Sermon 3/18/2018 Last Sunday of Lent


Note:  Today's sermon refers to Jeremiah 31:31-34 and John 12:20-33 (and more!)

I really value the Liturgical Calendar.
What I like about it is that The Church follows a path through scripture in three-year cycles, so that if you go to another church that uses the liturgical calendar—Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal and some Methodist churches—you will hear the same lessons on the same day of the year.
But I find it a bit burdensome at this time of the year because sometimes the stories of Jesus are conveniently told out of order so that we can focus on the largess of Holy Week.  Next Sunday, for example, we jump from the triumphant entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday right into the story of the Passion and death of Christ, for example.  But there are quite a few things that happen in between those events.
Today’s Gospel is one of those things.
If you were to read all of John, chapter 12, you would see that it begins with Jesus going to the home of Lazarus, where his sister Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with expensive oil.  Then Jesus enters Jerusalem to the palm fronds and shouts of hosanna that we will recount next Sunday. 
In John’s chronology, what comes next, after Jesus has entered Jerusalem on a donkey, is today’s Gospel.  And while it seems like it isn’t a big part of the story, it is when you pair it with the lesson from Jeremiah.  You see, in that lesson, God says that when the people know God, they will know forgiveness.  There will be a different depth of knowledge of God.
For those of us who follow Jesus, that knowledge comes from being in relationship with Jesus. 
The Gospel story says that some Greeks ask to see Jesus.  Again, this doesn’t seem like a big deal, until you know that the use of the word Greeks means people who do not follow Jesus.  This phrase represents the bigger picture—that the world is ready to see and know Jesus.  So, what needed to be fulfilled by Jesus’ presence on Earth as a human being, had been fulfilled.  The world was ready to know Jesus.  To know God.
When Jesus says that a single grain of wheat must die before it bears fruit, he is speaking of himself.  He must die so that more will believe.  He must be lifted up—on the cross, at his resurrection, at his ascension—so that more of the world will believe.
There is a bit more that happens before we get to the Maundy, those hours where Jesus kneels down and washes the feet of his disciples.  Those hours where he breaks bread and shares a cup of wine.   Where he gives the greatest commandment to love one another. Those intimate hours where Jesus talks about what the disciples will face, how they will experience the Holy Spirit, how they will feel orphaned, but they will not be alone, and then, he prays for them.  Reading chapters 13 through 17, we learn so much about those last hours Jesus spent with the disciples.  They are intimate and loving moments.
We can spend time with those chapters, preparing ourselves for the Passion of the Christ, but our liturgical calendar rushes us from the waving of the palms to Jesus on the cross all on a single Sunday.
I think we miss so much when we distill these last days of Jesus’ life, when we hit the high points on Palm Sunday and then rush to the resurrection on Easter. 
If we were to do this in order it might look like this:
Next Saturday, we’d explore Jesus time at the home of his beloved chosen family.  Time with Lazarus, Mary and Martha.  We’d talk about the oil Mary so lovingly spreads on his feet.
On Sunday, we’d shout our hosannas and wave our palms and then we’d probably read today’s Gospel, so we could talk about how this was the pivotal moment where Jesus would be recognized more fully by people of all walks of life as God’s son.  Where we would begin to better understand that Jesus’ death, like the death of a grain of wheat, means that more people would come to know Jesus.  Would come to know God.
On Sunday night, we’d share a simple meal, wash one another’s feet and hands, become one another’s servants and begin to settle into a rhythm of listening to Jesus speak as we learn that one of us would betray Jesus.
Each of the next few nights, we’d read from these chapters, getting to know Jesus more deeply.  We’d contemplate and commemorate and remember who God is and was and ever will be through this man, through this Jesus.  We’d feed our souls as we prepare ourselves for the ministries we are called into being.
We’d dig, deeply, into the words of Jesus, perhaps seeing or hearing in ways we had never seen or heard before.
And on Thursday night, our feet having been washed, and our souls filled with a new commandment, we will clean our table and straighten our upper room and could then go with Jesus to the garden, to pray, until the guards, led by Judas, would come and drag Jesus away.  For the next few hours, time would be full of confusion, of whispers and shouts and sneaking around or running away. 
Good Friday morning we will have a service where we come to hear the story of the Passion again.  We might be able to imagine the trial, we might be brave enough to see the flogging.  We might follow the crowd as they watch Jesus drag his cross up that hill.  We might flinch with each slam of the hammer and cry out as the cross is lifted; weep as we watch Jesus breathe his last breath.
Good Friday evening we will walk those last steps with Jesus, stopping at 14 stations to hear more of the story.  And Saturday morning, Holy Saturday morning, we will sit together, as many of those Jesus Followers likely did, in silence, in shock, in fear. 
When we use The Liturgical Calendar, it feels like it rushes us through all of this, hitting the main points on Palm Sunday so if that is the only time in the week we hear the story, we experience those places where we can be haunted by the images, but not where we can dig into what happened between entering Jerusalem and the arrest and then the crucifixion.  We miss out in this week, unless we choose to experience it differently during Holy Week, through the words of John, on the depth of Jesus ministry.
Sure, we’ve had the miracles, the meals, the healings, and the teachings.  We’ve learned how to treat the marginalized and question both religious and political authority. But it is in these few chapters from John where we see the immeasurable love Jesus has for those who follow him. 
Even John admits that they did not understand what was happening at the time Jesus spoke all these words.  He acknowledges in his Gospel that it would be after the resurrection and ascension—after Jesus was glorified—when they would truly understand all that Jesus taught them, all that Jesus meant to them.
Holy Week—the week between Palm Sunday and Easter—is THE story of Christ.  It is what helps us to understand God’s love through Jesus.  It is where we hear and read words that bring us closer to God.
These are words that help us see and know Jesus.  They help us mind our souls.
As you prepare to shout hosanna and wave your palm branches next Sunday, I invite you to ponder a couple of questions: 
What does Jesus mean to you? 
How does your relationship with Jesus transform your life?  
Could a reframing of the way we live into Holy Week change the way you perceive the Christ?
Perhaps it is as simple as reading these chapters from John in this week and next.  Come to church during Holy Week.  Talk about what you experience.  Let your soul be fed.

Let us pray. 
Lord God, your son, Jesus prayed these words, “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.  I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:25-26).  May it be so.  Amen.