Jesus or the World

This is the message given at the Wednesday night Lent service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are John 15:18-27.

            Most of us want to be liked.  It’s a natural human thing.  I’m not saying it’s the most important thing in everyone’s life, necessarily.  But we all want to have friends.  We all want people to think well of us.  It’s just part of being human.

            And it’s not that that’s wrong or anything.  I’ve said many times that God put us into communities, into churches, into other groups because God knows that life is too hard for us to go through by ourselves.  We need other people to be there for us, and we need to be there for other people, too.  After all, even Jesus had his inner circle, his close friends, the twelve disciples.  Even Jesus did not try to go through life on earth alone.

            But while it’s natural to want to be liked, and it’s natural to want to have friends, even that can be carried too far.  Jesus had his close friends, but he also had a lot of enemies.  That’s why he was killed, after all--Jesus had powerful enemies, people who were scared of what he was doing, people who thought he had to be stopped at all costs.  Those enemies thought the way to stop his was to kill him, and they did.

            We know now, of course, that not even death could stop Jesus.  But the point is that Jesus was not universally loved, or even liked.  He had people who hated him.  They did not hate him for any specific thing he had said or done.  I mean, if they’d been asked, they’d probably have tried to point to certain things, but those things were not the reason they hated him.  In fact, according to Matthew, Chapter Twenty-six, his enemies had no real evidence to present against him at his trial, and so they just made up some lies to tell against him.  Jesus’ enemies did not hate him for anything specific that he had said or done.  They hated him because of who he was.  They hated him because he was the divine Son of God.  And they hated him because he was not afraid to say so, and he was not afraid to speak on behalf of God the Father.

            Jesus could have compromised on that, you know.  Jesus could have tried to appease his enemies.  He could’ve said, well, you know, I’ll stop claiming to be the Son of God.  I’ll still heal people and I’ll still talk about love, but I’ll just shut up about judgment and about repentance and all that other stuff.  Then my enemies will stop hating me and leave me alone.

            Jesus could’ve said that.  But if he had, he would not have been true to who he was.  He would not have been the Savior, the Messiah.  He would’ve still been a good guy.  He would’ve still done some good things.  And he would’ve probably had a lot more people like him.  But he would not have been able to give us salvation and eternal life.  And he would not have done what God the Father had sent him to earth to do.  The only way for Jesus to do those things was for him to be who he truly was.  And that meant that he was going to have enemies, powerful enemies.

            Our Bible reading takes place on the last night of Jesus’ life on earth.  Jesus knows what’s going to happen.  He knows he’s going to be arrested and ultimately killed.  And the disciples know it, too.  At least, they know Jesus is going away.  And so, Jesus is trying to get the disciples prepared to carry on without him.

            Jesus knows that, when he leaves, there’s going to be a lot of pressure on the disciples.  See, while Jesus was with them, Jesus took the brunt of the criticism.  Jesus was the focus of all the hatred.  But when Jesus leaves, that hatred is going to be focused on the disciples.  

            And Jesus knows that it’s going to be a real temptation for the disciples to compromise.  Again, we all want to be liked.  No one wants to have enemies, especially powerful enemies.  And so Jesus tries to warn the disciples about what’s going to happen.  He wants them to be ready, so they can resist the temptation to compromise, to go along and get along.  He wants them to be able to stand firm in their faith, so they can continue his work of spreading the gospel.

            So, Jesus tells them right out.  Look, if you stay true to me, the world is going to hate you.  It’s going to hate you every bit as much as it hated me.  Because if you follow me, you’re going to be doing things differently from the way the world does them.  You’re going to say things that are different from what the world says.  You’re going to live your life differently from the way the rest of the world lives their lives.  And people are going to hate you for that, just like they hated me for it.  

And Jesus tells them, there’s nothing you can do about that.  They don’t hate you because of anything specific that you’ve said or done.  They hate you because you follow me.  The only way you can get them to stop hating you is to stop doing what I’ve told you to do, stop saying what I’ve told you to say, and stop living like I told you to live.  The only way you can get them to stop hating you is to go along with them and be like them.  If you go along with what the world wants, they won’t hate you anymore.  But you won’t be my disciples anymore, either.  You won’t be able to call yourselves my followers.  You’ll be following the world, not me.

Those are things Jesus tells us, too.  If we stay true to Jesus, there are people who are going to dislike us.  They may even hate us.  The only way to stop that is to stop following Jesus and to follow the world instead.  

Maybe we don’t feel that so much here, in small-town South Dakota.  But at the same time, I suspect it affects us.  It’s just that we’ve gotten used to it, so we don’t really think about it.

But just how open are we really willing to be about our faith?  How often do we talk about it with people?  How often do we even do something like posting about it on facebook?  I mean, we might make some soft, generic statement about believing in God, although we might not even do that.  But how many of us are willing to really take a stand, to really be bold about our Christian faith?

I don’t say this judgmentally.  Maybe you are willing to do that.  In fact, you may be more willing to do that than I am.  Because I have to admit there are times when I’m not as open with my faith as I should be.  There are times when I back off about it, times when, in effect, I censor myself.  I’m not proud of that, but it’s true.  And I don’t think I’m the only one.

Why do we do that?  Because of what Jesus said.  We’re afraid that if we’re really bold about our faith, if we really stay completely true to Jesus, people will dislike us.  They may even hate us.  We don’t want to get into arguments about our faith.  We don’t want to have to defend our faith.  And so, we back off.  We soft-pedal it.  We censor ourselves.  We make compromises with the world, rather than standing up the way Jesus did.

I would think that the disciples had those same fears.  And I think Jesus knew that.  That’s why Jesus told them one other thing.  He told them that, even though he was leaving, he was not leaving them alone.  He said, “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.”

The Advocate.  What we now call God’s Holy Spirit.  Jesus will send the Holy Spirit from God the Father.  The Holy Spirit is a spirit of truth.  And he will testify about Jesus.

I wonder if the disciples understood what that meant.  I doubt it.  But at the same time, it must have made them feel better.  Jesus was leaving, and that made them sad.  But at least they knew someone was coming.  And that someone was being sent by Jesus, so they knew it would have to be someone who was pretty good.  And knowing that, they could be confident in their faith.  They could stand up to the world, if they needed to.  They could handle it even if the world hated them.  Because they knew the Lord was still with them.  And knowing the Lord was with them, they could deal with anything that could happen, even if it was something that looked really bad.

Jesus tells us that, too.  Jesus tells us that we are not alone.  The Holy Spirit is with us.  The Holy Spirit is a spirit of truth.  If we are on the side of truth--God’s truth-- the Holy Spirit will help us deal with whatever may happen.

Knowing that, let’s do what the disciples did.  Let’s be confident in our faith.  Let’s stand up to the world, when we need to.  Let’s not compromise with the world.  Let’s not soft-pedal our faith or censor ourselves out of fear.  Let’s be bold about our faith in God.  Let’s be bold about saying that Jesus is the Savior.  Because that’s the truth.

It’s a human thing to want the approval of the world.  But it’s a Christian thing to want the approval of Jesus Christ.  Let’s speak out and live out our faith the way Jesus told us to.  If we do that, the Holy Spirit will help us stand up to the world.