A Living Memorial

(1 Samuel 7:7-12)

Below is a the Memorial Sunday sermon at Smith Chapel, how we can become an Ebenezer, a living memorial to God's help. After listening to Bishop Schnase describe the Wesleyan approach to salvation and sanctification through Grace, I thought it important for us to hear my take on friend Dorothy's story, part of the sermon below. The hymn of preparation was "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" and the Scripture reading was 1 Samuel 7:7-12.

Introduction

Ebenezer, in our song and our Scripture, “stone of help,” but also stone of remembrance for it helped them remember. Last Tuesday, we visited our stone of remembrance, the memorial stone of our son Jeff. Jeff would have been 48 on June 30^th, one month from today. August 13^th will be 30 years, but he will always be 18 to me. Jeff was Rosemary’s best friend. He was Curt’s constant companion. He was our son. In his short life, he had experienced more than most. He had a job that he loved, he had a girl that he loved, and who loved him in return. He had friends that he loved who cared about him. He was passionate about life. He loved life and it loved him in return. How do we memorialize a life so precious to us? How do you live in response to the love that he had given us? A stone of remembrance yes, but our best response is a life of remembrance, a life lived as a memorial to life of love that he lived. Our lives as a stone of remembrance.

Sometimes when tragedy happens, we have trouble even getting on with life, let alone living our lives. We have the question in our hearts continually, the question that has plagued humankind since the beginning, the question that in so many cases drives people away from the Christian faith. The question of course is “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

Body

You’ve all asked that question. Certainly Ilene has asked the question. Certainly Cecil has asked the question. When we think of Julie, I think we all ask the question. My hunch is that every single one of you have asked. Many times with unsatisfactory answers, many unsatisfactory answers from good, well-intentioned people. They say, “It was all part of God’s plan.” Or “God takes the very best for his own.” Or “God loved him the most.” Well, then, I don’t want God to love him. In fact, I don’t want a God that had it in his plan to snatch Jeff from us. How can we have faith in such a God? How can we raise a stone, a memorial to such a God?

It’s the kind of thing you might have heard from your friends. It’s the kind of thing you might hear from the more vocal of the Christian community today. “God has a plan. It was all part of God’s plan.” It’s the kind of thing that drives many away from the faith. You might have heard it, but you won’t hear it here. It is not Methodist. It is not Wesleyan. It’s not part of our DNA.

John Wesley had a running battle with friends of his who followed the French theologian, John Calvin, who believed that all things were predestined by God. Even those who are to be saved and those who are not to be saved are predestined by God. That was unacceptable to Wesley who believed in a God of grace. A God whose grace was available to all, not just some. God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s grace is available to all. O, we have the free-will to refuse it, we can choose, but God’s grace is available to every one of us.
How does this address the question of “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The world is fallen, evil exists, bad things happen because of the choices we have made from the beginning. Choices made by both people and spiritual forces. Paul called them “powers and principalities”; they make choices too. Choices result in accidents. Choices sometimes result in evil. Bad things happen to good people not because God chooses them, but because people do. Choice gives us the freedom to love, to experience joy. It also gives us the freedom to do harm.

Or because that’s the way a fallen world is. We choose to go certain places. We choose to go at certain times. We live in certain places. The hurricanes that provide water for thousands of square miles, provide devastation at the seashore. The same thunderstorms that water the plains spawn tornados. The wild beasts that provide food also are a threat to life and limb. We live in a fallen world, but someday we know that the lion will lie down with the lamb. That is yet to come. For now, bad things do happen, but we know that God is there.

The important thing for John Wesley was the understanding that God’s grace was available, not just available, but working in each and every one of us even before we know it. Wesley was not alone in his understanding, but was following in the footsteps of a Dutch theologian, Jacob Arminius, who had set forth certain principles in opposition to John Calvin. Wesley embraced Arminism, as it came to be known, and our own denomination as well as many other Wesleyan denominations, such as the Church of the Nazarene, the Salvation Army, Assemblies of God; and many others like the Disciples of Christ have followed and others, most all flowing from Wesley’s teachings.

And how important is this understanding? It makes understand that God’s love is for all, not just for some. We don’t have a God who picks and chooses. We have a God who loves all of his children and wants all to believe in him and love him in return. By the way, that should influence the way we view others.

It makes us understand that we are immersed in God’s grace that is continually nudging us, but that we have apart to play, we have to accept the nudging of God’s grace. Understand there is nothing we can do by ourselves to save us. It is grace. But what we must do is make the choice to accept it.

It makes understand the power of prayer. What good would prayer be if all things were predestined, even the prayers we say tonight? We choose to pray because we know we have a God who loves us, and God who hears our prayers. Not that all are answered to our satisfaction. Evil forces exist in this world that resist grace and bad things can happen.

But it makes us understand that nothing can happen that cannot bring God glory, even the most tragic of circumstances. Tragedy happened in Jesus’ life. His friend Lazarus died. Jesus used it to bring glory to God. Bad things happen in our lives. If we will allow God, he will take those tragedies and bring glory out of those too. I praise God today because he has been at work in my life.

Yes, I think the Wesleyan understanding of God’s grace, God’s love, makes our lives much more important because we have choices to make. What we do with our lives matters. It matters to us. It matters to others. We can choose to make our lives a memorial. We can choose to make our lives a difference. And I would submit that we make a difference best when we follow the teachings of Jesus.

We are the body of Christ. Jesus is our head. We are to have the mind of Christ. Paul called Jesus the pioneer and perfector, perfector, of our faith. It is Jesus to whom we look. It is Jesus who we follow. It is Jesus in whom we believe. It is in following Jesus that we build our lives into a memorial for Him and for those we love. Our lives become an Ebenezer when we choose to follow Jesus.

Making choices is not always an easy thing. We are immersed in a world of bad options. It’s easy to make bad choices when we are surrounded by bad options. Fortunately, Wesley had some things to say about that too. He taught us too how we are to live our lives in following Jesus, how we can best make choices. We talked of that last year when we did our sermon series on Wesley’s Three Simple Rules.

First, do no harm. Recall that we said that this was the first rule because in so many cases it is so difficult to undo harm. We can be forgiven, but the consequences of harm remain.

Then, do good. Do all the good you can, to all the people you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, for as long as ever you can.

Finally, stay in love with God. We do this by immersing ourselves in grace and saying yes to God’s nudgings. We immerse ourselves in grace by doing all those things associated with the devotional life: We pray, we read and hear Scripture, we study, we partake in Holy Communion, we fast, we gather in community to enter into holy conversation. In so doing, we hear the love of God proclaimed and we respond in love.

This week I read a facebook note from my friend Dorothy in Springfield. She had attended a Joyce Meyer event this past weekend where Joyce had talked a lot about, “what you think, you become.” She was challenged to spend some time each day thinking about what she was thinking about. It struck a chord with her.

On Tuesday morning, her Bible opened to the following verse, one of my favorites: Philippians 4:8 "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." NIV

Wow! Dorothy thought about in the shower, then on the drive to work. Then she thought about what she thought about. When the day was done, she wrote this:

What goes into my head, thoughts, judgments, etc., can be pretty scary sometimes… Man, are my eyes wide open now. Here are a few examples that will bring me to a place that is noble and just and lovely and admirable:

1. I will not shade any of my thoughts with deceit or lies.
2. I will think about others with respect and honor.
3. I determine to think on what is virtuous and decent.
4. I will keep my thoughts focused on good things.
5. I will look for the inner beauty in the people I meet - after all God created them.
6. I will focus on the best qualities of people I know.
7. I will avoid sloppy attitudes.
8. I will recall those things that cause my heart to praise God!

She concludes: These are the biblical teachings that will better shape my day to help me better shape the world where I am.

Dorothy is becoming a memorial, a stone that will help others remember who and whose they are. How does this come about? It is grace. God’s grace. We can do nothing apart from God. But there came a time from God’s nudgings (Wesley called it prevenient grace—grace before we know it, grace before it’s convenient) there was a time Dorothy responded and said yes to God. God forgave her of her sins and brought her into a relationship with Him. She became a Christian. She was justified, she was made right. She was brought into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We call this justifying grace. You see grace is God’s love continuously poured out for us. God continued to pour out his love, to continue to work in Dorothy’s life. He nudged to go to the Joyce Meyer seminar. She said yes. Through the voice of Joyce Meyer He placed an idea before her. She said yes. On Tuesday morning he nudged her to read her Bible. She was again immersed in grace. She said yes. He placed Paul’s letter to the Philippians before her. It shaped her thoughts to which she said yes.

How do our lives become a memorial? Wesley believed that God does not leave us alone. Through our immersion in grace, our immersion in God’s love, from our saying yes, day after day, God moves us from where we are towards where he wants us to be. Wesley called this sanctification. Moving on to Christian maturity with God’s help. Yes, I would say on to becoming an Ebenezer, a monument a stone to God’s help.

Stones are a big deal in the Bible. (Note: Small stones are passed out to each in the congregation.) A search will reveal almost 400 occurrences, depending on the translation you might be using. Some notable remembrances of stones in the Bible:

Jacob used a stone as a pillow the night he dreamed of Jacob’s ladder and angels ascending and descending from heaven. In the morning he set it upright as a pillar, pouring oil on the top of it and saying, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it…. How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.”

Stones. The Ten Commandments were given on two tablets of stone.

Joshua had the Israelites take 12 stones out of the Jordon River after they had crossed over and set them up as a monument to God so that anyone who asked in times to come they would know they were a monument to God’s mighty acts so that they might fear the Lord forever.

There was the Ebenezer stone, the stone of help.

There was the stone Jesus commanded be removed from Lazarus’ tomb, and the stone that was rolled away on Easter morning.

Then, there was Christ, the cornerstone.

Finally, we are to become stone of remembrance, an Ebenezer, a monument to God’s help for those around us to see.

Close

One more thing, we become a memorial, a stone of remembrance, when we live a life of gratitude.

As we drove away from the cemetery, from Jeff’s grave last Monday, I asked Rosemary a question I’d heard another time. “If you knew, if you knew the pain, the suffering, the anguish that you’d have gone through because of the loss of Jeff, because of the bad things that had happened to this good child. If you knew, would you have had children?”

Her response was the one that I know you know: “I’m grateful for the time I had with him. I wouldn’t trade a moment, not a second of that time.

The time we have with one another is precious. A precious stone, more precious than gold. You see that precious stone is hope. And that too is grace, an undeserved gift of love from God. The hope that we will join again with those who have gone before, join with them in the presence of Jesus Christ who is our stone of hope.

Our hope is in Jesus Christ, the answer to our deepest longings, and our most difficult questions. When we ask, “Why?” We need not know the reason. Reasons may never be satisfactory to us. What we need is our stone of hope. We need gift of Jesus Christ.

With a gift like that, how can we not live our life as a stone of remembrance, as a memorial to all that God has given us.

So may you all be stones of remembrance, carrying in your hands the precious stone of hope to the glory of God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is our help and we are his stones of remembrance, his Ebenezers in a world that desperately needs his help. Become a stone for all to see, and as Dorothy said, to shape the world around you. Amen.

Easter: The Transformational Power of the Resurrection

The Transformational Power of the Resurrection

(John 20:1-18, Luke 24:1-12)

A. Introduction

1. Easter This is the day the Lord has made! This is the day of Resurrection. This is the day it comes down to. For the past six weeks we’ve been looking at Holy Week one day at a time. Six Sundays ago, Palm Sunday, then the next Sunday, Holy Monday, and on through the week. Last week, we experienced the despair of Good Friday. But today is Easter, the focus of our series. In fact, the focus of Christianity, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. For it is the Power of the Resurrection that has transformed the world. And it is the Power of the Resurrection that transforms us too.
   
2. Last week, Good Friday, despair. I didn’t tell you about Peter.
1. On Thursday night, Jesus tells his disciple, that they will all become deserters this night. Peter says, “Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you.” And Jesus says, “Peter, before the cock crows you will deny me three times.” And many of us recall the story. Jesus and the disciples go to the garden of Gethsemane where Judas leads a crowd and the Temple guards and betrays Jesus with a kiss. He is led off in chains to the house of the High Priest to be tried. Peter follows, even though fearing for his life. He stands in the courtyard of the High Priest trying to see what is happening to Jesus. Through this mixture of both fear and courage he is identified by the servants. “You were with Jesus.” “You are one of his followers.” “You are a Galilean; your accent betrays you.” Each time Peter denies knowing Jesus. Even cursing. Three times. After the third time, the cock crowed. Realizing what he had done, the Bible tells us, Peter wept bitterly. You might say, Peter was having a Good Friday moment. Dispair. Bitter remorse. It was to get worse. Jesus was to be crucified and die.
   
3. Peter wasn’t the only disciple in despair. All had lost sight of the words Jesus had told them in Galilee, that he was to go to Jerusalem, be handed over to sinners to be crucified, and on the third day rise again! Nobody understood. Nobody was expecting the resurrection. Nobody.
1. The women too had forgotten. Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, Salome, the other Mary, other women who had followed Jesus from Galilee, all of them were in despair. They, like Peter, were all having their Good Friday moment. Then Saturday. It was a dark, dark Saturday. We sometimes call it Black Saturday.

B. Body

1. But then comes Easter morning. Early on the first day of the week, the women came to do their last loving act for Jesus, to anoint the body with perfume and spices. But they did not find Jesus. Luke tells us they saw the empty tomb and two radiant angels and were terrified. We don’t often put Easter and terrified in the same sentence. I think the women were still having their Good Friday moment. The Gospel of John said they had gone to the tomb while it was still dark. That’s John’s way of saying they were still in spiritual darkness. They were still having a Good Friday moment.
2. Mary Magdalene is the only of the women mentioned in all four gospels. In fact, she’s featured in John’s Gospel. She has center stage in the garden. So much so that in the Eastern Orthodox faith, she is considered an Apostle. She is an eye witness to the resurrection, she is called by Jesus to tell the story, and she goes and declares, “I have seen the Lord.” And she tells them all that he had said to her.
1. Mary, maybe more than any other had been transformed by Jesus. She had been possessed by demons, her life in shambles.
2. But the transforming love of Christ had changed her life. And he was about to change it again.Peter and John had left. The writer of John says they went home. Mary was left in the garden, the Bible says weeping. Just as Peter had been, Mary was still caught in a Good Friday moment, spiritual darkness still surrounding her.
3. Jesus, the man she had thought to be the gardner, says, “Mary.” What it must have meant to have Jesus, Jesus, say your name. And Mary says in Hebrew, “Rabouni,” which means teacher, but more than teacher. We lose something in the translation. It means, “My teacher.” Love is a personal thing. My teacher. My Lord and my God. And Mary goes and tells the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” And then she tells them all the things he had said to her. Mary, transformed by Jesus and then transformed again by the Power of the Resurrection, Mary, transformed Mary, becomes an Apostle of the Church.


3. Mary was transformed by love.
1. Love is not a feeling. Lest we get caught up in the Dan Brown, Davinci Code scenario of Jesus and Mary Magdalene having a family together. Let me repeat, love is not a feeling. Love is transformational.
2. To paraphrase Scott Peck from The Road Less Traveled, “Love is the will to extend oneself in order to positively transform oneself or another spiritually.” Love is the will, it is intentional. Love extends oneself. It takes effort, hard work. Love changes us, transforms us, love will not let us stay where it finds us.We are all spiritual beings. We have a physical body, yes, but we are spiritual beings. Love transforms us spiritually. We grow into the being God intends to be when we are positively transformed by love.


4. Greg Mortenson has popped up three times in fairly rapid succession in recent weeks. At Christmas, Rosemary gave me a paper back copy of a book, Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson, I have to say the title didn’t appeal that much to me. Three Cups of Tea. Then, as you know, I went to Connecticut in January and stayed a couple days at our former pastor’s house. He had a present for me, a hardback copy of a book, Stones into Schools, by you guessed it, Greg Mortenson. Stones into Schools. That’s sounding more substantial. And then this week, “The Rotarian” magazine shows up. On the cover, you guessed it, is Greg Mortenson. You get the picture?
1. The long and the short of it is this: What Keith Jaspers and Rainbow Network are to Nicaragua, Greg Mortenson is to the northern reaches of Pakistan and Afghanistan. They are doing the hard work of love to change lives. They have both been giving transforming love to their regions. In the case of Greg Mortenson, to the people living above 11,000 feet, at the highest altitudes that can sustain life, and in some of the most remote and rugged regions of the world.
2. Here’s the story. Greg Mortenson was a mountain climber who as separated from his guide coming down the mountain from K2, the second highest peak in the world. He stumbled onto the small village of Korphe, where the people nursed him back to health and cared for him over the winter. Once winter sets in you are there. Period.
   Here are the children of Korphe.
   While there, he promised a young girl, who was trying to learn, unsupervised under a tree, that he would build her a school. He said, “I promise.” He owed these people his life.
3. He returned to California, he lived for a year in his car, while he tried to raise the funds to build the school, an estimated $12,000. He sent out 580 individually typed letters, every senator, every contact he could think of. From those letters, he received one check and a note. One check for $12,000 and a note that said, “Don’t screw up.”
4. He then sold everything he had, including the car he’d been living in, for airfare and equipment to return to Pakistan and build the school. The will to extend oneself for the positive transformation of oneself or others spiritually.
   Here’s a picture of one of the early schools, and with some of the kids.
   That’s love. That’s Greg Mortenson.
5. Today, 16 years later, there are 131 schools across the highest, the very northern reaches of Pakistan and Afghanistan, 131 schools teaching 58,000 students, more than half of them girls. Does it matter? The saying goes, educate a boy and transform a life. Educate a girl and transform a village. Girls come home. In the case of one girl, completing her grade school education, then tohigh school on a Greg Mortenson scholarship and finally, a on a Mortenson scholarship, a two year maternal healthcare course. Hen she returned home. In the past, nearly every year in her area, 20 women had lost their lives in childbirth. Since her return in 2000, ten years ago, not a woman has died. Extending oneself for the transformation of another. That’s love. That is the transformational power of love, that is the transformational power of the resurrection.
   
5. Yet we so often live in a Good Friday world, don’t we? We live in a world where girls in countries like Afghanistan have acid thrown on them by evil people to deter them from going to school. Yet they have so much Easter hope, that they go to school anyway.
1. We have farmers in Nicaragua whose crops and livestock are destroyed by consecutive hurricanes. But with Rainbow Network there, they have so much Easter hope that they perservere.
2. We have the poorest of the poor in Haiti who have lost their loved ones and every token they might have had, yet with organizations like the United Methodist Committee on Relief and Catholic Charities there at their side as the heart and hands of Christ, they have Easter Hope and they move on. That is love. That is the Transformational Power of the Resurrection. From Good Friday moments to hope.
3. But we have Good Friday moments on a personal basis don’t we? Everyone who has lost a spouse, or a child, or has suffered from injury or disease has Good Friday moments. Those are personal moments. But we have a personal Savior in Jesus Christ, one who calls us by name. The same one that though the Transforming Power his Resurrected voice, said, “Mary.” The same personal Savior who with the same Resurrected voice would say to Peter, “Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.” Mary and Peter lifted out of despair, out of their Good Friday moments by the Transforming Power of the Resurrection. Then as witnesses to the resurrection they were called, sent, and transformed the known world in their lifetime. The Transforming Personal Power of the Resurrection. Proof positive of eternal life, and therefore, we have hope.
   
6. On the personal level, it is the power of hope that propels us.
1. To know that we will be reunited with our loved ones again. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me even though they die, yet shall they live; and whoever lives and believes in me, will never die.” And that gives us hope. The transforming Power of the Resurrection.
2. To know that it is not a past thing, 2000 years ago, or a future thing, someday, but a present thing. As the song goes, “I serve a living Savior, he’s in the world today, I know that he is living, whatever foes may say. I see his hand of mercy, I hear his voice of cheer, and just the time I need him, he’s always here. He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way. He lives, he lives, salvation to impart. You ask me how I know he lives, he lives within my heart.”
3. The transforming power of his love is a very personal and present thing. He lives.
   
7. During our sermon series on Holy Week, we’ve been asking the questions what kind of king is Jesus? What kind of Kingdom is he ushering in? And what does he expect of his subjects? What kind of kingdom is he ushering in?
1. Jesus is ushering in a kingdom where paradise has been restored. The paradise lost in the Garden of Eden is restored in the garden of the empty tomb.
2. The kingdom he is ushering in is one where paradise continues to break through by means of Jesus’ followers. First through his disciples, then through his Church, and today through agencies like the United Methodist Committee on Relief and through present day disciples like Keith Jaspers and Greg Mortenson, and you showing love to a neighbor. Glimpses of paradise.
3. Even though it is a Good Friday world, the proof of the resurrection comes glimmering through in the Transforming love of the people called Christians. That is the kind of kingdom he is ushering in.
   
8. Transforming love is not always easy. When Greg Mortenson returned to Pakistan to build the first school in Korphe, he bought the materials, had them transported to a town about 20 kilometers away, then made his way to the village to finalize the plans. The way across the river to Korphe, the only way was in a bucket, a cable car over a 100 foot deep gorge. This is the way Mortenson describes it: “It was just a box really, like a big fruit crate held together with a few nails. You pulled yourself along this 350 foot greasy cable and tried not to think about the creaking sounds it made. Tried not to think about the obvious—if it broke, you’d fall. And if you fell, you were dead.” (Three Cups of Tea, p 96)
1. So Mortenson arrived in the village and after his tea, the village elder said, “We have decided, as much want the school, right now what we need is a bridge. A bridge, so we can carry the school to Korphe village.”
2. Back to the States, a winter of fund raising to build a bridge the following summer so that the school could be built by fall.
3. Here are the porters, a year later, carrying the school to Korphe after they had crossed the bridge.
4. Transformational love is not always easy. It takes will. It takes intention if you are going to transform the souls of those you serve. Christ showed that. Mortenson found that out. Love can be hard work.
   
9. We are the Easter People. We are the people of the Resurrection. We are the people called to Transformational love. In fact the mission of the United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. For the transformation of the world. We are called to love.
1. We may not be called to build schools in the Himalayas or even in the rural mountains of Nicaragua; though we can do that by proxy, but we are called to love our neighbor. How transforming would it be if the People called Christians, the Easter People, put a fraction of that kind of effort into our relationships?
2. If we all had an understanding that love is not a feeling, it is way beyond a feeling. It is the will to extend oneself, to do the hard, hard work of building up another, of giving others the tools of spiritual transformation, of positive spiritual growth.
3. We are called to transform the place where we are. Love is not a feeling. It is the hard work of helping ourselves and others become what God intends us to be.
   
10. And we have the Power of the Resurrection on our side.
1. On Saturday night, black Saturday night, the disciples and followers of Jesus were a dejected, defeated band of pathetic nobodies.
2. After Easter, they changed the world! They began where they were, as Jesus instructed, first in Jerusalem, then Samaria, and to the ends of the known world. They transformed the world.

C. Close

1. We are the Easter People, we are the ones who possess the Power of the Resurrection. We’ve been given a story, we call it the Greatest Story Every Told. And we know that individual lives, families, communities, even nations have been transformed when they’ve embraced that Story.
   
2. And the greatest means of story-telling is to love, having the will, doing the work, extending oneself for the benefit of others.
   
3. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
   
4. We are the Easter People, equipped with the Transforming Power of the Resurrection. Let’s go build the kingdom. Amen.

D. (After the Table is prepared, Recite “One Solitary Life” by James Allen Francis)

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn't go to college. He never lived in a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him, another betrayed him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.

Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned--put together--have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life.*

That is the Transformational Power of the Resurrection.

Day 6: Our Crucified Lord

Our Crucified Lord

(Passion Narrative)

A. Introduction

1. We’ve spent the Lenten season asking ourselves of Jesus: What kind of king is he; what kind of kingdom is he ushering in? And what does he expect of his subjects? Of us?
2. The latter first, what does he expect of his subjects? Had we had church last week, we would have learned (and there are hard copies of the text in the back), we would have learned that on the night before he died, Christ taught his disciples and us four things:
1. A “New commandment that we love one another.”
2. Through his example in the washing of feet, that we serve one another.
3. That we love him by obeying his commandments. Love one another, serve one another, love Christ by keeping his commandments.
4. And four, we learned in his garden prayer, “Not my will but thine be done.” That we love God by submitting to his will. Love one another, serve one another, love Christ by keeping his commandments, love God by submitting to his will.

B. Body

1. What kind of king is this? He was first a very flesh and blood king. Christ was fully human and as such fully suffered for us on the cross. But by the end of the first century, the first heresy of the church arose. The Greek influence was saying that God would never submit to the cruelty of the cross. It was stamped out by Jesus’ followers. The disciples knew and John especially knew because they had seen him in the flesh, they had touched him. John said, “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, concerning the word of life” (1 John 1). John was standing there with Jesus’ mother and saw him on the cross, he witnessed the issuing of the water and blood from his side when the spear was thrust into his side. John knew, John knew that Jesus was flesh and blood and there was no limit to how far this king would go to love us, to forgive us, to reconcile us, to restore the breach between God and us.
1. It is one thing to sacrifice.
2. It is quite another to lay down one’s life for us.
3. And yet another to do it by suffering the cruelest for of pain devised by man—for us. Nails driven directly through his nerves. Excruciating pain as he lifts his body to grasp for air only to do it again for hours until there is no strength, no breath left and he dies a terrifying death of suffocation. Excruciating, a word derived from the cross itself. And all that after he had been scourged, flogged, bits of metal and bone stripping the flesh and muscle as he was whipped again and again. Yes, it is quite another thing to under go the cruelty of crucifixion.
4. Then it’s even another thing to suffer the indignation of being hung on a tree, cursed by God, taking the whole of sin on oneself, being so ugly with sin that for a moment he was forsaken by God. Yet Jesus would say even to the God who had forsaken him, “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”
   
2. What kind of king was this?
1. A king who loves without limit.
2. A king who would put himself through any circumstance, and suffering, any injury, any sickness, any guilt, any shame, even death itself to be able to say “I know what you’ve been through, I’ve felt it too and I forgive you.”
3. There’s a story of a man and wife who early in their marriage, the wife was unfaithful and for over 20 years could never forgive herself, living with guilt and shame that was a deep scar on their relationship, creating a void, a breach between them. Their relationship was never again the same. After 20 years, one day working in the garden together, the man said, “Dear, you know I love, I forgive you.” “How dare you, how dare you forgive me. You have no right to forgive me.”
4. In Jesus we have one who dared to be the kind of king who could forgive me in any circumstance because he had experienced every circumstance even being forsaken by God.

C. Close

1. And my response must be,
1. How dare I not love him.
2. How dare I not commit my life to him.
3. How dare I not commend my soul to him.
2. Our closing him, “When I survey the Wondrous Cross,” closes, “His love demands my life, my soul, my all.” How dare we not give him our all.
3. Let us close together, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” Amen.

Thursday: A Supper Together

(Matthew 26:17-30; 31-57)

A. Introduction

1. Gethsemane, Gethsemane go to dark Gethsemane. Thursday of Holy Week ends with Jesus being arrested. How did we get there? In one of the holiest weeks of the Jewish calendar, how did the story seem to come so abruptly to an end? And what does it tell us about what kind of king Jesus was? About what kind of kingdom he was ushering in? And what is expected of his subjects?

B. Body

1. Mark begins the story this way: (14.12-13) On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover’? So he sent his disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you, follow him…’ Where do you want us to make preparations for the Passover?
2. The Passover. Recall that over a thousand years earlier, God had sent Moses to Pharaoh to demand that he set the people of Israel free, “Let my People Go.” but Pharaoh refused. Over and over again he refused. God sent plague after plague, pests, turning the water blood red, hail that destroyed crops and killed livestock. “Let my people go.” But Pharaoh refused. Finally, the tenth plague would convince Pharaoh. It would kill every first born in Egypt. But God instructed the children of Israel to take a lamb for each household and slaughter it at twilight for a meal to be eaten in haste. Then they were to take some of the blood and put it on the doorposts and on the lintel of the house in which they ate the meal. The Angel of Death would then pass over the houses, pass over the houses, where the blood had been placed on the doorposts and lintel. They were to eat their meal in readiness to depart, with their loins girded, sandals on their feet, staff in hand. No time to let the bread rise. They were to eat unleavened bread. Then God instructed the children of Israel that they would observe this meal, this festival on the appointed day in perpetuity to remember the mighty acts of God in delivering the children of Israel from slavery to freedom. Now was the appointed time. Thursday evening, this particular week was the appointed time that all the children of Israel, Jesus and the disciples included, were called to observe the Passover. It just happened to be their last supper together.
3. So, what might the Last Supper have looked like? Here’s the traditional Davinci depiction. We don’t think there is much right in the picture. First of all he shows it as daylight. We know that it was night. More important is the seating arrangement. Archeologists have found Mosaics in Galilee depicting what is called a “triclinium,” a common Greek and Roman seating arrangement, also we believe used in better Jewish homes. Here’s a picture of a typical Roman meal being served at a triclinium. Note there are cushions rather than chairs. It was convenient for serving and for talking across the table. It explains a lot of things in the Biblical narrative that can’t be understood if we have Davinci’s picture in mind.
1. First, the host does not sit in the middle. This is probably the seating arrangement. We know where Jesus and at least three of his disciples were seated from the Biblical narrative. The host position is position one. Jesus would have sat here resting on his left elbow or hand if the cushion was lower, feet to the rear, eating with his right hand. John, the youngest, and one who might have helped with the meal or to rise and greet guests would have been seated in position 2, and we think Peter would have been here.
2. Listen to this exchange in the Gospel of John (13:21-26 RSV) When Jesus had thus spoken, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, (We believe John called himself, “The disciple whom Jesus loved) was lying close to the breast of Jesus; (do you see how John here, was lying close to the breast of Jesus?) so Simon Peter beckoned to him (do you see how that would work?) beckoned to him and said, “Tell us who it is of whom he speaks.” So lying thus, close to the breast of Jesus, he said to him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it.” (Now position 3 was the most honored position. It is the position that the host would normally serve. So who was it in the most honored position at the last supper? Judas. Continuing.) When he dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscarot.” (Interesting isn’t it that Jesus has placed Judas in the most honored position at the table. I’ll let you ponder that.)
4. So how important is the conversation that took place around this table that night? Well, the Gospel of John spends four and half chapters on it. You may recall the events: Jesus washing the feet of the disciples; Jesus reassuring the disciples by telling them, “In my father’s house are many mansions”; Jesus giving a new commandment “that you love one another”; Jesus telling the parable of the vine and the branches, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them will bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing”; then Jesus says he will ask the Father to give them the gift of the Holy Spirit to be with them forever; and then he ends the conversation around the table with a prayer for his disciples. Interesting, the Gospel of John really doesn’t talk about what we call “the Last Supper.” He has talked about the body and blood of Christ after the feeding of the 5000. We find the institution of the Last Supper in the first three Gospels and in 1 Corinthians.
5. So what did he teach us that night? Lots of conversation in John that goes to the heart of Jesus’ love for us.
1. The Thursday of Holy Week is called Maunday Thursday. Maunday, from the Latin root of mandate and command. Jesus said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another. Even as I have loved you, that you have love for one another. By this you will be known as my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
2. His second teaching took place in the washing of feet. (John 13:12-15) ¹² After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” So the second thing he taught us is to follow his example and serve one another.
3. Then Jesus tells them, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Love one another, serve one another, love Christ by keeping his commandments.
4. The final teaching comes from the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane. Luke tells us that as Jesus prays, he prays, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” Submission, not my will but yours, God’s be done.
5. So Jesus teaches us to love one another, to serve one another, to love him by keeping his commandments and to love God by submitting to his will. “Not my will but thine be done.’
6. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And on that night he told us, “Do this, as often as you will, in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor 11:25) The command is to remember, to take, eat, drink as often as you will in remembrance of me. To recall the mighty acts of God in Jesus Christ, to proclaim the Lord’s death until he returns.
1. On that night as they shared the Passover together, Jesus redefined the meaning of the Passover meal in terms of the New Covenant. He took bread and after blessing it, broke and gave it to his disciples saying, “This is my body given for you.” Christ presenting himself as the substitute for the Passover lamb. The Passover lamb had been given to redeem the first born. Jesus was now giving himself as the Passover lamb. Redeeming us, the first born in God’s eyes, redeeming all of us.
2. And in the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This is my blood of new covenant, poured out for you.” Never again would a death be required for the forgiveness of sins. Christ defining a new covenant of his love for us.
3. The Passover feast, the Old Covenant remembrance of God’s mighty acts in delivering the children of Israel from physical slavery to freedom.
4. The Passover, now transformed into what we call The Communion, the Eucharist, The Great Thanksgiving, the Last Supper as remembrance of God’s mighty acts in Jesus Christ delivering us from slavery to sin to eternal freedom, life everlasting.
5. “Do this in remembrance of me.”

C. Close

1. As Jesus says in the Gospel of John, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” he follows by asking the Father to give them the gift of the Holy Spirit. God will not leave us alone. It is the Holy Spirit that binds us together as the body of Christ. We are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God (Eph 2:22) Paul told the Corinthians (1 Cor 10:16) “This cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread that we break a sharing in the body of Christ?”
2. The Greek word used here for sharing is koinonia, or fellowship, communion, joining together. Communion is more than an individual act, it is an act of joining with the body of Christ in remembrance of this mighty act of salvation, his body broken for us, his blood poured out for us. It is an act of sharing with the community of believers, all of us coming together with Christ, our Rock, our Redeemer.
3. As we come to the table today, let us remember, yes, that Christ died for us, but that it is also the remembrance of the fellowship of believers that are remembering and joining together as Christ’s body on earth, joining together as the heart and hands of Christ bringing eternal hope to others, being obedient to Christ, loving one another, serving the world around us, submitting to the will of God. So may it be in all of our lives. Amen.

D. (At the Table)

1. So, what kind of king is this? One who will do anything, go to any lengths to save his subjects.
2. What kind of kingdom is he ushering in? One in which we are called to love one another, to join together in fellowship to be his body one earth.
3. And what does he expect of his subjects? “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” The Table is set.