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Think of all the ways in which we hold ourselves at a distance from people and things that come near to us. We may not think about it very often, but we do it all the time. As a friend of mine was walking into town the other day, he passed by a woman who was plopped down in the sunshine on the sidewalk, wearing disheveled clothing, smoking a cigarette. She eyed him evaluatively. He looked straight ahead, not really wanting to make eye contact, glad he had on his sunglasses, not wanting to have to respond to a request for spare change. She didn't speak and neither did he. Though he claims to value relationships more highly than just about anything, he does not always seek them, not in every circumstance. He passed by. At a distance.

Not long ago that same friend was speaking with a parent who was wondering how it was that she ever could have become so estranged from her own children. At one point in their lives, they seemed inseparable, with the typical round of car pooling to school events and sports activities, meetings with teachers. Then there was an increasing bit of distance through high school as peers became so all--important, more separation during the college years, and now, well, now there is a call on the phone maybe once a week, if that often. They have moved from the daily intimacies to the weekly call, seemingly with less to talk about every week. They are still family, but at a distance.

The Greek word for "at a distance" is makron.1 It is more common than we might think at first. After Jesus' arrest in the garden at Gethsemane, Matthew tells us that Peter followed "at a distance," until they reached the courtyard of the high priest. Makron. When Jesus was crucified, Matthew says that many women, having followed Jesus from Galilee, were also there, looking on from a distance. Makron.

From time to time we may find ourselves in a conversation circle with friends when someone starts to speak negatively about some person who is not present. Others join in. We may join in the gossip party ourselves, but even if we don't, though we know gossip is unchristian, we say nothing to stop the conversation. We don't want our friends to think that we are always the party's wet blanket, the person who can never let his hair down and just be a "regular person." So we follow Jesus, but at a distance. Makron.

Jesus once told the story of the prodigal son, and it is no secret that the figure of the father in that parable, with his forgiving love for his wayward son, is meant to represent God. So when the son returns to his father in the story, his father sees him "at a distance" - makron - and runs to him. His father makes up all the distance, all the makron, that stands between his errant son and the precious relationship he stands in need of reestablishing with his father. No wonder everyone loves this story. We are that son, we stand makron - at a distance - from God, and God had to take action to narrow the gap, to come closer to us.

This is what Peter was going on about when he preached in Jerusalem soon after the resurrection. Peter spoke to the crowd about Jesus, whom they had crucified, and told them who he really was. And when they wondered what they could do to be made right with this one who was the very anointed one of God, Peter told them: "Repent ... be baptized ... be forgiven ... receive the Holy Spirit ... for the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away ..." at a distance. Makron.

So, if you feel sometimes as if you are at a distance from God, if there are those days when your prayers seem to bounce back at you off the ceiling, or you sometimes wonder if God cares or even if there is a God, much less whether you can be close to such a God, then the good news for us is this: we are the very people about whom Peter says these words. We are the ones at a distance, the very ones God had in mind when, in Christ, he came to us to save us.

Think for a moment who it is who was preaching this sermon to the crowd gathered in Jerusalem that day. It was Peter. Peter who had followed Jesus at a distance that day he was crucified, Peter who denied him three times before daybreak, Peter who had challenged his teacher not to go to Jerusalem and die, whom Jesus had called "Satan."

If anyone knew what it was to be at a distance from his Lord and Messiah, it was Peter. Yet the very first great sermon in the history of the Christian church came from his lips that day. He was far away, but Jesus' love brought him near again. He was at a distance, but God's love narrowed the gap. Makron turned to relationship because of the power of God.

It suggests to me that there is no distance from God at which we may find ourselves which cannot be more than made up by the effort to which God has gone for us in Christ.

The title of the sermon today takes its cue from verse 36 of the lesson: "Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified." We may read this again and again and begin to think of Christ in three ways by means of this passage: he is Lord, he is Messiah, yet he is Crucified. In each, the question of our distance from God becomes a prominent issue.

To be Lord. This is an exalted Jesus, a divine Jesus, Jesus as seated at the right hand of God, Jesus as the second person of the Trinity. To be Lord is to be the one in power, the one in control. It is to be the owner of the manor, the one to whom everyone else on the property is to pay homage and tithe. It is the highest of the three titles for Jesus in this verse, from a human perspective; it comes first because if the others did, we might not recognize who else he is soon enough. Jesus is Lord. He is at one with the God who brought the slaves out of Egypt, who brought Israel across the sea, back from exile. It is this same Jesus whom John says was with God "in the beginning," and that without him nothing was made that was made. This is the highest view of Jesus, and if we were given only this view of him, we might despair of ever collapsing the distance between him and us. But it is only the first way the verse names him.

To be Messiah. This title for Jesus brings him closer. The word Messiah is a Hebrew word which is translated into Greek as Christos, and into English as "Christ." It means, simply, "anointed." There had been several messiahs in the Bible: Saul was one, David was one, Solomon was one. These were not gods but human beings who were chosen by God to serve both God and the people in a special way. They were anointed for their tasks, which set them apart in extraordinary ways, which is why they are so well--remembered all these centuries later. But for all the special nature of each of them, there is among them the reality that they are human, not divine. They are, in the end, people like us. Extraordinary, to be sure, but human. Jesus is Lord, but also Messiah; divine, yet anointed as a man to a human and earthly task.

To be Crucified. This is the title which brings the triple reality of the person of Jesus right into our own lives. It is this crucifixion which God uses to set aside the distance which had always separated us from God. The crucifixion of Jesus means that God knows in the most bitter and painful of ways what it is to be human and yet chooses even so to be in intimate relationship with humanity. God embraces us in the pain we know, because God has come to know pain through the passion of Jesus.

It is this triple reality about Jesus that empowers Peter, in the end, to say, "For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him."

If you feel distanced from God today, you are not unique, you are not odd, you are not out of step with the rest of humanity. You are, in fact, in the seat of blessing. You are the very one for whom God has gone to the trouble to be Lord, Messiah, and Crucified, to collapse the distance between you, to be in relationship with you and through you. It is for you. For you.

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1. I am thankful for William Willimon's sermon "At A Distance," preached in the Duke University Chapel, April 14, 1996, and his background material on makron for this sermon.