THE REVEREND E. WAYNE ROLLINS

Today’s lessons echo some we hear throughout the church year. The first lesson
from The Acts of the Apostles recounts a story we often hear on Easter Sunday. The
second lesson is similar to some we hear during Advent, and then possibly at a funeral.
And the Gospel contains an omitted section of the Maundy Thursday gospel.
All three have a common thread. In fact, it’s the thread that runs through all of
Holy Scripture. That thread is faithfulness.

Peter is called before church leaders in Jerusalem. It’s sort of like being
summoned to the bishop’s office. Or, perhaps more generally understood, to the
principal’s office or those dreaded words some of us heard as a child. “Just wait until
your father gets home!” Sorry about those flashbacks.

Peter is charged with answering an accusation that sometimes begins with either
“we’ve never done it that way before” or “we used to do it this way.” The charge? He
baptized Gentiles. He didn’t take time to circumcise the males, or put them all through
catechism. What he did was witness the presence of the Holy Spirit in those Gentiles
before he even baptized them, and decided he’d better catch up to what God was
already doing.

Peter had just gone through a couple of change of life issues himself. First, he
stayed with a guy named Simon, whose profession was a tanner. Simon handled the
bodies and skins of dead animals, coming into contact with blood. That made him
unclean. That also made it possible that guests in his house were unclean. Then, Peter
fell asleep before dinner, but he was hungry. So he dreamed about food. Not roast
lamb with couscous and a side of potatoes and tabouli. He dreamed about scorpions
and snakes and other creepy crawly things he wouldn’t find on the local kosher buffet
or salad bar.

“What I have declared clean you shall not declare unclean,” says the Voice of
God to Peter. So, rather than being faithful to his traditional teaching, Peter is changed,
converted, if you will, into faithfulness to this new thing God is already doing.
John, in exile on the island of Patmos, has a vision of the new Holy City of
Jerusalem. We have a more contemporary vision of that city before us. Both draw
upon traditional understandings and familiar structures. But there’s something
different about it all, beginning with one basic understanding. The city John sees is
something God gives, not something made by human hands or planned by
contemporary architects and artists.

1The city that God will give is based on a foundation laid by Jesus himself when
he met his closest friends for supper just before he was arrested. Today’s Gospel picks
up just after Judas leaves the room, albeit with a full stomach and clean feet.
Jesus gives the mandatum novum, the new commandment. He goes so far as to
tell his followers that they will be known by how they live this commandment. Not
about how they followed a set of rules, or demanded that others do the same. “Love
one another as I have loved you. By this they will know that you are my disciples, that
you have love one for another.” I happen to believe that he was still thinking about
Judas when he said that.

Now, before we turn love into just another law that we have to follow, let’s
consider it instead as the foundation for who we are and all that we do. We have stories
about how others have done that in preparing for us to follow, and not just for
themselves. The image in front of us grew from a desire springing from John’s words
about God being the light of the new Jerusalem, “a golden light, [with] clouds that
would symbolize the joyous feeling of life over the Holy City.”

Our faithfulness, our real faithfulness, is to the God who is Alpha and Omega,
who was and is and is to come, who said to Moses “I AM WHAT I WILL BE.” Future
tense. We are called to be faithful to that God who isn’t finished creating us yet. Our
faithfulness is, therefore, to who we will be and to where we are going. Having said
that, I can imagine some conversations might yet begin with “we used to . . .” or “we
never did it that way . . . .” Sometimes those sentences can give us something on which
we can build. But, too often, they tend to serve as a means to control or stifle the Holy
Spirit, and we find ourselves standing at another buffet of scorpions and snakes. I don’t
really care if they do taste like chicken. And I’m hoping there isn’t time to prepare a
special paté for coffee hour.

How do you imagine the new Jerusalem? What would Wilmington, Delaware
look like if we lived that idea, based in love for all creation in the same way God loves it
and all who live in it? I ask these questions because the new Jerusalem is to be our way
of life as followers of the crucified and risen Christ. The new Jerusalem is found where
Jesus’ followers bear his cross of love, and help shoulder that burden when others find
it too heavy to carry for themselves.

This isn’t a yellow brick road, and we don’t need to concern ourselves with the
false prophets behind the curtain. We follow the true and living Lamb of God, and we
carry the light of that life into the darkness of our own time. We don’t grow weary of
waiting for the new Jerusalem and try to build it ourselves through judgement and
legislation. We live the life of the new Jerusalem as the godly alternative to those
attempts.

That is who we are, and we are known because the Holy Spirit speaks to us and
works through us to reveal the light of God’s love to all who live in the despair of
darkness. God’s gift is the New Jerusalem, where God’s people are the embodiment of
Love itself, for the healing and consolation of those seeking the new world that God creates
​as the place for our future life in God’s eternal presence.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​The Fourth Sunday of Easter is designated Good Shepherd Sunday. All three
years of the lectionary cycle contain Psalm 23, and the Gospel lesson is always a portion
of the tenth chapter of John, where Jesus says “I am the good shepherd.” The day is
rich in symbols, and we have enough hymn settings of the Psalm to overfill our
bulletins. And, if you want, you can search our own windows for shepherd images and
symbols. Just not now.

Scripture contains the word shepherd almost from the beginning. It is the task of
Joseph, Jacob’s youngest son, the one of technicolor dreamcoat fame. It’s also the role of
another son, the first victim of sibling rivalry. Abel is a “keeper of herds,” which
implies sheep and other animals. And, of course, there’s David, Jesse’s youngest son, a
shepherd boy anointed to be king over Israel when the Saul project reminded Israel to
be careful what they prayed for.

The ritual sacrifices from the time of Abraham onward often used a lamb as the
offering. The Passover sacrifice instructs the slaughter of a lamb, whether from the
goats or the sheep.

Lambs are known to be some of the most passive animals in domestic use,
unless, as I’ve been told, that lamb grows up to be a ram, an animal that seems to take
its name quite seriously.

I’ve often wondered why a lamb, seemingly so innocent and docile, is the
appointed animal for so many ritual sacrifices. Of course, cattle, oxen, and birds are
offered, too, along with grain and incense. But when it comes to the most important
sacrifice, that of Passover, it’s a lamb. No substitutes, only the instruction to share with
a neighbor if that family cannot afford a lamb.

After the death of David’s son, Solomon, and even with Solomon himself, sibling
rivalry tended to overshadow the role of shepherd into one of individual power.
Solomon was nearly kept from the throne by a jealous half-brother, and then his own
sons’ rivalry resulted into dividing the kingdom into two parts—the north called Israel
and the south, Judah. That division never healed, in a large part because rulers
concentrated more on holding power than being shepherds of the people. As we know,
that tendency continues to lead many into temptation.

Shepherds are seen as expendable, their defenses weak. They wander from place
to place as newer, fresher pasture is needed. They have only the shepherd’s staff,
crooked at one end to help pull a wandering sheep back to the herd, and blunt on the
other to push away an attacking wolf. Other than that, they are powerless, at least at
first sight.

Jesus says the sheep know their shepherd, and the shepherd knows the sheep.
There is strength in numbers, especially when those numbers gather as one with their
shepherd in the lead.

And the good shepherd is the one who cares at least as much for the sheep as for
his or her own status or power. I say at least, knowing that when Jesus claims the title
as Good Shepherd, he is ready to sacrifice all for the benefit of the sheep in his charge.
And, somehow, the sheep know and trust that to be true, even if they don’t yet realize
that could be their own path.

The image before us today is of the sacrificial Lamb of God, slain for the salvation
and redemption of the world. He is the one appointed as the true, the Good Shepherd
for God’s people, the one who holds power, wisdom, and might in part because he
knows what it’s like to be the lamb. He is the one who enters our suffering by suffering
himself, so that we might be joined to him not just in that, but in his life lived forever in
the presence of God.

So, the images before us today, of lamb, of shepherd, of victim and victor, are one
in the same in that they are the very image of the one true God, the one in whom we
profess our faith and place our trust. He is the one who invites us into his life, even in
death, to be transformed, converted, if you will, into the transcendent immediate
presence of this same Lamb who promised to be with us always.

The Good Shepherd opens the door for sheep of all nations, of all types, to enter
into the fold of eternal life. He promises to guide us into all truth by caring for us, even
by becoming one of us in ways that invite us to care for others in the same way he cares
for us. So, like the Lamb of God, we are invited to be both sheep and shepherds,
sometimes all at once, sometimes only one at a time. It’s when we find we are only one
of those that the risen Christ just might appear in the form of the one we are not,
reminding us of who we are called to be by virtue of our baptism into his death and
resurrection.

The image of the innocent docile lamb has one more function. It is a way we
often don’t see God, yet it is the image of God presented to us in the cross. The
innocent, defenseless one goes willingly to the sacrifice, because that’s what it takes to
do the work of salvation for all that is created by the same one in the power of creation.
The Good Shepherd, the very image of our Creator, uses both weakness and power to
give us life. As the image of both shepherd and sheep in our own time, we are called to
do the same—not only for ourselves, which is idolatry, but for those who know only
weakness and the oppression of those who seek only power.
​
The Good Shepherd stands before us as the Lamb that was slain. The life of
Christ’s church is known in how we translate that image into life-giving, life-nurturing
truth for all who seek it.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

We have about as many reasons for being here today as we have individuals
present in the room. Some may have concerns that compel attendance, some may want
to see friends. Some may be here because it’s what they do on Sunday mornings. And,
yes, some of us are paid to be here.

Whatever the reason, we may be surprised to find that everything is suddenly
changed. One way is that the risen Christ might just show up. Another is that we could
find ourselves transported into the presence of the living God, surrounded by hosts of
heavenly beings and saints gone before us.

Both of those surprises are given to us in today’s lessons.
​
Saul, whose change of life included a change of name, is suddenly confronted by
the risen Christ as he makes his way to Damascus to persecute believers. Peter, out
doing his day job (at night) is surprised by the appearance of a man wanting a few fish
for breakfast. And John, on Patmos, finds that his morning worship transports him way
beyond his bulletin and prayer book.

Turns out that it wasn’t going to be your typical Sunday morning.
We enter these doors most likely expecting to find what we’ve always found.
We sit where we usually sit, a holdover from the days when parishes were supported
by those who could afford to buy a pew for their family to sit in that year, while the
poor stood around in the back and in the balcony.

We expect to see familiar faces, sing familiar hymns, hear familiar words in
scripture and prayer. What if all that suddenly changed?

There’s a scene in an old episode of The Simpsons where the pastor finds he’s had
all he can take and launches into a tirade in the almost empty church. Bart and a couple
of others witness this, and as the camera pans to a stained glass window, Bart says, “It’s
a good thing Jesus wasn’t here to see that.”

But what would we do if Jesus did show up? What would our response be if we
suddenly found ourselves, in one way or another, in the actual, physical presence of the
risen Christ?

We try to recreate moments we read about in scripture. We quote Jesus’ words
when we pray, we say and sing the words that even Isaiah hears sung in God’s
presence. But we take them for granted, our rote performance little more than an
attempt to veil what we really desire, even if we don’t realize that.

Maybe that’s because the cost of our desire is so high we don’t want to pay it.
I’m not talking about offerings of money, or even talent or labor. John tells us what it
costs, shown to him in his vision.

Instead of a conquering hero or great warrior, he sees a lamb, a slaughtered
lamb. He sees those martyred for their faith, begging “how long until justice is served,”
even though justice for them is being in the presence of God. Like us, they seem to
think of justice in terms of revenge, which doesn’t seem be God’s own definition of the
term.

The one found worthy is the one who has been sacrificed. The one who is
worthy is the one who gave up everything coming to him. He was murdered, buried in
a tomb meant for another. But he stands at the throne of Almighty God, raised from the
dead, worthy to receive cries of “Holy, holy, holy.”

Way back in the good old days, when the Eucharist was to be celebrated, the
priest would ask those who considered themselves worthy of receiving communion to
come and kneel at the altar rail. If enough came forward, the prayers of confession and
to consecrate the bread and wine continued and those kneeling at the rail would receive
Holy Communion. If there weren’t at least five kneeling there, the priest would dismiss
the congregation and all would leave without receiving communion.

I wonder what would happen if we approached this table today in the same way,
but for a different reason. What if we came forward with some trepidation not because
we may not be worthy, because none of us really are, but because, with fear and
trembling, we might just find ourselves standing in the very real presence of Almighty
God?

In this Easter Season, and really for all time, we are called to bear witness to the
Lamb that was slain, who stands as both victim and victor in the presence of our
Creator. We can only do that by emptying ourselves of all that stands between us and
God, so that we might be filled with the light that shone on Saul, that presence that said,
“Cast your net on the other side.”

Only when we empty ourselves of our personal wants and demands can we be filled with the presence of the risen Christ.
Then, our lives become a greeting to all the world wherever we go. “Alleluia.
Christ is risen.” That’s why Jesus calls us here.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​The Easter season moves us into seven weeks of hearing from the Acts of the
Apostles and many familiar post-resurrection stories from the Gospels. The Second
Sunday of Easter always draws our attention to the upper room appearance of Jesus to
the remaining apostles. It’s two appearances, one week apart. The second is about
Thomas, who was absent at the first one.

The Epistle lessons alternate years. Two of the three-year cycle feature readings
from the Pastoral Epistles, particularly the letters of Peter and of John. The third year
gives us selected verses from the last book of Christian scripture, the Revelation of John
of Patmos. That is this year.

The Revelation to John is perhaps the most well-known and least understood
book of the Bible, especially in fundamentalist circles. It was regularly featured in
Sunday School classes in the church where I was raised. It is so popular among them
that a whole series of shows on what’s called The History Channel portray graphic
interpretations of the book’s apocalyptic visions. That’s why I now refer to that
network as the hysteria channel.

John is in exile on the island of Patmos. He writes letters to seven different
churches, or congregations, in the part of Asia now known as western Turkey. It seems
they follow some of the same paths that caused Paul to write to Corinth, Colossus,
Galatia, and others. They try to be these new people of God called The Church, but like
the first people of God, known as Israel, they have quite a bit of difficulty working out
what that means.

Much of what John writes is interpreted as threatening to the seven churches.
The consequences are dramatic, culminating in a cosmic battle between the forces of
good and evil. John tells us that good will win, mostly because in the resurrection of
Jesus, good has already won. What happens then depends on which side they, and by
extension, we choose for ourselves.

All that we’ll have to leave for another time. Since the impetus for John’s writing
is his vision of the consequences of the way of life of each congregation, I’m led to
wonder what John would write to the church, if there was just one congregation, of
Wilmington.

It’s tempting to list some of the perceived missteps and errors evident in the
present-day church. One of those is the fact that we are so divided, be it by style of
worship, or governance, or the fact that we just don’t get along. But to avoid all that,
and find our way home before Tuesday, let’s look at some of the basics.

1Remember where you came from. The first lesson of the Easter Vigil reminds us
of the story of creation, ending with God forming humankind from dust, and breathing
life into that creation. Indeed, Ash Wednesday does the same thing, reminding us that
we are dust and to dust we shall return. This past week I repeated those words as we
commended one of our members back to God’s safe keeping.

But we treat creation, the earth, as little more than a resource waiting to be mined
for our own benefit and wealth. We neglect what I believe is our purpose—to be
caretakers formed in the image of the Creator and giver of all life—placed here to
continue God’s work of caring for the very thing that supports the life we live. We
ignore our relationship to the earth, as if those words of Genesis were a lie, and we are
not a part of the very ground we plunder.

To change that, we have to remember who we are. We are, simply put, God’s
gardeners, with all life finding its roots and sustaining nourishment from God’s garden.
Between microplastics and forever chemicals, we find it more important, more lucrative,
to ignore the possibility that we fill the food we eat—mass produced to decrease its cost
while increasing its convenience—with substances that very well could inhibit life
rather than sustain and nurture it. We might as well eat the packaging it comes in while
we’re at it, because what still appears to be food probably contains quite a lot of the
ingredients of the package.

All this comes as evidence that we’ve forgotten the end of John’s Revelation. We
don’t remember where we’re going, or at least hope we might go. If you read past the
cosmic battle, the many-eyed beasts, and, yes, the dragons, you find that we’re basically
back where we started. We’re back in the garden, or at least a newer version of it, where
God dwells with God’s people as Genesis tells us, walking in the garden in the cool of
the evening.

A French anthropologist and priest, Teilhard de Chardin, got into trouble with
church authorities by writing and teaching that all life was evolving. He wasn’t
speaking in a Darwinian sense, despite all the evidence of competition for what is called
the Darwin Awards. Those are designated for outstanding acts of no attempt
whatsoever to be the fittest survivor.

Teilhard teaches that all life is evolving back to its Creator, that all our struggles
are with forces that try to deny God’s original blessing. “It is good.” “It is very good.”
That is a competition which John describes, one that has been ongoing since Adam and
Eve found the first recipe for apple pie.

Remember that you are dust. Dust brought to life by the Spirit of God, washed
by the waters of baptism into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. We
find our heart’s desire in our journey back to our Creator, the source of our very life,
who calls us to nourish all life—plant, animal, and human—without judging it, but
instead acknowledging God’s first blessing.
​
2That is the beginning of finding the grace and peace John uses to greet his
readers. When we continue our own journey in both grace and peace, looking for and
longing for and offering grace and peace, all else comes in a distant second in the
competition for our own lives. It is then that we find our journey is on the right road.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

“What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as
sweet.” So says Juliet, thinking of Romeo, who, if he were called anything other than a
Montague would be her accepted love. Or, if she were anyone other than those called
Capulet, would find the freedom she seeks.

We could go on about star-crossed lovers, but this is not literature class. Nor is
this an exercise in poetry, no matter how familiar or based in such rich history. Because
the names today mean so much more than two troubled lovers seeking a life-long love.
Yet it is love that calls a name today. It is love that sees life through tears of grief,
finds hope beyond despair. It’s a familiar name. Miriam. Mary. As familiar as it is to
her, we can imagine her surprise to hear it this morning.

When the risen Christ speaks that name, he upends everything. upended by his rising from the grave.
That is why we’re all here today. Oh, sure death is God raised
Jesus from the dead, because it’s the final thing God must do to upend the way the
world has been working up until now.

So it’s time to start showing what that new life is going to be in ways the old
world may not want to accept. God’s new world, this post-resurrection world, is going
to be different in ways we’re still working out some two thousand years later.
Let’s start with the obvious. One of the qualifications to be an apostle is that the
person had to know Jesus before his crucifixion, then be a witness to his life after the
resurrection. In three of the Gospels, those very first witnesses were women. And even
in Mark, it is the women who discover the empty tomb, although they are so afraid they
tell no one what they found.

Yet, for most of those twenty centuries since that day, we continued to repeat the
error of those first disciples who treated the witnesses of women to whom Christ
revealed himself as “an idle tale.” But Christ is not limited to our own ideas about how
things are supposed to work. Oh, and if anyone wants to discuss the final verse of the
non-canonical Gospel of Thomas in the context of today’s so-called culture wars, have at
it.

There’s that name. Mary. Or, in the language of first-century Palestine, Miriam.
Jesus speaks it to a beloved friend, calling her to recognize not just an old friend, but an
amazing new life that is offered to her. Everything she thought she knew about the
world is changed, and she, by answering when her name is called, becomes part of this
new world.

We live in a culture, in a world that judges value by the accumulation of things.
We see houses as something other than homes, but instead as an investment just waiting
1for an upgrade to something bigger and better. The same seems to go for once
venerable institutions. We treat them, and those within them, as objects to be
consumed. Those who paid attention in biology class know how that always ends up.
When the risen Christ calls our name, it is a call to life as we never thought
possible. It’s a call to see everything differently, an upending word that is our very
identity to be a part of that which is eternal. It is a call to transcend the deathly ways of
our consumer-based culture, transforming them into life-giving, life-sharing ways that
live in a culture of redemption, where the life of another—any other, with no difference
in regard to gender, ethnicity, or other ways we divide ourselves—has as much value as
our own, and each is of value to the very Creator of life itself who chooses to give life
back to the dead.
​
And if you think that upends life as we know it, just wait until you find that life
that lives beyond the grave, where the risen Christ calls you by name and you find that
name translated as “Beloved.” I’d love to hear what the Bard of Avon says about that,
just for starters. But first, I’d like to hear how you describe it. I imagine there’s a whole
world of potential witnesses to your own new life. So go ahead. Surprise them.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

So much of what we do this morning is familiar. We get up very early, gather in
the pre-dawn light, make a fire, and chant our way into our usual gathering place. We
hear familiar, even comfortable stories. We might try to imagine ourselves in those
stories—creation, the flood, leaving what felt like home even in its oppression. We
might even allow our minds to wander into a cemetery and imagine a few bones
starting to rattle, then seeing all those buried there standing up, ready to live again.
If you were too young to remember, the words we speak, the water we feel
might remind us that we were once baptized. Notice that I said that in past tense. We
were baptized.

In all this familiarity, and with several years of Easter stories in our personal
histories, perhaps there’s still something that needs to change. After all, neither our
clocks nor our calendars operate in reverse mode, as if we’re destined to relive all our
yesterdays. If you try that, you could be the very definition of job security to any
number of therapists.

Paul doesn’t speak in past tense. “Do you not know that you are baptized into
Christ’s death?” he asks. Are, not were. Baptism is not an event we mark each year, like
a birthday or anniversary. I doubt that most of us would remember the exact date if we
are called upon to reveal it. I would have to go search for the certificate, even though it
happened when I was a teenager. I remember the place very well. It’s the date that
eludes me.

Maybe that’s appropriate. Because our baptism isn’t a one-time thing. It’s for
life, it’s about life, it is our way of life. It’s not about getting branded in some spiritual
or mystical way so that when the time comes we get a free pass into heaven, and even
get to use the priority boarding line.

We are baptized into Jesus’ death and raised from the waters of baptism to live
new lives, not just in the hereafter, but in the here and now. That means that our lives,
our resources, and God’s desire for the flourishing of life for everyone are all
interconnected, with our focus on how God equips us for ministry to those whom Jesus
invited into his own life—the poor, the outcast, and, yes, those called “sinners.” That
identity was for those who lived outside the fellowship of God’s people, and whose
lives serve as indicators, symptoms, if you will, of that separation from the creator and
giver of life.

When he reminds the church in Rome that they are baptized, Paul calls them
back to their true selves, to live as the light of Christ in a world that celebrates darkness
and ungodliness. It’s not just about those things we might expect as symptoms. It’s
about the willful neglect of the needy, the poor, the outcast, the prisoner (most likely in
a debtor’s prison. Rome had more immediate ways to deal with lawlessness, as we
know.)

Baptism invites everyone into this new way of life, a way we celebrate this
morning, but often miss its real intention. Our own baptism is the opening of our
invitation to this new life, a life which in its many and various ways is also the
invitation we extend to others to baptism. It is our invitation to discover again what
really matters, and set aside those things that are destined to die, even if we say they
add meaning and purpose to our lives.
​
“Do you not know that you are baptized into Christ’s death?” Our answer is
found in how we live the life of resurrection that claims us when we answer, “yes.”

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

It is finished. Consummatum est. John tells us those were Jesus’ last words. It
seems so. His lifeless body hangs on a cross in the hot afternoon sun. For him, it’s all
over.

Others will come and remove his body, wrap it and place it in a cave prepared
for another. When it’s time, some will return to perform rituals that, in their own way,
prepare them for when it will be their time. Then, that will be finished.
But there remain some things undone, a list of incompletenesses that continue to
this day. One of the things on that list is a nagging question, the answer to which
continues to evade us.

Why? Not “why does the answer evade us,” but why was Jesus crucified?
We have the answers presented by his accusers, yet those didn’t really persuade
the judge, who ended up giving in to their demands, because political expediency was
more important than truth.

We have centuries of theories, trying to explain in one way or another not just
what happened, but why and its effect. But those aren’t as satisfying as we might have
hoped, even the one called the “satisfaction theory.”

So, it seems that it’s not quite finished just yet. Oh, in the minds of those who
opposed him, it might look like it’s done. They can go home and celebrate, pat each
other on the back and exclaim, “well done.”
But maybe it’s something else that’s finished.

Maybe what’s finished is the lesson on how to do ministry. Watch how those
who have experienced something care for those who do so for the first time. I first
learned this while standing outside before a funeral when a woman approached and
asked where the new widow was. I replied that she was in the church building. Then I
heard, “That’s where I’m going. You don’t know what this is like until you’ve lived
through it yourself.”

And maybe it’s more than that. It seems ironic, but the way God, through Jesus
of Nazareth, chooses to overcome death itself is by entering into it. By dying.
And the ultimate act of ministry is revealed, that by entering into death, Jesus
finishes the work that will end death itself. He does this for all, for all time, past,
present and future, and to do that must enter into their death so he might release them
from it.
​
So maybe that’s what’s finished. If so, then it’s just getting started.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

“We wish to see Jesus.” Philip hears the request, goes to Andrew, and together
they go to Jesus. That’s all we know about some Greeks who are in town to celebrate.
It looks like if their request was answered, it was from a distance.
Jesus doesn’t seem to have time for drop-in meetings. There’s no “do they have
an appointment,” or even “show them in.” Instead, we have his answer in the
description of a cosmic event, based in familiar agricultural knowledge turned into
Christology.

We probably wouldn’t go that far in explaining that which we likely don’t
understand all that well. So let’s take a moment and look at what those Greeks, and in
turn, we think we know.

To see Jesus is to see the work of God taking place in human reality. Those
gathering to celebrate Passover would have been taught that God’s dwelling place is in
the Temple, in the Holy of Holies. A thick curtain obscured the vision of all save the
high priest, who could enter the holiest place of the Temple on one day each year. It’s
where the Ark of the Covenant is held, the national archive, if you will, of the law of
Moses.

While Jesus spends his brief ministry pointing any and all who pay attention to
the activity, and therefore, the presence of God, he doesn’t give anyone directions
toward the Temple. He speaks of glorification and death and sacrifice all at the same
time.

What he’s really saying is that if anyone wants to see him, they’ll find him in the
sacrificial love of himself for the benefit of all. We’re told of an instant example of this
as he hangs dying on a cross, when at his last breath the veil obscuring the holiest place
in the Temple is torn in two, revealing its emptiness. To see Jesus, the human form of
God, look outside the city walls to the place of the skull, and find him in the middle of
death itself.

“We wish to see Jesus.” The request is made to us today. Do we brush it aside
by giving the GPS coordinates to the nearest church building, citing the times when the
doors are supposed to be unlocked? No. The invitation is ours to make. “Come and
see.”

Come and see the evidence of the work of Christ, the ongoing creative activity of
God, when suffering is joined by able hands and hearts. Come and see sorrow shared
by the joining of breaking hearts so that healing is not such a lonely thing to endure.
Come and see willful sacrifice to share the abundance of God’s life with those lost on
the winding trails of the shadow of death.

Do we really wish to see this Jesus? There are those still making the request. The
answer they truly seek is found when our desire is to be the Jesus we want to tell them
about. For others to see, we must in some way be Jesus to them.

But, of course, there’s more. We, too, wish to see Jesus. And to do that, we need
to open our eyes to the possibility—the probability—that Jesus can be found as easily in
those who seek as in those who claim to know where to look. It is not ours to decide
where the seeds are planted. It is ours to nurture the growth that God gives in the life
springing from the seed that is willing to die.

THE REV. E. WAYNE HOLLINS

“I have given you as a covenant to the people . . . .” These words from the
second prophet we know as Isaiah come as words of hope to a people in exile. They are
the first of four “servant songs” found in Isaiah, and designated as such, are often
interpreted as pointing to a leader within Israel, or perhaps a political leader (even
Cyrus of Persia). Or some say they point to Christ who is yet to come.

I want to take a different approach. I do this because, like blame, looking for
others to lead us in the way we desire is, I think, misleading. And to tell a bunch of
folks hoping for relief that they’ll need to be patient and wait, oh, about five centuries,
is, well, just cruel.

So, who is this servant? For the people of Judah, gathered in exile in the sixth
century before the Common Era, it’s difficult to answer without saying, “Who? Me?”
After all, they seem pretty much powerless and subject to the oppressive authority of
political leaders.

Yet, that is who the prophet calls “God’s servant.” They are to be a “light to the
nations,” “givers of sight to the blind,” to lead prisoners out of captivity, to lead those
dwelling in darkness into light.

For us, it’s too easy to say that is about the people of Judah in exile, or even to
say it’s about Christ. Hear those words “I have given you as a covenant to the people”
as a phrase that follows our name—individually and collectively as a parish, or more to
the point, as Christ’s Church.

Winston Churchill is quoted to have referred to the coming second World War as
a “gathering darkness.” We, too, might interpret our own time as a gathering darkness
as we witness the oppression of the poor and the alien in our land. That oppression will
continue—with our consent, mind you—as long as we think that God’s covenant gift
for all people is about someone else.

“I have given you, Immanuel Highlands, as a covenant to the people of
Wilmington.” It’s who we are, in the name of the One who gives life to all that lives. To
deny that name is to deny God’s glory among us.
So we continue to gather, to speak not only God’s praise, but God’s promise of
deliverance from the death-dealing ways of our time. Not to say “there, there, it’ll get
better” and walk away. Be the servant, which means to be the light of hope in a world
of gathering darkness. Because even when it is its darkest, just one candle can diffuse a
hopeful ray of light.
​
I often wonder if God’s purpose in the Judean exile was to show those who felt
oppressed how to be that light. Maybe that’s why we’re where we are, too

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​It might be a confusing day. It must have been a confusing week. Keeping with
that trend, I offer the following.

We’re used to thinking of what’s called the triumphant entry into Jerusalem as
the beginning of Jesus’ final week before he was crucified. Along with that we multiply
and magnify the word “hosanna.” Some have imagined dueling processions—Jesus
through a side door on a donkey, while Pilate and Roman soldiers enter through the
main gate of the city in chariots and on horseback.

Maybe Pilate did arrive that way. After all, thousands of believers coming into
town to celebrate the liberation that made them who they are might just need a show of
force to eliminate any thought of that happening again anytime soon. But there are
other aspects to consider.

When Jesus faces his accusers, he asks them why they didn’t arrest him earlier.
He speaks as one who has been around awhile, and there are scholars who think he
may have arrived several months earlier, during another festival, Sukkoth. It’s a fall
festival, celebrating the harvest they’ve been working toward all summer. Also called
the “Feast of Booths,” the celebration commands spending some time and eating meals
on each of seven days in a sukkoh, a temporary dwelling made of—wait for it—palm
branches. Palm fronds, called a lulab, are waved inside as part of the celebration. That’s
also described in Psalm 68.

Those cries of hosanna? They are pleas for help, taken from the Psalms. Psalm
118:25 contains the word, which is often translated “save us, we beseech you.”
Those cries, echoed in all four Gospels, are heard by us as shouts of praise. But
they are cries from those living under the oppressive boot of Rome. So, maybe there’s
something else, something more going on here other than a “yay God” moment.
In the Psalm, the people cry out to God for salvation from enemies, from possible
destruction. I think that in the Gospel stories, they do the same. Word has gotten
around that this man Jesus just might be the hoped-for Messiah, so it’s not hard to
imagine the people living under Roman occupation crying out once again for
deliverance. “Hosanna. Save us. Lead us to success in overthrowing our oppressors.”
Of course, that didn’t happen the way they wanted it to, so those cries of
“hosanna” didn’t take long to turn into shouts to “crucify him.” So religion allied itself
with politics, because one needed the assistance of the other to make this crucifixion
happen. It still does.

The confusion grows. Those who continued to believe that Jesus is the Messiah
stand in utter dismay as they hear the sound of hammer striking nail, of cries of anguish
as gravity slowly elongates the torso and distorts the inner organs until the lungs can no
longer function. They hear taunts of “save yourself” and derisive laughter as those
wielding instruments of power depend on those things for salvation.
Then there’s that last gasp for air. And silence.

Those who followed Jesus, even if at a bit of a distance, find their confusion
increasing as they wonder what comes next. What do we do now?
For now, they return home and wait. The combination of Passover and Sabbath
are simultaneous events, but celebrating liberation doesn’t quite seem to be the right
thing to do. “Are we next? Will there be a knock on my door during the night?” Fear
adds to the confusion, and obliterates any sense of peace.

Yet, somewhere in the depths of the earth, from the realm of death, comes a faint
cry as God’s Messiah enters. “Hosanna. Save us, we beseech you.”
You see, we can’t be saved except by the One who enters into all there is to be
saved from. That is the meaning of incarnation, that birth we celebrate every winter.
And we are saved by One who invites us to enter into his life by dying into ours. And
as we live into his life, we share in that which is eternal, so that when we die, our own
death becomes new life.

Sounds confusing, doesn’t it? But our life as followers of Jesus, the Christ, is to
be a witness to God’s power overcoming our weakness working from within ourselves
to reveal God’s glory that remains at work in the world God created. And that comes,
not by wielding might, but by humbly speaking those words in their true sense.
Hosanna. Save us, we beseech you.
​
Maybe when God reveals to each of us just how that happens, all will become as
clear as the cloudless dawn of a new day.