You've Got to Be Kidding Me

Mark 16:1-8

Easter

April 1, 2018

William G. Carter

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

I heard about a church somewhere south of here, way south of here. It was a big church in a large city. On Easter they had a tradition of filling the chancel with lilies. Five hundred lilies, in fact. Sometimes they were arranged to form a large wall, other times in the shape of a cross. They were beautiful.

Each was offered in memory of a loved one for $8 each, so the insert of the Easter worship bulletin had a list of five hundred names, each remembered by the giving of a lily. Five hundred lilies, eight dollars each. They were beautiful.

In the sixteenth year of that tradition, it came unraveled. After worship was over, a woman who belonged to the church went forward. She announced, to no one in particular, “I’m going to visit a friend in the hospital. Can I take one of these lilies? I know I can’t tell which one I gave. They all look alike.” Before she got an answer, she went up to that enormous display, five hundred lilies, to get one. Then she turned to those who remained in the sanctuary and said in a shocked voice, “They’re plastic!”

A gasp went up from around the room. You’ve got to be kidding! At first, the concern was they were plastic. Then somebody said, “But we have paid eight dollars a piece for them. If they are plastic, they might be the same lilies used last year, and we paid eight dollars each last year. There was an instant buzz. Coffee hour was interrupted. Huddles formed. Somebody came up with a figure: 500 lilies, $8 each, 16 years; that’s $64,000 for the same lilies.

As I recall, the minister was new, and just as surprised as anybody. He gathered those who were upset and said, “I know the money has been put to a good use. It’s underwritten an emergency fund that helps folks in our community.” There were murmurs around the room, some approved, others did not.

To dispel the criticism, he tried to defend the practice another way: “After all, the plastic lilies are appropriate for Easter because they always bloom. They never die.”[1]

What do you think? I am thinking two things. First, these flowers up here are completely real. They are fragrant, they are beautiful, they remember the people we love, and they bring honor to the God who created them.  Second, that story I just told you is made up. April Fool!

Yet even though it is an invented tale, it can instruct us. There are more than a few “gotta be kidding me” moments in the Easter story we heard from the Gospel of Mark.

First, the big stone in front of the tomb is rolled away. Mark says it was a “mega stone,” very large. I once saw one of those ancient stones outside a grave in Jerusalem. It was designed to keep robbers out of the tomb, with the benefit of keeping someone inside. When the women arrive, the heavy stone is moved away. It’s hard to believe.

Next, there is the young man in white. Is he an angel? We don’t know; Mark has enough reverence that he doesn’t say. But this young man is sitting inside the tomb. He is calm, matter-of-fact, and completely in control of the moment. That doesn’t happen every day.

The three women are interrupted from their task. They had gone to anoint his body out of love and respect. His death had come so quickly. The burial was rushed because the Sabbath was at hand. So now they go to the tomb, and he’s not there. The women see this, women whose voice was silenced by a men-only culture. It reminds me of a Facebook notice that a friend put up: “Let’s have a more Biblical Easter. Only women can attend!”

And then, in the greatest “you’ve gotta be kidding me” moment, these women run away and don’t say anything to anybody. Really? Is that so? Then why are we here? How did we get the news?

Mark tells the Easter story in such a way that we are left scratching our heads. Is it true? Could Jesus be alive? He doesn’t say so conclusively, because that would reduce it to a mere fact, effectively shut it down, and dismiss it as a curious event of history. Rather, he tells the Easter story in such a way that it opens the whole thing up

Because what if it really has happened? What if Jesus is alive and still busy? What if the promise of the man in white is true – that if we go to Galilee, the place where Jesus did his work, we will see him? What if this Easter thing is more than something that happened a long time ago, and rather a way to unlock what God is doing here and now?

I will be the first to admit how I would love to have some tangible proof of the Resurrection. Wouldn’t be a relief, like Doubting Thomas, to put your finger in the nail holes and then watch his lungs rise and fall as he breathes? If that were the case, we could dispute his death, not his resurrection.

Every few years, some hotshot tries to do that, tries to out-think the crucifixion and say it didn’t really happen, that Jesus didn’t die – at least, not right away, that the whole thing was a scam to win over his feeble-minded disciples. My favorite sceptic was the so-called scholar who claimed the sponge dipped in vinegar that they handed to Jesus on the cross was dosed with a sedative. He swooned, they thought he was gone, they took him down, and then he revived sometime later. That’s an awful lot of speculation when everybody else agrees Jesus was dead.

The centurion said it. The small crowd nearby watched it. The authorities declared it. The man who donated the tomb knew it. Jesus was dead.

That, by the way, is what’s wrong with that goofy minister who had the five hundred plastic lilies in his church on Easter. Plastic lilies cannot die because plastic lilies never lived. If something or somebody never lived, then it cannot die. But here is the question that Easter raises: if someone dies, can they live again?

It is an unsettling question. Why else would these three women run from the tomb, traumatized and tongue-tied? That’s an easy one to answer: because everything they thought was settled is now actually unsettled. Jesus is not where they expected him to be.

It would be really easy for me to stand up here today and make a lot of noise, saying “He is risen from the dead! Be joyful. All is well. Don’t be afraid. Don’t worry, be happy.” I could keep saying that. I ask the choir to sing something loud and ask the organist to let it roar. We could all depart, put on our white shoes, eat a lot of ham, and go about the same old business.

But what if it is true? What if it’s all really true?

What if the work of Galilee is now our work? What if we joined Christ in feeding the multitude, in restoring life, in building relationships? What if we joined him in confronting the addictions and the illnesses that destroy life? What if we sat with those who are sad and prayed with them beyond their distress? What if we stood up for those who are plundered by the powerful, declaring that all God’s children have equal worth? What if we marched with the kids who don’t want to be afraid when they go to school?

What if we lived as if we are alive with Jesus? There would be nothing plastic about it, nothing artificial, no hype, no self-congratulatory nonsense – just authentic expressions of love and self-giving service. If we could live like this, the confirmation will come, that Christ is risen and Easter is real. The life of the Risen Christ would infuse our lives.

That’s when we shall see him. And in that moment, Jesus will look us in the eye, smile, laugh, and nod in quiet affirmation.

Then he will look at the powers of death and say, “And you thought you were in charge? April

Fool!

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

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[1] Thanks to Fred Craddock, who invented the story in “The Waste of Easter.”

...but not all of you...

John 13:1-10

Maundy Thursday

March 29, 2018

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 put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. 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 the table, 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 . . ."

He leaves that phrase dangling in the air. "You are clean, but not all of you..." It's awkward. The inference awaits completion. Who is he talking about? Is he talking about me?

And after a painful moment of self-reflection, most of us look sideways at Judas Iscariot. If anybody is not clean, it is that guy.

The Gospel of John does not like him. There is already a rumor in the air that Judas, who handled the money for Jesus and his band of disciples, kept helping himself to the purse. Word was his hand was in the till (12:6), and Jesus probably knew it. As the Lord had already said to the twelve, “I chose you all, didn’t I? And one of you is a devil” (6:70).

It’s OK if we look over at Judas and glare at him. He is not clean. The Gospel writer says the devil had already planted the desire to betray in his heart, even before they sat down for supper (13:2). He is not clean.

Yet here is the curious thing: on this night, Jesus has washed the feet of Judas, just like everybody else. Did you notice that? Judas won’t leave the room until after Jesus gives him a piece of bread (13:26-30). His feet were clean – but he is not clean.

So, I invite us to reflect on this paradox a bit.

Remember, of course, that all these men were Jews. They are in town for the big Passover celebration. It is an event so large that it swells the city population. They have Passover on their minds so they're ready to have their hands washed. In the Passover ritual, you wash your hands several times. It has nothing to do with cleanliness, but everything to do with being clean. You see, in Jewish piety, godliness is expressed in being clean.  

Like it says in Psalm 24, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?” That hill, of course, is Jerusalem. Who shall ascend it? The answer: “Those who have clean hands and pure hearts” (Psalm 24:3-4). If you are godly, or wish to be, you wash your hands as a statement of faith.

Years ago, when my father and I approached the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem to offer our prayers, a stern rabbi pushed us toward one of the many fountains enroute to scrub our hands. “Seven times,” he declared. If you wish to approach God, you must be serious about a pure heart.

Here Jesus pushes it a good bit further by washing their feet. These are his disciples, after all. A disciple doesn’t merely listen with the ear; the disciple follows with the feet. To sanctify their journey, Jesus washes their feet. He’s the One who does it, because their feet have taken them where he has wanted them to go.

Now, Simon Peter thinks this is all wrong. It does not seem right. Servants wash feet, Lords do not. For Jesus to kneel is a reversal of roles. Or as he explains to all of them, it is the Lord, the true Lord, who is the servant. He serves you by cleansing you. Unless he does this to us and for us, we have no part of him.

As Dale Bruner comments, what Jesus is declaring is the continuing presence of mercy. “Forgiveness of sins will be the foundation of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ – constantly… This is hard on our pride, but medicine for the soul.”[1] It is Christ who cleanses. He does not ask permission. He just does it.

This is the grace that comes to us, the grace that cleanses and purifies. It is so magnificent, so effusive, that even the feet of Judas Iscariot are scrubbed. He wiggles his toes as his Lord kneels to splash his feet with the soapy water. Out of the great mercy of God, Judas is cleansed. Even Judas. That’s the first part of the lesson.

But he doesn’t stay clean. That’s the second part of the lesson. Christ comes to cleanse and forgive; but it is entirely possible to push the grace away.

Tonight, we gather before the Word of scripture. We listen to the story of conspiracy, betrayal, and condemnation. Tonight it is Mark’s version of how people who know better will push away the cleansing grace.

As one of you said to me, “Maundy Thursday is the most humbling and haunting night of the year.” That was a striking comment, so I asked, “Why is that?” And he said, “The story reminds me of what I’m capable of.” True enough, I said; yet let it also remind us of how astonishing is the grace that can purify and heal us all.

That’s why Dale Bruner’s comment is so important, I think. It’s up to us to keep returning to the Lord, to keep coming back, to hear repeatedly how he loves us in all unworthiness, and to discover anew that he takes the initiative to forgive and offer us a fresh start.

As we approach the Table tonight, we must pass by this basin. Remember how you have been named and claimed in your baptism. Touch the water and remember how Christ washes us. Lift your eyes toward the cross and remember how he takes our sin away. Pause and pray for the courage to resist evil. And come back, again and again.

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

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[1] F. Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012) p. 766.

A Ransom for Many

Mark 10:35-45

Palm Sunday

March 25, 2018

William G. Carter

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’ 

It is an unusual text for Palm Sunday. There is no mention of a donkey, a cheering crowd, or the shouts of hosannas. But for the Gospel of Mark, this story sets up what happens on Palm Sunday.

Jesus is not only moving toward the city of Jerusalem. He is moving toward the cross. Jesus is very clear about that. According to Mark’s Gospel, he predicts the cross three times. The last prediction is still dangling in the air when James and John put their hands in the air to say, “Ooh, Lord, can you give us special seats when you go into glory?” It’s a ridiculous request, a tone-deaf demand to the One who will enter the city to face his death.

Now, this is the Gospel of Mark, which insists the disciples of Jesus never get the point. In this case, they think that following Jesus is the path to personal advancement. They expect to get ahead of everybody else by claiming some kind of special relationship with the Lord. But Jesus reminds them once again of what he has said to them before: “If you want to be my disciple, pick up your own cross and follow me.”

Before anybody hears all the hosannas and hallelujahs, we have this stark reminder that a disciples is a servant, not a master, because the Master himself is a servant. His entire ministry has been one of service. There’s no glory in that, because it’s service. Jesus expects no preferential treatment for himself, and therefore his servants shouldn’t expect any special seating for themselves.

With single determination, Jesus enters the Holy City to offer his life as an act of service. That’s how he understands his own cross. And the word that he uses to sum up this mission is a curious word. He will give his life as “a ransom.”

A ransom – what comes to mind when you hear of a ransom? I think of a movie, or any number of movies. Somebody is kidnapped. There is a note demanding money for the release. The phone rings, and Liam Neeson or Mel Gibson or Harrison Ford snarls at the kidnapper’s demands. Perhaps a time and place are set for the money drop, the cops are not to be called. You know the basic plot. There are at least eighty-five movies that demand some sort of ransom.

In every case, the demand is for an exorbitant sum of money to be paid, in order to release someone you love from captivity. That is the ransom…according to the movies.

Yet it sounds different when we hear this word come up in the Bible. Nobody ever gets kidnapped in the Bible, but there are plenty who are held as captives. As Israel wanders in the desert, for instance, God instructs them to put up a tent for worship, as a kind of traveling sanctuary.

Once a year, as they gathered to worship on the Day of Atonement, the annual event of national forgiveness, everybody was required to bring a half-shekel, a small coin, and present it as an offering in worship. God said, “This is a reminder to the Israelites of the ransom given for your lives.” (Exodus 30:16)

A ransom – what is this all about? Well, “ransom” is a Passover word, an Exodus word, a get-out-of-Egypt-because-God-sets-you-free kind of word. When we gather this Wednesday for our congregational Passover Seder, listen to the memory of Israel: “We were slaves in Egypt, and God brought us out of slavery with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.”

In fact, from that point on, even when some of the Jews themselves had slaves (apparently some of them had short memories), it was possible for a slave to purchase his freedom or the freedom of his loved ones. The price tag was called “the ransom.”

And Jesus says he gives his life as “a ransom.” It’s an Exodus word. He is going to free people from the captivity of slavery.

Yet in the Bible, it is also an Exile word. Nearly six hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the people of Israel were invaded. Their temple was destroyed. Their society was broken up. Most of the nation’s best and brightest were taken in chains to Babylon. It was a terrible crisis, striking at the heart of the nation’s faith. They thought they were God’s people, protected and sanctified, that something like that would never happen to them.

Forty years later, the empire had a change of heart and allowed the Jews to go home. The Bible sees this as something more than a change in the political wind; it was a spiritual homecoming, a liberation from an oppressive and tyrannical system.

In some of the most beautiful texts of the scriptures, God sings of this return home. Here’s a few verses from the prophet Isaiah:

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. 

Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you,

I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. (Isaiah 43:3-4)

Imagine a God who loves you so much that God buys you back! That God pays out whatever it takes to bring you home! That’s the sense of the word “ransom.” It is an Exile word.

What it means is that there is a change of ownership. No longer do you belong to the system that oppresses, demeans, and puts you down. No longer do you belong to an entity that dominates you and is complicit with evil.

·         For ancient Israel, no longer do you belong to Pharoah and his brick-making quota.

·         For exiled Israel, no longer do you belong to the Babylon that steals, enslaves, dominates.

·         For the Israel of Jesus, no longer do you belong to the dominion of evil that makes you ill, that withers your soul, that plunders your hope.

Jesus comes to pay the ransom to set you free and buy you back. Now it is God who places a claim on you, the same God in whose image you were created, the God whose image is revealed in the mercy and love of Jesus the Christ. And it’s through him that those same words from Isaiah now ring true for you and me: “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior... You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” God says, “I have paid the ransom to get you back.”

This is how the Gospel of Mark understands the cross. It is the conclusive announcement that Jesus comes to set us free from all the powers that oppress us and to claim us as his own.

From Day One of his ministry, he healed those ill of body and spirit. He confronted and defeated the emotional and spiritual powers that oppress human life. And as he crisscrossed the Sea of Galilee between Jewish and Gentile land, he broke down the invisible but very real boundaries that divide people from one another, create prejudice, and build hatred – he stepped through those divisions to create a new dominion called the Kingdom of God.

Now, he enters the city where he will face all the hatred and brokenness that he has been confronting since his baptism in the Jordan River. They are going to try to capture him, humiliate him, and silence him once and for all – but they are not going to win. Jesus is going pay off the powers of hell by giving his own self. That is the once-and-for-all ransom payment to win us back.

What does that mean? It means we are free, as long as we welcome his freedom, as long as we say “No!” in his name to every sick and broken power that would threaten to snatch us away from God. The ransom is paid on the cross once and for all. We belong to the God who loves us, and not to anything or anybody less than God.

There is nothing new about this. It was written centuries ago in one of the Psalms: “God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for God will receive me” (Psalm 49:15). This is the deepest meaning of that grand, old Bible word “redemption.” God has bought us back. God loves us so much as to claim us as precious, adopted children. And even though evil continues to be very real in this age, it need not define us, possess us, oppress us, or sell us out. We have been “bought for a price.” (1 Corinthians 7:21)

That’s why we can join the crowd on Palm Sunday with confidence and joy. Redemption begins today as Christ climbs onto the humble donkey and rides into the city. This will be the moment when all who will trust in him will be set free. There will be no more despair, no more fear, no more degradation.

The words of the ancient prophets ring true again and again:

So the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

For I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar. 

I have put my words in your mouth, and hidden you in the shadow of my hand,

stretching out the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth,

and saying to Zion, “You are my people.” (Isaiah 51:11, 15-16)

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

How Far Can Christ Reach?

John 12:20-33

Lent 5

March 18, 2018

William G. Carter

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say - ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

We continue the road to the cross. That is our journey for the season of Lent. The scripture texts that have accompanied us remind us it is an unusual journey. The world regards the cross as foolish and weak, but we say it’s the power and wisdom of God. Somehow in the capital execution of a first-century Jewish peasant, sin is cancelled. The gulf between heaven and earth is bridged.

Today we have one more unusual word, this time from the mouth of Jesus himself: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” And the writer makes sure we understand what he is saying, “He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.”

John understands the cross in light of the resurrection and ascension. Good Friday and Easter are one long weekend, and all of it marks the journey by which Jesus returns to heaven. Jesus comes down from the Father, speaking the truth and doing many signs. The cross is how he begins his return. He is “lifted up,” says John – lifted up on the cross, lifted up from the grave, lifted up into heaven. This is the way that this Gospel writer talks. He speaks of the cross as Jesus’ “glory,” at a time he calls his “hour.”

And most curious is this: the cross will draw all people to Jesus. Not a selected few, but all people. Not only the obvious ones, the ones who trust and believe and say the right words, but “all people.”

John Calvin, the closest thing we have to a Presbyterian founder, says Jesus got it wrong. Or at least, that the Jesus who spoke to us last week in chapter 3 is at odds with the Jesus who speaks today in chapter 12. You see, Calvin is stuck on the phrase “whosoever believes in me shall not perish but have eternal life” (3:16), and true enough, that’s in the book.

But here Jesus says, “all people.” And it really does say “all people.”

The context is a rare moment in Jerusalem when some Greeks are drawn to Jesus. It is Passover week. Jesus has just dismounted his Palm Sunday donkey. Some strangers went to Philip, Philip went to Andrew, and the two of them went to Jesus. They said, “Some Greeks are looking for you.” We don’t know who they are. Were they Jews from out of town who spoke the Greek language? Were they Gentiles from somewhere else who wondered what the fuss was about? We don’t know.

We do know that by the time this story got written down, around 90 AD, John’s church was full of all kinds of people who were drawn to the Christ. Tradition puts John in the Turkish city of Ephesus, a major center for Jews and Gentiles, Turks and Greeks, centurions and slaves, business owners and single parents, widows and refugees – and it’s a good bet a smattering of them all were in John’s church.

Perhaps he saw in the diversity of his congregation a sign of what God wants for the world: a church that draws all kinds of people. Imagine that! As Jesus said, “When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.”

In the Gospel of John, Jesus has said this kind of thing before. In chapter 10, the Good Shepherd says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16).

Again, he doesn’t declare who those outsiders are. Maybe they are Greeks, maybe they are Jews, maybe they are somebody else. The Gospel of John keeps this open, so must we. We cannot restrict what Jesus himself does not specify.

Seven years ago, a Christian preacher named Rob Bell wrote a Christian book that made a lot of Christian people angry. In fact, the book was so controversial it made the cover story on Time magazine. Bell’s book is called Love Wins. The title is the point of the book, that the love of God is powerful that will win over everything. That’s a pleasant and hopeful thought, and you might even encounter it when you read the Bible.

But it set off a firestorm, especially among those who were so sure they were going to get into heaven and others were not. In fact, they knew who those others were; they had lists of other religions, other beliefs, other behaviors that they were certain would exclude those people from the glory that they themselves were entitled to receive. It became a tempest in a little Christian teapot.

All Rob Bell said is, “God can forgive anybody or anything,” and that’s what set off the righteous indignation. Furious articles were published in Christianity Today. Counter arguments were printed in red ink. Bell was denounced as a heretic. His publishing company was protested. His speaking engagements were cancelled. Even the enormous church he served in western Michigan lost three thousand members, and he was pressured to step down -- all because he said, “love wins.”[1]  

He was asked a hundred times, “But aren’t all those other people going to hell?” And his answer: “That decision is above my pay grade. God is the only One who can judge, and the God I know in Jesus Christ is a God of mercy, forgiveness, and steadfast love.”

It raises the question that is the sermon title: how far can Christ reach? With his arms outstretched on the cross, how far can he reach? Jesus says, “When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.”

Take note it is Jesus who is lifted up. It is Jesus who is central. It is Jesus who draws all the people, and Jesus through whom all people will pass. “No one is going to come to the Father,” he says, “unless they pass through me” (14:6). That’s not exclusive, but inclusive. He is the tunnel, he is the conduit. Or as he says in chapter ten, he is “the gate” (10:9) through which all the varied flocks will pass. They don’t pass through the Presbyterian gate, or the Baptist gate, or the Catholic gate – they pass through Jesus.

In fact, lambs in another flock may have lived their entire lives as Buddhists, Hindus, or none of the above. That may be all they know. Perhaps their only exposure to Christians is the hateful and divisive words they have heard some Christians speak on the evening news. And when they pass through, they discover Jesus is so much more gracious than some of the people who claim to represent him. 

Or there might be in lambs in another flock, and these would be the people who burned out on the church. Maybe they tried it years ago and it sputtered out of fuel. Or they prayed for help and life didn’t immediately improve. Or they got stuck in a committee meeting and couldn’t get out. Or they grew beyond a third grade Sunday School faith and nobody wanted to hear their questions, doubts, or fears.

Maybe they felt excluded by the rest of the mob, wanted to be accepted, and everywhere they turned, the door was locked. Imagine the outcasts and the lost sheep being drawn to Jesus, to the real Jesus – not the dashboard Jesus or a cartoon caricature, but to the One who says at the end of our chapter, “I came not to judge the world but to save the world” (12:47). Imagine a love that deep, a mercy that wide!

I like a line from the Second Vatican Council: “Since Christ died for all, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every [person] the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.”[2]  

In the language of the Gospel of John, I believe this is what it means when he says, “I will draw all people to myself.” The Gospel promise is all will come to him, and Christ is free to do with them as he wishes. All will pass through him. That is what is inevitable for every one of us.

Our deepest hope is in the words of a favorite Christmas carol, originally written for children: “And our eyes at last shall see Him / through His own redeeming love / for that Child so dear and gentle / is our Lord in heaven above.”[3]

So, let’s not miss it. Let’s never be so high and mighty that we miss it. Those whose “eyes at last shall see Him,” shall see Jesus only through the eyes of humility. It won’t be through their strength or their power or their correctness on matters spiritual or otherwise. They will see him in their moment of need and the hunger of their hearts.

If Jesus comes to draw all people to himself and save them, it is in the universality of our need. We see this when we see our need for Someone in heaven greater than ourselves, but Someone who knows what it is to be human like you and me.  

Perhaps that’s why, when Jesus speaks of glory, he speaks of emptying. That is the paradox of the Christian life. Tucked in the middle of this passage about the universal attraction of the cross, Jesus speaks of the “grain that falls into the ground,” and the central of setting ourselves aside and following him.

This is what it takes to see Jesus, to really see him. He has “emptied” himself by coming down from heaven to us in complete vulnerability.[4] So he sets the pattern for those who follow him, and for all who will sooner or later see him. The cross-shaped life is not about getting what we want or determining it for others. It is about emptying ourselves into the love of God and the love of our neighbors. It is to set aside all the vain things that charm us most and serve like Christ, who gave up the throne in heaven to come down here and to give his life to the world.

Jesus says, “Unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies it bears much fruit.” Jesus says this about himself; he is the grain of wheat. He says it too as an invitation for us, to set aside all our presumption and to welcome his embrace.

So how far can Christ reach? Can he reach the halfway heretic? The part-time believer? The wayward sinner? Can he reach the person who is excluded? The one riddled with guilt? Those with weak knees and broken hearts? Yes, of course he can.

But here’s what I want to know: can he reach you?

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

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[1] A good summary is found in the New Yorker article, “The Hell Raiser,” by Kelefa Sanneh. Read it at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/11/26/the-hell-raiser-3

[2] Quoted in F. Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012) 219.

[3] Cecil F. Alexander, “Once in Royal David’s City,” stanza 5

[4] Philippians 2:7

Be Lifted Up

John 3:14-21

Numbers 21:4-9

Lent 4

March 11, 2018

William G. Carter

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

It is always risky to pick a single verse out of scripture. But if we are going to do it, John 3:16 is a pretty good verse.

Football evangelists paint the verse on large posters and hold them up in the end zone during football games, gaining it the title of “the End Zone verse.” The hope is that during a touchdown or extra point, someone will see that verse, look it up, and be instantly converted. That may be a superficial approach to evangelism, but I could never deny the Holy Spirit such an opportunity.

And John 3:16 is an excellent verse. Not only is it a pretty good summary of the entire Gospel of John, it points beyond itself to the whole stretch of God's saving story for all humanity.

God has a mission for this planet and its people. It is to offer the gift of life, which is so much more than respiration and brain activity; it is the “life of eternity.” That is the sense of the phrase zoe aionion, literally “life of eternity.” Jesus is sent to Earth as the mission of his Father, and the life they share in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is now offered as a gift for all Humanity.

The gift is given yet must be received. The best way to receive the gift is by trusting it, by holding it in your heart and mind as the ultimate truth that the Triune God wishes all creatures to remain in the abundance of eternal fellowship. Not only do we live in the presence of the Trinity when we die, we live on through Christ and with Christ forever more. This life begins in the moment when we trust this gift to be true; from that moment, the Life goes on forever.

According to John, this is why God sends Jesus to the Earth, to the rebellious entity that John calls “the world.”

John 3:16 is a summary of what John wants to tell us about the Gospel. It’s glorious, it’s generous. We dare not make smaller, or reduce it to a “me-and-Jesus” relationship. John says, “everyone who believes.” The promise is for the whole “world.”

And he’s summarizing the whole Christ event, not singling out a moment of it. That’s important to remember, because to hear some well-intentioned Christians summarize the summary, they declare that John 3:16 is all about the cross.

Now wait a second. Did you hear anybody mention the cross in that verse? Let’s say it again: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Hmm…the verse doesn’t mention the cross at all. It talks about life, not death. It talks about the whole mission of God, and not merely a single event on a Friday afternoon.

To hear John tell the story of Jesus, it was always about life. “All things came into being through him…and what has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” This was his work from the beginning, says John. From the very beginning.

In this Gospel, Jesus gives life to the living. To the confused Pharisee, to the outcast woman of a different race, to the crippled man unable to climb into the miracle pool, Jesus cuts through the fog of religiosity and declares that God is alive. And his abundant gift of life is so effusive that he gives it to those threatened by death, first to a royal official’s son who is dying of a fever, and then most dramatically to his beloved friend Lazarus already in the tomb.

This is what it looks like when heaven invades the earth. Jesus says, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (10:10)

To listen to John tell it, the problem is the world that God loves does not love God in return. “He came to his own,” says the Gospel, “and they would not receive him.” They shrugged him off, pushed him away. The people who purported to love God the most, namely the religious professionals, were obsessed with rules and regulations. The ceremonies that once were so full of power and transcendence has lost their juice.

So, they said things like, “You can’t heal somebody on the wrong day of the week.” Or “give us a sign to show you come from God” while he gave one sign after another. “Surely we see, don’t we?” and they didn’t perceive much at all.

Maybe you never noticed that John 3:16 goes on for a while. In verse 17, God is not interested in condemning the world. The mission of Jesus is to give life, to save life, to connect our time-bound mortal lives with the life of eternity.

But here’s the big crisis, says John: light has come into the darkness. That’s the good news and that’s the problem. Light has come - - and the darkness says, “Turn out the lights!” If the lights have come on, we will see what the darkness has been hiding.

Fred Craddock says the human situation before Jesus arrives is like hanging out in a darkened room with no windows. Since the lights are out, you don’t see that the floor is covered with cockroaches. Oh, once in a while you might step on one and hear a crunch, but you try to get it out of your mind. Occasionally one may crawl up your leg, but you can’t see it, so you shake it off.

And then, when the lights come on, you see quite clearly what you’ve been living with. It’s going to have to be addressed. The light has come.

Like the family that must confront a terrible smothered secret that everybody had been trying so hard to cover up. It’s painful. Nobody wants to mention it. Everybody avoids it. And the secret gets out, and suddenly everybody is really afraid because we are going to have to deal what we have worked so hard to avoid. Light comes into darkness. That’s a crisis. Jesus calls it a crisis, even though his mission is to bring the whole world into the light and life of God.

So that brings us back to the cross. We know God loves the world, that God sends Jesus to bring life into the world, and that the world resists this love and life. In the deep magic of the Gospel, the “death” of Jesus becomes the way to life. It is the paradox at the heart of all things, a mystery that takes a while to trust and settle in.

When John speaks of the cross in his Gospel, he uses a strange phrase to push through the paradox. He puts the phrase on the lips of Jesus: “When I am lifted up.” Four times in this Gospel, Jesus speaks of being “lifted up.” In case we miss what he’s talking about, he says in chapter 12, “This was to refer to the kind of death Jesus would die.” He will be “lifted up” on a cross.

And to tie it together, we step back a couple of verses to John 3:14-15. The Gospel writer John refers to a really strange story from the Hebrew archives. It’s that story from the 21^st chapter of the book of Numbers, an obscure and out of the way story. Nobody would ever have thought of it ever again, except that John says it is a way of understanding the mystery of the cross. The old story goes like this:

Moses was leading the people through forty years in the desert, and the people grumbled. The journey was taking longer than they wanted. It was stop and go and stop some more. The people had limited resources – all they had was sand for their sandwiches. So they grumbled. And they complained. And they bickered, and they blamed. It got ugly. Very ugly.

Suddenly some poisonous snakes appeared, and they started to bite. It seemed inevitable, in a way: there was poison in the air, so along come the poisonous snakes. Moses said, “God, what do I do?”

God gave some very strange advice: make a bronze snake, put it on a pole, and raise it up high. When the people look up at the symbol of their poison, the poison will be lifted away.

So… John refers to the story here in chapter three, and pauses, as if to say, “Do you get it?” No, not really.

He tries to make it clear: “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (3:14-15)

This is John’s view of the power of what happens on the cross. The poison of an angry, rebellious world is what puts Jesus on the cross. But when he is lifted up, God takes the poison away from those who are looking at the one who is lifted up.

Or as John the Baptist declares the first time he lays eyes on Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” The sin is taken away. Forgiven away. Released and dismissed away – as long as we let go of it, and as long as we lift our eyes to Jesus.

In the briefest of words, this is how the death of Jesus opens us to the “life of eternity.” Think of what the life of God’s eternity must be like: there are no more grudges, no more grabbing, no more grievances, no more mutually inflicted pain. In a nutshell, there will be no more sin, just the glory of God and eternity. And we can live that way now, if we let go of the poison and look up to Jesus.  

Once again, the End Zone Verse is lifted up: “For God so loved the world that he sent his only Son…” The whole Gospel is held in that single verse. God sends light into darkness. God sends life into a world preoccupied with death. And when his Son is lifted up on a cross to die, once again God offers light and life and the opportunity once again to begin anew, to let go the destructive impulses, and to trust there is light.

The eternal life of God is for us and for all. All we must do is trust that. Let go of the poison, look up to Jesus. 

Thank God.

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