Are we ready to drink of the cup?

The following is the text from my Good Friday Sermon given at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church on Friday March 30, 2018:

Am I Not to drink the cup the Father has given me?  Those were the words of Jesus as Simon Peter drew his sword to defend Jesus before his arrest.

Those are some powerful words from a man knowing what is to happen next.   In a few hours he will be tried, found guilty and sentenced to death.  For most people, knowing what the cup held for them, they would do everything in their power to not drink of the cup.  Yet Jesus does.   And not just putting it to his lips but gulps it down until it is empty.

For Jesus knew that the cup he was drinking was full of the wrath of God.  The cup was filled with the sour wine of all of humanities sins.  As Paul Tillich likes to say, the cup was full of separation, separation of man from God.   And by drinking of the cup, Jesus was breaking down that separation and making the relationship between God and Man whole once again.  That restoration is something that only He, Jesus, could make happen.  Yet we also know that other people felt they too could drink the cup.

In Matthew, both of the sons of Zebedee declare they are able to drink the cup in order that they may sit at the right and left side of Jesus when he enters His kingdom.  Both men believe they have what it takes to drink, to enter into the separation of Man and God.

Belief is a strange thing.  A good friend once said, “Belief means a no holds barred, dive in the deep end, total commitment to the journey, to living the life – to seeking and asking and knocking on the door, without knowing exactly what you’ll be finding and receiving, or if the door will even open.”   To believe in something is to not be afraid of the unknown, to not care what the end result is but rather to go for it with all the passion and love one can muster.  

I wonder whether, this day, we are really ready to commit ourselves to the journey, the journey to the cross with Jesus.  Jesus was, he knew what was on the other side of the door and he accepted it without fear.  Jesus knew the cross was at hand and that through it, the separation between man and God would be closed forever.  In His sacrifice on the cross, Jesus replaced the cup filled with God’s wrath and humanities sins.  By Jesus drinking the cup he was given, we are free to drink of the cup of the New Covenant, the strengthening of our union with Him, and a taste of what is to come in eternal life. 

Today we walk with him to the cross, to watch him suffer and die in order that the cup may be passed to us.  Are we ready to drink of  His cup?

Amen

Death, Grief and our Lenten Journey

During the season of Lent, we are asked to look at our relationship with God and to use the forty days of Lent as a time to draw closer to God and Christ Jesus.  For many years, I found the Lenten season to be an abstract thought.  How could I use a time set aside by the church to get closer to God?  Isn’t that really what our entire life is supposed to be about?  So why take forty days each year to try and accomplish that lifelong goal?  It wasn’t until the separation from my wife that I began to move from abstract to concrete thoughts.  It wasn’t until I walked in to a Lenten series at a church that I realized how much I needed the Lenten Season in my life.  The congregation was studying C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as their theme for the Lenten season.  Before the series, I felt C.S. Lewis was an author of children’s books.  Little did I know that he is also a modern day theologian writing in a manner that allowed everyone to understand Jesus’ death and resurrection.  If you have never read the book or watched the movie through a theological lens, I implore you to this Lenten season.  A powerful part of the story concerns death and the grief it brings along with it.  (Spoiler alert) The death of Aslan brings great sorrow to Narnia.  Yet his sacrificial death also gives hope to all inhabitants of Narnia.  It is in that moment that I began to understand Lent. 

In Lent, we are called to examine our lives, to see how death can bring about new life not just for us but the world around us.  In the death and resurrection of Jesus, all of creation is given new life.  It is only through the dark and dreary sadness of Good Friday that we are able to celebrate the Son-rise of Easter Morning.  So it is in our own lives as well.  It seems that no matter where we turn we easily find the dark and dreary sadness of death and grief similar to Good Friday.  For those of us left reeling from a death, filled with sadness and grief, it is hard to imagine that Easter Sunday will ever arrive.  C.S. Lewis, in A Grief Observed, describes the time after the death of his beloved wife.  Unlike the inhabitants of Narnia whose sorrow was lifted shortly after Aslan’s death, Lewis was unable to understand the why in his grief.  Discussing God during both good and bad times, Lewis says this about the bad times.  “But go to Him (God) when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.”   Even Lewis, a man of great faith, could not see or hear God in his death and grief.  I believe that many of us have similar thoughts, Where is God when we need God the most?  The reality is that all we are able to see with our earthly eyes is the darkness.  Yet, for God, who sees and knows all things, there is the knowledge that Easter Sunday, the day when death is destroyed forever, is coming.  It is only by our faith that we are able to believe and see that Easter Sunday is coming. On that day, even though the pain of Good Friday is still fresh in our minds, we see a new future being written, a future where death has been conquered, where the love of God for all of creation breaks forth into this world and where we are able to let go of the dreary sadness and welcome the bright new day. 

It is only after walking through darkness that we are able to see the light.  It is during the season of Lent that some of us walk through darkness in order that on Easter Morning, we are able to see the great light of the risen Christ shining new life into our broken grieving hearts.  Only then might we be able to see that rather than slamming the door on our face and being silent, God has been journeying with us throughout the forty days of Lent, holding us close and loving us even when we were not able to be loved.  May your Lenten journey be a Holy one in which you are continually being called into God’s loving redemptive embrace.

Why?

Yesterday, we buried my mother.  She was an incredible woman whose entire vocation in life were to be the best mother and wife she could be.  The readings she chose for her funeral were anything but normal.  As we read the readings, we could only wonder why she had chosen them, but then we realized that the readings spoke to her vocation.  As with any death, we questioned why?  Why had God chosen to end her life so young?  (she was only 72)  The more we wondered the more we couldn’t understand. 

As I was contemplating what to say about her, my mind wandered and I came across a youtube video of Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) in which he gives a speech on the mystery of God.  In his speech, he quotes Isaiah 55, in which Isaiah says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”  In listening to that passage, I came to understand that our role is not to question God but rather to accept the mystery of God and God’s ways. 

We are all destined to die.  We know neither when nor where, but we know we will return to where we have come.  God is a loving God that shows compassion and understands the pain and sorrow we feel when a loved one dies.  It is through the knowledge of God’s love that we are able to move from the person’s death to their life eternal with God.  While we will never know God’s ways or thoughts, we do know God’s love for creation shown to us in the birth, life and death of Jesus Christ.  This is the source of my comfort and answers.  The pain of losing a loved one will be present but we have the memories of their time on earth with us as well as the knowledge that we will one day meet again around the heavenly banquet table prepared for us. 

I leave you with a prayer written by William Penn that has given me great comfort:

“We give back to you, O God, those whom you gave to us. You did not lose them when you gave them to us, and we do not lose them by their return to you. Your dear son has taught us that life is eternal, and love cannot die. So death is only an horizon, and an horizon is only the limit of our sight. Open our eyes to see more clearly, and draw us closer to you that we may know that we are nearer to our loved ones, who are with you. You have told us that you are preparing a place for us; prepare us also for that place, that where you are we may also be always, O dear Lord of life and death.”