Sunday, March 17, 2024

Fifth Sunday of Lent
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 119:9-16
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:[32-34] 35-45

For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

I used to spend hours in online chat rooms. I loved talking with others about scripture and theology. It seems like there are a million different ways to understand the Bible and I think I ran across every one of them during my wanderings. Some of our differences were minor and often based on our own unique perspectives. We look at the text from our own point of view, understand it from our own experience, and see it as we need to see it in our current circumstances. We learned to listen to one another, to consider what they had to say, and sometimes we saw God’s Word in a beneficial new way.

Sometimes, however, there were people who saw God’s Word in a heretical way. Gnosticism is alive and well in modern Christianity, and there are too many who believe they have “special knowledge” of the scriptures and claim that those who do not understand have not received the same “gift.” “Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you,” they would answer, acting as if they were superior because they knew something you did not know.

This type of Christian finds it difficult to cope in the fellowship of believers. Their ideas are so different and their attitude so haughty that they find fault with everything and everybody. Instead of being involved in a local congregation they create their own, calling themselves priests and prophets and gathering a few people, either in their homes or on the Internet, who follow their teachings. They have nothing good to say about the visible church on earth, and feel that they are the chosen ones, a remnant anointed by God to declare the world’s sin.

One such woman was very respectful at the beginning of our conversations. She told me that she was taking courses on how to be a prophet and that she was starting a house church where she was preaching to a few followers. She emailed me one of her sermons. This writing was so full of error that it made me sad for those who were attending her meetings. She misquoted the scriptures, misidentified the passages, and her interpretations were confusing because she mixed ideas and themes from completely unrelated texts. Since she had asked for my opinion and some suggestions, I made some notes on the writing. She was so offended by my response that she answered me with a warning that she was one of God’s prophets and that I should beware.

The woman was not a prophet of God. She was self-appointed and twisted God’s Word to say what she wanted it to say. We may disagree with others who have a different point of view, but Christian love means listening to what others have to say, and humility helps us to remember that we may be mistaken. The woman’s biggest problem was that she was disconnected from God’s Church and was unwilling to listen when others want to help her grow and mature in faith. She preferred to go her own way.

The Jewish leaders thought that The Way was strange and dangerous. The Jews questioned whether “The Way” was real or acceptable. The preferred to fall back into their pagan roots or return to their Jewish heritage because Christianity was so different than anything to had experienced or understood. The writer of Hebrews, however, tells us that Jesus was not like that woman I met online. He was not self-appointed. He was sent by God, called the Son of God from God’s voice, and He was doing not His own will but the will of the Father. He was obedient, glorified not by what He did, but by God. He was Priest and King not because He decided he wanted to be, but because God promised that He would be.

We don’t choose our calling. We simply choose whether or not we will be obedient to the will and purpose of God. In doing so, we receive all that He has promised.

David had a heart for God. As a matter of fact, David was chosen to be king of Israel because God could see that his heart was in the right place. God doesn’t look for the strongest, or the most intelligent, or the most beautiful people to do His work; He looks for those who love Him and trust in His promises. David was a man like that, but he was also a sinner. The other psalm for this week was sung by David in response to Nathan’s accusation.

See, David fell in love with a married woman. He invited her to His palace while her husband was serving in David’s army on the front lines of a war. She became pregnant and David felt such guilt that he brought Uriah home to have sex with his wife so that it would appear to be his child. Uriah felt too much guilt about enjoying time with his wife while his fellow soldiers were dying on the battlefield, so he refused to lie with her. David knew no other way to solve his problem, so he sent Uriah back to the front lines and ensured his death. Bathsheba the widow was brought into his home as his wife and the child was accepted as his.

The author of Psalm 119 is uncertain, though many agree it was probably David at the end of his life. David could certainly have sung the words. He believed in God and sought God’s mercy and grace. In Psalm 51, David cried out “Against you, and you only, I have sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.” He sinned against others: against Uriah and Bathsheba. He even sinned against his people because he lied to them, and he stole one of their own from their midst. But David understood the reality of our sin: no matter what we do, no matter whether or not our sin is seemingly victimless (there is no such thing as a victimless sin) or affects a nation, our sin is against the Lord. When we do what is wrong, we break our relationship with God. Even from birth we are broken and in need of God’s grace.

In Psalm 51, David asked to be cleaned; he asked for his heart to be made pure. God saw his heart and called him righteous, but He also knew David’s deepest secrets. It seems contradictory, but it is the reality of our life. We are saints and sinners, righteous by God’s grace but still capable of sinning against God and one another.

We, like the psalmist, asked the question found in today’s passage. “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.” How do we keep our way pure? God set a path for us to follow. He gave us a book to read. He makes His word dwell in our hearts so that we will be strengthened to try to be all that He has created, redeemed, and called us to be. We are righteous because of what Christ has done, yet we still seek God failing hearts. We beg that He will help us walk rightly, that He will teach us to do that which will glorify Him in the world. Jesus obeyed unto death, glorifying God on the cross. By His grace we treasure the Word He has placed in our hearts. A faithful and faith-filled life is one where we constantly seek what that Word means in our daily lives.

March Madness is upon us and for the next few weeks the talk around the water cooler is going to be about college basketball. With sixty-four teams to start, the crowd will quickly dwindle away to the final four teams that will play for the ultimate championship. People are making their choices, getting ready to fill their brackets with the teams they think will take it all. It is great fun for those who enjoy watching basketball. Some people just like the thrill of the game, and they don’t really care which teams are playing. Some people will see every game that is offered on television. Some people have even bought packages from their cable or satellite companies that will make every game available to them.

There will be late nights ahead for those who want to see every minute of the action, and tired eyes when they crawl into work the next day. There’s something about March Madness that draws people in and keeps them watching until it is over. I don’t get it, but I’m not really a fan. I suppose a lot of people get into it because they have teams they want to win, often their own alma mater. They get caught up in the excitement, even when their team is no longer in the running. I guess as an outsider I never saw the point. It isn’t in my heart, so I’ll be glad to find something else to watch while March Madness is going on.

God was available to His people from the beginning of time. He can be seen in the creation, in blooming flowers and magnificent sunsets. His strength can be seen in the high mountains and His power in the rolling ocean. Yet, God has had a special relationship with people since the days of Adam, Noah, and Abraham. This is especially true of Abraham and his offspring. Throughout the Old Testament we can see God interacting with His people, giving them promises and guiding their footsteps. He gave them the Law, anointed their leaders, and led them to the Promised Land. In those stories we can see that certain people had a special relationship with God, like Moses and David and the prophets. They had God’s Spirit to guide them, to give them His words and to teach them how to live. Those special people were then given the task to share it with God’s chosen people.

The people didn’t mind having a “go-between.” They were afraid of hearing God’s voice for themselves or seeing God’s glory. They thought they would die if they did. God gave them leaders to teach and guide them along the way. Yet, having someone to teach and guide did not make it easy for them to stay in a right relationship with God. They fell hard and they fell often, doing their own thing and going their own way. It was especially difficult when the leaders and teachers did not even follow the path God had ordained for their nation and their lives.

Through Jeremiah, God promised that one day it would work in a whole new way. One day everyone would have that Spirit of God in their hearts and in their lives. The Word would not be given to them by certain people who were called to be leaders and teachers; they would have it for themselves. Instead of pushing them from the outside, God’s Word would drive them from the inside. They could study and know God for themselves, hear Him and follow Him without the need for someone to do it for them.

This does not mean that there will be no teachers or leaders. We are faith-filled believers in a community with others who can help us to learn and grow and mature in our faith. We need one another, to keep each other accountable to the true Word of God, to keep from interpreting God’s Word to meet our own desires. In giving us the Spirit, God did not reject teachers and leaders. But we can know God ourselves, hear His voice, and respond to our own personal call to faithful living. Through Christ we are all made insiders, and by the power of the Spirit we are drawn into those relationships so that we might live and learn and grow together in forgiveness and peace.

We do a lot of things wrong. We lie, we cheat, and we steal. Sometimes we don’t even realize we are doing it. We are jealous of our neighbors and covet what they have. We may seem to be living a good, righteous life; our neighbors may think we are kind and generous, moral, and upstanding citizens. And perhaps we are. Yet we still do a lot of things wrong. We don’t always love. We sometimes hate. We don’t share everything we have. We are, at times, selfish. We get angry for all the wrong reasons. We do not forgive. We forget to do what is right. We sin in thought, word, and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone. That’s our human nature: we are sinners, and we do a lot of things wrong.

I read somewhere (I wish I could remember where!) that the breaking of every covenant begins with coveting. I think most of us are guilty of coveting; we all want something that belongs to another, or we want something that we can’t have. Most of us have probably never murdered another human being. Perhaps we’ve even been innocent of theft or adultery. Yet, when we hurt someone or steal from them, it is because we covet something. We covet power. We covet something they have. We covet control which leads us to do something against others. Adultery is certain based in coveting. It goes even farther, though. We disobey the commandment about honoring our father, mother, and other authorities because we covet independence and control of our own lives, dishonoring our parents and usurping their place as the authority of our lives. We disobey the law (like speeding) because we covet the power that the lawmakers have. These commandments have to do with our relationship with other people, and when we do anything against them, it is because we covet something that we think we are missing.

It is a revealing of our dissatisfaction with our lives.

Let’s go one more step. The first commandments have to do with our relationship with our God. Adam and Eve broke the first commandment when they disobeyed God’s Word. They coveted God’s identity. They wanted to be gods. They were not satisfied with the life He had made for them. The irony, of course, is that they had what they wanted. They were created in the image of God, but they coveted more. And because they coveted more, they sinned against God. The original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden has become part of the nature every human being shares. We still covet more. We are still not satisfied and covet something we don’t need and should not want.

I don’t know any murderers, although I know people who have wished others dead. I know people who have committed adultery, but I don’t think there’s anyone who hasn’t lusted over some sexy body. Jesus once told the crowds that it isn’t enough to avoid doing the things that God has commanded against: He said that we shouldn’t even think about them.

The Commandments, and the rest of the Torah, help us see what we are doing wrong so that we might try to live a better life. The covenant God made with His people at Sinai demands that they live accordingly, or He will turn His back on the nation. Each of us has learned in our own way how hard it is to live by those laws and how we suffer when we don’t. We’ve experienced broken relationships, sickness and even death because of our failure.

We know that we do things wrong because of the covenant God made with His people. The Ten Commandments gave us a foundation on which to build the lives God wants us to live. We are meant to follow those rules. We are commanded to honor our father and mother and all authority. We are commanded not to kill, commit adultery, steal, lie or covet. Most of us can do a pretty good job at checking off these commands and perhaps we are “good,” living a life that impacts our neighbors positively.

God writes the Word on our hearts. We are His. He forgives and does not remember our sin. This new covenant promises that God will be dwell in each of our hearts, writing His Word on the very depths of our souls. This new covenant is not about obedience, it is about God changing His people so that they will live naturally according to His will. God promised that one day our relationship with Him would work in a whole new way. We have the Spirit of God in our hearts and in our lives.

James and John were important to Jesus, and they were witnesses to the miraculous and incredible things He did. They immediately left their father Zebedee to follow Him when He called. They were part of Jesus’ inner circle along with Peter; they were witnesses to the Transfiguration. They are known as the Sons of Thunder because they asked Jesus if they should call down hellfire on a Samaritan town that rejected Him as they were going to Jerusalem. They were zealous and loyal. They believed and lived their faith passionately. They also thought they were important enough to have Jesus give them special consideration when He entered into His Kingdom. They wanted to sit at His right hand and left hand. They wanted to be on the dais with the King, sitting beside His throne.

Jesus had authority over heaven and earth, but He could not fulfill their wish to have such seats of honor. They did not yet understand that the seats they coveted would never exist. They thought Jesus would be an earthly king like David, who would rule over Jerusalem and Israel to save the people from the oppression of the Romans. Jesus had just finished telling the disciples that the Son of Man had to suffer at the hands of the world and be condemned to death. He is that Son. He told them that He would be mocked, spit upon, flogged, and killed in Jerusalem. Jesus would never sit on the type of throne they expected. His throne was the cross and those on His right and left were common criminals facing the same punishment for their sins. The disciples had no idea that His cup and baptism would offer only suffering and pain. They were willing to follow Jesus anywhere, but they did not expect that it would mean following Him into death. They told Him they were able to follow Him. Jesus said, “You will.”

This was true for James. Just fourteen years after the Jesus’ death, James was beheaded in a lame attempt to halt Christianity. He was the first Apostle to be martyred, the only one of the eleven whose death was recorded in the scriptures (Acts 12). He did drink the same cup and suffer the same baptism as Jesus. James boldly asked Jesus for the wrong thing, but he continued to live out his life of faith and then he died for the sake of the Gospel. We all make the same mistakes, thinking our position or our experiences merit us greater attention or honor. We all covet that which is not ours. Jesus teaches us a different way.

Jesus called the twelve together and said, “You know that they who are recognized as rulers over the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you, but whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant. Whoever of you wants to become first among you, shall be bondservant of all.”

Jesus was not self-appointed. He was the beloved Son sent by God. He was not following His own will but the will of His Father. Because of His obedience, God made Him Priest and King over this New Covenant that was promised in Jeremiah. He did not choose these roles; God fulfilled His promises in Jesus. These were not earthbound titles given for a brief period of time; He is Priest and King forever.

The journey we’ve traveled during this Lenten period has helped us see, and accept, that we have truly sinned against God. We have done what we should not do and failed to do what we should do in thought, word, and deed. While our sins may seem to be against our neighbors, the root of our problem is that sin keeps us separated from our God. Our failures make us unable to pay the debts we owe one another and our God. But God promised to take care of it all and He fulfilled that promise with Jesus on the cross. We do not need a priest or a king to intervene on our behalf because we have Jesus. God forgives our iniquity and forgets our sin because He was obedient.

We are still going to sin. It’s a fact of life that our flesh is weak and susceptible to temptation. Every day we will fail to do what is right. These sins are rarely anything major; we seem to be good and upright to the world. But sin is sin, and the effect of sin reaches far beyond our own lives. Though the work is complete, we still have reason to pray for God’s grace and forgiveness. We need Him to change us, to fill us with His Word.

Our Gospel passage for today is the beginning of the end for Jesus. He told the disciples that the hour has come. The catalyst seemed to be the arrival of some Greek believers who were in Jerusalem for the Passover. They were looking to meet with Jesus. They weren’t necessarily from Greece, but they were Gentiles from the Greek speaking world. Jesus was having such an impact on everyone, all the nations, that they were beginning to seek Him out. The world was ready to judge Jesus for His work.

But really, it was God that was about to judge the world for the works of fallible human beings. The “ruler of this world” was about to be defeated, not with military might but in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The world thought they were casting out a troublemaker, crucifying a rebel, but the truth is that God was destroying the hold of sin and death on His beloved people. We look at the story of Jesus and are saddened by the necessity of His horrific death on the cross, and yet in that very death He was glorified, and God was glorified by His obedience. It seems like the end of a story we do not like, but we know the rest. We know that Easter will come. And when Easter comes, the world will see God’s grace and mercy.

We do a lot of things wrong. It is our human nature to be sinful; we continually fail to live up to God’s expectations. When we do, we can trust in God’s faithfulness to keep His New Covenant. Our Lenten journey has led us toward repentance, turning to Jesus for His forgiveness. He has led us to the point that we can delight in His statues and never forget His Word. In His great mercy and love, Jesus has provided for our reconciliation with God the Father, which then makes it possible for us to reconcile with our neighbors and all creation. He forgives us, forgets our sin and dwells in us, guiding our resurrection journey along the path He has ordained for each of us.