Sermon for CATM – March 9, 2008 – Pre-Easter Tensions
[Note: This sermon discusses some of the tensions leading up to the original crucifixion and how painfully difficult it was for the disciples to first hear the words from Jesus written in John 16:16-33. It has no happy ending and little Easter perspective. Again, this was intentional in an effort to appreciate just how terrible this experience was in real-time for the disciples.]
We’ve been journeying through lent for the last number of weeks. You may have noticed that, except for special services we’ve had in the last while, the overall feel of our services has been more low-key than usual.
That’s no accident. Maryellen and I discussed this before lent started. “If we’re going to really make this Lenten journey together as a community”, we decided, “our songs and our worship overall should reflect this journey”.
Perhaps, if you’ve noticed that the flavour of our Sunday gatherings has been more low-key than usual, you’ve found this a little frustrating. We enjoy upbeat worship. We love to come and sing heartily to God with songs of praise and worship and adoration.
I think we love it because, for the most part, it lifts our spirits. We forget about ourselves and focus in on God revealed to us perfectly in Jesus Christ. That’s not a bad thing, not at all.
But long ago people in the church realized that in order for the people of God to really BE the people of God, we had to acknowledge seasons of the spirit. The peaks and valleys of life. The agonies as well as the ecstasies of life And of the spirit.
If you’ve been here for long you probably know that we don’t major on wearing masks here at CATM. We’re not a church where people feel pressured to put on their Sunday best. Rather, we’re interested in being and doing and finding something real. And we know that, speaking of reality, a lot of life is painful.
A lot of life is kind of neutral. A lot of life we spend searching for something we don’t yet possess. And yet coming to gather here on Sundays week after week, we have a sense that together we find something that individually we don’t find as readily.
Last week in our Lenten journey we spent time with Jesus as he interacted with the illness and death of his friend Lazarus. And Jan told us a powerful story that arises from our own history at CATM where we were able to affirm that one of us in particular, like Lazarus who died, has experienced and is now experiencing resurrection life in Jesus.
I’ve always be fascinated by the time in scripture that leads up to what we know as the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. We’re on this side of the story looking back, and we know how things played out.
Today we’re going to walk through a passage that occurs before the trial and suffering and crucifixion of Christ. It is a passage that is full of tension.
I’m going to ask _________ to read the first couple of verses.
John 16:16:18 “"In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me." 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."”
The disciples are confused: ‘What does He mean? What does He mean? We don’t understand!”
On one level that response from the disciples is typical of their general response to Jesus. Having left everything to follow him and willingly taking on the scorn of religious leaders, they are drawn to Him like a magnet.
We might be tempted to think that it was Jesus’ words that caught their attention. They were so impressed with his mastery of language and of deep spiritual truths. But the truth is they rarely understood what Jesus was talking about. The picture Scripture paints of the disciples is far from flattering.
So here, in this passage we can see pretty clearly that they don’t get what Jesus is saying, but we do perhaps get a sense of the growing anxiety of the disciples. Jesus is saying mysterious things. Jesus is saying to these people who have left everything to follow him, Jesus is saying first off that they will see Him no more.
If I were one of those disciples and had invested everything I had and the last three years of my life into Jesus, only to hear that Jesus was leaving, I would be pretty nervous. In fact, by the time Jesus finished those first 10 words, if I was paying attention, I might already be overwhelmed at the suggestion Jesus was leaving.
I might be emotionally stirred to the point where I couldn’t hear the rest of what was being said.
But even if I were to hear the next ten words, I wouldn’t be particularly encouraged because it’s all, quite frankly, so strange, and it seem to have to do with Jesus being removed or removing himself. He’s saying these things are around the corner, right?
So He must have some knowledge, some control of these events. Yet it sounds like He’s here and then He’s gone. Here and gone. Here and gone.
What gives? Do you ever feel like that? Sometimes God seems very, very near. Sometimes God seems very, very far away. Yet if I’m honest, God’s presence or absence has way more to do with what’s going on in my spirit. Am I really making space for God? Or am I entertaining sin?
Psalm 66:16-20 says this: “Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer. Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!”
Something about “cherishing” or planning sin blocks the sense of God’s presence, apparently. Of course other things like suffering unjustly, the great brokenness we carry with us, CAN also have the effect of dimming God’s voice in our hearts. But it’s actually more likely to draw us closer to God, IF our hearts tilt toward Him generally.
Psa 22:24 “For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help”.
I’m going to ask ____________to read the next passage.
John 16:19-22
“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’? I tell you the truth, 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”.
Again, try to hear this the way the disciples heard this the first time. They have no Easter perspective. They have no knowledge of future events, and the things that Jesus is letting them in on, things that are coming down the pipes, are not, I stress NOT, particularly encouraging.
Jesus starts explaining what He had meant by saying: “You will weep and mourn while the world rejoices”. O come on, Jesus. This is getting worse not better. I’d almost rather you didn’t explain things if it only gets worse. Weeping and mourning?
Those are things that people who are grieving do. If you’ve ever lost a loved one, you know the emotions involved. You know how out-of-control the weeping and mourning truly are. Jesus’ absence, it’s starting to sound like, isn’t because of a vacation. It is to be the absence of a loved one who has died.
This, despite Jesus’ earlier predictions of the same thing, had not touched down on the disciples. They knew the norms around death. There was no medicine as we know it. No doctors as we think of them. Death was all around.
Those convicted of capital crimes were constantly on display, crucified outside the city gates, as a warning to the Jews of the wrath and power of the Roman occupation of Palestine. Children died. Mothers died in childbirth. Men and old people died.
Jesus talks about childbirth, but from the perspective of the child already being born. Going into a delivery there is always a lot of nervousness because there can be and usually is a lot of pain involved. That’s kind of where the disciples are at this moment when Jesus is speaking with them. Anticipating something painful.
But Jesus reminds them that once the pain has past, the pain is forgotten because of joy over the baby born. Those mothers here who have had children know exactly what Jesus is saying. Guys who are listening. Believe me, we have no idea.
So Jesus says that now is the disciples’ grief. It begins here. As Jesus is speaking they are slowly, agonizingly realizing that something tremendously unpleasant is coming upon them and they have no control over it. No control. To this harrowing picture, Jesus adds: “But I will see you again, and no one will take away your joy”.
Nice words for us, here, now, after these events have unfolded. For the disciples heading into this storm, any mention of the word “joy” would have gone unheeded. We cannot see the outcome of painful experiences. The experience itself is completely overwhelming, and the brokenness that often results is far from “joy”. Far indeed.
I’m going to ask _________ to read the next passage.
John 16:23-27
“In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, 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”.
Jesus begins redirecting the disciples here.. He points them to the Father. To His Father. He gives them a revelation of the Father. “The Father himself loves you”. Jesus had already revealed that God could be known as Abba, or Daddy and that they could go straight to God directly.
It’s said that the Holy Spirit always points us to Jesus. That Jesus always points us to the Father. What does Jesus want us to know about the Father? The Father Himself loves you.
What does that mean to you? How do you define love? Do you find it hard to hear about or to feel God’s love for you? You know, a lot of people do find it very hard. Even just the notion of love is a challenge. But BEING loved by God, by the Father. That’s quite another.
How do we wrap our minds around God’s love. I think 1st Corinthians perhaps gives us a starting point. We often hear these verses as though they are directed toward humans; but we may forget that this definition of love is rooted in who God is.
We find that Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
This is the love that is directed toward you from God. This is the nature of that love. I don’t know about you, but God’s love understood in this way is a freeing thing. If I know that God is patient with me, that He is not easily angered, that he KEEPS NO RECORD OF WRONGS. That in loving me God always protects, always perseveres.
You see, this is love that Jesus trusted in as He was entering these moments of uncertainty, when suffering and death was before Him.
When betrayal by disciples was around the corner. Jesus certainty wasn’t in the sure knowledge that everything would be easy. His certainty was that God would abide with Him in love as His story unfolded.
One more reading today from the same passage today:
John 16:28-33
“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." "You believe at last!" Jesus answered. "But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his 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."”
Now Jesus says that His origins are with the Father. He has suggested or implied or stated clearly that he and the Father are one. Now He talks about returning home. Now, you’d think that these would be comforting words from Jesus. We probably hear them that way.
But again, from the disciples perspective, still desperately trying to wrap their heads around all that Jesus is and all that He said and all that He had done, this would not have been particularly comforting. Instead it would have added to the tension they were already feeling.
Now we do get a sense in this last passage that the disciples are coming to understand some things about Jesus. They say that now they see Jesus knows everything, and that He answers their questions before they ask. They are finally getting that Jesus comes from God.
Finally we end off with Jesus stating: “You believe at last!” So they HAVE made some progress. They’ve grown in their understanding. Now they’re ready. Ready for some more news that would have confused the life out of them.
““A time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone””bvbv.
And then Jesus wraps up with a sobering and profound thought: “. "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."
In the Lenten journey, this is for many a time of tension. Many of us determined at the start of lent to take on a new discipline or to give up something to remind us of our determination to refocus our lives on Jesus. So…how are we doing?
Some of us may say we’ve done really well. We’ve kept strictly to what we intended when we started. We feel good about that and we feel closer to God. Some of us may say that we’ve been good at keeping their commitments during lent, but that there is still a great longing for more.
Some of us may say that we’ve pretty much blown it…we haven’t been able to maintain our commitments, or sin got in the way or we just forgot too often.
Whatever your situation, even if you’ve chosen not to observe lent, we are together in a time of anticipation.
The time where Jesus predictions come true is upon us. The crowd awaits Jesus on Palm Sunday.
The same crowd awaits Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday. And for all of us and for Jesus, we await Resurrection Sunday when the power of God and the life of God is revealed in the triumph of Jesus over death. And perhaps that’s the key. It’s not so much about our discipline. Our taking on disciplines, our giving up stuff.
It’s much more to do with Jesus. It’s to do with his promises and his fulfillment of those promises. It’s about us lining up with the reality that we shouldn’t expect life to be easy.
We shouldn’t expect there to be no pain or suffering or dark seasons of the soul. Maybe it’s about each of us growing deeper in our understanding of the love of God. The love of the Father. The presence of Jesus.
Perhaps the point is that God is present when we fear He is not; God is present and working in us through our saddest moments; when insecurity abounds and all we sense is God’s absence, His presence is waiting to break through…to deliver and heal, to transform and make us new.
It is God’s Spirit in us that awaits Easter Sunday and that calls us to participate in the journey, and that calls us to renew our faith in Him who walked through valleys and shadows and suffered death for our sins, and yet who rose again.
