From Fear to Courage

Fear often works against us when we try our best to follow Jesus. In fact, the last week of Jesus' life is a study in the effects of fear; and that's what this sermon is all about.

We have covered a lot of ground in my sermons during this past Lent, when we have tried to follow Jesus more closely. We have examined ourselves to find out where we need to improve, and we’ve inspected five different areas where all of us have room for improvement. Jesus wants us to have more compassion for others, to be more generous with others, and to include all people in our circle of love. He wants us to be healthy, too – to care for the brokenness in ourselves even as we help to heal others. And that starts with truly believing that we have been forgiven by God for all our mistakes in the past; and that we can make a fresh start every single day, assured that God loves us unconditionally. That sounds like a great way to live: healthy, compassionate, generous, and inclusive! That’s a description of the fullness of life that Jesus came to offer us! But the reality is that most of us don’t live that way at all. So… why don’t we live that way? Jesus offers the fullness of life to us, and we want it, but… Well, the reality is that we’re afraid. And fear brings all our good intentions to a screeching halt.

Why is fear so powerful? “Fear” is a natural response to a perceived threat; it’s hard-wired into us. There are two natural reactions to fear: to fight, or to run away. Fear can be very useful. If you’re in the path of a New York taxicab that is barreling straight towards you with its horn blaring, fear tells you to jump out of the way. That is certainly a helpful response! But sometimes the fear that can save us in crisis situations leads us to react in ways that are not helpful at all. We can see it clearly when we take a close look at the last week of Jesus’ life. The entire week is a study of the effects of fear. On that first Palm Sunday, the Pharisees were the ones who were afraid. Throngs of people had come out to meet Jesus as he entered Jerusalem; and they were carrying palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel!” (John 12:12-19) As the Pharisees stood on the sidelines watching, they were dismayed and afraid. “Look at this,” they said to one another, “the whole world has gone after him!” They were afraid that Pilate, the Roman governor, would blame them for not keeping the crowd in Jerusalem under control; and if that happened, those Pharisees risked losing their privilege, their power, maybe even their lives. And since they couldn’t run away from the threat, they decided to fight back by getting rid of Jesus any way that they could.

Jesus knew what was going on. He knew that the Pharisees would figure out a way to get rid of him. And he also knew that when they did, the disciples, in their turn, would be afraid. So on the last night of his earthly life, Jesus tried to prepare them for what was coming. In the upper room, after they had eaten their last meal together, Jesus taught them one last time. Among the things that he told them was that soon, they would all desert him for fear of what the Romans might do to them. He encouraged them by reminding them, “In this world, you will have trouble. But have courage! I have overcome the world!” (John 16:28-33) Jesus encouraged his disciples to be brave; but in the end, they weren’t brave at all. They ran like rabbits when the Romans came with their torches and swords and clubs to arrest Jesus in Gethsemane. In fact, Peter was so afraid of what might happen to him that he insisted three separate times that he didn’t know Jesus! Fear drove the Pharisees to break their own laws and railroad Jesus through an illegal trail; and fear drove the disciples to desert Jesus when he needed them the most. Even Pilate, the Roman governor, sentenced Jesus to be crucified because he was afraid of the mob who was clamoring for his death. Things never turn out well when fear is in the driver’s seat.

And today, we’re still afraid even though we live in a country where Christianity is perfectly legal. Government agents aren’t going to break into our homes at midnight and drag us away because we follow Jesus; but we still have a laundry list of fears that keep us from being the generous, compassionate, inclusive people that Jesus wants us to be. If you don’t believe me, I invite you to complete the sentence “I don’t do what Jesus asks of me because I’m afraid that…” Here’s how you might fill in that blank. “I don’t show compassion because I’m afraid that… if I do, needy people will ask too much of me.” “I don’t give generously to others because I’m afraid that… I won’t have enough left for myself.” “I don’t include people who are on the margins of society because I’m afraid that… I will lose my job… or lose my social standing… or cause conflict within my family.”

Now, all of those fears may be legitimate! Of course we need to care for ourselves and set appropriate boundaries and get along with other people! And it’s only human to be afraid. But I’m willing to bet that every single Christian who has tried to be generous, compassionate, and inclusive was afraid, too. Consider the civil rights workers who were working for full inclusion of African-Americans in the American South of the 1960s. Those workers were attacked by police dogs and sprayed with jets of water from fire hoses. Many were arrested and mistreated after they were thrown in jail. Some of them were even lynched. Were they afraid? Of course they were! But despite their fears of what might happen to them, those civil rights workers found the courage to do what needed to be done regardless of the consequences. And let’s not forget that Jesus himself was afraid! Just before the Romans soldiers came for him in Gethsemane, he prayed that he might not have to endure the suffering that he knew was coming. But despite his fear, he found the courage to endure the trial, the mockery, the flogging, the crown of thorns, and the cross.

“Be brave,” said Jesus, “because I have overcome the world.” He said that to his disciples, and he says the same thing to us. Do we trust him enough to take him at his word? Do we really believe that the world’s methods of hate and violence won’t get the last word? Can we hold on to the certainty that because Jesus conquered his own fears, he will help us conquer ours, too? Jesus will never ask us to go anywhere that he has not gone first. He is with us despite our fears and through our fears, and gives us the courage to follow him wherever he might lead us, no matter what the consequences may be. As we stand on the road to Jerusalem on this Palm Sunday, we can already see Calvary looming in the distance with a cross standing on its summit – the consequences of following Jesus. But even as its shadow reaches out for us, we can hear Jesus whisper, “Be brave, because I have overcome the world.”

From Alienation to Inclusion

Deathbed conversions have bothered Christians for centuries. Does Jesus really accept people who have lived lives of evil, only to be "saved" at the end of their lives? One of the men who comes to Jesus even as they are both being crucified is the first example of this kind of behavior. What should we think about it? That's what I discuss in this sermon.

Two men were crucified with Jesus, one on his right and one on his left (Luke 23:32-33, 39-43. We don’t know their names. We don’t know where they came from, or who their parents were. We don’t know how much schooling they had, or what they did for a living. All that we know about them is that Luke called them “criminals.” But that description “criminals” actually tells us quite a lot about those two men who were crucified next to Jesus on Good Friday.

The gospel stories in Matthew and Mark tell us that they were thieves – robbers, men who take what is not theirs by stealth or by force. But in this text, Luke uses a different word. In the Greek, it literally means “workers of evil.” There is a big difference between those two Greek words. A thief might have an unselfish motivation for what he does. He might, for instance, steal a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. But an “evil-doer” has only selfish motives. The Greek word that Luke uses to describe them was only used for someone who was morally evil, and whose actions reflected the evil in their soul. Adolph Hitler, the man who tried to exterminate anyone who wasn’t just like he was, was that kind of evil-doer. So was the serial killer Ted Bundy, who murdered more than 30 young women and girls; and the Roman emperor Nero, who set people on fire to be human torches to light up his evening dinner parties. The word “criminal,” as the Greek word is usually translated, is only a pale shadow of the real meaning of that word.

They are evil-doers, both of them, with souls as rotten as month-old garbage. And one of them behaves just as we expect him to behave: he joins the crowd in mocking Jesus. Through his pain, and with the little breath he has left, he cries at Jesus with indignation, “What kind of Messiah are you, anyway? You’re no good to anybody. Save yourself. Save us. For God’s sake, save us!” He really doesn’t care a fig about Jesus’ well-being; he only cares about escaping the cross in any way that he can. But it comes to nothing in the end, because that’s what happens to all evil-doers sooner or later. Crucified he was, and crucified he stayed, right there beside Jesus.

The other evil-doer, though, steps out of character. “You’ve got a lot of nerve!” he tells his fellow evil-doer. “You don’t respect anybody, do you? We’re getting exactly what we deserve. But this man – he hasn’t done a thing.” He turns his head slowly, painfully, so that he can look into the eyes of Jesus. “I know that you really are a king,” he says. “Think about me when you inherit your kingdom!” Speaking has taken all the energy that he has; and his head sags in pain and exhaustion. He doesn’t expect a reply. But Jesus does reply. “Believe me when I say that today we will be together in Paradise.”

That response of Jesus has bothered people for centuries. Surely Jesus doesn’t mean it! After all, this man has done evil all his life. His soul is rotten, and he is full of all the nasty qualities that accompany evil. Why, he has probably done every one of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. There is absolutely nothing to make him or his life acceptable to Jesus; but Jesus accepts him anyway. What in the world is going on?

I’ll tell you what’s going on. Jesus is in the reconciling business. He reconciles people to God; and he reconciles people to one another. If he had a business card, it might read, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Reconciler.” The people of Jesus’ time thought that the Messiah would take power like an earthly king. But earthly kings don’t care much about reconciling. Earthly kings make people follow the law, and punish them if they disobey. Earthly kings protect what power they have, and they often use force to do it. An earthly king would have come down off his cross, and whacked all the people who put him there. But Jesus didn’t do any of those things, because none of those things were in Jesus’ job description. The job of the Messiah is to reconcile people to one another by showing them how to accept one another and how to live with one another. And so, when the second evil-doer made his feeble plea to Jesus – “Remember me when you come into your kingdom” – Jesus modeled reconciliation by responding, “We’re friends. I won’t forget you. Starting right now, we’re going to be together. You’re going wherever I go; and I’m going to Paradise. Come on in!”

Friends, we aren’t very different from those evil-doers. In the souls of every single one of us, there is something rotten. We like to think that we’re good people – and for the most part, we are – but there’s that one little place that stinks to high heaven! There’s a corner of envy, a pocket of greed, or a little piece of pride that we can’t get rid of, no matter how hard we try. And those rotten little corners alienate us from one another. Our envy holds us apart from one another when we should be drawing closer together; our greed keeps our hands tightly curled into fists when they should be extended in generosity; and our pride lies to us, convincing us that we are entitled to whatever we have while other people aren’t. In some way, great or small, we are all evil-doers. But the good news is that Jesus will help us to reconcile with one another if we will only follow his teaching that love, mercy, generosity, compassion, and humility are the ways to live a full life. And the better news is that Jesus has already reconciled us with God through his death on the cross! We are no longer alienated with our Creator! In fact, God invites us into Paradise if we will only accept the invitation.

Let me leave you with an image. When we ask Jesus, “How much do you love me?” he opens his arms wide and responds, “This much!” It is because he loves us this much that he allowed himself to be nailed to a cross. It is because he loves us this much that he invited an evil-doer to go with him to Paradise; and it is because he loves us this much that he invites us to step into Paradise with him. If you feel alienated today, come to Jesus. When you do, you won’t find judgement; you’ll find only love. He’s waiting to welcome you! Thanks be to God!