Christ is risen. He is risen indeed! Thanks be to you, O God, for the
new life that we have in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Charles Dickens began his novel A Tale of Two Cities with the words, “It was
the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Borrowing from Dickens, I can
say, “It is the best of rooms, it is the worst of rooms.” I am speaking of the
California room at our house, an add-on. It is clearly an add-on. It is the
worst of rooms because from the outside it adds no visual enhancement to the
house. The house is stucco, while the add-on is brick up to waist-high, then
glass the rest of the way. It has an aluminum roof, which despite numerous coats
of tar and a half-dozen coats of roof paint, still leaks from undiscovered
locations, sometimes by the bucketful and other times in very small drips. When
you are in the room during a storm, the drumming sound of the rain on the roof
is deafening. You can’t hear the phone ring, the TV, or another person talking
(not always a bad situation!). It is drafty and cold in the winter and can be
very warm in the summer. Its wiring is haphazard, exposed, causes periodic
blackouts, and is less than a contribution to the overall aesthetics.
Yet, our California room is also the best of rooms. It is where we as a
family spend most of our time. We live there as opposed to the “living room.” As
Mary Lou states, “It is home to our TV, a couple of lazy boys, and several
chairs too!” With three walls of glass it is bright and welcoming in the winter;
and, in the summer, when the windows are all open, it almost always boasts a
cool breeze. From this room one can see our pond, hear the running water, and
drink in the color of all the flowers.
During these spring Sundays we are thinking about “God’s Spring Construction
Project,” what God is doing with the new resurrection life of Easter in each of
our lives and in the church. First, we read of the resurrected Christ returning
to include the disciple Thomas and we know we all are included in God’s grace.
Second, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus are visited by Christ. They then
go tell others of the risen Christ. We too are called to proclaim and serve him.
Last week, Jesus spoke of God as the Good Shepherd who is with us in all aspects
of life and goes before us to lead us and provide all that we need. Today the
construction images are strong as Peter speaks of a spiritual house and Jesus
tells us he will welcome us into God’s house.
We need to remember the Hebrews were slave brick makers for the Egyptians. Moses
led them out of 210 years of oppressive conditions to freedom and the Promised
Land. For generations their memory has been dominated by two journeys. First was
the journey to freedom, the Exodus. Though they griped and complained much of
the way, the Jews looked back on this journey, and still do, as a sign of God’s
gracious love for them, as the time of their “chosen-ness,” and when they
received the Torah. Passover, which this year started last night, is the
celebration of freedom as it recalls the Exodus and is still an important
celebration for the Jewish people. The second journey, the Exile, they believed
was God’s judgment against them because they turned away from God and lived in
sinful ways. However, at the end of the Exile, God again acts to bring them back
on another journey of freedom.
Perhaps it was a reaction to their generations of brick making as slaves in
Egypt, but the Jews were a nomadic people for a considerable time. They were
seemingly uninterested in constructing permanent structures. They kept the ark
as a very movable sign of the presence of God in their midst. It wasn’t until
the time of their third king, Solomon, that God allowed them to build a Temple.
The early band of people who were with Jesus were also quite nomadic in nature.
By the time of our two writings, the second Temple has been destroyed by the
Romans. There may have been a deep longing in the people for some place, some
building, that would have focused their hopes and expectations.
At the writing of 1 Peter, with the Temple, the place of sacrifices, destroyed,
Peter understands that the center of worship is not lost but transferred to the
individual believer’s life. Peter, “the Rock,” calls the people “living stones”
who are to be built into a spiritual house, and to offer spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God. In a sense we could say each of us is to be an add-on, a new
place for God to be worshiped and praised. Not the Temple but they, the people,
are to be the dwelling place of God. They, the people, are to offer sacrifices
not of doves and lambs, but of loving and life-giving care for their fellow
human beings. They, and we, are the construction site where God’s spirit builds
a new place for God’s presence in human life.*
The Gospel of John, the last written of our four gospels, comes at a time when
there was considerable conflict in the Christian community. One of the
significant conflicts was between gentile Christians and those Christians who
had been Jews before. The gentiles felt accepted because of Paul’s strong
teaching on including them on the basis they were justified, acceptable, because
of their trust in God’s grace. The former Jews believed one had to follow Jewish
customs, such as circumcision, the dietary laws, and observing the Sabbath
first, before one could become a Christian. It was a heated and very divisive
conflict. Much of the anti-Jewish sentiment in this gospel is not directed at
the Jews, but at this subgroup of the early church who were former Jews
insisting gentiles had to follow Jewish practices to become Christians.
Our gospel passage today is part of Jesus’ farewell talk with his disciples.
This talk which took place in the Upper Room is five chapters long, almost a
quarter of John’s entire gospel. This is Jesus the teacher at work. It is a long
and exquisitely beautiful good-bye from one wrapping up things with close
friends with reminders, coaxings, and reassurances to his much-loved but weak
disciples. This farewell talk follows a strong pattern in the Bible. Jacob,
Joshua, David, and Moses all have their own farewell talks recorded in
scripture.
Jesus says at the beginning of the speech in Chapter 13 his hour has come to
depart from this world and go to the Father. “Having loved his own who were in
the world, he loved them to the end.” Henri Nouwen urged his readers to love
Jesus and to love the way Jesus loved. Once again Jesus shows us how he loves.
He first teaches by example by washing the disciples feet, demonstrating to them
once more humble loving service. He begins his teaching by saying, “Don’t be
afraid,” the same words the angels always use when speaking to humans. He then
speaks of God’s house having many dwelling places or rooms. The image that comes
to my mind is a house with add-ons. It is a home that has grown like Mopsy. It
has California rooms, and West Virginia rooms, and Brazilian rooms, and Swedish
rooms, and Korean rooms, and Ugandan rooms; because God welcomes into God’s
house all kinds of people from all kinds of places. There is a place in God’s
house for you and me. However, not only are there rooms in God’s house for us,
but Jesus is like a heavenly courier service who at the end of life comes and
receives us and takes us to be with him in God’s house. However you envision
this passage it is overflowing with comfort and assurance. To a people whose
history was that of being repeatedly, forcibly, moved—Jesus says you have a
dwelling place in God’s house. In the Old Testament the image of comfort and
stability was to be able to sit under one’s own fig tree. Here, it is to have a
place in God’s eternal home.
As Jesus tells his disciples of this home they have in the house of God he also
tells them that they know the way to it. However, they do not. Then Jesus makes
another of his famous “I am” statements: “I am the way, the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father but by me.”
To have a more complete understanding of Jesus’ statement we need to hold in
balance several bits of insight. First, the Jews from the time of Moses
understood God’s name to be, “I am.” Jesus’ use of all his “I am” statements
would have alerted his Jewish hearers to an identification of God. Second, the
gospel writer John always presents Jesus as God’s self-revelation, God in human
flesh. Thus one of the dimensions of this statement is that God is saying to
humanity you do not do anything to come to me, I have come to you. I make our
relationship possible. If we believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the
life it is because Jesus has already lovingly made a way for us. This is what
John Wesley called prevenient grace, God’s love coming to us before our turning
in repentance from our sin. No one of the disciples or us can get to God through
right beliefs, doctrines, or even statements such as, “Jesus is my Lord and
Savior.” No one of us can get to God by actions such as circumcision, eating
proper foods, keeping the Sabbath, joining the right church, or doing good works
toward the needy. God has already come to us in the person of Jesus. God’s grace
does not depend on what we say or do, if so we would be graceless.
When Jesus says, “I am the Way,” it is God saying, “I have come to walk with
you and show you the means to the generous, creative life for which I have
created you.” When we see Jesus’ life-giving ministry of teaching, healing,
feeding, including women, children, and outcasts; we see the way of God. When we
see Jesus die, we see generosity beyond measure, beyond death, self-giving to
the ultimate, so abundant not even death can defeat it. When Philip asks Jesus
to show them the Father, Jesus is astonished. John does not record these words
but I wonder if Jesus didn’t say, “Did you see the naked clothed, the blind
given sight, the hungry fed, the ill healed? That is the Father. That is the
will of God for all humanity.” God is adding-on all these people to God’s
family.
God graciously and generously has come into our lives in Jesus. God continues
to be with us in the person and power of the Holy Spirit. Our response to God’s
grace is for us to live gracious and generous lives, doing all we can to give
life in its fullest to others, to add-on to their lives, to add them into God’s
love.
We may ask how we can find the way to God, but God has beaten us to the
punch. God has come to us and said, Come to me all you who labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. There is an add-on for you in my house.”
Thanks, thanks be to God.*
- - - - -
[*]
Notes: The idea of “add-ons” comes from John N. Blackwell, A Whole New
World: The Gospel of John, Morgan James Publishing, 2006, Chapter 4.
The other farewell
addresses in scripture are: Jacob—Genesis 49; Joshua—Joshua 22-24; David—1
Chronicles 28-29; Moses—all of Deuteronomy.
