Easter 2015

Easter 2014 (Mark 16:1-8)

“He is not here; he has been raised.”

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foundation of the Christian Faith.  The resurrection is the key to understanding who we are, who God is and what God wants of us.

On the cross, Jesus died for human sin. He just didn’t die a tragic death as a martyr for a cause. He died as the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for sin. He died to transform sin back into virtue. He experienced the death of every human being who has ever lived and will ever live. He experienced the abomination of desolation which is final separation from light and life and love.

Jesus experienced sin and death so he could transform sin and death by the power of infinite and eternal love.

Because Jesus is fully human Jesus died for all of humanity, no one excluded. He died for you personally and individually. And, because Jesus is fully God he absorbed the pride and despair of humanity’s choice to separate from God so he could transform it back into the original pattern of humanity.

The original pattern of humanity is defined by the three fold pattern of love. That threefold pattern is love of God through worship on the seventh day, love of other people through acts of kindness and compassion, and love of self by walking through life in the transforming friendship of the Beloved Son of God.

In the resurrection God the Father resets the pattern of humanity in Jesus. In the resurrection God the Holy Spirit empowers all of us and each of us to reboot our basic patterns of existence into the new life of Jesus Christ.

The essence of that new life is abundance.

In the resurrection, Jesus does all of the work to transform sin and death back into virtue and life. He accomplishes this amazing act by love. Divine love. Infinite and eternal love. Unconditional love. Love is the meaning and purpose of human existence. Only love brings life. And, the life it brings is eternal.

Jesus died and rose again to give abundant life to everyone on this planet. The reason is his great love for us. The activating principle of love is choice. Will you today make a real choice to receive the gift of the risen Lord Jesus Christ?

Will you today make the real choice to live and move and have your being in friendship with Jesus Christ? Will you affirm you confidence and trust in Jesus as the personal real presence of God here and now, for everyone and for you in the Easter acclamation:

Alleluia Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Palm Sunday 2015

Palm Sunday 2015 (Mark 15:1-39)

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”.

The Bible is very clear. People want the attributes of God and the blessings of God; but, people do not want the reality of God.

The people who greeted Jesus on Palm Sunday superimposed a set of beliefs and expectations on Jesus. They acclaimed him as the anointed representative of God. The treated him as though he were a king coming to Jerusalem to establish his power and authority. Sadly, they looked right through him and past him and missed who he was. They  missed the reality of Christ through fear.

Some people feared that Jesus would succeed in becoming the new King of Israel. For them, this meant the violent overthrow and persecution of the current religious and political authorities.

Other people feared that Jesus would try and fail to become the new King. In the ensuing political chaos of that failure, the Romans would step in to restore order. They would kill many people and install a new government more capable of maintaining order.

The Temple priests, the Sanhedrin, King Herod all feared that whether Jesus succeeded or failed he would destroy their wealth and power. They judged his motives and his methods by their own beliefs and behavior. Their solution to this problem was the final solution. From the moment Jesus entered Jerusalem they looked for the opportune moment to kill him.

They also knew that they just couldn’t assassinate him. They did not want a martyr to inspire revolution. They needed to discredit Jesus, humiliate him, and kill him in such a way that even Jesus’ more ardent followers would see this as evidence that Jesus failed in every respect. They wanted to be sure that everyone would understand that God himself had abandoned Jesus and cursed him.

The enemies of Jesus and the followers of Jesus shared a common misunderstanding about God. They all believed that God is power. They could not imagine that God is love. That teaching, dating back to Moses, made no sense to any of them.

Because everyone, with two possible exceptions, believed that God was power, everyone lived within the context of a belief system that rested on the foundation of fear. Jesus knew this. He knew it by simple observation of the human condition as he grew up. He knew this from studying the comments and experiences of Moses and the prophets. He knew that there was no political, social, economic or religious solution to the fear that people lived with and that the religious and political authorities cultivated.

The divine presence of God in Christ triggered a reaction of fear that could only result in the crucifixion. Jesus certainly did not want to experience the torture and death people were very willing to inflict on him. After all, this was a society where people used torture and death as a legitimate form of social control. It was a society that enjoyed inflicting pain and suffering as a form of entertainment.

Jesus knew that people wanted God to give them certain things in life but the one thing they did not want was the personal relationship God offered them. The people in Jesus’ time used religion to avoid God. They used the outward and visible signs of law and ritual to hide from God. People in our time who say they are spiritual but not religious do the same.

People hide from God in many ways. God finds us in the very depths of our fears.

The co-eternal Beloved Son of God came to earth to resolve this problem. God the Father created the universe, our planet, our species and each of us by the power of the Holy Spirit according to the pattern of the Son. That pattern is steadfast holy love. That pattern is an active dynamic creative set of personal relationships.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is the reaction of a species lost in separation from God and governed by fear. On the cross, Jesus allows us as a species to vent our anger, fear and rebellion against him so he can experience it and transform it. There is no external institutional or individual solution to the problem of separation, sin and death. The only solution is the Way of transformation Jesus experienced and now offers as a gift.

The Hosannas of Palm Sunday were based on a lie. That lie is that God is power. That lie is that God will reward the righteous who believe the right things and do the right things. That lie is that God authorizes the righteous to destroy the unrighteous. That lie forms the human soul in fear and brings forth anger, hatred and condemnation. That lie perpetuates separation from God, other people and the essence of who God created us to be.

The truth is a person. The truth is Jesus Christ. The truth is that Jesus is indeed the one who comes in the name of the Lord. His name among human beings is “Savior”. He saves us from separation, fear, sin and death. His name in Heaven is “The Beloved”. He saves us by transforming fear into faith through the power of eternal love.

Palm Sunday reminds us that we miss the real presence of the Divine when we allow fear to fill our minds and define our souls. We can say the right words and claim the proper beliefs and still miss the blessing. The blessing is the personal friendship God the Father offers us in God the Son by the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.

Listen to the words of Holy Scripture. Enter into the real presence of the divine in the blessed sacrament of the altar. Ask the Holy Spirit to transform your thoughts, emotions and will by the power of divine love in Jesus Christ. This is why Jesus came. This is why Jesus died. This is why Jesus rose from the dead. Heed the warning signs of fear eroding faith. Receive the gift of transforming life giving love in Jesus Christ.

Lent 5

Lent 5 (John 12:20-33)

“I, if I be lifted up, will draw all people to me.”

The beloved apostle John remembered that when Jesus was in Jerusalem, some Greeks asked to see him. This statement slides through our minds with little context and so little impact.

Greeks and Jews normally did not mix. When they did, there was a tendency for Jews to give up their distinctive beliefs and customs. This so disturbed the religious leaders of Jerusalem that they adopted strict measures to prevent it.

There were also some Greeks, as well as Romans, who admired the strict monotheism of the Jews. They recognized the moral quality of the Law. They did not convert to Judaism since they found many of the traditions and customs of the Jews to be offensive. They did adopt the broader moral principles and monotheism of Judaism. And, they did what they could to help the synagogues throughout the Roman Empire. It was these so called “righteous” Gentiles who wanted to see Jesus.

Many people in Israel wanted to see Jesus. Some wanted to witness his miracles. Some wanted to be healed. Others wanted to be fed. Still others wanted to gain his favor just in case he turned out to be the Messiah, just in case he became the new king. Others wanted to analyze and criticize every word he said.

Others wanted to practice the curious human form of dialog known then as now as critique by character assassination. And so some of the religious leaders accused Jesus of being a drunkard. Others claimed he violated the Sabbath. Still others spread rumors he taught Jews to violate the Law of Moses. And some even accused Jesus of being possessed by demons.

In absence of fact, in absence of dialog, the last resort and the only resort of religious and political authorities is misdirection through slander. The enemies of Jesus knew they could not prove their accusations. They also knew that proof grounded in fact was not necessary. As with the false prophets, they only had to confuse people to subvert the message of hope Jesus brought. They only needed to instill fear. The fear would distort the seed of faith in the people. Why? They knew fear was fundamental to maintaining their power.

The Greeks who asked to see Jesus that day came from a culture that valued fact. The Greeks had produced advanced mathematics that accurately calculated the circumference of the earth and the orbits of the earth and the planets around the sun. Some Greek philosophers in Egypt were even experimenting with steam engines.

Sadly, the mass culture of the time rejected this science (the Greek word for knowledge). The Romans took from science what they needed to build their cities and roads and military and ignored the rest. The various factions in the political/religious establishment in Jerusalem judged all data and all people from a rigid inflexible uncompromising set of inherited beliefs. These beliefs gave them power and preserved their power. They had no incentive to listen to an alternative voice such as Jesus. They actually feared such a voice. Their reaction in fear, the fear of losing power, the fear of admitting they and their ancestors might be wrong, led to the crucifixion.

Jesus knew this was the fundamental problem that keeps our species lost in separation from God. If you want to see Jesus you must at some level be willing to be wrong. You must have even the smallest measure of humility that acknowledges the possibility that at least some if not much if not all of what you inherited as a belief system is flawed. Even the apostles had difficulty with that.

Jesus responds to the honest curiosity of the Greeks by teaching his heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. It was a difficult teaching. It offended the Greek esthetic sense of balance, harmony and beauty. It certainly offended the Jewish sense of rewards and punishments based on strict obedience to an inflexible system of beliefs and behaviors.

Jesus answers the Greeks and the Jews and indeed all people everywhere with the Father’s Plan of Salvation. It is not a political plan. It is not a plan that is easily expressed in the terms of sociology, philosophy or economics. It is a profoundly organic plan. It is a deeply spiritual plan.The Plan of Salvation is for Jesus to bear within himself the power of separation, sin and death. As a  mortal man Jesus can experience the abomination of desolation which is separation from God.

As the co-eternal Beloved Son of the Eternal Father, Jesus can transform separation into reunification, sin back into virtue, death back into life. As the fullness of humanity unified with divinity, Jesus can offer reunification and transformation as a free gift for all people to choose.

The Greeks asked to see Jesus out of curiosity shaped by a culture of inquiry and experimentation. Jesus told them: look to the cross. The evidence of divine love is the incarnation. The proof of divine love is the crucifixion. The triumph of divine love is the resurrection. The ongoing outpouring of divine love is the blessed sacrament of divine love at the altar of sacrifice.

Jesus says to the people of his time and says to the people of all time: As I am lifted up on the cross I embrace the fullness of fallen humanity. I experience the pain of separation, the distortions of sin and the devastation of death. I experience it universally and personally so I can take it from you and transform it for you.

Jesus said, and as I am lifted up at the altar of sacrifice in the real presence of Holy Communion I offer myself to you. The image of the Plan of Salvation is the elevation of Christ on the Cross and in the Holy sacrifice of the Mass. It is the image of divine love embracing and transforming separation, sin and death. It is the image of the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father offering himself to us and to all people by the power of the life giving Holy Spirit.

Lent 4

Lent 4 (John 3:14-21) “For God so loved the world…”

Jesus reveals that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.

Sadly, the religion of Jesus’ day taught that God is a distant transcendent principle which governs the universe by certain rigid, inflexible laws. This God interacts with people through a series of angelic intermediaries who select certain human prophets to teach the law. The prophets then appoint teachers to instruct people in the law. The teachers create religious police to enforce the law, religious lawyers to interpret the law, and religious courts to judge who is or is not keeping the law.

The Judaism of Jesus’s day was divided into dozens of competing and conflicting sectarian forms. Each sect claimed that they and they alone knew the true interpretation of the law. Each sect sought to impose a rigid system of rewards and punishments.

Into this religious culture Jesus came with the announcement that He is the way, the truth and the life. Jesus’ best friend, John, summarizes the presence of Jesus in the words: for God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, to the end that all who believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life; for, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through hum might be saved.

This brief statement is unique. It can, if we are paying attention, revolutionize our understanding of God, each other and ourselves. God is not wrath. God did not give the Law to Moses to provide a way for people to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. The prophets did not teach that the Law is the basis for whether we earn heaven as a reward.

The law is about living well in the here and now.

Jesus is very clear. No one can keep the law. God’s favor, his grace, is unconditional.  St. Paul teaches that the law is holy and good. The purpose of the law is to restrain evil and convict us of our need for a savior.

The law is about the principle of choice God designed into the universe. The principle of choice has three aspects for human beings. Those three aspects are: self-responsibility, cause and effect, and justice. We make a choice. That choice enters into the world of cause and effect. The result of our choice is just insofar as it follows the pattern of the Law.

Most forms of religion attempt to form an institution to control God and other people. Certainly, this is why the religious authorities feared Jesus and hated Jesus. This is also why virtually all of those who followed Jesus never understood who he was and what he taught until after the resurrection.

Jesus is the personification of Divine Love. Jesus teaches that there is no way we can earn God’s favor. There is no way we can lose God’s favor. Jesus refocuses our attention through the structures of personal responsibility, cause and effect, and justice.

Jesus says: you never lost God’s love but you are lost.

Jesus said: there is no condemnation in God but you do condemn each other and yourselves.

Jesus says; I have come to remind you and yes to prove to you that God is with you, God is for you, God always and only ever loves you.

The problem is not God’s condemnation. There is no condemnation. The problem is the choice we made and continue to make to follow the way of separation. That choice enters into the world of cause and effect. The immediate results are the terrible distortions the Bible calls sin. The continuing consequence is conflict at all levels of society. The end is death.

The solution to separation is reunification in Jesus Christ. The pattern of the universe reveals that just as separation is a choice that produces a result so reunification in Christ is a choice that produces a result.

Once we make the choice to reunify with God the Father through God the Son we begin to experience the help of God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit slowly and persistently and constantly reminds us of what he revealed to the people who wrote the many books of the Bible.

God is love. There is no condemnation in God. God offers us all blessings through Jesus Christ.

We see in the Biblical record how religious and political authorities tend to use religion to control people and to justify their own rule. Jesus never criticized religion. He did challenge the misuse of religion to bully and intimidate people.  He did caution people not to focus exclusively on the outward and visible forms of religion while ignoring the inward and spiritual grace God designed into religion.

Religion has a place in our lives. Religion holds much beauty, art, music and poetry. Religion can help form the community of faith that heals separation. Religion apart from Jesus Christ, apart from incarnate love, is not the solution.

One of my teachers once said: there is sufficient truth in all religion to provide a path to the truth. The truth is that “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, to the end that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life; for, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that world through him might be saved.”

The truth is Jesus Christ, the incarnation of infinite and eternal love.