The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill
One of my favorite passages in scripture concludes
with Jesus saying, “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” So
on this 5th Sunday in Lent, when some of us celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and
our family celebrates the 5th birthdays of my twin grandsons, Peter and
Nathaniel, we hear the prophet Jeremiah tell us that God has written God’s
covenant within our hearts. All of this begs some questions for me today. Where
is our treasure and what is the condition of our hearts today?
In all of our human
relationships, our hearts are routinely affected. Our hearts get dirty and need
to be cleaned. Our hearts get clogged and need to be opened. Our hearts sputter
and fail and occasionally need to be jump-started. They are vulnerable and need
to be protected. Weakened, broken, or hardened by human sin, they require a
healing touch; for in them we hold many treasures. Too often, we may find our
hearts wandering in the wilderness looking for love in all the wrong places.
Paul and I have had
many houses in our decades of marriage together. Our homes have contained many
memories and treasures, both painful and happy ones, accumulated along the way.
In these houses we have survived various diseases; we have experienced multiple
griefs. We have treasured each other, although truth be told, we often took
much for granted. That is until suffering and pain came knocking on our doors.
That is until our hearts were broken, and we repeatedly broke the heart of God.
And so the prophet Jeremiah claimed that God wrote
God’s covenant in our hearts so that it could not be broken. Indeed this
portion from the book of Jeremiah follows 30 chapters of Jeremiah’s warnings
that God’s people had broken their covenant with God repeatedly because their
hearts had been hardened. And so today’s reading in Jeremiah is called The
Little Book of Comfort. In it God offers God’s forgiveness and love. In it our
relationship with God is restored. Through it our hearts are healed continuously
and eternally by God.
There is a common
phrase that we have used frequently in our culture for many years. “I see you”
we say to someone, showing them that we recognize what they are doing, and that
their conduct has not gone unnoticed. Now God sees us fully for who we are, in
all our good and bad behaviors, in all our beauty and ugliness, even when we
cannot see the truth about ourselves, and certainly not the truth about other
people. God sees us fully, both in our sin and in our glory, and loves us even
still.
Apparently, some Greeks had arrived in Jerusalem to
celebrate the festival of Passover; and yet they wanted to see Jesus. Perhaps
they had heard about him, and they wanted to check him out for themselves. Was
he the real deal? Was he just being another rabble rouser, a protester at
political rallies, overturning tables in the temple, and someone who religious
and political leaders came to fear? Was Jesus just being Jesus for his own
personal notoriety, someone who wanted to get a lot of clicks on social media?
Or was Jesus something else?
“We wish to see
Jesus,” these Greek visitors said to Philip. And like a protective friend, a
secret service agent, or a hired bodyguard, Philip ran it by Andrew first, and
then the two of them went to see Jesus after that. But rather than Jesus being
delighted by these foreigners’ interest in Him, Jesus launched into a soliloquy
about his upcoming death. He was telling them what was about to happen to him
in Jerusalem, and what it would mean for them to be one of his disciples. It’s
not what you think, He said, nor probably even what you want.
Referring to his
impending death, Jesus told his disciples that his soul was deeply troubled.
“In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with
loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death.” But
Jesus said, “And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is
for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it,
and I will glorify it again.” Jesus said that this message was not for him,
however, but rather for us. If you want to live, you must recognize your own
mortality. If you want to live, you must die to your over-inflated ego. If you
want to live, you must give up the treasures that you have accumulated for your
own self-protection. And if you want to follow me, you must serve me by loving
others as I have loved you. Yourself and enemies included. No easy assignments
there!
Today, we hear his voice in
scripture and see Jesus in the various images all around us. Stained glass
windows show him as a vulnerable baby, a boy in the temple, a man being
baptized, a rabbi who teaches, an exorcist who casts out demons, a powerful healer,
a political adversary, a faithful Jew, and the beloved child of God. And we see
Jesus as the One who suffers on the cross not only for our sakes but for the
sins of the whole world. Lifted high up on that wooden T-bar, Jesus suffered
just like one of us.
The gospel of John helps us to see
Jesus differently from the other three gospels. Gone is the Jesus from Mark and
Matthew who cries out to God from the cross, “Why have you forsaken me?” Gone
is the Jesus in St. Luke’s gospel where we see him hanging between two
criminals, offering forgiveness, and promising the kingdom of heaven to one of
them. Rather, we see a suffering servant who paradoxically reveals the power of
God. We see a man who has fulfilled his mission.
Frank
G. Honeycutt claims that our greatest struggle as human beings is when we see
meaningless suffering. (Xian
Century, 3/11/20) You know, when
violence erupts and we can’t pin the blame on anyone; or when someone dies and
we can’t point to the reason or we may say “it’s just too soon for them to
die.” Meaningless suffering appears to be unfair, unjust, and inexplicable to
our human hearts and minds. So why did Jesus, the Son of God, have to suffer
and die on the cross?
“Jesus doesn’t explain suffering,”
Honeycutt wrote. “Rather He faces it. He walks right into it. God sent us a
“sufferer” to be our Savior.” Jesus shows us that while suffering is a reality
of human life, and death is our earthly end game, Jesus also shows us that it
is not the end of our story. He was lifted high upon the cross for all to see
death, but Jesus was also lifted up from the grave, for all to see
resurrection. In Jesus, we see the wideness of God’s mercy and the fullness of
God’s heart. We see ourselves as the beloved treasures of God. And we come to
believe that God’s mission of redeeming love was fulfilled in Jesus.
Much has been made about the past
life and death of Alexei Nevalny. Writing from his prison cell in Siberia for
over three years, he described his suffering in heart-breaking detail.
Occasionally showing a lightness of Spirit, he would make jokes about his
circumstances in the face of his oppressors. Having survived an attempt upon
his life outside his own country, he knowingly returned to Russia, aware that
it might cause the end of his life, unwilling to refrain from speaking the
truth. Once an atheist, who later became a Christian, he didn’t ask God to save
him from that hour. Rather in Nevalney, we see a Christian who was a suffering
servant. Who faced death, and walked right into it, knowing that God was with
him..
Jesus sees us. He knows what it is
like to live and die as one of us. He knows about the powers that corrupt and
destroy the creatures of God and God’s creation. And while our suffering and
sacrifices won’t be as notable nor as significant as people like Jesus and
Nevalny, challenges will still come to us in our daily lives. Will we speak the
truth with love? Will we make the right choices? Will we resist temptations,
and turn to God for help with our pain? Will we keep our faith, hope, and love
alive in the face of suffering?
All of which begs those questions
for me once again. Where is my treasure? And in what kind of condition is my
heart? How can I faithfully follow Jesus to the cross? Amen.
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