Pr. Joseph Crippen

There is abundant life in you, God’s dream for you, that only needs to have its shell, its husk die and break apart for you to bloom and grow as God’s gift to this world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday in Lent, year B
Texts: John 12:20-33; Jeremiah 31:31-34

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Seeds don’t die when they’re planted.

Pretty much everyone who plants seeds knows they contain within them the life of the plant to come. They’re not actually dead. Jesus certainly knew this, too.

That means he’s doing something with this metaphor. Stretching our imaginations, to see something different, something vital. Something about dying and rising.

That’s definitely not a new topic for Jesus.

This is the central idea of Christian discipleship for Jesus, and also the New Testament. Jesus constantly speaks of self-giving, of sacrificial love, of being vulnerable, as the path of Christ, his and ours. Again and again, including today, we hear of losing our lives to find them, of letting go as central to our walk of faith.

But notice: this way is always described positively by Jesus and the others. Lose your life, and you will find it. Die to this way of being and you will live. Die like a seed and you will see much fruit. Scripture believes that self-giving, sacrificial living as Christ is the path to the abundant life Jesus came to bring.

We make it out to be a negative thing.

We live in a society and culture based on acquiring, finding security in wealth and in things, no matter how unsustainable it is across this planet. We live in a country founded on equal rights, though still not yet for all. But somehow our culture individualized rights so that we’ve each been taught to believe for ourselves that what I want, who I am, what I have, is the paramount thing to care about and protect.

So, it’s hard to hear Jesus’ call, no matter how often he makes it, without wincing a bit. Voices like these often speak in our hearts and minds: “I don’t want to lose, because winning feels better. I don’t want to give of myself, because I might lose what I’ve acquired, or someone might take advantage. I don’t want to be wounded, because that hurts, and why would I want that?”

Maybe that’s why Jesus stretches the seed metaphor. Though a seed doesn’t technically die, it is profoundly changed. There is an outer shell, a husk, that, when the buried seed is watered and begins to germinate, is cracked open and left behind. If it stays intact, the plant can’t grow.

What if Jesus is asking what needs to die, be broken open in us for our true new life to begin?

Now, Jesus says the seed also applies to him.

So did something need to die in Jesus for him to be God’s Christ, to be what he was meant to be?

Certainly fear. Today he speaks of his troubled soul, which will worsen in Gethsemane. Jesus feared the cross, the suffering, and wasn’t sure he could do it. That fear needed to die, be broken open, so his courage to be the sacrificial love of God for the whole cosmos could bloom and grow.

And what of Jesus’ need to control? The eternal Word of God who participated in the creation of all things must have struggled not to control what happened in this earthly ministry. Satan thought so in his temptations, and in Jesus’ relationships with stumbling disciples and angry opponents, his need to control had to die so he could trust that what happened would lead to life.

And maybe we wouldn’t call it pride, but for the Son of God to willingly suffer the humiliation of the cross, something had to die in him. That sense of being one with the Father and the Spirit in the Trinity, that joy of his divine existence and power, had to die so he could let them hang him in public shame for all to see. So he could draw all things into the life of God.

So what husk is trapping-in your life, your future?

What if your fear could die and be buried? Your fear of the future, or fear of not belonging? Your fear of not being enough? Your fear of failure? What kind of courage could grow in you if that fear was dead and gone?

What if your greed died? Your need to have, to acquire, to find security in money or things. If that were dead and buried, what contentment could flourish in you and even bear fruit that would start changing the balance of privilege and oppression in this world?

Maybe shame is a shell around your true life. What if that were broken open, dead? Can you imagine a life trusting you were worthy of love, God’s and others’? What if you didn’t have to worry anymore about what others think?

And what if your need to control things could die, too? To live knowing that since important things, like life and death, were beyond your control, why try to control all the other things? Can you see yourself with such happy freedom?

There are so many more possible husks. But do you see what Jesus is offering you? A chance to bury the thing clamped around your life, your heart, your soul, and so find abundant life. Eternal life, right now.

When I am lifted up, Jesus says, I will draw all things to myself.

Jesus promises that in his dying and rising you will be drawn into God, to be like Christ. And so you’ll be given what you need to die and rise daily yourself. This isn’t a bar for you to get over, this is a gift of God for you.

God promised to write this covenant love in your heart, Jeremiah proclaimed, so you’ll have the ability to let all these hindrances embedded in you die. You will know in your heart, in your being, the way to life.

And the Holy Spirit will help dig the hole for these husks, too, even while breathing life into that newness inside you, gently watering it and drawing it out into the light of day.

And while Jesus is talking about seeds, remember that growing seasons take time.

No seed immediately becomes a huge corn stalk bursting with cobs. This new life, this dying of the husks and shells that are keeping you from living, this takes time. So ask the Spirit for patience, too. It will take your whole life to live into this growing.

But you’ve already begun. There are husks of whatever it is that needs to die in you that have already been broken open, and you’ve seen signs of the fruit to come. Maybe only a glimpse or two. But this life is already at work in you.

Unless a seed dies, it stays a tiny thing. But when it dies, it bears much fruit. Trust this, and live.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

The Triune God is always about healing: come into God’s light, look, and live.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fourth Sunday in Lent, year B
Texts: John 3:14-21; Numbers 21:4-9; Ephesians 2:1-10

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, John says. We don’t know why.

But Nicodemus was a leader of his people, part of the ruling Jewish council, prominent, respected. By the end of this Gospel he and his friend Joseph of Arimathea publicly show their allegiance to Jesus by taking his body for burial. So, many assume this early conversation was at night because Nicodemus was afraid of being seen by his colleagues, wasn’t ready to out himself as interested in Jesus.

Nicodemus seemed to think Jesus was fully in line with Jewish teaching and the Scriptures. A few verses earlier he says Jesus is clearly a teacher sent from God. That was the division among the Jewish people: some thought he was from God, a rabbi and prophet steeped in their tradition, and others thought otherwise.

But Jesus ends his little sermon to Nicodemus reflecting that some are willing to come into the light and be seen, while others hide in the darkness so that who they are and what they do is unseen. Hard for Nicodemus to miss that point.

But Jesus raises this to all of us: are you hiding in the dark from God, and do you know why?

If God knows all about you, or if others could know all about you, what things do you wish you could hide in the dark? Maybe sins long past, or thoughts you’re thinking today. It might be shame over things you’ve done or neglected to do. It might be opinions you have, or feelings you carry. It’s rare that any of us can say we don’t feel guilt over things deep inside, or wouldn’t be horrified if others knew some of those deepest thoughts, past history, truths, that lurk inside us.

What would you rather keep in the dark, hoping that even God can’t see it?

And how might you learn to trust Jesus, as he invites, to open even that deepest heart to God’s light?

Because Jesus gives Nicodemus good news in his fearful night skulking.

God loves you, Nicodemus, Jesus says. In fact, God loves the world, literally the cosmos, the universe, so much that God’s Son came in the flesh, to save you, to heal you, Nicodemus, not to judge you. Come into the light, you have nothing to fear from God, Jesus says to our friend. You are wholly and fully loved.

Amen, Paul says to his Ephesians. God loves you in the depth of your wrongdoing, and raises you up in Christ to a whole new reality. God has saved you, healed you, by God’s grace alone, Paul says, without your doing anything. Come into the light.

That’s what Jesus and Paul promise you, today, too. God fully forgives you out of love and grace. Wipes away your shame out of love and grace. Holds you in the light in an embrace of love and grace. Come into the light.

But what if you’re in the dark for other reasons?

Maybe you hide in the dark from God because you’re afraid you’re not worthy. Just because of who you are.

Maybe you fear you’re one of those Jesus mentions who don’t trust, because you struggle with your faith, you have doubts, and you don’t know why, you sometimes look at the world and wonder where God is.

Or maybe you don’t fit in anywhere, so, you think, why would God want you? Why would God be different? Best not to expect there’s light to be found, you think. You’re not strong enough, or wise enough, or confident enough, and God will see that right away. Why risk it? Where’s the proof, Paul? Jesus?

Well. Now you’re ready for the heart of Jesus’ promise.

Jesus says the Triune God is all about healing, not destruction. Not judging.

That’s actually God’s Word in all our readings today. Jesus starts by reminding Nicodemus of that terrible episode in the desert where God’s people were beset by an appalling number of venomous snakes and God offered healing. All who looked up at the bronze serpent would find healing from God and live.

But didn’t God send the snakes in the first place? Well, the narrator says so. But the only word God speaks in these verses is the word of healing. Clearly the people complained and argued against God, ran into a valley of snakes, and thought God sent them. But the fact that God didn’t remove the snakes as requested (since they thought God sent them), but offers healing instead, hints that the snakes were just part of the pain of living in this world. And God never asks God’s people to repent first, then look. Just look, and live.

That’s certainly how God’s Son reads the story. Moses’ serpent is the sign Jesus gives Nicodemus to show God’s whole operation is healing. He calls himself the Son-of-Humanity, an ancient Jewish term Nicodemus would certainly recognize, and says he’ll be lifted up just like that serpent, so all can look and live.

That’s what sets up John 3:16 and following: they depend on that context.

 “For God so loved the world,” Jesus says. God’s love is why the Son is lifted up, just as it is why the serpent was. That lifting up, Jesus says to Nicodemus and to you, is because God so loved the world. That lifting up, which is the cross, is the proof God’s love is true and real. God is offering a way to healing for all who look at that lifting up, just as in the past.

Except now it’s not just God’s people in the desert. Now it’s all things, all creation, the whole cosmos, as Jesus will make even clearer in our Gospel next week. God’s love embraces all reality.

So come out of the darkness into God’s light: you’ll be welcomed with love, and grace, and healing.

Just look up at the cross and you’ll see God’s own life poured out in love for you, and the whole creation. That’s how you can trust Paul’s confidence in God’s free grace, why you can trust Jesus’ promise of God’s undying love that came to heal, to save, and not to judge. Just look up, and live.

And remember, Paul says you are saved, healed, by God’s grace so you can do all the good in the world God has planned for you. Or, as Jesus says, you’ve been loved, so now you can do all your deeds and thoughts and actions out in the light, for all to see. You can be the one who by how you live, how you love, how you walk with God in the light, points others to God’s love lifted up from the earth and invites them into the light.

You are loved. You are graced. You are bathed in the light of that. Now walk in that light into the shadows of evil and pain in this world so all can come safely into God’s light.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen