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“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 

Jesus is here among us, and these are the words that he has for us today, because we are the disciples who have gathered here after the news of the resurrection, wondering what’s next for us.   

And as  Jesus has told us throughout his ministry—God has sent Jesus here to be light, to be bread, to be a door, to be a Good Shepherd, to be resurrection, to be the way, the truth and the life, and to be the true vine in our midst. 

To be the kingdom of God, visible and full of life here on earth.

“And now, disciples,” says Jesus, “I’m sending you to be the kingdom of God, visible and full of life here on earth.”   

I’m sending you to be light, bread, doorways, shepherds, to show the way, to tell the truth, to be life in the world.   

This list of what we get to be as disciples is pretty intimidating.   

So intimidating, in fact, that we may not want to try at all to be disciples sent into the world bearing the kingdom of God in our hands and holding it out to others. 

Easier to gather in this beautiful and sacred space each Sunday, praise the Lord, and go home, our eyes squeezed shut, trying to hold in the light we saw, and our hands clutched so tight around the bread of heaven that we’re reluctant to hold it out to anyone else.   

Jesus knows all about us.  After all, he shared our human nature, and lived and died as one of us. 

And Jesus knows that we are no more able to carry the kingdom of God out into the world than the first disciples were. 

And so today, here in our midst, he gives to us the help he gave to that first gathering of disciples after the resurrection, locked away in a room because they feared for their lives.   

First of all, Jesus gives us his peace.  His first words to us are 

“Peace be with you.”    This peace is so important that Jesus gives it to us twice.  “Peace be with you.  Peace be with you.” 

God’s peace.  This is the peace that permeates our very beings, and even when chaos reigns around us, we can reach into our inmost being, and touch the peace that Jesus has given us.  This peace is a centered calmness that binds us together while everything else may be crumbling around us.   

This peace results in a deep down feeling of joy, even when our lives are full of struggle.  It’s the peace that means that we even can go down to the grave saying “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” 

And Jesus, just as he had promised the disciples before he died, gives to us here today the Holy Spirit.  Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into us.  This is the same breath that blew over the deep at the beginning of time, the same breath that God blew into the lifeless clay that was to become Adam, the same breath that blew through a valley full of dry bones and brought the nation of Israel back to life.

The Holy Spirit is God’s breath within us.  The joy of knowing God takes our ordinary breath away, and we find that in the place of that ordinary breath is God’s love, the breath and joy of God’s kingdom that becomes tangible when we breathe God’s love into the world.   

Frequently, we find ourselves breathless, but God graciously and regularly resuscitates us when we find ourselves forgetting to breathe.   

The third thing that Jesus gives us is his hands.  He shows us his hands and his side.  And yes, one reason we must see these still visible wounds is so that we know that Jesus is indeed with us, and not some imposter. 

But even more importantly, Jesus shows us these wounded hands because Jesus points the way to the kingdom with these hands—hands that have touched and healed, and forgiven and cast out demons, hands that have grappled with the evil that stands in the way of the kingdom and have been wounded in the process. 

And  with these wounded hands, Jesus shows us the way to go—to the hurting, broken, and  sometimes downright dirty places  around us that are truly in need of  healing, forgiving, strong kingdom hands that are willing to grapple with all that isn’t the kingdom, and to be wounded in the process.   

To have these hands, we disciples have to be willing to lay down the addictions in our lives that we clutch so tightly—and instead to put  our hands in the nail scarred hand, as that old Baptist hymn goes.  That way, Jesus can lead us where he wants us to go, and we can open our hands to those who need our helping hands.   

Imagine that!  An infinite chain of helping hands reaching out with God’s love to hands held out in need! 

Jesus, our Risen Lord, is standing before us—and he brings with him peace, the breath of the Holy Spirit, and his outstretched hands.   

And he says to us, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 

Are you ready to go?   

Amen

This rock is very special to me.   

Once when I was at Shrine Mont, years and years ago, Danielle, one of the girls in our youth group, found it and gave it to me.  She said that she wanted me to have it because it has this cross on it.   

And I’ve kept it all these years, and treasured it.   

This rock became even more special to me after  Danielle was shot to death by her boyfriend several years ago.   Her death was such a waste and a tragedy.  The cross on the rock took on an even deeper meaning as we all grieved for this life ended far too soon.   

The death of a loved one ends life as we know it.  Our expectations change.  The things we had planned to do together are no longer possible.  And even though for the longest time we continue to look for and to expect that person, ultimately we have to accept the fact that  the person is gone. 

But have they really left?  The Bible tells us that love is stronger than death, and that love never ends.  I think that’s true—whether the person we love is alive or dead, we still love that person, and always will. 

And that love brings with it expectations.   We Episcopalians believe in the communion of saints.  Those who have gone before us are still in communion with us, and every Sunday when we come to this table, we pray with the  expectation that we can go out knowing that “we are very  members incorporate in the mystical body of God’s Son, the blessed company of all faithful people.”   

And so even though someone we love has died, we wait in hope to see them again in God’s everlasting kingdom.  And meanwhile, we see signs of them all around us.  I know you can all think of examples of this— 

For instance, a new widow digging up a flowerbed finds a lens from her husband’s old glasses lost in the soil and she thinks to herself that this lens can remind  her that her husband is still watching over her.   

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary had been with Jesus in Galilee.  They had seen with their own eyes Jesus healing the sick, making the lame to walk, giving sight to the blind, and Jesus had cast demons out of Mary Magdalene herself.   

And because of their time with Jesus, they had learned to see their world differently—to look at it, not with resignation or with disappointment and depression,  or with loathing or with grief, but to see the world around them with expectation, 

Because they had seen for themselves the transforming power of God’s everlasting love embodied in their Lord Jesus. 

They no longer saw just the surface of things, just  the familiar scenes of their daily lives,  but all that they saw was transformed,  shot through with glimpses of the kingdom of heaven, lit up with the fiery transforming light of God’s everlasting love.   

And so Matthew tells us in today’s gospel that as the first day of the week was dawning, these two went to see the tomb.  They didn’t go planning to wrap the body in spices as the women do in Mark—in Matthew they simply go to see the tomb. 

In  spite of the horror and the tragedy of Jesus’ death, they have been able to hold on to their expectant way of looking at things— 

and they also have not forgotten that Jesus told them that he would die, but that after three days he would be raised. 

And so they go to the tomb with watchful expectation. 

I love this vision of the angel descending from heaven, bright as lightening, dressed in clothing as blinding and dazzling as the sunlight  bouncing off of snow— 

Who wouldn’t have been scared to death? 

And so the angel says what angels always say.   

“Do not be afraid.” 

And the women, who have gone to the tomb expecting something to happen, are able, in spite of their fear, to look the angel in the face and to take in the message that the angel has for them.   

The angel confirms their hopes.  Jesus has been raised and is going ahead of them to Galilee and there they will meet him.  And the angel tells them to go tell the other disciples. 

As the women run to share this joyful news, they meet Jesus himself, and they worship him. 

And he tells them the same thing.   

“Do not be afraid.”

“Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” 

Matthew ends his gospel with the rest of this story.  The followers of Jesus go back to Galilee, up the mountain that they’ve been instructed to climb, and Jesus is there.   

And Jesus sends them out with the expectation that they will be able to see within the events ahead of them, as tragic as many of these events will be, that the kingdom of God is still at hand and that  their job will be to find others who long for this kingdom and who will seek it and who will catch glimpses of its fiery and transforming light even in the midst of the death and destruction that they will all face. 

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus does not ascend.  The gospel ends on top of that mountain with Jesus saying these words to his beloved disciples. 

“And lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” 

This early morning story of Mary Magdalene and the other Mary going to see the tomb reminds us to look with expectation at simple things like the lens of a  beloved’s glasses in buried in the dirt, to hold the rock of  a murdered friend, and to see the kingdom of God breaking in and bringing with it new life, even in death. 

This story reminds us  that we who have been given the gift of looking with expectation for the kingdom of God here on earth have work to do—Go and tell others. 

And that as we do that, never to forget— 

That Jesus is with us always, until the end of time and beyond.   

Amen.    

Our last hymn tonight is “Jesus keep me near the cross.”  The words to this hymn were written by Fanny Crosby, who wrote hundreds of beloved hymns that we still sing today.

And the theology of this hymn is that the crucifixion and death of Jesus mean that we will share eternal life with God. 

The refrain goes like this.  “In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever,  till my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river.” 

As Christians, we know that we will find eternal life in God through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. 

But this theology by itself—that I’m saved and going to heaven– is incomplete.

The third verse of the hymn reminds us that we also need to keep the cross in mind when we are trying to figure out how to live our daily lives. 

“Near the cross, O Lamb of God, bring its scenes before me.  Help me walk from day to day, with its shadows o’er me.”

The crucifixion and death of Jesus have everything to do with the way we Christians ultimately choose to live our lives in this world.

Considering this little piece of the gospel story is helpful . 

John  has Pilate place an inscription on the cross of Jesus.

 “This Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

And in John’s gospel, this inscription is written in three languages.

Fred Craddock points out in The People’s Commentary that  the fact that John has this inscription in three languages is significant. 

The first language is Latin, the language of the Roman Empire, the empire that held much of the known world at that time in its grasp.

The second language is Greek, the language connected with intellectual and philosophical pursuits.  

And the third language is Hebrew, the language of the Jewish religious establishment.

These languages defined the world of Jesus’ day, and define our world as well.

We live in a world in which politics carries a great amount of power. We use our intellects in philosophical pursuits—our culture prides itself on rational knowledge.  And the religious establishment, although its influence is waning in familiar ways, still carries a great deal of weight.

It’s in the world of politics, the world of our intellects, and in the church itself that we are called to live as followers of Jesus. 

Jesus came to earth to bring God’s kingdom to us here and now—

And this kingdom of God is greater than anything we will ever know or experience here on earth.

This  kingdom of God that Jesus brought to us  has the potential to transform the world as we know it, depending on how we choose to live in the world as Christians. 

As Christians, we are called to point toward God’s glory present here and now in the world.

We do that in the ways we proclaim the good news of the kingdom to those around us.

The light of God’s glory makes the human need around us visible.   

Our response to that need as Christians– if we follow the example of Jesus– is loving service, not just for the needs of our friends and families, but for needs wherever they are found. 

And the light of God’s glory helps us to see clearly how destructive injustice and violence in our world can be. 

As Christians, following Jesus, we want to seek peace and pursue it, and work for reconciliation, rather than simply responding with more violence. 

How we point to God’s glory in our lives will vary for each one of us. 

But as an example, I want to tell you about Oscar Romero, who is on our church calendar of holy men and women. 

Oscar Romero was a Roman Catholic Bishop in El Salvador from 1977 to 1980, during a particularly oppressive regime in that country. 

People who dared to speak out against the government were assassinated or disappeared, never to be heard from again.  This oppressive government killed people who dared to teach people how to read.  This government killed people who tried to feed hungry people. 

As bishop, Oscar Romero realized that if he wanted to point toward God’s glory and kingdom on this earth, he could not afford to remain silent. 

Much like Pope Francis, he chose to live simply in just a few rooms attached to hospital in the town of Calavera.  In his sermons, he openly talked about the violence that had frozen the people in fear. 

And he himself worked in and supported the activities of those who were trying to address the needs of the poor people of El Salvador.  Romero said that there are many things that can seen only through eyes that have cried. 

Before long, Romero realized that if he continued to point toward the kingdom of God and God’s glory, that he would be killed. 

And sure enough, as he celebrated mass one Sunday, a sniper came into the church and shot Romero through the heart.  He died at the altar. 

Romero said that even if he was killed, Jesus would rise up in the people.

And so today, if you have the opportunity to visit Calavera, you will see a huge mural painted on the wall of the hospital where Romero lived. 

In the center of this mural is a huge cross draped in a white stole. 

And below this cross is the life sized figure of Romero.

He appears with a wound to his heart, and his hands , which reach out, bear the mark of the nails.  The poor are gathered around him—and their hands also reach out and have nail marks.

And bullet holes pierce their hearts. 

These people are called the Crucified People.  

The oppressors also appear in this painting.  In contrast to the Crucified People, each of these people have their eyes and ears covered with their hands.   Two of their hands point accusingly toward the others. 

If someone painted a mural of all of us on the wall of St Peter’s today, what would that mural look like? 

I hope that the cross would be in the middle, and I hope that all of us would be there. 

I hope that people would see the wound marks to our hearts broken open because we’ve chosen to look injustice and violence in the face.

And that people would see our hands pierced with the mark of the nails, because we have worked to meet the needs of those around us, and have worked to end the injustice and oppression that we have seen around us.   

That people would  know that we too are The Crucified People, doing God’s work and pointing toward God’s glory and the coming of God’s kingdom into this world.   

Amen.   

Boring, Eugene M.  and Craddock, Fred B.  The People’s New Testament Commentary.  Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press,  2004. 

Each of the items that has been brought to the altar today has something to say to us about the story of the crucifixion and death of Jesus.  

And each one of these items has something to say about our human nature, some of the biggest temptations we face,  and God’s saving grace for each one of us. 

Each Sunday, our altar guild covers the altar in fair linen, a reminder to us of the linen that Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the body of Jesus in before he laid the body in the tomb. The fair linen protects the altar and serves as a table cloth for the bread and the wine that we bring to the altar every week. 

This linen cloth reminds us how precious this story of the death and resurrection of Jesus is—a story to treasure in our hearts.  When we treat this story with the same reverence and care that Joseph had for the body of our Lord, we can see light and goodness and life growing out of death—the light and goodness and life that God desires for each one of us to have. 

The thirty pieces of silver remind us of the danger of greed.  Greed separates us from one another, because greed inevitably causes us to take advantage of or to betray other people in order to get something we want.   Ultimately, greed leads us to betray God. 

The sword reminds us of our proclivity toward violence as the only ultimate solution for some problems in our lives.   Violence and its horrific effects separate us from God and from one another.  Jesus chose to be vulnerable rather than violent.  He told his disciple to put away the sword, “for those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”     

The bowl of water and the towel remind us of our tendency to look the other way at the injustices that are all around us and to deny responsibility for our part in those injustices. 

The stone reminds us that we tend to seal away the things in our lives that we believe are dead.  If only we could roll the stone away and to seek the new life that God is trying to give us in these dead places in our lives!  God is trying each and every moment of our lives to free us from the graves that we are constantly digging for ourselves—and to turn our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, beating with love.

The scarlet robe and crown remind us of how easy it is to mock others, even if only in our hearts.  Mocking others and heaping scorn on them is easy to do when those others are different or see the world differently than we do.  Differences create fear—and so mocking another person or group of people serves as a barrier between us and them, and ultimately, as a barrier between us and God. 

Only the power of the cross can give us the courage to overcome our greed with generosity.

Only the power of the cross can help us be vulnerable rather than turning to violence out of fear.

Only the power of the cross can help us to see the injustices in this world and give us the energy to do what we can to end those injustices. 

Only through the power of the cross can we fulfill the vow we make at baptism to respect the dignity of every human being.

When we open our hands to receive this bread, God’s love broken open for us, and when we drink this wine, then Jesus, who died for us, comes and lives in the midst of us.

And his loving presence with us gives us the courage to go out with open hands and broken open hearts to be his healing presence in the world.

Amen. 

We spend a great deal of time in our lives waiting.   

Some of this waiting I’d call mundane waiting—like standing in line at the grocery store, or waiting on the phone for the next automated direction in hopes of finally reaching customer service, or—a big one for me right now—waiting and waiting and waiting for my computer to come on and for Google to appear on the screen. 

And then there’s the existential waiting we do—waiting for a birth, waiting for our bodies to heal after an illness, waiting through pain, sitting beside someone we love immensely who is dying, and ultimately, waiting for our own deaths, which are inevitable. 

How we spend time waiting can make all the difference in how we spend our lives.  And so today’s passages are useful  to us because they are about waiting in hope.   

Ezekiel speaks a prophecy to the people of Israel who are in despair—they are in a seemingly endless exile in Babylon.  As a people, they have turned into nothing but a bunch of dry bones.  And yet, as Ezekiel speaks this prophecy, the hopeless people see these dry bones rise up. They see and hear God breathe  the spirit of life into them as God restores the people of Israel.   In their hopeless situation, once again they can feel a sense of hope.   

The psalmist calls on the Lord.  Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.  My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning.  The Psalmist, even though he feels that he is a sinful human being,  still waits on the Lord, because he knows that God is full of  mercy and forgiveness.  His waiting is hopeful waiting—waiting to for God to come and shape him into the person God wants him to be.   

And then we get to Martha and Mary.

Waiting for Jesus as their brother lies dying. 

Waiting for Jesus even after Lazarus has died and has been laid in a cold stone tomb.

Waiting for Jesus. 

And then Jesus gets there and when he says to Martha,

“I am the resurrection and the life,” 

Martha’s waiting ends.  She finds herself staring into the face of eternal life itself, 

The face of Jesus. 

As Christians, we believe , or at least we desperately want to believe, that Jesus is truly the resurrection and the life.   

(Show and tell here—show a beautiful glass bowl—the primary color is a deep rich yellow, the lip of the bowl is yellow and the interior is flecked with dark colors, making a swirled pattern with the predominant yellow color).   

I call this bowl my resurrection and life bowl.   

The dark center of this bowl makes me think of my own life—the sins that I’ve committed and continue to commit, things done and left undone, the broken things in my life—and yet shot through the darkness is this luminous glowing yellow—God’s desire that I have life, God’s mercy and forgiveness and lovingkindness, God’s spirit dwelling within me—all of this, my own unworthiness and God’s intervention in my life contained with in this luminous yellow edge—the circle of God’s love,  Jesus saying, I am the resurrection and the life.  This circle of life and resurrection enters into the darkness and transforms it, lets the light in. 

(Put bowl away) 

Held within this circle of resurrection and life, held in this light, encircled by God’s love, we can now, even in our own despair, wait in hope. 

And waiting in hope means waiting  actively for God’s transforming love to go to work in our lives. And for us to go to work in the world. 

Waiting in hope means that in our own lives, shot through with the glory of God’s light and life, be a witness to God’s healing glory here in the brokenness of our world.   

Because knowing that Jesus is the resurrection and the life means that we can no longer, ever, be satisfied with the status quo.   

As we wait in hope, knowing that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, we find ourselves being proactive, offering up what is broken in our lives to God, 

And working to address the injustices in our world—working to end poverty, working to end hunger, working to bring God’s light especially into the places that are full of despair. 

This active hope is the growing and living Spirit inside of us that allows us, even as we look death itself in the face, to  see there the face of Jesus Christ our Lord, and to be able to say, even to shout  into the darkness, 

“All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave,  even during  the most despair times in our lives, even during this season of Lent, we make our song. 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” 

Amen. 

Recently, an obituary by Zach C. Cohen  appeared in The Washington Post for a man named Bill Irwin, age 73.  The headline for the obituary read, “First blind man to hike 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail.”

His first four marriages ended in divorce.   Irwin said that during the part of his life when he could see,” he was an alcoholic, a dropout as a husband and father, a guy who lived only for himself.”

Irwin lost his sight completely in 1976 after some medical mistakes on the part of his doctors.  After he became blind, Irwin smoked five packs of cigarettes a day and his drinking became worse.

In 1987, Irwin became sober and he also at this time became much more devoted to Christianity.  The obituary says that “the first verse he learned was from Corinthians:  ‘For we walk by faith, not by sight.’” 

Irwin decided that even though he was blind, he would walk the Appalachian Trail as a way of living out his faith.  He described this act as an “act of salvation.” 

He hiked for eight months, covered the entire length of the trail,”fell thousands of times, cracked his ribs and suffered from hypothermia.”  Because he couldn’t see, he didn’t use maps or a compass, but depended on his German shepherd guide dog, Orient.  The two became known as “The Orient Express.” 

During  his eight month hike, as he stopped at places along the way to buy groceries and to do laundry, Irwin would talk to local children about God.  He furnished over 500 Bibles to people he met along the way.  When he completed the trail at the top of Mt Katahdin in Maine, members of his home church met him and sang “Amazing Grace.”  He became an inspiration to disabled people and to hikers because of his accomplishment. 

The writer of Ephesians in today’s reading tells us to “Live as children of the light,” which is what Bill Irwin did, once he became physically blind and gained spiritual and emotional sight.

The following words in Ephesians might have been written specifically for him.

“Sleeper, awake!  Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Probably none of us will have an obituary as dramatic as the obituary of Bill Irwin, but the example of his life, along with today’s scriptures, all about blindness and true sight, are a reminder to us that being Christians is to make every effort to live as children of the light,

Because now in the Lord we are light. 

So how do we do that?  How do we wake up, rise from the dead, and let Christ shine on us as we live from day to day, so that we can shine on others? 

Three things come to mind from three great theologians, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Smith, and C.S. Lewis.  If we could incorporate these three things into our lives on a regular basis, we’d be a lot closer to knowing that Christ is shining on us that we can shine on others. 

So I hope you will take these three things to heart and try living into them this week.

First of all, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a  German theologian active during World War II and who ran an underground seminary, wrote a book called Life Together  in which we find the following suggestion. 

And this suggestion is literally about how we should wake up each morning.   Bonhoeffer tells us that at the beginning of the day, let  “the first word belong to him to whom our whole life belongs.”  Jesus stands at the threshold of each new day.  The darkness of night retreats before “before the clear light of Jesus Christ and his wakening word.” 

How we wake up has a lot to do with whether or not the day ahead is going to be filled with the light of Christ.  Bonhoeffer wisely suggests that when we wake up, we set aside the distractions and burdens of the day ahead and instead welcome the light of Christ, and then get up out of bed for the love of God.   This love of God has a way of filling even the darkest days with light and helping us to bear fruit, even when our lives seem dim and barren. 

Martin Smith, who is an Episcopal priest, writer, and spiritual director, offers this advice in his Lenten book, A Season for the Spirit.

In his chapter called “The Child of Glory” Smith reminds us about “the importance of wonder.  Creation is wonderful, the Creator is glorious.”  Smith makes the point that as adults, we get caught up in our burdens and sometimes even find ourselves bored with life.  Being proactive about seeing mystery and beauty and intense significance of the ordinary things in life” reminds us of God’s light, and also reminds us that we are still becoming who God wants us to be, light for the world.  When we think of ourselves as Children of Glory, we are being born, over and over again, into who God is calling us to become, children of light. 

 “Awake, sleeper, rise from the dead.”  Look around you, and as the Book of Common Prayer says so poetically in the Rite I Prayers of the People,

“Open, O Lord, the eyes of all people to behold thy gracious bounty in all thy works, that rejoicing in thy whole creation, we may honor thee with our  substance, and be faithful stewards of thy bounty.” 

Welcoming the light of Christ and getting out of bed for the love of God, and then going through our days seeking the wonder and transforming power of God in all that we see and do the leads us to the third thing that we can do to become children of light.

And that thing is to live in hope.  That is, as C.S. Lewis points out in his chapter on “Hope” in Mere Christianity, we are to live with a “continual looking forward to the eternal world.”  Lewis points out that the people who have done the most for the present world are the ones who had their minds “occupied with heaven.”

You all have heard me say so often that we live in a time of now and not yet.  Jesus brought God’s light into the world.  In this light we can see not only God’s glory, but also the shadows that this light casts as it encounters the dark places in our lives and in the world. 

When we live as children of the light, we are living in the light that is the heavenly glory of God.    And as we live and hope and seek more and more of this heavenly light in our own lives, we grow brighter and brighter.  And we are better able to live good and right and true lives.

And as Christ shines on us, so we find ourselves shining on others, and heaven draws near, even here and now.

Let us pray.

Lord of light, heal our blindness.   Wake us up each morning, and stand at the threshold of our days.  Lead us and guide us into goodness, righteousness, and truth.  Help us to live each day as children of glory, seeing and rejoicing in the magnificence of your creation.  And give us the hope that as Christ shines on us, we children of light can shine with the goodness of your light and push away the darkness in our lives and in the world around us. 

We pray in the name of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, the light of the world.

Amen.   

Resources: 

Cohen, Zach C.  “First blind man to hike 2.100-mile Appalachian Trail,” The Washington Post, Sunday, March 16, 2014. 

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich.  Life Together.  Translated, and with an introduction by John W. Doberstein.  New York:  Harper and Row, Publishers, 1954. 

Lewis, C. S.  Mere Christianity.  New York:  McMillan Publishing Co., 1943.  First paperback edition, 1960. 

Smith, Martin L.  A Season for the Spirit:  Readings for the Days of Lent.  Cambridge, MA:  Cowley Publications, 1991.    

John’s gospel is all about God’s love for the world—for all of creation

God’s love for you,

God’s love for me.

In last week’s gospel lesson we heard that verse that many of us memorized as children–

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  

And in John, all of the conversations Jesus has with people struggling with belief, all of his discourses (those long speeches that we get in John and in no other gospel) and all of his actions, up to and culminating in his choosing death on a cross and then his resurrection—all of these things in the gospel according to John are about God’s love for creation,

About God’s love for you,

And about God’s love for me.

Today’s gospel story is about our thirst for God’s love.   The discussion that Jesus has with the Samaritan woman begins with the physical thirst of Jesus and leads to the woman’s spiritual thirst—and the revelation that she is hoping for the Messiah.  When she goes back to the village to tell everyone about this man who can see into her very soul, her hopeful question is this—

“He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

This question is ultimately about God’s love.  Can it be true that God loves us so much that God really has sent the Messiah? 

At times in our lives, we struggle with this question about whether or not God loves us, especially in the tough wilderness times in our lives when we find ourselves in some desperate situation or physical need—the times when we’re so thirsty, like the Israelites in the wilderness, that we’re near death and we can’t feel God’s love. 

When we’re dealing with things like pain, illness, divisive family issues, poverty, or even having too much—in these wilderness times we sometimes have trouble believing that God loves us so much that God has sent us a Messiah. 

And these are the times when we are at risk of developing hardened hearts like the Israelites did when they were journeying through the wilderness and had no water to drink.   

And the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at the well in today’s gospel certainly has a rather crusty heart—“How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?”

She instantly wants to define this person based on what divides them—he is a Jew and she is a Samaritan. 

But Jesus takes the conversation to a different level—rather than a hard hearted response on his part, Jesus, with his open heart, seeks to address the woman’s deepest longing—a longing for respect, dignity, and ultimately,  love. 

This open hearted response on the part of Jesus leads to a lengthy conversation between the two—a scandalous conversation when you think about it—a Jewish man talking with a Samaritan woman,

Which leads to the swelling of hope in the woman,

And her witness to the people back in Sychar

Who then leave the city and are on their way to Jesus.

Ultimately, this woman’s decision not to have a hard heart leads to openness and hospitality on both the part of Jesus and the Samaritans—

The Samaritans ask Jesus to stay with them and he does, for two days.  And many more believed because of his word.

They come to believe that Jesus is not only the Messiah  that the Jews are expecting, but also the Savior of the entire world. 

If the Samaritan woman had held onto her hard heart, this story never would have made it into Holy Scripture. 

It might have been brief article on the back page of the city newspaper, with a headline something like “Strange Man Reported at Jacob’s Well.”

Not surprisingly much of the news in our world today is about hard heartedness, because in our world we have trouble seeing God’s love for us and presence with us in the midst of all of the negative things that happen in our lives and in the world—so we, along with others, respond defensively, with hard hearts to things that happen and to those around us who are not like us.   

The problem with hard heartedness is that it just leads to more hard heartedness, which leads to despair, and also to hatred and to evil.  Hard heartedness keeps us and our society and the nations of the world from living into the fullness of life that God longs to give to us. 

As Christians, one of the most important things we can do for ourselves and for the world around us is to have open hearts, and to foster a state of loving hospitality with ourselves, with one another, and with God. 

Here’s some practical advice from C. S. Lewis.  He’s one of the great Anglican theologians of the 20^th century.  In his classic book, Mere Christianity, he writes about how to we are to live as those who believe that God loves us, even in the hard times, especially when we’re sorely tempted to have hard hearts toward God and/or one another. 

Lewis says that “love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion.  It is a state not of the feelings but of the will….” 

So here’s the deal.  When we’re feeling hard heartedness toward someone else for whatever reason, then Lewis says that “the rule for all of us is perfectly simple.  Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love your neighbor; act as if you did.” 

Lewis goes on to point out that when you act as if you love someone, you will eventually come to love that person. 

And if you go ahead and do something good for the person you dislike in order to please God and to obey the law of love, you will dislike that person a little less than you did before. 

The  opposite is also true.  “If you injure someone that you dislike, you will find yourself disliking that person even more.” 

And then there’s hard heartedness toward God. 

Lewis says that “nobody can always have devout feelings; and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about.  Christian Love, either towards God or towards others, is an affair of the will.”

The idea is to live as if God loves us, even when we can’t feel that love. 

God’s love for us is immeasurable and permanent.  As Bishop Goff pointed out last week, God never stops loving us, no matter what we do.

God always loves us, especially when we’re doubting and thirsty and our hearts feel like hard dusty stones.  And so, as Christians, even in our most hard hearted times, we can claim Jesus as our Messiah in the way that we live.  We can have the will to open our hearts to the stranger, and to share God’s love with others through our hospitality and witness to God’s love.

And in so doing, we find within us the spring of water gushing up to eternal life, and we can enter even here and now with one another into the fullness of life that God has promised to all of us. 

Amen.

I want to fix everything that is wrong in this world, and I know I don’t have the power to do that, but God certainly does, so why doesn’t God just get people straightened out and  end suffering? Then we could all live happily ever after in a state of bliss.   

The other day I was visiting someone who has constant pain in her hip and leg, pain so bad that she’s most comfortable sitting still, and even then, the pain is never completely gone.

Every time I visit her, I wish that I could  lay my hands on her and  be such a channel for God’s healing power that her pain would instantly vanish and never come back.  Sometimes I get caught up in thinking that if only I had enough faith, this healing could happen.  I just want this situation to be fixed.

And before I leave, we pray and I always ask God to relieve her pain, if that is God’s will.

Today’s gospel passage has got me thinking differently about prayer. 

Jesus is in the wilderness and he’s fasted for so long that he’s famished, hunger beyond anything any of us have experienced.  He must be weak and tired.  And yet, he has the power to change even stones into bread, and the tempter knows  that and reminds Jesus of that. 

“You don’t have to lie there starving to death, Jesus.” 

The fact that Jesus doesn’t resort to his divinity to relieve his suffering tells us that Jesus really has come to live and die as one of us—a person who willingly endures the same physical sufferings and temptations that we all experience as human beings.

Now  I’m thinking that my prayers –asking God to use divine powers to relieve my suffering or the suffering of someone else, is not the place to start when I pray.

When I had sciatica year before last, I was in such pain that I really couldn’t even think straight.  Every step I took was sheer agony.  And my immediate prayer was, “Please God, take away this pain, right now,”  a prayer which did not get instantaneous results.   

Now I’m thinking that I was presumptuous to pray only like this, expecting God instantly to take away the pain that I was experiencing because I have a human and mortal body. 

In my desperate appeal to God’s almighty powers, I had trouble remembering that  Jesus chose to live and die as one of us—and that Jesus experienced the whole shebang of what it means to be alive on this earth as a human being, not only the good things, but also the awful things about having a body that will eventually, whether we like it or not, let us down, a body that will suffer and die. 

I wish I’d prayed to be more aware of Jesus with me in my suffering, and  to remember that God knows what it’s like to suffer.

Because of God’s great love for us, God is going to be right beside us and in the midst of the suffering that all of us, sooner or later, are going to have to endure. 

Does this mean that I’m going to stop praying for God’s divine intervention?  Of course not.  I’m going to continue to pray that God’s almighty power will come to bear on the pain and suffering in this world, and that all of that pain and suffering will be relieved, including my own.

But first, I’m going to remember that God is right with us in our suffering.

I’m comforted by the fact that the earthly ministry of Jesus begins with this suffering in the wilderness and ends with the suffering on the cross, which the second temptation foreshadows,  because I know that Jesus shares in our human weaknesses, our pain, and eventually in our deaths and that I don’t have to experience any of this alone.  It’s this comfort that I’m going to seek first in prayer from now on–

because the comfort of knowing that  God is truly present with us in our pain and suffering  is the first, and most important piece in what is often a long and drawn out process of healing. 

The third temptation that Jesus faced in the wilderness is also all about fixing things here and now.  The tempter takes Jesus up a very high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says “All these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.”

This is a huge temptation.  Just think about this from God’s perspective.  God created the world and everything in it to be good, and this is a great chance to fix it all and make it good again by using earthly power.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus resisted taking on earthly power and prestige and being an earthly king and ruler, in spite of the expectation that the Messiah who was to come would do just that.

Instantly, I’m struck with how we  human beings tend to deal with power and use it when we get  it.  Just look at the newspaper any day of the week—many of the headlines are about the misuse of power, both internationally and also on an individual basis. 

The easiest way to use power is to dictate to others how things will be in order to create what we consider is the perfect world, or the perfect neighborhood, or the perfect church, or the perfect family, and the list could go on.  We even use this power to make our own lives perfect.

But we can get off track in the ways we use power—take people with eating disorders, for instance.  These people have the power to control what goes into their bodies, and by misusing this power in an effort to force their bodies into some idea of perfection, they end up hurting and damaging themselves.

We can all think of families, churches and neighborhoods that have been split apart by power struggles which start out simply as people having different ideas about what constitutes perfection and then trying to impose their visions by force on those with whom they disagree. 

The bottom line, which Jesus makes clear in the gospel, is that, ultimately, we are not in charge of anything at all—that our job as Christians and as faithful human beings is to worship God and to serve only God.

Putting worship and service to God first then puts how we use power into perspective–because to worship God and to serve God is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. 

And so what then becomes more important than my particular vision of a perfect world is service to God and to my neighbor.  This doesn’t mean that I’m constantly rolling over and playing dead, letting others run over me, but it means that my concern for my neighbor and my love for God will ultimately shape my vision of what constitutes perfection. 

And so when another person and I disagree, I don’t want to use my power in a dictatorial way, but to use it as Jesus did—to worship and serve God first, to be obedient to God and then to use my power accordingly, remembering that God is in charge. 

On the surface, this approach looks powerless.  Who could have less power than a person gasping for breath and dying on a cross?  People taunted Jesus as he died.  “If you really have power, then you’d show us and come down from the cross.”

And yet, that willing obedience to God  that Jesus had, which led through death into God’s resurrection of Jesus, has been changing the world for the better ever since, although the tempter still roams in our hearts, and through our church, through our neighborhoods, and often seems to have complete control over the kingdoms of this world. 

When  we let God help us use our own power as servants rather than as dictators, then God can use us to help transform the world into a place full of God’s grace and glory. 

Today’s gospel ends with this line.  “Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.”

This is good news!

God does not leave us comfortless in our sufferings.  And—in addition to being with us, God also sends angels to us to wait on us when we are in those wilderness times in our lives.  One example—when we’re sick and in need, doctors help us with our physical recovery, friends and family help us take care of our day to day needs.  People wait on us and help us. 

And when we’re obedient servants, God will send us out to those in need to do the work of angels. This work can something like sending a card to someone, or sitting with someone as they grieve, or preparing a meal–  The examples of what God sends us out to do for others is endless.

Here’s some Lenten homework for you—to mull over these three questions during this coming week.

How does this story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness change your own prayer and relationship to God? 

And how does this story make you think differently about  your own power and how you use that power in your relationships with others?

And who is God calling you to care for and to wait on?

Amen. 

Getting right with God.

Paul puts it this way in his second letter to the Corinthians. 

“We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

In this hemisphere of our planet, this is the season of late winter, the time when, during yet another snowfall and more frigid weather, our bodies long for spring, with its warmth and the lengthening of days and the blessing of more sunlight.

The Church, in its wisdom, has appointed this season for us to be intentional about working on our relationships with God–

the season of Lent, into which we now enter. 

This Lenten season is, first and foremost, a season of longing–

the time of year when the Church reminds us to long for the spring of God’s love to flow into to us like the rising sap in the trees, and for the warmth of God’s compassion and mercy to bring light and warmth into the chill of our hearts that are caught in the icy grip of sin.

There’s a lovely hymn by Natalie Sleeth, unfortunately not in any of our hymn books, that captures this longing I’m talking about—“There’s a bulb within a flower, in the seed an apple tree, in cocoons, a hidden promise, butterflies will soon be free.  In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.” 

We are those bulbs, seeds, cocoons.

In this season of Lent, we long to grow and to become the unique and beautiful creatures that God longs for each of us to be. 

And like bulbs, seeds and cocoons, all of the action is happening inside of us, unseen by the outside world now, but gloriously visible later. 

So not only is this Lenten season a season of longing, but it is also an interior season, a season of going deep within and doing the hard spiritual work  required if we are to grow abundantly and ultimately to bear fruit in due season.

Lent is the time to enter into the dark potential of our hearts and souls, like turning the rich dark earth, and preparing it for the seeds which will grow and bear fruit. 

Our culture is all about being seen, having our fifteen minutes of fame, putting ourselves out there—“World, I’m here!”

But to be truly present in the world requires the intention on our parts to set  aside the world for a time.

How will you go about doing this inner work during Lent?   

Some people physically go away on Lenten retreats.  Most of us don’t have such a luxury.  We have to figure out how to go within in the midst of our busy days.

Prophets have known about the importance of this inner work since the beginning.  Joel told the people to rend their hearts, not their garments, and to return to the Lord.

And Jesus told his disciples to give generously, but in secret, to pray diligently, but in private, and to fast faithfully, without any outward signs of the fast.

The Book of Common Prayer tells us to enter into a time of self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.

How you choose to do these things will be up to you, but no matter what we all choose to do, please remember these three things.

First of all, the Lenten disciplines we choose should be directly related to our longing to get right with God.

Second, our disciplines are about going inside ourselves to get right with God.

Third, being intentional about this work is a necessity. 

All relationships, including our relationship with God, must be tended.  And so being intentional about setting aside time and being intentional about working on the relationship is essential if we are to grow into who God wants us to be. 

In a few minutes, we are going to have ashes imposed on our foreheads.  And this action is ironic in the light of what I’ve just said, because it is a very public action.  Many people go to a morning or a noonday Ash Wednesday service and wear their ashy crosses for the rest of the day, a public statement about the beginning of their Lenten disciplines. 

But this public act does ultimately capture the longing, the interior work, and the intentionality of this season of Lent.  These crosses remind us that we will someday die, but that our deaths are only new beginnings, and that this time on earth is just a piece of the infinity of time that we will spend in the presence of God. 

These crosses remind us that the interior work of Lent is much like death—our deaths precede eternal life.  The dying of the old things that keep us away from God gives us new life in which we can share in his resurrection, both in this world as we live lives shaped by resurrection hope  and in the world to come, when our resurrections become a reality.    

And receiving this cross of ash on the forehead is the first intentional act of this season, a reminder of the importance of setting aside time and being faithful to the  disciplines we’ve chosen to help draw us closer to God. 

Many of you have heard of Fanny Crosby, one of America’s greatest hymn writers.  She was blinded at a young age by a doctor who treated her eye infection with medicine that blinded her. 

And this blindness led Fanny Crosby into a life of longing, longing to see God face to face.  Her outward blindness gave her  interior sight, and her spiritual discipline became the writing of over 8.000 poems in her lifetime, many of which were set to music and became hymns that we still sing today. 

And so as we prepare to receive our ashes, we’re going to pray by singing “I am thine O Lord, “ a poem that came to Fanny Crosby as she sat with the family of Willian Doane and they discussed the blessedness of being near to God.  He later wrote the hymn tune for this poem.  Please stand with me and turn to LEVAS 129.

I am thine, O Lord, I have heard thy voice

And it told thy love to me;

But I long to rise in the arms of faith,

And be closer drawn to thee.

Refrain

Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord

To the cross where thou has died,

Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord,

To thy precious, bleeding side. 

Consecrate me now to thy service, Lord,

By the pow’r of grace divine;

Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,

And my will be lost in thine.

Refrain

Oh, the pure delight of a single hour

That before thy throne I spend,

When I kneel in prayer, and with thee, my God,

 I commune as friend with friend!

Refrain

There are depths of love that I cannot know

Till I cross the narrow sea;

There are heights of joy that I may not reach

Till I rest in peace with thee.

Refrain

Amen.

Resource:

My Heart Sings out, Compiled and Edited by Fiona Widal-White. “In the bulb there is a flower,”  by Natalie Sleeth.