The Day Jesus Died - Reign of Christ Sunday

When they came to the place that is called the skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.  Then Jesus said, "Father forgive them; for they know not what they are doing.  And they cast lots to divide his clothing.  And the people stood by watching; but the leaders scoffed at him saying, "He saved others, let his save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!"  The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews."  One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah?  Save yourself and us!"  But the other rebuked him saying,  "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."

Luke 23:33-43

I was recently at a beautiful old church in our city perched right atop the river valley, distinctive with its brick exterior, boasting beautiful windows and woodwork.  After entering and taking a quick look around a friend asked: do you think there is a cross in here?  We began to look around: on walls? widows? in print? the ends of pews?  No cross that we could see.  A thoughtful silence fell as we reflected on the significance of the cross in Christian life and worship.

The cross is perhaps the most recognizable symbol in the world.  Think about all the places you see it in a day: around necks, inked on bodies, on the ambulance, some hospitals, most churches you pass.  The cross a notorious instrument of Roman torture upon which Jesus suffered humiliation, emotional pain, alienation and the worst of physical suffering.  The cross where Jesus died at the hands of fickle people, of people deep in fear; some consumed by their own ambition/power, some aware of the ways in which Jesus threatened their ways and means, others ignorant, mislead and co-opted.  Golgotha the place of skulls - desolate, full of the stench of humanity; the stench of death.  

The cross is offensive, it always has been.  When criminals hung upon it naked, for hours that stretched on, excreting all manner of fluids, writhing in pain, begging for death to come, all of their humanity, all of their dignity was stripped from them - that was the point.  The cross is offensive to people today too which is why it no longer hangs in some places of worship.  It offends our modern sense of decorum; God lets his son die on a cross? That just seems inhumane, why would it happen like that?  We don't like how we come off in the story - it reflects the worst of humanity.  We hear the vitriol in the crowd, the insults called down.  We imagine the purple robe they put on him, the crown of thorns - all to mock, to shame him; their faces made ugly with rage and we want to look away. We want all of the love of the cross with none of the violence.  We want salvation without sacrifice.

Instead we have the arresting image of our King hanging on a cross.  An innocent man tortured.  And his response is forgiveness: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."  Jesus answers all of the anger, all of the bitter mockery and insults  with a prayer asking God for forgiveness on our behalf.  Perhaps it is from the cross that Jesus sees mostly clearly the force of the powers of evil in our world and the darkness of the human heart.  And it breaks his own. Even at our worst we are not beyond the reach of Jesus and his forgiveness.  Even as he dies he is offering life.  And this is so beautifully illustrated in criminals who are hanging beside him.  The criminal on the left is still looking for someone to pin all his anger, his grief, his sense of injustice, his shame upon as he hangs, dying a scornful death. He chooses to mock Jesus, the saviour saying: "If you are the Messiah save yourself and save us."  The criminal on the right responds to him with a rebuke "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we have been justly condemned, we are getting what we deserve.  But this man has done nothing wrong."  And he turns to Jesus saying, "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom."

Remember.  This is not just a request to 'bring to mind'; this is a word with deep scriptural resononance: "When I bring clouds over the earth and a bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.  When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."(Gen.9) or from Psalm 25:7: "Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness' sake, O Lord."  As, Fleming Rutledge points out "when God remembers, he does not just think about us, he acts for us, with power to save."  

This criminal ending his life in misery and shame sees Jesus for who he is, a King with a Kingdom.  Not even all of those who have been closest to Jesus, who have seen him cast out demons and raise the dead can see him this clearly.  Luke is relentless in his determination make us see that the gospel is for all people, including those who have committed despicable acts and been discarded by society. Again, this is the good news and the hard news.  It is the good news because we know the darkness of our own souls, we have sensed at times what we are capable of and we too can be forgiven, "we can live in freedom because the strong love of Christ has reached across all borders and all boundaries."(Andrew Murray Purra) And it is the hard news because if we are to take Jesus seriously, we are to see that we aren't that different than 'those people' and we are to follow Christ to 'those places' and meet him there in the face of the criminal, the leper, the homeless, the addict, the prostitute, the john because "God has assigned infinite value to all elements of society "(Fleming Rutledge).This is our participation in the exodus of Christ initiated through Jesus' death on the cross.  And this exodus is not just for hebrew people but for all people and it is not limited to freedom from physical slavery but it "breaks the chains of slavery from all forms of sin and evil that bind the human spirit; it brings the promise of unending life and love and liberty as well as an unfettered relationship with God." (Andrew Murray Pura)

This Sunday is Reign of Christ Sunday and we sit with the jarring image of our crucified King identifying himself with all that is wrong and sad and shameful and broken in the world and yet has been redeemed through his death and made new.  And so the cross which stood as a notorious symbol of death has been subverted - the cross has become the way of life!  May it ever be before us.

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I read through all of the lessons this week and I like the trajectory that they take.  There is so much in this passage and yet each of these lessons have stayed with one key concept and developed it.  They have allowed children to enter into these stories in tactile and imaginative ways, and opened up places to make connections to their lived experience.

I think when I have taught this text before I have fallen into the trap of trying to explain the significance of what is happening (though barely grasping it myself) and getting bogged down in these explanations or in questions that are too theological and have kids looking at me like a two headed monster.  I re-read a little bit of what Gretchen Wolff Pritchard writes in her book and thought it might be worth sharing, she writes:

"For Christians, the stories of Christ's life, death and resurrection are the most powerful 'fairy tale' or 'myth' in the world.  They also happen to be true.  But it is the enormous power of these stories that exert such pull on our imaginations and drives us to act them out in springtime, and Sunday by Sunday throughout the year.  "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again"; "Take and eat; this is for you." This story which is so captivating to adult and child alike, though we cannot put our finger on why it so moves and nourishes us, is what we share with each other in the life of the church; and the difficult situation it helps us cope with is our own mysterious, inexplicable life: our birth, our alienation, our need for love, our fear of death and our assurance that the Christ who died and rose again has somehow brought us home to the heart of God."
- from Offering the Gospel to Children

May God be with us this Sunday as we celebrate the Reign of Christ

God's Love Lasts Forever

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful and gifts and dedicated to God, he said, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."

They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?"  And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, "I am he!" and, 'the time is near!' Do not go after them.

"When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

But before all of this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.  This will give you an opportunity to testify.  So make up your minds not to prepare a defence in advance; for I will give you words and wisdom that none of you opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.  You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will even put some of you to death.  You will be hated by all because of my name.  But not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance you will gain your souls.

Luke 21

The lectionary texts from the gospel are increasingly foreboding as Jesus moves towards Calvary.  There is a heaviness to these stories - even the ones that contain a measure of happiness such as Jesus entrance into Jerusalem cannot escape the pervasive darkness; the clashing of kingdoms and powers remain.  God's entrance and presence in this world in Jesus has never been a classic feel good story, though we do like to tell it this way, don't we? A wee babe born amongst animals visited by angels and shepherds and wise men.  Yes, it is a profoundly beautiful, full of grace enough to makes your heart ache with love but there are valleys traversed that are treacherous and steep; there are points so low, nights so long, that one wonders what will come of it all and just costly it will be.

Judgement and mercy are threads that run all throughout the story of God - and mercy prevails.  After flood waters have rescinded, "there in the clouds - just where the storm meets the sun - was a beautiful bow made of light.  It was a new beginning in God's world.  It wasn't long before everything went wrong again but God wasn't surprised, hew knew this would happen.  That's why, before the beginning of time, he had another plan - a better plan.  A plan not to destroy the world, but to rescue it - a plan to send his own Son, the Rescuer.  God's strong anger against hate and sadness and death would come down once more - but not on his people or his world.  No, God's war bow was not pointing down at his people.  It was pointing up into the heart of heaven." Judgement. Mercy.  Love. The Salvation of God.

This year - nearly two thousand years since Jesus spoke these words, the sense that things have gone terribly wrong in our world remains - insurrections, wars, a typhoon, terrorist attacks, environmental disasters, humanitarian crises.  And even in our relatively comfortable part of the world we know the effects of flooding, of homelessness and poverty, of human suffering.  Lord, have mercy.

And how do we respond to this as followers of Christ?  It seems that neither futility nor hedonism is the answer.  Jesus puts forward another way: endurance.  Think of the long distance runner who must train in all conditions; persist in the face of discouragement and discomfort and pain in order to be physically and mentally disciplined to run the race. Endurance.  Think of Ernest Shackleton and his crew who endured shipwreck, starvation, severe frostbite, harrowing mountain & glacier treks and stormy seas. Or Mylene Paquette who recently crossed the Atlantic on a solo rowing expedition - braving a treacherous storm, boredom, physical and emotional exhaustion and vertigo.  Endurance.  How many people have left their homes under duress, have become refugees - endured homelessness, homesickness, displacement, fear, worry, unemployment, despair, and illness. Endurance.  It is not for the faint of heart; it is was we are called to.

"And before this terrible time followers of Jesus will be arrested, persecuted, betrayed and hated." Did the disciples wonder as they heard Jesus speak if it was their very lives he was talking about? Would they remember those words he spoke to them: "make up your minds not to prepare a defence in my name; for I will give you words of wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict... not a hair of your head will perish, by your endurance you will gain your souls."  I think they did remember these words, the passover feast, the garden, the trial, Golgatha, the upper room, breakfast on the beach. Because they endured; they gave passionate and bold witness for Christ. And they gained their souls; their forever life with Jesus.  And the same is true for us, not a hair on our heads will perish, in our endurance we will gain our souls.

In this text that there is a collapsing of time - the time which Jesus was describing was not unlike the world he entered, the world in which the church would establish itself under the crushing powers of Rome; and the world we now live and struggle in.  So the text works on us in three ways - in the past, present and future.  Just as our salvation has been accomplished, is being worked out and is yet to be fully realized; this is the already - not yet tension we find ourselves in.  We have been given salvation and yet we struggle in our flesh.  However, we do not struggle in futility, "we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts, through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."(Romans 5:3-5)

During advent we enter the mystery of the collapsing of time in the incarnation of Christ.  We are reminded that Christ came into a world that was dark and dangerous; he entered into the misery and the beauty, the strength and vulnerability of human life and defeated sin and death forever.  And we are waiting with expectancy, full of hope for the full reign of the kingdom of God on earth - for all things to be made new.

"I am the Beginning," Jesus said, "and the Ending!"
One day, John knew, Heaven would come down and mend God's broken world and make it our true, perfect home once again.
And he knew, in some mysterious way that would be hard to explain, that everything was going to be more wonderful for once having been so sad.
And he knew that the ending of The Story was going to be so great, it would make all the sadness and tears and everything seem like just a shadow that is chased away by the morning sun.
"I'm on my way," said Jesus, "I'll be there soon!"

Heavens and the earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away... (Matthew 24:35)
God's love lasts forever.
Amen.


*** A New Beginning - Noah's Ark from Genesis 6-9 & A dream of heaven - John sees into the future, from Revelation 1, 5, 21, 22 taken from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones

Thanks to the Rev's William, Don, David, Amber, the always thoughtful Sandy and the Thursday morning Mums' Group for enriching the conversation around the text today.

The Question about the Resurrection

The Question about the Resurrection

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and they asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife with no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up the children for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers; the first married and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless.  Finally the woman also died.  In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be?  For the seven had married her.

Jesus said to them, "those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.  Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.  And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.  Now he is God not of the dead but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."  Then some of the scribes answered, "Teacher, you have spoken well."  For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

Luke 20:27-40


Remember the riddle about the train crash, or the one about the skydiver?  I spent longer with those puzzles than I would like to admit, looking for the loopholes in language and logic; looking for clues and evidence of the truth only to discover the answer hidden in plain sight.  Taking hours to turn over the problem is only slightly more frustrating then presenting the riddle to your more clever friend and having that person untangle it in a moment!  I wonder how long these Sadducees took to think up this question, how delighted with themselves they must have been?  And I don't blame them, it is a clever question.  And if it stumps Jesus, it will make him and his idea about resurrection seem foolish.  You see, this particular Jewish sect - the Sadducees they don't believe in the resurrection; their gospel is deeply embedded in the here and now, in the socio-political realities they live in.  For them, there is no existence of angels, there is no after life.  They are an elite group of intellectuals whose religious beliefs enforce their power, wealth and status in society and they are determined to hold on to it.

The question they present about the woman reflects their emphasis on patriarchal descent.  The woman in this question is widowed and barren.  To them she has little value.  The Sadducees see her as important or interesting only for who she belongs to.  She is chattel.  But not to God. This is part what makes Jesus response stunning.  Jesus gives her, her full dignity because she is one of his beloved children.  Not because of who she is married to.  In fact, marriage is not for the age to come, it is for this age.  And this is all part of God's radical redefinition of family.  Can you hear Jesus' question from earlier in Luke: Who is my mother? brother? sister? In baptism we are welcomed into Christ's forever life. We are his children and through this gift of God we become a part of a much bigger family - Christians the world over call one another sister, brother.  This is our true family of origin, the place where we are most fully ourselves, this Kingdom of God is our true home.

The Sadducees they want to distract Jesus with this scenario on marriage.  But Jesus sees them coming - he knows what they are getting at and he says to them, "guess what folks, that question on marriage it doesn't really apply because marriage is for now,  it is not for the resurrection life!  So your question is moot.  And you weren't asking me about marriage anyways, you are asking me about resurrection.  So let's talk about that!  This should not be new to you - remember Moses at the burning bush? You know that story well.  Remember what God said to Moses as the bush burned but was not consumed, he said: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.  He didn't say I WAS the God of Abraham, he says I AM the God of Abraham.  That means they are alive in God - they are children of the resurrection!  And folks resurrection changes everything."

The grade three Sunday School lesson emphasizes that we live with God now and forever! Our life with God - getting to know Him, enjoy him and learning to love him even when we don't understand him, begins now.  There is a brilliant little poem on time in the grade three leaflet that reads:

Sometimes a boring movie feels like it will never end
Sometimes you wish a great movie would go on and on.
Sometimes a trip to the dentist has you hoping you will never get there.
Sometimes when you're on your way to Grandma's house you can't wait to arrive.
Sometimes detention after school has you dreading the bell.
Sometimes a game after school has you jumping for the bell.
Sometimes an hour to play is gone in a second.
Sometimes an hour of homework takes all day.
Some times are fast, while others are slow
Some times you wonder, "Where did the time go?"
But there will be time to remember time and time again
Because we have forever, and time will never end.

I really like the way this poem uses a child's perspective to explore time - I can imagine them relating to certain lines and even adding their own lines, reflecting on how time can fly or crawl by or how a moment can be so lovely you just want to stay in it for a long, long time.  This summer my brother got married - it was an beautiful celebration that captured all of our imaginations and in particular the imaginations of our children - they had never been to a celebration quite like that!  Matt and Kristine were married on the crest of a hill overlooking the sea - we sang Amazing Grace under a beautiful blue sky, we ate in an orchard, we danced in the barn to live music and we sent the newly married couple off under moonlight - our sparklers lighting the way from the barn to the get away car.  The whole day was shot through with beauty, with joy, with transcendence - the celebration pointed beyond itself to something purer and more true and even just a taste of it was intoxicating.  We felt like we could have stayed in that barn dancing until long after our legs could hold us or the rural noise bylaws allowed.  I don't see my whole family too often but sometimes our times are so sweet that I feel I get little glimpses into the life to come and it almost fills my eyes with tears... But there will be time to remember time and again, Because we have forever and time will never end. And love never ends. Praise God.