Easter IV

Easter lV (John 10:11-18) “I am the good shepherd.”

Shepherds in Biblical times did work most people would not do.

The work was dirty, dangerous and tedious. Shepherds were paid very little but expected to sacrifice much. Only the poorest of the poor became shepherds. They were generally teens and young men. They lived solitary lives in the wilderness. They risked their lives to protect the sheep. Many shepherds suffered injury and occasionally death.

Shepherds had an undeserved reputation for being lazy, rude and crude. The landowners who employed shepherds paid them as little as possible. A shepherd defined the words “the working poor”. If they became ill or were injured and could not work they were fired. If a sheep was lost they were charged for the value of the sheep from their meager wage.

They were expected to live in the open 24 hours a day seven days a week in all weather. They had to be able to fight off wild animals and human thieves.  As a teen, David was a shepherd. He was also not well regarded by his older brothers. We see this in scripture when David comes to visit his brothers as they prepare to fight the Philistines. His brothers immediately and falsely accuse him of shirking his duty and abandoning his job.

When Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd there is no hint of modern sentimentality about shepherds. In context, Jesus identifies himself with the poorest of the working poor. He stood in solidarity with the outcasts and the downcast. He defines his task in terms of unappreciated sacrifice.

As the co-eternal Son of God, he surrendered all of his divine prerogatives when he came to Earth. Despite the truth that God the Father created this planet and our species to be a gift to the Son, Jesus never exercised his rights of ownership.

As the Good Shepherd, Jesus took the job no one else wanted. He came to endure the hardships and the rejection with no other thought of reward than to care for the lost sheep.

We, as a species, are the lost sheep Jesus came to find. Jesus did not come to rule over us. He came to seek, find and rescue us from our own choices. He is the Good Shepherd whose only concern is the welfare of his flock.

We are his flock.

Unlike sheep, we can choose to be found. Unlike sheep, we can choose to stay lost.

Jesus as the Good Shepherd comes to all of us and to each of us by the divine presence of the Holy Spirit. In the Spirit of truth Jesus leads us into truth. The truth is that God is love.  The truth is that the One God is actually an eternal community of love. The truth is that God created us as a species and each of us individually to live and move and have our being in an active dynamic creative and compassionate community of love in union with Him,.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd who seeks the lost who do not want to be found.  Jesus is the Good Shepherd who cherishes his flock and delights in bringing a blessing to his flock. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who identifies with the working poor to help us understand that the abundance God designed into the universe is there for each of us to share with all of us.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd who laid down his life in sacrifice for the lost who do not want to be found. He is the Good Shepherd who took back up his life to fill the found with a new way of living. That new way of living is defined by and empowered by the universal and unconditional love of Jesus the Good Shepherd.

Easter lll

Easter lll (Luke 24:36-48) “He opened their minds…”

Jesus is the eternal logos- the very pattern of the universe. He is infinite, eternal, active, dynamic, creative, rational and passionate. Jesus doesn’t just offer an opinion about what is true. Jesus is the very pattern of truth.

A disciple of Jesus Christ need never fear questions. A disciple of Jesus Christ need never fear observation, experimentation and classification- which is the basis for the scientific method of inquiry. A disciple is a student. The defining quality of a student is teachability. It has been said that those who know don’t tell; and, those who don’t know teach. It is also a matter of human experience that those whose minds are made up shout down all inquiry.

The prerequisite for a human teacher is that they must first of all be a student. They must be open to learn and indeed committed to learn. For those of us who are ordained and charged to teach what Jesus taught we must above all else cultivate the humility of a student.

The Apostles struggled with the concept of “teachability”. The religious and political leaders rejected that concept almost completely. They not only asserted that they knew the mind of God they made the assertion from the place of pride. The place of pride is the place of invincible ignorance. That place asserts: I not only know the mind of God- I know I know. My mind is made up. Do not confuse me with fact. A disciple of Jesus Christ need never fear fact.

The beginning of wisdom comes from the place of humility that agrees with the Holy Apostle Paul who wrote: now we know in part. As disciples of Jesus Christ we are called to delight in learning where our earthly knowledge is incomplete. And, all earthly knowledge is always incomplete.

Even after the resurrection the apostles struggled to surrender their false beliefs about God. Even in the personal presence of the Living Lord Jesus Christ, the apostles reverted to the place of pride and attempted to redefine Jesus as a ghost.

Today, some Christians define the resurrection in modern psychological terms. They assert with the apostles that dead is dead so the physical resurrection is impossible. As the apostles invoked an ancient superstition to redefine Jesus so some modern Christians invoke a more contemporary superstition to explain away the truth of the resurrection.

Jesus very patiently led the apostles through a study of Moses and the prophets to clarify for them what the Holy Spirit had already revealed about his life, death and resurrection.

My mother liked to teach my brothers and me through ironic quips. One thing she liked to tell us was: when all else fails- read the instructions. That is what Jesus did during those forty days between the resurrection and the ascension. He focused his brief time on teaching the leadership of the emerging Church. He set the standard by directing them to scripture. He knew he could only initiate a process.  And so he told his apostles and all of his future disciples (students) that another Counselor would come to teach.

That Counselor is the Helper- the Holy Spirit, The Holy Spirit always leads us to Scripture. And, He always invites us to cultivate a teachable attitude. He always seeks to transform pride into humility. He always reminds us that since God is both infinite and eternal we can never exhaust the possibilities for learning, growth and development.

Jesus is not looking for a closed mind. His purpose during the forty days of Easter is to open our minds to a new way of living. That way is formed by scripture, guided by the Helper (the Holy Spirit) and infused with divine love.

Jesus opened the minds of his apostles. He seeks to accomplish the very same process in us.

Easter II

Easter II  (John 20:19-31)

“These are written so you may believe…”

Christian faith is substance and evidence.

The substance of faith is Jesus. The supporting evidence is the eye witness accounts of the people who knew Jesus personally.

Our Heavenly Father never asks any one to accept faith as a blind leap into the dark. Neither does he ask us to abandon reason, common sense or fact in order to embrace belief.

Along with Moses and the prophets, the Apostles wrote about what they observed and what they experienced. St. Peter writes: we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power of Jesus Christ.

John, the beloved of the co-eternal beloved writes: these things have been written so you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah. So that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God. So that you may receive a new life and a new way of living in Him.

The truth of these eye witness accounts is sealed in blood. The truth is sealed by the blood of Jesus on the cross. The truth is sealed in the blood of the apostles who died in the truth of their testimony.

The truth of Jesus was not and cannot be sealed by the blood of skeptics, cynics or those who reject the Good News. Jesus never authorized his followers to kill for him. He did say that from time to time they (we) might have to die for him.

The seed of the Church is the blood of her martyrs, not her critics or enemies.

The Apostles proclaimed to their generation what they observed and experienced. They told the story they lived. They told people on three continents that Jesus died on the cross and rose again. They proclaimed the amazing Good News that God is real, God is love, God is personal, God is Jesus Christ. In that proclamation they offered everyone they met, everyone without exception- the gift of divine love in Jesus Christ.

Some received the gift. Others ignored it. Others rejected it. And, some became so angry at the message of the Good News that they killed the apostles to silence them. They did not want Jesus to be true. They did not want people to hear about him or to believe in him.

Absent of fact, the enemies of the Church circulated false information about the church. Some said the Christians were atheists. Others said Christians were subversives. One bizarre accusation was that Christians were cannibals.

They never challenged the historicity of Jesus Christ. They even largely accepted the eye witness accounts of his miracles. Instead, they told people Jesus was an evil magician. They said he was a deceiver, a blasphemer and a traitor to the Empire. And, they rejected the resurrection on the grounds that everyone knows that dead is dead. The dead do not rise. Therefore, the Apostles must be telling lies.

John simply states: we have written these accounts so that you who believe might receive a new life and a new way of living. The new life is the very life of God himself and is therefore eternal. The new way of living is grounded in divine love and therefore is characterized by the unfolding of holiness, kindness and compassion.

Does this make sense?

Through the prophet Isaiah God says: Come. Let us reason together.

Does it make sense that God created us and now ignores us?

Does it make sense that God created us to impose a rigid inflexible and uncompromising set of laws on us?

Does it make sense that the universe, life and our species created itself out of nothing?

Or, does it make sense that if God is real and that if God is the Creator then he would be interested in us? Does it make sense that God himself would visit us? Does it make sense that God offers himself to us to help us?

John, and the other Apostles, wrote and told about their personal experience with Jesus Christ at a particular time and place in human history. They tell us how almost everyone rejected, betrayed and abandoned Jesus. They tell us how Jesus not only forgave them but died for them. They tell us how Jesus rose from the dead to give everyone the gift of a new life and a new way of living in the unconditional universal love of God.

They share with us through their writings what they experienced so we can make a rational choice to believe and receive the Good News of divine love in Jesus Christ.

Good Friday 2015

Good Friday 2015

“Woman, behold thy son; son, behold thy mother”.

Only four people remained loyal to Jesus at the very end. They were his mother and her two companions (her sister and Mary Magdalene) and John. Everyone else rejected Jesus.

Judas betrayed Jesus through pride then committed suicide from despair. Peter denied that he even knew Jesus three times. Others fled and went into hiding. The religious authorities condemned Jesus for fear he would challenge their position. The political authorities executed Jesus for fear he would upset the balance of power.

All who betrayed, rejected, abandoned, condemned and killed Jesus shared one thing in common. Thy reacted to Jesus in fear.

Only four people responded to Jesus from the place of love. They risked their own lives to be present to Jesus and for Jesus at his moment of deepest pain and isolation. They could only go so far but it was enough. They could only stand at the foot of the cross but it was farther than any of Jesus’s apostles and disciples were willing to go.

Where they could not go was the place of desolation. It was the abomination of desolation that only Jesus could enter as the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for sin. Holy Mother Mary saw that place but could not enter. Her sorrow was unlike the sorrow of millions of mothers who see their sons and daughters killed by war, starvation, poverty, disease. Her sorrow was grounded in the realization that her son had entered into the very center of human separation from God. In that place Jesus experienced the consequences of every sin people will ever commit. In that place Jesus experienced the death of every individual human being who has lived and will ever live.

What brought Jesus to the cross was love. What allowed Jesus to enter into the abomination of desolation was love. It is not the love we experience. It  is steadfast, holy, universal, unconditional, infinite and eternal love. It is the defining quality of God.

All who rejected, killed and abandoned Jesus did so from the place of fear. The three women and one teen who remained loyal to Jesus, who stood by him and with him at the foot of the cross made that choice from the place of love.

Holy Mother Mary (with her two companions) and John form the nucleus of the Church. Jesus forms the church on Calvary by instructing his holy mother: take care of John, complete his spiritual formation in union with the Holy Spirit. This is a pattern for the universal Church. Holy Mother Mary shows us and demonstrates for us how we can overcome fear through love.

Jesus also commends John to respect and care for Mary as his spiritual mother. Son – behold thy mother. Respect her as Moses taught us to respect our parents. Listen to her. Learn from her. Follow the way of humility she embodies.

To us today, Jesus reminds us that in order to follow the way of love we must live and move and have our being in community. Love cannot exist in isolation. Isolation is the abomination of desolation.

Before Jesus entered into the place of isolation he sealed the faithful into the community of divine love. Holy Mother Mary and the Apostle John came to the cross in love and experienced the ongoing transforming quality of love in union with Jesus and in community with each other.

Jesus saves us individually by his sacrifice on the cross. He saves us from isolation. And he saves us for the new community of love by grace through faith.

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.