Isaiah 65:17-25

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD– and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent–its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.

Luke 24:1-12

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.

While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”

Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Sermon Text

Christ is risen! The darkness of the past is washed away in the light of Christ’s glory. The fullness of God now dwells with the fullness of man in glorified flesh. Scars stand on his wrists, on his feet, and side – eternal reminders of the pain he was willing to suffer for each one of us. Christ who is seated at the right hand of God, Christ who walked among humanity, Christ who lives within each of us, Christ the Lord is risen today.

This rising was not just a return to life, it was not like Lazarus or Jarius’ daughter or any of the other’s who Christ raised in his life. This is the resurrection and in resurrection, the dead person is brought to life, but they are brought to life as glorified and perfected humanity. Christ left the tomb as the same Christ who had died, but, being raised, the flesh of Jesus was now somehow changed. When the disciples saw him, it did not take them long to recognize him, but there was still something profoundly different.

The promise of the resurrection is that, like Christ, we too shall one day be raised in glory. That we, in joining the body of Christ which is the church, are promised that though we die, we will one day rise in a resurrection like Christ’s. The promise of unity with Christ is the promise of rebirth, of something new and profound within our life. What is interesting, and perhaps terrifying, about this resurrection is that while we are promised to enter into glorified, eternal life – it still requires that we die.

Christ suffered on the cross and after laying in the tomb, he has Risen. This death defeated death once and for all, but it did not remove the reality of death from the present age. Jesus’ time within the tomb, and his subsequent resurrection serve for us as examples of what shall be for us, that after we spend our time in the grave Christ will bring us up out of the pit and as flesh and spirit usher us into the New Kingdom, the New Heaven, the New Earth.

The Early Church was ready for Jesus to rush back to bring them into the glory of God. They anticipated that Jesus would come and raise up the dead and that those who were still living would then be somehow raised up while still alive to join in the glorified body of Christ. Then, slowly but surely, the disciples began to die. Stephen’s martyrdom shook the church, but nothing shook the church like the death of James the brother of John. No one imagined a disciple would die, Jesus had said, after all, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Maybe, then, Jesus really meant, “Some.” There would be suffering, some would die, but the resurrection would save us all. Then, more died. Slowly but surely, more of the twelve died. With each passing the church became more confused about what their new kingdom would look like, it seemed to them that Jesus should have come and saved them before any of this happened. Peter was gone, Thomas was gone, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thaddeus, Andrew, Philip, Simon Zealot, and finally after many years, John died on Patmos. Even Paul, the last called apostle was beheaded in Rome, and in his final days, he wrote the book of Philippians, a meditation on what the kingdom would be without the first generation of believers.

Easter, it turns out, is a complicated season. We live in the tension of the reality of the resurrection, we celebrate that God has risen us to better things and promised us the life eternal, but we also acknowledge death. We look forward at the life to come, at the eternity that begins today, but we are all too aware of the darkness the lurks outside the light of our paschal candles. There is death, there is sickness and decay, and if we let ourselves, that darkness will encroach upon us and consume the Joy of the resurrection. It crouches at the doorstep, and we must overcome it – we must overcome it or descend into despair. We are not people who mourn as those without hope, but what does this hope mean? What is Easter in the shadow of fear?

We live out the crisis of the early Church every day. The promises of the resurrection seem far off two thousand years down the road. We live in such a way that death seems overwhelming sometimes. Just today, worshippers gathering to celebrate the resurrection were killed by bombs in Sri Lanka. Most strikingly, a picture of a statue of Jesus covered in blood has been circulated. The image of the resurrection combines with the reality of death, and we are left throwing our hands up and crying, “Why God! How Long O’ Lord!”

To come to the celebration of Easter and not to acknowledge the baggage we bring to the table is to deny some of the deepest parts of ourselves. We must be willing to unpack the losses we have taken, to share with God whatever comes forward. Do not suffer in silence what God is willing to listen to. The beauty of Easter is that before the resurrection came the tomb, that Christ has full knowledge of what it is to suffer and die. Christ does not tell us that this life will be easy, and honestly being Christian should mean that life becomes more difficult for you, but Christ’s command is one of experience – not of despotism.

The passage we read from Isaiah tells us that one day there will be a new Jerusalem. There will be a place where there is no more sorrow, where everything will grow into its fullness and that all things will be well. This was not told to people who were in a good place in life, they were in exile, foreigners in a foreign land forced there by powers they had no control over. The people suffering under the oppression of Empire, the greed of nations, were being told that one day they would return to their land and live a good life. They or their children would return to something better, one day. What is important though, is that God places this work immediately, “I am about to make things new.” Elsewhere in the same book, we see God add to this declaration, “Even now it is springing up! Do you not perceive it?”

It is not always easy to see the promise of Easter, but we stand as the church and we are the testament to its existence. The Saints who went before us, and those who live among us today, all testify that God is risen and working among us. We see Christ in those who suffer, we see Christ in those who heal, we see Christ in the sunrise, in every blooming flower. Whatever brings the revelation of God into our lives, that is something sacred and holy. Because the reality is that we are a people surrounded by death, we see far more suffering than good. We are the disciples, waking on Sunday and being roused from sleep. We hear the call of the women, “He is not here, but he has risen!” and we rush to the tomb.

We stand among the dead, unsure of what is going on. We know that we stand today in a tomb, but here where there should be the chief victory of death, God dead on a slab, we find a folded piece of cloth. The evidence of the resurrection is right in front of us, the spices that had been mixed with the cloths initially hang heavy in our nose mixing with another, unpleasant smell.

Here we have a choice, to sit in the tomb and mourn, “They have taken my Lord!” Or to join in the chorus of those who have already left, who made their way into the garden full of life and already said their praises of a risen God. We enter into the garden and cry our hallelujahs, we live in the uncertainty of a life forever transformed, a world where death doesn’t have the last word anymore. This is the day, this day, Easter day, that the Lord has made completely new. Do you perceive it? Let us rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. For we now know that entering into death, we are born to new life. Dying to ourselves, we are born to Christ. What was has passed away, the new is here. Praise God. Amen.

John 18:28-19:42

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

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

Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.” The Jews replied, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death.” (This was to fulfill what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.) Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

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

Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, “I find no case against him.

But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” They shouted in reply, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a bandit. Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and striking him on the face.

Pilate went out again and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.” So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!” When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.”

The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.” Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?”

Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.”

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

Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.

Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.'” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top.  So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.” This was to fulfill what the scripture says, “They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.”

And that is what the soldiers did. Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed.

Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.) These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, “None of his bones shall be broken.”

And again another passage of scripture says, “They will look on the one whom they have pierced.” After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.

They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Sermon Text

Christ died on the cross for our sins this day. The righteous victim of our crimes, a pure sacrifice offered up for sins he did not commit. Death entered the person of God for the first time today. Never had God known pain like this, known what it was to feel cold as blood drained from his body, known what it was to sink into darkness, to draw one final breath and then, suddenly, cease.

What is striking in the account that John gives of Christ’s sacrifice is that no one advocated for Christ on the day that he died except for Pilate, and even then only half-heartedly. The powerful Roman, the vicious and violent Governor, was the only one to acknowledge that Christ was being killed for no reason other than out of fear and jealousy. Time and time again he questions Christ, and time and time again Jesus tells him he is sent to begin something beyond this world, to testify to the truth, proving his innocence time and time again.

Yet despite all this, Pilate acts as expected and capitulates to the vengeance of the Temple elites. He turns Jesus over to be crucified and washes his hands of any guilt. Not to be completely silenced, Pilate places a plaque above Jesus’ head – “Here is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” The temple leaders are furious at this, “He only claimed to be a king! Do not give him a title he does not deserve.” Yet, Pilate insists he will not change it.

This does two things – on one level Pilate is getting back at the leaders who forced his hand. A way of saying, “You win in this, but I will not let you win completely.” On the other, Pilate is giving Christ the due recognition he deserves. This is the Christ, this is the King of the Jews, but Pilate only gave him his proper title when he was dying on the cross. An act that, from an earthly view, is far too little far too late.

Likewise, we are told that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus chipped in to let Jesus be buried and embalmed properly. One gave the tomb and the other the necessary spices. Again, in earthly terms – too little, too late. Where were these men at the Sanhedrin, why do we not hear them rising up to defend Jesus during his trial? We can only assume that these two were standing there in the trial, silent as the defamation of Jesus’ character played out. The events leading up to the crucifixion and those that followed were significant in that on either side we see the people of God failing to show up for Christ.

Today, we look back and know that the death of Christ was not the final victory of death but death’s final action. This was not so to those who chose to let Christ die alone and without an advocate. Even for us today, we are left with a choice. Either we stand up for the Christ that is present among us – the poor and needy in all places – or we stand with our own comfort and our own power. Pilate feared an uprising, and so let Jesus die. Do we feel we will be disenfranchised, and so let the powerful kill the oppressed? Joseph and Nicodemus likely feared being ostracized or chased out of the assembly. Do we worry we will be excluded if we radically love those who are not accepted by others?

This is the day that changed history. Christ, in Christ’s sacrifice, washes us clean of our sin and allows us to be the Church. However, it is also a constant reminder of what God looks like to us in the day to day. God is not clean, God is not respectable. God is the dirty vagrant you cast out from public places, God is the dope peddler you sneered at, God is the homeless trans woman you called a freak. God’s place is among the oppressed because Christ died for us, sinners that we are, alone, without an advocate, and as a punching bag for the powerful.

Today we remember the act of God that set us free, but let us not view this liberation as something which God worked only so that we can die and go up to Heaven. No, instead let us see Christ as freeing us from the constraints of a broken world, and showing us what really matters. Not power, not acclaim, not even a good reputation – but loving the least of these even if it means we lose all that we care about. The call of the Church is a call to come and die, and at Calvary, Christ sets the perfect example of what this means.

Christ is crucified until the kingdom is inaugurated in final victory. Crucified in everyone who suffers, in every evil that is committed. The eternal sacrifice of God for our sins is played out in every interaction we have, let us advocate for those who bear the image of Christ while they live. Let us give into the temptation to see their death as tragic, as unavoidable, as anything but our fault.

Psalm 22

            My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.

            Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

            But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; “Commit your cause to the LORD; let him deliver– let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”

            Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

            Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.

            For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled; I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me; they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.

            But you, O LORD, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion! From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me.

            I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.

            From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD. May your hearts live forever All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.

            For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations. To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

            For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

            In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

            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.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

            After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord–and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

            Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. When [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’

            I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Sermon Text

            Christ at the table, Christ offering himself for us. This is the central image of our faith. It was at the table that Christ gave us the words of institution, “This is my body… This is my blood…” It is at the table that Christ gave a final declaration that he was to be delivered up and die, a final offering to his disciples so that they could understand what it would mean if they followed him to Calvary.

            We know, of course, that all those mentioned as guests at this meal did not follow Christ to the cross. Not during this week at least. Peter would deny him, the rest scattered, and only the beloved Disciple would find a place at the cross alongside Mary. The disciples were told that Christ would be offered up and die, and yet they still fled as if the death sentence was a surprise to them.

            We often perceive God through other people. The way that we are treated by those within the faith can impact our perception of God in ways that are not always clear. If we are members of churches that challenge us, affirm our humanity, and work with us to inaugurate an equitable and holy kingdom – then we see God as just as worthy. If, however, we are in churches that condemn us, reject our humanity, and create a selective and legalistic Pandemonium the God becomes a tyrant with an agenda.

            God is God separate from our actions of course. There is the truth of God which breaks through separate from the church, but the reality is that God most often uses the church as a means of revealing Godself. In this moment when Christ was inaugurating the Church, the Church immediately showed reflected a new image of God to Christ – that of an absent divinity, far away and unseen.

            When Christ would later cry out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It was not merely that Christ in dying felt distant from God the Father, but that Christ was separated from the visible presence of God that his disciples could have provided him. When we suffer, it is those around us, those offering us aid, that become the face of Christ. In much the same way, those who suffer become the face of Christ for those of us who serve them. It is in community that we truly begin to see God.

            Yet, at this dinner Christ looked out at the people he knew would abandon him – at the one he knew would betray him – and was still willing to offer himself for them, for us. He knew that in the moments that mattered, they would leave him feeling alone and hopeless. He knew that these people who would go on to establish his church were limited, were weak, and were afraid of what was to come. Yet the table was still set, the invitation was still made, and the disciples were still called to serve the risen Christ when the time came.

            What we can learn at this table setting is not just the humility which Christ showed in washing his disciples’ feet, but also the love that was shown to have them at the table at all. As Paul would later say, “It is rare someone would die for a righteous man… But God proves his love for us in this: Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.” The disciples were brought into the fold as they were, and even after three years walking with Christ they were clearly far from perfect. The long road they had walked taught them many things, but it did not teach them what Jesus was truly doing in his ministry.

            Where the disciples failed was in their inability to love one another as they ought. To see beyond the veil of flesh and see what was really necessary in helping those around them. Jesus asked them to stay awake with him in the garden, they fell asleep. Peter was asked if he knew Jesus, and he threw away their relationship to protect himself. Later on, Peter would fight with Paul over the inclusion of Gentiles in meals, again being so caught up in the ways of the world he forgot his call to love those around him.

            Peter is an easy target for this discussion, because Peter encapsulates the paradox of the Christian life so well. He is Jesus’ right hand man, he is the rock on which he will build the church, but he is also the first to renounce the faith and the epitome of rocky ground where seeds cannot grow. Peter is you; Peter is me; Peter is all of us. We struggle to reconcile what is with what has not yet come. We ask Jesus to wash us all over, to be made whole and to receive the fullness of God’s grace.

            The table was set that night, as a preparation for the sacrifice that was to come. When God’s grace would be poured out on the ground with the blood of Christ. Now in those moments we receive bread and cup, the dinner and the sacrifice become one. We join the eternal company of sinners who are being redeemed by grace, and we – like Peter, like James, like all those at the dinner, are asked not to call upon our own failings, but to remember the table, remember the washing away of our sins, remember the God who loves us. The God we see in the love of the church, the love between you, and me, and each and every one of us together – the church united. Amen.

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29

O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever! Let Israel say, “His steadfast love endures forever.” Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD. This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it.

I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we beseech you, O LORD! O LORD, we beseech you, give us success! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD. We bless you from the house of the LORD.

The LORD is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you.

O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Luke 19:28-40

After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here.

If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.'” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.”

Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Sermon Text

A week away from the glory of Easter, we celebrate Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem. Jesus is placed on a colt and a procession leads him into God’s city, into His city. Christ is worshipped as the ruler he is for the first and last time. After three long years of ministry, Jesus is lauded as he deserved. In any other story, in anything but a true story, this would be our end card. The Return of the King after centuries of cruel and unfit kings. This is not just a story, this is the start of Christ’s final week among us.

We are prone to rush through Holy Week, we want to get to Easter as soon as possible – not dwelling on the Passion of Friday, the Betrayal of Maundy Thursday, and definitely not on the silence of Holy Saturday. We want to celebrate the Resurrection, but first, we must face our own sin and in the case of today, celebrate what has yet to come.

We celebrate as those who know what followed Palm Sunday, we celebrate as people who know that God will return to us one day. We do, however, risk celebrating Christ’s arrival into the city in the same way that the disciples had before. We risk celebrating the entrance of God into our world as the entrance of a God we have made in our own image. When we see Christ coming to us, do we see him as establishing a kingdom for the reign of God, or our own reign?

This Lent we have spent time together talking about what we must give up in service to God. We must give up our self-made Messiahs, we must give up our privilege, we must give up our greed. We also saw in the Magnificat what we must take on – we must advocate for the poor, we must oppose the proud, and we must ultimately side with God even when it hurts us to do so. Hopefully, each of us has benefitted from our Lenten studies and practices.

As we enter into Holy Week, and as we look at the Triumphal Entry, we have to ask ourselves whether Lent has done its duty. Have we shed our attachments such that we can see God more clearly, given time and space for God to work within our lives and really change us? The beauty of this season is that it, more than any other time of the church year, calls us to be thoughtful, calls us to reflect, calls us above all to repent.

For those who were gathered along the road that day nearly two millennia ago, God was coming as a conquering king. Their waving of Palm Fronds is reflected in 1 Maccabees, wherein Simon Maccabeus retakes Jerusalem during a war and is greeted with hymns and a large processional. The crowd that greeted him was huge, and they were celebrating a King that had cast off an imperial oppressor and given them freedom once more.

The disciples who greeted Jesus did so with an expectation. “You’ve come here to free us from Rome, and you are going to crush them into dust.” Why would they think anything else? No matter how you pictured a Messiah in the first century – as a righteous king, a righteous priest, or as a divine Judge – the end result was always that those who had done you harm were going to get what they had coming to them. When they laid out those palm fronds, they did so because they expected that Jesus – whether he became their priest, their king, or their avenging angel, was going to Maker Jerusalem what they believed it once had been.

Imagine then how uncomfortable this procession must have seemed upon reflection. When they sat down for their meals that night and they did not hear the sounds of battle. When they laid down to sleep and there was no new Jerusalem inaugurated in Roman blood. Then they probably began to wonder about what the procession had really meant. “Why was he on a donkey? Where was his army? He just had a few dirty peasants… Wasn’t one of them wearing Roman clothes? I think some of them might have even been a Zealot!”

Doubt seeped into them and they were faced with a choice – change what they knew about God, or abandon their belief that Jesus really was acting on behalf of God. It’s a decision that we still face today. When something happens in our life and God does not respond the way we expect, it shakes us to the core for good reason. God is the root and essence of our life – from beginning to end God defines how we live. When God acts in a way counter to what we know about God, it leads us to a place where we must restructure our life or else completely abandon what we thought to be true.

For us, it is usually after some kind of trauma that we are forced to redefine God. When someone we love dies or we get a diagnosis that casts doubt on our future. Or perhaps it’s not so dire, and we are passed over for a promotion we had been earnestly praying for, or something else that we saw as a blessing from God is taken away from us. In these moments we come before God and we ask why? Why did you not do what I thought you would? This is never a bad question to ask, the only thing we can do wrong in these moments is not to listen.

When we ask God to redefine Godself for us, we need to be ready for whatever answer comes our way. For those who gathered outside Jerusalem the answer to what God is like would come a few days later on Calvary. God was not there to kill the Romans and institute a kingdom on Earth but to die under the Romans and establish a rule that would transcend both Heaven and Earth. They would be faced with the crucifixion, and really with the resurrection, and would have to make a choice if the real God was one they were willing to follow.

Was a God who suffered with us as important as a conquering God? Was a God who asked you to die like they did worth worshipping? Sometimes the response we immediately have is to say that we were right all along, that this experience was a test and that the God we imagined will still ride into town one day. If we do this, then we miss the Christ that rode by on a Colt. Likewise, we can say that because God is not what we expected, we cannot serve them, maybe even more – they never existed. A God that is not what I imagined is not worth pursuing.

The third option is to doubt and to be troubled but to continue on in faith. We criticize the disciples for duplicity, but they still returned to serve their resurrected Lord. They were the ones waving Palm fronds and celebrating a conquering King, and in the darkness of Friday, they would indeed abandon their God. They still were willing to hear the clarion call of the Resurrection, they took the steps toward God and accepted the revelation God gave them. “I’m not the God you greeted on the entrance to Jerusalem, I never was. I still am God though, and I am still with you.”

The celebration of Palm Sunday would leave the disciples questioning who God was. A thousand thousand things today do the same for us. What we must always do is listen to the answer we are given after we pose our questions. The results may surprise us, they may make us uncomfortable, but no matter what – they allow us to see what God really is like. It is an ongoing revelation, and only when Christ truly returns in glory can we truly behold God as God truly is.

Then we will raise up our palm fronds, we will welcome a King who has set things right not by killing, but by dying. A King who will rule justly over all people, and who will bless us with knowledge of their true self forever and ever. Amen.

Isaiah 43:16-21
            Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:

Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.

Philippians 3:4b-14
            If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Sermon Text

Assurance is something that we constantly struggle with. The idea that someone as mundane or as sinful as ourselves can be welcomed into God’s kingdom, not only reluctantly but with open arms is abhorrent to something deep within us. We are born with our own personal critic deep within, something that is always ready to tell us what we perceive to be plainly true – We are not worthy, we are not loved, and we are assuredly damned.

We the church are simultaneously the greatest peddlers of false and real hope there is. We are uncomfortable with the ideas of condemnation and allergic to doctrines of sin, and this can often lead to us preaching a kingdom so open and non-committal that it is non-differentiable from any other institution. On the other hand, we are so bent on condemning those unlike us, and so bent on preaching against the sins which we consider apparent in the culture around us that we are quickly transformed into an insular group which no one has any chance of being a member of – no one but us, the people who truly get it.

When we commit to being a member of the Church, we are inevitably pushed out of our place of comfort. The true calling of God is more open and more selective than anyone could ever be comfortable with. There is no one who comes into the church and is not scandalized on one side by how open we are called to be in accepting people, and at the same time put off by how much we are to self-regulate in terms of our own conduct. No one by being aligned to a liberal or conservative theology is completely correct in their interpretation, because God’s way is a straight path, moving neither to the right nor left.

This does not mean that being moderate in all things is to be working God’s work. God is a radical person, it is merely a radicalism that transcends the human understandings of issues that traditionally fall along spectrums. It is difficult, at times to express this, but the reality is that a Christ that agrees with us in all things is no true Christ, it is a facsimile that we have created. The sins that are nailed to the cross are then not those sins that we commit regularly, but everything which we ourselves hate. When we create a Christ that mirrors our views so perfectly and came to institute a new age in which we are blessed, then we create a Hell to all people who are not us.

The greatest struggle which we within the church, at least within the American church, is that we often view salvation and the Christian life not in terms of Jesus and Jesus’ works, but in terms of ourselves, our churches, and our culture. When we see an attribute within Christ which we do not like, we simply cover it up with something more palatable to our own tastes. We do not like that Jesus ate with sinner’s who we are not told repented, so we look to the story in which he says, “Go and sin no more,” So we can stay on our high horses. We do not like Jesus feeding the hungry without asking for drug tests or asking them to go and find a job, so we turn to Paul’s teachings to excuse our lack of generosity.

There is nuance in scripture, and there is more that Jesus accomplishes in a single action than anyone can in a single sermon, but we must accept that the radicalness of Jesus is oftentimes plainer than we want it to be. Jesus is clear in Jesus’ work, and this leads to Jesus actively attacking systems that support the status quo simply because it is easy and self-edifying. If we take Jesus seriously, we should be troubled by the scriptures, we should feel like Jesus is speaking to us when he yells at Pharisee’s and tax collectors and rages against the Roman authorities.

The reality is that when we are called to be church, we are called to an uncomfortable, difficult, and sacrificial life. This means that Jesus will constantly call us to re-examine how we live. This need for us to constantly return to the cross, to constantly reevaluate our life and work to better ourselves is why we cannot depend on ourselves for our sense of assurance. The false Christ’s which we create as I said, lead to us crucifying all sins to the cross but our own, and when we do this how has anything we’ve done been atoned for? If we are forgiven as we forgive, building up our doctrines to benefit us in this life will damn us in the next.

What then does it mean to be assured of your salvation? What does it mean to have confidence in the life we are called to? It means that we embrace the hardships we face! Life is not easy for someone who wants to live a Godly life, it demands a lot of us, and we have to take the hardships we face seriously. We are called to give up vengeance, which means we can sometimes be left unsatisfied after we are wronged. We are called to be frugal, which means we cannot surround ourselves with the decadent things we might want. Above all, we are called to live our life as a sacrifice, and if we take this call seriously it may very well cost us our life.

This previous week at Wesley Theological Seminary’s weekly chapel service we were treated to a lecture on Oscar Romero. Romero, a priest who was killed for his political activism while presiding over the Eucharist 39 years ago lived a truly sacrificial life. By all accounts a conservative, Romero was considered by many a step backward when he was appointed Archbishop. However, in the face of government abuses, Romero stood up and shone outward into the darkness of the oppressive regime. He preached against the evils of the government, he preached against the oppression of the poor, and in all things called for people to become transformed into the true Body of Christ. In his mind, this was accomplished in advocacy for and identification with the poor. God was truly present to us in the least of these, and if we wished to see God we must look them in the face and love them.

Romero lived this ministry and it led to his death. Martin Luther King Jr. pursued ministry advocating for the poor and the least of these, and it led to his death. All along the way, on that road to Calvary, they suffered violence and contempt from the powerful who would oppose them. Many times, it was other Christians who called them radical, communists, enemies of the people, simply because they chose advocacy for others over bowing to power. If we render up to God what is God’s, then we are required to give expansively to the disadvantaged, we must be willing even to give up our lives in defense of others.

As Paul reflects on his life, he sees the self-identified sources of glory to be useless. Born to a good family, Paul studied under the best teacher and rose to prominence among the Pharisees. He did what was right, and he fought hard against those he believed were working against God’s plan in the world. However, after God intervened and made Paul see his mistakes, then Paul completely changed his trajectory. We see that by the end of his life, Paul considered all the advantages he was given as a loss – not because it was wrong to be Jewish, to have studied well, to be zealous for God – but because Paul was so married to the particular ways he understood these contexts that he lost sight of what God was truly asking of Paul.

Paul became so convinced by the end of his life that he had no power over the good he had done or his future place in God’s plan, that we see the usually bombastic Paul speak very plainly. I am about to enter into a sharing of Christ’s suffering, even suffering to death. The word used here in the Greek shows that Paul saw this sharing in the same way he saw the redistribution of resources within the early church – this was not a bad thing, it was a consummation. In the same way that taking bread and cup into our body unites us to God’s work at the Passover and at the cross, when we suffer we take part in a different sort of communion. When we willfully drop our advantages so that we can more closely work alongside God, then we will suffer, but that suffering is what unites us both to Christ and to Christ’s people – namely the poor and disinherited.

The real Christ, not the one we make to excuse our own behaviors, but the one who loved us and died for us sits at the right hand of God to this day. If we believe this, we have no reason to fear what persecution may come for those who live out their authentic faith. The worst that can happen to us is that we are united to the death of Christ, and as we are told in today’s scripture – we have reason to hope we would join in Christ’s resurrection. It is only through faith in Christ that we are saved, and this faith must necessarily push us forward to sacrificial living. Missionary Jim Elliot put our willingness to live and die for Christ this way: saying, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

This hope in the resurrection does not make us reckless, nor does it ask us to disconnect from the world we live in now. However, it asks that we crucify the old self and put away the benefits that we are born into. Like Paul, we can take advantage of our birth and our standing in society to further God’s work, but if we use it to oppress others or depend on identity to save us, then we will perish. Instead, we look to the life and ministry of Christ as our benchmark, we commit ourselves to a holy and sacrificial life, and we except that we are a new creation. When John cried out of from the wilderness, “Prepare ye, the way of the Lord make straight his paths,” there comes a promise that the Lord will, “do a new thing; [that] now springs forth.”

Do you not perceive it? Do you not hear God’s work within us, calling us to a new and sacrificial way of being? The path is set before us, God has made a path for us to follow, now we must follow the call and charge onward. We have prepared for our race all our life, and we will prepare for it as long as we live, but the one thing we must never do is stop running it. The Spirit of Lord will guide us, and the hope of the resurrection embolden us. Now may we go forward, may we live and die and rise again as children and servants of the true Christ who lived and died and rose again for us all. – Amen