All Saints Day 2008 - Revelation 7:9-17

All Saints Day is important to me. It is one of my favorite church holidays, not because it is happy, but because it is good. And I know it is good because I’ve been there. I’ve seen my share of death in too few years. I’ve said goodbye to too many people. Friends, I know what it is to cry. I know what it is to be unable to focus because thoughts of a loved one are constantly on your mind. I know what it is to hear a song, see a movie, visit a location, even just hear a word, and images, memories, replay in your mind. So why is it that I love a holiday that reminds me of those who are no longer here? All Saints and All Souls Day is a time to honor those who have gone before us. It is a time to remember the saints in my own life and to remember the many things they taught me. And I love God’s promise of life in his presence that we are reminded of today.

A little over three years ago, I moved to North Carolina to start school at Duke. The day before I moved, one of my friends, Alyssa, from the church in Santa Barbara, had a seizure and ended up in ICU. She was vibrant, a runner, vocalist, and actress. She was on one of our praise bands, and only two weeks earlier, she had had a conversation with pastor Doug about wanting to lead people into worship. She wanted to help others worship God with the same love and passion she had. Alyssa was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. She lived the next 10 ½ months with grace, joy, and laughter before passing into the loving arms of Jesus on July 4^th, 2006.

I tell you Alyssa’s story not because she is unique. I know many of you could share similar stories. I tell you about Alyssa because you need to know a little about her story to understand the words Doug shared at her Celebration of Life service. Doug told the story of Alyssa asking to lead worship at the church. And he told us that now, since Alyssa had passed into the arms of Jesus, she got to fulfill that desire. As Alyssa worshipped around God’s throne, she got to lead all of us into worship. Because of her life, we were all gathered in one room, to worship God, remember his faithfulness, and celebrate the gift he had given to us all in Alyssa.

Alyssa joined the great crowd of saints who worship around the throne. That crowd that we read about in Revelation. There is a multitude no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language. They are dressed in white, the same color that Revelation describes Jesus as wearing, because they have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. And they are all worshipping together. The angel tells John that this crowd has come out of the great tribulation. They serve God day and night. And here is the part I really love, “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat. For the lamb at the center before the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

These saints have seen pain on earth. They have hungered and thirsted and cried. At times in the Roman world, Christians were persecuted for their faith. They were fed to the beasts in the coliseums. They were told to worship the emperor instead of Jesus, or alongside Jesus. They were told to sacrifice to other gods. And even when things were peaceful, they struggled to survive. They worked hard to have food from day to day. They battled all variety of illnesses. And they saw death, from life in this world and at the hands of the Roman authorities.

But John isn’t worried about the death of the saints. He sees exactly where the saints live – gathered around the throne of God. Death is not the end for God’s saints. They are resurrected. As Paul tells us, because Jesus was resurrected from the dead, we know that we too will be resurrected if we live in Christ. As we proclaim on Easter, Jesus rose from the dead. As we proclaim every day, Jesus lives. He lives! And NOTHING, absolutely nothing, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, not even persecution, famine, war, and death. No, we pass from this world that is seen, into a world that is not seen, but no less real, as we live with God.

Our other scripture this morning gives us a view into that crowd of saints. We hear some of the names, and we remember some of the stories. We read of so many Old Testament figures. People like Abraham, who was given a promise by God that he would receive a son, and learned to trust that God keeps his promises, even when God asked Abraham to give him back his only son. And people like Moses, who murdered a man, but was redeemed by God to lead Israel out of exile in Egypt. And people like David, who sinned repeatedly, but still loved God their whole lives. These are our witnesses, that great cloud of saints who have followed God. Not perfect people, but people who walked with God. People like us. People like the saints we have said goodbye to. Hebrews takes over a chapter telling their stories because their stories are important to our faith. As we remember how God has acted in the lives of these Biblical people, we remember a little more that God still acts in our own lives, and that God can be trusted to be faithful. Their lives give us examples for us to follow. Their lives teach us about God.

That is why the church recognizes saints after all. These are people who understood what it meant to walk with God, and they did so faithfully. The saints are people who saw God’s promises, and now see his promise of resurrection fulfilled. And we have plenty of saints to learn from. People like Augustine who explored just about every religion and every lifestyle in the Roman world before coming to know Christ. And then he faithfully led the church as a pastor and then finally as a bishop, fighting against false teaching, and encouraging the people. Or people like John Wesley, who founded Methodism, not to create a new denomination, but to revive the churches in England through the spiritual disciplines, praying, fasting, preaching, and giving away the vast majority of his income for his entire life to take care of the poor.

But it isn’t just the lives of the saints who still speak. It is also the lives of the souls who have gone to be with Christ. Those who lived quietly in a small corner of the world, faithfully trusting God day after day after day after day. Those people who taught our Sunday school classes, and first showed us who God is as they taught us the stories of the Bible. Those relatives who prayed for us because they knew that God answers prayers. Those friends who challenged us to trust God when life was hard, and who trusted God for us when we couldn’t. I have them in my own life, grandparents, friends, housemates, men and women of the churches I’ve attended. I know you have them too.

Who are your saints? Who taught you to live faithfully by their own example? And how will you pass on their stories? If it is important for us to remember the lives of the saints in Hebrews, it is important for us to remember the lives of the saints in our own lives too. So how will you remember them? Will you keep their pictures up on your walls? Will you remember their lives at family dinners? Will you watch old family videos and look through old photo albums together?

You know the lessons of their lives. I would consider myself faithful if I lived as trusting as Alyssa, knowing that God is good, regardless of her circumstances, and finding joy in the simple pleasures of life. I am seeking to “run with perseverance the race marked out for me, fixing my eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” Will we be a part of that crowd around the throne who lived faithfully? People whose lives still speak of God’s faithfulness after we have passed into the loving arms of Jesus? Let us pray and persevere that it may be so.

John 19:1-16 Christ is Beaten and Broken

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Silence. I was worried that it might be awkward. But how else do you respond to a Scripture that begins with Jesus being scourged?

“Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged. And the soldiers, having made a crown out of thorns, put it on his head, and they threw a purple robe around him. And they came to him and said, ‘Hail, King of the Judeans!’”

Reading a Scripture like today’s is troubling. These aren’t the backgrounds to this morning’s songs. They aren't the images of the Psalms – trees planted by streams, green pastures, and banquet tables. They aren’t even the images of Job – storehouses of hail and roaring lions. These images are real, and brutal. Pilate turns Jesus over to be scourged. When the Jews whipped someone as punishment, they were restricted to 39 lashings. They gave 40 lashes minus 1 because 40 lashes could kill a person. But these are not Jewish officials whipping Jesus. These are Roman soldiers who are scourging him. The Romans had braided cords into a whip and embedded pieces of metal inside of it. These whips were designed to tear the skin off of your back. And this is scourging. This is what the soldiers inflicted upon Jesus.

And the soldiers, mocking Jesus, made a wreath out of thorns and put it on Jesus’ head. Then they took a purple garment and threw it over his shoulders. Purple, the color of royalty. And the soldiers threw it over the shoulders of an exhausted bloody man. Then they mocked him. As the soldiers hit Jesus; they mocked, “Hail, King of the Judeans!

For a visual person like myself, these pictures are excruciating. I see a broken man, being whipped mercilessly, his back torn apart by shards of metal, clinging to life. (Picture 1 – Pacher - Flagellation) And I see the blood dripping down his face as the thorns puncture his brow. (Picture 2 – Holbein Younger - Passion) And I see him fall as he receives blow after blow from the soldier’s fists. He is a pitiful, broken, powerless man. (Picture 3 – Passion – Crown Thorns))

My reaction, more than anything else, is STOP! Stop beating this man. Can’t you see that he isn’t a threat to you any longer? ||

I do understand the soldiers’ reactions. I know that the scourgings and crucifixions weren’t designed to be painful (although they were) as much as they were designed to shame you. The soldiers’ mocking words provide us with a clue about why Jesus was before the Roman authorities to begin with. Jesus was dangerous because he was introducing sedition, rebellion, into the Roman Empire. When the people view someone as their king, they stop listening to the emperor. The Romans can’t have Jesus inciting a rebellion. So the soldiers actions make sense. When they have power over a person who is viewed as a king, they teach him a lesson. They give him a crown and a king’s robe, and they proclaim him king as they beat him to show him how powerless he is. | I understand why the soldiers act the way they do. But I still want it to stop. And I wonder if they realize how ridiculous it is to keep beating a broken man.

But we are only three verses into this passage.

“And Pilate came out again, and he said to them, ‘Behold, I bring him out to you, in order that you might know that I have found no crime in him.’ Then Jesus came out, wearing the thorny crown and the purple robe. And he said to them, ‘Behold the man.’”

It isn’t enough that Jesus was beaten and mocked by the soldiers. Now he is paraded before the crowds. While I wouldn’t put it past a man of Pilate’s reputation to have an innocent man scourged because he felt like it, I doubt he would have taken all of this time if he truly believed Jesus was innocent. He’s parading Jesus before the Judeans, before the people who are supposed to be his followers, proving to them that Jesus is not their king, but is really a pitiful, powerless man. (Picture 4 – Durer Ecco Homo) And we know that Pilate believes that the Judeans see Jesus as a king because he tells us so. Pilate brings Jesus out before the crowd again and says, “Behold your king.” He even asks, “Shall I crucify your king?”

What becomes abundantly apparent throughout this dialogue is that Pilate and the high priests are speaking the truth without even knowing it. Jesus really is the King.

So Pilate has brought Jesus out and paraded him before the Judeans. And “When the high priests and attendants saw him, they shouted, saying, ‘Crucify! Crucify!’ Pilate said to them, ‘you take him and crucify him, for I have found no charge in him.’ The Judeans answered him, ‘We have a law, and according to the law he should die, because he made himself a Son of God.’”

I suppose that I understand the high priests’ response too, although I never quite get how they can care so much about details of the law without caring about the people or the major points of the law. There IS a law against blasphemy after all. We are not supposed to use the Lord’s name in vain or make anything or anyone, ourselves included, into gods. So the high priests think that they are doing right. They are condemning Jesus for setting himself up to be God. The problem is, they never stop to ask whether Jesus might actually be God. It wouldn’t be the first time God had done something unusual. Jesus’ trial is even happening on the day of preparation of the Passover. Talk about one of God’s surprising events. Frogs, flies, water turning into blood, escaping through the Sea of Reeds, and destroying an enemy army. God certainly surprises. But the high priests don’t ask if Jesus really is God. Instead they fulfill the law by demanding his crucifixion.

Ironically, they kill an innocent man, in violation of the command against murder, and they neglect the preparation of the Passover, which they have been commanded to keep each year. And they do it all because of the same Torah. Not realizing that they speak truth. Jesus really is the Son of God.

When Pilate hears the high priests’ charge, he is afraid. “When Pilate heard this word, he was greatly afraid. And he came again into the praetorium [(or governor’s house)], and he said to Jesus, ‘From where do you come?’ but Jesus did not give answer to him. Therefore Pilate said to him, ‘Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have the power to release you and the power to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You do not have any power over me except what was given to you from above. Because of this, the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.’”

Pilate is afraid that he might be trying a son of the gods. Not an unreasonable fear for an educated Roman man who knows the stories of the Roman gods and goddesses and how they walk among humans in human form. He wants to be absolutely sure that he is not crucifying one of the gods, so he asks Jesus directly, “From where do you come?” It is here that Jesus becomes mute. This is his chance to vindicate himself, to proclaim the truth that he is Immanuel, God with us. But Jesus is silent, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 53 (7). “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”

Jesus does not need to answer Pilate’s question because he knows that God is the one in control. All power is God’s. Our power comes only as God gives it to us. We may use it for good or for evil, to serve God or to serve ourselves, but power is bestowed by God. Jesus does not need to answer Pilate because he knows that ultimately Pilate is not in control. God is. And Jesus serves his Father.

Still, one of my friends says that Jesus’ silence used to make her mad. Why wouldn’t he talk? Jesus does not answer from where he comes. In fact, he never does. The question has shown up from the beginning, in chapter 1, when John the Baptist and the disciples are first meeting Jesus. But Jesus doesn’t answer it there either. It seems that his life is the witness of his origins, and God must reveal the meaning of these signs to us.

But there in chapter 1 also, Jesus is called the lamb of God, like in Isaiah 53. And John is careful to tell us that it is noon on the preparation of the Passover. The Preparation of the Passover is to rid the house of yeast, make unleavened bread, and slaughter the lambs. Slaughter the lambs, one for each family or couple of families, perfect and without blemish of any kind. Slaughter the lambs, in remembrance of that first Passover, when the blood of those lambs, spread on the doorframes of the houses caused death to pass over those households. Jesus is sacrificed as the Passover Lamb.

That is pretty amazing. The plague of the firstborn is what allowed the Israelites to leave captivity in Egypt, and the slaughter of the lambs is what allowed death to pass over the Israelite households. And here in John we have a new Passover. The Lamb of God is slaughtered, and his blood covers the lives of God’s people, a signal that death has no power here and should pass over, and allowing us to escape our captivity to sin and death.

It is an amazing story. The King is mocked, scourged, and beaten by his subjects, those he could destroy if he so desired. The Son of God is handed over by the very priests who should know him. The Lamb of God is slaughtered by the captives to save those who are in captivity. It is a painful story, and yet it is good news. We traditionally remember the crucifixion on GOOD Friday. We proclaim that this story of death is GOOD news. And it is good news. It is the revealing of the King of Israel. It is the story of Immanuel, God with us. It is the release of the captives, and our escape from death and bondage. Good news. The most painful, heart-wrenching good news ever told. Take a moment to reflect on this good news, and on our King, Immanuel, Lamb of God. Amen.

(Play How Deep the Father’s Love for Us)

Answered and Unanswered Prayers

For the past year, I have been doing my best to walk between two extremes in regard to answered and unanswered prayer. Shortly after Alyssa's diagnosis last fall, I called an old friend with nothing but questions. Why Alyssa? The Smelley family? The rest of the crew? These are all God-fearing people who faithfully served God day in and day out through good times and bad. I wanted God to heal Alyssa, physically, and not just live in the suffering with her. My friend asked me, "Do you want God to heal everyone?" My answer? "Yes. Yes I do." What I really want is for God to step in and miraculously heal disease and war and faminine, and somehow that answer is exactly right in that it is precisely the desire for God's kingdom to come in its fullness. The Christian faith is not complete without the return of Christ.

Still, we do not yet live in that kingdom. We live on earth, and we are faced with tragedy (Will Wiersma, Wes Nishimura, Nate Fawell), illness (Uncle Don, Wilma Wilson, Leslie-Ann Malan), and death (Alyssa Smelley, Gus Gustavson, Fred Bauersfeld, Larry Holloway). I think that often we are faced with opposing choices. 1) Trust that God has already healed... If you have enough faith... God answers our prayers... or 2) God doesn't care about... God doesn't stop unjust suffering... God is not just. Loss of faith.

I'm not satisfied with either option.

This morning, the two worlds of healing and no healing, answered and unanswered prayer collided. In two weeks I will be preaching my first sermon in five years... on Job. Forty-two agonizing chapters of unjust suffering and brokenness. In chapel this morning, I cried through the entire sermon as Bishop Carder preached on Job 23. The innocent sufferer who cries out to God... A God who didn't prevent the adversary from inflicting the suffering. The world of unanswered prayer. Then I moved into planning my youth group lesson this week. I'm doing a series on the ways God works in the world. The people pray, and the Berlin Wall falls, Apartheid ends, nine miners are rescued alive. The world of answered prayer.

I have always had a problem with people who tell me that God will heal if the person asking has enough faith. It is dangerous. But I wasn't sure why I thought it wasn't true. After all, Jesus has only words of acclamation for the faith of the people who ask for healing. Job provides my answer: It isn't about us; it's about God. If the basis for healing is OUR faith, it isn't God, just as in salvation where if the basis is us, it isn't God. If it is about our faith, then we become magicians who can bring about wonders, and it is no longer the Lord who works the miracles. Besides, what do you do with the faith of hundreds of people who pray for a miracle and do not get it? Last year, I had a friend tell me that they were praying for Alyssa's healing. She has moved towards Pentecostalism and belief in miraculous works, which certainly do happen. Do not misunderstand me. God does heal. God does tear down dividing walls and break cycles of injustice. My problem was not that God is performing miracles in California, Washington, and the rest of the world. My problem was that she told me that we have to thank God for already doing the healing, and he will. That still makes us the ones who control the healing, but it also leaves us with a bigger problem. What do we do when the healing doesn't happen?

Jesus told us that we can move mountains with a mustard seed of faith. This is not a trick or a slight of hand where a small seed represents a huge amount of faith. The mustard seed is small, like the tip of a pen or a watchscrew. Jesus is not saying that we have to conjure up faith to ask for GOD to do big things because it is up to GOD. He has that power, but he still sometimes chooses not to heal. Not to do big things.

The common answer is that God knows better for us when he chooses not to answer our prayers. That he has a better plan or a more wonderful solution. We have problems here too. Is it better that a college student feels so lost and hopeless that he commits suicide? Better that a 23-year-old is killed in a car accident? Better that a 15-year-old dies of cancer? Better that family members suffer and grieve? Dr. Geoffrey Wainwright told us, "We cannot believe that God gives illness." It is not a better solution. It is a product of our fallen condition and our fallen world. When the kingdom comes, these things will pass away. "And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with humans, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

I don't know that I have a way out of this maze yet, although I think that Job may actually provide our solution. Dr. Ellen Davis taught us that Job is one of only two men in the Old Testament who are said to be "possessing of integrity." Even Job's wife tells him to let go of his integrity and curse God and die. Instead, Job holds on to his integrity by holding on to God and asking him questions and talking to him. To let go of his integrity would have been to let go of his faith. Job teaches us that it takes great faith to cling to God when the miracles do not come. He is the only one in the book to do so. Job also teaches us that the dangerous things which God has created are beautiful because they are created. The death and destruction they cause are not beautiful, but the rain, the hail, the lightning, the lion are all good because God has created them that way. There is a beauty in the unpredictability of God's creation because there is also an unpredictability in God, and it is beautiful in God as well. It includes his mercy in choosing Israel as his people to spread his light to the nations. It includes his decision to humble himself to become incarnate in the form of a baby. Finally, it includes the suffering of God on the cross, where he joined us as an innocent suffering, and who, like Job, was redeemed out of that suffering through the resurrection. It is precisely this dangerous unpredictability which provides the grace which covers all of our sins with the blood of Christ and reconciles our relationship with the one who created us.

It takes great trust to cling to a God who is unpredictable in a world that is fallen and broken when suffering strikes and the miracles do not come. Lord, I trust! Help my lack of trust!