John 17:20-26 - Jesus Prays for His Followers

John 17:20-26

²⁰"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: ²³I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. ²⁵"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ²⁶I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

Tomorrow is the day we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the work he did to bring reconciliation to the people of this country. It is the day marked out to specially recall the transformation that was brought to our country through his leadership of the Civil Rights Movement. But Dr. King was not just a leader of a movement. He was a pastor who believed that all humans are created in the image of God, worthy of dignity, and loved by God. And he had a vision for the world that was different from the reality that was, because he had the vision and hope of God. The day before he was assassinated, Dr. King preached a sermon where he said that he had seen the Promised Land, and he knew that his people would get to the Promised Land. Dr. King was living in a time where division and hatred were the reality of his life. Yet God gave him a vision for what could be, so Dr. King had seen the promised land of God, where all people are treated like the children of God that they are. He had seen the same vision as Christ in his prayer for his future disciples.

It is the end of Jesus' life when he prays this prayer, and he is fully aware that he will die soon. And what Jesus prays for us is that we will be perfected or completed as one in the love of God. He could have prayed anything for us. Jesus could have prayed that we would stand strong under temptation, or that we would not face the hostility which would take his own life. But Jesus does not pray any of those things that he might have prayed. Jesus prays for our unity.

It seems like such a strange last prayer, but then as we remember all of the things we have heard Jesus say and do over this past year, his prayer doesn't seem so strange. From the very beginning we learn that "the Word," that is Jesus, "was God," and that "the Word became flesh and made his home among us" and that "no one has seen God except God the One and Only who is at the Father's side" from the beginning and "has made him known." To those whom Jesus revealed the Father, "he gave power to become Children of God" and he commanded his "little children" that they were to "love one another" just as Jesus loved them.

So often our love does not look much like Jesus'. We refuse to forgive our friends. We judge our own families. We take advantage of others. It is the way of the world. Our society is consumed with our wants and our goals. We step on others to force our way to the top. It is survival of the fittest, or perhaps just survival of those most willing to destroy those who get in their way. Denny said last week that it is not religion that causes division. He is so right. It seems to be our fallen human nature. We are so consumed with ourselves that we can't life our eyes from ourselves to see God or our neighbor standing right in front of us.

We live in a fallen world. From our time in the garden, we have chosen to be our own gods, and when we do that, our plans and desires are the only ones that matter, and we fear everyone else because they might take away the things that we view as our rights. So we become people who don't look much like Jesus' prayer for his followers. Our world becomes one that doesn't look much like God's plan.

Unfortunately, we are too often those people who perpetuate division or hatred, or look the other way when we see it. The reality can be so discouraging. Catholics and Protestants kill each other. African-American and Anglo classmates are refused service at a restaurant because they don't serve Black people. An African-American church refuses to join with an Anglo church for worship, or even for their annual meetings with the denominational leaders. An upstanding leader of a church joins the Ku Klux Klan, watching for Native Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans who might enter the building. Catholics and Orthodox are told by other Christians that they are not Really Christians, and they turn around and say the same things about Protestants. People who don't like drums in church say that people who do are worshipping the devil, and people who want to put art in church say that those who don't care more about tradition than about God. We don't always look very unified.

But just because we don't look like the people Jesus calls us to be does not mean that we give up that hope. WE who have heard Christ's call and seen his redemption and healing work in our own lives should recognize God's call to reconciliation. From our first rejection of God in the garden, God has been at work drawing all people to himself and to one another. He called Abraham from among the nations, so all peoples would be blessed through him. He used Rahab to tell the story of God's acts in Jericho, and both Rahab and Ruth the Moabite end up as ancestors of Jesus. God sends Jonah to Nineveh in Babylon so Nineveh will repent of their evil ways. And Christ comes to earth to set us free - free to know and love God and participate in God's life, and free to love others instead of fear them

This story of life shared with God and with others is the story of the whole Bible. It should not seem so surprising that this is Jesus' prayer for us after all. "I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as I am in you and you are in me ...that they might have been perfected as one." That is a pretty impressive prayer. There is only one God, and the Father and Jesus are both completely God, and yet they are somehow distinct. But they dwell in each other, so that what one of them does, they have both done. The fellowship of the Trinity, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is somehow one of complete submission between the three persons, but which does not require any of the three to be lost in the process. Complicated, I know, but also beautiful. The God who calls us to be a part of God's life and who dwells in us fully understands what it means to be communal - to share life together. Our God is about relationship and love.

This is the God who comes to make his home among us as a baby born in a manger, all so we will know God because God can make God known to us. This is the God who calls us children. There aren't many conditions there - to those who received him, he gave the power to become children of God. As God's children, God dwells in us. That is part of what makes Jesus' prayer so amazing. Just as the Father is in the Son, God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - is in us. Just as the Father and Son are one, we are one with all other humans who believe that the Father sent Jesus and receive him.

But it still gets better. Jesus reveals the Father to us, so God's love might be in us. This is not new. Jesus told us earlier that he was giving a new commandment, that we love one another just as he has loved us.

Jesus doesn't seem to leave a lot of space for our divisions. IF you receive him as God sent by the Father, you are his child. Which means all of those people that we have our church disagreements with, those people who are too liberal or too conservative, too black or white or red or brown, too Republican or too Democrat, too poor or too wealthy, too _____________, you fill in the blank. Those people are your brothers and sisters, whether you like it or not, whether you would have chosen them or not. This is God's family and you are in God's house, and all of God's children should be treated like the children of God they are.

I know that this is a big task, to live as one. Jesus seems to know it too, so he makes it his last prayer. But we don't get to make excuses for our divisions. Jesus is in us, in all of us, and Jesus is revealing God to us. And the Holy Spirit lives with us and in us. And we live in Jesus. All of us. In that same incomprehensible way that the Father, Son, and Spirit can be three in one, Jesus' many disciples can all be in the one God. We all live in him. There is after all, only one God | one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Father of all.

When we understand that, and when we live that unity in the world, then we get to be part of the work of Christ, revealing God to the world. When we live as one, when we treat our brothers and sisters with the love of God, the world sees God's glory in Jesus and believes that God sent him to redeem the world. When we live in unity, we live in direct contrast to the way the world expects us to live, and the way the world does live. They see that somehow the walls that people build get torn down in God's house and they realize that something bigger than just us is at work. We become God's witnesses.

But we already acknowledged that we have all kinds of divisions in the church. How do we live as one? It is true that we still follow Christ imperfectly. Although God has called us, although God lives in us and we in him, we are not yet fully the people whom God is transforming us to be. WE have been, and we are still being, redeemed. But we are not God's children, and we see glimpses and shadows of what will one day be in fullness. One day, we will see perfectly and will dwell in a place where people of every language, every tribe, every nation, and every denomination and worship style will worship around the throne of God. For now, we work for unity, and celebrate the glimpses of hope we see. Glimpses like Dr. King, who could say, in the middle of segregation and hatred, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. ...I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. ...I have a dream that one day ...little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers."

Yes, glimpses of hope. Like Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists sitting at the same table, and being able to walk away with a statement of the things that they all believe about God. Or the churches in India, many years ago, joining together to form one Church of India instead of many denominations. We see this hope every time someone assumes charity and love in a debate, believing first that their neighbor loves and follows God before believe that the person is crazy or foolish or evil. And we see this hope every time people worry less about being right than they do about submitting to the needs of their neighbors. We even see hope in the tragedies, like in Haiti, as we watch Free Methodist World Missions, Catholic Relief Services, International Orthodox Christian Charities, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, United Methodist Committee on Relief, and Baptist Haiti Mission all work side-by-side to make sure that the people, all the people of Haiti, are taken care of.

We do have reason to hope, and we have reason to repent. While sometimes we live in unity, often we live in fear, hatred, selfishness, and brokenness. Ask God to reveal to you this morning where you have not treated your neighbor as God's child. When have you not viewed another with charity when you disagreed with them? When have you let arguments about God or personal preferences hinder your fellowship? When have you built up walls because of misunderstandings? When have you reacted to those misunderstandings with a refusal to forgive? Repent of those times this morning, and ask God to shape you into a person who brings unity to the family of God.

Time for personal prayer

{Play recording of prayer} Holy God, who calls the worlds into being, who calls us into Christ’s church, we thank you for the church that is our true home, for the mission of the church that is our true joy, and for the ministry of the church that is our proper task. We thank you for the ministry of the church in every place we go, for pastors and people who over time have named your name and lived your life. We thank you for the ministry of the universal church, for it’s steadfastness over time, for it’s faithful witness in the struggle for justice and peace and for it’s durable walk and caring ways. We thank you for the ministry to which you have called us, for the caring, eloquent, attentive ways in which we live it, for the nurturing church tradition that brought us to faith and called us to maturity, and for our families and communities that have prayed and believed and cared for us to this day and this hour. We thank you for the many ways of ministry that are faithfully practiced in praise of you out beyond our range of acceptance, for those more radical than us, for those more cautious than us, for those in traditions strange to us, for faith families who care in ways other than our own. We pray on this day, for all those who stand in need of ministry, for the sick and the dying, for the powerful who are bewildered, for the poor who lack so much we take for granted, for the brutalized who wait for relief. We pray your mighty Spirit upon us, that we may more fully engage our baptism, that we may accept the costs that belong to our life with you, that we may embrace the joys that only you can give. Move us beyond ourselves, our favorite clichés, our tired resentments, our worn habits to your newness. Make us light, make us ready, make us open, that we may become a resounding doxology through your passion and into your victory. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus crucified, the Lord of the church. Amen.

John 10:1-21 Jesus is the Gate and the Good Shepherd

I want to do something a little different this morning. I want you to close your eyes while I read the Scripture. John is writing good news to us, and I want us to hear it. You’ll have enough time later as we dig into the passage to turn the pages in your Bible to the story and read the parts which are speaking to us. But for now, close your Bible. Put your finger or your bulletin in between the pages, and just listen to the good news Jesus is speaking.

¹"Truly, truly I say to you, the man who does not enter the courtyard of the sheep by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a bandit. ²The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. ³The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has driven out all his own, he goes in front of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will flee from him because they do not know the stranger's voice." ⁶Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.

⁷Therefore Jesus said again, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸All who came before me were thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.^[a] He will come in and go out, and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it to the fullest.

¹¹"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life on behalf of the sheep. ¹²The hired hand is not the shepherd; the sheep are not his own. So when he sees the wolf coming, he forsakes the sheep and flees. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. ¹³Because the man is a hired hand, the sheep are of no concern to him.

¹⁴"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— ¹⁵just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life on behalf of the sheep. ¹⁶I have other sheep that are not of this courtyard. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. ¹⁷The Father loves me because I lay down my life in order that I take it up again. ¹⁸No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

¹⁹At these words the Judeans were again divided. ²⁰Many of them said, "He has a demon and is raving mad. Why listen to him?" ²¹But others said, "These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?"

Let us pray: Jesus, those who first heard your words did not understand. Give us the ears to hear your voice today. Let this good news be good news to us this morning. Amen.

I lived with music majors for three years during college, and while I didn’t learn much about music that was useful from them, like music theory, piano, or vocal techniques, I did learn about 12-tone music, which is really only useful to modern composers. One of the things I learned was that these pieces have something called a row. In a way, it’s is sort of like a theme that gets repeated through the piece in various ways. The first time you might have all of the notes in a recognizable order, and then it changes. So the second time, the notes might all be inverted. Then they might go up an octave, and then down, then they might be missing a couple of the notes. But no matter how it changes, it is still recognizable as the same “theme.”

In Jesus’ words today, we see a repeated theme as well. It changes slightly throughout, but it is still recognizable. The theme here is Abundant Life. Over and over, Jesus is calling us to live, not just mediocrity, but abundance, overflowing with power and joy and his presence.

We start with Jesus’ first I am statement of this passage. Jesus says, “I am the gate of the sheep.” “Whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out and find pasture.” I think that too often our picture of salvation is too narrow. Too often we delay abundant life until we walk the streets of heaven. But salvation is not just about going to heaven! It’s about experiencing the love of God poured out on us here and now, about seeing our lives transformed by the Lord who laid down his life for us. It’s about living in the power of God to turn from the fears and sins and habits of the world into people who have the mind and heart of Christ.

Abundant life is here for us now, if only we will enter through the gate. Jesus is inviting us in. We don’t have to enter the courtyard on our own. When our host stands as the open gate, and we choose to run repeatedly into the rock wall that surrounds the courtyard, we cause ourselves a lot more pain that Jesus desires. We won’t find life or nourishment that way. We’ll just be battered to pieces.

But if we enter through the gate, we find pasture. There is good food among the flock – both inside the courtyard and out. The psalmist says that the Lord makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us beside still waters. These are places that are safe for us the sheep, and places where the food for our souls is more than we need. Jesus has come that we might have life, and that we will have it to the fullest possible measure imaginable.

But Jesus isn’t content to leave us with that picture of him as the gate. He’s much too involved in our lives for that. He says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” “I know my sheep, and my sheep know me.” The shepherd lives among the sheep day after day, making sure that they have everything they need, and protecting them from the people and animals that would try to harm them.

Very few of us have ever seen a shepherd. Some of us who have grown up in Southern California may never even have seen a sheep, outside of the occasional visit to a petting zoo. We may have a romanticized understanding of shepherds in our minds – the picture of little bo peep dances across our minds. And even for those of us who do know about modern shepherds, we probably have a slightly different picture in our minds than the one Jesus’ first hearers had. We think of people who live pretty much the same lives we do, except there are a lot of animals roaming around the yard while the shepherd sends the sheep dogs out to round up the sheep for the evening.

This is not the life of the ancient shepherd. First of all, ancient shepherds didn’t ride horses and send sheep dogs to round up the flock. They called their sheep by name, knowing the slight differences between each animal. And they used their voice to guide the flock, not dogs or whips or modern tools. The shepherd would walk in front of the flock, calling back to any stragglers who needed to run to catch up with the group. And the sheep followed his voice. It’s a little bit like your dog or cat reacts to your voice today. When a stranger comes through the door, your pet might growl or run and hide under a bed. But when you come home and call, your pet comes running and winds itself around your legs. These animals know their owners voice.

Jesus tells us, ²The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. ³The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has driven out all his own, he goes in front of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will flee from him because they do not know the stranger's voice." Then he says, ¹⁴"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me.”

Again we hear the theme of abundant life. Jesus knows us, personally, and individually. When you look at a flock of sheep, I’m guessing they all look pretty much the same to you, as they do to me. But we don’t know the sheep. We don’t know the personalities of each one, and the distinguishing marks in their wool. But the shepherd does. And Jesus our shepherd knows each one of us as well. No matter how much you look like the people around you, Jesus knows you individually. He knows what your gifts are, where you are strong and where you are weak. He knows what you are like first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and he’s okay with the fact that you maybe shouldn’t have a conversation with anyone before 10am, or that at night you get a little crazy when it’s past your bedtime. And he calls you by name to come follow him to green pastures where you can find food and rivers that are calm and clear where you can drink without being swept away. He is calling us to follow him, and when we follow we find that abundant life Jesus promises.

Unfortunately, Jesus isn’t the only one who calls us. There are many, many other voices calling us to follow them. Fame, fortune, and pride, selfishness, anger, and worthlessness, time, distractions, past failures, and present doubts all call us to follow. And there are many more. It can sound like a cacophony of voices all trying to get our attention, and all but one voice will lead us to death and destruction. We have to know Jesus’ voice if we are to follow. That means we have to spend time with him.

When my family got our dog as a puppy, she didn’t know us or our voices. She didn’t know her name. We had to teach her all of those things as we spent time with her and taught her to trust us. We had to call her over and over again. But she did learn our voices and her name, and she learned to come when we called. We are a little like that aren’t we? To know Jesus’ voice, and we have to spend time with him!

We enter the sheepfold the first time, unsure of who will call, and our time here, among the other sheep, helps teach us to trust the Lord. The other sheep sitting next to you know the shepherd’s voice, and they know that he will lead to good pasture, so we help teach each other what the voice of Jesus sounds like. And we learn to read the Bible, so recognize the other times Jesus has called his people, so that when we hear that same voice, we recognize that it is calling us. It’s why all of those spiritual disciplines – prayer, study, fasting, worship – are so important to our lives. Not just because we are told to do them, but because we meet Jesus in them, and we learn to listen to his voice and to follow him to abundant life. If we don’t know his voice, all the other voices calling out to us will lead us to death.

But when we follow Jesus’ voice, it’s actually him that encounters death, so we can encounter life. That’s the other part of being the shepherd. You place your life on the life to protect the sheep in your care. When the wolves and lions and bandits come, you stand firm against them and make sure that they can’t get to the sheep.

Jesus knows that when he tells us that he is the good shepherd. ¹¹"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life on behalf of the sheep. ¹²The hired hand is not the shepherd; the sheep are not his own. So when he sees the wolf coming, he forsakes the sheep and flees. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. ¹³Because the man is a hired hand, the sheep are of no concern to him.” ¹⁴"I am the good shepherd; … I lay down my life on behalf of the sheep. … ¹⁷The Father loves me because I lay down my life in order that I take it up again. ¹⁸No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

Jesus knows the dangers we will encounter as we walk through life with him as our Shepherd. But that is the benefit of having a shepherd who goes before us. All of the dangers and temptations that we encounter, Jesus encounters before us. When we are following Jesus, we allow HIM to fight the wolves for us, instead of trying to fight them ourselves. We allow him to make sure that there are no thieves gaining entrance to the sheepfold and to repair the courtyard walls.

It’s a funny thing to say that the good shepherd is the one who lays down his life for the sheep. It would seem that the shepherd laying down his life would leave the sheep more vulnerable than before. But Jesus knew better. He knew that the thieves, bandits, and wolves who would attack us don’t just need to be sent away once, they need to be defeated forever. And the only way for him to defeat sin, death, and the devil was to die, and then to rise from the grave. So here, before Calvary, Jesus is teaching that he has the authority to lay down his life, and then to take it up again in victory over all of the things that would attack us.

What are the thieves, bandits, and wolves in your life right now? What is trying to steal the abundant life of Jesus from you? What is trying to distract from the voice of Jesus? Is it the lie that you are too much? That you are too loud, or too strong, or too powerful, or too emotional? Is it the lie that you are not enough? Not good enough, not strong enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough? Is it the lie that you are not worthy of love because of what you have done or failed to do? The fear that even God couldn’t forgive if he knew what you had done? The fear that Jesus isn’t good enough to lead you to life? Is it lack of hope, lack of joy, lack of peace, or lack of love? Are you under attack from those who are angry, afraid, or filled with hatred? Do your besetting sins, those that always seem to be lurking around the corner the second we let our guard down, seem to be climbing right over the wall to the courtyard, ready to steal you away from Jesus, your shepherd?

That was quite a list right? Quite the jumble of lies that stand ready to jump over the wall or scatter the flock. And your thieves and wolves may be hundreds of other things. And I have some bad news for you, they aren’t necessarily going to go away. Jesus doesn’t say in this passage that once you enter the courtyard of the sheep, you will never be under attack. He says the opposite, there will still be thieves, bandits, and wolves that come to steal, kill, and destroy. And that the thieves and bandits will try to climb over the wall another way, wherever there is a crack or hole in the wall where they can gain and foot and handhold, or where they can dig through the wall until the hole is big enough to climb through. What Jesus does say is that he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for us, his sheep, and that he has come that we might have life abundantly.

As we spend time in prayer this morning, ask Jesus to deal with the thieves, bandits, and wolves who are attacking you. And ask him to walk with you around the walls, so check for cracks and holes that would let those thieves into the courtyard. And as you go out from this courtyard this morning, ask him to teach you to know his voice better so you can follow, and ask him to deal with the wolves and other animals that will attack you this week while you are outside of the courtyard. Ask him to prevent the animals from destroying or scattering you. Jesus is our shepherd. That’s part of why he’s here.

Heb 2:14-18 & Rom 8:31-39

Mid-30’s AD – Stephen, is stoned by the people of Jerusalem.

155 AD – Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, is arrested by the Romans. At this time, the Christians were being captured and martyred for their faith under the charge of atheism, because they refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods or proclaim the deity of the emperor. Knowing that the mob was searching for him, Polycarp fled the city to a nearby village, and when the people came there, fled to another farm. When the people searching for him could not find him, they tortured the people who were living there, and one young man gave up Polycarp’s location. When the officers came to arrest Polycarp, this bishop, having received a vision that he was going to be martyred, chose not to flee, but to remain in the house, offering food and drink to the officers, and praying for the church and the officers before willingly going with the officers. He was given chance after chance to “repent” and proclaim that he was not a Christian; to swear by Caesar and to curse Christ. Instead, Polycarp responded. “Eighty and six years have I served him, and he hath done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my king who saved me?”

The people demanded that Polycarp be fed to the beasts, but having already returned the beasts to their cages, Philip, head of the government in the province of Asia, agreed to burn Polycarp at the stake. “They surrounded him with those substances which had been prepared for the funeral pile. But when they were about also to fix him with nails, he said, "Leave me as I am; for He that giveth me strength to endure the fire, will also enable me, without your securing me by nails, to remain without moving in the pile." They did not nail him then, but simply bound him. And he, placing his hands behind him, and being bound like a distinguished ram [taken] out of a great flock for sacrifice, and prepared to be an acceptable burnt-offering unto God, looked up to heaven, and” he prayed. They lit the fire, but the fire would not consume his body, so they commanded an executioner to drive a dagger through his body. The people wondered that there should be such a difference between the unbelievers and the elect, of whom this most admirable Polycarp was one, having …been an apostolic and prophetic teacher, and bishop of the …Church which is in Smyrna.

16^th century Germany – The Plague has taken Europe by storm, driving deep fear into the hearts of the people. Remember the scene from Monty Python? Three men with a cart walk through a city with one man crying out “Bring out your dead.” A body is thrown onto the cart, and another man walks up to the cart with an elderly man flung over his shoulder, saying, “Here’s one.” To which the elderly man replies, “I’m not dead yet.” The scene is intended to be funny and deeply ironic, and it is. But there is much truth in it as well. The people were terrified, and anyone who appeared slightly ill was feared and ostracized because no one wanted to die.

Into this situation, Martin Luther writes to his people. Instead of fearing death, the church should be caring for the sick. At a time when hospitals were not really in existence, Luther told his people that they should be the hospitals, taking care of the people for whom no one else in society would care. They should either trust God to keep them healthy in the midst of the sickness, and recognize that if they did become sick, that their inheritance was not of this world but of the Kingdom of God.

21^st century America – A young man is diagnosed with cancer. After a long battle and series of treatments, the doctors determine that there is nothing else they can do. Along the way, he has kept a blog about his treatments and the faithfulness of God in the midst of all his struggles. He and his family have sent emails to the church, keeping the people updated and asking for their prayers. And they tell stories. Stories of this young man bringing joy and hope to people who had no hope. Stories of people hearing about Jesus from a person who had every reason to hide away from the world. The doctors and nurses who treated him were amazed by his joy. And the emails spread, from household to household, and people sent the link to his blog around the world. He was sharing quite a testimony with the world. As he left this world and received life in the presence of God, his peace in God’s presence remained a witness that God is faithful, even in the midst of great struggles.

They say that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. But it isn’t just the fact that someone has died that draws others to Christianity. It is the way that the martyrs died and the way that they dealt with troubles. Instead of being consumed by fear, or resisting death, the Christians stood strong. They refused to curse Christ and refused to sacrifice to Caesar as their Lord. And they stood calmly as the beasts were sent out, the executioners approached, the stones were picked up, or the fires were lit. They knew that their treasure was in heaven and that nothing that people could do could remove from them the presence of God.

It is also the way the church deals with troubles that sets Christians apart. The church’s willingness to risk their own lives to care for the sick in the 16^th century distinguished them from the people who were terrified of the plague. The Christian’s ability to display joy in the midst of terminal disease sets them apart from the people on the same hospital floors who spend their days in deep depression and hopelessness. We are “more than conquerors through Christ who loved us.”

Note that Paul is not saying here that life will be easy. Christian or not, we still live in a very fallen world. We still suffer great atrocities at the hands of other human beings. We still have murders on the streets and gangs in our cities, and we still have less visible attacks. Heads of companies may ask their employees to engage in unjust or unethical business practices to bring in the next dollar, and they may retaliate against employees who refuse. Neighbors may speak ill of you. Bullies (either the child or grown up version) may abuse you with their destructive words and threats of violence.

Then we have the reality of fallen nature. Earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, and hailstorms. The flu, cancer, heart attacks, strokes, blindness, car accidents, and multiple sclerosis. No, this world is not easy, even if we never have to sacrifice our lives, our jobs, or our friends for our faith.

But Paul knows that as well. “What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? God who justifies? Who then can condemn? Christ Jesus who died – more than that who was raised to life? Who is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

Do you hear the absurdity of those questions? We are supposed to. We should be answering “Absolutely not!” and “No one!” to those questions. If God has chosen us, who else can be powerful enough to bring a charge against us? The God who justifies us? Absolutely not! If we are justified by God, who else can condemn us? Christ who died and was raised, and who actually intercedes for us at God’s right hand? No, no one can condemn us! What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Is anything strong enough to remove us from God’s love? Absolutely not!

Then why do we so often life as if we were defeated? Why do we so often live as though the devil, death, temptation, and other people have power over us? Not that I think things are always good. I know better. But then I read the stories of men like Stephen and Polycarp, and I get the emails from friends in ICU with a brain aneurysm, encephalitis, cancer, and car accident injuries, and I talk to people with multiple sclerosis, blindness, and lyme disease. And I wonder.

I don’t know if we’ve missed the truth the Paul writes, maybe we’ve never really been able to hear it before. Or maybe we’ve chosen to ignore it? Maybe we really like the pity party we’ve developed. Or maybe we’ve just not really known what this would look like in our context, in 2009 Los Angeles. Maybe we are afraid that we just aren’t really good enough for the promises that God gives us in this passage in Romans. Whatever the case, too often we have let other people and circumstances define who we are.

But we are not defined by our circumstances. You are a child of God, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and BELOVED. God himself became human flesh and blood, suffering just like we suffer, and being tempted like we are tempted, and sacrificing himself as high priest so that our lives would be transformed. NO ONE can take that away from you. As much as bullies and bosses and unfriendly store clerks and anyone else can attempt to minimize you to make themselves feel strong and good, they still cannot remove your identity as a child of the Father. As many attacks as the devil throws your way, he cannot remove from you the presence of God in your midst. As many fires, floods, and diseases that come, they cannot change who you truly are. We are more than conquerors through the blood of Christ Jesus. That is our identity. Do you believe it? Will you live like that?

God loves YOU. He wants your good. He wants your life to overflow with joy. Too often we settle for less. We wonder who we are to be loved? But the truth is, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. This belief that we should not be loved and experience joy and goodness is a lie of our culture, not a message from God. In The Weight of Glory, CS Lewis writes, “Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not to strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

God is offering us infinite joy, regardless of our circumstances, through his constant presence in our lives. This is why the martyrs could stand praising God’s name as the fires burned at their feet, the animals came roaring into the arena, or the executioner approached with his sword. This is why the church can care for the sick regardless of risk to themselves, and why the sick Christians can sing praises and walk the halls bringing hope to the hopeless, even as they remain in the hospital for the last days of their lives. God is with them. They know who they are. They know that they are God’s children, infinitely loved.

They can say with Paul, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

If you are beaten down, bruised, and battered the life and the world, hear this morning that you are a child of God. Take hold of your identity. God wants you to know that you are loved. Close your eyes for a moment. Whatever weights you are carrying, whatever keeps you from living in the fullness of life God offers, whatever hinders you from being a conqueror through Christ Jesus, turn them over to him. Then know that God is reaching his arms around you and holding you. God is telling you, “I love you.” Rest in that love. He may not change your circumstances, that is up to him to decide. But regardless, you will be changed in the midst of your circumstances if you live as the redeemed and chosen child of God that you are. Sometimes God calms the storms of our lives, and sometimes he calms his children in the midst of the storms.

Either way, when we rest in our identity as children of God, we too proclaim with Paul, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Amen.

Advent 2008 - Lamb of God

“O come, o come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.” “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight paths for Him.” “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” “The Lion of the Tribe of Judah has triumphed. …Then I saw a lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center before the throne…” “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. …In that day, the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples, the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.”

Such different texts, from completely different times and places, but they all come together and have meaning for us this Advent season. They matter. Advent matters. Even in a world that cares very little for Advent and texts like this.

Advent is about waiting, and praying. It is about being quiet and preparing for Jesus to come. It is about hope, expectation, peace, and joy. And I get frustrated because the rest of the world seems to speed up during Advent and pretend that somehow it is already Christmas. I suppose that has been happening for years now, with Christmas seeming to come earlier and earlier for everyone else. But this is the first time in 7 years that I have not been caught up in finals and papers. I have turned the radio on, and heard Christmas music in mid-November, and promptly turned the radio back off. I’ve been getting Christmas ads from stores for over a month. I’ve heard the panicked conversations of people who are worried about running out of time to buy presents.

The speed and chaos have been jarring. I’ve been blissfully ignorant for the past few years, too worried about papers for the radio or advertisements, and surrounded by other students. Buying presents was the furthest thing from our minds. So this year, I find myself more and more frustrated by the Christmas frenzy.

We have gotten Advent all wrong. Advent means coming. Advent is our time of preparing our hearts to receive the coming Christ. All too often we think that we have already welcomed the Christ who came, so we can jump straight to Christmas morning. And we forget that we do not know what it would be to welcome Christ more fully, more completely, into our hearts, our minds, our homes, our jobs, and our churches.

Advent is a journey, a journey on the path to Christ’s coming. The journey of Advent begins with hope. We sing and we pray, “O come, o come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.” This is the cry of a people who know that things now are not as they shall be. This is the cry of Israel who waited in literal captivity, in Egypt, in Babylon, in Persia, in Assyria, and in Rome. They know that God has set them apart to be his people and have God as their King and Ruler. They know that they are free people, and they waited and prayed for a Savior to deliver them.

But this is our cry and prayer too. “O come, o come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.” We too know that how things are is not how they should be. The world still languishes under the weight of sin. We still wait for Jesus to come into our world in new and more dramatic ways. We see hurricanes destroy cities, fires ravage communities, and terrorist attacks frighten the country of India and the world. We know that Jesus has already come, but we also know that we still need Jesus to come. We receive the promises of his coming in the prophets. They see Jesus’ advent in ways that the rest of us do not, and they point us to the coming Emmanuel.

The prophets tell us to watch for the coming one, to be ready when he arrives. So the 2^nd step in our journey through Advent is preparation. John the Baptist quotes Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of the one crying in the wilderness, 'prepare the way of the Lord.'” John called the people to repentance, to examine their hearts and minds for the ways that they had turned from the Lord. Israel should have known better, they had seen God lead and save them before, but God’s chosen people were still people after all. They still fell short of being the people whom God wanted them to be. They still needed to examine their hearts to be ready. So the people came out to meet this John character and to listen to his call to repentance.

John lived in the wilderness, away from the bustle and day to day life of the city. He dressed in camel’s hair, eating locusts and wild honey for his meals. This is not the man you would bring home to mom and dad. He’s not even what you would expect from a prophet, and the prophets did some strange things in Israel. But John’s presence in the wilderness does something that the people don’t expect. They have to leave behind the routine of their daily lives to go meet this messenger of God. They have to leave behind the relative safety of the city, the security of their jobs, the surroundings of the Roman guard and the rushed rhythms of life. They have to travel into the wilderness, where there is time for quiet and space for solitude. They have to leave behind their daily rhythms to be able to hear what God is saying, through John, and into their hearts.

Advent is the time when God is calling us to do the same as Israel. John the Baptist still calls to us, “I am the voice of the one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.” He still calls us to examine our hearts and to see where repentance is needed so that we can hear God clearly and be ready when he comes. Like Israel, we too should know better. We have been saved by the Messiah after all. But also like Israel, we are people, people who fall immensely short of being the people God calls us to be. So Advent is a time of repentance, a time to go out into the wilderness, leaving behind the rhythms of our lives. Turning off the TV’s, radios, and video games long enough to be silent. Changing our daily routines to provide space to hear God’s voice, and the quiet to be able to actually hear when he speaks. Advent provides the time to prepare our hearts to be ready when God comes, for we never know when or how he will appear.

Jesus comes in unexpected ways. Israel didn’t quite expect Jesus in John’s day. They knew that they were free people, people who were supposed to be set free from Roman rule. And they were looking for a Messiah who would set them free from the Romans who ran their cities and lives. Israel got something quite different. They got a baby, born in a stable not a palace, to an unexpected mother. Mary didn’t expect to be the bearer of God to the world. She was ready for God to come because she had been faithful to God, serving him with her life in purity and holiness. But she was more than a little startled when the angel appeared to her proclaiming that she would have a son, and she would name him Jesus, for he would save his people from their sins. Mary didn’t expect to be bringing God into the world, but when God came, her heart was ready, and she recognized him. For Mary treasured all these things in her heart” as she watched this infant whom she knew to be God interact with the world.

Once that baby had grown up, he was even less of what Israel had been expecting. In the first chapter of John, as we learn that Jesus is God, the light in the darkness, the Word, the Son of God, the Son of Man, and the Messiah, we hear John proclaim that Jesus is the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” This is a very strange title for a King. The lamb was used in Israel for the Passover, for the time when every family killed one perfect lamb for their family, or themselves and their neighbors, and spread the blood on the doorposts of their homes so that death would pass over their homes. The Lamb brings about the salvation of Israel by releasing them from death and captivity into life and freedom with God. The Passover Lamb gets slain, not crowned. And that is exactly what John proclaims, and what Jesus lives. The Lamb of God, the Son of Man and King of Israel, must die to save his people from their sins. The dying savior. This is not what Israel expects, but it is what John knows to be true. The man who calls people to follow this Savior recognizes him when he comes. God had told John that the man on whom the Spirit descended was the Messiah, and John proclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” John and Mary were ready for God to come, and open to seeing him come in ways that they could never have expected. Are we?

In the Lord’s Supper, we proclaim together, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” We know the Messiah who is the Lamb of God. We have seen him crucified to save his people from his sins. The world did not expect a dead man to rise. Israel did not expect it. We do not expect it. Dead men stay dead. But when Jesus rose again, the disciples, together with us, were ready. We didn’t expect it, but when God came to us, we recognized him. And we have seen the slain Lamb of God rise again. So we proclaim his salvation, and we proclaim his final victory as we proclaim that “Christ will come again.” We still wait for Christ to return. He has begun the redemption and transformation of the world through his blood on the cross and in his rising from the grave, but that redemption and transformation has not yet been completed. We still need Christ to come to us. And we are like Israel, not quite sure what it will look like when he comes. But Advent is a time for us to be expecting Jesus so that we will recognize him when he comes, even if we didn’t quite know what that would look like before he appears. We wait with hope and expectation to see how Jesus will come to us. What message will he bring to us this Advent as he comes into our lives in new ways? What message will he have for our church as we live the gospel in this neighborhood? How will Jesus appear in our homes and our families? How will he transform the world? How will he come again?

We wait during Advent, with hope and expectation in our hearts, for Jesus to come again. We continue to do the things we do every Sunday. We partake of the Lord’s Supper, and we pray the Lord’s Prayer, but we do them differently during Advent. These things are reminders that Advent is a time of waiting for Christ to come. They are reminders of the hope of Christ’s return. Just as we proclaim the promise of Christ’s return in the Lord’s Supper as we proclaim that “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” We also pray for Christ to come and for the world to be transformed as we pray the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We know that the world is still not as it should be. As much as we have seen God’s transformation in our own lives, we have also seen that the transformation is not yet complete. We feel the weight of our own sin. We see the destruction of a world that is still captive to the deceptions of power and control. And we see the earth shudder under the weight of the fall as all of creation groans in anticipation of that day when Christ will come again. So we pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We do not just say the words. We pray them. We pray for Christ’s return, and we take time in Advent to consciously wait for that return.

We wait for the transformation of the world with ready and open hearts for we know that the Lamb of God is worthy to win the battle and transform the world. The Lamb of God who was slain is victorious. John the Elder watched as “the one who sat on the throne” held a scroll which was sealed, and no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was found worthy to open the scroll. And John wept. But the elders said to him, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals. Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center before the throne….” Jesus is the Lamb of God who was slain and who is worthy. He has already been the Passover Lamb for the world, unblemished, and killed for the redemption of his people. His sacrifice makes him able to open the scroll, able to completely transform this world from sin and death and destruction to life and wholeness and peace with God. Jesus has already conquered, and Jesus remains forever the Lamb who was slain. He will complete the transformation of the world.

And we will see that final transformation, and it will be unlike anything we could have imagined or expected. Just as Isaiah preached the coming Messiah, so he proclaims the still coming Messiah. Isaiah proclaims,

The Branch From Jesse

1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—

3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;

4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.

5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling ^[a] together;
and a little child will lead them.

7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

8 Infants will play near the hole of the cobra;
young children will put their hands into the viper's nest.

9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.

10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.

This is a world we can’t even imagine. Everything is reversed. Predators are removed. Children are free to lead. It is a strange world, but if we are ready, if we are prepared and waiting with expectation, we’ll know him when he comes.

And we will continue to wait through this Advent season, being formed as we wait for Christ to come. We will continue to participate in the Lord’s Supper, that constant reminder that this world is not as it should be. We will remember that Jesus has brought redemption and begun his transformation, but that he is not finished yet. And as we partake of the Lord’s Supper, we will long for his heavenly banquet when we will feast with Christ and all of the world will be fully redeemed. Maranatha! Lord come quickly! Amen.