This is it, the final candle in our Lenten journey! We’ve extinguished the candles of temptation, searching, and confession. We recognized joy as an important part of trusting God, and last week we recognized sorrow as an unavoidable part of being human. This week, they all come together in the candle of salvation.
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Dark.
Not dusk,
no moon or stars, as on a clear night;
No.
This dark was thick, oppressively thick;
All the goodness that ever existed
had been sucked out of the world.
Nothing.
Empty.
Dark.
And we were
suddenly,
completely
alone.
Dark.
It was so….
Dark.
O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
How pale Thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish, which once was bright as morn!What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.– Latin 12th c.; German, Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676)
Translated, James W. Alexander (1804-1859)
Read Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19; John 13:1-17. 31b-35
We may think of the Last Supper the way Leonardo da Vinci portrays it in his famous painting: Jesus seated at the center of a long table with his disciples on either side of him. But that’s probably not the way the room was set up. Several tables would have been arranged in a “U” shape, with couches around them, for the guests to recline as they ate.
Find your place at one of these tables. As the host, Jesus is sitting near the end of the U shape, and John is on the end, next to Jesus. John is in the “right-hand man” spot, ready to get up and provide anything the host requires during the meal. Since he is sharing a dish with Jesus, Judas must be reclining on Jesus’ left, which is the guest of honor spot. … Peter is probably on the other end of the U shaped arrangement, where he can get John’s attention and keep his eyes on Jesus throughout the meal.
Jesus has washed the feet of each disciple, demonstrating the kind of servanthood he wants them to show one another. But after he has washed their feet and returned to his place, Jesus becomes troubled, and announces that one of the twelve will betray him. It’s the guest of honor, the one who is dipping his hand into the same dish as Jesus.
Just as Jesus could wash Judas’ feet, and feed him the bread and cup he shared with all the disciples at his last meal, he expects us to offer grace and hospitality to all our sisters and brothers, even the ones who insult us, even the ones who talk about us behind our backs. Even the ones who don’t much like us. Jesus “loved them to the end” – every one of them – so that we might love one another in just the same way.
John closes this chapter with the new commandment from Jesus to love one another, just as Jesus has loved: fully, to the end, every one of us. Our identity at this Table is not so much in the noun “disciple,” but in the adjective, “beloved.”
Read Psalm 71:1-14 and John 12:20-33
During the middle of the 20th century in America, churches across America posted John 12:20 in the pulpit where the preacher could see it. “Sir, we would see Jesus” encouraged a whole generation of preachers to remember their primary task: showing Jesus to people who need a Savior.
In fact, the entire Gospel of John was written with this very purpose in mind. Near the end of the book, John writes, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31)
If “seeing is believing,” we can imagine the Greeks who came to Philip were hoping for more than a glimpse of a celebrity. They were hoping for more than an autograph. They not only wanted to see Jesus, they wanted to believe.
The literal translation of the phrase “we would see Jesus” or “we wish to see Jesus” sounds awkward to our ears. But to get a better understanding of what these Greeks meant, the literal translation might be helpful. Here’s what they were saying: “Mister, we are willing to be perceiving Jesus.” Not just “we’d kinda like to see this Jesus guy” or “we want to see him so we can tell our friends back home that we did.”
We are willing. Our desire includes the understanding that this encounter is going to change us in some way, and we are willing to take the risk. We are willing to be perceiving. We want more than the opportunity to lay eyes on Jesus. We want to perceive him, to know him, to understand him, to recognize him as the Son of God. And we realize this isn’t a one-time-and-we’re-done sort of thing. It’s an ongoing relationship. We are willing to be perceiving Jesus now and indefinitely into the future. Mister Philip, sir, we want more than a backstage pass.
We are willing to know Jesus personally, whatever that means.
Are you willing?
Want to go deeper? Here’s a full sermon on this text.
April 10, 2022
Video
Did you notice anything missing from the passage we heard to introduce the
procession today? Luke doesn’t mention palm branches. For that matter, he doesn’t have the crowd shouting “Hosanna!” either. Yet, we still call it Palm Sunday, and we still sing “Hosanna.”
It’s easy to get distracted by our traditions, isn’t it? It seems we only have to do something twice before it becomes, “the way we’ve always done it.” And we forget to actually pay attention to the story we’re hearing, because we already have in our heads the story we know. Continue reading
Entrance to Holy Week
March 28, 2019
Watch a video of this sermon here.
The line “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread” first appeared in Alexander Pope’s poem An Essay on Criticism, in 1711. The phrase usually refers to inexperienced people diving into things that people with more experience would probably avoid. A few other lines from this poem are also well known – such as “to err is human, to forgive divine;” and “a little learning is a dangerous thing.”[1] But Pope’s “fools rush in” has become an idiom in its own right.
Throughout Mark’s story of this final week, fools are rushing in everywhere: Continue reading
So tell me, how has Jesus shown up in your life during your Lenten journey, and how has reality matched your expectations?
Throughout Lent, we’ve heard of miracles and conversations with Jesus that changed lives – sometimes entire communities. All of these stories have something in common. In every case, God shows up in unexpected ways. And the signs Jesus performs all point to one truth: Jesus is the Son of God.
Jesus might be asking us, “Well, what did you expect? Didn’t you think I would show up? Don’t you know that I am with you, even to the end of the age? And shouldn’t you expect me to be faithful to work in your lives, just as I did then?
If nothing else, the season of Lent teaches us to be alert to God’s presence as we grown in faith. That growth doesn’t just happen – we cultivate it through service and solitude, prayer and study, fasting and feasting. And we have to expect God to use us in unexpected ways. Continue reading
Palm Sunday, March 20, 2016
Watch a video of this sermon here.
At the beginning of the service, we heard Luke’s account of the Palm Sunday parade. Only Luke doesn’t mention palms, and he doesn’t tell us that the crowds were crying out ‘Hosanna!’ either. Instead, Luke tells us that the “whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
The crowds are shouting the same refrain the angels sang at Jesus’ birth: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors” (Luke 2:14). Just as the angels announced the birth of Jesus, now the disciples announce the coming of Messiah into his kingdom. But, even though they claim to know that Jesus is the Messiah, they still don’t quite understand what that really means.
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”
Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, “It is written,
‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.”
Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard. – Luke 19:39-48
Last January, I walked with our tour group down the pathway from the Mount of Olives, following Palm Way in a pilgrims’ procession. We had started out early in the morning, and even though most of the trip had been cold and rainy, this day was filled with sunshine. Continue reading
When I arrived at First Church, I noticed a sign on the inside of the “front” door – the original main entrance to the church, before the parking lot was added, and people started using the “back” entrance as the main door of the church. The sign said, “Do Not Open This Door.” Not even “please leave this door closed.” Do. Not. Open. This. Door.
I preached about it. I asked the congregation to consider the implications of that sign. What did it say, not only to the community on the other side of the door, but to us on the inside? I mentioned it in Trustee meetings and Council meetings. It’s been a year and a half, and last Sunday, I asked if we could open the door for Palm Sunday and Easter, as a sign of radical hospitality to the many people who drive past our church on Sunday mornings. Continue reading
Dark.
Not dusk,
no moon or stars, as on a clear night;
No.
This dark was thick, oppressively thick;
All the goodness that ever existed
had been sucked out of the world.
Nothing.
Empty.
Dark.
And we were
suddenly,
completely
alone.
Dark.
It was so….
Dark.
O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
How pale Thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish, which once was bright as morn!What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.– Latin 12th c.; German, Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676)
Translated, James W. Alexander (1804-1859)
Always. Be. Reforming.
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