Indescribable Joy -- Second Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-31

April 12, 2026

 

            The pope has died. The pope’s death means there must be a conclave to elect a new head of the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinals from every part of the globe are arriving in Rome for this holiest of responsibilities. And one cardinal, Thomas Lawrence, who worked directly for the former pope until his death, is now the Dean of the conclave. This means that he is responsible for overseeing every aspect of the conclave, and it means that he will investigate any questions or suspicions about the specific cardinals who are considered popular candidates for the papacy.

            One of Dean Lawrence’s responsibilities is to preach the homily for the first mass of the gathering. He begins by speaking in formal Latin, reminding the cardinals gathered of their purpose and their call. But then he switches to English and speaks from the heart. And from the heart he speaks of Paul’s call for those who follow Jesus to have unity. He refers to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and to the diversity of the Ephesian community which was made up of believers both Gentile and Jewish. And then he speaks to that which destroys unity, which directly threatens unity and fellowship and tolerance and respect for others – and that is certainty. Certainty is the enemy of unity. Certainty is the opposite of faith. If there is certainty, then there is no faith and there is no mystery. Dean Lawrence tells his fellow cardinals that our faith is a living thing because it walks side-by-side with doubt. Then he tells them that he prays they will elect a pope who has doubts, who sins and asks for forgiveness and then carries on.

            What I am describing did not occur at the most recent conclave to elect Pope Leo. This is from the movie Conclave, which is one that Brent and I have now watched three times. And I could easily watch it that many more times again. It is fiction, but as I understand it, it gives a good insight into the workings of a real conclave and to the political realities of electing a new pope.

            But what this movie does so beautifully is show that even these most elevated of church leaders are still human beings with flaws and failings and doubts. Doubt is not the enemy of faith. Certainty is.

            And so we come to the one passage, the one story that we read every year on this Sunday after Easter. Regardless of what other gospel we may be focusing on the rest of the church year, on this Sunday we read the story from John’s gospel about Thomas. Thomas, aka Doubting Thomas. Thomas, for some unknown reason, was absent when the risen Jesus first appeared to the other disciples. Our story begins immediately after last week’s Easter story ends. Mary Magdalene meets the risen Jesus outside of the empty tomb, and she runs to tell the disciples that she has seen the Lord!

            But even this gloriously good news does not allay the disciples’ fear of the authorities. So, even though Mary has told them that Jesus is really and truly risen again, resurrected, out of the tomb, out of the grave, they are hiding behind locked doors in fear. Mary may have seen the Lord, but they have not. And they are afraid. Yet through these locked doors comes Jesus. He came and stood among them and declared,

“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And then he breathes on them and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit.

            But as I’ve already said, Thomas was not there when this first appearance happened. Perhaps he drew the short straw and had to go out and find food for them, while the others stayed behind. Maybe he had to check on a family member or relay a message, but for whatever reason, Thomas was absent when the others saw Jesus. Thomas was gone when the others saw for themselves that Jesus had risen and could not only appear to them but could even move through doors that were locked and bolted.

            I don’t know if Thomas was disappointed or hurt or even angry when he returned to the others only to find out that Jesus had appeared in their midst and now they too claimed that they had seen the Lord. Maybe he was none of the above, but he was resolved about one thing. He wanted to experience what the others experienced. He wanted to see the risen Jesus for himself.

            “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

            As I have said many times in other sermons on this passage, this is where Thomas gets his bad rap. This is where Thomas receives the nickname, Doubting Thomas. But as I’ve also said, was Thomas anymore doubtful than the others? Mary Magdalene told them she had seen the Lord. She rushed with joy to tell them that. But that news did not keep them from hiding behind locked doors out of fear. Her good news did not seem to convince them that anything and everything was changed. When Jesus stood among them, he showed them the marks from the nails. He showed them the fresh wounds from the trauma of the cross. Then they believed. So, how was Thomas any different from the others? He was different in this way only. He stated what he needed for belief. Did he doubt? Yes. But they all did. They all had doubts.

            Thomas got what he asked for. A week later, all the disciples including Thomas, were gathered in the house with doors that were shut tight. Closed doors did not prevent Jesus from appearing to them once again. Just as he had a week before, Jesus appeared and said, “Peace be with you.”

            This time Jesus speaks directly to Thomas.

            “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

            Then Thomas makes a profound confession of faith.

            “My Lord and my God!”

            What Jesus says next has often been interpreted as chastisement, and I grew up with that interpretation.

            “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

            I no longer hear a reprimand in Jesus’ words to Thomas, as though the only way Thomas could believe was to see. What I hear is Jesus making a connection to all those who will come to belief in the days, weeks, months, years, and centuries ahead. I hear a call to Thomas and to the others. They have seen and believed, now they must go out into the world and tell others so that belief will spread. They must share their profound experience of the risen Christ so that others will have hearts and minds open to do the same. They must be the channels for which belief will grow. But Jesus does not reprimand Thomas or the others for doubting. He just tells them to let go of their doubt and let belief take hold.

            Doubt is not the enemy of faith. Certainty is. But for so long I believed that if I was not certain of my faith, if I had doubts, if I had questions, if I was unsure, then my faith was weak. My faith was less than. How many times have I envied the faith of others who seem so sure about everything, who never express doubts or even ask hard questions? Because I was so sure that doubt equaled a lack of faith, I was afraid to express doubt. I was afraid to speak my questions aloud. But here’s the thing, being Easter people, people who believe in the resurrection, people who live into the good news of Easter, does not mean that we don’t have doubts. The world in which we live is one of both great beauty and terrible destruction.

            We proclaim the resurrection but wars still rage. We proclaim the resurrection but innocent people still suffer. We proclaim the resurrection but terrible accidents still happen. We proclaim the resurrection but death is still real. Living is a messy and complicated and wonderful and frightening business, and even though we hear the good news and read the good news and believe the good news, doubt still walks with us. Our faith is a living thing because it walks side by side with doubt. Our faith is a living thing not because we are certain but because with all we believe we still doubt. One commentator I read wrote that our faith is a faith of paradoxes. We die so that we may live. We receive by giving. We lead by serving. And we doubt our way into stronger belief.

            To believe in the resurrection does not make life easier. Belief in the resurrected Christ is not a spiritual magic wand that erases all our doubts and fears. No, our belief in the resurrected Christ is a belief that Jesus comes to us where we are just as he came to the disciples in that locked room. Jesus comes to us and shows us his scars so that we can reveal our own. Jesus shows us his wounds so that we can allow ours to heal. Jesus meets us in our doubts so that we can let our faith live. This living that we do, this believing that we struggle with is messy and complicated, but it is also wonderful. Our doubts, our struggles, our questions, all create a faith that is living, and a living faith is more than just a blessing. A living faith is an indescribable joy. Thanks be to the living God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

           

I Have Seen the Lord --Easter Sunday

John 20:1-18

April 5, 2026

 

            She came to the tomb empty-handed; not with burial spices to properly anoint his body. She came to the tomb alone, not in the company of other women. She came in the darkness before dawn. Why did she come? Maybe she had spent the last two nights sleepless, pacing the floor or tossing fitfully in her bed. Or perhaps she did sleep, only to dream that everything was the way it was before … he was alive, they were all together, the trauma of his execution nothing but a fiction, a terrible figment of her imagination. But when she would awaken, the cold reality that he was dead. that nothing was as it was before and would never be that way again would unleash fresh waves of grief upon her. Maybe she could not stay inside her home one more second. Maybe she could not remain hidden from the world another minute. Now that the Sabbath was over and the night still covered her, she could make her way to stand in the place of death, the place where she believed he abided forever. So, she crept through the shadows to keep watch over his death. She came to the tomb empty-handed; but she was overflowing with grief.

            But she was not prepared for what waited for her, or more accurately what did not. She was not prepared to see what she saw. Instead of a tomb blocked by a stone, the stone was rolled away. There was no lifeless body resting inside. He was gone. His body must have been taken or moved, one more way to punish his memory and to terrify those who loved him. This was more trauma heaped upon trauma. It was more than she could bear. She turned and ran, stumbling back through the darkness, to find Peter and the other disciple. When she reached them, Mary Magdalene cried out,                       

            “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

            Peter and the beloved disciple ran through the growing light to see what Mary was talking about. The other disciple reached the tomb first and looked inside but did not cross its threshold. From where he stood, he could see the linen wrappings, the graveclothes, lying abandoned. Peter caught up with him, and moving past the other disciple, he went into the tomb. He saw the abandoned wrappings, and he saw the cloth that held Jesus’ head rolled up and left apart from the others. Peter stepping into Jesus’ burial place must have encouraged the other disciple, because he followed Peter into the tomb. The text tells us that “he saw and believed,” even though they did not fully understand the scripture, and they did not understand what Jesus had told them while he was still with them – that he would rise from the dead to new life. But he saw and believed. Jesus was not there.

            But this was as far as the two disciples went. They saw the tomb was empty. They saw his death wrappings lying abandoned. They understood that something had happened, but they did not yet understand what it meant or its implications, so they returned home. Why bother staying by an empty tomb? They left and Mary was alone once more. But she could not leave. She could not walk away so easily because she still believed that his body had been moved or stolen. Her grief drove her to be near him, but if he was not there where could she go? This was the last place he had been, so she would stay. She would persist, even though the tomb was empty.

With fresh tears of sorrow streaming down her face, she peered into the emptiness. But now it was not so empty. Where the disciples only saw discarded cloths, she saw two angels. They were dressed in white and sitting where Jesus had lain. Her tears must have been falling fast and furious because they looked at her and asked,

“Woman, why are you weeping?”

“They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Before they could respond, before she had processed what she was seeing, she turned around and almost bumped into another man standing behind her. It must be the gardener, the caretaker of this place. Who else would be out so early in the morning?

He asked her the same question the angels did. “Woman, why are you weeping?”

Every time I have read this story in the past, every time, I have heard the angels’ and Jesus’ question to Mary with an almost dismissive tone, a condescending intonation. As if they were surprised she was weeping because didn’t she get it already. Didn’t she realize what had happened? Jesus was risen from the dead! He was resurrected from death to life. But now I read it differently. I hear their question differently. I hear compassion instead of condescension. I hear care instead of scorn.

“Woman, why are you weeping?”

Something about the risen Jesus looked different, because many of the people who were closest to him did not recognize him at first and Mary was no exception. Mary could not see past her own grief. She could not see who stood in front of her. She only saw a man who might know where her teacher had been taken, and she needed to find him. She needed to find him because she was drowning in grief and if she could just know where he was she might be able to survive. So, she pleaded with this man to tell her if he knew where her Lord had been taken. She begged him to help her.

And then he said her name. Mary! Now she knew him! Now she could see clearly. Rabbi! Teacher! He was alive and standing right there in front of her. Rabbi! Teacher! Jesus! Of course she ran to hug him. Of course she wanted to hold onto him and not let him go again. Whatever this miracle was, he was alive. He was alive! He was alive! He was alive! But Jesus would not let Mary hug him. He would not let her cling to him. I admit to not understanding this part of the story. His response to her joy sounds harsh, but this is John’s gospel, and I suspect that once again there is more happening here than we understand from a surface reading. It could be that Jesus wasn’t just telling her not to try and hold onto his resurrected self, but to not hold onto her past ideas about him and who he was, who he would be. Jesus wanted her to let go of what she thought she knew and step into a future that would be radically different from what she had once envisioned.

At our Sunrise Service this morning, Chris Williams told us that sometimes it is our unanswered prayers that we should be most grateful for. If we got everything we prayed for, our lives might look and be radically different from what they are, and not necessarily in a good way. Chris pointed out that the disciples and Mary Magdalene certainly prayed for something very different than what they got. I imagine they prayed for someone who would overthrow the oppression they lived under. They prayed for someone who would take back from their Roman occupiers all that had been stolen from them, from Israel. They prayed that Jesus’ predictions about his death would not come to pass.

When Mary went to the tomb that morning, she may have believed that God did not hear her fervent prayers. But when Jesus called her name, she understood that her prayers were answered in ways too wonderful for her to have imagined or believed.

Jesus, the risen Christ, called her name and then he called her. Because that is what this story is about after all. Mary is called to go and tell the others, the ones she knows, the ones she doesn’t, that she has seen the Lord. This is her call story. This is her new beginning. And it is ours.

I read recently that every gospel really begins with the resurrection, but each one has an extended prologue. When we shout our alleluias this morning, when we proclaim that Jesus is risen, he is risen indeed, we are not just referring to something that happened sometime in another country a long time ago. We are proclaiming that we believe the resurrection is happening now, in our midst. When we declare our belief in our resurrected Lord and Savior, we are stating that resurrection is not just reserved for the eternal by and by. This isn’t just about a heaven far away, but God’s kingdom right here and right now. This is our new beginning.

But when we proclaim the resurrection, we also must accept that resurrection has consequences. To state that we believe in Jesus’ resurrection means that we are people of hope. We live in hope that God is still creating, still pulling life from chaos. We live in hope that Jesus is not only resurrected but resurrecting all that seems dead in our lives, in our world. We live in hope that our relationships with God, with one another, with all of creation will be restored and made new. We live in hope. That is a consequence of resurrection.

We are changed and we are called. Those too are consequences of resurrection faith. We do not leave here this morning the same as when we came. Mary was called in that garden, by that empty tomb. She was called from her grief into joy, from her tears to laughter. She was called to tell the others. She was called to share what she had seen, what she had experienced, what she now knew in her mind and in her heart. When we leave here this morning, we are called to tell someone about the gospel. We are called to share with someone that we too have seen the Lord. Because this is just the beginning. Our unanswered prayers are answered in ways we could not imagine. Our old understandings are left behind. Resurrection is the beginning of a new story.

So, tell the world, shout it from the rooftops and proclaim it in the streets. We have seen the Lord! We have seen the Lord! We have seen the Lord!

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”

Amen.

 

What I Have Done to You -- Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

April 2, 2026

 

            “Do you know what I have done to you?”

            Jesus asks this question in verse 12 of our passage from John’s gospel, and I’ll be honest with you. I think it is a strange question for Jesus to ask. Why didn’t Jesus ask,

            “Do you know what I have done for you?” Or “Do you understand what I did just now? Do you get it? Do you see how I treated you? Do you see the way I have shown love to you?”

            But no, Jesus asked, “Do you know what I done to you?”

            What is it that Jesus did to the disciples? On this night, this night that we call Maundy Thursday or Commandment Thursday or Holy Thursday, we hear again Jesus’ words to the disciples about the new commandment he has given them, and in turn given to us; to love one another as he loved them. In fact, Jesus tells them, it is this love, love that they do, that will mark them, identify them, as the ones who follow him.

            Do you know what I have done to you? Do you know what I have done to you?

            You see, this was not just a clever illustration or a tidy object lesson on Jesus’ part. He was not merely demonstrating for them one possible way to show love. He was doing love to them. He took love that he felt and put it into tangible action. He was doing love to them. From the moment he took off his outer robe and tied that towel around his waist he was doing love to them. From the second he knelt before each of them, basin in hand, and began to wash their feet as only a servant would, he was doing love to them – not just verbalizing it or illustrating it but doing. He was doing love to them.

            Do you know what I have done to you?

            This passage begins where our stories of Jesus so often begin, at the table. Jesus and the disciples are gathered on the eve of the Festival of the Passover and Jesus understands that his hour to depart this world, this life, is at hand. He loved his disciples from the beginning and he would love them to the end. So, many things are happening in this story. Jesus knows this will be his last meal with the disciples. The devil is still there and still a threat but will work through someone else to attain his goal. And Jesus, sitting at table with his disciples, knowing all this loves them as his own. 

            After the meal is finished, Jesus does something that no one would have expected. He does not lecture them about what it means to love. He doesn’t just make the claim that he is a servant minister, tell them they should do that too, then leave the table. He enacts love. He washes the disciples’ feet. What is your first reaction to the idea of having your feet washed, or having to wash someone else’s feet? If your first, visceral response is “ewwwww,” then you are not alone. It is not an easy task to consider much less perform. And the disciples’ feet could not have been pretty. I suspect that they were callused, perpetually dusty and grimy from walking on dirt roads. They were not neatly pedicured. But Jesus did not flinch from touching them, from washing them.

            Even with all that they have witnessed from Jesus so far, the disciples must have surely been shocked at Jesus, their teacher, their Rabbi, kneeling before them to wash their feet. It makes sense to me why Peter responded as he did, saying,

“No way, Lord. You will never wash my feet!”

But Jesus is firm in his response to Peter.

“Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”

Jesus loved his own, and so his own needed to understand that if they wanted to love as he loved, then this was how to do that. This was his commandment. They must willingly humble themselves. They must willingly serve others. They must willingly and lovingly perform even the most menial tasks in service to one another. If the disciples, Jesus’ own, wanted to love as Jesus loved, then they must be willing to really and truly be servants to others, even if that means kneeling in front of another, towel and basin at the ready, and wash that person’s feet. They must do love.

Do you know what I have done to you?

Jesus loved his own from the beginning and he loved them to the end. Think about what means and whose feet he washed. He washed Peter’s feet. Peter, impulsive and eager and sometimes reckless. Peter who got it wrong as often as he got it right. Peter, who would deny Jesus three times even after he swore that he would never deny him. But he did.

Jesus washed Judas’ feet. Judas has not yet been filled with Satan, has not yet left the others to betray the One who loved him. He has not yet set in motion all that would follow. But in a matter of matters, he will. Yet even though Jesus knew what Judas would do, he washed his feet. He knelt before the one who would betray him unto death and washed his feet. Jesus did not withhold doing love even to those who would hurt him the most. Jesus did love even to them.

Jesus told his disciples that he was giving them a new commandment, to do love as he had; to love as he had loved. This was the new commandment that he was giving them. Love others as I have loved you, not just with warm fuzzy feelings or flowery language, but with action. To love is to serve, so love one another, love others, serve others, in the way that I have served you.

This was a commandment that surely even the disciples failed to fulfill, at least at times. It is a commandment that I know I fail to realize, that I suspect we all fail in some way or another. It is humbling to wash someone else’s feet. It is hard. But I could readily do it for someone I loved. At the end of her life, my mother’s feet were in rough shape. But if she had needed me to, I would have washed them for her because I love her. But could I wash the feet of someone I don’t love? Could I wash the feet of someone who betrayed me, who hurt me, who broke my heart? Could I wash the feet of my enemy, or even someone I just don’t like? Even taking the literal foot washing out of the equation, to love someone, to serve someone, seems like an impossible task, an impossible love. But Jesus did not do this to set the disciples up to fail. Jesus does not set us up to fail. Jesus knew that the disciples, those in front of him and those who would follow later, would not always get it right. But that does not change the commandment. We are called to do love to others. We are commanded to do love to those we love and those we do not. We are called to do love to all of God’s children.

Do you know what I have done to you?

Many years ago, I heard a story at a family reunion about one of my great-aunts on my dad’s side. When someone in her church or her community had an older family member who was struggling, they would call my aunt and say,

“Oh Alma, dad is not doing so well. He’s tired and he feels so old and forgotten and useless, and he wants to give up.”

So Alma would get to work. She would go see this person, but she wouldn’t go empty handed. She would bring her bread pudding and her bible, and she would convince them to eat the bread pudding. Once she got them eating, she would read scripture to them. Then when they were fed in body and in soul, she would rub their feet. I imagine that some of these folks had feet like my mom’s. They had carried the weight of their owner for many years and were tired and worn out. But from what I understand, my aunt didn’t flinch at the condition of someone’s feet. She cared more about that person’s heart and soul. She fed them bread pudding, read the Bible to them, and rubbed their feet. She did love to them. She lived out Jesus’ commandment and did love.

Do you know what I have done to you?

From this moment on, it will seem as though the darkness will win. It will seem as though the powers and principalities will have the final word and the last laugh. But Jesus did not stop doing love when he was finished washing their feet. Jesus did love all the way to the cross. Jesus did love, even to those who betrayed and denied him. Jesus did love, even to those who crucified him. Jesus did love from the beginning and Jesus did love to the end.

Jesus does love to us, though we fail him, though we deny him, though we betray him. Jesus does love to us, in spite of ourselves. Jesus does love to us because that is what he came to do. For God so loved the world. Jesus did love, Jesus embodied love, and Jesus commands us to do the same.

Do you know what I have done to you?

Amen and amen.

           

           

Who Is This? -- Palm/Passion Sunday

Matthew 21:1-11

March 29, 2026

 

            When I accepted my previous call in Shawnee, Oklahoma, I expected to deal with bad storms. We were moving to Tornado Alley after all. I knew that would be a risk that we took living in a Great Plains state. Oklahoma has more than its fair share of tornados and straight-line windstorms. The sad proof of this is that a terrible tornado ripped through the western side of Shawnee just a couple of years ago. As terrible and devastating as these storms are, I knew what we were moving into. I expected tornadoes. What I did not expect were earthquakes.

            Between sitting on a fault line and natural gas fracking, earthquakes in Oklahoma were a more likely possibility than I realized. We didn’t have many of them while we lived there, but we did have them and the first ones happened within the first month of us living there.

            It was the middle of the night, maybe 3 or 4 in the morning. Suddenly the whole house started shaking. The beds were moving. Pictures were rattling on the walls. And there was this horrible noise. What I did not know about earthquakes is that they are loud. They make this roaring sound; I’m not even sure how to describe it. It was so loud and the shaking went on for what felt like hours, although it was probably no more than a minute, that I was woken up and in shock. Zach woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep again. Phoebe slept right through it. But none of us were sleeping when the next one happened later that day. The first one hit in the early hours of a Saturday morning. The second one hit later Saturday night. This shaking was much bigger. I remember I was standing in one of the bedrooms and I could hear glasses falling out of a cabinet in the dining room and smashing on the floor. Thankfully, no real damage was done – at our house or anywhere in the vicinity. But it was still … eye-opening. I told my parishioners the next day that I hoped when I took the call that I might shake things up, but I didn’t expect it to be literal.

            At the end of our story from Matthew’s gospel this morning, we read that when Jesus entered Jerusalem the whole city was in turmoil. The Greek word used to describe “turmoil” here is the same one that will be used to describe the shaking of the earth when Jesus breathes his last breath on the cross. It is the same one that give us our English word seismic. The city of Jerusalem was not just in turmoil, it was trembling, shaking and quaking with fear and anxiety and wonder at the entrance from the East of this strange peasant man. No wonder people were asking, “Who is this?” Who is this man who is causing the city such turmoil? Who is this man whose very presence is making everything we know and take for granted seem strange and surreal and wrong? Who is this?

            Jerusalem was filled to the brim with people coming from all over to celebrate the Festival of Passover. While Passover was both a celebration and a solemn remembrance of God’s saving work delivering the Hebrews from enslavement in Egypt, I suspect that the city was not just filled with extra people but with extra tension. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who would in just a few days interrogate Jesus, was in the city because it was Passover. His presence was necessary because celebrating a divine salvific event might get the people more stirred up than from an actual earthquake. It might give them ideas about freedom from oppression and throwing off the bonds of Rome that bound them. The Roman empire was known as Pax Romana, but the peace of Rome was achieved and maintained through violence. Pilate needed to be in Jerusalem during the festival of Passover to remind the Jewish people just who was in charge and who was not.

            In their book, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach about Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem, John Dominic Crossan and Marcus J. Borg, write about two processions that happen this day. The first was wholeheartedly military in its scope. It would have come with the steady drumbeat of armored horses and armored men marching into the city. Pilate most likely rode in a gilded chariot, either pulled by horse or carried by men. This was pomp and circumstance. This was power and might on display. Pilate and his entourage would have come from the West, and they would have represented all the powers and principalities in the world at that time. Perhaps there were people watching this procession who were waving or smiling to stay on Pilate’s good side or just trying to keep their heads down and avoid notice But I doubt there was much joy or delight felt at the sight of this parade.

            But on the other side of the city, the authors write that another procession took place. As grand and gilded and gaudy as the other one was, this procession, coming into the city from the East, was the opposite. At its heart was a humble man riding a donkey and her foal. Before him a large crowd of people were spreading their cloaks on the ground, and they were cutting branches from the trees to lay beside the cloaks. And as the man rode and his disciples followed, the people went with them, ahead and behind, and they shouted,

            “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

            It’s so easy to think that when the people shout, “Hosanna” that they are shouting their version of “Hooray!” or “Alleluia!” But what hosanna means is “Save us now,” “Save us, please,” “Save us, just save us.”

            Jesus was no fool. He knew what he was doing in this processional. I don’t mean to imply that Jesus was being manipulative or coercive. He was not. But he knew that every detail of his coming into Jerusalem would connect to Hebrew prophecy. He knew that his humble entrance would be the antithesis to the entrance of Pilate. He knew that he was revealing his true identity, even if so many people still misunderstood his true purpose.

            And it seems likely that the people who greeted him, who made way for him, did misunderstand his true purpose. They recognized the king that he was, but they did not, could not grasp what being king, what being messiah meant. If the disciples, who heard the truth directly from Jesus, could not get their heads wrapped around what was to come, then I guess we should give the people some slack for their lack of understanding. But that does not change the fact that when they saw Jesus entering Jerusalem, they saw in him someone who could answer their pleas of “Save us. Save us now.”

            Because that’s what they so desperately needed. They were living in an occupied city and in an occupied land. They were living under the oppression of Rome, and oppression requires fear to be sustainable. They were desperate. They were desperate for salvation, for freedom. To hearken back to another season, they saw their hopes and fears of all the years fulfilled in him, fulfilled in his coming. Surely, he would save them.

            And it is understandable why other people in the city trembled at the sight of him, felt the earth quaking beneath their feet at his entrance. If he was the savior they had been waiting for, then what would be the price they would pay for that salvation? Did his coming into Jerusalem at this time and in this way signal war? Did it mean there would be bloodshed in the streets? Would it be their blood that was shed in the streets, the blood of their children, their loved ones? I’m sure that some believed that defeating Rome was an impossibility and it was beyond foolish to even try. It would only cause more trouble and more heartache for all of them in the long run. So who is this man? Who is this man who enters the city not on a warhorse but on a donkey? Who is this man who does not bear arms or wear armor? Who is this man who has shaken up everyone and everything? Who is this?

            “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

            This response is perhaps not all that reassuring. Prophets were important, true. I mean look at the prophets of Israel’s past. But prophets, for all that they did, for all the ways they stood up to power, did not often live out their lives in peace and tranquility. Prophets generally got themselves killed. If this man was a prophet, what did that mean? What did it mean for him and for them? Even if no physical earthquake occurred at that moment, the ground was still shaking beneath the peoples’ feet. They were afraid. They were hopeful. They were desperate. Who is this man and will he save us now?

            We know what happens next. We know that this is the last week of Jesus’ life on earth. We know that the shouts of “Hosanna” will change to cries of “Crucify him!” We know that the hope felt at Jesus’ entrance into the city will turn to disappointment and anger for all they think he did not do. We know that this week will end in the cross. It will culminate with the terrible violence of Good Friday and the deafening silence of Holy Saturday.

             We cannot skip over this week. We may choose to ignore it, to just get on with our lives as we must. But we must still walk through it. And the truth is, don’t we, like those crowds before us, call on Jesus to save us? Don’t we also cry out, “Save us, now! Save us, please!” And aren’t we sometimes disappointed and angry when we feel that salvation does not come? Because the world still feels as though it is shaking beneath our feet. Everywhere we turn, everywhere we look, there seems to be nothing but violence and heartache and fear. Children die and parents mourn, and wars are fought and peace seems even more elusive and hearts are broken and hearts are broken and hearts are broken. Does God hear? Does God care?

            But as much as this week breaks our hearts, I hope that it also reminds us that God does hear and that God does care. That is why Jesus goes into Jerusalem. That is why Jesus walks each day of this week knowing where it will end. Because God hears and God cares and God loves and God is with us. We are not alone. God is with us still. That is the good news of the gospel. That is the good news.

            So, may we walk this week with Jesus. May we walk this week knowing that we will betray him, knowing that we will fail him, knowing that we will turn away in fear and sorrow, and that we will also turn back in wonder and joy. May we walk this week with Jesus, knowing that he walks this week for us. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Amen.”

            Amen.

             

 

           

Even Though They Die -- Fifth Sunday in Lent

John 11:1-45

March 22, 2026

 

            For many children the first time they must deal with death, loss, and grief is when they lose an older family member or a beloved family pet. For me, my first real confrontation with the things of life and death happened in second grade. In second grade I received the book Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White for my 7^th birthday. I need to be clear that I didn’t just read Charlotte’s Web, I devoured it. I don’t want to give too many spoiler alerts for those here who may not have experienced this wonderful and poignant story, but it is about a spider named Charlotte, a pig named Wilbur, a rat named Templeton, a little girl named Fern, and a host of other barnyard characters. Charlotte saves Wilbur’s life, but like all living creatures, she dies.

            I was spellbound by this story, so when I came to the moment where Charlotte died, her death broke me. I mourned her like she was a real spider, a real friend, and not a character in a story. My best friend, Cynthia, read the book about the same time as me and she also loved it like I did, do. We made a bet to see who could read it the most. I don’t know how many times Cynthia read this story, but I read it over and over again. I would finish it only to start again. And each time I read it, each time I reached the moment where Charlotte dies, I would weep like it was the first time I’d read the words. One time my older brother came home and saw me in bed sobbing. He went and told our mom. She came upstairs and when she saw that I was rereading Charlotte’s Web, she lost her patience.

            “Amy Louise,” she said,” Charlotte always dies.”

            Charlotte always dies. I knew that. Even at 7, I understood that what I was reading was a story. It wasn’t true. But knowing that it wasn’t true did not minimize the grief I felt. Knowing that it wasn’t true did not diminish the lesson I learned about living and dying from reading that beloved and beautiful book.

            All of us will die. We began this season of Lent with Ash Wednesday, when the truth that from dust we came and to dust we return was literally marked on us with ashes. And on each Sunday in Lent, we have seen Jesus in different scenarios and situations, meeting different people, and revealing more about himself as both human and divine as he – and we – travel closer to the cross. Jesus has been tempted as we are tempted. Jesus shares the truth that he came into the world to love the world, not condemn it because God loves the world and does not condemn it. Jesus stops by a well in the territory of a so-called enemy, feels thirst and need and is vulnerable, but he also knows that there is one water for the body and another living water for the soul. That soul-water is water that he provides. Jesus gave eyesight to a blind man, but he could not force sight and insight on those who would choose to live in spiritual darkness.

            And that brings us to today. That brings us to the raising of Lazarus, this long and really kind of strange story. As is typical of John’s gospel, a multitude of things are happening in this story. There is the text that we read, and then there is subtext and even more layers of meaning. And as I so often feel when I read John’s gospel, I think I should love this story but I struggle with it instead. I freely admit that I don’t really understand or grasp it. It seems to raise more questions than it answers.

Such as, when Jesus gets the message from Mary and Martha that their brother Lazarus was gravely ill, why does Jesus delay going to him? Why does he stay two days longer than necessary instead of going right to him? Must everything have to be an object lesson in this gospel, even the death of someone Jesus loves?

            Also, why do we read this passage today, before Easter? Why do we get stories of the dead being raised to new life now, when we are still in Lent. Both this passage and our passage from the prophet Ezekiel point to the new life that is coming. So, is this a way for us to experience resurrection in lowercase letters before we get to RESURRECTION, all caps, on Easter Sunday?

            Perhaps. But I wonder if what we really need to spend time with this morning and at this point in this season is not the new life that comes from death, although that is the foundation of our faith. No, what captures my attention and my imagination today is Jesus’ grief. Even with all the strangeness leading up to Jesus’ arrival at Lazarus’ tomb, the delays, Jesus stating that this will reveal the glory of God, still Jesus weeps for his friend. Jesus grieves. If each Sunday of Lent reveals another aspect of Jesus to us, then this Sunday we see Jesus grieve. When I was I child, the easiest verse to remember was “Jesus wept.” The NRSV New Revised Standard Version, elongates this verse to “Jesus began to weep.” But either way, Jesus weeps. He breaks down into tears. We see plainly that Jesus is not immune to the heartbreak and loss and grief that comes with death. He lives it too. So I think that of all the things that are happening in this story, it is the grief that I think we need to contend with.

            And it is not just Jesus that grieves. John writes about Martha and Mary meeting Jesus in a very calm and faithful fashion, but I suspect that there was more emotion going on there than what the text conveys. I imagine Martha storming up to Jesus, crying out to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” And then, trying to get control, trying to remember all that she believed, all that she was taught, saying, “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”

            And when Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again,” I hear Martha repeating back to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day,” in a dull voice, as though her mind knows this but her heart refuses to believe. Because grief does not care about what we have been taught to think, at least not at first. Grief can overwhelm even the most faithful of person. Grief hits us at a place deeper than rational thought or intellect.

            And even though Mary comes to Jesus in a posture of belief, kneeling before him, her words are like Martha’s. “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died”

            There is anger in the sisters’ words, anger and heartbreak and betrayal. They are feeling all the emotions that come with grief. They are feeling and experiencing and expressing what so many of us have felt and experienced and expressed when someone we love has died, when the grief of the world feels too much to bear – Lord, if you had just been here, this would not have happened, this person or people would not have died! Lord, if you had just been here. And underneath the claim, “Lord, if you had been here,” is the real question: “Lord, where were you? Why weren’t you here? Why. Weren’t. You. Here?”

            Jesus hears Martha and Mary’s grief. Jesus witnesses their tears. And he sees the tears of others around him, the tears of those other unnamed people mourning Lazarus, and it becomes too much for him. He weeps too. He grieves with them. He mourns his friend who has been in the tomb for four days. He mourns the one he has lost, and as one commentator suggested, maybe he is also mourning what will come, what lies ahead. The raising of Lazarus is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. When Jesus raises Lazarus, the authorities finally say enough is enough. This guy has gone too far. This guy has revealed too much power and too much influence and now we need to find a way to stop him. In the verses that follow our passage, the high priest Caiaphas proclaims that it is better, more expedient for one man to die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed. So this is it. Raising Lazarus is what sets all the players in motion. Jesus surely knew this. He surely realized where this was all leading. He knew there was no turning back.

            So maybe Jesus was experiencing a mixed bag of grief, grief for his friend and grief for himself and even grief for the people who would hasten him to the cross. Jesus grieved. He wept and grieved because death is real. Death is real and cannot be avoided or denied. Death is real and even though new life waits on the other side, resurrection can only come through death. We cannot get to new life without the grave.

            I know that this is not the sermon some of us want to hear. It’s not really the sermon I want to preach. But death is real. We all die. Now, I want to make it clear that even though we all die, that does not mean that all death is just. Our world is filled with unjust, untimely, unnecessary death; death that comes through violence and oppression. As the church, Christ’s hands and feet in this world, we are called to work against this kind of death. We are called to rail against this kind of death. Just because we all die does not mean that death that is unjust should be allowed to pass without response or reproof.

            But death, no matter how it comes, is real. And grief is real. And just like the game we used to play when I was a kid about going on a bear hunt – you know the one, you can’t go around it, you can’t go over or under it, you gotta go through it. I used to believe that grief was something that you got over, but the older I get and the more people I lose, the more I realize that grief does not go away. It does not dissipate. It remains, and you learn, somehow, to work it into your life. You learn that as you go on living, your grief becomes a part of you. I read somewhere that grief is the consequence of love. Because we love, we will eventually grieve. Jesus loved Lazarus, and when he died, he grieved. Ezekiel must have felt enormous grief standing in that valley of dry bones, feeling the loss of all those who died there, because he loved his people, his countrymen, and grief was the consequence of that love.

            Grief is the consequence of love. But here is the good news. God made us for life not death. God took on our humanity not only to defeat death, but so that we could have abundant life. God is still working, still creating life. We were created for life, for love, for joy. Even though we die, God is still bringing life out of death. Even though we die, even though we grieve, death does not have the final say. Even though we die, at the end which is the new beginning, we are unbound from the wrappings of death and set free to live. Even though we die, we were created for life not death, and life, abundant life, God’s glorious new life, will overcome. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Amen.”

Now I See -- Fourth Sunday in Lent

John 9:1-41

March 15, 2026

 

            If you are ever feeling blue and need something that will make you smile and cry at the same time, look up videos of babies and children hearing for the first time. You can find them in reels on social media, and on video sites like YouTube. In these videos a baby or a child who is hearing impaired will be fitted for hearing aids or has had cochlear implants, and the moment recorded is the instant when sound enters their life for the first time. Sometimes sound disrupting silence is overwhelming and the baby will cry. Sometimes being fitted with their hearing devices is scary to the little ones and they cry or look distressed but then comes the moment when they hear their name, when they hear their parents’ voices for the first time, and even watching it on a video, you can tell the whole room is filled with joy.

            The doctors and the nurses are celebrating. The parents are celebrating. Family members who came along to support them are celebrating. This time of joy and exultation is recorded for posterity. I realize this is just one small moment in the lives of these children, these families, but it is a profoundly beautiful moment to witness. It is a miraculous moment to witness. And I can understand why everyone involved is so overwhelmed with joy, why children and parents alike are crying. A child can hear her mother and father’s voice for the first time! That is worth celebrating. That is a miracle! That is a reason for joy!

            And then we have another long and unique story from John’ s gospel. This is a story I struggle with because no one celebrates that this man born blind can now see. No one celebrates that this man who navigated a world of darkness can now see the sun as well as feel it, can now see the ground below his feet, can now see the faces that belong to familiar voices. No one whoops for joy at this miracle. No one celebrates that this man born blind proclaims, “Now I see.”

            His parents don’t celebrate and rejoice at the sight he has been given. The people who knew him before don’t celebrate. The religious folks don’t celebrate and exclaim with wonder. His newfound vision, which should have been a source of joy and delight, is instead treated with suspicion and fear.

            From the beginning of the story, we are introduced to this man not by name but by his condition. He is not Bob, and by the way Bob happens to be blind. He is the man born blind. His blindness is his identifier. He is not a man with a congenital condition or someone who was born with a random issue. His blindness is who he is. He is the man born blind. That’s how the disciples see him. When Jesus and the disciples come across this man, the disciples see only his blindness and their one question to Jesus is, “Who sinned?”

            “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

            Jesus’s response seems straightforward.

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

But wait. Does this mean that Jesus was saying God afflicted the man with blindness so that someday when he was an adult, he could be used as an object lesson for other people? I don’t think so. I think a deeper, more accurate understanding is that the man’s blindness was a chance condition of his birth. But Jesus knew that through this man God’s glory could and would be revealed. When Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman at the well, he spoke to her not just of water she could carry in her buckets, but of living water that would revive her soul. Jesus told Nicodemus that it was his birth, his forming and shaping, in and by the Spirit that would give him salvation and new life. So too, this blind man would see. He would see not just the physical world around him, but he would see and recognize the revelation of God’s glory. 

            As one commentator noted, Jesus’ actions to heal the man take on a baptismal quality. He spits on the ground, makes mud, and spreads the mud on the man’s eyes. He tells the man to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. The man did this, and when the mud was washed away, he returned able to see, both the world around him and God’s glory. 

            Shouldn’t this have been the moment when the celebration began, when the joy at the man being given his sight bubbled up? But that did not happen. When the man returned from the pool of Siloam, from following Jesus’s directions, he was different. Maybe he walked taller. Maybe he held his head higher. He would no longer be forced to beg. He was no longer just the man born blind. Maybe that’s why his neighbors and the other folks who knew him before didn’t recognize him. Speculation began. Some of the people believed that it really was him. But others refused to believe, saying, “No that’s not that guy. It looks like him, but it’s not him.”
            Yet the man kept insisting that he was who he was. He was the man who had been born blind, but now he could see. He said to anyone who would listen, “I am the man.”

One scholar points out that this man is the only other person to use the phrase, “I am” except Jesus. I am the man. So the neighbors asked him, “How did this happen? How did you receive your sight?” The man told his neighbors exactly what Jesus did. Jesus spat on the ground, made mud, then he spread the mud on my eyes and told me to go wash. I did everything he told me to do, and now I see. Now I see.

            Once again, this would have been another perfect moment to get the party started. It really is him! It really is the man born blind. But now he can see! Someone go and get the fatted calf. Someone go and bring the wine. Someone go and tell all the folks to come and celebrate because this man was born blind, but now he can see! But no. That’s not what happened. It was all too suspicious. No one is born blind then given sight. 

The man was brought before the Pharisees to investigate. The Pharisees also questioned how he received his sight. He repeated his story once more. Yet rather than rejoice in this miraculous healing, this giving of sight, the Pharisees became more concerned about the timing. This strange and suspicious healing happened on the Sabbath. Obviously, Jesus was not “from God” because he willingly broke the Law. No one truly from God would do that. Tell us again, how you were supposedly blind, but then miraculously received your sight. He was forced to retell it many times, but the man’s story never changed. He told the Pharisees exactly what he told the other people. He was blind, but Jesus gave him sight. He was blind. Now he can see.

            John tells us that the Pharisees are divided. Jesus broke the Law, so he must be a sinner.  But how could a sinner perform such signs? This man could now see. The Pharisees then questioned the man about Jesus. What does he say about him? He’s the one who was given sight by Jesus. All the man will say about Jesus’ identity is that he is a prophet.

            The Jews – we need to understand here that John is speaking of the Jewish religious authorities, not just Jews in general – decided that it wasn’t possible that this man was actually born blind. So they tracked down his parents and put their questions to them. “Is this your son and was he born blind?”

            The parents were afraid. They were afraid of being forced out of the synagogue, out of the community and its fellowship. It was already known that anyone who gave credence to Jesus would suffer those consequences. Out of fear, they handed over their own son. They threw him under the proverbial bus.

“We know that this is our son. We know that he was born blind. But we don’t know how he’s seeing now and we don’t know who made him see. Look, don’t bother us anymore. He’s of age. Ask him.”

            Once again the religious authorities called the man in for questioning. “Give glory to God,” they tell him, “we know that this man is a sinner.” This wasn’t an invitation to praise God for what Jesus had done. It was a warning. This Jesus, this sinner must be denied, and any authority he might have, undermined. But the man refused to back down. He refused to speculate about or categorize Jesus in anyway. 

            “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 

            This is the beating heart of this entire passage. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. The man would not let them take that away from him. He would not let his experience of moving from blindness to sight be hijacked to accommodate the power driven agendas of others. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.

            The Pharisees couldn’t accept this. They reviled the man. They accused him of being a disciple of Jesus, a sinner, while they, the good and righteous people, were disciples of Moses. The man didn’t take their bait. He even took them to task for their lack of understanding. 

            “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to the one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could nothing.”

            For the Pharisees, that was the final straw. This man born of sin would not, could not teach them anything! How dare he?! They drove him out of the synagogue and out of the fellowship of the worshipping community. 

            At this point Jesus returns to the scene. We haven’t seen him since he gave the man back his sight. When Jesus heard that the man was driven out of the synagogue, he went looking for him. Jesus asked the man one question, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man born blind only wanted to know the identity of the Son of Man, so that he may worship him. Jesus answers, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” With that, the man believed.  

            A fellow pastor remarked that in this entire story, every person involved with the man objectifies him. They treated him as a thing to be argued over, fought over, used. Jesus was the only one who saw him as an individual, who through no fault of his own or anyone else, was blind. Jesus gave this man, this individual, this unique creation of God, his sight. And from this powerful experience, the man believed in Jesus as the Son of God, the Son of Man. 

            One thing I do know that though I was blind, now I see. 

            No one was able to take that experience away from him. No one could convince him that what he knew was false or delusional. It was real. Now I see.

            And not only did he see in the physiological sense. He saw the truth of Jesus, his full identity. He saw the Messiah standing in front of him and believed. But the righteous people, the people who had never spent a day without sight could not see. They may have been able to pass an eye exam on the first try, but they were blind. They could not see nor accept what was right before their eyes: Jesus, the Son of Man; the Son of God. 

How are we blind? While I would rather relate to the man who could see both physically and the glory of God in Jesus, I know that I am really more like the Pharisees. I see what I want to. More accurately, I don’t see what I don’t want to. How quickly I find myself stuck in the groove of my own righteousness. I think that I know what’s true and what isn’t. But when I read this story, I get a glimpse of another truth. I may be able to see, but I can also be blind. Blind to the revelation of God’s glory because it sometimes appears in ways and in people I don’t like.  I’m blind because the glory of God Jesus reveals can break the rules that I insist are absolute. I’m blind because encountering Jesus in a way I’m unprepared for scares and challenges me. Clinging to my spiritual blindness keeps me from realizing that I must change, that I need transformation. So, I ask the question again, how are we blind?

As we continue to walk through this season of Lent, reading the stories of God’s revelation through Jesus the Son, may our eyes be opened to God’s glory in the people around us. May we see, even that which we would rather not see. May we let go of the blindness that clouds our hearts and minds and see all people as God sees them, with grace and mercy and abiding love. And as we draw closer to Good Friday, may we also proclaim, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” Now I see. Let us celebrate and rejoice.

Let all God’s children say, “Amen.”

 

 

 

 

 

           

Give Me a Drink -- Third Sunday in Lent

John 4:5-42

March 8, 2026

 

            When Brent and I were dating, he told me that when we don’t allow someone to do something kind for us, to do something generous for us, to help us in some way, that we deny that other person a blessing. Letting someone else help us, letting someone else do something kind for us is making room for that person to receive a blessing along with the blessing we receive from being helped.

            Some of you may remember when I broke my right wrist three years ago. When you lose the use of a limb, asking for help at times becomes necessary. This was a hard lesson for me to learn, and I had to relearn that when I broke this wrist in 2023. I had to relearn that because, unfortunately, that wasn’t the first time I broke it. I broke the same wrist back when Phoebe and Zach were in early elementary school. With that break, I required surgery, followed by a eight weeks wearing an intense cast with an external fixator to keep the bone in place.  

            I went back to the pulpit about a week after my surgery. I wasn’t allowed to drive, so I was grateful that my parents lived nearby because my dad drove me everywhere. My parents drove me to church that first Sunday back in the pulpit – and for many Sundays after – and after church we went out to eat. I was in a lot of pain, and I was worn out from preaching and leading worship that morning. I started to feel sick and woozy. I needed to go home, so my family dropped me off at the house and then took the kids for a while to give me some quiet time. I knew that I would need to take a pain pill when I got home, but I didn’t consider the fact that I would not be able to open the pill bottle by myself. I tried everything I could think of to open that bottle. I tried to brace it against the counter and open it with my left hand. That didn’t work. I tried to wrench open the top with my teeth. I realized the only thing that would do was break a tooth. I even thought about stomping the pill bottle with my foot, but that would create a mess I didn’t want to clean up. I needed help. This was in the days before everyone had cell phones, so I couldn’t reach my parents because they were still out, away from their landline. I tried my next door neighbor. They weren’t home. The ground was covered in snow and ice, so was afraid to walk around looking for someone and risk falling again. Then I thought about our friends who lived on the street behind us. Maybe someone was home at their house. I called and Ericka, my dear friend, answered. By this time I was in so much pain, I was getting sick. I was crying from pain and frustration. I was embarrassed. When she answered, all I could say was, “Ericka, I need help.”

            She was at our house in a matter of minutes. She got me my medication. She got me water. She helped me get settled. She offered to get me anything else I needed. She offered to stay with me. I told her I would be fine and thank you and I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry for calling her, for bothering her. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t do for myself. She kindly but firmly told me to knock all that mess off. She was glad to help, and I would have done the same for her. And I would have. But that didn’t make asking for help any easier. Yet, when we deny someone the chance to help us we deny them a blessing.

            I wonder if Jesus knew when he sat down by that well that he would have an opportunity to give a blessing to someone else. I don’t know. John’s gospel implies that Jesus knows what and why he’s doing something at all times. So, maybe he knew this Samaritan woman would come along or maybe he didn’t. I don’t know. What I do know is that Jesus needed help.

            The sun at noon would have been scorching. We know from the text that Jesus was tired from his journey, which is why he stopped and rested by Jacob’s well. His thirst must have been intense, and it could also have been dangerous. Dehydration could happen fast, and it was not something you took lightly. Jesus needed help.

            But he was at the well at the wrong time of day. Carrying buckets of water was labor intensive; most women would go to the well early in the morning to get their water for the day, rather than wait until noon when the heat was at its most intense. But as Jesus was resting there, a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well.

            Jesus needed help. He needed water and he asked for it. This woman saw a stranger. The text does not say that she draws water for him, but we can assume that she did. But she does not do it without asking this question.

            “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

            Jews and Samaritans were bitter enemies. Their enmity was centuries old and deep-rooted in both cultures. That enmity is why Jesus’ parable about a Samaritan helping a man robbed and beaten by the side of the road was so scandalous and shocking to its original audience. Jews and Samaritans were bitter enemies.

            But Jesus needed help. When he spoke to this woman, when he asked her to give him water, the fact that he was in Samaria at all, was crossing boundaries and lines that were not supposed to be crossed. He was a man alone speaking to a woman alone. He was a Jew speaking to a Samaritan. The woman understood all this, which is why she asks her question of him. Why was he, a Jew, speaking to her, a woman of Samaria?

            Jesus responds to her question in typical Johannine fashion.

            “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.”

            The woman takes Jesus’ words literally at first. You don’t have a bucket. The well is deep. You asked me for water, but you want to give me living water. Where would you get this water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob?

            But Jesus’s response reveals the deeper meaning to his words. Everyone who drinks from this well will be thirsty again. But those who drink from the living water that I offer will never be thirsty. The water that I offer becomes a gushing spring of eternal life in those who drink it.

            The woman still thinks he is offering her literal water. Sir, please give me this living water, so that I don’t have to keep coming back to this well. Give me this water so I don’t have to carry these heavy buckets anymore.

            This is the moment when all the preconceived notions and interpretive misunderstandings about this passage and this woman kick in. Jesus tells the woman to go and call her husband and bring him back with her. But the woman responds that she has no husband. Jesus says,

            “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 statement of Jesus, this moment, has influenced centuries of misinterpretation. This woman has had five husbands and now she is currently living with a man who is not her husband. That must mean that she is a fallen woman! That must mean that she is a terrible sinner and an outcast among outcasts. But is Jesus condemning her? Is he calling her a sinner in need of forgiveness? There is nothing in the text to suggest that. He is just stating a fact about her. She has had five husbands and she is living with a man who is not her husband. If there is condemnation there, it is because we have added it.

            This woman, like every other woman in that time and place, would have had not control over her marital status. It is possible that she was married to five brothers in secession, each one dying and passing her to the next brother. This was a condition of the Levirate law. Perhaps she was divorced from one of these husbands, but that divorce would have happened to her. She could not have instigated a divorce. And there is nothing in the text to suggest that she was living with a man who was not her husband for an immoral or sinful reason. It was quite possible that she was living with a man for protection. A woman was vulnerable. And a woman had little or no power. Men and marriage were protection.

            All we know at this moment is that Jesus shows the woman that he knows her. He knows her life. He knows her story. He is, as preacher and teacher Fred Craddock said, alerting her that in meeting him she is encountering the transcendent. He is alerting her to the truth of him by telling her truth. She is encountering the transcendent, and he offers her living water. He offers her salvation. He is the messiah that the woman says she knows will come.

            What the woman does next is powerful. She leaves her water. She runs back to the city, calling the people to “come and see,” just as the first disciples did just a few chapters earlier. Come and see this man who told me everything about my life. Come and see this man who knows me. He cannot be the Messiah, can he? Come and see.

            And the people believed her! She was not dismissed or ignored. Her words and her witness were not written off as “an idle tale,” as we read in Luke’s gospel when the women tell the disciples about the risen Lord. The people believed the woman and they believed in Jesus. They went to see Jesus for themselves, and they invited him to stay with them for two days. They got their own taste of the living water and they believed.

            Jesus needed help. He asked for help. In asking the Samaritan woman for help, he violated social mores and crossed social and religious boundaries that were not supposed to be crossed. But Jesus also opened the door for that woman to receive a blessing and to be a blessing – to him and to everyone with whom she shared the good news. She was a helper and she was helped.

            How often do I read these stories from scripture seeing myself only as a helper, only as the person on the top, only as one who is called to serve and not the one who is served? And yet Jesus repeatedly and without fear or shame willingly shows his vulnerability. Jesus is fully human and to be fully human is to be vulnerable. To be human is to need help, to ask for help. Jesus needed help. He needed water, and he asked for it. And blessing upon blessing upon blessing ensued. It sounds so simple, but it must not be because so many of us have a hard time asking for help.

            Maybe because we think that asking for help makes us look weak or needy. Maybe asking for help reminds us of our vulnerability, and that scares us. Yet Jesus was not afraid to ask for help. Jesus was not afraid to be vulnerable. To ask for help is to open the door for blessing – for the person helped and the person doing the helping.

            In this season of Lent, we are reminded of our vulnerability. We are reminded of our humanity. We are reminded that we all need help. And I think, if we allow ourselves to be helped, we are better helpers as well. If we allow ourselves to be helped, we give blessings as well as receive them. If we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to be fully human, than we might be able to see the humanity in others, even those who are supposed to be our enemies.

            May we be helper and helped. May we be blessing and blessed. May we be willing to ask for help, to ask for a drink of water.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Amen.”

            Amen.