This is my body given for you

“This is my body given for you”  
(Based on John 20:1-18)

“Where’s the body?” As though to emphasize the sheer physicality and centrality of Jesus’ resurrection, upon which the truth of the Christian faith is founded, St. John recapitulates this question three times in his Easter account (See John 20:2, 13, 15). It was just before dawn. A Sunday morning still misted by darkness … when outside the gates of Jerusalem, a heartbroken disciple of Jesus, named Mary Magdalene, entered a grave riddled garden in order to anoint Jesus’ crucified body with spices-n-oil, as was Jewish custom. But soon she’d be in for a surprise of a lifetime, and beyond …

Even though it was still dark, Mary could tell some-body had moved the large stone away from the front of Jesus’ tomb.  Had Jesus body been stolen or taken away?… His body was all she had left to hold onto and now it too was gone. “So Mary ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they’ve laid [his body]’” (John 20:2). A while later, Mary returns to Jesus’ tomb and encounters “two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain” (John 20:12). They are as compassionate as can be, asking: “Woman why are you weeping?” But, by this point, Mary must have been thinking: “Can’t SOME-BODY do something?”

And then, some-body does. The One whom Mary thinks is a gardener now asks the personal, incarnational, body-question: “For whom are you looking?” And then, this One who created the world with but a word, now brings salvation to Mary, by simply calling her name. Jesus says to her in Hebrew: ‘Mariam!’ And immediately recognizing the voice of her teacher (cf. John 10:3-4), Mary exclaims: ‘Rabboni!” In six short syllables, “Ma-ri-am” and “Rab-bo-ni” … and in just about that many seconds … the world became a different place, for Mary, for you, and for all people. Death, once final, has met its match and is un-done. There is a reality – SOME-BODY – more final than death. “This is my body,” says Jesus, “given for you” (I Corinthians 11:24).

This coming Easter Sunday, we’ll give special focus to the incarnational, fleshy sensibilities of Jesus’ resurrection; especially for our time that has sought to rationalize it as a myth, or psychologize it as a projection of guilt consciousness, or deconstruct it as merely a metaphor.  The 20th century American poet, John Updike offers us a marvelous entrée in his “Seven Stanzas At Easter.” And so, in the meantime, let me ask you: “Where in the world is Christ’s body today? And how is it ‘at hand’ … or connect, making a difference, for you?”

The Word is out! And yes, it’s for you, always …!

j.r. christopherson
Senior Pastor

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death,
so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk
in newness of life. For if we have been united with [Christ] in a death like his, we shall
certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:3-5; RSV)

Big Death, Little Death

In this weekend’s Gospel reading (John 12:20-33), Jesus makes it clear that it is only through his death and resurrection that the Father’s name will truly be glorified (v. 28), the ruler of this world will be driven out (v. 31), and he will draw all people to himself (v. 32). Jesus’ hour has now come, and he will indeed endure to the end, in order for this salvation to be accomplished. The fact that Jesus’ soul was troubled in the face of death (v. 27) is especially humbling. 

In the final weeks of my grandmother’s life, I asked her if she was afraid of dying. She said, “No. Yes. I’m not sure. It’s just that…I’ve never done it before!” Her honest response gave us a reason to hug and laugh during a difficult time. Of course our souls experience trouble in the face of death. We’ve never done it before. 

Or have we? The Apostle Paul invites us to think of it this way: because Christ has died for us, all have died already (2 Cor 5:14). In baptism, we are joined to Christ, united to him in his death – in this way Christ’s death becomes truly for us. What’s more, in baptism we are also joined to Christ’s resurrection – in this way, his new life becomes truly ours. 

Baptism of William Van Demark

Christians can then regard baptism as their “big death.” As Paul remarks in Romans 6, a person who has already died cannot die again. Our old self has been buried with him in the waters of baptism. But the grave was not the end of Jesus’ story, nor will it be ours. Through his death and resurrection, Christ shattered the power that the “little death” of this life holds over us. 

Our eternal future is thoroughly wrapped up in his – a comforting and overwhelming thought as we come ever closer to the end of the Lenten season and approach the cross, where the magnitude of Jesus’ sacrifice comes into full view. Let us draw near to the word through worship, listen, and give thanks and praise.

See you in church,
Pastor Katherine

For God so loved the world

This weekend we hear the most beloved verse of the New Testament. John 3:16 is displayed in the end-zone of football games, stuck on car bumpers and billboards across the nation, and is so well known that you barely even need to say more than "John 3:16." What could be better than to hear that God loves the world?

Well, for all of its familiarity and common use as the gospel in a nutshell, this scripture raises some very uncommon questions. What God's love entail? Is he like a kind old dog who loves his master without question? Is God's love a kind of grace that overlooks your faults and accepts you because you are trying to be your authentic self? Something about God's love is that he "gave his only son." That doesn't sound like love. And then if you go beyond to John 3:17-22, we hear all kinds of talk about judgement, condemnation, and evil. Somehow God's love is for a world that has rejected him and rebelled against him. What does love look like then?

You will have to join the community of First Lutheran this weekend to hear what it means that God loves the world, and you, with more than kind fondness. 

Pastor Lars

The Physics of Faith

“The Passover of the Jews was at hand [think Passover meal, with the lamb without blemish in Exodus 12:1-20], and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money-changers at their business. And making a whip of cords [Jesus] drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the Temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade.’ … ‘Destroy this Temple [they did not understand Jesus was speaking of his own body], and in three days I will raise it up’” (John 2:14-16, 19; emphasis added).

In the Gospel text for this coming weekend (John 2:13-22), we come to see how the “sacrificial system” of the Old Testament, as a way of relating to God, comes to an end. God is no longer available primarily, let alone exclusively, via the Temple. Rather, as St. John makes clear from the very opening verses of his gospel witness, that in the very person of Jesus we are invited to experience God’s “grace upon grace” (John 1:17) through our faith in him. 

Given that St. John’s gospel was written well after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans (70 A.D.), his insistence … and especially reassurance … to the early Christian community, that they will find God’s mercy in Christ outside rather than inside the Temple, makes practical as well as theological sense. So it is for us today. 

Many of us too often think of church as a destination. It’s a place we go to receive … well, spiritual things. (For example: What do you think of? God’s Word of the forgiveness of sins?  God’s Word of hope? Receiving baptism or communion?). But taking a cue from our Gospel text for this weekend (and every day!) I wonder if we’re only seeing part of the picture of the life of worship as well as faith. Worship is a the heart of the Christian faith, it’s foundational, make no mistake; however it’s also a time and place where God then sends us out into the world to bear the good news of salvation that’s been so graciously given to us in the ultimate sacrifice – once and for all in Christ Jesus, by his cross and resurrection (cf. Romans 6:10; Hebrews 10:10; I Peter 3:8).

C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia, c. 1950-56

One way to illustrate this truth is by drawing upon the third book in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia – where the beloved lion, Aslan, tells the children that even after they leave the land of Narnia, they will continue to see him in the needs of others. This is key to what Jesus is teaching us still today, in our text from John 2:13-22: that we come to church, to worship, because in the proclamation of the Gospel and sharing of the sacraments we see God’s forgiveness and grace for us most clearly. But then … we are sent out to look for God and, even more, to partner with God in our various vocations or jobs (cf. Philippians 1:5; Ephesians 3:10) – to bless the people and the world that “God so loves that he even gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16) that we might have “life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).  Worship and witness, these are the centripetal and centrifugal movements (remember your middle school science class?) of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, what we might call the “physics of faith.”

God’s grace to you this day, and throughout the new week. See you at worship … and … then “Go in peace and serve the Lord.”

j.r. christopherson
Senior Pastor   

Leaning Into the Promise of God’s Word

Watanabe, Sadao, Christ Carrying the Cross, 1968.

Each of us confronts the world with all of its possibilities of gain and loss. Risk and anxiety attend our every move. Therefore, the crucial question facing all of us – in every moment – in every time and generation – is the matter of trust. What or who can we finally trust? What is our foundation for hope in the midst of “shootings and rumors of shootings”(such as the recent mass murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida). This is the question of existence. It is this question which gives all of life its religious dimension. In the face of such risk and insecurity we place our trust here and now there … tempted to place our trust in the ways of our own human construction and the world – of materialism, nationalism, weapons build-up, some political party or messiah figure who promises to “save the day.” But then, ashes … ashes … it all falls down.

Join us this weekend in worship, as we hear the story of Abraham and Sarah’s tested journey of faith (Genesis 17:1-7, 15-18), a story that is spirited across the generations to Jesus pointing his disciples and us toward the shadows of a cross (Mark 8:31-38), as the biblical story becomes, once more, our story (Romans 4:23). How or why ought we to trust in the promise of God’s Word, when so many other words fail us? Cross your calendars.

j.r. christopherson
Senior Pastor