken hallelujah: a crucified Messiah. That was not the sign his disciples were looking for, nor one they could comprehend. It remains an enigmatic sign of the kingdom. It reminds us that God seeks us out in our defeat, comes to us not only in times of achievement, but, more likely, in our regret, in conditions that call out for mercy, trundling down paths as yet untrodden through perils unknown. Like the royal official, we go not knowing,  but believing that God’s hand is leading us and God’s love is supporting us.  Faith is not an answer to life’s questions. Faith is the way of living into the uncertainties. To misquote Sherlock, the mystery is afoot! Be awake to the signs.

Pr Linda