“Do not be afraid”: what’s so scary about Easter and resurrection

Let us pray:

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

“Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy” Words we were hearing only a few months ago at the celebration of Christmas, rejoicing that Jesus the Christ, Immanuel God with us, was born. It was the greatest news those shepherds ever heard, and probably told everyone they knew. And it started with “Fear not”. Such a strange phrase to accompany such joyous life-changing news.

And here it is again: an angel appears telling the women at the tomb “Do not be afraid”. Why should they be afraid? What is there to fear about Easter? Let’s take a closer look and see what we find.

It was at dawn on the first day of the week. Btw if you’ve ever wondered why we gather for worship on Sunday mornings, this is why: we gather in the same way the women did, to remember and celebrate that Christ rose from the grave on a Sunday morning. Every Sunday is a mini-Easter for us, remembering Christ’s resurrection.

So the women, after having rested on the Sabbath, come to the tomb to grieve and worship the one they followed all the way to his death. The one who saved them and gave them a new life, now lays dead in a tomb of stone after being tortured, humiliated, and executed. But the women still love him and seek to honor him even now in his death.

Yet upon their arrival at the tomb, something miraculous happens! An angel of the Lord came down from heaven at that moment, and his arrival caused an earthquake to happen right there at the tomb. Just as an earthquake happened on Friday at the death of Jesus, now comes another to signal something world changing and supernatural is happening. Prophets and psalm writers and even Jesus himself proclaimed storms and earthquakes as signs of the end of the age, and it seems that’s what is happening right here in our text: it is the ending of an age.

Then the angel rolls away the stone that probably took many strong soldiers to secure in place, along with the official seal of Rome that this tomb was to remain closed. Yet the angel single-handedly removes the seal, removes the barrier, then sits on top of the stone as a sign of triumph over the grave and Rome’s attempt to hold Jesus in.

The soliders who were on guard there witnessed all of this and in terror of what happened fell down like dead men. How ironic that the ones who were alive guarding a dead man are now acting dead in defeat, showing that even all the might and power of Rome is nothing compared to God.

Then the angel speaks to the women: “Don’t be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.” He tells them to not be scared, which is a little ridiculous given everything they just witnessed. An angel shining in brilliant white light, accompanied by an earthquake, removing a stone that weighed many tons and making professional elite soldiers play dead. Any of us would be terrified too!

Yet he seeks to comfort them, and tells them “I know why you’re here” which is also slightly unsettling. Then the angel says the most shocking, remarkable thing; a word that would change all of history: “He isn’t here, because he’s been raised from the dead, just as he said. Come, see the place where they laid him.” Wait, he isn’t here? But you just removed the stone? And you’re saying he’s alive? How?! How did he get out?! How did he come back to life?! I mean, he mentioned being handed over to death and coming back to life a few times but you’re saying that really happened?!

Have you ever heard such good news that it was difficult, if not impossible, to believe? A debt being canceled, a gift given that’s more generous than anything you’ve received or given before, an act of forgiveness you were convinced would never come. It’s difficult, maybe even painful, to receive such good news when it’s unexpected. But that doesn’t change the fact that the news is good. No matter if we are afraid, joyous, distant, or whatever the news is still good news. And this just happens to be good news for everyone, for all people and all creation.

And it is good news for a few reasons.

One reason is because in the 1^st century Jewish mindset, resurrection was an event that God would do at the end of all time. The faithful would be brought back to eternal life to live forever in paradise with God and all would be recreated as it should have been all along. This was the hope they had to look forward to, at least those Jews who believed in resurrection (some like the Sadducees didn’t due to a strict adherence to only the 5 books of Torah, that’s why they are Sad you see). But to those who did believe, that was to occur at the end of time in the future. Jesus rising from the grave here and now, which only the Father could do, means that resurrection and the breaking in of the kingdom is now!

God is doing a new work NOW!

God is bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth NOW!

New creation is happening and Jesus is as Paul says the firstborn among the dead ushering in this new age. This is glorious news because we no longer have to wait for God to do a new good work later in the future, because God is already at work recreating and new creating here and now! We’ll talk about this more in a few weeks as we come to Pentecost, but that’s good news and reason to celebrate!

Here’s another reason this is good news: Christ has conquered death and grave, and now he is lord over not just all of life but over death as well. And if Jesus has conquered death and brought life out of the grave, we who are his followers no longer need to fear death. What would a people who aren’t afraid of death look like? What will they act like and live like? If you weren’t afraid to die, what would be different in your life?

In dying, Christ has brought death and the grave under his dominion. In rising, Christ has brought life and resurrection power to all who truly believe that he is the crucified and risen Messiah for all people. In three days time, Jesus has changed everything about how we understand not just death but living, truly living.

So why does that make us afraid? Why do we need to be told “fear not” when we hear this news? Many might say to live without fear of death is radical, not realistic, even absurd by some. Living without fear means we would not just see our lives differently but we would see others all around us differently. We would no longer see people as “them”, “those people”, or even “our enemies”; we would see people as those loved by God who are brothers and sisters. We would no longer be bound by fear of losing what we possess and hold dear because now not even death can separate us from God and life eternal. And sin no longer has dominion over us because Christ has shed his blood and broken the power of sin in the world so that we no longer have to be in bondage under the brokenness of sin. And especially for us as Nazarenes coming from the Methodist/Wesleyan tradition, we believe the love and grace and power of God to always be stronger than sin, that we might be sanctified so purely and perfectly by God’s love that sin no longer has any place in our lives.

And that’s scary for many people, because it changes everything we ever thought was true and real in the world. And change is scary, even good beautiful liberating change. God shows us on this Easter day everything is different and we are invited to join in this resurrection life, not just when we die and go to heaven but right here right now. And if we do that we will look different from the world around us. We will be weirdos, Jesus freaks, oddballs in society. Yet this is the way of God, the way Jesus told us about and demonstrated with his life, the way things were always meant to be, and by God’s grace the way things can and will be again.

Ash Wednesday Homily: Are You Ready to Die?

Are you ready to die?

Not a question many hear or think about frequently, but when you work in hospice it becomes routine. In fact as chaplain, it was expected of me to ask patients this question and discuss any thoughts or feelings that would come up. Sometimes a person would be quite hesitant to talk or share anything related to dying. Other times someone would talk openly about the fears, hopes, expectations they had when contemplating the end of their life. And the same was true of family members, with responses ranging from denial to acceptance to even just silence. Death has a way of causing all kinds of reactions within us, and it isn’t always consistent either.

Are you ready to die?

There’s another question I routinely asked that sounds similar but is unique in its own way: are you afraid to die? Often it is the case a person dying from illness will finally be “ready” when they are no longer afraid of death. The act of acceptance, trust, and hope can be a long and painful journey for those who fear death, which is many if not all of us at some point in our lives. And I believe it is a long and painful journey because death is the reminder that we are not ultimately in control of our lives. Death reminds us we are mortal, finite, limited, broken. Death is the reminder that we are not in fact God. And for some of us, that can take a lifetime to come to grips with.

Even Jesus expressed his hesitation of death in the garden of Gethsemane: “Father if you are willing, let this cup pass from me.” If there’s another way to do this, if there is some way out of this, let’s do that please. But then he says “Yet not my will but your will be done”. And if Jesus was hesitant, if Jesus was afraid, then we are allowed to be as well.

So then how are we to respond? How are we to answer the questions “are you ready” and “are you afraid”? How are we as Christians supposed to think about and interact with death?

One of my dear mentors and influences the Catholic priest and author Henri Nouwen gives this answer in his book “Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying and Caring”:

“Is death something so terrible and absurd that we are better off not thinking or talking about it? Is death such an undesirable part of our existence that we are better off acting as if it were not real? Is death such an absolute end of all our thoughts and actions that we simply cannot face it? Or is it possible to befriend our dying gradually and live open to it, trusting that we have nothing to fear? Is it possible to prepare for our death with the same attentiveness that our parents had in preparing for our birth? Can we wait for our death as for a friend who wants to welcome us home?”

Prepare for our death like preparing for birth? Waiting for death like a friend? What in the world is Henri getting on about?! I thought death was the enemy?! Yes, death is still an enemy; an enemy that Christ has vanquished and taken captive. But for us as follower of Christ, there’s more to death than simply the end of living.

Just before the Transfiguration event and Jesus sets his sights on Jerusalem, he calls his disciples to deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow him. Jesus knows at the end of this road is his death, and he’s asking his disciples, he’s asking us, to follow him there. And it’s not a simple go and be killed, but a slow intentional journey filled with self-denial and formation to prepare for embracing death well. This is not easy or comfortable, this is not something we would normally want or seek out. Yet Jesus calls us to self-denial, sacrifice, even suffering for his sake. 

Now hear me on this: Jesus is not a sadistic tormentor or vicious ruler who enjoys the suffering of his people. God is not the author of suffering and brokenness in our lives. But the call to self-denial, sacrifice, suffering is a call that doesn’t stop at the cross but ends in resurrection and glory. Jesus knows that on the other side of the cross is the eternal and everlasting life that only the Father can bring. And it is that life that Jesus comes to demonstrate to us, give to us, show us how to participate and join with him in it. But the only way to resurrection is through the cross and death.

Old camp song about going on a bear hunt: can’t go around it, can’t go under it, can’t go over it, gotta go through it

The only way to resurrection is through the death of self-denial. And in a world desperately seeking to stay alive as long as possible and get out of death alive, it takes time and intentional effort to embrace death as Henri put it. So God through the wisdom of the Church has given us 40 days to work on it. 40 days of wandering, wrestling, questioning, crying out, and fasting to help us face our fears with courage and patience and endurance that only the Spirit can bring. And let this be an encouragement to all of you from a beloved theologian Beth Felker Jones: “When Jesus went into the wilderness, the Spirit went with him. The Spirit is here, with us, in the wilderness too.” 

So let me ask one more time: are you ready to die? Are you afraid to die? And if the answer is “No I’m not ready” or “Yes I am afraid”, then you’re in the right place. And by the grace of God and with the help of the Church, may we walk the road of long obedience to the cross that we may welcome death as the doorway to resurrection and eternal life.

A closing prayer from theologian David Taylor:

“O Lord, you who invite us to die to ourselves so that we might find ourselves anew: help us, we pray, not to be too full of to-do lists and deadlines and wants and shoulds during this season of Lent, so that there isn’t any space for you to do your work of transformation in me, but grant us the grace to welcome your Spirit’s work to mortify our flesh, so that we might fully participate in Christ’s sufferings and know the power of his resurrection during this forty-day pilgrimage. We pray this in the name of the One who heals us by his wounds. Amen.”

Homily for Christ the King Sunday (Luke 23:32-43): The Crucified King

“They also led two other criminals to be executed with Jesus. When they arrived at the place called The Skull, they crucified him, along with the criminals, one on his right and the other on his left. Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.’ They drew lots as a way of dividing up his clothing.

The people were standing around watching, but the leaders sneered at him, saying, ‘He saved others. Let him save himself if he really is the Christ sent from God, the chosen one.’

The soldiers also mocked him. They came up to him, offering him sour wine and saying, ‘If you really are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’ Above his head was a notice of the formal charge against him. It read ‘This is the king of the Jews.’

One of the criminals hanging next to Jesus insulted him: ‘Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!’

Responding, the other criminal spoke harshly to him, ‘Don’t you fear God, seeing that you’ve also been sentenced to die? We are rightly condemned, for we are receiving the appropriate sentence for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’

Jesus replied, ‘I assure you that today you will be with me in paradise’.”

As has been mentioned already, this is both Christ the King Sunday and the 3rd week of your Advent series in which we focus on the coming Messiah as “the desire of nations”. We acknowledge Christ is the ruler over all creation, as well as the ruler of our lives both individually and collectively. Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and he shall reign forever and ever. And as such he is the “desire of nations”, the one prophesied to not just rule over the nations but to bring peace to a world surrounded by violence and destruction. He will bring order to the chaos and healing to the broken. So this King, who we confess reigns over all, is the desire of the nations because of the goodness that he brings to all. This is a King we await the coming of with great anticipation, excitement, and maybe a little impatience.

So then why in the world would the lectionary choose to take us to his crucifixion on this day? What does the death of Jesus have to do with his being King? I’m glad you asked.

There’s a picture I want to show you, just as a way to focus our attention and give us pause for reflection. This painting is titled Christ Crucified, a 1632 painting by Diego Velázquez. I think the simplicity and contrast between light and dark really help to set the mood for this powerful event. But one thing, in particular, I love about this painting is the sign above Christ’s head. We heard it in our Gospel passage in verse 38: “Above his head was a notice of the formal charge against him. It read ‘This is the king of the Jews’.” In the painting, the sign is written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, a way to let everyone who walked by know this is the supposed king of the Jews. But more importantly, this is what happens to any supposed king who seeks to rule and reign over or against the powers that be: This is Rome’s way of saying “we are in charge, and if you try to change that this will happen to you”.

And yet even when he is on the cross seemingly defeated everyone gathered there says the same thing: Save yourself! They mock him as someone who “has saved others” and seem to think he can save himself. They want an act of power and might, a supernatural event to occur that proves this Jesus of Nazareth really is the Messiah who has come to deliver the Jews from bondage and overthrow the empires of the world. Everyone expects a king who will be the superhero dashing his enemies to the dust and showing what divine power can do. And yet there he hangs, struggling to breathe and barely alive. They don’t see a Messiah, a King of kings; they see a defeated mortal man who claimed he was more than he truly is.

Yet we as Christians know there’s more to the story. This cross which was an instrument of death and a symbol of oppression is not the end of Jesus. In many respects, this cross is the throne of Jesus. Now you think of a throne as the seat of authority for a king and a symbol of power for a kingdom, a place that shows the glory and splendor of a people. And yet this execution stake is supposed to be a throne by which Christ shows glory and authority? That makes absolutely no sense! Unless we’ve been listening to Jesus throughout his ministry.

In all his teachings, parables, and even simple actions Jesus has demonstrated that the way of God is not through power but through sacrifice. To give away for the sake of the other in love, even if it leads to your discomfort, your suffering, and even possibly death. Not because God is sadistic, but because God is perfect love and always pours out for the sake of the other. Jesus even goes so far as to say this is what leadership and power and authority in the Kingdom of God look like. That “anyone who wishes to save their life must lose it”, or how the Good Shepherd “gives his life for the sake of his sheep”. It is in sacrificing ourselves, particularly in instances of authority, that we see the glory and power of God at work.

And that is why we, as Paul says elsewhere, preach Christ and him crucified: because it is his willingness to lay down his life for the sake of those he loves that shows his true power and kingship. The Romans and religious leaders believe that by killing him they expose Jesus as a fake, bringing an end to his reign and kingdom. But we know differently. We know the cross not as an ending but as the beginning of Christ’s reign.

And the miraculous part of our text is that it was one of the thieves crucified next to him who saw that. Not the powerful religious leaders, not the mighty soldiers, not even most of the crowds who had heard or seen him before. It was a criminal and lowlife nobody who recognized that Jesus really was a king and that his kingdom was not ending but beginning. Which by the way seems to be a running theme in the Gospel of Luke, the central gospel narrative for this past year: it is the lowly, outcast, disenfranchised and marginalized who truly recognize Jesus for who he is. He gets it, and because he sought genuine repentance from the only one who could save him, he was granted the greatest of graces: today you will be with me in paradise.

So now I wanna turn it to us. Were we to witness Christ on his throne of the cross and see him like this, would we recognize him for who he truly is and what he is really doing? Would we see the Messiah of God? Or would we join the Romans and Pharisees in mocking this weak and pathetic man who bit off more than he could chew? Would we see the coming King of all creation or someone who couldn’t even save himself? Unfortunately, I doubt we would be able to answer that accurately unless we were in that situation.

But more than just recognizing him, we must remember that the kingdom is always a reflection of its king, and the people under the king’s rule are symbols of the king and the kingdom’s values. So if we as Christians are to confess Christ as king and those who live in the kingdom of heaven, we are to look like and reflect the one we call king! And we don’t always do that well. Jesus calls us not to love power but to show the power of love, not to seek freedom or control at all costs but to care about those around us at all costs. This king who could so easily save himself from suffering and torment says he would rather willingly face death to save those who cannot save themselves. And he calls us as his followers, his disciples, his children to do likewise.

Two quick caveats here: first is that we are never forced into following Christ and becoming his “loyal subjects” because God demands it of us. This is not about being obedient out of fear or obligation or coercive manipulation. We follow Christ willingly, lovingly, because we have seen how much he loves us and what he has done for us. We would never subject ourselves to pain and torment simply for the sake of “God says so” or “it’s good for you and builds character”. No, we submit ourselves out of love and recognition of faithfulness, that God has been faithful to us and so now we become faithful to him.

Second is that this suffering that Christ calls us into isn’t only not forced or coercive, but never at the expense of our own self and value. Too long we have been told and believed that because Christ calls his followers to embrace hardship that we do so out of guilt or shame, believing that’s what we deserve and what we are worth. But friends I’m here to tell you: you are worthy of love. You are created in the image of God, created to love and be loved, and this sacrifice of Christ was not to make you feel guilty or ashamed but to demonstrate the true and perfect love God has for you and for everyone. This is how much you are worth, and this is God saying “be like this; be like your king, loving others fully because they are worthy of love just as you are”.

So as I attempt to land this plane, know that this is a hard message to give and receive. Because the world doesn’t work this way. The world looks for leaders to destroy others, take power, and use people to ensure their own agendas. But God is not that kind of leader. God is the ruler who gives to others, releases power, and calls people into his kingdom because it is in that kingdom we find life and freedom and everything we could ever want or need. That is why he is “the desire of nations”, not because he is the king we may want or anticipate but because he is the king we so desperately need. May we seek and desire this king and his kingdom, and in doing so may we as citizens of heaven bring his rule of peace to all the world.

Repentance and Baptism in Luke 3

When your pastors asked me to preach this Sunday, I found it humorous that the text they gave me was John the Baptist calling the crowds around him “you brood of vipers “. I just had to laugh at the irony of a guest preacher coming in and being given the text of John the Baptist as a wild and crazy preacher and wondering if I should assume that role as well.

Before we get into far it would be helpful to do a little bit of context. Luke does a really good job of setting up the beginning of our passage with a few historical figures that give us both a time of when this was happening but also some cultural and social clues to how things were going. Luke mentions a couple different significant figures like the Roman emperor Tiberius, Pontius pilot as governor of Judah, Herod King over Galilee, and even some religious leaders such as Annas and Caiaphas as the high priests. All very important people, all people who have a significant portion of leadership and authority in the time in place that Luke is giving us. But what’s fascinating is that Luke tells us in verse two “God’s word came to John son of Zachariah in the wilderness”. The word of the Lord does not come to all of these major leaders and figure heads both politically and religiously, but to a prophet out in the wilderness, who many see as potentially deranged or outcast. It is this wanderer and strange man in the Jordan River who has been commissioned by God to prepare the way for the Messiah and to proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom to the people around him. Famously he quotes the prophet Isaiah, which should make all of us start thinking about Handel’s Messiah, and proclaiming specifically a message of baptism and repentance to the people around him.

It’s a harsh message that John preaches to the crowds around him. Not just famously calling them a brood of vipers but seemingly warning them of judgment and destruction and even calling out their lineage as something not able to save them. But isn’t that some thing that profits do? They aren’t so much in the business of telling us about the future or giving us strange visions to imagine. Prophets throughout scripture are given words from God to tell people what’s really going on and to be honest about the situation that we find ourselves in. John has been given the hard task of taking the blinders off of the crowds and telling them things are not as great as they appear. But it’s not all doom and gloom with no hope. People ask in response to his message “what must we do? “And John begins to give out instructions to all the various people about what to do in response to this message that the kingdom of God is at hand.

It’s fascinating to me how he doesn’t just tell people to believe, to have more faith, or to except this unveiled reality as truth. He gives them practical and even ethical actions to practice and embody as a response to the message they have heard. Giving away clothes and food, only taking what you are owed or need and no more, not harming anybody financially or physically. John is giving the people an opportunity to respond to this message from God and to change the ways they live so that they can better live into the life that God has called them to. We have a word for that in the church: repentance.

Repentance is kind of a churchy word you don’t hear much in the world around us. I can say it from the pulpit or we can sing it in a hymn and we understand it for the most part. But for a people not shaped and formed by the Christian faith it might sound off-putting, judgmental, or overly pious. But our text gives us insight into what kind of repentance John and the Holy Spirit are calling out for: verse 3 “calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins”. Repentance has to do with a change in both a person’s heart and their life. A genuine change from the inside out. Which we all can say amen to and get behind. And yet how many of us have seen a shallow or insincere form of repentance in our lives? Someone who says “I’m sorry” and uses all the right words but doesn’t follow up with any actions that show they really are sorry for what they did?

Dr. Diane Langberg, a practicing psychologist who specializes in trauma recovery, wrote about repentance this way: “Repentance is not seen in tears; it is not seen in words; it is not seen in emotions. Repentance is long, slow, consistent change over an extended period of time because it is from the heart outward.” Like I said, a genuine change from the inside out. And this is what John is calling the crowds around him into. What’s more, he reminds them this is because many of the Israelite people trust in their heritage to save them. Verse 8, “And don’t even think about saying to yourselves, Abraham is our father. I tell you that God is able to raise up Abraham’s children from these stones”. Even if you have the right cultural, social, even religious heritage that does not account for a transformed heart and life. Which begs the question for us: how many of us in the church, who’ve been in the church our entire lives, are Christian not because of what God has done for us but because our families always have been and “that’s just what we do”. It’s not a bad thing, by any means! But does it produce the good fruit of a Godly life in and around us?

And so John preaches, “Repent! Change your lives! For the Christ, the Messiah of God who will save us is coming!” Now just a quick note here on what John is NOT doing: he is not getting people scared into repentance. True preaching of the Gospel does not result in fear but trust and freedom. John is proclaiming a new way, a better way, for the people of God to embrace. He is offered hope and healing from the incomplete and unfulfilling lives the crowds find themselves in. That’s the good fruit that the work of repentance yields: a life of hope and healing, one that shows the transforming power of the Spirit at work in us and in those around us.

And all of this is demonstrated in the act of baptism. Now John the Baptist did not invent baptism. It had been around for generations as a practice the Israelites used for ritual and ceremonial purity. It was a way of signifying cleansing before celebrations, worship, and other aspects of Jewish life. What John did was make an emphasis on baptism not just as a ritual cleansing but a spiritual cleansing as well. Don’t just be clean on the outside but also on the inside as it were. And that is how we as Christians in the Church now think of the sacrament of baptism: a sacred act of cleansing both inside and out, or to use the traditional phrasing “an outward sign of an inward grace”. In baptism something has fundamentally changed in us. We have, as Paul writes about in Romans 6, died to the old life of sin and fear and brokenness and been raised to new life as Christ was raised to new life. We don’t have to live the life we did because we have turned from that and now walk in the newness of the Spirit thanks be to God!

So let’s land this plane like this: just as John called the people of Israel to repent, be cleansed, and live out a new life in preparation for the Messiah, so the Spirit still calls to us to repent, be cleansed, and live out the life of those who have been raised to new life in Christ. We live differently now than we did or than those around us because of the cleansing, transforming grace of God at work in our lives. Which, by the way, is something you’ll see as you continue on in this journey with Luke: Jesus calls his followers to live unique lives even when those around you (even when other Christians) don’t understand or recognize it.

An Open Letter Considering Suicide and Eternity

Preface: I recognize this is an IMMENSELY touchy subject and should not be taken lightly. In this letter, I have attempted to walk that tightrope of honesty and gentility. I don’t expect everyone to agree with what I’ve written, and know that I am always open to further conversations about it. Lastly, my most sincere thanks to Brent Neely, Ben Cremer, and Dan Manning for giving this a read. They offered helpful feedback, both theologically and pastorally, that I could not otherwise attain on my own. May this be for the building and nourishing of Christ’s kingdom with us all.

Dear friend,

I am deeply touched that you would trust me with this. As with so many questions I come across there is more here than simply an intellectual pursuit. You and I both have personal experiences around this too-often taboo topic, and the Church has unfortunately not always been gracious in her response. This leads me to say I want to take your question seriously, and give it (along with the many people who share this struggle) the depth of thought and compassion it deserves. I will also remind you this is simply my own thoughts. We cannot know definitively this side of resurrection, yet like all theological pursuits I think and hope to have enough understanding to offer a reasonable and honest response. I hope I do you the justice you and countless others deserve.

Your question: “For Christians who die by suicide, do you think that warrants them to go to hell?”

I’ll cut to the chase and give you the short version: I hope not. As previously stated, we cannot know for sure this side of resurrection. I do not know if suicide automatically means one goes to hell, but I certainly hope that is not the case.

Now for the longer, more nuanced version: When the topic of suicide and eternity are brought up, lots of assumptions, preconceived notions, and emotions tag along in (or behind) the conversation. If memory serves me well, you were brought up similar to myself in a traditional evangelical household where this topic was either ignored completely or brushed away with simple platitudes such as “They must not have been real Christians to do that” or “suicide is a sin, so of course they are lost forever”. Part of me wonders if these quips have some roots in the mindset I find closely tied to the Roman Catholic branch of the Church. Being staunch advocates for the sanctity of human life, committing suicide is an act of taking or destroying human life. Yet God is the only one in the position to give and take life as the Creator and Sustainer of all creation. Suicide is in that sense to place one’s self in the place of God by taking matters into your own hands rather than placing them in the hands of God; you take control of your life instead of giving that control over to God. Thus one of the great hallmarks of suicide is an ultimate grasping for control over one’s life.

A related point follows that to take life is an act of sin, and if your last act in life is sinful you die not totally reconciled to God, resulting in Hell or possibly Purgatory (not totally certain how that plays out). This is one reason traditions like Catholicism are so concerned about a Christian’s end of life: to make sure they have confessed all sin before passing into eternity that they might be fully reconciled with God, pure and blameless. Suicide seems to thwart that. Thus it seems that if hell is the eternal separation from God, a person who commits an act of taking life (even one’s own) would warrant that separation from God in eternity (aka Hell).

However… a few other considerations I’d like to take into account:

Suicide rarely (if ever) is a random, spontaneous event. Suicide is nearly always the result of overwhelming struggles related to depression, anxiety, trauma, and grief. It is a desperate act from a restless person who has suffered in ways I cannot understand. And if a person has been suffering from inconceivable pain for any length of time, they are likely to try or do anything to escape that pain. That word “escape” seems not only important to this conversation but appropriate: people who look to suicide are looking for an escape. Escape from pain, suffering, circumstances beyond their control or ability to handle well. It is in the despair and darkness the “only way out”. This leads me to a profound insight: suicide is not an act of arrogance against God, but a decision rooted in fear and brokenness that does not (truly cannot) see any better alternative. Those who have not or do not wrestle with this kind of darkness should never look down with judgmental accusations about a person’s “moral bankruptcy” or “sinful nature” in these circumstances. Rather they should look with compassion at a level of pain and fear they cannot comprehend. Suicide should always be met with grace not guilt.

This flows into another consideration: the character and nature of God. Over and over again the narrative of Scripture speaks of God as love. God acting, speaking, revealing love in a myriad of ways to all kinds of people in countless circumstances. This love, however, is not a sentimental, overly romantic love that’s simply sunshine and rainbows all the time. Rather it is a relentless faithfulness that continually pours out and gives on behalf of the other for their own betterment. God always sees the actions of people, broken scared and sinful people, and responds with that love we can’t quite get a handle on. Particularly for myself in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, God is pouring out that love in such a way that calls all people to be filled with love and empowered to return that love to God and others. God is always pursuing and acting first, seeking the restoration and reconciliation of all people. So given that kind of character, how would we suspect God to respond to someone in the depths of despair and suicidal ideation? I think God responds to the brokenhearted with a broken heart, just as Christ showed grief and compassion to those in deep suffering during his ministry. I want to believe that when a person takes their life because they simply cannot handle life anymore, God is deeply grieved by that and responds with faithful mercy. God is seeking that all people be brought into God’s kingdom, desiring none to perish (1 Tim. 2:4, 2 Pet. 3:9), and God is especially seeking and close to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18).

Now your question specifically asked about Christians and suicide. Why would a Christian, someone who seemingly loves God and trusts in God, take their own life? Well you and I both know mental illness does not show partiality, and even the most devoted passionate Christians can find themselves wrestling with suicidal ideation. And for one reason or another, sometimes those dark thoughts and overwhelming feelings win over at just the right moment. So they die, as stated above, in a state of sin. Yet cannot this God who is loving above all else, a God who entered and conquered death, meet someone even in that act and bring redemption? Why couldn’t God recognize the absolute brokenness of a person and offer them grace instead of condemnation? I truly and sincerely hope that the God who knows us better than we know ourselves recognizes a Christian’s attempt to do the best they can and meet them where they are at with what they need. I hope God is more than understanding, redeeming and reconciling even on the other side of death. Do I know that for sure? No. But if I’ve learned anything in my study of Scripture and time in prayer, it’s that God is always bigger and better than we can imagine and doing things we cannot fathom. And ultimately the eternal destination of a person is in God’s hands. That’s not for us to know or determine. We can speculate as I have done so here, but in the end I entrust their care to the one who loves them most and say “Lord, you who know best, your will be done”.

I hope this is helpful. Again, these are simply my own thoughts and I probably have not fully considered all the implications presented here. But maybe that just means we continue having conversations, seeking God in the midst of these difficult talks, and trust that light will shine forth as we walk along in faithful love.

Grace and peace dear friend,

Pastor Nick

Postscript: If you or someone you love is struggling with suicidal thoughts or behaviors, help is always available. Call 800-273-8255 or go to Suicide Prevention Lifeline https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org for immediate help and lasting support.

God May Be Silent, But I Won’t Be: A Homily on Job 23 and Psalm 22

Growing up, I dealt with a lot of anger issues. I’d like to think it’s attributed to a combination of being overly sensitive, unable to hide my feelings well, and persistent bullying. But for whatever reasons it may I have been, I constantly felt angry and frustrated with how life seemed to be going. Yet I was also raised in a tradition Christian household where things like being outwardly angry or raising one’s voice were not looked upon well. So you can imagine the shock I might have felt when one day as a young child I once again felt this burning passion build up inside of me and was not sure how to “let off steam” as it were, when my mother approached me and very calmly stated “Honey, you can yell at God. It’s okay. You can tell him how you feel.” I was stunned. Such acts would surely result in a lightening strike. But Mother knows best, right?

Fast forward to when I was 22 in my first year of college at Northwest Nazarene University. It’s Spiritual Awakening week (a week that would literally change my life), and we are listening to this incredible speaker by the name of Scott give reflections on his life growing up as a Christian and being in ministry. He tells the story of being in bible college when one of his professors tells the class this most remarkable statement: “I question the authenticity of anyone’s faith if they have not sworn in the face of God”. Just as he was shocked in hearing that statement, so I was when he told the group of us listening to him. Yell at God? Swear at God? What in the world are they saying?! How is this okay? But friends, I have good, albeit strange, news for you: we have biblical support for yelling at God and calling God out on the frustrations of life.

This is where we find ourselves with the Book of Job. Most of us probably are familiar with the story: God is meeting with his divine counsel and brags on how righteous Job is. Then the Accuser (sometimes referred to as the Satan) claims Job is only righteous because God has blessed him. So God and the Accuser make a bet: if Job loses all he has, will he stop being righteous. Thus in one fell swoop Job loses all his possessions, all his wealth, his children, and even his health. He has literally lost everything except his very life (and his wife, but she’s not a positive part of this story). After losing all that he has, he sits on a mound of ash and mourns, left to grieve the life he once had. Soon three of his friends join him, and for seven days they sit in silence with him grieving as he grieves. Then they open their mouths, and everything starts to go down hill. Each of them seeks to offer an explanation for the suffering of Job, going into elaborate monologues about how Job must have sinned against God somehow or done something in secret to would cause this loss to occur. Yet with each accusation, Job defends himself and reminds his friends (and us the listeners) that he has done nothing to deserve what has happened to him.

This leads us to the text we have today: Job has been questioned, and now it is his turn to question. He’s had enough and cries out to God, demanding answers for his circumstances. To help give a different perspective on Job’s plight, hear the same text from Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation:

“Job replied:

“I’m not letting up—I’m standing my ground.
My complaint is legitimate.
God has no right to treat me like this—
it isn’t fair!
If I knew where on earth to find him,
I’d go straight to him.
I’d lay my case before him face-to-face,
give him all my arguments firsthand.
I’d find out exactly what he’s thinking,
discover what’s going on in his head.
Do you think he’d dismiss me or bully me?
No, he’d take me seriously.
He’d see a straight-living man standing before him;
my Judge would acquit me for good of all charges.

“I travel East looking for him—I find no one;
then West, but not a trace;
I go North, but he’s hidden his tracks;
then South, but not even a glimpse.

“But he is singular and sovereign. Who can argue with him?
He does what he wants, when he wants to.
He’ll complete in detail what he’s decided about me,
and whatever else he determines to do.
Is it any wonder that I dread meeting him?
Whenever I think about it, I get scared all over again.
God makes my heart sink!
God Almighty gives me the shudders!
I’m completely in the dark,
I can’t see my hand in front of my face.”

Job has been taught, just as we have been, that God is good and God is just. That God is for us, not against us, and God is working on our behalf. So if all of this is true, then why is it that God is silent, seemingly absent, and not responding to Job’s plea.

Job even proclaims that if God were to listen, if God were to show up, Job could present his case and prove himself to God, his friends, his wife, and probably even to himself. Job has been righteous! Job has been blameless and walked in all the ways of the Lord! And he can prove it too. Yet God remains silent, and has been proclaimed at this time MIA.

But Job doesn’t wait for God to speak. Job doesn’t want to hang around feeling sorry for himself anymore. Instead, he cries out and yells at God, demanding that God be who God says he is.

There’s a famous poem by Dylan Thomas that fits this situation rather well, titled “Do Not Go Quietly into that Good Night”. Listen to these haughting words:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

In a strange way, this is not only an express of Job’s frustration in the midst of suffering, it is also an expression of Job’s faithfulness to God. Job truly believes that God will answer him, that God even though silent and absent is good and will give him vindication. So, in an act of sheer desperation and trust, Job yells at God in the midst of utter darkness. God may be silent, but Job most certainly will not.

All of that to tell you this: it’s okay to yell at God. The Book of Job gives us permission to yell, scream, cry out to God and tell God what you’re thinking. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it doesn’t have to be formal, but it does have to be honest. Each of us has experienced those dark nights of the soul, where we too cannot see our hand in front of our face and God is silent before our brokenness. This is not a circumstance where trite words can heal; the old adages of “everything happens for a reason” or “God works in mysterious ways”, or my least favorite phrase “God won’t give you more than you can handle”.

Instead we are given the freedom to use the words of the Psalm, just as Jesus did in his darkest hour of suffering: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These are powerful words, words that proclaim a faithfulness to God rather than doubt. If Job, Jesus, and even we truly doubted God, why would we cry out to him? We yell and say bad words at God not because we think God is no longer there but rather because even in the midst of Godforsakenness we cling to the God we have encountered and entangled our lives with. We take our brokenness and bring it before God and declare “I don’t understand what’s going on or why all of this is happening, but I’m still talking to you and we both know this is not okay! And I’m trusting you to hear me even if you don’t say anything back.” This is what faithfulness in darkness looks like: to rage against the dying light and cling to the smallest amount of trust we still have. It is an act, as one commentator says, of faithful rebellion; to rebel against our circumstances and all the evidence we are given to leave. Job rebels against his wife and friends to continue trusting in God. Jesus rebels against the authorities and expectations around him. And we are allowed to faithfully rebel against the suffering and grief we find ourselves in.

I want to close with the second part of my friend’s story from bible college. After the professor dropped that bomb on him and his classmates, they stayed behind after class to clarify what she meant about “swearing in the face of God”. She told the students, “If you don’t tell God exactly how you feel in the words that you feel it, then you rob Him of the thing he wants the most. Your heart.” Friends, may you trust in God enough to tell him how you really feel, in the words you feel it, even if those words are not “church friendly”. God can handle your bad words and your frustration. And may you not go gently into the good night, but rage against the dying light and in faithfulness rebel against the pain you find around you. God may be silent, but we don’t have to be. Thanks be to God.

Sermon Manuscript: The Presence of Communion

Sermon text: John 6:51-58

Did he really just say that? “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood”? Now if you’ve been a Christian most of your life like I have, you’ve heard this passage before and probably just phase out thinking “Yep, heard that one”. But can you imagine being with Jesus, as he is walking around and talking to all his followers, when he drops this on you. If was only the day before he performed the miracle of feeding five thousand people with only 5 small loaves of bread and two fish. And the people were so amazed by Jesus he was afraid they would force him into being king so he left. Then after sleeping off that miracle food the crowd wakes up, sees Jesus went to the other side of the Sea, and follow him over there asking for more signs and wonders. And as they are asking him for signs and particularly more bread, Jesus tells them “I am the bread of life, come down from heaven”. They get all confused and frustrated, asking how he came from heaven, but Jesus keeps going with the lines we just heard: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh”. So if you want bread that will make you live forever, you have to eat Jesus? Are Christians supposed to be cannibals?

If you haven’t guessed, this passage is strongly linked to the theme we have been covering for the last 2 weeks. Pastor Steve preached on the phrases the Lord’s Supper and Eucharist, and why these titles are important ways of thinking about the Table sacrament. So today I hope to finish with the phrase “Communion”. But what does John 6 have to say about Communion? After some time of reflection and study, I think the key word that helps us understand Communion is “presence”. You see, the word Communion comes from the Greek term “koinonia”. Koinonia literally translates as “fellowship, sharing, or participating”. To have fellowship and communion or community to someone means you are with them. But more than just being physically present, true communion occurs when you are fully present, all your attention and focus, is given to whoever you are with. And it is this understanding of presence that I think gives a rich depth to the sacrament at the Table.

One of the most important pieces to understanding presence in communion is the belief that Christ is present to us in the elements. This might not be something we have regularly heard or thought about, especially for those of us who grew up without significant experience of Communion. But it is a powerful statement of faith that makes Communion so much more than a dry, boring ritual. We believe that when a minister of the Gospel prays over and administers bread and juice in a biblical manner, Christ is present in those elements of bread and juice. When Jesus says “This is my body broken for you” and “This is my blood shed for you”, we need to take that seriously and not dismiss it as symbolism. Now, on the other hand, we don’t take those words literally. Let it be known: we are not cannibals and we are not eating real human flesh and blood. We simply affirm that Christ is really, truly present in these elements when we partake of them in the context of worship. How is Christ present? If I can be honest: I don’t know, and I don’t know that I really care. We should not be as concerned with the “how” of communion so much as the “that” of communion. This is not about the science of “how Jesus is in the elements” but about the faith claim “that Jesus is in the elements”. That’s one of the reasons it’s called a sacrament, which in latin literally means “mystery”. It’s a mystery. Not so much to be understood but to be received. It would be a shame if I filled in for Steve without quoting at least one of the Wesleys. Here the words Charles, John’s older brother, wrote in the hymn “O the Depth of Love Divine”:

O the depth of love divine, the unfathomable grace!

Who shall say how bread and wine God into us conveys!

How the bread his flesh imparts, how the wine transmits his blood,

fills his faithful people’s hearts with all the life of God!

 

Let the wisest mortals show how we the grace receive;

feeble elements bestow a power not theirs to give.

Who explains the wondrous way, how through these the virtue came?

These the virtue did convey, yet still remain the same.

 

Sure and real is the grace, the manner be unknown;

only meet us in thy ways and perfect us in one.

Let us taste the heavenly powers, Lord, we ask for nothing more.

Thine to bless, ’tis only ours to wonder and adore.

 

Grace is a mystery, not so much to be understood as to be received. So if you want to hold to the different positions our brothers and sisters in other traditions hold to, whether transubtationation or consubtationation or whatever else, the important thing is we affirm that Jesus is actually present at the Table.

Yet Christ is not the only one present at the Table in Communion. We are to be present at the Table when receiving Christ. Last week Pastor Steve talked a lot about Thanksgiving and dinner time with the family around the table. When was the last time you had a family dinner at the table, and everyone was truly present to what was going on. No cell phones, no distractions, just food and family. Mariah and I are learning about this in our new place. For the first time in almost 5 years of marriage we have a dining room table and chairs where we can sit down, eat dinner together, and talk about our day. It’s such a new thing for us it feels like we’re on a date in our very own home! So think of this table like your dining table at home. If Christ is present at this table when you come to receive grace, how aware are you of that? Think about this: If Jesus himself were standing here, giving you bread and juice, would you notice? To be aware of those around us and to notice, to make a special connection, is part of what John means when he uses the word “Abide” in verse 56: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” Abide in me. Be present to me. Give me your full, undivided attention and focus, and I will give you mine. Taking communion is a way that we continually abide in Christ, and in some sense as we ingest the body and blood of Christ they literally abide in us. And if you remember from verse 53, if you do not partake, if you do not abide in Christ, you have no “life” in you. If you are not in communion with Christ, if you are not invested and offering yourself to Christ continually, you are not fully alive. How present are we, how are we abiding, when we come before the table?

And even if we are present to Christ just as Christ is present to us, there is one more communal presence at work around the table: in the taking part of Communion we become present to one another. Communion not only offers us the opportunity to be present the Christ but also to be truly present with each other. One of the seminary professors my first year asked us a question that has always stuck with me: “When you are having a conversation with someone and they are speaking, how often do you find already thinking of what you are going to reply with”. In that moment I’m not so concerned with what they have to say as I am with what I’m going to offer to the conversation, whether it’s a correction, retort, or joke. I’m only listening enough so I can add my two cents worth rather than give them my full, undivided attention. How present are we to each other like that? This table is a unifying place, where all of us are brought together into the one body of Christ we call the Church. But not all of us want to be present to each other. We don’t want to be one body and in communion with certain people. Because those people are different. Because people like them have hurt us. Because how could I be fully present and open myself up to them when I know they will only reject and dehumanize me. It’s something that happens in every church. But we believe that the grace and healing presence of God found at the table is good enough and powerful enough to overcome all those divisions, all those fears, and all those hurts.

This is why we have the “Passing of the Peace” section in our worship time. You’ll see in a little bit we have a portion of our worship where we confess our sins and admit to God we have broken relationships and are in need of mercy, to repent. And in asking for mercy, seeking repentance, we are then open to receive the forgiveness of God that restores our relationship to God. But then we have the opportunity not only to be put back into right relationship with God, we can begin reconciling the relationships with those around us by extending our hands and saying “I know you are broken just as I am broken, and I want to do my part of mend this relationship. May the peace of Christ be with you”. It is then that we come to the table, reconciled with God and each other, that we are able to find ourselves fully present at the table. And then the miracle of Communion happens: the broken members that we are come to receive broken bread and poured out juice to become one whole and unified body. The old saying is true: You are what you eat. We eat this meal that we might become more and more the body of Christ.

One last thought to leave you with. When we think about who God is we remember that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each member of the Trinity is perfectly united to the other, continuously giving, pouring out, and receiving love. The Trinity is in perfect communion. And God has invited each and every one of us to join that communion, to give and receive the love of God, and then to join others in that communion as well. We are followers and image-bearers of God are to look like, act like, God by living in loving communion with all those around us. Let us then, as the Body of Christ, eat his flesh, drink his blood, that we may have eternal life and be in perfect communion with God and neighbor.

Holy Saturday Homily #2: “He Descended into Hell”

Whenever we recite the Apostles Creed there is a line that seems quite odd and even lacking compared to the other statements. “He descended into Hades”. Some say Hades, some say dead, and some even use Hell. This comes from an ancient Christian idea, most commonly found among our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, called ‘the harrowing of hell”.

This idea speaks of when Christ was crucified and died, he descended into the place of the dead and brought with him the gospel of salvation for all the righteous who had gone before, all the way back to the beginning of humanity. Now to the people in Christ’s time this afterlife, underworld, place of the dead was not the fire and brimstone hell we know all too well from the works by Dante and Milton. This was the resting place for everyone who had passed away where they waited for the day of resurrection and judgment at the end of days. The Jewish people referred to this as Sheol, the Pit, or Abraham’s bosom.

So whatever picture you have in your mind concerning Hades, Place of the Dead, Hell, etc. consider this: by the power of the Spirit Christ went and proclaimed the gospel to those imprisoned by death! In life Jesus, the embodiment and perfect presence of God, went to people and places no one ever expected God to go to. Dirty, sinful, broken places with broken, hurting, sinful people. Jesus even goes to the one place no one would even look for God: naked on an execution stake with the lowest scum of society surrounding him. He goes to the absolute lowest point of pain, suffering, and abandonment a living person, any human being, can experience. Yet even in death, Christ brings grace and hope. Even to and beyond the grave, the love of God enters and seeks to redeem that.

As Christ proclaims the gospel and salvation to the lost in death we find this beautiful truth: no person, no place, no square inch of creation is now Godforsaken. Christ brings the redeeming and healing grace of God with him wherever he goes, even into the grave. Christ has brought liberation to the strongest of chains and redemption to the deepest of pains. Even in our darkest moments of anguish and abandonment, Christ meets us there and brings grace there.

This is why every week at the Word & Table service we confess “He descended into hell”. Because no matter what kind of Hell you find yourself in, no matter how Godforsaken you may feel, we believe that God is even there and at work. No person, no place, no circumstance, no event, no group of people, no experience, no pain suffering or hurt, is Godforsaken and beyond the loving presence of God.

So to those of us who feel that God has abandoned us and that we are left in silent anticipation just as the disciples were, know that you are not alone in your pain. Know that God in Christ by the power of the Spirit has gone all the way to the grave that nothing may be Godforsaken, though we may feel that way now. Whatever hell you may be walking through these days, know that you are not alone; Christ journeys with you stride for stride. Even in the silence and the darkness, God’s grace moves and is bringing hope to us all.

Holy Saturday Homily #1: Silence

Last night we heard the words “My God my God why have you forsaken me”. Jesus is echoing the great psalm of lament Psalm 22, saying “Where are you when I need you?” And it seems God is silent in response.

Today the disciples are asking the same thing: God, where are you? You said this was your Beloved Son, our Messiah, the Savior of the World. Now he’s dead, laying in a tomb, and we are running for our lives before we are killed just like him. Where are you, God? Why haven’t you done anything? Why don’t you speak? Fix this!

It’s terrifying to sit in that darkness, that silence where it’s only you and your thoughts. To feel that void where all our faith tells us God should be and God even is. But it does not feel that way. To feel as though God should have done something, should have said something, and all we get is silence. This is what Saturday was for the disciples, and what many of us are all too familiar with.

This feeling is called Godforsakenness; the feeling of abandonment by God. It goes against all we are taught these days: have faith, just believe, don’t let those negative thoughts get the best of you. But this feeling of forsaken keeps creeping back, and there are even seasons of life where it sure feels as though God is silent, oblivious, absent, day in and day out. We keep telling ourselves “I shouldn’t feel this way, other people don’t feel this way, this won’t be right to share or express to others”.

But on this day, Holy Saturday, maybe we should take a page from our Jewish brothers and sisters, from Jesus himself, and cry out in lament.

A good friend of mine tells a story of a teacher had in bible college who spoke these words: “I question the authenticity of anyone’s faith if they have not sworn in the face of God”. When probed as to why they would say something so outlandish and to some even blasphemous, the teacher replied “If you don’t tell God exactly how you feel in the words that you feel it, then you rob Him of the thing that he wants the most. Your heart.” To truly be in relationship with someone you must bear your whole heart to them.

That is the beauty of lament: We love God so much we are willing to bear our heart, our pain, our anger and fears to Him. And God loves us so much God allows space for us to yell or scream or cry and bear our souls to Him. It is no sin to tell God how we are feeling and God is big enough and good enough to handle whatever we throw at him.

So tonight as we sit in our silence and pain, may we lament well for the pain of forsakenness we feel and remember those who also hurt with us. The disciples in pain for losing their friend and brother. The mother Mary who witnessed the death of her first-born son. Mary Magdalene aching at the loss of her redeemer. And even Christ himself in silent pain carrying the sin of the world.

Sermon Manuscript: Trinity, Creation, and Commission

There are few questions that make a pastor’s leg quiver more than when someone approaches them with the question, “Pastor, can you explain something to me: what exactly is the Trinity?” Trying to discuss and talk about the Trinity, nonetheless preach about it, is a task that has plagued pastors, preachers, and nearly all Christians since the church began, and has brought with it significant amounts of hair pulling, frantic erasing, and the eventual throwing up of one’s hands and saying “I have no idea!” And in a way, that’s a good response. We believe that the God of Christianity, the one true God, is Triune, is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And what exactly that looks like, how exactly God lives and works as 3 & 1 is at the end of the day a mystery. We cannot totally figure it out God. Which again is good because if we ever came to a definitive conclusion saying “I finally got it! I have God perfectly mapped out!” then you more likely have constructed an idol rather than a picture of the Triune Living God of Christianity. So yes, the Trinity is a mystery and one that we can never truly comprehend in all its majesty as we are.

But that should not keep us from seeking out this 3 & 1 God by any means. As a friend of mine, Tim Gaines, once wrote, “We speak of the Trinity not because we can comprehensively explain God but because we do not want to be reduced to silence after encountering such goodness… The doctrine of the Trinity is our good-faith attempt to describe what God has revealed to us”. (Essential Beliefs, 45 & 47) We can never fully understand and describe God as Father, Son, & Holy Spirit perfectly, but we should not say nothing either. God has revealed himself to us in such a way that we know something about who God is and what God is like, and as Tim said we cannot be silent when we encounter such goodness. So I’ve brought a visual aid with me tonight. This is an icon, a sacred spiritual painting, symbolizing the Trinity painted by a Russian Orthodox believer in the 1400’s. It is actually depicting the three angels who visited Abraham in Genesis 18, but is widely considered one of the best artistic depictions of the Trinity in Christendom. Because what is displayed here is what we would consider the primary quality, the most central aspect of who God is: love. God, above and before all else, is love. Specifically self-giving love, love that is poured out for the sake of another and given freely to another. And that is displayed in the Trinity incredibly well.

You see, before all of creation, before all of time, before anything ever was, there was God. And God was perfect and fully sustained, having no needs or wants left unmet, in himself. God was the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit giving and receiving life and love and perfect wholeness, lacking nothing. This in Eastern Orthodox thought is understood as perichoresis, which translates from Greek as “mutual indwelling” or “being-in-one-another”. The Father gave love and dwelled perfectly with the Son, and the Son with the Spirit, and the Spirit with the Father, and the Father with the Spirit. Another way of understanding perichoresis was that it is God’s divine dance, where all three persons of the Trinity continually dance with one another giving life and love as they continued. Each person of the Trinity dwelled with, lived with, both gave and received love from the others. It is perfect relationship, perfect community, the perfect dance expressing perfect love (because it’s very hard to not feel love and life when you are dancing with those you are most intimate with). God has perfect love in himself and it never gets old; the dance never ends.

But what did happen was that this love, this perfect life-giving, sustaining-all-things love, was so good and so pure that God decided to do something with it. God decided to create. Genesis 1 says that God looked upon the void and darkness and waters and decided to bring life into it. Another phrase to impress your friends with: the “formless void” that verse 2 speaks of is referred to in Hebrew has “tohubohu”. And “tohubohu” is understood as chaos, confusion, void emptiness, all these negative things that are not from or of God. And everything was just crazy and chaotic and in disarray. Then God the Trinity with its perfect communal, self-giving love comes and speaks: “Let there be light”. And there was light. And then “Let the waters separate”. Then “Let there be vegetation” and “Let there be stars and the sun and moon” and “let there be, let there be, let there be”. God came into the chaos of the world and created beauty and peace and life out of it. That’s a good sidenote to remember: God is the God who comes into chaos and brings forth life and beauty, order and peace.

Yet all this creation, all the “let there be’s” is not because God was bored and needed something to do. It was not because God was feeling insecure and needed something else to fulfill him. God created because God wanted to share the relationship, the community, and the love of the Trinity with something else. Have you ever had something so good, so wonderful that you just wanted to give it to everyone you knew and have them share in with the life-giving thing you have? I have to confess I do this all the time with my wife, and she puts up with it very well. I’ll read a book or watch a video lecture or maybe find some random activity that just makes my soul feel good and gives me life and purpose and all those things we crave. And so I run to her and say “Honey! You have GOT to look at this! It’s amazing, it’s so good, it’s given me life. And now I want to share that with you”. Now often what is life-giving and fulfilling to me is not what makes her all excited. But we all have that same feeling of “I have this thing that is so good and I have to share it, I have to give it away, to everyone so they can have this too”. That is exactly what God does with creation: God creates all things to share with God the perfect love God has already.

And out of all creation, all the things that were to share in that perfect love, humanity was the apex of that. As verse 27 reminds us “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” This idea of “made in God’s image” has plagued Christian thinkers for so long, trying to determine exactly what that image looks like. But maybe that image is just a reflection, a mirror of God in us. And as we’ve noted, when we recognize God as Trinity we realize that God is community, is relationship, that God is love. And so the image of God in humanity is love. Love for God, love for one another, even love for ourselves. God created humanity out of love and for love, to continually spread the love that God has and then give it back to God and others. So when we are commanded to love God in Scripture, it’s not because God is an egomaniac who is insecure and desperate for affection; God commands us to love God because he knows that what we were created to do. As one of the seminary professors, Dr. Tom Noble, wrote in one of his books: “Creation was therefore an act of grace in which the Holy Trinity willed not only to create a material universe in all its vast splendor, but to create within a race who would be given personhood and interpersonal life, truly reflecting the interpersonal love and communion of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”. (Holy Trinity; Holy People, 221) That’s what all of creation is called to do: to reflect the love of God back to God and to everything else in the process.

Which leads us to Jesus’ command to the disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” We are called to not just become disciples ourselves, but also to help God in making disciples. A disciple is simply a committed follower. So we join with God in the revealing who God is and what God is about to all those around us, and teach them the commandments that Jesus commanded (not suggested) us to do: namely love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. To be a disciple, to be a follower of Christ and a Christian, is to reflect the love God has given to us back to God at all times in all ways and to everyone around us in the process.

This leads us back to our icon. You will notice there is a small square space toward the middle bottom. Scholars who studied the original icon noticed that there was some kind of sticky residue from when it was originally created. And after some research, many have come to believe that this space on the original icon was actually a mirror. It was a small reflecting piece of glass that allowed any person who looked upon the icon to join the table and be seated with the Trinity. And I cannot think of a more beautiful image for the Christian life: to join the Trinity’s table of fellowship, communion, and self-giving love; to join in the dance of the Trinity and find perfect love, perfect life, there. May God, in his grace, bestow upon us the gift of his presence, his love, and may we in turn do what we were created for by giving that love back to God and join the perfect dance.