Easter 2C, April 27, 2025

Prayer

On this Lord’s Day, we come together, O God, to proclaim the Living One, the First and the Last, who was dead, but now is forever alive. Open our hearts to the Spirit Jesus breathes on us. Help us, who have not seen, to believe; send us, as you have sent Jesus, to greet the world with the Easter word of peace and to share with all the Spirit’s new life of forgiveness. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on John 20:19-31

"Even though he said the greater blessing is for those who can believe without seeing, it's hard to imagine that there's a believer anywhere who wouldn't have traded places with Thomas, given the chance, and seen that face and heard that voice and touched those ruined hands."

"Thomas," Frederick Buechner, Buechner Blog.

"...so now I think it’s not so much that Jesus is rebuking Thomas as he is blessing us."

"The Never-Ending Story," David Lose, Dear Working Preacher, 2013.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text


As we arrive at the text for this week I am mindful of the prayer of St. Chrysostom which may be prayed as part of our daily office:

Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.

So it is that I cannot begin to think and ponder on John’s Gospel and the appearance of Jesus in the midst of the disciples without also thinking of the risen Christ in the midst of our gatherings and how he is present and what he encourages us, as faithful followers, to undertake on his behalf.

Also, I am mindful that the reality that this appearance and the appearance to Thomas a week later occur on the “first day of the week” suggests the presence of Christ on our day of worship and in the midst of the community gathered for both prayer and a meal, the Eucharist in our current practice. Raymond Brown and other scholars are quick to remind us of Isaiah 3.6: “My people shall know my name; on that day they shall know it is I who speak.”

Brown’s notes follow from page 1019 of vol. 2 of his reflections about John’s Gospel for the Anchor Bible Dictionary. Here he suggests traces of ancient Johannine communal liturgy.

The disciples assemble on the Lord’s Day. The blessing is given: “Peace to you.” The Holy Spirit descends upon the worshippers and the word of absolution is pronounced. Christ himself is present (this may suggest the Eucharist and the spoken Word of God) bearing the marks of his passion; he is confessed as Lord and God. Indeed, this passage in John as been cited as the first evidence that the Christian observance of Sunday arose from an association of that day with the resurrection – an idea that shortly later Ignatius gave voice to: “No longer living for the Sabbath, but for the Lord’s Day on which life dawned for us through in and his death.” (Magnesians, ix 1). (R. Brown, John, vol 2, p 1019).

In the end, Brown believes this is a secondary development, nevertheless one of interest.

So it is with these thoughts that I turn and think more closely upon the Gospel for this Sunday.

We begin with the disciples behind closed doors because of their fear. Perhaps afraid of the authorities or for those who might accuse them of stealing their messiah’s body they are hiding. The doors are locked. Jesus comes and stands in their midst, right in front of them.

Jesus says to them, “Peace be with you.” Shalom. Shalom Alekem. Yes, this is a greeting. It is also an ancient form of saying or cluing the listener or hearer of these words that there is about to be a revelation. They are about to see, hear, or receive a revelation of God. The revelation (as with Gideon in Judges 6.23) is that the Lord is present, the Lord brings peace, and you will not die.

Jesus then shows his disciples his wounds. He shows them their very place of them. While there is some argument between scholars about the different wound sites shown and the different terms and placement between the Gospel of Luke and John’s visitation we nevertheless see that it was a powerful recognition of the Christ crucified. I am mindful that the disciples and those who experience the resurrection had not only a real experience but an understanding that Jesus was himself more fully present than before. The reality of these wounds and the powerful vision they must have created for those whose eyes fell upon them quiets me.

Here then the author and narrator use the resurrection title, “the Lord.” While I have been using it, we notice in the narrative its first use here. Jesus is recognized but recognized as the risen one, the first fruits of those who have died.

Jesus provides a vision of resurrection. He is present. He gives them a mission. Just as God sent me I am sending you. We may reflect upon the previous chapters, his priestly prayer, and his ministry. Jesus was sent by the father to glorify God. Jesus now sends his followers to do the same.

And, Jesus gives them the Holy Spirit. As if from Genesis we have Jesus breathing over the new creation, new breath to the new Adams and the new Eves.

Then the Lord charges them to forgive. Forgive the sins and know that those which you hold will be bound by them. If you release them, you open your hand and they fall away. If you hold them you hold your hand closed and they cannot go. It seems important to reflect on this for a minute. Jesus' words here are very different than the legal words used by him in Matthew’s Gospel. Here we have kerygmatic words. Brown writes, “Thus the forgiveness and holding of sins should be interpreted in the light of Jesus’ own action toward sin…The Gospel is more concerned with the application of forgiveness on earth, and is accomplished in and through the Spirit that Jesus has sent…more general Johannine ideas about the Spirit, relate the forgiveness of sins to the eschatological outpouring of the Spirit that cleanses men and begets them to new life… the power to isolate, repel, and negate evil and sin, a power given to Jesus in his mission by the Father an given in turn by Jesus through the Spirit to those whom he commissions.” (1040-1044) This is the recreation in action.

The disciples are given power by the Holy Spirit to be about the work of freeing people to and into the newly created order.

Thomas, our dear brother Thomas, missed this historic moment. And, as we arrive at this time every year we know he will not believe it no matter what is said. So emphatic is he that he will not believe it unless he “throws” his fingers into the wounds themselves. This is a dramatic call for proof if there ever was one.

The disciples continue their stay in Jerusalem and find themselves with Thomas again in the upper room one week later.

Again, Jesus appears and he calls to Thomas. The Lord invites him to see and feel his wounds to reach out and touch them. Some scholars have spent time wondering how this could be so if Christ was wearing clothes. Was it a loose-fitting garment? These suggestions give rise to one of my favorite Brown quotes which I must admit almost caused me to fall out of my chair when I read it. Raymond Brown writes, “The evangelist scarcely intended to supply information on the haberdashery appropriate for a risen body.” (1026)

Jesus also tells him to stop or quit persisting in his unbelief by these actions. While Thomas was a follower of Jesus was a believer in the risen Christ? He is challenged here to change.

What has always struck me, but few preachers have ever remarked on, is the fact that Thomas doesn’t touch Christ. I have pondered this a great deal. What is it then that changes him? Thomas’ faith is adequate without the proof. That is the point of the story.

We often get so focused on what it takes to convince ourselves in God and then project it upon Thomas that we miss the narrative’s truth. Thomas believes without proof.

Brown writes of all four episodes in chapter 20 of John’s Gospel:

“Whether or not he intended to do so, the evangelist has given us in the four episodes of ch xx four slightly different examples of faith in the risen Jesus. The Beloved Disciple comes to faith after having seen the burial wrappings but without having seen Jesus himself. Magdalene sees Jesus but does not recognize him until he calls her by name. The disciples see him and believe. Thomas also sees him and believes, but only after having been over insistent on the marvelous aspect of the appearance. All four are examples of those who saw and believed; the evangelist will close the Gospel in 29b by turning his attention to those who have believed without seeing.” (1046)

Thomas’ words “My God and my Lord,” are the last words spoken by a disciple in the 4th Gospel. And they are the culminating Gospel proclamation for the faithful follower of Jesus. This statement brings him fully into the covenant relationship with the new creation.

Now that the witness of the disciples is concluded Jesus' words are for us. The last and final Beatitude is given to those who would come after. Blessed are those who do not see but have believed. Here is Jesus, with us to the end, offering the last words in the original Gospel. We have the opportunity to join the new covenant community, to be new Adams and new Eves, to participate in the stewardship of creation recreated, and to take our place in the midst of the discipleship community. We do so through baptism. We do so also by embracing the kerygmatic Word and living a resurrected life. We live by making our confession: My God and my Lord. We live life on the one hand bearing witness to the ever-present past of crucifixion and the ever-present future of the resurrection life.

Some Thoughts on Revelation 1:4-8

"Charis recalls the patronage system of the early Roman world, in which a patron displayed generosity to his clients, and expected loyalty in return. Eirene reminds one of the Hebrew shalom, the notion of wholeness and peace that is often associated with a deep and meaningful relationship to God."
Commentary, Revelation 1:4b-8, Valerie Nicolet-Anderson, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"...the violence and greed of our culture in fact do test our faith, sometimes in shocking and unexpected ways. So preaching this text requires us to search out particular, local points of conflict and opposition to the reign of Christ in the immediate realities of our congregations."
Commentary, Revelation 1:4b-8, Susan Eastman, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.


"In the beginning: God; in the end: God; in the midst of life: God. These are less statements about time and place as they are statements of hope and trust."
"First Thoughts on Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Easter 2, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text

Here is what is about to happen: we are about to have a series of lessons from the Book of revelation.  This is it; there is nothing this long or this sequential at any other time in our preaching cycle. I am not yet sure I am brave enough to make it the topic of my preaching for the next couple of weeks but I am beginning to think it is worth it.  

The background is the tradition that this is written by John on Patmos and it is addressed to the "7 churches".  Of course, this means that it is written to all churches (as he is at the time writing to all the churches).  A number of good commentaries will make this and other observations about the context.  

In the introductory verses, we have words quoted from Isaiah 44.6, "who is and who was and who is to come." This God is the Alpha and the Omega.  The seven spirits are from Isaiah 11.2ff.  The author bears witness to the fact that Jesus is the firstborn from the dead and ruler over all the earth.

Then there is the witness that Jesus loves us, that he frees us from sin, that we are made into a new community, and that we are (like priests) to serve him.  We are being, even now, drawn into a worshiping community that eventually will move from the world of time to everlasting glory forever and ever. 

These are the very themes of the whole text.  They make the mission of Jesus upon his return the event which will bring all of this to pass.  Upon his return, all shall be transformed. "Amen.  Amen." 

God is God and he has come, he is coming back, and he intends to bring about the recreation of the world.  

Walter Taylor, of Lutheran Seminary, writes:

"The Revelation lesson gives us an opening to talk about Christology in ways we may not have had on Easter. All or any one of the many titles of verse 5 could be explored. Taken together they outline a full Christology that includes life, death, resurrection, and present lordship. The Christological emphasis continues with the love of Christ and his freeing action by means of his death (verses 5b-6), and in verse 7 we look forward to the coming of Jesus as the final judge."

This is a great opportunity to think about with the congregation who this Christ is that we worship and what he has to do with our living of lives in this particular world.

Some Thoughts on Acts 5:27-41

"Authoritative communities and institutions sometimes allow themselves to be hijacked by their own biases, dogmas, racism, sexism, classism, and prosperity gospels. We stifle God's voice."
Commentary, Acts 5:27-32, Mitzi J. Smith, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2016.

"It is appropriate that in this second Sunday of Easter”the week immediately following the glorious celebration of the resurrected Christ”the New Testament reading contains an amazing story of the apostle's courage and boldness in the face of opposition. Acts 5:27-32 beautifully displays the fearlessness the Holy Spirit bestows upon us when we are living in the resurrection of Christ.'"
Commentary, Acts 5:27-34, Shannon Greene, A Plain Account, 2016.


"Public proclamation of Jesus in obedience to God rather than humans intends not to cut off those who oppose; it intends to serve and even to suffer for doing it, pressing on to witness to God’s renewal of all things."
Commentary, Acts 5:27-32, Kyle Fever, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

Luke in Acts is clear that he wants to show that the work of the apostles in the first generation was intent on keeping the mission of Jesus underway. They do this through the power of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, Luke is quick to show that they are the true inheritors of the religion of Zion.

So in this passage, Peter and John have been arrested. They were preaching the resurrection. The religious leaders of the day want to keep them quiet. Their plans to punish Peter and John are set aside for a while.

However, in the end, the growth of the message and community dictates that action be taken. So it is that they are imprisoned for a short while until an angel sets them free. They go right back to preaching and teaching.

This preaching is clear that Jesus' mission and now the mission of the Holy Spirit is the same message as of old. This is the most recent work of the God of Israel. Luke adeptly puts words into the religious leader's mouths in order to reveal their culpability in Jesus' own death and to show that any oppression of this new message is more of the same.

I think there are a couple pitfalls here. First, do not scapegoat the Jews. I have a long time ago tried to weed out this from my own teaching and instead talk about the religious leaders of the day. Second, you can easily fall into missiology that says if you are faithful everything will be blessed by the Holy Spirit and your mission will grow. Some faithful missions grow some do not.

What I think is a powerful witness in this passage is that like Jesus the first followers attempt to reject the power and authority of religion and instead focus on helping the poor. Sharing what they have. And, ministering to the community. This has real power in the midst of the community and is very much a part of what was so attractive to the original message of Jesus. Here we see a faithful continuity of a God who freed Egypt, freed Jesus, and brings freedom to the people even today. The Good News of the Gospel is not about something that happens in the life after this one. It is about a God who continues to act in the lives of people - transforming them and the community in which they live.

Lastly, notice that the religious leaders sit in council and people are brought to them. They are out of touch with their community. Notice instead where the apostles are. They are out in the world in relationships with people. They are in conversation and working with them to help serve the poor - the widows and orphans. They are not locked in an upper room, they are not sitting in a religious center of some kind, they are in a relationship with real people, helping real people, and incarnating a community that is nothing less than a society of friends of Jesus.

Sermons Preached on This Sunday's Lessons
Touching and Seeing Jesus Apr 23, 2009 I challenge you to change Thomas Apr 13, 2010 The Lord's Day is Everyday April 3, 2016 Being Lost Apr 21, 2013 Shout out to stories from Radio Lab episode "You are Here" http://www.radiolab.org/2011/jan/25/you-are-here/

Easter Sunday C, April 20, 2025

Quotes That Make Me Think


Are you God's friend and lover?
rejoice in this glorious feast of feasts!

Are you God's servant, knowing God's wishes?
be glad with your Master, share his rejoicing!
Are you worn down with the labor of fasting?
now is your payday!

Have you been working since early morning?
you will be paid fair and square.
Have you been here since the third hour?
you can be thankful, you will be pleased.
If you came at the sixth hour,
come up without fear, you will lose nothing.
Did you linger till the ninth hour?
come forward without hesitation.
Even if you came at the eleventh hour?
have no fear; it is not too late.

God is a generous employer,
treating the last to come as he treats the first arrival.
God gives to the one and gives to the other:
honours the deed and praises the intention.

Join, then, all of you, join in our Master's rejoicing.
You who were the first to come, you who came after,
come now and collect your wages.
Rich and poor, sing and dance together.
You that are hard on yourselves, you that are easy,
celebrate this day.
You that have fasted and you that have not,
make merry today.

 The meal is ready: come and enjoy it.

The calf is a fat one: you will not go away hungry.

There's hospitality for all, and to spare. No more

apologizing for your poverty:

the kingdom belongs to us all.

No more bewailing your failings:

forgiveness has come from the grave.

No more fears of your dying:

the death of our Savior has freed us from fear.

Death played the Master: but he has mastered death

Isaiah knew this would happen, and he cried:

"Death was angered when it met you in the pit."

It was angered, for it was defeated.

It was angered, for it was mocked.

It was angered, for it was abolished.

It was angered, for it was overthrown.

It was angered, for it was bound in chains.

Death swallowed a body, and met God face to face.

It took earth and encountered heaven.

It took what is seen and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is your sting?

O Grave, where is your victory?

Christ is risen and you are overthrown.



Christ is risen and evil has fallen.

Christ is risen and the angels rejoice.

Christ is risen and life reigns.

Christ is risen and not one dead remains in the tomb.

Christ is risen indeed from the dead,

the first of all who had fallen asleep.

Glory and power to him for ever and ever!

St. Chrysostom

The death of Jesus is for us nothing if we have not died with him; the resurrection of our Lord is for us nothing if we have not been raised with him.

Emil Brunner

"The doctrine is clear. To the children of God, lost Christ is their Christ when all is done."

The Weeping Mary at the Sepulchre, Samuel Rutherford, 1640.

General Resources for Sunday's Lessons

Prayer

This is the day, Lord God, that you have made!  Raising Christ from the dead, and raising us with Christ, you have fashioned for yourself a new people, washed in the flood of baptism, sealed with gift of the Spirit, invited to the banquet of the Lamb!  In the beauty of this Easter morning, set our minds on the new life to which you have called us; place on our lips the words of witness for which you have anointed us; and ready our hearts to celebrate the festival, with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on John 20:1-18

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

Resources for Sunday's Gospel

We begin with  Mary discovering that the body is not there and reporting it to the disciples.  There is the famous disciple race.  The beloved disciple loves Jesus more and so he arrives at the tomb first before Peter; this is the intent of the story teller at least.  When he arrives he sees the burial clothes and he believes. He sees, he experiences, the resurrection and he believes.

Mary Magdalene then experiences the risen Jesus.  She has been searching for him; she sees him but does not immediately know him.  In fact she does not know him until her name is called.  Raymond Brown points out a number of reasons for this in John, vol 2, 1008ff.  Playing out the reality of Jesus' own words in John 10.3:  "The sheep hear his voice as he calls by name those that belong to him."  "I know my sheep and my sheep know me."  Her response is to announce to the disciples that she has "seen the Lord."

Two different experiences of the risen Christ from two loving followers are what we have to preach on this Easter.  They give us a sense that the risen Lord is known in many ways and experienced in many ways.  While true belief will come with the Holy Spirit, we are given here in John's resurrection account the beginning of the new creation story. 

The Victory has been won on the cross. The chasm that separated the earth and the heaven is no breached.  The disciples begin to experience a new order and a new creation. They begin to understand the things which have been told them. 

In these resurrection accounts we have the beginning of faith which comes from experiencing the risen Lord.  Their faith will grow even as Jesus continues to make his journey to the father. He remarks that we are not to cling to tightly to these experiences for the unity if fulfilled in the ascension which is soon to come.  Jesus is even now, as he stands before Mary, making his way to the Father.  Then, and only then, will the comforter and Holy Spirit be unleashed in the world.  Then, and only then, will the disciples come to a fullness of belief.

John's Gospel tells us clearly that resurrection is not simply a bodily, this world, experience but it is a resurrection into unity with God.  Only when Jesus is resurrected and unified will the new creation truly spring forth.  So now...on Easter Sunday...as we read John's Gospel we prepare and raise our heads for the coming of the Holy Spirit and the salvation of creation which is even now upon us.

"The first ones ever, oh, ever to know of the rising of Jesus, his glory to be, were Mary, Joanna, and Magdalene, and blessed are they are they who see.  Oh blessed are they who see the Lord, oh, blessed are they who see." (Hymnal 1982, 673)

Some Thoughts on Luke 24:1-12

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

Resources for Sunday's Gospel

What becomes clear in comparing the two options for preaching on Easter Sunday is that Luke's version and intent is somewhat different than John's.  However, what they have in common is worth a brief note.

In all the accounts (different from the other Hellenistic accounts of the day) Jesus is VERY present. He is not a ghost. He is not an apparition. Jesus is very real and very present. (Luke Timothy Johnson, Luke, 389)  The second detail is that the resurrection accounts do something.  They make real the covenant community of the disciples.  They are about to be sent; they are about to become apostles through the power of the Holy Spirit.  The disciple community is formed.  One might even say is birthed and bound together by the experience of this very real present Jesus. (390)

In Luke's Gospel we have an empty tomb account; which is the reading appointed.  However, this is always in context with the Road to Emmaeus, the appearance to the disciples, the ascension and Luke's nod to the many other resurrection accounts. 

In our Gospel lesson Jesus is very real and very present.  He is clear that we are to remain attentive to the work that is about to happen in Jerusalem (note he has changed Mark's "Galilee").  We are clear that the death and resurrection of the prophet king has now fulfilled the prophecies.  The prophetic tale of suffering and death has come true.  The whole of the scriptural witness (in that time the Old Testament - and specifically the Torah) is towards this moment of a new covenant and a new thing.  It is now the time of an apostolic age; wherein the first followers are sent out to do the work that Jesus has given them to do. 

Most of all we see in this moment a community being formed and being empowered to make their own prophetic witness.  (391) 

The last very important motif which Luke' carefully crafts as he tells the story of the resurrection is the crowd.  Jesus' resurrection involves many people.  Many people will experience his resurrection.  They are to tell many people.  It is important in Luke to remember the story of the prophet king Jesus, and how all that he said came true, and how he suffered, died, and was resurrected.  More importantly though is that "remembering" is for the sole purpose of telling. 

This is the evangelist's resurrection account.  God and tell...go and tell....go and tell.

Some Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 15:19-26

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text

Resources for Sunday's Epistle

The passage chosen for Easter from Corinthians does and interesting thing by combining two pieces of a whole section.  In the much larger piece of chapter 15 Paul is speaking to the church at Corinth about the reality that the key belief in the resurrection of the dead for the the saints is to be found in the sacred story of Jesus' own resurrection. 

Not unlike many non church goers, Paul faced a wide community of belief in a marginal kind of afterlife.  He is sure that there is more to life than what we experience here on this earth and he truly believed that for the Christian who believed there would be the inheritance of eternal life with God.  We share with Jesus the nature of life in this world and so we will share with Jesus in his resurrection.

Jesus is the first fruits of the holy community of saints who will be raised.  He then makes his case that humanity is doomed to death if left to their own devices.  Only Christ and Christ's resurrection will bring resurrected life to those who believe.  Christ is, even now, bringing about the ultimate victory of death and will (as promised in John's Gospel) draw all things to himself.  In the end death and all shall be conquered.

This passage so linked places before the reader and the preacher the witness of the first Christian community: 

A)  Those who follow Jesus and believe in his resurrection will be united with God and the saints in light.
B)  Jesus is the only one who can triumph over the permanence of death itself; only the new Adam brings deliverance.
C)  Not only is  a way into full life with God made possible and the kingdoms of heaven and earth forever linked; but this work of Christ's resurrection will be the death of death.
D)  Finally, this is part of the ultimate embrace of God for his creation.  What has begun in God will end in God for God is the Alpha and the Omega.

For the reader in Corinth and for the reader in the 21st century, we are given a vision of hope that all that we experience in this world is not all that it seems; and that God in fact intends so much more.  For us who remain along the pilgrim way we are given an opportunity to see that even now all things are being drawn towards him who loves us and desires to gather us beneath his wings.

Liturgy of the Passion, Palm Sunday, Year C, April 13, 2025

Prayer

Richard Rohr, Roman Catholic Priest invites us

Archive picture shows statue of Christ on cross
on tree in Fricourt, France, during World War I

to consider the cross and Jesus' invitation. He 

suggests we hear these words from Jesus and 

his cross:

"My beloved, I am your self. I am your beauty. I am your goodness, which you are destroying. I am what you do to what you should love. I am what you are afraid of: your deepest and best and most naked self—your soul. Your sin largely consists in what you do to harm goodness—your own and others’. You are afraid of the good; you are afraid of me. You kill what you should love; you hate what could transform you. I am Jesus crucified. I am yourself, and I am all of humanity."

You might sit quietly and listen. 

Then Rohr invites us to pray these words -

responding to Christ crucified. He invites to pray them as we see Christ Jesus hanging at the center of the world, at the center of human history, at the "turning" of God's creation. Pray:

"Jesus, Crucified, you are my life and you are also my death. You are my beauty, you are my possibility, and you are my full self. You are everything I want, and you are everything I am afraid of. You are everything I desire, and you are everything I deny. You are my outrageously ignored and neglected soul.

Jesus, your love is what I most fear. I can’t let anybody love me for nothing. Intimacy with you or anyone terrifies me. 

I am beginning to see that I, in my own body, am an image of what is happening everywhere, and I want it to stop today. I want to stop the violence toward myself, toward the world, toward you. I don’t need ever again to create any victim, even in my mind. 

You alone, Jesus, refused to be crucifier, even at the cost of being crucified. You never asked for sympathy. You never played the victim or asked for vengeance. You breathed forgiveness. 

We humans mistrust, murder, attack. Now I see that it is not you that humanity hates. We hate ourselves, but we mistakenly kill you. I must stop crucifying your blessed flesh on this earth and in my brothers and sisters. 

Now I see that you live in me and I live in you. You are inviting me out of this endless cycle of illusion and violence. You are Jesus crucified. You are saving me. In your perfect love, you have chosen to enter into union with me, and I am slowly learning to trust that this could be true.

This is taken from Richard Rohr's "Jesus: Forgiving Victim, Transforming Savior." [Transformation: Collected Talks, vol. 1, disc 1 (Franciscan Media: 1997).]

Some Thoughts on Luke 22:14 - 23:56 

"Our Lord passed most of the time on the cross in silence: yet seven sentences which he spoke thereon are recorded by the four evangelists, though no one evangelist has recorded them all. Hence it appears that the four Gospels are, as it were, four parts, which, joined together, make one symphony. Sometimes one of these only, sometimes two or three, sometimes all sound together."

From Wesley's Notes. John Wesley (1703-1791).

"Crucifixion was torture intended to teach a political lesson: Rome can crush the humanity out of you. Remember that. But this crucifixion scene is loaded with Jews who cannot be crushed. This is trouble for oppressors. Rome should worry. The centurion who observes the death seems to have figured this out."

Commentary, Luke 23:33-43, Richard Swanson, Christ the King, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

"Which makes we wonder, Working Preacher, if perhaps on this day we might invite people to call to mind one of those things for which they long to have a second chance so that they might take seriously whatever regret or disappointment they harbor and then take just as seriously the second chance and new life Jesus offers us from the cross."
"The King of Second Chances," David Lose, Dear Working Preacher, 2013.

"What kind of king is this that we honor on this Reign of Christ Sunday? Not one we've ever seen before on this earth, but one who was, and is, and is to come."
"What Kind of King Is This?" Alyce M. McKenzie, Edgy Exegesis, 2013.

"As far as I know, there is only one good reason for believing that he was who he said he was. One of the crooks he was strung up with put it this way: 'If you are the Christ, save yourself and us' (Luke 23:39). Save us from whatever we need most to be saved from. Save us from each other. Save us from ourselves. Save us from death both beyond the grave and before. If he is, he can. If he isn't, he can't. It may be that the only way in the world to find out is to give him the chance, whatever that involves. It may be just as simple and just as complicated as that."
"Messiah," sermon discussion from Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Blog.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

Let us first begin with God's story and narrative. We shall come to the theology soon enough.

The narrative itself is one that as a whole fits within the wider scripture. We can neither read the crucifixion as an isolated text or as a story within a story. It is in fact THE story and it reaches back to the beginning of creation and reaches forward through Pauline letters and out towards us.

The last supper is part of our Holy Week Triduum and it is also tied (especially in Luke) to the event of crucifixion itself. Fleming Rutledge in her magnum opus makes it clear that all of the Christian Gospels make an explicit link between the meal and the crucifixion. (The Crucifixion, 2017, p. 68.)

She points out that the Last Supper narrative begins in both the Gospels and in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, "On the night that he was to be betrayed..." That the meal and the cross are linked further not by betrayal but by the next words Jesus speaks, "My body and my blood given for you."(Ibid.)

The garden scene begins to reveal Jesus' own preparation for the crucifixion and trial. Here in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus suggests that he is girding himself for the battle. The first battle begun in the desert the last battle waged at the cross. Here then there is complete victory over the powers. What was promised in the desert is fulfilled on the cross. Jesus through submission and powerlessness undoes the hold the powers, principalities and evil hold over the world. (Ibid, 373.)

Let us turn to the crucifixion itself for a moment as it relates to Luke's account. Luke omits the cry, "My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?" This is present not only in each of the other gospels but also in Paul's letters and in the Letter to the Hebrews. Why is it not present? Surely Luke has his own traditions around the crucifixion, but given its presence elsewhere it appears to be an intentional omission. Rutledge helps with our question suggesting that it is perhaps Luke's own desire to show Jesus' commitment to the crucifixion and the sacrifice he promised above. He is being faithful and ready to return to God: "Into thy hands I commit my spirit."(Ibid, 104.)

Here in the crucifixion tradition (though Luke reveals the least of it) is the suffering Christ. Suffering is itself not dignified. It is not to be shown or revealed. For the philosopher, the king, the soldier, even in the narrative of the Maccabean martyrs there is a stoic approach to suffering. But not in the crucifixion narrative. Instead there is anguish, pain, suffering, tears, and a shuddering horror. (Ibid, 374.) Luke does not say this is not true, he simply seems interested in other motivations...ones that I think are linked intimately to faithfulness and the table fellowship.

Now, let us for a moment stop and dwell on what is happening. There is much to do about the word substitution that is well worth a moment of our time. There is great distaste for the word. And, there is most definitely some terrible theology out there. 

For instance...God does not ask for Jesus, his son, to sacrifice himself. God does not sacrifice his son. This is poor theology and goes against the teachings of sacrificial offerings - especially in the story of Abraham and Isaac. So, such ways of thinking should be avoided. They are really bad theology and they are bad for mission! What a terrible god that would be. In fact it would be a different god...a god much more in line with Greek gods and goddesses. It is much more in line with national theologies and mythic tales of heroes. No, this is not what we are talking about here when we talk about substitution. Like Fleming Rutledge I would like to redeem the word. Now, she suggests you can find other words like "exchange", etc... Nevertheless, we must for a moment talk about what is happening in the work of substitution.

When we make the substitutionary theory of the atonement synonymous with a god that demands that the son sacrifice himself, this understanding of atonement can be used to sanction the commission of religious violence against others in many varying and inhumane forms for the sake of peace. By contrast, the gospel of peace reveals God as both a victim of human violence and as a human whose dignity was violated by the shame of the cross. As such, I do not advocate for throwing out the substitutionary model of atonement altogether, but only that we hold this particular model in conversation alongside other models of atonement and always in the context of a Trinitarian theology. 

Outside of a Trinitarian theology, penal substitution becomes a god demanding the sacrifice of his son. However, an orthodox perspective always sees God in Christ acting together to save the world. Our belief in the Trinity will always lead to a mature understanding of any theory of atonement. To illustrate, let us turn to Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter 2. Here we see that the second person of the trinity, the Christ, the incarnation becomes lower than the angels in the unique person of Jesus. It is not enough to leave Jesus as a victim. This is not the whole of the story. God becomes fully incarnate in Jesus. 

The very God who in the form of Jesus is willing to set the power of God aside to become a victim on the cross is revealed. It is not that a better version of a Greek god requires his demigod son to sacrifice himself, but that God himself makes the substitutionary sacrifice. Paul writes, Christ "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” 

The God through whom all things, all flesh, was made is the one who voluntarily becomes powerless even unto death. All of our sinfulness, brokenness, victimhood, violence and scapegoating hang on the cross with Christ, in Christ, and for Christ. Thus, the atonement reveals that we are connected to the Incarnation itself, in our innermost parts. We stand in the middle of God’s narrative, and thus we find fresh power to make our life a substitutionary sacrifice for others so that the borders of God’s Garden expand in and through our life and the quality of our community. (Doyle, Citizen, 2020.)

In the end, Jesus became a scapegoat. He would hear the hailing voices worthy of an emperor. He would wear a robe and crown that mocked him. (Myers, 380.) He took on all of the might of the empire in vestige, abuse, and political torture. The people and the powers condemned him to death because of his subversive teaching and actions; such as healing the sick and eating with the unclean and unholy.  His engagement of powers calling them to accountability made many enemies. His rejection of violence for rebels who wanted Rome gone allied the rebels with the enemy.

Stanley Hauerwas wrote in his exposition of Matthew’s telling of the crucifixion: 

“Jesus must be killed because Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus must be killed because Jesus has called into existence a new people who constitute a challenge to the world order based on lies and deceit. Jesus must be killed because he is a threat to all who rule in the name of safety and comfort. Jesus must be killed because we do not desire to have our deepest desires exposed. Jesus must be killed because we do not believe in a God who creates us and who would come among us after our likeness. So we have learned from Matthew.” 

Jesus’s is sacrificed on the altar of violence and power. He was killed by humanity as a reenactment of ancient religious and political sacrifice. Jesus’ death is the world’s rejection of God’s narrative that no sons and daughters shall be sacrificed. Instead of sparing him like Issac, the powers demand his death. Jesus participated totally in the mimetic sacrifice that God wants no part of. If that were the end of it, then we would be invested in just another community with a scapegoat theology that repeated the violence of mythic gods. 

Instead, God took our violence and broke it open. Jesus was raised from the dead by God and in so doing, Girard says, God “refutes the whole principle of violence and sacrifice. God is revealed as the ‘arch-scapegoat,’ the completely innocent one who dies in order to give life. And his way of giving life is to overthrow the religion of scapegoating and sacrifice—which is the essence of myth.”  God does not let the world’s demand of sacrifice have the last word. (Doyle, Citizen, 2020.)

As we come to the end we return to the reclamation of the crucifixion as a key to our understanding of the whole narrative. Let me for a bit riff on Rutledge but with the whole scope of God's narrative in mind. What we must see that God in Christ Jesus has the ultimate end of the narrative in mind. The whole of the story of the crucifixion fits within not simply a context of apocolyptic writing of the age, but that the end is the setting for the actions that take place. Here the cross is planted firmly between the alpha and the omega. Christ is firmly planted here in tree form. And, that the perfect image of the incarnation - Jesus - arrives in the midst of a fallen world that stretches between the beginning with Cain and Abel and the end's engathering of God. 

The second theme powerfully woven here is that the way in which the Christ becomes victorious is substitution. By becoming the scapegoat and total victim God in Christ Jesus has taken our place. Remember the words of Deuteronomy form Lent 2. God has removed our slavery to sin. Rutledge is at her best here, and encapsulates Luke's own unique telling of this part of God's narrative. In a few sentences she captures the nature of Christ's substitution. I offer it here in its poetic beauty. (It is probably the paragraph that should be read first before reading the rest of the book!) She writes:

...the way in which Christ became the apocalyptic victor was through the substitution. The Kurios could have achieved his victory in some other way, but God chose this way. The incarnate One exchanged his glory for the shame of the cross (Heb 12:2) from the beginning of his life, being born in shameful circumstances, his infancy mortally threatened by a tyrant, branded an impostor by the religious authorities form the first (Luke 4:28-29), being without a place to lay his head through his ministry (Luke 9:58), meeting with hostility everywhere he went. The shame he endured is often expressed in terms of exchange, closely related to substitution: being in the form of God , he exchanged his glory for the form of a slave, exchanging his riches for our poverty, his righteousness for our unrighteousness, even to death on a cross. That is the manner in which he won the victory - "therefore God has highly exalted him"(Phil 2:9; cf. II Cor 8:9; I Pet 3:18). (Rutledge, Crucifixion, 531.)

The final piece is that this crucifixion undoes some of what humans do regarding the law. Humans turn the law into a means of control, of hoarding power and wealth, and for rejecting the hard work of community. Jesus came and died at the hands of this law...which was supported by both the powers of politics and religion. This is the great exclamation point on the death of religion and all those who seek to use it as a stick to keep others down. While we have law within our scripture, this law was transformed by Jesus' ministry to higher virtues and the rest buried in his tomb with his lifeless body. 

Again, Rutledge...

The accursed, Godforsaken death suffered by Jesus was, in some way that we cannot fully articulate, the death that should have been ours, a death under the cursing voice of the Law wielded as a weapon by the Power of Sin. The incarnate Son took our place under the sentence of Death....(Ibid.) 

The death of Jesus on the cross is God in three persons acting together, with one will, for one purpose - to deliver all humanity from the curse of Sin and its not-so-secret weapon, the Law. Jesus, the representative man, our substitute, not only shows us how human will can align itself with the will of God, but also makes it happen in his own incarnate person; and then, in the greatest act of love that has ever taken place , he gives his own person back to us, crucified and raised form the dead, the first fruits of all who belong to him. (Ibid, 534.)

Here then we finish our meditation as we turn to Richard Rohr for a bit of help. What has happened is that our culture has taken one idea of the crucifixion (and a bad theological one at that) and used it to dismiss deep Christian theology. In fact we helped the whole world to do so. Our congregations are filled with people who believe that God asked Jesus, his son, to sacrifice himself. 

This has been combined with the notion that this is a contextual story that can be lifted out of the whole of the God's narrative. That it happened once and for all. The effect is good at the end.  Rohr reminds us that this is not true. . This is instead, he suggests, 

an ongoing transformational lesson for the human soul and for all of history. Christianity’s vision of God was a radical departure from most ancient religions. Instead of having God “eat” humans, animals, or crops, which were sacrificed on altars, Christianity made the bold claim that God’s very body was given for us to eat! This turned everything around and undid the seeming logic of quid pro quo thinking. A view of God as punitive and retributive nullifies any in-depth spiritual journey: Why would you love or trust or desire to be with such a God? The Franciscan School of theology claimed that the cross was a freely chosen revelation of Love on God’s part, meant to utterly shock the mind and heart and turn it back toward trust and love of the Creator. The Divine Mind transforms all human suffering by identifying completely with the human predicament and standing in full solidarity with it from beginning to end. This is the real meaning of the crucifixion. Jesus did not come to change God’s mind about us. It did not need changing. Jesus came to change our minds about God—and about ourselves—and about where goodness and evil really lie. This is taken from Richard Rohr's "Jesus: Forgiving Victim, Transforming Savior." [Transformation: Collected Talks, vol. 1, disc 1 (Franciscan Media: 1997).]

Some Thoughts on Philippians 2:5-11 

"There is nothing better, there is nothing more affectionate, than a spiritual teacher; such an one surpasses the kindness of any natural father."
Commentary by St John Chrysostom: Homily V


"...what works are chiefly to be done? I reply: Especially those which promote chief righteousness and decrease original sin: thus to each and every one is the appropriate examination necessary of his own thing, because original sin expresses itself in one person so, and in another thus."
"Sermon on Three-fold Righteousness" by Martin Luther, c. 1525.

"This revision of a hallowed text throws a monkey wrench into the inner workings of Christian theology. So, let's do it."
Commentary, Philippians 2:1-13 (Pentecost 20), David E. Fredrickson, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

"Paul reads his own life constantly in the light of the story of Jesus (1:20-26). He wants them to read theirs similarly. The great treasure of this passage is that it challenges us to do the same. It is, however, easily subverted into an opposite attitude, a paradigm for success and power."
"First Thoughts on Year A Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Pentecost 16, William Loader, Murdoch University

"Like Timothy and like Paul's audience, leaders and members of our own congregations are called to imitate Jesus by refusing to insist on their own prerogatives or status, whatever they may be, and serving others in humility."
Commentary, Philippians 2:5-11, Elisabeth Shively, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

"What's in a name? From a biblical perspective -- everything!"
Commentary, Philippians 2:5-11, Elisabeth Johnson, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

Paul in this passage uses a first century Christian hymn (possibly even one they would have known) to urge the members of the community at Philippi to have the same mind as Christ. That means that they are to seek to not insist on their own way or their own rights (determined by their social status) but they are to become lower than their stations. Like God in Christ Jesus they are to seek to become power-less and to serve.

Paul invites them to not be better than the other - this is not after all a quality that Christ illustrated.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,8he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. 9Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,11and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Here as in above, there is physical and spiritual connection between all humanity and the Incarnaiton, between all human labor and the cross, and all human suffering and the crucifixion. Just as God delivers us from sin and the law so does God reveal to us how we are to live and move and have our being. Paul's letter invites just such alignment. Paul desires not simply that we understand the physical and spiritual length but the alignment of life and community.

It is in serving that one is great. It is in taking the lower seat that you shall be known. It is in washing feet and loving each other regardless of station. It is feeding the poor who have no right to be fed and healing the sick who have not fulfilled the law. It is in eating with those who are not worthy to be eaten with. It is in loving those whom you would not dare to love.  These are the qualities by which you will be known as a follower of Jesus.

This is the work of Christ that they are to continue in the world.  

People will talk about a lot of reasons why our church is failing.  They will ponder the reasons why we are shrinking in numbers.  I think in the end it is because we don't do these things very well.  

We do not have the same mind as Christ Jesus and are unwilling to become low. We actually regard equality with God as something to be exploited and lorded over those to whom we do not believe deserve such equality.  We are unwilling to empty ourselves. We will not serve God or his mission over our own needs and desires.  We are quick to take the highest seat. We are not eager to wash each other's feet - especially not the feet of the poor. We are unwilling to hold back or deny ourselves. We will not sit with those unlike us.  We will not dine with those we don't agree with. We will not be seen with those who are not like us. We are wholly unwilling to do the hard and difficult work of following Jesus as Jesus has invited us to follow.

Perhaps this is why Paul has us squarely figured out.  The truth is like the Philippians what is so bad about our church. It is a comfortable place, for comfortable people, comfortable in our going out and our coming in.  Yet Paul may have us figured out...comfortable is not a whole lot like the ministry and character of God in Christ Jesus.

Some Thoughts on Isaiah 50:4-9a 

"The Lenten color of violet hints at the violence sometimes suffered by faithfulness in the short-term, and also sends shivers down the spine. This Sunday the color of a bruise is replaced by that of blood-red, lethal wounds. The full impact of faithfulness is not yet accounted for."
Commentary, Isaiah 50:4-9a, James Matthew Price, A Plain Account, 2016.

"The servant's confidence springs from past actions of God in calling the servant and bestowing gifts up him as well as God's present helping actions in the face of confrontation by enemies."

Commentary, Isaiah 50:4-9a, Tyler Mayfield, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.

"What will it mean for us to preach the word of God with the tongue of students, listen like students do, and still stand up to testify confident in God's help?"
Commentary, Isaiah 50:4-9a, Anathea Portier-Young, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

The prophet suggests that God has invited him to be a teacher, to offer a word to the people, to instruct them in God's ways. This is a for a particular purpose though. It is to bring hope and strength to the people...it is to sustain the weary.  God invites the prophet to awaken to the work at hand - to bring comfort and hope.

The prophet listens and does not rebel against the message. This of course implies that the prophet would in fact like to rebel against the message of hope. Perhaps the the notion here for the preacher is that it is easy to become one of the people. But the work of the prophet is to rise above the people's anxiety and weariness in order to offer a vision of God's hope and care.

Moreover, that when we do this as prophets, teachers, and preachers we may not always be liked. People might rather live within their misery. They might rather live within the world of political conflict and power manipulation. They may wish that the preacher parrot the media source of their choosing. In this way the people may not always like the prophet's message.

There is on the one hand sacrifice here ad on the other there is a sense that God works to be the redeemer of both preacher and people. There is support and power in knowing that we are standing, preaching, teaching, and prophesying in the midst of God's narrative.

Sometimes the preacher is tempted to simply mimic the words of the world and the power plays that are all around us. To pick up the narrative of humanity instead of the narrative of God. Let me confess I fall prey to this. All the more reason to take time to listen and ponder God's story of hope and help for the weary soul. All the more reason to offer a true word instead of the word of the world disguised in gospel mimicry.

This is the work that Jesus undertakes in his own preaching and reorienting relationship with God from a temple/church oriented faith to a direct relationship with God. In so doing, he receives the same treatment as Isaiah describes. See especially Mark14:65 and Matthew 26:67. In this way Isaiah's passage here offers a future vision of the suffering servant of Israel. Like all prophets before him, and many prophets after, Jesus receives the prophet's welcome.

The world of human affairs is eager to maintain sibling rivalry, mimetic desire and violence, and scapegoating. We do this to secure our own place and powers. The message of a God who intends that you understand you are invited into God's story and not the other ay around will always be a difficult thing for people to come to grips with. Everything in our lives, from relationships, workplaces, and our technology leads us to believe we are the center of the world/cosmos. God however, through the work of Jesus, the prophet, the teacher, and preacher would like us to understand this is not the situation.

Lent 5C, April 6, 2025

Prayer

Mary Anoints Jesus' Feet by Frank Wesley

Infinite is your compassion, O God, and gracious the pardon that Jesus, the Teacher, offers to every sinner who stands before him. Gladden our hearts at the word that sends us on our way in peace; and grant that we, who have been forgiven so much, may embrace as brothers and sisters every sinner who joins us at this feast of forgiveness. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on John 12:1-11

"I know, on the narrative level Jesus is talking to Judas, both reprimanding him as well as interpreting Mary’s gift. But given my own strong reaction both to the cost of Mary’s gift and the intimacy with which she gives it – washing his feet with her hair? really? – I wonder if Jesus is not also addressing himself to me and perhaps to all of us who shrink back from such unconventional and excessive outpourings of faith, love, and service."
"Questions about Discipleship," David Lose, Working Preacher, 2013.


"And so the hardest question for me becomes, how do we preach the love of Christ, who fed and healed people, in the light of Jesus saying, 'The poor will always be with us?'"
"The Poor Will Always Be With You," Carol Howard Merrit, The Hardest Question, 2013.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

We take a break from the Lukan journey to the cross this week in Lent as we pause for special material out of the Johannine chronicle of Jesus’ last days. Here we have a meal; probably Saturday evening after the Sabbath has ended (as in John’s Gospel that is from Friday to Saturday). It could in fact be the traditional meal to end Sabbath – the Habdalah. Furthermore, we are told the meal is taking place in the town of Bethany identified with the raising of Lazarus.

Following the meal something crazy happens: "Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume."

This is what I found out about this particular and costly perfume. The perfume is myron which is a generic form made from nard rather than from myrrh. Nard is mixed with oil from the storax shrub to create an ointment. This is not the kind of perfume the Magi brought with them but it is nothing less than a kings fortune to obtain it. Judas points this out.

Judas is identified in scripture as the son of Simon. A little family tree from the New Testament scholar J. N. Sanders places Jesus in the house of Simon the leper. Simon the leper is father to his eldest son Judas Iscarot, Lazarus whom Jesus raised, and then Mary and Martha. Sanders describes Judas as a “masculine Martha gone wrong!” (As quoted in Raymond Browne, Anchor Bible, v 29, p 448) Judas is then a brother of Mary, and the rest.

Judas is not happy and says, “'Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?' (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)"

If we remember that one denarri was a day’s wage. We then can do a little biblical math to understand that 300 silver pieces or denarri is indeed a great sum. This means that we have a lot of money being spent on the anointing. As Browne puts it, “this was a pound of expensive perfume indeed.” (448) It is fascinating to think about the amount of bread this could really have purchased. Interesting comparisons on the amount can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denarius. It would be like a minimum wage employee going out and spending $18,000 on perfume.

Jesus then weighs in, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial."

(Just as an aside there is some debate about this piece of scripture as Mary has no role in the embalming of Jesus. So, it doesn't make much sense.)

Jesus then says something even more unexpected, "You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” We are then told, "When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus."

This is of course a quote from scripture, a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 15:11: “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land”.

So what do we make of the passage? Certainly John is leaning on a synoptic tradition that many scholars believe he had some access to, specifically Mark’s Gospel.  I think you are liable to miss the point by focusing your attention on whether John and the synoptics are describing the same scene.  John seems to have a unique message. 

It is my belief that we have here THE anointing for his burial in John's Gospel. That the tender moment described, and completely missed by Judas and so many of us on our first reading, is that this is in fact Jesus’ anointing and preparation for death. This is happening at this moment at Simon’s house where his children, raised from the dead, the doers, the prayers, and the rebels all gather together for a meal. All nature of follower of Jesus is here and they are all witnessing a most powerful and incredibly intimate moment. This is as Raymond Browne writes, “the culminating expression of loving faith.”

I am always moved by this story when we reach this moment in our Lenten journey. In part because I find my senses have been tuned to a great devotion of our Lord, and so I am truly touched and begin to prepare myself for Holy Week and the veneration of the glorious cross; not out of a sense of rehearsing the past but out of a truly contrite heart’s desire to give thanks for the grace and love Jesus expresses for us.

The moment of anointing stands in stark contrast to the backdrop of a Gospel very rarely focused on Jesus. 

In John’s Gospel we are constantly being reminded that all of this is for us and for the Glory of God. His goal is the restoration of creation. His work is to reorient our eyes upon God and to direct our prayers to his father who is in heaven. So here in this moment is John and the synoptics giving us a glimpse into what our glorious and venerable worship of Jesus might indeed be like were we to observe it with the faith of Mary.

Let us not forget Judas though; it is as he points out an extravagant moment when tremendous amounts of wealth are being literally poured upon a man’s feet. But let us take a few steps back theologically and look at the whole testimony of scripture. We must remember Jesus’ connection of himself with the poor from the Gospel of Matthew, 25.31ff:

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

We are then tempted to mix the two passages and be reminded that Jesus is with us always in the poor. And that we have an opportunity to anoint the poor with service in such an extravagant manner, not unlike Mary in the anointing of Jesus. How would our towns and cities be changed if we through our great devotion to Jesus Christ, anointed the poor with fine oil?

Some Thoughts on Philippians 3:4-14

"Paul pictures himself as a man in the middle, a man who has literally changed his pursuits almost in midstride, and is jubilant."
Commentary, Philippians 3:4b-14, Sarah Henrich, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2016.

"Just as Christ did not regard his high position and stature as something to be exploited but humbled himself and became obedient to death, so too, Paul takes on this cruciform identity and cruciform way of being in the world."
Commentary, Philippians 3:4b-14, Rev. Rob Fringer, A Plain Account, 2016.

"Pursuit and flight are a topos of Greek erotic poetry and iconography from the archaic period onward. It is noteworthy that, within such conventional scenes, the moment of ideal desire on which the vase-painters as well as poets are inclined to focus is not the moment of the coup de foudre, not the moment when the beloved's arms open to the lover, not the moment when the two unite in happiness. What is pictured is the moment when the beloved turns and runs."

Commentary, Philippians 3:4b-14, David E. Fredrickson, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text

We switch from Paul's focus on the Corinthians (who are having all kinds of trouble) to his letter addressed to the emerging church in Philippi.  

Just before this passage he has been speaking of how Jesus is the example of servanthood and in the most recent passages from this letter Paul has been warning that some Christian traditions will try and make you follow the Jewish law.  Circumcision is only one item, but the the issue is that Paul believes the new tradition is different from the old.  I believe Paul is saying we are not simply Jews with Jesus; this is a greater revelation.  Our relationship with the law has changed because of the ministry of Jesus.  Paul turns this religious law on its head and says: true circumcision is of the heart – and not of the “flesh”.

As an example of the need to circumcise the heart Paul speaks of his own experience.  He speaks from his own experience as a good and religious Jew.  He was circumcised and he was from the tribe of Benjamin.  I love how he describes this, he was "a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless".  He even was a persecutor of the Christians who he thought were lawless!  

Yet, through knowing Christ he has come to understand that when you follow the law you lose.  The law itself obstructs God's love.  If you believe that you are saved or special because you are following the law and being religious then you are engaging in what he calls "rubbish".

The obverse is true.  Christ chooses us. Christ loves us.  Christ suffers under the law so that we do not need to suffer.  We are redeemed and we live anew because of his resurrection.  Our faith in Christ, not godly law abiding citizenship in accordance with legal precepts, is what brings righteousness.  He writes that he, "not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith."

This confession of faith begins the work of transformation.  It bears fruit but the confession itself cannot turn into some new way of doing the work.  We are being transformed from within.  We are, through the power of his resurrection being made new.  Our understanding of life following Christ is our response to this love.  Our Christ like life is our response to God making us his own.  

Paul leaves us with this:  "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."

It reminds me of Paul's words from Ephesians 3: God's "power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine"

Some Thoughts on Isaiah 43:16-21

"We are all called to take our faith in God from the past and bring it into the present, regardless of how hopeless or desperate the situation may seem."
"Present-Tense Faith," Alan Brehm, The Waking Dreamer, 2016.

"This is a wonderful and very necessary word for the Church to hear in this current age when there is so much change and upheaval. The character of our god has not changed. God's grace and power have sustained us in the past, will see us through the present and guide us into the future."
Commentary, Isaiah 43:16-21, Callie Plunket-Brewton, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

"Lost in Our Own Exiles, We Forget God's Gifts and Promises."
"Remember to Forget," John C. Holbert, Opening the Old Testament, 2013.

"This year can be our turn around time because we serve a God who continually does new things in our lives when we are willing to let go of the past and lay hold upon the future with faith in God who continues to do all things well."
Commentary, Isaiah 43:18-21, William Watley, The African American Lectionary, 2010.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

God is doing a new thing. God is about to free the people from their captivity in Babylon. Who is this God? The prophet reminds the people this is a word from the God who made the sea and those who dwell in it. Isaiah reminds them of how God brought the people out of Israel and tells them God will do the same for those in Babylon.

The prophet says that even though the people do not yet see the results of God's providence, God is in fact already setting things in motion. God will "make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." God is doing this because the people are part of God's story and there is a relationship between them.

God through the prophets invites the people to have hope, offers the people guidance out of love, and suggests the work of the people is not a geographic or ethnic particularity but a message for the whole world. (See the uniqueness of the prophets in Rabbi Jonathan Sacks essay on Leadership.)

The words from this passage are themselves repeated within the Christian tradition. God invites the people through Christ Jesus to hear the words in a new way - expanding the message to all people. The words of Isaiah are a clarion call and can be found in the words of the prophet John the Baptist who makes the same call to the people alienated from God and who are enslaved and imprisoned in their own land, in their own homes, and persecuted in their own towns. The words of Isaiah are echoed in his invitations to take heart and do not be afraid; as when Jesus comes across the sea.