The Miracle of Easter

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, April 1, 2018.  The Bible verses used are John 20:1-18.

            It’s Easter Sunday!

            All week in all of our special services, we’ve read all the bad stuff.  Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane, asking God to spare him from what he knows is coming, but yet agreeing to do it if that’s God’s will.  Jesus being betrayed.  Jesus being arrested.  Jesus being questioned.  Jesus being beaten and tortured.  Jesus being humiliated.  Then, Jesus being killed.  All the bad stuff.  All the stuff we’d really like to skip over, and that sometimes we do skip over.  And now, finally, we get the payoff!  We get the celebration!  The tomb is empty!  He is risen!

            And that’s cool and all.  But the payoff does not work if we skip over the bad stuff.  It’s only because we know all the bad stuff that the miracle of Easter really seems like a miracle.

            Think about it.  If we skip from Palm Sunday to Easter, what do we have?  We have Jesus riding into Jerusalem in triumph, hearing the cheers of the crowd, being proclaimed the king, and then Jesus rising from the grave in triumph, seeing the amazement in the faces of everyone as they see that Jesus lives.  Jesus goes from triumph to triumph.  And again, that’s really cool, but it’s not reality.  Jesus did not go from triumph to triumph.  Jesus went from triumph to tragedy and back to triumph. 

If we skip over the tragedy, we lose the meaning of the triumph.  We lose the miracle of Easter.  Easter becomes just a nice holiday to hunt eggs and eat chocolate bunnies.  And not that there’s anything inherently wrong with hunting eggs and eating chocolate bunnies, but if that’s all we get out of it, Easter becomes just another secular celebration.  The miracle of Easter is lost.  It’s only through the sadness and shame of what human beings--people like you and me--did to Jesus that we can truly appreciate the glory and the triumph of this Easter day.

Mary Magdalene was not able to skip over the tragedy.  She was there.  She was there when Jesus carried his cross through the streets.  She was there when they put Jesus on the cross. She was there when the notice Pilate prepared, the one that read, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” was attached to the cross.  She was there when the cross was raised up.  And she was there when Jesus died.

Can you imagine how she must have felt?  Mary Magdalene was one of the closest followers of Jesus.  She had been traveling with Jesus for some time.  She had seen Jesus work miracles.  She had seen him say and do all sorts of amazing things.  And now she was saw him die.  She had to have been devastated. 

But even in her devastation, even in her despair, Mary Magdalene kept her faith.  At least, she kept it enough to do her duty.  She went to the tomb on that first Easter Sunday to prepare Jesus’ body for burial.  In the Jewish faith, there were certain rituals that you were supposed to do when someone was to be buried, and Mary went out there to start doing them.  

She finds the stone rolled away and Jesus’ tomb empty.  And that just made her feel worse.  She had no idea what had happened.  What she thought was exactly what she said to Peter and John, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

And that, in its way, is also an expression of faith.  Now, granted, Mary did not know that Jesus had been raised.  In fact, the thought that Jesus had been resurrected, that he was alive, does not seem to have occurred to her.  But still, how does Mary Magdalene refer to Jesus?  She calls him “the Lord”.  She doesn’t say, “They have taken Jesus out of the tomb.”  She says “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb.”  Even though she does not know what’s happened, even though she thinks Jesus is dead, she still calls him “the Lord”.  Despite everything, Mary Magdalene still believes that Jesus is “the Lord”.

And then, of course, Peter and John went running out to the tomb to see.  They saw that Mary was right, the tomb was empty.  But then, after they saw that, they left.  But Mary Magdalene stayed.  We don’t know why she stayed.  But it seems to me that this is an expression of faith, too.  This was the last place she had seen Jesus, and so she was going to stay there.  She was going to stay in the last place Jesus had been, just in case he came there again.

And of course, he did.  And at first, Mary did not know who he was.  But then, she did.  And her faith was rewarded!  Jesus was live!  And in an instant, her despair turned to joy like Mary Magdalene had never felt in her entire life.  

But suppose Mary Magdalene had not gone through the tragedy.  Suppose she had seen Jesus ride into Jerusalem in triumph on Palm Sunday, and then had left town for a week.  She knew nothing of what happened.  She did not hear about his betrayal or arrest or death or any of that.  And then she comes back to town and sees Jesus.  Would she have had the same reaction?

Of course not.  It would not have been any big deal to her to see Jesus.  I mean, she’d have been happy to see him, of course.  But there would’ve been no reason for her to feel joy.  She’d never have known anything any different.  It’d be like if I saw you last week at the Palm Sunday service and then saw you again today.  I’m happy to see you, don’t get me wrong.  But there’d be nothing unusual about it.

Here’s the point, or actually two points.  The first point is that if you and I skip from Palm Sunday to Easter, we miss out.  We miss out on the joy.  We miss out on the wonder of Easter.  We miss out on the miracle of Easter.  That Jesus loved us enough to allow himself to be betrayed, to be arrested, to be beaten, to be humiliated, to be killed.  And he did that for us, for you and for me.  Jesus willingly took the punishment for our sins, so that you and I would know that our sins can be forgiven and that we can have salvation and eternal life through our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior.

Because, you know, that’s the real miracle of Easter.  Jesus rising from the dead was, indeed, a miracle.  No question about it.  But the even greater miracle is that Jesus allowed himself to be killed in the first place.  The even greater miracle is that, knowing exactly who we human beings are, knowing how weak and sinful and unloving and selfish we human beings are, Jesus still thinks we are good enough, and important enough, and valuable enough, that he would go through all of that for us.  Knowing exactly who we are, Jesus still died for us.  Jesus died to give us the chance for salvation and eternal life.  That’s the greatest miracle of Easter.  And if we skip from Palm Sunday to Easter, we miss that.  We miss out on the tragedy, but we also miss out on the miracle.

And here’s the other point.  I would venture to say that most of us here have had some sort of tragedy in our lives.  If it did not happen to us personally, it happened to someone we’re close to and someone we care a lot about.  And if you have not had that happen yet, the chances are that it will happen at some point in your life.

We wish that life was not that way.  We’d like to skip over the tragedy.  Sometimes we ask why God is putting us through it.  We ask why God does not take the tragedy away. 

That’s okay.  If you remember, Jesus asked that God take the tragedy away from him, too.  Jesus prayed that, if there was some other way for the salvation of human beings, God not make him go through the suffering and death.  No one, not even Jesus, wants to go through a tragedy.  It’s okay if we pray for God to take that away from us.

But ultimately, Jesus realized that God the Father wanted him to go through with it.  And sometimes, that’s what we realize, too.  Sometimes we pray for God to take us out of a situation, and God says no.  God tells us we need to go through the situation.  We may not understand why.  Jesus may not have understood why.  He may have, of course--he was the divine Son of God, after all--but I think it’s possible that, as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus did not understand why the salvation of human beings had to come this way.  But he understood that it did.  And that was enough for him.

And it needs to be enough for us, too.  It’s hard.  I know it’s hard.  When we’re going through a tragedy, we don’t understand why God would tell us we need to go through it.  And while it’s always hard to go through a bad situation, it’s even harder when we don’t understand why.  It’s hard for us to say, as Jesus did, that for whatever reason, it’s God’s will that I go through this, and that’s enough.

But remember, it was only by going through the tragedy that Jesus achieved his ultimate triumph.  And that can happen for you and me, too.  If you’re going through a bad situation right now, it’s entirely possible that it’s only by going through it that you will achieve a triumph later.

It’s not easy to see that when we’re in the middle of it.  It’s not easy to have that much faith.  But we know God is there.  We know God is great.  We know God is good.  And we know that God has plans and purposes that we know nothing about.  We also know, as it says in Romans Eight, Twenty-eight, that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”  It may be, just as it was for Jesus, that it’s only by going through a tragedy that you and I will achieve our ultimate triumph, too.  It may be that, if we skipped over our tragedy, we’d miss out on our own miracle.

We’d love to skip from Palm Sunday to Easter.  But if we do, we miss out on the miracle of Easter.  We’d love to skip the tragedies in our own lives.  But if we did, we’d miss out on the miracles of our lives, too.  And as hard as it is to go through tragedies, it would be even worse to miss out on the miracles.

May God bless each and every one of us.  And may none of us miss out on miracles.  Both the miracle of Easter and the miracles of our own lives.

Love and Happiness

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Friday, March 30, 2018.  The Bible verses used are John 19:17-38.

            The hymns we’ve done today may not have been all that familiar to some of you.  They’re certainly not among the most popular or happiest hymns we sing.  We don’t sing them very often, and the fact is that we don’t like to sing them very often.  They’re sad hymns.  They’re hymns that tell of the killing of Jesus Christ.

            Which, of course, is why we sing them today.  Today is Good Friday.  Today is the day we celebrate the death of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

            And that’s an odd phrase, is it not?  We celebrate the death of the Savior.  Is there any other religion that celebrates the death of its leader?  I cannot think of one.  They may commemorate it somehow, but celebrate it?  If there’s any other religion that does that, I’m not aware of it.

            And of course, the reason for that is that Christianity is the only religion whose leader did not stay dead.  And we know that.  We know that both Jesus’ death and Jesus’ resurrection were part of God’s plan for our chance for salvation.  And because we know that, we celebrate.  We don’t celebrate the fact that Jesus was tortured and killed.  We celebrate the fact that Jesus had the courage and the faith and the love to follow the plan of God the Father, even though he knew he was going to be tortured and killed.  We celebrate that God’s plan was followed and came true.

            It’s interesting, though, that nobody was celebrating at the time.  Obviously the disciples were not celebrating.  They were hiding, on the run, scared for their lives.  But no one else seemed to be celebrating, either.  Even the people who were directly involved in Jesus’ death do not seem to have been happy about it.

            Pilate was not happy.  We’re told that he was afraid of Jesus.  He tried to get out of having Jesus killed.  He told the people he could find no basis for the charges against Jesus.  He tried to get the people to let him release Jesus to them.  But ultimately, Pilate could not stand up to those who wanted Jesus killed.  But even in that, he had a notice attached to the cross that said, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”.  Pilate was not happy at all about the role he played in this.

            The Roman soldiers probably come the closest to being happy about this.  They divided up Jesus clothes, each taking a share.  But even in that, they did not take any particular joy in Jesus being killed.  It was just a job to them.  It was one of their duties as soldiers.  You can just hear them shrugging their shoulders and saying, “Jesus lives, Jesus dies, it’s all the same to me.  I get paid the same either way.”  The soldiers were just out there doing their jobs and getting what they could for it.

            Even the Jewish leaders don’t seem to be happy.  You’d think they would be, right?  After all, they’d finally gotten what they wanted.  They’d been trying to figure out a way to kill Jesus for a long time.  Now they’d finally gotten it done.  And yet, if they were happy, if they were celebrating, the Bible does not tell us about it.  In fact, the main concern of the Jewish leaders seems to have been just to get this over with as quickly as possible.  They went to Pilate and asked to have the legs broken of those who were being crucified, so they’d die faster.  And I understand that they wanted the bodies taken down before the Sabbath, but still.  It sounds like the Jewish leaders were not proud of what they’d done.  They just wanted to put the whole thing behind them as fast as they could.

            I don’t think Jesus was very happy on that first Good Friday.  I suspect, and I hope, that despite that pain, Jesus found some satisfaction in the day.  Because after all, this was the day Jesus won.   Jesus withstood all the temptations he had been subject to while he was on earth, and they were pretty substantial temptations.  He withstood the temptation to run away or to shut up when things got hard.  He withstood the temptation to compromise or to water down his message.  He withstood the temptation to use his divine power to establish an earthly kingdom, as so many people wanted him to do.  He withstood all those and many other temptations.  Jesus stayed faithful to the plan God the Father had laid out for him.

            But still, I doubt that Jesus was very happy at the time.  How could he be?  No one would be happy about being tortured and killed.  Jesus was killed in a very painful way, and that was done deliberately.  And don’t think that Jesus, as the Divine Son of God, could not feel pain.  He could and he did.  Jesus went through agony on the cross.  We probably don’t think about that often enough--the incredible pain that Jesus went through just to save sinners like you and me.

            It’s kind of odd, when you think about it.  Here’s this day that we now call “Good Friday”, and yet at the time, it looks like no one thought it was good.  Literally, nobody.  As far as we can tell from the Bible, no one was happy on that first Good Friday.  It’s like the sadness of the day was so profound, so pervasive, that it affected everyone, even the people who were making it happen.

            These days, it seems like society puts a very high value on happiness.  You can read all kinds of quotes from all kinds of people telling you that the most important thing in life is to be happy.  That we should do whatever makes us happy.  That if something makes you happy, then it does not matter what anyone else thinks.  Society tells us that nothing should be more important than our happiness.

            That’s not a Biblical concept.  Jesus did not say that our main goal should be to be happy.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being happy.  I’m a pretty happy person myself.  I think God likes it when we’re happy.  But Jesus did not say “Do whatever makes you happy.”  Jesus did not say happiness is the most important thing in life.  Jesus said the most important thing is that we love God.  Jesus said the most important thing is that we love our neighbor.  Jesus said the most important thing is to treat others as we would like them to treat us.  Jesus said the most important thing is to go and make disciples.

            Now, if those things make us happy, that’s great.  And I hope they do.  But even if they don’t, we’re still supposed to do them.  Jesus did not say love God if it makes you happy.  Jesus did not say love your neighbor if it makes you happy.  Our happiness has nothing to do with it.  These are things we’re supposed to do because Jesus told us to do them.  And because Jesus is the divine Son of God, this is God telling us to do those things.  And that, in and of itself, should be enough reason for doing these things--because God told us to.  Whether they make us happy is irrelevant.

            Now again, I hope doing these things does make us happy.  But it won’t, at least not all the time.  Quite honestly, there are times when I really don’t feel like showing love to my neighbor.  There are times when I know I should go and do something to help someone, but I’d really rather stay home and watch the ball game.  There are times when I know I should go and visit my parents in the nursing home in Armour, but I’d really rather not make that eight-hour round trip.  I may, after it’s all said and done, be glad that I made myself get up and do those things anyway, but at the time, getting up and doing what I’m supposed to do does not always make me happy.  And maybe that’s true for you sometimes, too.

            Jesus was not happy that he had to die on a cross.  In fact, he prayed that God the Father would let him avoid doing it.  But when the time came, Jesus did it anyway.  Jesus did what God the Father wanted him to do.  Jesus did it out of love--love for God the Father and love for each and every human being who’s ever been or ever will be.

            That’s the example for us to follow.  There are times when God asks us to do something and we’re not happy about it at all.  In fact, sometimes we might pray that God would let us avoid doing it.  But when the time comes, we need to do it anyway.  We need to do what God wants us to do.  And we need to do that out of love--love for God and love other human beings.

            There’s nothing wrong with being happy.  But happiness should not be the ultimate goal for a Christian.  The goal of a Christian should be to follow wherever God leads us, even if he leads us to a cross.  That’s what Jesus did.  That’s what God wants us to do, too.

It Took Love

This is the message given in the Maundy Thursday service in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are John 18:1-14, 19-24, 28-40; John 19:1-16.

            We read about the things Jesus went through on that first Maundy Thursday.  Being arrested.  Being bound.  Being questioned.  Being beaten.  Being questioned some more.  Being beaten some more.  And, finally, being sentenced to death.

            When you think about it, it’s incredible that he went through it all.  For one thing, Jesus had done nothing wrong.  He was completely innocent of everything he was accused of.  And Jesus knew that.  You heard how he said, “If I said something wrong, testify as to what is wrong?”  And his accusers could not do it.  They could not testify to anything that Jesus had said or done that was wrong.

            It goes even further than that.  When Pilate asked the Jewish leaders what the charges were against Jesus, they could not tell him.  All they could say is, “If he were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.”  Not only could they not prove that Jesus had done anything wrong, they could not even say what they were accusing him of doing wrong.

            It’s such a mockery of justice, when you think about it that way.  Not only was Jesus declared guilty based on no evidence, Jesus was declared guilty without anyone ever saying what he was guilty of.  Jesus was not crucified because of anything he said or did.  Jesus was crucified simply because of who he was.

            And for another thing, Jesus did not have to go through with this.  There are any number of ways Jesus could’ve avoided being killed.  He could’ve just not gone to Jerusalem in the first place, right?  I mean, he knew what was going to happen when he went there.  Jesus could’ve gone somewhere else, or stayed where he was.  If he had, he would not have been killed when he was, and maybe he would not have been killed ever.

            Or, Jesus could’ve stopped Judas from betraying him.  He knew what Judas was going to do.  He told Judas, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”  And really, Jesus would not have had to do anything himself.  All he’d have had to do is say to the other disciples, “Hey guys, guess what Judas is going to do.”  They’d have taken care of Judas right then and there.  He would not have been able to go anywhere and betray anybody.

            Or, after Judas left, Jesus could’ve hid out somewhere.  He could’ve avoided the garden of Gethsemane.  Jerusalem was a big city even back then.  There had to be plenty of places to hide and plenty of people who’d have hidden him.  Or, he could’ve just left town.  It was night, after all.  He could’ve gotten away before anyone knew where he’d gone.

            Or, he could’ve allowed the disciples to fight.  Peter wanted to.  He cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant, Malchus.  He was ready for a fight.  And I’m sure the other disciples were, too.

            Or, Jesus could’ve called for divine help.  In fact, in Matthew’s version of events, Jesus tells Peter, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”  

            Or, Jesus could’ve tried to cut a deal with the Jewish authorities.  I have to believe that if he’d been willing to compromise, if he’d been willing to recognize the authority of the Jewish leaders, if he’d agreed to apologize for breaking the Jewish laws, they’d probably have been willing to let him go.  Or, at the most, give him a mild punishment, rather than having him killed.

            So many ways Jesus could’ve avoided this.  And you know, don’t you think it had to be tempting?  I mean, Jesus knew what was in store for him.  He knew how hard it was going to be.  He knew how painful it was going to be.  He knew how humiliating and degrading it was going to be.  Knowing what was in store for him, knowing he’d done nothing to deserve it, knowing that he could avoid it easily, don’t you think it was tempting for him to do that?  I do.  I don’t see how it could not have been.

            Think of what it took for Jesus to resist that temptation.  It took courage, for one thing.  Some people say this is the ultimate definition of courage--to make a choice to face a danger that you don’t have to face.  After all, if you have no choice but to face something, that’s not really courage.  That’s just doing what you have to do.  But if you could avoid the danger, and yet you turn and face it, that’s courage.  It took a lot of courage for Jesus to allow himself to be arrested and tortured and killed.

            It took a lot of faith, too.  Now, maybe you say, well, he was Jesus.  He knew who God the Father was.  He knew how things were supposed to go when he died.  Of course he had faith.  And there’s truth in that, of course.  But at the same time, you and I know who God the Father is, too.  And we know, through our faith in Jesus Christ, how things are supposed to go when we die.  And yet, could you do what Jesus did?  Could you willingly give your life, even though you did not have to?  I don’t know that I could.

            But the main thing it took was love.  Love for God the Father.  And also, love for human beings.  Love for us, for you and for me.

            Jesus loved God the Father so much that he was determined to do what he was supposed to do.  He was determined to do it simply because God the Father wanted him to do it.  In telling Peter to put his sword away, Jesus says, “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”  In other words, Jesus tells Peter, this is all part of God’s plan.  And I’m going to follow God’s plan.  I’m going to do what God the Father wants me to do, what God the Father sent me here for.  I’m going to do that no matter what the cost to me is.

            That’s love.  That’s incredible love.  To do what God wants you to do, no matter what the cost to yourself might be.  Even if it’s the ultimate cost--death.  To go through what Jesus went through, even though he could’ve avoided it, just because it was what God the Father wanted him to do.  It shows a tremendous love for God the Father for Jesus to have been that obedient.

            But it took love for us, too.  Because even though Jesus knew what he’d been sent here to do, there had to be times when he thought, “Is it worth it?  Are they worth it?”  After all, Jesus had been observing human beings up close and personal for over thirty years.  And over the last three, he’d observed all kinds of things about them.  And just in the last week, Jesus had seen a lot of human beings doing a lot of terrible things.  In fact, just in this night, Jesus saw betrayal, fear, hatred, violence, injustice, ignorance, and cruelty, just to name a few.  Jesus saw all the worst things about humanity.  The thought must have crossed his mind, “Do I really have to go through with this?  Do I really have to give my life to save them?”

            And as we’ve said, he did not have to.  But he did it anyway.  He did it out of love.  Love for you and love for me.

            Jesus knew everything about human beings.  He saw all the worst things about us.  And yet, Jesus loved us so much that he gave his life for us.  He took the punishment for our sins.  He took the punishment that should’ve gone to us.  And he did it willingly, even though he did not have to.  That’s incredible love.  Jesus has incredible love for each one of us.  Jesus has incredible love for you.  And Jesus has incredible love for me.

            Soon we’ll be sharing Holy Communion.  We’ll eat the bread and drink the juice, as some of us have done so many times before.  We’ll ask for God’s grace to enter into us, as some of us have done so many times before.  We’ll ask for God’s forgiveness, as some of us have done so many times before.

            And those are all good things to do.  And we should do them.  But remember what Jesus said when he gave the first Communion.  He said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

            So, as we share in Holy Communion tonight, let’s do that.  Let’s take Holy Communion in remembrance of Jesus Christ.  Let’s remember the courage Jesus had.  Let’s remember the faith Jesus had.  And let’s remember the love Jesus had, both for God the Father and for each of us.  And as we take Holy Communion, let’s be truly grateful for what Jesus did for us. 

Jesus' Farewell Address

This is the message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Wednesday, March 28.  The Bible verses used are John 14-17.

            I’m not going to give a message tonight.  Instead, I’ve got a guest speaker, or at least a guest writer.  What I’m going to do is let Jesus himself give the message.

            What I mean by that is that in John chapters fourteen through seventeen, Jesus gives what could be called his farewell address to his disciples.  So what I’m going to do tonight is read you Jesus’ farewell address, and then just make a couple of comments afterward.  I’m not going to use the screen—after all, Jesus did not have a screen.  What I want you to do is what I’ve asked you to do at other times.  I ask you to again imagine you are in the story.  Imagine you are one of the disciples, listening to Jesus.

            This comes after the last supper.  It comes after Judas has left to go and tell the Jewish authorities where Jesus is going to be.  It comes after Jesus has told Simon Peter that, before morning, Simon Peter will three times deny knowing Jesus.

            The disciples don’t know what’s coming next.  But they know they’re in a dangerous situation.  They know something’s about to happen, even if they don’t know what it is.  So, Jesus starts talking to them.  Here’s what he says:

            “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

“You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

“Come now; let us leave.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.  They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

“All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”

At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”

Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

“Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

“Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

“I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

That was the end of Jesus’ farewell address.  After that, he went out to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he would be arrested.

Did you put yourself into the story?  Did you imagine yourself as one of Jesus’ disciples, listening to all this?  What did you think?  How did you feel?

I doubt if the disciples really understood everything that Jesus was telling them.  After all, as we’ve seen before, the disciples hardly ever really understood what Jesus was telling them.  But they knew Jesus was leaving.  They did not know exactly what that meant, really.  They did not know how it was going to happen.  They still, even at this point, did not really understand that Jesus was going to be killed and was going to rise again.  But they knew he was leaving them, at least for a while.  And they knew the one thing they were supposed to do:  love each other. 

That was it, really.  Obey Jesus’ teaching and love each other.  And don’t worry about the consequences.  Jesus said, people may hate you, but that’s okay.  People hate me, too.  Don’t worry about it.  The Holy Spirit will be here to protect you.  You don’t know what that means, either.  You don’t understand what the Holy Spirit is, and I really cannot explain it to you.  But just know that the Holy Spirit is from God.  So you don’t have to be afraid. 

And that’s really the lesson for tonight.  So let’s do it.  Let’s obey Jesus teaching, love each other, and not worry about the consequences.  The Holy Spirit is here, and the Holy Spirit is from God.  We don’t have to be afraid.

Our Plan or God's?

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, March 25, 2018.  The Bible verses used are Mark 11:1-11.

            So it’s Palm Sunday.  As we do every year, we commemorate the triumphant entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem.  Jesus riding on a donkey to the cheering of the crowds.  The crowds shouting “Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

            It was not just a coincidence that Jesus was riding on a donkey.  As you heard, he specifically told the disciples to get it for him.  He told them where it would be and what to say if someone questioned them about it.  Some people think Jesus had arranged this with the donkey’s owner ahead of time, others think it was simply Jesus using his divine power.  Either way, though, Jesus specifically fixed things so that he would enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey.

            That was not a coincidence.  It was to fulfill an Old Testament prophecy.  In Zechariah Chapter Nine, Verse Nine, we read, “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!  Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!  See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

            When Jesus arranged things this way, he knew exactly what he was doing.  Everyone in Jerusalem, and especially the Jewish leaders, knew it, too.  Jesus was entering Jerusalem in a way that was specifically designed to claim the title of king.

            And on that day, the common people appeared to be quite willing to give Jesus that title.  You heard how they spread their cloaks on the road in front of him.  You heard how they spread the palm branches in front of him, too.  You heard how they were shouting his praises as he rode past.  We sometimes focus on how some of this same crowd would betray Jesus later in the week, and we’ll talk about that in our Holy Week services.  But there’s no reason to think that, at this moment, the crowds were not entirely sincere.  They truly believed that Jesus had come to save them.  After all, that’s what the word “Hosanna” means.  It means “save”.

            The people knew they needed to be saved.  They had been waiting for someone to save them.  They’d had others they thought might be the one to save them.  Sometimes it looked like it was going to happen, but it did not.  Now, they hoped Jesus would be the one.  They wanted Jesus to be the one.  They convinced themselves that Jesus would be the one.  And so, when Jesus came in riding on a donkey, making a claim to be the one, they were overjoyed.  They thought their dream had come true.  And it had.  But then again, it hadn’t.

            Have you ever had a time when you really wanted something?  You worked for it, you hoped for it, you prayed for it.  You did everything you could to make that thing you wanted come true.  And then it did!  And you were overjoyed!

            But then--we’ll, you were not quite as overjoyed any more.  This thing you thought you wanted was not quite what you thought it would be.  In fact, it was a lot different than you thought it would be.  You felt disappointed.  You felt let down.  You felt like you’d been fooled.  You’d wanted this thing for so long, but now that you had it, it was not anything like the thing you thought you wanted.

            That’s how the crowd felt, as the week went on.  The Savior turned out to not be what they thought he would be.  The Savior turned out to not be what they wanted him to be.  They’d waited for the Savior for so long and now, when he came, he turned out to be not anything like what the Savior they’d been waiting for.

            It’s sad, really.  You see, they thought the Savior was going to be an earthly king.  They thought the Savior was going to be a mighty warrior.  They thought the Savior was going to defeat the Roman government, give Israel independence, and restore Israel to its former glory.  That was the Savior the crowd thought they were getting.  That was the Savior they thought they were cheering for.

            It was not Jesus’ fault.  Jesus explained many times how things were going to go.  He said repeatedly that he would be killed.  But the crowd did not want to hear it.  Even his closest friends, the twelve disciples, did not want to hear it.  They were trying to make Jesus into who they wanted him to be.  And when he turned out not to be what they wanted him to be, they felt disappointed.  They felt let down.  They felt like they’d been fooled.  And some of them turned on Jesus because of that.

            But I cannot be too hard on the people in the crowd.  Because I’ve had times when I’ve done the same thing.  I’ve tried to make Jesus who I wanted him to be.  And I don’t like it when it turns out that he’s not.  Maybe you’ve done the same thing.

            And it’s not because we’re trying to be selfish or anything like that.  The crowd was not trying to be selfish when they wanted Jesus to be an earthly king.  They thought that was what he was supposed to be.  They thought that was what was right.  They thought Jesus being the earthly king, the mighty warrior, was what was the best thing.  In other words, they thought that what they wanted was, in fact, what God wanted.  And they could not understand what had gone wrong when it did not work out that way.

            I think that’s what we fall into a lot of the time.  We think we know what’s right.  We think we know what’s best.  We think that what we want is, in fact, what God wants.  And when it turns out that it’s not, well, we cannot understand what’s gone wrong.

            The thing is that God has plans and purposes that we know nothing about.  And when we become convinced that we do know them, a lot of times we head down the wrong path.  Not intentionally.  We do it because we convince ourselves that what we want is what God wants, and that’s not how it works.

            One of the greatest verses in the Bible is Proverbs Chapter Three, Verse Five:  “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”  That’s what the crowd was missing.  They were trusting in their own understanding rather than trusting in the Lord.  That happens to us, too.  With the best of intentions, sometimes, we trust in our own understanding rather than trusting in the Lord.  And just like the crowd on that first Palm Sunday, when it turns out that our own understanding is wrong, we’re confused.  We don’t know what happened.

            God had a plan for salvation.  But it was not the plan the crowd wanted.  It was not the plan the crowd expected.  Because of that, some of them turned away from God.  But there were some who continued to trust God’s plan even though they did not understand it.  They stayed faithful.  And they saw God’s plan for salvation come true.  It did not come the way they expected it.  But it came the way God wanted it to--through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  And eventually, people realized that God’s plan was so much better than their plan that there was no comparison.

            God has a plan for this church.  It’s not always the plan I want.  It may not always be the plan you want, either.  But God still has a plan.  And we need to trust God.  We need to keep trusting God even though we don’t understand.  We need to stay faithful.  If we do, we’ll see God’s plan for this church come true.  It may not come the way we expect it.  But it will come the way God wants it to.  And eventually, we’ll realize that God’s plan is so much better than our plan that there’s no comparison.

            God has a plan for you, too.  And God has a plan for me.  It’s not always the plan I want.  It may not always be the plan you want, either.  But God still has a plan.  And we need to trust God.  We need to keep trusting God even though we don’t understand.  We need to stay faithful.  If we do, we’ll see God’s plan for our lives come true.  It may not come the way we expect it.  But it will come the way God wants it to.  And eventually, again, you and I will realize that God’s plan is so much better than our plan that there’s no comparison.

            The people in the crowd cheering Jesus thought they knew what was supposed to happen.  But God had a different idea.  When the people trusted their own understanding, rather than trusting God’s plan, they missed out.  Let’s not miss out.  Let’s trust God’s plan, even when it’s different from our understanding.  If we do, we’re going to see some amazing things, both for the church and for our own lives.

Winning the Fight

There’s a blog post that I wrote back in 2012.  I’ve republished it on my blog somewhere close to Easter every year since.  It’s not about Easter or Lent.  It’s about one of the most delicious foods ever created:  Cadbury Crème Eggs.  The basic thrust of the blog post is that, yes, Cadbury Crème Eggs are not good for you.  You should not make them a staple of your diet.  But on the other hand, no matter how healthy we try to keep ourselves, we’re all going to die sometime.  Therefore, we should not deny ourselves all the pleasures of life.  So, go ahead and eat a Cadbury Crème Egg once in a while.  It’ll be okay.

I’m not going to publish that on my blog this year.  I no longer believe it.

Let me explain.  Yes, Cadbury Crème Eggs are still delicious and no, it’s not a sin to eat one once in a while.  But as I thought about it, it seemed to me that this same argument could be made to encourage us to do all kinds of things that are not good for us.  In fact, it’s one of the ways sin enters our lives.  We tell ourselves, you know, life is short.  We’re all going to die sometime.  We should not deny ourselves the pleasures of life.  God wants us to enjoy our lives, right?  So, go ahead and do what you want to do.  It won’t hurt anything.  It’ll be okay.

It’s a dangerous way of thinking.  It’s a slippery slope.  Every time we do something we know we shouldn’t, because “it won’t hurt anything, it’ll be okay”, it becomes that much easier to do something else we know we shouldn’t.  And then, it becomes easier to do something else.  And something else.  Until, without even thinking about it, we find ourselves doing all kinds of things we know we shouldn’t do.

Now, don’t take this too far.  I’m not trying to argue that Cadbury Crème Eggs are the gateway drug to a lifetime of sin and perdition.  I’m not writing about Cadbury Crème Eggs, per se.  I’m not writing about food at all.  I’m writing about a method of thought that’s not helpful.  It seems to me that we should spend as little time as possible entertaining that method of thought.  We will be better off, in all circumstances, if we do what we know is right, rather than doing something because “it won’t hurt anything, it’ll be okay.”

Temptation is a difficult thing to fight.  I give in too it far too often, in all kinds of contexts.  After all, that’s why we pray “Lead us not into temptation”--because we know temptation is hard for us.  But every time we win a fight against temptation, even over something as trivial as Cadbury Crème Eggs, it makes it that much easier for us to win the next fight.

Let’s win as many fights against temptation as we can.  And if we need to start by resisting Cadbury Crème Eggs, well, it’s as good a place to start as any.

Do the Right Thing

This is the message used in the midweek Lent service of the Gettysburg United Methodist church Wednesday, March 21, 2018.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 14:13-21.

            In these Wednesday night services, we’ve been looking at all the things Jesus sacrificed while he was on earth.  Jesus sacrificed his life on earth, of course, when he went to the cross.  And we’ll talk about that next week.  But Jesus sacrificed some other things, too.

            In previous weeks we’ve talked about how Jesus sacrificed his life in heaven, sacrificed his home, and sacrificed family.  Tonight, we look at something else Jesus sacrificed.  Jesus sacrificed his privacy.

            Most of us rather like our privacy, don’t we?  It can be a little harder to hold onto in a small town, of course.  People tend to know more about each other in a town this size than in a big city.  And of course, as we said a couple of weeks ago, Nazareth in Jesus’ time was a smaller town that this.

            Still, there were probably times, before Jesus started his ministry, when he was just one of the townspeople.  A face in the crowd.  Sure, people recognized him as the town carpenter, but that was all.  There’s no reason to think people treated him as anything special or different at that point in his life.  If they did, the Bible does not mention it.  Jesus was probably just another guy in town.  Someone you’d see at the synagogue on Saturday.  Someone you’d visit with about the weather or about the crops.  Someone you’d have over to supper once in a while, or who’d have you come over once in a while.  He was just a guy.  Just one of the crowd.

            And then, he started his ministry.  And he started doing miracles.  He started healing the sick.  He started giving sight to the blind.  He started feeding thousands of people with almost nothing.  He started teaching people, saying things that only someone who was at least a prophet could say.

            And he could never live a normal life again.  Because all of a sudden, Jesus was a celebrity.  He attracted crowds everywhere.  Eventually, it became nearly impossible for him to get away.  As you heard in our reading for tonight, even when he tried to get away, he could not.  It says he “withdrew...to a solitary place.”  And yet, the crowd heard about it, and they followed him to this solitary place.  In fact, before he could even get there, the crowd was waiting for him.

            Now, I’m sure Jesus knew, when he started his ministry, that this would be the natural consequence of it.  He would not even have needed to be the divine Son of God to know that.  All he’d have had to do is use some common sense.  A man goes around healing people who’ve been lame for years, giving sight to people who’ve been blind since birth--that man’s going to attract attention.  Especially in that time, when the medical profession was not very far along.  Someone who could actually heal people who had what everyone thought were incurable diseases is going to have lots of people knocking on his door.

But even though he knew it, I wonder if he was totally prepared for the reality of it.  I mean, think of yourself.  Most of us live pretty anonymous lives, really.  I mean, sure, everyone in this town may know who we are.  But we don’t have to travel that far to go where very few people know us.  I can go to Aberdeen and maybe run into a couple of people I know, but not very many, and maybe not any.  And even if I do run into someone I know, it’s not like they’re going to be demanding my attention for hours at a time.  We’ll say hello, what brings you here, nice to see you, and we’ll go on our way.  And I can be just a face in the crowd.

            And you know, once in a while, most of us need that.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have no desire to live in Aberdeen or Sioux Falls or anywhere like that.  I like being in a place where most people know me.  But it is nice, once in a while, to be able to be anonymous.  To be in a place where no one’s going to ask anything of you.  To be just a face in the crowd.  I don’t want it permanently--we had more than enough of that when we lived in the Sioux City area.  But once in a while, for a couple of days, it’s kind of nice.

            Jesus had nowhere he could go where he could do that.  He had nowhere he could go where nobody knew him.  He had nowhere he could go where no one would ask anything of him.  He had nowhere he could go where he could be a face in the crowd.  Everywhere he went, people knew who he was.  Everywhere he went, people were making demands of him.  Heal me.  Feed me.  Teach me.  Even the disciples were constantly asking him questions.  Even worse, sometimes the disciples were trying to tell him what to do.

            I’m sure Jesus understood why this was so.  But still, I would think that had to be hard on him.  I wonder if sometimes he looked back wistfully at the quiet solitude he’d had in the carpenter’s shop.  Working with wood, or maybe sometimes with stone.  Solid.  Dependable.  The only demands anyone made of him were, maybe, that he’d hurry up and get their project done, because they needed it yesterday.  And when the day was done, go home, relax, have supper, and just forget about everything until the next day.  A life that was quiet.  Easy.  Peaceful.  The kind of life he knew he was never going to have again.

            Jesus gave it up.  He gave it up willingly.  He chose to live a life where he would have no quiet and no peace.  He chose to live a life where he would have people constantly crowding around him, trying to get a piece of him.  Sometimes just trying to touch him.

            And not only that, a life where people were constantly challenging everything he said or did.  A life where the Pharisees and others were constantly asking him trick questions, hoping to get him to say something that would allow them to arrest him.  A life where, again, even the people closest to him were always trying to tell him what he should or should not do, what he should or should not say.

            Most of us would not enjoy a life like that.  And there’s nothing to indicate that Jesus enjoyed it, either.  In fact, if you think about it, there’s nothing in the Bible to indicate that Jesus really enjoyed much of anything about his life on earth.  The Bible does not indicate that Jesus did not enjoy it, but it does not indicate that he did, either.

            And maybe that’s because, for Jesus, whether he enjoyed his life on earth was beside the point.  He was not sent here to enjoy life on earth.  He was sent here to save us.  Jesus was sent here to give us a way to escape the consequences of our sins.  Jesus was sent here to give us a chance for salvation and eternal life.  Jesus was sent here to show us the way and to encourage us to follow.  I would think--I would hope--that Jesus got some satisfaction from doing that.  But whether he got satisfaction from it was not the point.  Whether Jesus enjoyed being on earth was not the point.  The point was that Jesus did what God the Father had sent him here to do.

            You and I were put on earth to do certain things, too.  Now, that does not mean that we’re not allowed to enjoy life on earth.  I enjoy my life, and I hope you do, too.  It’s not like enjoy life is a sin or something.  I hope that Jesus enjoyed his life on earth, at least sometimes.

            But just like for Jesus, you and I were not put on earth just for our enjoyment.  We were put here to serve God.  And that means that, sometimes, we need to do things that we do not enjoy.  Sometimes we need to do things we’d rather not do at all.  I hope, when that happens, we get some satisfaction from doing those things.  But whether we get satisfaction from them or not, we still need to do them, because those things are the right things to do and because they’re what God wants us to do.

            Now, I understand that’s not exactly a news flash to most of you.  I suspect that everyone here has done things you’d rather not have done, things you did not enjoy doing, because you knew they were the right thing to do and they were what God wanted you to do.  But sometimes, when that happens enough times, we can start to kind of feel sorry for ourselves.  We can start to get tired of it.  We can even start to burn out.  We start to ask, “When do I get to do what I want to do?  When do I get some time to myself?  When do I get some time to just relax and take it easy?”

            If you feel that way, know that Jesus understands how you feel.  Jesus might even have felt that way himself sometimes.  But even if he did, he continued to do the right thing.  He continued to serve God.  He continued to do what God sent him to earth to do.  Jesus knew his primary purpose on earth was not to enjoy himself.  His primary purpose was to serve God.  That’s our primary purpose, too.

            Jesus gave up his privacy, he gave up his chance for a quiet, normal life.  Instead, he did what God wanted him to do.  Let’s be grateful to Jesus for that.  And let’s be inspired by Jesus’ example.  Let’s not worry about what we might have to give up.  Let’s focus on doing what God wants us to do.