Sir, we wish to see Jesus

Even before the birth of Jesus, God sent prophets into the world to call God’s people into repentance and a renewed covenant. The Prophet Jeremiah lived and worked in the late seventh century BC, the last years the Kingdom of Judah existed as an independent nation. When Judah was conquered by Babylon, Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, and the people carried off into exile. Jeremiah reminds the people that even though they have broken the original covenant with God, that not only will God not forsake them, but God will create and establish a new Covenant with them.

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. . . for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

God continued to love his people, to give them another opportunity. This time the covenant God makes is given to the nation as a whole and the people individually. God is preparing them to survive as Children of God in a foreign land, and to eventually return to Judah, rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple and to proclaim God’s love and mercy. God continues to put love into our hearts, preparing us to give that love away, because it is in giving that we receive.

A major part of Jesus’ life was to pass on the prophets’ teaching which is recorded in Leviticus and Deuteronomy: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-7; Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:36-40)

As Jesus carried out the mission for which God sent Him into the world, preaching and living the two great commandments, he became known throughout the Mediterranean area. People had heard of him and his teachings: many wanted to know him, while others wanted to avoid him completely and some wanted to eliminate this “troublemaker.” We pick up the story as Jesus and his disciples are going up to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival.

“Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.” (John 12:20-21)

Those Greeks who wanted to know Jesus gave him an opportunity to proclaim who he was, not only to them, but to all around him, and through the writer of the Gospel of John to us as well. Jesus also told them and us what we must do to have a life with God’s Covenant written on our hearts.

 Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.” (John 12:23-26)

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say— ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. . . Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:27-33)

Can we do what Jesus asked us to do? Not alone, not with our strength only. But the Psalmist reminds us how we can do so: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy Spirit from me. Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit. (Psalm 51:11-13)

In Order that the Whole World Might be Saved through Him

Several years ago, I preached a sermon on the following “simple and straightforward” passage. This sermon almost and ultimately led to my “resignation” from the church I was serving. I invite you to read this scripture, which is vital to our faith as Christians, and in my opinion “not as simple and as straight forward as most of us believe or would like.” 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. . .” (John 3:16-21) 

We all know and love John 3:16, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” I chose to focus on the next portion of this important but complicated piece of scripture: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” 

Before elaborating on these verses, I suggested that this passage, and the Bible itself, was dangerous and should contain the same warning as a pack of cigarettes, “Using this product could be hazardous to your health.” My intent was positive, that “the Bible contains many truths, some of which we do not want to hear or follow.” That was not how it was received, and what people heard, coupled with my emphasis on “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that “the whole world might be saved” turned out to be my undoing. 

True, the passage goes on to proclaim that “those who do not believe in the name of Jesus are condemned already,” but my belief and proclamation was that God was bigger than any human being or any religion and that God sending Jesus into the world so that the whole world might be saved, meant just that, “that the whole world, all people, might be saved.” 

I know that there is an important Christian tradition that only through Jesus can we be saved, and I understand and believe that. I also believe that God sending Jesus into the world that the whole world should be saved, does just that, whether a person believes in or even knows Jesus. God is so much more powerful than our knowledge and beliefs. My whole point of the sermon was that “God’s ways are not our ways and that God can and will do more than we can ever ask or imagine.” As St. Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:12-13) 

Sadly things did not turn out as I had hoped and prayed: people left after the sermon and before communion in tears; I spent a month meeting with individuals who questioned my faith and suggested that Satan was supplying my sermon material. Ultimately, I was called before the Vestry, the governing body of an Episcopal Church, and within a year my salary was cut by $10,000 per year and I retired on the spot. 

I pray you readers will join me in believing that God is bigger and more merciful than we are and that Jesus truly did “come into the world that the whole world might be saved.” 

I once wanted a simple faith, one which gave me all the answers. What God gave me instead was an exciting faith, a faith with more questions than answers, and a faith filled with joy for the journey. 

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 219)