Together in our journey we meet Jesus – in worship and in each other and everywhere we journey in our lives in the world – and our eyes are opened to God’s way in the Scriptures and to God’s presence among us.  And we are changed.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, the Third Sunday of Easter, year A; texts:  Luke 24:13-35; Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Two disciples are walking the seven or eight miles from Jerusalem to their Emmaus home, talking about the incredibly strange events of this day, following a deeply painful week.  A walking journey of that distance with that burden to bear is lightened by such companionship.

They had left the main group of disciples in Jerusalem, in the upper room, struggling to comprehend what some of the group – some of the women disciples – had claimed, that their master Jesus was raised from the dead.  A spiritual journey of faith and doubt of such import is lightened by such companionship.

When Jesus was talking to his disciples about life in the community, he said, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matt. 18:20)  In a little house in Emmaus that was literally true, though the couple didn’t see it until he broke the bread.  In the upper room in Jerusalem that was also literally true.

We can easily see how this story of Emmaus is a story that encapsulates our worship life.  We gather together to worship and our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, comes to us.  He opens our eyes to God’s Word, we have fellowship with him and each other, we speak to him in prayer, and in his Meal he opens our eyes to the grace and presence of the Triune God in our midst.  We see him, literally, in the breaking of the bread.  We embody his promise that where two or three, or two or three hundred, are gathered in his name, he is there.  Each Eucharist here is our Emmaus story, every week.

What I wonder is this: are we neglecting the rest of our lives when we consider this hope, this promise, and limit it to this nave, this chancel, this holy ground?  We come here expecting that our Lord will be with us in this gathering, hoping to be enlightened by the Holy Spirit, our hearts’ eyes opened, trusting that we will be fed by the Bread of Life.

But we have much of our life’s journey, our faith journey, that happens away from this sacred space, these holy things.  It turns out we are more like the Emmaus couple than we might know, then.  They weren’t at worship or going to worship.  They were walking a familiar road to get to their home.  They were talking with each other, and then with this stranger on the road.  As evening fell they invited him in, and so learned it was their Lord.  But essentially, they were living their lives.

And that’s where Jesus met them.  Into the midst of their life came the Son of God.  What might our lives be like if we were looking for this beyond what happens here every Sunday morning?  What might it do for our lives if we took seriously the promise that wherever we are with even one other believer, our Lord meets us there?

We are all on a journey in faith and life, and we need each other.

This has been a mark of the Church since the beginning, and it’s essential.

It’s no accident that the disciples gathered together in the upper room.  And look what happened.  They gathered for mutual support and comfort.  But then Jesus came to them.  And Thomas missed it because he was by himself.  He wasn’t with the others.  Until the next week.

And then they kept coming together, and one day, fifty days after Jesus rose, the Holy Spirit was poured out on all of them, together.  Then, when they went out as witnesses, they went together.  And our Emmaus friends, they took this long walk together.

In our journey of faith, as we seek to be disciples, companionship is absolutely essential.  We need sisters and brothers on our faith journey to support and encourage us.

We need them to speak the truth to us so we can grow and confess and become new people.  We need them to help us listen to God and look at our paths so we can choose paths of life and not death.

If we are ever going to grow and deepen as disciples, we will do it with each other.  And that’s because when we gather together with others, Jesus comes to us.  This promise of “two or three” is a profoundly important promise.

Jesus is not saying God will not fill our hearts when we are alone, of course not.  Certainly the Spirit moves in us always and in all places.

But what Jesus has said is this promise: that if we have even one companion to help us in our faith and life, he will guarantee that he will be with us.  We will meet Jesus on our journey when we journey together.  That’s a promise.  And it’s not just a promise of when we come together here for worship.

So when we meet Jesus together, what happens?  He opens our eyes, feeds us, is with us.

It was with the two on the road that Jesus opened the Scriptures to them so they could understand why this cross and resurrection was God’s path all along.  And it was with the whole group of disciples in the forty days after Easter that Jesus continued his teaching and eye-opening.

So it is today.  When we gather together, we listen to God’s Word better.  And our Lord opens our eyes and hearts.

But not just in this room.  When we are with each other on our roads, the same thing happens.  Together we can correct and guide each other in God’s Word in ways we can’t do by ourselves.  Together we can help understand and explain.  At any given time any one of us can be confused, and having another sister or brother to help is immeasurably important.  And because our Lord comes to us when we gather, we have the added blessing of the presence of Christ in our midst, guiding, teaching, leading.  Wherever we are.

And it was also when the disciples were together that Jesus fed them with love and life.  At Emmaus he broke the bread, and they saw him.  In the upper room he ate with them and they knew he was truly alive again.  On the shore of the Sea of Galilee he made breakfast for them and showed them his love and grace for them.

And so it is with us, that when we are together we are fed by the grace and love of God.  Certainly as we gather for the Eucharistic meal each week.

But on our ordinary roads, too, we are fed when we meet together.  As we meet each other’s needs, we feed each other.  As we embody the love of the Triune God for each other, we feed each other.  It’s much harder to sense the nourishing love of God without another person there to embody it, and together that gift is given us.  Wherever we are with each other.

But remember what also happens after meeting the risen Christ: everything changes.

The Emmaus couple are getting ready for the end of the day.  After Jesus, they run eight miles to tell others.  The same thing happens to all of the disciples.

Mary Magdalene’s weeping at a tomb.  She meets the risen Christ with her sisters and they all run to tell others.  The disciples are locked in a room.  They meet the risen Christ and go out to proclaim the Good News.  Again and again, after meeting the Lord, disciples leap up and go out to change the world.

But notice that these are all changed, too, not just sent out.  Their experience of meeting Christ together changes them.  They are no longer fearful, but bold and joyful witnesses.  They lose their old habits of distrust and caution and live lives trusting God’s grace in all circumstances.  They change how they live with each other, how they act in the world, how their community is formed, how they go out into the world to bring God’s grace and love.

Look at the Acts story today: people are convicted by Peter’s sermon and ask what they should do.  Repent and be baptized, Peter says, be changed.  And 3,000 do just that.  And the Church explodes into existence.  They are, Paul will say twenty years later, new creations.

And so it will be for us as well, if we take this seriously.

What we have been longing for for so long is a connection between our Sunday worship and our daily lives.  The connection has always been there: that as we gather together, journey together, we meet our Lord and are changed.

And the whole world becomes God’s house, where we constantly expect to meet our Lord.  As we walk our faith journey together, looking to be met by our Lord, we begin to see everything as holy, all ground as sacred, all things as vessels of God’s grace.

Was not that ordinary road to Emmaus holy ground, as Jesus opened their hearts and minds?  Their hearts were burning within them as he spoke.  And they weren’t even in a church!  And wasn’t their little kitchen sacred space as he broke bread and blessed them?  Their eyes were opened to the presence of God in their midst.

And in their companionship, and the companionship of the disciples in the upper room, they met the Lord together on the road, found sacred ground together, and were changed.

Because Christ is risen, we are always on holy ground, in sacred space, with holy things.  When we listen to each other and speak truth to each other in our journeying, we open each other’s eyes to God’s Word and God’s way, and our hearts burn with the light of the Spirit.  Everything is holy now, now that Christ is risen and has sent the Spirit into the world.  And we, together, live in that holy space where our Lord always comes to us, wherever we are together.

And we are changed on this journey for the better, for the good, for life.

We find the keys to our locked rooms together so we, too, can burst out and live these new lives, unafraid, filled with the joy of life in God.  We find the strength and energy together to get up and go out of our homes and run the road so we can tell others “we have seen the Lord,” we can witness to God’s love that has changed us.

Everything we need to become we find together as we journey together, because we meet our Lord together.  This is how what we know in our worship here each week becomes what we live and believe in our daily lives in the nave that is the world.

This is the grace of our Emmaus journey, that we walk this together and with the Spirit’s grace help each other’s eyes open and hearts burn.

But it would be worth a word of warning here: if you don’t want to be changed, if you don’t want to see the world differently, if you don’t want to be called to make God’s kingdom and justice happen in the world, if you don’t want to become someone new, stay away from the risen Christ, and for goodness’ sake stay away from his friends.  Don’t invite him or them into your home for supper, or you might find yourself transformed and going out into the world with life and grace.  Don’t ever let him or them into the locked rooms of your heart because you might be blessed not only with the peace of God but also the Spirit of God and you’ll find yourself turning into an actual disciple and witness in the world to God’s love.

If, however, that’s your dearest and deepest hope and desire, as frightening as such a thing might be, then this is very good news indeed.  For Christ is risen, and he’s here for certain.  But he’s also walking out on the roads of your life, looking to meet you, meet me, and change us, together.

Let us go from here in joy.  Because everything’s holy now.  And wherever we go together, we will meet our Lord, that’s a promise.  And together we will be led into new life.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The risen Christ bared his wounds so that Thomas could believe. As the body of Christ, we are now sent to witness by bearing our wounds so that we and the world may see how the Triune God is at work, bringing all to faith by Christ’s wounded body.

Vicar Emily Beckering; Second Sunday of Easter, year A; texts:  John 20:19-31; 2 Corinthians 4:7, 10-11 

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Poor Thomas; he gets such a bad reputation. His very nickname labels him according to his weakness: Doubting Thomas. No one remembers Thomas as the one who, when Jesus told them that he was returning to Judea, proclaimed to the other disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Instead, we remember Thomas only as the one who doubted: the one who needed to see and to touch his Lord for himself.

Yet, what Thomas offers us in this is a great gift. He openly admits that he is hurt: the loss of his Lord to crucifixion has wounded Thomas deeply. He finds it difficult to trust; he cannot believe unless he touches his Lord’s wounds. Because Thomas shows his wounds by telling his friends that he could not believe unless he encountered Jesus, those first disciples—together with the whole church—get to hear what Jesus does for Thomas, and for us all.

Despite our common characterization of this story, its emphasis ought not to be on Thomas’ doubt, but on Jesus’ consistent appearance to those who are in need of him. 

Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” which he says for our sakes. Yet, as he did for Thomas, Jesus does find ways for us to see him. He does this most often through wounds: by encountering us in our pain.

Throughout the entire gospel of John, Jesus reveals himself to those who are hurting, to the wounded, and the way in which he encounters them is in direct response to that woundedness. He meets them in their brokenness and offers them what they most need.

We see this in each of the gospel stories that we heard during this past Lent.

Jesus first reveals himself as the Messiah, the Son of God, to the Samaritan woman at the well: he knows the depths of her wounds, the history of relationships, her disappointments and weariness. All of those things about herself that she might rather hide, Jesus brings to the forefront, so that he may show her that he is offering what she most needs: a relationship with her savior.

Jesus does the same for the man born blind. Jesus returns to the man a second time when he discovers that the man has been driven out from the community. In the midst of his pain of being rejected and his witness not being taken seriously, Jesus goes to him and confirms the man’s witness by revealing that he is the Son of Man, the one promised to this man and to all of Israel.

Then we heard of Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus. Jesus meets Martha in the midst of her pain of losing her brother to death and reveals himself as the resurrection and the life; he weeps with Mary, and he raises Lazarus from the dead.

In each of these cases, and every single time that Jesus uses an “I am” statement in the Gospel of John in order to reveal himself as God—“I am the bread of life,” “I am the good shepherd,” “I am the vine”—each of these revelations are directly related to what the witness most needs. One who is thirsty needs everlasting water. One who cannot see needs light: the light of the world. One who is dead needs resurrection and life. By their wounds, Jesus encounters them. By their wounds, they know who he is for them.

The same pattern continues even after Jesus’ resurrection. Each of the witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection gets their own intimate encounter with their risen Lord based on what they most need, and he comes to them precisely when they are hurting.

As Mary weeps over the loss of her Lord, Jesus comes to her, calls her by name so that she can recognize him, and gives her what she is most longing for: to be with him again.

Jesus comes to the disciples while they are locked away in fear and doubt. These followers, who had begun to fear that everything that they had believed in, hoped for, and trusted in was now false, need peace, peace that only comes from being in their Lord’s presence again. Jesus knows this, and this is what he offers.

When Peter is hurting out of guilt for having betrayed Jesus, Jesus cooks him breakfast, welcomes him back in, and offers him the forgiveness that Peter most needs.

So it makes sense then that when Thomas is the one who needs Jesus, Jesus comes back just for him so that he may encounter his risen Lord as well.

Jesus knows each of these witnesses: their brokenness and their deepest needs.

What they and we all most need is Christ himself, which he has given wholly and completely to all on the cross. 

It is no insignificant detail that the resurrected body of Jesus still bears wounds; we can only know him as the crucified and risen Lord. The healer became the wounded, and by his wounds, we are all healed.

The cross is where we know who God is for us: our God is this Jesus, who on that cross, set us free from sin and death, offers forgiveness and life in a never-ending relationship with the Triune God, and now reveals himself to Thomas and to us all in the midst of our woundedness, bearing his own wounds so that we might be healed and believe.

It is by these wounds that we and the disciples recognize him, by these wounds that God is revealed, and by these wounds that all will come to believe.

It was by these wounds that Kiana came to believe.

In the summer of 2007, I had a camper named Kiana. Nine-year-old Kiana wasn’t really sure what she “believed” about God. She went to Sunday school, and she came to Bible camp because her mom said that she should, but she had a really hard time believing what she heard there. During the week, it became clear that Kiana did not really want to talk about God. She wanted to talk about her dad. She had never met him, she missed him, and she was jealous of her friends who had dads. “Do you think he maybe still loves me?” she asked me.

That Thursday evening at worship, Jesus gave Kiana what she most needed, and he came to her through the wounds of the preacher, Samuel. Samuel shared his own pain of growing up without his father: the wounds of feeling unwanted, unloved, and cast aside, how he longed for his father, hoping that he would return. Then he witnessed how through Jesus, he met his heavenly Father, the God who loved him, wanted to be with him, and came to earth as Jesus Christ so that he could know this God and died so that Samuel might never be separated from or doubt that love again.

After hearing this, Kiana looked up at me through a teary smile and said: “I never knew that Jesus came for me. Me!  I never knew that God wanted to be that close to me, as close as a dad. I want that too. Jesus is real, Emily! It was like that man spoke just for me because Jesus knew I needed him.”

Because Samuel was willing to share his pain, how Jesus had been wounded for him, and how Jesus met Samuel in his own wounds, Kiana was able to see how Jesus was at work for her.

That night in worship, Jesus came to her through Samuel’s wounds, and through her own to meet her deepest needs saying, “Kiana, come. Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

When Jesus became real for her, when she knew that God wanted this relationship with her, she shared it with me. And because she shared her wounds with me and how Jesus met her in them—because of her witness—I could say, “Ah, that’s where God is at work. There you are my Lord and my God.”

Kiana, Samuel, Thomas, and Jesus himself all witness to us today that God can take our most painful wounds and use them as some of our most fruitful places of witness. 

We are called to face death, to share our pain, to show our wounds, expecting that the risen and wounded Lord will meet us there because we know from the cross that the Triune God is with us in our suffering and encounters us in death, in despair, in wounds. God is made known in the brokenness of the body of Jesus.

Now we are that body, the body of Christ, and through our brokenness, Christ will make himself known, for he tells us, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

There are daily deaths, daily losses in our own lives: we still sin, we have weaknesses. As Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us…[we are] always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.”

We are the clay jars, broken and fragmented, worn by time, and weathered by storms. We are Christ’s body, wounded, yet carrying this good news of the resurrected Christ who sets all people free and offers life to all.

As long as we pretend that we have it all together, and hide our wounds, we keep ourselves and the good news locked away behind closed doors. We deny that the crucified and risen Lord has power to bring healing out of brokenness, hope out of suffering, and life out of death.

Even the resurrected body of Christ had wounds: this tells us that we can finally stop pretending to be invincible and instead be vulnerable like our Lord, who, though equal with his Father, emptied himself, came as a baby and ultimately poured himself out for us on the cross.

Rather than hide our wounds in embarrassment, thinking that they make us less-than, we may share them openly and honestly, trusting that the Triune God will transform our wounds, us, and all of our relationships as we encounter Christ together in our brokenness.

That is how we bear Christ’s death as his body. If we will dare to share our deepest wounds with one another, if we will be willing to face deaths by giving of ourselves in order to freely care for and love those in our lives, then we will have our eyes opened and discover that our Lord has been there all along, working in the midst of those wounds, working for healing, working to be revealed. God is bringing life out of these deaths so that more may believe and have life in Christ’s name.

When we dare to admit how we have been wounded and how we have wounded one another, the Triune God opens doors for people to see Jesus at work in our wounds and in their own.

Doubting Thomas witnesses to how Jesus brought him to faith. When our Lord sends us to give ourselves away in love by showing our wounds, we witness to just what God can do with a broken, wounded body. Then together, all may say, “Ah, there you are, my Lord and my God.”

Amen. 

Our Lord Jesus called us to follow his path of suffering for the sake of the world, and that frightens us even more than death sometimes: when we meet him, risen, he calms our fears by showing us where that path ultimately goes, and how he goes with us.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, the Resurrection of Our Lord, year A; texts:  Matthew 28:1-10 (with reference to John 13 and Psalm 27:1)

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

“Do you know what I have done to you?”  On Thursday we heard Jesus say this to his disciples.  Do you know what I have done to you?  He had just washed their feet, obviously.  But he had a deeper question: did they understand this?  So he went on, “I have set you an example.  You call me Teacher and Lord, and I am, but I have just served you.  This is the example.  This is now what you are called to do.  As I have loved you, so you should love one another.”

When the women came to the tomb, first the angel, and later Jesus, said, “Do not be afraid.”  But only minutes after those words on Thursday, Jesus also had to say, “Do not be afraid.”

Do you understand why?  The women were afraid at the tomb; why?  Because of the rolled away stone, the angel from heaven?  Probably.  The guards were afraid, so much so that they were paralyzed on the ground, as if they were dead.

But I think there is a deeper fear at play for disciples of our Lord Jesus to which we need our Lord to speak.  The women came to the tomb to pay respects to their dead Master, and may or may not have remembered he promised he would rise from the dead.  But what they did know was this: he had intentionally taken the path that led to his death.  He was no victim, he chose this way.  Whatever happened afterward.  And they knew that he had also clearly, openly called them, commanded them even, that if they were to follow him, this was their path as well.

Now do you see, sisters and brothers, why we, who are also disciples of this crucified Lord, might be afraid?  Why we might deeply need to hear our Lord’s comforting voice on the road of our lives?

We return to Thursday and Friday and Saturday, to the Great Three Days (which actually conclude tonight at sundown), so that we can fully understand this day, this morning.  And what comes next.

This path of Jesus, this chosen way he takes, the example he sets before us, is central to all the imagery of the Three Days.  Did you ever notice that all our images of the faithful path we see in these days involve loss?

Jesus on his knees, washing the feet of his disciples and saying, “do this.”  Lose your dignity and pride, get on your knees and serve each other.

Jesus giving bread and wine and tying it to his body and blood, to his death.  So every time we celebrate the meal, as Paul told us Thursday, we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”  Every Eucharist speaks of his sacrifice, is shaped by this image.

Jesus in the garden that night, doing the Father’s will.  Setting aside what he wants, his way, and willingly choosing his Father’s way.

Friday’s cross is a massive image of loss, but remember the truth of the Gospels: this was a chosen path; this is in fact the very place where Jesus begins to rule in truth, as King of the world.  His rule will be found in giving up of power and dominance, so Jesus gives up all use of power, forbidding the angel armies and Peter to intervene.  His rule will be found in losing oneself for the sake of others, of entering suffering and death to redeem all, so Jesus is, on the humiliating cross of Rome, declared King by his enemies.

And last night, when we turned to stories of deliverance, we saw the same images again and again.

The Israelites have to trust the Lord and go into the sea, risk their death, before they get to the other side.  They have to go into wilderness to find Promised Land.

Jonah sacrifices himself to save the ship, tells his fellow sailors to throw him in, because the storm has come due to his disobedience.  The swallowing of Jonah by the great sea monster – a horrible image – is actually God’s deliverance of Jonah from drowning.

And the three young men, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, go into the flames saying, “We don’t know if God will save us or not, but we won’t bow down to your statue.  So do what you will.”

Christian people often say they are not afraid of death, they are more afraid of dying.  There’s more truth in that that we know.  We mean the process of death, the last hours, days, months, when we say that, of course.  Christians trust in the resurrection of the dead.  But many fear lingering, painful deaths, fear being a burden to loved ones, fear suffering that can’t be alleviated.

But we’ve made sacrificial love, the love Jesus has, the love to which he called all his disciples, such a high standard – to give one’s life – that we have effectively removed it from our daily lives.  And that’s because that’s the dying we really fear.

Because if we truly understood Jesus’ example, it would mean that we would live in our closest relationships losing ourselves for the sake of the other.  Dying, even.  Dying to getting our own way.  Dying to “being ourselves” and acting however we feel like acting.  Dying to being centered on ourselves that we might focus on others.

And in our broken world, sometimes it seems as if the only ones who are dying to self are those who are forced into it by abuse and attack by those closest to them, or forced into it by a system that perpetuates poverty and want in a world of abundance.  This is not the servant life Christ imagines.  He calls us all to a world where all give of themselves to others and so all are whole and served and loved.  But that kind of giving is a dying to self for the sake of others.

That kind of dying we fear.  Because suddenly we’re not talking about a hypothetical situation where we might be asked to give our lives and we hope we’d find the courage to do what Jesus said.

There’s nothing hypothetical about daily life in this world.  And that’s where the dying, the serving, the sacrificial life is lived.  Yes, Jesus died on a cross, the ultimate end of the path he chose.  But before then, he was on his knees, washing filthy feet.  And somehow he thought they were the same kind of sacrifice.

Our Lord tells us we are needed to save the world, to offer ourselves to end hunger, oppression, suffering.  We know this, it’s our call.

But if we cannot learn to die in our daily lives, how will we ever handle the big tasks?  How can we lose what we need to lose to transform our city so that others might have life, if we’re not even willing to start in our own homes, our own relationships?  How can we lose what we need to lose to end poverty and hunger for people we’ve never met around the world if we’re afraid of losing to those whom we love the most?

So make no mistake, we need our Lord’s words today, “Do not be afraid.”

We need to set aside our fears that we might lose in this world.

That is, start finding ways to help each other find courage to become different people in our homes, at work, at church.  Each of us has choices every day where we could be on our knees to others with our lives, and as we walk this path together we can help encourage each other.  And we can repeat Jesus’ words to each other, “Don’t be afraid.”  So that the Spirit begins to change us into people who truly look like Jesus in this world.

We need to set aside our fears of suffering, too.

We’ve bought into the world’s notion that all suffering is bad and to be avoided.  So we even avoid people in grief and pain because of our fear of suffering, or tell them by words or actions that we don’t want to hear about it.  When in fact our Lord has said that when we enter into that suffering and pain of others with them, though it costs, it is the way we live, and they live.  So facing our fear of suffering, learning that there are far worse things in this world, so that we can stand with others in their pain, will need our reminding each other of Jesus’ words, too.

But mostly, we simply need to hear our Lord and trust.

Because we’re not going to be able to get rid of these fears by straining.  Only by trusting.  As a child trusts a parent, simply because the parent says, “Don’t be afraid.”

That’s where we help each other, as we listen, and walk with each other, when each of us fears this servant life and what it might mean for us.  When we speak Jesus’ comfort into that situation, we stand in his name.  And gradually, together we learn to trust that we need not be afraid anymore.

And all this flows from this great joy of today: when the risen Jesus tells us “do not be afraid,” he frees us from paralysis.

Isn’t it remarkable that the armed, armored, trained soldiers are terrified into paralysis and the weak, ordinary women are standing, and able to go and tell?  They are like dead men, the soldiers.  The women are alive.

They’re still afraid, Matthew says.  But they leave the tomb to do the angel’s bidding “with fear and great joy.”  And great joy.

That’s what we are here to know today, why we’ve come, why this day is the day that matters.  Why this is the true day that the LORD has made and in which we rejoice and are glad.

Because this is what Jesus’ empty tomb means: our path may lead to suffering, to loss, to little daily deaths every day.  But we belong to a Lord who enters death to defeat it.  And who rises from that death to new life.

If Jesus had not risen, the call to follow, to serve, to lose, would still stand for his disciples.  But in rising, he tells us that this path that involves dying is ultimately a path of life.  Certainly life after we die.

But life when we die daily, too: resurrection life filled the early Church and ever since, and they lived without fear, changed their community life, their personal life, changed the world.

And resurrection life fills our lives as well, gives us the courage to live as servant disciples, in sacrificial love, fills our lives with meaning and joy.  Which balances the fear we sometimes feel, just as it has for disciples ever since those first women.

This is the gift of “do not be afraid”: we are freed to live without fear, and to follow our Lord’s example and path.

And perhaps we might begin by recognizing we are learning this path together, and it is a path, so we won’t be fully where we are going to be.  Sometimes our paralysis and fear can come from thinking we have to have it all together all at once.

But we certainly can start with what we might call baby steps.  Start in our homes and lives, at work, here in this place.  We can start learning what it is to walk the path of dying there, where we spend most of our lives, knowing that we are filled with the life of the risen Lord always.

Then, as we learn this, we can also begin to learn what that means in this city, in our neighborhoods, in our nation and world.  We are called to bear in our bodies the love of God for this world, love as Jesus has.  There’s no limit to where we can be useful.

“Do you know what I have done to you?” Jesus asks us.

And we answer today, “yes, though we’re kind of afraid of what this might mean.  But we see you are alive and ruling through this losing, this serving, this giving, this loving.”  We hear our Lord say, “Do not be afraid,” and that gives us the courage we need to go out and be like our Lord ourselves.  And yes, we go out a little afraid, still.  We will need to look for our Lord on our roads so he can continue to meet us and continue to say, “Do not be afraid.”  We go out a little in fear, like those women.

But we also, like those women, go out in great joy.  Because our Lord is risen; the Triune God has entered the death and suffering and evil and pain of this world and of our lives and changed it into life and wholeness and good and joy, and that is a gift we know now, even as we long for its fullness when we make our final journey through death.

Do not be afraid, my friends, for we belong to the Lord of Life.  It is a path he has walked already to which we are now called.  And since the risen Lord is our light and our salvation, what shall we fear?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

In the Word, water, wine and bread—and now through us—Christ pours out his love for all the world. 

Vicar Emily Beckering; Maundy Thursday; texts: John 13:1-17, 31b-34; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

In tonight’s gospel, and in our own journey through Holy Week, we are nearing the end. We are drawing closer to Jesus’ crucifixion and death. In these last hours, Jesus works intently to show and form his disciple by his love. Through everything that happens in tonight’s gospel, and through everything in our liturgy this evening, Christ is pouring out his love for us and for the world.

Christ pours this love out in water, Word, bread and wine. 

Jesus first pours this love out upon his disciples by washing their feet. Their master and teacher is now the one who kneels before them. They do not know what he has done to them, or will do for them, nor will they until his resurrection. He is not only cleaning their feet, or even reversing their roles, but rather expressing his deep love for them; it is a tangible experience of that love for them to cling to in the days ahead that will stir up doubt and fear. As he pours the water out over their feet, he pours out his love over them. In doing so, he shows them the love that he will ultimately pour out on the cross.

He also points to this love as he pours the wine and breaks the bread. In this same night in which he will be betrayed, as we hear from Paul, our Lord Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, saying, “This is my body for you.” And he took the cup saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.”

This evening, in these same Words, water, and wine, Christ pours out his love upon us as he did for the disciples. Jesus is also the one at our feet. When we watch the water being poured out over our sisters’ and brothers’ feet later this evening, we see Christ’s love.

When we dip our fingers into the font, the water which made us God’s own and united us with Christ’s death and resurrection, we touch Christ’s love. By this water, we too have been washed clean.

Through the absolution given to us at the beginning of worship, we heard Christ’s love saying, “I forgive you all of your sins.”

These same words are given to us tonight at the table. When we watch the wine poured out, drink it, and eat the bread, we are fed by Christ’s love. With, in, and under the bread and wine, Christ says to us, “Out of the deep, unfailing love with which I love you, I promise the forgiveness of all your sins and eternal life.”

It is as if through all of this, the Triune God is saying to us, “are you beginning to see how much I love you?”

If we are just beginning to see, then we see the full extent of Jesus’ love by his death on the cross, where he literally empties himself, pouring himself out for the sake of love.

As such, Jesus Christ is the Triune God’s love poured out, wholly and completely for all.

This is how we know what love is: that Christ laid down his life for us. In him, we see God’s aching passion for the world, God’s desire to be united with us, and the lengths that God was willing to go to make that relationship possible and to show us the depth with which we are loved. God the Son would rather die than lose us to disobedience, distrust, or fear of death. By his death and resurrection, he has conquered sin, death, and everything that would otherwise prevent us from loving God or one another so that we need not fear anything; anything that we could lose—even our life itself—has already ultimately been won.

This is also how we know who God is: that Christ laid down his life for us. In him, we know for sure that God is merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. The Triune God did not choose to be revealed through legions of angels, through earthquakes, wind, or fire but through the silence of a tomb entered because he loved us to the point of death while we were still sinners. God did not deal with this sin and brokenness by punishing us, abandoning or giving up on us, or destroying us, but by taking it all on through Christ and offering us forgiveness, relationship, and everlasting life. Even in the night in which he was betrayed, he gives himself fully to his betrayer.

We see God’s full intention in Christ—the one who was born that all might know God’s love, died that no one be separated from it, rose again that we might have life in his name, prayed for us in the garden of Gethsemane before we were born, and comes to us tonight in the bread and wine so that we might trust that all of these promises are for us—we have been loved since the very beginning and that love will never waiver.

Now that we know that we are his own and loved to the end, we are given a new commandment: to love as Christ has loved us.

Now we become Christ’s love poured out.

Through the love with which he loves us, Christ unites us at his table. As we eat the bread and drink the wine, Christ makes us into his actual body and blood. As his body, we will live, love, and die like Christ. As his blood, we will be poured out where God’s love is needed. God will place our neighbor’s feet into our hands and ours into our neighbor’s. This is not done figuratively, but in real and profound ways.

Just as washing the twelve’s feet is physical expression of the love that Jesus will pour out for them on the cross, the disciples are to wash one another’s feet as way to act out laying down their lives for one another. It is a practice meant to train their hearts, minds, and bodies to love one another, first in humble service, and then by giving of themselves for each another.

In the same way, we know that the washing of feet once a year is not the fulfillment of Christ’s command, but we do this to train our hearts, minds, and bodies in the posture of giving of ourselves to care for, support, and love one another.

We do the same when we pass Christ’s peace, so that we learn to live our whole lives sharing Christ’s peace with others through words, service, and presence. We share the peace intentionally before we go to the table so that we make a habit of seeking and offering forgiveness and reconciling relationships in order to prepare for Christ to make us into the one body, without divisions.

In all of this—the washing of feet, the passing of peace, the breaking of bread, consoling one another—the Holy Spirit forms us to love one another as Christ. All of these actions are an acting-out beforehand, an internalization of the new commandment so that this love becomes so much a part of us that when the occasion arises to lay down our lives for one another, we do it without hesitation.

We know that we are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome strangers, and visit the sick and imprisoned—and we do do this, with grateful hearts. But the new commandment that we are given to love one another as Christ has loved us pushes us even further: to love so fiercely that we let go, lose, forgive, die.

This call often comes at the most inconvenient times; the Holy Spirit has a way of putting people on our hearts. When we find ourselves resisting these nudgings, dragging our feet, avoiding—whenever we find ourselves asking, “Lord, let this cup pass from me,”—these moments are when we need to pay the most attention because it is to these places of difficulty and death that we are sent. These are the places where Christ’s love is most needed.

But we are also promised that the Holy Spirit will keep working in us until we become so secure in Christ’s love that we no longer fear death…until we trust that in dying, the Triune God will bring new life: restored relationships, forgiveness, hope, and Christ’s love will show forth. Just as we know who God is through Christ’s love, the world will know Christ through our love. As often as we eat of this bread and drink from this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. As often as we give of ourselves for one another and for the world, then we proclaim the Lord’s love until he comes.

This day, this week, this whole life—even the new commandment that we are given—is an outpouring of God’s love. All that the Triune God has done through Christ has been done in that love, poured out in water, in wine and bread, in Word, in death, and now through us, in order that all may know that they are Christ’s own, loved without end. We were made and saved in love, by love, for love. That love was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.

Amen.

It is in this Passion of our Lord that Christ Jesus becomes king, shows the depth of divine royalty, reveals the shape of God’s plan to regain rule over this disobedient planet: God, and so also we, will enter into the depths of evil to redeem it from within.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, the Sunday of the Passion, year A; texts:  Isaiah 50:4-9a; Matthew 26:14 – 27:66

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

You want to know what we’ve been missing about today, and this whole week?  This is not a day that begins in triumph and ends in tragedy, it is a day that from beginning to end is about seeing the kingdom of God come to be.  The cross isn’t a setback; it’s the whole plan.  It’s where Jesus acts as the true king.

Matthew, along with Luke and John, reminds us that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem this week was the coming of a king.  Riding on a donkey, with palms and shouts, this evoked the prophet’s promise that this is how the king would arrive.  So there’s nothing humble about Jesus’ actions on this Sunday, at least not in the sense of the symbolism of his ride into town.  He was declaring himself king.

But we also just heard Matthew tell us that on Friday of this week the soldiers also hailed Jesus as king, and gave him royal appointments and clothes, and the religious leaders also called him king, on the cross.  At the same time, the Gospels all agree that over Jesus’ head at his death was a sign – the same sign all criminals received over their crosses, the sign announcing their name and their crime – and that on Jesus’ sign it declared him a king, the King of the Jews.  Now, Pilate likely intended that as mocking – his crime was his kingship – and the religious leaders certainly read it as such.  And the soldiers and religious leaders also were mocking when they named this of Jesus.  But actually, they all, unknowingly, were proclaiming God’s truth, that here, on this cross, the King was beginning his rule.  And the Gospel writers all understand this.

Jesus becomes king on the cross, that’s what the Gospels say.  The reason for our walking through the events of this week every year, as we’ve done for 2,000 years, is that we more and more understand what happened and why and what it means for us.  But we seemed to have missed this point.

There is a disconnect in our thinking between Jesus’ ministry before this week and the week itself and that has misled us.

We’ve always considered Jesus’ teachings and miracles and ministry as good and worthy of consideration, the start of a great story.  And then we come to this week and we think that it all ends badly.

We blame Judas for his betrayal, the disciples for their fear, the Jewish authorities for their blindness and jealousy, the crowds for their fickleness, or the Roman governor for his cowardice.  If only people would have seen the truth about Jesus, we think, none of this would have happened.  This week is a tragic mistake, an accident.

Or sometimes we see the events of this week as a divine court judgment where the Son of God is tortured and punished because of our sin.  Sometimes it almost sounds like we think almighty God has a blood lust that has to be satisfied, and since our sins are deserving of death, if we’re to avoid that, someone needs to die, someone’s blood needs to be shed.  So in comes Jesus.

But in fact, the Gospels tell us from the beginning that Jesus, the Son of God, will bring in God’s kingdom, will inaugurate the rule of the Triune God, in losing and dying, in entering evil and suffering personally in order to overturn it.

From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus says “the kingdom of God is near, is at hand.”  And he says that in that kingdom, the blessed ones are the meek, the sufferers, the peacemakers.  He says he will rule as king, but that he didn’t come to be served, but to serve.

He declares that in him God has come to be with the broken, the weak, the sad, the dispossessed, and will take on all of that with them, and so bring them to life.  He says that in the kingdom, you lose your life instead of trying to save it, and that you pray for your enemies, love your enemies, even.

How could anyone have expected anything other than the cross from someone who talks like this?

We talk a lot about how the people of Jesus’ day had expectations of Messiah that Jesus didn’t fulfill, that he’d be a political leader, and we smugly note how misguided they were.  We ignore that we have the same expectations post-Easter.  We expect now that he’s risen, now God ought to clean house, rule with power, take care of all this evil, these problems.

We pray as if God’s whole role is to remove suffering from our lives and our world by magic or miracle.  And we act in the world like people always have acted, seeking our own way, using power whenever we can to make happen what we think needs to happen.

And we expect that is how God is supposed to work in the world.  But that’s because we haven’t seen that the cross was the beginning of Jesus’ rule.  We’ve learned nothing from the mistakes of 2,000 years ago.

The Hebrew prophets actually saw the truth coming.  We heard today the first part of the servant songs of Isaiah which speak of God’s anointed servant offering his life for the people, and not just for Israel, but to bless the whole world.  That it would come by God’s anointed taking on suffering and pain, undeservedly, in order to transform it.  Why else do you think the Evangelists persist in saying that all this was told in the Scriptures already?

If this week’s events are a tragic mistake, or Judas’ (or anyone’s) fault, how do you make sense of the prophets, of Jesus’ teaching?  If this week’s events are God’s need for blood and punishment of someone, and Jesus is going to get it instead of us, how do you make sense of the prophets, of Jesus’ teaching?

So this is what we know from Scripture: Pilate’s sign is the hidden truth of God.  This is the way God will rule in the world, not through power and might and destruction of evil.  We just heard Matthew tell us Jesus had 72,000 angels to command should he have wanted a way of power and dominance.  He could have avoided the cross.  That he did not needs to teach us something.

By entering into evil and losing all power to it, by offering himself to restore all things, the Son of God begins God’s rule.  The cross isn’t the Father’s bloodlust being answered by the Son’s death, because in the Triune God, Father, Son and Spirit are offering God’s own life for the sake of the world.

The cross isn’t a tragic mistake, or the blame of any ancient or modern sinners, but God’s ultimate and final way to deal not just with my sin or yours, but the sinful disobedience of this entire world.

God rules by losing, at the cross, and still today.  That’s what this week needs to teach us.

So this is why we do what we do today, and for the next seven days.

We face this week as a solemn contemplation, not as our seeking maudlin pantomime, trying to re-create emotions from 2,000 years ago.  We contemplate the events of today, and each day, that we might learn the truth about God’s rule in the world, a truth we’ve lost by not seeing this week as God would have us see it.  We walk this path each year because we need to take evil as seriously as God does, and because only by regular contemplation can we begin to learn what God is doing.

If we avoid such contemplation, we take great risks.

We risk missing the whole point about God and evil even for today, how God is actually working, not how we want God to work.  Knowing that this is how God did and does deal with it is critical to our understanding of how God acts in the suffering of the world today.

We also risk missing the whole point about how we are to engage the world and evil, how this completely sets aside any question of power/over and dominance for us as well.  Isaiah’s servant songs are famously ambiguous: you can’t tell by reading if it’s God’s anointed, one person, who enters suffering to redeem all, or if it’s God’s anointed, the whole people of God, who do.  I think the answer is both.  Baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, this path of loss and sacrifice, of entering evil and suffering, is not just Jesus’ chosen path.  It’s our called path.

The Son of God says that suffering is not necessarily the worst thing that can happen, that by sharing the suffering of others we redeem it, that by offering ourselves to stand against evil, though it will cost us, we take the path by which all will be restored.  This is not what the world thinks.  And we can’t know this, believe this, live this, if we don’t take seriously our contemplation of God’s work in this week every year.

This is the truth about this week: we see how God is truly King over all things.

We just sang, “Here might I stay and sing, no story so divine; never was love, dear King!  That is the truth: there is nothing more divine, nothing more loving, nothing more kingly, than this story, this truth, this week.  This is the true love of the true King and God of the universe.  This passion and death are the point of how God will be in the world.

That’s why we “stay and sing.”  So we can learn this.  Trust this.  Begin to understand this.  And so we are ready to follow in the same path when our King calls to us.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen