When Suffering is Unfair

1 Peter 2:19-25
Easter 4
April 26, 2026
William G. Carter

 

For it is a commendable thing if, being aware of God, a person endures pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do good and suffer for it, this is a commendable thing before God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.

 

 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”

 

When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.  For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

  

We didn’t choose this Bible passage. It was chosen for us. There is an ecumenical committee that selects a schedule of scripture texts for weekly worship. I don’t know who they are, but they chose this one. And it is a curious text, indeed.

For one thing, the committee left off the first verse. Verse 18 begins the paragraph, and they left it out of the reading. We can’t blame them for that. It’s one of the most embarrassing verses in the New Testament. It says, in effect, “Slaves, obey your masters. Take whatever they throw at you. Show them proper deference.” Ouch!

In earlier times in our nation’s life, that verse was plucked from the first century and hurled at African people who had been stolen from their homes and sold as forced laborers. It’s ugly. And it will not help to say that Peter’s word for “slaves” was a technical term for house servants, a good bit different than the American enslavement now regarded as America’s original sin.

We can be happy that human enslavement is outlawed in this country, even as the aftershocks of that violent oppression continue to damage our social and economic fabric. We still have a lot of people in this country who think they are better than others. According to historian Heather Cox Richardson of Boston University, people like that are still scrambling to get themselves elected, if only to perpetuate their presumptions of superiority.[1]

Our text was addressed to slaves, who were told to stay in line. I think it’s OK to skip that verse. But it does raise the question: why read the rest of it?

Some might point out that Peter speaks of the death of Jesus. The cross is central to the faith we share. We hoist it high and remember that Jesus took our sins upon himself. This has always been one of the central mysteries of our faith. And it took Christian people a good long time to figure out how to talk about it.

When Jesus appeared on the scene, he told enchanting stories. He kneeled beside the sick and made them well. He taught people how to pray simply and directly. And he called out the hypocrisies of religion and government. The people cheered him. And for all these good and honest deeds, he was nailed to a cross. He was punished but did nothing wrong.  He was verbally abused but did not talk back. He was beaten and whipped, yet never reacted in kind. He came to us in love; and that provoked the worst in us. And he took it. He carried it.

Maybe this is the point of our text. It’s three weeks after Easter, Resurrection Season, but don’t let the empty tomb entice you to forget about the cross. Easter was more than a happy ending to a painful weekend. It was – and continues to be - a call to righteousness, a summons to give up hatred, an invitation to turn away from violence and abuse and turn back to God.

That’s why the writer of this letter draws on the ancient words of the prophet Isaiah. He needs to find words to understand what Jesus went through. From chapter 53, he reads, 

He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity,
and as one from whom others hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him of no account.

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases,
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. (53:3-6)

Does that sound familiar? Of course it does. Peter is quoting Isaiah’s old text as a way of making sense of the cross of Jesus. Those ancient words were embodied by the Christ. This is who Jesus was, who he still is. And we need that reminder, even after Easter.

But there is an even better reason why we are hearing this passage today. It’s because it is the Fourth Sunday of the Easter season. The fourth Sunday is always Good Shepherd Sunday. We hear our old friend, the 23^rd Psalm. We speak and sing about the Shepherd, even if we have never actually met a real shepherd. And that hooks the last line of 1 Peter’s text, “For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” Ah, there it is.

For that, too, is also a quotation from the prophet Isaiah (53:6). It’s a Shepherd text, a Good Shepherd text. The promise that no matter what we are going through, the Shepherd gathers and guards us. We are never guaranteed that life will be easy. We are never promised that everything will work out to our preferences or prop up our privileges.

Yet the Shepherd Christ stands with us. “He suffered for you,” says the preacher Peter. He healed you. He gave you an example for when the world beats up on you.

It is striking that Peter addresses this to slaves, not slave owners. There is no Gospel word for slave owners, or for the masters, or for the oppressors. Only for the slaves, and for anybody who suffers unfairly. Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that just like Jesus? It sounds like the Sermon on the Mount. As somebody notes,

His instruction was to those who were forced to go a mile, but he had no word for those who did the forcing. He advised those taken to court but not those who brought them there. He spoke to those struck on the cheek, but we know of no saying from him to those who strike others. Apparently Jesus’ followers were the abused, not the abusers. Perhaps that is true in the case of slaves and not slave owners in the churches addressed by 1 Peter… It was not written to them or for them. It was written to those who were slaves, had become Christians, but were still slaves.[2]

And the word is to endure. To push through without striking back. To claim the full stature of your humanity. It is possible to be a victim – yet not be a victim. Do you know what I mean by that? Simply this: if we experience pain, we do not inflict pain on others as our response. If we experience disappointment, we do not ruin somebody else’s day. If the world beats us up, we choose not to strike anybody else up. This is the path of forgiveness, just as Jesus forgave and continues to forgive. More than that, it is the path to claim the fullness of our God-given humanity. “We follow in his steps,” says Peter. We pursue his example. We become Christ-like by living like Christ.

So, he said, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, you take control of the situation. Give them the other cheek.” They may lose interest if they run out of cheeks. Is this unrealistic? Or merely untried?

And if anyone says, “Hey you, carry my pack a mile,” take control of the moment and carry that pack a second mile. Go beyond the basic requirement.

Is Peter telling us to become somebody else’s punching bags? No, no, no. For there is a human dignity to be claimed. Our calling is to become like Jesus, never striking back, never holding the grudge, never demeaning another person who has just demeaned us. This is hard. It’s very hard. It takes practice.

Try to recall the last time somebody hurt you. How did you respond? Did you plan their slow, painful demise? Or did you plan a more creative approach, like putting a strong laxative in their hot chocolate? There is no future in revenge, even if it would feel so good.

 Did you ever hear what the late Frederick Buechner said about anger? 

“Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back–in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”[3]

There is another way to live, another road to walk. It is not the road of retaliation or the way of MAD (that is, mutually assured destruction). As Mahatma Gandhi supposedly said, “If you live by an eye for an eye, pretty soon the whole world will be blind.”

No, if you have an enemy, fix them a meal. If you’re really strong, invite them to eat it with you. Or you send them a gift, preferably one that is not ticking. That will keep them guessing.

I remember an old college friend. He loved his girlfriend. She treated him cruelly. He invited her out, she was late, he still waited for her. He wrote her a love note. She ripped it up in front of him. He bought her It was terrible. We thought he was crazy to stick with her. So did she. At one moment, she yelled at him, “Why do you keep being so nice to me?” He said, “I thought that was how we are supposed to treat one another.” She didn’t know what to say. She ran out of words. She lost interest in being cruel. Then she started taking an interest in him. Curious, isn’t it?

The lesson is so simple, yet so difficult. When someone mistreats you, what would Jesus do? How would he respond? What could we learn from him? Class is in session. There’s going to be a lot of homework. Keep in touch.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] See, for instance, her book, How the South Won the Civil War, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022)

[2] Fred B. Craddock, First and Second Peter and Jude: Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995) 49.

[3] Frederick Buecher, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).

And God Gave Them ...

1 Samuel 5:1-12
Holy Humor Sunday
April 12, 2026

William G. Carter  

     When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod; then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and placed it beside Dagon. When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. But when they rose early on the next morning, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off upon the threshold; only the trunk of Dagon was left to him. This is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not step on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.

The hand of the LORD was heavy upon the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and struck them with tumors, both in Ashdod and in its territory. And when the inhabitants of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us; for his hand is heavy on us and on our god Dagon.” So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?”

The inhabitants of Gath replied, “Let the ark of God be moved on to us.” So they moved the ark of the God of Israel to Gath. But after they had brought it to Gath, the hand of the LORD was against the city, causing a very great panic; he struck the inhabitants of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them.

So they sent the ark of the God of Israel to Ekron. But when the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “Why have they brought around to us the ark of the God of Israel to kill us and our people?” They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people.” For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was very heavy there; those who did not die were stricken with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

 

Susan Sparks is a Baptist preacher and one of the funniest people I know. She tells of discovering our scripture text for the first time. It was a hot August Sunday in the Baptist church of her youth. Susan was just seven years old. Like the other overheated people around her, she was fanning herself as the preacher stood up to read the Bible passage for the day. He announced it was a text that tells us what God does to his enemies. And he read from the King James Bible,

It was so that after the Philistines had carried the Ark of the Covenant about, the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had ‘emerods’ in their secret parts. (1 Sam. 5:9, KJV)

Susan said the fans stopped. People looked around. Even though the King James language was somewhat obscure, everybody knew what that meant. ‘Emerods’ was an old word for “hemorrhoids.” God smote them with hemorrhoids. Even though she was only seven years old, even though she had never actually encountered the affliction, she burst out laughing.

Her mother whispered, “Susan Grace! We don’t laugh in church. Jesus doesn’t like it!”[1]

That was the day she discovered that Christian people are just a little too uptight to enjoy what’s in their Bibles, and that they worshiped a God who punished people by giving them hemorrhoids. It was enough to push her to find out what kind of God we really have.

I mean, there is some Jewish humor here. The Rabbis recount the terrible judgment of God. Those blasted Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant. That was the big chest that carried the original Ten Commandments. It was carried on long poles so nobody could actually touch it. The Hebrew people believed it was super-charged with spiritual energy, for it contained the very words of God. It was as if God was present wherever his Commandments were located.

Those nasty Philistines stole the Ark! They stole it. Like the Nazis in an Indiana Jones movie, they took it as a spoil of war. And how did God respond? Not by melting their faces or blasting them with a holy laser beam. The Lord God smote them . . . and gave them hemorrhoids.

It is OK to laugh. That’s what the Jews would do. In Jewish practice, sarcasm is a prophetic trait. If you want to strike out against God’s enemies, make fun of them. You trust God will humiliate them in the most degrading way. In a day before Preparation H, that’s exactly what God did.

Oh, I know: our cultured versions of the Bible have tidied up the language. Three times in 1 Samuel 5, we hear the word “tumors,” not the word “hemorrhoids.” That is an unfortunate translation. The actual Hebrew word refers to small tumors of the tuchas. They are benign yet painful. And they were clearly sufficient to get the Philistines’ attention.

Now, this is a graphic story to make a simple point: the Philistines should not have stolen the Ark. It contained the Covenant between Yahweh and the Jews, the two stone tablets as they were first given to Moses. The Covenant was not intended for the Philistines. It was not a prize from battle or the bottle that holds a good-luck Genie. The covenant was a special pact between redeemed slaves and the God who brought them out of Egypt. Yahweh is the Liberator of Israel, the God who has no equal. You’re not supposed to mess with such a God.

This is what the Philistines discover. They steal the Ark and take it into one of their temples. It was the Temple of Dagon, who was one of their Philistine gods. In the early days, Dagon was the god of fertility, so he had a lot of worshipers. By the time of our account, however, he had been demoted in popular imagination and was regarded as the god of good fishing.

The Philistines had built a house for Dagon and placed a statue of him inside it. That’s where they took Israel’s ark. They put it in the temple of Dagon and stood guard at the door. The next morning, when they opened the door, the statue of Dagon was tipped over on its face. So there! Told you not to mess with Yahweh!

The Philistines tipped their statue back up and shut the door. Next morning, Dagon’s statue was tipped over again – and the hands and the head of the statue were knocked off. See, you nasty Philistines! We told you not to mess with the Lord our God.

Well, that’s about the time that the Philistines started having their posterior problems. The storyteller says, “The hand of the Lord was heavy upon them.” They were terrified and, shall we say, “tumorized.” So, they moved the Ark to another place. They moved it from the town of Ashdod to the city of Gath. A few years later, Gath would become the hometown of Goliath, the giant warrior. The people of Gath said, “Bring the Ark here. We’ll take care of it.” No sooner did it arrive, and they were similarly afflicted. They said, “Get this thing out of here!”

So the Philistines moved the Ark of God from the city of Gath to the city of Ekron. But as they neared that city, the people of Ekron said, “Oh no, you don’t! We don’t want that poisonous artifact around us! Get that thing out of here. Take it back to the people of Israel.” They felt the heavy, heavy hand of God when the Ark was near. In the Philistine city of Ekron, as in Gath and Ashdod, the Ark caused all kinds of painful itching – along with many other indignities. For seven months, the Philistines had the Ark, shuffling it around from place to place. And they came to believe the thing was such a pain in the . . .  well, you know.

So eventually they put it on a cart pulled by two strong cows, put a bit of gold on the cart next to it, and then returned it to the Israelites. With that, their affliction disappeared.

Now, this is a really strange story. Nobody knows quite what to do with it. By the fourth century AD, when the Bible was translated to Latin, St. Jerome added a clarifying note. He said there were rats – that God released rats on the Philistines. That, he explains, was the reason for the so-called tumors and any corresponding illness.

The notion continued, and no less than Martin Luther preached a few sermons on the text. He thundered that the church leaders of Rome were the Bubonic Plague of humanity, and that God was perfectly within his right to afflict all enemies with illness.

The question, of course, is the same question that my friend Susan asked as a seven-year-old: is this the kind of God that we have? Does God send disease and discomfort upon people?

Maybe you remember that Far Side cartoon from many years ago. It’s entitled “God at His Computer.” The white-bearded Deity sits at his desk, computer screen before him. On the screen, a hapless slouch walks down the street. An upright piano dangles over his head. God reaches toward the keyboard to hit the SMITE button.

Is that how God is? Just waiting to hit the button? There are days when it seems so. As guitarist Mark Knopfler famously sang, “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.”

There are seasons in our lives when it feels like the hand of God is fiercely against us – when things are not going well, where joy seems depleted, where the bad diagnoses pile up (so to speak), when all our luck is bad luck. Such moments come to us all, and it is worthy to wonder if we are bringing difficulty upon ourselves. Perhaps we are traveling in the wrong direction and God is trying to get our attention.

Yet it’s never as easy as that. In the Gospel text from the 9^th chapter of John, Jesus sees a blind man in Jerusalem. Everybody knows him. He has become a fixture on the street corner, begging for a hand-out from all the passersby. The friends of Jesus ask, “Rabbi, who sinned to make this man blind? Did he do something wrong? Or did his parents grieve the Lord?”

Jesus says, “None of the above. Neither he nor his parents sinned. He was born blind, that’s all. If anything, he is an example of how God works in human lives.” With that, he made a salve, rubbed it on the man’s eyes in the manner of all the healers of that time, and told him to go and wash it away. The blind man came back seeing.

Now, that seems to be the work of God – the work of the kind of God that I want to believe in. Jesus goes to a man blind from birth, doesn’t bother to ask if he wants to be healed, and then heals him anyway. That’s the kind of goodness and mercy that doesn’t wait to be asked. It is aggressive grace. Jesus heals the man almost randomly because that is who he is – the healer – and that is how he works – out of the goodness of God’s heart.

The only way that I can make any sense out of that story where three cities of Philistines get hemorrhoids is that it is a satire – a caustic, sarcastic judgment on anybody who tries to steal God for their own purposes. The Philistines plundered the Ark to get what Israel had, yet they would not live with a covenant that was not intended for them in the first place. They believe if they can grab a hold of Yahweh, then he will be forced to bless them and give them success. It’s the same insistence of many counterfeit pilgrims have, that if they keep repeating the old religious words, it will actually make them religious.

Ah, either we live as if God loves us or we do not. Either we live by the Torah’s instruction to be a blessing to others or we do not. Either we honor God with everything we do, or we end up grabbing for what it not ours.

What the Philistines painfully discovered is that the one true God, the God of Israel, is strangely indifferent to all of our striving. It is possible to grab for a big piece of holiness and miss it entirely. People still do that.

Meanwhile, the deeper purpose of Yahweh is revealed. God shows steadfast love to all who honor him. God remembers those who do the commandments and not merely cart them around. God comes to us in Jesus to forgive all iniquity, to heal every disease, to lift life right out of the Pit. God is the One who crowns people with love and mercy. God alone can satisfy every hungry heart with overwhelming goodness, provided, of course, that the heart is willing to be satisfied with what God provides.

So that’s it. I’ve been trying to figure out how to end a sermon like this, but I don’t know how. I’m just going to stop. Some of the Philistines have been sitting for entirely too long. Now it’s time for all of us to stand and sing.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Susan Sparks, Laugh Your Way to Grace (Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2009) 32.

They Did Not Yet Understand

John 20:1-10
Easter
April 5, 2025
William G. Carter

 

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.  Then the disciples returned to their homes.

 

This is the story of how it all began. Behind the pretty flowers, beyond the joyful music, beneath the alleluias is the discovery that Jesus is not among the dead. His tomb had been opened. The stone had been rolled away. Jesus wasn’t there. He wasn’t where everybody expected him to be.

 

It was shocking news. It prompted a lot of running around. Mary Magdalene ran to Simon Peter. Simon Peter and another ran to the tomb. It became a footrace. Who can get there first? The unnamed disciple bends down, looks in the grave, sees the grave clothes, but no Jesus. Peter arrives, a bit breathless, and barges in. He sees the grave clothes – and realizes they have been rolled up. Then the other one goes in, sees and “believes.” That is, he thinks it could be true.

 

For John spells it out. “They did not understand.” Not yet.

 

To be fair, who does understand? Think of someone you loved, someone you trusted, someone who was snatched away from you. Someone who died and was buried. And you discovered, much to your shock and dismay, their grave was busted open. Would you immediately rush to believe your loved one was alive again? Probably not.

 

Mary Magdalene says, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb.” Who are the “they”? First people to accuse would be Joseph of Arimathea and the pharisee Nicodemus. They were the ones who put him in the tomb. Both were “secret disciples,” afraid of the religious authorities. Did they change their minds? Get bribed? Mary doesn’t know. She’s traumatized, so she figures there must be some conspiracy. That’s a completely understandable reaction to the trauma. Try to make some sense of it. Create a different story. She didn’t understand. Not yet.

 

And the two men, Simon Peter and the other one. They seem more interested in racing one another than figuring out what happened. An adolescent response, equally a distraction. “I ran here faster than he did.” OK – but to see what? An empty tomb?

 

Taken by itself, an empty tomb is underwhelming. It doesn’t mean much. As Frederick Buechner wrote,

 

You can’t depict or domesticate emptiness. You can’t make it into pageants and string it with lights. It doesn’t move people to give presents to each other or sing old songs. It ebbs and flows all around us, the Eastertide. Even the great choruses of Handel’s Messiah sound a little like a handful of crickets chirping under the moon.[1]

 

So, the tomb was empty. They did not understand. Many people do not understand. Some of them populate the pages of the Gospel of John. Nicodemus did not understand when Jesus spoke of the Spirit blowing freely like the wind. The Samaritan woman did not understand when he explained that God is not bound to her religion. The people around the miracle pool in chapter five, they didn’t understand that God would heal apart from their religious rules.

 

And the disciples, those closest to Jesus, there was plenty they didn’t understand. They didn’t understand when he chose a donkey on Palm Sunday (12:16). They didn’t understand when he knelt to wash their feet (13:7). So, they certainly didn’t understand when he said early on that the temple of his body would be raised on the third day (2:22).

 

On Easter, three friends race to the empty tomb. John tells us they did not yet understand “the scripture.” OK, which scripture? John doesn’t tell us. We have to go looking for it. That sounds confusing, too, until we realize he is giving us a lesson in spiritual education. The lesson is called “faith seeking understanding.” It’s been called that since the medieval scholar Anselm of Canterbury, who cribbed it from Saint Augustine. The lesson goes like this: God does something, you perceive it, and then you seek out the meaning of it all.

As Anselm confessed, “I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but rather, I believe in order that I may understand.”[2] This impulse prompted the early circle of Christ followers to hit the books. Specifically, the books of their Bible, which was the Hebrew Bible.

They went to the prophet Hosea, chapter six, verse two, where it was written: “After two days, he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live in his presence.” And they discussed among themselves, “Is the prophet speaking of himself, or about us, or is he giving us a clue about Jesus?” And they left the conversation open.

 

Then they went to the scrolls of Isaiah. There are a lot of words in those scrolls, but they found a long poem in chapters 52 and 53. Much of it sounded like the crucifixion, and then they found this verse: “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see shall prolong his days.”[3] And they discussed among themselves. The servant of God will suffer for our sins, yet he has a future. And they kept thinking about this.

 

And then, somebody remembered the story of Jonah. Remember that story? Jonah was swallowed by a big fish and stayed in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.[4] And they remembered that Jesus quoted that story, and had told them, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”[5] It was an odd analogy, but Jesus had said it. So, they kept thinking about this.

 

And then they opened the hymnal. You remember what their hymnal was? The Book of Psalms. And they turned to Psalm 110, and the first verse: “The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” With this, they looked at one another. That sounds like Jesus: raised to the right hand of the Father until everything acknowledges his rule. That verse became the most quoted Hebrew verse in the Christian scriptures.

 

And then they went to the hymnal again. They remembered a verse that explained to them the empty tomb. Psalm 16, verse 10: “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will you let your holy one see decay.” There is no clearer revelation of the God of life. No greater confirmation that love holds us even beyond death.

 

The point is any of those verses could spark interest. Yet when we start holding them together, the case becomes clearer. Jesus, the Holy One, had to be raised from the dead. God was not going to let him slip away. Jesus was too good, too true, too righteous to be abandoned by the God who gives life. And when you understand this, it becomes the key to an otherwise locked door.

 

And the witness of our faith is that it was the plan of God to lay our sins on his shoulders, where they could be taken away. And then God raised him to life so that he could continue to give us life. All we have to do is trust that. And if we read the scriptures deeply, they will confirm what we trust to be true.

 

It’s the difference between knowing and knowing. The New Testament uses two different words. “Eido” is knowing a fact. “Ginosko” is having a relationship. We can know a tomb has been cracked open (that’s “eido,” knowledge of the head). And we can know the One who has been raised from the dead (that’s “ginosko,” wisdom of the heart).

 

We can see the flowers blooming and say it’s spring again. That’s the knowledge of the head. And we can understand that life is the power of God, grace is the glue for the universe, love is the ultimate destination. That’s the knowledge of the heart. It is the move between seeing an open tomb and knowing the One who is now free from it. And then we understand Easter.

 

Someone was telling about pastor he knows named Mark. A man in Mark’s church was dying, and he asked Mark to stay close to his teenage son following his passing. So, the pastor reached out to the boy. They had an awkward conversation over a couple of Cokes. The teenager asked, “How will I know my dad will be OK after he died.” Mark fumbled for a response, then blurted out, “I promise you will know.” Immediately he regretted saying that.

 

They gather for a private graveside service after the father died. A butterfly landed on the casket. Mark said, “I made eye contact with the son as if to say, ‘Hey look! I told you you’d know.’” The boy looked back at the pastor with absolute scorn. He was probably thinking, “A bug landed on my dad’s casket, and you think it means something? You’re disgusting.’” When the service was over, the boy bolted and walked away. No words.

 

Mark went home. He was beating himself up from the gaffe. The phone rang. It was the boy’s mother. She said, “Please come to our house right now. There’s nothing wrong, but you need to get over here.” 

 

When he got to their home, she took him downstairs to the boy’s room. He could hear sobbing – and then laughing, and again. They opened the door and the room was filled with butterflies. The boy was sitting on the bed laughing and crying at the same time. Butterflies continued to fly in through an open window.

 

We could take that as fact of nature, perhaps even a coincidence. But pastor Mark spoke in faith when he told the boy, “You will know.” By faith and by trust and by living into the light God has given us, the boy was free.[6] Even the darkness of grief could not extinguish the light.

 

Coming to the empty tomb of Jesus, “they did not yet understand.” But in time, their faith would be informed by scripture. And they would know, in their heads and in their hearts, that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead. May that be so for all of us. Happy Easter.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Frederick Buechner, whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 2008), 42.

[2] Anselm of Canterbury, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." Online at https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/anselmproslogion.html#capi

[3] Isaiah 53:10.

[4] Jonah 1:17.

[5] Matthew 12:40.

[6] Told by Mark Yaconelli in https://pcusa.org/news-storytelling/news/2026/3/31/churches-can-change-their-stories-anxious-hopeful

Unless I Wash You

John 13:1-11
Maundy Thursday
April 2, 2026

William G. Carter  

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already decided that Judas son of Simon Iscariot would betray Jesus. And during supper  Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

It took some preparation, but all of you made it to worship tonight. Even in the evening shadows, it looks like you all clean up pretty well. There’s a good chance some of you took a shower today. If not today, sometime over the past couple of days. Or you took a bath. If nothing else, you scrubbed with a washcloth and ran a comb through your hair. Or should have. After all, you’re out in public. Others will see you. Or sniff you. It’s good to be clean. So, one way or another, we wash up.

But when was the last time somebody washed you? I’m not looking for answers, just a moment of reflection. Not when was the last time you washed yourself, but when was the last time somebody washed you?

It is a deeply personal question. Most of the time we take responsibility for our own appearances. Unless you have a masseuse or makeup artist, you do your own work. We don’t want a stranger touching us, much less wiping us down. It’s uncomfortable to entertain the idea.

For over three decades, I’ve gotten my hair cut at the same establishment by the same haircutter. Before she cuts, she rinses my head. “Is this too warm?” she asks, usually a bit late. Then she puts three squirts of shampoo into her palms and rubs it in. She’s quite enthusiastic about it. Her fingers do the walking. Then there’s a rinse, this time too cold, and she begins again. After all this time, I trust her. Even if I had already shampooed myself two hours earlier, I welcome her scrubbing. It’s the only time all month that I have let somebody wash me.

It can be a deeply personal moment, if only because I’ve seen some of you there, too. We all have our secrets. Who is getting touched up? Who is naturally curly and who is not? Who is getting something covered up? And I could go on but won’t. The point is, if you let somebody wash you, or wash some part of you, you have allowed them in pretty close. They know you pretty well.

This is a way into this strange moment in the Gospel of John. Jesus washes his disciples. Like so many episodes in this Fourth Gospel, he does not ask permission. He just does it. And it is enough for him to wash their feet. Those feet have been trudging along dusty streets. Those feet were most likely in sandals, not high-top sneakers. Some of those feet have callouses, bunions, or unkept toenails. Jesus sees each one. He comes close enough to scoop up soapy water in his hands, pour it upon the toes, wipe them with a towel. Rinse, repeat. Then he moves to the next one in the circle. It is slow work. He is not in a hurry.

Simon Peter was flinching. This is not the work for his Master. It is more appropriate for a house servant. As someone reminds us, the roadsides were not paved with asphalt. There were animals underfoot. There’s no telling what you might have stepped in or what needed to be scraped away. Simon says, “Jesus, I don’t want you to do this.” It was filthy, disgusting, ugly work. Jesus did it anyway. Simon wiggled his soapy toes and said it again, “Master, please stop.” It was dirty work, too intimate, too invasive, too close.

We heard what Jesus said. “If I don’t wash you, you don’t have a piece of me. If I don’t scrub you, you can’t participate in me. If I don’t rinse everything away from you, we can’t live with one another.” By now, I hope we understand he’s not talking about feet. He is talking about the relationship he has initiated with everyone he loves.

In his Gospel book, John reports this relationship in a variety of ways. Sometimes he uses the verb “abide,” as in to stay with Jesus and have him stay with you. Sometimes he speaks in terms of intimate knowledge, not merely “head knowledge” but “heart knowledge,” a spiritual intimacy as with soul mates. And sometimes, he speaks of the power of grace, which for Jesus is the cleansing power of God. He speaks the truth that sets us free. He invites us into his complete acceptance. He lays down his life for all whom he loves. That’s grace.

And at each move, it is his work. His initiative. To paraphrase what he says to Simon Peter, “If you let me do this, if you permit me to cleanse you, you are living with me.” That’s his mission. That’s his work.

Our work is to welcome his work. To allow him to come that close, just as some of us let haircutters wash our hair. There will always be distractions, evasions, and excuses.

“Lord, this is beneath you. We don’t expect you to do this.”

“Lord, we don’t want you to get too close.

“Lord, we are ashamed of where our feet have wandered.

“Lord, we can manage this on our own.”

Yet Jesus insists. This is his mission. It is the reason he has been sent by the Father. If he doesn’t let him wash us, it will not get done. And as we will hear tonight, one of his friends has had his feet washed, but refuses to be clean. As someone comments, “To be unclean is not to be unwashed, for Judas (Iscariot) belongs to the circle of those whose feet Jesus washed. Rather, to be unclean is to turn away from union and intimacy with Jesus… In order to have one’s share with Jesus, one must choose to accept the gesture of love that Jesus makes in the foot washing.”[1]

The Bible says, “He loved his own… he loved them to the end.” Tonight, after supper, the shadows darken and the story unfolds. The harmony will become dense, even painful. Yet the refrain continues: “Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love, show us how to serve the neighbors we have from you.” No matter what happens, his cleansing love has the last word. It always does. It always will. Because his love is the love from God, the love that sent Jesus into the world, the love that sends him back to us again, the love that restores our souls.

Are you going to let him love you so much that he will wash you clean?

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Gail O’Day, The New Interpreter’s Bible: Luke, John (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995) p. 724.

More Than One Celebrity in the Parade

John 12:9-19
Palm Sunday
March 29, 2026
William G. Carter

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.

 

The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord - the King of Israel!”

 

Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: “Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”

 

His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him. So the crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to testify. It was also because they heard that he had performed this sign that the crowd went to meet him. The Pharisees then said to one another, “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!”

 

Palm Sunday is a favorite day in the church year. For many, this is a day they do not want to miss. But how much do you really know about Palm Sunday? Here’s a little quiz.

• True or false: Jesus rode a donkey downhill into the city of Jerusalem. True – all the accounts say that, although the Gospel of Matthew suggests he rode two animals into the city.
• True or false: The crowds sang a Passover psalm, as Jesus arrived in the city. True, Psalm 118 is the psalm. Passover was the reason a crowd was gathering in the city.
• True or false: All the versions of the story say the crowds waved palms as Jesus arrive. False, only the Gospel of John mentions the palms.
• True or false: Palm branches had a political overtone. True, in the Maccabean Revolt, 176 BC, Jewish rebels waved palm branches as they rose up against the Greek emperor Antiochus Epiphanes. It was the original No Emperor Rally.
• True or false: There’s evidence that Jesus didn’t want people to wave palms. True: In the Greek text of the account we hear today, there is word for “but,” as in “they waved palm branches, but Jesus chose a donkey.” For some reason, it doesn’t show up in the English translation but it’s there. 
• True or false: On Palm Sunday, everybody wanted to see Jesus. Partly true: According to John’s version of the story, they also came to see Lazarus, who was with him. How often do you see somebody raised from the dead? There was more than one celebrity in that parade.

Clearly there was a lot going on. The crowds swarmed the city for the Passover, a holiday that celebrated freedom from political oppression. The Roman Emperor positioned soldiers to keep a lid on the noise. Word was spreading about the raising of Lazarus from the dead, who now walks beside Jesus. The Temple leaders were desperate to maintain the status quo. And Lazarus? What’s he doing there? I guess if your friend got you out of your own tomb, you’d want to stay close to his side.

 

It’s no wonder the Gospel of John says, “His disciples did not understand these things at first.” That’s the best understatement for Holy Week. Who understands? Who sees clearly? And Jesus mounts the humble donkey and rides right into the whole mess.

 

Palm Sunday invites us to step into the ambivalence. We’ve been positioned through our own history to see this day as a great triumph. “Here comes Jesus, riding down the hill from the Mount of Olives. He will show those Romans a thing or two!” But what he shows them is vulnerability. He is defenseless. He carries no weapons. If he has any power, he withholds it. He chooses to ride into the city.

 

The religious leaders saw Jesus as a threat. Of course they did. They posed themselves as the Guardians of the Present Order. They believed in custom, stability, order, ritual, repetition, to say nothing of their own particular slant on power. They had a different kind of authority over the people, guarding the public access to heaven. And here comes Jesus. He was strangely indifferent to their inherited positions. He had no regard for the riches they gained by running the Temple. He had access to Holiness that they could not manage or control.

 

So, John tells us they decided to get rid of Jesus. Rub him out. Erase him from history. They had been fuming about him from early in John’s book. The clarity comes by chapter five, as they argued with Jesus in Jerusalem. They pick it up again in chapter seven as the Festival of the Booths. They tried to stone him in chapter eight, cursed him in chapter nine, tried to arrest him in chapter ten, and condemned him in chapter eleven. Their fury does not come out of nowhere. They felt threatened by him. Yet he shows them freedom. He is not intimidated by animosity.

 

And then there are the crowds. Back in chapter six, a huge multitude formed around Jesus. He gave the sick free medical care and the crowd increased. They had no food, so he “took the bread and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them.” There was more than enough free food. What did the crowd do? They cheered, and praised, and wanted to forcefully make him their king. Just like they said on Palm Sunday: “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the King of Israel!” They call him their king…

 

…but… Jesus won’t be that kind of king. He did not come to hand out freebies on demand. He came in the glory of God, with grace in one hand, truth in the other. And they did not understand. Nobody understood, not until his death and resurrection, which John calls his “glory.”

 

In the version of the story that we receive today, John offers a diagnosis of the human situation. It’s simply stated: “They came, not only to see Jesus, but to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.” They came to see the spectacle. They came to see the celebrity, not one but two.” And this was powerfully compelling.

 

Ever see a famous person? Most of us have, I suppose. One of the young adults in our family worked in a hotel downtown. Notable people checked in and out all the time. She met presidential candidates (they all come through Scranton), airline pilots, and rock stars staying under assumed names.

 

One night a bus rolled up to the door and forty-two professional wrestlers stepped into the hotel. Her job was to take their names and check their ID’s. One of the wrestlers pushed to the head of the line. She said, “Name and ID, please.” The man said, “Don’t you know who I am?” “No,” she replied, “my brother would know you, but I need to see your ID.” He got pretty hot about it. Turns out, his stage name was different from his driver’s license.

 

Think about that question: “Don’t you know who I am?” As if everybody should know, and many people will. Whenever I wait to get my hair cut, I usually pick up a People magazine and thumb through it. Maybe it’s my age, or my increasing indifference, but I don’t know who most of those people are. Young starlets, ready to be consumed by the publicity machine. Aging actors, scrambling for a comeback, attempting one more notable role. Pop musicians and rappers, most of whom I’ve never heard of; am I the only one in the room who flips through the Grammy awards and has no idea who these celebrities are?

 

Then there are those who are “famous for being famous.” What have they done with themselves? Put on makeup, pranced in front of the cameras, and trafficked in inanities. And when their star faded, let’s ignite a scandal to get back in the headlines. This is deemed “entertainment.” I will die happily someday, in the knowledge that I have never watched “Survivor,” “The Apprentice,” or “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” Daily life is challenging enough without chasing after fake situations and fake human beings.

 

And then, the crowd said, “Look, there’s Lazarus. He’s back from the dead. Let’s go see him.” Maybe we can shake his hand, see if it’s still cold. “And there’s Jesus, the miracle worker. Maybe he will sign my Bible.”

 

… But … Jesus does not seem the least bit interested. Back in chapter six, the crowd wanted to force Jesus to be king and he hid. In chapter eight, the religious leaders picked up stones to throw them at Jesus and he disappeared. Now they saw him, then they didn’t. Revealed and concealed. He will not be “captured.” But he may come to teach you about yourself – and then show you something about God.

 

This has been John’s theme all through out the season of Lent. We can’t make a celebrity out of Jesus. He slips away. We can’t even make a celebrity of Lazarus. This is his final named appearance in the Gospel of John. Raised from the dead, walked into town beside Jesus and his donkey, then never heard from again. What was that about? Not about his celebrity status. It was always about the glory of God, and only about God.

 

Jesus comes to your town. Something happens, then he’s gone. He doesn’t stick around for photos or autographs. But he has come. And his coming has punctured everything that once seemed important.

 

This is so hard for us to comprehend, especially in the world we have constructed. We would really like to meet somebody famous, because we could tell people about them, and that would make us famous. Famous, as in, a little bit more notable than ourselves. A little bit taller, a little bit bigger. And then if somebody really important comes to town, the excitement can carry us for quite some time.

 

“Look,” they said, “here comes Jesus. And there’s Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead.” The buzz intensified. Everybody was talking. The noise grew so loud that the Temple Keepers turned around, saw what was happening, and started shaking in their boots. They agreed: “Jesus has to go because look what he did to Lazarus. Lazarus has to go, too.”

 

Of all the stupid things spoken in the Gospel of John, that has to be the worst. They wanted to kill Lazarus because Jesus raised him from the dead. Wow, just wow. If they kill him, won’t Jesus raise him again?

 

And they wanted to kill the One who gave life back to Lazarus. Whew. Don’t they hear what they are saying? Don’t they understand? No, of course they don’t understand. None of us will comprehend until Jesus dies, and Jesus is raised, and then we begin to understand his death and resurrection are the glory of God. We cannot comprehend until we perceive his death reveals the truth about us and his resurrection reveals the grace of God. Death and resurrection, truth and grace.

 

Welcome to Holy Week according to the Gospel of John. It’s not about celebrity, but humility. Not about drawing more attention to us but pointing to the One who is the source of all life. It’s not about eliminating threats to exalted status but welcoming every intrusion that exposes all that is fake, false, and temporary. It’s not about using violence to exert control, but about choosing the alternative of quiet service. Just like Jesus.

 

“And they did not understand.” Not yet. But Friday is coming, then Sunday. Perhaps this time light will penetrate the darkness. What do you think?

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.