Gardeners in the New Creation: An Easter Sermon

John 20:1-18

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

Good morning, and Happy Easter to you all! It is indeed a joy to share with you in celebration of the glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This is a holy season of beauty, light, and gladness. All around us it seems that creation too is sharing in our celebration.

Just as we once again sing our Alleluias and our Easter hymns, so the birds sing their songs. We are swept up together with them in rejoicing. The Hebrew poem, The Song of Songs, from Holy Scripture says it like this,

Arise, my love, my fair one,   and come away; for now the winter is past,   the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth;   the time of singing has come,and the voice of the turtle-dove   is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs,   and the vines are in blossom;   they give forth fragrance.Arise, my love, my fair one,   and come away.

It woos us does it not? After the sometimes dreary winter months here in New York, the return of warm weather, sun, and green grass, as well as the blooming of flowers does indeed feel like a kind of resurrection. To me, each spring is a miracle, a gift, and the promise that God has not given up on the world. He restores it every year and each time he dazzles us with beauty.

We eagerly await its signs, and look for them. Like that lonely crocus that pokes its head up from the ground, amidst snow flurries in the middle of March or like the robin that suddenly appears in our back yard. They are promises that spring is coming! It will soon be here! Likewise Jesus burst fourth from his tomb in the midst of our dying world oppressed by the long winter of sin. His resurrection is a promise of a new creation, a restored Earth.

Jesus is making all things new. He is fixing what has been broken and misshapen by sin and death. He is setting us—and all creation—free from our bondage. He is bringing the joy of spring to our dreary winter. What signs does Saint John give us in this morning’s gospel of this coming new creation—of it indeed having already arrived in our midst?

The first sign given is simply the opening words of our reading, “Early on the first day of the week…”

In the Biblical story of creation, God fashions the world in seven days. On the seventh day, the Sabbath day, he rested from his labors. He commanded that his people also rest on that day. It is a day set aside to restore the soul, to restore relationship with God. It is a day of recreation. Easter Sunday, the day of Jesus’ resurrection, is the first day of a new week, the first day of a new creation. All things are made new on this day. There is a beautiful hymn that captures this well:

Morning has broken like the first morningBlackbird has spoken like the first birdPraise for the singingPraise for the morningPraise for them springing fresh from the world Mine is the sunlightMine is the morningBorn of the one light Eden saw playPraise with elation, praise ev'ry morningGod's recreation of the new day

The second sign is the empty tomb. The stone is rolled way, because on this new day, the first day of a new creation, the resurrection of the dead has begun. The Jewish people, and the party of the Pharisees in particular, believed that when the messiah came he would restore all things and the righteous dead would be raised to share in the new age.

Long ago the prophet Isaiah had proclaimed,

“Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.”

Jesus is called the “firstborn from the dead.” He is the first among many brothers and sisters. Where he goes we will follow.  There is a sequence of events as scripture describes the resurrection of the dead, first Christ, then at his coming again those who belong to him, and then the final consummation when all creation will be made new. 

Saint John gives us yet another sign that the new creation has begun. This new day, like the first day, begins in a garden. When our risen Lord first appeared to Mary, in her grief, she did not yet recognize him, but thought he was the gardener. She was of course mistaken, but in another sense Jesus really is a gardener. This was how Jesus chose to be perceived by her.  He is a gardener in the sense that Adam was a gardener when he was made a steward of God’s creation in the Garden of Eden.  Jesus is the steward of a new and better creation. He is a new Adam, a fresh start for the human race.

The first commandment given to the human race was to tend and keep-serve and protect—the beautiful garden that God gave them for their home. Human beings are unique among God’s creatures as gardeners. We plant and we grow, we prune, and we cultivate. We continue God’s project of creation. We take what he has given us and we care for it, we nurture it, we multiply, and beautify it.

When human beings are participating with God in creation as wise stewards we are at our best, but Adam has fallen down on the job. Instead of caring for creation he has abused and misused it. Instead of making the world a more beautiful place we have paved paradise and put up a parking lot! Creation has been dragged down with us into corruption and bondage.Christ has come to repair what Adam ruined. He has come to pull up the weeds and irrigate the dryness. To cut off the dead branches and graft in new and healthy vines. 

When Mary recognizes Jesus for who he is, she clings to his feet, she never wants to let him go. Again, the Song of Songs says,

“When I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her who conceived me.”

But Jesus tells her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.” And earlier he had told his disciples, “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper—the Holy Spirit—will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”

She must not hold him to the earth! It is not yet the end, when Christ will return to take his bride—the people of God—to himself. The day of the final consummation has not yet come. The new creation has begun but it is not yet finished. We have a job to do!

Just as Adam was made a partner with God in creation, so are we made partners with Christ in the new creation. He sends us his spirit to remake us after his own likeness. He gives us his spirit so that we too can share in the redemption of the world, so that we can become with him wise stewards, gardeners in the new creation, bringing beauty and truth to a world that has far too little of either.

Just as Jesus sent Mary to tell his brothers and sisters the good news, so he sends us. We are to announce to them, “Arise, winter is now past and the spring has come! Flowers appear on the earth. Now is the time for singing!” Let our joy be so contagious that all creation is swept up in our songs of praise!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! 

What Does God Think of Death?

John 11:1-45

What does God think of death? It is clear from Holy Scripture that death is not part of God’s ultimate plan for his creation. Scripture depicts death as an enemy with which God struggles and is in conflict, a malicious weed that he must pluck from his garden. When it speaks of the New Heavens and the New Earth, the goal of God’s creation project—the world as it will be when God finally has his way—it says, “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things will have passed away.”

Our lesson from the Gospel of John is helpful in giving us a  theology of death. It tells the story of a man named Lazarus, who has taken seriously ill. Jesus was a close friend of Lazarus and his sister Martha and Mary as well. He was often a guest in their home, and appears to have genuine affection for them, which is why it is so perplexing that he reacts the way that he does. Even after hearing about Lazarus’ grave illness, he remains where he is.  He tells the messengers, “This illness does not lead to death.”

One explanation of Jesus’ behavior would be that he was simply tragically mistaken. Perhaps he did not realize the severity of the situation. I don’t think that is the case. He seems to be acting with deliberate intention. He waits a couple of days until Lazarus is dead. Did Jesus want Lazarus to die? Of course, not, he loved him. Did he directly cause his death?  No, but he did allow it. He did not intervene when he could have. He knew that he was going to raise him to life which is why he said, “this illness does not end in death.” He allows it in order that “the Son of Man might be glorified through it.”

The first thing I want to say about what this passage teaches us about death is that, although God is not the direct cause and creator of death, he allows it in order that his purposes might be achieved through it. God does not delight in death. He intends to destroy it once and for all, and yet, penultimately this very enemy is the servant of God.  How so?

First, death can be the executor of judgment. The scriptures say, the wages of sin is death. The presence of death lets us know that all is not right with the world. The scriptures also speak continually of death as setting a limit on the human sinfulness. How would humans—sinful as we are—behave without those limitations?

Secondly, death has a necessary and vital role in the God’s creation. Death is the bedrock of the food chain. Other creatures grow and develop because others die. Forests grow tall and strong because other life forms decay and fertilize the ground. Even your ability to hear and see this sermon is dependent on the ongoing death of millions of perfectly healthy cells in your body. And yet all these arguments for the utility and the necessity of death does not change the fact that the presence of death in creation is also a source of continual pain, sorrow, and suffering for us. It is still an enemy.

Finally, Just as God uses death as the generator and preserver of life in natural world, so also God uses death as the means through which he gives us eternal life. More on that later, but at the moment let it suffice to say that God uses Lazarus’ death to demonstrate the fact that Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life.

The next thing I want to say about what this passage teaches us about death is that God is grieved with us over the pain and sorrow that death brings. When Jesus finally arrives on the scene Martha and Mary are happy to see him, but they are also confused, and a bit angry. The first thing they say to him is, “Lord if you had been here, Lazarus would not have died.”

 Jesus consoles Martha by telling her, “Your brother will rise again.”  Even though Martha does not understand what he is about to do, she believes that Lazarus really will rise again on the last day, but she is still grieved.

Sometimes we try to be super spiritual and resist grief by saying that our loved ones are in a better place or that they will rise again. All of this is true, but grief at times like this is still appropriate. We grieve, just as Martha did, not because we are without hope in the resurrection, but rather because it is hard to say goodbye to those we love. Grief is not unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. When Jesus was brought to the grave of his friend Lazarus, he too wept. In doing so, he sanctified our own grief over the death of those we love.

Jesus wept even knowing that Lazarus would rise from the dead. His grief was in recognition that all is not yet right with the world, the presence of death continues to mar God’s good creation.  The gospel of John tells us that he was “deeply moved and troubled.” Our English translations just do not get at the heart of what the text actually says though. The word John uses actually means to snort like a bull ready to charge. Some have suggested a better way to translate what Jesus is feeling is to say he was angry in spirit and deeply agitated. He was mad! Mad at death!

Jesus stares death down and says, “I’m coming for you!” And as if to say to death, “you have no power over me,” he calls out “Lazarus, come out!” and the man who had been dead four days walks out alive.

This brings us to the final point I want to make about what this passage teaches us about death; Jesus has power over death. He is the resurrection and the life. He demonstrates his authority over death by raising Lazarus from the tomb.  However, this was only the sneak preview. It is sort of like the trash talk before the big match. Although Lazarus is raised from the dead, he will still die again. The final battle will be fought on the cross at Calvary. 

God allows death for his own purposes, but he doesn’t stand far off as we suffer its effect. He isn’t afraid to take his own medicine. In Christ, God suffers and dies with us.  Ironically it is through Jesus’ own death on the cross that the power of death is broken. In going down to death and rising again, Jesus breaks its bonds and sets us free. Death is swallowed up in victory. “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?

Death is an enemy but it is a defeated enemy. We need not fear its power. We wait in expectation for its final destruction and the resurrection of the dead. Perhaps no one expresses this more eloquently than the Anglican priest and poet, John Donne. I want to end by reading one of his sonnets. 

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. 

Sexual Tension at the Well

John 4:5-42

Jesus’ meeting with the woman at the well is a well known gospel story. It has often been depicted in art and in song; one of my favorites is Sam Cooke’s, “Jesus Gave Me Water.” The story is often told as an object lesson in evangelism and sometimes even racial reconciliation. It is a very rich story, and it’s quite long. We had trouble fitting it all into the bulletin! This morning, however, I want to focus on a subtext of the story that might not be immediately apparent. I want to talk about the underlying sexual tension between Jesus and this woman and how he uses it to lead her to God.

Have I got your attention? Some of you might be shifting awkwardly in your pew now. I know, we aren’t supposed to talk about sex in church except maybe to say, “thou shalt not.” Why is that? Sexuality is a pretty huge part of who we are. It is a major preoccupation of our inner lives, and yet we compartmentalize our sexuality from our spirituality. Why is it that even the suggestion of Jesus as a sexual being seems radical to us? He’s God! He isn’t supposed to be involved in that sort of thing! And yet he is also a man, a human being like us, and so—like us he too was very much a sexual being.

Was Jesus married? Despite what you may have heard on the History Channel, there is no compelling reason to think that he was. Could Jesus have been a fully sexual being without being sexually active? I think so. I have a friend who is committed to celibacy, and yet he is perhaps more in tune and connected with his sexuality than anyone else I know.  Being celibate or abstinent does not mean putting that part of your self on a shelf and ignoring it. If you do that, you will only run into trouble! Part of having a healthy sexuality—and indeed a healthy spirituality—is recognizing and owning that part of who we are and allowing God to use it for his purposes.

So let’s look at the text. It is the heat of the day in the Middle East. Jesus has been traveling quite a while and so he takes a load off and rests in the shade by a well while his disciples are running errands. Suddenly a woman shows up. This is a culture where men and women would have been segregated in almost every situation outside of the home, but here Jesus and this woman are, alone together. More than that, Jews don’t talk to Samaritans and rabbis never talk to women in the streets, especially if they are alone together, and yet Jesus addresses her. 

This is a worldly woman, not exactly a sheltered young girl. She has been around. She has known a lot of men. In fact she has a reputation, which is probably why she chose to come to the well alone in the afternoon, when most people would be resting indoors. She is used to getting comments from other women and unwanted attention from men. When Jesus begins to speak to her, we can almost picture her roll her eyes, “Oh boy, here we go, I knew this was coming.” She gets a little saucy with him, “You want a drink huh? Oh I bet. Don’t you know you’re not supposed to be talking to me?”

Jesus’ response is somewhat cryptic, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” He tells her if she were to drink the water he can give her she would never be thirsty again. I imagine her thinking, “He’s coming on to me. He’s a bit cocky calling himself ‘the gift of God’ and I’m not exactly sure what he is getting at with this ‘living water’ nonsense, but he’s got my attention. I’ll play along.”

Jesus must have realized what she was thinking, because he gets playful right back at her! He says, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” I imagine she smirked and drew a bit closer when she said, “I have no husband.”

She is completely disarmed and blown back by Jesus’ response, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” This really strikes a nerve with her. Suddenly she realizes that this is no ordinary man that she is speaking to. “I see you are a prophet,” she says. Jesus isn’t just one more man looking to use her, but someone sent from God to speak into her life. He really sees her and his only agenda is to lead her to God. He is the one she has been waiting for all her life. Can he be the messiah?

What do his words mean? This woman had been with many men, all of which used her sexually and left her. They were “husbands” in the sense that whether we intend it or not, our hearts and bodies make a promise to those who we give ourselves to sexually. None of these men honored that promise however. They were not truly husbands.

 What was she looking for in these relationships? Love, companionship, security, happiness, satisfaction…all of the things that anyone looks for in a relationship… All of these relationships, however, had left her empty, unsatisfied, and deeply disappointed. She still had not found what she was looking for even with the man she was currently with. This was the secret story of her life that she hid behind the mask of her alluring sexuality.

Jesus mentions six men, five in her past and one in her present. None of these are the one she was searching for. What about the seventh? These numbers have a significance beyond the literal one. In Hebrew thought, seven is the number of perfection, completion, and rest. Seven is the Sabbath, the day that God rested from his labor. This woman had not found rest in the first five, she did not find it in number six either, but Jesus is the seventh. He is the one that her heart truly longs for, the gift of God, the one who can give her living water that will satisfy her thirst once and for all.

Sexuality is about so much more than just a naked biological urge. This well is deep! It is emotional, psychological, and yes—spiritual.

I once read that our word sex is related to the Latin, secare, which means, “to cut off, sever, disconnect from the whole.” Weird isn’t it? What that means is that our sexuality comes from the awareness of our incompleteness. It is all the ways we seek to reconnect to the whole, to find true intimacy. God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” This longing is not a bad thing; it is the way God made us. We were made for relationship. It is part of what it means to be created in God’s image.

God made us for himself. As the Jewish theologian Martin Buber said, God is the eternal “Thou” behind every truly authentic relationship between persons. When relationships are good and wholesome, they help us to find God in the other person.

Unfortunately this all can go horribly wrong. There is a famous quote often attributed to G.K. Chesterton, “Every man who rings the bell of a brothel is really looking for God.”  Instead of letting our sexuality lead us to the deeper fulfillment that comes from having a relationship with God, we make it an idol. We look for satisfaction in the gift rather than the gift-giver, but anyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. 

We sometimes think those who are the most sexually promiscuous are the most in tune and knowledgeable about sexuality, but is this the case? In a deeper sense, they are actually pretty naive about sex!

Jesus Christ wants to give us living water, the Holy Spirit, which is the source of all true joy and intimacy with God. Jesus enjoys this perfect connection all the time. Even though he was celibate, he was more in tune with his sexuality than anyone else, and he has a lot to teach us about this part of ourselves. 

What Does it Mean to be Born Again?

John 3:1-17

Someone recently asked me, “Do Episcopalians believe in getting born again?” I’ll be honest, I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. The question can be interpreted in a number of ways. Did she mean, “Do Episcopalians affirm chapter three, verse three, of the Gospel according to Saint John when Jesus tells Nicodemus the Pharisee, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God?’” If so, than yes we most certainly do! In fact it is our Gospel reading for this very day, the Second Sunday in Lent.

But I suspect her intention was somewhat different. She wanted to know if Episcopalians identify with a certain kind of Evangelical Christianity which has often made having a “born-again” experience  a centerpiece of their teaching. They state that a Christian must come to a crisis and experience a moment of conversion in which they make a decision to give their life to Jesus, be saved, and enjoy a personal relationship with him. To that I can only say, “The Episcopal Church is a big tent and we have all kinds!”

Our text for today has become a kind of battleground text for Christian identity. It comes with a lot of cultural baggage and associations. For some, the associations are very positive. I know of many kind and wonderful people who proudly proclaim themselves, “Born Again Christians.” My father was one of them.  For others, this phrase comes with different associations that can be a real obstacle.

“What do you mean I must be born again? I had a cousin who got ‘born again’ and he became a really pushy, sanctimonious jerk!”

“What do you mean I must be born again? Aren’t those born again types all part of the religious right? Isn’t being born again synonymous with anti-intellectualism, misogyny, and homophobia?”

I want to assure you, when Jesus told Nicodemus he must be born again, he didn’t have any of these things in mind.  In order to get at what Jesus really meant, we will need to peel back these layers of cultural associations and remember that Jesus was a Jew from Galilee in the first century and not an American from New York in the 21^st Century!

Let’s take a look at the text. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. Why at night? Some have suggested it is because he didn’t want to be seen. He was curious about Jesus, but he didn’t want it to get around. Others have said, if you really want to learn from a rabbi, you go late. That way your conversation isn’t interrupted by the business of the day and you can talk long into the night. Both of those suggestions seem plausible, but I think there is a spiritual meaning behind this.  Saint John is awfully fond of using light and dark as a metaphor. I believe he is telling us that Nicodemus came to Christ in spiritual darkness, but he is about to be enlightened. Jesus is going to illuminate the sacred mysteries for him.

 When Jesus prefaces what he says with, “Very truly” or “verily, verily” you know that what he says next is about to let us in on something very important. That is exactly what he does here. He says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

That is how our translation, the New Revised Version, renders it. As we have been saying, it is often translated, “born again” as well.  Why the discrepancy? The Greek word here used actually can mean two different things depending on the context. It can either refer to an earlier time or it can refer to a higher position, thus the different translations, “again” and “above.” Its confusing isn’t it? Now you understand how Nicodemus felt!

You see, Nicodemus assumed that Jesus meant “born again” and he took him literally, as if Jesus were saying that one had to experience child birth a second time in this world. He asks, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus clarifies what he means, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’”

Jesus is not talking about another birth like our first one. He is talking about a spiritual birth from above or in other words, from heaven. Jesus has come to give us a new kind of life, eternal life. We sometimes mistakenly think of eternal life as being about quantity—about our life just going on forever and ever—but it isn’t just about quantity, it is about quality. It is a life like his, an immortal, heavenly nature, from God, one that is not frustrated and defeated by sin and death, but victorious.

Moreover, we don’t need to die before we start living this kind of life. We can begin today. This isn’t just about a happy afterlife, but a more meaningful and effective life here and now. Jesus came not just to purchase you a ticket to heaven when you die, but to empower you to live a life of beauty and virtue that gives glory to God. This is the way the Christian author Dallas Willard paraphrases verse sixteen,

“God's care for humanity was so great that he sent his unique Son among us, so that those who count on him might not lead a futile and failing existence, but have the undying life of God himself.”

This is the kind of life we need if we want to live in the Kingdom of God. It is the kind of life that is only possible through the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

So who is it that receives this kind of life? Does it only belong to a special class of super Christians who have had a born again experience? The key is understanding what Jesus meant by being born of “water.”

We have already seen how the birth Jesus is speaking of is a heavenly one from above through the power of the spirit, but why does he mention water? Some commentators have said that “born of water” refers to our physical birth. Unborn babies float in a sack of amniotic fluid for nine months and just before their mother gives birth, her water breaks.  Some have suggested that Jesus is saying that we need both this natural birth, through water, and a second birth through the spirit.

This seems plausible enough, but the early Church Fathers—the generation of Christians closest in time to Jesus—are unanimous in interpreting this saying of Jesus as referring to Baptism.

Baptism is called, “the sacrament of regeneration” or “the sacrament of rebirth.” In it we are washed with water and the spirit and made a new creature. Saint Paul writes that through baptism we are united with Christ in his death and raised to newness of life. Our Baptismal rite in the Book of Common Prayer affirms this stating,

“We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we areburied with Christ in his death. By it we share in hisresurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.”

What this means is that being “born again” isn’t meant to distinguish us as a special class of super Christians, but rather every baptized Christian can be said to be “born again through water and the spirit.” God promises us this gift of eternal life through the sacrament of Holy Baptism. He empowers us to be his disciples and he promises to always be with us.

This raises another question, “Does this mean that only those who are baptized can be saved? Isn’t it true that some people show evidence of living the kind of life Jesus is talking about without being a Christian or being baptized, without knowing Jesus like we do?”

Jesus is very clear about the importance and necessity of baptism. He wants everyone to know him as Lord, love him, and receive baptism. We cannot be complacent about that, but on the other hand, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” We can’t put limits on God’s mercy.

I actually really like what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says,

“God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.”

It continues, 

"’Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.’ Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.”

The wrong conclusion to draw from this would be, “God will handle it, I don’t need to step out and share my faith, the church doesn’t need to do evangelism, or Baptize…” That would be silly because if we love someone we want to share the truth with them. We want to bless them and there is no greater blessing then baptism. Christ commanded his church to make disciples of all nations and to baptize them. He has given us a job to do. He wants us to be a part of his project of restoration and redemption.

All of us, like Nicodemus, come to Christ in darkness. Christian or non-Christian, we are all in the same boat.  Just as patiently, Jesus takes us by the hand and leads us to the light.  It is his joy to give us birth from above. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Christ the Second Adam

• Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
• Romans 5:12-19
• Matthew 4:1-11
• Psalm 32

Like most people my age I use a computer or other electronic devices on a pretty constant basis. I can’t really say that I know a whole lot about their maintenance, but there are a few basic things that you learn just through familiarity. For instance, I know that if my device is having problems or acting buggy, the first thing to do is to turn it off and restart it, or “reboot” it.  It is something of a technology panacea. Whenever you call technical support they will usually start there and it’s because it usually works! According to my tech support friends, more than half of the problems their clients experience can be fixed with a simple reboot.  

The term has entered into popular culture. You have probably heard of a remake of a TV series or movie franchise described as a ‘reboot.’ Sometimes a new start is the key to revival. It is a way of refreshing or breathing new life into something that has gone stale.

Counselors will similarly help couples ‘reboot’ their marriage or relationship by reigniting the flame that has gone out, reminding them why they fell in love in the first place. Sometimes in order to solve a problem we need to retrace our steps and go back to the place we were before the problem began.

Repentance, which is the special focus of the season of Lent, is precisely this kind of turning back. We have wandered far from the Lord, and as a result, a lot has gone wrong. We need to return to him and begin again.

The readings for this first Sunday in Lent, follow a similar pattern. Our Old Testament reading, for instance, takes us all the way back to the beginning, to the place where things began to go wrong. Our first parents believed the lies of the serpent and were seduced into disobeying the commandment of God. Instead of trusting in God they chose to take matters into their own hands and to seek a life apart from God.

Eve could perhaps be forgiven for believing the serpent, but Adam knew better, unlike his wife, he had heard the commandment directly from God and yet he deliberately disobeyed. And so our reading from Romans says, “sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned.”

This is the Christian doctrine of Original Sin, or the belief that human nature—created good by God—got twisted and set off course at its very foundation. What was God’s solution to this dilemma? Reboot! God relaunched or restarted human nature in Jesus Christ.

The New Testament refers to Jesus as a “second Adam” or the “New Man.” In our reading today, Saint Paul compares the disobedience of the first Adam to the obedience of the second Adam. He sets up Jesus as a kind of anti-type to Adam,

 “Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.”

The Church fathers referred to this as the doctrine of recapitulation, but we can think of it as a reboot.  This is the way Saint Athanasius described it,

"You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God. He, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself."

Now let’s compare our Old Testament reading to the Gospel for today. Do you see the parallel? In the first lesson, Adam and Eve are tempted in the garden by the crafty serpent. In the second, Jesus is tempted in the wilderness by Satan.

In the first reading, the serpent twists God’s commandment. He asks, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?  He makes God’s commandment seem unfair and unreasonable, but of course, God permitted Adam and Eve to eat of any tree they pleased, it was only one that was forbidden.  In the second reading, Satan also misuses God’s commandments, Holy Scripture, in an attempt to mislead Jesus.

Jesus like our original parents, is tempted to disobey God, to take matters into his own hands and live a life apart from his Father. Satan appeals first to Jesus’ physical hunger, the desires of the flesh. Next he tries to tempt Jesus with riches, the lust of the eyes. Finally he tries to provoke him to some demonstration of his power and divinity. Here Jesus is tempted with the pride of life. Each time, however, he does what Adam and Eve failed to do, to refute Satan, and to hold fast to the truth and goodness of God’s commandments.

Jesus shared our humanity, the weakness and frailty of our mortal nature, he knew all the temptation that we know, and yet he was without sin. When Adam and Eve were tempted in the Garden, they fell, bringing the power of sin and death into the world. When Christ was tempted in the wilderness he emerged victorious. If the first Adam brought weakness and futility to our human nature, Christ the new Adam brings strength and life. 

“For if the many died through the one man's trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.”

As children of Adam, we all have inherited a fallen human nature weakened and corrupted by sin, but we also have been the objects of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. We have this duel identity as fallen and yet redeemed, as corrupted and yet sanctified, as simultaneously sinners and saints.

On Ash Wednesday we were reminded of our frailty and mortality, our proneness to sin, and the inevitability of our death, but that is not the end of the story. Saint Paul says,

“The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so also are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so also shall we bear the likeness of the heavenly man.”

As Christians we have been imprinted from above with the restored image of God in Christ, through the grace of baptism, but we still struggle with the old man. In Lent we do battle with our fallen nature, we mortify the old man through self-denial and fasting, but that’s only the negative side. In order to be truly effective our Lenten discipline can’t just be about not doing certain things, it needs to be about positively doing other things.

In fasting and self-denial we starve the old man that comes from Adam, but we need also to be cultivating and nourishing our immortal heavenly nature that comes through Christ. We do that through prayer, worship, receiving the sacraments, meditation, study of God’s word, acts of mercy, justice, art, and music. We feed our heavenly nature with beauty and truth, and in doing so we look more like Jesus every day.

‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’

How to Become a True Son

• Joel 2:1-2,12-17
• 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
• Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
• Psalm 103 

Before he laid the foundations of the world God chose you. Before you existed he conceived of you and loved you. He molded you out of the dust of the earth, knit you together in your mother’s womb, and breathed into you the breath of life.

He remembers the frailty of our nature, our vulnerability to being blown here and there by the winds of temptation, and yet he gives us grace to rise above our earthly nature and live as his children. In all our failings, when we slide back into the mire, he calls us to return to him and press forward towards our higher calling.

The Psalmist celebrates God’s amazing faithfulness in today’s psalm,

He has not dealt with us according to our sins,   nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.For he himself knows whereof we are made   he remembers that we are but dust.

Although He has shown great love to us, all of us have sinned and proven unfaithful to our God and creator. However, rather than dealing with us according to the just consequences of our rebellion, God has remembered the promises he has made to us and has shown us pity rather than wrath. He loves us as his very own children.

God’s love and his faithfulness to his creation is beautifully illustrated in a story I’m sure most us know well, the story of Pinocchio. In our culture the story is probably best known through the Disney animated feature. If you don’t know the story or if the details are hazy, let me remind you of the basic plot. 

Geppetto is an old toymaker who loves children, but he has never had any of his own. He lovingly crafts a wooden marionette made in the image of a little boy. Geppetto wishes more than anything else that this wooden toy might become a real boy and a son to him. The Blue Fairy hears his wish and graciously decides to grant it by bringing the wooden puppet to life. 

 Although he has been magically brought to life, Pinocchio is not yet the true boy his creator wishes him to be; he is still wood. In order to become a real flesh and blood boy, the Blue fairy tells him that he must prove himself “brave, truthful, and unselfish.” 

You might say that Pinocchio is like us and Geppetto is like our heavenly father. Just as Geppetto made Pinocchio out of wood, God made us out of dust, and just as Geppetto wishes Pinocchio to become a real boy, God wishes us to be more and more conformed to the Image of his true and only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

If you know the story, you know what happens next. Despite the protestations of his guide Jiminy Cricket who is the voice of his conscience, Pinocchio is no sooner sent into the world and charged to be faithful to the Blue Fairy’s instructions, than he is led astray by a deceitful Fox and into the clutches of a wicked puppet master named Stromboli.

Doesn’t this seem familiar? Have we too not rebelled against our Father and against the Holy Spirit? Haven’t we fallen into captivity to sin which pulls our strings, and takes control of our lives?

When we watch the film, we find ourselves (like Jiminy Cricket) continually exasperated, frustrated, and disappointed with the wooden boy and his continual rebellion, but if we are honest with ourselves are we not all more like Pinocchio than we care to admit? Are we not too easily lured into taking the easy way? Haven’t we all made an ass of ourselves on Pleasure Island? Like Pinocchio, as well, we have all been shown grace and given a fresh start again and again, but how easily we forget God’s mercies! 

God’s love and faithfulness was such that he did not abandon us when we ran away from Him, rather he came looking for us in Christ. He descended into the very depths of our sinful and fallen nature. He went down to death in our place. 

Geppetto doesn’t give up on Pinocchio either. He goes out looking for him, and in the process is swallowed by a gigantic whale named Monstro. The obvious Biblical parallel here is of course with the story of the Prophet Jonah who was also swallowed by a whale. Jesus speaks of the story of Jonah and the Whale as a sign of his own death and resurrection. He says, 

“For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

When Pinocchio reads the note from the Blue Fairy describing what Geppetto has done out of love for him, he races off to rescue him with no thought of himself. It is Geppetto’s love that finally inspires bravery, unselfishness, and truthfulness in Pinocchio. He follows him even into the belly of the great beast and ultimately gives his life to rescue his father. 

If we truly understand the love of God in Christ, we will take up our cross and follow him even into the belly of the whale!

Because God has declared us to be his own children, we must put to death our sinful nature and offer our lives as a living sacrifice to him. In doing so we become like Christ in his own sacrifice. This is what it means to grow into the image of Christ and to receive the life that comes from above. 

Jesus says, “he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for my sake will find it.”

Pinocchio lays down his life out of love, but in doing so he finds greater life. In his act of bravery and sacrifice, Pinocchio at last becomes the real boy that Geppetto always wished that he would someday become. 

God created us from the dust of the earth, but he has heavenly aspirations for us. He made us in the image of his beloved son and it is his desire that we grow more and more like him in every way. Apart from his love, our lives are like the grass of the field, they pass away like a shadow, and to dust we return.  But as the Psalmist says, 

“the merciful goodness of the LORD endures forever on those who fear him, and his righteousness on children's children, on those who keep his covenant and remember his commandments and do them.” 

To those of us who put to death the works of the flesh through his spirit working in us, he will give us a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.