Easter VII

Easter VII (John 17:1-11 “This is eternal life.”

Prayer is the window of the soul. Prayer reveals the inner most reality of the soul.

From time to time college students tell me they no longer believe in God. And, from time to time when they are facing an exam or a personal crisis they ask me to pray for them.

They share the attitude from an old song lyric that says: I swear there is no heaven but I pray there is no hell.

The Bible demonstrates for us how most people most of the time consider God to be an inconvenient truth. Most (perhaps all) people view God as the judge whose demands prevent us from having fun or experiencing pleasure. People also tend to view God as a kind of Santa Claus magic Jeannie who is obligated to give us what we want when we want it.

Moses and the prophets observe how people hold these two contradictory beliefs about God: the God of condemnation and the God of indulgence. Neither is true. Either will result in a person following the path of self- righteous pride or self- indulgent despair.

Jesus embodies for us the reality of who God is and who God has created us to be. In this passage of scripture Jesus embodies the reality of God and humanity through prayer.

Jesus’ first concern is the glory of God. The glory of God is the real presence of divine love at work in the universe, this planet, our species and in each of us as individuals. Is this your first concern in prayer?

According to Moses and the prophets, people who pray generally pray for things within four broad categories: power, prestige, pride and pleasure. Even when people invoke God’s glory we tend to do so tactically as a means to an end.

For Jesus, the glory of God is the active outpouring of the love of God to all people everywhere, For Jesus, the glory of God is preeminent. Jesus once said: seek ye first the kingdom of God. Jesus also teaches that the first and great commandment is to love God through all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind. We can only do this through worship at the time and place God designed into the universe and wrote on stone for all people for all time.

The glory of God manifests in the hearts and minds and lives of the people of God as we follow Jesus to the altar of Real Presence on the day of real presence.

The glory of God is also humanity fully alive, as St. Irenaeus once said. Jesus came to bring us abundant life. He does this by offering us eternal life.

In his high priestly prayer, Jesus acknowledges that this is the meaning and purpose of the incarnation. The co-eternal Son came to earth to unite his divinity with our humanity. In that union Jesus makes it possible for us to reunify with God the Father, through God the Son, by the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.

Jesus clarifies that eternal life is not a reward for good deeds done. Neither is it a fundamental human right we can demand and claim. It is an organic and spiritual reunification Jesus offers all people everywhere as a gift.

Eternal life is not endless existence. Eternal life is also not some future state we must wait to experience. Eternal life is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We can, if we choose, experience eternal life here and now at the altar of real presence in the sacrament of real presence.

What prevents us from receiving the gift of eternal life and the experience of eternal life here and now is pride. If you want to understand how pride blocks the gift of God then read the Bible, study the Bible, memorize the Bible. At the very least pay attention in church when the lay readers and sub deacons read the lessons from the Bible.

Jesus reveals his innermost being as he prays for the Glory of the Father to be made manifest in the abundance of the eternal life and infinite love the Father offers all people everywhere through the Son by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Do you believe this?

Do you value this?

Do you really want this?

Will you ask for this in prayer?

Jesus is the eternal love of the Triune God who offers himself to you and to everyone in the sacraments, the Bible and the community of Faith called the Church.

The operative principle that governs our lives in this universe of cause and effect is choice.The Holy Spirit is asking you to make a real choice today to pray with Jesus for the glory of the Father to fill your heart and soul and mind with eternal love.

This is eternal life.

Easter V

Easter V (John 14:1-14) “I am the Way…”

In Jesus, God unites His Divinity with our humanity- never to be divided.

If you are looking for a solution to a problem you must first be sure you understand the problem. The problem Moses and the Prophets identify is the choice we as a species and each of us individually made and continue to make to separate from God.

This is a fundamental problem because separation breaks the basic design of our species. Our Heavenly Father created us by the power of the Holy Spirit according to the pattern, plan and purpose of the co-eternal Son.  The One God eternally manifests as a relationship of three persons in an active, dynamic and creative community of love. God created us in His image and likeness, in the pattern of personal relationships forming a community of universal unconditional and holy love.

Separation is the basic problem confronting our species and defining our species. Separation breaks the three fold set of relationships the Triune God imprinted on our souls.

Moses and the prophets observed the problem in all of its expressions in human behavior: war, crime, conflict, theft, murder, injustice and blasphemy. Moses and the prophets concluded that based on their observations and their own experience, the only solution to the problem was for God to reset the pattern and then offer that solution to humanity as a gift. Jesus is that gift.

This is the context for all that Moses and the Prophets observed and recorded. This is the context for all that Jesus said and did and was and is.

Jesus is not just a religious teacher who offers his insights into the Way of life. Neither is Jesus just a prophet who receives a word from God to convey to people. Jesus is the Word of God.

Jesus is the union of divinity and humanity in a single person. As that unity of two natures in one person, Jesus is the only solution to the problem of separation, sin and death.

Hear the statement again. Jesus tells the apostles that they already know the Way. Thomas speaks from the place of confusion when he asks: “how can we know the Way?” Thomas and the apostles are still thinking in the old paradigm. The old paradigm looks for external structures such as Law, Ritual, Religion or Institutions to provide the solution to life’s problems.

Those things have their place. Those things are not the solution. External structures and systems can only restrain and direct. They cannot convert and transform. We need conversion. We need transformation.

That is why Jesus never addressed the issue of which of the many sects of Judaism was the one true religion. That is why Jesus never engaged in political, economic and philosophical debates. Jesus Himself is the solution. Jesus is the Way- the new way of life that produces a new Way of living. Jesus just doesn’t speak about truth. Jesus is the personal incarnation of the eternal pattern of truth.

Since the apostles knew Jesus they already knew the Way. They just had to unlearn the categories of fear, self-will and pride that inhibited their ability to recognize what they already knew.  Salvation is an inside job. Salvation is a gift. Salvation is an active, dynamic, creative and personal relationship with a very specific person: Jesus Christ.

Jesus once said: “You cannot place new wine into old wineskins.” The Apostles failed to understand Jesus because they wanted to define him from the old way of living- the way of separation. We can only understand Jesus as we begin to accept the reality that He himself is the original pattern of the original blessing.

The original blessing is the pattern of the three fold set of personal relationships the Triune God created us to experience. Jesus teaches and demonstrates these relationships in the Summary of the Law. Love God through worship, love others through acts of kindness and compassion, love yourself by living the Way of personal transformation.

 Personal transformation is the path of growth and develop through change. If you don’t want to change you can’t transform. If you don’t want to change you are lost in stagnation. A personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ inspires change and facilitates change. The basic change is the transition from merely existing to abundant life.

Apart from the source of life there is no life. Jesus is that source. Faith in Jesus is reunification with the Triune God that is producing a result in the way we relate to each other and in the way we form our own personal identities.

Salvation is a process. It is a Way of living that produces transformed attitudes and actions. In the most astonishing teaching Jesus gives he tells us that as we enter into the Way, the Truth and the life we are becoming transformed. We change. We will in fact do greater works than Jesus did when he was on Earth. The great problem facing the followers of Jesus is not that we think too highly of ourselves. The great problem is that we think too little of how we can transform in union with God in Christ.

We will do these greater works in union with the Father, through the Son by the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit as we take our eyes off our little ego self and focus on the One by whom, through whom and for whom we were created.

The reality is the relationship. The relationship manifests in worship, compassionate service to others, and personal transformation. The relationship is God’s gift to us in Jesus Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life of steadfast, holy, universal, personal and unconditional love.

Eastwer IV

Easter IV (John 10:1-10) “I came that they may have life.”

Jesus is the good shepherd.

There are some things we need to know about shepherds to help us understand the image.

Most people did not place a high value on shepherds. Scripture describes this attitude towards shepherds in several passages. When Jacob and his family come to Egypt to live, Joseph instructs him: do not tell the Pharaoh that you are shepherds for the Egyptians despise shepherds.

When the prophet Samuel comes to Jesse in Bethlehem to anoint one of his sons as the new king, Jesse doesn’t even mention his youngest son, David. David is a shepherd. Jesse doesn’t even invite him to meet Samuel.

Shepherds were young men, teens, from the working poor. They worked long hours for little pay and no benefits. They were expected to live with the sheep in the fields 24/7. They were expected to make sure the sheep found good pasture for food and water. They were required to protect the sheep from wild animals and thieves.

Frequently, they were punished for any loss. They had to keep track of all of their sheep and seek out and find any individuals who strayed. A lost sheep is a dead sheep. The shepherd had to know his sheep so well that he would immediately recognize when even one wandered off.

It was a harsh life only young men from the poorest of the poor were willing to do.

At night, a shepherd would build a temporary pen to protect the sheep. He usually used sticks, stones and thorn bushes. There was one opening, one door, but no gate. The shepherd himself slept in the opening. Any predator or thief would need to pass him to get to the sheep.

The sheep grew accustomed to the presence of a shepherd. The shepherd had his own unique call for the sheep. Frequently, the shepherd named his sheep. The sheep came to recognize and trust the shepherd’s voice.

Many shepherds suffered injury while tending their sheep. If they could not work as a result of such an injury they were not paid. Some shepherds died defending their flock. Others abandoned the flock at the first sign of danger, knowing there was no reward for injury and no compensation to their families if they died.

For Jesus, considered a teacher and a prophet, to identify himself as a shepherd was more than a little scandalous. It was especially scandalous for those who hoped he would be the Messiah. They expected a Messiah to be a great warrior king. They were confused and angered when Jesus identified himself with the poorest of the poor who had no status in society.

Jesus was a descendant of David. Jesus was not from the religious or political elites of the time. His parents were not from the poorest of the poor who lived on the thin edge of starvation. They were from the working class who were only one paycheck away from starvation.

When the co-eternal Son of God came to earth he surrendered all of his divine prerogatives. He humbled himself. Although he is the rightful owner of this planet and the rightful King of all people and all nations, Jesus did not assert his ownership or Kingship in the way people expected.

Jesus identified with the poorest of the poor to help us understand that God is not knowledge or power. Jesus came to reveal to us that God is love- steadfast, holy, universal and unconditional.

The Good Shepherd is an image of the sacrificial humility of that divine love.

As with those teens who worked long hours, days and weeks in the fields and the mountain slopes in a dirty and dangerous job for little pay and less thanks, Jesus came to the dusty roads and villages of First Century Judea and Galilee to seek and save the lost sheep of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The consistent record of Scripture is that all people are lost in separation from God. And, the consistent observation of Moses and the prophets is that the lost do not want to be found.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd who seeks out the lost who do not want to be found. He enters into the wilderness of a broken and conflicted world to help us, to heal us and to rescue us.

Jesus clarifies just what it means to be the Messiah in the categories of sacrificial love and abundant life.

As the incarnation of eternal love, Jesus lives and moves and has his being in kindness, compassion, sacrifice and humility. As the very pattern, plan and purpose for our existence Jesus comes to restore what we so foolishly abandoned. He comes to restore the relationships our Heavenly Father designed for us through the power of the Holy Spirit according to the pattern of the Son.

Jesus demonstrates that the relationship is universal unconditional love. Jesus teaches that this relationship restores to us here and now the one thing we say we want and the one thing we fail to achieve.

Jesus comes to restore us to life. Not existence. We already have that. Life. Not just a minimalist form of life- abundant life.

Abundant life emerges from the very source of life: Jesus himself.

The scandal of the Good Shepherd is that the Messiah identifies himself with the poorest of the poor. The scandal of the Good Shepherd is that Jesus identifies humanity, us, as sheep who are lost and do not want to be found.

The promise of the Good Shepherd is that he is the one who seeks the lost, finds the lost and heals the lost.

The Glory of the Good Shepherd is the abundant life he offers to all who recognize his voice and follow him to the green pastures of the waters of life, the food and drink of new life, the medicine of eternal life.

Jesus speaks to us today: I came that you may have life, and that you may have it abundantly.