Sermon - April 20, 2008: Fifth Sunday of Easter

Vicar Mark Niethammer

One of the most fulfilling parts of the seminary curriculum is the requirement that all students complete a program called Clinical Pastoral Education, or CPE. In this program, each student works in a health care setting, like a hospital or nursing home, and do pastoral care in that context. My CPE was served at the University of Minnesota Medical Center and it afforded me the opportunity to meet a few wonderful people. 

When a patient knows that you are a chaplain, they often times want to talk about religious things, so their faith and faith community are discussed. One person I met told me that she was not religious, but “spiritual.” This took me off guard mostly because this patient, I found out, is the partner of a friend and colleague who is a very devout Catholic. This patient told me that while her partner goes to Mass, she goes to a bench by a stream and “sees God” as she put it, in the things around her. She went on to say that religion has it all wrong, that no denomination has the faith that she professes, so she goes to her bench, smokes a pack of cigarettes and watches the water. 

While I respected the fact that this person professed something resembling “faith” I was wanting her to be able to experience God in the way that God has revealed God’s self to everybody.

“I am the way, the truth and the life,” Jesus says. “No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” In saying these words, Jesus knows that his disciples are worried. They are worried about what they are going to do once Jesus is gone, after all, immediately before this reading begins, Jesus told them that Judas will betray him and that where Jesus is going they cannot go. 

They will be alone. All the things that they have done since becoming followers of Jesus have been lead by Jesus himself. They have seen the miracles he has performed: the walking on water, the healing of many, the feeding of thousands with little food. They were there. And soon…they will be without their teacher.

In this text lies a promise though, not just comforting words to mourning disciples. Who ever believes in Jesus will do the works he does, and in fact will do greater works. But how can this be? 

This text is familiar to many of us as it has been the Gospel reading at many funerals. It has offered comfort and consolation to us as we stand looking into and pondering an empty gravesite that will be the final resting place for our loved one. We are blessed to have an opportunity to see this text with new eyes today though. We are not standing at a grave that is about to be filled, we are standing outside of a tomb that was once occupied by the body of the dead Jesus. 

Now though, it is empty, He is risen, and the boulder guarding the door has been rolled away. The boulder could not hold the crucified and risen Lord. So the tomb is now empty, an emptiness that strengthens us for our life’s journeys, an emptiness that gives us a promise that we can do great things.

“No one comes to the Father except through me” we are told. Far from being the passage on Christian exclusivism that it has long been regarded, it is in these words that we see who Jesus is, and more, we see who God is. It is through this man that we learn who God is, and only through this man is God revealed.

Like the person I mentioned earlier, many people find what they call “spirituality” to take the place of organized religion. They say things like, every leaf that falls and every sound that happens in the world IS God. While this is not heresy by any range of the spectrum, they were not witnessing God, but seeing signs of God’s presence. 

Rushing waters never fed thousands and falling leaves never healed illnesses or forgave sins. Nature was created out of the grace of God showing signs of God’s wonders, but these things are not God.

Philip had the longing that many of us do. He wanted to see the Father. Jesus asks him, “don’t you know me?” God the Father cannot be pointed to outside, in the world, but only in the person of Jesus. In this Christian assembly we encounter the living God in our eating, drinking, and hearing of the Word itself, because God promised to be present in these things.

We stand today at the mouth of the empty tomb, a rock, creation that couldn’t contain God, so why do we try to contain God in little compartments that we construct for God? Those too will be blown open and the truth will be revealed that the power, might, and being of God is only found in the person of Jesus, who shows us that he is the way, truth, and life. So, while we will never physically see God in God’s glory, we know who this creator is through the person of Jesus of Nazareth. 

This is God who showed love for the poor and the downtrodden. This is God, the creator who made all there is out of the darkness, out of chaos. This is God who gives to us all, each day, a love and grace that we cannot comprehend, a forgiveness that cannot be earned, and promises that seem impossible to for us to keep. It is in this lesson that we are told we will do greater things if we believe in God and ask for help in Jesus’ name. 

But how? How can we do greater things. Jesus says that if we call on his name, he will do anything for us. This promise comes to us from Jesus, God incarnate, the one who just defeated death and has left an empty tomb in his wake; a tomb that proves once and for all that the power of God cannot be contained. 

So, when we need strength to move on in our lives, it will be given. When we need healing in times of affliction, it will be granted. And if we need guidance in how we live this earthly life, it will be handed over to us, and all because of the faith that is in Jesus, the only thing in this world that IS God. 

It may be easy to sit out in the park and point to things and say, “that is God.” The truth of the matter is that those things aren’t God but they show us a glimpse of God’s love. God indeed created a beautiful planet for us to live on. These things may point to the love that God has for us, but nothing, not the majesty of mountains, not the expansiveness of the cornfields, not the wonder that is a city skyline, nor the emptiness of a tomb can hold what Jesus is. None of them are God. Amen.

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