Tearing The Veil . . .

     At Clergy Colloquium this week, I found myself in one of those conversations only clergy have.  You have these types of conversations at social gatherings with your co-workers.  No doubt Hunter’s people talk lots about printing because, well, printing is their business.  Gregg’s people likely talk incessantly about insurance things like TPA’s or Co-Pay’s or other words that tickle our ears outside the industry because, well, that’s what they do.  Teachers talk about education or disciplining or research, doctors and nurses probably talk about how much free advice is sought when they are at gatherings of non-doctors and non-nurses.  I see the laughter.  This will likely come as no surprise, but we clergy are no different.  We talk about uncooperative Vestries, clergy killers, and any number of other congregational issues.  This week, though, I found myself listening to a complaint about the Farewell Discourses of Jesus.  It’s the kind of complaint that can really only be had among clergy.  Every year, we spend time reading and discussing Jesus’ farewell to His disciples.  It gets old was the primary complaint.

     It was then that I reminded those around me that we have four readings each week.  In theory, we could go several years without ever preaching on the Farewell Discourses.  But that means we would have to preach on Acts or the Psalms or whatever letter.  Apparently, some clergy really only preach on the Gospel.  During our conversation, though, we piqued the interest of our bishop.  Presumably, he heard some words that made him think he needed to pastor us or that hit a soft spot in him.  He strolled over and joined in the conversation.  We shared preaching stories, good and bad, and we talked about our approaches to preaching on the different books.  Eventually, as it is the Season of Easter, the conversation turned to the question of the book of Revelation.  I had to admit that I understood my colleague’s reticence to preach on that book all too well.  Bishop John asked why, and I shared how I had been warned in seminary by a couple Anglican/Episcopal  luminaries never to teach a Bible Study on the book of Revelation.  They had both experienced splits as a direct result of the book.  One of the sage pieces of advice that they had for a new priest was to learn from their mistakes!

     Those of us gathered together chuckled.  But then the bishop asked the questions.  Did we not think all Scripture was worthy of study and training the saints?  Was not Revelation inspired by God?  Were we not doing violence to the book by ignoring an entire book?  Were we not making our congregations more susceptible to the claims of the modern false prophets by avoiding the important teachings in their entirety?  So, partly as challenge but partly as recognizing you have likely not heard much about the book, outside the works of Tim LeHay or some other such preacher or author, I decided to preach on Revelation this week.

     The major difficulty with the book, I think, is the style.  This is as challenging a book for us to read as, say, a book filled with Dilbert’s comics might be two thousand years hence.  Can you imagine if societies 2000 years from now unearthed our favorite Dilbert book?  What would they think of our business practices?  That is the difficulty you and I have with this book.  This style no longer really exists.  We call it an apocalypse.  Most of us today blur the meanings of apocalypse and Armageddon, when we really have not stopped to consider what they really mean.  Armageddon is the site of the last eschatological battle in the book of Revelation.  It is a site.  You can find it on a map.  Apocalypse, though, comes from the Greek word that means unveiling.  In our lives as Christians, what is veiled?  We know that God is at work in the heavens working out His plan of salvation for good, right?  But how is He doing that?  Who are His workers?  How does He convey His messages now?

     I’ll give you another hint: when has a veil been significant in the worship of God and its tearing?  Yay!  You remembered!  For those of us who sleep through the readings, the Holy of Holies was surrounded by a veil woven of four distinct cloths.  The four types of cloth represented the four elements: fire, wind, water, and earth.  They were woven together to keep human beings from coming into contact with the righteous, holy God who cannot tolerate any sin.  We know this from countless stories in the Old Testament.  Not even Moses or Elijah, the two great prophets who are present in the Transfiguration of our Lord, were allowed to see God’s face.  The four cloths were woven together to create this incredibly think curtain, echoing that God was there, even if we could not see or hear Him.  Only the high priest, and only on the Day of Atonement, could a human being enter the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God.

     One of the significant details of the death and Resurrection of our Lord is the tearing of that veil from top to bottom.  Imagine the force that would be required to tear four distinct cloths woven together.  And the Gospel writers tell us it was torn from the top to the bottom, signifying an action of God.  What else explains the tearing from top to bottom?  Were human beings to have torn the veil, we would start at the bottom where we can reach.  Theologically, the tearing of the veil was of incredible significance.  Once again, through the work and person of Jesus Christ, humanity had unhindered access to God just as it did before sin.  Everyone could seek God anywhere.  There was no “special, designated” space for encountering the Lord.  In fact, Jesus will teach His disciples, who in turn taught those who taught those who taught those who taught us, that the New Temple, the place where God resides, is our heart.  That was one of the major apocalypses revealed by Christ’s death and Resurrection.

     The book at which we are looking at today speaks of the complete unveiling at the eschaton-the end of the age for those of us who like fancy words or the Second Coming of our Lord Christ, to keep it simple.  Those of us who struggle with the book seem to treat it like it is a bunch of unveilings, as if the title of the book was plural.  But John’s book is in the singular.  It is the book of Revelation, the Book of The unveiling.  So what’s being unveiled?

     Perhaps a great place to start is from negative example.  If there is only one unveiling, does it make sense to read the book like a secret code for which we need the secret key?  One of the great damages we do is to pretend as if the book can teach us the date of our Lord’s return.  It’s crazy to read the book this way.  Jesus reminds us Himself, in red letters, that only the Father knows the day.  If only God the Father knows the day of Jesus’ return, does it make any sense to you or to me that you or I or someone else will decipher the code?

     But what about the wars?  What about the famines?  What about the diseases?  The plagues?  The earthquakes?  The floods?  The wars?  What about them?  Think back on Jesus’ teachings.  He reminds us that wars will happen, that nations will rise up against nations, and that these are but the birth-pangs.  When in history has there not been wars?  When has there not been natural disasters?  When has there not been famines?  Just because these things have not impacted us or our ancestors directly does not mean they have been terrible for those who lived through or died in them.  It’s easy for us to think earthquakes are no big deal when they happen in Haiti, in Ecuador, or Japan rather than central Tennessee.  It’s easy for us to think nuclear accidents are of no major consequence when the polluted lands are in Chernobyl or Japan and not Nashville or Brentwood.  But they are horrible events, terrifying events, cataclysmic events.

     For what purpose did Jesus use these natural disasters?  He was teaching His disciples and us of the need to be ready!  His return will be like a thief in the night, and we must needs always be prepared!  Our lamps should be filled with oil—we should be adorning ourselves to use the language of John.  We must be ready to accept the invitation to come the moment it arrives.  Otherwise, we end up like the foolish ladies or those who are in the outer darkness, gnashing our teeth and wailing in the outer darkness.

     What of the antichrist?  Again, what of them?  Yes, you heard me right, I said them.  One of the challenges of reading prophesy is that we cannot know how many times it might be fulfilled when God is at work.  As I said at the beginning, in one sense this book is about THE unveiling at the end of the age, the eschaton.  In another sense, though, there are lots of other little unveilings.  John wrote in a time when Roman persecution was a given.  Nero rounded up Christians, placed pyres on street corners, and lit our spiritual ancestors on fire at night so that they could be a light in the world.  The lucky ones were just sold as slaves, after having their homes and businesses taken from them.  How messed up must that world have seemed to them?  We worship the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?  John, man, look around.  He does not seem to care too much what is happening to us.  Either that or Nero is too powerful.  How does one speak of an enemy of God and still stay alive?  Maybe one uses numerology .  666 equals Nero Caesar.  Some Christians freak out about buying stuff when the number is some form of three sixes, as if those numbers have real power over us who have been redeemed by Christ’s blood!  In truth, ask someone in John’s day to what it referred, and you would have gotten a name, if they felt you could be trusted.

     Have there been other antichrists?  Of course.  Who among us would argue that Hitler, Stalin, Amin and countless others have championed evil rather that Christ?  Heck, perhaps some of us have been antichrists in the lives of others.  I remind us constantly that the way we live our lives, the way we interact with others, is the greatest sermon others will ever hear.  Ever met someone turned off by the sermons of others?  Ever meet someone driven from the Church by antichrist-like behaviors of condemnation, cover-up, and hypocrisy?  I see the squirms.  Understand, there may yet be lots more antichrists to come, but Revelation is less concerned with the antichrists than with the new creation that follows Christ’s return.  The antichrists, and THE antichrist, Satan, are doomed to fail.  They are fighting the Alpha and the Omega.  They have less chance of winning against God than Vandy does against Alabama in football this fall.

     So what is being unveiled?  Look at your reading today.  I was raised in a Baptist and the Methodist tradition.  I remember as a child how the Baptist pastor, Pastor Brewer, would justify his two and three hour sermons by claiming they were a foretaste of the eternal worship we were to experience.  Wives would complain about Sunday meals being ruined because they had started roasts or hams or turkeys with the expectation of being home by 12:30 or 1pm to take them out of the oven.  Men would complain about missing sporting events or rounds of gold, and this pastor would tell us of our need to repent because the next life as going to be just like going to church.  I see some of you have heard the same sermons or learned the same lessons and suffer the same repulsion.  Seriously.  Can you imagine spending an eternity in such an existence?  If a few hours felt like an eternity, an eternity in hell at that, what would an eternity feel like?  Lol

     If we come to church to thank God for what He has done for us in Christ, to be encouraged when we are down, to be taught what Christ-like behavior truly is, to share our joy with others when we are joyful, what would be the purpose of such an existence in the life to come?  If our minds and hearts are re-created to love what God loves, to hate what God hates, to know what God wants us to know, why would there be a need for worship in the way we do it on earth?  If the veil has been completely torn, and we are dwelling with a God who is dwelling with us, how is this kind of church necessary?  I would argue it is not.  Were I in a class at Vandy or elsewhere, I would even argue that the purpose of this church will have been fulfilled once Christ returns.  Church for us is meant to remind us of the heavenly truth.  As above, so below.  We come to church to give thanks, to seek solace, to be fed and nourished and prepared for the work He has given us to do—all with the hope that one day, one glorious day in the future, we will enter our Sabbath rest with Him.  But that is another sermon . . .

     Again, looking at the text, what is unveiled?  A new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.  Can you imagine?  At some point in the future, God will recreate a new heaven and a new earth.  It might be in just a few seconds or it might be thousands of years from now, we will dwell in a land completely untainted by human sin.  For those surfers and beachcombers among us, worried that there will be no crashing waves or sands for our toes or waves to ride, the sea being no more is likely not a decision by God not to have oceans.  More likely, given the ANE and its understanding of the seas, it is that polemic against chaos.  In the world to come, when He creates the new heaven and the new earth, there will be no chaos.  It makes sense, right.  We are returning to that period like the Garden of Eden.  We will walk with Him, talk with Him, and have no need to worry about earthquakes or floods or any of those chaotic events that seem to testify against His dominion.  Life and Creation will be good, just as He created them in the beginning.

     I say like the Garden existence because it will be in the Holy City.  The city descends, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  Throughout Scripture the eschaton is described as a wedding feast.  The Church, you and me and the countless throng that has come before us, is adorned as a bride for her husband.  Our tattered clothes are replaced with the finest clothes, most beautiful jewels, and resplendent beauty.  We face the ugliness of the world, the perils of the world, the dangers of the world, the needs of the world confident in our Betrothed.  For John our adornments are our acts of righteousness, especially to others.  The new creation may not be here yet, but we are always to be preparing ourselves, dressing ourselves, adorning ourselves, as if it could happen any moment in our lives. Our service of others is our jewels.  And our Betrothed is none other than the Lord God, the Maker of heaven and earth.  We who seek God, who strain to hear His voice, see His handiwork in the world around us, who beg Him like little children to give us every single want, will dwell with God.    The relationship for which we should be longing will finally be consummated.  I see the squirms, but that is the language of the Bible, and it makes sense in human terms, right?

     Part of the fight that is plaguing us in the church and in society at large is the understanding that consummation, I am speaking in euphemism because we have a few youth here who I do not need to grow up yet, feels great.  Right?  Why are you all blushing or giggling?  It does.  Come on, let’s pretend we are adults and adult Christians at that.  Consummation speaks to us of that acceptance for which we all long, right?  Deep down we all want to be loved?  We are afraid we are unlovable, and we desperately do not want our fears to be confirmed?  Why do you think consummation after major fights is particularly desired by some?  Those fights often serve to strengthen our fears.  Our willingness to return to one another as husbands and wives testifies to the world around us of the desire our Lord has for us.  It becomes a sacrament, right?  We sin, we forgive, we return to one another.  Every time we sin against one another we worry that the relationship is irreparably broken.  When we sin against God, what do we worry?  What does the enemy of God try to suggest?  That our relationship with God is irreparably broken.  Consummation, though, reminds us that the relationship is not broken.  We are still loved.  Intimately.  Despite our failures.  All of a sudden, we forget the world and the pressure of life for just a moment.  Is there a better feeling?  But consider how fleeting that feeling of consummation, of acceptance and love truly is.

     Is it any wonder that God uses that language to describe THE Consummation?  How can there be no more tears?  How can there be no more sting?  How can Paul count the advantages and blessings of his life as mere crap on the rubbish heap? What can make all these things we love and things we fear not even worth a split second of our mourning, our crying, or our pain?  That we are loved deeply and truly.  That the One being in all the universe who knows us best, who knows those things we hide desperately from one another, would choose to dwell with us and to allow us to dwell with Him!  Intimately.  Not out in the distant suburbs!

     These seven verses ought to be incredible words of comfort and hope for us and not the culmination of some fancy de-coder effort.  This nonsense you and I experience on earth is passing away.  Its passing began with the work and person of Christ.  Its passing will be completed at His return.  To the world that rejects Christ and His offer of salvation, this is all that there is.  But to those who call upon His name, the pains and suffering and the joys and exultations of this life pale exponentially by comparison to the existence God has planned for us.  He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  Nothing He purposes can be thwarted.  His purpose, brothers and sisters, is that one day He will dwell with us and we with Him for all eternity.  He will be our God, and we will truly be His people!  He gave His life that we might realize His plan for us.  We can give ours to Him confident that He will bring us home!

Peace,

Brian†

Jesus is calling you . . .

     Some years ago, I think right after Karen and I were married but before we had children, I was watching a CNN or Fox interview of a former Israeli soldier.  Most of us know that military service is a requirement in Israel.  Anyway, this guy was talking on television about this incredible experience he had had as a soldier.  During one of the Gaza uprisings during the 80’s, Israel had responded as they are wont to do.  One of their tactics, at least according to this soldier, was to round the flocks and herds up and confiscate them, thereby putting economic pressure on those who might support the uprisings.  The Palestinian herders would tend their flocks in the wilderness, searching for water and grassy areas to feed and water their herds and flocks.  Soldiers would be detached to round all these animals up in a couple large pens.  This soldier’s job was to guard one of the big pens.

     Anyway, while the fighting was still going on, a Palestinian woman and boy came to the pen and asked the soldier to release her sheep to her.  Her flock of 25 sheep had been confiscated with everyone else’s.  She reminded to the soldier that God loved widows and orphans.  Her husband had been killed a couple uprisings before.  She was simply trying to scratch out a living to provide for herself and her son.  They had not been involved in the uprising, and she asserted they were being treated unjustly.  The soldier laughed at her position.  Her husband had supported a past uprising, so this punishment seemed just.  The people knew that Israel would round up flocks to hinder economic support, so maybe they should have done a better job convincing their leaders not to kill Jews or bomb Jewish establishments.

     The woman simply would not take no for an answer.  She kept nagging the soldier to release her small herd.  What were twenty-five animals in so vast a herd?  How were she and her son to live?  How was God glorified in his unwillingness to help her in her need?  Eventually, she wore the poor soldier down.  When I reflect on the interview, I often think of the persistent or nagging widow in Jesus’ stories.  I doubt this soldier knew Jesus’ teaching on persistent widows, but he was eventually moved to make a concession.  He told the lady he would love to help her.  He really would love to help her.  Unfortunately, he had no way of figuring out which sheep were hers and which sheep belonged to others in so vast a herd.  No doubt he was only assuaging his conscience.  He wanted to help her, but he could not risk giving someone else’s animals to her.  It was a conundrum with seemingly no solution, and he told the lady such.  It allowed him to play the nice guy card and not disobey his commanders at the same time.

     She responded that there was no problem at all.  Before he could ask what she meant, she started calling her sheep.  The soldier, as he shared this story on television, could not believe his eyes.  As she called their names, heads popped up in the great herd in the pen!  It was like they knew her voice and she knew them all by names!  When he said that to her, she confidently stated that she did.  She had nursed every sheep at some point right after their birth.  She had sheared every sheep multiple times since her husband’s death.  She knew them; they knew her.

     More amazingly to the soldier, when he asked how she was going to get them out of the herd and back home, she told him they knew her son as well as they knew her.  She told her son to start playing.  The son pulled out a flute or recorder of some sort and began to play.  Sure enough, a couple dozen sheep fought their way through the mass of sheep to get to the boy’s music.  And when he turned and headed for home, the sheep followed him like he was the Pied Piper!  Just as weird, at least from the soldier’s perspective, none of the other sheep bolted for freedom.  He thought lots of sheep would head with the boy and that he would have to figure out which sheep were hers and which were someone else’s, but the other sheep were apparently tone deaf.  They made no move to follow, and the soldier could think of no reason not to let the woman and boy go with their sheep, aside from what he would get from his superior officers.  A decade later, this story stood out in this soldier’s mind.  Two decades after his interview, it still lingers in mine as a wonderful illustration of Good Shepherd Sunday.

   We don’t have many shepherds around Music City these days, do we?  How can we really understand this idea of sheep and shepherding?  Yet it is an image to which our Lord turns over and over again.  It is an image in which many of us find comfort during times of bereavement.  Why does Psalm 23 sing to us?  Why are the words of John that we heard today so comforting?  Why do we still listen and long for them, even if we don’t understand the in’s and out’s of sheep farming in this day and age?  Why do we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday each and every year, just as we celebrate Christmas, Palm Sunday, Easter, Pentecost, and other important days?

     I know from asking that a few people among us have actually been to sheep farms in New Zealand and a couple and the blessed land of Scotland.  Few people, though, have tried their hand at wilderness farming.  By that, I mean there is a completely different way of shepherding in New Zealand and Scotland and in parts of the United States than there is in other parts of the world.  Many of us, when we think of shepherding probably think of fenced in meadows, such as we might see along the I-81 corridor, where the sheep are given plenty of room to roam and graze.  In some places, they don’t even bother to build fences and just let the sheep roam.  In the ANE, however, a different shepherding was practiced.  Walk a few miles east of Jerusalem and what do you hit?  The rocky wilderness.  Keep going east, and it does not matter much whether one bends to the north or to the south, what is next?  Eventually the deserts.  Those of you who have been to Jerusalem: is there a less likely hospitable place for farming?  Don’t forget to remove modern irrigation from your mind.  It is a difficult place to care for herds of animals.  It requires a lot of knowledge and a lot of movement.

     Water, of course, was the big issue.  If we look back over the Old Testament, we realize that Israel knew this and God knew this.  God promised to send the rains, so long as Israel was faithful.  When droughts occur in the Old Testament, they are not just natural weather phenomena.  Droughts are theological commentaries; they are signals that Israel is being disobedient.  Think of Elijah and the slaying of the priests of Ba’al or of Naomi and her husband’s decision to head to Moab, for examples.  When the rains came, life flourished.  Most of us have probably seen movies on the Discovery Channel of how wildernesses and deserts respond to rain.  So long as the water is there, flowers bloom and plants grow.  The animals that feed on the plants thrive.  When the rain stops, of course, the water that has fallen collects in rivulets and streams, some of which would be nigh impossible for you or me to find we were stranded in the wilderness.  Some of that water flows into small ponds in wadis.  Getting the picture?  Anyone can shepherd when water is plentiful, but it takes a wise, seasoned, competent shepherd to care for his flock weeks and months after the last rain.  Add in the danger of predatory animals and poachers, and you get the idea of what shepherds faced during the time that Jesus walked the earth.

     It was with this very idea of shepherd that Jesus makes His claim about being the Good Shepherd in John, and in Psalm 23, and elsewhere throughout Scripture.  Sheep are not the stupid animals that people sometimes like to claim.  I’ve no doubt there are stupid sheep, just like there are stupid cats and stupid dogs and other animals.  Sheep are stubborn, though.  They are relatively blind, as well.  That makes for a bad combination.  How will a stubborn animal with poor eyesight ever find food or water in a wilderness or desert?  Won’t it all look blurrily the same?  Won’t all directions seem identical?

     I see the nods.  Now you are beginning to see how we really do resemble sheep.  We are stubborn, and we see God poorly!  Many of us are like Tarzan in the Geico commercial and go stubbornly on our way “because we know” like Tarzan knows.  And God has to remind us, sometimes with His crook and other times with His voice and other times using other means, where He is and where He wants us to go.  We would stubbornly head off in our own directions, directions that lead to starvation, dehydration, predation, and death.  And He wants none of that for us!  He would have us fed abundantly, watered lavishly, and protected.  That’s His will for us.  But, like sheep, we stubbornly go astray.  We continue in our determined efforts to head that way or to swim to Portugal.

     The image of God as the Good Shepherd in Scripture is important because it reminds us of our own nature and of God’s desire.  We need food and water; our Good Shepherd leads us to those streams and wadis of refreshment that human eyes cannot always see.  We need protection; our Good Shepherd protects us from those dangers, many of which are lying in ambush, just waiting for us to stumble or head off in another direction.  What’s more amazing is that our Good Shepherd lays down His life to protect us!  Our Good Shepherd is so powerful and so protective and so supplying that He can feed us a banquet in the midst of our enemies, and we need not fear!  And though He is more powerful than we can ever imagine, He chooses to speak to us in soothing terms: Follow Me!  This way!  Drink!  Eat!  Sleep!, much in the same way as the woman’s voice or her son’s melody spoke to the sheep!

     Lastly, and no doubt of most importance, there is the promise that we can never be stolen by someone else.  We can give our allegiance to someone simply because we are stubborn and blind, but we can never be stolen out of His care.  Never.  And just in case we might be tempted to think that Jesus might be using hyperbole, He reminds us that not even death can separate us from Him, if we choose to be numbered among His herd!  I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish remind us of the power and provision of this Shepherd.

     During the telling of the story, the Israeli soldier spoke of the cacophony of voices and noises that surround the pens.  Lots of people were arguing with soldiers, animals were making all kinds of noises, trucks and cars were passing by, vendors were hawking wares or trying to convince guards to sell them animals on the cheap, officers were issuing orders, and even jets were passing by.  As he reflected on the event nearly a decade or so later, the soldier was still amazed that within that cacophony the sheep heard the woman’s voice and her son’s music and latched onto both sounds, seemingly deaf to all that was happening around them.

     In many ways, such a cacophony surrounds us.  We live in an election year that seems to be full of hyperbole and bluster.  Candidates are claiming to be our only hope.  We live in a society that equates fame with worldly wisdom and chases after the famous for their opinions on great matters so that we will know how to act or what to think.  We live in a world nearly drowned in screaming advertisements: Have it your way!  You deserve a break today!  We live in a world where self-help gurus are all too excited to share with you your need to be fixed and how you can do it—for a price, of course!  We live in a world that claims that its wisdom is greater than the wisdom of God.  And all Jesus does to counter this cacophony of noise is to speak gently, to remind us that He is the Good Shepherd.  Only our Lord loved us enough to die for us.  Only our Lord knows what is truly best for us!  Only our Lord longs to provide for each one of us abundantly.  And His weapon of choice for now is the call of a shepherd?

     As crazy as it sounds, it is.  The mark of the Good Shepherd vs. that of the hired hand, is the willingness of the shepherd to die to protect his flock rather than fleeing.  When faced with the harsh and stark reality of the Cross that Maundy Thursday so long ago in the Garden of Gethsemane, our Lord chose not to flee but to save the flock—you, me, and all those who call Him Lord.  He laid down His life and picked it up again so that we might know, beyond all shadow of a doubt, His love and His ability to care for us.  We might face disease, privation, broken relationships, and any number of new wildernesses and new predators in our modern lives, but we still belong to the same Shepherd—the One who knows us and calls us by Name, asking us to trust and to follow Him all the way to the Father’s presence!  Do you hear His voice calling for you ever so gently this day?  He has already proven Himself your and my Good Shepherd.  Why not follow where He leads?

Peace,

Brian†

We are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit . . .

     Don’t you find it at least a bit ironic that we read about “doubting” Thomas on “Low” Sunday?  Does anybody else think we should really include Thomas’ story on Easter, when there are far more people who do not want to believe in attendance?  After my conversations last week, I really think we should reconsider our lectionary readings.  Some of you commented last Sunday or during the week on the time it took for me to make my way to the Parish Hall after the second service.  For those waiting on me, I apologized, but I was stopped by a number of visitors and/or infrequent attenders.

     For those not here last week, I compared life to the NCAA Tournament .  We face choices much like teams face competitors in a bracket.  How we choose impacts our lives.  God, of course, offers us that opportunity to share in the glory of a champion, well, THE Champion—Jesus Christ.  To be sure, the consequences of bad and sinful choices may still play out in our lives, but the guarantee is that we all make the winner’s celebration in the end, even if we are upset in the early rounds.  Don’t laugh.  It worked.  And that’s what happens sometimes when we trust that the Holy Spirit will show up and say what needs to be said.

     Clearly, way more was said than what came out of my mouth.  I had people stop me and talk with me about the importance of the historicity of the Cross and Resurrection and Ascension.  I had people stop and talk with me about how their situations were irredeemable.  I had people even stop me, thank me for inviting them to join us in this faith walk at Advent, and the proceed to explain to me how they were not saints like the people who attend here!  It’s ok to laugh.  I did.  I even pointed out that the chief hypocrite was the shepherd of this herd of cats, but they were having none of it.

     In truth I only had 8 or 9 such conversations after church last week.  But each of the conversations lumped easily into one of those three categories, if you will.  One thread, though, was common among them all.  When I asked why they had chosen to come to church at Church of the Advent to remember and celebrate this event of which they do not yet feel a part, the answers came back to you.  So and so is always talking about your sermons.  I wanted to see if you could make Easter real.  So and so isn’t like all those other Christians I read about.  She lives in the real world and faces real problems.  One was kind enough to share the problems of a parishioner.  But she never gives up.  She always faces whatever life chucks at her.  I want to know why?  I even got a couple well, I have to on Easter and Christmas.  If I don’t, there’s real hell to pay with my parents, Father. 

     Don’t waste your time trying to figure out which friend or family member stopped me and who said what.  Given the day, I doubt I would remember their faces, except the poor chap who thought you guys were saints and was shocked at my guffaw.  And some conversations started once I made it into the Parish Hall, so it is likely that I am conflating a dozen or more discussions.  But the conversations did make me realize something.  I need to remind you the truth of our reading from Acts this morning.  Turn there in your Order of Worship, if you want to follow along.  We will take for granted this morning that none of us present are doubting Thomases, at least in the way of Thomas the Apostle.

     Those of us who pay close attention to our readings might be surprised to learn that, although we are only in chapter 5 of the book of Acts, this is the third time the Apostles have been arrested and the second time they have been brought before the Sanhedrin, the court that found Jesus guilty and took Him to Pilate demanding His death.  Our reading today takes place after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, so we jump ahead in the story about 8 or 9 weeks.  To catch you up, Jesus has appeared repeatedly, commissioned the disciples and Apostles, and ascended into heaven.  Peter and John have healed the man on the Temple steps in the Name of Jesus.  That event was, of course, theologically significant in the ANE.  God’s fortress was His Temple in His city.  If Jesus was not His Son, Peter and John would never have been able to heal in His Name on the threshold of Yahweh’s Temple.  It’s horrible logic, to be sure.  Many in Israel thought that God had to protect Jerusalem and His Temple before the armies showed up to take Israel into Exile.  They were wrong.  God had instructed them over the centuries that the Temple was for them, not Him.  So here is Peter and John healing a man right under the nose of God!

     We can well imagine the conversations.  Some likely questioned their decision to have Jesus killed.  Names were powerful in the ANE.  To name something was to have power over it, to control it.  For Peter and John to be able to invoke Jesus’ name for healing was of incredible importance.  Maybe the rumors of the Resurrection were true?  Maybe the Temple priests were wrong and this ragtag bunch of disciples really understood God’s plan of salvation history?  The other questions would have likely dealt with the priests’ inability to heal the man in question.  Can you imagine how you all would respond to me if, day after day, week after week, you had to step over a beggar on your way into church.  I would likely tell you the poor soul had the right to seek alms from the faithful.  Then, sometime later, a couple of you heal that beggar in God’s Name.  How many would wonder why I had not tried to heal the beggar in God’s Name?  Worse.  What if I had tried and failed?  My guess is that more than a few of us would wonder whether we needed a new priest.  That is the situation created by Peter and John.  And the Sanhedrin is, understandably, none too pleased.

     The Sanhedrin had them dragged before them and strictly ordered them, as our translators put it this morning, not to teach and preach in this name.  The Apostles do not listen, as you can imagine, and are arrested again.  That time, though, God rescues them from the jail.  This time, though, God lets them face the accusers who just a few weeks ago put His Son to death.  How would you expect Peter and John to respond?  How would you respond?  Remember, during the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, just a few weeks ago, all the men deserted their Lord!  Poor Peter even denied Jesus three times, just as Jesus told him he would, before he leaves the scene weeping bitterly at his failure.  I could well imagine Peter trembling with fear.  No doubt many of us would, too.  But look at how the Apostles answer the Sanhedrin.  We must obey God rather than human authority.  The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.  God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.  Can you imagine?  What could cause Peter to go from denying Jesus in the face of that imposing servant girl to evangelizing the entirety of the Sanhedrin?  How do you explain it?  A plot to take over the Roman Empire and enjoy the “good life of power”?  Really, we think these guys are that smart and that forward thinking?  They get confused about yeast and feeding people and how greatness is assessed by God, when God is incarnate among them, but now they are able to grasp the intricacies of the Empire and plot its overthrow three centuries later?  Of course not!  They have seen the risen Jesus!  They have eaten with the risen Jesus!  They have had the Scriptures opened in their minds so that they understand the plan of salvation history and the central role that Jesus plays in that plan!  They have seen Jesus ascend to be with the Father again!  And they have witnessed and experienced the coming of the Comforter, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit!  Nothing is as it was that dark evening and darker Friday.  Everything has changed because Jesus has been raised from the dead!  They know that now.  They understand that nothing can take them from the Father’s hand.  They know there is no one to fear because they belong to God.

     We are witnesses to these things.  Just like those hauled before the Sanhedrin in our readings this morning, you and I are witnesses to these things.  Oh, I understand that, unless we are given mystical visions, most of us must depend on the faith blessed by our Lord during His confrontation with Thomas.  But we have seen and we have come to believe, have we not?  Maybe some of us have seen miracles in our own lives that rival the parting of the Red Sea or the raising of the dead.  Maybe some of us have experienced provision in the face of privation in such a way that we know, we absolutely know, that God gives us each day our daily bread.  Maybe some of us have experienced that Peace that passes all understanding in the midst of extreme danger, extreme hurt, or extreme loneliness.  Maybe some of us, like Mary last week, have heard His voice calling us.  Whatever the reasons, we have heard, we have seen, and we believe!  More importantly, we are witnesses to these things!

     The common thread running through my conversations with visitors last week, brothers and sisters, is that we are not doing a very good job of witnessing.  It is not only a problem that plagues us at Advent but also the wider Church.  You laughed a few moments ago because visitors thought you were saints.  If they knew us, if they truly knew us and who we are, they would understand that we are not saints of our own making, nor would they feel out of place coming before our Lord in this place to give Him thanks and praise.  We are real sinners who have been redeemed—you all especially because now you even come to church on Low Sunday!  We have all done bad things.  We have all done horrible things.  All of us still have secret sins we dare not share because we do try to keep up appearances.  Ironically, in pretending to be other than who we are, we give the impression that we are not like those in our families, in our places of employment, in our clubs and social gatherings, or those whom we encounter in our daily life and work.  There is, as the Collect notes today, a disconnect between what we profess by our faith and by how we interact with others in our lives.  We who have an intimate relationship with God, we who know He died even for our secret sins and washed us in His blood, fear that kind of intimacy with others.  We fear witnessing.

     As you have all figured out, I had this idea for a sermon very early in the week.  When I am settled on a sermon by Monday or Tuesday I get nervous.  I still beg God for signs like burning bushes or partings of waters.  Those of you who follow me on Facebook know I hit upon that amazing sign last night.  If I was worried at all about the force of the call I was going to issue in His name on your lives today, He cast that aside.  Last night, while killing time during commercials, I came across one of the saddest commentaries of our time.  The article was about how those under 30 are using MDMA, I think it is called, Molly to create authentic relationships.  Let that sink in for just a second.  According the article, those who value the drug claim it fast forwards, at a ridiculous pace, intimacy and relationships.  But does it really fast forward intimacy?

     All those who visit at your invitation last week are seeking.  They may not know who or what they are seeking, but they are seeking.  Most see “something” in you and want that for themselves, and so they are intrigued.  Maybe they want your unwillingness to give into despair.  Each person is different.  The problem, of course, is that the intimacy that they crave cannot be rushed.  How do we come to trust in God?  How is it that we Low Sunday attenders come to trust in God the way we do?  Is it not, to a large degree, due to His patient re-socialization of each and everyone of us?  We all work differently; we all see the world differently.  Some of us are Type A; some of us are not.  Some of us are very artistic; others of us are incredibly “left-brained.”  Yet we all find ourselves drawn to the same Lord, sharing the same bread and wine, celebrating what He has done for each and every one of us!  Those lessons are not learned overnight.  Those lessons cannot be rushed.  It took Abraham what, twenty-five years to begin to understand the offer of God?  How long did it take David to inherit his crown?  When we first called upon the saving name of Jesus, we were far different than we are today—at least I hope we all are, just as each of those who came before us were different from the men and women they were when they first encountered God!  Hopefully, our encounters with God have shaped us, molded us, transformed us into living saints and witnesses to these things.  We should be as different in our eyes as Peter was in his own eyes this day two thousand years ago.  And we, we should not be surprised by such things.

     What happens when we are baptized?  We die to ourselves, right?  The word for witness in Greek is martyr.  Whatever it is that we sought before we found Jesus, we die to.  If money was our primary focus before we encountered Jesus, we die to money.  If random sexual encounters were our primary focus before we encountered Jesus, we die to those.  If our reputation was the most valuable ting in our lives before we met Jesus, we die to reputation.  Whatever we valued before we met Jesus, whatever had a hold on our lives, we die to it or them when we enter those waters of baptism.

     And what happens on the other side?  We are raised to new life in Christ!  As the BCP puts it, we share in His Resurrection.  I know.  You thought Confirmation class ended many years ago.  You had no idea it should impact your life going forward each and every day.  But daily we die to self so that we can live in Christ, right?  And how do we live for Christ?  What is our charge we give as a congregation to new believers?  We receive you into the household of God.  Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim His Resurrection, and share with us in His eternal priesthood.  Is Peter doing anything other than the oath we all take?  True, His sanctification may be faster or slower than yours or mine, but should we be at all surprised that we share in his vocation just as he shares in ours?  Do we not share the same Lord?  The same Baptism?  The same light from the Light, as that Paschal Candle reminds us?

     I know it is frightening.  I know it is scary.  Some of us have carved out different lives.  Some of us are normal Christians when we show up for worship at Advent and super workers or super dads or super moms or super friends or super bridge players or whatever else we think we are when we show up in those places.  Were we to “get real” in these places where we work and play, people might begin to think we are Jesus freaks, holy rollers, or worse.  But Peter reminds us of a teaching in our baptism this morning that we are not alone in our witnessing.  The Holy Spirit witnesses with us.  It is an amazing claim, but ponder its truth.  Once again, what happens right before the congregational exhortation?  The celebrant marks the head of the baptized with the chrism proclaiming the words you are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own for ever.  These are not just words.  They are a Sacrament, an outward sign of the inward and spiritual grace that we proclaim is within us!  We who have been baptized into His death and His Resurrection are promised by none other than Him that we will receive the Holy Spirit!  We don’t have to worry about the testimony too much, because the Holy Spirit will help us say or do those things necessary to glorify God.  You know this.  You really know this.  And so do those who came because you invited them.  Already within you they see something, they hear something they want for themselves.  They want to know that it, whatever it is, is available to them, that their emptiness can be filled by that which fills you.

     We are witnesses to these things.  Peeking ahead, brothers and sisters, I am a bit worried that you are going to get sick and tired of hearing that exhortation during the rest of the Easter Season.  Hopefully, God will give me ways to repeat it without boring you, but I think it bears repeating.  You and I are hear because someone or someones witnessed to us.  We would do well to remember the faith that is within us and witness to those not yet members, that they, like us, might know He is Lord and share in His eternal glory.  Talk about the ultimate pay it forward!

     One last note, though.  Because you worship here this today that comes so long after Peter’s speech before the Sanhedrin, you might assume all went well.  You might very well expect that the Sanhedrin converted en masse and the Church began to flourish.  To be sure, the Church continued to grow.  We are proof enough of that truth.  But after the warning of a rabbi named Gamaliel, the Sanhedrin has the Apostles flogged.   You heard correctly.  The Apostles are beaten for their faithfulness.  Yet such is the power of God in Christ that even those things meant for evil can be redeemed by Him.  That is the reminder of last week.  We can do everything perfectly, the way God drew it up on the chalkboard for us, and still there is no guarantee that humanity will listen.  We may be mocked, we may be ostracized, we may ridiculed, and in some places, as C and T certainly understand, we may even be killed.  But in the end, He has promised that He shares in our sorrows and our pains even as He offers us a share in His eternal glory.  In the end, whatever is taken from us, we will count as rubbish, unworthy of remembrance, for He will redeem all of us and all our sufferings for His sake, that the world might know He is the Lord and we are His servants!

Peace,

Brian†