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5th Sunday in Lent – 2024b

Old Testament – Jeremiah 31:31-34

New Testament – John 12:20-33


 

Little Candles  

 

INTRODUCTION: On the evening of April 4, 1865, President Lincoln headed off to bed.

 

His night of sleep, however, was not a good one. At least that’s what Lincoln told a friend the next morning. You see, Lincoln apparently had a dream during the night where he saw a small group of mourners surrounding a dead person in the East Room of the White House. 

 

Upon approaching a soldier also standing next to the body and asking who the deceased person was, the man in uniform replied,  “The president. He was killed by an assassin.”   

 

Needless to say, Lincoln told his friend he found the dream a bit distressing and that he remained “strangely  annoyed” by it. Of course, just ten days later, on April 14, Lincoln was to be assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. 

 

But that’s the way it goes sometimes, right? For whatever reason, there are people who seem to intuitively understand their own deaths are fast approaching. They have some sort of premonition about their own passing, and then within a few days or weeks, they actually do die.              

 

More recently, Mickey Welsh, the former bassist for the popular rock band Weezer, also apparently had a similar premonition concerning his death. Tweeting on September 26, 2012, that he had dreamt he would die in Chicago in a mere two weeks from a heart attack while on a scheduled trip, that’s exactly what happened.  Mickey Welsh died in Chicago two weeks later from a heart attack in a hotel room after overdosing on drugs. 

 

And so it goes. Some people, for whatever reason, end up dreaming about their own deaths only to have the dreams turn into reality. 

        

ONE: Well, Jesus in our reading from John this morning is in a similar situation. For he too seems to understand that his death is imminent and fast approaching.    

 

Arriving in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration, Jesus’ ministry has now grown to the point that it is making some people nervous. And Jesus, for his part, seems to know that is the case. After all, just a few days earlier Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, leading the chief priests to conclude the time had finally come to get rid of him.

 

So as Jesus enters Jerusalem during the Passover celebration, he does so seeming to know his death is also close-at-hand . “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” Jesus says initially. To which he later adds, “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say - ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”     

 

And so sure enough, Jesus’ own prophetic words come to fulfillment a few days later. Eventually arrested and tried, Jesus ends up hanging from that cross. Whether or not Jesus dreamed about his own death, we just don’t know - at least the Gospels don’t say one way or the other. But dreams or not, Jesus seemed to intuitively understand the end for him was fast approaching.     

 

“The hour has come,” says Jesus. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” 

             

TWO: Of course, it’s strange that Jesus would use the word “glorified” when talking about his impending death, right? 

 

After all, to “glorify” means to applaud, laud, extol, or even praise someone for a grand achievement. As in, “Congratulations, to the Michigan Wolverines, on winning that National Championship in football this past year. What a great season!” (Sorry, Don Jones!) 

      

But Jesus’ death on that cross hardly seems like something to glorify, as far as I can tell. “Way to go Jesus! Congratulations on being nailed to that cross in humiliation and shame. What a way to die!” Well, that hardly sounds fitting, does it?    

 

Unless, of course…unless Jesus’ death on that cross reveals another way to understand the word “glory.” You see, in John’s Gospel, the Son of Man being glorified doesn’t have anything to do with gaining  prestige, rank, honor, or acclaim as we normally think.

 

After all, kings, queens, and other rulers are usually exalted and praised because of their power, fame, prosperity, and authority. It is because of their capacity to hold sway over people’s lives that rulers of all stripes are often venerated and honored.

 

But the glory Jesus reveals as Lord of all ends up being something very different. For Jesus, it turns out, ends up hanging from a cross in redeeming love. It’s not about might, or power, or influence as normally understood. Instead, Jesus reveals a different kind of power and might. The power and might of sacrificial love. 

 

No wonder the poet W. H. Auden could say that Jesus’ conception of glory was one of the main reasons for his belief in him. For glory as defined and lived by Jesus, well, it ends up being so different than the world’s understanding of the term. 

 

Or as Auden once wrote about Jesus, “I believe because [Jesus] fulfills none of my dreams, because He is in every respect the opposite of what He would be if I could have made Him in my own image.” Jesus’ strange and peculiar life, in other words, reveals “the God you can’t make up.” No wonder Auden was willing to confess that Jesus also tended to make him anxious, defensive, and, yes, even angry at times.   

For Jesus never really seems to fit into the established ways of the world, right? He’s a square peg we keep trying to push into a round hole.  

 

THREE: Of course, as disciples of Jesus Christ, we are exhorted by him to also be living expressions of glory as defined by him on that cross.  

 

As Jesus gave himself away in glory, well, we are asked to do the same: “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.”

 

There is an old Jewish story about a rabbi who would disappear each week on the eve of the Sabbath. Assuming he was withdrawing to spend time communing  with the Almighty, but also curious, the man’s congregation assigned a member from the group to follow him. 

 

Well, on the eve of the next Sabbath, the man followed the rabbi as he left. And to his surprise, he watched the rabbi, first, dress himself as a peasant. And then, second, he watched the rabbi go to the cottage of  a paralyzed Gentile woman where he spent the evening cleaning her small home, while also preparing a Sabbath meal for the two of them.

 

When the man returned from following the rabbi, the people were eager to know the details: “Well, where did the rabbi go? Did he ascend to heaven to speak with the Almighty?”

 

“No,” replied the man, “he went even higher.” 

 

FOUR: Of course, it’s easy to underestimate how our faithful deeds as God’s instruments can have a lasting impact long past the moment of performance. 

                 

We can minimize, I think, the way our deeds of compassion and mercy can bear fruit. The world can be such a disturbing place sometimes; it can be so cruel and cold, it’s easy to just assume all our efforts as God’s instruments are, in the end, for naught.

 

Like Sisyphus, who was condemned to roll a boulder up that steep hill only to have it repeatedly tumble back to the bottom before ever getting to the top, it can be easy to feel as if we are also trapped in our own fruitless endeavor. For what kind of real change can we expect our small deeds to actually accomplish against the miseries of this world?      

 

But just like Jesus’ own sacrificial death on that cross, which echoes through time even now, we are to trust that even our small deeds can also make a difference long term. Or as Jesus said of his own impending death, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

 

And so it goes with all our sacrificial deeds, even when seen as small and inconsequential. We can trust that they too can bear fruit. Or as Portia says at one point in Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice while pointing to a flickering candle on a dark stairway: “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”

 

There is the story of an elderly man planting mango saplings in his yard one day. A neighbor, seeing him busy planting, asked the old man why he was planting mango trees. After all, at his age he was sure to be gone before the mango trees ever started producing any fruit for him. 

 

“Do you actually expect to eat mangoes from those trees?” asked the neighbor a bit dismayed. 

 

“No, I won’t live long enough for that,” replied the old man. “But others will. You see, it occurred to me the other day that all my life I have enjoyed mangoes planted by other people. This is my way of showing gratitude.”  

 

CONCLUSION: Well, we can plant too, right? And not just mangoes, obviously. 

 

As little candles, we can spread and scatter deeds of goodness, love, and hospitality trusting in their power to grow and grow.  

 

So let us plant, my friends. Let us sow deeds of Christ’s mercy and grace in the world. Even when your efforts feel small and inconsequential against the miseries of the world...plant.  

        

After all, Christ’s own death on that cross also seemed foolish and even a waste of time when it was performed.

 

And yet, amazingly and even now, that good deed echoes throughout the ages.        

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And now to the ruler of all worlds, undying, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever! Amen.    

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