These two women witness to you that Christ is your resurrection and life now, not just a promise of life in the world to come.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Resurrection of Our Lord, year C
Texts: John 20:1-18, with reference to Martha in Luke 10 and John 11

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

This day could change everything about your life. Today. Easter Day.

This could just be a day to remember historic truth – Jesus’ resurrection – and our promised future – life in the risen Christ after we die.

This could just be a day to play with our emotions. We’ve walked through Jesus’s suffering and death this week, and in some ways experienced that pain. Today could be the emotional payoff: be glad, be joyful, the story has a happy ending.

But there are women who were there 2,000 years ago who can tell you that today, Easter Day, could change your life. Fill your heart. Reshape everything you know about who you are and what God is doing in your life. There are two witnesses whose lives were forever changed by Christ Jesus and the power of resurrection life that flows through Christ into the world.

If you could be so changed today, wouldn’t that be worth hearing?

Listen to Martha of Bethany.

She isn’t named as one of the women who came to the tomb. Her vital testimony comes a few weeks earlier. Martha’s the loud one who speaks her mind. Whether it’s about domestic arrangements or Jesus’ failure to come and save her brother’s life, Martha bravely tells Jesus exactly what she thinks.

Many of us have prayed the grief she shouted at Jesus after her brother died. But listen carefully: Martha believed in the resurrection, that Lazarus would live again in the last days. But her grief and pain were real right now. She laid it all at Jesus’ feet: her anger, her sadness, her helplessness, and said: you should have done something.

And Jesus offers himself to Martha’s pain. “I am the resurrection and the life, Martha. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this, dear Martha?”

Jesus claims she can know his resurrection life right now, in her grief and pain. With no promise of a miracle for her brother. Jesus can be life to her, hope to her, healing to her, right now. And she leaps into trust: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” The greatest testimony about Christ in all the Gospels.

Martha trusts Jesus’ resurrection life before she sees any sign of it, and with no expectation he would raise her brother. And her life is changed forever.

Now hear Mary of Magdala.

She gives us the first Easter proclamation, the foundation of all proclamations: “I have seen the Lord!” She is the first apostle, the first believer, the first to announce that everything had changed.

But Mary Magdalene’s life was very different from Martha’s. The one thing we know about Mary’s history is that Jesus healed her of seven demons.

It could literally have been demonic possession. Some demonic possessions in the Gospels also sound like epilepsy. Still others manifest like mental illnesses we know, maybe bi-polar, schizophrenia, or multiple even personalities. “Seven demons” sounds like she was tortured deeply in her mind. No stable household with beloved family like Martha, no dinner parties for her beloved Master, just life in torment. That’s the unspeakable suffering Jesus took away from her. He literally saved her life. And she clung to him ever after.

Now the only one who gave her life any meaning, the one who had been God’s love for her and had transformed her whole existence, is brutally taken from her. But there was no running away, no locked room for Mary. She had to go to the tomb as soon as day broke, to be close to her beloved. Other women did, too, but John only mentions Mary. All the Gospels know Mary was there.

And like Martha, Jesus meets Mary in her pain and offers himself. She grasps at straws in her grief, talks to the man in the garden in the half-light of dawn, maybe he knows where the body is. And then, that moment that stuns us every time: Jesus says her name. “Mary.” And life begins for her again.

Can you hear these women? Can you believe them?

Martha tells you this morning that whatever pain, anger, or grief you have, Christ will take you seriously and offer himself for healing. Offer himself as your resurrection life right now. Your depression, your anxiety, your fear. Your doubt, your frustration, your suffering. All these, Martha says, Christ will take into God’s own heart and return life and hope and healing. Martha says you can trust the One who embodies God’s love, even without any proof. And you will find life.

Mary tells you this morning there’s no such thing as an outsider when Jesus, the Son of God, is here. You might feel alone, abandoned. You might feel assaulted by demonic forces, addiction, or mental pain. You might be lost and not know where you are going. You might feel as if no one cares, as if you don’t matter. Mary says, believe me, you matter. Christ will find you, drive out your demons, and give you your life. And Mary says you can wait for God, even in your darkest hour, when you are certain even God has abandoned you, and you will hear the risen Christ calling your name.

Martha of Bethany, Mary of Magdala, knew Jesus was life, and that changed them forever.

That’s what’s possible for you this day. We walk through Holy Week every year not to artificially recreate emotion, and not to simply recount historical truth. We walk this week to hear again and again the power of God’s love in Christ, and hear these witnesses who knew life in Christ as a present reality that changed them forever.

Like us, they knew that in rising from the dead, Jesus destroyed death’s power. They believed, as we do, that this meant we will have our own resurrection after we pass through death. We cling to that promise. But there is so much life to live before the moment of our death, and these women testify to you that Jesus is resurrection and life for you right now.

This day could change everything about your life. Today. Easter Day.

Hear these women. Believe them. They’re the first of millions who have sung their witness through the ages. And they invite you to open your heart and your life to the wonder of what Christ the Resurrection and the Life can mean for you in this life.

Join them. Trust them. They won’t steer you wrong. They know the Christ, the Risen One, and the abundant life God in Christ can give. Let them take you by the hand and show you the steps to the dance that will fill your life with God’s joy and hope. Until you, too, grasp others’ hands so all may know God’s life.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Love as God loves is commanded on you tonight; this same divine love is modeled for you and planted within you to bear into the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Maundy Thursday
Text: John 13:1-17, 31b-35

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

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This commandment names today. “Maundy” is Middle English for “mandatum,” Latin for “command.” This is “Commandment Thursday,” the night we are commanded to love as God has loved us in Christ. So every year we return to these eight days from Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to the empty tomb, and walk with Christ through this week to learn what “love as I loved you” really means.

Tomorrow when we stand before the cross, we witness the deepest, truest love.

God reveals the truth about the universe at the cross: love that gives itself away restores life, reconciles, brings healing, so when the eternal and Triune God offers the very life of God for love of the world, all things are restored, the universe is changed.

“I give you a new commandment,” Jesus said. “Love one another like this.” And therein lies our problem. It is likely none of us will be crucified. Most, if not all, of us won’t literally lay down our life for another person, die for them.

So how can we love with the love we see at the cross? On this Night of the Commandment, we begin to see.

We first see Love on its knees, serving others.

This powerful sight of the Son of God, kneeling half-naked like a slave, washing the dirty feet of his followers, grounds Jesus’ new commandment. You don’t have to know the master-slave culture of the first century to understand how radical this was. The fact that so many congregations today still resist doing footwashing reveals how distasteful the whole scene is.

That’s why Jesus says tonight, “Do you know what I have done to you?”

Do you? You may never offer your physical life and die for someone. But Jesus shows you the path of Christ-love begins on your knees before others, offering your life as service.

That’s harder than the hypothetical “maybe someday I’ll give my life for someone.” Giving your life every day in service to all, that’s hard. That’s true love. And that, Jesus says, is my new commandment.

On the Mount of Olives, Love is on its knees again, sharing our fears.

If Christ-love is servant love, it’s easy to find objections. People will take advantage of you. Maybe no one will look out for your needs. You risk losing things you value. It will be inconvenient to constantly look for ways to serve others. Like that person on the entrance to the freeway. Or that family member who really doesn’t deserve it. Or that person who is always unkind to you.

It’s not the same as being nailed to a cross, but in our own small way, we have the same problem Jesus has on his knees in Gethsemane. “I would rather this cup be taken from me,” he prays. “I don’t want to do this painful thing, even if it is the only way to love this world.”

Sometimes love is on its knees asking to be taken off the hook. But once again, Jesus leads the way. “Not my will but yours be done.” That’s the movement of faith. When you let go of the objections, the concerns, the fears, and say, “I will love because that’s what you ask of me.” That’s when you see your Christ-path.

In between these two visions is the grace to make them real in your life.

On this night of betrayal, Jesus gave the disciples the meal of the life they needed to follow this new commandment. What he did that night was so powerful the newborn Church immediately started repeating it.

“Take this bread. Take this wine. Eat and drink. You are taking my very body and my blood into you for your life, your forgiveness, your healing.” That’s the gift of love in this Supper. Don’t forget these are not symbolic words. We believe Jesus: in this bread and wine Christ is actually alive and feeding you. The power of divine love inhabits these common, earthly things, and transforms them for life.

And if everyday bread and wine can be Christ’s body and blood, so can everyday people. In this meal you become the body and blood of Christ in the world, the embodiment of God’s love. That’s how you and I will keep this commandment.

Tonight Jesus says, “you don’t know now what I’m doing, but later you’ll understand.”

Maybe later is now. Understanding comes the more we watch through these days and nights with Jesus, staying awake to what Jesus is really doing and commanding.

But later can mean later, too. Understanding comes in bits and pieces. Glimpses of clarity. So we do this every year. We walk again through this with Christ and understand more. The Spirit points your eyes to new things, opens your heart to new possibilities for your love in this world.

It’s the Night of the Commandment. Stay awake, watch, and pray, and you will begin to understand this divine love that is commanded, you will see your path of Christ-love emerge.

“Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.” “Where love is, there is God.” By your being Christ and offering yourself, body and blood, life and breath, as servant to God’s creation, all will finally know the embrace of God’s love, will see God.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

The self-giving love of God we see at the cross, the same kind of love that is asked of us, is the only thing that can heal this world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sunday of the Passion, year C
Texts Luke 22:14 – 23:56 (The Passion), but focusing especially on 23:33-34; Philippians 2:5-11

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

“They don’t know what they’re doing.”

Jesus spoke truth. The soldiers with hammer and nails, the religious leaders with righteous anger, the cowardly disciples fleeing the scene, the crowds seeking spectacle: none knew what they were doing that Friday.

Neither do we. Unlike most everyone there that day, we’ve come to believe Jesus is exactly who he claimed, the Son of God. But we still struggle to grasp what this cross tells us about the true nature and depth of the Triune God’s love and what it means for how we live.

Just look at this one moment. As God’s Son is nailed to a cross, brutally executed by a humanity whose love has gone dry, whose taste for violence and control and power cannot be sated, he prays for mercy. “Forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

We simply could not have expected a love like this. Not from us. Not from God.

We live lives with limits. We try to love others. But our selfishness, our carelessness, our fear of vulnerability, our limited willingness to forgive, all keep us from living in love. At our best, we strive for unconditional love at least for our family. We fail. We don’t even come close with those outside that circle.

So we can’t grasp how God could love in unlimited ways. Like humans always do, we want powerful gods whom we can blame if things go wrong, try to appease when we want something, and sic on those we don’t like. Even though the Scriptures repeatedly speak of God’s eternal love for the creation and for humanity, we put limits on whom we believe God can love.

So when we see the truth of God’s love today, it strains our poor ability to imagine.

The Son moves out of the grace of the divine dance of the Trinity, and joins humanity.

Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be exploited, Paul says. God’s power simply won’t work to love the creation back into God’s life. So the Christ of God emptied all divine right and power and took on our humanity. How could we have anticipated that?

God’s Son came in our flesh to teach us, face to face, to love as we were made to love. Set aside power and dominance, gave up control out of love for us. To ask us to turn around and live this same love. “Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.”¹

And we don’t get it. We don’t know what we’re doing.

But today, looking at the cross, we begin to see the universe can only be healed by self-giving love, starting with God.

Power and might can’t stop human evil, oppression, violence, war, pollution, abuse, destruction, because they can’t force love. The only thing that can heal this world is God offering vulnerable love to the creation. A love that forgives the one trying to kill it. True unconditional love, and nothing can stop that, not fear, not doubt, not even death. There are God-sized cracks in this creation that need God-sized stitches. God offering God’s own life out of love will bring that healing.

But there are billions of human-sized cracks that need human-sized stitches, too – your self-giving, vulnerable love. Mine. That’s what Jesus is doing at the cross: not just revealing God’s love, but showing you and me what is needed of us. So all things might be healed and brought back to God.

Now that we know this, now that we’ve seen such unimaginable love, we know our path.

We can’t just stay here and sing about this love, as our hymn hopes². We are sent out, knowing God’s true love, to bear this love in our own bodies, hearts, voices, lives, no matter the cost.

So, let’s go from here, filled with this vulnerable, unconditional love we never could have dreamed was possible, but now we know is ours, and in our every breath, pour this love into God’s world until all creation is healed.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

¹ “My Song Is Love Unknown,” Samuel Crossman, 1624-1683, ELW 343, sung between the reading of the Passion and this sermon.
² Again, from “My Song Is Love Unknown.”

God has done a new thing in Christ, is doing it: let us pray that the Spirit open our eyes and hearts to see and respond like Mary and Paul.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday in Lent, year C
Texts: John 12:1-8; Philippians 3:4b-14; Isaiah 43:16-21

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

Judas actually has a point. Most people would agree with him.

Mary’s taken a $21,000 bottle of perfume and poured it all over the floor. Ten months’ wages for a day laborer. In her economy, there couldn’t have been many rich enough to waste so extravagantly. How much food, shelter, help for those in need could Mary have provided with this?

We know others were bothered. Matthew and Mark don’t single out Judas; they say the disciples were angry. Of course they were. How many in this room would agree with them, if we’re honest? Most of us.

So what on earth possessed Mary to do this? Surely making ends meet was as challenging for them in their little village as anyone. Lazarus, the only money-maker for the family, had been sick, eventually died. How much could they have?

Mary’s view of what is valuable is upside down from everyone else. What does she see that we don’t?

Paul’s upside-downness is harder to see, but no less remarkable.

This little section on how well he kept Jewish law isn’t intended as bragging, even if it comes off that way. Paul’s simply stating fact: he was really faithful in his Jewish life.

But now he says, that whole way of life is like trash to me. Whatever I thought I was gaining from it, whatever I thought was valuable, none of that has any worth, now that I know Christ Jesus as my Lord.

We might miss how upsetting this is. But the Jewish Christians in Philippi might have taken a gulp or two hearing this. It’s possible some of the baptized Christians who were Jewish kept some of their Jewish practices. The Christians in Jerusalem did. This brought them comfort and strength, as religious rituals can do.

Now Paul says that’s worth nothing compared to knowing Christ. Living in Christ, joining Christ in the resurrection, is the only value. What it would take for you to say everything about your life of faith that you’ve valued, means nothing now that you know Christ?

So what possessed Paul to believe this? What does he see that we don’t?

What happened to Mary and Paul is clear. They met Christ and their world changed.

Maybe Mary came to this recently. Her brother died and Jesus had just raised him to life. That could completely change her sense of what was valuable to her.

But Mary was a listener. She heard Jesus and he changed her life. When Jesus was in the house, she wanted to sit at his feet and listen. And she did listen: she seems to be the only one in Holy Week that remembers Jesus said he was going to die. She’s the only one preparing for Friday’s horror. Mary’s world is oriented to this Teacher who gave her purpose, whose words filled her soul. Nothing else matters.

But what happened to Paul? Zealous to persecute the young Church, on the road to Damascus he’s knocked down and speaks to Christ. But in neither Galatians nor Acts are we told that Christ specifically told Paul anything about his Jewish practices.

Yet somehow he realized his only need for life with God was found in this Christ who was speaking to him. Meeting Christ, learning in time that he was loved by God in Christ, Paul said, “That’s it. Nothing else matters.”

We’re seeing a complete alteration of perception of reality.

And that’s exactly what God asks you today in Isaiah: “Don’t remember the former things, what you’ve been. I’m about to do a new thing: can you perceive it?”

We who’ve been Christian since before we formed memories can struggle to imagine what it’s like to hear God’s new thing as a new thing. If you’ve been involved in congregational life your whole existence, how do you see this as new? Like Paul, you’ve acquired habits and practices that draw you closer to God. Like Mary, you know economy, and what things are worth.

But how in the world do lifelong Christians see God’s new thing in Christ as a new thing? Because it seems clear that when you do, you evaluate everything differently. You live differently.

This draws our Lenten Gospels together, along with Jesus’ call.

We heard of God’s embracing wings, of God’s gardening people to bear fruit, of God’s welcome of the lost. We heard some reject others from God’s love, some wish others to be punished by God, some resent that others got God’s love, others who really aren’t good enough.

Can you put yourself into these stories and make them not interesting curiosities about past times but real moments of truth?

Jesus calls you to take up your cross and follow. But he can’t make you live a cross-shaped life of sacrificial love. Jesus can’t make you see all creatures as loved by God infinitely, including yourself, or get you to open your arms to all in God’s love.

What it will take to live Christ’s cross-shaped life, to live this new thing, is to have your perception of what is real completely altered. To have an utterly different set of values, like Mary and Paul, and to live accordingly.

So go back through your life and ask: are there Mary places for you, Paul moments you’ve forgotten?

Are there times you’ve felt embraced under God’s wings of love and mercy? Times you’ve felt God’s Spirit garden you like a struggling tree, and you began to flourish? Times you’ve felt God welcome you home with forgiveness and love and a feast of life?

What of when you are here? You are fed at Christ’s table with forgiveness, life, and salvation. Does that change how you see the world? You meet Christ in these people – they are Christ’s love and welcome to you. Is that enough to open your eyes to God’s new thing? So you are changed and begin to live like Mary and Paul, pouring out this new thing?

The important thing is that you and I really seek this altered perception.

That you and I pray the Holy Spirit will take the scales off our eyes, like Paul, open our hearts to the astonishing love of God, like Mary, and help us reevaluate everything.

It’s how you can be free from the idolatry of your wealth. How you can join Christ in seeing the world with eyes of compassion and grace. How you can step out in the world with courage, bearing God’s sacrificial love in your love to all you meet.

We don’t want to live life as usual, with unchallenged assumptions and perceptions. To agree with the disciples, or the world. To live unchanged by our relationship with God in Christ.

We want to see Mary’s extravagance as the only response we can imagine making to the love of God we have seen in the face of Jesus. To share Paul’s confidence that he is happy having nothing as long as he knows he is in Christ’s love.

God is doing a new thing in Christ. Can you see it? When you do, your world will be utterly changed.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen