Advent 4:John 1:1-18

The Gospel of Mark begins with Jesus as an adult.  “In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.” In one sentence, Mark’s Gospel skips through three chapters of narrative that is told in Matthew and Luke.

Matthew and Luke both begin before Jesus was born, explaining prophecies about the coming Messiah and the announcement of the angel of the Lord to Mary, who was just a girl.  There are genealogies which describe Jesus’ heritage as a descendant of King David, and even though most of us find genealogies in Holy Scripture rather tedious and dry, they are, after all, a part of Holy Scripture, and every genealogy has its own story or stories to tell.  Each opens up a wealth of teaching from the Word of God.

John’s gospel, however, begins in the beginning.  The very beginning.  The setting is the creation event itself, and what is unique about this passage, which we call the Prologue to the Gospel of John, is that Jesus is not named here.  To name something defines it, in a way.  It categorizes it, puts it into a box with a label.  John wants us to remove that label and take Jesus out of our box and think about Him in a different way.

Jesus is the Word.  He was with God in the very beginning.  In fact, He was God.  Where Matthew, Mark, and Luke don’t get around to explaining this to their readers for several chapters, John lays it out plainly right up front.  The Word is God, and Jesus is the Word, although that is not immediately apparent, not until John the Baptist sees Jesus coming toward him and declares, “This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me (v. 30).”

This is the gospel, packaged very neatly into eighteen verses.  Perhaps John wrote it that way because he was, in truth, re-interpreting an old story.  By the time John’s Gospel was circulating, Matthew, Mark and Luke had already been around for over 20 years, and even then it was at least 20 years since Jesus’ resurrection.  

The people already knew the story, so John’s job was not to tell it to them, but to open their minds to understand the story in a new way.  He was a preacher with a congregation, not an evangelist, although evangelism is always at the very heart of the gospel.

Jesus is intimately related to all of creation, and Jesus is intimately related to all of us.  Verse 10 explains that “...the world was made through him…”

Again, we don’t get stuff like that in the other Gospels.  Jesus has always been, and without that description, without John’s Gospel, we could easily see Jesus as nothing more than God’s offspring, His creation.   But Jesus is God.  He was there in the beginning, and all of “this” came into being through Him.  This wording should sound very familiar to you in another way as well.  It is the language of pregnancy.

If Jesus were to have a child, it would be us.  

This is the first of four key purposes of Jesus, four interrelated themes about His being as the Word of God.  The Word of God is our Father.  

The second purpose of Christ, revealed in John’s Prologue, is that Jesus is, for us, the source of revelation and grace.  He is “the true light which enlightens everyone (v.9),” and He is “full of grace and truth (v. 14).”  The Word of God is our Mentor.  More than just a friend, more even than just a Father, He sees potential within us that we cannot see in ourselves, and nurtures us in it.

Jesus was intimately involved in our creation and our nurture and growth, but the world rejected Him.  Vv. 10-11 say that he was in the world, and that even though the world came into being through Him, still the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own would not accept Him.

Do you know what it feels like for your child to say to you, “I hate you?  I don’t want anything to do with you?”  Can you imagine what that might feel like?  Wouldn’t you do anything to bring him or her back to you?  Wouldn’t you give anything?  

The relationship that Jesus Christ had with his own children was broken, and lying in ruins.  They did not know Him, their own Father!  And so “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” writes John (v.14).  God has always been intimately connected, related to His creation.  He has always been personally involved in His children’s lives, as should every father be.

He is not up there on His throne, judging us and manipulating us for His own good pleasure.  He is here among us, as one of us.  John calls Jesus the Word of God, and what does “word” mean?  In Greek, logos literally refers to an accounting or an understanding.  In English it means “the study of” something.  Psychology, biology, theology.

But more basically than that, ‘word’ is a means of communication.  Jesus, the Word made flesh, is the communication of God to us, He is God’s means of relating to His creation.  

Which brings us to the fourth key purpose of Jesus Christ in John’s Prologue.  

“And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.  For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (Vv. 16-17).”

Does this mean that the Law is not truth?  Does this mean that there was no grace before Christ?  No, of course not.  But a relationship with a person is very different from a relationship with a law.  The Law, the Torah as it was called, guided the people, it ruled the people and set down a standard of living in righteousness.  It is objective and impersonal.

Jesus Christ, however, is a person, and guides us in our understanding of the Law.  He demonstrates for us how we are to follow His Law.  We can know the Law, but we can connect with Christ, we can understand the Law through Him, and so learn that the journey to Heaven is not so far as we might have otherwise believed.

For Jesus to fulfill all these purposes, “he must be of God in the fullest possible sense (Karl Kuhn.  Commentary on John 1:1-18 http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1960, accessed 20 December 2013).”

But Jesus cannot also identify with humanity if He is not human, and so He took upon Himself not only our humanity, but all of our humanity.  Our acceptance as God’s Chosen, and our rejection as God’s Justice.  

One commentator wrote:

For John, the scandal of particularity is not just that in Jesus the Divine becomes “incarnate and dwells among us.  The scandal is also that the transcendent Word becomes so deeply enmeshed in our twisted affairs, that he is even willing to endure the humiliation and hatred embodied in the cross.  The Word...embraces this, to enlighten all those who would receive him.  He comes to his own and loses his life for them, that they too might become children of God and, like him, close to the Father’s heart (ibid.).”

As Advent draws to a close, and we welcome the Christmas season into our homes and our lives, let us praise God for what He has done for us, what He is doing within us even now, and for what He will bring to completion through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Seek the Lord while He May be Found: A Reflection on Isaiah 55 & John 4

"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters," says the Prophet.  And Jesus, speaking to the woman at the well, said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

The thing about a spring or a river is that it is generally considered to be a reliable source of fresh, clean water, because it is constantly running; unlike a lake or a pond, which is standing water.

Is Jesus telling us that we need to move?  Is the water that he promises us, water that will become a spring "welling up to eternal life" moving us forward, onward, out into the world?  

The Prophet's words in Isaiah, words that come from the Lord, are also all about motion.  

"Come to the waters...," "come to me...," "Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you..."

Just as with water, if we stop moving, acting, reaching out beyond ourselves, we will become stagnant.  God's Spirit calls us out of ourselves, even as it challenges us to look within ourselves.

In Advent, we celebrate the coming of Jesus.  He comes, he moves, he is going somewhere, going to find those who need to be healed.  Let us go with him.

Merciful God, you sent the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation.  Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus our Redeemer.

Holiness

Within two hours, as I've been contemplating the meaning of "silence," which is my lesson for the day according to the "Monk in the World" e-course, I came across this passage written by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his book Exodus: The Book of Redemption, which is part of a devotional series on the Torah, called Covenant and Conversation.

"Holiness is the space we make for the Otherness of God – by listening, not speaking; by being, not doing; by allowing ourselves to be acted on rather than acting. It means disengaging from that flow of activity whereby we impose our human purposes on the world, thereby allowing space for the divine purpose to emerge. All holiness is a form of renunciation, but since God desires the existence of human beings as responsible and creative beings, He does not ask for total renunciation. Thus some times are holy, not all; some spaces are holy, not all; some people are holy, not all." - P. 143

Really??  Isn't that what silence is?  At least, that is what I've been meditating on today:

"we can cultivate silence within ourselves throughout each and every day by listening rather than speaking" were my exact words.  

Hmm.  I think they call this a God moment. (?)  Perhaps this is saying that the cultivation of this kind of silence is also the cultivation of holiness.  

Silence

"Silence is the fullness, not emptiness; it is not absence, but awareness of a presence." - John Cryssavgis

My life has been so cluttered lately, as you can probably tell by the lack of posts for the past month and a half!  I've yearned for silence, for peace, for calm, and it has been here waiting for me all along.  I knew it would be, but I refused to let it in, because I was too busy being busy.  

I've only just now subscribed to the "Monk in the World" e-course offered by the Abbey of the Arts, although I have been "intending" to do it for quite some time now.  Appropriately enough, the first day is all about intentional, contemplative silence, the kind of silence that doesn't simply mean being quiet, but being aware, being open.  This kind of silence is about quieting my own voice and the noises that I surround myself with, and listening to the world around me, and to the Spirit within me.  

Coincidentally, when I was an Associate with the Order of Holy Cross, one of our tasks required of us was to fashion a Rule of Life.  Similar to a monastic rule in its ordering, but personalized for how I am to live the contemplative life in the world, I wrote down something about seeking silence amidst the noise with which I am surrounded.  Cloistered monks have, well, cloisters.  Their schedules are strictly regimented, their monasteries tucked away in the woods somewhere and they don't have a lot of outside interference. 

The rest of us do.

How do we find silence in the daily routines of the world?  We can try to find some time to sit quietly and pray or meditate.  Or we can cultivate silence within ourselves throughout each and every day by listening rather than speaking, by opening ourselves to the various and subtle ways the Spirit moves us.

Monk Manifesto

I signed the Monk Manifesto, and am now a "Monk in the World."

1. I commit to finding moments each day for silence and solitude, to make space for another voice to be heard, and to resist a culture of noise and constant stimulation.

2. I commit to radical acts of hospitality by welcoming the stranger both without and within. I recognize that when I make space inside my heart for the unclaimed parts of myself, I cultivate compassion and the ability to accept those places in others.

3. I commit to cultivating community by finding kindred spirits along the path, soul friends with whom I can share my deepest longings, and mentors who can offer guidance and wisdom for the journey.

4. I commit to cultivating awareness of my kinship with creation and a healthy asceticism by discerning my use of energy and things, letting go of what does not help nature to flourish.

5. I commit to bringing myself fully present to the work I do, whether paid or unpaid, holding a heart of gratitude for the ability to express my gifts in the world in meaningful ways.

6. I commit to rhythms of rest and renewal through the regular practice of Sabbath and resist a culture of busyness that measures my worth by what I do.

7. I commit to a lifetime of ongoing conversion and transformation, recognizing that I am always on a journey with both gifts and limitations.

A Monk in the World

All beings
are words of God,
His music, His art.

Sacred books we are, for the infinite camps
in our
souls.

Every act reveals God and expands His being.
I know that may be hard
to comprehend.

All creatures are doing their best
to help God in His birth
of Himself.

Enough talk for the night.
He is laboring in me;

I need to be silent
for a while,
worlds are forming
in my heart.

-Meister Eckhart

Several years ago I took a first step on a new journey in my faith life, by becoming an Associate of the Order of Holy Cross.  OHC is a Benedictine monastic order, and more importantly for me, a community of accountability which helped me to cultivate growth in my Christian walk.  The contemplative discipline has always appealed to me, and while I still practice some of the Benedictine Rule, I no longer am a member of the Order of Holy Cross.  

Holy Cross served to fill a need in my life at a specific time.  At one time, I even considered joining the order as a novice!  Later, however, I felt that I had sort of "outgrown" that particular community.  But the disciplines that I learned during my time with Holy Cross continue to fill that need, that hunger for a more contemplative life.  However, without the accountability of the community, I find it a bit more difficult to stay "afloat."  

Abbey of the Arts is an online monastic community, created by one who, like myself, is a Christian living in the world who seeks to follow a contemplative path in her life.  Although I have not yet explored it the Abbey seems to provide a community, but no walls, accountability, but no pressure (if that makes any sense).  

I think I may give it a try.  

Last Words from the Cross - A Good Friday Devotional

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’  A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.  When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished, and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” -Jn. 19:28-30, ESV

When Jesus was on the cross, dying from the most cruel and shameful death ever imagined by the Roman Empire, Scripture records seven things that he said to his disciples and those standing around before he died.  You would have to read all four of the gospel narratives to find all seven, because each gospel doesn’t have all seven.  

These words reveal some very important characteristics about our Lord.  They reveal his true nature.  The best way to really get to know someone for who they are, is to subject them to intense pressure.  All sorts of interesting thoughts and emotions come bubbling to the surface, some because they lose their inhibitions, others because they hold on to their core convictions to the very end.  

This is what Jesus did on the cross.  He held to his convictions to the bitter end.  The cross showed him to be true to the things that he had been saying and teaching all along, whereas a lesser man might have shown himself to be false when faced with such torture.  

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  This is one of my favorite sayings of Jesus.  He’s not angry, he’s not resisting.  The Roman guards are nailing him to a cross, and he has pity on them.  He prays for them.  There is forgiveness in his heart, and mercy in his words, something that we see again when Jesus talks with the two criminals who have been crucified alongside him.  The one mocks Jesus, but the other appears to repent of his crimes, acknowledging that he has received his reward and says to Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  

Again, Jesus feels nothing but pity and forgiveness and mercy, and he says to the man, “Truly, today you will be with me in paradise.”

What great love the Father has for us.

I’m going to skip around here a little bit, as this could really be an entire 7-week sermon series.  And while Jesus’ Words contain one of my favorite quotes of his, they also contain one that I find perhaps the most disturbing.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

How many of us here can honestly say that we have not ever felt abandoned and alone?  Have you ever felt forsaken by God?  Have you ever felt tempted to just give up?

Jesus has been tortured and crucified, his disciples have abandoned him.  Peter, who was to be the Rock upon which the Church would be built, publicly denied Jesus 3 times!  The people all surround his cross and mock him.

What would you do?

The Greek actually says that Jesus shouted in a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  

But God did not abandon His only Begotten Son.  

It has been pointed out that Psalm 22 runs through the entire Crucifixion narrative, with this verse being the first verse of the psalm.  As we read that psalm on Good Friday, we can see how it moves from despair, saying “I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people (v.6),” to complete hopelessness:

“I am poured out like water...my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death (Vv. 14, 15).”  

But then the Psalm takes a positive tone, crying out to the Lord, in whom there is still hope.  It ends with a shout of triumph:

“The afflicted shall eat and be satisified; those who seek him shall praise the Lord!  All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.”

Now, does that sound like abandonment?  Do you think Jesus would have chosen those particular words to exclaim if he truly felt abandoned by God?  Yes.  And no.  Jesus always chose his words very carefully, and very specifically.  

He knew what was coming, he knew the glory that awaited him, the glory for which he suffered.  But right at that moment, he was abandoned by God.  William Barclay says “that Jesus would not be Jesus unless he had plumbed the uttermost and ultimate depths of human experience.”  And there is no greater human experience than to feel alone and abandoned, even abandoned by God.  

Jesus came to forgive sins, and to live as one of us, experiencing the full range of human emotions and temptations, even the temptation to abandon the One who seemed to have abandoned Him.  He came to show us that God is with us, even though we don’t always feel or want His presence.

That’s what Jesus expresses in His last words on the cross.  In a nutshell.  So there is nothing left.  “It is finished,” he said, and gave up his spirit.  Amen.

Words of Wisdom. Before we can master others, we first must learn to master ourselves.

"I need to master martial art as fast as possible," I said, as my first instructor laughed in the 80s, "How many lessons will it take?"
"10 years," he replied simply.
"10 years?! I don't have a decade. I need these changes to happen NOW! What if I trained twice as hard, and practiced twice as long at home, THEN how long will it take me to master martial art?"
"20 years," he responded with a smirk. He continued, "I can teach you how to defend yourself in this weekend, and you'll be much more capable of addressing the violence you're facing now, but mastery involves lifestyle integration. You can't force it. You have to let it flow over time."

His cryptic words lingered throughout my life in every discipline I sought to master: martial art, yoga, fitness, coaching, speaking, writing, organizing, in nutrition, in parenting, in marriage, in community service. The harder I tried to force things to happen, the more artificial and ill-fitted they became, like quickly hammering a suit of armor. It only took longer to master, as all of the dents and dings needed to be smoothed and refitted anyway. Force only lengthened the process.

One day, ironically true of his forecast twenty years later, I awoke to his words I had long since forgotten. The violence had disappeared. I had changed my life so that those circumstances no longer could 'fit' within my lifestyle. Certainly, I had used my martial art to defend myself many times, but the process of slow, deliberate, methodical mastery also transformed my life to where I no longer needed to defend myself. I stopped 'doing' martial art; and had begun 'being' it.

Leon Brown wrote, "Impatience is the root of all your problems. You cannot force life to give you all of the answers. You must let them unfold before you." Baby steps are the way to succeed in anything. Carefully take one step of improvement at a time and latch it in.

It's not how fast or forcefully you try things, but rather how consistently and patiently you implement the lessons learned throughout your life. EVERY SINGLE DAY in each decision, that's where transformation happens. That's how real, significant, permanent change occurs, like the persistent drip of water's faith eroding the rock of your hardships.

Elegantly, last night, my son said to me after his high purple belt test, "Dad, I think I'm going to stay at junior black belt for a long time after I get there." I asked why. He replied, "Well... you said that when you die, I can have your black belt, but I don't want you to die so I can have yours. It's okay for me to be good. I can be great like you later."

Tearfully, I choked out the words, "Son, you surpass me already."

Very Respectfully,
Scott Sonnon
www.facebook.com/ScottSonnon
www.positiveatmosphere.com

Jesus' Triumphal Entry Into Jerusalem - a sermon for Passion Sunday

Jewish history is filled with conquest and political upheaval, but many of those victories belong to other nations, other kingdoms, not to the Jews themselves.  The ancient Hebrews were slaves to the Egyptians and the Babylonians.  By the end of the period of history during which the Old Testament was written, the Persians had become the dominant power in the Middle East.

At this time, the Jews had begun to rebuild their shattered temple, and to return to their ancestral lands, but all that began to change, as another government came to power.  In the 330’s B.C., Alexander the Great swept through the entire region with his army, replacing Persian rule with Greek.  The Jews simply shifted allegiances at first because, well, what else could they do at that point, but the Greeks’ intent was to spread Hellenization throughout their world.  Hellenization is a term that refers to their culture and language - a specifically Greek culture that has little room for other traditions.  

Alexander the Great wished to see the whole world educated in Greek fashion, holding to Greek values, speaking Greek, and, in fact, our education system to this day is leftover from the days of the Greeks.  

So the Jews didn’t get much of the return to independence that they longed for while under Greek influence.  They were dispersed even further throughout the region, so that sizable Jewish communities grew up in Egypt, which is quite likely the place to which Jesus’ own family fled when he was born, if you remember that story.  

The Egyptian Ptolemaic Empire took over control of their little corner of the world following the death of Alexander the Great.  They were replaced by the Seleucid Empire in about 198 B.C.  Both of these dynasties were Hellenistic, they continued to spread Greek culture and philosophy, and slowly, more traditional cultures began to disappear.  The Jews were forbidden to practice their religion and cultural traditions on pain of death, and the Temple in Jerusalem was turned into a pagan shrine.

Then, in about 164 B.C., a group of Jewish rebels led a revolt against the Seleucids, and gained independence for the Jews.  The temple was cleansed and the religious traditions were reinstated.  The people began to be Hebrew again.  There is still a commemoration of that time in Judaism with the Festival of Lights, or Hannukah.

This period of Jewish history is known as the Maccabean Period, or the Hasmonean Dynasty.  It lasted for about a hundred years until, wouldn’t you know it, the Romans marched in and seized control.  The governmental structure had begun to break down, and the Maccabean rulers began to be more and more dictatorial and corrupt, so Jewish leaders actually asked Roman general Pompey to come and restore order.  

He did, but it wasn’t the sort of order that the Jews would have wanted.  Roman conquest was much like Greek rule.  They believed so much in their own greatness, that there was no doubt that they would not relinquish control once they had their claws in the Jews.  

The Romans remained in power until 153 A.D., long after Jesus completed his earthly ministry.  He lived and died in occupied territory, and even today the Israeli’s continue seeking to “purify” their land.  Everyone dreamed of the day when a king would return, much like the Maccabees, to drive out the Romans and restore the Temple and its practices.  To return the land to the Lord and to glory.

I’d be willing to bet that someone suggested something like that to Pontius Pilate, who was the Roman governor of Judea during the time of Christ’s later ministry.  “Just don’t turn your back on them,” they probably said to him.  

So during the Passover each year, Pilate would fill Jerusalem with Imperial troops to “ensure” that the people didn’t get out of hand.  Passover, of course, is a festival commemorating and re-enacting the time of the Exodus, the time when the Hebrews escaped from slavery to the Egyptians.  It is a time when national pride runs especially high among the Jews, and while they always felt oppressed, the tendency to act out against Roman authority was a more bold at the time of Passover.

From Pilate’s point of view, the stories of the Maccabean revolt was probably foremost in his thoughts.  

So when Jesus was riding into town on a donkey, Pilate was also coming into the city with his army.  But while Pilate came riding a war horse, or maybe in a chariot, Jesus came on a donkey, in fulfillment of one of the Prophecies of Zechariah (9:9), “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!  Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!  Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Kings in those days in Palestine only rode horses into battle.  During times of peace, they would ride donkeys.  So while Pilate rode into the city with a display of force, as a king bent on conquest and domination, Jesus came in peace, also as a king.  This itself was a tremendous act of defiance, as there was probably a price on his head, but more than that, the people looked for a king like David, a mighty prophet of God like Moses, and a powerful revolution like the Maccabeans, to catch the Romans by surprise.

That’s not who Jesus is.  That’s not what Jesus does.  But he did ride into Jerusalem in triumph that day, because his victory was at hand.  He also rode into Jerusalem that day to disappoint a lot of people, because of the manner in which he would be victorious.  

He wasn’t going there to take up the sword, he was going there to take up the cross, and even when his own disciple Peter took a sword to attack those who came after them, Jesus rebuked him and said to him that this is not our way.  

Vengeance and resentment has a way of burning in our hearts and in our memories.  We want to lash out at those who have been unfair to us, we want to make them pay for what they did!!  How often do we reprimand our children because they did something mean to a brother or a sister and then complain when we scold them saying, “Well he started it,” but then we ourselves lash out in anger and spite against those whom we once called ‘friend’ because they were mean to us?  

Jesus did something that was unparalleled in all of history.  He allowed himself to be led to the Cross, and although He understood what was at stake - our immortal souls - he not only had to bear the pain of knowing the torture that He would have to endure, He also knew how disappointed people would be.  Wasn’t he supposed to be the Messiah?  He can’t even save himself, how is he supposed to save anyone else?  

Can you imagine doing something so selfless, something that you know is what’s best for another, but by doing it, you’re almost certain that they won’t get it, they won’t appreciate it, they will, in fact, be disappointed in you?  And disappointment is perhaps the hardest shame to for anyone to have to bear.  

But without shame, Jesus went to Jerusalem that day.  Without shame, he faced his enemies and sacrificed himself for a people who wouldn’t understand.  Amen.

Signs of the Messiah: Jesus Heals a Disabled Man - Jn. 5:1-15

Underneath the Pool of Bethesda is a stream which feeds it, and every now and again this stream would bubble up and cause a disturbance in the water.  The people, however, believed that this disturbance was caused by an angel who was stirring up the waters, and that the first person to enter the pool after it was stirred up would be healed of whatever ailed him or her.  

Thus we can better understand the invalid, when he says to Jesus, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”

I used to always wonder at that passage. The man can obviously get into the pool by himself, it would just take him awhile because of his disability, but its the belief that he must be the first one to enter it after the waters have been disturbed, that causes him to stay there year after year, hoping for a cure.

So Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be healed?”  

Of course, my first reaction to this question is, “No, I don’t want to be healed, I’m drawing disability from the government!”  But that was the other invalid that Jesus tried to heal.  The Bible left him out.

This man had been an invalid for 38 years, says the Gospel of John.  The fact that it points that out suggests that he was well known, and perhaps that was why Jesus went to him and theres no mention of him healing anyone else at the Pool.  It also points out that this man had been an invalid longer than most people in that age were alive at all!  

The average lifespan in the time of the Roman Empire, for a man, was about 26 years.  For a person with a disability it was probably a great deal shorter than that.  

Now, I’ve known a lot of disabled people in my life.  I used to do some work with disabled kids in school, at camp, I had a good friend with a severe disability, that sort of thing.  And one important thing that I’ve learned about other-abled people (and I use that term specifically, as I’ll explain) is that they can either be handicapped, or disabled.

A handicap is something that you overcome. It’s an obstacle, its something in our way.  We all have a handicap of some sort.  Maybe its a physical limitation, maybe its psychological, maybe its cultural, or a social stygma.  The point is, a handicap is just a handicap.  We can overcome it.  We can work around it.  Life moves forward if we accept it and learn to live with it.  We can even learn to use it and gain strength from it.

A disability is entirely the opposite.  Dis-abled means ‘not able.’  Of course, that’s not how society typically uses these terms, but for purposes of my illustration, this serves to emphasize my point.  A disabled person cannot function, or doesn’t function, because of the limitations that he or she has.  A disabled person does not see beyond his or her limitations, they only see what they cannot do.

Therefore, of the many other-abled people that I’ve known, I’ve learned that there are those whose attitudes and acceptance of themselves as individuals who must struggle through this life just like anyone else.  Their limitations - physical, mental, whatever - they are merely handicaps.  Life moves on, they learn to see beyond their limitations, and so those limitations aren’t really limitations at all, not in the broader sense of the term, because the only limitations that we have are the ones that we impose on ourselves.

But then there are those who are truly disabled.  Perhaps they don’t even have a physical impairment.  Perhaps they are only crippled by their fear of taking risks.  We can be paralyzed by our fears alone, and that is a disability in and of itself.  

Those who are disabled are often bitter, resentful of whatever hand life has dealt them.  They don’t accept themselves as who they are, and so they never rise above it.  But those who are merely handicapped, I can usually see a joy in their lives that nothing can conquer.  There’s a strength that goes beyond what I can truly comprehend, and a witness that I wish everyone could learn from.  They own themselves.

The invalid at the Pool of Bethesda, he was disabled, not handicapped.  He had been impaired for 38 years, 10 years longer than the average lifespan of a healthy male of his generation!  And there’s no mention that he was born that way, so it’s very likely that something crippled him after birth, something caused him to lose proper function of his legs.

But that was not the cause of his disability.  We create our own disabilities.  This man could not see beyond his situation.  In v. 6, Jesus “knew that he had been lying there a long time.”  His goal in life was to be cured of his ailment, because of course, life cannot go on if we aren’t physically “normal.”  

In the meantime, life passed him by.  

Later, after the healing had taken place, Jesus encounters the man once again and says to him, “See you are well!  See that you sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” This is a bit troubling, and has troubled Christians for a long time.  There was a belief in Judaism that our physical ailments were caused by our sins.  Sometimes it just so happens that this is true, like drunk driving that causes an injury from a car wreck, or something.  But there is no indication of that in this passage, only the suggestion that something happened to this man at some point in his life which caused his condition.  

It’s not the point.  There’s a thing behind the thing here.  This man’s sin was, as I see it, his disability.  Not his physical disability, but the disability that he imposed upon himself.  The limitations that he could not see beyond, the life that he did not have - not because it was denied him, but because he refused to accept who he was and live his life.  

His sin...was giving up.  His sin was putting his faith and his trust in some superstition that was fed to him about this pool of water, when the source of his healing, and ours, is much greater.  Healing is on the inside, healing is living our lives to the fullest despite having - what some would call - a disability.  What is it that cripples you?  What do you fear?  What is it that we wish we could rise above, but continues to get us down. While everyone around us goes down into the waters and takes control of their lives, we remain crippled.  

Jesus can heal that.  

Amen.

Signs of the Messiah: The Seventh Hour - Jn. 4:46-54

One of the first things that I like to do when I through a particular passage of scripture is to take note of things that stand out to me in some way.  It may turn out that they don’t really mean anything at all, or they might shed light on what’s going on in this passage in ways that I would not have otherwise guessed.

So one of the very first things that I put down on my little ‘list,’ is that this, the second of Jesus’ signs, occurred in Cana, just like the first one.  Jesus performed his first sign in Cana - the same place where he changed the water into wine at the wedding feast - where he teaches us that the Kingdom of Heaven will be like a party; we’ll all be celebrating our eternal life with the Lord.  Perhaps because of this, he already had a reputation building up for him there.  

“And his disciples believed in him,” it says at the end of our story about the wedding feast.

But now, it’s not until Jesus returns to Cana that the Gospel of John recognizes Jesus’ 2nd sign.  After he left Cana, which is in Galilee, Jesus traveled south to Jerusalem, which is more than 80 miles away.  That would have taken him about 4 or 5 days.  While he is there, Jesus preaches to people and he witnesses to them, and although there is a reference to him doing signs which caused many to believe in him, there is no mention of what those signs were.  They are sort of ‘played down.’  I believe there is a reason for this.

Jesus then sets out north once again, towards Galilee, and returns to Cana, which is another 4 or 5 days.  While he is there, a man from Capernaum, which is 20 miles away, hears about him, and goes to see him about his son, who is ill and close to death.  

While Cana itself may not be much of a big deal, there is a story to be told simply in the fact that Jesus traveled all the way down to Jerusalem, met with mostly opposition, but then traveled all the way back to Cana where people were going a day’s journey out of their way just to see him.  

That must have been some party!

So here we haven’t even gotten into the story itself yet, and look at what it’s already saying about Jesus Christ.  This is a sign in and of itself.  Christ drew people to him.  People sought him out.   

The next thing to really stand out to me in this story is that Jesus never had any actual contact with the official’s son.  He didn’t touch him, he didn’t approach him, he didn’t throw anything at him, or spit at him or anything, because Jesus wasn’t there.  Now, on the one hand, there appears to be a movement from Jesus performing small miracles to spectacular ones; from Jesus being distant to Jesus being close and personal.

But on the other hand, there’s this: when Jesus assured the official that his son would live, the man believed him, and left Jesus to go home again.  He originally asked Jesus to go with him to his home, did he not?  And “as he was going down, his servants’ met him and told him that his son was recovering.  So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” (!!)

We don’t really know the exact time frame when all this happens, but it is certainly implied that the fever has left the boy before the man leaves Jesus, and possibly before the man has asked Jesus to heal him.  

I would imagine that this man is not one to linger very long, since his son is so sick.  His intent was probably to hurry down to Cana, catch Jesus real quickly, then hurry back home.  But it would have still been about a day’s journey, maybe slightly less, since he was rushing things.  So he could have gone down there one day and been back by the next night.  So his boy might have been healed even before the official arrived in Cana to speak with Jesus.

You see, just as with the wedding feast, where the whole water into wine trick was just a handy metaphor (I mean, he’s God, right?  He can turn stones into bread, he can turn water into wine.  He can cast out demons and raise the dead.  No big deal for him), the sign is not the healing of the official’s son.  The miracle points to the sign, but the miracle is not the sign.  

There’s a thing behind the thing here.  A truth behind the truth.  A story behind the story.  Cana was not close by to Capernaum.  But the people there believed in him.  That’s why the official tore himself away from the bedside of his dying son to go see him.  Not out of some hope that he may be able to heal him, but because he believed in Jesus.

He was convicted in his faith, or else it is doubtful that he would have gone at all.  That’s why, even though Jesus did signs in Jerusalem while he was there, there is no mention of what those signs were.  That’s what makes this the second sign, and not one of those he did in Jerusalem.  The official believed in Jesus, which caused him to engage in a course of action which lead to the healing of his son, just as Jesus’ mother believed in him, which caused a chain of events which led to the turning of the water into wine.  These are the signs that manifest his glory, they reveal him to be the Messiah, the Christ, apart from the miracles, not because of them!   But if no one can see that, then its no revelation at all.  That’s why we don’t have traffic signals for deer.

We need to see the signs that Jesus is showing to us every day of our lives.  The things behind the things.  I had an ambulance call in the middle of the night the other day to the upper end of Frostburg.  I was annoyed.  I was tired, and it took a long time to get there.  But that lady just happened to be someone that I knew once upon a time, and she really blessed me.  I think that I’m going out to help people, but the experience so often ends up giving me more than I can ever give to them.  

That’s the thing behind the thing.  It’s not what we expect, it’s not what we look for, or even want; it’s what we need that Jesus gives to us.  That official believed in Jesus, and had the conviction to act on his faith, and so his son was healed.  Would that have happened if the man had not gone to Jesus?  He took an awful risk.  What if Jesus wasn’t who he believed him to be?  His son might have died while he was away.

So was Jesus right about the official, when he said to him, “unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe?”  Or was he challenging him - daring him - to believe.  The man got his signs and wonders, which is what he wanted, but he believed in Jesus before the miracle took place, because Jesus assured him of what was to take place.  That’s what he needed.  That was the sign that revealed his glory.  Maybe this is a story about healing, but not about the healing of the son, it is about the healing of the official, who believed.

I invite you to take a chance at radical faith, faith that moves you to do things that may seem a bit crazy, but that you know Jesus is calling you to do, so that you might find healing.  So that you might find wholeness in Christ.  Amen.

Stretching

I'm getting back into my workout routine, after a three-week(!) break over the holidays, and I'm so sore.

The first line that catches my eye when I open the newest edition of my (current favorite) theological journal is "is the Reformation over?" The entire journal was centered on a sort of revival of Roman Catholic theology in the millenial generation.

My denomination is shattering itself over controversies that some view political, while others deem missional, and, still others, theological in nature, causing me to question my own theological convictions and, consequently, take a trip back through seminary-level educational material to help me rediscover my  identity as a disciple of Jesus Christ.  What do I really believe, and why?

One of my martial arts instructors linked all this together very well for me, while we were going through some stretching exercises.  "Push yourself to the point of feeling discomfort.  Hold there until you begin to relax, then push a little further.  Repeat the process.  If you only hold yourself in a comfortable position, you will not develop strength or flexibility."  I think he actually surprised himself with that, because he commented on how this applies to just about everything in life.

Don't get too comfortable, only by stretching ourselves can we grow.

Home Again

After a bit of a hiatus, here I am again.  I'm not sure that I won't be writing to anyone but myself, but I've been writing my entire life, and sharing my thoughts publicly (also called preaching) for almost a decade.  So if anyone is out there and finds themselves attracted to, and enriched by, the nonsense I have to say about "whatever," then I welcome you to the dialogue!  Because that is truly how we grow, isn't it, through dialogue with others, and with ourselves.