Good Questions
This Sunday’s Scripture reading tells the story of an Ethiopian court official whose encounter with the evangelist Philip led him to faith in Christ (Acts 8:26-39). This Ethiopian Jew (yes, they exist!) of very high ranking and stature had recently traveled in his fancy “company chariot” to worship in Jerusalem and was headed back home on a wilderness road when Philip encountered him there, reading from a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Philip (who was something of a “nobody” in the presence of this powerful official) boldly asked him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The Ethiopian replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”
I’m struck by the humility with which the Ethiopian responded to Philip’s inquiry. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say that this court official was much more highly educated than the evangelist, and this distinction of status, class and education probably was evident to them both. I wouldn’t blame the Ethiopian for responding defensively to Philip’s line of questioning. “Excuse me? Don’t you know who I am? Are you aware of my qualifications, and the many responsibilities that my queen entrusts to me? And just who are you, anyway?” But no, his response to Philip is nothing like that. His question, “How can I, unless someone guides me,” indicates this foreigner’s openness to learning more, receiving new insight and growing as a person of faith. In fact, everything out of this man’s mouth in the rest of the story is a question – and these questions, good questions, are what the Holy Spirit uses to finally draw him into faith in Jesus Christ.
Questions – we shouldn’t be afraid of having them, we shouldn’t be afraid of asking them. We shouldn’t be afraid of looking stupid or think that the only purpose of questions is to harm faith or keep God at arms’ length. The Ethiopian official used questions as a way to invite another man of faith to help him achieve deeper insight, and in order to draw even closer to the truth found in God’s word. At the end of the story, the Ethiopian was claimed by Christ in the waters of baptism and became filled with newfound joy. Is it any surprise that the church in Ethiopia traces its origins back to this humble and inquisitive fellow, and the church in Ethiopia is strong and vibrant still today?
Between Emmaus and Us … The Word of Hope!
“That very day [Easter Sunday] two of the disciples were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened [Jesus’ crucifixion the precious Friday]. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?’ And they stood still, looking sad. … [And they answered:] “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet might in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one [the Messiah] to redeem Israel.’” (Luke 24:13-17, 19-21a)
Jesus had been crucified in Jerusalem just three days before – right before their eyes. And now … well, there was nothing left for these two disciples in our gospel story to do but get out of town. And where did they go? They went to a little town called Emmaus. And where is Emmaus? And why did they go there? It was no place in particular really – most likely their home (though we can only infer this from Luke 24:28-29), some seven miles from Jerusalem. And the main reason they went “back home” is that their future hopes had been heartbreakingly crushed. Did you hear it? “But we had hoped …” (v.21)
Do you understand what I mean when I say that there is not a one of us who’s not gone to some Emmaus with them? Emmaus can be a night at the movies just for the sake of seeing a movie, or to a bar just for the sake of a bar, or yes, just going for a walk. Emmaus may be buying a new article of clothing or getting some groceries we don’t need, or just “surfing the net” or flicking through the channels on the TV, vegging-out.
In many ways, we too are like these two early disciples, depicted by St. Luke in our Gospel story for this weekend … Carrying this empty hole in our hearts that speaks of loss … Loss of loved ones or friends, or just flat out, love! Loss of health or some great expectations. Or perhaps the deepest loss of all, as already referenced, echoed in v.21 of our Gospel story: “But we had hoped …” Four of the loneliest words in Holy Scripture.
Think on this with me: Do you remember a time as well, when Jesus was so real for you that you had no question about his presence in your life. He was your most intimate friend. A comforter. An inspiration. But now you don’t really think of him very often. You no longer have that special feeling. He’s become unrecognizable, a “stranger” (v.16). Somehow you feel you’ve lost him? Hmm?
So what do we do with this huge sense of loss – “but we had hoped” – that hits our lives? Try to fill it with stuff or distraction? Blame someone else? Try to “strut-and-fret” but really not signifying anything with honesty? I love this line from Graham Greene’s novel, The Heart of the Matter: “The man kept speaking of his gracious heart, but it seemed that a long deep surgical operation would have been required to find it” (Penguin Books, 1977; p.47).
No amount of make-up will cover it all… However, there’s another possibility; and that is this, to grieve our losses. To grieve is to allow our losses to soften and break apart our feelings of security and self-centeredness and lead us to the painful truth of our brokenness. And this is where our journey of faith begins anew – as this gospel word of God in Christ – comes to us on our Emmaus Road, beginning with the Kyrie in our order of worship this coming weekend. These two Greek words are short-hand for Kyrie eleison (“Lord have mercy”). It’s a grieving, contrite heart that recognizes our co-responsibility for the evil that surrounds us and is in us, and that we need a saving hope, a resurrecting power that’s beyond our human strength or worldly power. And so the early disciples confess: “… our chief priests and rulers [and we ourselves] delivered Jesus up to be condemned to death” (v.20)
Again, there is this wonderful “however” … something amazing, life-giving, hope-renewing that’s about to happen in this story for the disciples and for us as well … Come and see. Come and hear. Come and be renewed … that your hearts as well might “burn within you,” (Luke 24:32). Yes, with hope … as God’s Word comes and speaks to you, afresh, anew.
j.r. christopherson
Senior Pastor
This Is Easter!
“Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned and said to him
in Hebrew, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means ‘My Teacher’).” –John 20:16
“Mary!” This is Jesus’ shortest sermon in the Gospel of John and, one of the most dramatic and life changing: “Mary!” The Good Shepherd knows his sheep and “calls them by name” … AND his sheep “know his voice” (John 10:3-4). This one life giving Word, as at creation (“And God said …” see Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 14, 20, 24, 26; cf. John 1:1-5; 20:1), Mary’s own name – spoken by the very death conquering Word of God, “the Word made flesh” himself (John 1:18) – changed her whole life.
“And she turned …” In the one or two seconds this turn took, the world shifting ever so slightly on its axis and at about this turn’s one-second midpoint trajectory, history, too, moved almost imperceptively from B.C. to A.D. A second before this turn there is a woman in the deepest human despair in the agonizing presence of inconquerable death; a second after the beginning of this turn there is a woman in the deepest possible human elation, in the presence of the death-conquering Central Figure of history. The rush that must have come over Mary in her two-second turn is unimaginable. She is the first person, ever, to experience the personal presence of the Risen Lord. When she turns to Jesus at this moment, as his voice broke the darkness of it all into light (cf. John 1:4-5), human history took a turn into the light of a hope that is eternal.
“And Mary said to Jesus in Hebrew, ‘Rabboni!” (which means ‘My Teacher’). In five short syllables, “Mar-y” and “Rab-bon-i” … and in just about that many seconds the world became a whole new place. Death, once final, has met its match. There is a reality – Someone – more final than death who calls Mary’s name into his very breath of new life. And so it is for you, this Easter day. And Jesus said: “____________” (Say your name here.)
And so listen-in to this powerfully poetic reflection by one of our former senior pastors of First Lutheran Church (1952-1955), later President of Luther Theological Seminary … a great patriarch and witness in the faith for many, Dr. Al Rogness:
“The Easter resurrection is as cataclysmic an event today as it was then. Death is
destroyed! It does not have the last word. In the wake of Christ’s resurrection, a new life
is in store for everyone who hears and believes it. Because Christ lives, we too can live – in
a kingdom and among riches that are as glorious as they are endless. …
Without Easter the world would spin on its melancholy axis with no great morn
dawning, doomed to keep people in bondage to their anxieties and cupidities, in aimless
repetition until death overtakes them. The best they could hope for would be simply to endure.
Why long for something better? Why aspire to something new?
Nothing in all the world has so enchanted and haunted people down through the
centuries as has the event of Easter. Whole civilizations have been changed because people
have [heard and believed the good news] that death does not have the last word. They have
clung to the Risen Christ, and he has clung to them, and together they have reshaped the hopes of the world. There is forgiveness, there is victory, there is love and courage and
an everlasting future. This is Easter!” (The Word For Every Day; p.376)
Come and join the family of faith, gathered at First Lutheran this coming Sunday – in all of its joy-filled, festive fanfare of brass, choirs of all ages, holy communion, and pipe-organ … with all the stops pulled – including Widor’s famous Toccata!
Click to view the Easter Worship bulletins.
Dr. John R. Christopherson
Senior Pastor
Locked In
It's easy to miss the triumphant tragedy in Palm Sunday's scriptures, as Jesus enters into Jerusalem. The crowds are cheering, singing, honoring and giving Jesus a hero's welcome into the city. There is great excitement, and high expectations, for Jesus to be the new king to bring in peace and glory. Our eyes are blind and our ears clogged with images of power and might on a festival day like this, just as the crowds were in Jerusalem that day. Jesus already sees what we do not. He sees that we are all locked in. He is locked in to the cross and can see nothing else. He is on his way to die for the sins of the world. We are all locked into Jesus being a glorious new king and refuse to see and hear any truth but what we already know.
So Jesus enters Jerusalem, not as the end point of his ministry, but an intensification. He has already born the guilt and shame of sinners, endured the rejection of the world, and won acclaim for his teaching, healing and miracles. Yet now, he will suffer. He is locked into suffering at the hands of everyone who is locked into to sinning against him. While the crowds cheer him on, he weeps for them, for the things of God are hidden from their eyes.
The cheers acclaiming his arrival will, within the week, turn to cheers for his crucifixion. There is no avoiding or escaping it.
Palm Sunday is the start of Holy Week, where we pray that you would see not Jesus in his glorious acceptance by the powers of the world, but instead would hear his word of forgiveness and new life given to the world that rejects and despises him. Come and experience the glory of Jesus on his cross and the suffering he endured for the people he loves so much.
Maundy Thursday we celebrate Jesus' Last Supper, where he gives the disciples – those who betray, deny, and forsake him – his last will and testament, his promise of an inheritance upon his death, so that when he dies they will have exactly what he left for them: forgiveness of sin.
Good Friday we listen to Jesus suffer and die, giving himself over to sinners, dying at their hands, losing a no-win situation whereby death itself will be killed.
All this so that we can celebrate Easter Sunday, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ!
Up in Smoke
Let me ask you this opening question … Remember that Sunday School song about Zacchaeus? You know, the one about the “wee little man” who scrambles up a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus. It’s a well beloved story. But I also think there’s a well-beloved theology that goes along with it; so well beloved in fact, that translators will mess with the text (i.e. the verb tense) in order to shore-up a bias, like any bias, that dies hard. And so I’m asking you to do something very carefully …
As some “homework” for this coming Saturday/Sunday worship, re-read the Gospel story of Zacchaeus, according to St. Luke 19:1-10. After doing so, give special attention to v.8. Now, depending on which translation of the Bible you’ve just read, here are two very different interpretations:
#1. In the New Revised Standard Version or New International Version of the Bible, for example, you’ll read: “Zacchaeus said … ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” (Luke 19:8). Note the emboldened verbs in this first translation. Makes things sound like a repentance story, right? With the emphasis on who? … Zacchaeus.
#2. In the King James or Revised Standard Version of the Bible, as another example, you’ll read: “Zacchaeus … said: “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.” (Luke 19:8). Note once more, the emboldened verbs in this second translation. Makes things sound like an affirmation story, right. With the emphasis on who? … Jesus.
So, what’s the big deal, Pastor John? Sounds like Greek to me!!! Well, to a degree it is. It turns out that those who translate the verbs as “future oriented” (as in Translation #1) appeal to a grammatical category called a present-future tense. Trouble is, not only is this the only place in the whole New Testament where this verb tense occurs, but there’s no such thing in the Greek language (from which these New Testament translations derive)! So, rather than translate this verse in the present tense (as in Translation #2), translators have actually "created/invented" a new grammatical category in an attempt to justify their theological interpretation or bias.
So, we must ask: “What’s the bias?” Remember how at the beginning of this blog that I said there’s a much-beloved theology that tags along with this well-beloved story of Zacchaeus? Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I think for most of us, it goes like this: “It is only after we come to God with a contrite/repentant heart that we will then be able to receive God’s responsive gift of forgiveness and salvation.” However, if this is true, then we’re always off-in-the-future tense (of Translation #1) wondering if we’ve repented enough or are contrite enough or good enough; that is, always unsure of ourselves (and therein lies the problem). And so with all human inventions or creations – even translations of Scripture – it ends up in smoke! (See my photo of Jericho some years ago that serves as a metaphor.)
Now, with Translation #2, the response is not left-up to Zacchaeus … “I will do this,” or “I will do that” … But rather, it’s in the present tense – right then and there (short-cutting all of Zacchaeus’ attempts to make himself righteous and get the tax-collecting ledgers of his life to line-up) – of Jesus’ announcing God’s promising Word, as at his Holy Supper which we’ll celebrate this weekend: “Today, salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:9) … breaking the “sentence” of v.8 … and all of its “periods” … into a real future of hope: in verses 9 and 10 and… I mean, it’s enough to have us jumping out of trees and even out of our skin with joy – as this word of salvation – of God’s radical grace that comes to us apart from our having to have it “all together” – that’s not only for Zacchaeus' hearing but yours, right now! See you this weekend, at worship (including Christ’s sacrament of Holy Communion)
j.r. christopherson
Senior Pastor