Takoma Park Baptist Church, Washington, DC March 29, 1987
When you are lost and do not know the way, nothing is as reassuring as a timely and well-placed signpost. You are roiling down the highway and suddenly you come to a place where the sign says, "Road Closed Ahead - Detour". Aside from grumbling a bit about losing time or having to ride over gravel pig paths, you don't worry too much. Surely you won't get lost, surely the road builders know what they are doing and have put up signposts. But as your eyes pick out a little orange arrow to the left, and it says “Detour,” and out oft the corner of your back-seat driver's eye there is spied a little blue arrow to the right, suddenly you get very confused and very frustrated. There's that sinking feeling that you are about to get lost, and all because they didn't think it through and give you good signposts. When you are lost and do not know the way, nothing is as reassuring as a timely and well-placed signpost, pointing the way.
And, in fact, you do not care how beautiful or how flashy these signs are; you just want them to be readable and findable and accurate. You want them to be readable and findable and accurate because you are going to follow them and do what they tell you to do. They tell the story of the famous theater critic, Dorothy Parker, who was given a dingy, obscure, hard-to-find office somewhere in the back halls of the Metropolitan Opera building in New York. Miss Parker discovered that nobody could find her office and that even when they got there they were hesitant about going in because there was no sign on the door. And so Miss Parker solved that problem in a hurry. She called a sign painter and had him come and paint one word in several strategic locations and then repeat that one word on her office door. The one word was "Gentlemen". She had plenty of visitors after that, but they didn't stay long!
I say again, when you are lost and do not know the way, nothing is as reassuring and as important as a timely, well-placed, and accurate signpost. Something is needed to point the way.
For some days now Jesus had been teaching daily in the Temple precincts, attracting great crowds and drawing the attention of the authorities. For him, as he knew, it was just a matter of time until they would move against him. It could not be more than a few days at the most until they would move against him and arrest him. But Jesus did not want this to happen too soon; he had a sense of who we was and how he fit into God's plan, and so he would delay the confrontation until the right moment, until Passover. Passover, you see, was the greatest of the Jewish festivals, for Passover celebrated the mighty acts of a God who had freed his people from slavery. Passover was held to remember that once there were lambs slain at God's command so that their blood might be spread across the doorposts of God's people as a sign to the angel of death: pass over here, pass by here. Passover was the festival which, more than any other, spoke of a God who moved among his people and brought them back from oppression; it spoke of a God who spilled blood, even innocent blood, as the price of redemption. Passover: this Jesus must celebrate with his disciples, in a unique way, an unrepeatable way. This Passover, this year, was to be unlike any other Passover, for, though little did they know it, at this Passover the Lamb of God was to be slain and the work of God to be completed.
And so Jesus, though he taught in the Temple precincts each day, had made it a practice to withdraw at night to the Mount of Olives, as a retreat from the city and as a hideaway of sorts, a place to conceal himself until the right time should come. He knew that to enter the city at nighttime would open himself to an arrest too soon, an arrest before Passover, and that he did not want. And so the drama, the little charade, of today's Scripture reading: in order to get the room ready, in order to give Peter and John time to prepare the meal and see that everything was in place, apparently Jesus set up a signal. We do not know for sure about this, but it seems reasonable; he prearranged a signal: when you see a man carrying a water jar, follow him into the house which he enters, and tell the householder, “The teacher needs the guest room." A strange kind of signpost, but an effective one, a sign which worked; and a signpost you and I can follow too.
You see, this water carrier – he is given no name in scripture, so I just called him Aquarius, that’s Latin for water –carrier – this anonymous water-carrier, leading Peter and John to the place which is ready for them – this water-carrier teaches us some significant lessons about the way we live and witness in the world. He teaches us what it is to be signposts: and, remember, when you are lost and do not know the way, nothing is as right, nothing is a reassuring as well-placed, timely, and accurate signpost.
Aquarius, the water-carrier, for one thing, reminds us that in order to be a good signpost, a credible witness, you have to be available, you have to be willing to be used of God, you have to be prepared even to endure some ridicule.
Do you know how Peter and John would recognize their signpost? Remember, this is not a man they know. But he is carrying a water jar. Well, so what? Wouldn’t there be hundreds of men carrying water jars? After all, it's festival time and lots of people need cooking water. Ah, but carrying water was considered a woman's job, and no man would be carrying water. It just wasn't done. It would be a little like my saying to you, “Go out on Piney Branch Road and when you see a man wearing pantyhose and spike heels, well, that's the one.” You see, not even in our unisex age have we gone that far! So this man, Aquarius, if you like, was willing to be conspicuous, he was willing to be ridiculed, he was willing to do something unusual and out of the ordinary. Why? To be used of Christ, to be available to God.
I'm grateful to God that some Christians are like Aquarius: they are willing to do anything, even to be misunderstood and to be ridiculed, if they can be signposts for God. In this city, for example, there is a group called the Community of Hope. The folks who belong to the Community of Hope are a church, members of the Nazarene denomination, as a matter of fact. But they are hardly the straight-laced, clean-scrubbed, middle-class types you think of when you think of Nazarene Christians, or, for that matter, Baptist Christians. You see, the Community of Hope works where nobody else wants to work and handles what nobody else wants to handle: Aids victims, prostitutes, drug addicts, petty criminals. And it’s tough. It's tough not only because they are dealing with tough people, but it's tough also because other Christians don't understand. Other Christians write them off. But the Community of Hope has learned from Aquarius, the anonymous water-carrier, that when you are lost and you do not know the way, nothing is as reassuring and as redemptive as a signpost for Christ. And they point the way, available as they are.
And then too, Aquarius the water-carrier – remember that's just a name I've given him – the water-carrier teaches us that even though you have to be anonymous, even though your name may not go up in lights, even though you may not get the headlines, still you can do your part as a witness and as a signpost. Not one word the water carrier may have said is recorded; yet his witness, silent though it may have been, was valuable, because it was the witness of the walk. The witness of his walk.
Our friend Aquarius led Peter and John directly to the place prepared for Christ, with no deviation and no roundabout wandering, with no diversions into byways. The water-carrier led silently but surely. He was a signpost with integrity.
Much has been made of the so-called evangelical holy wars in this week's news. I will not say much because it's all still developing, though I suspect I shall want to comment on all this eventually. But one thing is clear to me, one thing needs to be pointed out – that these men and women of many, many words are not half so impressive nor half so effective as signposts for Christ as some of you are. That's right. I will take any day a deacon of this church praying at a bedside before I will take a televangelist striding his platform. I will prefer any day a member of this congregation slipping his arm around me and telling me that he loves me to the blustering preachments the TV receives incessantly. I would far rather walk your life path with you and watch and learn from the integrity of your life than to curl up in the armchair and let some media product tell me how much money he needs.
I know that is forcefully said, and may be a little unfair. But hear my point: that the best and most credible witness for Christ is the witness of a walk, the witness of your life's walk. And that is what the lost need; when you are lost and do not know the way, you do not need somebody telling you that you ought to find the way. You know that already. You need a timely and well-placed signpost. You need a flesh and blood witness. And even if you cannot preach like Peter, even if you cannot pray like Paul, surely you can tell and live the love of Jesus, and say He died for all.
And so Aquarius, the water -carrier, available to God's use even at the cost of ridicule; credible as a guide who walks before us, with us.
And so also the Lord's Table. The Lord's Table is a signpost, pointing the way. A true and accurate sign, credible and eloquent. The Lord's Table on that night in Jerusalem became a sign for those who had followed the water-carrier to that upper room, a sign that pointed to one who above all others became vulnerable and available and subject to human rejection. He was for our sakes despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him; there was no beauty in him that we should desire him. The Lord's Table is a sure sign of the Christ who is available to God, though it will cost him surely.
And the Lord's Table, too, is a sure sign pointing to Christ who would in only a few hours be flung upon a cross, with few words to say but with the matchless eloquence of a sacrificial life. The Lord's Table, a sign that surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement of our peace, and with his stripes, his wounds, we are healed.
For you see, when you are lost – all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way – when you are lost, nothing heals like a sure and credible signpost.
