Slipped Out--April 1, 2024

Slipped Out--April 1, 2024

"When [the women] looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, 'Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him'." [Mark 16:4-6]

Like the old saying goes, you can't keep a good man down.

The way Mark tells the story of the women coming to the tomb two days after Jesus' crucifixion, it is certainly clear that Jesus wasn't staying put.  Not even death could hold him in place.  

Now, of course, the absence of a body--as well as the lack of an appearance of the risen Jesus for the moment--might at first seem frightening.  After all, the women were not expecting a resurrection.  When they find the stone rolled back and the body of their rabbi missing from where they had seen it laid late on Friday, their first reaction is panic.  Did someone steal the body?  Was it another cruel bit of mockery from the Romans who had so clearly savored humiliating Jesus in his last hours?  Had they desecrated his body?  Had robbers come and pilfered it hoping his disciples had buried him with valuables?  What did any of it mean?

But as the mysterious "young man dressed in a white robe" says, while casually sitting inside a crypt, there is no reason to be alarmed.  Nothing bad has happened to Jesus' body, not since Friday.   The absence of a body is not cause for dread that someone has taken a lifeless corpse from the cave.  Rather, the absence of the body is evidence, the anonymous messenger says, that Jesus is alive again.  "He is not here," he says.  He has been raised.  The missing Jesus isn't Missing In Action--rather, he has slipped out of the grip of death itself, and out of the control of the Empire that put him to death, the Respectable Religious Leaders who conspired with them, and even of his own disciples who kept wanting to force Jesus to fit the mold of their expectations.  He is loose in the world.

That is good news, undeniably.  And so it is absolutely right for us to shout from every hill and valley we can find that "Christ is risen indeed!" while singing our most boisterous alleluias.  But this story should also leave us a little unsettled.  Because the risen Jesus is even more elusive of our attempts to control, contain, and predict than ever.  We are never in charge or in the know over where he will appear next and what he is up to.  The risen Jesus will never let himself be our domesticated pet Messiah on a leash, a mascot to endorse our agendas, or our infomercial host to sell our merchandise.  He is out of the tomb, yes, and out of the reach of anybody's attempts to control him, tame him, or make him our shill.  If we are going to celebrate the resurrection--which is indeed good, right, and salutary to do--then we also need to be honest that the Risen One is also forever unchained and on the loose. Resurrection has a way of making Jesus a bit wild that way.  He will appear to give hope to despairing hearts, or restore wayward disciples, or show up behind locked doors, but he will not submit to being our party attraction or hired entertainment.  He is utterly free, and there is no version of the Easter story where the risen Jesus only does what the disciple-community expects or orders him to do.

So, dear ones, today is a day to declare with joy the news that death could not hold Jesus, and that he is not in the grave any longer, because he is risen.  But at the very same time, today is a day to keep our eyes peeled for the surprising presence of Jesus beyond our control or agendas.  He is alive, and will not stay put.  He is risen, and that means we should be prepared to meet him wherever this day takes us.  

What will we do when we meet him today?

Lord Jesus, surprise us with your risen presence as you will, so that we can recognize you with joy wherever you appear in this wide world.

The Executioner's Epiphany--March 29, 2024

The Executioner's Epiphany--March 29, 2024

"Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, 'Truly this man was God's Son!'" [Mark 15:37-39]

If you were looking for God, the cross is the last place most people would point you.

And yet, to hear the gospel tell it, if you want to meet God, the cross is exactly the place to find God.

For church folks who are used to decorating our worship spaces, car bumpers, and jewelry with crosses, I'm not sure we really get just how outrageous an idea that really is.  But today is a day to let the sheer scandal sink in for us.  As Mark tells the story, the centurion standing at the foot of the cross--the pagan army officer of the enemy empire's occupying force, who has just overseen the torture and execution of the man nailed to that very cross--finally realizes he has been in the very presence of God's own Son by watching the way Jesus dies.  Not from hearing Jesus' wise teachings.  Not from hearing his shrewd and clever comebacks in debates with his intellectual opponents.  Not from watching a miracle or eating some multiplied loaves.  Not from seeing Jesus command fire down from heaven or wield lightning bolts to smite his executioners (which, of course, Jesus never does).  But it's from seeing this wretched, tortured human being, humiliated and mocked by the Political Powers of the Day with the smiling approval of the Guardians of Respectable Religion, and the way he draws his last breath, that this Roman soldier finally sees that he has been in the very presence of God.

Plenty of folks might talk about having a sense of God standing in the majesty of the Grand Canyon, or in the stillness of an old pine forest.  Plenty of people might feel like God was in the feeling of inner peace they get when they watch a sunrise... or in the ominous dread of seeing a hurricane's destruction or the power of an earthquake.  Still others will say they know God's presence when they get the cure they were waiting for, or the promotion they'd been hoping for at work, or even a good parking space.  But over against all those stories, Mark the Gospel writer says that we see God most clearly, not in power, wealth, or splendor, but in the Crucified One.  God chooses to be revealed, not in what the world calls "success" or "strength" or "winning," but in what the world names "failure," "weakness," and "defeat."  And of all people, the one who gets it is the officer on execution duty for the conquering empire of Rome.

Maybe it's finally in this moment that he's disillusioned from all the bluster and propaganda that came out of Rome.  Maybe he finally realizes that Caesar, for all his supposed power and might, can't bring himself to sacrifice his own life for the good of others.  Maybe he sees at last that it takes greater strength in Jesus' choice not to come down from the cross and save himself, but to bear all the worst of human hatred and vitriol and to smother it all like a fire with his own body.  Maybe the centurion doesn't have any words at all to explain why he knows it, but he just knows:  this was God's Son.

Once you start to see the world through the centurion's eyes, it rearranges everything we thought we knew about God.  We are so used to defining God as the biggest thing around, the most powerful being in the universe, or the ruler who governs the cosmos... and here, the executioner's epiphany says that God is best understood as the One whose love will bear death, violence, hatred, and cruelty, and exhaust them all.  Yes to all the rest, but only insofar as we see those through the clarifying lens of God on a cross.

And all of a sudden, the rest of the story makes a whole new sense.  Jesus doesn't call down an army of angels to fight back against Pilate, nor does he prod his followers to launch a violent insurrection to get his way, not because he hadn't thought of these possibilities, but because these are not in character with the way of God.  Jesus doesn't scorch his enemies with firebolts or avenge his own death by killing the centurion who held the hammer, not because he can't, but because God's way is to bear our hatred with unconquerable love.  The cross doesn't hide God behind the dark clouds that hover over Golgotha: the cross reveals that God is the One with nail-scarred hands and a crown of thorns, and that this is who God has always been all along.

I'm reminded of the counter-intuitive wisdom of Frederick Buechner, who points out how strange--and yet, in a way, how utterly perfect it is--that a means of execution is the central symbol of our faith, especially compared to the more pleasant symobls associated with other religions:  "A six-pointed star, a crescent moon, a lotus--the symbols of other religions suggest beauty and light. The symbol of Christianity is an instrument of death. It suggests, at the very least, hope."  But that does require learning a new way of seeing the world, as well as the God who loves that world.  It requires learning to see, as the centurion does, that the one on the cross is none other than the presence of God in a human life.  Only by that vision can we see God clearly as the One who would rather die for his enemies than kill them.  Only by that kind of vision can we dare to call this Friday "Good."  

But once we do, everything is different.

So hear the story again today.  Let your mind, heart, and vision borrow the perspective of the centurion at the cross.  And see the presence of God in the godforsaken one.  See the lengths to which Love has gone for us all.

Lord Jesus, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

...To The End--March 28, 2024

...To The End--March 28, 2024

"Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from his world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." [John 13:1]

"He loved them to the end."

Those words stand over the whole rest of the story--of this day in Holy Week, and of the life of Jesus.  Everything else that follows is a glimpse of how Jesus loves, in real life, flesh-and-blood ways.

On this day in the church's life, traditionally called "Maundy Thursday" from the Latin "mandamus," for command, Jesus expresses love for his disciples--who are now friends--in several powerful ways.  Immediately after this verse from John, Jesus washes his disciples' feet--taking the lowliest servant's role and subverting the old notions of rank, prestige, and status in self-giving humility.  It is love in real action--performing an act of kindness that leaves all ego and talk of projecting "greatness" behind.  And Jesus does this for his disciples, including for his betrayer Judas, even knowing that his has mere hours left with them before he is taken from them by the lynch mob and the police.   He takes the time to show tenderness to them, even though his own heart has got to be bursting with sorrow and anxiety, because he loves them.  And so, yes, even all the way to the end--until his very last moments with them, Jesus is putting their needs and comfort before his own.  That is to say, he loves them.

The act of washing feet begins a chain reaction of love, in fact, because Jesus has in mind for his followers to continue in his own example, too.  As he has done for them, they are now to do for one another, and for all who will be drawn into the Beloved Community Jesus is creating.  This will be their signpost in the world; this will be the calling card of the Jesus-movement: love that stoops to humble positions to serve rather than lording over others to bully or dominate them.  This is what Jesus wants his community to be known for.  And it all follows from the way Jesus starts it: loving his disciples to the full... all the way... to the end.

This is also the night, as the storytelling goes, when Jesus takes the leftover pieces of bread from the Passover meal, and inscribes them with new meaning that also comes from his love.  He offers them the bread as his own body, "broken for you," as the story says," and the cup of wine as his own blood, "shed for you." In other words, even though it will look to the watching world like Jesus is a helpless victim overpowered by the empire, the crowd, and the Respectable Religious Leaders, Jesus wants his followers to know that this is his gift, his choice, and his love at work.  He gives himself away at the cross.  In fact, later on this very night, when Jesus is in the garden with his disciples, he will literally put himself between the danger (the mob armed with swords and clubs) and his disciples, telling the authorities that he is the one they want, and they can let everyone else go.  Jesus' love doesn't only choose the lowly and menial task of washing feet; it also chooses the dangerous role of putting his body between his friends and the bloodthirsty vigilantes who have come for him (rather like the mama hen keeping her brood under her wings, as we talked about the other day).

All of these are what Jesus' love looks like--the basin and the towel, the broken bread and poured cup, the protection in the garden to draw the heat off of the disciples by focusing it on himself, and the cross that looms on the horizon, too.  All of this is what John the narrator has in mind when he says that Jesus "loved them to the end."  Jesus loved perfectly, completely, fully, leaving nothing on the table and holding nothing back.  And truthfully, that's what he had been doing with every word, every action, and every breath for his whole life: Jesus has been loving us in a million different ways.  And in a sense, then, every moment of Jesus' life has been cruciform--cross-shaped--in the sense that all of Jesus' words, actions, and choices have been different instances of the same self-giving love.  The servant with the washbasin, the host who feeds at the table, the one who loves his enemies and even his betrayer, the willing protector who trades his own life for his friends' safety, the figure bleeding out on the cross: these are all what it looks like for Jesus to love completely.  And for each of us, this is what it is for us to be loved by this same Jesus, too.

As you hear the stories told tonight, and perhaps as your own feet or hands are washed in worship, or as you receive the bread and cup in your own hands, let it sink in again: all of this is what love looks like.  This is how we know we are beloved.  And this gives us a starting point for what our love will look like out in the world as we walk, feet still dripping wet from the basin, into a world that has been waiting to know what it is like to be loved completely... fully... to the end.

Lord Jesus, let your love sink in and shape us, so that we may also love as you do--completely and fully.

In Remembrance of Her--March 27, 2024

In Remembrance of Her--March 27, 2024

"While [Jesus] was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, ‘Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.’ And they scolded her. But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her'." [Mark 14:3-9]

Even in a moment that is clearly all about him, Jesus has a way of making this scene not all about himself.

That is amazing.

In a bit of spiritual sleight of hand, Jesus slips out of the limelight and calls attention--good attention, mind you, in this case--to a beautiful act of compassion and kindness that the woman with the alabaster jar did. And not only to the act itself, as though it were done by a robot or a mannequin, but to her... to the woman herself. Jesus takes the time, especially when she is being belittled and demeaned by the Respectable Religious Folks at the table, to honor her, her generosity, and her insight into the moment. In a moment that is wholly unique in all the Gospels, actually, Jesus himself says that her action will be remembered, and "what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."

Those words have an almost haunting power for Christians, because they echo so closely what Jesus says about himself at the table of Jesus' Last Supper, words which are part of our weekly worship life now as Holy Communion. Week by week, Sunday by Sunday, we retell the story--on Jesus' own say-so, mind you--that we take the bread and the cup "in remembrance of me" (see Luke 22:19, for example). For whatever else is happening there at the Lord's Table, at least part of what Jesus intends is for us to remember, to retell, what he has done. And those words, "Do this in remembrance of me," are found all over churches, inscribed on altars, embroidered on banners, all over the world, and throughout Christian history. Interesting, to say the least, that Jesus uses the same kind of language for this woman's act of tender, insightful, humble compassion when he says that her action will be retold "in remembrance of her."

I say that here because this is perhaps an element of the Passion story that can be missed or go unrecognized. Jesus is undoubtedly the center of attention at this gathering--and yet, Jesus chooses deliberately to lift up the graciousness of the woman with the perfume. And notice here, Jesus doesn't do it because he is too shy, or timid, or afraid of being at the center of people's attention: he is not afraid. Neither does Jesus simply pity this woman or "save" her from others, but he praises here. He's not there to use her as a prop so he can come off as an even more winsome, charming, charismatic sort of fella. He actually wants people to see what she has done, and to see that she has had an insight about what he is about to go through that even Jesus' own closest disciples don't get yet. Jesus sees that she gets it.  She understands that Jesus is heading toward a final showdown with the powerful political and religious leaders, and she seems to understand what even Peter, James, and John don't yet understand: that Jesus will go to a cross over this. 

And so Jesus doesn't just say, patronizingly, "Oh well, she tried. At least she tried. But yeah, she should have taken the money from selling this and given it to the poor." He doesn't put on that act parents do when their kids make breakfast in bed for their mommies and daddies with garlic powder in the cinnamon toast and eggshells in the omelet, where they smile and say thank you but are really being gracious themselves by eating what is set before them. Jesus appreciates this woman--not just her "good intentions," as a sort of patronizing response to her, but he genuinely appreciates that at least someone around him understood what he had been saying about a cross, and that she was saying back to him in this gesture, "I get what you are doing... and I want to honor that." So Jesus honors her as well.

And maybe that is enough for us to consider on this day. Part of the following this Jesus is not simply to make ourselves the galactic center and turn all eyes on ourselves, even as martyrs. You know that habit we have sometimes, where we make as big a ruckus for ourselves as possible about how much we are doing, how much we are going through, and how tiring it all is... and we end up using serving as a way of stroking our own egos. "Nobody else understands how much I have to go through.... nobody else knows all that I do around here..." and that sort of thing. Jesus doesn't do that here. He is able to call attention to the good that someone else has done without turning it into a secret, back-channel way of bolstering some martyr complex or insecure need for attention for himself. He really does appreciate this woman, and he simply enough calls attention to her, on her own terms.

We live in an era where it is a rare thing to find this precious ability to genuinely appreciate and honor others... without making it still stealthily about me, without making ourselves martyrs, and without tooting our own horns. We are living with a lack of examples these days, of people who can use their position not to puff themselves up, nor to make themselves out to be overlooked and persecuted, but who can genuinely honor others whose gifts, whose actions, and whose character are otherwise going unseen. And even rarer to find someone who, like Jesus here, can lift up someone else and honor her, without it really being a way of patronizing them or pitying them.

Part of our own calling as we follow Jesus, then, is to learn how to see--to notice things--that others around may either not be recognizing, or may be deliberately ignoring or putting a bad spin on. Despite the peanut gallery's way of trying to make this woman into a fool or a wasteful prodigal, Jesus sees her action in the beauty of her intentions and the courage of her carrying it out, and he lifts it up for all to see, like turning a jewel in the light to make it sparkle. And then, as we let Jesus train our eyes to see what we had not noticed before (or did not have the courage to recognize before), then the way of Jesus leads us to speak--to say, to tell the stories, to honor, those who, like this woman, are worthy of being remembered. I know I have shared these words before, but this line from Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead has become something of a touchstone for me on this subject. Robinson writes: "I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave - that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us, as the old men said, to make ourselves useful. It allows us to be generous, which is another way of saying exactly the same thing."

Precious things, indeed, have been put into our hands... and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. Jesus gets that. He sees what others either cannot or will not see. And rather than stroke his own ego or make himself the focus, Jesus honors the good and brave and loving act of a good and brave and loving woman. And in contrast to the unrepentant public narcissism of our own time, Jesus calls our attention not to himself, but to honor a woman worth remembering. "When you tell my story," Jesus says, knowing his story will be told already, "now hers will be told, too... in remembrance of her."  Even mere days away from the cross on which the salvation of the whole world is hung, Jesus takes the time to call attention to someone else's beautiful act of kindness.  That's saying something.

Who are the people around you whose good, thoughtful, kind, loving actions are simply worthy of being lifted up and appreciated? What will we do or say today to honor the precious things that have been put in our hands?

Lord Jesus, give us the insight to see the gifts of others that have gone unrecognized, and give us the courage and freedom from ego to speak up and honor them.

The Brave Chicken of God--March 26, 2024

The Brave Chicken of God--March 26, 2024

[Jesus said:] "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" [Matthew 23:37]

You know the old joke:  Why did the chicken cross the road? The punch line is built on its utter obviousness: To get to the other side, of course!

The emotional punch of Jesus' image for himself as a chicken is supposed to be obvious, too, although perhaps those of us who don't live near a chicken coop might miss it.  When Jesus describes himself as a mother hen, gathering her brood under her wings, it begs the question: Why would a mother hen gather her chicks under her wings in the first place?  And the answer, simply, is to put her life between her children and the danger.

Jesus pictures himself as the Mama Hen, offering to put his life between his people and the powers of death and violence, knowing full well that means laying his life down in the exchange.  Mother hens might shelter their brood as protection against any number of dangers--to keep them from freezing if a snowstorm or deep plunge in temperatures would have killed the peeps, or to become an insulating barrier in case there's a fire, or even to offer her body to protect from predators, hoping that her own life will satisfy the fox's hunger or at least buy her chicks some time.  But whatever the specific danger, the mother hen knows the bargain she is making--she is offering her life in exchange for the lives of her children, and she is willing to do it for her sake.  I don't know much about the internal emotional life of domesticated birds, but that sure seems like self-giving love to me.

And that's why it is such a powerful image to find on Jesus' lips here in this scene from early in Holy Week.  Jesus knows full well where his story is headed, and he offers his own life for the city and people of Jerusalem anyhow.  He weeps over the city where prophets spoke and kings ruled, this place where God's presence was specially experienced and where Jesus himself had been brought since he was an infant.  But more than merely lamenting over a lost cause, he offers to lay down his life for them all.  This is the depth of Jesus' love for people who have a track record of killing the prophets and running the truth-tellers out of town.  This is what Jesus offers us as well.  Jesus is willing to be the Mama Hen for the sake of the world.

So often, loud voices of Respectable Religion have talked about the events of Holy Week and the cross as if Jesus dies in order to satiate the untamed rage of God, as though Jesus has to die in order to make God no longer want to kill us or punish us or zap us.  But if you actually listen to how Jesus himself describes what he has in mind, he's not trying to appease a bloodthirsty deity, but to lay down his life to protect us from the powers of death that hunt us like a fox in a henhouse.  Jesus says, in effect, to the powers of death, "You'll have to go through me to get to my people," and he offers himself like a divine-and-human shield.  Or, rather like a chicken, like the bravest mother hen you ever saw.  This is what we are about to witness in the coming days of retelling the Passion of Jesus.

And while we're on that subject, that's why we take the time each year in this week to retrace the story of the cross and resurrection.  It's not that God needs to be pacified with our performance each Holy Week, or that new prospective church members need to see the biggest spectacle we can put on.  But rather, we need to let the sheer depth and breadth and magnitude of Jesus' audacious love get through to us, and we need as many different windows on understanding it as possible.  So we keep hearing these different ways that the Scriptures talk about the meaning of the cross--it's like the pulling power of a magnet that draws us in close, or the snake on the pole from the wilderness story, or it's like the sacrifice of a mother hen who puts herself between her beloved and the trouble.  And with each image, each picture, each facet of the cross, we are told, "Pay attention.  This is how you are loved."

Even in the final few days before the arrest in the garden and the cross that looms before the week is out, Jesus is giving us one more way to understand what he is offering: Jesus gives us here the most compelling image of bravery I think you'll find in the Bible, and of all things, it turns out to be a chicken.  He is so utterly willingly to lay down his life that he will be willing to play the role of mama hen for a world of lost chicks who are at risk.  And he does it because, quite simply, that is what love does.

This is how we are loved.  Jesus gives his life away, not to change God's mind about us or merely to inspire us to be better and kinder good little girls and boys, but like a courageous chicken, offering her life for ours, and well aware of the cost of that bargain.  Jesus would rather have you than his own life.

Do we dare to let him love us?  Do we dare to tell someone else that this love is for them, too?

Lord Jesus, let your love cover us, and let us pause in awesome appreciation of the depth of that love that enfolds us in the protection of your wings.

A Different Kind of King--March 25, 2024

A Different Kind of King--March 25, 2024

"The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, 'Hosanna!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord--the King of Israel!'  Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it; as it is written, 'Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt!'" [John 12:12-15]

Say what you will about the brutality of the Roman Empire (and there's plenty to say), but they sure did know how to put on a spectacle.  The pomp and circumstance of an imperial procession would have been breath-taking to behold--and of course, it was also supposed to be intimidating.  The gleaming metal of the polished helmets and armor of soldiers flashing in the light as they moved in formation.  The blood-red banners flapping in the wind, staking a claim that wherever the army was marching was under the authority and power of Caesar.  The thunderous sounds of feet marching in step.  And the regal appearance of a commander, or a Roman governor, or even Caesar himself, riding a powerful war horse, which had surely been properly trained to march along and to help the rider project dignity and strength.

And then there's Jesus, who seems deliberate in his attempt to do the opposite in his entry into the city.   He's not trying to intimidate or threaten anybody with his parade, and in fact, he's really sort of kicking off a sort of parody of the Roman spectacle that surely would have been taking place around the same time as his entry into Jerusalem--since the Romans would have wanted to clamp down on any possible rabble-rousing at the great Jewish festival of liberation, the Passover.  Jesus' entry on what Christians have come to call "Palm Sunday" seems designed precisely to take the ominous "shock and awe" of a Roman military parade and turn it on its head.  He is deliberately offering an alternative--a different kind of kingdom, with a different kind of king.

Now the hitch--the thing that will eventually sour the crowd by the end of this week's events--is that Jesus hasn't come to just replace one bully on the throne with another bully.  He hasn't come to replace Roman brutality and violence with his own, merely switching out the title "King of Israel" on the letterhead in place of "Emperor of Rome" where Caesar's name had been.  Jesus has come to turn kingship itself upside down, as the one who reigns in serving and self-giving love, rather than domination and fear-mongering.  The tools of his work will be different as well--he won't need a scepter or a sword, but will bear the basin and the towel for washing feet.  He won't need to flog, torture, or crucify his enemies or potential competition, but will bear being crucified at their hands to break the very power of death itself.  And Jesus won't be needing a Roman war horse--instead, he rides a donkey.  The animal on which he enters the city is a tip-off that Jesus hasn't come to play Rome's game by Rome's old rules.  He has come to upset the whole imperial order of things by offering an alternative parade, with an alternative kind of king leading the way.

It's true that John the Gospel writer sees the choice of animal as a fulfillment of prophecy--the old visionary Zechariah had envisioned a coming king, riding "humble" as well as "victorious" on a donkey and establishing peace for all nations.  But even Zechariah understood how different a donkey looks from a war horse--and Israel's kind of kings were always--always--intended at their best to be servant-leaders rather than tyrants, and shepherds of their people rather than conquers of others.  For Jesus to step into that royal image of a donkey-riding king is still to question all of the imperial propaganda that Rome surely had in mind when it marched in a garrison of troops, led by a horse-mounted commanding officer to tighten their grip on the city of Jerusalem.

The symbolism in the switching of animals is huge: a donkey is far smaller and less imposing, because Jesus doesn't have any intention of trying to intimidate anybody.  He doesn't need to rule by instilling fear in people.  And instead of a military-trained horse that is obedient to its riders commands (or the pain of a whip and spurs), Jesus rides an animal, on which, as Mark's gospel tells it, "that has never been ridden."  This ain't a properly trained steed that has been broken by a human master to make it submissive--this is an already stubborn donkey that has never had a person ride on it, and here, Jesus rides it into town.  I have to picture it moseying along, needing constant redirection, not keeping a regular efficient pace, but looking all around and wondering what it's gotten itself into.  Jesus doesn't need to ride an animal whose spirit has been broken--he doesn't require breaking spirits to accomplish his purposes, after all.  And of course, the kicker is that this lowly, stubborn, unbroken animal isn't even Jesus' own possession--he has to borrow the donkey and have his disciples promise to return the creature when his little parade of protest is over.  All of this together points to an alternative to Rome's brutally efficient and intimidatingly cruel kind of kingship.   Jesus calls of that into question by the way he rides into town, and the followers of Jesus have been trying to follow in his footsteps (often with our own internal resistance, mind you!) ever since.  But in an important sense, the journey that leads Jesus to the cross makes total sense in light of the choice to ride a donkey to get there.  He is not only criticizing Rome's kind of rule and pointing to an alternative kingdom, but he is turning the old playbook upside-down by modeling a reign that doesn't depend on bluster or propaganda, but rather humble service.  Jesus is showing his hand from this moment on, just in his choice of mount to enter Jerusalem.  He has come as a different kind of king, indeed.

The challenge for us, then, is to find ways in our own lives and in the day before us to point to this same upside-down (which is really right-side-up) kind of kingdom.  Rather than looking to dominate and intimidate, our calling is to serve and free people from fear.  Rather than needing to have things "our way" our calling is to meet people where they are and offer the acceptance we've found from Jesus already.  And where there are modern-day Caesars intimidating, bullying, or threatening people to try and get their way, we are meant to point to another way--to be the brave ones saying that the emperor is wearing no clothes.  We walk in a different sort of parade--one without the regimented rhythm of marching jackboots and clanging armor, but with cloaks strewn in the road, palm branches cut down spontaneously, and a king at the front riding a stubborn ol' donkey because he doesn't have any need to intimidate anybody.  How will we live in that kind of kingdom this week?  How will we point to the humble, self-giving kind of King we have met in Jesus?  That's the direction of our path today.

Lord Jesus, let us live as reflections of your upside-down kingdom in the places and times where you have placed us.

Good News for Bad Guys (Like Us)--March 22, 2024

Good News for Bad Guys (Like Us)--March 22, 2024

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a righteous person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life." [Romans 5:6-10]

Tom Brokaw famously called them "the Greatest Generation,"--the men and women who survived the Great Depression and fought the Second World War. And there is a strong case to be made that they were among the greatest in our nation's history, given how much they sacrificed in the name of liberating occupied peoples, throwing down a dangerous, murderous demagogue, and saving the lives of those who were under the boot of the Nazis and the Fascists in Europe, and the Imperial armies and navy in the Pacific.

We can thank those who served where we know them, and we can rightly honor their service. It would seem to be the ultimate expression of human serving--to borrow Lincoln's words from Gettysburg, "the last full measure of devotion" to lay down one's life in the aim of saving lives, liberating the oppressed, and ending the menace of war in the hopes of a just and peaceful future. It is hard to conceive of some more extreme example of love, at least by human standards. It is, as we sometimes say in our Sunday liturgy, "indeed right and salutary" to honor such sacrifice. And so we hold parades. We decorate tombs. We memorialize the fallen. All of that is good and appropriate to do. It is a noble and respectable sacrifice to die for your country, your family kept safe back home, your ideals, and even for the innocent citizens of some foreign land across an ocean... because they are our people, or our principles, our land, or at least on our side. Such people and places seem somehow innately worthy of giving one's life for, because they are our people and places.

And that is also exactly what makes the cross--and thus the gospel itself--so scandalous. Paul the apostle lifts up our highest, noblest, most extreme picture of honorable self-sacrifice, and observes that at the cross Jesus pushed it further, even further than we are probably comfortable with. Because at the cross, Jesus didn't just die for people who were "on his side," but for us, as the apostle puts it, "while we were enemies." Jesus didn't just risk his life for "good people," but dared to die for "the ungodly."

That's scandalous. That's reckless. That's unsettling to our ears and to our hearts. Because it pushes beyond our concept of what is fair and noble. Dying to protect your family seems heroic. Dying to protect and preserve your way of life, your country, and your nation's ideals seems virtuous. Dying to help innocents and allies seems worthy of praise, too. But your enemy? People who are opposed to you? People on "the other side"? People who are ungodly and wicked? That hits our ears like a sour note. It seems a bridge too far. It might even qualify as a punishable offense as "aiding the enemy," depending on whom you were helping... and how. We can heap up laud and praise for those who died for their own country, but we cannot stomach the idea of someone laying down their life to save someone from the "other side."

And yet that is precisely what makes the Gospel Good News, according to Paul. It is the fact that at the cross, Jesus doesn't die for "deserving" people--but for rotten, no-good, godless wretched miserable stinkers... which is to say, for us.  The cross is not about Jesus taking a hit for the morally-upright and respectably-religious as a reward for their exemplary behavior: it is good news for bad guys... like us.  It is the hope that even when we were enemies of God, God refused to let our enmity be the end of the story.  God, as has been said before, refuses our refusal of relationship.

We will never really understand what makes the Gospel both so scandalous and so genuinely good until we are prepared to let it go further than we are comfortable with. The cross is not about Jesus taking a hit for the morally-upright and respectably-religious as a reward for their exemplary behavior: it is good news for bad guys... like us.  It is the hope that even when we were enemies of God, God refused to let our enmity be the end of the story.  God, as has been said before, refuses our refusal of relationship. 

Paul won't let us off the hook with a reasonable-sounding religious message of "A good man died for other good men and women because they had shown themselves so worthy of the sacrifice," or even "A decent man died for his own people and country." The gospel pushes beyond what is respectable and insists that at the cross, God chooses to love the "ungodly," the "other side," the "bad guys," and the "enemy." And, like the comic strip put it all those years ago, "The enemy... is us." At the cross, God in Christ dares to die for a world full of people who have all sworn up and down they don't want anything to do with him.

The voice of conventional wisdom inside us says, "That's a bad deal for God." That voice says, "God shouldn't do a stupid thing like dying for a bunch of ingrates who are on the other side--God should do a smart thing like leveraging us into good behavior if we want to be saved, or pushing for more offerings and prayers and better church attendance... God should press to get more out of the deal." That voice, which is an awfully tempting one to listen to sometimes, says, "God should only be looking out for people who are already on the record as being on God's team--nobody else. That's just good business sense."

And then here is the amazingly good news of the Gospel... which takes all of that conventional wisdom and sweeps it into the dustbin of history to make room for the uncontrollable love that dies for the undeserving, the "other side," and the "bad guys."

It is, as I say, very well and good to thank those brave souls now looked back on as "the Greatest Generation," for the willingness and nerve to liberate death camps, to stop Hitler, and to defeat Fascism. And perhaps in this age of narrow self-interest and zero-sum-thinking tribalism, that by itself will be a necessary and countercultural act.

But beyond our gratitude for those who risked their lives for "their own" and for "good people," maybe this is a moment, before we hear the story again of the cross and the borrowed tomb, to remember that Jesus' kind of love always thumbs its nose at the boundaries of what we think is respectable or safe, and pushes beyond them. And then, perhaps we can remember, too, that a God who dies for the bad guys is our only hope, since we are among those "ungodly" stinkers for whom Christ died "while we were enemies."

Lord God, we can scarcely believe the depth, the breadth, and the power of your love. Let it seep into us so that we can love like you do, and so that we can know your love embraced us even when we were turned away (and when we still turn away) from you.

Lives Laid Down--March 21, 2024

Lives Laid Down--March 21, 2024

"We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?" [1 John 3:16-17]

Lord, have mercy--thirteen-year-old me had it so wrong.

Maybe like all adolescents, eighth-grade me thought of love first and foremost in terms of feelings--or, more honestly, brain chemistry. Thirteen-year-old me would have said that you know "love" by that warm fuzzy feeling in your stomach, either when someone special walks in the room in second period English class, or the people in your family who make you feel good, too. (But of course, since this is junior-high we are talking about, it's not very cool to admit you love your family.)

Teenage me thought love was measurable by emotional highs and lows, like it was a matter of who made you feel extra happy when they lavished attention on you, or made you feel desperately low when they weren't in the room and you were left pining.

The writers of the New Testament (and the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures, too, to be honest) don't think or write in those terms. Love, to the biblical writers, isn't quantified in terms of how someone makes you "feel", or even how many milligrams of endorphins can be measured in your bloodstream. Love is about the conscious choice to give yourself away. And being loved is about someone else's conscious choice to give themselves away for your sake, too. Fluctuations in brain chemistry are simply not enough.

And that, dear ones, is why the writer of what we call First John can say that we know love most clearly at the cross, because it is in that event that Jesus "laid down his life for us." Jesus gave himself away fully, completely, and wholly--not holding an ounce back, but all the way to his last breath. And in a very important sense, Jesus had been giving himself away all his life long. The cross, then, isn't the only instance of Jesus laying down his life, but the epitome, the capstone, so to speak. But at every turn, whether sacrificing his religious respectability to hang out with the outcasts, giving up his time and energy when he was weary to his bones, spending his attention on others who needed him, or even in the end giving up his very life, Jesus was giving himself away all along. He didn't have to feel "peppy" about doing it, or have a warm fuzzy feeling about the people he was giving himself away for--I'm sure it wasn't easy, after all, to be praying forgiveness for his murderers. But the brain chemistry and endorphin levels aren't the issue--it is the willingness to put the well-being of others before your own, whether it is fun or easy at the time or not.

Laying down our lives, then, doesn't necessarily require that each of us has to stop breathing in order to truly follow Jesus' example. We don't have to die to lay our lives down--it might just be that we are called to the longer-term vocation of spending our lives for others moment by moment, year by year--in the ways we are dedicated to doing our work well for the sake of the people who benefit from our work, in the ways we give up our time and energy for our families, in the ways we put the well-being of others before our own. And of course, as John envisions it, others are called to do the same for us at the same time. So no one is meant to run dry or go empty--we are all continually emptying ourselves and being refilled by one another.

But notice here how John seamlessly moves from the love we meet at the cross to the love we are called to embody when others around us are in need. John says that we know what love is--what it really and truly is, and not the adolescent hormone-driven definition--in the way Jesus laid his life down for us, and then he immediately connects that with our calling to lay our lives down for others, including sharing our abundance with others. John even goes so far as to suggest that God's love can't really be in us if we encounter someone else in need and are unmoved to share our resources with them. Note here: John doesn't give a mention to how you "feel" about the person in need--he doesn't require feeling guilt, or pity, or condescension, or solidarity. Love is more than an emotional reaction--it is about the choice to give some of yourself away for the sake of someone who needs it.

Honestly, whether we "feel like" caring for others or not is irrelevant. The reason to share my table with another is not because I "feel like it" but because my neighbor is hungry. The reason to give my resources, or make room to welcome others, is not because it makes me "feel good" to do it. It is simply because the neighbor is the person God has sent across my path, and my calling is to give myself away to whomever crosses that path.

Today, the cross of Jesus also opens our eyes to see a million different opportunities to practice love all around us--where are there people before our eyes for whom we can give ourselves away? There is love. Just like at the cross. Today, how can you and I lay down our lives for the sake of others in our places of abundance? And how can we allow others in their abundance to lay down their lives for us as well?

Lord Jesus, let us love like you--really and truly.  Teach us to lay our lives down, moment by moment, breath by breath.

What God Bears--March 20, 2024

What God Bears--March 20, 2024

"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission." [Hebrews 5:7]

We are always heard when we pray. Ours is the God who hears... always.  And at the very same time, ours is the God who bears our fiercest anger and most despairing doubts when we accuse God of not listening... or maybe of not even being there.

Sometimes, the answers to our prayers come through loud and clear--especially when the thing we prayed for happens just as we wanted.

Sometimes, the answer is harder to discern, because things don't go the way we wished them to go: the interviewers don't give you the job, the loved one doesn't respond to the treatment, the relationship goes unrepaired, or the answer on the pregnancy test isn't the one you were hoping for. In those times, it doesn't mean that you weren't heard. And it doesn't even necessarily mean that God's answer was a stern, "No," either. It may well be that God's answer is something more like, "I know this thing you are facing is awful and wrong and difficult. I hear you. And I am going to go through it with you. You will not be alone as you go through it. I will bear it alongside of you."

I think that's really important to remember, both so that we don't turn praying into baptized wishing, and so that we don't misunderstand what it means when our requests don't turn out the way we had wanted. And maybe we can learn something from Jesus on this. In this passage that many of us heard read this past Sunday, the writer of Hebrews here is working through the idea that Jesus is like a high priest who interceded for the needs of the people.  And he notes that Jesus himself prayed--often passionately--during his years walking Palestine. He prayed for others, too, and not just for himself. There he is at Lazarus' tomb, praying to his Abba before calling the dead man back to life. Or there's Jesus in the upper room, asking for God to protect his disciples, both the ones in the room with him at the time, and those who would come to believe through their witness (that includes you and me!). Again, in the garden before his arrest, he was praying for their strength. And even as he bled out on the cross, Jesus was praying for the very ones who had been mocking and torturing him, as he prayed, "Father, forgive them..." In all of those moments, we have every reason to believe that Jesus' prayers were heard with God acting as Jesus had wanted. Lazarus rises. The disciples live through Good Friday to become witnesses in all the world. And, yes, I dare to believe that even Jesus' executioners and the bloodthirsty crowd was forgiven.

And yet, there's also the very real matter of Jesus' prayer in the garden for himself... that seems to go differently. You know how the story goes: there, in the final hours and moments before the lynch mob and local law enforcement arrived on the scene in Gethsemane, Jesus was praying, "Father, let this cup pass away from me." In other words, "God, I don't want to have to go through this--and you are in a position that could prevent my death. Help me!" And you probably also know the rest of that prayer concludes, "Yet, not my will, but yours, be done." This is the kind of scene that probably makes devout Christians antsy, because it sure sounds like Jesus' will is at odds with God the Father's will at this point (which is difficult enough for us to deal with). But knowing that the story does lead Jesus to the very thing he wants to avoid? Well, that complicates our theology of prayer, doesn't it?

We're used to thinking that prayers are either Yes for good little boys and girls, or No for the badly behaved or wrong requests. But here's Jesus--who is simply praying that a terrible injustice not be done to him--who is not praying a "bad" thing, and who isn't "wicked" or "immoral" or "bad" himself, and he's praying for something that we know he doesn't get. He prays for the experience of suffering and death not to have to happen... and we know he goes to the cross anyway. What does that mean? And what can it possibly mean that, in the words of Hebrews, "he was heard" as he prayed "to the one who was able to save him from death," even though Jesus did still go to death? What does it mean about prayer if you can be perfectly sinless (as we confess Jesus to be), have all the right theology (as we believe Jesus had), and still not get the thing you were praying for?

I want to suggest that this is one of those times where it's important to remember that not getting the thing we prayed for isn't necessarily a "No!" from God, but sometimes it's, "I hear you. I know this is hard. I'll go through it with you." God, after all, bears deep loss from the cross as well--God not only knows what it is do die in Christ's death, but God also knows what it is to lose a Son in those same terrible hours on a Friday afternoon. God knows what it is like to bear the accusation of being a sinner and a blaspheme from Jesus' side of the experience, but God also knows what it is like to bear the accusation of having abandoned an innocent sufferer--and those words of accusation come from Jesus himself as he dies quoting Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" God knows what it is to suffer through Good Friday--in fact, God knows the pain inside and out, from both the earthly and heavenly vantage point.

Sometimes I think we don't consider what it is like from God's vantage point when things are not going to go the way we might have prayed--and to know that God is both still committed to going through the difficult stuff with us, AND still willing to bear all of our angry accusations that God must have abandoned us if we don't get what we want in our prayers. God is willing to bear our heartbroken laments and the questions that so often begin, "If you really loved me, God, you would have done..." God is willing to take all that misdirected fury, and still to walk through the difficult things with us.  To that, the cross bears powerful witness.

I know that may seem cold comfort if we have our hearts set on getting things the way we want them. And I know it may make us re-examine our understanding of prayer if even Jesus didn't always get what he prayed for. But maybe it is worth asking, too, if we really do believe that God's presence with us, in every situation, is enough. If we really dare to trust that the God who gives us daily bread is going through our deepest struggles with us... if we really have faith in the claim that God bore suffering on the cross... the maybe we can also accept that God's presence with us through our times of suffering will be enough, too. It doesn't make the suffering we will bear less real, and it doesn't mean that we are being punished or that God demands our suffering for some part of the divine plan. Instead, it means, simply, that God's answer, is "I hear you. And I am going through it with you."

If you know what it is like to have been loved through a difficult time by someone who said, "I hear you, and I share your hurt. I'll face it with you," then you already know that it is enough to know that God chooses to bear our struggles and sorrows with us, too.

God really is enough.

Lord God, hear our prayers. Attend to our needs. Go with us into the struggles of this day. We need you to do nothing less.

Pulled by Jesus--March 19, 2024

Pulled by Jesus--March 19, 2024

[Jesus said:] "Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die." [John 12:31-33]

Long ago, a grade school science teacher taught me that there are two kinds, two directions, of force in this world: push and pull.

My science teacher meant it in the physical sense--that if you want to move an object, your options are really limited either to getting behind it and pushing it, or attaching a rope (or something) to it and pulling it from in front. Whether it's sliding a box along the kitchen floor horizontally, or pulleys that raise and lower and elevator vertically, you are still basically either pushing or pulling to get things moving. Just about everything else--at least for the purposes of elementary school science--is a variation on one or the other: push, or pull.

You could say that there are the same two options in the world of people and groups, too: there either push, or pull. And to be honest, most of the time, the world only seems to recognize "pushing." That's how so much of human history has been directed, hasn't it? One group pushing another, like an invading army conquering a neighboring land. One person pushing others around, like a king or a bully barking orders through intimidation. One group of people with money pushing out the people with no money. One empire pushing its subjects to stay in line and pay their tribute through threats and force. It's all the same old power of push.

And because so much of history has been consumed with us pushing each other around, we often think that it is the only way to get things done. If you want to motivate people, so the thinking goes, you must push them to do what you want by threatening them, intimidating them, or using force to make them move. If you want to stay in power, you have to show that you aren't afraid to push people around. Certainly that was the way the Roman Empire did things as it occupied the land where Jesus grew up and lived. And it has really been the calling card of every empire since--that you have to threaten and bully if you want to keep yourself in charge. The names and logos of the empires change, but the playbook stays the same.

Jesus is sharp that way. He sees that behind the mask of the Roman Empire, and every other empire in the dustbin of history, there has been the same Power of evil working behind the scenes. The powers of evil don't care what "brand" is on the packaging--the Romans, after all, were simply taking over for the Greeks, who had ruled before the Persians, who followed the Babylonians, who came after the Assyrians, and so on back through the mists of history, past Pharaoh ordering the Hebrew slaves around, even back to Cain murdering Abel to try to get his way. The powers of the day may change their appearance, but the same destructive power of push is underneath them all. Jesus just calls it out. And he exposes how ultimately that way of doing things is just empty. Whether it's Caesar barking orders from Rome, Pontius Pilate as his local lackey in Jerusalem, Herod the puppet king, or any other bellowing blowhard of any era, Jesus says their power is ultimately empty. Bullies get their way for a while, but they are ultimately going to be exposed, unmasked, and stripped of their power. Eventually the power of "pushing" gives out.

That's why Jesus sees that the powers of the world, and the diabolical "ruler of this world" (the Evil One, the Accuser) being driven out and judged by the cross--where Jesus is "lifted up from the earth." The cross--yes, of all places, the cross!--is the point at which all the pushing, intimidating, threatening power of history is revealed to be impotent, because the bullying power of empires cannot stop Jesus from gathering "all people" to himself as he died. Jesus explains that there is another kind of force in the world, and it doesn't operate the same way as pushing and bullying and threatening. Jesus offers the pull of love.

That's really what he says happens at the cross. "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth," he says, "will draw all people to myself." The image isn't of a pushing kind of force--it's a pull. Like drawing in a fishing net. Like the pull of a magnet on all those paper clips you dropped on the floor. Like the tug of gravity that holds the planets in their obits around the sun. Jesus offers his own life up at the cross--being "lifted up" on a Roman death stake--as the means of a different kind of force. While the powers of the day rage and shout and threaten as they try to push people by fear and coercion to get their way, Jesus offers a completely different kind of force--the kind that pulls by self-giving love. That kind of pull is still real force--it is compelling and real and strong. But it is not the coercive, angry, threatening force that Rome and every other empire has used to get their way.

So, Jesus says, in one moment in history, God does two amazing things. At the cross of Calvary, the empires of history and the violent powers of the world are exposed as ultimately empty, AND at the same time, God draws all people (ALL PEOPLE!) to himself through Christ. Jesus does through death what Rome couldn't fully accomplish by killing--the gathering together of all peoples. Every time Rome tried to force people where it wanted them by marching in some centurions to crucify troublemakers, some pocket of resistance or invasion would pop up somewhere else, rejecting Rome's rule and flouting Caesar's decrees. But Jesus points to a different way of getting things done--not by threatening to kill people or to take away good things from them if they don't fall in line, but by giving himself away for them... for us.

That's what it means to say that Jesus "draws all people to himself" at the cross. Over against a world full of pushing, cajoling, and threatening bullies, Jesus compellingly pulls us to himself.

That is good news.

Lord Jesus, draw us all over again to yourself, with each day, with each breath.

Mama Spider Jesus--March 18, 2024

Mama Spider Jesus--March 18, 2024

"Jesus answered them, 'The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit'." [John 12:23-24]

Jesus offers his life like a seed in the earth: knowing that the act of planting will break the seed open, but will make more life possible as it sprouts from what has been broken open.  And Jesus has come, ultimately, to bring us all to life--even at the cost of his own body's brokenness.  

In fact, when I hear these words of Jesus, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, I picture not only a seed, but also Charlotte the spider from E.B. White's beloved classic, Charlotte's Web.  As you quite probably know from when you read that story once upon a time (or have now read to children or grandchildren), the spider Charlotte has using her energy trying to preserve the life of Wilbur the pig on the farm where she lives by leaving messages in her webs so that the farmer would think Wilbur was special and worthy of saving rather than eating.  And at the end of the story, she spends her last bit of strength for a final web that will both guarantee Wilbur's safety and protect her own eggs as well.  She dies, exhausted, having done both, and knowing that her choice to give her life up has not only rescued Wilbur but gives life to her spiderlings who will ride the breeze on strands of silk as they are carried off to other places to live and thrive.  Her sacrifice is not a defeat--it is her greatest triumph.  She has saved the lives of her friend and her children.  Her love has outlasted every attempt to threatened those she held dear.

That's how Jesus describes his own choice at the cross--not as a defeat by the Powers of the Empire or the Respectable Religious Leaders, but as his victorious gift of his own self that brings the world to life.  Jesus is the Charlotte to the world's Wilbur, spending his strength all the way to the end that our lives might be saved.  Or, perhaps we are the spiderlings whose lives are held safe because Jesus has given himself to bring us into being.  

While we're on the subject of arachnid-inspired theology, I'm reminded of another piece of wisdom by the late Walter Wangerin, Jr., whose short essay, "Modern Hexameron: De Aranea," which is all about one particular species of spider. This mother spider, he says, does a curious thing when there is no food around and her children are at risk of starving--she sinks her fangs into her own body, dissolving her own tissue with the acid so that her young can be fed with her own life as one great final act of provision for them. She offers up her life so that they can live, in the most literal way possible.  And of course, the theologian cannot help but hear echoes in that maternal gift of Jesus' own words to his beloved community:  "This is my body, broken for you," as the bread is torn and shared.  "This is my blood, given for you for the forgiveness of sins."  Jesus is our Mama Spider, Wangerin says.  It's the same move as Charlotte, and the same gift as the seed that breaks open in the ground in order to bring a new generation of life.  This, Jesus himself says, is what happens at the cross. Jesus has not come to pacify an angry deity who needs to be appeased, at least not the way Jesus talks here in John 12.  Rather, Jesus' cross is the very place of both his and God's glorification--this is how the world comes to see the depth of God's love and the power of God's triumph, outlasting every threat to God's beloved ones and enduring through all of it in order to bring us to life.

Today, we face the world, for all of its terror and violence, with the confidence that the living God knows the cost of loving us and has spent everything, in the human life of Jesus, in order to bring us and the world to life.  Our lives are a gift Jesus was willing to pay for with his own life, like a mother spider offering her body to her young to feed them, like Charlotte spinning one last web that we might kept safe, like a seed broken open in the ground to let a sprout rise up.  This is how you are loved, dear one.  Know it and own it as you head out into a world full of mean today.

Lord Jesus, it is not enough to say thank you, but it is all we have in the moment.  Thank you for this life.  Thank you for your love that gives itself away.

Magicians and Mousetraps--March 15, 2024

Magicians and Mousetraps--March 15, 2024

"Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he [Jesus] himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death." [Hebrews 2:14-15]

I hadn't really thought about it until reading this passage from Hebrews again, but Jesus is really like the anglerfish of God.  And now all of a sudden I see those bizarre creatures as strangely lovely.

Don't know what an anglerfish looks like?  Go ahead--search it up.  I'll wait--but, fair warning, it's pretty jarring.  The ancient Christians who used the fish as a symbol of their faith weren't picturing those bad boys which live way down deep in the darkest places of the ocean (as an aside, the fish was an ancient symbol for Christians because the Greek word for fish, "ichthys," could be used as an acrostic-like memory device for "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior").  Okay, have you got the image in mind?

So yeah, the anglerfish is not likely to win a conventional beauty pageant, and the bioluminescent little tiddlybit that dangles from the top of its head seems like something from another planet or a sci-fi creature from a movie.  But that little glowing appendage (made possible through a symbiotic relationship the fish has with bioluminescent bacteria that come to live in the fish from the seawater) is one of the cleverest hunting strategies you'll find in nature.  The gist is that it acts as a lure for other fish--they'll just see this intriguing light source floating in the water and be drawn toward it, maybe even to try and eat it.  Well, the moment a fish tries to get in close enough to gobble up that little dancing lure, the angler gobbles up the fish that took the bait.  In the act of trying to swallow up the lure, it gets swallowed up itself.  The anglerfish offers itself as bait, in a sense, and ends up tricking the would-be predator by turning the tables on it and making it into prey.

Okay, so that might not sound very Christ-like at first blush.  But bear with me for a moment.  To hear the writer of Hebrews tell it, Jesus' death on the cross is what made it possible to destroy the power of death.  In letting himself be swallowed up by death, he actually swallows up death and breaks its power.  Call it the Divine Anglerfish Maneuver.  Jesus lets death do its worst, along with all the diabolical powers that try to intimidate us with the threat of death, but in consuming Jesus, death itself is blown apart. 

Before anybody had ever discovered an anglerfish, the early church father and theologian Augustine of Hippo had a similar mental picture: a mousetrap.  Augustine said the cross was a "muscipula diaboli"--a mousetrap for the devil--by which Jesus lures the powers of evil to take him, only to have the trap spring on Old Scratch himself and break his diabolical power in a puff of fire and brimstone.  Jesus offers himself up as bait, knowing that evil can't help but want to endlessly consume and devour, like a hungry mouse that has gotten into your pantry and eating all your Cheez-Its.  And once the devil goes for the bait, the jig is up and Jesus proves victorious, precisely by letting himself be swallowed up by death.  In other words, it's the anglerfish strategy--offer yourself up, letting it look like you've been trapped, until you turn the tables and the hunter becomes the hunted.

The same plot twist shows up in lots of stories: I remember as a kid watching the Disney classic, "The Sword in the Stone" and seeing Merlin the Wizard triumph in his wizard's duel against Madam Mim by a similar move.  As the sorcerers take turns transforming themselves into different creatures to try and defeat their opponent, it looks like Mim wins the day by becoming a horrendous fire-breathing dragon, and it seems like poor Merlin has gone up in a puff of smoke.  But it turns out, much to young Arthur's relief, that Merlin hasn't vanished or died, but become a tiny germ, and let himself be "caught" by Mim--so she loses the duel because she's gotten sick from swallowing up her opponent!  Or fans of comic book movies will remember a similar climactic moment in the original Hellboy movie where the hero lets himself get swallowed by the monster, only to blow it up from the inside.  Or you might see a similar riff in the opening of the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie as well.  The trope has been around now for a while, but that's because it works.  And in a sense, that's how this passage from Hebrews talks about the cross.  It's Jesus' way of destroying the power of death by dying.  It's the anglerfish letting a piece of itself dangle as bait to be swallowed in order to swallow up the fish that was looking for a "light" meal.  It's the cheese in the mousetrap that breaks the power of death and the grave.

In other words, at least in these verses from Hebrews, the cross of Jesus isn't about paying a "debt" back to God, or about God demanding some kind of punishment to be inflicted on Jesus or needing to satisfy divine wrath by zapping someone.  It's about Jesus breaking the power of death by dying, of offering himself up to let evil's salivating jaws get close, only to be swallowed up itself in a table-turning triumph.

That's important, because it reminds us, first, that Jesus doesn't have to pacify a bloodthirsty deity, or to persuade God not to hate us.  The cross, as it has been said, isn't how Jesus changes God's mind about us, but where Jesus reveals God's love which has been constant all the time for us and breaks the power of death. It is not about God demanding a certain amount of pain be endured in order to love human beings, but about the willingness of God to endure pain for the sake of loving us, in order to free us from the tyranny of death that had held us captive.  Death and evil are the enemies, and they ultimately destroy themselves because they cannot resist the bait of Jesus' own life.

The mysterious fish with the light-up lure. 

The mousetrap.  

The magician's duel. 

Take your pick of mental pictures, but remember the underlying idea. The cross isn't a hurdle in the way of God's victory--it is the very means of that victory.  That's why we can call the Friday in two weeks "Good Friday," and why we can see the cross not as a loss to be ashamed of but a triumph to be celebrated.  Jesus' love leads him to lay down his life as the bait that springs the mousetrap and the lure that catches the hungry fish.  The cross is our reason for hope.

Lord Jesus, enable us to see your victory over death itself in the cross, and let us be free from the power that fear has held over us.