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A sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 7, 2023

In today’s reading from John, Jesus is telling his disciples goodbye. Our reading comes from the Last Supper. Jesus is giving his farewell discourse, his final parting words before his death. In a few moments, he will pray his high priestly prayer, asking God the Father to care for them, to strengthen them, to make them one as he and the Father are one. Jesus tells them that where he is going, they cannot go right now. He is going to prepare a place for them. But in time, he will come again and take them to his Father’s house, so that where he is, they may be also. This promise is for us today, as well. Christ is preparing a place even now for us. In the Father’s house are many dwellings. This is a way of saying there is enough room for you and for me, enough room for all the creation, within the Creator’s arms of love and mercy. He says, “And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 

The disciples, not knowing what will take place over the next few hours and day–from arrest to trial to death, to empty tomb–are understandably confused. Thomas says bluntly, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 

Jesus replies, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” What does this mean? It means that Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity, is the one who is the path to God, who opens up a channel of grace, who reconciles us to God through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Jesus is at the center of our life, of our faith, precisely because of this. Because of Christ, we have a means of grace, we have a hope of glory. Because of Christ, we can become children of God through baptism, through participation in the saving life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If we have seen Jesus, we have seen the way to the Father. If we know Jesus, we know truth, for Christ is truth. If we live in Christ, we have life, for Christ is Life itself. 

This is not simply a doctrinal statement about who we believe Jesus Christ is. This is not simply something we confess, only something we know intellectually. If faith is only an intellectual exercise, if faith is only something we talk about, we haven’t come close to understanding what Jesus is saying today. This is about how we live. Jesus tells Thomas that he knows the way, and even though Thomas doesn’t understand it at first, it is true–he does, indeed, know the way. Why? Because he has been living, abiding in Christ. If we live in Christ, if we abide in his love for us, then we know the way, the truth, and the life, because we are living in him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 

What Jesus is doing, then, is giving an invitation to all–to you, me, and all the world. Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus has invited his disciples and us to abide in him. To live in him. What Jesus is saying today is the same thing. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and he desires more than anything that we should abide in him, that we should abide in him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. This is an invitation to grace; an invitation to love; an invitation to new life and hope and salvation. 

When we hear this as an invitation instead of a mere doctrinal statement, I think it changes how we understand it. One of my favorite poets, an Anglican priest in the 16th and 17th centuries, George Herbert, said it this way: 

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:

Such a Way, as gives us breath:

Such a Truth, as ends all strife: 

And such a Life, as killeth death. 

The name of this poem is “The Call.” God in Christ calls to us. The Way beckons us. The Truth draws us. The Life compels us. All of this is Christ inviting us to new life, to new life in him, not only eternal life in glory, but new life today, right now. Herbert hears this invitation, and so he responds in this poem, inviting Christ to come to him, to change him, to captivate him. To become, once and for all, his Way, his Truth, his Life, the center of his very being. Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life. 

I cannot help but think of someone I met once when I was learning how to do pastoral visits as a seminarian. I bet you know someone like her. She has one of those warm and inviting spirits. Her smile is enough to pick you up on a bad day. But most of all, she knows Jesus. 

I had not known her very long when I went to see her for a visit. I expected the visit to be quick; she did not. She invited me in, made me sit down, brought out food. In the course of our visit that afternoon, she asked me a question. It was something like, “Mark, tell me what you know about Jesus.” I told her my story, and she told me hers. And she, and me, and Jesus had a wonderful afternoon. 

By the end of that visit, I had no doubt, this woman knows Jesus. Not some idea of who Jesus might be. Not a knowledge of Jesus and who he was in history. Not even a conception of Jesus she had picked up over decades of faithful church attendance, teaching Sunday school, and listening to sermons. No, she knows Jesus, because Jesus is her Master and her friend. She knows Jesus because they talk everyday. She knows Jesus because she took his invitation seriously. When he invited her to abide in him, to live in him, that’s just what she did. When he said he was the Way, she followed him on that Way. When he said he was the Truth, she plumbed the depths of that Truth. When he said he was the Life, she gave up her life, she died with him, and she rose to new life in him. He is her Way, her Truth, her very Life. And day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, she rededicated herself to following Jesus, her Master and friend, dying daily to sin, and rising everyday to new life. 

Can you hear Jesus’ invitation today? The invitation to follow him on this Way, to learn from him who is the Truth, to live in him who himself is Life? That invitation, that grace, reaches out to each and every one of us today and everyday, waiting for us to respond, waiting for us to say, Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life.  

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 30, 2023

A friend of mine in seminary once said it best. We had a big test coming up, and we were worried and complaining. I remember my friend saying, “Listen, y’all, we can do hard things.” “How can you be sure about that?” came the reply. My friend said, “We can do hard things because Jesus is risen from the dead.” 

That’s a silly example, sure. In hindsight, finishing up a term paper and preparing for an exam were not hard things–not really. We did just fine. And if we hadn’t, the sky wouldn’t have fallen in. But her point still stands: In life, we are able to do hard things, not by our own power, but because Christ has risen from the dead and the Holy Spirit is within us, giving us power. 

In the book of Acts, they were doing some hard things. Our reading today is from the end of the second chapter, after the first Day of Pentecost. The Church has been formed. Her leadership has been established: a motley crew of fishermen and tax collectors and ordinary folks without any extraordinary abilities. Overnight, thousands have been added to the parish register. Thousands have been baptized by water and the Spirit, and the Church is in full gear. Acts tells us that this group “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” In order words, they came together united by the apostles’ teaching about the death and resurrection of Christ; they celebrated Eucharist as Jesus commanded them; they prayed for one another and the world. Acts tells us they also held things in common and distributed proceeds to those in need. They spent time in the temple. They lived with happy and generous hearts, thankful for what God was doing in their midst. 

Perhaps after reading that brief passage, we are tempted to think, “Oh, how nice.” Perhaps we are tempted to move quickly. But when we do that, we miss some things just in the background, some difficult things stirring, some darkening skies and incoming storms. 

We can forget that the religious authorities and the Roman authorities are still on high alert. The early church was not just an unusual religious phenomenon. In proclaiming that Jesus was King, and not the emperor, the early church was a potent political threat. We don’t have to read much further into Acts before Stephen is stoned for declaring the gospel, before Saul starts hunting down Christians near and far. 

We can forget that Jerusalem was a powder keg about to explode, with zealots and rebels pushing against imperial authority. It would only be a few decades before the Romans would have enough of it, destroying the city and its temple, scattering peoples abroad for centuries. 

We can forget that to be part of what they called the Way was controversial. It divided families. People dear to you might shun you, cast you out, exclude you from the community. 

And we can forget an important fact about this Jerusalem church, a fact that will become apparent in the letters of St. Paul. The Jerusalem church was full of folks at the end of their ropes, folks without economic security, folks at the bottom of the food chain. When Luke tells us in Acts that they shared what they had and held it all in common, we should know that it wasn’t much at all. 

This church faced some hard realities: persecution on every side, political and religious violence, hatred from loved ones, poverty and insecurity. With that context in mind, what Luke tells us about them is even more incredible: “Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.”

They could have taken my friend’s comment as their motto: We can do hard things because Jesus is risen from the dead. We can live faithfully in an unfaithful world–because Jesus is risen from the dead. We can be forgiving in an unforgiving world–because Jesus is risen from the dead. We can be generous in a greedy world–because Jesus is risen from the dead. We can have hope even when we are threatened and hunted down–because Jesus is risen from the dead. We can love and have joy and live in peace–because Jesus is risen from the dead. Because Jesus is risen from the dead, we know that sin and death are defeated, so we can live differently. We can live boldly. We can live with our eyes looking for that city whose builder and maker is God. And no matter what comes, come hell, come high water, we will make it. All because Jesus is risen from the dead. 

This is not just optimistic thinking. This is not having a positive attitude. This is not living life with rose-colored glasses on. No, this is hope–real hope. This is living a transformed life because we know that the world is different because of Christ’s death and resurrection–and we are part of that new creation. 

I wonder what hard thing God is calling you to do? What difficult challenge is present in your life? What do you have to endure for the sake of the cross? It can be tempting to give up, to throw our hands in the air in surrender, to set our faith to the side as if it has nothing to say when we must do hard things. In difficult times, it can be so tempting to live in anxiety, in fear, in hopelessness, in despair, to give into gloom and fear. But we don’t have to do that. We have another choice. We can live differently. No matter what, we can choose to live in love, to live in peace, to live with joy in our hearts, to live with hope for a brighter day. We can do this, not because of ourselves, not because of what we can do, but only because Jesus is risen from the dead. And in rising, he has called us to rise: from the gloom of sin, from the death of despair, and into the hope of life everlasting, into the light of God’s love. And no matter what comes, come hell, come high water, we know that Jesus Christ, who is alive indeed, will lead us through it. 

Whatever hard thing you may be facing, lift up your head in hope. Look up. Your Savior is here. No matter how hard things may be, we keep the faith, and we know we will be alright, because Christ is risen from the dead, and his Spirit is with us. 

A sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter
April 16, 2023

Today is called “Low Sunday.” It’s called that because our numbers tend to be low after our big Easter Sunday. Those who show up today are dragged here by something greater than themselves, by the very Spirit of God pulling them, by grace, to the life on offer in the word and sacraments. But for many, the pattern is Easter Sunday, then we need a break. 

St. Thomas breaks that pattern today. In our reading from John, we read that he is absent on Easter Sunday. On the day of the Resurrection, with the doors still locked, Jesus appears to the disbelieving disciples. He breathes on them and gives them the Holy Spirit. He gives them a mission. He speaks peace. But Thomas isn’t there. And when his fellow disciples tell him what has happened, he doesn’t believe it. He doubts (just like they did before Jesus showed up). He says he won’t believe unless Jesus shows up and Thomas can see the wounds. 

Let’s not beat up on Thomas for his doubt. Who among us has never had any doubt? Perhaps there are some, but they are not standing in this pulpit. I’ve had doubts and struggles with faith. And those struggles have come when I have been at my lowest point, at my most wounded, like Thomas. Those struggles of faith often assail us when we have been thrown into the pit, when our expectations about how things should be are turned upside-down, when our worlds reel and rock and we spin out of control. Thomas’s Lord and Master has been tortured and killed. The source of Thomas’s hopes has been crucified on a tree. No wonder he struggles with doubt today. 

But the next week, on Low Sunday, at his lowest point, Thomas shows up. I wonder why? Why wasn’t he there the week before? Why does he come this week? I suppose it was for the same reason that we are here today. The grace of God dragged him there, wounds and all, because there was something that needed to happen in his life. There was some healing that needed to happen in his soul. 

I often hear it: I shouldn’t go to church if I can’t believe. I shouldn’t be in the pews if I’m a mess. I shouldn’t be there if I’m a sinner, if I’m wounded, if I can’t have faith. My friend, take Thomas as your patron and come anyway. The Holy Spirit is dragging you here. For it is at that precise moment when we need to encounter Christ, crucified and risen. 

That’s what happens to Thomas. He comes. Perhaps he comes kicking and screaming. He comes wounded. But maybe he comes wondering, too–wondering if there could be any truth in what he had heard. “Probably not,” he tells himself as he gets up that morning. “But I need a cup of coffee anyway, and maybe there will be some donuts.” So he comes. He thinks he is dragging himself there. He’s actually being dragged there by God. 

And Jesus shows up. Jesus, crucified and risen, wounds and all, shows up. “Don’t doubt, Thomas,” he says, “But believe.” Trust in me. Trust in this resurrection. Trust that I have defeated the powers of sin and death. I see you’re wounded, Thomas. I have been wounded, too. Go ahead, put your hand in my pierced hands, in my pierced side. Trust me, your once-wounded healer, to heal you.

We show up week after week with our own wounds. And with our wounds, we come with doubts, with reservations, with what-if’s, with how-can-it-be’s. We show up having been dealt blow after blow, having struggled and lost against sin, having been touched by the icy hand of death. But the Spirit drags us here, even on Low Sunday at our lowest points, because we need to meet Christ. We need to meet Christ, not because we’re perfect, not because we have more than enough faith, not because we’re all put together, not because our lives are easy, but for the exact opposite reason: because we’re sinners, because we doubt, because we fall apart, because life is hard sometimes, because we’re hurting and wounded and our hope is lost. And that is exactly how Christ desires to meet us. He meets us there so he can lift us, so he can heal us, so he can love us, so he can give us his life. 

Do not doubt, but believe. Believe that Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, is here now to do that for you. And be healed. 

A sermon for the Day of the Resurrection: Easter Sunday
April 9, 2023

What is a nice Easter? A nice Easter is a day with good weather, a day the Easter bunny won’t have to dodge puddles. A nice Easter is a day when the children, somehow, almost magically, dress themselves in Easter suits and dresses. A nice Easter is a day with a good ham, good sides, good wine, good conversation, and good entertainment. A nice Easter is a day with good hymns, with a good (not-too-long) sermon, and some good flowers on the cross. A nice Easter is a day for good family photos. 

It is striking to me that our list of what makes a nice Easter can rattle on without a mention of the cross and empty tomb. And when it does mention it, let’s make it a nice conversation. Let us not dwell on blood and scourging. Let us not dwell on Mary Magdalene, with eyes so spent she cannot cry any longer. Let us not dwell on the fear of the followers hiding out, on the uncertainty of tomorrow. Let us not dwell on sneering soldiers, on self-righteous religious elites so sure they are right, on inept and violent magistrates. Let us instead think on sunshine, and flowers, and family.  

We in America domesticate Easter. We domesticate Jesus, so it should not be a surprise we domesticate the Paschal event and our participation in that great mystery. Our domestication begins in the church. 

We domesticate Easter into a self-help project. As an article in The Economist magazine put it, “History’s best comebacks, from Jesus to John Travolta: Resurrection stories help us look on the bright side of life.” Oh, look at this pretty flower, we say. It dies every year, and then one day, it pops up again, and looks real pretty. And that’s what Jesus is like. And that’s what we are like, if we work hard, if we try hard, if we find the silver lining and don’t give up, if we all hold hands around the world and sing together. Happy Easter! 

We domesticate it to a socio-political strategy. We say, if you think like me, if you look like me, if you vote like me, if you agree with me, then maybe the cross and resurrection can mean something to you. But you have to be like me, and my group, and my party, and my friends, or it doesn’t work. And once we, the true Christians come together and have real political power, we can make things look how we want them to look. Happy Easter! 

Enough already. If Easter is about flowers and becoming pretty people, I don’t have time for it. If Easter is about making people think like us, look like us, vote like us, so we can have political power, I don’t have time for it. If Easter is about us and what we do instead of about God and unmerited grace, I don’t have time for it. Fire me now, because I need to find something better to do. Thankfully, all of that is not what the cross and resurrection are about. Those are cheap knock-offs, domestications. I’m only interested in the real thing. I hope you are, too. 

Let’s not water it down. Here’s the cross and resurrection, neat: God in Christ has come into the world to save us from the power of sin and death, from which we can never escape on our own. Christ, perfect God and perfect man, died on the cross for us. Christ, perfect God and perfect man, was raised by the Father on the third day. This is a historical fact. And because Christ has done that, sin and death have lost their power. We are free. We are free from striving; we are free from shame; we are free from bondage to our past. Through Christ, we can be with God forever in a transformed life of love. That transformed, eternal life starts right now, and it looks like loving God and those around us, especially the most vulnerable who are easy targets and easily forgotten. It looks like serving a different and truer reality: the kingdom of God. 

Jesus Christ isn’t a life coach, nor is he a political mascot. He is the Son of God, crucified and risen. And because of that, it is worth giving up everything to follow him as our Savior, our Lord, our friend. 

My sisters and brothers, we must refuse to domesticate the cross and the resurrection. We must see the death and resurrection of the Son of God for what it is: A universe-altering, earth-rattling, foundation-shaking, God-driven event whose particularity has eclipsed universality, with power extending not for a single moment only, not even from the year 0 AD onward, but echoing throughout the caverns of time and eternity. Its power extends not just to a select few, not just to you and me, not just to people we like, but to all people everywhere. And it changes us. If we live in this mystery, we are really changed by love to love. We must refuse to domesticate the cosmic implications of this event. We must refuse to domesticate the personal and communal transformative possibilities we have because of this event. The universe is different now, so we can be different now and our world can be different now. We must refuse to domesticate the grace and power of God. 

I won’t wish you a nice Easter. And if I go on autopilot and tell you ‘happy Easter,’ please know that I do not mean it. No, the only thing I can wish is for all of us to have a real Easter: an Easter imbued with the radical grace of God; an Easter that changes time and eternity; an Easter that grabs us by the collars and catapults us from our graves of sin and death and into the new life of Christ; an Easter that transforms the way we see ourselves, the way we live in the world, the way we love our neighbors; an Easter purchased by the blood and power of God for millions and for me. Yes, I will wish you a real Easter, an undomesticated Easter, an Easter unafraid to proclaim from every corner, Alleluia! Christ is risen! And because Christ is risen, everything–and I mean everything, for us, and for the whole universe, for all time–has changed, decisively and forever. 

A sermon for the Easter Vigil
April 8, 2023

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The cross comes first, then glory. The cross comes first, then life and peace. The cross comes first, then forgiveness. The cross comes first, then resurrection. Sometimes we want to shortcut everything, go immediately to glory, to life, to peace, to forgiveness, to resurrection. But we can’t. It all depends on the cross. 

Brian knew something about that. He had walked the way of the cross. It wasn’t the literal way that Jesus walked through Jerusalem, the via dolorosa. But he had walked it in his soul after that car wreck that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He had walked it through the despair of learning he would never walk again. He had walked it through the shame and guilt of coming to terms with his affair before the wreck. He had walked it in humility, as he learned to let his family, like Simon, carry his burden when he could not. Brian knew pain; he had experienced a kind of crucifixion; he had lost it all, been stripped of who he was, of all his self-created dignity. He had walked the way of the cross. 

It was a long way. The wreck happened when he was 44. It would take a decade to come to terms with everything. It would take a decade for healing to happen. I don’t mean physical healing; he is still paralyzed. I mean a more profound spiritual and emotional healing. It took a decade for him to feel the forgiveness of God, to accept that his wife had forgiven him, and to forgive himself. It took a decade for him to accept where he was, and to allow his family to care for him without resentment, without humiliation. It took a decade for the depression to lift, for life to come back, for joy to return. 

Brian remembers the day the fog began to lift after that decade. His church had a new priest, and she stopped by to meet him. They sat in the living room, talking. Brian told her, “I just don’t feel like I have a purpose anymore. What can God do with me. All I do is sit in this room day after day; I think; I talk to myself; sometimes I talk to God; I watch the news and I just cry.” 

“Cry?” the priest asked. “Who are you crying for?” 

Brian replied, “I don’t really cry for myself anymore. I cry for the people I see, for suffering in the lives of people I love. I wouldn’t have cried a decade ago, but I cry now, all the time. I guess my pain has helped me feel the pain of others.” 

“Brian,” the priest replied, “Have you ever heard of intercessory prayer?” Intercessory prayer is where we lift up the concerns of the world to God. We are all called to this prayer. But there are some people who have a special vocation of prayer, some folks who are called to be intercessors for the world. People like St. Julian of Norwich, a medieval woman of the 13th and 14th centuries. Called an anchorite, she lived in a small room connected to a cathedral for the entirety of her adult life. She prayed, she gave spiritual direction, she interceded, day in and day out. 

The idea lit something up in Brian. He tried it the next day. “I’m not going to pray for myself today,” he told himself. “I’m going to pray for the people around me.” He began to pray, lifting up concerns to God. He entered into the pain, the distress, the heartache of others, something he could do because he had walked the path of pain, distress, and heartache himself. He didn’t just do it that day, but day after day after day. Like Julian long before him, he became a kind of holy anchorite, bound to a chair physically, but spiritually moving mountains. Before long he was his parish’s intercessor. He and the priest worked together. They had a prayer list put together. They started a prayer team. Brian led them in intercession. Eventually he became a spiritual director, a counselor for people in distress, a teacher of prayer. From his home office, in his chair, unable to move, he opened the unseen world of faith to many. 

Resurrection happened. New life happened. God raised Brian up into something new. As surely as God raised Jesus from the dead, God raised Brian from despair. Like Jesus, Brian came out of the tomb with scars. Brian carried his ordeal in his body. He was confined physically to a chair, but no longer confined spiritually, no longer confined emotionally. The scars, his physical condition, instead of being the thing he hated most, became part of Brian’s testimony to the greatness and power of God. He would say, “Without the wreck, I wouldn’t know how to pray.” 

The cross must come first. But resurrection comes second. That was true for Jesus. That was true for Brian. And it’s true for us. Most of us don’t walk the way of the cross like Brian. We don’t walk it like Jesus, either. We are not given a cross to bear with such intensity. Our crosses are carried in spurts, in small trial after small trial, in one difficulty after another. Our valleys are broken up by mountaintops. We have a reprieve in our via dolorosa, our path of suffering. But we each, all of us, are given a cross to bear at some point. 

But then the third day dawns. Morning comes, as it always must. A new fire is lit. New life is given. God takes those sufferings, those pains, those heartaches, those wounds, and God heals them to make something new. God meets us when we are down, in despair, in the pit, in the grave, with tear stained faces, and God yanks us out of our tombs to faith, to hope, to love, to resurrection and new life. And when that happens, all we can say is Alleluia! Christ is risen, indeed, and my life is the proof.  

A sermon for Holy Saturday
April 8, 2023

How can we understand what is happening today? Truth be told, we come to the edge of words. God in the flesh has been killed in the most godless way, on the most irreligious tool of torture. There was no legion of angels at the last minute, no sleight of hand. He is dead: laid in the arms of his mother, and then taken to a tomb nearby.

One ancient homily tells us what is going on. I usually read that homily today. Probably written by Melito in the first centuries of the church, it expounds on what we read from I Peter. Christ, after death, has descended to hell, to the dead, in order to bring the captives–that is, those who died before–up from their graves and into the newness of life. But if you and I were to enter the tomb today, we would still see the body of Jesus lying there, unrecognizable. He would be cold. He would be stiff. He would stink from decay and from the humiliating ordeal of crucifixion. Lifeless. How can we, on this side of the veil of death, understand this? 

Our collect today says he is resting on the Sabbath. We are meant to see in these holy days a parallel to the story of creation in Genesis 1. We will read that story tonight. In the creation account in Genesis 1, we see a seven-day creation. On day six, God creates humankind, male and female, in his image. On the seventh day, God rests and calls his creation very good. 

In coming to earth to take on our flesh, Christ, God in the flesh, has entered into a project of re-creation: the re-creation of humanity and the entire cosmos. Once in the image and likeness of God, we have been marred by sin and death, and creation along with us. Christ has come to “more wonderfully restore the dignity of human nature,” to bring us back to that first image, to bring us back to our first purpose: relationship with God, one another, and all creation. Thereby, as we sang last night, earth and stars and sky and ocean are freed from that ancient stain of our doing. 

God in Christ makes that re-creation of humanity possible on the sixth day of this Holy Week, on Good Friday, hanging on the cross, defeating the power of sin and death. It costs God dearly. And then, like in Genesis one, on the seventh day he rests from all that he has made–all that he has made possible through this sacrifice. And he calls it very good, indeed. That is what is happening in the stillness of the tomb. 

We, of course, do not stop on this seventh day. We know this is not the end. Vindication is coming. The Resurrection, which we will proclaim tonight, inaugurates a new day, a new age. The dawning of the Resurrection takes us to, not the first day of the week recycled, but to the eighth day of a new age. Indeed, early Christians called Sunday the eighth day–a day in time and yet out of time, a day that is the sign of the fullness of life to come, a sign of our hope in Christ, a participation in eternity. Here at St. Alban’s, it should be no surprise that our baptismal font and our columbarium are eight-sided. 

On this sabbath day, this seventh day, we rest with Jesus, in thanksgiving for our new creation that his body and blood have made possible from the cross on the sixth day. And we remember that the eighth day, the day of hope, of new life, of the new age, of eternity, is drawing near.     

A sermon for Good Friday
April 7, 2023

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Every family has its secrets. They’re never spoken publicly, rarely spoken privately. Yesterday evening I introduced us to Brian. Brian was in a car wreck that paralyzed him from the neck down. It transformed his relationship with his wife and children forever. Brian, always the provider, had to learn the other side of love: being provided for. His paralysis wasn’t a secret. The car wreck wasn’t a secret. Most people wouldn’t have even known there was a secret to be had. But there was one. The secret was the answer to that question, the question everyone had been asking the night of the wreck: Why was Brian out driving so late at night? 

The wreck happened around 1:20 am on a state highway about 25 minutes from his home. The other driver had been impaired; it was his fault. Brian was in the clear as far as that goes. The toxicology report at the hospital proved it. His phone never left his pocket. Tread marks showed he had not fallen asleep; he was in his lane. 

Why was Brian out driving so late? Mandy, his wife, had come up with an explanation well before Brian was out of the coma. He couldn’t sleep, she had said, due to some new medication he had been on. He was working and realized he had forgotten something at the office. Why waste the opportunity? But the truth was, Mandy didn’t know. Mandy had been asleep, like the kids. Mandy only found out when the police officers from the scene handed her his personal effects. Brian was having an affair, and he was on his way to see her. It had been going on for some time. 

No one needed to know. She knew. Brian knew. Everyone else bought the work story. But secrets of that sort are heavy. They are a weight. There is a shame, an anger, a sadness that only Mandy knew as she watched her husband in an induced coma for two weeks, then sat with him as the doctors put humpty-dumpty back together again. And part of her wished they wouldn’t. 

Yes, these secrets are heavy. It was heavy for Brian, once he came to and remembered some things. He and Mandy had the talk in his new reality, in a hospital bed, without feeling from his neck down. He asked her forgiveness. He meant it. She gave it. She meant it, too. But you don’t drop shame so easily. He carried it. The guilt stayed with him.

Sin is a powerful thing. Sin is a cosmic power, a dominion, a realm that can capture our souls. But there’s another dimension of sin: the personal side, the side we feel, the guilt, the shame, the heaviness we carry. 

Sin is a powerful thing, both cosmic and personal. It could only be defeated by God in Christ on the cross. That’s why this Friday is good. That’s why Christ’s suffering is called good. Because it sets the world right. The Holy Trinity defeats that unholy trinity of sin, death, and the devil, and it happens on Calvary. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is that double cure we need: It deals with sin as a cosmic power and dominion, but it also soothes the soul and brings relief to our personal shame, lifts our own burden of guilt. 

Brian had always been a Christian. He had seen the cross carried in, just as we will in a moment. He had sung the hymns, prayed the prayers. But he didn’t understand the power of the cross until he had to walk that way. Ironically, he began walking that way when walking was no longer a physical possibility. He began that inward journey into his shame, into his guilt, into his transgressions, into his sin. He carried that heavy burden as he sat bound to a bed, confronted with the consequences of his decisions. There were days he asked God why he hadn’t died. That would’ve been easier.   

But he had lived. So he walked the way of the cross, the way of suffering, the way of shame, the way that Jesus walks today. Jesus’s way was a public way, down a street; Brian’s was a secret way, into the recesses of the heart and soul. But it was still heavy. He carried it until he had a dream one night. In it, he saw Christ, crucified, dying, breathing his last, at the foot of his bed. Above Christ’s head was the sign we read about: King of the Jews. And in his dream, next to that sign, there was a smaller note, stained with blood. It read, Brian’s affair. And before he commended his Spirit to the Father, Christ looked Brian in the face and said, “This is for you.” 

I don’t know what your note would say, but you probably do. I know what mine would say. Christ’s message is the same for us: This is for you. Forgiveness is possible for Brian because Christ has paid the price. Forgiveness is possible for all of us because God in Christ has paid the price for sin. God in Christ has died so a new way of grace can be opened up in our lives, freeing us from the weight of shame, lifting the burden of guilt, liberating us from the curse of sin, defeating the power of death and the devil himself. God has paid the price so we can be free and have life and peace. 

A sermon for Maundy Thursday
April 6, 2023

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We pray these words on Fridays in Morning Prayer. They also appear on Palm Sunday, as we enter the church to begin our observance of Holy Week. But I wonder if we’ve considered what it means to walk the way of the cross? We usually don’t really consider that until its meaning is made plain in our lives, until the changes and chances of this life visit us with a cross to bear, with suffering, with pain and hardship. We don’t consider what we’re saying until we are already on the road, walking the way of the cross. 

Brian could tell you something about that. A good Christian, he was always in church. He raised his kids in church. It was a priority for him. He had heard those words before; he had heard preachers talk about walking the way of the cross; he had done the awkward palm procession around the building. But he never considered what that meant until he found himself walking that very way, on the via dolorosa, the road of sorrow, the way of the cross. 

At 44 years old, with kids in the middle of high school, in the prime of his life, Brian was in a serious car wreck that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He was in the hospital for weeks. For the first couple of weeks, he was holding on to life. For the next few weeks, they were putting him back together. Then rehab. Rehab that lasted forever. Before he knew it, a year had passed. A journey that began with hope that he would walk again was chastened by reality: He wouldn’t, no matter how hard he tried. Rehab wouldn’t be his miracle. 

That first year was torturous. Brian was an independent guy. He prided himself on hard work, on providing for others. Suddenly he found himself provided for. He had no choice in the matter. If you asked, he would tell you that getting bathed in the hospital by nurses and orderlies was bad enough. But then he went home. His relationship with his wife and children changed overnight; it had to. He couldn’t do anything without their help. His wife bathed him, changed him, helped him eat. He had been home for two weeks when his oldest son had to clean him after he used the restroom. Brian was humiliated. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. 

If you asked Brian, his wife, his children about love before the wreck, I don’t know what they would say. But they loved each other. Maybe they would say, love is like going to games and cheering each other on. Love is like going the extra mile to make someone feel better. Love is cleaning out the gutters. Love is a feeling you get when you’re hugged. Love is wiping the silent and secret tears of your son after he loses the championship game. 

If you asked Brian, his wife, his children about love after the wreck, I know what they would say. Love is being there to help when someone can’t help themselves. Love is being faithful even when life is turned upside down. Love looks like heaving someone into a chair, helping someone on a toilet, making sure someone’s pillow is just right because they can’t adjust it. Love is lived in real ways–it’s not just a feeling, it’s an action, sometimes an uncomfortable or inconvenient one. 

I think Jesus is showing his disciples, and us, something of this at the Last Supper tonight. While the other gospels focus on the meal itself, John takes us to another scene. He shows us footwashing, the master stooping to care for the servants. Jesus equates love with footwashing: Just as I have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet, he says. Jesus is saying that love, real love, is shown in decisions, in actions, in servitude, like in washing someone else’s feet. Love is not some amorphous feeling, a warm fuzzy. Love is a gritty thing, a real thing, an enacted thing. Love gets you dirty; it puts you at the service of another; it takes you to uncomfortable and inconvenient places you hadn’t imagined before–master washing servants’ feet, wife and children caring completely for a helpless father. 

I think most of us are comfortable with being the ones who show up, who do what needs to be done, who show love in concrete ways, who do the foot washing. But what about the other side, Peter’s side, Brian’s side? Peter and Brian are a lot alike, I think. Stubborn, strong, determined. Peter tells Jesus, you will never wash my feet. Why? Because that’s not how it’s supposed to work. Peter will wash Jesus’s feet all day, without blinking, without thinking. He loves Jesus. But to let Jesus wash his feet? If someone else in his family had been in that wreck, Brian would have shown up. He would have cared, he would have cleaned, he would have waited hand-and-foot without a thought, without a hesitation. Because he loves his family. But like Peter, he wanted to tell his wife, his children, you will never wash my feet. You will never clean me up. You will never dress me. You will never… 

Sometimes love doesn’t look like washing feet; it looks like getting your feet washed. Love looks like deep vulnerability, allowing someone to do something for you that you could never do for yourself. It looks like Brian putting his pride to the side, forever, and letting his family care for him. It looks like Peter sitting in the chair and letting Christ wash his feet. It looks like all of us, under the power of things we cannot control, allowing a Savior to feed us–this is my Body, this is my Blood–because we can’t feed ourselves, we cannot sustain ourselves spiritually. It looks like allowing our Savior to wash us, because we cannot clean our own souls. It looks like allowing that Lord to die for us, because we can’t pay the price. 

The Christian journey is about learning to love–learning to really love in concrete ways, like Jesus tells us, washing one another’s feet. But the Christian journey also looks like getting our feet washed, learning to accept the love and grace of a God who came to save us, because we are helpless in ourselves. And sometimes, learning that side of things, learning that powerlessness, that need for grace, that need for love; sometimes that’s the hardest thing of all to learn. But here’s the deal: We will never learn love until we learn vulnerability. In truth, it’s something we must learn on the road, on the way of the cross, as our feet are washed by another, as we’re fed with food we cannot provide. 

A sermon for the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday
April 2, 2023

Something is wrong and must be put right. Today we come to the end of our Lent sermon series, in which we have focused on the cross of Christ and how, through the cross, God in Christ does what we cannot and makes everything right again. We come to a final, but far from the final, image: on the cross, Christ, as both priest and victim, makes the atoning sacrifice for all sin. The early Christians would have primarily understood the cross through this lens of sacrifice. Sacrifice and blood make us squeamish today. We are far removed from the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. For our ancient forebears, however, sacrifice was a fact of life.

There are many kinds of sacrifice in the Old Testament. We won’t go through them now, but there is a general principle at play, especially when it comes to sacrifices for sin. Through the sacrifice of an animal without spot or blemish, a person with spot and blemish (that is to say, with sin) was able to be brought into the presence of God. The greater the sin, the greater the cost of the sacrifice. And here’s the important thing: while this seems foreign to you and me, the sacrificial system was all about grace. It was all about God, in patience and kindness and love, giving his beloved people a means to come into his presence. It was about God, in grace and compassion, giving the people a way to be restored into relationship with him. 

That, of course, is what the crucifixion is all about. God in Christ goes, willingly, to Jerusalem. Christ takes the initiative in the role of the priest. And once there, he becomes the atoning sacrifice. He is able to take, unlike any animal, the full weight of our sin upon himself, so that, through his sacrifice, we can be reconciled to God and brought into relationship with God. Christ does all of this as grace, in compassion, because of love, to bring us into a relationship. There is no cost God is not willing to pay to cover the gravity of our sin, to bring us to his heart. 

If we want to really understand what is happening at Golgotha, the Crucifixion must not only be a question of history. It cannot be confined to art and church trappings. No, we must see ourselves there. We must see our sin dealt with there. We must see it as a sacrifice for us. We must, as John Donne said, see Christ write our names in the blood of the Lamb slain for us, so that we can come into full relationship with God. We must see love at the cross–love, not in the abstract, but a specific love for our specific lives. 

We must see ourselves in Judas, as he lurks away to make his deal, and in Peter, denying Christ in the courtyard. How often we sell Jesus out, sneaking from the grace that God has on offer in order to take things into our own hands. How often we hide our light in the darkness, hide our love in the crowd, hide our Lord behind the facade of something more expedient and convenient, safer.

We must see ourselves in the crowd that day, crying, “crucify him.” We cry “crucify him” as we allow hatred to fester, and make peace with oppression, and justify inaction against injustice, and make excuses for violence and tyranny in the name of order and safety. 

We must see ourselves at the Pavement, in the seat of Pilate. We are in that seat when we give in to fear and cower because of pressure, because of popularity, because of prestige. We know what’s right, but fear takes over, and we lose heart. 

We must see ourselves in the fickle and fleeing disciples, once so committed, now overcome with terror and hiding out. We decide to go our own way, to lose heart when the going gets tough. God has abandoned us, we think, as the sky turns black and the earth shakes. And so we hide, unaware that God is active in the middle of the hardship, accomplishing what we cannot, carrying us to grace, calling us to life. 

We must see ourselves in the Roman soldier swinging the hammer. He has done it so many times he probably isn’t affected anymore. Desensitized to the violence. “It’s just a job,” he says, “Just the way things are.” And he goes home that night to a good dinner and a good family like he has done so many times. And we, desensitized to the sway of evil, ignore it and say it’s just the way things have to be. 

For all of this and much more, Christ, the high priest and victim, becomes the sacrifice for every sin. He becomes the sufficient and perfect sacrifice, whose blood is shed for Judas, for Peter, for Pilate, for the weeping women at the cross, for fleeing disciples, for the Roman executioner, and for us. The sacrifice that need not be repeated because it is enough for eternity, for all sin. 

“His blood be upon us and upon our children,” the people cry. Christians have used this verse to justify violence against the Jews for centuries. Anti-semites and hate groups today know this verse. They miss the point. But we cannot afford to miss it: Christ’s blood is upon us–it’s upon every person in this story, from the weeping woman to that Roman soldier with the hammer.  It’s upon every person on the face of the earth; it’s upon every person in this room; it’s upon us all to cover us and to cover our sin, as grace and with love. That’s the whole point of sacrifice. Once covered, we are given the means of grace, the hope of glory, the promise of forgiveness, the love of God’s heart. Our names are, indeed, written in the blood of the Lamb that is slain; and because of that, our names can be written in the Book of Life, marked as Christ’s own forever. 

A sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 26, 2023

“A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.” All the former Lutherans will know those words well. A text and tune composed by Martin Luther, this hymn evoques the image of Christus Victor, Christ the Victorious, even in the face of sin, death, and the evil one. Christ Jesus is the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing, in whose victory we share. 

Throughout Lent we have been talking about the cross and how the cross accomplishes our redemption and atonement, or our at-one-ment with God. Today we are talking about the cross through the lens of Christus Victor, Christ the Victorious, the Christ of Luther’s hymn. The cross is the place where Christ defeats the powers of sin, death, hell, and the grave, and opens up avenues of grace, mercy, forgiveness, and life. This action of God in Christ does not depend on us; it is accomplished by God and God alone as pure grace, pure gift, pure love. 

We certainly see that in today’s readings. Ezekiel is set down by God in the middle of a mass grave. Dry bones are scattered about, a defeated army, the signature of death. “Can these bones live?” God asks the prophet. The prophet wisely responds, “O Lord God, you know.” God says he will make those bones live again; God will bring forth a new creation from this field of nothingness; God will cause life where death was thought to reign supreme. The bones come together; the muscles and sinews and connective tissue are laid over; skin and flesh cover the new beings; the breath of life is breathed into them. 

In John we see the final sign of Jesus’s ministry before his passion and death. Lazarus, Jesus’s friend, is sick and dies. We know the story; Jesus raises him from death. Jesus says to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” This very question is posed to us today; it is posed to us when we come to the tomb and there is already a stench; it is posed to us when we step foot in those valleys of dry bones in our lives. 

In both readings, God brings forth life because God desires to bring forth new life. God inaugurates something new because God desires to do so. God shakes the tombs and raises the dead because God says death and sin will not have the final word over creation. God gets the final word. However, both the valley of dry bones and the raising of Lazarus are signs pointing to something greater. They are not the thing in and of themselves. They both point to the ultimate victory of Christ over the powers of sin, death, hell, and the grave, a victory wrought through the cross and resurrection. On the cross, Jesus goes to the front line against sin and death, and accomplishes what we cannot. As I’ve said, something is wrong and must be put right. We cannot do it. Only God can do it, and God in Christ does do it from the cross.

Through the cross, God has made something new. When God in Christ descends to that valley of dry bones, when God in Christ descends into a sealed tomb like Lazarus, he does so to break it open. God in Christ does so to break it all apart from the inside out. As one theologian said, “The victory of Christ [on the cross] creates a new situation, bringing the rule [of sin and death] to an end, and setting [us] free from their dominion.” 

And yet, if this is true, how come there is sin and death still? How come evil still seems to reign supreme? How come the status quo continues on, seemingly unabated? How come tornadoes sweep through small, rural towns, a violent instrument of death and destruction? How come children suffer, and wars rage, and hunger is everywhere, and disease breaks down, and lives fall apart, and brokenness abounds? Is Christ really the victor? And if he is, then why does the psalmist today–why do we so often–cry to God out of the depths of anguish and despair, grief and death, shame and sin, brokenness and pain? 

While Christ’s victory on the cross has won an objective victory over sin, death, hell, and the grave, these powers are still allowed to rule in the present age. It will not be until the coming again of Christ at the end of the age that the fullness of God’s kingdom will come. So we must take Christ’s victory on faith–not an intellectual faith alone, but a faith that makes us live differently in this present age, a faith that sustains us even in suffering, a faith that compels us to live in the victory of our God even as we are called to carry a cross, a faith unafraid to look evil in the face because we know it will not win.  

Martin Luther’s hymn would go on to say: “And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us; we will not fear for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us; the prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for lo! his doom is sure, one little Word shall fell him.” The little Word Luther is talking about there is the Word of God, the Word made flesh, Christ Jesus the Victorious. When Luther wrote that hymn, he wrote the tune to sound like a dance. Through that little Word, through Christ and his cross, we can dance, Luther was saying. We can dare to dance a jig, even in the face of evil, sin, and death–even on the head of the devil himself. 

It reminds me of a story about the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the height of Apartheid South Africa. As he got up to preach his sermon one day, the doors at the back of the cathedral burst open, and troops, armed, filed down each side of the church. They had been sent to intimidate, to threaten, to remind Tutu and the congregation of the power of fear and death. 

The late archbishop was not a big man. He was rather small, with a funny voice and an even funnier sounding laugh. But what he lacked in physical appearance, he certainly had in spiritual fortitude. He could stand there unafraid, because he knew that because of what Christ had done on the cross, God, in the end, will conquer over sin, over death, over fear, over every power that seeks to destroy the creatures of God–and even over oppressive Apartheid. Armed with that conviction and that conviction alone, he looked those soldiers in the eyes and he said, “Why don’t you join the winning side!” Then, with a laugh, he started dancing down the center aisle of the church. He danced and danced, and the congregation got up and danced and danced, and they all poured out into the streets dancing and laughing and singing and stomping on the ole devil. 

We have seen the power of sin and death and evil in our world and in our lives. There is brokenness in us and around us, and sometimes it looks like a valley of dry bones, like a tomb with a corpse covered in bands of cloth. But hear me now: sin, and death, and evil, and fear, and every power that corrupts the creatures of God–they have all been put on notice by the death and resurrection of Christ. Their end is coming; the strife is over; the battle is won; new life has already begun. We are not seeing these powers in force–no, we are seeing the last gasps of their dying empire. So with faith, with the cross in view, firm in our conviction, even when those powers do their worst, we join the winning side. We cast our lot in with Christ the Victorious. And like Luther, like Tutu, with all the saints and angels, we even dare to do a jig on the head of that old serpent.