The Saint of Doubt

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, April 10, 2016.  The Bible verses used are John 20:19-29.

            After Jesus was raised from the dead, he remained on the earth for forty days before going up to heaven.  In this sermon series, “The After Party”, we’re looking at what the Bible tells us about those forty days.  Last week, we looked at Jesus appearing to Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus.  Today, we look at Jesus appearing to the disciples.

            When we hear that word “disciples”, we tend to think of the twelve, down to eleven now with Judas gone, and in fact down to ten in this instance because, as we find out later, Thomas was not with them.  But in fact, that term “the disciples” is not necessarily limited.  There are times when the gospels specifically refer to the twelve, but “the disciples” can mean more than that.  So we really don’t know how many people Jesus appeared to here.

            It was the first day of the week.  What we’d call now the first Easter Sunday, which means it was the same day he appeared to Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus.  That appearance apparently came first, because we’re told it’s evening when Jesus appears here.

            When we read this story, Thomas is always made out to be kind of the bad guy.  After all, we call him “Doubting Thomas”.  He’s the one who said, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  It’s not that we think of him as evil or anything like that, but we kind of imply that Thomas must not have had much faith, certainly not as much as the other disciples did.

But look at what John says happened.  Jesus appeared to the disciples and said “Peace be with you.”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  It was only after that, that we’re told the disciples were overjoyed at the sight of Jesus.

In other words, the other disciples got what Thomas wanted.  They got to see for themselves, and it was not until then that they believed.  So here we are, so hard on poor old Thomas, when all he wanted was what the other disciples already got and apparently needed before they could believe.  If it had been one of the other disciples who was absent, we might well talk about a “Doubting Philip” or a “Doubting Andrew”.

We don’t know why Thomas was not there when Jesus appeared.  I wonder if it was coincidence or if Jesus did it that way deliberately.  Jesus did use it to make a point, after all.  Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Where do you see yourself in this story?  Where do I see myself?  Do you and I require proof?  Or are we able to believe without seeing?

There are lots of articles and books that you can find that set out to either prove or disprove the gospels.  We link to some of them on our facebook page once in a while.  They can be interesting to read.  But ultimately, there’s no way we can prove, beyond any doubt, that Jesus was the Son of God and that he was raised from the dead.  We can find evidence to support it, but all the evidence we produce can be explained away somehow if that’s what someone wants to do.

As always, it comes down to faith.  But you know, faith does not mean the absence of doubt.  As the theologian Paul Tillich once said, “Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.”  What faith really means is believing in spite of our doubts. 

Quite often, where you and I are is where the man was who spoke to Jesus in Mark Chapter Nine.  Remember that story?  A man brings his son to Jesus for healing.  He says to Jesus, “if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”  Jesus says to the man, “‘If you can’?  Everything is possible for one who believes.”  And the man responds, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.”  A lot of times that where you and I are as Christians.  We believe and we doubt at the same time.  But you know, I don’t know if there have been very many Christians who have not had doubts at some point.  Mother Teresa, Martin Luther, John Wesley, John Calvin, Pope Francis—they all had to deal with doubts at various points in their lives.  The chances are, you and I either have or will have to deal with it, too.  And we may have to deal with it more than once.

And I think God understands that.  After all, we’re asked to believe a lot.  We’re asked to believe that a child was born to a virgin.  We’re asked to believe that child was the divine Son of God.  We’re asked to believe that child grew into a man who could work miracles.  We’re asked to believe that man could raise people from the dead.  We’re asked to believe that he, himself, was raised from the dead.  We’re asked to believe that his death can lead to the forgiveness of all of our sins if we only believe in him.  That’s a lot to believe.

And that’s not all.  We’re also asked to believe that God is still active in the world.  We’re asked to believe that God not only will hear our prayers, but God will listen to our prayers and God will help us.  We’re asked to believe that God loves us and God has good plans for our lives and God will guide us to live in accordance with those plans. 

There’s an awful lot that we’re asked to believe if we’re Christians.  And again, we cannot prove any of it.  We can provide evidence, but that’s all.  Ultimately, we have to take it on faith.

And that’s hard.  Because a lot of times we don’t see God at work.  A lot of times, we don’t feel worthy of God’s love.  A lot of times, we don’t feel God’s love and God’s guidance in our lives.  A lot of times, it feels like God is not paying the least bit of attention to our prayers.  And we really cannot see any reason why God should.

But I want you to notice something about Jesus’ statement.  Let me read it again.  Jesus says to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

It is an awesome thing when we can believe without seeing.  But there’s something Jesus did not say.  Jesus did not say that people who cannot believe without seeing are condemned.  Jesus did not condemn Thomas.  He did not send Thomas away.  He did not tell Thomas he was not good enough to be a disciple any more.  There is no indication that Jesus loved Thomas any less or that he considered him any less worthy of being a disciple.

I wonder if maybe one reason Jesus was not harder on Thomas is that Jesus remembered his time on the cross.  Maybe Jesus remembered the time when even he struggled with his faith.  Maybe he remembered when he was on the cross and asked, “God, why have you forsaken me?” 

Jesus continued to love Thomas, and Thomas continued to love and serve Jesus.  In fact, Thomas is considered a saint.  And you know, maybe he’s the sort of saint you and I need sometimes.  A saint who struggled with his faith.  A saint who wanted to believe, but who still wanted to see for himself.  A saint who was able to serve God and love God even if he wished he could have proof.  A saint who understood how we struggle with our faith sometimes, because he struggled with it, too.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  But there’s a blessing for the Thomases of the world, too.  There’s a blessing for those of us who sometimes have trouble believing when we have not seen.  There’s a blessing for those of us who feel both faith and doubt and at the same time and sometimes struggle with which one is going to come out on top.  The blessing is that God will keep working with us, just like Jesus kept working with Thomas.  The blessing is that God will keep encouraging us, just like Jesus encouraged Thomas.  The blessing is that, as long as we don’t give up on God, God will show us what we need to see, just like Jesus showed Thomas what he needed to see.  And God will say to us, just as Jesus said to Thomas, “Stop doubting and believe.”

God understands our struggle.  But God will never give up on us.  As long as we don’t give up on God, God will keep working with us.  And with God’s grace, we can do what Jesus said to Thomas.  We can stop doubting, and believe.  And then we can respond to Jesus the way Thomas did.  You and I can say to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”

A Change of Life

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, April 3, 2016.  The Bible verses used are Luke 24:13-35.

            Welcome to a new sermon series, “The After-Party”.

            We know, from the book of Acts, that Jesus was on earth forty days after he rose from the dead and before he went back up to heaven.  We don’t talk a whole lot about those forty days.  We might talk about one or two of the events in isolation, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sermon series about it.

            That seems like a mistake to me.  I mean, think about this.  Jesus has been resurrected.  He has forty days to make one last impression on the disciples, to give them one last set of final instructions before he’s going back to heaven, not to come back until, well, the second coming.

            It seems to me that Jesus would’ve seen those forty days as pretty important.  This is his last shot with the disciples.  This is his last chance to get them going, spreading his message throughout the world.  So it seems like Jesus would’ve done everything he could to make sure the disciples understood what the message was and how they were supposed to go about spreading it.

            Now, in approaching this as a sermon series, we need to point out that we don’t know exactly what Jesus did when in that forty day period.  We don’t have Jesus’ day planner or anything.  The four gospels give us some information, but they are not totally consistent in telling us about it.  That’s not to say they contradict each other, because they don’t.  It’s just that they each give us different parts of the story. 

As we mentioned last week, Mark does not going into this forty day period at all.  The road to Emmaus, which we read today and will talk about in a minute, only appears in Luke.  The scenes with Thomas doubting Jesus’ resurrection and with Jesus telling Peter “feed my sheep” are only in John.  And of course, they are certainly some things Jesus said and did that do not appear in any of the gospels.  For example, the Apostle Paul, First Corinthians Fifteen, references Jesus appearing to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time.  He just mentions it, as if he assumes everyone will know what he’s referring to, but the actual event does not appear in the gospels and has been lost to history.

Because of all that, we do not have a complete history of what Jesus did in those forty days.  What we know comes to us in fragments.  We have a few stories, a few examples of what Jesus did.  We have the things the gospel writers, inspired by God, decided we needed to know.  And we’re going to look at some of those, not necessarily in chronological order, but in an order that I hope will make some sense as we do it.

In our Bible reading today, it’s that first Easter Sunday.  In Luke’s version of the events, the women have gone to Jesus’ tomb, and so has Peter, and they find out that it’s empty.  At that point, Peter still does not know what that means.

Then, in Luke’s gospel, the scene shifts.  There are two people are walking from Jerusalem to a town called Emmaus, which we’re told is seven miles away.  One of them is named Cleopas.  We don’t know the name of the other one.  They’re talking about all the stuff that’s happened, Jesus being arrested and dying and then the tomb being empty.

And suddenly, Jesus shows up.  We don’t know if he approached them from behind or if he just sort of magically appeared or what, but there he was.  They don’t recognize him, of course.  Jesus asks these two guys what they’re talking about.  And one of them, Cleopas, says, “Where have you been?  Have you been hiding behind a rock or something?”  And Jesus says, “Well, yeah, kind of, you know.”

No, that’s not quite how the conversation went.  But you know, Jesus had to have kind of been smiling to himself at this point, don’t you think?  I mean, here are Cleopas and his friend explaining, to Jesus, what happened to Jesus.  And of course, Jesus knows he’s going to reveal who he is to them.  I’d think he has to be anticipating the looks on these guys’ faces when they find out they’ve actually been talking to Jesus.

But Jesus lets them tell him what happened.  And then Jesus explains what all this meant according to the scriptures.  And then, after they’re stopped for the night, Jesus takes bread, blesses it, and gives it to them.  They recognize Jesus, and then Jesus immediately disappears.

There are a couple of things I want to talk about in regard to this story.  For one thing, there’s the fact that at first, these guys “were kept from recognizing” Jesus.  We don’t know how that worked, if Jesus somehow looked different or if there was some other way they could not recognizing him.  But whatever the reason was, Cleopas and his friend could not recognize Jesus when he was standing right there with them.

How does that apply to us?  Well, if Jesus was to walk in here right now, would we recognize him?  We’d notice there was somebody new here, probably.  I hope at least a few of us would go and talk to him and make him feel welcome here.  But would we recognize him as Jesus Christ?  Probably not.  How would we?  I don’t think it’s very likely that he’d look like the pictures of him we see.  He probably would not look any different from the rest of us, just as Jesus probably did not look any different from the people he lived around.  He would not act particularly different, just as Jesus probably did not act any different.  There’d be no way we’d know that was Jesus.  And then, suppose he started asking us questions about what we were doing and what we were talking about, the way he did with Cleopas and his friend.  Would we be able to answer him?

In talking to Cleopas and his friend, Jesus started going through the Hebrew Bible with them, explaining why things had to happen the way they did.  They still did not know who he was.  It was only after Jesus took some bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them.  Then, they were able to recognize who Jesus was.

We don’t know whether Cleopas and his friend were there with Jesus at the Last Supper.  The famous painting shows Jesus with just the twelve disciples, and so we tend to assume that, but we don’t know.  After all, the painting shows them all sitting on chairs around a long table, and we know that’s probably not what happened.  Luke and John do not specify who was there.  Matthew and Mark refer to Jesus reclining at the table with the twelve, but they do not specifically say that no one else was in the room.

I tend to think Cleopas and his friend might have been there.  We’re told that, after Jesus disappeared, they immediately went back to Jerusalem and found the eleven.  They must’ve known, then, where the disciples would be, which means they must’ve known them pretty well.  I think Cleopas and his friend might have been there.  They might even have eaten with Jesus.  If so, that would explain why Jesus giving thanks, breaking bread, and giving it to them was the key to recognizing him.  It was the exact same thing they’d seen him do on the night before he died.

And sharing in Holy Communion is a key for us to recognize Jesus, too.  Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying taking Communion is the golden ticket to heaven or anything like that.  But one of the things we say as United Methodists—and there are other denominations who believe it, too, of course—is that sharing in Holy Communion is one of God’s means of grace.  It’s one of the ways God’s grace comes into our hearts and into our lives.  And this is one of the reasons we say that.  When we share in Holy Communion, we invite God to come into our hearts and into our souls.  And when that invitation is given sincerely and honestly, God will always accept it.  God will come into our hearts and into our souls.  And when that happens, we will recognize Jesus for who he is, just like Cleopas and his friend did.

And when that happens, our lives will be changed forever.  I think the lives of Cleopas and his friend were.  Now, we don’t know that for sure.  This is the only time Cleopas is ever mentioned in the Bible, and again, we have no idea who his friend even was.  So, we don’t really know what may have happened to them after the events described here.

But how could they not have been changed?  Here they were, walking to Emmaus.  They were depressed.  They had hoped Jesus would restore Israel to its glory, and instead he’d been killed.  They’d gotten this report from the women that Jesus was still alive, but they could not find him.  And now, all of a sudden, they knew.  They knew.  Jesus was alive.  They had no doubt about it.  Jesus was not dead.  He had risen.

In a minute here, we’re going to share in Holy Communion.  May we all sincerely and honestly invite God to come into our hearts and into our souls.  If we do, God will accept the invitation.  Then we can recognize Jesus for who he is, too.  And our lives will be changed forever, just like the lives of Cleopas and his friend were.

Getting to Easter

            Last Sunday, of course, was Easter.  Almost everyone looks forward to Easter Sunday.  We had a week of special church services, following Jesus to the cross.  But then comes the celebration!  He is risen!  He is risen, indeed!

            But of course, on the morning of the first Easter, the disciples were not anticipating a celebration.  They were not anticipating anything, really.  Jesus was dead.  Some of them, at least, had seen him die.  They were in hiding.  They thought the authorities might be coming for them, too.

            Even when they heard the story from the women who’d been at the tomb, they did not understand it.  Even when a couple of them went to the tomb themselves and saw it empty, they did not understand it.

            Finally, Peter says, “I’m going fishing”.  That, of course, was what Peter had done all his life.  He’d caught fish and sold them for a living.  Maybe he thought he’d have to get back into the business again, now that Jesus was gone.  Anyway, he went, and the other disciples went with him.  None of them knew anything was going to happen.  None of them knew that they were about to have the biggest celebration of their lives.

            Today, we sometimes take Easter for granted.  To many times, we make it about bunnies and colored eggs and candy.  Don’t get me wrong.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with those things.  But if that’s all we make Easter about, we miss the point.

            We also miss the point if we get to Easter without going through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  I hope you did not do that.  I hope you thought about the events that led up to Easter.  Jesus’ betrayal.  Jesus’ arrest.  Jesus’ trial.  Jesus’ torture.  And Jesus’ death.  Without those things, there would be no Easter.

            And without those things there would be no forgiveness of our sins.  That’s why Jesus went to the cross, after all.  He could’ve avoided it in any number of ways.  But he went through with it, willingly, out of love.  He took the punishment we deserve on himself, so that our sins are forgiven if we only believe in him.

             I hope you had a wonderful Easter.  But I hope you had some meaningful days before it, too.  And if you did not, it’s not too late.  You can still think about those events.  And you can still thank God for them.  And you can still repent of your sins, ask forgiveness, and believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior.

Love One Another

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, March 27, 2016.  The Bible verses used are Mark 15:42--16:8.

            Throughout the period of Lent, we did a sermon series called “Let’s Give It Up!”  We looked at various feelings and attitudes that we need to give up, not just for Lent, but for all of our lives if we’re going to be the people God wants us to be.

            But of course, this is Easter!  Lent is over!  And of course, it is.  But there’s still one more thing I want to talk about in terms of giving things up.  One thing we need to give up is loneliness.

            And you say, but what does that have to do with Easter?  Easter is a day of celebration! Easter is the tomb is empty!  Easter is He is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!  Easter is a day of joy!  What does Easter have to do with loneliness?

            That’s why I love the resurrection story from the gospel of Mark.  All the other gospels tell us about Jesus appearing to the disciples and about some of the things he did and said to them.  And we’re going to talk about that stuff in our next sermon series, “The After Party”, which starts next week. 

But Mark does not have any of that.  Mark leaves the story just where we left it in our Bible reading today.  Let me read the last verse again.  “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb.  They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”  Mark does not tell us what happens next.  And that’s a reminder to us that the disciples did not know what was going to happen next.  In fact, the disciples did not know that anything was going to happen next.

Imagine how the disciples felt when Jesus died.  Sad.  Disappointed.  Confused.  Scared.  All of those things.  But I think they must have also felt very lonely.  Jesus had been their leader.  Jesus was the one who they’d been counting on.  Jesus had decided where they were going to go and what they were going to do.  Yes, they still had each other, but remember, who the disciples were.  They were a really diverse group of people.  They came from all walks of life.  Most of them really had nothing in common with each other, other than their love for Jesus.  And now he was gone. 

If Jesus had not come back, I suspect they would’ve simply scattered.  They’d have had nowhere to go, really.  They could’ve tried to go back to their home towns, back to their old ways of life, but they’d been gone for years.  You ever try to go back to someplace or something after you’ve been gone a while?  It’s never the same.  Everything’s changed.  The buildings, the people, all of it.  There’s a reason we have the saying “You can’t go home again.”  They’d have been at loose ends.  Who could they have talked to about all this?  Who would’ve understood all the things they’d been through with Jesus?  There’d have been no one, no one who understood and probably no one who cared anyway.  I think the disciples would’ve felt very lost and very alone.  And I think that’s what they were already feeling after Jesus died, when they did not know what, if anything, was going to happen next.

Have you ever felt that way?  Have you ever felt lost and alone?  Have you ever felt like no one understood and no one cared anyway?  Have you ever felt like you had nowhere to go and no one to turn to?

Now, understand, I’m not talking about people who are alone by choice.  There are people who like spending time by themselves, and that’s fine.  Nothing wrong with it.  In fact, when I’m talking about feeling alone, I’m not necessarily talking about whether we have people around us.  We can be in the middle of a huge crowd of people and still feel alone.  In fact, we can be surrounded by family and still feel alone.  Feeling alone sometimes has nothing to do with whether there are people around us.  Feeling alone means that we have no one we can really be honest with.  It means we have no one we can really reveal ourselves to.  It means we feel like we have no one in our lives who will be there when we need them.  When we’re talking about loneliness, we’re talking about feeling that no one understands us and that no one wants to understand us.  It’s a feeling that no one knows what we’re going through and no one would care if they did know.  And it’s about as bad a feeling as there is.

So how do we go about giving that feeling up?  How do we give up loneliness, not just for Lent, but for our lives?

Well, it’s not easy.  If it was easy, we’d do it.  The temptation, when you’re preaching a sermon, is to say “Pray about it.  Ask Jesus to come into your heart.”  And I do think that’s a good thing to do.  But a lot of times it’s just not that simple.  We can believe in God and pray for the Lord’s guidance and all that and still feel really alone.

The thing is that when we feel alone, it’s really hard to open ourselves up to anyone.  We feel, again, like nobody would really care anyway.  And besides, we feel like everyone else has their life pretty much together, and that we’re the only ones who are struggling.  When we feel alone, it feels like a huge risk to open up to anyone and ask for help.

That’s why we have a prayer emphasis on people who feel alone.  That’s why I’ve asked you to not just pray for people who feel alone, but to pray that God will help us help them.  That’s why I’ve asked you to pray that God will give us eyes that will see people who feel alone and hearts that want to help.  Because the only way people can give up loneliness is if they find people who love them and care about them.  And the people who are supposed to do that are the people in the church.  That’s one of the things Jesus was talking about when he told us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

And I think that’s one of the reasons Jesus appeared to the disciples.  So that they would know that they were not alone, that he was still with them.  I’m not saying that’s the only reason.  The resurrected Jesus needed to appear so people would know he had risen from the dead, that it was not a case of his body being stolen or something.  And it made sense that he would appear to his followers.  But I also think part of it was so his disciples would know that they were not alone.  The resurrected Jesus appeared to his disciples so they would know he was still with them and he always would be.  Even if he could no longer be with them physically, he would still be with them in spirit.  The last words of Matthew’s gospel are, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  The disciples could give up their loneliness.  They did not have to feel alone.

And that’s our job, too—to help people give up their loneliness.  To let people know they don’t have to feel alone.  It’s not an easy thing to do.  For one thing, no one is likely to come up to us and say, “I feel alone”.  If anything, people try to hide their feelings of loneliness.  We have to really pay attention.  A lot of times, we have to be looking for people who feel alone in order to see them.

And that requires something of us.  To help people give up loneliness, we have to give up some things, too.  We have to give up our time.  We have to give up our focus on doing the things we want to do.  That’s not to say the things we want to do are bad things, but we’ll have to give some of them up if we’re going to help people give up loneliness.  We have to give up our focus on ourselves and turn our focus toward others.  It is so easy to fail at that.  I do it all the time.

But if we do it, we’ll gain more than we give up.  We’ll gain all kinds of things.  We’ll gain friends.  We’ll gain the satisfaction of knowing we’ve helped someone.  We’ll gain the joy of knowing we’re serving God and doing God’s will.  We’ll gain love in our hearts.  Sometimes, we even gain the knowledge that we’ve brought someone to God.  And if you’ve ever had any of those feelings, you know they are about as good a feelings as there are.

Mark’s gospel leaves the disciples feeling sad, disappointed, confused, scared, and lonely.  But Jesus did not leave them that way.  Jesus came back.  He rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples.  And they knew they would never have to be lonely again.

And neither do we.  If we all love each other and care for each other the way God wants us to, if we all pray for God’s love to come into our hearts, and if we are all willing to open our eyes and open our hearts to see each other’s needs and to be there for each other, no one in our parish will ever have to be lonely again.  We can all give up loneliness, not just for Lent, but for all our lives.  If we do that, we will be loving our neighbors the way Jesus told us to.  I don’t think there’s a better way we could honor the risen, living Jesus than that.

More to Come

This is the Good Friday message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on March 25, 2016.  The Bible verses used are Luke 23:26-49.

            In all of our midweek Lent services, and in last night’s Maundy Thursday service, we’ve been looking at all the times Jesus could have avoided dying on the cross, but chose not to.  Now, it’s his last chance.  Pilate has pronounced sentence.  Jesus is to be crucified.

            It was not a done deal at that point, though.  I mean, it was as far as the law was concerned, but this is Jesus we’re talking about.  And Jesus could work miracles.  Everyone knew that.  Jesus had healed people who had all sorts of diseases.  Jesus had fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.  Jesus had raised someone from the dead.  Would Jesus work one more miracle now, and save himself?

            It was an open question.  He looked like he was weak—so weak that another guy, Simon of Cyrene, had to carry the cross for him.  But maybe that was just an act.  Maybe that was all part of the plan.  Maybe it was to catch the authorities off guard.  Maybe it was for dramatic effect.  Maybe Jesus was going to spring forth, refreshed and strong.  Maybe he was going to call angels down from heaven and wipe out the people who were trying to kill him.  Maybe he would simply disappear, vanish, without a trace.  After all, this is Jesus we’re talking about.  Anything was possible.

            But, nothing happened.  They come to the place for the crucifixion.  They hang him on the cross.  Jesus says, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  Was that a sign?  Was that a clue?  Did that mean Jesus was about to come down off the cross, take control, and he was asking God to forgive these people and not send them to hell?

            But, again, nothing happened.  People start mocking him, making fun of him.  They say, come on, Jesus.  You’re supposed to be the Savior.  You’re supposed to have all this power.  Come off that cross.  Save yourself.

            We’re told that the people who said that were mocking Jesus, and I’m sure many of them were.  I wonder, though, if there might not have been at least a few who were serious.  I wonder if there might have been a few people there, people who had not given up hope, people who really wanted Jesus to do it.  People who really wanted Jesus to come down off the cross, to save himself, to be the king they wanted him to be.  People who still thought, even now, that Jesus might have one more miracle left.

            But still, nothing happened.  Jesus had a conversation with the two criminals who were being crucified with him, the one who wanted Jesus to save himself and them, the other who knew Jesus did not deserve to die and asked to be remembered when Jesus came into his kingdom.

            And still, nothing happened.  Jesus got weaker and weaker.  The pain got stronger and stronger.  Hours passed.  Each minute probably seemed like an hour, eventually.  Jesus cried out, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”  And he stopped breathing.  There would be no miracle.  Jesus was, in fact, dead.

            The crowd really did not know what to do.  Some of them mourned.  Some of them were disappointed.  Some of them were probably relieved.  And after a while, they all left.

            The temptation is to continue the story.  And we will, on Easter Sunday.  But we won’t tonight.  Because on this night, the people involved had no idea how the story was going to continue.  In fact, they had no idea that the story was going to continue at all.  They thought this was all there was.

            Some of them probably thought Jesus was just another false Messiah.  Because Jesus was not the first, you know, to claim to be the Messiah.  There had been others before him.  There’d be others after him, too.  People who’d made fancy speeches and gotten people all excited.  Some of them attracted quite a following, in fact.  But in the end, they’d all failed.  And, they thought, so had Jesus.  Another disappointment.  It had been fun and exciting while it lasted, but now it was over.  It was a nice dream, but that’s all it was.  Time to give up.  Back to real life.

            I think we can understand why they felt that way.  We can understand the disappointment, even the despair.  Some of us may feel that way now.  Not about Jesus, necessarily, but about our world.  We look around at the world, and we see all kinds of things that don’t seem to be going right.  There was another terrorist attack in Belgium just this week.  It seems like every day I see an article about Christians being persecuted around the world.  And it seems like every day I see an article about Christians being mocked and ridiculed for their faith here in the United States, too.  We see the number of people who claim to be Christians declining.  We see church attendance declining, not specifically in our church but all across the country. 

These are just a few examples—we could go on and on, talking about all the things that are going wrong in the world.  And when we do, maybe we start to think that it’s time to give up.  Maybe we start to think the world’s going downhill and nothing’s going to happen to change it.  Maybe we start to hope that Jesus will come again and save us, but some of us have given up on that, too.  After all, it’s been two thousand years, more or less.  And nothing’s happened.  There have been all kinds of times when people thought he might be coming.  But still, nothing’s happened.  So maybe it’s time to realize that our dreams are just that, dreams.  Maybe it’s time to give up.  Back to real life.

But it’s interesting to note that, on the day Jesus died, not everybody gave up.  Not entirely.  There was this centurion there.  A centurion was a Roman officer who was in charge of a platoon of a hundred people.  And he saw what happened, and he praised God for the life of Jesus.  He said, “Surely, this was a righteous man.”

Now, I’m not suggesting this centurion understood who Jesus was.  I don’t think he knew that Jesus was going to rise from the dead.  But still, think about what this verse says.  In fact, let me read it to you.  “The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, ‘Surely this was a righteous man.’”

The centurion praised God.  A man who the centurion knew, and called, a “righteous man”, had been killed, and yet this centurion praised God.

What that tells me is that the centurion knew the story was not over.  I mean, why else would you praise God for the killing of a righteous man.  That would be something to mourn.  That would be something to about which you’d feel angry, or guilty, or something.  You would not praise God for it.  Unless.  Unless you knew something else was going to happen.

Again, I don’t think the centurion knew what was going to happen.  I don’t think he knew Jesus would rise from the dead.  But he knew something more was going to happen.  He knew the death of Jesus was not the end of the story.  He knew there was more to come.  He knew that somehow, in some way, God was not going to let the story end like this.

And if you get discouraged about our world, if you get discouraged about the state of Christianity, either worldwide or in the United States or even here locally, remember that.  The story is not over.  There is more to come.  Something else is going to happen.  Somehow, in some way, God is not going to let the story end like this.

We are promised that Jesus is going to come again.  I don’t know when that’s going to happen.  It might be tomorrow or it might be a hundred thousand years from now.  I have no idea.  I just know Jesus is going to come again.

But Jesus coming again is not the only way for something more to happen.  God is still active in the world.  God did not just create the world and then stop.  God did not just send Jesus here to die for our sins and then stop.  God is still doing things.  God is doing all kinds of things.  Once in a while, we can see them.  A lot of times, we cannot.  But God is still active.

It’s like when we plant seeds.  We plant the seeds and we fertilize them.  Maybe we water them as well.  And we wait.  And days go by, and we cannot see anything happening.  Sometimes weeks go by and we cannot see anything happening.  But something is happening.  It’s just happening below the ground, where we cannot see it.  Eventually, what’s happening is going to break through the ground and burst forth and be something spectacular.

God is doing all kinds of things in the world right now.  God is doing all kinds of things right here in the Wheatland Parish right now.  A lot of them are happening where we cannot see them.  But eventually they are going to break through and burst forth.  And they are going to be something spectacular.

It looks like everyone else thought the story was over.  They all gave up.  But the centurion did not.  He knew something else was going to happen.  And of course, he was right.

On this Good Friday, I urge us all to be like the centurion.  Don’t give up.  The story is not over.  Something is going to happen.  And it’s going to be spectacular.

All Out of Love

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Maundy Thursday, March 24, 2016.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 27:11-26.

            In our Wednesday Lent services, we looked all the times Jesus made a conscious decision to allow himself to be killed.  There were all kinds of things he could’ve done to avoid it.  There were any number of ways he could’ve done things differently.

            He could’ve just simply used his divine power, of course.  But there were lots of other ways.  He could’ve given in to the devil when he was being tempted in the wilderness.  He could’ve not done some of the things that made the authorities mad at him, like healing on the Sabbath.  He could’ve gone along with the way things were, made compromises, not argued so much with the people who were opposed to him.  Jesus could’ve stopped Judas from betraying him.  He could’ve raised an army to fight the soldiers who came to arrest him.  When he was on trial by the religious authorities, he could’ve denied being the Messiah at all. 

Jesus could’ve done any one of these things to avoid being hung on a cross to die.  But he did not.  At each step along the way, Jesus made the conscious choice to do what God the Father wanted him to do.  Every time, really every day of his life once he started his ministry, Jesus made the conscious decision that he was going to go through with it.  He was going to go to the cross to die, taking the punishment for our sins so that we would not have to suffer it for ourselves.

Tonight we look at one more chance Jesus had.  This is after the Lord’s Supper that we read earlier.  This is after Jesus was arrested.  This is after his trial in front of the religious leaders.  He’s now been taken to Pilate.

Pilate was the head of the Roman government in Jerusalem.  He was not Jewish.  From what I’ve read, he really had no interest in what the Jews did.  He did not care, and he had no real reason to care.  He was there to represent Rome, not to get involved in religion.  As the Roman governor, he basically had two concerns.  One was to make sure the taxes got paid to Rome, and the other was to keep order.  And that was true for everybody, Jews and non-Jews.  As far as Pilate was concerned, people could do anything they wanted as long as they paid their taxes and did not cause any trouble.

And then, the Jewish authorities bring Jesus to him.  We don’t know how much Pilate knew about Jesus.  Chances are he’d have heard something—after all, this is after the triumphant entry into Jerusalem and after overturning the tables in the temple and all that.  Most likely Pilate heard a little bit about that.  But again, he really did not care.  What was it to him if the people of Jerusalem wanted to have a parade for some Jewish guy?  What was it to him if someone overturned some tables in the temple?  Were they still paying their taxes?  Yes.  We’re they threatening the Roman authorities?  No.  So Pilate figured this was no business of his.  Let the Jews sort it out for themselves.

But then the Jewish leaders come along and tell him it is his business.  They accuse Jesus of blasphemy, but Pilate has no interest in that.  He does not believe in the Jewish God anyway.  But then they tell Pilate that Jesus is calling himself a king.  Pilate has to take notice of that.  He does not need someone to start a revolution on his watch.  Even if it fails, it’ll cause him all kinds of trouble.

But when we read the story, it’s pretty clear that Pilate does not see Jesus as any kind of a threat.  We’re not told why not, but Pilate has no interest in sentencing Jesus to death.  He knows Jesus is not going to overthrow the Roman government.  He’s looking for a reason, he’s looking for an excuse, he’s looking for anything he can find that will lead to letting Jesus go.

But Jesus won’t give him anything.  The chief priests and the elders make all sorts of accusations against him, and Jesus says nothing.  Not a word.  Now, remember, this is in the ancient Roman legal system.  There was no “you have the right to remain silent”.  There was no “innocent until proven guilty”.  The presumption was that they would not have arrested you if you were not guilty, so it was up to you to prove that you were innocent.

And Jesus would not do it.  He would not say a word in his defense.  You get the impression that if Jesus had given Pilate anything—anything at all, any kind of reason why he was not guilty—Pilate would’ve let Jesus go.  But Jesus would not do it.  He stayed silent.

This was not like when Jesus was brought before the religious leaders.  There, Jesus would’ve had to lie, would’ve had to deny being the Messiah, for them to let him go, and even then we don’t know whether they’d have done it.  Here, all Jesus would’ve had to do was explain things to Pilate.  All he’d have had to do is explain that he was not going to try to overthrow the Roman government, that he was not interested in an earthly kingdom at all.  All he’d have had to do is explain that he was no more interested in Roman politics that Pilate was in Jewish matters.

And the thing is, it appears that would all have been true.  As far as we know, Jesus never did anything to try to overthrow the Roman government or start an earthly kingdom.  In fact, it appears that a lot of people wanted him to do that and he refused.  As far as we know, Jesus never showed any interested in Roman politics whatsoever.  In fact, he pretty much said that people should pay taxes to Rome.  “Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s” and all that.

Jesus would not have had to lie.  All he’d have had to do is tell the truth.  And he refused.  Why?

The answer is the same as it was every time Jesus had a chance to avoid the cross.  Jesus knew that going to the cross was what he had been sent here to do.  One of the reasons he had come to earth—the most important reason he had come to earth—was to be killed, to take the punishment for our sins, so that we would not have to.  The Jewish authorities did not have the right, under Roman law, to sentence someone to death.  Only the Roman governor could do that.  So, Jesus knew that meant Pilate had to sentence him to die.

Jesus did this because he knew it was what he was supposed to do.  But he did not have to.  Being fully human as well as fully divine, I have to think Jesus could’ve chosen not to go through with this.  And at least a part of him did not want to—that’s why he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane for God to do this some other way if that was possible.  And yet, Jesus did go through with it.  Why?

Well, think of times you’ve had to make hard decisions.  You know what you should do.  You know what you’re supposed to do.  But you don’t have to.  And a part of you really does not want to.  But you do it anyway.  Why?

You do it out of love.  You do it out of love for God and you do it out of love for whoever the people are who are involved.  And that’s why Jesus did it, too.  It’s that whole “love God and love your neighbor” thing that Jesus talked about.  But Jesus did more than talk about it.  Jesus lived it.  And he died it.  Jesus chose to die out of love for God the Father and out of love for us.  It’s an amazing, incredible, awesome love.

But that’s what love is, right?  It’s part of what love is, anyway.  Doing things that we really wish we did not have to do, but doing them anyway, because we love the people involved.  Love is putting other people’s wants and other people’s needs and other people’s desires above our own.

That’s what we do when we love someone.  It’s what we do when we love God, too.  We put God’s desires above our own.  We do what God wants us to do, even when sometimes we really wish we did not have to.  But we don’t do it because we’re forced to.  We don’t do it grudgingly.  We do it willingly, out of love.

            That’s why Jesus did it, too.  Out of love.  He may have wished he did not have to.  But he was not forced to do it.  And he did not do it grudgingly.  Jesus gave up his life on earth for us willingly.  He gave up his life on earth for us out of love.  It was all out of love.

            On this Maundy Thursday, may the love Jesus showed to God the Father and to us inspire us to love God and love others the way Jesus told us to.

To Tell the Truth

This is the message given at the Wednesday Lent service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on March 23, 2016.  The Bible verses used are Luke 22:66-71.

            In these Wednesday services, we’ve been following Jesus in his trip to the cross.  And we’ve been noting all the times he could’ve done things differently, all the times he could’ve compromised or used his power or rallied people around him or in any number of ways to avoid going to the cross, to avoid being killed.

            Tonight, we see Jesus on trial.  He’s in front of the council of the elders.  There are the chief priests and the teachers of the law.  And they say to Jesus, “If you are the Messiah, tell us.”

            Now understand, this was not a request for information.  The chief priests and the teachers of the law were not really interested in whether he was the Messiah or not.  They thought they knew the answer.  There was no way this wanderer, this carpenter from Nazareth, this nobody who had this rag-tag group of followers, some of whom were among the lowest of the low, there was no way he could be the Messiah.

            They “knew” Jesus was not the Messiah.  What they wanted was to see if Jesus would claim to be the Messiah.  Because if he did, in their minds that proved he was lying, it proved he was blaspheming against God, and it justified any punishment they could give Jesus.

            Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if Jesus had denied it?  Think about it.  He could have, after all.  He could’ve said, “Who, me?  No, of course not.  I’m not a Messiah.  Never claimed to be.  Sure, I’ve done some things, but you know how these stories get exaggerated.  I mean, me, the Messiah?  Come on.”

            It might’ve gotten Jesus off the hook.  The council might’ve said, okay, put out a statement to that effect.  Make sure everybody knows you’re not the Messiah.  And for crying out loud, keep a lower profile.  No more of this overturning tables in the temple and stuff.  Just cool it, stay out of trouble and we’ll be fine.

            That’s not the only way Jesus could’ve avoided death on a cross, of course.  As we’ve talked before, Jesus could’ve just used his divine power and gotten away.  But this would’ve been an easy way to do it.  All Jesus would’ve had to do is tell a few lies.  That’s all it would’ve taken.  It would’ve been simple.  No one hurt.  No one killed, including Jesus.  It would’ve been easy.  All he’d have had to do is deny who he was.

            Jesus, being Jesus, would not do that.  But it had to be tempting for him.  And it’s tempting for us, too.

            Have you ever been in a tough situation?  Of course you have, everyone has.  But have you ever been in a tough situation, and known that there was a way out of it?  All you had to do was tell a few lies.  Just a few.  That’s all it would take.  It’d be simple.  No one hurt, including you.  It’d be easy.

            I think a lot of us have probably been there.  And maybe sometimes we’ve given in to the temptation.  Maybe sometimes we’ve told the lies and gotten out of trouble.  And maybe, as we think about it, we think, well, it maybe was not the right thing to do, but it was not really that bad, either.  After all, again, no one was hurt.  No problem.

            No one was hurt except, of course, us.  Ourselves.  And not just because we’ll get into trouble if people find out about our lies.  The thing about lying is that every time we tell a lie, it gets a little easier to tell another one.  And pretty soon, we don’t even think about it any more.

            The problem with that is not just that lying is bad.  It is, but there’s more to it than that.  The problem with telling lie after lie is that after a while, we forget who we really are.  And then, we start lying to ourselves, which makes it even worse.  In fact, sometimes the lies we tell ourselves are the biggest lies of all.  And after a while, we no longer are who we are.  We become the lies we tell.  Telling all those lies leads us to deny who we are, just as for Jesus, telling a lie would have been to deny who he was.

             Remember what Jesus says in John fourteen, verse six?  You may not know the reference, but a lot of you will know the verse once I read it.  Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

            When we read that, we always focus on Jesus saying “I am the way”.  When we discuss it, we always focus on faith in Jesus as the way to heaven.  And that’s true, faith in Jesus is the way to heaven.  But if that’s all we get out of this verse, we’re missing out.  Jesus did not just say that he’s the way.  He also said that he’s the truth.

            Jesus is the truth.  That’s truth with a capital T, the ultimate truth, the truth that God exists and that God loves us and that Jesus came here and died to save us from the consequences of our sins.  But it’s also truth with a small t.  Jesus is the truth.  And every time we fail to be truthful, we become something other than what we are.  That means we deny Jesus.  And we deny who we are.

            We were created to be who we are.  We were created to be the best we can be, but we were still created to be who we are.  “Who we are” includes all our interests, all our passions, all the things that get us fired up.  But “who we are” includes our faults and our failings, too, because we were created to be human beings, and human beings have faults and failings. 

Now don’t get me wrong, we’re not supposed to use that as an excuse.  It does not work to be mean to people, to cheat, to lie, and then say, “Well, hey, I’m just being who I am.”  Again, we were created to be the best we can be.  But what it does mean is that when our faults and our failings get in our way, when they lead us into trouble, we need to face up to them.  We need to be honest about them.  If we’re not, we deny who we really are.

But of course, Jesus did not get into trouble because of his faults and failings.  Jesus got into trouble precisely because of who he was.  And that can happen to us, too.  When we truthfully and honestly live out our faith, when we are really honest about who we are and what we value as Christians, there are going to be people who don’t like that.  There are going to be people who won’t want much to do with us because of it.  And when that happens, it can be really tempting to compromise our faith so we can get along better.  It can be tempting, in other words, to deny Jesus and to deny who we are.

And let’s not forget that Jesus also said “I am the life.”  Again, we tend to look at that in terms of eternal life.  And that’s true, faith in Jesus does get us eternal life.  But I think there’s a reason Jesus put all these things together.  Because while the way leads to life, the truth leads to life, too.  Both the way and the truth lead to life.  And not just eternal life in heaven, as important as that is.  The way and the truth lead to life on earth, too.  They lead to real life, the life we’re meant to have.  They lead to us being who we were created to be.

When we’re first born, when we’re little babies, we are who we were created to be.  But then, sin comes into the picture.  That’s some of what people mean when they talk about original sin—that we are all born with the capacity for love and goodness, but we’re also all born with the capacity for sin.  And as we grow, that capacity for sin grows, too.  We won’t always give in to it, but the capacity for it is there.  And every time we do give in to it, we are, in some sense, not being truthful.  Because every time we give in to sin, we are not being who we were created to be.  We start living a lie instead of living the life we were meant to have.

So, we have to make a choice.  And we have to keep making it.  Every time we’re tempted to lie, every time we’re tempted to give in to sin, we have to make a choice.  We may or may not be aware that we’re making it, but we still are.  The choice is this:  am I going to deny who I am?  Am I going to deny Jesus?  Or am I going to be who I was created by God to be?  Am I going to accept that the way to life, real life, both in this world and in the next one, is through the truth and through Jesus?

It would have been easy for Jesus to avoid trouble with the council of elders.  All he’d have had to do was deny who he was.  He could have avoided death on the cross.  But he would not have been who he was.  And so, instead of saving his life, he would in a very real sense have given up his life.  He might have still been physically alive, but he would not have had real life.  It was only by being who he was that he could have real life, both on earth and in heaven.

And that’s the only way you and I can do it, too.  There may be times when the truth gets us into trouble.  But when we lie, there’s a very real sense in which we give up our lives.

Jesus is the way.  Jesus is the truth.  And that way and that truth are the only things that can lead us to the life we’re meant to have.