New Creation!! (2 Corinthians 5:14-20)

The love of God controls us, because we have concluded this: one died for the sake of all; therefore, all died.  He died for the sake of all so that those who are alive should live not for themselves but for the one who died for them and was raised.

So then, from this point on we won’t recognize people by human standards.  Even though we used to know Christ by human standards, that isn’t how we know him now.  So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation.  The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!

All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation.  In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them.  He has trusted us with this ministry of reconciliation.

So we are ambassadors who represent Christ.  God is negotiating with you through us.  We beg you as Christ’s representatives, “Be reconciled to God!”

 

Many of you have met my sister, Christel, who lives in Newton with her husband and their two boys.  Mike and Christel love an old house they can buy and fix up.  A few years ago, they bought their current home – one built in 1878 at the edge of Newton’s historic district.

I remember when she called to express their excitement after they got the house.  A big family home on a deep lot with mature trees – sweeping front porch, 12-foot ceilings, five fireplaces.  Yes, it needed some work, but it would be both their family home and their newest project.

I drove up to see the house.  I pulled up to the address, looked over their new beloved, prize possession, and thought, “What a dump!”  But as I got out of the car, I thought, “Maybe it will get better on the inside.”

It did not get better on the inside.  “Don’t stand there!  You might end up in the basement!”  “Don’t use the upstairs shower, because it will rain in the main hall if you do!”  “Don’t mind the 20-foot hole in the foundation; we’re planning to have someone come and take a look at it.”  The tour through this funhouse of residential obstacles continued, and when it was over, I said the kindest thing I could think of and say honestly: “I am so happy for you!!!”

Truer words have never been spoken.  I see a heap, but she sees something different: a precious jewel that just needs to be cleaned up, polished, and restored to its original beauty, and because she loves the house, the intense labor of love is totally worth it.

I wonder – if God sees us the same way. 

Our Scripture reading today from 2 Corinthians 5 rests in a promise of how God sees us and, therefore, how we are called to see others.  If the saying is true, that “seeing is believing” or “perception is reality,” how we are seen by God and how we see others is no small thing.

You’ve seen those drawings where if your eyes focus one way, it looks like one thing, and if your eyes focus another, it looks like something else.  Here is one of the more well-known examples of that – what do you see here?

Now – which one is right?  Is this a picture of an old woman facing you looking down, or is this a picture of a young woman turning her head away from you?  It’s both, of course, but what you see depends on your perspective – it depends on what you focus on.

Put a half-glass of water on the table: some of us will say it is half-empty, some of us will say it is half-full, others of us will wonder where the Diet Pepsi we ordered is.  What you see depends on your perspective.

Today, when you came into worship, my guess is that everyone noticed the painting that’s been done in here over the last two weeks – but, what did you focus on?  Did you notice the warm and inviting colors that were chosen, how the cracks in the plaster walls have been repaired, how the beautiful woodwork that’s always been there just pops out, how the original beauty of this room has been restored?  Or, did you notice the dust that’s still on the floor, that something didn’t get put back exactly as it was, or the paint fumes?  How you see this particular project will depend on your perspective.  Our perception shapes our reality.

That’s what Paul was getting at in today’s Scripture reading.  There is more than one way of looking at something.  For his purposes, it’s a contrast between seeing things from a human standpoint and seeing them from God’s point-of-view.

It’s really a question of vision – not so much what we see, but how we see. Without Christ, we see other people from a human perspective – we see and we make judgments through the lenses of color or creed, of nationality or economic status, of gender or sexual orientation – every time we look at another human being through these lenses we are looking at them from a human perspective.

What we realize, particularly from today’s Scripture, is that our human vision is so much less than what God desires; that my vision, your vision, our human vision requires correction so that we will see as God sees.

When we talk about the fall of humanity, of the role of sin in the world, one compelling way to think of it is that we no longer see correctly.  We have lost our God vision, and must rely on our faulty human vision, full of its ungenerous judgments toward others and our presumptuous prideful claims about ourselves.

What we must realize is that seeing other people in this way is not the perspective God desires for us, indeed, it is far from how God created us in the first place.  We must never lose sight of the reality that God created us in God’s image – that doesn’t mean that we physically look like God, but that we are created in love as God is love, and with the capacity to love as God loves.

The image of a loving God is marked indelibly on each human heart; it just needs to be restored.

How we see things becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in that what you see is what you get.  If you are always looking for the negative, then guess what, you’re going to see the negative 100% of the time.  If you’re always looking for the best, then that’s what you’ll see.  Here in the church, we’re always looking for people who see more of the positive than the negative, whose vision is in synch with God’s perspective, who contribute more than they complain.  These are the people we look to for leadership and direction; these are the people who can help us see more like God sees; these are the people who can help us become the kind of visionary community God wants us to be.

Come back with me to my sister’s house.  Whereas some folks would gut it or even tear it down and start from scratch with something new, which would be easier, faster, and, in the long run, probably cheaper, the work her family has done and continues to do on their house is a restoration project.  It’s not renovation or remodeling, it’s restoration – they see the beauty that is already there and just waiting to be exposed.

So they don’t throw away and start over.  Original fixtures are salvaged – doorknobs, hinges, pieces of trim, windows, switchplate and vent covers.  Layers of accumulated stuff are removed – dirt, grime, paint, rust, all of it.  Repairs are made.  Whatever can be reused is.  They scour salvage stores and restoration warehouses looking for just the right door or lighting fixture, or faucet handle.  When they do have to put in new components, they carefully research their options and find those that best match the period and character of the house.

When they’re done, it will feel like a new house, but they will have simply revealed what was there all along.

So it is for those who are in Christ and part of God’s new creation.  Life in Christ feels brand new, but in reality, it is the restoration of the image of God that was there all along, but for whatever reason, couldn’t be seen. 

What’s more, the restored image of God gives us the ability to no longer see people from a human perspective, but from God’s.  That’s pretty huge, folks.  Because, if God sees us as precious and beautiful, if God sees us as beloved children who bear God’s image – what would it mean for us to do the same?  To do as the Bible tells us, to serve as “ambassadors who represent Christ,” – seeing other people more like God sees them.

God looks on us with love even when we aren’t all that lovable, and that even when we felt like worthless trash, in God’s eyes, we have always been priceless treasure.

Human vision sees a heap; Godly vision sees a precious jewel that needs to be cleaned up and restored to its original beauty – and what you see is what you get.

May your sight be worthy of the loving God whose image you bear, and in whose name you are sent.  It’s an intense labor of love; and it’s totally worth it.

Jesus is OK with Doubt (John 20:19-31)

It was still the first day of the week.  That evening, while disciples were behind closed doors because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities, Jesus came and stood among them.  He said, “Peace be with you.”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and side.  When the disciples saw the Lord, they were filled with joy.  Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.  As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.”  Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.”

Thomas, the one called Didymus [or the twin], one of the Twelve, wasn’t with the disciples when Jesus came.  The other disciples told him, “We’ve seen the Lord!”  But he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger in the wounds left by the nails, and put my hand into his side, I won’t believe.”

After eight days his disciples were again in a house and Thomas was with them.  Even though the doors were locked, Jesus entered and stood among them.  He said, “Peace be with you.”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here.  Look at my hands.  Put your hand into my side.  No more disbelief.  Believe!”

Thomas responded to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus replied, “Do you believe because you see me?  Happy are those who don’t see and yet believe.”

Then Jesus did many other miraculous signs in his disciples’ presence, signs that aren’t recorded in this scroll.  But these things are written so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, God’s son, and that believing, you will have life in his name.

Has anyone wished you a happy Easter today?  If not, then let me be the first.  Happy Easter!  Christ is risen! (Christ is risen indeed!)  May the reality of new life in Christ be yours today, may you be filled with joy, because it is still Easter.  We know that technically, Easter is a season, a 7-week-long season of celebration and joy that stretches from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday.  But even more than that, Easter is an everyday reality for the followers of Jesus - every day is an opportunity to behold that all things are being made new in Christ, every day is an opportunity for the newness of life in Christ to spring up in the cold and dead places of our own lives - for those in Christ, every day is Easter.

And so yes, today is still Easter.  Christ is risen!  (Christ is risen indeed!)   God is still transforming hollowed out tombs into places bursting with new life, and today, no less than last week, we continue to have life-giving encounters with the living Christ.  May we pray.

A Story for the Faithful Few

The Scripture reading we read a few minutes ago is John’s account of what happened on the evening of the very first Easter Sunday.  If this story is familiar to you, you are likely one of the few but faithful who regularly attend worship on this Second Sunday of Easter.  On this Sunday each year, the lectionary brings us one account or another of this particular story - of fearful disciples who have barricaded themselves in an upper room, how the resurrected Jesus stood among them, and of Thomas, more commonly known as “Doubting Thomas,” who wasn’t there, and refused to believe until he saw it for himself.

Doubting Thomas - he is portrayed as a kind of stick-in-the-mud, the disciple who comes to the party just a little bit late and is a total buzz-kill when he finally gets there.  If the disciples were Winnie the Pooh characters, Thomas would play the part of Eeyore.

Futher, we have tended to teach that, of all the disciples, there are two not to be like - don’t be like Judas, who sold Jesus out for a few silver coins, and don’t be like Thomas - because he had doubt instead of faith.

Do you mind if I stick up for Thomas for minute?  Thomases are very practical, down-to-earth, rational people.  Thomases are nuts and bolts people who like concrete ideas and concepts.  Thomases tend to be a bit skeptical, a bit cynical, and a bit difficult to convince.  I should know - I am a Thomas myself.

Like Thomas, doubt itself gets a bad wrap, too.  I don’t think doubt, questions, or uncertainty bother Jesus at all.  They may bother us, especially if we prefer absolutes, but friends, you can doubt and question Jesus all you want - trust me, the risen Jesus can take it.

Besides, doubt is often an important part of the journey toward faith.  The great reformer, Martin Luther, talks about working through his own doubts, and how those doubts became part of the process of faith and of being a Christian.  John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, frequently spoke of “degrees of faith,” much like the thermostat in your home is not simply “on” or “off,” but has the ability to heat up or cool down incrementally, so too is our faith not simply a matter of “Yes, you have it,” or “No, you don’t.”  In my own life, periods of doubt and questioning have led to some of my most profound experiences of faith.

 

Doubting  Absent Thomas

The resurrected Jesus appeared to the rest of the disciples at a time when Thomas wasn’t there - we don’t know why he wasn’t there or where he was.  Maybe he went out to get groceries or maybe he was keeping watch or maybe he just wasn’t as afraid as everyone else, but for whatever reason he wasn’t there.  Instead of calling him Doubting Thomas, maybe we should think of him as Absent Thomas.

 

In fact, I find it sort of funny that the lectionary brings us the story of Absent Thomas on a Sunday when the vast majority of our congregation is also absent!  I am so glad you are here this morning, and I hope and pray, as I do every Sunday, that you experience the living presence of Jesus in worship today.  But, I can’t help but wonder how we who have gathered today might live in such a way that the transforming presence of the living Jesus is shared with those who are not here, whether they are part of the crowds who were here last Sunday and are absent today, whether they are those who live within sight of our steeple but aren’t part of any faith community, whether they are those who - out of pain, or fear, or loneliness, or hopelessness - are living behind locked doors, or even those who are physically here today, but haven’t shown up spiritually in years.

In the life of Thomas, his doubt speaks out of the genuine reality that the risen and living Jesus hasn’t yet made an appearance in his life.

Thomas: Not Unlike His Peers (And Us!!)

Another reason not to single him out is that the rest of the disciples aren’t much of a prize at this point in the story, either.  How easy it is for us to forget that the first followers of Jesus didn’t have any more a clue what they were doing than we do!

On the evening of the first Easter Sunday, perhaps only 12 hours or so after Jesus first appeared to the women outside the empty tomb, you would have expected to find his followers out in the streets, shouting the Easter proclamation that Christ is risen!  Christ is risen, indeed!  It was Easter, it was victory day, it was time to shout and celebrate and share the good news that Jesus was alive - he is alive, indeed!

But that’s not where they were.  On what should have been their most defining and celebratory day, they were locked away, hiding, paralyzed by fear, hunkered down and expecting the worst.

Nothing Going For Them

If ever there was a church with a PR problem and a bad reputation to overcome, it was this church we have read about today - these first followers of Jesus in the hours just after he was raised to new life.  If ever there was a church in need of transformation or a congregational vitality study, this was it.  They were a church that any district superintendent would have described as a “unique and challenging opportunity.”

Sometimes I have wondered how such a church might promote itself to the community - “the church where all are welcome?”  Well, probably not - locked gates are not a sign of hospitality.  “The church with a warm heart and bold mission?”  Well, no - more like sweaty palms and shaky knees.

 

In short, the followers of Jesus on the first Easter night didn’t have anything going for them - they didn’t even have the luxury of arguing about the petty things churches today often argue about - no building, no music, no programs, no leadership team, no mission statement, no parking spaces, no fellowship hall, no money.

 

They were a church without any joy, and they didn’t even have a sense of purpose or direction. They were, as Tom Long says, “a picture of church at its very worst - scared, disheartened, defensive” - they were the most miserable little conglomeration of people that have ever gathered and called themselves a church.  Their entire long-term strategic plan had completely fallen apart, they had no plan B, no conviction about anything except their own fear; they had absolutely nothing going for them except for one thing:

 

When they gathered, the presence of the risen Christ was made real in their midst.

 

They were a breath away from giving up; but the risen and living Jesus breathed on them with the breath of new life, gave them the life-changing gift of the Holy Spirit, and commissioned them to breathe his new life into the world around them.

 

And that little rag-tag group of disciples, who were the church at their worst, who were the most miserable little gathering of people who ever called themselves a church - the presence of the risen Christ was made real when they gathered.  They found their joy, they found their purpose, they found their meaning.  Instead of giving up, they forever changed the world.

 

And so, even when we have nothing going for us, even when we’re at our worst, even we’re absent, God is still present.

 

Friends - that’s church.  What matters most?  The presence of the risen Christ made real in our midst.  It’s what changes our fear into hope, and our sorrow into joy.  Encountering the risen Christ - that’s what makes all the difference.

Getters and Givers

Your attitude as a part of the congregation has a lot to do with how vital and fruitful the church will be.  I have noticed there are two general attitudes that people can have about their church, framed in terms of two questions:

·         “What can I get out of being part of this church?”

·         “What can I give out of being part of this church?”

 

Vibrant, healthy, kingdom-building churches are those in which more of their constituents are seeking to give rather than to get. 

 

Getters

·         Are worried about their own needs

·         Are concerned with “What’s in it for me?”

·         Want their own way

·         Withhold (time, talent, or treasure) when they don’t get what they want

·         Think more of themselves than they do of others

·         Think the church is there to serve them

·         Fear loss of control, comfort, or convenience

 

Givers

·         Are worried about what’s best for everyone

·         Are concerned with “What does God need of us?”

·         Want God’s way

·         Continue to give (time, talent, treasure) even when they don’t get exactly what they want

·         Think more about others than they do of themselves

·         Think the church is there to serve its community

·         Are willing to sacrifice control, comfort, or convenience for the sake of the mission

 

So ask yourself, “Am I a giver, or am I a getter?”

Easter Forever (Luke 24:1-12)

Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, the women went to the tomb, bringing the fragrant spices they had prepared.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus.  They didn’t know what to make of this.  Suddenly, two men were standing beside them in bright clothing.  The women were frightened and bowed their faces toward the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He isn’t here, but has been raised. Remember what he told you while he was still in Galilee, that the Human One must be handed over to sinners, be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”  Then they remembered his words.  When they returned from the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and all the others.  It was Mary Magdelene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles.  Their words struck the apostles as nonsense, and they didn’t believe the women.  But Peter ran to the tomb.  When he bent over to look inside, he saw only a linen cloth.  Then he returned home, wondering what had happened.

Why do you look for the living among the dead?  Christ is risen! (Christ is risen indeed!)  Today is Easter Sunday, the greatest, highest, holiest, most celebratory and defining day of our Christian faith, and we exchange the traditional Easter greeting with joyful confidence.  Christ is risen! (Christ is risen indeed!)

People of Christian faith take the resurrection of Jesus in such stride, almost for granted.  We all celebrate Easter, but it is a predictable and expected celebration.  No surprises.  The same story each year - a good one, but not a surprising one.

If we’re not careful, celebrating Easter takes on an almost perfunctory role - Easter baskets, check.  New clothes for the kids, check.  Bring flowers for the cross, check.  Have another family photo taken in front of it, check.  Sit through that boring Easter church service, check.  Go to Easter lunch at Grandma’s house, check.  Another Easter Sunday, in the books, thanks be to God.

It is easy for us to forget that the resurrection is a defining, earth-shattering, game-changing piece of good news, and we hear the good news itself that “He is not here, but has been raised,” without any surprise and gloss over the question that immediately precedes it - “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Honestly, where else should they have been looking for Jesus?  They had watched him suffer and die on a cruel Roman cross.  They had watched him taken down from that cross and placed in a garden tomb.  They were looking for him there because that’s where he should have been.  “Why are we looking for Jesus among the dead?  Because that’s where we last saw him.  Last we knew, he was dead.”  When someone dies, we expect them to stay dead.

Unless, of course, you’re one of the people, like me, who is following AMC’s hit series, The Walking Dead.  Am I alone in that, or any other zombie watchers here today?  I’ll be honest, I have never been one to follow a television show.  I never got into Lost or Survivor, I don’t know who’s competing on American Idol  or Dancing with the Stars.  That’s just television, I don’t get caught up in that sort of stuff - and then The Walking Dead came on, and that thing just sucked me right in.  Sunday night at 9 o’clock, whatever I’m doing comes to a halt and it’s Walking Dead time, even during March Madness, and that is no small feat with two Duke alumni in the house.

For three seasons now, The Walking Dead has chronicled a small group of survivors’ struggle to stay alive in the midst of a zombie apocalypse - where the dead have come back to life, but only a half-life, if you will, where they essentially do two things - walk, and eat.

What is different about Jesus’ resurrection, however, is that his resurrection was not simply the re-animation of a dead corpse.  His resurrection was not a matter of the dead coming back to some sort of half- or partial-life that was only a shadow of previous life.  Rather, when Jesus was raised from the dead, it was a brand-new life, a new beginning, a fresh start.  What we realize is that life before the resurrection is dull and faded compared to life since the resurrection, where the dead places of our lives give way to the bright, technicolor radiance of the new life in Christ.

The resurrection of Jesus is not just new life for him, it is new life for all of us.  The resurrection of Jesus is a game-changer.  Everything is different now, because in his resurrection Jesus has declared unilateral victory over sin and death.  In his resurrection, Jesus has trampled down the forces of wickedness and darkness.  In his resurrection, Jesus has announced, “I live - and you shall live also.”  The resurrection is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that he came that we might have life, and have it abundantly.  When Jesus said, “Behold, I am making all things new,” the resurrection demonstrates that what Jesus said, he meant.

In the transforming power of the resurrection, all things are being made new.  Friends, that’s what Jesus does - he makes things new, all things - your life, your heart, your relationships, your attitudes, your faith - Jesus makes it all new.  The good news of the resurrection is not only that it happened once upon a time, in a land far, far, away, no - far from it.  Resurrection, new life, happens again and again.  In the life of faith, every day is Easter.  Every day is an opportunity for God to do something new within us, to awaken something within us, every day is an opportunity for God to do the transformation within our hearts that only God can do.  Easter is happening all the time.

Do you have an Easter faith this morning?  Do you believe that, in Jesus, God is making all things new?  Are you an Easter person?  Or, like the first witnesses of the resurrection who scratched their heads in wonder outside an empty tomb, are you still looking for the living among the dead?  Are you actively living and experiencing a new life in Christ, or are you simply maintaining the cemetery?

There are many people of faith who are not living an Easter faith, who are hanging out in the hollow tomb of a faith they once had.  Friends, if you can’t remember the last time you discovered something new about God, had a life-giving encounter with Jesus, or felt your heart strangely-warmed by the Holy Spirit, then it’s time to update the program.  Sometimes we get so mired in the tomb, so mournful over what was, that we are self-selectively blind to the new thing God is doing now.

The transforming, life-giving, new-making Easter faith of Jesus is happening all around; it’s time to get out of the tomb and experience new life in Christ.

Easter is about experiencing new life in Christ, and one of the oldest traditions associated with Easter are Easter eggs.  I had to listen to someone this week, a very well-meaning Christian, go on a tirade about what in the world eggs and chicks had to do with the resurrection of Jesus.  I just thought, “Really?”  Have we lost so much of our imagination, have we become so literalistic that we can no longer understand symbols and how they communicate things about our faith?  Eggs, in general, have been a sign of rebirth and new life that even predates Christianity.  Just as a bird hatches to new life, so too does the egg symbolize the resurrection of Jesus to new life.

An egg contains all the promise, potential, and possibility of new life.  But, unless the shell is broken, all that potential for new life remains unrealized.  An unbroken shell becomes a tomb.  All that potential for new life, transformed instead into death, all for the want of a broken shell.  Everything may look fine and good on the outside, but the inner story reveals the truth.  Such was the case for the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, whom he described as whitewashed tombs, beautiful and gleaming on the outside, but inside they were full of filth and decay and rot (Matthew 23:27-28).  The potential for new life was there, but the shells around their hard hearts remained unbroken.

So it is for us, even today: unbroken shells turn into tombs.  But the good news of Easter is that there isn’t a tomb Jesus can’t overcome.  Jesus is in the business of vacating graves, so whatever is dead in your life can still be resurrected to new life, no matter what it is, no matter how long it’s been like that - surely the one who died and descended to the depths of hell and was raised to new life is able to redeem and transform whatever hell you find yourself walking through.  The tombs of life are emptying out because Jesus is alive - the living Lord is breaking shells everywhere he goes.

In Jerusalem, the massive Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built over both the traditional crucifixion and burial sites of Jesus.  When I was there a few weeks ago, I stood in line to briefly touch the notch in the rock where the cross would have been placed.  We then wound our way through the church to the place over the burial site, the Holy Sepulchre itself, where a long line of pilgrims stood in line waiting for their chance to go down into the tomb.  Our guide said, “From here, it looks like the line is one and a half hours long.  But we are not going to be standing in line.  We, as Christians, are not going to go in - and do you know why?  ‘Cause there’s nothing in there.”

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has been raised.”  The tomb is empty and the shells are breaking - Christ is risen! (Christ is risen indeed!)   Easter is reality now - The transforming, life-giving, new-making Easter faith of Jesus is happening all the time - it’s time to leave the cemetery and experience new life in Christ.

Footsteps of Jesus in the City (Matthew 14:43-65; 15:1-20; Luke 19:41-42)

Through our worship in this Lenten season, we are re-tracing the footsteps of Jesus.  The backdrop for these sermons in this series is my recent trip to the Holy Land.  From January 29 - February 7, I travelled with a group of young United Methodist clergy from around our conference, all of us age 35 or under, and our bishop, on a spiritual pilgrimage where we walked where Jesus walked.  My hope for each of us is that we will step out with a holy boldness and courage to follow in the life-changing way of Jesus.

First, we followed the footsteps of Jesus in the wilderness.  We remembered that even when we walk through barren and difficult and dry places in our lives, Jesus has already been there, and indeed he still walks with us in those places.

Then, we followed the footsteps of Jesus at the sea.  We remembered that Jesus is walking the shores of our lives, calling us continually to follow him, to feed his sheep, and to fish for more friends and followers to join us in the boat.

Today, we follow the footsteps of Jesus in the city.  The footsteps of Jesus in the city are hard, partly because we can recognize our own footsteps in the story and realize that we have a part to play in his death.  Today, we are challenged - to look to our own hearts, examine our own motives, to become less like those who, whether out of anger, fear, or sport cried out for blood, and more like the one whose humble footsteps led him all the way to the cross.

Suddenly, while Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, came with a mob carrying swords and clubs.  They had been sent by the chief priests, legal experts, and elders.  His betrayer had given them a sign, “Arrest the man I kiss, and take him away under guard.”

As soon as he got there, Judas said to Jesus, “Rabbi!”  Then he kissed him.  Then they came and grabbed Jesus and arrested him.  One of the bystanders drew a sword and struck the high priest’s slave and cut off his ear.  Jesus responded, “Have you come with swords and clubs to arrest me, like an outlaw?  Day after day, I was with you, teaching in the temple, but you didn’t arrest me.  But let the scriptures be fulfilled.”  And all of disciples left him and ran away.  One man, a disciple, was wearing nothing a linen cloth.  They grabbed him, but he left the linen cloth behind and ran away naked.

They led Jesus away to the high priest, and all the chief priests, elders, and legal experts gathered.  Peter followed from a distance, right into the high priest’s courtyard.  He was sitting with the guards, warming himself by the fire.  The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for testimony against Jesus in order to put him to death, but they couldn’t find any.  Many brought false testimony against him, but they contradicted each other.  Some stood to offer false witness against him, saying, “We heard him saying, ‘I will destroy this temple, constructed by humans, and within three days I will build another, one not made by humans.’”  But their testimonies didn’t agree even on this point.

Then the high priest stood up in the middle of the gathering and examined Jesus.  “Aren’t you going to respond to the testimony these people have brought against you?”  But Jesus was silent and didn’t answer.  Again, the high priest asked, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the blessed one?”

Jesus said, “I am.  And you will see the Human One sitting on the right side of the Almighty and coming on the heavenly clouds.”  Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “Why do we need any more witnesses?  You’ve heard his insult against God.  What do you think?”

Then they condemned him.  “He deserves to die!”

Some began to spit on him.  Some covered his face and hit him, saying, “Prophesy!”  Then the guards took him and beat him.

It was the night of what we call the Last Supper.  Jesus has just shared the Passover meal with his disciples in the Upper Room.  They sang a hymn, and went out into the garden.  This was no short walk.  Rather, they walked down from Mount Zion into the Kidron Valley, and then partway up the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane.  Gethsemane is a word that means “olive press,” and appropriately enough, Jesus pressed himself down and poured himself out in prayer in the garden.

While he was praying, he was arrested, betrayed into the hands of the religious authorities by one of his closest friends.  And so, back down into the Kidron Valley, and up Mount Zion again, to the home of Caiphas, the high priest, where low and behold, the ruling religious council, the Sanhredrin, had been called to order in the middle of the night.

Over the site of Caiphas’ house, the Church of St. Peter has been built, because we remember that Peter denied knowing Jesus three times in the courtyard of this house.  At Caiphas’ home, at this secret meeting of angry religious folks in the middle of the night, gripe after gripe was brought up against Jesus - no formal charges, really, just that some of these folks hated Jesus and wanted to get rid of him.

Have you ever thought about where Jesus spent the night before the crucifixion?  After his arrest and condemnation before the Jewish council, but before he was taken to the Roman governor, Pilate?  I never had really given it much thought.  But, under the Church of St. Peter, built on the site of the house of the high priest, is a cave, a dungeon, a pit.  It is likely the place Jesus spent his last night before the crucifixion.

We went down into this pit.  Stairs have been built into it, but at the time of Jesus, there were no stairs.  Through a hole in the ceiling, those being placed down there would have been lowered down with ropes, and brought back up the same way.  And so I want you to imagine Jesus - with ropes being placed under his arms after he has been arrested, and condemned, spit on, hit, mocked, and beaten - being lowered down into that deep, dark, pit.  No way out.  Alone, and abandoned.

We know that Jesus knew the Hebrew Scriptures.  His teaching throughout his life referenced them extensively.  Later that day on the cross, he would quote parts of several Psalms.  Down in that pit, our group gathered, and we read the words of Psalm 88 - words I had read so many times before, but never really heard until I heard them in that space.

Read Psalm 88.

Can you feel the abandonment and despair in those words?  But, that feeling was nothing, compared with what was to come when daybreak came and Jesus was lifted out of the pit:

At daybreak, the chief priests - with the elders, legal experts, and the whole Sanhedrin - formed a plan.  They bound Jesus, led him away, and turned him over to Pilate. Pilate questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

Jesus replied, “That’s what you say.”  The chief priests were accusing him of many things.

Pilate asked him again, “Aren’t you going to answer?  What about all these accusations?”  But Jesus gave no more answers, so that Pilate marveled.

During the festival, Pilate released one prisoner to them, whomever they requested.  A man named Barabbas was locked up with the rebels who had committed murder during an uprising.  The crowd pushed forward and asked Pilate to release someone, as he regularly did.  Pilate answered them, “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?”  Pilate knew that the chief priests had handed him over because of jealousy.  But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas to them instead.  Pilate replied, “Then what do you want me to do with the one you call king of the Jews?”

They shouted back, “Crucify him!”

Pilate said to them, “Why?  What wrong has he done?”

They shouted even louder, “Crucify him!”

Pilate wanted to satisfy the crowd, so he released Barabbas to them.  He had Jesus whipped, then handed him over to be crucified.

The soldiers led Jesus away into the courtyard of the palace known as the governor’s headquarters, and they called together the whole company of soldiers.  They dressed him up in a purple robe and twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on him.  They saluted him, “Hey! King of the Jews!”  Again and again they struck his head with a stick.  They spit on him and knelt before him to honor him.  When they finished mocking him, they stripped him of the purple robe and put his own clothes back on him.  Then they led him out to crucify him.

We had been down in the dungeon under the house of Caiphas, the high priest, for probably only ten minutes or so.  We ascended the stairs and walked out in the bright sunshine, and perhaps only then I realized how dark it had been down there.  Not so much physically dark but spiritually dark, as we felt the abandonment Jesus must have felt - abandoned by his friends, abandoned by his family, abandoned even by God, condemned to death by good, righteous, religious folks.

I blinked at the rude and intrusive sunshine.  Now, I happen to love sunshine.  Always have.  Ashley and I vacation at the beach, not the mountains - we love sunshine.  Yet, on that particular morning, the sunshine was so bright it was almost rude.  How dare the sun shine - I wasn’t ready for sunshine yet, because the darkness of the pit, that emotional anguish, was still clung close around me.  The brightness of the sunshine seemed so - unaware - of where we had just been.

And it wasn’t only the sunshine.  The rest of the world was just going about its normal business as well.  The sounds of traffic on city streets was all around.  Laundry was flapping in the warm breeze.  People were on their way to work, or home, or lunch with friends.  The squeals of children’s play drifted up from the schoolyard in the valley below us.  It was just an ordinary day.

I wondered if it was also similar for Jesus when he came out of the darkness of that pit of despair.  If, on what would turn out to be the day of his crucifixion, was it simply another ordinary day for everyone around him - children going to school, people on their way to work or to have a meal with friends?  I wondered if, while Jesus’ world was crashing down around him, if the rest of the world just went on with business-as-usual?

Ever been there?  Where, emotionally or spiritually, you are down in some dark place, some lonely place, some hopeless place, some painful place, and all around you it seems like everyone is just oblivious to you and your predicament - just hustling and bustling about in the sunshine of an ordinary day?

If you have, the good news for you today is that we have a friend in low places; Jesus has been there too.

We went down under some buildings which looked pretty old in their own right to a place where you could see the original floor of the courtyard of the governor’s headquarters, or the Fortress Antonia.  Etched in the stone pavers were the markings of some sort of game - no doubt some well-known game the soldiers would play to pass the time and keep themselves amused as they stood watch for hours on end.

As the soldiers took him out into the courtyard to have a little fun with him, a new game was developing, one called “Hail the King.”  Everyone wanted to play.  Everyone wanted to win.

“They say this nutjob says he’s the king of the Jews!”  “Oh, is that right?  Well, that gives me an idea.  You can’t be a king without a proper robe!”  So someone went and got a purple robe, and they hung it over Jesus’ bloodied back, but they weren’t done.

“Well, hang on a second, where is this king’s crown?”  Someone ran and cut some thorny branches from a plant in the yard, twisted it into a rude crown, and jammed it down on his head so that the thorns pierced the skin around his temples and the blood began to flow, but still they weren’t done.

“A king needs a scepter, a sign of his authority and wealth, and power, and I’ve got just the thing for this king,” one of the others said as he took a cattail reed and thrust it into Jesus’ hand.  A few minutes ago just another prisoner, but now, a proper king of fools.  They gathered around him in mock acclaim, bowing down and saluting him, “Hail, King of the Jews!”  They struck him, and spit on him.  What a fun game - everyone got a good laugh.

Does this scene break your heart?  To think of the suffering of Jesus our Lord being turned into a game and something that gave everyone a good laugh - does that break your heart?  It should.  But even more heartbreaking are times when we continue to play games while the body of Christ and the cause of Christ suffer, or worse: that the games we play are inflicting the pain.

There was plenty of game-playing going on that day, and Jesus was the gamepiece in all of them.  Soldiers playing “Hail the King,” the governor playing to public opinion rather than what he knew was right, religious folks, stirring up dissent among the crowd after yet another secret meeting at someone’s home to get rid of someone they didn’t like - games, games, games - and Jesus feels the pain.

Friends, the body of Christ is suffering, and if you are playing the games that are causing the pain, then his precious blood is on your hands.  It’s enough to bring Jesus to tears.

As Jesus came to the city and observed it, he wept over it.  He said, “If only you knew on this of all days the things that lead to peace.  But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

The Palm Sunday tradition is that Jesus processed from the Mount of Olives down into the Kidron Valley and then up into the city of Jerusalem.  He rode a donkey, a sign of his humility and that all those who follow him are called to lives of humble service.  Partway down the Mount is the Church of Dominus Flevit, meaning, “The Lord has wept,” and on this site, the tradition of Jesus shedding tears for Jerusalem is remembered.

From this site, the city of Jerusalem is in full display just across the valley.  There is one window in the chapel, over the altar, and it perfectly frames the city.  You are far enough away that you can more or less see all of it, yet close enough that you feel like you could reach out your hand and touch it.  Here, tradition remembers that Jesus wept, because they didn’t know of the things that lead to peace.

Too much chaos, too much violence, too much hatred and strife, too much game-playing.  You know, things haven’t really changed that much in 2000 years.  It seems that the more things change, the more things remain the same.  So long as we are people given to these things, like ancient Jerusalem, the things that lead to peace will remain hidden from our eyes, and our lives will never be the instruments of healing for this broken world God desires.

Friends, God needs us to do better.  God has called us to better.  Being a follower of Jesus teaches us in the way of things that lead to peace, and then putting those things into practice as peace-makers.  We are to be both students and teachers of peace.

This week, our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters have elected a new pope, who has chosen for himself the name, “Francis.”  I hope and pray that his choice of name is a solid sign that the global church is about to take a crash course on peace, and I will thank our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters - and their new pontiff - for leading us in the way.  My prayer is that Pope Francis will lead us and teach us and guide us, as Jesus has and will continue to lead him, in the way of things that make for peace.  If his life up to this point is any indication, we should expect nothing less, and based on the name he’s chosen, he’s pretty much sealed the deal.

What could be if we made the prayer of St. Francis our prayer (UMH 481):

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light:

and where there is sadness, joy. 

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. 

There is enough violence, enough hatred, enough strife, enough chaos, enough game-playing in the world; Jesus weeps when we who claim to be his followers simply add to it.  The footsteps of Jesus in the wilderness, at the sea, and in the city guide us in the way of peace.  He is faithful; may our feet find his way.