Jeremiah 31:31-34, John 12:20-33, Psalm 51:5-10, Hebrews 5:5-10
Today is the last Sunday in Lent. Next week we remember Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and the following week is Easter. In today’s reading, some men who were visiting Jerusalem asked to meet Jesus.
“Sir, we want to see Jesus.” This is what we all want to do. Not just to learn about Jesus but to contact him in person. To hear from him and talk with him. Get his guidance for today and a clue as to what’s coming tomorrow. Every week we make time in our service to tell each other what we are hearing and seeing of Jesus. How are we hearing from Jesus? What are we seeing of Jesus?
Let’s take a look back through this Lent at what we have seen (in the last 4 Sundays).
First week we considered that all humans are made in God’s image and that image is visible, but often not very clearly. Jesus bears God’s image truly so we do well to be like him. The most important thing is the quality of our life together because it is our relating together in loving community that best reflects the likeness of God. Are we loving one another as Christ loved us? Are we seeing Jesus in one another?
Second week, we heard from Donald Miller his experience of a relationship with Jesus and we reflected on our own experience. What’s our story?
Third week we saw Jesus cleaning the Temple. We are the temple or dwelling place of the Holy spirit and we need cleaning too. We clean ourselves by getting better control of our human desires and devoting ourselves more to God. Lovingly serving one another is a big part of this. Is our Lenten discipline helping us?
Last week we were reminded that happiness is a choice and so is faith. We saw that we can forget quickly and that we often embellish or temper our memories, especially those of traumatic incidences. What memories do we keep? They are the ones that we go over. Telling our stories is the best way to keep our memories alive.
That’s what we have looked at these last four weeks. Now let me gather together what our four readings this morning are showing us about Jesus.
In Psalm 51:5-10 we are reminded that when God cleans us we are clean, completely, job done, rely on it (v7,9,10). Holiness enables godliness. Forgiveness polishes the mirror so that we reflect God.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 Jeremiah promised a new, improved covenant. This covenant will not be made with words. It will be inscribed on our very hearts. It will come as an assurance in which we know, we know for certain, that God is with us and that God loves us whether we can feel it right now or not. A special kind of open heart surgery where we’re transformed from the inside out.
Now just a thought or two about hearts. “’Heart’ in our culture has a number of associations it didn’t have at all in the biblical world. We tend to contrast “heart” to “head”, or think of the “heart” as the “center of emotion” or “passion” or “drive.”
“For the biblical people, as well as the larger Western intellectual tradition until well into the 19th century, the heart was not much about feelings at all. Instead, it was primarily understood to be the center of intellect and values. The heart was a bodily metaphor describing how we understand and respond to God, one another and the world around us.
“So when God says in Jeremiah that the new covenant is written on our hearts, God is not saying we will “really feel it this time.” Instead, the message is that the new covenant will inform everything we see, say and do “from the inside.” This is why when the Psalmist prays for his heart, he asks that God would teach him wisdom, and not something like that God would make him feel a deeper longing for God.”
Hebrews 5:5-10 tells us that Jesus chose death when he chose obedience to his Father. He chose, knowing that this was the only way to deal with death permanently. He looked for another way – to avoid suffering and death – but there was none. Jesus became our high priestly through his self-sacrifice on our behalf.
“Sacrificial living is at the heart of the Christian life and hence of the Lenten discipline. At the beginning of the season, on Ash Wednesday, we were invited to “observe a holy Lent, by self–examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self–denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word.”
“Many people interpret these words to mean they are called to make a sacrifice of some sort during Lent. Some offer a sacrifice through self-denial of a luxury item, refraining from eating certain foods, or perhaps giving up something they enjoy that is not healthy. Others offer a sacrifice of their time for intentional devotional practices, fasting in some way, or offering special prayers.
“By this time in Lent people may be growing weary of the Lenten discipline. Maybe by this week people are sick of their sacrifices. . . .they’d like to pick up that glass of wine or coffee or piece of cake. They don’t feel like reading their Lenten devotional.
“And yet, if we are to give up at this point, if we are to choose to not make the full sacrifice, is there something to be lost? If we give in to our desires and avoid the hardship for the remainder of the season, might we miss some aspect of the good that could have come from it?
“We are called to be the body of Christ! Can we stay with him to the end? Can we continue to offer our own sacrifices as a way of joining him as he moves ever closer to the cross in the coming weeks? Can we draw near to him, and to one another, by our sacrificial offerings as we walk into this darkest of hours with our Lord?” (GBOD) I hope so. Let’s continue with renewed desire and stay the course.
John 12:20-33. The old covenant required death. Every sinner deserved to die. So how could God’s people survive? God set up death by proxy through the sacrifice of animals. This was not a permanent solution.
The new covenant still requires death. Every sinner still deserves to die. This time we are saved vicariously by Jesus’ death. This is a permanent solution.
Called to Die with Jesus
In fact all of this week’s texts ring the same message: Die.
“Die—that there may be much fruit says John. Die—to any notion you can rule yourself says Jeremiah. Die— in reverent submission to God, accompanying Jesus in his ministry of embodied intercession for the whole world, that you, too, may experience him saving you from death says Hebrews.
“The word, death, was no less distressing and distasteful in Jesus’ day, or Jeremiah’s day, than it is in ours. But die we must to have life, and have it abundantly.”
What does dying look like for us? It looks like sacrifice. But I am of “a generation that doesn’t necessarily like to make sacrifices. Not that we don’t. It’s just that we’d rather not if we don’t have to. Many from my generation have grown up with enough privilege that we have come to not just take much of what we have been given for granted, but to expect to enjoy a certain lifestyle. We are the consumer generation and we expect to have access to everything we want whenever we want it.
“Maybe we went looking for Jesus because we wanted something from him. Maybe we were looking for a miracle, or some kind of healing. Maybe we wanted him to say something that would make us feel affirmed, or happy, or righteous about the way we are living. Maybe we were looking for Jesus because we were afraid of death and we thought he might show us the way to save ourselves for eternity.
“The selfishly driven, self-preserving, self-serving and individualistic part of us looks for Jesus because we want something from him. But the irony of the cross is that what really feeds our souls, what really heals us and satisfies us, is when we start to give more than we take. True satisfaction comes when we begin to grasp that it comes to us through hard work and sacrifice, and not from simply taking care of ourselves and filling up our lives with more and more stuff.
“During this final week of preparation before Holy Week we would do well to remember that following Jesus is not always easy or pleasant. Sometimes the way to eternal life is difficult and requires hard work and sacrifice. But unless we are willing to make a sacrifice, unless we are willing to let some things in our lives die in order that others might live, we may have a hard time knowing the deep and eternal satisfaction of everlasting life with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Let’s do what we see Jesus doing.
Appreciation to Rev. Dawn Chesser, United Methodist Church General Board of Discipleship, for the sections in quotes.