West Denmark Lutheran Church

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.

________

“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.”

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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

Last week, we heard briefly about Nicodemus who comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness. He holds on for nine verses in a bewildering conversation with Jesus before he fades again into the night from whence he came. This week narrates the next encounter with Jesus. He is in Samaria. The reading tells us it was necessary for him to pass through Samaria. It wasn’t, actually. He could easily have skirted this territory of Samaritans. But, it was “necessary” for the insights it gives into the nature of God’s love.

Nicodemus comes as a person of authority and standing. He is a man, and a Pharisee – a leader of the Jews. He has a name. Nicodemus is a person inside (and integral to) the religious loop; one who represents the community’s best judgment. But, he comes to Jesus at night.

By comparison, this woman comes not to Jesus, but to the well. She’s on about her daily business. Jesus has positioned himself there – walking through Samaria for some purpose of his own design – it was more direct, but also more dangerous. Anyway, the Woman arrives without a name; her identity is obscured by descriptions of her exclusion. As a Samaritan, her people are marginalized by Jews for their lack of ethnic purity and for their worship tradition of believing Mt Gerazim to be sacred ground. 

As a woman, she lives her daily life in the shadows of her own marginalized status: work that goes nowhere, and relationships much like her work. One marriage dissolves into the next, without much to show for it, like drawing water from an old well, only to return the next day out of need and emptiness. But she has terrific qualities like curiosity and confidence: she speaks to Jesus under the sweltering heat of a midday sun and she holds her own.

Unlike Nicodemus, who sneaks through the streets of Jerusalem in shadows, this dialogue dances in broad daylight, raising eyebrows almost immediately: “How is it that you, a Jew, asks a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” she asks. The disciples seem to be just as shocked by this conversation when they stumble into it midway.

The contrasts between these stories illustrate John’s themes of darkness and light, seeing and faith, secrecy and truth telling.

My hometown Methodist pastor, Ray Robinson, used to end each service saying: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it!” 

It might be a good practice— or now, as preparation and as context for what we are about to hear: “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” 

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’

We begin today at a well. It’s not just any old well; we are told it’s Jacob’s old well. 

Every detail, every symbol in John, is crafted intentionally.  Jacob’s well was the assurance of God’s provision for ancient Israel. It is still in existence today, some 4000 years after Jacob acquired the land, nearly 2000 years after this gospel was written. The well has not run dry.  It lies within an Orthodox monastery in the West Bank. It is a symbol even now of living water, that fills to the brim and runneth over.

Jesus is sitting there, by the well, while the disciples go into the town for food. 

A woman approaches. A conversation ensues. 

If these readings weren’t separated by weeks between Sundays, we would still be hearing echoes of that boisterous wedding in Cana where water drawn from a well transfigured into amazingly fine wine. These two stories are the only times the terms for ‘water jar’ and ‘drawing from a well’ are used in the whole of the New Testament. John’s repetition is not by accident.

The storyteller’s fun begins with Jesus sitting at this well asking for a drink. The woman doesn’t know what we know about Cana. She just knows that it’s odd for a man to ask a woman for a drink, and he’s a Jewish man besides, and so would never touch a Samaritan’s ladle or water jug or personage, and what is he doing sitting alone by our well in the first place, she wonders?

Jesus’ reference to living water is a play on words in Greek, continuing the baffling trend of his conversation with Nicodemus. Living water can mean water that is flowing (a stream or creek or spring rather than a pond or pool or puddle). It can mean fresh water rather than salt (the Sea of Galilee rather than the salty Dead Sea), and, it also can mean “alive.”  The woman first understands Jesus to be referring to water from the well – and asks how he plans to give her this interesting gushing, living water without a bucket. Clearly he would need to pull off some kind of miracle — implying that he couldn’t possibly pull off some kind of miracle.  And, as though the answer is devastatingly obvious, she then asks if he is greater than their ancestor Jacob, who gave them the well in the first place. 

Jesus misdirects, leaving the well behind, changing the imagery to a gushing spring, eternal, life giving, glorious water.

And unlike Nicodemus, who wasn’t able to shift categories that quickly, the woman tracks along with him.  She quickly realizes that this is not ordinary water Jesus is talking about – and impulsively? intuitively? asks for it, not waiting to understand.

And that is a key feature — of this story, and in the contrast with Nicodemus, and is the thrust of the gospel of John. “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.” Jesus says this at the very end, when Thomas has touched Jesus’ crucifixion wounds and finally confesses his belief. “I’m glad for you, Thomas,” Jesus says, “but Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.”

Because, that’s what gospels are supposed to do — create faith in those who were not there, who did not see, who could not come around at night and ask questions, who have only this word, this living Word to go by, and yet, who come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one of God, and that God raised him from death, and will do so for all believers when time is completed.

There are a lot of things I don’t like about the gospel of John (I should probably stop saying that about the Bible), but even so, this is the gospel that gets to me, whose characters and stories resonate and seem to dwell within me. This is the gospel that doesn’t quite let me go. It has created faith in me. I’m curious about how that goes for you – if it is this or another gospel, or something from Paul’s writing, or… What is it that creates and sustains faith in you? I would love to have that conversation. *

As soon as the woman asks for living water, the conversation shifts to her living, and Jesus tells her everything she has ever done, as she later tells her townspeople.  

Although Jesus seems to know everything about her sequential marriages, he offers not one word of judgment. He asks for no repentance; no confession of sin. He doesn’t ask her to explain herself, to justify her existence. None of that…. His knowledge of her is about something other than condemnation. Perhaps it is compassion, perhaps it’s recognizing the abuse and secret shame too many women harbor and would rather hide than confess or be confronted with at midday, in the town’s center, by a stranger. Whatever Jesus’ motivation, what he gives her is pure invitation.

If we bear in mind that “seeing,” in John, is both belief and vision, then the story itself becomes a word play. When the woman says, “I see you are a prophet,” she is not awkwardly deflecting her embarrassment and shame, nor is she making a joke; she’s making an insightful confession of faith.

Jesus has “seen” her.  He has recognized her, spoken to her, offered her something of incomparable worth. She exists for him, has value and significance. This is not how men and women, strangers, Jews and Samaritans interact! And so when he speaks of her past without malice or a come-on, she is startled into seeing him differently, and the conversation is allowed to take another turn.  

 She risks asking the central question that had divided Samaritans and Jews for centuries: where is the proper place of worship? Where does the presence of God abide – on Mt. Gerazim or in the temple in Jerusalem? This is no awkward dodge or diversion. It’s a heartfelt question that gets to the core of what separates her from Jesus.

“The hour is coming, and is now here”, he says, “when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.”  I love that line. the Father seeks such as these

She leaves her water jar behind and runs to tell her neighbors about this man.

What is life-changing for the woman – according to her – is that she has been entirely known by him. Jesus performed no miracle, he didn’t produce the living water. He talked to her. He looked her in the eyes. He saw her. I think, at some level, this is what we all long for. To be known and accepted. Perhaps you can understand how this would transform “the woman.” She doesn’t tell her people, “I have met someone who said “I am God, I am the Lord!’” (even though he did, and that would have caused some kind of stir). She says, “He has told me everything about my life – he has seen me.” That’s what impressed her, being known, being seen through, with no judgment, no criticism, no pity, no blame. And this being known, this way of loving, enabled her to know him. This is the first time, the first person, to whom Jesus says, “Ego eimi, I am” – the name of God.

The extraordinary twist of this story is not simply that Jesus is kind to her – a mis-married Samaritan woman at a well – the twist is that she becomes a witness for him.    She’s not certain that Jesus is the Christ, but she doesn’t let that stop her. She moves beyond her doubt and surprise to questions, to figuring-this-out engagement, to intuition that might be called inspiration.   The woman at the well is a better disciple than the whole lot of them at this point; and a better example for us to follow. 

She shows us that faith is about conversation not conversion, it’s a communal, organic, drawing-in from where ever someone stands. It’s about growth and change. It is not about having all the answers. If we think we have the answers, if we are content with our old images and formulations, if we believe more in our own convictions about Jesus or God than in the possibility of new information and inspiration, then we will be left trying to defend those stagnant beliefs, to bolster them up, to protect our faith from life and change. We will take after Nicodemus.

Life doesn’t stand still: neither can faith. Not even when we want it to.

While Nicodemus’s last questioning words to Jesus expose his disbelief, “How can this be?” the last words of the woman, also posed as a question, lead her people to find out for themselves, to discover, to encounter, to invite Jesus to stay/abide and dwell with them as God stays/abides and dwells in him.  “Come see,” she says, echoing what Jesus said to his brand new disciples. “He cannot be the Messiah, the Christ, the coming one…. can he?”

In the presence of the “light of the world,” she leaves behind her “ordinary” to share in the extraordinary news of the one who sees us truly and deeply, who loves us as we are, and who commissions us to have the courage and the wherewithal to drop anything that isn’t that extraordinary, and go share this good news, this vision of love, with others who stand in need.

The light shines in the darkness…

The gospel according to John, chapter 3

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ²He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ ³Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ ⁴Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ ⁵Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” ⁸The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ ⁹Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ ¹⁰Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

11 ‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹²If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. ²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’ 

22 After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he spent some time there with them and baptized. ²³John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because water was abundant there; and people kept coming and were being baptized— ²⁴John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison.

25 Now a discussion about purification arose between John’s disciples and a Jew. ²⁶They came to John and said to him, ‘Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.’ ²⁷John answered, ‘No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. ²⁸You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.” ²⁹He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. ³⁰He must increase, but I must decrease.’

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. ³²He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. ³³Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. ³⁴He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. ³⁵The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. ³⁶Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.

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I have to say I identify with Nicodemus. I totally understand one who would choose to come after dark, trying to catch Jesus alone and in a more relaxed, conversational mode. Nothing of who Jesus is or what he says is straightforward. Nicodemus came so he could ask questions and try to get things clear in his own head. A public speech is better than a book or searching scripture, but sometimes you need to have a conversation. 

I want to be able to sit across the table from a financial retirement advisor, or medical insurance policy broker, or  accountant, or an architect or electrician or plumber. There aren’t many things I understand thoroughly in my own being, and if I have to make a big decision, a life consequence decision, I want to look in someone’s eyes and read their body language and catch the nuances in their tone of voice and draw things out on paper and take notes and have the details held up to scrutiny. I want to feel I can trust, not only the information, but the person who is relaying the information; one to one. 

It was not obvious from outward appearances that Jesus was God in the flesh. That assurance or realization had to happen in person.

I have a lot of sympathy for Nicodemus and I hope it turned out well for him in the end. I feel like I have something at stake in his story.

This is my problem with the gospel of John: I am not a black and white, yes or no, make a decision and never look back kind of person. I doubt and second guess and wonder and come up with a stack of possibilities and contingencies and alternatives to consider. Decisions are often made because my options have timed out, not because I’ve chosen one. It’s not a great way of navigating life. It’s mushy and uncertain and involves passive, fearful inactivity. There’s more hope than assurance.

The gospel of John doesn’t allow for any of that. It’s all words with double meanings and misdirection and urgency to say yes or no. It makes me anxious. Existentially anxious. And I have 2000 years between me and the urgency. The book of Revelation also says something disparaging about lukewarm Christians, but, again, they were expecting the return of Jesus and the end of time to happen any day, within their lifetimes. We’ve had 2000 years of waiting, and, looking around the room, a life of privilege, to dull that sharp gospel edge.

Modern American Christianity has nothing in common with Christianity in first century Palestine. We don’t know what we’re reading when we read the gospels. We trust that the Holy Spirit works some kind of miracle in making connections and bridges, but honestly, we are fully enmeshed in white privileged, comfortable spirituality. We, most of us, don’t take these words seriously. We are good enough, faithful enough. We are peaceful, fairly low on the commercialization and exploitation continuum. We are good people making our way the best we can. 

In this status, in our situation, what is it that faith means, or does, or necessitates?

What does it mean to claim belief that Jesus is the son of God? What are we looking for? What are the consequences of that statement?  For us, the consequences are likely minimal. There is no risk. Possibly some embarrassment, but no risk. For Nicodemus, it would turn his world upside-down. Everything he knew (or thought he knew), every relationship, every future avenue would be altered or closed or challenged.   What is our role in God’s design, I wonder? Are we okay, or are we missing something, like Nicodemus, and don’t know to be startled or disoriented?

Tucked in-between the story of Nicodemus in his night encounter and the Samaritan woman meeting Jesus at a well at mid-day, is this little episode of John the Baptist. This is the last time we hear from John. It’s an odd little passage in that it seems unnecessary. We aren’t given new information — John reminds his followers of what he has already said — except for the center sentences. And maybe there is something in here for us.

“The friend of the bridegroom (John), who stands and hears him (Jesus), rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice,” John says. “For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. 
³⁰He must increase, but I must decrease.”

John played the same role as the Bethlehem star of Matthew’s gospel. The star rose and shone over the place where Jesus was, drawing magi from the east (strangers, gentiles), to come see and worship Christ with gifts fitting for his death. The magi returned to their own land, and the star that had shone for three years faded back into the night sky. In this gospel, it is John who prepares the way, ^“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John,” the prologue says. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.”  

Here, it is John who draws people to the place where Jesus is, announces him, points him out. And now, like the star diminishing in the night sky, he fades. But the words he uses are packed. John is a prophet and the Hebrew prophets frequently use marriage and bridegroom imagery to describe God’s desired relationship with the beloved people, and there was that wedding in Cana, Jesus’ first sign. So being the best man is telling.  But more than that is the word “must.” Dei in Greek. It’s used only 8 times in John. It can mean “ought to” or “should” as it does in other places in scripture. But this gospel gives it a kind of cosmic superpower. The only way that time can roll on is under the conditions set by the word “must”.

3:¹³No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.     We just read that.

The lead-in to the Samaritan woman’s story says Jesus left Judea and started back to Galilee, ⁴but it was necessary for Jesus to go through Samaria. (It’s the same Greek word, dei)

Jesus himself uses it, ‘⁴We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. ⁵As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ 

¹⁴I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, And I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 

And after Jesus is not found in the empty tomb:

⁸The other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; ⁹for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” 

So, my point is to show that this word John uses has the weight of God’s eternal plan infused in it. ³⁰He must increase, but I must decrease.”  Not ‘should’ or ought to’ – it is necessary; necessary for the implementation of God’s strategy. 

John had a role — a big role — in the history of salvation. He rose to the moment and then, by necessity, he faded from the story. He performed his God-given task and went on to live the rest of his short life, not diminished, but with the task completed. “It is finished” are Jesus’ final words from the cross in John’s gospel. It is necessarily completed.

The image on the bulletin cover shows lights coming on as evening’s darkness falls across the earth. We can imagine how many households, how many businesses, how many streetlights are represented in the spots of light making them bright enough to appear. So now, imagine that they are the lights of Christ, the light of ordinary Christians doing their necessary bit in the salvation story that continues to play on and on as the light and darkness roll continuously over the face of the earth. It may be that they are not even aware of their shining. It may be that it is a great burden or sacrifice. It may be a one time light a flash in the night, or one that shines on and on always there to guide the way in their location, their community.

As demanding of belief as this gospel is, there are also these ebbs and flows, fading away and coming back into view. Nicodemus makes two more appearances – one in subtle defense of Jesus before the Sanhedrin and the last in assisting Joseph of Arimathea in laying Jesus’ body in the tomb. We aren’t told about his faith, but he shows up again. And if it is by necessity that Jesus dies, the necessity is so that God’s mercy may flow to all who are not worthy or ready or decided in their righteousness and faith. The gospel makes demands, but the point of the good news is so that grace may abound, so that our joy may be complete. So that our part is taken up into the whole, unafraid.

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.                                                       

     In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”     

His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”  

The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?”   Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 

 But Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body.  After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing.            John 2:13-24

There are differences between the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, of course — a lot of them — but they are more similar to each other than they are different, and they are based on a similar sequence of events. John is not. John is quite different. 

John was written late in the New Testament period, and, if we might imagine the others to be snapshots of the events of Jesus’ life, John would be a stained glass window. It’s stylized, it has a different way of telling the story. John is not a historical look at Jesus. It is a theological mosaic. The difference being, it is more clearly about God revealed in Jesus, the divine Word that has become flesh and dwells among us, and it is less about Jesus, the child of Mary, through whom the power of God is at work. I don’t know if you get that distinction, but the author of John took the characters and stories that he had heard, that he found to witness to the experience of the resurrected Christ, and arranged them to tell the story. It’s a step removed from Luke’s orderly recounting of Jesus’ life – like a stained glass window is a step removed from photography.

This temple clearing episode, for example, shows up at the end of the other gospels, just a few days before Jesus’ death. It’s his last Passover. He goes to the temple and clears out the moneychangers saying they have made his father’s house a den of thieves. 

In John, though, this appears as the second story of the gospel. It is told way at the beginning because it defines his ministry and his identity. The sequence of events in John is that Jesus is baptized in the Jordan (but we just hear about it from John, we don’t see it), he calls his first disciples, they attend a wedding in the town of Cana, and then they go to Jerusalem for Passover. All faithful Jews who could manage it, came to the temple in Jerusalem for the Passover. 

The mention of Passover is a little tip-up flag. John the Baptist (just a few paragraphs earlier) called Jesus the Lamb of God. The first passover was in Egypt, when the blood of a firstborn lamb without mark or blemish was to be painted on the lintel and doorframe of the Israelite’s homes. Because of that blood, the final plague passed over them. The blood of the slaughtered lamb saved them from death. 

Jesus, the Lamb of God, comes to the temple for Passover. Spoiler alert! This event is paired back to back with an extraordinary outpouring of grace in water turned to wine at a marriage feast.  John pairs stories this way and overlaps layers of imagery from Hebrew scriptures to give us a full, thick, rich picture in such a way that we know what’s coming at the end of the gospel long before any word is directly spoken about it. He uses imagery and allusions the way a film maker uses the soundtrack and flashbacks to tell a story beneath the visual story appearing on the screen.

Back to the temple. It was huge. Within the stone walls, besides the temple itself, were marble courtyards for women, and a courtyard for gentiles – because neither of those groups could go into the sanctuary. It had various pools for ritual washing and healing using the Roman aqueduct system to bring in fresh water and fountains. It had gathering places for the elders to discuss and argue scripture, and a courtyard for rabbinical teaching to boys. It had stalls for buying food and the items that would be offered as sacrifices – so that people didn’t have to walk their lamb or bull, or carry their doves and olive oil all the way from Galilee and points beyond.  The market stalls were there as a convenience for pilgrims coming to worship; a necessity, really. Money changers exchanged the Roman and Greek coins of normal commerce for special coins that were acceptable within the temple for offerings. This was standard practice. The gospel of Matthew implies that the moneychangers and animal sellers made undue profits.  We can easily picture the venders at the state fair or a professional ball game and have an idea of the price gouging going on. But, in John, Jesus doesn’t call it a den of thieves. The motivation is different.

“Making a whip of cords, he drove them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. (I want to stress that detail, he did not drive out the people or use the whip on anyone, despite the clipart you may have seen). He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take them out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

It shouldn’t be a marketplace – the goods of God aren’t for sale or trade; the mercy, the love of God doesn’t have a price  (although Jesus’ life will be traded for 30 pieces of silver.)  The wrangling over the price of a sacrifice for the forgiveness of a sin, or a blessing of grain and oil – all of this transaction stops now. Not because it’s unjust, but because it is unnecessary… because Jesus is the new temple. Jesus is the dwelling place, the meeting place of God among people.  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” Jesus is dismantling institutional atonement. When they said, “What justification or authority, what sign can you show us for doing this?”  Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  They said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” Of course they are confused, but we’re catching on to something – and this is the second time we’ve heard about three days.

The first temple, the one Solomon built that was covered in gold, was destroyed and looted in 587 BC during the Babylonian exile. It was rebuilt, though not as grandly, beginning 71 years later. It is this second 500 year old temple that Herod the Great began rebuilding 20 years before Jesus was born. Herod enlarged the temple mount, added fortifications to expand it’s footprint on the top of Mount Moriah and rebuilt the entire temple. Work continued after Herod the Great’s death and was completed by Herod Aggripa just 6 years before the Romans destroyed the whole works in 70 AD. It was a monumental building project, under construction for the whole of Jesus life and beyond. And Jesus said, “destroy it and I’ll raise it up in three days.” And then the narrator gives it away: 

“After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”

Jesus is the temple. And this is the beginning of his ministry. The Temple, the indwelling presence and place of God on earth is he, himself. John the Baptist twice called him the Lamb of God, and where Jesus is present, the temple is no longer necessary. If his questioners had been quick enough to understand that that was his meaning, the gospel would have been a lot shorter. He would not have lived another three years. Think of what it means for the commerce of Jerusalem if the Temple is no longer necessary. If all you need is a relationship with Jesus. 

After Passover and their escape from Egypt, the presence of God travelled with the Israelites in a pillar of cloud and fire. In the wilderness, God’s presence remained with them in a tent called the tabernacle, and then later in the arc of the covenant as David moved it to Jerusalem (still in the tent) and eventually his son Solomon housed the arc in the gilded temple. The scriptures say the temple is where God – or God’s name – chooses to dwell.  

In the temple in Jerusalem, a chosen priest entered the holy of holies – an inner chamber – only once a year on the Day of Atonement to sprinkle the blood of sacrificial animals offered as ransom for the people. The temple is recognition that people need places to meet, places to be when they are seeking God’s presence in worship and prayer.

The prologue to John says Jesus is the Word of God that has become flesh and is dwelling among us (the word in Greek is tabernacling); just like the presence of God was with us in exile, so it is with us in Jesus. Dwelling in a simple tent. Not marble, not stone, but flesh like ours. No courtyards keeping women and outsiders at a distance, no more healing pools to lay beside hoping to be the first one into the water after it’s surface has been ruffled with the breath of the Holy Spirit, no more transactions and sacrifices to pay for God’s blessing or mercy. Jesus is the temple. Where Jesus is, God is.

That’s why John places this story at the beginning of the gospel. We are supposed to hold all of this imagery and background information — Lamb of God, Passover, exile, the Temple and it’s sacrificial exchange for the expiation of sin, with the memory of finest wine filling giant stone jars to the brim, the wedding feast — all of that gets packed in together at the beginning to tell us who this Jesus is, and why we should keep reading, keep leaning in to see where the story goes. John is trying to tell an irresistible story, so that we become irresistible witnesses to what happens when God comes to earth and dwells among us.

It does suggest a question as we sit in this beautiful little church where we perform the duties and rituals and sacraments of our particular faith tradition. Does it help— this church?  Where do we meet God? Where do you encounter God’s presence, in what ways are you awakened to God’s spirit? If Jesus is the temple, the final transaction in the commerce of God’s grace, then meeting Jesus is what the gospel of John is trying to help us accomplish. That might happen here, now and then.

One of the classic insights from the medieval mystics is that God is in all things and all things in God. So, if you’re looking for a relationship with the God who made you, you might encounter God – everywhere, anywhere. 

Perhaps, though, at some point that in-the-world generality isn’t enough, doesn’t satisfy the communal part of our natures. Perhaps we also need a way to be with others who are also seeking the reality of God’s presence. 

Where have you experienced the meeting place of heaven and earth in your life? Have you felt compassion, inclusive hospitality, healing, real welcome and nurturing? Have you found acceptance from others when you can’t even love yourself? Have you experienced that? In our church? At work? In a relationship or conversation? In a crisis? In the midst of some kind of service done for others? In a chance moment? 

Where, when have you known the transformative power of the risen Christ – forgiveness for all the crap you carry around, all the hurt, all the guilt, the suppression of your spirit…

Where have you felt  redeeming love beyond reason, deep joy, and peace? Maybe through music or nature or a shared love… 

Have you felt that, experienced any of that? And if so, did you, could you, share it with someone – tell your story, act out of your story? Living a new life and inviting someone else to share in it, is to say “This is what I found, come and see.” 

God’s love calls each of us to be engaged and engaging. And, God’s love for all makes that a  challenge.  It might— probably does — call us into a new relationship with ourselves, our maker, and with our world.

So in the quiet space following the sermon, try to recall your experience of dwelling in God’s love, of feeling yourself to be changed. — Retell it to yourself, remember when it was and what it felt like… hold it in mind, abide within that wonderful Word of God tenting among us. And afterward, with a bracing cup of coffee in hand, ask someone about their story.