March 15 sermon notes on the Incarnation during Lent John 12, Heb. 5

March 22-John 12, Heb. 5:5-10

A man from Indiana calls me routinely. he cannot get in his head that Jesus was a human being. It has always been a looming heresy in the church, but it seems to be a particular issue in America to downplay the humanity of Jesus.Stop and consider for just a moment. God’s own t walked in our steps, took the wilderness walk of humanity in our shoes.  Heb. 5 is a sterling reminderof the humanity of Jesus.Our tradition empahsizes the priestly workofJesus.Here not only does he offer up his very life, he offers up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears, perhaps marks of sincerity in prayer. This could well include the prayerful cry of dereliction, of despair when Jesus quotes Ps. 22 on the cross.

I cannot count how many times I have heard something of this flow. At a funeral home visitation, some says I know what you are going through. At the same time, their response is you do not possibly know what I am going through, Can the Holy One, the Almighty, grasp the human condition? In God’s own being, Jesus’s humanity makes deepens the bond between God and us.John 12::20-33 In John’s gospel jesus often seems like a superhero riding over the concerns of everyday events. Still, this makes the human moments all the more stark and moving. In one of the images of the last century, we had Spock  trying to control his human side and the robot data trying to become more human. We approach the final act and goodbye of the life of Jesus. we do not have Gethsemane in this gospel but we have this moment. Jesus souls is troubled (ch word-tarasso, terrifies, disturbed, in commotion, stirred up, torn up shaken up bridge over troubled water)It frames the baptismal moment of Jesus where God speaks.Notice how the crowd misperceives even the voice of God.Jesus admits his heart is troubled. Still,he feels compelled to continue on.We think of courage at times as the absence of fear. Here it is recognizing the fear and moving through it, as Tom Hanks does when his hand is shaking in Saving Private Ryan.

We would see jesus-come and see at the start to the gospel. The hour includes falling letting go holding on has a Zen quality to it the full gift of himself to God and to and for the world.Jesus is trying to open eyes to another world-to move past making absolute the way things are and have been but to a new future-That entails being able to let go of one way of life and embrace another. To hold on to the new way entails release of the old patterns. We tend to cling to the familiar, and we then wonder why we cannot grab hold of the new.  In Zen and in 12 step we use the word detachment so we can more easily await and receive life. Jesus does not coerce-Jesus draws people like a magnet. Notice again the idea of free choice is set aside for this image of  attraction, perhaps a principle of spiriutal attraction ascertain as a magnetic field.No mention of free will is here.

John continues to work with the image of sight/seeing of the revealed jesus, like a new horizon, seeing an oracle into the future, a crystal ball of the gypsy, or the palantir of LOTR or the erised of Harry Potter.

We would see Jesus. We receive Communion this morning. We would see Jesus, be with Jesus. Body and soul, we are with Jesus this morning in an especially deep way..