John 12. 1-19: Palm Sunday

In John's telling of the story, Palm Sunday begins with a dinner the night before. (Verses 1-11).  Just a couple of miles from Jerusalem, in the village called Bethany, six days before the Passover, Jesus turned up.  And some people put on a dinner in his honour.  (Probably a guy called Simon the Leper – who obviously had his owns story to tell – it seems that Matthew 26 and Mark 14 are telling the same story).  Bethany was significant as the place where the Lazarus family lived: Martha, the one who got things done, Mary, the thinker, and Lazarus whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 

And in the more intimate setting of a dinner, what people were comes to the surface.  Lazarus, Mary, Martha, Simon the Leper, Judas, Jesus.  We need to meet closely with people, to be real with them, in order to grow.  We need the small group as well as the larger one.

Jesus loves a good meal with friends – time to share food and relax, celebrate, laugh, talk deeply.  In fact his public ministry had started at a dinner – a wedding feast at which he had turned water into wine – the “First Sign” in John's Gospel.  That was a joyful celebration.

And even ahead of then, before Jesus had started his public work, out in the desert, Satan had tempted him... about food:  “Turn these stones into bread if you are the Son of God”.  The temptation in a fairly poor, rural environment, to provide bread for the hungry, was about being a popular, cheap-grace Messiah who could buy his way into people's hearts and then whip them up into a mob that would proclaim him king (rather in the way Donald Trump is taking America by storm by capitalising on people's frustrations today). That was the danger Jesus faced when he fed the five thousand and probably why he took time, with his disciples away from the situation, to send the crowd away.  Once when the disciples urged Jesus to have something to eat, he answered “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”  (John 4. 34)

So when Jesus turned up at Bethany,  he was after the real food – doing the Father’s will.  Not getting a  quick fix.  Not pulling a crowd; but being in the centre of Father’s will.  He knew about the dangers. He knew people were plotting against him. But he was there, doing the father's will.  His mind was clearly settled on this. As a  result, this meal was a bit more quiet, reflective and thoughtful.  The passover was coming. Everyone was getting into the frame of mind of mind for a solemn religious feast; and people could see the clouds gathering,  could sense the danger for Jesus.

And at the dinner were Martha, serving as she always seemed to do.  And Lazarus himself.  Just by being there alive, he pointed to Jesus being the Messiah.  (That was why some of the powers that be were out to kill not only Jesus but Lazarus as well!)   It was in the practical things – wine at a wedding, food for hungry crowds, healing the sick and raising the dead, that Jesus the King, demonstrated what his Kingdom was going to be like and showed himself to be the King.  

So, at the end of his earthly ministry they put on a dinner in his honour – friends, people who had reason to thank him for his ministry.   Marys and Marthas and Lazaruses and Simons:  those whose lives had been changed by his teaching; people whose lives had been changed by the power of God at work in him. They could all recognise him as Messiah, Son of God. 

And Mary came and did her bit, too: that involved a bottle of perfume, Nard, from a plant that grows in the Himalayas, worth a year's wages.  This wasn’t' something Mary had picked up cheap from the Avon lady!  Judas starts to get picky and say “What a waste – all that money could have gone to the poor” (as he looked after Jesus' poor relief fund it would have gone to him). So Jesus said that in advance, Mary had anointed him for his burial.  And in anointing him for his burial, she was in a way anointing him as victorious King. 

She may not have fully understood all of this; she simply wanted to say “thank you” – but Jesus says “it was intended” by God.  Sometimes our actions have bigger, deeper significance, than we are aware of.  We want to say “thank you” but how we say it does something in the heavenlies.  

So much comes together here, at this meal: Jesus' sense of purpose and surrender.  His identity as Lord, God and Messiah; his Kingship and the Kingdom he came to bring; and his sufferings as the pathway to glory.  The King is going to be enthroned. The Son is going to be glorified....   It's all been said, quietly, reverently at the dinner table.  The anointing at Bethany expresses the royal dignity of Jesus in preparation for his triumphal entry. It is as king that he enters (not merely a pretender).    John knows that Jesus, at a meal, with friends, is anointed King.

So the next day, the King, anointed as David was by Samuel, steps out, heads for Jerusalem – and is immediately recognised by the crowds.  It's Jesus, the miracle worker; the guy who raises the dead.  Jerusalem was full of people.  There could have been up to two million people in the city at Passover.  They grabbed palm branches – which were symbols of the Jewish nation – and began waving them like flags – exactly like flags.  The begin to sing and shout “Hosanna –  O God, save!  Blessed is he who comes I the name of the Lord”  They were quoting from Psalm 118. 25-27.  For many of them is was just a reminder of their history and a hope of a King who would set them free from the Romans.  But the Psalm is about a person who struggles and is victorious over death itself.  Good words for Jesus, who came to bring a Kingdom that was bigger the the Jewish nation, that was for the nations; Good words for Jesus whose Kingdom was going to triumph through is humiliation and death.   Good words for Jesus who would be able to say “The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death. (Ps 118. 18)

Jesus fulfils the OT promises.  HE knows he is heading from his anointign to his coronation...  he is going to be glorified. 

For John, what happens on the road into Jerusalem is the public celebration of what had already been sealed in the house in Bethany.  So John misses out some for the detail that the synoptic gospels describe.  Instead he talks about the way the disciples (himself included) didn't get it at that point. After he has been glorified, the disciples will understand. Describing things after the event, John talks about Jesus being glorified.  He knows that glory is where all this difficult path leads to.  Palm Sunday brings together Jesus' surrender and suffering; his divinity , Kingship and Kingdom; his suffering and his glory.

At the end of the story, as at the end of the anointing story, John reminds us of Lazarus, the living evidence of who Jesus is.  The Lazarus story is spreading around the city, even as the Pharisees, the priests and powerful people are plotting to get rid of Jesus.  It looks like they can't win.   The Pharisees say to one another “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”  John, with the benefit of hindsight, drops that in.  Palm Sunday, the last supper, the cross, are going to lead to glory.  People are going to be drawn to Jesus.  Lifted up from the earth, people from every nation are going to be drawn to him.  The enemy can’t win.  He is defeated.  Jesus is the victor.  He is glorified.  He becomes King through this process of emptying himself, dying on a cross and rising again.  Golgotha is his Westminster Abbey.  Holy Week is his coronation. 

And John, in the context of a suffering church,  drops that in. After the resurrection and yet living through the struggles of the early Church,  Jesus is the victor.  The enemy can't win. 

And still the Church goes through its struggles, makes its mistakes; it loses the heart of the Western world, (church attendance n Scotland fell by 13.5% in the last decade: half a million people gave up on church); it experiences persecution (More people were martyred for their faith in the twentieth century than in any other century since the Church began.  The figure is 200 million.)  But like  John, we need to say “The enemy can't win.  He is defeated. Jesus is the victor.”  

© Gilmour Lilly March 2016

Love won another

Leviticus 19. 17-18, 33-34; John 13. 31-38

We have been thinking about our love for God – in response to the majesty of who he is, and to God's love for us. We finished last time by realising that to respond with love to God, always involves loving people as well. We are going to look a bit closer at that today.

So we can sum up the commands in two: Love the Lord with heart, soul and strength (Deut 6. 4-5); and love your neighbour as yourself (Leviticus 19. 17-18). Neighbour in Leviticus is a wide-ranging word. “All our duties to our fellow men summed up in these words. Jesus and Paul agree about that. (Matt 22.39f Rom 13.9)

But then, Leviticus (chapter 19 verses 33-34) goes on to say “The foreigner living among you must be treated as one born among you. Love him as yourself”. The foreigner or stranger is the person who is travelling through, the person who has just arrived, the person who has no rights. And God's word says “Love his as yourself; love him the same as any other neighbour.”

William Temple says, “My neighbour is anyone with whom I have anything at all to do even by accident and even though he's the kind of person that I naturally hate or despise”.

And both neighbour and stranger, we are to love as ourselves. That is something we struggle with.

Some of us – self included – are not very brilliant at loving ourselves. We are taught to be “Self-effacing, self-denying” But I believe the Lord wants us to have proper sense of love for ourselves. Talking about marriage and Jesus' love for us, Paul says “no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church...” Eph 5. 29

I think we would all agree that self-harming is a symptom of something being wrong. Substance abuse, self mutilation (cutting, hair-pulling), eating disorders, and habitual overwork are all forms of self-harm. As Bible-believing Christians we tend to be more down on alcoholics than workaholics, so we need to be consistent. God doesn't want us to be self-harming. He wants us to live emotionally healthy lives, loving ourselves in the right way. The markers of love are:

• Esteem, and we need a right self-esteem. Secular psychotherapy says “You have to big people up. There are no moral absolutes. Nobody's a sinner: that's bad for your self-esteem.” But Christianity says “Jesus loves me and died for me: that's good for my self-esteem!”
• Enjoyment. Not to enjoy our own company so much we don't mix with other people, or to admire ourselves in the mirror for hours. But to enjoy being the people God made us to be.
• Extravagance. Perhaps that's not quite the right word for ourselves: it's not all about spending on ourselves, treating ourselves. But we need to be able to be kind to ourselves. We need to be able to receive.
• Expectancy. We need to believe in ourselves; to have goals,targets, an aim in life. That doesn't need to be crazy, unrealistic stuff or materialistic ambition; but we need to aim to be the best we can be, and to make the best of each day's opportunities and to be a blessing to other people. That rescues “Self-love” from being simply an exercise in self indulgence.

And loving my neighbour as myself means “I am to care as much of his interest as for my own.” (William Temple) That means loving our neighbours with esteem: we value something in their lives; with enjoyment (we learn to enjoy being with people); with extravagance and generosity; and with expectancy as we believe that whoever they are they can grow and develop and find faith in Jesus. We need to treat ourselves, our neighbours and our natural enemies with equal love.

In John, Jesus gives us a “New Commandment!”: “Love one another as I have loved you!”

This is what Archbishop Ussher called the eleventh commandment. It adds something to “Love your neighbour as yourself”. What is new about the “New Commandment”?

To answer that, let's note where and when Jesus said these words: in the upper room, after washing the disciples' feet and breaking bread with them. And before he goes on to talk about the future: the long-term hope of heaven “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14. 1) the coming of the Spirit (John 14. 16) the call to fruitful service (John 15)

• It sets a new standard. It takes us way beyond “love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus says this after he washes the disciples feet, and says “You must wash the feet of one another. He says it after he takes bread and says, “This is my body, broken for you.” “As I have loved you” means “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15. 13). That is a tough call. Where the Esteem disappears and the enjoyment cools, love continues to be extravagant, sacrificial. It takes us back to loving with all our strength.
• It needs s new power. William Temple says this new commandment is “The impossible thing. [Jesus] himself will make it possible but till then it is not possible.” Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to come and live inside his people. We need the Spirit's power to love as Christ loved us.
• It is based on a new covenant. The commandment is new because it is the law of the new covenant which Jesus is to establish to his death.
• It is for a new people. The new commandment is for the messianic community living between the advents of the Messiah.
• It is based on a new relationship with Jesus. In John 15. 10-12, Jesus says “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love... My command is this: love each other as I have loved you.”

The other thing “ new” thing troubles some people: it seems to have narrowed the focus down to “Love one another.” Is Jesus telling us to become a big, “holy huddle” when he tells us to “Love one another”? The answer is “No!”, a great big “No!” for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Leviticus – and Jesus – say “Love your neighbour as yourself.” And when a clever-clogs asked Jesus “Who is my neighbour” Jesus told a story about an outsider – a Samaritan – who showed love when cream of the insiders – priests and Levites – failed to do so. (Luke 10. 25-37) God's heart is always for the outsiders. Remember, “love your neighbour as yourself – even if he is a stranger.

Secondly, Jesus says “Everyone will know you are my disciples if you love one another.” How does that work?

• Loving one another makes the Church a wee, working model of the Trinity. We keep Christ's commands and love one another as Jesus keeps the Father's commands and loves the Father. What a wonderful privilege to be involved in the things of god!
• Loving community proves that the Good news of Jesus has changed our lives. Francis Schaeffer calls love “The final apologetic.” In the second century the pagans said "behold how these Christians love each other! How ready they are to die for each other. "
• To love like Jesus is to love inclusively indiscriminately and universally. Jesus loved us sacrificially, so the point of dying for us, before we were his people. So we need to love people, before they are our brothers in Christ.
• As we learn to love one another – with Esteem, enjoyment, extravagance and expectation, we gain the skill to love or neighbours – even if they are strangers, with Esteem, Enjoyment, Extravagance and Expectancy.

Jesus doesn't want us to love one another like a holy huddle. He wants us to love one another as a springboard to loving service that can win other people to him. Mother Teresa had a prayer as she ministered to the destitute and dying in Calcutta: “Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you.”

© Gilmour Lilly March 2016