"Seeing Jesus" March 25, 2012

Jeremiah 31:31-34
John 12:20-33
Among our most basic understandings, before we could reason, before language, even before we knew what it was to be taught, our most basic understanding arises from our family system. More than a value system or Morality of absolute Right and Wrong, we act on the basis of what we know. Whether we are male or female, an only child, the eldest or youngest, whether our parents were military, if they were divorced, their politics, their economics, at what age and how our parents die, at what age and under what circumstance we have children, attitudes toward those who are different, ALL have shaped the system we fight against or attempt to preserve, and the assumptions we make without realization. Greater understanding of what was hidden, is the reason we research family genealogies, the reason behind psycho-therapy and counseling, the basis for a mature relationship with God and with one another. The more we can know what is assumed and what is hidden, the more we can choose if what we do is our intent, or simply following the system we know without question, without free will.

When these Greeks who have come to Jerusalem for Passover, come to Phillip of Bethsaida, and Phillip brings them to Andrew (the disciple of John the Baptist who had brought Simon Peter to Jesus), and together Phillip and Andrew bring them to Jesus, their quest is not the same as the crowd or the Pharisees wondering “How Jesus fulfills the Law, or by what authority he challenges the Law.” The presence of this group of Greeks wishing to See Jesus represents all those of other cultures, other systems, the Nations of the World being willing to question all they have assumed in order to follow Christ to God!
Their wish to See Jesus, is the wish of all humanity, that God not be intangible, ubiquitous and omnipresent, but that like Doubting Thomas we could see and touch and know that God is real, that Jesus is real and legitimate and true!
“We Wish to See Jesus,” is the same proclamation as the Father of the epileptic boy crying out “I Believe, Help My UnBelief,” the affirmation of the Roman Centurion at the Cross “Surely this is the Son of God,” the awe struck tearful response of Mary at the tomb responding to Jesus calling her by name saying “Rabonni.” “We Wish to See Jesus” is a rejection of everything we thought we knew, because we now choose to live in a different reality, a reality no longer governed by the old system.

Most of us recall the Prophet Jeremiah as a prophet of Doom and Gloom, who before he was born was destined to serve as a prophet calling the Nation to Repent. Over and over again, all throughout his life, Jeremiah attempts to do the will of God, by Calling the people who will not listen. Finally, after 30 chapters of preaching repentance, when the temple of Solomon has been destroyed, when the King has been taken off in bondage to exile, when Jeremiah sits in prison, suddenly Jeremiah becomes a prophet of hope unlike any other. This is perhaps Jeremiah's most important prophecy: that when all is lost, when we finally realize the brokenness of our lives, the brokenness of our relationship with God, and all the brokenness of our lives, when we come to the reality that the Covenant is broken, our idea of God and our trust is broken, that the Law can never be fulfilled, then there is hope of a new covenant, a relationship with God without sin.

We just said a lot very quickly. The Covenant of Israel with God had been based on three things:
Their occupying the Land promised to Abraham...
Their worship of God according to the Law of Moses...
That for ever, God would be present with the people through a King, the lineage of David.
Beaten in battle, the people were carried off in bondage from the Promised Land, some to Babylon, others dispersed and lost throughout the world as the Diaspora the scattering, the dissolution.
The place of sacrifice, the only legitimate place to atone for one's sins and to pray was in the Temple. When suddenly the Temple was destroyed.
King Zedekiah, the lineage of David, not only their Monarch and Ruler, but the promise of God to be faithful and trustworthy, was carried off in chains.
Previously Jeremiah had demonstrated in the marketplace Israel's subjugation to foreign economies and powers by wearing a yoke around his neck. Jeremiah had gone to the Potter's shed to witness how when clay was spoilt the artist routinely cut it off to be smashed and squashed and set aside, later to be reformed and begun again. Yet they would not listen. Now not only have they lost in battle, not only is their kingdom destroyed, they have lost trust in God and in the Covenant.

The problem with a System of Laws is that it presupposes breaking the Laws. With a Covenant of Law one must assume the occurrence of Sins. Jeremiah prophesies a new and different Covenant from God, a New Covenant not based on teaching, not based on The Law, not based on peoples' sins. A new covenant of the conscience, a covenant relationship written in every person's heart. Talk about UTOPIA this is proclamation of a world without Sin, where everyone knows God and acts in relation to God. Now that is a different starting point, a different world system.

The Gospel of John shares Jeremiah's vision. Jesus' death on the Cross is not, according to John, an atonement for human sins. Jesus crucifixion is not a sacrifice of pure good for the evils of this world. John's Gospel begins at Creation, with the Creation of God being taken over as The Cosmos of Human Ordering. Humanity was given Free Will, and instead of living in right relationship with God, chose that as we were created in the image of God we could recreate Creation as we desired without God. We created systems of domination, systems of violence, systems based on winning and losing. This is why, when Jesus stands before Pilate and is asked if he is a King, Jesus responds, “My kingdom is not of this world.” According to John's Gospel, the crucifixion is not about atonement for Sin with a capital S or the accumulation of all human sins but is an exorcism of the powers and forces and systems we created.

We have created myths for ourselves to perpetuate our Systems.

A Myth of Consumerism, that we can create and create, driven by human desires without regard for the costs. Many of us, particularly living here besides the pristine waters of the Lake have fought against hydro-fracking, but still we desire all the products driven by energy. Until we curtail our desire for power and natural gas, there will continue to be challenges to these resources.

There is the Myth of Redemptive Violence, that the righteous will always have greater power to beat terrorists, to fight wars, to stop bullies. For nearly a hundred years, we have had Popeye cartoons, teaching that if we eat our vegetables, the good-guy can always beat up the Blutos. Horribly, in recent weeks we have witnessed around the world, that violence takes its toll and can cost innocent lives. We quickly dismiss the Ghandis and Martin Luther Kings as being exceptions, but the story I am continually struck by happened in 2006 when a gunman went to an Amish Community in Massachusetts and killed five children, and that evening the leaders of the community went from home to home asking for forgiveness for the one who had done this, because anger and violence at him would not bring their children back and could do even greater harm to their parents.

Matthew, Mark and Luke describe this voice from Heaven at the Baptism of Jesus, and at the Transfiguration. John's Gospel records a voice from heaven only here, which is described as not speaking to Jesus, but for all who would hear to listen. We have developed this Myth of Christmas as being about joy and hope and expectation. While in Lent we reflect and mourn knowing that Christ dies. Would that in this season of Lent, we could wish for what truly matters, that rather than for a new bike or Video game, we could wish for a world where everyone saw God and knew God, and lived without trying to hide from one another or from God.