The gift of the return of Christ to the Father is that we are carried into the life of the Triune God and fully understood, known, and united with the God whose love for us and the world cannot be stopped, even by death.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, The Ascension of Our Lord (A, B, C); texts: Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53

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

There is a prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi which includes this line: “grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.”  There is deep wisdom in these petitions, a sense of what it might mean to fully inhabit the life of Christ which is our calling and our anointing in Baptism, that we look to the other’s needs and burdens before our own.  This is right and good, and worthy of our prayer.

That being said, there is nothing quite like knowing that we are understood by another, loved by another.  Perhaps that’s why it’s so important that we pray that we offer that to others.  But I have been thinking a great deal this week about the gift Christ’s ascension gives us of being understood better, more fully, by the Triune God.

All our readings assigned for this festival focus on the reality that our Lord Christ leaves us.

Even Paul’s words to the Ephesians, which speak of Christ’s enthronement above all rule and authority, words which echo the psalm for today, are living in the reality that our Lord Jesus is no longer with us in the flesh.  And Luke’s two ascension accounts, our first reading and Gospel, are strictly from our point of view.  Jesus spends time with his disciples after his resurrection.  He teaches them, talks to them, helps them understand.  And then, 40 days after he is raised, Jesus ascends to heaven to return to the Father.

This is our common view of the ascension: the departure of the Incarnate One.  But what if we focus for a moment not on what is happening here on earth, but on what might be happening within the life of the Triune God?

There is much to be said about the ministry and work that is left to us in our Lord’s ascension, that we are entrusted to bring the Good News to the world.  But there is something in this whole story we might do well to consider: what happens when the eternal Son of God, now Incarnate as fully human and fully divine, returns to the Godhead (in whatever way his return might mean).

Right now we’re studying Hebrews on Thursday evenings, and that text suggests the idea that  perhaps the ascension is important for what God learns as well.

I want to read just a couple lines from this great New Testament sermon to help clarify this: Hebrews 4:14-15, and Hebrews 9:24.  First: “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”  And then: “For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.”

Christ left us, says this preacher, to be our high priest before God.  We have lost the sense of what that image means for us.  The high priest in Judaism was the one who could stand for the people before God.  Who would make sacrifice on their behalf, and seek forgiveness for them.  Who would enter the Holy of Holies on their behalf.

And a large part of the point of the sermon to the Hebrews is to say that Christians need no more high priests since Jesus has become the High Priest par excellence.  And why is he such a great high priest for us?  Hebrews says because he is like us, was tested like us, knows our pain, our sorrow, our fear, can sympathize with our weaknesses, even while being at the same time the divine Son of God.

The whole point of the Incarnation was for God to be with us.  And in the Son of God, we have someone who knows us better than we know ourselves.  Sometimes we think that the great news about “God-with-us,” Emmanuel, is that now we know God better through Jesus.  That is true.

But this preacher suggests that a wonderful thing about God being with us in Jesus is that the Triune God now understands us better.  What an insight, and what good news!  Here is the profound implication of the ascension: raised from the dead and ascended to the Father, now Christ Jesus can speak on our behalf before God, be our great high priest.

Whatever mystery lies in the life of the Triune God, after the ascension it contains human flesh.  At no point are we told that the Incarnation is undone, so humanity is now drawn fully into the life of God.

Consider what that means: God understands us now in a deeply different way.  We normally have a sense of separateness between God and humanity that is understandable: God is God, and we are not.  But somehow, ascended to the Father, the Son now brings us into God’s inner life.  Our fears and hopes, our pains and delights, our sadness and our joys, our very flesh.  These are now brought into the inner life of God.

So it’s no longer God on one side, us on the other.  God up there, us down here, wherever we mean by “there” or “here.”  The prayer we will hear Jesus pray next Sunday is fulfilled in this ascension: “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.”  To think that we are that known and understood by the Triune God is awe-inspiring.

This is the great joy of Jesus’ ascension.

The Son of God isn’t gone at all.  We are not abandoned, left behind.  Instead, he’s so deeply concerned for us, loves us so much, and since he knows us so intimately, he’s returned to the Father to plead for us, to intercede on our behalf, to be our Advocate before the Father.  To bring us to God.

So as not to leave us orphaned here, he sends the Holy Spirit to be with us.  To be another Advocate, he says, from God to us.  (And Paul would suggest, the Spirit also speaks to the Trinity on our behalf.)  But that’s the story of ten days hence.

For now, we carry this joy: in ascending, our Lord has gone to where he can do the most good for us and for the world, the throne of the Father.  And even when we don’t know what to pray for in our pain or sorrow or fear or anxiety, we can know without doubt that our Lord is already there, praying on our behalf.  Bearing our life into the life of God, that we might be fully understood and loved by the God who already loved us enough to die for us.

So let’s not stand here gaping at heaven as if today is a day of sadness.

Instead, let’s rejoice that we have such an Advocate in heaven for our sake, someone who knows us so well and loves us even more, who can always speak on our behalf.

And someone who leaves behind the gift of himself in this Meal, so we have him with us here, too.  Someone who gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit, so we can be filled with God’s love and grace, who doesn’t leave us orphaned.

Today is not about a sad ending.  It’s about the beginning of the great news of Jesus’ life on our behalf in heaven and his presence with us here in the Spirit.  Thanks be to God, today is just the beginning of the course of God’s love in our lives and in the life of the world!

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Baptism can be overlooked as an individual act, something that happens to one person.  But in fact, baptism is the act of joining the entire community of believers and the community of the Triune God.  On this river of life we join together to make a difference in the world.

Vicar Neal Cannon; Sixth Sunday of Easter, year C; texts: John 5:1-9, Acts 16:9-15, Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5

One summer, we rented an RV.  I was in early high school and our family decided we we’re going to see some of the country.  Apparently our Suburban with eight seats wasn’t big enough for our family of six for this kind of road trip.  In fairness, we’re a big family, we needed the elbow room.

We did a lot of things on this trip.  We camped in various locations, we visited with extended family, and we saw a lot of touristy sites.  One of those sites that we saw was Lake Itasca State Park here in Minnesota.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, Lake Itasca State Park has a special claim that makes it a popular tourist destination.

Lake Itasca is known for being the headwaters to the mighty Mississippi River.  So when the Cannon clan arrived in our RV, we jumped out in the middle of July, and hiked a short path to the headwaters of one of the largest and most important rivers in the United States.

And I remember, coming out of a little clearing seeing something only slightly better than a creek, a small plaque noting the creek’s significance, and being WILDLY disappointed.  This particular creek made Minnehaha Creek look like a roaring rapid! And I have to admit, after spending about two minutes there my first thought was, when can we go back to the RV?

Perhaps I missed the significance of this particular headwater.

You see, what you have to appreciate about the headwaters of the Mississippi, is that this little creek, this trickle, this seemingly insignificant water, joins another creek, and another creek, and then another creek.  And then this creek becomes a river. And then many other rivers join this river until at its greatest point the Mississippi is seven miles wide, and continues flowing south until it reaches the Gulf of Mexico.

Now think about that for a minute.  What once starts out as an insignificant little creek becomes one of the most important waterways in all of North America.  This creek that begins as something you could overlook or pass by becomes something of staggering beauty and importance.  This creek becomes a river that brings water and life to most of this country.  Through this little creek, you are connected to the ocean, and thus the entire world.

Still, it’s easy to miss the significance of something with a small beginning.  The sad reality is that like my reaction to the Mississippi River’s headwater we in the church often miss the significance of baptism.

In many churches baptism is viewed as a cute ritual or rite of passage, but often we miss baptism’s real importance and meaning.  For example, in baptism we make promises to the baptized, but rarely reflect on the importance of those words.  Congregants make promises to support the baptized in faith, but often never speak to the baptized again.  Baptismal sponsors and parents promise to help raise the child in faith, but how often do we remember to celebrate a baptismal anniversary?  As church leaders we hand parents a certificate, but too often we never find ways to support families in faith formation.

In this sense, baptism is viewed in the same way I regarded the headwaters of the Mississippi.  We’re not impressed.  But like the mighty Mississippi, our baptism starts as something small and easy to overlook, but becomes something far greater.

Lydia’s baptismal journey, for example, begins with one seemingly insignificant encounter.  When Paul and his companions arrive in Macedonia, they come to a group of women, one of whom was Lydia.  Acts tells us that God opens Lydia’s heart to the Word of God, and she is baptized.  Right away Lydia says, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.”

Think about this rapid transformation.  Lydia, a woman on the outskirts of the city who is possibly a widow, encounters two strangers who proclaim a foreign gospel to her.  In this encounter God opens her heart to hear the Gospel and when she is baptized she immediately welcomes these strange men into her home.

Like one creek that flows into another creek and one river that flows into another river, in baptism Lydia immediately enters into a new community that supports her and she in turn supports back.  In this same baptism, God opens Lydia’s heart to the Word of God, to Jesus, and is given the Holy Spirit.  In other words, in baptism Lydia is in community with the Triune God and the entire body of Christ.

In the same way, in our baptismal journey we begin as individuals and leave as a community.  We begin as strangers with nothing in common and we leave as a family connected through Jesus Christ.  And like the Mississippi these baptismal waters bring us together and connect us to the world.

Think of it this way, today Tate Kaufenberg will be baptized as a child of God.  And in this baptism, this community will promise to uphold her in faith.  So much so that wherever Tate goes, no matter what she does, our promise is to support her with all the love, wisdom, and guidance that this community and the Triune God offer.

As such, she joins all baptized children of God who gather to worship God and to make a positive difference in not only this community but in all parts of the world.

This communal influence is radically important, especially in a society such as ours that values me, myself, and I above all else, because it’s also a society that has forgotten the value of ‘us,’ the value of community.

This is a society that has forgotten that we all need the collective love, wisdom, and guidance of those who have gone before us. We need people who say yes and no to us.  We need others to love and care for us when we’re down.  We can’t operate on our own.  Without community, we are on an incredibly lonely journey, like a creek that never connects to a larger body of water.

But in baptism, in community, we are shaped by and help to shape those around us because in baptism, we join a community that gives life to a neighborhood that gives life to a city that gives life to a region that gives life to our world.  And it’s in this baptism we join the headwaters of Triune God, where all healing and life giving water comes from.

As Revelation tells us, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.”

I sometimes laugh when we compare this image to the image of our baptism because it doesn’t seem like it measures up.  One could easily point out that our baptismal water doesn’t come a crystal river, but from the sink in the sacristy.  It’s not as if it were chipped away from the purest ice on the top of a mountain, and then hauled down by Franciscan monks and delivered directly to Mount Olive.

The truth is that this water begins as ordinary water.

But the beauty about baptism is that we claim that the water that comes from our sacristy sink is in fact the same water described in Revelation.  In baptism, it’s not ordinary water because as Luther says, “it is water enclosed in God’s command and connected to God’s word.” It’s water that’s connected to the headwater of the Lamb because it is connected to God.  And so in these words that Pastor Joseph will say to Tate, and to Tate’s Family, and to this congregation, we find that this is in fact the water that gives life to the world.

Revelation goes on to tell us that this water feeds the tree of life with leaves that bring healing to the nations.  And never more intimately is that healing found than in our gospel text today in the story of a man who had been ill, presumably paralyzed, for thirty eight years.

Now, there are a couple interesting points about this story. The first is that this story takes place at Beth-zatha, which in Hebrew means House of Nets.  But some manuscripts actually have Bethesda, which means, House of Mercy.

The second, is that it’s important to remember that at this time people with disability were stigmatized because it was believed that people became ill because of sin or wrongdoing that they or their family had committed.

So whatever the translation we use, it is clear that people came to the House of Mercy to be healed not only in body, but also to receive mercy and grace in the waters that were found there.

This is why it’s ironic and cruel that this man, who is lying on a mat and seeking healing in the House of Mercy, is bypassed, shoved out of the way, and disregarded time and time again; unable to even get into the waters that he believed would bring him healing. That is of course, until Jesus comes.

When Jesus comes he appears to be the only one who notices this man.  Jesus is the only one that cares enough to ask him, “Do you want to be made well?”

“Do you want to be made well?”  What a strange question to ask to someone who has been ill for thirty eight years.  The answer seems so obvious.  Of course he wants to be made well!  But the man essentially responds by saying, “I can’t get to the water.”

Jesus doesn’t waste time.  He says, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”  And the man does.

What I find fascinating about this story, is that the man never gets in the water at the House of Mercy but the water of life comes to him.  This man never knows who Jesus is, he never even makes a confession.  Still, the water of life that flows from the Lamb comes and brings mercy to this paralyzed man.

This same water of life comes to us in our baptism.  The same healing and mercy and love come to us before we’re ever able to make a confession and before we even know who Jesus is; before we know Jesus, Jesus in community with us.

In Tate’s baptism today and in all of our baptisms, the grace and mercy of God comes to us in seemingly insignificant ways.  And whether it’s the headwaters of the Mississippi or the kitchen sink from Mount Olive, this water does incredible things.  Like a creek that joins a river that joins the ocean in this baptism, we are joined together with this community that promises us love, guidance, and support. And what’s more, the Triune God comes to us and brings mercy and healing in these waters.

Baptism is an incredible gift, and I wonder what it would be like if we treated baptism not as the day we received a plaque but the day we set out on the mighty headwaters of the Lamb of God?

Because after all, this is the day that Jesus Christ comes to us and removes our shame and disgrace and instead clothes us with mercy and grace.  This is the day we join others and set out on an incredible journey to bring healing to our communities and yes, this entire world.

This is the day we remember that baptism is not ordinary water.  This water is water that is enclosed with God’s command, and connected with God’s word; this is the river of life.

And on the river we surround others with the Word of God and the community of God.  And on the river, the word of God and the community of God surround us also.

Thanks be to God.

The risen Christ whom we proclaim is Lord of all things has the only authority over the scope of God’s salvation, and claims that the Triune God’s plan is to make all things new in him.  Our job is to love the world as Christ, and proclaim this Good News to all.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Fifth Sunday of Easter C; texts: Acts 11:1-18; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35

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

The post-Easter followers of Jesus were continually confronted with changing realities, with experiences that profoundly shifted their world-view, their faith, the foundation of their lives.  Realities such as the fact that the beloved Master whom they saw killed was now alive.  Experiences which taught that things they believed to be true about God and the world were in fact not true, such as, the power to kill someone isn’t really as strong as they thought.  And they were repeatedly forced to recognize that they still had a lot to learn about the love of God revealed in the risen Jesus, a lot to learn about what God’s intentions for them and for the world were.

An example of this is our story from Acts today.  It’s the story of Peter defending his decision to eat with non-Jews, Gentiles, and in fact to welcome them into the church through baptism.  The event actually happens in chapter 10.  Today’s story from chapter 11 is Peter re-telling what happened and why to the leaders of the church in Jerusalem.

Peter describes yet another earth-shaking, faith-changing reality they all now had to face: God intends the kingdom, the rule of the risen Christ, to extend beyond the boundaries of the Jewish faith.

This is a massive shift of thinking: never had they contemplated this was the goal.

The record of Scripture suggests that whatever the disciples believed about Jesus it always assumed and lived in the reality that he was Jewish.  Even the religious leaders who had him executed likely didn’t consider the possibility that his mission was to the whole world.

That’s kind of understandable.  The Messiah was a Jewish concept, a promise to God’s chosen people.  Jesus was a Jewish teacher, with Jewish disciples.  He was killed because the leaders thought he was blaspheming the God of the Jews.  The one true God, but still, the God of the Jews.

But had they read their Scriptures more carefully they might have noticed something.  The Jews were God’s chosen people for a reason, a purpose: to be a blessing to the nations, to the whole world.  It’s central to God’s original covenant with Abraham in Genesis, repeated several times.

And in Isaiah it’s stated clearly in chapter 49, in one of the servant songs, where the prophet speaks the word of the LORD regarding the work Messiah will do: “It is too light a thing,” says the LORD, “that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (49:6)

So from the beginning it was in God’s plan to bring light to the whole world in Jesus.  But no one really seemed to be thinking much about that, not Jesus’ opponents, not even his followers.

I suppose it’s natural.  Human beings love being part of “in” groups.  We want to be the insiders, the special ones, and to do that we need to know who the outsiders are, the ones who aren’t us.  It’s how we ever justify war, or oppression, how we know we’re part of a good group, by claiming that “they” are a “they,” not an “us.”  But God’s plan in Jesus was to end “we” and “they” permanently.  That’s what Peter needed to learn.  And then teach to the rest of the Church.

This is God’s new reality (or at least a reality of God’s plan that is new to us) which we also need to be prepared to face.

The most profound part of this story is actually not the vision Peter has, but what the Holy Spirit does, and Peter’s deeply wise recognition of his own limitation.

Peter saw the Holy Spirit become present in the lives of ones he thought were outside God’s salvation.  He saw that the Gentiles received precisely the same gift of the Spirit he and the other believers received from Christ.  And he wisely realized it wasn’t his decision to make anymore about who got that gift.  Who am I, Peter said, that I could hinder God?

This is the wisdom we need to find.  In the Revelation to John, the part we heard today, the risen Christ, the One sitting on the throne, says “See, I am making all things new.” (21:5)  All things are made new in Christ Jesus, all things.  And, like Peter, we need to understand what that means.

The risen Jesus has brought this hope to the world: all peoples are in God’s love and care, all things, all people, all creation, will be made new.  After the resurrection, there are no “in” groups, no “out” groups.  No sense that Christians are the only ones inside God’s love because they know the truth.  All of God’s people are welcome, even if they don’t know what God has done in Jesus for the world.

And if God chooses to bless and to offer life to the whole world, who are we to hinder God?  When we understand this, we begin to see this truth in many places, and other questions occur to us.

What if Jesus was right in John 3:16 and 17, that God loved the whole world, the cosmos, the universe, enough to send the Son to save it, not to judge it?

What if Jesus was serious when he called Paul to become God’s messenger to the Gentiles, to non-Jews?

What if Jesus meant it when he said he intended to draw the whole world to himself in his death and resurrection?

Of course we’d be foolish not to believe Jesus and take him seriously.  But that’s just what we do.  We treat the Church as if it’s an exclusive club, and as if we get to make the rules about who’s in and out.  We treat those who do not believe in the lordship of Jesus as if they were lesser people, not worthy of God’s love.  Or if we’re feeling benevolent, we worry that those who do not believe are condemned to eternal torment after they die.  And we treat those with whom we disagree about issues of faith as people unworthy of our attention and love and respect, let alone God’s.

But it’s actually quite simple: we proclaim that the risen Christ is Lord of all things, and has drawn all creation into the life of the Triune God by his death and resurrection for all.

If that’s so, then perhaps we might actually want to reflect that we believe that to be true.

This is the point where Christians start asking with concern, “Are you talking about universalism?  To that we can only say, it’s not about labeling, or anything anyone else might or might not define as universalism.

If God the Father so loved the whole cosmos that he sent the Son, through whose death and resurrection, as the New Testament writers persistently affirm, the entire universe is subject to his rule, then the entire universe is subject to his rule.  And then all Jesus’ words about the limitless love of the Father, about the fact that the will of God is that all are found, all are saved, not judged, all these words also apply and are valid.

A cosmic view of the Lordship of Christ Jesus demands that we, at least, cannot put limits on his ability to love and save all whom he wishes.  And frankly, it doesn’t really matter what we call it, or whether or not we believe it.  God will do what God will do, and saying “who am I that I could hinder God” is not magnanimously saying, “We need to let God be God.”

It’s actually saying we don’t have any power to alter God’s plan anyway.  I’m sorry if this is news to anyone here, but we don’t get to vote on the shape and scope of God’s plan of salvation.  Which is probably a good thing for a large part of the world.  So it would be wise for us to get on board with what the Triune God actually says is the plan.

Of course, we don’t know precisely how Christ is going to do this, make all things new, draw all people to himself.  We don’t know how he’ll bring in people of other faiths, or people of no faith.  But we believe he will, that he intends to.

And I think that what Jesus says to us today is that it’s not our job to figure out how he’s going to do this, to come up with some theological plan that explains how it will work.  Paul tried doing that for three chapters in his letter to the Romans and ended up tied up in knots, sure of only one thing: God will save the Jewish people because God promised Abraham.  Paul never could figure out exactly how it would happen, though.

And that’s OK.  Because that’s not our job.  Our job, according to Jesus today, is simple: Love each other and the world as he loved us.  When we do this we’ll be a sign to the world that we follow Jesus.  When we do this, we will let the world know about Jesus’ love.  And we’ll be a part of Jesus’ plan.

When we understand what the risen Christ actually wants us and needs us to do, we then have a chance to begin doing what we’ve been anointed to do.

When we spend our time trying to set rules for who’s in and who’s out, we miss God’s deep and abiding insistence that all are in.  When we live as if we believe evangelism is getting others to agree with us we miss our call to do the only evangelism – good news telling – we need to do, and that is to love as Jesus loved us.  And when we spend all our energy trying to sort out just how Christ will make all things new, all people new, and draw all people in, we waste energy needed to be loving people in the world, signs of God’s love for all.

And that’s our call.  To see the world, and other people, as God sees them, not as we’ve been used to seeing them.  And to love the world, and other people, as God loves them, not as we think they deserve.  We mostly can’t figure out how God is going to accomplish this, and we don’t need to.  (Which should be a big relief.)  All we need to do is obey, and love, and watch God’s plan unfold.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Research has shown that in the womb, babies learn their mother’s (and father’s!) voice.  Similarly, in our baptism and rebirth we learn to distinguish God’s voice from worldly voices because only the voice of God comforts, protects, and gives new life where the was none before.

Vicar Neal Cannon, Fourth Sunday of Easter, year C; texts: Acts 9:36-43, Psalm 23, Revelation 7:9-17, John 10:22-30

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

I love being an uncle.  So far, I have one niece and nephew on Mary’s side of the family, and one nephew on my side, all under the age of six, and I gotta say being an uncle is one of the best jobs in the world.  As an uncle, I often get invited over to give Mom and Dad a break awhile.  And usually when I see my niece and nephew they’re really excited to see me and I’m excited to see them, because my role as uncle is to be the fun guy.  I’m the guy that can be silly and goofy around them, I’m the guy that plays games with them, and I’m the guy that takes them to the zoo or to the movies.

But one thing that I’ve always noticed as an uncle is that whenever a niece or nephew gets hurt, whenever they bump their head or scrape their knee, it’s not Uncle Neal they come crying to.  It’s almost always Mom’s voice, and sometimes Dad’s, that comforts them.

There’s actually a biological/scientific explanation for this.  I recently read an article that cited a study by Canadian and Chinese researchers who recorded pregnant women reading a poem out loud, and then played the recordings to the babies in utero.  The heart rate of babies who heard their mom’s voice speeded up, while the heart rate of those who heard the tapes of another mom’s voice slowed down.  The research team thus concluded that children even from the womb know their mother’s voice.

One mother, reacting to this article, said, “I remember when my son was born, they put him in his little hospital bassinet by me and I called his name and talked to him.  He turned his head and looked at me right away.  This was just a couple of minutes after birth!  Then they did his hearing test and told me his hearing was perfect.  I was like, of course it’s perfect! I  already knew that!” 🙂 [1]

Think about that.  As infants and even from the womb we know our mother’s voice and mothers know that their children can hear them.  And this is why children seek out Mom’s voice.  Mom’s voice comforts us, protects us, and it’s Mom’s voice that we recognize as the one that gives us life.

This is actually a common theme in the book of John.  This is the theme of hearing Jesus’ voice and recognizing that his Voice, is the voice of our Creator. The first verse in John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is John’s way of telling us that Jesus is the voice of God.  Jesus embodies the voice of God.  And we recognize that voice, as the voice of our Creator, the one in the beginning, the one with us now, and the one who will be with us in the future.

John continues this theme in chapter 3 as Nicodemus approaches Jesus and says, “‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’  Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’”

The term ‘born from above’ is sometimes translated as ‘born again.’  Often, when people hear the term ‘born again’ we think of in-your-face evangelists, who ask you when you were ‘saved’ or ‘born again.’

But think about the term ‘born again’ in the context of a mother to her child.  Like a child in the womb, being ‘born again’ is the place where we re-learn the voice of God. We re-learn that the voice comforts us.  We re-learn that the voice protects us from danger.  We re-learn that the voice sustains us and give us new life.

Jesus goes on to tell us that this rebirth happens with water and Spirit.  In other words, in our baptism we’re given the gift of the Spirit, and through the Spirit we hear the voice of God.  We need the Spirit to help us hear the voice of God because in our sin we’ve listened to countless other voices and forgotten what God’s voice sounds like.

In our Gospel lesson today, the people gathered around Jesus are essentially asking about this voice and wondering where it comes from.  They say “Quit keeping us in suspense and tell us who you are!”  Jesus essentially responds to them by saying, take a look at all of the things that I’ve been doing.  Don’t you recognize them?  The hungry are being fed, the weak are protected, and everywhere I go I create new life.

What does that voice sound like to you?

The people who were listening to Jesus should have known what that voice sounds like.  The voice that comforts, protects, and gives life is the voice of God.

Jesus goes on to say that the reason they don’t believe that Jesus is God’s Son is because they’ve forgotten what God’s voice sounds like. “My sheep listen to my voice,” Jesus says.  Put another way, my children recognize me when I speak.

But in truth, this isn’t really a problem that THEY have.  This isn’t a problem that somebody else has.  This is a problem that WE ALL struggle with.  We all struggle to hear the voice of God because as Jesus says, we need to be born again to hear it because other voices have taken over.

As many of you know, I was a youth director for several years before I decided to go to seminary and become a pastor.  It was a privilege for me to work with youth as they experienced extreme joy, but also as they experienced extreme hardships.  Some of the hardships that several youth were going through were eating disorders and self-injury.

And I remember one youth in particular whose problems became serious enough that she needed to be hospitalized so she could receive counseling and treatment.  One week I went to see her in the hospital and she was telling me about the program that she was in and some of the treatment/counseling methods that she was going through.

One method, she learned, was to give your issue a name.  The name the doctors suggested was E.D. or Ed, which stands for eating disorder.  The doctors had the patients do this because they found that giving their problems a name helped people recognize that their self-destructive thoughts and feelings were coming from a source outside of themselves.

I learned two things from this.  The first is that we are constantly listening to other voices that come from outside of us that shape what we believe and think.

Sometimes it’s the voice of a friend.
Sometimes it’s the voice of magazines and television.
Sometimes it’s the voice of culture.

Sometimes those voices tell us that we’re not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, or worthy enough to be loved unconditionally by our Creator… or in fact, by anyone.  And these voices in our lives shape our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves.

The second thing that I learned is that it’s crucial for us to listen to and follow the voices in our lives that build us up.  Lesser voices tear us down, and attack us, and suck the life out of us.  God’s voice does the opposite of those things.

The Bible tells us that the Creator’s voice, comforts us, protects us, and gives us life and anything that is not that, is not our Creator’s voice. That’s how we recognize if something is really from God or not.  We ask the question, does this give us life, or does it take life away?

And that’s how we know that God is in this story in Acts today, even though God or Jesus is never mentioned.  In this story, a woman named Tabitha who is deeply loved by the community falls ill and dies suddenly.  So they rush to get Peter, and Peter prays over Tabitha and the story tells us that she is given new life; she is miraculously raised from the dead.

As Christians, we proclaim that God is in this story, because only God can give new life where there was none.  And so we claim it was not Peter’s prayer that gives new life to Tabitha, it’s God’s word, it’s God’s voice.  This is incredibly important for us as Christians to believe because this tells us that God’s voice makes impossible things possible.  It creates life where there was none before.

And as Christians we say that because this voice has the power to raise the dead to life, God’s voice also has the power to heal entire communities.  God’s voice has the power to heal us and comfort us in time of need because if God’s voice can give life to the dead, then God’s voice can accomplish ANYTHING.  And not only do we receive healing and comfort and life from this voice, but when we hear it, we are able to heal and comfort others in their time of need.

One organization that helps young girls with self-injury, eating disorders, and other issues is called “To Write Love on Her Arms”.  I want to share with you this organization’s vision.

The vision is that we actually believe these things:
You were created to love and be loved.
You were meant to live life in relationship with other people, to know and be known.
You need to know your story is important, and you’re part of a bigger story.
You need to know your life matters.

What does that voice sound like to you?

As Christians, we say that God’s voice, that Jesus’ voice, creates love where there was none before and that voice accompanies us wherever we go.  That even in the midst of tragedy and our darkest hours, we can trust in the words of Psalm 23, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

In this, we learn that God joins us in our suffering.  We learn that when we are going through difficult times, it’s not that God is absent; it’s actually that God is walking right alongside us in the valley of the shadow of death, and even though we can’t see God in the darkness, we can always hear God’s voice.  Sometimes God’s voice comes through an encouraging friend; sometimes we hear that voice in scripture, prayer, and in church, sometimes through an organization like “To Write Love on Her Arms”.

And when we hear God’s voice beside us, we proclaim the words from Revelation today as well which read, “for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”  And when we hear God’s voice in the pit of our lives, when we learn that God’s voice is good.

So today, here in worship, let us quiet our hearts and listen to the voice of God who even now is seeking to comfort us, protect us, and lead us out of the valley, and into new life.

Amen

[1]  http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-it-true-that-babies-can-recognize-their-mothers-voice-at_10323727.bc

We who are disciples, baptized into Christ, belong to Jesus’ Way, and that means who are, how we live shows ourselves to be part of that Way.  Here is Jesus’ Way: taking broken sinners, forgiving them, and sending them out to find more.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Third Sunday of Easter C; texts: Acts 9:1-20; John 21:1-19

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

That was a chilling opening to our first reading today: “Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord . . . .”  Luke goes on to say that Saul took that hatred and obtained permission from the high priest to bind and bring to Jerusalem any whom he found in Damascus who “belonged to the Way,” men or women.  Then if you look back to chapter 8 of Acts to see the other reference to Saul’s attitude and behavior, you find this in verse three: “Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house.”  Paul himself, known to us much more by his Roman name than his Hebrew name, says this in the first chapter of Galatians: “I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it.” (Gal. 1:13)  This Saul of Tarsus, this Roman citizen named Paul, was an angry, vengeful man, a religious zealot who was willing to do violence in order to punish those whom he felt were evil in the sight of God.

It’s hard to read such descriptors today and not think of angry young men going schools and malls with guns, entering room after room, eager to kill, or angry young men and women blowing themselves up on buses in the Middle East.  Surely the images in so many videos the perpetrators will often make before they act can be summarized in these same words: “breathing threats and murder.”  And likewise the actions when they do what they are planning could be described by those other words: “ravaging, by entering house after house.”  In both our modern day and in this story of a young Saul, we find people who are acting in a way that only can be described as deranged, acting in hate and self-righteous, often religious arrogance, seeking the destruction of others.

Isn’t it stunning, then, that one of these young men became a powerful advocate of the Prince of Peace, a preacher of the unlimited and unmerited grace of God given to us in Jesus, and the clearest articulator after Jesus of the Lord’s message of self-giving love and a way of living in the grace-filled fruits of the Spirit, not in rage and hatred.  Paul was completely transformed.  In fact, the Way of Jesus made him into a new person, almost unrecognizable from who he used to be.  Paul goes from murderously seeking those who belong to “the Way,” to joyfully and fearlessly inviting people all over the known world to join him in belonging to the Way themselves.

We need to understand why and how Jesus did this, and continues to do it.  It won’t change the tragedies we continue to see in the news every day, not at first.  But if we who claim to belong to the Way ourselves can understand what Jesus is doing and calling us to be in this Way, maybe we’ll begin to see and be a part of the new creation Jesus promises to make in the world.

To better understand what our Lord Jesus is doing, let’s back away a little from the picture of Paul’s story and look at it next to the Gospel story today.

There are remarkable parallels.  In both stories, sinful people are forgiven by the risen Lord and offered life.

Peter and the other disciples failed miserably, and betrayed Jesus.  But, alive again, Jesus offers them breakfast – a sign of his forgiveness – and fellowship again.  They are welcomed back as friends, as beloved.  And of course Paul, we’ve seen his sinfulness.  It’s described in detail in today’s reading and before.  But in this story there is also this remarkable call of Jesus.  He looks at this awful persecutor and sees potential, gifts.  Jesus sees an instrument to bring God’s love to the world.

And so in both stories, people who are forgiven by Jesus are sent out, are given a task.

Peter is told to live his love for Jesus by feeding Jesus’ flock, his lambs, those who need God’s love.  Ananias is sent to bring the grace of Jesus to someone who has been persecuting Jesus.  We’ll speak a little more about him in a moment.  And Paul has a small job, too: all Jesus needs him to do is bring the whole Gentile world the Good News of God’s love in Jesus!

Think of who these two become, and what a marvel this is: there are not two more well-known or beloved leaders of the early Church.  And yet today it is clear to us that they weren’t heroic figures at all, they weren’t people to admire.  Peter and Paul were broken, sinful people who were transformed by the risen Jesus.  It’s as simple as that.

A critically important part of the Way of Jesus, then, is this: it seems that sinful people are needed, are necessary, for the future of the Way.  Jesus’ redemption projects are central to his Way for the world.

This is so important for us to understand, for two reasons.  First, it gives us hope and promise: even though we know our own sinfulness before God, our Lord Christ looks at us and sees potential, sees gifts in us we can share, has need of us.  But second, it also takes out the “me-only” aspect that Christian faith sometimes gets.  “I believe so I know I’m forgiven, and that’s all I need to know.”  We don’t have that option anymore, because we are forgiven so that we can go out and bring others into God’s love.

And that we learn from the crucial part of both these stories: what happens to the forgiven ones after they’re sent.

What’s interesting is that we don’t learn that from Peter and Paul today; we actually don’t see what they become.  Not in our readings today at any rate.  What we know so far as these readings go is that they both answer the call of Jesus.  But at the point these stories stop, neither has done anything.

It turns out that today Ananias is our central character, the one we should pay attention to.  Ananias, one who “belongs to the Way,” obeys his Lord, and is sent to become the love of his Lord.  He acts toward Paul as Jesus would act, as Jesus asks him to act.  It’s the only thing we know about him from Scripture, but today it’s enough: Christ sends Ananias to be Christ to an enemy.

And we also notice that he doesn’t want to.  He knows who this monster is.  He tells Jesus, “I’ve heard from many about this one, his evil, what his authority is.”  He wants nothing to do with him.

Yet Jesus just says, “Go.  Go, because he will be an instrument for me to bring my name to the world.”  Ananias becomes Jesus’ intervention into Saul’s life, Jesus’ words of grace for Paul.

Imagine what it meant to Paul to have this leader of the Damascus church come and offer kindness and grace in Jesus’ name, knowing what he would have done to Ananias if Jesus hadn’t stepped in.

Imagine what it meant for Ananias to embody Christ, to act in the love of Christ even though he was terrified of this man, and probably disagreed with the Lord’s assessment of him.

But it is in the actions of the disciple that the love of the Master is known in the world.  This is the heart of belonging to the Way.  In the actions of the disciple, the heart of the Master is known.  This is the center of Jesus’ hope for us.

In some ways this brings full circle some of the thoughts I’ve been working through in these past four weeks.

I didn’t quite know that would happen when we came up to Passion Sunday.   That we’d end up considering more than once the problem of evil and terror in the world and our response to it. And what it means for us to faithfully follow our risen Lord with our lives.  And even the reality of the transformation that happens to disciples of Jesus when met by the risen Lord and filled with the Spirit, something we’ve seen in each of the past three weeks including today.

But today, once again, the readings lead us to these questions and truths.  And once again we are reminded that as followers of Jesus, people who belong to the Way, we, along with Jesus, reject using power or violence or force to effect even God’s will in the world.

We instead learn to live without fear of death – though death is real – because we know Jesus is alive, and all our lives are forever capable of being lived without fear.

And that leads us to Ananias and Peter, and eventually Paul, though it took him a little more time.  It’s the difference between Ananias’ actions and Paul’s earlier behavior, the difference between vengefully defending our idea of God and reaching out to all in Christ’s love, even those who hate us.

This is the mystery of our baptism: we ourselves become anointed ones, literally Christs.  We become and are Christ to each other.  And to the world, sent to bring God’s love and grace into the world.  Not with force or violence or power, but by living, embodying, like Ananias, Jesus’ self-giving, sacrificial love.

So Christ our Lord, risen from the dead, calls to us as he did to Ananias, to Paul, to Peter.  He calls us to become Christ ourselves, to belong to his Way.  And to live by that Way in all we do in our lives.

And this is why our Lord needs sinful people, seeks sinful people, to be a part of the Way.  If the heart of the Master will be seen in the actions of the disciple, his disciples need to know that heart.

How better than to find broken, sinful, evil people and love them into life, forgive them into grace, embrace them into a new Way of being?  Transformed by the forgiving love of the risen Christ, we are filled with the very thing we need to witness to such love in the world.

Here are the words you and I need to hear today from our Lord:  “Feed my sheep.”  and “Go.”

No more hedging, no more waiting, no more thinking it’s someone else’s job.  God’s lambs – the people of this world – need feeding, need love, need grace.  Even the ones we think are bad.  Because the Lord has need of their love, too.  It’s all part of the plan.

And yes, that’s frightening, to consider responding with love to hatred, responding with peace to violence, responding with justice to oppression.  But like Ananias, Jesus is simply saying to us, Go.  Do it.  I will be with you.  I will fill you with all the love you need.  But go.

You’re the only ones, he says, you’re the only ones who know what it means to be so forgiven, so you are the only ones who can share that with others.  So go.

And I will change the world in you.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen