Sermons for the Month
The Way of the Cross Banishes Death
DATE: March 26th, 2006
SERVICE: Fourth Sunday in Lent
TEXT: John 3:14-21 and Ephesians 2:1-10To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
For two weeks now we've been focusing on the way of the cross. It is the way of losing in order to win, the way of denying ourselves and taking up the cross, letting go of our lives for the sake of Jesus and of the gospel. In the eyes of the world it is the way of foolishness, but for those who believe it is the way of transforming power. The way of the cross is the way of sacrifice and of trust, of putting our lives in God's hands and allowing the Holy Spirit to work. But the way of the cross is more than all that. It also is the way of death. Or to be more accurate, the cross destroys death; it drains death of its power and puts it in its proper perspective. The cross exposes that which culminates in death, which according to Ephesians is things like disobedience, following the course of this world and loving the darkness and the evil deeds the darkness hides. These are the victims of the cross on which Jesus was lifted up. And, if death is the victim of the cross then life is the gift. I imagine that although these ideas are not new to us, we still strain to really grasp them. Imagine then what it was like for Nicodemus of today's Gospel lesson. We did not read the entire story, but he's the Pharisee who came to Jesus by night. Before he could express his reason for seeking Jesus out he found himself challenged by our Lord who told him, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Poor Nicodemus he struggles to grasp what Jesus is saying asking how it is possible for experience a second birth. So, Jesus reminds him of a story that would have been very familiar to Nicodemus, but seems "out there" to us. It seems that in days of old the Israelites had sinned by grumbling against God for bringing them out of Egypt into the desolation of the wilderness. Their grumbling did not go unheard, but unfortunately the response from God was to punish this wayward people. He sent a plague of serpents who bit them and they died. That got their attention, so they confessed their sin and begged for mercy. Then God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and to hold it up on a pole. Whoever looked up at it, after being bitten, was saved - given new life. The point is that just as that "lifted up" serpent made new life possible for the Israelites who looked at it Jesus confers new life to those who really see him as he is lifted up on the cross and who grasp the magnitude of the love of God. Twice in today's reading the promise is made that those who believe in Jesus have eternal life. Most of us think of eternal as referring to living a life that never ceases after we die, and it is that. But the thing we often miss is that the primary meaning of the word we translate as "eternal" is to enjoy a life lived in the presence of God. It's an on-going process - life in Christ - not just after we die, but here and now. So, when we read that those who do not believe in Jesus are condemned already - which is what it says in the much avoided verse 18 - the implication is that those who do not look up at Jesus dying on the cross, and as a result do not grasp the magnitude of the love of God, are missing out on life lived in the presence of God. They are not basking in that awesome grace, nor are they being reborn to see God's kingdom as it unfolds around them. If Jesus is the light of the world, then they are in the dark. People feel so oppressed by that darkness, or are so accustomed to it, or are so seduced by the belief that they benefit from it, that it's difficult to acknowledge the light. And, lest we get into an "us" and "them" attitude as we consider this, let me just say that there is something in all of us that loves the darkness, or at least is controlled by it. We all allow our eyes to wander from the loving face of Jesus and become overwhelmed by the inner voices of shame and the external voices of blame that keep us in the shadows. It's just too bad that this is true because we were not created to dwell in the darkness. The closing verse of today's reading from Ephesians is so encouraging. "For we are what he made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." We are created for good, get sidetracked, and through Jesus receive a second chance to reflect that goodness in our way of life. There's an old story about Robert Louis Stevenson. It took place in the days before electric lights. Stevenson looked out his window one evening to see the town lamplighter coming down the street. He sat and watched as the lamplighter lit one lamp after another - bringing more and more light to the dark street with each newly lighted lamp. This scene moved Stevenson, who sat down and wrote about the lamplighter who was "punching holes in the darkness." I like that image. I think it's a good way to think of ourselves, as the people who punch holes in the darkness. We acknowledge the awesome, unconditional grace of God for ourselves AND we draw on that grace to punch holes in the darkness of the world. This week one of my Peer Group members distributed a CD with photos of our trip to Egypt; on it there were reminders of the Garbage Community we visited on our first day. It was an unforgettable sight - 15,000 people living on one-half square mile whose work in life is collecting and sorting garbage. I cannot adequately describe the smell or the sights. Piles of garbage - many feet high - everywhere you looked, the pathway covered with every manner of refuse and dead animals, and in the midst of it all grimy children and scrawny dogs, cats, donkeys and goats. People lived in dwellings among the squalor, places we would hesitate to call home or to even enter. That setting would have been a candidate for a dark spot, EXCEPT that the people we saw were smiling and conditions were far improved over earlier times, and health care and education were becoming a normal thing rather than a rarity due to the "punching-holes-in- the-dark" work of the Christian social services organization that was showing us around. They had found a way to minister in that setting - and many like it - that involves members of the community and is a long-term effort - and it works. So people have been granted eternal life; in the midst of the imperfections of here and now they are living in the presence of God. Now, I realize you may be tired of hearing about Egypt - it just happens to be on my mind. But, there are other examples. This week someone told me about volunteering in hurricane ravaged Mississippi; she described how overwhelming the devastation was and how small their efforts seemed to be. Yet, they knew they were touching one or two or three lives in a positive way. That's punching-holes-in-the-darkness activity. Maybe you punch holes in the darkness by supporting a ministry - like Lutheran World Relief - or perhaps it's by adopting a child who needs a family, or it could be offering consistent support in a time of crisis. Whatever the "good" is, it's our way or life; it's a direct result of living life in the presence of God, which is possible because we looked into the eyes of Jesus as he suffered on the cross and grasped how astounding is God's love for us. And so the way of the cross is death - but it's the death of darkness - and therefore the way of the cross is bathed in light and from it life flourishes.
AMEN