Boldness of Love

Boldness of Love from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.


John 10:11-18

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away - and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

I John 3:16-24

16We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us - and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

18Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 19And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; 22and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

23And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God.

I had the opportunity to be the Best Man at a wedding in Atlanta this weekend. One of my best friends from college married a dear friend from Seminary. Both of them have theological degrees, and one of our Seminary Professors officiated. Every moment of the service was full of depth and beauty and sound theology.

A great deal of love filled that room yesterday afternoon, some of it was the romance of the couple standing front and center, but that wasn’t all of it, or even most of it. A marriage is an opportunity to practice love, but it is not the only picture of what love looks like. Love can show itself in the excitement of a new relationship, or in a gathered family celebrating a 60th anniversary. Love can revel itself in the interaction between a parent and a child. We also see love in the shared stories and laughter between old friends. Love can bind communities and families together in more powerful ways than we can imagine.

The expressions of love may look different, but it is not from these examples that we most clearly know love. “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us - and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” The love of God in Christ shines forth in all the varieties of human love, and defines us better than we can even begin to grasp.

We know love because Christ our Lord showed us love by laying down his life and challenging us to do the same for one another. Confessing Christ as Lord means a life-changing and life affirming love. “The union we have with Christ is evident when we share mutual love.” The mutual love we have in Christ us pushes us forward into a cynical world to share, and be, a message of hope that love is not a romantic notion, but a powerful action.

“Therefore, little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

But we don’t always get it right, do we? Sometimes we fail to love one another as we ought. Old friends sometimes lose touch or have a falling out. Parents and children sometimes cut one another out of their lives. Long marriages sometimes end abruptly, or can become twisted by abuse. New relationships sometimes grow toxic. Communities and families sometimes split.

No human has a perfect track record for loving in truth and action, because we are a broken, limited people, and our regret over the love we have lost or wasted plagues us and holds us back. Our own hearts condemn us for the love that was not in truth and action, and many of us struggle to recover from it. We can get caught up in our own fears and sins and see ourselves a one who is not worthy of love.

But that’s not who we are. Our opinions of ourselves, whether puffed up or beaten down, is not what determines who we are or whose we are.  We have the reassurance that God loves us irrespective of our successes or failures. “We will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” God knows about our failings, and loves us anyway. God knows about our successes, and loves us totally apart from them. “The sort [of reassurance] offered here by John finds its basis beyond the believer, in God, his faithfulness and knowledge, and in actual obedience to his command.” We are connected to Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, and Jesus’s love for us is what defines who we are, not our own arrogance or self-doubt, not our own hope or regret, not our own strengths or weaknesses.

We are free from all those things, no longer held captive to winning and losing, our own limited ability. Love is connected to something greater - to the good shepherd and to God our father, who knows us better than we know ourselves, and who fills us with our true identity as Beloved of the Lord. All the depression in the world can’t shake our identity in Christ, because the God who speaks into being things which do not exist looks lovingly upon us and calls us good. Whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not, we are beloved children of God.

As Christians, our task is to share that challenging love, even when we might be afraid of what that love will cost us. It’s not enough to politely and quietly keep the peace, we must love boldly! For the love we have in Christ Jesus is the kind that lays down one’s love for another.

Jesus lays down his life, but he does not stop being the good shepherd. Loving in truth and in action, and laying down our lives, is an expression of who we are as people of the cross and resurrection. In laying down our lives we are claiming who God created us to be, who Christ saved us to be, we are not abandoning ourselves or dissolving into whatever else is around us. When lay down our lives for one another, we and giving action to the beliefs which we hold so dearly. 

For John, belief and action are inseparably linked. We cannot say that we believe and not also show love through our actions. “In a time of schism and dissent, what is most threatening is that Christians should continue pontificating about love while they turn hatefully from one another and ignore each other’s needs.” The author of I John challenges the church of not just proclaim love, but to show it! I think this is something our church is very good about doing. It’s doesn’t have to be a huge, global action, it’s a matter of seeing a brother or sister in need and reaching out to show love by helping them. When a person shows up at this church with a need, the members of this congregation are eager to help them.

At the youth Christmas party, a family came into the PAC where we were gathered just because the light was on and they had a need. They had no food, but the folks who prepared dinner that night had leftovers and without a second thought gave them to this family. One of the youth parents pulled some cash out of his wallet and gave it to them so they would have enough fuel to drive to where they needed to go.

Later on, the women of the church stepped up and bought christmas presents for the children, and a microwave for the mother, so that she could heat food for her family. That’s love, and every step of it mean laying down our plans for our own life, and showing love in truth and action. 

This is a congregation that is very involved in our community, reaching out to those in need around us, even when it means laying down our plans for our own lives. That’s the love we learned from our heavenly Father and from his Son, Jesus Christ. We are the people who enact that love now in a thousand different ways, living what we believe in a world that doesn’t always listen.

But we don’t have to change the world by ourselves, the world is already changed through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, when the good shepherd laid down his life for us. We've been given a grave-splitting mutual love, shown in the way God filled the cross and emptied the tomb. How can we possibly keep that to ourselves? It’s not enough to just love in word or speech, Christ’s redemptive call means showing love for one another, and for our neighbors. “Believing in Christ means believing that Christ saves us by making us like himself.”  In becoming more like Christ, we grow closer to God and to one another.

From there, we are able to answer God’s call to “obey his commandments [and] abide in him, and he abides in [us]. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.” We have a Spirit which encourages us to not just confess our faith, but to live it, expressing love in friendship, in families, in communities, and in marriages.

The Spirit fills us with the love God, and human love reflects that into a world that is sometimes struck with cynicism. But we show our love nonetheless, because it’s who we are, it’s who God has created us to be. We are God’s beloved children, how can we not share that love with one another and with those in need.

The Spirit is at work in this place, among these people, for God is with us, filling us with a boldness of love that challenges us to grow in faith and love, and sending us out in the world so that we can show God’s love through the way we serve and love our brothers and sisters.

Still Wondering

Still Wondering from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.


Acts 3:12-19

12When Peter saw it, he address the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? 13This God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. 14But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, 15and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. 16And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

17“And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. 19Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.

Luke 24:36-48
36While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37They were startled and terrified, and through that they were seeing a ghost. 38He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41While in their joy they were disbelieving  and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42Thy gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43and he took it and ate in their presence.

44Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you - that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things.

We're gathered with the disciples behind closed doors. We've heard story after story about our crucified Lord. The women have told us that the tomb is empty, but it was easy enough to write that report of as an idle tale, but then more and more of us have experiences that back up what the women have told us, Jesus has appeared to many of our fellow disciples. We find ourselves wondering if he's some disembodied spirit, or maybe a comforting vision.

The disciples are gathered behind closed doors, and nobody really understands what's going on, because each of these tales is impossible. He was crucified! What do these appearances mean? "While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.’ These words are familiar to us as we read a similar story in John last week. These words are familiar to the disciples because they are the the greeting that they had always heard from Jesus. This is the same man who died on the cross and was buried in the tomb. To appear among them so suddenly, “They were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost.”

Seeing their fear, Jesus moves from a greeting to teaching them again, compassionately reaching out and saying “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet; see that it is I myself.” Jesus is confronted with doubt and reaches out with a relationship, he is still the person they have known, he still bears the wounds from the cross. The crucifixion and resurrection are not a magic trick with some behind-the-scenes explanation, they tell us who Jesus is. “Look at my hands and feet; see that it is I myself.” I myself, the same one who walked among you throughout Judea.

But the resurrection shows that calling him teacher doesn’t cover it all. “I myself” is a reference to the name of God, which is given in Exodus as I AM. “Look at my hands and feet; see that it is I AM”. This is the same man who walked and ate with them, but he’s also the same God who speaks into being things which do not exist, the same God who heals and cures and speaks through prophets. This man who stands in front of them is also the God who raises the dead. No wonder they were startled and terrified. They didn’t know what was happening, and knowing what’s going on gives us security. But "Jesus did not bring [the disciples] security. Rather, they risked all in following his call.” But before they knew how to risk it all, they were frightened. Having seen that Jesus arose, doubts also arose.

Maybe we prefer Jesus to stay in the ground so that he can remain a good teacher, a nostalgia-coated memory, but not a consistent challenge to grow more faithful. Maybe the risen Lord is easier as an idea, a story, an idle tale than in the flesh. Yet here is our Risen Lord, still wounded from the cross, but also unbroken by death and unblemished by sin. We may have seen the cross as the conclusion, but God reaches a different conclusion and brings our story even further, out the other side of the tomb and back into a life that is free from sin and death.

We would not have reached that conclusion on our own, but God breaks through our knowledge and reveals something wondrous about God. ”…the revelatory moment enables individuals and communities to appropriate other events...that had previously appeared unintelligible." In those early days the cross and the empty tomb seemed unintelligible. Jesus's appearance blessed the disciples with claiming, and being claimed by, that event. Just as Jesus is risen, so too the disciples will have new life, so too we have new life, even if we haven’t quite figured that new life out. Whether they understand it or not, their relationship with God in Christ is as sure as God’s love.

“While in their joy, they are disbelieving and still wondering.” This is the heart of revelation: an upwelling of joy and wonder even as complete comprehension escapes us. We don't always understand what God has done. How could we? It's so beyond our expectation and experience that comprehension slips right through our fingers even as we are invited to look and wonder at Jesus's hands. But we don’t have to know or understand everything, because what we know is enough to leave us still wondering after all these centuries at the amazing love, the overwhelming grace, of Christ Jesus our Lord.

The disciples joy was real, and it was so powerful that they still weren’t sure they could believe it. Their joy defined them, but they were still wondering, disbelief still chased after them and Jesus’s faithfulness pulled them forward. In the face of their wondrous joy, peppered with disbelief,  "Jesus did not launch into explanations about the mechanics of resurrection, nor did he provide an itinerary of his whereabouts since Friday.” Instead, the light of the world chases away the darkness by sharing a meal with his friends, his disciples, the first generation of his church.

It’s the relationship that carries us forward into this world as people of the resurrection. Not just a personal relationship with Jesus, but with the relationship God maintains with the whole community of father. “They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. It’s the whole community together sharing a meal, whether that’s a piece of broiled fish with the Risen Lord, the bread and wine of the Communion, a covered dish luncheon as a community gathers in Christ’s name, or a few thousand chicken pot pies that warm the homes and stomachs of untold crowds to support a community outreach project. We don’t need a data sheet that answers all our questions because we are confronted with a God who doesn’t even let the grave break his connection with God’s people. We have the amazing, wondrous joy of Easter and it carries us into the unknown with the faith to explore and proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.

"Revelation yields not the solution to a problem but the unveiling of a mystery." The resurrection is a mystery that no amount of data can pin down. As Jesus appears to the disciples, he unveils the mystery of the resurrection, and promises the ongoing relationship of God with us. Given that promise, we are freed to be carried off into joy, still wondering at the mystery. We are free to joyfully trust and know God, rather than to merely know about God.

We do get some knowledge though, “Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you - that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,” The whole narrative of humanity’s relationship with God points to the crucifixion and resurrection. Jesus gives us that bit of knowledge, but he doesn’t give it to us as game-show winning trivia, he shows us that this relationship has been from the beginning, and that it is ongoing, driving the church out into the world to not only look at Jesus’s hands and feet, but to be God’s hand and feet, participating in building up the kingdom of God all around us. The understanding we are given brings us closer to God and to one another, it builds emotional and spiritual connection throughout God’s people.

“He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’” We are a people who are sent out into the world. We can talk about these things as much as we want, as the disciples did in the days after Easter. But Jesus’s presence among us is what fills us with joy. Jesus’s continual intervention in the world, through his disciples, is what makes us a church. We are the ones who tell this story, who live this story, because Jesus has revealed himself to us, and so we are able to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name to all nations. We are filled with joy and wonder, singing the clear, though far off hymn that hails the new creation.

Therefore, as the church of Jesus Christ, expressed as the people who are the Presbyterian Church of Lowell, we are witnesses of these things. Christ is Lord of heaven and earth! How can we keep from singing?

Come to Believe

Come to Believe from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.


1 John1:1-2:2
1We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - 2this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us - 3we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not know what is true; 7but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

2:1My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

John 20:19-31
19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has send me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

24But Thomas (who was called the Twin) one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “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.”

26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27Then he said 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.” 28Thomas answered him,”My Lord and my God!” 29Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God.

The day of Resurrection is a big deal in the life of the church. It's traditionally the highest attended worship service of the year. We have special music and decorate the sanctuary, sometimes the service may even run a little long...

The resurrection is a big deal in the life of the church, so much so that Easter is not just a single day, but a season! Mary's discovery of the empty tomb kicks off fifty days of resurrection joy, a joy so great that by the time we begin worship on the second Sunday of Easter, scripture has not caught up with us, and we join the disciples gathered behind locked doors on the evening of the same day Jesus rose from the dead.

The footrace to the tomb began a week ago for us, but for the disciples it happened early this morning. Peter and the beloved disciple have seen that the tomb was empty, but they have not seen the risen Jesus. "When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them.” Reaching back to the Genesis 1 account of creation, we see the light of the world appear on the first day of a world made new through the cross and the empty tomb. On the first day, Jesus came and stood among them in a locked room.

Fear drives us into locked rooms more often than we might like to admit. Sometimes we lock ourselves in because we’re worried what might happen if we came out, sometimes forces outside our control push us into those locked rooms. For the disciples, it was the very real fear of persecution for who they were, who God had created them and called them to be, that locked them in that room. But if the power of sin and death couldn’t stop Jesus from being with us, what are a few fears and a simple lock.

In the midst of our fear on the evening of that day, the first day of the week, Jesus gives us a gift, “Jesus came and stood among them and said ‘Peace be with you.’” Surrounded by turmoil and a world that is being reshaped around our risen Lord, the fearful disciples are first and foremost given peace. God is still working on us, just as God did not abandon us to the mess we had made of the world, so God does not leave us alone in our fear. Taken out of their fear and given peace, the disciples are able to see Christ as who he is, the Word made flesh, the Son of God, and Jesus of Nazareth, their Lord, their master, their teacher, their friend. “Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”

In two verses, the disciples have gone from closeting themselves away in a locked room somewhere to rejoicing! But Jesus isn’t done with them yet: “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’” It is a little silly to rejoice in a room that is still locked. God is still working on the disciples, teaching them how to live in a world remade by the resurrection. Their fear has turned to peace, and then to rejoicing, but it’s not enough to stay in their locked room, Jesus is sending them out into the world. Not only is God still working on them, God is working through them through the power of the Holy Spirit.

But not all of them were gathered there that day. Not all of them received the peace of Christ, not all of them had the opportunity to rejoice when they saw the Lord. The disciples received the Holy Spirit and a commission to leave their locked doors and go into God’s world among God’s people, “But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘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.”

Thomas gets a bad rap for this. The phrase “doubting Thomas” crept into our language and is thrown around any time someone is wrongfully unsupportive of a person or idea. Scripture, on the other hand, does not refer to Thomas as “doubter.” Jesus does not condemn his unbelief. Thomas was not locked in the same house as the other disciples when Jesus appeared among them. Scripture doesn’t tell us why Thomas was absent from this fearful gathering of the faithful, it just said he wasn’t there to experience the risen Lord.

He’s only asking for the same gift the other disciples have received. After Jesus said “Peace be with you… he showed them his hands and his side.” Thomas only wants the same experience as the rest of the disciples before he is expected to believe this amazing and crazy story of resurrection. It would be easy for us to condemn him for his lack of faith, to just write him off as an unbelieving sinner, but God’s not done with Thomas.

Now the Bible story and our story catch up to one another, a week has gone by since Jesus first appeared to his disciples, and we find ourselves gathered in this house of worship. The disciples, likewise, “were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’” Even though Thomas insisted on the same proof the disciples had already seen, he continued to gather with them, and seven days later Jesus appeared to them again, bringing greetings in the same manner as the last time he appeared to them.

This time it’s an appearance just for Thomas, bringing the resurrection into his skepticism, intervening directly into the life of someone on whom God is still working. “Then he said 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.’” In the midst of our doubt, Jesus appears and invites us to experience him and to set aside the fear that causes us to lock ourselves inside, to set aside the doubt that keeps us from experiencing how the world has changed. Jesus chases Thomas down because God is still working on him, and will work through him to proclaim the resurrection and the glory of God. Thomas is invited to do as he said he would, to place his finger in the marks of the nails and his hand in Jesus’s side.

But when faced with the risen Christ, Thomas doesn’t need to reach out for proof. “Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” In spite of all his fear, all his doubt, Thomas joyfully proclaims the identity of Jesus Christ. We call him doubting, and he calls out “My Lord and my God!” Even in unbelief, even behind closed doors, or in a room locked by fear, God is still working on us so that we can proclaim to the world who Jesus of Nazareth is: “My Lord and my God!”

With Thomas’s heartfelt confession of faith, I imagine Jesus giving an affection chuckle as he says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This affectionate reply and blessing is the heart of this passage, because all of the disciples have seen Jesus at this point. The blessing is for the generations of Christians who come after, who have come to believe through the Holy Spirit. In other words, the church.

Coming to believe is a process, just as the disciples gathered in fear, moved to peace, then joy, and then were sent out, so too we are in a process of coming out of our fear-locked rooms. God is still working on us, and continues to guide us in faith even though our salvation has long-since been accomplished. We are coming to believe so that we can learn to live in a world remade by resurrection, where we don’t have to fear death, because we know our redeemer lives, even though he died.

We cannot imagine what God can do, and we cannot imagine what God is doing through us in a world that’s still figuring out how to live its redemption. We know the stories of those who have gone before us, and we know that “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.” God’s reach stretches out beyond what we have read and into what we are living. “But these are written sot hat you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

We have the life of the risen Lord, it’s already given to us. As we come to believe more and more, we are more able to trust it and stretch Easter from a single Sunday to a season, and then to a new way of living as people who are not slaves to sin or death or fear. We have been sent out by the one who came out of the empty tomb.

The tomb was empty that first Easter morning, and 2000 years later the tomb is still empty. Therefore let us trust this good news, and live as people of the resurrection, not because we have seen everything, but because of the blessing of having not seen, and yet coming to believe. We have come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and on that sure foundation we, the people of God can stand and proclaim the true salvation, crying out in joy, “My Lord, and my God!”

Teacher! (Holy Week III)

Teacher! (Holy Week III) from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Isaiah 25:6-9
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all people a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
7And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is cast over all nations; 
8He will swallow up death forever. Then the LORD GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.
9It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

John 20:1-18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrapping lying there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples returned to their homes.

11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord;” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God.

1. We started this Holy Week with a parade.
1. Baptism-wilderness-entry-upper room-cross.
2. We are by no means prepared for the empty tomb.
2. We come to Jesus in the dark. 
1. “Human interpretation (or misunderstanding) of the empty tomb does not determine its significance.”
3. Mary doesn’t recognize Jesus because she’s not expecting him. She’s expecting fear and grief. Not even the appearance of the two angels can re-form Mary’s anguish into joy. But as soon as Jesus calls her name, everything in her changes. “Rabbouni! (which means Teacher)”
4. At the moment of resurrection, even before any disciples have seen or believed or spread the good news, everything has changed and it cannot go back to the way it was. 
1. “The close bond between disciple and teacher cannot be resumed on the old terms.”
5. "For it is he and no other, Jesus the son of God, who is the representative man, the second Adam…Because he has an identity, mankind has identity, each man in his particularity as the adopted brother of Jesus.”
6. Jesus not only calls Mary by her name, he calls us also, and sends us back to the community to connect with other disciples around this scary-good news. He calls us out into the world and calls us around this table where all persons are fed, body and soul.
7. We have died to sin and joined in Christ’s resurrection! All those expectations have fallen away in that death. Now all that’s left is a re-formed person able to be the self that God created. We have the freedom to echo Mary's original proclamation of the gospel: "I have seen The Lord." We may not have seen him in he he flesh, but we have seen him in the body that gathers around this table to be fed body and soul by his presence among us. With the full assurance of the gospel and God's resurrecting presence among us, we proclaim throughout all the ages that Jesus Christ is Risen today. Alleluia, amen.

Happy Easter!

Moist with one drop of Thy blood, my dry soul
Shall—though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly—be
Freed by that drop, from being starved, hard or foul,
And life by this death abled shall control    
Death, whom Thy death slew; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death bring misery,
If in Thy life-book 1 my name thou enroll.
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,
But made that there, of which, and for which it was;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sin’s sleep and death soon from me pass,
That waked from both, I again risen may
Salute the last and everlasting day.

-John Donne, Resurrection

Take This Cup (Holy Week II)

Take This Cup from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.


Exodus 12:1-14
1The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2This month shall mark for you the beginning of the month; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year old male; you may take it from the sheep or the goats. 6You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8They shall eat the lamb that same night; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the LORD. 12For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

Mark 14:22-25, 32-42
22While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. 24He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 25Truly, I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

32They went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. 34And he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.” 35And going a little further, he threw himself on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” 37He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? 38Keep awake and pray that you may not come to the time of trial; for the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. 41He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God.

After the noisiness of Palm Sunday fades, our expectations of the LORD sour us against Jesus of Nazareth. Against the backdrop of Passover, the shared story of God freeing our spiritual ancestors and us from oppression, Jesus’s apparent tolerance of the empire that reigns is all the more offensive. We almost accused accuse hm of being who we want him to be, ignoring who he is, and attempt to box him in with our expectations. We accuse him of being the Moral Absolute that represents the silent majority. We accuse him of being the socially reforming rebel who overturns those who would hold us back from our version of justice. We place him in a box that fits our own biases. Yet he doesn’t fit in any of those boxes, and has broken all of them between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday. So by the time we reach the Passover celebration, the bitter herb reflects both the tears we wept while we were slaves in Egypt and the bitterness in our own hearts that Jesus of Nazareth has not done as we expected.

And yet, beneath the surface, the Passover and Passion Pageants are playing out just past what we can perceive, beyond what we expect. At the edge of despair, God is bringing us together to celebrate the Passover, and to participate in the way God sets us free from our bondage to sin.

Jesus gathers his disciples together at a table where the dishes from Passover have not even been cleared. There’s a little leftover bread, a little leftover wine, and a cup. We have all told the story of how once we were slaves in Egypt, but God brought us out with a mighty hand. “Then Jesus took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.’” The same Jesus who has systematically avoided all the titles that prophets and crowds have hurled at his feet now becomes the lamb who will be slaughtered for Passover. In his last days, Jesus of Nazareth meets us around a table.

From the Passover table, we travel to the Garden of Gethsemane, and once again we encounter Jesus in a more intimate way than the gospels have shown us previously. We meet him in agony. Many commentators suggest that Jesus’s prayer gave him encouragement, or strength. However, God whom Jesus calls “Abba, Father,” is utterly silent. There is no voice from heaven proclaiming “This is my son, the beloved.” Only the darkness of the garden, and only Jesus’s voice is heard. “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.

A brief prayer in the midst of distress, agitation, and deep grief, even to death.  Jesus reaches out with an honest plea, like many of laments we have reached for over our Lenten journey, and they bubble up again here in Jesus of Nazareth’s final hours. Jesus is bound to know what awaited him, he knows what the cup “of the covenant, which is poured out for many” would look like.

Yet, like the psalmist’s laments, he remains faithful, and chooses to obey God’s will for him. “The agony of Jesus’s prayer lies…in the irony that what God wills is what Jesus’s own enemies are conspiring.” The betrayal cannot, will not be averted. For God has chosen this Jesus of Nazareth, and has chosen to strike him down with the cross.  “Fully human, Jesus knows the inner struggle of the will. He refuses to abandon the will of God, and in this decision the die is cast.” Jesus is obedient to the will of the LORD, even if God’s will means Jesus joins the firstborn of all the Egyptians and is struck down, by being lifted up on the cross.

No matter the cup, salvation, new covenant, or the cruciform suffering and death that awaits Jesus of Nazareth, it’s too much for a person to handle all at once. Here in the garden, Jesus has to stop taking from this cup and come up for air a few times. Maybe the good news of Maundy Thursday is that we do not have to suffer through despair alone. After all, Jesus gathered us around the table and invited us to the garden together. Maybe the good news is that we don’t have to do it alone?

And yet, that’s not the cup which Jesus is given. Jesus must enter into this despair alone. Jesus reaches out to his disciples, leaving them a short distance away as he struggles with the cup God has provided him. He returns three times to them, weary from struggling over his impending suffering.

God has given us the story of Passover so that we might remember that God brought us out with a mighty hand. God has given us the Psalms of Lament so that we might faithfully grieve and struggle with a world that does not know how to be free from sin. God has charged us to take this cup, which is the “blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many.” Even God remains silent as Jesus struggles by himself, with the fate of the world in the balance. 

One thing is certain: only Jesus of Nazareth is capable of taking this cup. And we, the disciples, cannot even help him along the way.

Yet we are connected to it nevertheless, because it was our cup to begin with.

The cup is past taking though, and so Jesus returns from his grieving-prayer and finds us sleeping. “Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed unto the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”