Lent 5 – 29 March 2020 – Year A

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the 11^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St John; Verses 1 – 45:

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ² Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. ³ So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” ⁴ But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” ⁵ Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, ⁶ after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

⁷ Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” ⁸ The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” ⁹ Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. ¹⁰ But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” ¹¹ After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” ¹² The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” ¹³ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. ¹⁴ Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. ¹⁵ For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” ¹⁶ Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

¹⁷ When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ¹⁸ Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, ¹⁹ and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. ²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” ²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” ²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, ²⁶ and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

²⁸ When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” ²⁹ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. ³¹ The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. ³² When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴ He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵ Jesus began to weep. ³⁶ So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

³⁸ Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹ Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” ⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

⁴⁵ Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

I think it was in my early high school years we were tasked with reading the stories of Samuel Clemens who wrote under the pen name of Mark Twain.  I don’t remember which story it was, but Twain wrote about a con artist who had just about convinced people that he communicated with the supernatural.  He told them stories about far off kings and ancient peoples.  He knew what Cleopatra was wearing when she allowed the viper to bite her.  He knew secrets about the pyramids and Alexander the Great.  As to current events, he could tell you when the king and queen of England were playing croquet.  This man seemed to know everything about everyone at every time.

Then a man who was wiser than most asked this great prophet to tell him what he had eaten for breakfast.  Suddenly this man who could wax eloquent about the activities of the Pharaohs and the Crowned Heads of Europe was strangely quiet.  You see, as long as no one was able to check the facts, this man could say anything.  He could make it up as he went along and, as long as he spoke with confidence, a large part of the population believed him.  As soon as someone tested this character’s credibility with known facts, he soon had to leave town.

This illustrates an important part of determining the truth of a story.  The rules for developing a myth require a substantial time between the actual events and the story of the myth.  That way, all the eye witnesses and their children are dead.  It also helps for the myth to happen in a faraway land.  That makes it even more difficult to check out.

The Gospel account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead violates these rules of myth making.  John wrote as an eye witness.  If John was still alive, then other eye witnesses were also alive.  John also located the event about two miles from Jerusalem – an important city of the day.  He states that many people came out from Jerusalem to mourn.  His critics could easily have proved him wrong by questioning the eye witnesses.  At the time John wrote his Gospel, there were still people around who saw the life of Jesus – people who could easily have contradicted John if he got any facts wrong.  There is not a record of any eyewitness who had any disputes with John’s account.  John’s account is historical narrative and not mythology.

This is important because a resurrection from the dead is very rare.  There are just a few resurrections in the Old Testament and the Gospel accounts only tell us of three resurrections before Jesus Himself died on the cross and rose from the dead.  Therefore it is important that we have good solid documentation of this event.  We need to know that this was a real event that happened in a real time and a real place.

The Holy Spirit also inspired John to make it very clear that Lazarus – was – dead.  Jesus told [the disciples] plainly, “Lazarus has died.”  John himself records: When Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.  Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  [Some of the Jews] said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”  Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days.”  The Holy Spirit inspired John to make sure that there was no way that anyone could say that Lazarus was just mostly dead.  If there would have been a coroner available, he would have said, “As coroner I must affirm, I thoroughly examined him, and he's not only merely dead, he's really most sincerely dead.”  There was no chance whatsoever that Lazarus could have revived under his own power.  Lazarus was dead and decaying.

The other thing that we notice in this account is the disappointment.  Both Martha and Mary say, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  The other mourners remind us of last week’s Gospel as they ask, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”  There is a spark of faith here.  All believe that Jesus could have averted death.  They may even have believed that if Jesus had arrived shortly after death, He could have done something as He did with the daughter of Jairus and the widow’s son at Nain.  But four days is four days.  After four days, the decay has set in.  Could Jesus still do something after four days?  Today’s Gospel seems to indicate that everyone thought that Lazarus was beyond even Jesus and His substantial power.  This limited faith is disappointed that Jesus had not come sooner because now there is no hope.

The Holy Spirit has used John’s words to bring us into this story.  We too have lost loved ones.  We too know the grief that death brings as it parts us from the company of those we love.  The teaching that Jesus had for Martha is for us also.  “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”  This is the main teaching of the Gospel for this day.  This is the teaching for Mary, Martha, those who mourned, and for us gathered here on this day.

Jesus taught these words and then He demonstrated them.  Jesus made His way to the tomb and had them remove the stone from the entrance.  Then he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out,” and the man who had died came out.  Jesus is Lord, even over death.

Death is an ever present reminder of sin as the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write, ^{[Romans 6:23]}“The wages of sin is death.”  Even as Jesus demonstrated His power over death, He also demonstrated the means by which He would conquer sin itself.

Sadly, there were those who rejected the teachings of Jesus.  How stubborn does someone have to be in order to be angry and frustrated over the fact that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead?  We saw that attitude last week when Jesus healed the blind man.  Some people are so stubborn that they reject the gifts of Jesus even though Jesus gave sight to the blind and raised people from the dead.

Today’s Gospel ends as the Pharisees call a meeting of the council.  In this council they decide that Jesus must die.  A little later on in the Gospel according to John, they also decide that they must put even Lazarus to death.  It is their intention to get rid of Jesus once and for all.  Little do they know that this is all according to a plan much greater than theirs.

It was not long after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead that Jesus Himself experienced death.  The plans of the council came together with the help of Judas and they were able to capture Jesus.  They subjected Jesus to an illegal trial and then took Him to Pontius Pilate and applied political pressure to Pilate until He agreed to put Jesus to death.

It was not long after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead that Jesus allowed a Roman execution squad to nail Him to a cross.  There He would endure not only the physical pain of the cross, but also the eternal pain of our sin.  He would endure a punishment that we cannot even understand as He cried out, “My God, my God!  Why have You forsaken Me?”

No mere human being can even understand what it means that God the Father forsook God the Son.  All we can know is that it is very, very bad for Jesus and very, very good for us.  It is bad for Jesus in that He suffered all the punishment of eternity in hell.  It is good for us in that we can now look forward to the eternal joy of God’s presence with us and our presence with Him.

Three days after Jesus died on the cross, He once again demonstrated that He is Lord over death.  He rose from the dead.  That resurrection assures us that our death is not the end.  Whether we are dead for four days, four years, or four thousand years, Jesus will raise us from the dead.

There is one great difference between the resurrection in today’s Gospel and the resurrection of the Last Day.  Lazarus is no longer with us.  He had to die again.  When Jesus calls our bodies back to life on the Last Day, we shall never die again.  On that day, all people shall rise with eternal bodies.  Those who reject the gifts of Jesus Christ will rise to an eternity of punishment.  Those who have the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith will rise to live with Christ in eternal joy.

Near the beginning of today’s Gospel, the Holy Spirit inspired John to record a strange behaviour on the part of Jesus.  Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.  Under ordinary circumstances, a beloved friend would come to the side of a suffering friend as soon as possible.  The Gospel account states just the opposite.  Jesus waited because He loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  It is not until Jesus called Lazarus back from the dead that this makes sense.

When Jesus arrived on the scene, Mary and Martha’s faith was theoretical.   Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”   If Jesus would have arrived and healed Lazarus before he died, her faith would have stayed that way.  After the events of this day, she had a constant concrete reminder of the great lesson in today’s Gospel.   The resurrection of Lazarus demonstrates the words of Christ: “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”  Because Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, He gave them this teaching.  This teaching is also for us for it gives us confidence in times of life and a very real comfort in times of death.  Amen

The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Lent 4 – 22 March 2020 – Year A

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the 9^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St John: Verses 1 – 41:

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. ² His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³ Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. ⁴ We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. ⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶ When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, ⁷ saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. ⁸ The neighbours and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹ Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” ¹⁰ But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” ¹¹ He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” ¹² They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

¹³ They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. ¹⁴ Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. ¹⁵ Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” ¹⁶ Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. ¹⁷ So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

¹⁸ The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight ¹⁹ and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” ²⁰ His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; ²¹ but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” ²² His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. ²³ Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

²⁴ So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” ²⁵ He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” ²⁶ They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” ²⁷ He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” ²⁸ Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. ²⁹ We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” ³⁰ The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. ³¹ We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. ³² Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. ³³ If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” ³⁴ They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

³⁵ Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ³⁶ He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” ³⁷ Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” ³⁸ He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. ³⁹ Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” ⁴⁰ Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” ⁴¹ Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

Today’s Gospel not only teaches us about the miracle of giving sight to the blind, but it also gives us tremendous insight into the fallen state of the human condition.  We see pride, cruelty, and fear on many levels in this reading.

You would think that giving sight to a blind man would be a cause for celebration.  You would think that the man’s family would declare a feast.  You would think that the entire community would give thanks to God for His many blessings.  That is what you would think.  But that is not what happened.

Instead of celebration, this healing led to great controversy and division in the community.  His neighbours refused to believe that he had been healed.  The Pharisees launched an investigation.  The healing caused suspicion and fear.  In the end, we learn that blindness of the heart is a lot more dangerous than blindness of the eyes.

It all starts out with the disciples’ question, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  This question reflects a form of superstitious thinking that is still with us today.  I would like to think that in the year 2020 there would be almost total acceptance of and opportunity for those with disabilities, but, according to the World Health Organisation, the survival of persons with disability is even today threatened by attitudes, prejudices and beliefs, common among non-disabled people. Unfortunately, there are still a number of ‘modern day Pharisees’ in our communities that have delusions of self-righteousness and believe that disability is inherited from the sins of the parents. 

In regard to this modern-day bigotry, consider the horrible condition of the blind man.  I am not just talking about his inability to see, but also about the judgment he felt from the culture.  Not only must he rely on the charity of others in order to exist, but he must also listen to rabbis speculate on the horrible sin that he or his parents must have committed in order for him to be blind.  So the man is not only blind, he is also burdened with an intense sense of guilt.  Furthermore, the culture has no need to show pity to this man because, after all, he is only getting what he deserves.  The disability, in and of itself, is not the worst problem this man has.

Now think about the freedom that Jesus gave to this man when He answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.  Here was a rabbi who taught that this man was no better or worse than anyone else.  There was no specific sin that caused the blindness.

This man is freed from the specific guilt of his blindness, freed from the condemnation of the culture. This is a revelation that overrules bigotry and legalistic judgement forever.  Here we learn that the fact that we are not blind or deaf or lame has absolutely nothing to do with us or our parents before us.  There is nothing within us that prevents us from suffering any calamity that there is.  Whenever we observe anyone with any kind of mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical disability, our only response can be, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” – or simply “that could have been me!”.

Of course, this teaching is not the end of this account.  Jesus had already given the man spiritual insight into his blindness.  Jesus continued to teach by giving physical sight to the man as well.

Jesus returned the man’s sight in a most sacramental way.  According to our definition of the word sacrament there must be three parts.  There must be a command from God.  There must be the forgiveness of sins.  There must be visible elements.  This healing almost qualifies.  Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva.  Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent).  Here we have the command of Jesus.  We have visible elements, spit and dirt.  About the only thing that makes this not a sacrament is that the gift was the gift of sight and not the gift of forgiveness.  The forgiveness will come later.

Of course, the man went and washed and came back seeing.  This is terrific.  This is wonderful.  This is a cause to rejoice.  The Biblical account however tells us that it just doesn’t pan out that way.  Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.  That act of grace was all the ammunition the bigoted Pharisees needed.

You see God’s law forbade work on the Sabbath and the Pharisees had a lot of traditions about what constituted work on the Sabbath.  The problem was that most of these traditions were based on human opinions and not on the Word of God.  According to the man-made tradition of the elders, Jesus had just violated the Sabbath; but this in itself caused a severe contradiction.  There were some among them who claimed that if Jesus violated the Sabbath, then God would not give Him the authority to give sight to the blind. There it was, according to their traditions, Jesus had worked on the Sabbath, but God had given sight to the blind anyway.  The Pharisees had no choice.  They had to mount an investigation into the incident.

At first, they tried to prove that there was no miracle, but, all the witnesses agreed there was.  His parents testified that until recently, he had been blind from birth.  The community at large agreed.  The man himself insisted that he had been blind.  The clear and unassailable testimony proved that there had been a miracle.  The man who had once been blind could now see.

Then the Pharisees tried to come up with a way for Jesus to give sight to the blind and still be a sinner.  As you read the account, you can almost see the Holy Spirit at work in the man who had been born blind.  He began to perceive that the Pharisees were afraid.  He began to realise that the miracle Jesus had done threatened them.  He began to see that the Pharisees were clueless.

Notice the progress of the interrogation.  At first, the blind man answered their questions with respect.  Over time, He began to poke fun at them.  By the time they came to the end of the interrogation, the blind man was preaching to them.  The blind man did not even have a full understanding of who Jesus was and, yet, what little he knew, he confessed.  I once was blind, but now I see.  Eventually, the Pharisees had a temper tantrum and threw the blind man out of the synagogue, but, by then, the blind man didn’t care.  He knew that the man who healed him was more important than the Pharisees or the synagogue.

Jesus then found this man.  That is the way it always is.  Jesus finds us.  We do not find Him.  Jesus revealed His true identity to this man and the man worshipped Jesus.  The man who was saddled with physical blindness and the guilt of his sin was now free.  He was free to see.  He was free of the Pharisees.  He was free of the Synagogue.  Most of all, he was free of sin.  The Holy Spirit had given him faith in the one, true saviour, Jesus Christ.

You see, although Jesus had little respect for the man-made traditions of the elders, He had the utmost respect for the Word of God.  He kept the Word of God in every detail.  He knew the full impact of sin’s curse including blindness and every other disability.  He offered up the perfection of His life in order to take the eternal impact of sin onto Himself.  With His sacrificial death on the cross, He earned the forgiveness of sin for all mankind.

All people who insist they have no sin are spiritually blind … just like the Pharisees in today’s Gospel.  They are doomed to eternal suffering.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, those who believe in Jesus Christ are free.  Even if they are physically blind, their spiritual sight is 20 /20.  Like the man who received his sight in today’s Gospel, they have spiritual sight and will live with their saviour forever. With this in mind; I beg your indulgence for a few minutes more:

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, world wars and depressions have brought extremely challenging strife into our lives, our communities and our world; but never in the history of our nation have we been told we cannot find comfort in fellowship with others; in Christian worship; over a meal; at an entertainment venue. Not since the year 1918 has the world been confronted with the reality of indiscriminate viral infection over which there is no control and for which they have no cure. Never before in our living history has there been such potential for mass anxiety and despair. 

Being alert and concerned is a natural part of our self-preservation mode; but anxiety and despair is the tool of the evil one. This is not the time to wither in despair, this is the time to remember who we are and what team we are on. Our team selection panel; The Holy Trinity; selected us before we were born; they have known us from our mother’s womb until now; and at the time when we humans seemed to be at our weakest point, they sent Jesus to be our coach and our Saviour. We’re on the strongest team ever known – Jesus suffered and died for us so that we will never die; and just in case our human doubts and weaknesses threaten to overcome us, at the font of life they placed their very presence in us in the form of the Holy Spirit. God with us; God in us!!

^{Matthew 11:28-30}  “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

^{John 14:27} “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. “

Let’s open our hearts in faith that our loving Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier is in control of the world and that prayerfully wrapped in the arms of Jesus, our very souls can find peace in the words of Romans ^{8: 35 – 39}“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”^[a]

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”. Amen

The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Lent 3 - 15 March 2020 - Year A

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to St John: Verses 5 – 42:
 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.¹

⁷ A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

²⁷ Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” ²⁸ So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” ³⁰ They went out of the town and were coming to him.

³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. ³⁶ Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷ For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.”

³⁹ Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word. ⁴² They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.”

There is an advantage to reading the Bible in large sections.  You notice the continuity in the narrative and the overall structure and purpose of the Word of God becomes evident.  This can lead to some wonderful revelations concerning God’s love for us. I can still remember the first time I read John 3 and 4 in one sitting.  Here are two chapters that show us that God’s salvation is truly for all people.

We heard the beginning of John 3 in last week’s Gospel.  This is the account of an honourable Pharisee named Nicodemus coming to Jesus with some honest questions.  This morning, we heard the beginning of John 4.  This is the account of the Samaritan woman at the well.

Pharisees were the leading members of society.  Jesus meeting with Nicodemus would be the equivalent of meeting with a Federal Parliamentary Minister.  In today’s Gospel we learn that the woman at the well had a sinful reputation and she was a Samaritan.  In the culture of that time and place, she was at the bottom of society and Nicodemus was at the top.  It would be hard to find two more different people.  Regardless of this, both of these people were sinners and both of these people needed Jesus and His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.

The beginning of today’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was in Samaria.  This is very unusual.  Most Jews traveling back and forth between Galilee and Judea would actually walk to the Jordan and cross it before heading north or south.  You see, Samaria was between Galilee in the North and Judea in the South.  Jews would rather make the effort to cross the Jordan twice so they could walk around Samaria instead of walking through Samaria.  The Jews despised the Samaritans so much that they didn’t even want to travel through the country of Samaria.

The second problem was that the Samaritan was a woman.  There were some cultures around the Mediterranean basin that pretty much treated women as equals, but the Jewish and Samaritan cultures were not among them.  There were strict rules about the interaction between men and women.  Basically, a woman was not supposed to interact with an adult male without the protection of a male relative … a father, husband, adult son, big brother, or similar relative.  A solitary woman at the town well was a scandal waiting to happen.

Thirdly, this woman had a history.  She had been through multiple marriages and was currently living with her boyfriend.  She was guilty of adultery.

So, if we total everything up, Jesus had three very excellent reasons not to talk with this woman.  No one would blame Him.  Everyone would understand.  As far as the culture was concerned, this woman was a scraping from the bottom of the barrel. Note that it was the culture that placed Nicodemus at the top of the heap and the Samaritan woman at the bottom of the barrel.  God’s judgment has a different standard … His holy, righteous law.

According to that law, we are all the same.  Jesus said, ^{[Matthew 15:19]} “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”  The Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write, ^{[Romans 3:23]} “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Moses recorded the Lord’s thoughts after Noah’s Flood, ^{[Genesis 8:21]} “The intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” These verses and many others teach us that God’s law judges us all and finds that, according to God’s law, we are all scrapings from the bottom of the barrel.

In our worship services, we confess our sins to Almighty God.  In different variations we confess: Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean.  We have sinned against You in thought, word and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone.  We have not loved You with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves.  We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment.  We tell God that we are the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel because our sin corrupts us.  We tell God that we deserve the scrap heap of eternal punishment.

The fact that Jesus shared the Gospel with this woman teaches us that Jesus came to save the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel.  Jesus transcended the cultural barriers between Him and the woman in a very simple way.  He asked for a drink of water.  Then He talked about the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian by comparing it to living water … a bubbling spring that continually brings healthy water to the surface.  Last week, Jesus had told Nicodemus that He must be born of water and the Spirit.  Now this week, He is the source of living water – water that will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.The woman was intrigued and that is when Jesus began to work on her with the law.

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”  This was a reasonable request.  As I said before, men did not normally interact with women outside of their family.  Instead, a man normally went through another man who was closely related to the woman – a husband, father, adult son, or some other close relative.  In this case, however, this ordinary request began a process that would cause the woman to confront her guilt.  She had no husband.

Then Jesus laid her sins out before her.  He said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”  Jesus laid out this woman’s lifestyle of adultery – a sin that was punishable by death.  Even though today’s culture would celebrate this woman’s life style choices, adultery still is a sin – a sin that earns eternal punishment under God’s Law.

It may seem that God is cruel when He forces us to face our sin, but that is not the case.  This is actually part of the love that God has for us.  As the Holy Spirit shows our sin to us, He shows us that we cannot save ourselves.  He shows us that we must receive our salvation from outside of ourselves.  He shows us our need for a saviour.  This reality check with the law prepares us for the living water of the Gospel.

You see, once the Law has softened our hearts, the Holy Spirit uses the living water of the Gospel to show our Saviour to us.  Notice how Jesus brought the Gospel to the woman.    The woman said to [Jesus], “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”  The same Jesus who presented this woman with her sin now shows her the salvation from that sin.  Jesus is the Gospel in the flesh.  He is the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one.  He is the saviour from all our sins.

The Holy Spirit used these words to work faith in this woman.  It was just as Jesus had said.  She became a spring of living water.  The living water of the Gospel quickly became a fountain in this woman.  The woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”  The living water produced an instant missionary.

Think about the woman’s message.  A man who tells her about all she did is telling her about all her sin.  In response, she went to all the people who know her and her reputation and told them, “Come, see a man who told me about my reputation as a sinful woman.”  She confessed her sin to the people and invited them to see the man who knew all about those sins … and the Holy Spirit used her confession.  He worked the miracle of faith in this town.  This miracle caused a Samaritan town to invite a Jewish rabbito teach them for two days.

 Eventually, the people of this town confessed, “We know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.”  These people only had the books of Moses, but that was enough.  They knew that this was the Seed of the Woman that God had promised to Adam and Eve in the Garden.  They knew that this was the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed.  They knew this was the fulfilment of all the sacrifices required by the Law of Moses.  They knew that this was God’s sacrifice who would give up His life for the sins of the world.  Because Jesus lovingly hammered a Samaritan woman with the law, a Samaritan village came to the knowledge of God’s salvation through the teaching of a Jewish rabbi – a Jewish rabbi who is their saviour.

The Bible’s main message is that God saves the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel.  In order to do this, the Son of God took on human flesh, lived a perfect life under the law, and died on the cross.  He did this to save sinners … the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel.  Only sinners qualify for this salvation.  That is the reason that it is an act of love for us to remind each other that we all qualify for that salvation, for we are all sinners.

When flight attendants give instructions for emergencies at the beginning of a flight, they tell the passengers to place the oxygen mask on themselves first and then on the people around them.  In a similar way, when Jesus tells the church to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His name, we need to proclaim it to ourselves first.  We need to begin with our own evil self and the forgiveness that Jesus has for us.  Only then can we proclaim that message to others.  It is only when the church proclaims that message to herself first that she can go on to proclaim it to the world.

Our message to the world is not that Christians are better than anyone else, but that Christians are in the process of becoming honest about our sin.  It is only as we see our true depravity in the law that we begin to see the love that God has for us in that ^{[Romans 5:8]} God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Through that death we receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, for where there is forgiveness of sins there is also life and salvation.  Amen

The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Lent 2 – 8 March 2020 – Year A

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the 3^rd Chapter of the Gospel according to St John: Verses 1–17:

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ² This man came to Jesus¹ by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” ³ Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ⁴ Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

⁹ Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹ Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Nicodemus, as a Pharisee, was a member of an exclusive group who considered that the first five books of the bible were the perfect Law of God, and took a sacred oath to uphold and live out every letter of the law as written in those five books. In their efforts they were incredibly self-righteous and, in their attempt to do the impossible, they changed God’s Law into a harsh set of legalistic rules that they imposed on the people. 

It is astonishing that Nicodemus came to Jesus at all; but he did under the cover of night.  He had heard about this young rabbi from Galilee and he had genuine curiosity.   He really wanted to understand this young rabbi’s teachings.  So he went to meet Jesus when He was in Jerusalem.

Nicodemus came to Jesus with a great deal of respect.  He wasn’t convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, but He saw Him as a great prophet, and as a prophet, Jesus’ words would be God’s words.  In this conversation, as John records it, we have the opportunity to learn about the work that each member of the Trinity has in our salvation.  The Father loves us and sends His Son.  The Son saves the world and offers forgiveness, life and salvation to all.  The Holy Spirit establishes and maintains the faith that receives and holds the gifts that the Son offers to us.  The Holy Spirit delivers these gifts through the Word of God – as we hear it and read it – as it comes to us in the water of Baptism – and as it comes to us in Christ’s very body and blood as we eat the bread and drink the wine of the Holy Supper.

As Jesus began answering Nicodemus’ questions, He actually worked His way from the end of the process of salvation back to the beginning.  He began with the Holy Spirit’s activity of establishing faith in us.  We call this process conversion.  The Holy Spirit converts people from spiritual death to spiritual life.  Jesus said this process of conversion is a spiritual birth.  After Nicodemus introduced himself, Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  Later, after Nicodemus asked for more explanation Jesus started over and added more details.  Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  The spiritual birth of conversion is like physical birth.

Ask any mother or anyone who has assisted with the birth of a baby, “Who does all the work?”  The baby endures quite a bit in the birthing process, but the baby does not provide the work.  The work comes from mum.  The baby experiences the work, but provides none of it.  It is mum who does the work of giving birth.  The baby passively experiences the birth.

Things are the same in the spiritual birth of conversion.  Although a great deal is happening to us during this life changing process, we do absolutely nothing to make it happen.  We do not decide to follow Jesus.  We do not give ourselves to God.  Just as mum does all the work of physical birth, so God does all the work of Spiritual birth.  We do nothing.  When Jesus answered, “… That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” He was telling Nicodemus and us that just as mum brings a baby into this physical world with a physical birth, so also, the Holy Spirit brings the Christian into the spiritual World with a spiritual birth.

So then, this faith, this new birth, this new spiritual life is a gift and work of the Holy Spirit.  It is a miracle of God that He works in us.  That is the reason that we can baptise anyone – especially babies.  In fact, if you think about it, the miracle might be greater in adults since the Holy Spirit must work to undo a lifetime of false belief before He can work the true faith in them.  A baby, on the other hand, is a blank slate – less likely to put up a fight.  Faith is always a miracle of the Holy Spirit, but I wonder if this miracle might be a little greater in an adult.

So faith is a miracle of the Holy Spirit, but what are its benefits?  Why does God go through all the effort to produce this faith in us?

This faith receives the work that God does for us.  Here Jesus talks about Himself for He is the one who earned the benefits of faith for us.  Jesus often called Himself “The Son of Man,” and He had this to say about that Son of Man: “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.”  The first thing He told Nicodemus about Himself was that He was descended from heaven – a very clear indication that the Son of Man is also the Son of God.  When Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God, He talked about Himself for He is truly God.  The first benefit that Jesus revealed to Nicodemus was the knowledge that Jesus is both God and man – He is the Kingdom of God.

The benefit of conversion becomes even clearer when Jesus moved on to tell of the work He would do as God and Man: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  Here is the chief benefit of the faith that the Holy Spirit works in us through conversion – eternal life.  Whoever believes has eternal life. Each time we speak the words of the Apostles Creed, we confess that we believe that Jesus was lifted up on the cross just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness and by His suffering and death; Jesus won eternal life for us.  He offers it as a gift to us and we receive that gift by faith, the gift that the Holy Spirit works in us by the new, spiritual birth.

Here Jesus tells Nicodemus that only faith in Him can save.  Nicodemus can try to keep the laws of Moses until he perishes from the effort, but that will not earn him eternal life.  It is the same for us.  God’s only standard is perfection.  It only takes one sin to doom us forever.  As humans, we sin every day and cannot save ourselves.  What a marvellous salvation and comfort it is that whoever believes in Jesus Christ receives all the benefits that Jesus earned for us on the cross – forgiveness, life, and salvation.

Jesus then reassures Nicodemus that his god of law is also the almighty God of love:  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Here is the work of the Father.  He loves us and sacrifices His only begotten Son to die for us.  We cannot understand this kind of love.  We are after all, weak human sinners and in the terms of Nicodemus’ harsh uncompromising law, entirely unlovable.  Never the less, God loves us.  His love forced Him to act on our behalf.  In His love, He sent Jesus into this world to become our substitute – He sent His Son into the world to be lifted up on the cross in order that the world might be saved through him.

In this conversation, Jesus gave Nicodemus a lot to think about – more than we have time to consider today.  He explained that it is the new birth by the Holy Spirit that gives us the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation that the Son earned for us on the cross.  He proclaimed the Father’s love that He sacrificed His only begotten Son for us.  With these words Jesus explained that the Kingdom of God does not come to Nicodemus because he is a descendant of Abraham, but because the Holy Spirit gives him the same faith that Abraham had.

In his conversation with Jesus, Nicodemus heard the Word of God, the same Word we come to worship services to hear; the same Word we read in our Bibles. The next we hear of Nicodemus is recorded in John 19, where he assisted Joseph of Arimathea to take Jesus body down from the cross and prepared it for the tomb with large quantities of expensive spices and linen, as was the Jewish burial custom. These are not the actions of a hardhearted legalistic aristocrat; not at all. These are the actions of a man who has experienced a new birth as the Holy Spirit established faith in him. As we read in James 2, true faith can only be demonstrated by deeds.

Nicodemus helped Joseph place Jesus’ body in the tomb and what a joy it must have been when Nicodemus learned that the body he had laid in Joseph’s tomb was no longer there – that his saviour Jesus Christ had risen from the dead.  What a joy it is for Nicodemus that he will forever enjoy the Kingdom of God that he received through the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith.  What a joy it is for us who have the Holy Spirit’s gift of the new birth that the day will come when we shall join Nicodemus around the throne of God in the eternal joy of everlasting life.  Amen.

The love and peace of God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.