Yet A Little While
Reflections on Pentecost Sunday
Do you remember as a child (or even as an adult for that matter), when you stood at the front window … nose and hands pressed-up against the glass … your eyes straining, as you look far into the distance … standing there, waiting with deep longing … for a cherished parent or child, some beloved in your life … to return home?
In the middle chapters of St. John’s gospel, beginning around Chapter 13, the allegro (“quickly and bright”) tempo of Jesus’ three-year-ministry now moves to a pace that’s much more of an adagio (“slowly, with great expression”). Let me try to lay out this striking tempo change by having you listen to what New Testament scholars refer to as Jesus’ “farewell discourse” (John 14:1-17:26).
“Little children, yet a little while I am with you … Where I am you cannot come.” (John 13:33)
“I will not leave you desolate; I will come again to you. Yet a little while, and the world will no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also.” (John 14:18)
“But when the Advocate [i.e. the Holy Spirit] comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father … he will bear witness to me; and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning (John 15:26-27)
“A little while, and you will see me no more; again a little while, and you will see me.”
(John 16:16)
In these chapters, that include our gospel text for this Sunday (John 15:27-28; 16:4b-24), Jesus tells his disciples everything they need to know before he leaves them. But where’s he going? … Well, he’s going to die on a cross for one thing. Only that’s not how Jesus tells it. The way he tells it, he’s leaving them in charge while he’s gone. Yes, he’ll be back; but in the meantime, his “To-Do-List” is so long it raises some anxiety in the disciples about how long he’ll be away. “A little while,” Jesus reassures them, “and you will see me.” Well …
Yes, a few of them did … later on … after his resurrection. But … then Jesus was gone again, as he ascended into heaven – bringing our humanity back into unity with God the Father for all eternity (cf. John 17). You see, a little while became a long while. A long while became a life time. Ten years turned into a hundred, then five hundred, then some two thousand. And now, from where we sit today in 2018, it’s been so long … some of us wonder if we’ve not been “left behind” like some characters in a Tim LaHaye novel and orphaned after all.
My friends, is Jesus gone or isn’t he? If he’s gone, then where has he gone? And “what in the world” will we do without him?! (Here’s that anxiety of the disciples I mentioned earlier.) But, if he’s not gone, then where is Jesus exactly? Why doesn’t he show himself? Give us a sign! Right? … This week at worship, as we celebrate the “birthday of the Church” called Pentecost, Jesus will do just that. Just for you!
In the meantime … God’s grace.
j.r. christopherson
Senior Pastor
Beloved, Since God Has So Loved Us …
“Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God,
and he who loves is born of God and knows God.
He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.
In this the love of God was made manifest among us,
that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we loved God but that [God] loved us and sent
his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another,
God abides in us and his loved is perfected in us.” (I John 4:7-12; RSV)
The letter of I John reads like a Christian midrash (interpretation or commentary) upon the Gospel of St. John. What do I mean by this? Look with me for example at I John 4:9: “In this the love of God was manifest among us, that God has sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” Sound familiar?! Yes! It’s John 3:16. Basically stated, I John 4 offers us ethical imperatives based on the theological indicatives of St. John’s Gospel. Look with me at all the ethical imperatives: “Beloved, let us love one another” (v.7, 11). “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God” (v. 15). “He [or she] who loves God should love [one’s] brother [or sister] also” (v.21). All of this because, why? … Look at the “heart of it all” in I John 4:16. For here’s the foundational, theological indicative: “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (cf. also v.9-10)
So, the question prompted for us by our Gospel (i.e. John 15:1-8) and Epistle (i.e. I John 4:7-21) texts is this: “As Christ is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5) … how can we use this fruit or these gifts of love that God has given us … to better care for and be with those people in our lives who are suffering … who are lonely … who are broken and grieving … who are dying?” That is, “How can we, even little ol’ us, be used by our Lord Jesus Christ to touch such lives with God’s love – to serve in Jesus’ image: ‘abiding branches’ (narly as we might be) to reach out from God’s first love, for us in Christ, into a 2nd … 3rd … 4th and 5th gift of love … for our neighbor?” Life changing gifts of Christ’s Spirit through simply Listening, Being Present, or Speaking a Word of Forgiveness or Affirmation.
“Beloved, since God so loved us, let us so love one another” (I John 4:11).
I hope to see you this weekend at either the Saturday Vespers or Sunday morning …
John Christopherson
Senior Pastor
The Sunnier Side of Doubt
“Now Thomas, one of the twelve [disciples], called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus [had first appeared to the other disciples after his resurrection]. So the other disciples told [Thomas]: ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But [Thomas] said to them, ‘Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:24-25; RSV)
Dear Friends in Christ: from the Gospel text for this coming Sunday (John 20:19-31), the Sunday now following Easter, and the hope we’ve been given in Christ’s resurrection … now comes the famous caricature of one of Jesus’ beloved disciples: Thomas. Oh, I know we’ve labeled him. Somewhere, in some sermon, someone laid down the label, “Doubting Thomas.” And the name stuck.// And to a degree, yea, it’s true. Thomas did harbor some serious doubt. However … it’s just that there’s a whole lot more here than “meets the eye” … (John 20:29-30; cf. II Corinthians 5:7 and Hebrews 11:1).
At our Saturday night Vespers service (5:00 p.m. in Chapel), as well as our three services this Sunday (8:00; 9:30; and 11:00 p.m. in Main Sanctuary), I’d like for us to first, give careful pause and ponder what we really mean when we talk about “doubt” and how it relates to our Christian faith. And second: to gain a deeper understanding of the “good news” that comes to us on spirited wing in the hearing of the Gospel text from John 20; that is, how our risen Savior, Jesus the Christ enters anew into all the tightly closed places of our trembling and fear-filled hearts, speaking a word of “Peace be with you” (John 20:19, 26; cf. Psalm 119:35f; Hebrews 6:18f)
We’ll also be drawing upon a large canvas “study” (by local Ethiopian artist, Eyab Mergia) of Caravaggio’s classic painting, “The Incredulity of Saints Thomas.” As you look at the small posting of it here, let me ask you: “In Carvaggio’s well-known technique of chiaroscuro (Italian meaning, “light-dark”) where in the subject matter of the painting does the light appear to be emanating from?” Moreover, “Is there something striking to you here, how Thomas’ finger is placed in Jesus’ wounded, yet resurrected body?” And finally, “Don’t you find it curious that Thomas’ eyes aren’t fixed on the place where his finger is touching Jesus’ wounded side … but rather, where?” Come and see!
“Eight days later [Jesus’ appeared again to the disciples, but this time Thomas is with them]… Then Jesus said to Thomas: ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.’ Thomas answered him,
‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:26a, 27-28)
j.r. christopherson
Senior Pastor