Love in Action

When Jesus asks us to love others, what is he really calling us to do? Is he just asking us to write out a check for the offering plate? That's a start -- but Jesus' call goes way beyond that! If you choose to read my sermon, the answer may surprise you!

Today’s sermon is a continuation of the one that I preached last week. In last week’s sermon, I considered who we are called to love as we are living the resurrected life; and today I’m going to examine how we are called to love. The writer of the first letter of John considers love to be the foundation of the resurrected life. And so it is! Everything that we do as people of the resurrection should be based on love – love for God and love for each other.

In my last sermon, I talked about the ties that bind us to one another. I said that we have obligations to one another because God loves all of us as his children. Jesus died for everyone on the cross, and the risen Christ offers everyone new life. And I said that “love” in the world of the gospel isn’t just a warm, fuzzy feeling. It’s a decision to do something that benefits someone else. A book about Christian love was published some years ago. Its title was “Love is a Verb.” You know what a verb is: it’s an action word! Run, jump, race, play, work – all of those are verbs. And so is “love.” Love is an action that goes beyond just a feeling! That action is even built into one of the slogans of the United Church of Christ: “To believe is to care, and to care is to do.” Action is in our Christian DNA! John says as much in the portion of his letter that we read this morning (I John 3:16-20). “If anyone has material possessions,” says John, “and sees his brother or sister in need and has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” Sharing what we have with others is the most obvious way to show love. Every single Sunday, we share with others by giving our material gifts during the offering. But that’s only the beginning of love in action! What Jesus calls us to do as people of the resurrection is to change the whole world for the better! That certainly begins with sharing, but it goes way beyond just putting a check in the offering plate.

Now, you may be thinking about our church and saying to yourself, “Change the world? You must be kidding! There are only about 70 people in church today, and a good number of us are... well, mature! How can a little church like Nashville ever hope to change the world?” Let me remind you that Jesus started with only 12 disciples. That’s a pretty small group of men. They weren’t educated people. They may never have traveled outside of Galilee before they met Jesus. And during Jesus’ life, they never really understood who Jesus was or what he expected of them. One of them even betrayed him! 11 clueless men and a traitor. That’s not the kind of group that usually enjoys shining success! But the Spirit of God filled them, and Jesus Christ himself gave them their marching orders. With that kind of leadership, we shouldn’t be asking how they could succeed. We should be asking how they could fail? The great anthropologist Margaret Mead once stated, “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has!” That’s a good thing to remember when we start to feel overwhelmed.

Let me tell you about a small group of people who have changed the world for the better. You’ve probably all heard of Doctors Without Borders. That organization was founded by a group of only 13 doctors and journalists who believed that all people have the right to medical care regardless of their race, religion, or political affiliation. Doctors Without Borders provides health care to anyone in the world who needs it, regardless of their politics. And they speak out on behalf of refugees and other people who are victims of political greed or violence. Volunteers for Doctors Without Borders risk death from stray bullets, land mines, and epidemics. Some have been kidnapped by extremists. Now and then, an entire medical team comes under attack. But today, there are more than 30,000 volunteers who work in over 60 countries around the world. And it all started with just 13 people who loved their fellow human beings too much to allow anyone to be denied medical care.

Sometimes, just one person can change things forever. Bill Wilson was one of those people. I’m sure that you’ve heard about Bill Wilson, but you might not know his name. Bill was a drunk; and he admitted it. He had tried to stop drinking over and over again, but he could never quite manage to stay out of the bottle. Then one day, he met Bob. Bob was a drunk, too. The two men struck up a friendship and began to encourage one another; and through their mutual support, they were both able to stop drinking. Bill later said that he realized then that “the only thing that can help a drunk is another drunk.” And so, Bill and Bob gathered a little group of drunks who supported one another in their efforts to stay sober. Today, that group is called Alcoholics Anonymous, and it has over 2 million members. It has helped countless alcoholics to stay sober and to turn their lives around.

Healing. Opportunity. Hope. That’s what Jesus Christ offers to the world; and it’s what he calls us to offer, too, out of love for our fellow human beings. But how can we do that? All we have to do is to start somewhere. We don’t have to have a well-thought-out plan. We may not even have any idea how we will proceed. And I guarantee that we won’t know right away whether our actions will take root and flourish; or whether they will disappear over time. But I do know that if we don’t do anything, nothing will ever change, and our fellow human beings will continue to suffer. So how can we get started? Well, there are as many ways to start as there are ideas to act on. But here is one suggestion. We can start with prayer. Let’s not wait until we’re well into a project to pray about it. Let’s partner with God from the very beginning! A great way to start is to pray, “God, show me someone I can help.” I guarantee you that if you pray that prayer, God will answer. Sooner or later, you’ll get a poke in the ribs from the Almighty. Maybe you’ll notice something in your life in a new way; or a news story will catch your eye; or an idea will drop into your head from… somewhere. You should pay attention to that; and you should keep praying about it. Then, you might be on the lookout for people who can help you with that situation. I truly believe that “When the student is ready, the teacher will come.” You might even say, “When the missionary is ready, the mission will come.” Finally, get ready to take the first step. Pray about that, too. That first step might not be a huge one. It might be as little as having lunch with someone and sharing an idea. And then… well, who knows where things will go from there!

“If anyone sees his brother or sister in need and has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” That’s John’s question to all of us. Are we ready to try to change the world? That’s what Jesus is asking of us. And if we respond to his call, he’ll be right there with us, guiding us and helping us. “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has!”

More Than a Warm Fuzzy

What is love, anyway? We live in a culture that talks about love all the time. But what does it mean to Christians? I hope this sermon will get you thinking about that question.

Ah, love! What beautiful images it brings to mind! When love is mentioned, we imagine a happy couple standing at the altar ready to take their vows and begin their married life together. We think of a mother holding her newborn baby. We might even remember some relationships that we have experienced ourselves – relationships with people who meant the world to us! “Love makes the world go around” says the old proverb. And if it doesn’t really make the world spin, it certainly makes it a far richer place!

Love is one of the foundations of Christian understanding. The first letter of John is practically built on it! Love is a thread running through both Old and New Testaments. “The Lord your God is a loving God,” the book of Deuteronomy assures us. “He will not abandon or destroy you, or forget the covenant with your ancestors.” (4:31) Indeed, God has stuck by us through thick and thin. God sent prophets over and over again to remind us what love looked like. God reminded us more than once that love is far more important than all the religious ritual that we dream up. But we still didn’t seem to get it; and so, God came to us as Jesus Christ. As the gospel of John puts it: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus showed God’s love by healing the sick, accepting the outcast, and even raising the dead! Love for us sent Jesus to the cross; and love for us raised him on Easter morning. That resurrection love is what Jesus offers to us, and what he wants us to offer to others.

These days, we cheapen the word “love” by using it for all kinds of things. We say, “I love your dress,” and “I love that TV show.” We love our food and we love our homes and we love our cars. But that isn’t really love at all. It’s affection, certainly. But love? Love goes way beyond a warm, fuzzy feeling for something. When we love, we enter a relationship that we intend to keep regardless of what may happen. When we love, we bind ourselves together to others in an unbreakable relationship. After all, that’s what God has done for us.

Maybe it will help us understand love if we look at what that word meant in Jesus’ time. There are a couple of Greek words for “love,” but the one that Jesus used most often is agape. Agape is a relationship that has obligations. In the Roman world in which Jesus’ lived, wealthy men often helped out others who had less social status than they did. The wealthier man took these folks under his wing, and helped them both financially and socially. He became their patron. Today, we would call him their mentor. The word that described their relationship was agape. It wasn’t just a warm, fuzzy feeling. A relationship of agape meant that the men were bound together in a special way. The wealthy patron would watch out for his friends, and in return, those friends would show him loyalty. It’s obvious that’s what our relationship with God is like. God watches out for us; and we are called to be loyal to God just as God is loyal to us! We are bound to God in a special way that we can count on!

So, what does it mean to have this kind of agape love for one another? At the very least, it means that we have obligations to one another. It means that we are bound together in a very special way. It means that if one of us suffers, we all suffer; and it means that if one of us celebrates, the rest of us celebrate, too. Over 400 years ago, author John Donne expressed agape beautifully in this poetic verse:

No man is an island, entire of itself.
Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were;
as well as if a manor of thy friend's, or of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls.

It tolls for thee.

The bottom line is that all people are bound together, whether we want to be or not! That’s why Jesus told us to pray even for our enemies. We are connected to them by his death and resurrection! And that’s a hard thing to hear! It’s easy to love our family and to our friends. We don’t mind being obligated to folks who are just like we are. It’s a harder to hear that we should be looking out for people who aren’t like we are – folks who have grown up in very different circumstances, or who have made choices that we consider to be foolish. And it’s almost unthinkable that we should care about our enemies! Thieves, murderers, liars, and cheats – why should we even give them the time of day? But if we take Jesus seriously, we are bound together by resurrection love even to them. As loathsome as it sounds, we even have an obligation to the thugs of ISIS! Now, we don’t have to believe what they believe. We don’t have to do what they do. We can certainly take a stand against them in order to protect innocent people from their actions. But Jesus tells us to love them because he does!

Here’s why loving them is the right thing to do. Resurrection love leads to resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t just a one-time thing that took place early on a Sunday morning 2,000 years ago! Jesus’ resurrection was just the first of all kinds of resurrections that happen all the time! When a battered woman is able to move into the future with confidence despite her fear, she has known resurrection. When a bullied child is able to turn his painful experiences into empathy for other children who may be feeling the same way, he has known resurrection. When people who are filled with hate and greed and the lust for power repent of their past and change their ways, they have known resurrection. And the only way to help others experience the resurrection that Jesus offers us is by loving them! We can’t help them if we return hate for hate, violence for violence, evil for evil. Agape love is the only thing that will help bring about their resurrection.

Now, you may well be thinking, “But we have loved difficult people, and it hasn’t done any good!” Perhaps. But (in my opinion, at least) almost none of us really practice agape love very often. G. K. Chesterton once commented, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and not tried." And he’s right! Resurrection love is the hardest thing in the world to practice! But it’s the very foundation of the Kingdom of God.

Love. It’s more than a warm fuzzy. It’s the bond that holds us together with all of God’s children; with God’s whole creation, in fact. It’s difficult and it doesn’t make sense to us; but it is the foundation of our identity as the people of God. A writer from the early days of the Christian church said in wonder, “Look how those Christians love one another!”

May that always be said of us, too.

Joy, Growth, and Encouragement

Why are people church members? Why not just show up at worship every few months? For that matter, why not just watch TV preachers? This sermon suggests an answer; and it's a result of the Easter miracle! I hope that it gets you thinking...

Well, Easter is over for another year. The bunny and chick decorations have been put away until next spring; the chocolate bunnies were eaten long ago; and the only reminders of Easter are the gaily-decorated hard-boiled eggs and the remnants of the ham that are still lurking in the refrigerator. Everything is pretty much back to the way it was before Holy Week. To the outside observer, it looks like Easter didn’t change much of anything. But we Christians know that Easter has changed everything! Because Christ is risen, nothing is the same as it was before. The whole world is different; and we are different, too! We have new thoughts and new hopes. We have new dreams and new expectations. We even have new ways of doing things! And that’s what I’m going to preach about during the next six weeks until Pentecost: how Easter changes things. It’s always good to be reminded of what a resurrected life looks like; because we tend to drift away from it as we live our day-to-day lives. Maybe my sermons will help to be guideposts as we move ahead into the future, both as individuals and as a congregation.

Now, before I go any further: I know that I promised you a whole year of sermons on the Gospel of Mark; and I haven’t forgotten that. The trouble is that Mark doesn’t say much about life after the resurrection. Mark’s agenda is to show Jesus as a healer and a teacher, and to reinterpret what it means for him to be our Messiah. So we’re going to put Mark on hold until June; and between now and then, we’re going to turn to the first letter of John. It’s a very small letter, buried in the New Testament after the book of Hebrews. There are actually three letters from John; and they rub elbows with the equally small letters of James, Jude, and the three letters of Peter. All eight of them put together are shorter than the book of Revelation (which gets most of the press when we talk about the New Testament). But John has some important things to say to us! He was writing to a Christian congregation to remind them how they should behave because of what they believe. That’s not a bad reminder for us, either. One criticism of the church that I hear all the time is that Christians don’t walk the walk the way that they talk the talk! John is trying to get his beloved congregation to walk the walk, too. So I invite you to listen to what he has to say to us.

The very first thing that he says is that fellowship is important. Community is one of the things that Christians do. It always has been; and I’m sure that it always will be. John claims that we proclaim the risen Christ so that we can join together in fellowship. Why, God himself models fellowship! God isn’t a solitary old man who sits on a cloud all by himself and thinks deep thoughts! No, God reaches out to have a relationship with the creation that he made. That means that God wants to have a relationship with us! And since we’re made in the image of God, we should have a relationship with one another, too. Now, it’s important to have a good relationship with everyone that we meet, as far as that’s possible. After all, that’s what Jesus did. But it’s especially important to have a lasting relationship with other Christians. We often call that fellowship a community of faith. We need to rub elbows with other Christians on a regular basis. After all, we want to spend time with other people whose goals and values are the same as ours. If we play baseball, for example, we want to spend time with our teammates. That’s because we all have a goal of winning; and we share the value of teamwork as well as individual achievement. In the very same way, it’s important that we Christians share fellowship with other Christians. After all, our values aren’t the same as those of the society around us. In our dog-eat-dog, win at all costs culture, nobody says that sacrificial service is a worthy goal. But sacrificial service is one of the foundational values that we Christians build our lives on!

So, what do we get through Christian fellowship that we don’t get from fellowship of other kinds? Why not just hang out with the fellows at the feed store and the other soccer moms? For one thing, we share a joy that non-Christians don’t know anything about – the joy of the resurrection. I have several friends who classify themselves as atheists. I can’t share the joy of the resurrection with any of them. I can joke with them, talk politics with them, and even argue biblical interpretation with them (and I often do); but I can’t share resurrection joy with them, because they don’t believe it happened. I don’t know about you, but I got goose bumps on Easter morning when our congregation shouted “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!” The very basis of our lives is the certainty that Jesus is risen. When John says that Christians join in fellowship “to make our joy complete,” he means exactly that.

There’s something else that we gain from Christian fellowship: growth. Just as we grow in our ability to do math or in the skills that we need to do our jobs, our Christian faith should grow, too. If faith in middle age is still exactly what it was when we were 10 years old, there’s something wrong. Remember that Paul said, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up my childish ways.” (I Corinthians 13:11) He was talking about growing in his faith; and he expected his congregations to do the very same thing. Paul wrote to members of that same church that when he visited them at first, they were just “infants in Christ.” “I gave you milk, not solid food,” he said, “for you were not yet ready for it.” (I Corinthians 3:1-2) Believing that “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” is a wonderful basis for faith! But if that is the only understanding of the faith that we have, maybe it’s time to move ahead a little bit! Now, you may be thinking that we can grow in our faith outside of our Christian communities. And we can, of course. Books, movies, and TV shows can help us grow in our faith. And sometimes, especially when we are challenged about our faith beliefs, we are forced to think hard about what we believe and why we believe it. But our faith communities can play an even bigger part in our Christian growth. If we take part in discussion groups, Bible study, and worship, we can deepen our faith and become more mature Christians. A community of faith can help us move past a baby milk faith to the solid meat faith of a mature Christian.

Finally, our Christian communities offer us a kind of encouragement that we can’t find anywhere else. When we experience a personal tragedy such as the death of a loved one, who rallies around us with support, comfort, and love? Our faith community! When we are overwhelmed at work and discouraged with life in general, who offers a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on? Our faith community! When we need advice to help us move ahead, who can help us by offering experiences that we may not have had? Our faith community! Ministering to each other, after all, is what we are called to do! I belong to a group of UCC clergywomen on Facebook. The members come from all over the country. Some of us are pastors and some are chaplains. Some of us live in the city and some of us live in the country. Some of us serve large churches, and some of us serve smaller congregations. But all of us have problems that are unique to clergywomen in general. We frequently share our frustrations that come with the job. And when one of us is experiencing a difficult situation, posts offering her support and encouragement appear immediately. After all, a sorrow shared is a sorrow lessened. And in this day and age, people don’t even have to be face-to-face to minister to one another. Virtual communities can be very effective ways to connect with other Christians! Just ask anyone under the age of 30!

Joy, growth, and encouragement. That’s what Christian fellowship offers those who take advantage of it. I often wonder how in the world a solitary Christian survives in the middle of a culture that is so un-Christian. I know that I, for one, rely on my faith community to help me celebrate, to walk the straight and narrow, and to get over the obstacles that pop up in my life on a relatively regular basis! They’re here for me; I’m here for them; and we’re all here for each other. What a wonderful benefit of the resurrected life that Jesus Christ offers to all of us!

Completing the Ending

How does the Easter story end? If you're reading Mark's gospel, it ends very strangely. So much so, in fact, that someone added another ending to it! My Easter sermon might make you think about what the best ending to Easter Sunday is -- and whether you're part of it.

It’s not a very good ending to an Easter Sunday reading, is it? “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” (Mark 16:8) That’s the original ending of Mark’s gospel. That’s where Mark left it, with fear and trembling and silence. The extra 12 verses that are in our Bibles were added sometime later, by an early Christian who didn’t like Mark’s ending any more than we do! He – or maybe she – didn’t want the story to end so abruptly, in the middle of confusion and bewilderment. That ending probably doesn’t seem right to us, either, because we all know the story of Easter morning! The women who have gone to the tomb should meet the risen Christ. Their encounter should end in joy, not fear and silence! I recently read a story of a scripture reader on Easter morning – a congregational member, like those of us here who read the morning scriptures. She was supposed to read the same text from Mark’s gospel that we just heard; and it was supposed to end the same place that ours did. But that reader was using the large pulpit Bible that many churches use, not just a copy of the morning’s text. She got to the last verse, paused for a moment, looked twice at the bulletin, and continued to read. After she had read several additional verses, the pastor got up, tapped her on the shoulder, and said, “Thank you. This morning’s reading ends at verse 8.” The reader sheepishly muttered, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought the bulletin had a misprint.” She couldn’t imagine that the Easter story would ever end with fear and silence!

I wonder whether Mark was reflecting his own times when he stopped his gospel so abruptly. He was, after all, writing at a time when the Christian church was being persecuted. And they were being persecuted both by the Jewish community, who believed that Christians were heretics; and by the Romans, who were afraid that Christians would try to overthrow the Empire. That seems ridiculous to us today, but remember that we call Jesus our King. The Romans were always on the lookout for a threat to the Empire; and these Christians certainly seemed to be one! If we lived in a society like that, we might be afraid and bewildered, too. And we would undoubtedly be afraid to proclaim the Easter message for fear that we might end up thrown to wild beasts in the arena! Oh, there were good reasons to be afraid and keep silent when Mark wrote his gospel.

But in the end, Mark’s gospel couldn’t end the way that Mark ended it. Jesus’ resurrection does confuse us! Let’s face it; resurrection is something completely foreign to us. We aren’t experts on bringing life out of death; quite the opposite, in fact. We only know how to bring death out of life! And when we’re faced with the reality of resurrection, we’re befuddled by it because we don’t expect it any more than we expect to see a unicorn trotting down Main Street! Yes, we are confused and bewildered, just like the women at the tomb. But we don’t stay that way; because when we’re faced with the reality of resurrection, we encounter the risen Christ! And that’s what the early Christians added to the ending of Mark’s gospel. They knew very well that any experience of resurrection goes beyond hearing about the resurrection. Oh, hearing is the first step, of course. Just like the women first heard about the resurrection from a young man in white robes who was at the tomb, we first heard about it from our parents, or a Sunday school teacher, or a good friend. But hearing is only the first step! At some point, we meet the risen Christ ourselves. And meeting the risen Christ means being transformed from bewilderment and silence into joy and proclamation!

Listen to the revised ending to Mark’s gospel (verses 9-20).

When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it. Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either. Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

Now, the reason that many people believe that this ending wasn’t written by Mark is that the vocabulary and the grammar in this text isn’t like the rest of the gospel at all. It’s as different from the rest of Mark as Hamlet is different from Huckleberry Finn. But it really doesn’t matter who wrote it. You can believe what you like about that. And this text makes some pretty outrageous statements about what Christians will be able to do. None of us here are snake handlers – at least, none that I know of. I don’t think that any of us speak in tongues (although many Christians do). And I certainly hope that nobody adds poison to their green bean casserole at the next carry-in to test the truth of the verse that says, “When they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all.” You might not choose to believe all those claims. But what I hope you do believe is that when we meet the risen Christ, we’re changed. When we met our Lord, we begin a transformation into someone that we never expected to be; and we end up doing things that we never expected to do! We may be bewildered when we leave the empty tomb; but when we meet the risen Christ, our fear disappears, our hearts sing with joy, and we can’t wait to tell everybody that we know about what has just happened to us! Easter just doesn’t end in fear and silence.

On this Easter morning, where are you as we leave the empty tomb? We’ve all heard about the resurrection. We wouldn’t be here this morning if we hadn’t. But maybe you haven’t met the risen Christ yet. Maybe you’re still wondering about the meaning of that empty tomb. If that’s the case, that’s OK. You’re still farther along than the disciples were. At first, they didn’t even believe that the resurrection was real! If I’m describing you, I hope that one day soon – maybe as you’re on your way home, or eating your dinner, or watching TV – maybe even today – that you meet the risen Christ, and experience the transformation that he has to offer! And if you have already met the risen Christ along the road of life, then – alleluia! You know what I’m talking about! We may not understand resurrection with our heads, but we know that it’s real in our hearts, because we’ve experienced it for ourselves! And our lives will never be the same again!

My Easter prayer this morning is that all God’s children might meet the risen Christ, so that someday, the story that was begun so long ago will finally be complete. Amen and alleluia!

The Lamb of God

What is the meaning of the crucifixion? That question has been debated for over 2,000 years. It is clearly one of the focal points of our faith, but how do we interpret it? Many people claim that  it is somehow payment to God for the sins of humanity. I don't understand it that way. I see the crucifixion as the ultimate evil that humanity could do; but God absorbed it and transformed it into the ultimate good. With that in mind, I offered this sermon at a recent Good Friday worship service. May it bless you.

The Lamb of God. That’s what John the Baptist called Jesus: the Lamb of God. (John 1:29-31) According to the gospel of John, he is the one who takes away the sin of the world. He is The Sacrificial Lamb, the one who will reconcile the whole world to God. But there were lots of sacrificial lambs before Jesus came along: thousands, maybe millions of them! And it all started with Abraham. You remember the story of Abraham and Isaac. God told Abraham to kill Isaac, his only son, as a sacrifice to God; and Abraham was willing to do it! But at the last minute, even as Abraham’s hand was raised, ready to plunge a knife into Isaac’s heart, God stopped him. Instead of sacrificing his son, Abraham sacrificed a ram that was caught in a nearby thicket. A ram was offered up as a substitute to the son.

Then we fast forward to the days leading up to the Exodus, when God’s people had forgotten that they even were God’s people. On the night before the very last plague of Egypt – the death of the firstborn sons – the plague that freed the Hebrews from slavery – God instructed all the Hebrew families to sacrifice a lamb and smear its blood on the doorposts of their homes so that the angel of death would see that blood and pass over those doorways, saving their families from destruction. (Exodus 12:21-23)

That sacrifice, offered up each year, was only the beginning. When the Israelites travelled to Mt. Sinai under Moses’ leadership, God gave them the Law. Sacrificing animals was a big part of that Law. The book of Leviticus describes all kinds of sacrifices – sin offerings, thank offerings, guilt offerings, peace offerings, and fellowship offering. (Chapters 1-7) But all of those sacrifices were intended to bring the people closer to God. By offering an animal from their own flock, they acknowledged that they depended on God for all the blessings that they had; and they expressed their thankfulness for all that God had done for them.

But after a while, those sacrifices lost their meaning. Priests told the people that the more sacrifices they offered, the happier God was. Sacrifices turned into insurance policies to keep God on the side of the Israelites! The whole system became a machine built on slaughter. By the time that Jesus was born, lambs were sold in the Temple at inflated prices to fill the pockets of corrupt priests. A system that was intended to bring the people closer to God had been so infiltrated by greed and corruption that it didn’t benefit anyone but the priests who ran it. Almost everyone had forgotten what the prophet Micah had said (6:6-8):

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow down before the exalted God?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil?

Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

And then… Jesus was born: the Lamb of God. But this Lamb wasn’t one of the millions of lambs that had been sacrificed over the years since the Exodus from Egypt. This Lamb was God’s own son. This Lamb was the only one who had ever fulfilled God’s requirements to act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk with God in humility and obedience. And in that spirit of humble obedience, this Lamb protested the corrupt sacrificial system. He went into the Temple and overturned the tables of the money changers. He released the lambs that the priests were selling, roaring, “This is my Father’s house! Stop making it into a market place!” He told the people that God didn’t care about rituals and laws, but about love and mercy. He told them to stop trying to buy God’s favor, and trust him with their lives. I’m sure you know how that went over. Jesus was telling the people in authority that instead of sacrificing lambs to benefit themselves, they should sacrifice their greed, their traditions, and their power instead. And they weren’t about to sacrifice those lambs! So they sacrificed the Lamb of God instead.

Isn’t it ironic? The gospel of John tells us that Jesus was hanging on the cross at the very hour that the Temple priests were sacrificing the hundreds of lambs needed for the Passover celebration. Over the years, millions of lambs had been sacrificed in God’s name, fattening the pockets of the priests who were offering them up in a corrupt system. And the Lamb of God was nailed to a cross because the people in power wanted to keep it that way.

Now, we all know the Good Friday story. We know what happened on that day. But have you ever thought about what might have happened? God never asked for this sacrifice! Crucifying Jesus was our idea! When we nailed his son to a cross, God had every right to step in and punish us. Why, God might have squashed us like bugs. God could have brought the world to an end, right there and then! It certainly would have been just if God had punished us for killing his beloved Son!

But God doesn’t react that way. If Jesus taught anything, it is that God’s very being isn’t violence and revenge, but love and forgiveness. God knows that we believe we are perceptive and wise and shrewd. God also knows that we are really blind and foolish and clueless. Long ago, God had declared through the prophet Isaiah, “My thoughts are not your thoughts; neither are your ways my ways.” (Isaiah 55:8) And so, instead of returning violence for violence – instead of continuing the sacrifices – God stopped the whole process, as he had stopped the hand of Abraham so many years before. On Good Friday, God said, “Stop it! No more sacrifices. No more violence. No more bloodshed. I’ve had enough.”

And now, as the light of Good Friday dims and the long night begins, the Lamb of God is taken down from the cross and laid in a borrowed tomb, and all creation holds its breath. What will God do in response to this injustice? Will our foolishness and selfishness and greed get the last word after all? Well… God delivered the Hebrews from Pharaoh on that very first Passover night; and God will deliver us, too – deliver us from sin, deliver us from ourselves, and even deliver us from death! We just have to hang on until Easter morning.