Lent 2 (Luke 13:31-35) “On the third day I will finish my work.”

Jesus proclaimed the goodness of God in his teaching. Jesus proclaimed freedom from spiritual bondage as he cast our demons. Jesus healed the sick with a one hundred percent success rate. And, the religious and political authorities feared him. In that fear the authorities plotted to arrest and kill Jesus. Why? Why did they fear the goodness of God? Why did they fear spiritual liberation? Why did they fear healing?

The answer is very simple. And, it is as old as our species. People with authority feared Jesus because they perceived his words and his works in the context of power. Power holds the world and even God in a duality of pleasure and pain, rewards and punishments, life and death. Power defines the world and even God in terms of conflict.

The powerful always believe they know what is best for everyone. In their pride they cannot imagine they are in any way mistaken let alone wrong. They not only think they know what is best- they know they know. What did they know? They knew that God is absolute transcendent holiness and perfection. In fact, God is so perfect and so holy God would never contaminate himself by direct contact with human beings. They knew most human beings are imperfect, corrupt and sinful.

They knew God sent angels to give the law to Moses. Moses appointed priests to administer the law. The priests anointed Kings to enforce the law. And the kings promoted certain superior individuals to courts and councils to judge who was righteous and who was unrighteous.

Jesus brought God into the process up front and personal. Suddenly, the claim to Divine Presence threatened the system of intermediaries who would determine who spoke for God and defined who deserved God’s blessing and who deserved God’s wrath. Jesus removed vast categories of human speculation about God by declaring and demonstrating that God is love. God just doesn’t have love as one of many attributes. God is love.

This assertion was not only meaningless to the religious and political authorities of the time- it was also threatening. The authorities maintained their power and asserted their power from the place of pride, self-will and fear.

 Pride announced that knowledge of God was their private preserve. They and they alone were the righteous elite. By their own will to power they not only governed the manmade institutions of religion and government- they also declared who God is and who God will bless and who God will judge. They had created God in their own image. It was a God of rewards and punishments. It was a God who delegated power to the righteous elite. It was a God of duality and a God of conflict. Then, suddenly, Jesus proclaimed that God loves everyone universally and unconditionally because God is love.

What was worse for the authorities was that Jesus demonstrated what they believed and taught was the defining nature of God. Power. Jesus had the power. But, Jesus did not use the power to support the manmade structures of power. The reaction people experienced was confusion, frustration, anger and fear. Fear subverted faith. Pride subverted hope. The will to power subverted love.

Jesus knew this. It was nothing new for those who studied Moses and the Prophets, for those who had eyes to see and ears to hear. Sadly, people preferred the power to define God according to their needs and desires. Sadly, people rejected God for who God is. God is love.

Jesus reminded the Pharisees of his work. He revealed in somewhat symbolic terms the Plan of Salvation. The key to understanding the plan of salvation is what Jesus called “the third day.” The third day is the day of resolution of all duality.

The third day is the day of resurrection. It is the day love resolves the conflicts of pain and pleasure, sorrow and joy, death and life. In this world there are those dualities. They derive from the human choice to separate from God. That separation produces a terrible and profound existential pain. That pain distorts the Original Blessing of Life into the dualities of conflict. Those conflicts corrupt the soul and produce the reactions of fear, self-will and pride that block our ability to receive the blessing and live the blessing in the context of our self- imposed exile.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem as he pondered the consequences such a choice would produce. He also knew there was another way. That other way is not a religion, a book or a philosophy. It is not even in a spiritual or intellectual discipline. Those things have a place within the way. Those things are not the Way. Those things also need to be liberated from the demonic forces of conflict that produce distortion, disintegration and despair.

That other way is Jesus himself. As Jesus taught and demonstrated that God is love -so God revealed that Jesus is the personal aspect of that love in human flesh. As Divine love personified and incarnate, Jesus is the resolution of duality. Jesus is the way through conflict to wholeness. Jesus is the pattern, plan and process of reunification with the Divine that allows us to remain fully human as we transform from fear to faith, pride to hope and the will to power into the Real Presence of eternal love. Any other way leaves us less human.

This is the third alternative that resolves the conflicts of life and death to produce the new way of incarnate love made real and established forever on the third day Jesus declared. That third day is resurrection day. It is the plan and process of a new life and a new way of living. It is the eternal Day of the Lord. It is the new and infinite adventure of eternal transformation by love, in love and for love. It is Jesus.