"In Truth and Action" (1 John 3:16-24)

Confessions of a Conscience Haunted by Homelessness

A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday evening, I was unwinding quietly on the couch with a cat and a book when I got a phone call. I looked at my phone and I saw “Tom ?”. The question mark is there because I don’t know Tom’s last name. I don’t know Tom’s last name because Tom is afraid to share it, even with the people he trusts. I first met Tom at Deep Run Park, where I would go to run. He was known by some of the park-goers as the “goose guy” because he would spend much of his time near the lake and look after the geese. One year, one of the geese had an injured leg. Tom hovered over that goose like its own mother and protected it to the best of his abilities.

Tom is homeless. When I first got to know him, he traveled around by bike and made makeshift tents in undisclosed locations. He had seen a social worker. He had received helped through several of the local charitable networks. And he had decided that he would never get the help he needed in these places, so he lived on his own. Today he has an old minivan that a friend gifted him. When the phone rang that Sunday evening, I was surprised to see his number. I don’t run much at Deep Run Park anymore, and it had been over half a year since I’d seen him. He was calling to ask if I knew of any good places where he could park his van at night without getting harassed. We talked about other things too. He’s a fan of English soccer, so I could commiserate with him over Liverpool’s recent woes.

Shortly after I hung up, I checked my email. I saw that I had just received a note from Lu, a woman at Gayton Road Christian Church who had been the liaison with a local homeless ministry, the Blessing Warriors (who are a little bit like MCEF). Like Tom’s phone call, the email was out of the blue. Lu was sharing news about Richmond’s inclement weather shelter for the homeless—how it was closing temporarily, and when it reopened, it would only accommodate 50 persons at a time. If you’ve followed the news, you’ve probably seen headlines about the growing homeless population, not just in places like San Francisco, but here in our own city, and all across the nation. Fifty openings in a temporary shelter is better than nothing, but it will not go very far. I thought of Tom, whom I’d just spoken with. I thought of how he was fortunate to have a van, but even so he too was struggling to find a place where he could park it in the evening and sleep in peace.

By then, my plans for a peaceful evening had been irrevocably disturbed. But the disturbances were not done. As I closed my laptop, I had one final haunting. (Three hauntings—very Dickensian! Just like Scrooge.) This final haunting was not a phone call or an email, but a fresh memory, from earlier that Sunday. When I had arrived at church, I saw by the side of the garage a shopping cart. Perhaps you saw it too. It’s a longer story than I have time for here, but here’s the short version: that shopping cart appeared on our parking lot about half a year ago, on a very rainy Sunday when a man (who was presumably without a home at the time) pushed it here all the way from Kroger down the road. His story was convoluted, but the short of it was that he was leaving on a Greyhound for Ohio the next day and needed to secure a few last items before his departure. (A friend later picked him up from our parking lot.) Ever since that day, I’ve kept the shopping cart hidden behind the garage, purposefully out of sight, with the vague intentions of one day securing a truck to take it back to Kroger. But I’d never returned it. On occasion, it has reappeared. I will arrive at the church in the morning, and there it is, sitting in plain view in the parking lot, an unwanted, unsightly, haunting reminder of homelessness. As I push it back behind the garage, I have a vague sense of guilt, as though I am trying to bury a piece of evidence.

When “Our Hearts Condemn Us”

After these three, Scrooge-like hauntings intruded on my Sunday evening, I felt this same vague sense of guilt. Was this my only response to all my homeless brothers and sisters? To push their homelessness out of view?

Guilt and shame can be paralyzing feelings. Today’s scripture seems to address this paralysis, as John writes with concern about how, on occasion, “our hearts condemn us” (1 John 3:20). That seems a very apt description of guilt and shame: “Our hearts condemn us.” So I’m very interested in what John advises. What do you do when your heart condemns you? What do you do with guilt and shame?

Well, it’s open to interpretation. Some people read John to say it’s about putting our love into action. If we simply do more good deeds, if we love “in truth and action,” then those feelings of guilt and shame will disappear. We’ll have no reason to feel that way. Or in John’s words, “we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him” (1 John 3:19). So maybe what I need to do is just to up my giving to the poor and the homeless, to attend more meetings in support of their cause, to preach more on the issues that are faced in our community, and so on. If I just do more, I’ll feel better.

But something about this interpretation rings a little hollow for me. Is John really addressing first-world problems like the shame and guilt I feel when I see others who are worse off than I am? And is he really just saying, “Come on, get with it, do more! Check off more boxes, and you’ll have a clean conscience!” That sounds to me like a merit-based spirituality, where God’s love is conditional upon my performance. It sounds to me like a faith of “works-righteousness,” that is, a sort of self-righteousness that believes I can be okay in God’s book by doing good works.

“God Is Greater Than Our Hearts”

Another interpretation, however, is that nothing we do can reassure our hearts. Rather, it is God’s unconditional love and acceptance that reassures our hearts. (We are already okay in God’s book.) Here, I appreciate how other translations render the subordinating conjunctions in a different manner. Consider the NIV’s translation: “If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:20). I hear this not as threat—“Watch out, God knows every little thing!”—but more as the comforting reassurance that God understands the difficult stories behind our flaws and shortcomings and always has compassion. (I have a friend who will say whenever he encounters a difficult person, “Well, I imagine there’s a story there,” which is his way of expressing compassion and acceptance. According to John, God always knows “the story there.”)

“If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts”—which is to say, God is greater than our shame or guilt. If our hearts condemn us, we can remind ourselves that God does not. Rather than live at the bidding of shame and guilt, we can live in the freedom of God’s love. We can be ourselves, the good selves God created us to be.

The ”Way Out”:
A Friend by Our Side

I remember a conversation I had with a friend in Sheffield, Barbora, when I was studying there. We were discussing how we responded to the people who sat outside the grocery stores and begged for money. Barbora was a psychology PhD student, researching epileptic and related seizures, which are more common among the homeless population than among the housed. She is not a Christian, at least not confessionally, but her response has stuck with me as remarkably Christlike. She said, “Well, I’m a student, and I usually don’t have spare money. But I can still give them my attention. I can give them myself. So, usually, I try to look them in the eye and say, ‘Hello…’ If they have a request, I respond, even if that’s a ‘Sorry.’ I try to share my goodwill with them.” What struck me about Barbora’s approach was how honest and humble and free it was. What she gave others was not necessarily money but something even more valuable, her honest self and the gift of a relationship (however brief). I was reminded of Barbora’s approach when, years later, I heard Pope Francis make a remark along the following lines: “The question when we give to the poor is not, ‘How much do we give?’ but rather ‘Does our hand touch theirs in the giving?’”

There is a story that gets told in recovery circles of a person trapped in a ditch. A preacher comes by and prays with him and gives him a Bible and then leaves, and he remains in the ditch. A therapist comes by and asks him about his feelings and listens to him and then leaves, and he remains in the ditch. A doctor comes by and gives him a bottle of pills and then leaves, and he remains in the ditch. Finally a stranger comes by and jumps in the ditch beside him. The man in the ditch cries out, “Are you crazy? Why did you jump down here? Now we’re both stuck in this ditch.” The stranger replies, “I’ve been in this ditch before. Take my hand; I know the way out.”

The “way out” is not a handout from above, but a friend by our side. Relationship. That is the good news of Jesus in a nutshell. “We know love by this,” that he got into the ditch with us—that is, “he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16). Laying down our lives may sound like a tall order, but at its root, it’s really simple. It’s sharing our honest, true selves with others. Entering into relationship with them. That, I think, is what “truth and action” looks like. “Truth and action” is not good deeds for the sake of chalking up points or checking off boxes and assuaging guilt or shame, but being our true selves in relationship with others, especially the needful.

I kept trying to push that shopping cart out of view, and it kept creeping back, as though to say, “You can’t hide from this.” Finally I got the message. Not a message of guilt or shame, but the message that there’s nothing to hide from. I am not to fix every problem in the world, but simply to offer my honest self to the world in friendship. There are many hurting folks who have immediate needs for food and care, and we can and should meet those needs with our donations to MCEF. But they also have a deeper need for relationship. That is why instead of hiding the shopping cart, I’ve told its story and brought it (for the next couple of weeks) inside our church doors. For me, the shopping cart stands as a remembrance of all our brothers and sisters who are in need, and as a reminder that whatever I give them, my hand can always touch theirs. I can always give them my honest self in relationship.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
You laid down your life for us—
Not just on the cross,
But in the little moments when you welcomed interruption,
Like when the bleeding woman touched you in the crowd
Or the little children were brought before you
…
May we feel deeply in our hearts and in our bodies
Your honest love and acceptance for us
And our worth in God’s eyes.
May your love inspire us to live likewise,
To share our honest selves with others.
Amen.

"We Are God's Children" (1 John 3:1-7)

The Family Way

This past Easter Sunday, I enjoyed dinner with my parents and my brother’s family. These meals bring back memories. I remember when I was a child, how I would finish my meal before before the adults and then wonder how long I needed to remain at the table before I could make the reasonable request to be excused. I remember the lure of my grandparents’ basements, where there were all sorts of special wonders, like marbles, a nerf basketball hoop, and at one point in time a ping-pong table. Truth be told, my mind was often already in the basement (so to speak) before the meal even started.

All of this to say, I can sympathize my five-year-old nephews, Nathan and Matthew. About halfway through the meal, they hastily excuse themselves and remove themselves to the back room where there sits a floor table and on it the pieces to a wooden train set. This past Easter, during a lull in the conversation, we happened to overhear Nathan and Matthew playing in the back room. It was a pleasant surprise, actually. No bickering, no yelling. Rather, we heard Nathan thoughtfully suggesting things that Matthew might like to do. “Matthew, maybe you would like to operate the crane? Maybe you would like to move Thomas?” Now, Nathan may have had ulterior motives, such as keeping Matthew on the other side of the table. But what tickled us—and pleased us—was that Nathan was, knowingly or not, reproducing the same kind of behavior that his parents and grandparents have employed with him. That is, when he seems upset or restless, they offer suggestions for constructive activities that he might enjoy doing. “Nathan, maybe you’d like to do this? Or maybe you’d like to do that?”

Nathan was mirroring what had been modeled for him. He had learned this behavior from his family, even though they had never purposely taught it to him. He learned it by experience. He learned it by being with them. He naturally imitated the family way, the good way he had seen modeled for him.

I’ve seen this imitation in other ways in Nathan. Oftentimes when I am watching them for an evening, Nathan will correct me when I’m walking them through their nighttime routine. “That’s not how my daddy does it!” The family way—it is a powerful but often unseen and unacknowledged force in our lives.

The First Word

Our scripture today follows a pattern that I see all throughout scripture. To put it simply, I would say it like this: sin comes second. Think about it. Creation begins with God’s love, with God looking upon all the world and seeing that it is good and giving it God’s blessing. Second comes the story of sin. The sacrificial rituals described in Leviticus likewise begin with God’s love and goodness. The first sacrifices described are the voluntary sacrifices, the ones that symbolize communion, in which a worshiper draws near to God because they want to, and God accepts them because God wants to be with them. Second come the instructions for the sin offering, in which a person repents of their wayward behavior. I think too of the signs in the gospel of John, how the first sign is done at a wedding, an event of love and joy. Second come the signs of healing, signs that address the reality of sin and death in the world.

Sin comes second. The traditional doctrine of original sin can mislead us to think that sin has the first word, but in scripture it does not. In scripture, the first word is God’s goodness and love. And today’s scripture is no different. Even though the writer will address the reality of sin, he begins with an altogether different word: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God…. Beloved, we are God’s children now” (1 John 3:1-2).

The first word is not sin. The first word is love. It is a reminder of our loving God, who calls us God’s children.

About Sin

Now John does get to the second word. He does address sin. At first glance, it probably sounds familiar. “You know,” John writes, “that he was revealed to take away sins” (1 John 3:5). Ah, yes, I do know about this. Christ is like a sacrificial offering. As Paul writes, Christ is our Passover lamb, who saves us from death (1 Cor 5:7). Or as John the baptizer proclaims in the gospel, “Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

You’ll have to pardon me, as one who received training as an Old Testament scholar, for taking issue with John the baptizer here. Technically speaking, John is mixing up his sacrificial metaphors. To be clear, the “lamb of God”—the Passover lamb—does not save the Israelites from sin. It saves them from the plague of death. There are no lamb sacrifices that take away sins. Bulls and goats take away sin, not lambs.

If I haven’t lost you already, hear me out. This might seem pedantic, but I think it’s actually quite significant. My point is not that John the baptizer got it wrong or that he confused his sacrificial offerings. Rather, I think he was doing what any good rabbi did. He was drawing from the strongest, richest metaphors at hand to describe the salvation of Jesus. In one deft phrase, he mixed two of the strongest Hebrew metaphors, namely the Passover lamb that saved the Israelites from death, and the sin offering at Yom Kippur that cleansed the temple and the land of sin. By combining these metaphors, he was also combining the ideas of sin and death, suggesting that sin is the real death, the real bondage from which we need delivery. He was anticipating Jesus with this move, who would say, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matt 10:28). For Jesus and John the baptizer, to be saved is not just to have some literal shackles broken (although that certainly is part of it), but also to have the spiritual shackles thrown off. We all know this truth, intuitively. We all know about spiritual shackles. Anyone who has been eaten up with envy or bent on revenge; anyone who has been consumed with getting more or obsessed with winning; anyone who has been afflicted with addictive thinking or dysfunctional relationships—anyone knows that we have a host of bad patterns of thought and deed—that is, sin—that are like chains holding us back from “abundant life” (John 10:10), from “the life that is really life” (1 Tim 6:19).

Live in Christ

Likewise, we all know, again intuitively, that there is no quick fix for this sin, for these chains. Yes, symbolically, there is a quick fix. In the Old Testament, sacrificial offerings symbolized God’s forgiveness. In the New Testament, Jesus’ love unto death on the cross symbolizes God’s forgiveness. But the important thing to remember here is that symbols are symbols. They point to a reality, but then that reality must be accepted, must be lived out, must be given flesh—incarnated. The prophets in the Old Testament knew this well. They regularly chastised the people for believing that sacrifices alone would take care of any problems. They reminded them that sacrifices can be hollow. They reminded them that they are only meaningful if they are offered in good faith, by people who are earnestly seeking and following God. Jesus is quoting one of these prophets when he says, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Matt 9:13; Hos 6:6). Or we might remember how David says in Psalm 51, “You have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give you a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit” (Ps 51:16-17). The symbolic significance of sacrificial offerings would only become real, would only find flesh, among people who were broken and honest enough about their sin.

In our scripture today, John provides his own explanation for how Jesus’ atoning sacrifice becomes real in our lives. And this is what strikes me as really good news. John doesn’t tell his listeners, with regard to their sin, “Stop it! Don’t do it!” Negative advice like this usually turns a person’s mind toward shame and the sinful behavior, so that they persist. (What we resist, persists.) It’s like telling a toddler not to do something. Your prohibition sometimes functions more like an encouragement!

Instead, John’s advice is positive and simple. “No one who abides in him [Christ Jesus] sins” (1 John 3:6). In other words, live in Christ. It goes back, I think, to the first word in today’s scripture, namely that God loves us and we are God’s children. The good news is not only that God already accepts us as we are, but also that we are part of a family. In Christ, we have special access to what might be called “the family way.” When we see the hurtful patterns of thought and deed (i.e., the sin in our world), we can like Nathan remind ourselves, “That’s not how my daddy does it!” We have more than negative advice; we have a positive example.

In Christ, we have the opportunity to learn how our daddy—our heavenly abba and eema—does it. This, I think, is how Christ “takes away the sins of the world.” Not through some magical sacrificial equation, but through modeling for us—even unto his death—the eternal way of love. Christ shows us the family way, a way of goodness, a way out of sin. “No one who [lives] in him sins” (1 John 3:6).

If the way of Christ is anything like “the family way” that we learn as children, it is not so much something we learn by someone telling us, but by someone showing us. Which is why gathering in community with brothers and sisters in Christ can be so important. Here, where are two or three are gathered in his spirit, Christ is indeed present, and we model and mirror for one another the family way. A way of forgiveness instead of retribution. A way of openness and listening instead of control and having the last word. A way of acceptance and gratitude instead of resentment and greed. A way of mercy and compassion instead of judgment and merit. A way that is gentle and humble and gives rest to our souls.

Friends, we are the beloved children of God. It is good news. We are accepted as we are even as we are shown by Christ how we might grow into our true selves as God’s children.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
Who takes away the sins of the world—
We are ever needful of your help.
Sometimes we forget we are God’s children,
And confuse ourselves with our sin
…
Remind us again of the first word
In your good news:
That we are already God’s beloved.
Lead us joyfully
In the family way.
Amen.

"What We Have Seen and Heard" (John 1:1-2:2)

“Bearing Witness”

David grew up the son of a Pentecostal music minister out in Arizona. He always assumed he’d become a music minister himself. In time, he would minister to many with his music. But not in the way that he anticipated.

In his teenage years, he began to write his own songs. Before long, he was putting out records on an alternative Christian label. His music had a compelling element that attracted listeners beyond the Christian subculture. He had a prophetic edge to him, a sharp honesty that both enticed and threatened the listener. I remember in college listening to one of his songs, the lyrics of which seemed to address the hypocrisy of religious leaders who preached one way but lived another: “Wouldn’t you like to be / on the cover of a magazine / healthy skin, perfect teeth / designed to hide what lies beneath?” His songs were all about “what lies beneath.”

If I had to guess, the kernel of David’s grievance with the church had nothing to do with the gospel, with a God of love and forgiveness. It had to do with the people who took that God’s place, who presumed to speak for God, who demanded conformity to their interpretation of things. In interviews, David has shared how his religious upbringing alienated him from reality, from his feelings, from himself. He felt so forced to think a certain way and feel a certain way and live a certain way, and there was no space for honesty and conversation. (Our brothers and sisters in Islam have a saying that goes something like this, “Where there is compulsion, there is no religion.”)

What I will share next will probably sound like a turn for the worse, but I would like to encourage you to suspend judgment for a moment. It may not be what it sounds like. In 2009, when David was thirty-three years old, he came out with an album, Curse Your Branches, in which he publicly professed the loss of his faith. On it is a song that sprung to mind as I read this week’s scripture. The song is called “Bearing Witness,” and I’d like to share with you a couple of its verses:

I clung to miracles I have not seen
From ancient autographs I cannot read.
Though I've repented [i.e., renounced belief] I’m still tempted, I admit—
But it’s not what bearing witness is.

Too full of fear and prophecy to see
The revelation right in front of me
So sick and tired of trying to make the pieces fit
Cause it’s not what bearing witness is.

What is “bearing witness”? David concludes that it is simply being honest. “Let go of what you ‘know’ / and honor what exists / Son, that’s what ‘bearing witness’ is.”

“The Things That Your Eyes Have Seen”

Our scripture today is an exercise in precisely the “bearing witness” that David is describing—namely honesty, “honor[ing] what exists,” celebrating not some doctrine from on high but our flesh-and-blood experience: “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands” (1 John 1:1). According to 1 John, our faith is not about a separate reality, a place we only know secondhand or in the third-person, a realm removed from this world that we do not know now but will later, as though God were there but not here. No, our faith is about the goodness of God that we have come to know right here—through what we’ve heard, seen, and touched.

I’m reminded of the way that Moses talks about faith when he prepares the Israelites to enter the Promised Land. Even though the old generation has died and he is addressing a new generation, a group of people who did not all experience the exodus from Egypt and all of the events in the wilderness, he insists: “Not with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us alive here today” (Deut 5:3). Now, as rabbis have pointed out for centuries, this claim is literally false. God made the covenant forty years prior to this moment, with the fathers and mothers of the people to whom he is speaking now. But perhaps this statement is true in another way. I think Moses is making a fundamental claim here about faith. For it to be real and authentic, it must not only be inherited but also experienced. It must not be only about “miracles we have not seen” and “ancient autographs we cannot be read”; it must not be from “fear” or “prophecies” of exclusion, whether from a community or an afterlife later; rather, it must be, in some way, from our own experience. “Not with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant, but with us” (Deut 5:3). He is inviting this new generation to understand themselves as God’s partners, to understand that what God did with their parents, God is doing now with them. Maybe they didn’t experience the crossing of the sea or the early miracles in the desert, but they have their own experiences to draw from, which are just as valid. “Take care,” Moses says, “and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life” (Deut 4:9).

Then Moses makes a claim about God that I think has been largely forgotten or neglected. “Acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above”—everyone knows that; no surprises there—“and on earth below; there is no other” (Deut 4:39). The Lord is God “on earth below”? That would mean that the Lord is God now, here. God is no different on earth than God is in heaven. What we see and hear and touch, is what we get. It’s all one reality. The reason that the gospel makes such a splash in the world, is that it reclaims this fundamental truth. It insists that within what we see and hear and touch, is God. Within this world, is the kingdom of God.

Faith as an Honest Story

I suppose what I’m hearing in today’s scripture and its counterpart passages in Deuteronomy is a reminder that faith is, at root, an honest story. What I think the writer of 1 John is getting at, is this. The good news that changes people’s hearts is not some memorized formula of truth, but our honest story. I know this might be pushing the envelope, but I believe it is worth pushing: I would suggest that there are no “right answers” in church, that the only “right answer” is an honest answer. At the Lenten Bible study, someone brought up the concept of the “priesthood of the believer,” which is an idea that gained popularity in the Protestant Reformation and therefore sits close to the heart of our own Disciples tradition. The priesthood of the believer is just a way to say that because “the Lord is God…on earth below,” each of us encounters God equally. Each of our honest experiences is equally sacred.

If you’re like me, perhaps sometimes you doubt that your own experience is shiny enough or compelling enough to be good news for someone else. So I appreciate how 1 John emphasizes the need for honesty, especially about our shortcomings. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). To manufacture that cover-worthy image, that “healthy skin” and “perfect teeth,” is in fact a disservice to the good news. Not only does it “hide” the broken reality that “lies beneath,” it also hides the grace and forgiveness of God. The good news is not all about us. It’s not that we are perfect. The good news is about God, that in Christ God accepts us as we are and liberates us from the chains of the past: “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Looking for the Fingerprints of Christ

I don’t know how David Bazan, the musician whose music I mentioned earlier, would describe his faith today, or lack of it. But I do know that now he sings about what he has seen and heard, about what he has touched with his own hands. I do know that his honesty is much closer to the good news than any formula of truth is, and that like a good minister he invites the same honesty from his listeners. I suspect that he is himself closer to Christ now than he was before, whether or not he uses that name.

If it’s not obvious already, I feel a real sympathy toward David. I see many parallels between him and my friends who have left the church. Although some friends can articulate better than others the reasons they have left, I sense a common theme in all their stories, namely a sense of disenchantment or quiet disappointment. The “good news” that they had heard in church just seemed too disconnected from reality. It seemed cliquish and otherworldly, more like escapist propaganda than a deeply rooted trust in the goodness of a God who is with us right here, right now. It lacked the vibrancy of flesh-and-blood experience and the wild, nitty-gritty grace that does not abide by formulas.

I consider myself very fortunate to have known honest Christ-followers who shared with me not a cookie-cutter story of salvation, but the bumps and bruises and beauty of a real faith. I have known that among you. Oftentimes it’s in passing conversation at a table. Hmm. Oftentimes it’s at a table…

“We declare to you…what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life” (1 John 1:1). The good news of God’s love is not in another world behind the clouds, but here in this very life—if you would believe it—in all the ways that we have been touched and transformed by Christ and his kingdom-way of love, forgiveness, and peace. This Easter season, I invite you to ponder the fingerprints of Christ on your life: what you have heard and seen, and especially how you’ve been touched, by Christ. And you might remember that, as poet Gerald Manley Hopkins reminds us, “Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his.” Christ may have touched you through a parent, a river, a book, a child, an ocean of tears, a friend, the eyes of a wild animal, an eruption of laughter—through anything that brought to you the good news of God’s love, forgiveness, and grace.

And if your story is not a cover-worthy success story, well, all the better. We do not proclaim ourselves. We proclaim the God who is love.

Prayer

Holy God,
Who is Lord not only in heaven but also on earth below,
Who is revealed in the very midst of our lives,
In what we have seen and heard and touched—
Sometimes, like the disciples in the locked room,
We are afraid that you are gone
And we are alone
…
Greet us, like them,
With your peace, your encouragement,
And grant us hearts of faith
To know your presence
And declare your goodness in our midst.
In Christ, whom we have seen and heard and touched: Amen.

"Not to All the People" (Acts 10:34-43)

Sightings of the Departed 

Simon had only ever really connected with his father over one thing. “Football”—or soccer, as we Americans call it. His father had played soccer in his younger days, and in his older days he watched it profusely.  Simon followed the same team as his dad (Liverpool), and he would go on to indoctrinate—or “raise”—his own children to share this loyalty as well.

Some years after his father had passed away, Simon went to a match with his nephew. It must have been cold. Before the match, he got in line for a cup of steaming Bovril, which is like beef bouillon on steroids. Rich, thick, beefy. (I enjoyed a cup myself once at a freezing cold match, and it was like having lunch in a liquid.) As Simon waited in one line, he noticed in the line next to him a man who looked familiar—“the shape of his face, his nose, olive pock-marked skin, his double chin, his hair, his gait. Everything was identical.” It was his father. He stared at this man for the longest time, and although the man was looking back in his general direction, he never returned Simon’s gaze.

Later that night, in the quiet of the car as he drove his nephew home, he shared his story. His nephew said he’d seen him too.[1]

I’ve heard many similar stories from friends. Sightings of a departed loved one. Sometimes it is in an animal that the loved one adored, like a butterfly or bird. Sometimes it is in a feature of the natural world, like a tree or a cloud.

What is it that we see, I wonder, when we see a dear one who is gone? For one thing, we are seeing something very special. Anyone else who looks upon the same sight would see just a butterfly, or just a man with olive, pock-marked skin. But we see more. In the very same image, we see an eternal depth, a life that we loved and love still. We see our love. We see what our heart really believes in.

From Doubters to Believers

If you’ll permit me one further indulgence, to speak just a moment longer about Liverpool…. In 2018, they lost in the final match of the Champion’s League, which is the like the European soccer equivalent of the World Series or the Super Bowl. (It's a big deal.) Later, some footage emerged of the Liverpool coach dancing and singing with fans after the match. For outsiders, this was unfathomable. Didn’t they just lose? How could they be singing? When the Liverpool coach had first taken on the job, he had made a bold declaration that he hoped to turn the fans from “doubters into believers.” And clearly he had. Because these fans with whom he was singing, were not looking at their loss. They were looking upon something deeper. They were looking upon their love for the game, their love for their team, and their eternal joy, their eternal hope to return to that same summit. And in fact that is what happened. The next year, Liverpool made it back to the final match of the Champion’s League, and that year they won. (But if you ask me, their victory began much earlier. As early as a year before, when they lost.)

Are not our sightings of loved ones a similar phenomenon? Is it not that they touched us in a special way and transformed us, so that even in our loss we find ourselves singing? Is it not that they turned our hearts from doubters to believers? … And by “believers,” I do not mean thinkers who have accepted a set of doctrines. I mean hearts-on-the-sleeve followers, like fans who follow their team all across the continent, or like lovers who have given themselves in trust to each other. Our loved ones made us believers, and so we see them everywhere. We cannot not see them.

More Than a Divine Magic Trick

I could understand if, hearing all of this on Easter Sunday, you were led to wonder—But isn’t the resurrection of Jesus different than the sightings of our loved ones? Isn’t it more “real”? The gospels make clear that it was not simply an apparition of Jesus that his followers saw, but that it was Jesus in the flesh, a Jesus who ate and drank with them, a Jesus who invited them to touch his scars.

It is certainly true that the resurrection we proclaim is not a ghostly Jesus but a Jesus in the flesh. But if we were to reduce the resurrection to a divine magic trick of bodily resuscitation, to a supernatural phenomenon that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt God’s power, then I fear we would miss out on its good news. In today’s scripture, Peter is proclaiming the good news of Christ in a nutshell to a Roman (gentile) audience. Much of it is familiar, but one line jumps out at me. “God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses” (Acts 10:40-41).

Not to all the people…. Other scriptures attest similarly to this fact, namely that only the followers of Jesus saw the resurrected Jesus (e.g., 1 Cor 15:5-8). If the point of the resurrection was to prove to the world, particularly to the doubters, that Jesus was the messiah, then we have to conclude it did not accomplish its objective. But maybe that wasn’t the point.

No Resurrection Scenes…

Think back to the gospels and their portrayal of the resurrection. Not a single one shows us the moment that Jesus’ life returns to his body, the moment when breath enters his lungs again and he sits up and exits the tomb. The gospels do not show us the resurrection.

Instead, they show us scenes of recognition. In John, we have Mary Magdelene in the garden suddenly crying out in joy, “Rabbouni!” before she runs to tell the other followers, “I have seen the Lord!” (John 20:16-18). In Matthew, we have Mary Magdelene and Mary the mother of Jesus brought to their knees in wonder and worship when they recognize the risen Christ (Matt 28:9). In Luke, we have the Emmaus travelers whose hearts are suddenly set aflame when they realize they have seen Christ (Luke 24:3). And later in John, we have Simon Peter half-naked jumping into the sea, unable to wait until the boat reaches the shore where Jesus stands (John 21:7).  The joy of the disciples in each of these recognition scenes practically leaps off the page—just as Peter has joyfully leapt off the side of that fishing boat.

Not Resuscitation, But Recognition

For me, these stories make clear that the resurrection of Jesus is not about resuscitation but about recognition. His resurrection is not presented as a physical miracle that decides our faith for us, but rather as a reality that flows from our faith. It’s not that seeing is believing, but that believing is seeing. We see that in which our hearts really believe. To whom does the resurrected Jesus appear? The very people whom he has already touched and healed, whom he has transformed from doubters into believers. And it’s no coincidence that they recognize him in precisely the same deeds of love that touched them in the first place, that turned them from doubters into believers. They recognize him in the breaking of bread, as on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:35). They recognize him in the proclamation of peace and forgiveness, as in the locked room filled with fearful followers (Luke 24:36-37; John 20:19, 21-23). They recognize him in his tenderness and compassion, as with doubting Thomas (John 20:26-27). They recognize him in his invitation to love, as with Peter in his seaside conversation with Jesus (John 21:15-19).

Scripture tells us that soon enough—40 days later—Jesus would ascend into heaven. But his followers continued to see him. Okay, not the bodily Jesus—but the results are no different. Acts tells about Jesus appearing in dreams and visions, giving guidance and encouragement (Acts 9:10; 18:9-10; 22:17-21; 23:11). And repeatedly the writers of the New Testament claim that the followers of Jesus give flesh to his body. The point of these claims, that Christ remains with us spiritually, is not to give anyone proof of God’s power, but rather to show us that the followers of Jesus are real believers. Again, not as thinkers who accept a set of doctrines, but as hearts-on-the-sleeve followers, like fans who follow their team all across the continent, or like lovers who abandon themselves in trust to each other. They are true believers, and so they see Christ everywhere. They cannot not see him.

Easter, then, is not about a single event that happened in the past. It is about a new reality, a new way of seeing the world, that begins not with the resurrection but with a love that transforms us, a love that is as real in Jesus’ teaching and healing as it is in his death on the cross as it is in his resurrection after the cross. Jesus in his love has changed us in our hearts from doubters to believers, and so we see the possibilities of his love in all the world. The world is filled with eternal depth. We cannot not see him. This is the song that Paul is repeatedly singing, that God’s love is alive and transforming everything for the better. “See,” he says, again reminding us that resurrection is inextricably connected with recognition—“See, everything has become new!” (2 Cor 5:17).

Like the sightings of our departed loved ones, the recognition of the risen Christ is special. Anyone else looking upon the sight might see nothing of interest, nothing other than a ray of sunshine or a simple hug or a smile. But we see more. In the very same image, we see an eternal depth, a love that loved us and loves us still. We see what our heart really believes in.

Prayer

Christ of our hearts,
Whose love is transforming us
From doubters to believers—
Today we celebrate your resurrection,
The way your love lives on and inspires
All creation with possibility and new life.
Where doubt or despair lingers,
Help us to see beyond the surface, beyond the grave, beyond closed doors
…
Help us to see your love
Making all things new.
In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.

 

---

[1] Simon Critchley, What We Think about When We Think about Soccer (New York: Penguin, 2017), 34-36.

"You Will Never..." (John 13:3-8, 12-15)

“An Insulting Depiction”

In 2014, St. Albans Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina, installed a statue on the church grounds that depicts a homeless person sleeping on a bench. If you get close enough to the statue, you can see that the homeless person is Jesus—there are the marks of crucifixion on his feet.

The response of the neighbors to this newcomer in the community was mixed. One neighbor called the cops on this homeless person. Another who got close enough to see who this homeless person really was, wrote in to the editor to express their displeasure. The statue, they said, was “an insulting depiction of the son of God.”

In the Beginning and at the End

“Insulting.” I imagine this word or a similar one flashed through Peter’s mind when he said to Jesus, “You will never wash my feet.”

There at that last Supper, Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem ends exactly as it started—with Peter (of all people) rebuking him.

At the beginning, Peter rebukes Jesus for talking about suffering and death. At the end, Peter rebukes Jesus for getting on his knees like a slave.

Of all the rejections that Jesus endured, perhaps Peter’s at the beginning and the end are the most important. They are a sobering reminder that Jesus’ closest followers continually mistake the messiah for their own aims. They confuse Christ with getting their way.

Peter’s Humiliation

Our familiarity with tonight’s foot-washing scene has domesticated it into an appealing illustration of what we have called “servant leadership.” Servant leadership, in our world, often masquerades as selflessness when it fact it serves its own self-interest. We only have to think of how individuals and companies make altruistic gestures as a way to build their brand, boost their profile, and get ahead. If we had done a foot-washing service tonight, whoever did the foot-washing (whether it was me or an elder) would likely win a little favor in the eyes of others, if for no other reason than being willing to handle the feet of others, which is an intimate and somewhat uncomfortable thing in our world.

But what Jesus is doing here is no publicity stunt. In the ancient Greco-Roman world, washing feet was something slaves did. (“Slave leadership” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it?) We do not have slavery today in the form that we so shamefully did, so the meaning may be lost on us a little bit. But what Jesus is doing, is taking on the role of a slave. In Peter’s mind, Jesus has just overstepped the boundary. Jesus is not doing a good deed, like holding open the door or allowing others to first. Such things might buy a person the good favor of others. Jesus is humiliating himself.

The foot-washing scene is not a tender picture of a servant’s heart. It is a humiliating picture of a messiah who seems to have it all backwards. And this is why Peter rebukes Jesus. When he began following this rabbi, he yoked his identity with him. Jesus’ glory would be his glory. Jesus’ shame would be his shame. “You will never wash my feet,” is not merely Peter being a bit embarrassed for Jesus or trying to protect his reputation. It is Peter being embarrassed for himself. He’s protecting himself.

An Example of Shameless Love

“I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (John 13:15). The example Jesus sets us, is not just doing good deeds. It’s not just selfless behavior. It is unashamed love. It is a love that is willing to be identified with the wrong crowd. A love that is willing to be branded “insulting.”

In our world, the lines between social groups have shifted. We stand little risk of humiliating ourselves as a slave. But we do stand the risk of being caught watching the wrong channel, reading the wrong news source, rubbing shoulders with the wrong crowd. Our tribes demand loyalty. Our tribes say that it is more important to be right than to be caring.

But the example of shameless love that Jesus sets for us, is otherwise. Jesus invites us to care for others, even if it puts us on the wrong side of the fence. The “slave Jesus” invites us to see people before we see problems, to see Christ in them instead of our contempt, whether we’re looking at the homeless, the immigrant, the addict, the protester, the black sheep of the family, the counter-protester, the criminal, the atheist, the Russian—the list is endless.

As endless as Christ’s unashamed love.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
Your example sometimes looks like losing,
Like humiliation,
Yet you are unashamed.
…
Ground us in the same love
In which you are grounded,
That we might bear unto others
Your unashamed care.
Amen.

"The Stone That the Builders Rejected" (Mark 11:1-11)

Unseen Possibility and Growth

In fourth grade, my class read The Secret Garden together. Everyday, we’d sit in a circle and the teacher would read several pages. It became my favorite part of the school day, rivalling even recess. The thought astonishes me today—that I would have been transfixed by the story of a garden. Where I’m living now, there are a couple of raised beds in the backyard, but I’ve left them untouched. Gardening is not a hobby that I’ve learned to enjoy.

Why, I wonder, was I so fascinated by this book? I remember that in the spring of my fourth-grade year, I was so inspired by the story, that I asked for a little plot of the back yard in which to grow something. My mom happily obliged. Day after day, I would wander by that patch of ground to see if anything had happened. Slowly but surely, a plant did emerge. And not by my power. I was hardly doing anything.

I wonder, in fact, if that were not the root of my fascination with The Secret Garden. Beneath the story of a garden, is the story of unseen possibility and growth. Beneath the story of shrubs and flowers, is the story of an unseen energy, an unseen spirit. The “secret garden” becomes a metaphor for the secret power and possibility of love. Not only do the plants in the garden grow, but the children in the story, who each have a tragic background, come alive in a new way. The children come to refer to the unseen energy and power of the garden as “magic.” But Mrs. Sowerby, a motherly, salt-of-the-earth figure in the story, refers to it simply as “the Good Thing.” “I never knowed it by that name [magic] but what does th’ name matter? I warrant they call it a different name i’ France an’ a different one i’ Germany. Th’ same thing as set th’ seeds swellin’ an’ th’ sun shinin’ made thee a well lad an’ it’s th’ Good Thing. It isn’t like us poor fools as think it matters if us is called out of our names. Th’ Big Good Thing doesn’t stop to worrit, bless thee. It goes on makin’ worlds by th’ million—worlds like us. Never thee stop believin’ in th’ Big Good Thing an’ knowin’ th’ world’s full of it.”

“Save Us! … Give Us Success!”

Today’s scripture is a familiar one. We read the same story every year on this Sunday, Palm Sunday. Jesus enters Jerusalem ahead of the Passover festival, and a crowd lines the road and cheers him, with leafy branches and shouts of praise. But the shouts of praise are interesting. They’re not the spontaneous exclamations of inspired individuals. They are quotations drawn from Israel’s prayerbook, the Psalms. In fact, it is quite possible that they are sung, that the crowd are not just shouting their praise, they’re singing it.

The psalm that they are singing appears to be Psalm 118, which in Jewish tradition is sung at the conclusion of the Passover meal. It is, therefore, a song that would have been on the people’s mind as they prepare for the Passover feast. Of course, it would have had a special meaning for the followers of Jesus. “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” would refer not to some nameless savior in the future, but to the man in front their eyes, Jesus.

“Hosanna” means “save us, please.” It comes from the very same root that Jesus’ name comes from. In the Hebrew, you can hear the resonance. “Hoshi’a” and “Yeshua” (Jesus) come from the root word yasha, which means “to save.” The crowd are calling for Jesus to do what his name says he will do. In the song that they are singing (if it is indeed Psalm 118), the cry for salvation is expanded into a plea for success: “Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!” (Ps 118:25). It’s a small detail, maybe, but a significant one, in my thinking. Do we not often ourselves conflate salvation with success, rescue with what we want? When the crowd moves on to sing, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David,” I hear echoes of a tribal battle cry, a partisan proclamation, “Make us great again, and our enemies small.”

Just Resentments Waiting to Happen

The recovery community has a helpful adage, “Expectations are just resentments waiting to happen.” To be clear, expectations are different from hope. Hope is not so definite, so controlling. It does not prescribe what happens next, but only trusts in the possibility of goodness, the possibility of growth. In my view, the story of Palm Sunday is not about hope, but about great expectations. Expectations that will be dashed and ground to disappointment, expectations that will fester into resentment and resignation. The crowd that cries, “Hosanna,” will in several days cry, “Crucify him.”

It seems, in fact, that every expectation is reversed in Holy Week. All of the kingly, messianic symbols sit askew on Jesus. He processes in, not on a war horse, but on a beast of burden. He will wear not a crown of jewels, but of a crown of thorns. People will proclaim him king (“hail, king of the Jews!”), but in a mocking tone accompanied with spitting and hitting. He will be high and lifted up, but on a cross. Most kingdoms begin with the deaths of their enemies (as was the case in this nation), but his kingdom will begin with the death of the king.

“Give Us Control”

There is an extremely prescient, prophetic line hidden in Psalm 118, the song of praise that the crowd sings on Palm Sunday: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone”  (Psalm 118:22). We’ve been talking this Lent about the rejections that Jesus endures en route to the cross. Well, in a single line, this song tells the story of our rejection of Jesus. The builders have a plan. A blueprint. A vision for the building. They see a stone that doesn’t fit, and so they throw it away. Reject it. And yet it is this very stone that will become the cornerstone of their salvation.

I believe this single line tells a universal story. We humans are like builders. Which means we have our plans, blueprints, tools. We want to be in control. In control of ourselves, in control of others, in control of the circumstances around us. Is this not the prayer we hear in Psalm 118? “O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!” Give us control.

Building Vs. Growing

But as I ponder this line—“the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone”—as I turn it over in my heart, I become aware of its oddity, its strangeness. When Jesus talks about the kingdom, he uses a very different metaphor. He repeatedly talks about sowing and growing. This agricultural metaphor harbors a host of suggestions about the kingdom. Chief among them is the suggestion that we are not in control of the kingdom. We are not its builders. We do not have the master plan. As Jesus says in one of his parables, “[The farmer] would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how” (Mark 4:27).

Elsewhere Jesus talks about the kingdom as something we receive, whether as little children who trustingly receive a gift from their parent, or as a person who receives an invitation to enter a banquet. Again, it is clear, the kingdom is not something we build. Rather, it is already here, sometimes as small as a seed. Our duty is not to build it or construct it, but to trust in its growth and to receive it as though it were already among us, as Jesus says it is.

What We Need:
The Unseen Power of Love

I think back to how The Secret Garden captivated me as a fourth grader. The secret, unseen energy and growth and possibility that was bigger than me, bigger than my control, was not a threat but in fact good news. It was, as Mrs. Sowerby called it, “the Big Good Thing.” The irony of Palm Sunday is the irony that what we want is often the opposite of what we need. We want control, we want to be builders. But the cornerstone of God’s salvation is the opposite. It is trust and dependency, care and nurture. God is love, not power.

For much of Lent, I’ve referred to Jesus’ brokenness, which, admittedly, can risk giving the wrong impression. I do not think Jesus is helpless. Rather I think Jesus is infinitely helped by the Spirit of God who dwells within him. I think Jesus’ brokenness is in fact his greatest strength. I think it shows us a very different kind of power than the one we want, than the one that we cry for when we cry, “O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!” Jesus’ brokenness is the poverty of spirit, the need, that draws him into the care and nurture of God, which is the Big Good Thing, the unseen energy and growth and possibility that brings life from death, that turns a single grain of wheat into much fruit, that renews the face of creation.

In the Lenten Bible Study small group, we talked recently about the symbolic significance of gardens in the Bible. Whatever else they are, they are also reminders of that original goodness and intimacy that we humans enjoyed with God. Is it a coincidence that Jesus’ metaphors of seeds and growth present God’s kingdom as a garden?

This Palm Sunday, as Jesus enters Jerusalem and the crowd dreams of control and fantasizes about its blueprints for success finally realized, I’m thinking it may be worthwhile for me to pause and ponder the difference between what I want and what I need. It may be worthwhile to ponder how Jesus disappoints my expectations, how my expectations may even become resentments and resignation. But if I ponder this, I hope I do not stop there. For the good news is that the stone I reject, is in fact my salvation. This seemingly powerless man Jesus, in fact bears witness to an extraordinary power, the Big Good Thing. I may take a page from Jesus’ book, and look for God’s kingdom right here, not as something I build, but as seeds growing by the unseen power of love. As the child Mary declares in The Secret Garden, and I think she’s onto the gospel of God’s love here—“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”

Prayer

Dear Christ,
Sometimes we look toward you
With great expectations
Instead of with hope
…
This Palm Sunday,
Help us to distinguish
Between our wants and needs.
Help us to relinquish our blueprints
And instead to marvel
At the growth in our midst,
At the Big Good Thing of love,
Fallen like a grain of wheat
And bearing much fruit.
Amen.

"For This Reason I Have Come" (John 12:20-33)

Glory

A couple of weeks ago, I got a phone call from my brother. Well, really, it was from my nephew, Nathan, whose voice interrupted my brother’s with an enthusiastic announcement. “Hey Uncle Jonny. Did you know that Liverpool plays tomorrow? If they win, they will be in first place. But if they lose and Arsenal wins, then they will be in second place. We hope they win! We want to be in first place, not Arsenal.” It is immensely gratifying—more gratifying than I would have expected—to have my nephew Nathan share this sports passion of mine for Liverpool.

A few months ago, Nathan knew nothing about soccer. Then, something sparked, and he has suddenly become a sponge for our family pastime. He’s always asking questions about the teams, the players, the rules of the game. My brother tells me that every morning he asks to see a schedule of the matches being played that day. He even knows the names of clubs in the lower divisions—the minor league teams, so to speak. “Shrewsbury”—he said to me once, out of nowhere, referring to an obscure team in the third division. “That’s a funny name!”

Where did this sudden fascination with soccer and Liverpool come from? My brother and I have always had Liverpool games on the TV. Why did Nathan so abruptly sit up and take notice of this family interest now? I can’t know for certain, but I think it has to do with his beginning to grasp the idea of competition, of winning and losing. Games like Chutes and Ladders and Connect Four have taught him that it is fun to win. It feels good to come in first. Now that he is oriented toward the basics of competition, he can appreciate what’s going on in a soccer game, in a league. He has begun to identify with a team, and he wants them to be champions, because he wants to be a champion.

All of this is to say, Nathan has not only been learning about soccer. He has been learning about the meaning of glory. He has been learning the traditional values of the world, whether we’re talking about sports or politics or the job world. Glory is the synonym that ties together all the things we desire: ability, achievement, recognition, winning, strength, success.

Glory.

Theology of Glory

When Martin Luther issued his criticisms of the church in the early 1500s—jumpstarting the Reformation, from which our own tradition would eventually emerge—he seized particularly on this word: glory. He said that the church had confused glory with God. Which is to say, the church confused success, size, prosperity, power, winning and so on, with God. It viewed the world in the simplistic terms of good-things-as-rewards and bad-things-as-punishment. If good things happened, it meant God was with you and rewarding you for your virtue. If bad things happened, it meant God was not with you and punishing you for your sins.

He called this way of thinking and looking at the world, a “theology of glory.” A theology of glory has to have victory at the finish line. So it tends to dismiss pain and difficulty and look instead to what purpose they might serve. When something bad happens, a theology of glory will rationalize it as a means to a glorious end. A bad thing becomes a lesson from which we learn or an experience that toughens us up. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is part of a theology of glory.

In contrast to this theology of glory, Martin Luther held up what he called a “theology of the cross.” In a theology of the cross, God is not confused with success. Rather, God is the free gift of love, which sometimes meets with great suffering. Luther did not see the cross as a gruesome means to a glorious end, as a transaction by which Christ paid for our entry into heaven. Luther saw the cross as a show of love. A theology of glory says that God must have a card up his sleeve when he goes to the cross. Luther says, No. Love does not have a card up its sleeve. It’s not a trick or a transaction. It is a good thing, in and of itself, even when it meets with the worst thing in the world. 

Redefining Glory:
The Glory of God

In our scripture today, Jesus has reached Jerusalem, and anticipation is building. News of Jesus’ teaching and healing has spread to the point that even Greeks—outsiders—have journeyed to Jerusalem. They implore Philip in today’s scripture, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (John 12:20). People want to see Jesus. They want to see with their own eyes what he’s all about.

What Jesus is all about—well, that’s something Jesus himself ruminates on in today’s scripture. He refers repeatedly to “the hour [that] has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23; cf. John 12:27-28). But he’s not anticipating a victory or a triumph, not in the traditional sense. He’s not anticipating the glory that the crowds are hoping to see.

“My soul is troubled,” he says (John 12:27). He is wrestling with himself: “What should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour” (John 12:27). Jesus affirms the cross. He says “Yes” to it. Not as a means to an end. Not as a transaction. But as the reason itself that he is here. The cross is the glory of God.

The Cross

It’s very easy, and very tempting, to look beyond the cross, to look for resurrection. Jesus himself talks about a grain of wheat, and how it must die in order to bear much fruit (John 12:24). Ah!—we might think. The card up his sleeve. This is what it’s all about. His death is really a detour to a greater destination. A stepping stone to a glorious end.

I don’t mean to challenge the promise of resurrection, not at all. But I do want to point out that Jesus anticipates “the hour…for the Son of Man to be glorified” not as the moment of resurrection, but as the moment of crucifixion. I want to point out that “the judgment of this world,” of which he speaks, when “the ruler of this world will be driven out,” is not identified with the moment of resurrection, but with the moment of crucifixion. Something happens on the cross that is valuable in itself, that is in fact more valuable than anything else. Resurrection may be an outgrowth of the cross, just as a seed gives root and grows, but the cross is the thing. The reason Jesus has come. The judgment of the world. The driving out of the devil. The glory of God. It’s all in the cross.

The Moment of Truth

Jesus’ repeated references to “the hour” toward which he has come and his mention of “the judgment of this world” lead me to think about the cross as “a moment of truth.” A moment of truth is a pivotal event, a “crucial” event, at which point something is revealed and also something must be decided. What is revealed on the cross is God’s love. What must be decided for all who have gathered to see what Christ is all about, is, “Do I trust in this love that has ended up on a cross?” What must be decided is, “Is this a moment of victory, or a defeat? Is this a moment of glory, or shame and disgrace?”

One of the earliest artistic representations of the crucifixion is a piece of Roman graffiti. (See here.) It depicts a man with a donkey’s head on a cross, and the inscription, “Alexamenos worships [his] God.” Needless to say, the graffiti artist has made his decision about the cross. It is a shameful, mockable defeat. A God who dies? A joke. People who worship him? Losers. There, in the heart of Rome, the center of power, the graffiti artist shakes his head and thinks, Pitiful. Could you get any further away from the idea of glory?

Again, the temptation is to jump to what we as readers long familiar with the story already know, which is the resurrection. It is tempting for us, in turn, to mock this graffiti artist, to say, “A-ha! But we know something you don’t.” It is tempting to make our judgment based on what happens next, to treat the cross as a means to an end, as a temporary stopover en route to a glorious eternal destination. But this is not the way that Jesus sees things. For Jesus, the cross is the reason he’s here, the hour of glory, the victory over the devil. The thing itself. It is confounding. It sounds like foolishness and weakness to the world, who checks the scores each morning to see who won, the papers to see who’s leading in the polls, and the stock market to see who’s ahead.

The Glory of the Cross

And yet to us, the cross is good news. Our faith is not based on a miracle that decides matters for us. It is based on our own decision that this love, exemplified in Christ on the cross, is worth it. It is based on a very different understanding of glory—not success, but steadfast love.

I have a friend who is going through a difficult divorce in the wake of a grand deception that is only now coming to full light. I see in her situation the glory of the cross, a dogged faith that love is worth it even when it meets with pain and difficulty.

I have another friend in the hospital who is suffering from a disease that the doctors cannot explain. I see in his situation the glory of the cross, a determination to bear love to his family and others even though it does not bring an ounce of physical relief.

I think of all of us in times of loss and grief, and I see the glory of the cross. To put it plainly, I see the victory of love. In our gratitude for the gift of another’s life. In the care we show for one another.

We haven’t made it to Easter yet, so I’m hesitant to say much about resurrection. But I think in light of this difficult glory, it’s worth saying this. For Jesus, the resurrection was not a victory dance. He did not parade himself in front of his doubters, in front of the religious leaders, in front of the future graffiti artists who would mock him. If they couldn’t see his glory on the cross, they wouldn’t see it properly in his resurrection either. For Jesus, the glory of the resurrection is one and same with the glory of the crucifixion. It is cut of the exact same fabric—namely, love. The glory of love is the same on the cross as it is on Easter morning. It is the glory of a love no matter what. Its no-matter-whatness is what is stronger than death.

The followers of Jesus who trusted in this love, saw it in both places: the crucifixion and the resurrection.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
We have at various points
Tasted the glory of this world,
Success, achievement, wealth—
And it does not satisfy.
We are hungry and thirsty
For something else.
…
Give us eyes to see the cross
As the victory of your love,
And hearts to trust in the goodness of your way,
Even when it is hard and narrow.
Amen.