The Story of a Scar (John 20:19-31)

Not a Safe Bet

There once was a young man who fell in love. After some time, he began to wonder about marriage. But he agonized over the idea. How could he know beyond a shadow of a doubt that his beloved was in fact “the one”? So, one day he visited his father and asked, “How can I know if she’s the one?”

His father chuckled, shook his head, and said: “You can’t.”

“What do you mean?” the son asked. “Didn’t you know Mom was the one?”

His father shook his head and said, “Love is not something you know. It’s not a safe bet. It’s something you do, come hell or high water. If I had known everything that would have happened between your mother and me, then marriage wouldn’t have been such a big decision. It would have been about as big a decision as where we’re going to eat dinner tonight. In other words, we know exactly what we’re going to get at each restaurant. But when I asked your mother to marry me…I had no idea what was coming.”

Over the next hour, the young man’s father opened up and shared about several disappointments. He shared how, in moments of misunderstanding, he and his wife had said and done hurtful things, things that had since been forgiven but could never be forgotten. He shared how their desires for the future sometimes conflicted and how they had both given up on some of their own dreams. He shared how raising children and caring for parents had placed a heavy tax on their own time together.

His father said, “No…I had no idea what I was getting into. There’s been a lot of joy, but there’s also been a lot of hurt…hurt that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. If you look closely enough, you’ll see that this marriage has a number of scars.” He paused here, with a pensive look. Then his face relaxed, and he said, “But a scar is not just a wound. It is a wound that has been healed. And what heals a wound…is love. Every scar that we bear is a story of our love.”

“Love is not a safe bet,” he concluded. “It’s not something you know. It’s something you do. And it changes you, and it changes the world.”

The Desire for Certainty

Today’s scripture is well known particularly for its depiction of a single character, Thomas. “Doubting Thomas,” as he is now known in teh Christian tradition. We all have a little sympathy for Doubting Thomas, because we can all relate to the desire for proof. “Seeing is believing,” as we sometimes say. Or as our youth might exclaim, “Pictures, or it didn’t happen!” But even as we might reserve a little private sympathy for Thomas, we recoil from him too. “Oh, they’re just a Doubting Thomas,” we might say to describe someone who expresses reservations or has not fully committed to an idea. No one wants to be singled out as a Doubting Thomas. We would prefer to be grouped with the other disciples.

But today I wonder: are the other disciples really any different than Thomas? Remember, they have already heard the good news from Mary Magdalene that Jesus is risen. But where we do find them? Behind locked doors. They are too afraid even to leave the house. At this stage, they are just like Thomas. They have heard the good news that love is stronger than death, but they do not trust in it. Just like Thomas, they desire certainty.

Thomas desires the certainty of knowledge, the certainty of proof. “Unless I…put my finger in the mark of the nails…” (John 20:25). The rest of the disciples desire the certainty of safety, the certainty of locked doors and known quantities. They are holed up in a small space, “for fear” of other people, John says (John 20:19). Thomas and the disciples are the same. What characterizes their doubt is the desire for certainty. They both want to know—to know that they will be safe, to know that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

When Jesus speaks to Thomas, he does not chastise him or any of the other disciples for doubting. Jesus is human, after all. I imagine he sympathizes with their natural reflexes of fear and doubt. Instead of chastising them, Jesus simply reminds them all that real blessing is to be found not in certainty but in faith, in trust: “Have you believed [trusted] because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe [trust].” (John 20:29).

A Brief Aside: Of Weddings and Bets

It’s a little bit like the father’s advice to his son, who desires the certainty of knowing that his beloved is “the one.” The father suggests that this desire for certainty misses the point. Love is not about a safe bet. It’s not about knowing what you’re getting. Love is something you do, not something you know.

I find it extremely fascinating that our word “wedding” actually derives from the same root as our word “bet.” In a very real sense, love—whether it’s love that leads to a wedding or just love for your family or your neighbor or your friend—is a bet. But unlike modern gambling, where bets are made on the outcome of things far outside the realm of our responsibility, love is a bet that we ourselves strive to make good on, that we ourselves strive to make true. That it’s a risky bet is made plain in the traditional vows: “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health….” In other words, this is a bet where we don’t know the material outcome, we don’t have certainty over how things will pan out. But we make the bet anyway because—and this is the wager—we trust that however things unfold, it will be worth it because love is worth it. It boils down to our trust in the way of love. As followers of Christ, we bet—we stake our lives—we trust that love is worth it.

Empowered, Not to Know but to Love

There’s a curious pattern in today’s scripture. Jesus repeatedly does the same two things. He shows his scars, and he says, “Peace be with you.” He does this first with the disciples, and then again with Thomas. What is going on with this demonstration? I wonder if it is a response to the disciples’ desire for certainty. He shows his scars not only as evidence of his identity, but as evidence that love is indeed a risky, uncertain thing. “Here’s what you can expect,” he seems to say. Yet he follows it with a stunning proclamation, “Peace be with you.” In other words: “You have nothing to fear. Look, I was wounded. But these wounds have been healed. They are scars now. Trust me. Love can bear the pain, and it can transform it.”

Jesus is empowering his disciples. But he’s not empowering them as knowers, as people who can plan and calculate and be secure in everything they do. He’s empowering them as lovers, as risky agents of love who can heal and transform the wounds of the world. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” he says, meaning that he is sending them outside their locked doors into a perilous world of power struggles and hurt feelings and crucifixion. It’s not that God does not care for them or their safety, but that God cares for the world and has empowered them to help the world in the same way that Jesus has helped the world. When Jesus breathes on them, on this first day of the week, he is doing the same thing that God did at the beginning of creation. He is empowering them with the divinely creative spirit. God empowered Adam, the earth creature, to become a partner in caring for creation. Jesus empowers his followers to become partners in a new creation, companions in welcoming the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

And right after he breathes on them, he reminds them of their secret power as agents of love. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23). Forgiveness is the strongest demonstration of love. It is what turns wounds into scars. It is risky, and it is messy, and it is the only way our world will ever be healed. If we only ever stay behind locked doors or do what is a safe bet, if we never risk love for others because of all the liabilities that it entails, if we never take the risk of love, the wounds of our world will only fester and we will be further and further divided against every potential threat or difference. And worse, we will never know real love and real life.

The good news of the risen Christ, is that love can bear the pain that it will encounter, and indeed it can heal it. Wounds can become scars that tell the story of love. If it’s difficult to see this in the risen Christ, then perhaps we can begin with stories closer to us, which are no less real and reflective of God’s love. Perhaps we can look at the saints around us—maybe our parents, or good friends, or mentors—whose love was indeed wounded and yet jubilant and undefeated. For like Jesus, they show us their scars, not as warnings, but as reassurances of love’s power. Like Jesus, they can say, “Peace be with you” as we leave the locked doors and embark on the risky way of love.

Prayer

Wounded God,
Whose love is not a safe bet,
Sometimes we, like the disciples, are afraid.
Sometimes we desire the certainty
Of knowledge or safety
…
Help us to see your scars
As emblems of healing.
Inspire us to trust in your love and forgiveness
And to be agents of your healing.
In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.

"Supposing Him to Be the Gardener" (John 20:1-18)

Self-Limiting Beliefs 

I recently heard the story of a young man in his 20s who runs into an emergency room with a pill bottle in his hands. He collapses on the floor just as he arrives, and the medical staff hurry to pick him up. Amid his gasping, he exclaims, “I took all the pills, I took all the pills!” They rush him to an operating room to observe him. His vital signs are poor. Blood pressure dangerously low. Heart rate failing. They think it must be a case of overdose.

The doctor looks at the pill bottle to see what he’s taken, but there’s no information on the label. The young man mumbles that the pills were given to him in a drug trial. So the doctor calls the people who are running the trial and asks, “What was in those pills? We need to know so we can help this young man get better.” The researchers ask for his name. After a long pause, they respond, “Oh…he was in the placebo group. There’s nothing in those pills.” Dumbfounded, the doctor returns to the operating room and informs the young man. And within fifteen minutes, his blood pressure, his heartbeat—all his poor vital signs—have returned to normal.

It’s a rather extreme example of a rather common truth. What we believe determines what we experience. The student who believes he’s not a good learner and is destined to fail…he doesn’t study and then fails. The woman caught in an abusive relationship who believes that she’s somehow to blame for the abuse…she stays trapped in the destructive cycle. The young man growing up in the projects who believes he’ll never be able to get a “real” job…he settles for life in a gang, selling drugs.

Is Life Cyclical?

In the ancient world, people understood our experience in cyclical terms rather than linear. What that means is, they saw time as a circle. They saw that things are always repeating themselves. And so ancient mythology is filled with stories that explain these cycles. There are stories explaining the cycle of the seasons, why spring follows winter, and fall follows summer. There are stories explaining the stages of human life, how birth and growth give way to decline and death, how sons and daughters take the place of fathers and mothers. There are stories explaining the cycles of empires, how they rise and fall. The common denominator in all these myths is one simple idea: life repeats itself.

It’s not too difficult to see how this ancient way of understanding our experience persists today. As the self-limiting beliefs provided in the earlier examples suggest, we tend to see ourselves as bound by the patterns of our life, destined to repeat our past. I have a Buddhist friend from Burma who likes to say that we humans are like clay. At the very beginning of our lives, we can be molded and shaped. But as we get older, the patterns of our lives seem to fix in place, getting more and more rigid.

Perhaps we can notice this in the some of the self-limiting beliefs that we tell ourselves: “I’m just a procrastinator,” some of us might say, and so we proceed to procrastinate. Or “I’ve missed the boat” on this or that, some of us might say, and so we give up on an old dream. Or “the system is rigged—why even bother?” some of us might say, and so we resign ourselves to the status quo. Just as the ancient myths tell us that life repeats itself, so our own self-limiting beliefs keep us trapped in a cycle.

Gardens

There are so many things that could be said about Easter. Today, I want to narrow our focus to one element that we find only in the gospel of John. In other words, John has something special to say about resurrection that none of the other gospels do.

It all begins before the crucifixion. We find Jesus in a garden. He could flee if he wanted. He knows what’s coming. But he doesn’t. After he is crucified, we find Jesus in a garden again, this time being buried in a tomb. And then finally this morning, we have Mary mistaking Jesus for a gardener. Now, none of the other gospels make any mention of a garden in any of these scenes. Only John. So what’s going on? Why this emphasis on gardens?

If you’ll remember, John’s gospel begins differently than the other gospels. While Matthew and Luke begin with the birth of Jesus, and Mark with the beginning of his ministry, John goes all the way back to the beginning of everything. “In the beginning was the Word,” John intones, taking us all the way back to when God created everything that is in the heavens and on the earth. And if you’ll remember, in the beginning…was a garden. The world as God intended it. A landscape of care, where everything we needed was provided, and where God entrusted us to care and provide for the earth around us. God entrusted us to be “gardeners” in a broad sense. Gardeners with God. Remember that—God created us to be gardeners who would care and provide for the earth around us.

Of course, we know how that story ends. Adam and Eve do not trust God entirely and seek instead to be in control of things. Their overreach results in a catastrophic breakdown of relationships: between each other, between them and God, between them and the earth. This episode comes to be known in both Jewish and Christian traditions as “the fall,” in which humanity is put under a “curse.” As though we’re doomed to live in conflict. Doomed to live in alienation. Doomed to live in hard, fruitless labor. In one sense, this “curse” that we see at the beginning of our story comes to define our story, to limit it. All those self-limiting beliefs, all those self-accusations—I’ll never break free from this habit, I’ll always be rejected when it matters, I’ll always fall short at the end—are just part of the larger circle of sin that we believe ourselves doomed to repeat.

But another way to read the story of what happens in the garden of Eden—and “Eden” by the way, is just a word that means delight, so that the original garden is a garden of delight—another way to read what happens in the garden is to recognize that the conflict and alienation and hardship that follow from humanity’s failure to trust God is not so much a curse as a consequence. God simply tells the humans the results of their lack of trust—how life will be when they do not live in God’s care and in care for one another.

In fact, the rest of the biblical story can be read as God’s attempt to restore the garden, to renew the original paradise that humanity enjoyed with God and all creation. What else is the story of Abraham, whom God charges to be a blessing so that all the families of the earth might be blessed, than a story of God restoring the goodness of creation? What else is the story of Israel, whom God charges to be a holy people modeling the way of God for all the world, than a story of God restoring the goodness of creation? The problem is that humanity seems to believe itself doomed. It seems to believe itself destined to repeat the past. To live a life outside the garden.

All the Difference

The good news according to John is much more than a tale of isolated resuscitation. It’s much more than a single heroic figure, rising up from the ashes. For John, the resurrection is absolutely cosmic in scope. It changes the narrative completely. It changes the story the world has been telling itself. When Mary encounters the risen Jesus in the garden, her mistaking him to be the gardener is no mistake. It’s part of John’s message: in Christ, we have returned to the garden.

That ancient, deeply engrained way of thinking—that life is cyclical, that we are doomed to repeat the patterns of the past, that we are trapped in a cycle of sin—that way of thinking that has us rushing into the emergency room like that young man, thinking we’re on death’s doorstep…that way of thinking is ruptured in the garden that first Easter morning. It’s no coincidence that Paul refers to Jesus as “the last Adam.” Whereas the first Adam led us onto a path that we felt doomed to repeat, forgoing God’s care in order to wrest what control we could over our surroundings, Jesus as “the last Adam” has broken the cycle and brought us back to the garden. In Jesus—whom Mary supposed to be the gardener—humanity has a clear path, a clear way, to return to being who we are created to be. “Gardeners.” Not just in the literal sense, but in the full sense of people who live in and care for the life of the world around them.

Early Christian paintings and depictions of the resurrection regularly show the risen Christ in a garden paradise, Adam in one hand and Eve in the other. The message is clear: Christ has restored us to paradise. Not just later, in some afterlife, but now, if we would have eyes to see it. These paints show sheep, doves, shrubs, streams of water, starry skies. And at the center: Christ. The good news of Easter is that Christ is alive, and all the world in him. Christ leads us back to the garden.

As we saw with that young man who rushed into the hospital, convinced that his life was ebbing away, the story that we believe about ourselves and the world may make all the difference between life and death. If we believe ourselves doomed to repeat the past…then we very likely will. But in the risen Christ, we discover that our stories of doom are misplaced. God never wanted us out of the garden. In Christ, we receive God’s clear invitation to return.

Friends, wherever you are in life this Easter morning, please hear this good news: we are not doomed to a circle of sin and suffering. Life is not destined to repeat itself. There is a way back to the goodness of life that sometimes seems so distant.

And it all begins with the risen Christ, who restores us to be the “gardeners” we were always meant to be.

Prayer

Loving God,
Who does not leave us doomed
To repeat the patterns of the past
…
May the risen Christ inspire us
To see your garden of paradise in our midst
And to live as your gardeners
In the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

In whose spirit we pray: Amen.

Into Our Hands (John 19:23-30)

Today is called Maundy Thursday because traditionally on this day the church has reflected on the final “mandate” that Jesus left his followers. (“Mandate” is where the word “Maundy” originates. You can hear the similarity: “Mandate”...“Maundy.”) A simpler way to think about Maundy Thursday is that it is Jesus’ last lesson. The last “mandates” he gives to his disciples. Typically on Maundy Thursday we read the story of the Last Supper, where Jesus issues several instructions, or “mandates.” Such as when he gets on his own knees and washes his followers’ feet and tells them to do the same. Or when he says “Love one another as I have loved you” (cf. John 13).

But the Narrative Lectionary, the scripture calendar we’re following, invites us this year to read a different set of mandates. Tonight, instead of reading about the Last Supper, we read about Jesus’ last words on the cross. While this breaks with longstanding tradition, it is not entirely without reason. If Maundy Thursday is meant to be about Jesus’ last lesson, his final mandates, then we might indeed look to the cross. Death often reveals the truest character of a person’s life. On the cross, Jesus is not serenely reading from a script. He’s not following a lesson plan he drew up the night before. On the cross, we see Jesus’ most natural reflexes.

When on the cross Jesus beholds his mother and the disciple whom he loves, two of his most cherished companions, he sees beyond the despair of the present moment to the new family that God is creating, a family defined not by blood but by love. And so he says, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” Which is another way of saying, “In the kingdom of God, we all belong to one another. Like family.” It is not a coincidence that the earliest Christ-followers were frequently accused of living a promiscuous lifestyle. Outsiders could not otherwise understand how it was that people from such different backgrounds of race and class and occupation could regularly come together and care for each other. They could not understand this new family.

Jesus next “last word” is in fact a single “word” in the Greek: “I thirst.” It is a remarkable thing to me, that as Jesus dies, he does not despair of his incredible pain and wish for a quicker death. Instead, he clings on desperately to life, even as he knows it will soon be gone. “I thirst” is a way for Jesus to say—despite all the evil he has encountered, despite all the pain: “I want to live. Life is good. I want more of it!” And is it any surprise that Jesus would say this?  He could never conceal his love for this life.  When he told stories, all he could talk about was this life: the serenity of birds, the beauty of wild flowers, the sun and the rain that fall on us all; children who dance and play flutes, brothers and bridesmaids, weddings and feasts.  On the cross, Jesus was not looking forward to heaven.  He was insisting that heaven had come to earth—was this not his life’s prayer? (Matt 6:10).  He was insisting, despite all appearances, that this life already contains all the goodness of God’s love.

Jesus’ final “word”—“It is finished”—should be heard in the same register as an artist pronouncing the completion of his masterpiece, or a composer declaring her satisfaction upon writing down the final note of her song. In other words, “it is finished” is Jesus’ defiant pronouncement that this death is not about defeat and suffering. Rather it is the ultimate act or deed in his life’s work—the finishing touch to his masterpiece. It is the capstone, the final achievement, completing and fulfilling all that has preceded it. Popular theology has frequently made the cross out to be part of some sacrificial equation, which stipulates that Jesus must die so we can live. This leaves us with some disturbing implications, such as a God who demands the blood of his own child, which in our world we would call “child abuse.” But what I read in this passage is not the outworking of some complicated sacrificial equation. The cross is a symbol not of mortal suffering but of an immortal love. As Jesus himself put it earlier in the gospel: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

The word “mandate” literally means something like “given into one’s hands.” To give a mandate is effectively to say, “It’s in your hands now. I have done what is mine to do, but I cannot do what is yours.” If that sounds rather bleak and lonely, well—I suppose that’s how Jesus’ followers felt when they saw Jesus on the cross. I suppose it’s how we all feel from time to time when it seems we are up against it all on our own. Maybe we feel this loneliness when a loved one or we ourselves receive a troubling prognosis. Or when we see injustice and suffering in our world. Or when our own plans fall to pieces and we can’t see a way forward. Is this difficulty and grief ours alone to bear? Is Maundy Thursday saying it’s all in our hands now, it’s all up to us?

Far from it. Jesus’ last words—his final lesson—are not without hope. First, he gives us to one another, reminding us of our divine heritage and that we are all brothers and sisters in God’s family. We do not walk alone. No burden is ours to bear alone when we live in God’s family. Next, he affirms the goodness of life no matter how dark things get, inviting us to see God’s gracious hand in all creation and to treasure life’s many gifts and to “thirst” for what is good. And lastly, he insists that the cross is not his passive defeat, but in fact the crowning demonstration of his love, the final touch to his masterpiece of a life, a witness to the way God works in the world—not by overpowering force, but by a love that endures to the end.

"Hosanna!" (John 19:16b-22)

“What Is God’s Job Description?”

Within the previous church whom I served, there was a woman named Lu. (She passed away a few weeks ago and has been on my mind lately.) Lu’s mind was as sharp as a tack and her heart as soft as a sponge. She cared deeply for the needful, especially for the homeless and the hungry, and she readily swatted away all of the easy excuses that people give to justify the reality of poverty and to ease their own conscience. Lu had little patience for people who wouldn’t acknowledge the plight of those less fortunate. But when I first met Lu, the person with whom she had the least patience…was God.

I still remember how Lu confronted me after an early sermon. “I really wish,” she said exasperatedly, “someone could tell me what God’s job description is.” Lu had grown up in the church, where she had learned to see God as a divine butler. She recounted her experience as an editor for a religious journal, where she once read a pastor explain the importance of praying as specifically as possible. The pastor wrote, for example, that if a people prayed for rain but did not specify the amount of rain that their fields needed, then they might experience a drought. This pastor also explained their righteousness factored into the equation. If they’d been living sinfully, then God might not hear their prayers.

This picture of a divine butler really troubled Lu. She could not reconcile it with her experience. See, Lu had a father who had a crippling form of mental illness and ended up living on the streets. He had a childlike faith and prayed regularly, trusting that God would provide for his needs. But what Lu saw, was a God who didn’t listen, who didn’t respond. If God really was this divine butler she’d been taught to believe in, then he was pretty miserable at his job.

Hence her question: “Just what is God’s job description?”

Living Up to His Name

Today is Palm Sunday. The Narrative Lectionary—the scripture-reading calendar that we’re following this year—has already advanced in the gospel of John well beyond Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which is the main event of Palm Sunday. In fact, it has led us to the beginning of the crucifixion.

But not entirely without reason. The beginning of the crucifixion in John echoes with the cries of Palm Sunday. In fact, the gospel of John sees the two events as inextricably linked. Notice how in today’s text the main theme is Jesus’ kingship. Pilate makes a sign that reads, “Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews” (John 19:19). But then the religious leaders protest that it should read instead “This man said, I am the king of the Jews” (John 19:21). If we look back to Palm Sunday, however, we see that it is not Jesus proclaiming his own kingship. Rather it is the crowd of people welcoming him to Jerusalem who shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the king of Israel!” (John 12:13).

All this talk in today’s scripture about Jesus as “king of the Jews” points back to Palm Sunday. It points back, specifically, to the people’s expectations of Jesus. They see him as a king. Their shouts of “Hosanna” are literally a cry for Jesus to live up to his own name (John 12:13). In Hebrew, hosanna comes from the same root as the name Jesus (or Yeshua), the root yasha, which means “to save.” The na on the end of hosanna is an additional particle that conveys a sense of urgency, similar to the words “now!” and “please!” in English. So when the people proclaim Jesus to be “King of Israel,” they’re doing so with the expectation that he’s going to live up to his name, that he’s going to make good on his job description—that he’s going to “save” them…now!

What Is “Salvation”?

But what is “salvation?” How do the people expect to be saved? Remember, this is the day before the Passover celebration. Many of the people in the crowd have journeyed tens, even hundreds, of miles to gather in Jerusalem to commemorate when God delivered their ancestors from slavery in Egypt. I imagine their expectations for salvation are for a repeat performance, a Passover: Part Two, a miraculous deliverance from the Roman occupying forces. Perhaps some of the people gathered have also witnessed or at least heard about some of the extraordinary healings and feedings that Jesus has accomplished, and they expect more such accomplishments—just on a social or political level. Whatever their expectations are exactly, I think it’s safe to say that they are imagining salvation in this life rather than in some afterlife. When Jesus tells Martha that her brother Lazarus will rise again, she responds that she knows he will rise on the last day (John 11:24); her concern is the here and now. In the biblical mindset, the ancient Jewish mindset, salvation is for this world, this life.

Popular Christian thought has largely deferred or postponed salvation to a later time and place—a heavenly afterlife when everything will be fixed. Salvation still rests on the expectation of some desired result; it’s just that the desired result has been delayed or pushed back. In one sense, this postponement of salvation results in a very weak or anemic faith. For some Christians, Jesus “saves,” but not until you die. Before then, you’d be better off trusting in your own savings account than in Jesus’ saving you. Before then, you’d be better off learning to wield the sword than to bear the cross.

But whether we think of salvation as something that happens in this life (as people in the Bible do), or as something that happens in the next (as many Christians do), we humans seem to take it for granted that what “salvation” really amounts to is an expected outcome or result. God’s job description is that of a divine butler, a holy fixer, who ultimately gives us what we want.

Not What We Expect

Whatever else the cross does, it firmly dispels any simplistic notions of God as a divine genie who grants our wishes. In Christ on the cross, we discover that God’s salvation does not look anything like our great expectations.

It’s worth noting that when Jesus first shares with his disciples the news that he will eventually be crucified, he also issues an invitation: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). In other words, the cross is not something that Jesus bears so we don’t have to. It is, rather, an experience in which Jesus invites us to participate. It is a way of living. (For this reason, the earliest Christ-followers were called not Christians, but members of “The Way.”) Jesus describes the way of the cross as the way of salvation, saying, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who [take up their cross and] lose their life for the sake of the good news will save it” (Mark 8:35).

I find the wisdom of the Desert Tradition especially instructive for how we understand salvation. (By “the Desert Tradition,” I refer to the third and fourth century movement, in which many followers of Christ fled society to practice their faith in the wilderness—in large part because they saw Christianity becoming domesticated by its increasing collaboration with the Roman empire.) There is much conversation in the Desert Tradition about “salvation.” A novice or beginner in the faith will often approach their elder (their abba or amma) with the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Not once does the elder respond with that well-known line from Paul, favored among many contemporary evangelicals, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). Instead they offer practical instructions that are tailored to the individual and that invite them to live more fully in the way of Christ, which is the way of the cross. Listen to a few of their responses: “If you want to be saved, whenever you go to see anybody do not speak until he asks you something.” “Sit in your cell, and if you are hungry, eat, if you are thirsty, drink; only do not speak evil of anyone, and you will be saved.” “Like the dead, take no account of the scorn of men or their praises, and you can be saved.” “Do no evil to anyone, and do not judge anyone. Observe this and you will be saved.” “If you observe the following you will be saved: ‘Be joyful at all times! Pray without ceasing! And give thanks for all things!’”

As I read today’s scripture and reflect on God’s strange salvation, I hear Lu asking her question, “Just what is God’s job description?” The cross suggests that it’s nothing like our expectations. On the cross, Jesus does not give us what we want: namely, control. He gives us what we need: namely, love. And it’s not a transaction, as though our account has received a credit, as much as it is an invitation, as though we are being invited to dance, to give as we have received. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

The beauty (and irony) of Lu’s life is that, even as she frequently voiced her doubts and protests against the divine butler “God” whom she’d been taught, she embodied a faith in the crucified God. Which is to say, she walked the way of the cross, putting love of others before her need for control. In her words, Lu was always contesting a God she didn’t really believe in; but in her deeds, she gave flesh to her true faith—her trust in a God who does not control things but rather cares for all creatures. Always mindful of the plight of her homeless father, she poured her life into ministering to the homeless. She was  a shining example of a motto popular among the earliest Christ-followers in northern Africa, who regularly said, “We do not speak great things. We live them.”

What is God’s job description? I think it is nowhere clearer than on the cross, where Christ relinquishes all control and loves us to the end.

Prayer

Christ Jesus,
To whom we cry, “Hosanna! Save us please!”
…
Grant us eyes to see the cross
Not as the frustration of our expectations
But as the way of your love,
Which is redeeming all things.
Amen.

On Trial (John 19:1-16a)

Insanity 

Years ago, I had a housemate named Ryan who was always trying to scratch some itch. He would spend money he didn’t have on new sports cars. He was regularly dating a new girl, sometimes before he’d ended things with his previous girlfriend. He would change jobs frequently, always looking for a better salary.

I remember conversations we had over dinner. It was like listening to a broken record stuck on a song called, “Poor Me.” Which is to say, Ryan was endlessly dissatisfied. But he never saw the pattern in his behavior. You know the saying, “Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result”? Tragically, Ryan embodied this insanity. He was thirsty, but he kept choosing to drink salt water. He kept trying to scratch that itch in the same old way with the same old result: it just itched even more.

Now, I have a hunch that if we’re honest, we can all see a bit of Ryan in ourselves. Because I think it’s human to keep doing the same thing and to expect a different result. Maybe we can see it in the ways we relate to a boss, or a teacher, or our children (or grandchildren). Maybe we can see it in the ways we spend our money. Maybe we can see it in the ways we consume our news.

Definitely we can see it in our scripture today, where humanity insists on doing things the way it’s always done things. 

A King That Refuses to Fight

1   Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. 3 They kept coming up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and striking him on the face. 4 Pilate went out again and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.” 5 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”

I’ve often wondered how the crowd who just days earlier had welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem with shouts of joy could turn on him so quickly. How does the tide of popular sentiment turn so fast?

As I read our scripture today, I imagine Jesus presented to the crowd as an absolute joke of a king, with a bloodied royal robe and a mocking crown of thorns, with his face not glowing with pride but twisted in pain. I imagine that the shame meant to be heaped on him is in fact heaped instead onto the crowd. This is not the king whom they desired or expected. This “king” does not act like a king. As we saw last week, this king refuses to fight. This king is weak.

Last year, the soccer team I support, Liverpool, won the Premier League (what is effectively the national championship). The fans were ecstatic. For a full day, the players and the manager rode atop a bus through the city, celebrating with everyone. Supporters chanted the manager’s name with gusto. This year, the team are in fifth place, and the fans are restless. Many of the same supporters who last year chanted the manager’s name are now calling for his head. How quickly the tide can turn when we don’t get what we want or expect.

What the people of Judea want, is a king who will fight, a king who will ultimately liberate them from Rome. This Jesus, already mocked and beaten by the Roman guard, is a shameful pretender of the king the people want.

A God That Refuses to Get His Way

6 When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.” 7 The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.”

8   Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. 9 He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 Pilate therefore said to him, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

Just as Pilate is probably beginning to feel some reassurance that this Jesus fellow isn’t going to be giving Rome any trouble—he doesn’t seem to be an insurrectionist and in fact popular sentiment seems to have turned against him—the religious leaders finally give voice to their real accusation against Jesus, and it’s a supremely troubling one for Pilate. This man Jesus claims to be “the son of God.” Now, it’s one thing to mock and perhaps even execute a seemingly sincere and innocent man. Pilate is willing to do that if it keeps the peace. But it’s another thing entirely to meddle in the affairs of the gods, who could really wreak havoc. The revelation that Jesus may be divine spooks Pilate. “Where are you from?” he demands of Jesus, apparently asking him to confirm his divine origins.

But just as before Jesus does not act like a king, so too here he does not act like a god. He seems unconcerned with his fate, unconcerned with the prospect of losing, unconcerned with getting his own way. The gods of ancient Rome were a bit like our superheroes today. They might occasionally struggle to get their way, but ultimately their superpowers ensured they prevailed. But Jesus is not flexing his divine muscle. If he has any “superpower,” he’s not using it. He is ready to die.

When Pilate mentions the possibility of sharing his power to avert the impending crucifixion, Jesus might well hear an echo of Satan’s temptation in the wilderness, namely to claim the power that is rightfully his and prove himself to be son of God. But again he refuses. And so just as he was mocked as a king, so too he will be mocked as a god. We have stark evidence of this in an ancient piece of graffiti from around the year 200 in Rome (yes, street artists have been drawing on overpasses and tunnels for thousands of years!). This particular piece of graffiti depicts Jesus on the cross with the head of a donkey and a taunting inscription that reads: “Alexamenos worship his god.” The obvious subtext is: what kind of “god” allows himself to get killed?

A Judge That Refuses to Condemn

12 From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.”

13   When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat [him] on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, “Here is your King!” 15 They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but the emperor.” 16 Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

Robbie shared with me this some week some historical details that shed a lot of light on these concluding verses. As the Roman governor of Judea, Pilate was on thin ice. Previously he had dealt brutally and insensitively with the Judeans, casually employing violence to get his way. His flippant use of force, however, had backfired, inflaming the Judeans’ anger and resulting in riots and general instability in the land. Pilate had been put on notice by his higher-ups that any further chaos would mean the loss of his position. His command was basically, “Keep the peace, or else….”

The religious leaders cunningly play Pilate as they question his loyalty to Caesar. “If you release this man”—this rabble-rouser—“you are no friend of the emperor” (John 19:12). They effectively force him into a choice: Caesar or Jesus. They make their own choice clear: “We have no king but the emperor” (John 19:15).

The gospel of John dramatizes this choice—Caesar or Jesus—as the culmination of Jesus’ trial, as a scene of judgment. John says, “[Pilate] brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called the Stone Pavement” (John 19:13). But John delights in wordplay, and here he employs an ambiguous phrasing in the Greek that could also be translated, “[Pilate] made him [Jesus] to sit on the judge’s bench.” It is a small but striking detail that has the power to reverse the scene entirely, making Jesus not the judged but the judge. It would appear for all the world that Jesus is the one on trial here and the Pilate and the religious leaders are the judges, the ones calling the shots. But John subtly suggests that actually Jesus is the judge and it is everyone else—us, humanity—who are on trial. Before Jesus, our world hangs in the balance.

But if this is the case, then just as Jesus is a “king" who does not act like one, and just as Jesus is of God but does not act like a god, so also Jesus is a judge who does not act like a judge. He’s silent here. He delivers no verdict. He assigns no blame.

I’m reminded of a scene in Luke where a man in the crowd asks Jesus to render a judgment in an inheritance dispute between the man and his brother. Jesus responds, “Friend, who set me to be a judge…over you?” (Luke 12:14). But then he continues, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed…” (Luke 12:15). He does not judge in the traditional sense, but he warns nonetheless against a self-condemning way of life (that is its own form of judgment, sort of like what we would call karma). I’m reminded too of earlier in John where Jesus repeatedly says, “I came not to judge [or condemn] the world, but to save the world” (John 12:47; cf. 3:17). His words leave the impression that God’s judgment is less a matter of affixing blame and assigning punishment and more a matter of leaving us to our own judgment. It’s like Moses tells the people of Israel on the cusp of the Promised Land. The choice is yours, between life and death. So choose life (cf. Deut 30).

Popular Christian theology has understood God’s judgment as a single, final verdict on whether a person goes to heaven or hell when they die. But committed followers of Christ have long understood what we see in Jesus’ trial (and elsewhere in his life). Jesus does not act like a normal judge. He does not come to judge and condemn but to save us from the judgment and condemnation we choose for ourselves. He offers us a way out, if we would choose it, and not just for later but for now. It was with this idea in mind that Catherine of Siena, a 15th century saint and mystic, said, “It’s heaven all the way to heaven; and it’s hell all the way to hell.”

The “Odd” Gospel

I think back to my old housemate Ryan who kept doing the same thing and expecting a different result. And I wonder if humanity’s story is not the same.

In Jesus, God presents us with a stark alternative to the way we generally live. In Jesus, we have a “king” who refuses to behave like a king, who refuses to fight. We have a God who refuses to act like the gods, who refuses to flex his divine muscle and get his way. We have a judge who refuses to condemn.

What I see in today’s scripture is that Jesus’ trial is in fact our own trial, the trial of the world, where Jesus exposes our insanity. We as a world keep choosing kings who fight; we keep worshiping gods of power; we keep judging and condemning others. In the broken and bloodied body of Jesus, God asks us, “How’s that working out for you?” Are we scratching the itch but it’s only getting worse? Are we drinking salt water to cure our thirst?

Friends, we have an odd king, an odd God, an odd judge. And I believe this oddness is the heart of the gospel, the heart of the good news. Otherwise, it’d just be more of the same for our world—more fighting, more domination, more condemnation. It’d be more scratching the itch, only for the itch to get worse. We as the church have a unique gift to share with the world. It is not our task to change the world. Even Jesus didn’t do that—not in any immediate sense of the word. It is simply our task to be different. To share this oddness with others—a king who does not fight, a God who does not get his way, a judge who does not condemn but rather saves us from our own self-condemnation.

When Jesus bore the cross, he bore the heavy refusal of the ways of this world, in order to show us a different way. Our message to the world is the same as Jesus’, who proclaimed the kingdom of God. Our message is: it does not have to be this way; it could be different.

Prayer

Strange Christ,
Who refuses to scratch the itch,
And instead trusts in the soothing balm of God’s love—
Inspire us by your sanity
To live not in condemnation of the world
But as joyful witnesses of your better way.
Amen.

"What Is Truth?" (John 18:28-38)

A Foregone Conclusion 

28   Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?”

Pilate’s question is one that we may well be asking ourselves. Because at this point in John’s gospel, there have been no formal accusations against Jesus. There has been plenty of conflict or friction, yes, as Jesus has regularly broken with the moral and ritual conventions of his religious tradition. He has eaten with tax collectors and sinners—the outlaws and outcasts of society. He has healed on the Sabbath, showing more care for people than for rules. He has cried out against the greed of the religious establishment, many of whom exploit the poor rather than help them. But so far there have been no formal accusations against Jesus.

I’m reminded of my nephews. Occasionally, one of them will take exception with a boundary or a rule. My most recent memory is of one of my nephews becoming upset because my brother denied him a second cup of apple juice. At first, his protests were inarticulate and incoherent. There was only fierce sputtering and stammering. After about thirty seconds of this garbled griping, however, a more rational protest began to emerge. Soon there were a host of objections. “I think my brother had two cups today!” And: “Mommy said I could have a second cup.” And: “It’s a Saturday, aren’t there different rules for the weekend?” And so on.

I hesitate using my nephews so often for sermon illustrations. The last thing I want is to give you an unfavorable impression of them! But I find that, as children, they mirror a bit more honestly the very same feelings and thoughts and experiences that I have today as an adult. They help me to see myself more clearly. In this particular case, what I catch a glimpse of—and what I really would like to ponder—is the counterintuitive truth that we tend not to think our way to conclusions, but rather to feel or desire our way to conclusions. Another way to put this is that the will comes first, thinking comes second. Thinking is like a detective that arrives late at a crime scene; it must put together a rational story to explain what has already been decided. In this sense, thinking is less about reasoning our way forward to a conclusion and more about rationalizing our way back to what is effectively a foregone conclusion.

A case in point is any sports game ever. Just observe the behavior of fans when the referee makes a call that goes against their team. It is a foregone conclusion that the fans will disagree with the ref. But they disagree not because of a dispassionate, objective analysis of the call. They disagree because they want their team to win. The will comes first, thinking comes second. First, they vehemently reject the call. Then, they look for any possible rationalization to support their view—a foul here, an infraction there, a missed out-of-bounds or offside call. It’s not uncommon to get a set of fans united in their rejection of a referee’s call, only to discover that they have come up with different (sometimes even contradictory) rationalizations for what they all agree was a bad call.

With all of this in mind…watch how the Jewish leaders answer Pilate after he has asked them point-blank for a formal accusation.

30 They answered, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.”

Which…is not an answer. That’s like saying, “We wouldn’t have brought him to you if we didn’t have a reason.” But then they don’t give a reason. What is driving their request is not a reason, but an inflamed will—a visceral fear of this man who is threatening their power.

In turn, Pilate seems exasperated. He judges rightly that this is something of a family squabble, a domestic dispute. And so….

31 Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.” The Jews replied, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death.” 32 (This was to fulfill what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.)

Finally, the Jewish leaders put their cards on the table. They still haven’t given Pilate an accusation, a reason for their request, but here they go even further and reveal their real desire. They want Jesus dead.

Why not put him to death themselves? Historical scholars debate the finer details. According to some texts, the Sanhedrin (the ruling council) would have needed a unanimous vote to enact the death penalty, and we know there were at least a couple sympathetic councilpersons (such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea). So perhaps the leaders fear they will not get a unanimous vote. Another possibility is that they fear the optics of putting to death a popular figure. Either way, they have decided that it is better if Jesus dies by Roman hands rather than at their own.

While Pilate still does not have a formal accusation to judge, he now recognizes the gravity of the situation. If the Jewish leaders feel so threatened by a single man that they need Rome to do their dirty work, then something serious must be afoot.

“Are You a King?”

33   Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

You might remember that when Jesus was born, Herod was King of the Jews. “King of the Jews” was a role designated by Rome. Rome effectively chose a proxy or client king, someone who came from the region but would rule in the interests of Rome. When Pilate asks Jesus if he is king of the Jews, he is effectively asking Jesus if he is leading a revolution. Evidently Pilate has heard enough about Jesus’ popularity to know that some people have talked about him as a messiah, as a leader anointed by God. Pilate decides he needs to gauge Jesus’ intentions. Rome has already designated the rulers of the region. If there is an insurrection brewing, a rival king emerging, then Pilate, who is the Roman governor of the region, needs to know.

34 Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” 35 Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” 37 Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?”

As is often the case, Jesus does not answer the question asked him with a simple “yes” or “no.” Is he a king? It depends. He talks about a kingdom, yes. But then sharply distinguishes his “kingdom” from the kingdoms of this world. The kingdoms of this world rule by force, by violence. But he points out that his followers have not taken up arms. They are not fighting. (We might remember also how elsewhere Jesus insists to his followers that they aspire not to the rulers of this world, who lord it over others, but instead that they serve others.)

One popular contemporary conception of the kingdom of God is that it is identical with heaven. And so the kingdom of God becomes another time. Another place. This quiet dismissal of the kingdom of God quickly becomes a rationalization for us to live instead in one of the world’s kingdoms, to live by means of force, by means of violence, to lord it over others, to get our own way, to legislate ourselves. Lest we consign God’s kingdom to another time and place, to an altogether different realm of existence, I feel it’s important to note that Jesus’ gospel message—the very first words he speaks, according to Mark—is that the kingdom of God is arriving. Here! Now! And when Jesus prays to God, he pleads for God’s kingdom to come on earth. And Jesus already sees the kingdom of God breaking into our very midst in the smallest of things: things as small as mustard seeds, as small as trusting children, not the spectacular things that make people say, “Look at that!”, but the little things like a hug or a shared meal or an open door.

The kingdom of our Lord Jesus might not be from this world, but it is very much for this world. In one sense, the Jewish council and Pilate are right to fear God’s kingdom, because even though it does not take up the sword and do battle with the kingdoms of this world, it does spell their end. Not through conquest, but through care. Not through violence, but through forgiveness. When care and forgiveness reign, hierarchies of force and violence crumble. It is no coincidence that the prophets dream of all nations beating their swords into ploughshares, all nations forsaking their old ways to learn God’s way, all nations sitting together at God’s banquet table. The kingdom of God spells the end of worldly kingdoms, not by their destruction but by their redundance. By their dissolution. There simply is no place for force and violence when we are living in God’s care.

So…is Jesus a king? It depends what you mean by “king.”

Unconcerned with the Truth

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

The irony of Pilate’s final words—“What is truth?” he asks cryptically—is that neither he nor the Jewish authorities really care about the truth. They care instead about power. Jesus’ trial is not about determining the reality of things, but about executing the will of powerful people who fear they’re losing their power. The will comes first.

Earlier in the gospel of John, we learn why the Jewish leaders really want Jesus dead. He’s too popular. He’s a threat to their power. “If we let him go on like this,” they say, “everyone will believe in him” (John 11:48).^[1]

Pilate is little different than the Jewish leaders. He too cares about his power. When he asks Jesus if he is a king, he’s effectively asking Jesus if he’s a threat. Pilate worries about a Jewish revolt that might unsettle his reign and cause him to lose his seat of power.

What Is Truth?:
Power versus Love

I remember that when I played soccer as a child, I was taught early on, “Play to the whistle.” That is, even if you think there was a foul, or even if you think that the ball went out of bounds, don’t stop until you hear the referee blow his whistle. The principle underlying this lesson was simple. Truth is whatever the referee says it is. It doesn’t matter if the ball actually went out of bounds, or whether there actually was a foul. It only matters if the ref blows his whistle.

Our world generally operates by a similar principle. Truth is whatever the most powerful people say it is. History, as they say, gets written by the victors. And so the cynical among us might, like Pilate, ask, “What is truth?” What does it matter if a foul is actually committed? If the ball actually goes of bounds? All that matters is what the most powerful people say or do. Just as earlier we pondered the possibility that the will comes first, and thinking comes second, so we might also consider the idea that, in our world, power comes first, and truth is determined by it.

But Jesus, who shows us God’s truth, insists on an alternative to power: Love. It’s all over his teachings. The greatest commandment, according to Jesus? “Love God. Love others.” His final instruction? “Love others as I have loved you.” Personally, I find really helpful Jesus’ little lesson about how God’s love is reflected in the sun and rain. God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous,” Jesus says; for this reason, “love your enemies” that you might be “children of your father in heaven” (Matt 5:44-45).

According to the dictionary, truth is the state of being in accordance with reality. When Jesus stands trial, the world powers of his day are deciding what is the fundamental reality. Power? Or Love?

They decide on power. And they think they have got their way. But here we are, over two thousand years later, haunted still by the reality of a man who loved and forgave the very people who put him to death. I say “haunted…” because our world by and large still insists that power is the fundamental reality. Our world still puts its faith in force, its trust in the sword (or the bomb). Our world would rather enforce its own way (whatever it calls the law) rather than live by the vulnerable way of love. And so Jesus haunts us or spooks us, in the way that a spirit from another world might startle us in all its strangeness or difference.

It’s my personal opinion, so you can take what you like and leave the rest…but I think that the most distinctive witness we give to our world is with our relationship to power. Is that where we ultimately place our trust? Should the church become just another pawn on the chessboard of power? Or do we play a different game entirely, one that’s not about winners and losers, but about all of us as children of a merciful God, as creatures nourished by the sun and rain that falls on us all? Do we place our trust instead in the way of love?

Prayer

Christ Jesus,
Who gives flesh
To the God who is Love:
We are so entangled
In a world of power,
It can be difficult
To hear—much less trust in—
Your gospel.
…
Draw our attention
To the mustard seeds of your kingdom,
Where love is taking root.
In a world of power,
Make us believers in
And ambassadors of
Your love.
Amen.

 

---

[1] They also worry that his popularity might attract the watchful eye of their Roman overlords. Indeed, John has already reported that after Jesus fed the five thousand, the Jewish crowd followed after him and tried to “take him by force to make him king” (John 6:15). Such an event—an unauthorized king—would surely cause Caesar to sit up and take notice. The council expresses their fear in exaggerated terms: “The Romans,” they say, “will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation” (John 11:48).

The Ease of Denial (John 18:12-27)

A Tale of Trial

The Narrative Lectionary advances us rather quickly in John’s gospel to the last day of his life, in which he stands trial before the authorities of his world, both Jewish and Roman. As the gospel of John provides us with more details of Jesus’ trial than any other gospel, it affords us plenty of space to ponder not only Jesus’ trial, but also the trials of our own faith.

If you think about it, Jesus’ ministry begins and ends with a trial. First, there are the temptations—or the trial—by Satan in the wilderness, in which Satan invites Jesus to prove himself. He taunts Jesus, “If you are the son of God,” prove it: secure what you need all by yourself (supernaturally); make a spectacle of your greatness; take the power which you deserve. There is a sense in which Jesus’ final trial is no different. Yes, it is conducted by human players, but through them the spirit of Satan is again inviting Jesus to prove himself. How tempting it must be to turn the tables on his antagonists, as they mock him and beat him and heap shame on him. In a sense, this final trial taunts him with the same gibe: “If you really are the son of God…prove it.”

As we will see, however, Jesus does not stand alone in his trial. His followers undergo a trial of their own. Today as we witness Peter’s trial, I invite us to contemplate how we might stand a similar trial in our world today.

Two Different Peters?

 12   So the soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him. 13 First they took him to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. 14 Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people.

Right before today’s passage, Peter attempts to defend Jesus against arrest by cutting off the ear of the high priest’s slave. It is remarkable that Peter is not himself arrested. Most likely he escapes seizure because Jesus intervenes, commanding him to drop his sword. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus goes a step further and heals the slave, proving to the soldiers that his movement is not toward violence but toward healing.

In any case, it is worth remembering that before Peter denies Jesus, he defends him. These two events seem to stand in stark contrast to one another. Courageous Peter versus cowardly Peter. I will suggest, however, that Peter’s defense of Jesus and his denial of Jesus are two sides of the same coin. They are not in contradiction but in harmony.

 “Possessed by the Crowd”

15   Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, 16 but Peter was standing outside at the gate. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in. 17 The woman said to Peter, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.” 18 Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and warming himself.

Fifteen years ago, I left Richmond to go study at the University of Sheffield in England. I visited several of the neighborhood churches and settled at St. Mark’s, an Anglican church with a beautiful cathedral (reconstructed after the original was destroyed in the Blitz in WWII) and a small but vibrant student ministry. I quickly fell in love with the thoughtful and poetic liturgy and the music, which often featured an authentic pipe organ. But there were some growing pains. The first few Sundays, I was overwhelmed with a host of ritual gestures that everyone but me seemed to know. There was a lot of unannounced standing up and sitting down and kneeling—it felt a little bit like church Hokie Pokie! And people would do some curtsy-like thing and make the sign of the cross when they left their pew; and they would bow their head when they received communion and say something under their breath (I later discovered they were just saying “Amen”).

Within a couple of months, though, I was doing it all myself. (Well, almost all of it—I never quite got the hang of that curtsy-like sign-of-the-cross gesture.) Thinking back on the experience now, I recognize in my behavior a strong and simple desire: to belong, to be accepted, to not be the odd person out. And so I quickly learned how to do what everyone else was doing.

When I read today’s scripture, I am particularly intrigued by the seemingly superfluous comment about the slaves and police warming themselves by the charcoal fire. Why do we need to know what they are doing? But then John tells us, “Peter also was standing with them and warming himself.” Again, if the only detail John wants to communicate is that it was cold, then this aside seems completely unnecessary. But perhaps John wants to communicate more than the temperature. Perhaps John is showing us a very basic principle of our humanity: the desire to belong, to be accepted, to not be the odd person out. Peter does what everyone else is doing. Peter makes himself one with the crowd.

Of course, all of this happens right after Peter has denied Jesus for the first time. When the woman who guards the gate—which is to say, the woman who is a gatekeeper, both literally, but also figuratively, for she will determine whether Peter is one of “us” or one of “them”—when she interrogates Peter about his allegiance to Jesus, she asks in a negative way: “You’re not one of his disciples, are you?” A negative question invites a negative response. She’s opening the door, so to speak, so that Peter can discreetly step in, so that he can easily join the crowd.

I would suggest that the world operates in a similar manner today. We ourselves are regularly interrogated, “You don’t really follow that radical Jesus, do you?” Of course, people rarely say these words. In part because the world has so thoroughly domesticated Jesus that they no longer associate him with the countercultural kingdom to which he calls us. But every time we are in a crowd that is vilifying and demonizing another person, we are being invited to warm ourselves by the fire with everyone else, while Jesus stands in the cold apart from the crowd, weathering his interrogation with a nonjudgmental heart. Every time we are in a crowd that is clamoring for revenge, for retribution, usually under the holy name of “justice,” we are being invited to warm ourselves by the fire with everyone else, while Jesus stands in the cold apart from the crowd, weathering his interrogation with forgiveness.

Pastor Brian Zahnd shares very vulnerably from his own experience right after 9/11. He insists that that event and others like it remain “a test for the American church.” “Will we succumb,” he asks, “to the temptation of scapegoating? Will the church scapegoat Muslims in the twenty-first century as the church scapegoated Jews in previous centuries? For me it was a personal test of my commitment to the Jesus way of responding to violence and enemies. I failed the test. Miserably.” He then explains what he means: “On that strange and confusing night, I failed in my role as a Christian pastor. I prayed [at a city-wide vigil] a prayer based on anger and vengeance. I prayed a prayer to sanction US military retaliation. I prayed a war prayer. Oh, I’m sure I prayed in appropriate ways as well—for the rescue workers, for the missing, for their families, for comfort from above, etc. But for the most part, my prayer was a petition for God to take our side in the inevitable war to come. Yes, it was a war prayer. And I could feel how my prayer energized the crowd. The crowd certainly did not think I had failed. The crowd thought I had passionately expressed to God the very thing they were feeling. Many in the crowd would have described my prayer as ‘anointed.’ I don’t presume every person present shared that sentiment, but there is no doubt that the crowd was with me. The crowd wanted a war prayer, and that’s what I prayed. I gave the crowd what it wanted. I wish I had done better. I wish my prayer had been more of a broken lament. I wish my prayer had been a tearful cry for mercy. I wish my prayer had been an honest wrestling with Jesus’s call to love our enemies … even if it had only been to express how impossible it seemed at that moment. But I didn’t do those things. I prayed a war prayer.”[1]

Philosopher and theologian Rene Girard, perhaps one of the most influential philosophers of the 20^th centuries, comments that Peter is not a “special case” in today’s story. He is all of us.

“When you are in a crowd,” Girard says, “you become literally possessed by the crowd.” You do what the crowd does. As I did in that Sheffield cathedral. As Brian Zahnd did at that 9/11 prayer vigil. As Peter did around that fire.

In the Garden as in the Courtyard:
Peter Follows the Crowd

19   Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. 20 Jesus 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. 21 Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.” 22 When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest?” 23 Jesus answered, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” 24 Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

In this first glimpse into Jesus’ trial, we see how the world reacts to its enemies. One of the police strike Jesus on the face for what is considered an antagonistic response. We might remember what Peter did in the garden not long before this scene, striking the ear of the high priest’s slave. The similarity between what Peter did and what the police do to Jesus, hints at the truth about Peter’s behavior. As I suggested earlier, it is not necessarily that Peter was first courageous and then a coward. Rather, both in the garden and also in the courtyard, Peter follows the crowd. In both garden and courtyard, he does what the world does, rather than what his Lord does. When the world comes ready to fight, he fights (until his Lord disarms him). When the world quietly rejects his Lord, he rejects him too.

Jesus Calls Him Peter

25   Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.” 26 One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” 27 Again Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed.

Again, negative questions. “You don’t really follow this guy, do you?” Again, an easy capitulation to the crowd. Peter quietly denies his Lord. The cock’s crowing—which Jesus had earlier predicted would happen when Peter denied him—acts almost like an alarm clock, waking Peter up to what has just happened. This simple sign suggests that previously Peter is unaware of what is happening. The crowd has a hypnotic effect. We can quietly fall asleep to our values, to our commitments, to the point that we don’t even realize we’re falling away from our Lord as we deny him. As we join the world in its judgment of others, or its cries for vengeance, or its demonizing and scapegoating of the enemy.

The good news is perhaps difficult to see in this passage alone. If Peter is indeed all of us, are we to leave here today in quiet resignation, in a fatalistic acceptance that we will capitulate whenever we encounter the crowd? Today’s passage is one of those where the best I can offer is, “Stay tuned…” The story does not end here. Peter’s shortcoming does not define him. If nothing else, we might find the good news in his name. Peter, remember, is the name that Jesus gives to Simon. Jesus knows that this man will one day deny him and desert him, and even so he calls him Peter. It is as though, by giving Simon the name Peter, Jesus stubbornly resists what Satan will try to tell Peter after today’s episode. That he is weak, spineless, shifting sand, an unsteady foundation. But Jesus says, no, despite everything, Peter is a rock. A solid foundation. A good person and child of God.

I think he says the same of us. All of us.

Prayer

Faithful Christ,
Who believes in us
Even when we fall short,
Grant us sober hearts
To beware the power of the crowd
And the temptations to stray
From your way of love and forgiveness.
…
Ground us in the assurance
That we are God’s good and beloved children,
Created to live as you lived.
Amen.

 

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[1] Brian Zahnd, A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor’s Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace (Colorado Springs: David Cook, 2014), chapter 4, “It’s Hard to Believe in Jesus.”