From Christianity Today online.

Another superb read from Mr. Galli.

The experience of God’s love is a wonderful thing, a divine gift, but like all divine gifts it can be so wonderful that we make it an end in itself. Instead of believing in God, we start believing in prayer. Instead of trusting in God, we believe in the authority of the Bible. Instead of simply basking in the love of family, friends, and church, and returning that love, the very meaning of our lives becomes determined by these relationships. As one of my good Christian friends once put it, he loved his two little girls so much that if anything were to ever happen to them, he didn’t know if he’d be able to still believe in God.

Good and holy things can become idols. And when they do, our God will manifest his severe mercy at just those points. Prayer is empty and dry. The Bible seems irrelevant. Family and friends become a burden and trial. The good and holy things that have propped up our faith are pulled away. And we will ask plaintively, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

But of course God has not forsaken us. Our idols have forsaken us. Our props, those things that have held up our faith, these have been shown to be what they are: false gods. But, no, God has not forsaken us.

In fact, it is in the very experience of forsakenness that he is revealing himself to us afresh.

Read it all.

[Jeremiah said] The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

“I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward everyone according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.”

–Jeremiah 17.9-10 (NIV)

[Jesus said] “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

–John 12.27-33 (NIV)

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you…For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through [Christ] who gives me strength.

–Philippians 4.4-9, 11b-13 (NIV)

During Holy Week there is good reason for contrition and sorrow, especially if we are honest with ourselves in our self-reflection. As Jeremiah reminds us, our hearts are hopelessly corrupt and beyond cure. Our pride often deludes us into thinking we are not that bad or our situation is not hopeless. But God sees the heart. God knows better. God is not corrupt or delusional and God’s justice reminds us that he will hold us accountable for all that we do–good, bad, and ugly. It is not a particularly comforting thought or picture.

But if we stop there, we are doing ourselves a terrible injustice and distorting the Good News of the Christian faith because we are only looking at part of the overall picture. We need to pay close attention to what our Lord tells us in today’s Gospel lesson. He is going to be lifted up in crucifixion for our sake and on our behalf. He is going to bear the just punishment for our corrupt heart (remember that heart is used in the biblical context to denote not only our emotions but also our intellect and will), a heart that seeks to elevate us to God’s position and replace him in stubborn and ongoing rebellion, a heart that causes us to be cut off from the Source and Author of all life.

As Jesus reminds us today, the symbol of God’s justice is the cross of Christ. Stop right now and ponder this wondrous truth.

And why would God do that? Because God created us for relationship, not destruction. God knows the utter futility of the human condition and so he became human and bore the punishment for our sins so that our exile from him could be ended forever if we turn away from ourselves and draw near to him in faith. As Jesus tells us, God did not do this for us because we deserve it. To the contrary, because our hearts are hopelessly corrupt, we deserve nothing but condemnation and death (separation from God). No, God did this for the glory of his Name, so that we can really see who God is and worship and adore him.

No wonder Paul tells the Philippians (and us) to rejoice in the Lord in any and every circumstance! Every time we look at the cross, we see the symbol of God’s justice in which God himself took on his terrible and holy wrath so that we would be spared of having to suffer it fully ourselves. When we are finally able to wrap our minds around this massively wondrous truth, it changes us fundamentally and puts things in proper perspective for us.

Paul is not telling us to put on a happy face when one is not warranted. He is not suggesting there will not be opposition, failure, and heartache in our life. Rather, he is reminding us to keep in mind the Big Picture of life, to remember the incalculable gift we have been given in Christ and use that knowledge and faith to help us overcome all that life can throw our way.

When we have a real faith in Christ, we will have God’s peace in any and every circumstance, just the way Paul did (remember he wrote Philippians while he was in jail!). Christ will be our strength and enable us to overcome the darkest of moments in our lives because he reminds us each day that we are his. And when we are his, we know that nothing in all creation can separate us either from him or from the life he gives us.

And then Paul gives us some remarkably practical advice to help us in our faith journey. To help make room for the Spirit to live in us to strengthen us in our faith and actions, we are to think about things that are good and noble and pure, etc. For you see, Paul understood that “we are what we eat,” i.e., we tend to become like that on which we focus our intention and will. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does our spiritual state. As C.S. Lewis reminds us, by our thoughts and actions we will either increasingly become heavenly creatures (God-focused creatures) or hellish ones (self-focused or evil-focused creatures). We don’t have a choice in the matter because we cannot stay neutral when it comes to things good and evil.

This Holy Week as you prepare to follow Jesus to Calvary, think deeply on these things. To be sure, bring your sorrow and contrition to the cross. But as you do, also remember what God has done for you. Remember that lady justice is not the symbol of God’s love for you so that you will ultimately have to face the terrible justice of God’s holy wrath that each of us deserves. No, the symbol of God’s holy justice is the cross, where God acted decisively on your behalf out of his great love and mercy for you. If that does not give you good reason to rejoice in the Lord always, I don’t know what ever will.

Thanks be to God for his great love and mercy expressed for us in the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord!

Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

–Philippians 3.17-21 (NIV)

Those who love their life will lose it, while those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

–John 12.25-26 (NIV)

Yesterday we saw that Paul roundly condemned all our proud efforts at self-help and self-righteousness. His glory was in the cross of Christ, not himself, because he had a realistic attitude about the human condition and the holy love of God as manifested in the cross of Christ.

In today’s short passage from Philippians, Paul packs a lot of theology in a few verses. He reminds us that God’s gift to us in Christ should always manifest itself in obedience. Not the kind of grudging obedience that we are sometimes forced to offer, but rather a joyful obedience, the kind that flows from the relief we feel over not having the burden of trying to prove ourselves righteous in the eyes of God, something that is quite impossible for us to accomplish on our own. Our Lord reminds us as much in today’s Gospel passage. Lip service won’t cut it if we want to be his disciples. Only joyful obedience will.

When we are freed from the onus of trying to restore our broken relationship with God through a program of self-help, we can focus properly on obeying and serving our Lord with glad and thankful hearts for his wondrous gift of love and grace offered to us on the cross. We remember Paul’s words earlier in Philippians in which he tells us how Jesus came into his glory. It was through humble obedience to his Father’s will. Likewise with us.

And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2.8-10).

Moreover, when Paul talks about being a citizen of heaven in today’s lesson, he is not advocating some other-worldliness or private spirituality in which we withdraw from the affairs of this world. Quite the contrary. As he reminds us at the end of today’s lesson, we are awaiting our new resurrection bodies, which will be part of God’s New Creation and of which Jesus’ resurrection body is the first-fruits.

Faith in the resurrection of the body reminds us tacitly of the gift of forgiveness and restoration of our broken relationship with God won for us by Jesus dying on the cross. It reminds us in powerful ways that God’s creation matters and that those who want to follow Jesus must imitate him in his loving service to others so that he can use us as agents in which to bring about his New Creation. This means we deny ourselves, take up our cross each day, and follow Jesus in his work. We are to reject the idols of self-aggrandizement, of money, power, and security, or any other idols that get in the way of our relationship with  God in Christ. Instead we follow our crucified Lord, obediently listening for his voice so that we know our marching orders and then carry them out as faithfully as we can.

During Holy Week this week, think on these things. As you gaze on the crucified One with contrition and thanksgiving, does God’s great love for you evoke a desire to obey him with joy and thanksgiving? How are you following your crucified Lord?

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

–1 Corinthians 1.18-19 (NIV)

Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If others think they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

–Philippians 3.1-9 (NIV)

Today begins Holy Week as we move to Good Friday–the most holy day of the year. This week’s reflections will be short on purpose. It is better to spend time reflecting on the story of the Passion than to spend time on anything I might say.

In today’s passage from Philippians, Paul gets to the heart of the matter. Our one and only hope to have our exile from God brought to an end is the cross of Jesus. But the cross is often offensive to our human pride. Deep down we do not like to admit we cannot fix ourselves or our problems. Deep down we often don’t believe we are really all that bad and we can find it offensive that God’s forgiveness and offer of reconciliation must only come from him. Here Paul gives us his autobiography of self-help and self-righteousness, ultimately pronouncing both to be utterly futile and worthless. Paul is quite earthy in his description of the worthlessness of self-help and self-righteousness, and uses shocking language. The Greek word he uses for garbage, skybalon, means literally, “useless or undesirable material that is subject to disposal, refuse, garbage (in various senses, ‘excrement, manure, garbage, kitchen scraps’)” (BDAG, 932).

As we saw Friday, God’s holiness cannot and will not countenance any form of evil, and that is for our good. God will always be implacably opposed to evil and our rebellious sin. But God is also loving and merciful and this Friday we will be confronted with the terrible cost of that love. If we are humble enough to accept God’s offer of forgiveness to us through Jesus, the cross is not scandalous; it is Good News. God has done the impossible for us to end our exile from him. He has borne our just punishment himself on the cross and made it possible for us to live directly in his holy Presence forever. Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Think deeply on these things this week. Take time to read the passion narratives and Paul’s explication in Romans and elsewhere on why the cross is so important to us. Give thanks to God for his holy love manifested on the cross for you. Then each day this week, especially on Good Friday, bring your hurts, your sorrows, your fears, your failures, and your brokenness and lay them all at the foot of the cross. Ask the One who loves you and gave himself for you to bear them for you, and to crucify all that is in you that prevents you from giving yourself to him in loving obedience. When you do this, you will come to realize that you are really free to obey your Lord with joy. The burden is off your back. By his wounds you are healed.

This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

–Jeremiah 29.1, 4-7a, 10-11 (NIV)

“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

–John 11.21-27 (NIV)

If some of the branches [unfaithful Israel] have been broken off, and you [Gentiles], though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root [Israel], do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.

–Romans 11.17-22 (NIV)

As the season of Lent draws to a close, culminating next week in the Passion, death, and burial of our Lord, now is an especially appropriate time to heed Paul’s advice above to consider the kindness and sternness of God. We see both illustrated in today’s OT and Gospel passages, as well as Paul’s narrative about the fate of his people, the Jews.

In the passage from Jeremiah, one of my favorite OT passages, especially verse 11, I have often tried to imagine the incredulity of those Jews living in forced exile in Babylon as they heard the Lord tell them to settle down and pray for their captors, something unheard of in ancient times. Why would God tell them to do this? Because he knew the plans he had for them, plans for their welfare and not for their harm, to give them a future with hope.

Say what?

I mean, this all sounds really good until we consider the fact that God is telling this to people who are captives and in exile. It just wouldn’t have made much sense to Jeremiah’s audience because everything around them suggested otherwise. They were prisoners of a foreign people. That had been carried off from their beloved promised land. They were living the consequences of being people of a stern God!

But it was precisely during their darkest hour–just as it was precisely during Martha’s darkest hour when she cried out to her Lord in grief and despair over her brother’s death–that God’s people also discover the kindness of God. As God essentially told the exiles, “I have punished you because of your unfaithfulness but I am also a God of mercy and the plans I have for you will give you a future and a hope, your only real hope, a hope based on me and my faithfulness to you. I do this for my sake and my glory, not yours. So wake up and smell the roses. Make the best of your situation because you are in my hands and I am with you in any and every circumstance of life–good, bad, and ugly.”

And then, like Jesus did when he asked Martha if she believed that he is the resurrection and the life, we can almost hear God ask his people in exile the same question. “I’m telling you the Good News,” says God to his broken and hurting people. “You have discovered my sternness (my holiness that cannot countenance evil in any form let alone a life lived in a pattern of willful disobedience to me–I am not talking about you missing the mark on occasion). Now you are going to discover my mercy if you have any semblance of faith in you. Do you believe this?” And so it goes. We too are confronted with the same issues and questions today and we too must give answer to God’s question.

This is why Lent is such an appropriate season to consider the kindness and sternness of God. If we only consider the sternness (holiness) of God, we are confronted with a pitiless tyrant who will not tolerate a single mistake we make and who is ready and even eager to punish us for our disobedience. But that is not God nor is this a god worthy or our love and admiration. After all, who can really love a heartless tyrant?

But if we consider only God’s mercy and neglect his sternness (holiness), we turn God into some doting old Father who really doesn’t care what his children do. He’s just a kind old fellow who wouldn’t hurt a flea and has life in perspective so that he doesn’t make a big deal over our rebellion and disobedience because it’s all going to turn out well in the end. But neither is this God. After all, how can we love and admire someone we really don’t respect?

No, we have to take our sin seriously. We have to be aware of its consequences–separation from our very Source of life that inevitably leads to death. We have to acknowledge that the God we worship is a holy God, a God who cannot and will not tolerate evil of any kind because God is wholly good. And if we think about it, this should make us glad, especially if we want to live directly in his Presence for all eternity. After all, do you really want to experience evil, hurt, and brokenness in heaven and the New Creation? If you don’t want that to happen, there simply cannot be any form of evil present; otherwise, all the dark side of life would again be present to rear its ugly head and that could not possibly be heaven.

Yet if we are to believe the Good News of Jesus Christ, we must also acknowledge that God loves us and created us to have a relationship with him, not to destroy us. That is why he became human and suffered and died for us on the cross so that he could bear the consequences of his judgment on us himself. In other words, the God we love and worship is also a loving and merciful God. He has satisfied his holy love himself and we will focus on this especially during Holy Week next week. So God is both kind and stern and we should be thankful that he is both.

Of course, during Lent we consider all this. During Lent we submit to a ruthless self-examination of our lives and motives, and we resolve, with God’s help, to put to death everything in us that keeps us hostile toward and alienated from God. We confess the wrongs we have done to God and our neighbors and we resolve, again only by God’s help, to turn away from doing these things, i.e., we repent. We pray and fast so as to help us deny our fallen self and make us ready to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

And this is where our knowledge of God’s kindness and sternness can also help us. We remember God’s sternness so as to develop a healthy fear (respect) of God. We remember God’s kindness to help us develop a heart and mind to love him in thankful gratitude for his great and undeserved mercy and kindness toward us manifested in Jesus. You don’t develop a real relationship based on fear. Neither do you develop a real relationship based on disrespect. Hence, if we are to develop a real relationship with God in Christ, we must always remember God’s kindness and sternness because we always remember our human condition and our utter hopelessness without the cross of Christ. Lent is the season in which we focus on these very issues.

If you have been observing this season of Lent (and even if you haven’t), now is an especially good time to take heart and hope. You are dead in your sins because your sins separate you from your Source of life–God. But God does not want to leave you there and next week as you work your way through Holy Week and end up on Calvary with your crucified Lord, you will have a powerful visual reminder of the kindness of God. As you come in sorrow and contrition to the foot of his cross, you will also have a thankful heart because you know that God in Christ is taking your sins from you and bearing your just punishment himself so that you will not have to. And suddenly Jesus’ words to Martha in today’s Gospel passage will have new and life-giving meaning to you because you realize that here at Jesus’ cross is your ticket to real life, both on this earth and forever with Jesus in the New Creation he inaugurated by his death and resurrection.

Remember the kindness and sternness of God and give thanks to God that he is both. It will get you ready to observe Holy Week in an appropriate and reverential manner.

I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

–Romans 11.2-6 (NIV)

In chapters 9-10 of his letter to the church at Rome, Paul has been talking to the Jews in the church. Now he is finishing up that discussion and beginning to address the Gentiles in the church. Throughout his letter, Paul has consistently argued for God’s sovereignty and grace–God will choose whom God will choose and we mortals have no legitimate grounds to question God’s sovereignty, unless of course we aim to elevate ourselves to be equal with God!

At the end of today’s passage, Paul throws out this little nugget about grace and it really does get to the heart of the matter over which many Christians struggle–how can we possibly be reconciled to God? Of course, to the proud, Paul’s statement about grace and works is an affront. “What do you mean that we cannot be reconciled to God based on what we do, Paul? We’re not that bad of people!” But Paul will have none if it. If God is not the author of our reconciliation with him, there really is no Good News.

And for many, Christians and non-Christians alike, this issue of grace can trip us up. For anyone who is remotely tuned into the human condition and how profoundly broken we are when compared to the perfect holiness of God, reconciliation with God seems impossible and we are tempted to fall into despair. This is especially true for Christians during the season of Lent with its focus on self-examination, confession, and repentance. There are times when we want to throw our hands up in despair and cry out with David that, “We know our transgressions and our sin is ever before us.” How can a holy God possibly forgive the likes of us?

But that is precisely when we must look to the cross of Jesus for the answer. It is precisely during these moments that we must come to the foot of his cross and offer our sins and brokenness to Jesus to be crucified with him so that by his wounds we may be healed. We must ask him to bear our burdens for us because we acknowledge that we are unable to do so ourselves.

For you see, the cross is simply not explainable without the love, mercy, and grace of God the Father. But when we by faith accept God’s invitation to us in Christ to be healed and reconciled to him, everything changes for us. We realize that our healing and reconciliation is God’s doing, not ours. We dare to believe, often with bewilderment, that we have a God who really does love us despite who we can sometimes be and who wants us to live with him.

The Bible is replete with stories of God’s gracious initiative toward his called out people. Read, for example, the story of Abraham in Genesis or especially the story of Moses in Exodus. Think about the meeting between Jesus and Peter in John 21 where the Risen Lord condescends to meet Peter where he is by asking him three times if Peter loves him. The Greek for the word love that Jesus uses the third time meets the lower level of love that Peter used in response to Jesus’ first two questions. And keep in mind, this is a conversation with a man who had denied Jesus three times in his hour of need! Remarkable. The Bible is full of stories like this and the same grace God offers in the biblical narrative is available to folks just like you and me in our everyday lives and in our brokenness.

Lent is a time for self-examination, ruthless self-examination. But make sure to remember why you are examining yourself. Don’t fall into despair over what you see. Treat it seriously and seek to kill that within you that keeps you hostile and alienated from God. But don’t stop there. Don’t forget that the key to your reconciliation is what God has done for you in Jesus and what God is doing for you right now through the presence and power of his Holy Spirit living in you. Feed on this wondrous love and grace and let it build you up into the kind of human that God created you to be and desires for you to be. Only then will you be equipped to be a faithful disciple of Jesus and do the work he calls you to do. It will be hard and you will meet opposition on the way. But fear not. It isn’t about you or your abilities (or lack of them). It is about the power of Christ in you and when you have that, you have conquered life.

Beneath the cross of Jesus
I fain would take my stand,
the shadow of a mighty rock
within a weary land;
a home within the wilderness,
a rest upon the way,
from the burning of the noontide heat,
and the burden of the day.

Upon that cross of Jesus
mine eye at times can see
the very dying form of One
who suffered there for me;
and from my stricken heart with tears
two wonders I confess:
the wonders of redeeming love
and my unworthiness.

I take, O cross, thy shadow
for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than
the sunshine of his face;
content to let the world go by,
to know no gain nor loss,
my sinful self my only shame,
my glory all the cross.

[Jesus said], “The gatekeeper opens the gate for [the shepherd], and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. Therefore Jesus said again, Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” The Jews who heard these words were again divided.

–John 10.3-4, 7-10, 14-19 (NIV)

In today’s passage from John’s Gospel, Jesus is laying out what is necessary for us to be good Kingdom workers (shepherds). He is reminding us that before we can embody his Presence to his broken and hurting world, we first need to be fed by him. Anything else will simply fail.

I have heard many critics of Christianity use Jesus’ metaphors in today’s passage as a basis to blast Christians as mindless idiots. Sheep, they remind us, are quite stupid and therefore Jesus must be urging us to be mindless in our following of him. But Jesus is using a metaphor that would have been quite familiar to the audience of his day. He isn’t urging us to be mindless followers. How could the One who tells us to love God, in part, with all of our mind, turn around and urge us to act mindlessly?

No, in fact if we are going to recognize Jesus’ voice amongst the many claimant voices that strive for our attention, we must be prepared to use our minds so that we can better listen for and recognize his voice. How do we do that? One of the surest and best ways to do learn to recognize Jesus’ voice is to begin to read Scripture in a holistic and systematic way. Don’t “skip and dip,” reading short passages here and there in the Bible, willy-nilly, and not understanding the broader context of which they are a part. No, read Scripture holistically. Understand God’s intention for creating his good world and how human sin marred it and got us separated from God. Then read the entire biblical narrative to learn about God’s rescue plan, about God’s eternal plan to rescue humans from their self-imposed exile. Learn how God called his people Israel to be agents of his redemptive work but how Israel became part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Then read about how God’s rescue plan culminated in his Messiah, Jesus, and how through Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension God has given us a preview of his coming Final Attraction–New Creation that will be fully implemented when our Lord returns in great power and glory. When you learn as a whole the biblical narrative of God’s rescue plan that culminates in Jesus, you will be in a much better position to recognize Jesus’ voice, both in Scripture and in the midst of the cacophony of your own daily life.

For you see, when you are able to recognize the Master’s voice, you have his promise that you will find his peace when you choose to follow him. As he reminds us elsewhere, and as he demonstrated for us through his own life and death, that entails you denying yourself, taking up your cross each day, and following him. If you really want to find peace, real peace, the peace of God that passes all understanding, you will have to follow Jesus where he leads you. When you do, he promises that you will live life to its fullest, the way God created you to live it. But here’s the catch. As our Lord reminds us today, you will never experience life to its fullest unless you take the plunge and follow Jesus, really follow Jesus by seeking to imitate him in the entirety of your life, wherever he leads you. Wherever that is, you can have confidence that there you will find real pasture (peace, contentment, fulfillment, and meaning and purpose for living). Anything else is bound to fail you. Yes, you may have to suffer for Jesus’ sake and Christian discipleship is hard and costly. But it is the only way you will ever find true happiness in this life. As countless saints can testify, following Jesus is the hardest thing you will ever come to love to do.

And when you do find the peace of Christ and have daily communion with him, as you listen to his voice in Scripture, in prayer, in fellowship with other Christians, and in the Eucharist, you will discover that you are now equipped to be a shepherd to others. To be sure, we could interpret Jesus’ words here as a message to ordained ministers. But as Peter reminds us in his first epistle, we who follow Jesus are a royal priesthood. In other words, everyone who follows Jesus is called to be his Kingdom worker, to help him bring about the New Creation God inaugurated at Jesus’ resurrection. But here’s the thing. We cannot feed others unless we are first fed by our Lord. Action without a relationship with Jesus turns into various forms of futile activism. A relationship with our Lord without attendant action turns into navel gazing and neither will do if we ever intend to take our relationship with Jesus seriously.

So what does this have to do with the season of Lent? Just this. During this time of intense self-examination and denial, of confession and repentance, of prayer and fasting, we cleanse ourselves, by the power of the Spirit, so that we are ready to listen for Jesus’ voice and make more room in ourselves for the Spirit to live in us. If you have not already done so, now is the time to commit to reading God’s rescue plan holistically and systematically. That means you need to get a good reading plan and a helpful commentary to assist you in your reading.

If you are not willing to do this, you will end up cheating yourself (and ultimately others) out of understanding the terrible predicament of the human condition and of knowing the mind-blowing love and mercy of God. You will miss the opportunity to understand the Big Picture of God’s rescue plan and how you are called to be part of it. And you likely will miss hearing the real voice of your Lord reaching out to you. You will be more prone to follow false voices or voices of your own making because we humans have a wonderful propensity to get it wrong as often as we get it right.

As Jesus reminds us in today’s passage, we have work to do–his work. But before we can do that, we must first be fed by him so that we are equipped to be his Kingdom workers. It will be hard work and costly to us. We must be willing to follow instead of lead, at least when it comes to our relationship with Jesus. But if we say yes to his gracious invitation to us to live, if we are willing to follow him into the pasture he leads us, we will find joy, meaning, peace, and contentment that will be beyond our ability to describe fully, and we will find our heart’s content.

Our Lord is calling you. Are you willing to listen? May God’s grace grant you the ability to say yes.

But what does [Scripture] say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

–Romans 10.8-9 (NIV)

In today’s lesson, Paul is reminding us what is necessary to have a restored relationship with God. We are to believe that in Christ, God has acted decisively on our behalf to end our exile from him. In Christ we are put right in God’s eyes. We don’t deserve the gift nor can we do anything to earn it.

But practically speaking, what does it look like in our lives when we declare that “Jesus is Lord”? Is our salvation (restored relationship with God) really that simple? Well, yes and no.

Yes, it’s really that simple because as Paul makes plain in today’s passage, the Risen Lord is easily accessible to each one of us. We access him through prayer and Scripture, through worship and the Eucharist, and through Christian fellowship. Jesus is risen and ascended, and he awaits our acceptance of his gracious invitation to have life in him. Partaking in the traditional Christian disciplines, God’s means of grace, goes a long way in helping us do this.

So first we have to have in our heart (the biblical term that refers to both our center of emotions as well as the center of our knowledge and will) what God has done for us in Jesus. We have to say yes to grace and this requires a humble and contrite heart.

But saying Jesus is Lord is a bit more complex than uttering this straightforward statement because it is quite possible for us to confess that Jesus is Lord and then turn around and act like we are Lord instead. If this becomes a pattern of living, that is a pretty good indication that we really don’t believe that Jesus is Lord because our faith always manifests itself in action.

When we really do believe that Jesus is Lord, when we really do accept God’s gracious offer to us in Christ to have life in and through him, it changes us. We are off the hook in terms of trying to earn God’s favor and fixing our relationship with him by our own means–always a recipe for disaster.

When we understand and believe that our exile from God really has ended, we are transformed through the Spirit over time into the image of Christ. We seek to love and obey our Lord out of a profound gratitude for all that he has done for us. We remember his charge to us to be his light and salt to the earth (Matthew 5.13-15), and we behave accordingly. We look to Jesus as our role model and we seek to imitate him in all that we do, especially in our relationship with others. We are quick to forgive and offer mercy where none is merited. We look out for the well-being of others as readily as we look out for our own. We live the pattern of our lives to bring glory to God rather than to ourselves. We are jealous to protect his good Name, even though he does not need our protection. We strive to right injustice wherever we see it and can do something about it. We seek to serve instead of being served. We understand that giving rather than taking is the avenue to true meaning and purpose in life. In other words, we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6.8).

But to do this requires a humble and contrite heart that stems from a realistic knowledge of the human condition. We must be willing to let God be God and settle for being his creatures. With the Spirit’s help, we must end our delusion that we are somehow worthy of God’s love and mercy or that we can somehow earn God’s merit. Only when the pattern of our behavior is consistent with our Lord’s command to deny ourselves, take up our cross each day, and follow him, can we be certain that “Jesus is Lord” is more than lip service. It is body, mind, and soul service because we are putting our money where our mouth is.

All this, of course, starts with the season of Lent where we carefully examine ourselves and our motives, where we confess our sins and repent of them, with the Spirit’s help. We listen closely for God’s guidance so that we can begin to live in ways that bring him honor and glory and so that when others see us, they will truly know that we believe Jesus is Lord.

As the season of Lent winds down and the cross looms ever closer for our Lord, let us resolve to respond to his gracious invitation to us to have life in and through him. Let us go to the foot of his cross and lay our hurts, our sorrows, our brokenness, and our sins there so that he may take them from us and heal us. Then let us go forth in the power of the Spirit rejoicing in all that God has done for us in Jesus and show the world we mean it by living in ways that demonstrate our willingness to be his Kingdom workers here on earth. The work will often be difficult and costly, but in losing ourselves for Jesus’ sake, we find life and open ourselves to his power so that he can help us bear all that he calls us to do. And when you really do believe that Jesus is Lord, nothing will be sweeter than to bring honor to his Name as we answer his call to help him usher in New Creation and life.