Good Expectations: The Hate We Hate To Give Up

 March 22 2026

John 15:18-27, 16: 1-4

         Needless to say, this ministry journey I have been on now for quite awhile, has been full of surprises. While most of the churches I have served have been very gracious and loving places to serve, there, nonetheless, have also been people in every church it seems that was very much the opposite of what one would expect. I guess what made this hatred and meanness so surprising is not that such behavior was found within the church. No, what has surprised me most is that the church has been the place where I have experienced the very worst from people even though I worked in warehouses and drove forklift for many years. You see, it wasn’t working out in the world where I found the angriest and meanest people; no, such behavior was more often than not, found within the body of Christ, not out of it. This behavior was not just aimed at me, no, some of the churches were mean and nasty even to the neighbors of their parsonage. I know this to be true because I actually listened to this neighbor and fixed an issue that he was dealing with in one afternoon that the church simply refused to deal with for three years. The only reason the church had for not being loving to their neighbor was just plain and simple, meanness. 

         Now what makes my discovery of such hatred and meanness within the church even more shocking is that the church is supposed to be for lack of a better term, a “hate-free”, zone. I mean if you actually read the owners manual, you will find, in places like the third chapter of the first letter of John, the thirteenth verse, this teaching: “Do not be surprised church that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life because of this reason: we have love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Whoever does not love his brothers and sisters resides in death.” And then John writes this: “Everyone who hates his brother or his sister is a murderer.  And no murderer has eternal life in them.” Now if we want to claim that we are Bible believing Christians, then verses such as these should really give us pause. You see, so many Christians love to claim that they do indeed have eternal life in them because they have said the prayer and they have invited Jesus into their hearts. But such easy assurance is called into account by this teaching of John who is clear that if we have hate in our hearts then there can be no eternal life residing in us as well. 

         You can understand then why this issue of hatred is an important one for us to consider during this season we call Lent. You see, Lent is a forty day period before Easter when those who wished to be baptized on Easter would have time to consider just what they are entering into when they would be lowered into the water. Baptism is a symbolic action which represents our death to this world and then a raising to a new life in the world to come. So as John teaches us, the way that the church is aware that a person has properly understood their baptism, their passing from death into life, is that now they have an undeniable love for their brothers and sisters in Christ. Gone from the life of the baptized is this hatred for others. 

         Now when we talk about hatred we have to first, define just what we mean when we say we hate someone. The word, “hate”, is as over used as other terms we have looked at like, “love”, and, “good”. Most of the time when we say we hate something we usually mean that we dislike it, that we don’t much care for it. But when the Bible uses this word, “hate”, we discover that this word has become defined in ultimate terms. I mean if you took your dislike, or disdain of someone to its ultimate conclusion, then it is easier to understand why John makes the leap from hatred of someone to the charge of murder. In John’s defense though, all he was doing was retelling what Jesus had first taught to him. If we go to Matthew five, verse twenty-one, we find Jesus telling us, “You have heard it said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder and whoever murders is liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is merely angry with his brothers or sisters will be liable to judgment. And whoever would insult a brother or sister will be hauled before the tribunal; and whoever says to a brother of sister, “You fool!, will end up in eternal fire.” What Jesus is saying to us here is that we must keep our anger from hijacking our life. We must not allow our longing for retaliation for some hurt we have experienced to cause us to no longer hunger and thirst for righteousness, refusing to offer those who have hurt us mercy and forgiveness.

         So, Jesus expects those of us who are living the good life to first, be aware of our anger with other people. We must realize the severe danger we are in any time we lose our cool, and get into that fight or flight mode. In the third chapter of the first letter of John, John asks us to consider the example of Cain, son of Adam and Eve and brother to Able. It was Cain, as we might recall, who committed the first murder when he took and hit his brother, Able in the head with a rock. While this was a terrible tragedy, what makes this story even worse is that God had tried to intervene. If you read at the beginning of the fourth chapter of Genesis, you will find that Cain became angry when God refused his offering of grain and instead accepted the lamb sacrificed by Able.  God rejected Cain’s offering because he knew that Cain was offering the least amount possible because all he was trying to do  was to manipulate God into giving him a greater harvest. Able instead gave an the sacrifice of a whole sheep which represented the giving of his whole self to God. Well, God’s action upset the plans of Cain, and God could see the anger of Cain as it was written all over his face. So God calls out to Cain, saying, “Cain, why is your face so angry? If you learn how to give, if you instead do the right thing, won’t I accept you? Yet, if you refuse to change and do the right thing, then God tells Cain, sin crouches at your door like a ravenous lion ready to devour you. Sin desires to have you and consume you, but Cain you must rule over sin.” Here we have the first mention of sin in the scriptures, and so we are to know that this sin is something greater than merely allowing our lives to be guided by our base desires as Adam and Eve discovered when they ate the forbidden fruit.No, here sin is being defined as this overwhelming urge within Cain to channel his anger directly at the life of his brother Able in order that the life of Able might be destroyed. This anger welled up in Cain because God refused to be at his beck and call, and since he could not kill God then Cain would would destroy the one God had accepted.

         What the story of Cain and Able reveals to us is that anger wells up in us when we believe that life is found by taking by force whatever our heart desires. Cain believed, wrongly, that a greater harvest could be his if only he could force God to work for him. Able, on the other hand, rightly understood that life is found through the offering of ourselves fully to God as demonstrated by his offering of a lamb. The sin rising up within Cain was this urge to take life instead of being like God, having a desire to give life to all. Now, as great as this urge was welling up inside of Cain, God still knew that it did not have to take over complete control of Cain. The power of sin can be overcome by attacking it and putting it to death, something that we witness in real time at the cross. 

         You see, what must not be forgotten as we listen to Jesus tell us that the world will hate us, is that he is speaking to his disciples around the table where they have just heard that the bread which is broken is his body broken for them, and the cup is his blood poured out to give them life. Jesus will have his body be broken at the hands of the world because he has chosen to represent all those who have been judged worthy of condemnation by the world just as Cain first condemned Able. Through his being one the least of these, Jesus took upon himself the judgment of the world, the judgment based on the desires of the flesh, all the appetites, the lusts and the consuming desire for pride that fuel the world’s passion. There at the cross, the world judged the sinless Son of God not worthy of life, even though the very Law God had given to his people proved that Jesus had done absolutely nothing wrong, and was innocent of any sin. The death of Jesus witnesses to us that allowing our desires to lead us into sin is a life which must be put to death upon the cross.

         So through his unity with all the innocent victims that have been the target of sin, those whose blood has been shed like the blood of Able, Jesus has demonstrated how much evil flows out of our anger. This is why Paul instructs us that if we do become angry that we are not to allow this anger to lead us to sin, to blind us to the glory of God within every person. No, if we are angry we must not let the sun go down on our anger so that we do not give evil a foothold in our life. If someone has angered us, it is important that we go and speak the truth of our hurt to the one who has hurt us, because the cross is where all of us our confronted by the truth of our sin. Yet, even so, the cross does not merely witness to the truth of our sin but it also, in the very next breath, offers us mercy, the same chance given to Cain. Mercy allows our life to overcome our sin so that we can go and offer love and life instead of hatred and death. 

         You see, many in the world may never know of Jesus and his cross but make no mistake, where ever we are at, people will know if we are carrying our cross. When we like Jesus unite ourselves with those who suffer at the hands of those who live by their desires, our actions will speak to the love of God. How strange this must be to those who live in the world by their desires because theirs is a life that is had by taking what they need by force. So they might wonder, if there is a God, shouldn’t his greatness also be found in his ability to take, so that through his power we might be able to take ever more for ourselves. After all, is not this a world of the haves and the have not’s? But just what is this message of the cross? If here is the very Son of God, then he is definitely one with the have-nots as he died as one who did not even have a grave to be buried in. Jesus is clearly shouting from the cross that life is found not by taking hold of as much as you can but rather life is found by giving everything you’ve got so that all might know of that they too are worthy of life and mercy. This is the life which Jesus has chosen us to represent, a life shaped by the cross, therefore as Jesus tells us, the world hates us. Jesus goes on to tell us that this hatred and persecution at the hands of the world is because that we have aligned ourselves with the God the world does not know. Now if we think about what Jesus tells us here we will figure out that the god the world knows and believes in is a god who demonstrates their power through the giving of material wealth and abundance to those he calls his own. This means that one’s circumstances will be an indicator of a person’s relationship with God. The richer and more well off we are will be considered a sign to those in the world that, yes, there is a god and he has dealt richly with us. So how difficult it must be to discover that, yes, there is a God in the world but this God refuses to be known through the circumstances of a person’s life. No, our God is known by the promises he makes with us. God is known by us whenever we seek to be righteous through our giving to those who are less fortunate than ourselves. Instead of not having enough for ourselves we find surprisingly enough we have more than enough and are quite satisfied. And we know that when we are merciful we can expect that we will receive mercy from God. So, this love of God, so true and perfect, throws out any fear we might have of judgment day. Likewise, when we keep our heart cleansed from the world’s influence and we refuse to desire the death of anyone, we can have the assurance that our God will one day honor us for our service to him. To the world, such promises are not at all what they are searching for. To them these promises of God  have no impact on their search for their never satisfied appetites, their longing for what has caught their eye nor do these promises do anything to help their standing in their community. This makes their hatred of Jesus and our Heavenly Father more understandable yet as Jesus said, quoting sixty-ninth Psalm, the world hates him without any cause. What this means is that there is no good reason for anyone to hate God for God is their very creator, the one who sustains and saves their life. It just does not make any sense to hate the one who is the very source of our life and yet, even still, those in the world are angry at God for the God they want is not the God who is.

         So, we praise Jesus for he has told us, in advance, that when we decide to take up our cross, following Christ in his death, joining him in serving the suffering of this world, and when we also join him in his life, this life of mercy, then the response of the world will be hatred. Again, I am surprised, that there are so many Christians who are shocked when people in the world treat them with contempt. Yet, as Jesus clearly teaches us, if they hated him then the world will hate those who follow him in carrying their cross. Now, despite all of this negativity, there is also a positive hope given to us when we face the wrath of the world. Jesus reminds us that we have been given the wondrous gift of the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of truth. So we must wonder just what is this truth that the Spirit gives to us? The answer is that the Spirit gives to us the truth that we are indeed a beloved child of God. We have a Father who promises us that our obedience to him assures us that one day the whole world will be our inheritance. You see, those who are in the world try and take by force all they feel will give them the life they believe they deserve.But when we are a child of God, such a life the world takes by force is instead given to us by God in the life to come. You see, people in the world store up their worldly treasures to live a life here without a care only to find that all that they have accumulated in this life cannot be theirs in the world to come. This is what Jesus desperately wants the people of this world to understand. This is why in the sixth chapter of Luke, Jesus says, “Woe to those of you who are rich for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now for you shall mourn and weep. And woe to you when all people speak well of you for so did your fathers speak well of the false prophets.” Jesus here speaks directly against living a life totally consumed with being just a consumer and we should be thankful for the warning. We should take what Jesus says to heart and consider if we are merely living to have the best life now, or if we are living for the life to come, the eternal life that is ours through obedience to our Heavenly Father. This good life is ours when we join in the sufferings of the least of these, when we offer mercy to all, and when we do everything so that God is honored above all else. This life to come is far too great of a gift for us to give up just so we can maintain the right to hate on someone. So let the world hate, their time is momentary. Our experience will be that we will be loved by our Heavenly Father for all eternity. God be praised! 

 

Good Expectations: Confronted, Corrected, Cleansed and Committed

 March 15 2026

John 15:1-17

         I always find it interesting how I can go for great lengths of time and never even think about something from my past and then within a month I am reminded over and over of that earlier time. It has been eight years since I participated in Kairos Prison ministry yet just recently I have had three occasions to talk to people about that experience.Well, as I recall those times, I remember that just being involved with the group of men who participated in Kairos ministry was in and of itself a tremendous blessing. Those who kept coming back again and again to take the gospel into Belmont correctional were some very special people who helped me grow immensely in my walk with Christ. As I considered today’s scripture, the Lord put on my heart a special conversation I had with one of those men who served on the Kairos team. It happened on the morning before we were getting ready to head out to Belmont from our lodgings at a camp. We had just finished breakfast, and as we were getting cleaned up, my friend Wally pulled me aside and asked if he could speak to me privately. Of course, I was curious just what he need to talk to me about, so we went and found a quiet corner to talk together. Wally is a loyal follower of Christ, so I knew that whatever he had to say that it would be something that would at least be God-honoring. Yet, even so, I was not quite prepared for him to confront me about something I had done that had slighted him, and he felt that I should be aware of what I had done. It seems that while the team ate breakfast and we talked together while we ate, I had talked over Wally, completely cutting him off, so that what he had to say did not get heard. Ouch! Now, you see, Wally knew that Jesus had given us instructions about what we are to do in such a situation, something that I believe might surprise most Christians. You see, in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew, we are told that if we have something against someone, like, say they ran rough shot over the conversation we were trying to have, then the one who is hurt is to go and confront the person who harmed them so that the hurt and the subsequent anger could be dealt with before it got out of hand. As painful as it was to be confronted about my lack of social skills, what Wally did for me was in fact a gift. You see, by confronting me about my transgression, and then offering me forgiveness, Wally was giving me a chance to correct an area of my life that was in need of work. 

         As I thought about what Wally had done for me, I also became aware that he had done  this difficult work of confronting me, not just for me but more importantly for the work of our Kairos team. You see, when we went into Belmont, it was important for us to witness to the difference that Christ makes in our lives. If we were not intentional about our love for each other then it would be quite difficult for the inmates to believe our intention to love them as well. You see, what Wally did for me was an act of love, to confront me so that I could be corrected in my actions not just toward him but everyone. When we hear in our scripture from the fifteenth chapter of the gospel of John, the command of Jesus is that we love each other in the same manner as Jesus has first loved us. Now, in the context of the last supper the disciples would have with Jesus, the love Jesus is speaking about is the love he demonstrated when he went to the cross, so that his body could be broken and his blood shed for us. This love that Jesus showed to us upon the cross is a love just like the love shown to me by Wally, a love that both confronts and corrects us so that we might be able to love with the cross shaped love of Jesus.

         Now it should come as no surprise that we would find ourselves at the foot of the cross because the cross is the very focus of this season of the church calendar which is called Lent. Lent is the forty day period before the arrival of Easter which begins on Ash Wednesday. These forty days are reminiscent of the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness being tested before he begins his ministry. So, the church set this time aside so that those who desire to be baptized on Easter might have a time to be tested before they begin their ministry. 

         What we are using to guide us through this Lenten season are the conversations Jesus had with his disciples on that last night with them before he was glorified there upon the cross. John, in his gospel account, has recorded for us a very different account of that evening because what his concern was was that when people consumed the elements they may not realize that they are to lead us to the cross where Jesus died. As we eat the bread, we are to pause and wonder, just why was the body of Jesus broken? What Jesus tells us in the thirteenth chapter of John is that the body of Jesus was broken because Jesus has forever united himself with the broken and crushed people of this world. This is the way that Jesus serves every person, by representing them when the world judges them to be less than human. This judgment occurs because the world is driven by our appetites, our lusts and our pride. So when we encounter people who are of no help with our purposes, when we experience people who give us no pleasure, or when people are of no use in the fulfilling of our plans, then it becomes easy for us to simply write them off. We limit our love to only those who will return our love shown to them. How easy it is to justify not showing love to others and then place the blame for our not loving them on there being something about them which causes us to withdraw our love. Our excuse for limiting our love is actually that we have judged some people to be simply not worth our time or effort. 

         Well, what great comfort it is to us to discover that Jesus has forever united himself with those judged by the world to be the least of these, those people that are so easily cast aside. It is these who the world writes off that Jesus finds worthy to be written into his story. Jesus came as a servant, and he serves us by uniting himself with all who have ever felt the judgment of the world, those who have been treated as being somehow not-quite human. Jesus calls those who follow him to join him in becoming united with those who the world has no use for, to serve them, because when we do so we will find that we have also served Jesus. Jesus looks at all the despised, unwanted, uncared, people of this world and he honors them by telling them that they are equal in status to him. This is why Jesus can say at the end of the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew that when we have shown any love to the least of these that we have, at the very same moment, shown love to Jesus. So the way we are cleansed from the pollution of this world is that we serve as Jesus first served us, by uniting ourselves with all those the world has no use for.

         Now when we unite ourselves with the least of these, then we have united ourselves with Jesus. This means, as Jesus explains in the fourteenth chapter of John, that the home he shares with the Heavenly Father, is now our home as well. The Holy Spirit, the God who walks along side of us, is given to us so that we might experience the life and love of heaven right here on earth. Through the power given to us through the Spirit we are able to live as those worthy to inherit the world. We at last able to love without limits because the Spirit, who is given to us without measure, pours into our hearts the very agape love of heaven. So when we drink the cup, the life of Jesus poured out for us, we remember the Spirit who has been given to us to be our source of life and love. As Paul teaches us at the beginning of the twelfth chapter of Romans, by the mercy we receive from God we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice for this is our logical worship, which keeps us from being conformed to the world. 

         Today, then we come to the fifteenth chapter of John. Here we must not forget that Jesus and the disciples are still at the table. They have eaten the bread and they have drunk from the cup. Through doing so, the disciples were to remember that in order for them to live the good life, the very goodness of God, they were to adhere to the teachings of Jesus which told them good was when they hungered and thirsted for righteousness. Righteousness is when all people are known as being equals, and this is possible because Jesus on the cross has made himself equal with all those who have found themselves judged unfairly by the world. And to do good also means that we are to be always willing to offer mercy for our God always offers us mercy, a mercy heard at the cross in the words of Jesus, who cried from the cross, “Father forgive them for they no not what they do.”. This is why we know that horrible day as being for us, “Good Friday”. 

Well, today, Jesus speaks to us about how we are to bear fruit. Now, this should not surprise us because, as we learned in the first chapter of Genesis, after God blesses us humans then the expectation is that we would be fruitful and multiply. As we also learned in Genesis, bearing fruit is when life brings forth more life. So this says to us that from us is to flow a life giving stream. Jesus begins his illustration of the vine by stating that he is the true vine, the true way of life that the Father has always expected. Now just so it is abundantly clear, Jesus straight up tells us that if we are united with him, and this union with him does not produce good in us, then we can no longer think of ourselves as being one with Christ. We should take this as a very sober warning. In response, we should desire to know how can we remain united with Christ, the one who calls us his equal. What Jesus tells us is that we must bear fruit and when we bear fruit we can expect that God will prune us, or better, God will cleanse us in order that we will bear more fruit. Jesus then tells his disciples that they are already clean because of the word he spoke to them. This is a reference to what Jesus had done earlier in the evening when he washed the disciples feet. As Jesus came to serve us, so too we who have been served by Jesus are to serve those who need our service. We are to remember that Jesus served us by allowing his body to be broken. So the way Jesus cleansed us is first by uniting himself with us when we have been judged by the world, condemned by others to be something less than the humans who judge us. 

         The pruning, or cleansing that our Father does to us though, this is something different than what we have already learned. You see, the truth is that, yes, we have been judged by the world, but if we are honest, we too have been the one pointing the finger at someone else, judging someone else as being something less than human. All of us, as Paul teaches us in the third chapter of Romans, have fallen short of the glory of God. We fall from glory anytime we fail to see the glory of God in someone else. We all are guilty of doing this because all of us begin as people driven by our desires, chasing after the fulfillment of our appetites, seeking to obtain what we lust after, and doing whatever is necessary to increase our pride. In doing so, we have left behind people who have not suited our purposes, we dismiss those who bring no pleasure into our life, and we have no use for those who did not fit into our plans. You see, Jesus knew all of those people that were left hurting in our wake, whether we were aware of doing so or not. In being the sinless Lamb of God, Jesus is the one who represents all of the victims of everyone’s evil judgments. So when we come before the cross, we are confronted by our sin, for Jesus is every person who has suffered because of how we judged them. So, while we have great comfort because Jesus unites himself with us when we find ourselves judged unfairly by the world, now when we admit to being one of those who are guilty of wrongly judging others, the broken body of Jesus confronts us about our sin. Just as my friend, Wally, confronted me about the harm I had done to him, so too the broken body of Jesus confronts us about the harm done to him anytime we judge someone else in a hurtful manner. We witness this confrontation in the ninth chapter of the book of Acts, where Saul is confronted by Jesus as he walked on the road to Damascus. Jesus asked Saul, “Saul, Saul why do you persecute me?” When asked whose voice this was who was speaking to him, Jesus replied, “I am Jesus who you are persecuting.” Can you imagine the shock when Paul realized that Jesus, the righteous Judge had united himself with those Paul had harmed. Imagine the terror that came over Paul when he at last understood that his sin was a direct affront to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And so it should with us as well, for every time we have harmed another we certainly have done the very same act against the one called Jesus. 

         So, as we eat the body of Jesus which has been broken for us, we are to be confronted about how we are treating others. We are to not make excuses, putting the blame for our failure to love without limits upon those we have harmed. A lack of love on our part is never due to someone’s lack of love toward us; no, the reason for our resistance to loving others lies solely with us. So the broken body of Christ confronts us so that we can confess that we have sinned when we have chosen to limit the reach of our love. Yet, there is more than our just being confronted with our sin because not only has the body been broken but the blood of Christ has been shed. The blood is necessary for our forgiveness. So, even though when confronted with our sin, nevertheless, we are assured of our forgiveness because of the blood. This forgiveness is given to us so that we might correct our transgressions. We are to know that when confronted about our sin we always have the opportunity to correct our course, and turn and come back to Jesus.We come back to Jesus for we know that only as we abide in him, can his life and his love become our own. So through our reliance on Jesus, abiding in him, and then allowing his words, to live in us, we are at last able to bear much fruit. The word that is to live in us is the good Jesus expects from us. Jesus expects that we be those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and those who offer mercy to all just as Jesus first has done for us. 

         Yet, we are still not ready to bear fruit because not only must Christ upon the cross confront us out our sin so that we can confess that sin, and not only must we correct our course but now we hear Jesus call out to us to take up our cross and follow him. Jesus calls us to be his disciples, those who copy him and love through taking upon ourselves our cross. We are to love just as Jesus loved us, allowing our bodies to be broken by the brokenness of the people of this world. As Paul tells us in the fourth chapter of Second Corinthians, we are to carry in our bodies the death of Jesus, uniting ourselves with the suffering of this world, so that others might see in us the life of Jesus. The life of Jesus is mercy. So as we show mercy to the suffering by joining in their suffering, and by showing mercy to those who wrongly judge us unworthy, we prove our commitment to living a new way of life. The result is fruit and more fruit, life and more life. In this way we do the good which glorifies our Heavenly Father, now and forever. Amen!

         

         

         

Good Expectations: A Life Poured Out

 March 8 2026

John 14

         One of the more annoying aspects of our modern life is having an e-mail account. I mean, most of what comes through on my account is nothing that I am at all interested. It seems that I spend more time unsubscribing to stuff I never even asked for in the first place. Well, one of those daily e-mails that I decided to keep, is an e-mail that gives me a word of the day. Now, I thought I had a pretty large vocabulary, but every day I find I am learning words that I never knew existed. What has also happened since learning all these new words, is that I have become aware that there still more words that I feel our language is in need of. I came to this conclusion after we had been out driving one evening in the snow. Can we all acknowledge that driving home with the snow blowing right at the windshield, the road hidden somewhere under all of the icy mess with no edge lines in sight, that this is one of the most stressful experiences, bar none? Yet, this is not the situation that demands its own word. No, I want a word for the feeling that comes over you as you finally pull in the garage, and you enter your home and when you at last are sitting your own couch, safe and warm at last, and you slowly exhale as all of the tension begins to leave your body. I so want there to come across my e-mail, a word which carries the full weight of that experience. Just what do you call it when every fiber of your being realizes that the stress and danger are behind, and you fully relax because you have at last made it safely home?

         Well, perhaps such an experience is just too wonderful for us to put into a single word, even if the need for one seems so apparent. I mean, if we did have such a word which could describe the warmth and joy that floods over you as you open the door to home after a perilous trip to get there, I believe that John would have used that word here at the beginning of the fourteenth chapter of his gospel. When Jesus tells his students that they were not to be troubled, the way that he eases their hearts is by speaking to them of finally making it home to our Father’s house. Jesus is here calling his friends to remember the wonderful future that lay ahead of them. They were to allow this most glorious of experiences, this arriving safely home after a perilous journey, to be central in their hearts and minds. You see, when we decide to follow Jesus in doing good we can expect that we will experience a peace beyond our comprehension, the peace of home where the tensions of life in the world disappear forever.

         Well, we are considering this peace as we are going through this season of the church year called Lent. Lent is a time when we remember that it is the cross which leads us home. So in these messages, called Good Expectations, we are figuring out the connection between the cross and God’s desire for us to be good people. You see, Jesus has come from the Father to be for us the living word of judgment who decides and defines what exactly it means to live the good life. This good life is found in the very first teachings of Jesus, as recorded in the fifth chapter of Matthew.There we hear of the blessings of God. It is the middle of these blessings, verses six through eight in the fifth chapter of Matthew, which give us the clearest teaching on the goodness of God. To be good according to our good God means that we are people who hunger and thirst for righteousness, that we are known as being givers of mercy and we are people who live solely for the honor given to us by God. Now it is these three blessings which counter the three criteria used by the people of the world to make their life decisions. As found in the second chapter of First John, these three are, the desires of the flesh which constitute our appetites, the desires of our eyes which correspond to a person’s lusts and longings, and the pride a person has in their possessions. Following one’s appetites, lusts, and pride is the very source of the evil of our world. This evil is to be countered by the very goodness of heaven found living in us here on earth. This is a goodness which comes to life in us when we hear and obey the blessings of God

         So during this season of Lent, we are preparing ourselves, once again, to travel with Jesus to Calvary, to look again at the cross, and say with confidence that what Jesus has done for us is indeed, good. Our assurance that the cross is indeed good is found by what occurred on that Thursday evening before the crucifixion of Jesus. On that evening Jesus spoke of loving his own all the way to the end, all the way to the cross. And just as Jesus first loved us, with this strange, cross-shaped love, we too are called to follow him. 

So what Jesus is doing on that Thursday evening of Holy Week, is teaching his disciples how to love as he first loved them. As we read of this story in the thirteenth chapter of John, Jesus saturates this holy evening with the overwhelming love of heaven. Jesus, we are told, loves these who were his own all the way to the end, to the cross and beyond. This is a subtle nod to what makes this special love of God called agape, so very different from any love ever experienced here on earth. You see, agape love is a love given to us without measure, an endless outpouring of goodwill toward those who experience such love. It is this reckless love given with total abandon, this is how Jesus loved those he called his own, even Judas who would sell Jesus out for thirty pieces of silver. You see, agape love is a freely given love that has no expectations on those to whom this love is shown. It is this agape love, as witnessed on that fateful evening,  which finds expression through giving ourselves in service to others.

         Well, this endless well of agape love within Jesus compelled him to rise from the table, in order to serve the disciples he is eating with. Now even though John does not record the communion meal shared that evening, we should make no mistake John expects that we will know that the bread has indeed been broken and the cup has also been shared. What John is concerned about though is not so much the meal itself but rather John wants us to know the meaning behind the mystery of the elements. So as we watch Jesus wash the disciples feet, make no doubt that this action does indeed point us to the cross. John echoes the truth found in the second chapter of Philippians, where Paul tells us that Jesus set aside his glory in heaven, to be born a servant, the one who serves each one of us when he is broken upon the cross. This is what we are to remember as Jesus states that the bread is broken, that this is his very body broken. What John wants us to know is that this act of Jesus, this allowing his body to be broken, this is the act which is very much like the washing of the feet of the disciples, for this brokenness is the very means by which the pollution of the will be cleansed from their hearts.

         You see, our world is polluted by all of the lives in the world who are controlled by their desires. Our world is dominated by people who are consumed by their appetites, people chasing after the lusts of their eyes and those who take great pride in their possessions. It is these desires of the flesh which become the very criteria that is used to judge others. When someone is encountered who proves to be of no help to satisfy one’s appetites, or if someone no longer gives someone  any pleasure or if perhaps, one does not contribute to an increase in a person’s status before others, then it is far too easy simply to write such people off as being of no use to them. These people who end up being found to be of no use are the ones who Jesus calls, “the least of these”, in his famous parable of the sheep and the goats found in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew. The least-of-these are those who have been found to be not worthy of being loved solely because they have been found to be of no use in bringing satisfaction to the cravings of people driven by their desires.So they easily become judged as those who are less-than human. When people are held to this standard then it is easy for people to treat these less-than humans with contempt, seeing them as not worthy to be given even the basics for life.

         This judgmental attitude towards others, this is the pollution, the dirt, that clings to us as we work and live in a world dominated by the desires of the flesh. So, we are right to wonder just how Jesus will cleanse such behavior from us? The answer is found in what Jesus says about the bread, that the bread represents his body, a body which is broken for all people. Jesus is broken because he has forever united himself with the broken and hurting of this world, so that their brokenness leads him to be broken on the cross. The reason for this is as we learn in Isaiah, the fifty seventh chapter, that our God resides in the highest heaven and also with the lowly and the broken. These who have been crushed by the world, these are the ones Jesus judges as being worthy of his service. You see, Jesus does to these hurting and suffering people exactly what he would want done to himself, offering them life, for this is the very definition of righteousness. In doing so, Jesus has forever judged every broken and crushed person to be equal to him. This declaring by Jesus that we, the broken, are indeed equal to him, this is the way Jesus serves us, the service which cleanses us from judging others according to their use in our pursuit of our fleshly desires. Now, every hurting person we meet must be seen by us to be Jesus, the one who first served us on the cross. As we serve Jesus who is seen in the faces of all the hurting people of this world then as Paul tells us, in the eighth chapter of Romans, this sin of the flesh has been condemned, no longer living in us.

         So when we know that each of us has been called an equal to Jesus by Jesus himself when he was broken upon the cross, then when we next hear about a home that Jesus is going to go and prepare for us, it begins to make much more sense. You see, if we have been judged by Jesus to be his equal according to the flesh, then it must be also true that we are equal with Jesus according to the Spirit. The Spirit is our God who draws near to us in order that he might bring to us to the very life and love of heaven. This life that is ours through the Spirit is as Jesus tells us, marked by an overwhelming sense of peace, that same sense of when we safely arrive at home after a difficult journey. This life of peace which is experienced in the very midst of the worst this world has to offer, is solely ours because Jesus who is our equal in our brokenness, now desires that we would be equal with him in his wholeness.

         So Jesus, here in the fourteenth chapter of John, is assuring us that he has judged us worthy to live with him forever in his Father’s house. We are to understand that being at home with the Father is just like being there with Jesus around the communion table. The way we become certain in our knowledge of just who our Father is, Jesus tells us, is through the doing the work he desires us to do.  Jesus tells us in the tenth verse of the fourteenth chapter of John that it is the Father who abides with Jesus at all times, and it is the Father who empowers Jesus to do the works he is able to accomplish. Jesus goes on to say that we are to believe that Jesus and his Heavenly Father are in constant unity, and if we have any doubt, then Jesus tells us to consider the works that Jesus has done through the Father who abides with him. Now what is even more incredible is that Jesus here, assures us that the works that he does are the very works we too will be able to do. And if that were not enough,  Jesus goes further, telling us that we will even do greater works than he did when he walked this earth. 

Now, we are right to wonder, just what are these works that Jesus claims we should be able to do? Well, if you are familiar with the gospel of John, you will know that Jesus speaks of working with his Heavenly Father in the fifth chapter of his gospel account. There, beginning at the nineteenth verse, Jesus tells us us that he does nothing of his own accord but he only does what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. And then further Jesus adds, that as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. Are you beginning to understand the work Jesus is calling us to be doing now that we have been declared equal with him according to the Spirit? The works we are to do now that the Father lives with us through the Spirit is that we are to be life-giving people. So, when we realize that by being broken for the broken people Jesus has made himself equals with them, now we discover that Jesus, in working with his Heavenly Father, is giving these same people who once despaired of life are now given the hope of new life through the Spirit. This new life expected of us is that we will be those who go and do the very same life-giving work Jesus did while here on earth. Now all those who have been given this new life are to roll up our sleeves and get busy working with our Heavenly Father in bringing life to those who need life. So the very people that the world had so easily written off and condemned, are now the very people who are found to have this amazing privilege of joining their Heavenly Father in bringing life to the world. 

Now, it seems appropriate that Jesus would be giving his disciples teachings concerning the new work that he has for them, work that can be only described as good.The disciples now have begun to hunger and thirst for righteousness because they have realized that through serving the suffering, hurting people they will be, in fact, serving Jesus, the one who had first served them by becoming broken on the cross. Yet, on that same night they also discovered that doing good also means that they had to offer mercy and life as God has always been continually merciful to them. Through this offering of mercy and life, we find that we are able to come against the temptation found in desiring what we behold with our eyes. So instead of us letting our eyes lust after worldly pleasures, Jesus is saying that we are to take pleasure in bring life o the world. We are to use our eyes to see where our Heavenly Father is working and then, we must go and work with him in bringing life to the world just as Jesus did while here on earth. When we know the good God expects from us, that we are to work with our Heavenly Father in being life-giving people, then it makes sense that we will need the Spirit to connect us to that ever-flowing stream of life flowing from our Father’s house. The Spirit is our Helper, the one who speaks to us the truth of who we are that we are. We are no longer orphans. No, we are very much, the sons of the Heavenly Father who get up and go to work with him every day, bringing life to the broken and crushed people of this world. And through the Spirit, as Paul explains in the fifth chapter of Romans, the agape love of heaven overflows in our hearts. It is this love, this perfect love shown to us by Jesus upon the cross, this is what removes all fear from our hearts because fear has to do judgment. So when we know that we are children of the Father, children with a certain home waiting for us, then we can be certain that we no longer face any judgment against us. So through his body broken, Jesus has taken away the judgment of the world, and through the shedding of his blood, Jesus has removed the judgment of God. The result of finding ourselves in the absence of judgment is that we now have an abiding peace found in our Father’s house.. Praise God always for this wonderful gift. Amen!

                           

         

Good Expectations: A Body Broken

 March 1 2026

John 13:1-20

         While we are somewhat late, nevertheless, we have entered into a new season of our church calendar which we call Lent. This name, “Lent” is simply the name given to this time of the year when the days increase in length, or in the Old English, lent. You see, it is in the spring of the year that the Jewish holy day of Passover is celebrated. This impacts us as followers of Jesus because it is on Passover that we celebrate what the church calls Maunday Thursday, the day when the meal called of Holy Communion was initiated and the commandment to love one another as Jesus first loved us was given to us.   

Now Lent begins every year, forty days before Easter Sunday. This time was set aside for those who desired to be baptized on Easter morning in order that those doing so might have a time to prepare themselves for this confession. The reason why forty days was chosen is most likely because that forty days was the number of days that Jesus spent in the wilderness before beginning his ministry, as we read in the fourth chapter of both Matthew and Lukes gospel accounts. During those forty days, Jesus fasted and he was tested by the evil one. So this time of Lent is a time when people often fast as they align themselves with the testing of Jesus. This test Jesus underwent centered on his love of his Father, whether Jesus was indeed able to love him with all of his heart, and all of his soul and with the life he had been given. So here at the beginning of Lent, we are given time to ponder if we too love our heavenly Father just as Jesus has always loved him. This love is what compels us to walk towards Calvary to face the cross. Once again, we are called to consider just why it is that such an awful day is known by the church as being, “Good Friday”. Perhaps you are like me in that it is difficult to comprehend how a dying man nailed to a cross could ever be called good. 

So during this season of Lent, we must turn our faces toward the cross. We must be certain as to why the cross does indeed speak to us of the goodness of God.  You see, Lent merely follows on with what we discovered during the season Epiphany.  During the season of Epiphany we learned that Jesus came to us as the righteous judge, the one who not only came to speak to us a word of judgment but he lived out that judgment as well. Now, when we think of judgment, we don’t always associate it with being good. Yet, this is the very reason why Jesus came as our judge so that we could at last know what good really is. Jesus teaches us that we can know this goodness of God through our experience of being obedient to his commands. You see, in the blessing Jesus spoke to his disciples, we find there the expectations Jesus has for this good life that we were created to live. In the fifth chapter of Matthew, in the sixth, seventh and eighth verses, Jesus defines clearly, his idea of the good life. Jesus tells us that the good life looks like people who hunger and thirst for righteousness. The good life is people who make their life a constant offering of mercy. And the good life, Jesus tells us, is people who seek only the honor of God refusing to be concerned about the opinion of others. So here, in this the very, simple, three-dimensional sketch Jesus lays out for us just what it means for us to be the good people that God expects.

Now when we hear this definition of the good life given to us by Jesus, we probably are thinking that this isn’t at all how we define what a good life looks like. The reason for this is that before the righteous judge named Jesus was given to us by the Father, we never had a clear definition of what it meant for us to be good, other than for us to say that God alone is good. Yet, if God has created us to bear his image and likeness then we can also assume that God is going to make it possible for us to be and do good, just as he is good. So it makes sense that if we are to be good people then the only one who can define for us just what it means for us to be good is God alone. Only as we listen to God can we have any hope that his way of being good will become our way of being good. Now this seems all well and good, doesn’t it, until we realize that the Bible tells us that all of humanity has stopped listening to God. What the third chapter of Genesis explains to us is that all of us have all accepted the lie that we are nothing more than very intelligent animals, the apex predator in our world. This means that instead of listening to the voice of God, as we were created to do, we instead, listen to the voice of our creaturely desires. As we hear in the second chapter of the first letter of John, what guides us as people who live in this world is, first our appetites, the, “…desires of the flesh”. Or we chase after the, …desires of the eyes”, the inner lusts that cause us to covet what we don’t have. Or we listen to the voice that speaks to us of how we can have this, “…the pride of life”, the honor and respect we crave from our peers. When we listen to these inner voices the result can only be evil. This is why Jesus states that we currently live in an evil age because in this world people are all being guided by their base instincts which can only result in evil. So before the arrival of Jesus, when someone was called good, their goodness was defined by how well that person was at being able to constrain themselves from doing evil. You know, if we consider someone to be a good person, what we mean is that they appear to have their appetites under control, they aren’t spending every waking hour chasing after what their eyes catch sight of, nor do they boast or brag excessively. Now this is just what most of us consider to be the definition of good yet in reality, it is merely, good-enough. You see, just walking around keeping a lid on our desires is something we should agree is not really all that good. 

So when Jesus arrived on the scene as the righteous judge, the first lesson he gave as our teacher was that the goodness of God comes to us through the blessing of God. We are blessed when God gives us the precious gift of his word. This word of blessing found at the beginning of the fifth chapter of Matthew, speaks to us of the promise of God, the goodness of God and the life of God. So where we used to consider good to be the least amount of evil as possible, now Jesus, as the Son of God, has come to us to a give us a heavenly definition of good, so that this goodness of heaven might be for us an earthly experience. Good, Jesus teaches us, is a life which hungers and thirsts for righteousness, a life that offers mercy to all and good is the life which seeks only after the honor of God. You see, instead of being just good enough we now can be good, a good which brings glory to the God who is the very definition of good. 

So during this season of Lent, we are going to consider just what might we expect when we decide to take Jesus up on his offer to be good, not just good enough.Today, we are going to look at what it would mean for us to turn from our life being just about satisfying the appetite of our flesh, to having a life which  hungers and thirsts for righteousness. So here, on this most holy of nights, Jesus is preparing his students to become like him so that they too might have lives marked by a heavenly goodness. The power that begins this transformation in the lives of the disciples is love. Here, once again, we find ourselves in need of defining just what do we mean when we speak of love. Much like in the case of talking about what does it mean to be good, the world overuses this word called love. Fortunately for us, this problem of defining this love of Jesus was also a struggle for those who spoke the Greek language even though they had many different names for love. Yet, in spite of having names for all these different experiences of love, the love of Jesus simply did not fit into any of their preconceived categories. The followers of Jesus had to find a new word and fill that word with a meaning which might capture the unusual quality of this heavenly love. The word they used for the love of Jesus is agape/agapaos. This word speaks of being excessive, over-the-top, overflowing, without measure which is the very wonder of this love God has for all of us. 

So this special agape love of Jesus permeates the upper room where Jesus and his disciples gathered on the night of Passover. We sense the limitless nature of this love when we are told that Jesus loved his own all the way to the end. So this love of Jesus reaches from the very beginning, from the moment of creation, all the way to the end of time. This same love was able to reach from the heights of heaven all the way to the dusty floor upon which Jesus knelt. This is the love that  encircled our earth in order to save it from destruction. It is this wildly excessive love, this is the love that was on display that holy night. You see, agape love, is a love that flows forth from us, having no concern to whom it is given to. So this love is a love which sets others free from any expectations or presumptions. You see, agape love never makes any demands for a response. This means that the person who experiences such love is able to experience real feelings, never having to be on the defensive. Agape love simply accepts us as we are right there in the moment. This is a love so focused on the other person that their interests and needs are naturally placed above our own.

This agape love is the love on display as Jesus does the most remarkable act because we are told that Jesus got up from his place at the table and he laid aside his outer garments, and he took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then Jesus poured water into a basin and he began to wash the disciples feet, and to dry them with the towel wrapped around his waist. Now, it goes without saying that this is a moment of great mystery for there is something more important than the need for clean feet happening here. I believe that John has crafted his story in such a way that here in this image of Jesus washing feet, John has captured the work of Jesus upon the cross. You see, just as Jesus got up from his seat at the table, so too Jesus got up from his throne in heaven. And just as Jesus laid aside his garments, so too the Son of God set aside his glory in order to come to earth to serve us. Then as Jesus took upon himself the towel, we see Jesus take the form of a servant just as he did when he was born as one of us. So when Jesus poured the water in the basin in order to cleanse the feet of his disciples, we are reminded of how Jesus poured out his blood to cleanse us all from sin. Then Jesus finishes up and, once again, Jesus takes his seat at the table reminiscent of how he is now seated at the right hand of the Father. So, even though we see Jesus washing the disciples feet, he is, nonetheless, pointing us to the greater reality of the cross. John has done so in order that we might understand that there at the cross we are given the very means by which we might be cleansed from the pollution of the world. 

So it becomes somewhat evident that John, in the telling of the washing of the feet, is here giving us an extra layer of meaning that lay behind the receiving of the elements of the supper which the disciples ate that special evening. It seems that the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup are still part of the story, but they have just been pushed to the background so that the truth they convey to us might be front and center. What Jesus did when he he washed the feet of his disciples is to make it abundantly clear that he has come to serve us as a servant sent from our Heavenly Father. It is Peter who speaks for us all when he protests this image of Jesus, the very holy one of God seen groveling in the dirt. Peter, like many of us, believes that he does not stand in need of anyone to come from heaven to cleanse him from the stain of this world. You see, Peter is much like us, because he too believes that he is good-enough yet as Jesus tells Peter, if we want to have a life with him, then being merely good-enough just won’t  cut it. If we want to be good, as Jesus is good, then we must allow Jesus to be our servant who serves every person there upon the cross.

What Jesus does for us upon the cross is that that he offered his body to be broken. This is what is heard as the bread is given to us. We are right to wonder just why it is that Jesus has allowed himself to be broken as an act of agape love? Well, the answer is found at the end of the fifty-seventh chapter of Isaiah. “Thus says the One who is is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is broken and of a lowly spirit, to give life to the spirit of the lowly, to give life to the heart of the broken.” You see, the agape love of God reaches down from the heights of heaven to the very lowest places on earth to lift the broken up from death in order to bring them back to life. This scripture also causes us to wonder why it is that there are people who have been cast off, found there in the lowest of places? The answer is that these broken people trampled down in the dirt, are the very result of a world where life is controlled by the appetites of one’s flesh, the lusts of a person’s eyes and this incessant need of people to be honored and esteemed by others. You see, the people who do not aid our purpose of finding satisfaction for our appetites, those who do not give us pleasure or those who do not further our plans for greatness, these sorts of people are easy for us to write off. Those judged to be of no use to us can easily become what Jesus calls the, “least of these”, in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew. Another way of describing these would be to call them, “less-than-human”. When people are judged to be less-than humans, then it is easy to deny them the very basics of life such as food and shelter. Instead of the unlimited love of God, what we find is a love limited by by our predetermined usefulness of the people we meet.  Such is the pollution of the world. 

Jesus, in contrast, allows his body to be broken and this he does so for each and every person. Jesus unites himself with those who have been written off by the people of the world so that their suffering might become his own. Jesus does so because righteousness demands that Jesus do unto others as he would want done to him. So, Jesus, by being broken for us, is saying to us us that he has judged us to be equal with him. Not only that, but every person is now to be seen as one who has been judged by Jesus to be his equal. So no longer can it be said that anyone is, “less-than-human, for all people are found by Jesus to be his equal.Therefore, now that Jesus has declared that all of us are equals we too must find all people worthy of our service just as Jesus has found us worthy of suffering with us in our brokenness.  

You see, righteousness is living in the world where all are equals. So when we see the broken and lowly of this world, we must not forget that the cross declares that Jesus calls them, as well as us, his equal. You see, when we hear the words, “The body of Jesus broken for you”, we are to remember that just as Jesus was willing to give his life to serve the lowly, beholding in their face his very own, so too he demands that we rise up and follow him. This is what is expected when we are good as Jesus is good. We too are to love with agape love, this love without limits. We are to go down to the lowest of places, to the broken and cast off. There in their faces we are to see the very face of Jesus. This is why we hunger and thirst for this righteousness because in serving those called the least of these we find that we do indeed serve Jesus, the one who is the greatest of all. Amen! 

         

Rest Assured: The Peril and the Plan

 February 22 2026

Genesis 2:16-17, 3:1-13, Matthew 5:1-8

         When we experienced what was called, Snow-maggeden, you know that big dump of snow that buried all of us, the initial feeling was that of of being just totally overwhelmed. And then, as looked upon all of the snow drifts, I remembered the wisdom found in one of my favorite Bible verses. I hold on to this verse because it caught me by the surprise because it actually does snow in Israel something we discover at the end of the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. There the prophet writes: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there but instead they water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater.’ This verse stands as a reminder that even though we may not like having a foot of snow to deal with, it nonetheless is given to us so that when spring arrives the water table is sufficient to make seeds come to life and grow.

         Well, that verse from the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah wasn’t just giving us a lesson on the necessity of snow, far from it. You see, God was comparing the rain and the snow to the power of his spoken word. Just as the snow and the rain are sent from heaven to water the earth, so too when God speaks, and his word comes  down to us from heaven we know it has a life giving purpose. Just as the snow and the rain water the soil so that life can spring forth, so too the word spoke by God is given to us to cause life to spring forth in us. If we keep reading the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, God goes on to say, “So shall my word be that goes out of my mouth, it shall not return to me empty. My word shall accomplish the purpose that I have for it. My word shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.’ These few verses in Isaiah clearly point us back, once again, to the creation story which happened only through the words spoke by God. As we have read through this story we have indeed found that when God speaks a word, that this word does indeed go forth and it accomplishes what the word speaks of, and the end result is always life. This is an important takeaway for us as we consider that the word of Jesus has promised us rest. We should expect that the truth of this promise will be found by us as we rest every seventh day all because this is what God did when he finished creation on the seventh day. 

         Now when we are told in our story that God rested, we are to understand that the place where he is sitting is there upon his throne. God reigns as a king who is certain that his reign and rule go forth into all of his creation. So the very reason that God rests is that on the sixth day, God first created us, his people. As the highest of all of his creatures, we have been created for a very special purpose which is that we are to be conformed to the image of God knowing that we have been made in his likeness. This means that we are to know ourselves as being the royal children of God who reign and rule like our Father, through our service to others. Once people have been created to have dominion over all the earth, God can then sit back, relax and enjoy the work of his good, and faithful servants.

         So because humanity has arrived on the scene, God can now know that his rule and reign has been established by and through the people he has brought into being. So, just as we learn from the Sabbath commandment, we are to find rest for our souls because we know that God is resting. Now, the good news is that we do not have to bring about a state of peace and rest in our life simply through sheer will and effort on our part. No, after God created people we are told that he blessed us. What Jesus teaches us is that the blessing God placed upon his newly created humans is given to us in a word, well, actually three words, a word of promise, a word of judgment, and a word of life, each word corresponding to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. These words, just like the words God spoke creation into being, have the power to create order within all of us.

         So, just like when the snow and the rain come down from heaven to bring life-giving water to the earth, so too the word of God comes to us and that word will also bring forth life. This is what we find in the teaching Jesus gives to us about the blessing God speaks into our life. There in the fifth chapter of Matthew we find that the first three of these blessings are the word of promise give to us by our Heavenly Father. Our Father finds us, poor, and empty handed and he speaks to us the promise of a home for us where we can experience the life of heaven here on earth. Our Father finds us grieving our losses, and his eternal presence walking beside us brings us great comfort. Our Father then tells us that if we are willing to yield ourselves to his guidance then he promises us that we will indeed, inherit the world created for us. This word of promise spoken to us by our Father creates in us a faith, a certainty which provides us a foundation for our life to rest upon which will never be taken from us.

         Today, we come to the subject of judgment because God introduces us humans to a new tree, a tree which gives to us the knowledge of good and evil. Now, the truth is that there is nothing special about the tree or the fruit it produces. No, the only thing that sets this particular tree apart from all the rest is that God has told his people that they are to not eat of this particular fruit. But there is a crisis that arises because there is now a choice to be made. Good is found listening to God and not eating what is forbidden for us to eat. Evil is not listening to God and going ahead and making a fruit salad. The result of the choice we make will be that we will either grow in our knowledge of good or we will grow in our knowledge of what is less than good, what the Bible calls evil. When we listen to the word of God, trusting his judgment, and obeying his word, we will discover an ever deeper understanding of God’s goodness. As we grow in our certainty of the goodness of God, we will be more trusting of God, always ready to obey. But when we refuse to obey God, then we will begin to grow in our knowledge of evil for we will be on a path that leads to ever more evil in our life as we listen to this other voice which drowns out the still, small voice of God.

         So this introduction of this new tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil causes us to wonder, just what is this voice that competes with the voice of God for our attention? Well, in the third chapter of Genesis, we learn about this other voice from a snake. To help understand what is going on here, I am indebted to Rabbi David Fohrman, who explains that the snake merely represents the rest of all God’s created animals. The snake is wondering why Adam and his bride, Eve, no longer listen to the voice God has placed in all the other animals, the voice that the other creatures listen to for their survival. You see, the animals know nothing of death. All they know is that listening to their inner voice keeps them alive one moment longer. It is this inner voice, the voice of the animal that we appear to be, which speaks to us. In the case of the fruit hanging there in the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, the woman, Eve, was first aware that this fruit was good for food. This fruit would be good to satisfy her appetite. The second observation the woman had was that this fruit was pleasant to look at, making this fruit an object to obsess over, the very definition of lust. Finally, the inner voice of Eve spoke to her of how being in possession of this fruit would cause her to look wise and honorable to her husband, Adam. So this fruit would become for Eve a great source of pride. So, when we listen to our appetites, and follow our lusts and allow pride to motivate us, this inner voice becomes so loud that the voice of God is no longer heard. So by following our appetites, and being controlled by our lusts, all the while allowing our pride to motivate us, then we have turned from God and his goodness, to walk the way of evil. Now, if we continually refuse to listen to the voice of God, then in the end we will become merely an animal, an animal that will die yet an animal who will be also horribly aware of what no other animal ever knows, this ending called death. It is this dread of death, this is what makes us a restless animal, continually concerned about the death that is waiting for us that we never really get around to actual living. And that is the real peril to not listening to God.

         Yet still, God continues to call his people to listen to his voice, for this is what separates us from the rest of all the creatures God has brought forth. The reason why God calls us to trust his judgment is that our own judgment is always being tempted to listen to our creaturely concerns. Instead of serving others as God desires of us, our appetites cause us to use people to get what is needed for our satisfaction. When we find others pleasant to our eyes they go from someone to serve and instead we make them into an object to obsess over. And instead of seeking the honor of God through our obedience to his word, we instead will do whatever it takes to make others give honor to us. The life which was to be conformed to the image of God, a life lived in the likeness of God, this is destroyed when we consider ourselves just another creature that God has made. 

         So God tells us that we dare not trust the inner voice that pulls us ever away from him. We must listen to the judgment of God, for he alone is good. Only God can know the good we were created to do. So, when God blesses us, he not only speaks to us a word of promise, that he can indeed take poor, empty handed people and through his eternal presence give us the world as our inheritance but he also speaks a word of judgment so that we know with certainty the path that leads us to the goodness of God. This word of judgment is the second part of the blessing God speaks over us so that through that blessing, the rest that God experiences might be found alive in us. 

         In the fifth chapter of Matthew, the sixth through the eighth verses, Jesus, the Son of God speaks to us a word of judgment. Through these three blessings we are able to put to death our appetites, our lusts and our pride. So, in response to our appetites, this inner search we all have to find satisfaction, Jesus tells us that we should have a hunger and thirst not just for our own satisfaction but rather we are to be craving a world where all people are at last satisfied. We are to ache for a world where all people can live as God created them to live, as equals under God. We are to find all people worthy of giving our life in service to them, having an appetite to help someone else who is hungering or thirsting for their life to at last be filled. When this becomes our priority, then God promises us we will have a deep, and abiding satisfaction with life.

         Jesus goes on to counter this temptation we have to fixate our eyes on what pleases by giving us to a new focus on which to set our sights. Listen to what Jesus teaches us, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Jesus is calling us to do as the Good Samaritan did, as recorded for us in the tenth chapter of Luke. How can we forget that it was the Samaritan who when he saw the man left half-dead in the ditch he had compassion on him.Jesus desires that we have eyes that look upon the hurting and the broken so that we become obsessed with offering life to them. God, once again gives to us a promises that assures us that if giving mercy is what our eyes are searching for then the judgment he has offers us will also be mercy.

         Lastly, when our need for honor in the watching eyes of the world begins to clamor in our ear, we instead are to find our status solely in the honor God gives to those who listen to him and obey him. You see, Jesus, in the twelfth chapter of John, tells us that those who are willing to serve Jesus by listening to him, these are the ones who will receive honor from our Heavenly Father. We should long to have as our highest ambition to one day step into the presence of our Master and hear those words, “Well, done, good and faithful servant.” You see, when we are tempted to chase after worldly riches in order that people in the world will hold us in high esteem, we are to pause and consider the joy we will one day have when we stand before the face of the God who rejoices over us. What keeps our heart pure is that we treasure the infinite riches of our relationship with God instead of desiring the fleeting charms of this world.

         So the judgment of God is that as his people, we are to hunger and thirst for righteousness, we are to be people of mercy, and we are to have hearts that are pure in their devotion for God. Then, if we live according to this way of life, Jesus assures us that all throughout our life, God will be the source of our satisfaction. If we are merciful , then when we stand before Jesus our righteous Judge, we will receive mercy, not condemnation. And lastly, if our hearts have sought only the honor of God, we can know that our eternal days will be always lived before the face of God. So from these words of God we discover that this plan of God has created hope within us. This is much the same as when we heard the blessings which speak to the word of promise given to us by our Heavenly Father. In the first of the blessings that Jesus teaches us, we are promised that we will have a home where the life of heaven is experienced here on earth. We are also given the certainty of the eternal presence of the God who loves us which gives us great comfort in a world marked by loss. And we are told that if we are willing to be guided by our Father we will one day receive the world as an eternal inheritance. This word of promise from our Heavenly Father creates in us the faith to believe and trust his words. So, through the Father’s word of promise and through the Son’s word of judgment, we discover that within us is a vibrant faith and a living hope. This faith and hope are the very means by which we are given the gift of rest by Jesus. So we take the yoke of Jesus upon us we learn from him the way for us to have a faith in our Heavenly Father. And then Jesus goes on to teach us the way to make right judgments that will give us hope as we grow in an ever greater knowledge of the goodness of God.

         You see, the word of judgment that Jesus taught to us in his teaching about the blessing of God should seem oddly familiar. The reason for this is that this word of judgment is the very same word of the cross. There we see Jesus, who desired righteousness more than the preservation of his life. The judgment we deserved for rejecting Jesus, killing him to silence his voice, is death, yet the cross, instead, shouts, “Mercy”. Yet, we might rightly wonder, is this truly the way we were created to live, pursing righteousness and offering mercy? The way we justify this judgment of Jesus is that three days after the death of Jesus he stepped out of his grave very much live. And now Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, forever. There Jesus, fully human and fully God, now rests on the throne. As we listen to his voice, and hear the blessing which flows from his word of promise and the word of judgment, this same rest that Jesus experiences now can be the very rest experienced by us. So in faith and hope, let us now rest always in the certainty of his love! Amen!