We Want To See Jesus
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For March 17, 2024:
We Want To See Jesus
by Dean Feldmeyer
John 12:20-33
It’s why we go to church. It’s the reason behind all the other reasons — teaching Sunday school, singing in the choir, leading the liturgy, or just sitting in the pew.
We’re like those Greek gentiles who show up in this story. We want to see Jesus.
And when the pollsters ask the “nones” and the “used-to-bes” why they don’t go to church any more, about 90% of their answers boil down to this one thing. They want to see Jesus, and they weren’t seeing him at church.
They wanted to see Jesus, not just at church, but in his followers, in the people who call themselves Christians, but they didn’t see him there, either.
It’s a painful indictment but one that can, if we let it, move us to action, to repentance and transformation.
In the Scripture
Jesus and his disciples have made their way to Bethany, a suburb of Jerusalem, for the celebration of the Passover. They’re camping out with what is probably a big crowd of folks, mostly Jews, who have arrived from across the known world.
Among the crowd is a group of Greek gentiles who, because they find Judaism interesting, have come to Jerusalem to study it and maybe even participate in this high, holy celebration. (Greeks are always up for a party, after all.)
They hear some scuttlebutt about a guy named Jesus who some people think may be the long-awaited messiah and they track down one of his followers who hails from Galilee and speaks Greek. A fellow named Philip.
By John’s account, they skip the small talk and get right to the point: “Sir, we want to see Jesus.”
Philip, not knowing what to say, goes to get Andrew and the two of them go and tell Jesus about the Greeks who want to see him.
And this is where the story kind of goes off the rails. The Greek gentiles and their request are all but forgotten as Jesus launches into a long soliloquy about his impending death. The news that his word has made it beyond the Jewish community and into the secular world signals that his ministry is now concluded. He has accomplished what he came to do. His gradual movement toward Calvary will now become a full-out dash to the cross, which will be the exclamation point at the end of his life.
Unlike in the synoptic gospels, where he asks to be spared the ordeal of crucifixion and the protracted pain and humiliation of death by torture, his concern, here, is only that God will somehow, through him, be glorified.
God assures him that this will, indeed, be the case. God will be glorified.
In the News
The quest of the Greeks in this continues today. People — believers and unbelievers — still want to see Jesus. But, when they seek him, what do they see?
They go to the news sources and they see John MacArthur — an 85-year-old white male pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California — attacking Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., insisting that he “was not a Christian at all, [and a man] whose life was immoral.” And he says Dr. King “misrepresented Christ and everything about the gospel."
He goes on, “The Bible is abundantly clear — slavery is the heart of what it means to be a true Christian,” and “Christianity does not free slaves. Christianity does not give equal social rights. … Jesus did not propound equal rights and he did not upset the social order…. Rather, they all affirmed that, with great fear of God and great respect, you are to be submissive to your masters. Whether they're good and gentle or whether they are unreasonable — you are to submit.”
They see a presidential candidate who is widely deified by evangelical Christians and claims that he is, himself, an evangelical Christian, but who insists that he is without sin, that his favorite book of the Bible is “Two Corinthians.” A man who gasses peaceful protestors so he can have his picture taken holding aloft a Bible in front of a church he has never entered.
This same candidate frames the election as a battle against a “wicked system” bent on attacking Christians and ignores the fact that many of those he is attacking and accusing are, in fact, Christians.
Christians disagree about the viral video showing Donald Trump in starkly religious, almost messianic tones, as the vessel of a higher power sent to save the nation’s troubles. Trump, his family and his supporters, however, have been more than willing to claim that Trump is ordained by God for a special mission, to restore America as a Christian nation. In recent weeks, for example, the former president posted a video called “God Made Trump” on Truth Social that was produced by a conservative media group technically independent of the Trump campaign. He has also screened it at campaign rallies.
They see the Alabama supreme court insisting that they are enforcing the will of God when they declare, without scientific evidence, that embryos are people and, by protecting them, they are protecting the people of Alabama from God’s wrath. “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”
They see wide disagreement and loud debate with the Roman Catholic church expressly forbidding in vitro fertilization while Protestants tend to be more open.
They see, during the Super Bowl, a 60-second ad depicting a series of images of one person washing another person’s feet, with each pairing seeming unlikely. An oil rig worker washes the feet of a climate activist. A cop washes the feet of a young Black man. An older woman washes the feet of a young woman outside an apparent abortion clinic while abortion protesters look on. A priest washes the feet of a young gay man. As the commercial ends, words appear on the screen: “Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet.” It's an ad from a group called He Gets Us, which is running a multimillion-dollar ad campaign with the aim of essentially reintroducing America to Jesus or Jesus to America. But they managed to annoy or even anger just about everyone across the Christian spectrum.
They see people posing the entirely fair question of whether it’s appropriate for Christians to spend millions of dollars on an ad campaign when it could be spent instead on, for instance, providing food or shelter to those in need. And they wonder whether feeding the hungry and housing the homeless wouldn’t be a better reflection of Jesus than any clever TV advertisement.
And they see some people criticizing He Gets Us, the funders (which include a founder of Hobby Lobby), noting that they’ve also funded conservative Christian legal causes. (Americans United for Separation of Church and State goes so far as to call the ads “a front for Christian nationalism.”)
It isn’t just liberals and progressive Christians who are questioning the efficacy of the ad. The most radically right-wing Christians were furious and still are. The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh called the ads “heretical,” adding an expletive, and said, “Putting out an ad that invites narcissistic, prideful, unrepentant sinners to come and get their feet washed is bad, actually.”
They see ecclesiastical leaders of the Roman Catholic church in Spain chastising some conservative priests for joking on YouTube that they pray every night for the pope to die.
Fighting. Bickering. Name calling. Accusations. Condemnations.
This is what they see when what they want and need to see is Jesus.
In the Sermon
Toward the end of his life, John Wesley commissioned Thomas Coke to go to America and ordain Francis Asbury and others into the ministry. It is said that, as he stood at the pier bidding Coke farewell, he offered only this one directive: “Offer them Christ, Thomas…offer them Christ.”
Out of those three words would grow a church that would eventually become the second largest protestant denomination in the world.
And now, like most of the other old-line protestant churches, it is shrinking. How is this possible? Why are our churches shrinking?
Read any survey or research you like:
Start with Dave Kinnaman’s book You Lost Me (2011) and work your way through the work of the Pew Research Center. Read Jim Davis and Michael Graham’s recent book, The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? (2023). Boil it all down and what you get is the request of the Greeks in today’s text, a request that is routinely going unanswered.
They want to see Jesus and they aren’t seeing him in the Christian church. Instead, according to Davis and Graham, they see a church that is defensive, over-protective, shallow, anti-science, sexually repressive, exclusive, and doubtless.
Those adjectives don’t describe the Jesus they were taught about in Sunday school and they don’t describe the Jesus they see when they read the gospels.
They want, indeed, they are hoping and praying, to see the Jesus who is forgiving, accepting, healing, supportive, loving, kind, gentle, and self-sacrificing. They want to see the Jesus whose arms are open and whose love is unconditional. They want to see the Jesus who says “let the little children come to me,” and “as you do it to the least of these…you do it to me.”
And those who haven’t given up and stopped seeking, are seeking desperately to find that Jesus reflected in his resurrected body, the church.
May God grant us the will and the strength to lovingly reflect in all that we are and do, the image of God’s son, Jesus Christ, whom we call Lord.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Go Ahead And Cry About It
by Elena Delhagen
Hebrews 5:5-10
In 2022, an Ipsos survey polled people in the United States about their feelings toward God, Jesus, and Christianity as a whole. Among those who responded, approximately half stated that Jesus’ most important qualities included the fact that he is Savior (53%) and the Son of God (50%).
Much was said about his deity but little about his humanity.
This isn’t terribly surprising, especially considering how Americans overall tend to value character traits like strength, courage, and achievement — even in our views of God. We want a superhuman Jesus. For many Christians, the idea of Jesus as human is uncomfortable, because we associate humanity with vulnerability (and vulnerability with weakness, even if we don’t admit it).
Yet the writer of Hebrews highlights the humanity and suffering of Jesus that was present throughout his life. Rather than wielding power to bend others to submission, Jesus was obedient, sacrificial, and serving. Throughout his life on earth, he was in constant communion with God, and he was unabashedly human in the “fervent cries and tears” he prayed (Hebrews 5:7). And God didn’t roll God’s eyes whenever Jesus started weeping. God didn’t tell Jesus to man up or get himself together. No, our text tells us that it was because of these cries and tears, God heard his prayers. Jesus was a human who felt things deeply, who had emotions and was unafraid to express them, and God valued that — and still does.
Where have we gotten the idea that we must only approach God whenever we’ve “got it all together?” That God only hears the prayers we pray when we’re stoic? Certainly not from scripture. Besides Hebrews, Jesus’ humanity, even to the point of his tears, is highlighted at other places in the Bible, such as John 11 when he weeps after Lazarus’ death, in Luke 19 when he is anguished over the city of Jerusalem in the final days of his life, or Luke 22 when he cries in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest.
Sometimes, crying is the only appropriate response.
And it’s good for us, too. An article by Harvard Health points out that as far back as the Classical era, the medical benefits of crying have been celebrated by thinkers and physicians who knew the purifying power of tears. Today, we know that tears also act as a sort of valve; when released, it helps us release internal stress and emotional pain. Furthermore, scientists distinguish tears into three different categories: Reflex tears, which help flush our eyes from contaminants and debris; continuous tears, which help to keep our eyes lubricated; and emotional tears. The content of tears from the first two categories is mostly water (98% to be exact).
But emotional tears, which flush toxins from our system, actually offer us incredible health benefits as well. Crying releases endorphins and oxytocin, a powerful chemical that eases both physical and emotional pain. Emotional tears also carry more protein in them than the other two types of tears, which helps facilitate healing in the body. Crying is an incredible human feat, and it would behoove our culture (and our churches!) to incorporate more of it into the conversations we have about physical, emotional, and spiritual health.
In 2023, the American Psychological Association published a report that looked at how Americans are faring after years of widespread trauma, both in our own country and around the world. It showed the devastating effects of our repeated, chronic exposure to collective trauma, from the Covid-19 pandemic to inflation to race and racial injustice to climate disasters, plus global unrest and widespread violent conflict. Unsurprisingly, they found that Americans are showing the psychological effects of trauma (diagnosed mental illness rose 5% from four years prior) that also manifests as physical ailments in the body (chronic illness among those aged 35-44 rose 48% in four years, for example).
Yet, despite the empirical evidence, there’s a tendency to downplay the effects of stress and trauma; many feel their problems aren’t as important because “other people have it worse.” This only prolongs the stress in our minds and bodies, which further exacerbate sthe damaging effects. What this means is that our inability to name and feel our pain is harming us, over and over again.
I cannot help but be drawn back to scripture and wonder what collective healing we might see if we simply went ahead and cried about it. If we’d set aside our need to appear strong and brave, admit our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and let out the grief, pain, rage, and lament that has been built up over the years. How much better would we be if we’d follow Jesus’ example and cry out our prayers to God, trusting that God welcomes our tears and meets us in them?
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Tom Willadsen:
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Uxorious
If you’re looking for a provocative sermon title this week, and you’re preaching the Jeremiah lesson, why not go with “Uxorious?” It is an adjective used for an attentive husband. And the Lord presents Godself as Judah and Israel’s husband. It might not be the best term for the relationship that the Lord desires to have with those nations. The Lord wants them to understand the Law and covenant so well that they will not need to be instructed in them again. They will have internalized them. Typically, “uxorious” connotes a submissiveness that implies weakness, not the positive side of “attentive.” Still, if you like titles that send people to the dictionary, or merriam-webster.com, uxorious is a good one.
(As a matter of fact, I did crush the SATs; thanks for asking.)
* * *
Psalm 51:1-12
Hyssop
Chances are your members aren’t going to the local spa for a hyssop purge. They probably have no idea what hyssop is. It’s important in today’s reading from Psalm 51. Hyssop is a shrub that appears several times in scripture. It was used to apply blood to doorposts and lintels of slaves’ homes in Exodus 12:22, thus signaling in the Lord not to admit the Destroyer into their homes. The Egyptians didn’t get the memo. In Leviticus 14:4-6 hyssop is used in the ritual cleansing of a leper and in Leviticus 14:49ff hyssop is used to cleanse a house. In John 19:29 hyssop was used to extend a sponge with vinegar on it to Jesus’ mouth as he was crucified. In each appearance hyssop is used to create, or convey, purity.
* * *
Psalm 119:9-16
Synonyms make good poetry
Psalm 119 is the longest psalm. It is 176 verses of praise to the Lord for God’s word, commandments, statutes, ordinances, decrees, and precepts. Modern English readers often find the Bible repetitive. Our literary styles and experience and expectations as readers are different from the Psalms’ original audience. Good poetic style in biblical Hebrew includes repetition for emphasis. Today’s reading from Psalm 119 includes six synonyms for “Law” in eight verses. The psalmist “delights” in them; she says God has blessed her with them; she treasures them. When have you ever delighted in a rule? The closest I ever come is being grateful for deadlines, because without them I’d never get anything done.
* * *
Psalm 119:9-16
Rules just slow you down
I used to pass a bar on my way to church. This is hardly surprising — I lived in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Wisconsin is third in the nation for bars per capita, and Oshkosh was one of the national leaders in binge drinking. This bar had a sign over its entrance that read, “Rules just slow you down.” Clearly, they were appealing to the portion of the community that identified as “rebels.” As I got older and busier I started to think that if rules slow me down, maybe they’re good things, like the Lord’s statutes, ordinances, decrees, edicts, etc. What other things could slow me down? I want more of them.
* * *
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Broken-Hearted Savior
Jeremiah is unique among the prophets for his honesty about how he suffered for speaking God’s word. In today’s reading, Jeremiah is speaking the Lord’s words and beneath them is a kind of weariness. In the same way Henri Nouwen’s phrase “wounded healer” conveys a kind of “in spite of” authority and resilience, the chorus of Big Head Todd and the Monsters’ 1993 hit “Broken Hearted Savior” speaks to a tenacity that the Lord has in never abandoning Judah and Israel.
And I'll love her yet, though she has done me wrong
And I'll bring her back, though she has been long gone
And I'll always be her
Broken hearted savior
“Broken Hearted Savior,” recorded by Big Head Todd and the Monsters, written by Todd Park Mohr, from the 1993 album Sister Sweetly.
* * * * * *
From team member Mary Austin:
Jeremiah 31:31-34
New Heart, Old Regrets
God, speaking through Jeremiah, promises a new covenant with the people, written on their hearts. This idea is alluring to us, and then we get in our own way and stay mired in the past.
Liz Moody summarizes the work of Danile Pink, helping us to let go of the past. She says that Pink recommends making a “New Year’s Resolutions, Old Year’s Regrets” list. “You can do this at the start of a new year, but also the start of a new month or at any life transition. The idea is to add what Pink calls “backward-looking” to the traditional forward-looking goal setting. Ask yourself what your biggest regrets are for the time period you’re working with, and then use those regrets to inform the goals you make for the next chunk of time. “If my biggest regret is that this past month, I didn’t figure out a way to get time in for exercise, for the next month, I can put exercise sessions on the calendar and make them as sacrosanct as anything that I do,” Pink said.
Moody encourages this practice, saying “Reflecting on your regrets to make the best decisions for current you is a powerful way to figure out exactly how to move forward…remember: Regrets are one of the best tools at your disposal for becoming your best self and living your most authentic, fully-realized life." (from 100 Ways to Change Your Life)
We can move into the newness of God’s promises by learning from, and then letting go of, our regrets.
* * *
John 12:2-33
Focus
As some foreigners ask to meet Jesus, he maintains his focus on what’s next for him. He’s not distracted by these intriguing guests or tempted to fit in one more thing. We would have richer lives if we had the same kind of concentration on the essentials.
Author Catherine Price says that one problem is our distractible minds. “Like overzealous (and slightly deranged) party planners, our minds are constantly presenting us with invitations to do certain things or to react in certain ways. You hit a traffic jam and your mind invites you to give a fellow motorist the finger. You find yourself alone on a Friday night and your mind invites you to conclude that you are worthless and you have no friends. In other words, what we think of as irresistible impulses are actually invitations being sent by our minds. This is an important insight, because once you recognize this, you can ask your mind why it’s inviting you to such crappy parties. Why couldn’t a traffic jam be an invitation to a mobile karaoke session? Why couldn’t a solitary Friday night be an invitation to watch a movie that you can’t convince anyone else to see?”
She adds, “The moment you recognize that you don’t have to say yes to every invitation is the moment you gain control over your life.” Jesus gives us a powerful example in the way he does this.
* * *
John 12:20-33
Jesus Knows How to Say No
In this story, Jesus says a firm “no” to the visiting Greeks, without ever saying the word. He’s so focused that his “no” comes easily.
A group of scientists started a No Club to get better at saying no. They “shared with one another their discomfort about their overstuffed schedules and overwhelming correspondence, much of which was due to their own poor discipline in failing to refuse professional tasks and opportunities, such as going to conferences and reviewing articles for scholarly journals. Knowing that individually they would probably lack the willpower to improve, they pledged to one another to start saying no to large and small requests. By disclosing these decisions to the group, they found a way to make themselves accountable. They even started a little challenge to see how soon they could collectively chalk up 100 work-related nos. You might want to start your own No Club.”
Jesus sets a compelling example for us.
* * *
Hebrews 5:5-10
The Tears of Jesus
The author of the letter to the Hebrews highlights the weeping of Jesus as he suffers at the end of his life. Grief is part of his reverence. Author Francis Weller reminds us that human beings mix grief and reverence, too.
Weller remembers being in New York City in 2001, less than a month after 9-11. “My son was going to college there and this tragedy occurred shortly after his first major time away from home. He took me downtown to show me the city and what I saw touched me deeply. Everywhere I went there were grief shrines, flowers adorning pictures of loved ones lost in the destruction. There were circles of people in parks, some silent, others singing. It was clear that the soul had an elemental requirement to do this, to gather and mourn and weep and wail and cry out in pain in order for the healing to begin. On some level we know that this is a requirement when facing loss, but we have forgotten how to walk comfortably with this potent emotion.” In this passage, the writer shows us Jesus as the example of living with potent grief.
* * *
Hebrews 5:1-10
Remembering as Healing
The letter to the Hebrews shows us an image of Jesus in the depths of grief. Grief was a catalyst for Isabel Allende to write The House of the Spirits. Spurred by loss, she says the book “was an attempt to recover the world I’d lost in exile — my family, my country, my past, my grandfather — and I think I did. It will forever be in that book.”
Her book Paula is about the death of her daughter, and she says, “After my daughter died, everything was dark. All the color was gone from my life. All days seemed alike. She had been in a coma for a year, and I had taken care of her at home. A month later my mother gave me back 180 letters I had sent her during that year, and I started writing. It was very painful, but also healing, because I could contain what had happened in those pages and it allowed me to see around me again. My grandchildren were being born. I had a husband who loved me. There was life all over.”
* * *
Hebrews 5:5-10
Grief Makes Us New
As he grieves at the end of his life, Jesus enters into a new relationship with God. Margaret Renkl writes poignantly about how grief stays with us and makes us new people. She looks back to the losses of her parents and mother-in-law and says that she thinks of them every day. “They are an absence made palpably present, as though their most vivid traits — my father’s unshakable optimism, my mother’s irreverent wit, my mother-in-law’s profound gentleness — had formed a thin membrane between had formed a thin membrane between me and the world: because they are gone, I see everything differently.”
Renkl adds, “Here is what no one told me about grief: you inhabit it like a skin. Everywhere you go, you wear grief under your clothes. Everything you see, you see through it, like a film. It is not a hidden hair shirt of suffering. It is only you, the thing you are, the cells that cling to each other in your shape, the muscles that are doing your work in the world. And like your other skin, your other eyes, your other muscles, it too will change in time. It will change so slowly you won’t even see it happening. No matter how you scrutinize it, no matter how you poke at it with a worried finger, you will not see it changing. Time claims you: Your belly softens, your hair grays, the skin on the top of your hand goes loose as a grandmother’s, and the skin of your grief, too, will loosen, soften...You are waking into a new shape. You are waking into an old self. What I mean is, time offers your old self a new shape. What I mean is, you are the old, ungrieving you, and you are also the new, ruined you. You are both, and you will always be both.”
Grief changes us into another version of ourselves.
* * * * * *
From team member Katy Stenta:
John 12:20-33
Jesus — Realized
Jesus enfleshed must have been amazing to experience, yet still, Jesus kept trying to communicate that the fruit of his time on earth, and the kingdom to come would be even better.
A foretaste of this experience for me was post-Covid lockdown. I had been in a doctoral program with a bunch of colleagues, all different denominations and places across the United States, for about a year. This program had kept me sane. It was a lifeline of theological / adult conversation and socialization when I was stuck at home with mainly my children. Finally, after a year of zoom meetings, we got to convene together in person.
We were to meet on campus under a tent. We gathered and it was amazing. These people, who we knew and loved, finally got to meet, and embrace in person. It was all hugs, and tears. A lot of “Wow, I didn’t know you were tall, or short, or were transitioning.” At the time I remember thinking that this is what heaven is going to be like. This is what it is going to be like to meet Jesus. Because it was not that these relationships were not real before, they just deepened and became enfleshed when we finally got to meet. It was a more realized relationship. I got to be more myself, too. Beloved, among my friends who I already loved, over a beautiful meal.
Jesus talks about how the kingdom relationship (the fruit) is going to be better and more real — a more realized relationship than anyone can really understand. The difference between meeting on Zoom and in the flesh, the difference between “reality” tv and reality, the difference between heaven and earth, the difference between the seed and the fruit. No wonder he had to go all parable about it.
* * *
Hebrews 5:5-10
The idea that Jesus became the highest of priests through empathy is almost unbelievable. Jesus became most high by submitting. I do not know about you, but there is something really uncomfortable to me about submitting. It implies a trust that I do not have. It is hard for me to feel safe enough to submit to other people, to feel safe — to rest and know that everything will be all right. But this is what Jesus does, he pleads for us, and then he rests, he submits his case, and submits himself, trusting that, as Julian of Norwich puts it, “All will be well.” The peace of the High Priest comes with tears, but they are tears of empathy — tears of one who has walked with us, felt the pain with us, and then at last, felt safe with God — and perhaps even with us? It is worth thinking about.
* * *
Jeremiah 31:31-34
God will not even remember our sin anymore. Can you imagine what this means? We like to highlight God as the omniscient, but here God’s forgetfulness is what is praiseworthy. Here is our God who forgets, erases, gets over, and gets rid of. Our God is so fantastic that God does not even know our sin’s name anymore. Can you imagine that our sin is so erased that God does not even remember it?Is that where we get the phrase forgive and forget? Humans are bad at forgetting sins even though we forget other things. Did you know we are also designed to forget things? The latest science shows how important sleep and forgetting is for our brains to function properly.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love.
All: According to your abundant mercy blot out our transgressions.
One: Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin.
All: For we know our transgressions, and our sin is ever before us.
One: Create in us clean hearts and put a new and right spirit within us.
All: Restore to us the joy of your salvation, and sustain in us a willing spirit.
OR
One: God comes among us as Father/Mother.
All: We welcome our loving parent who created us.
One: God comes among us a Son/Brother.
All: We welcome the Christ who leads us home.
One: God comes among us as the indwelling Spirit.
All: We welcome the Spirit that makes us one with all.
Hymns and Songs
I Sing the Almighty Power of God
UMH: 152
H82: 398
PH: 288
GTG: 32
NCH: 12
W&P: 31
Renew: 54
Lift High the Cross
UMH: 159
H82: 473
PH: 371
GTG: 826
AAHH: 242
NCH: 198
CH: 108
LBW: 377
ELW: 660
W&P: 287
Renew: 297
My Jesus, I Love Thee
UMH: 172
AAHH: 674
NNBH: 39
CH: 349
W&P: 468
AMEC: 456/457
Renew: 275
His Name Is Wonderful
UMH: 174
AAHH: 307
NNBH: 14
W&P: 102
Renew: 30
I Sought the Lord
UMH: 341
H82: 689
Sois la Semilla (You Are the Seed)
UMH: 583
NCH: 528
CH: 478
Christ for the World We Sing
UMH: 568
H82: 537
W&P: 561
AMEC: 565
Renew: 299
We Meet You, O Christ
UMH: 257
PH: 311
CH: 183
W&P: 616
We Would See Jesus
UMH: 256
Lord of the Dance
UMH: 261
W&P: 118
Jesus, Name Above All Names
CCB: 35
Renew: 26
Praise the Name of Jesus
CCB: 39
Renew 7
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who desires to be known by your creation:
Grant us the wisdom to seek you as you are known in Jesus
that we may learn how to live as your children;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you long to be known by your creation. You make yourself known in many way but most clearly through Jesus. Help us to know him so that we may know you. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to not see Jesus as the God/human.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You sent Jesus among us so that we might know you and so that we might know how to live as your children. But we have made Jesus so otherworldly that we fail to follow him. He taught us to pray to you as ‘Our Father’ but we act like we aren’t your children. Forgive our foolishness and help us to follow Jesus as our elder brother. Amen.
One: God is our loving parent who welcomes us as members of the household. Receive God’s welcome and forgiveness as you share with others the joy of being part of God’s family.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God, who created us from the dust of the earth and from your own breath. You created us to be in communion with you and with one another.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You sent Jesus among us so that we might know you and so that we might know how to live as your children. But we have made Jesus so otherworldly that we fail to follow him. He taught us to pray to you as ‘Our Father' but we act like we aren't your children. Forgive our foolishness and help us to follow Jesus as our elder brother.
We give you thanks for all the ways you remind us that we are your own dear children. You provide for us from the bounty of your creation. You give us your Spirit that dwells within us. You give us Jesus the Christ who teaches us how to be part of your family.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for those who have not heard that you are their loving parent and for those who have heard but find it hard to believe. We pray for your Church that we may be so filled with your Spirit that we are able to draw others to your loving embrace.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMON
We Want to See Jesus
by Katy Stenta
John 12:20-33
In this story the Greeks say “We want to see Jesus.”
They come and say, “we want to see Jesus”.
Now Jesus has been trying to tell everyone what has been going to happen to him, that he is going to die and be resurrected, but people aren’t really getting it because they don’t know the end of the story like we do.
This time Jesus says, “Tell them that Jesus isn’t really here, because he hasn’t died yet.”
Jesus is basically saying, “Don’t bother yet, because, it’s not Easter yet, so they won’t be seeing the best version of me yet. Tell them to go away and come back later.” That just confuses everyone.
Do you think the disciples or anyone thinks that Easter is coming or Jesus is going to rise from the dead? No — so they do not understand what Jesus is talking about. It’s like Jesus is the only one in on the joke.
Now I’m going to tell the joke Jesus told and you all are going to understand it because it’s a secret joke. Ready…?
Isn’t that funny? It’s almost like a bad joke, a dad joke, or a bad pun. Now I’m going to tell the Jesus joke like a bad knock, knock joke. Are you ready?
“Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Wrong Jesus.
Jesus who?
Wrong Jesus who hasn’t risen from the dead yet. Tell them to come back later.”
Isn’t that silly?
Prayer
Dear God
We thank you
That there isn’t actually a wrong Jesus
And that Jesus was only joking
Send Jesus to be with us
Whenever we look for him we pray
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, March 17, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- We Want To See Jesus by Dean Feldmeyer — “Sir, we want to see Jesus.” Yeah? Well, get in line, fellas.
- Second Thoughts: Go Ahead And Cry About It by Elena Delhagen based on Hebrews 5:5-10.
- Sermon illustrations by Tom Willadsen, Mary Austin, Katy Stenta.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: We Want to See Jesus by Katy Stenta based on John 12:20-33.
We Want To See Jesusby Dean Feldmeyer
John 12:20-33
It’s why we go to church. It’s the reason behind all the other reasons — teaching Sunday school, singing in the choir, leading the liturgy, or just sitting in the pew.
We’re like those Greek gentiles who show up in this story. We want to see Jesus.
And when the pollsters ask the “nones” and the “used-to-bes” why they don’t go to church any more, about 90% of their answers boil down to this one thing. They want to see Jesus, and they weren’t seeing him at church.
They wanted to see Jesus, not just at church, but in his followers, in the people who call themselves Christians, but they didn’t see him there, either.
It’s a painful indictment but one that can, if we let it, move us to action, to repentance and transformation.
In the Scripture
Jesus and his disciples have made their way to Bethany, a suburb of Jerusalem, for the celebration of the Passover. They’re camping out with what is probably a big crowd of folks, mostly Jews, who have arrived from across the known world.
Among the crowd is a group of Greek gentiles who, because they find Judaism interesting, have come to Jerusalem to study it and maybe even participate in this high, holy celebration. (Greeks are always up for a party, after all.)
They hear some scuttlebutt about a guy named Jesus who some people think may be the long-awaited messiah and they track down one of his followers who hails from Galilee and speaks Greek. A fellow named Philip.
By John’s account, they skip the small talk and get right to the point: “Sir, we want to see Jesus.”
Philip, not knowing what to say, goes to get Andrew and the two of them go and tell Jesus about the Greeks who want to see him.
And this is where the story kind of goes off the rails. The Greek gentiles and their request are all but forgotten as Jesus launches into a long soliloquy about his impending death. The news that his word has made it beyond the Jewish community and into the secular world signals that his ministry is now concluded. He has accomplished what he came to do. His gradual movement toward Calvary will now become a full-out dash to the cross, which will be the exclamation point at the end of his life.
Unlike in the synoptic gospels, where he asks to be spared the ordeal of crucifixion and the protracted pain and humiliation of death by torture, his concern, here, is only that God will somehow, through him, be glorified.
God assures him that this will, indeed, be the case. God will be glorified.
In the News
The quest of the Greeks in this continues today. People — believers and unbelievers — still want to see Jesus. But, when they seek him, what do they see?
They go to the news sources and they see John MacArthur — an 85-year-old white male pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California — attacking Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., insisting that he “was not a Christian at all, [and a man] whose life was immoral.” And he says Dr. King “misrepresented Christ and everything about the gospel."
He goes on, “The Bible is abundantly clear — slavery is the heart of what it means to be a true Christian,” and “Christianity does not free slaves. Christianity does not give equal social rights. … Jesus did not propound equal rights and he did not upset the social order…. Rather, they all affirmed that, with great fear of God and great respect, you are to be submissive to your masters. Whether they're good and gentle or whether they are unreasonable — you are to submit.”
They see a presidential candidate who is widely deified by evangelical Christians and claims that he is, himself, an evangelical Christian, but who insists that he is without sin, that his favorite book of the Bible is “Two Corinthians.” A man who gasses peaceful protestors so he can have his picture taken holding aloft a Bible in front of a church he has never entered.
This same candidate frames the election as a battle against a “wicked system” bent on attacking Christians and ignores the fact that many of those he is attacking and accusing are, in fact, Christians.
Christians disagree about the viral video showing Donald Trump in starkly religious, almost messianic tones, as the vessel of a higher power sent to save the nation’s troubles. Trump, his family and his supporters, however, have been more than willing to claim that Trump is ordained by God for a special mission, to restore America as a Christian nation. In recent weeks, for example, the former president posted a video called “God Made Trump” on Truth Social that was produced by a conservative media group technically independent of the Trump campaign. He has also screened it at campaign rallies.
They see the Alabama supreme court insisting that they are enforcing the will of God when they declare, without scientific evidence, that embryos are people and, by protecting them, they are protecting the people of Alabama from God’s wrath. “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”
They see wide disagreement and loud debate with the Roman Catholic church expressly forbidding in vitro fertilization while Protestants tend to be more open.
They see, during the Super Bowl, a 60-second ad depicting a series of images of one person washing another person’s feet, with each pairing seeming unlikely. An oil rig worker washes the feet of a climate activist. A cop washes the feet of a young Black man. An older woman washes the feet of a young woman outside an apparent abortion clinic while abortion protesters look on. A priest washes the feet of a young gay man. As the commercial ends, words appear on the screen: “Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet.” It's an ad from a group called He Gets Us, which is running a multimillion-dollar ad campaign with the aim of essentially reintroducing America to Jesus or Jesus to America. But they managed to annoy or even anger just about everyone across the Christian spectrum.
They see people posing the entirely fair question of whether it’s appropriate for Christians to spend millions of dollars on an ad campaign when it could be spent instead on, for instance, providing food or shelter to those in need. And they wonder whether feeding the hungry and housing the homeless wouldn’t be a better reflection of Jesus than any clever TV advertisement.
And they see some people criticizing He Gets Us, the funders (which include a founder of Hobby Lobby), noting that they’ve also funded conservative Christian legal causes. (Americans United for Separation of Church and State goes so far as to call the ads “a front for Christian nationalism.”)
It isn’t just liberals and progressive Christians who are questioning the efficacy of the ad. The most radically right-wing Christians were furious and still are. The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh called the ads “heretical,” adding an expletive, and said, “Putting out an ad that invites narcissistic, prideful, unrepentant sinners to come and get their feet washed is bad, actually.”
They see ecclesiastical leaders of the Roman Catholic church in Spain chastising some conservative priests for joking on YouTube that they pray every night for the pope to die.
Fighting. Bickering. Name calling. Accusations. Condemnations.
This is what they see when what they want and need to see is Jesus.
In the Sermon
Toward the end of his life, John Wesley commissioned Thomas Coke to go to America and ordain Francis Asbury and others into the ministry. It is said that, as he stood at the pier bidding Coke farewell, he offered only this one directive: “Offer them Christ, Thomas…offer them Christ.”
Out of those three words would grow a church that would eventually become the second largest protestant denomination in the world.
And now, like most of the other old-line protestant churches, it is shrinking. How is this possible? Why are our churches shrinking?
Read any survey or research you like:
Start with Dave Kinnaman’s book You Lost Me (2011) and work your way through the work of the Pew Research Center. Read Jim Davis and Michael Graham’s recent book, The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? (2023). Boil it all down and what you get is the request of the Greeks in today’s text, a request that is routinely going unanswered.
They want to see Jesus and they aren’t seeing him in the Christian church. Instead, according to Davis and Graham, they see a church that is defensive, over-protective, shallow, anti-science, sexually repressive, exclusive, and doubtless.
Those adjectives don’t describe the Jesus they were taught about in Sunday school and they don’t describe the Jesus they see when they read the gospels.
They want, indeed, they are hoping and praying, to see the Jesus who is forgiving, accepting, healing, supportive, loving, kind, gentle, and self-sacrificing. They want to see the Jesus whose arms are open and whose love is unconditional. They want to see the Jesus who says “let the little children come to me,” and “as you do it to the least of these…you do it to me.”
And those who haven’t given up and stopped seeking, are seeking desperately to find that Jesus reflected in his resurrected body, the church.
May God grant us the will and the strength to lovingly reflect in all that we are and do, the image of God’s son, Jesus Christ, whom we call Lord.
SECOND THOUGHTSGo Ahead And Cry About It
by Elena Delhagen
Hebrews 5:5-10
In 2022, an Ipsos survey polled people in the United States about their feelings toward God, Jesus, and Christianity as a whole. Among those who responded, approximately half stated that Jesus’ most important qualities included the fact that he is Savior (53%) and the Son of God (50%).
Much was said about his deity but little about his humanity.
This isn’t terribly surprising, especially considering how Americans overall tend to value character traits like strength, courage, and achievement — even in our views of God. We want a superhuman Jesus. For many Christians, the idea of Jesus as human is uncomfortable, because we associate humanity with vulnerability (and vulnerability with weakness, even if we don’t admit it).
Yet the writer of Hebrews highlights the humanity and suffering of Jesus that was present throughout his life. Rather than wielding power to bend others to submission, Jesus was obedient, sacrificial, and serving. Throughout his life on earth, he was in constant communion with God, and he was unabashedly human in the “fervent cries and tears” he prayed (Hebrews 5:7). And God didn’t roll God’s eyes whenever Jesus started weeping. God didn’t tell Jesus to man up or get himself together. No, our text tells us that it was because of these cries and tears, God heard his prayers. Jesus was a human who felt things deeply, who had emotions and was unafraid to express them, and God valued that — and still does.
Where have we gotten the idea that we must only approach God whenever we’ve “got it all together?” That God only hears the prayers we pray when we’re stoic? Certainly not from scripture. Besides Hebrews, Jesus’ humanity, even to the point of his tears, is highlighted at other places in the Bible, such as John 11 when he weeps after Lazarus’ death, in Luke 19 when he is anguished over the city of Jerusalem in the final days of his life, or Luke 22 when he cries in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest.
Sometimes, crying is the only appropriate response.
And it’s good for us, too. An article by Harvard Health points out that as far back as the Classical era, the medical benefits of crying have been celebrated by thinkers and physicians who knew the purifying power of tears. Today, we know that tears also act as a sort of valve; when released, it helps us release internal stress and emotional pain. Furthermore, scientists distinguish tears into three different categories: Reflex tears, which help flush our eyes from contaminants and debris; continuous tears, which help to keep our eyes lubricated; and emotional tears. The content of tears from the first two categories is mostly water (98% to be exact).
But emotional tears, which flush toxins from our system, actually offer us incredible health benefits as well. Crying releases endorphins and oxytocin, a powerful chemical that eases both physical and emotional pain. Emotional tears also carry more protein in them than the other two types of tears, which helps facilitate healing in the body. Crying is an incredible human feat, and it would behoove our culture (and our churches!) to incorporate more of it into the conversations we have about physical, emotional, and spiritual health.
In 2023, the American Psychological Association published a report that looked at how Americans are faring after years of widespread trauma, both in our own country and around the world. It showed the devastating effects of our repeated, chronic exposure to collective trauma, from the Covid-19 pandemic to inflation to race and racial injustice to climate disasters, plus global unrest and widespread violent conflict. Unsurprisingly, they found that Americans are showing the psychological effects of trauma (diagnosed mental illness rose 5% from four years prior) that also manifests as physical ailments in the body (chronic illness among those aged 35-44 rose 48% in four years, for example).
Yet, despite the empirical evidence, there’s a tendency to downplay the effects of stress and trauma; many feel their problems aren’t as important because “other people have it worse.” This only prolongs the stress in our minds and bodies, which further exacerbate sthe damaging effects. What this means is that our inability to name and feel our pain is harming us, over and over again.
I cannot help but be drawn back to scripture and wonder what collective healing we might see if we simply went ahead and cried about it. If we’d set aside our need to appear strong and brave, admit our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and let out the grief, pain, rage, and lament that has been built up over the years. How much better would we be if we’d follow Jesus’ example and cry out our prayers to God, trusting that God welcomes our tears and meets us in them?
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Tom Willadsen:Jeremiah 31:31-34
Uxorious
If you’re looking for a provocative sermon title this week, and you’re preaching the Jeremiah lesson, why not go with “Uxorious?” It is an adjective used for an attentive husband. And the Lord presents Godself as Judah and Israel’s husband. It might not be the best term for the relationship that the Lord desires to have with those nations. The Lord wants them to understand the Law and covenant so well that they will not need to be instructed in them again. They will have internalized them. Typically, “uxorious” connotes a submissiveness that implies weakness, not the positive side of “attentive.” Still, if you like titles that send people to the dictionary, or merriam-webster.com, uxorious is a good one.
(As a matter of fact, I did crush the SATs; thanks for asking.)
* * *
Psalm 51:1-12
Hyssop
Chances are your members aren’t going to the local spa for a hyssop purge. They probably have no idea what hyssop is. It’s important in today’s reading from Psalm 51. Hyssop is a shrub that appears several times in scripture. It was used to apply blood to doorposts and lintels of slaves’ homes in Exodus 12:22, thus signaling in the Lord not to admit the Destroyer into their homes. The Egyptians didn’t get the memo. In Leviticus 14:4-6 hyssop is used in the ritual cleansing of a leper and in Leviticus 14:49ff hyssop is used to cleanse a house. In John 19:29 hyssop was used to extend a sponge with vinegar on it to Jesus’ mouth as he was crucified. In each appearance hyssop is used to create, or convey, purity.
* * *
Psalm 119:9-16
Synonyms make good poetry
Psalm 119 is the longest psalm. It is 176 verses of praise to the Lord for God’s word, commandments, statutes, ordinances, decrees, and precepts. Modern English readers often find the Bible repetitive. Our literary styles and experience and expectations as readers are different from the Psalms’ original audience. Good poetic style in biblical Hebrew includes repetition for emphasis. Today’s reading from Psalm 119 includes six synonyms for “Law” in eight verses. The psalmist “delights” in them; she says God has blessed her with them; she treasures them. When have you ever delighted in a rule? The closest I ever come is being grateful for deadlines, because without them I’d never get anything done.
* * *
Psalm 119:9-16
Rules just slow you down
I used to pass a bar on my way to church. This is hardly surprising — I lived in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Wisconsin is third in the nation for bars per capita, and Oshkosh was one of the national leaders in binge drinking. This bar had a sign over its entrance that read, “Rules just slow you down.” Clearly, they were appealing to the portion of the community that identified as “rebels.” As I got older and busier I started to think that if rules slow me down, maybe they’re good things, like the Lord’s statutes, ordinances, decrees, edicts, etc. What other things could slow me down? I want more of them.
* * *
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Broken-Hearted Savior
Jeremiah is unique among the prophets for his honesty about how he suffered for speaking God’s word. In today’s reading, Jeremiah is speaking the Lord’s words and beneath them is a kind of weariness. In the same way Henri Nouwen’s phrase “wounded healer” conveys a kind of “in spite of” authority and resilience, the chorus of Big Head Todd and the Monsters’ 1993 hit “Broken Hearted Savior” speaks to a tenacity that the Lord has in never abandoning Judah and Israel.
And I'll love her yet, though she has done me wrong
And I'll bring her back, though she has been long gone
And I'll always be her
Broken hearted savior
“Broken Hearted Savior,” recorded by Big Head Todd and the Monsters, written by Todd Park Mohr, from the 1993 album Sister Sweetly.
* * * * * *
From team member Mary Austin:Jeremiah 31:31-34
New Heart, Old Regrets
God, speaking through Jeremiah, promises a new covenant with the people, written on their hearts. This idea is alluring to us, and then we get in our own way and stay mired in the past.
Liz Moody summarizes the work of Danile Pink, helping us to let go of the past. She says that Pink recommends making a “New Year’s Resolutions, Old Year’s Regrets” list. “You can do this at the start of a new year, but also the start of a new month or at any life transition. The idea is to add what Pink calls “backward-looking” to the traditional forward-looking goal setting. Ask yourself what your biggest regrets are for the time period you’re working with, and then use those regrets to inform the goals you make for the next chunk of time. “If my biggest regret is that this past month, I didn’t figure out a way to get time in for exercise, for the next month, I can put exercise sessions on the calendar and make them as sacrosanct as anything that I do,” Pink said.
Moody encourages this practice, saying “Reflecting on your regrets to make the best decisions for current you is a powerful way to figure out exactly how to move forward…remember: Regrets are one of the best tools at your disposal for becoming your best self and living your most authentic, fully-realized life." (from 100 Ways to Change Your Life)
We can move into the newness of God’s promises by learning from, and then letting go of, our regrets.
* * *
John 12:2-33
Focus
As some foreigners ask to meet Jesus, he maintains his focus on what’s next for him. He’s not distracted by these intriguing guests or tempted to fit in one more thing. We would have richer lives if we had the same kind of concentration on the essentials.
Author Catherine Price says that one problem is our distractible minds. “Like overzealous (and slightly deranged) party planners, our minds are constantly presenting us with invitations to do certain things or to react in certain ways. You hit a traffic jam and your mind invites you to give a fellow motorist the finger. You find yourself alone on a Friday night and your mind invites you to conclude that you are worthless and you have no friends. In other words, what we think of as irresistible impulses are actually invitations being sent by our minds. This is an important insight, because once you recognize this, you can ask your mind why it’s inviting you to such crappy parties. Why couldn’t a traffic jam be an invitation to a mobile karaoke session? Why couldn’t a solitary Friday night be an invitation to watch a movie that you can’t convince anyone else to see?”
She adds, “The moment you recognize that you don’t have to say yes to every invitation is the moment you gain control over your life.” Jesus gives us a powerful example in the way he does this.
* * *
John 12:20-33
Jesus Knows How to Say No
In this story, Jesus says a firm “no” to the visiting Greeks, without ever saying the word. He’s so focused that his “no” comes easily.
A group of scientists started a No Club to get better at saying no. They “shared with one another their discomfort about their overstuffed schedules and overwhelming correspondence, much of which was due to their own poor discipline in failing to refuse professional tasks and opportunities, such as going to conferences and reviewing articles for scholarly journals. Knowing that individually they would probably lack the willpower to improve, they pledged to one another to start saying no to large and small requests. By disclosing these decisions to the group, they found a way to make themselves accountable. They even started a little challenge to see how soon they could collectively chalk up 100 work-related nos. You might want to start your own No Club.”
Jesus sets a compelling example for us.
* * *
Hebrews 5:5-10
The Tears of Jesus
The author of the letter to the Hebrews highlights the weeping of Jesus as he suffers at the end of his life. Grief is part of his reverence. Author Francis Weller reminds us that human beings mix grief and reverence, too.
Weller remembers being in New York City in 2001, less than a month after 9-11. “My son was going to college there and this tragedy occurred shortly after his first major time away from home. He took me downtown to show me the city and what I saw touched me deeply. Everywhere I went there were grief shrines, flowers adorning pictures of loved ones lost in the destruction. There were circles of people in parks, some silent, others singing. It was clear that the soul had an elemental requirement to do this, to gather and mourn and weep and wail and cry out in pain in order for the healing to begin. On some level we know that this is a requirement when facing loss, but we have forgotten how to walk comfortably with this potent emotion.” In this passage, the writer shows us Jesus as the example of living with potent grief.
* * *
Hebrews 5:1-10
Remembering as Healing
The letter to the Hebrews shows us an image of Jesus in the depths of grief. Grief was a catalyst for Isabel Allende to write The House of the Spirits. Spurred by loss, she says the book “was an attempt to recover the world I’d lost in exile — my family, my country, my past, my grandfather — and I think I did. It will forever be in that book.”
Her book Paula is about the death of her daughter, and she says, “After my daughter died, everything was dark. All the color was gone from my life. All days seemed alike. She had been in a coma for a year, and I had taken care of her at home. A month later my mother gave me back 180 letters I had sent her during that year, and I started writing. It was very painful, but also healing, because I could contain what had happened in those pages and it allowed me to see around me again. My grandchildren were being born. I had a husband who loved me. There was life all over.”
* * *
Hebrews 5:5-10
Grief Makes Us New
As he grieves at the end of his life, Jesus enters into a new relationship with God. Margaret Renkl writes poignantly about how grief stays with us and makes us new people. She looks back to the losses of her parents and mother-in-law and says that she thinks of them every day. “They are an absence made palpably present, as though their most vivid traits — my father’s unshakable optimism, my mother’s irreverent wit, my mother-in-law’s profound gentleness — had formed a thin membrane between had formed a thin membrane between me and the world: because they are gone, I see everything differently.”
Renkl adds, “Here is what no one told me about grief: you inhabit it like a skin. Everywhere you go, you wear grief under your clothes. Everything you see, you see through it, like a film. It is not a hidden hair shirt of suffering. It is only you, the thing you are, the cells that cling to each other in your shape, the muscles that are doing your work in the world. And like your other skin, your other eyes, your other muscles, it too will change in time. It will change so slowly you won’t even see it happening. No matter how you scrutinize it, no matter how you poke at it with a worried finger, you will not see it changing. Time claims you: Your belly softens, your hair grays, the skin on the top of your hand goes loose as a grandmother’s, and the skin of your grief, too, will loosen, soften...You are waking into a new shape. You are waking into an old self. What I mean is, time offers your old self a new shape. What I mean is, you are the old, ungrieving you, and you are also the new, ruined you. You are both, and you will always be both.”
Grief changes us into another version of ourselves.
* * * * * *
From team member Katy Stenta:John 12:20-33
Jesus — Realized
Jesus enfleshed must have been amazing to experience, yet still, Jesus kept trying to communicate that the fruit of his time on earth, and the kingdom to come would be even better.
A foretaste of this experience for me was post-Covid lockdown. I had been in a doctoral program with a bunch of colleagues, all different denominations and places across the United States, for about a year. This program had kept me sane. It was a lifeline of theological / adult conversation and socialization when I was stuck at home with mainly my children. Finally, after a year of zoom meetings, we got to convene together in person.
We were to meet on campus under a tent. We gathered and it was amazing. These people, who we knew and loved, finally got to meet, and embrace in person. It was all hugs, and tears. A lot of “Wow, I didn’t know you were tall, or short, or were transitioning.” At the time I remember thinking that this is what heaven is going to be like. This is what it is going to be like to meet Jesus. Because it was not that these relationships were not real before, they just deepened and became enfleshed when we finally got to meet. It was a more realized relationship. I got to be more myself, too. Beloved, among my friends who I already loved, over a beautiful meal.
Jesus talks about how the kingdom relationship (the fruit) is going to be better and more real — a more realized relationship than anyone can really understand. The difference between meeting on Zoom and in the flesh, the difference between “reality” tv and reality, the difference between heaven and earth, the difference between the seed and the fruit. No wonder he had to go all parable about it.
* * *
Hebrews 5:5-10
The idea that Jesus became the highest of priests through empathy is almost unbelievable. Jesus became most high by submitting. I do not know about you, but there is something really uncomfortable to me about submitting. It implies a trust that I do not have. It is hard for me to feel safe enough to submit to other people, to feel safe — to rest and know that everything will be all right. But this is what Jesus does, he pleads for us, and then he rests, he submits his case, and submits himself, trusting that, as Julian of Norwich puts it, “All will be well.” The peace of the High Priest comes with tears, but they are tears of empathy — tears of one who has walked with us, felt the pain with us, and then at last, felt safe with God — and perhaps even with us? It is worth thinking about.
* * *
Jeremiah 31:31-34
God will not even remember our sin anymore. Can you imagine what this means? We like to highlight God as the omniscient, but here God’s forgetfulness is what is praiseworthy. Here is our God who forgets, erases, gets over, and gets rid of. Our God is so fantastic that God does not even know our sin’s name anymore. Can you imagine that our sin is so erased that God does not even remember it?Is that where we get the phrase forgive and forget? Humans are bad at forgetting sins even though we forget other things. Did you know we are also designed to forget things? The latest science shows how important sleep and forgetting is for our brains to function properly.
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love.
All: According to your abundant mercy blot out our transgressions.
One: Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin.
All: For we know our transgressions, and our sin is ever before us.
One: Create in us clean hearts and put a new and right spirit within us.
All: Restore to us the joy of your salvation, and sustain in us a willing spirit.
OR
One: God comes among us as Father/Mother.
All: We welcome our loving parent who created us.
One: God comes among us a Son/Brother.
All: We welcome the Christ who leads us home.
One: God comes among us as the indwelling Spirit.
All: We welcome the Spirit that makes us one with all.
Hymns and Songs
I Sing the Almighty Power of God
UMH: 152
H82: 398
PH: 288
GTG: 32
NCH: 12
W&P: 31
Renew: 54
Lift High the Cross
UMH: 159
H82: 473
PH: 371
GTG: 826
AAHH: 242
NCH: 198
CH: 108
LBW: 377
ELW: 660
W&P: 287
Renew: 297
My Jesus, I Love Thee
UMH: 172
AAHH: 674
NNBH: 39
CH: 349
W&P: 468
AMEC: 456/457
Renew: 275
His Name Is Wonderful
UMH: 174
AAHH: 307
NNBH: 14
W&P: 102
Renew: 30
I Sought the Lord
UMH: 341
H82: 689
Sois la Semilla (You Are the Seed)
UMH: 583
NCH: 528
CH: 478
Christ for the World We Sing
UMH: 568
H82: 537
W&P: 561
AMEC: 565
Renew: 299
We Meet You, O Christ
UMH: 257
PH: 311
CH: 183
W&P: 616
We Would See Jesus
UMH: 256
Lord of the Dance
UMH: 261
W&P: 118
Jesus, Name Above All Names
CCB: 35
Renew: 26
Praise the Name of Jesus
CCB: 39
Renew 7
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who desires to be known by your creation:
Grant us the wisdom to seek you as you are known in Jesus
that we may learn how to live as your children;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you long to be known by your creation. You make yourself known in many way but most clearly through Jesus. Help us to know him so that we may know you. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to not see Jesus as the God/human.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You sent Jesus among us so that we might know you and so that we might know how to live as your children. But we have made Jesus so otherworldly that we fail to follow him. He taught us to pray to you as ‘Our Father’ but we act like we aren’t your children. Forgive our foolishness and help us to follow Jesus as our elder brother. Amen.
One: God is our loving parent who welcomes us as members of the household. Receive God’s welcome and forgiveness as you share with others the joy of being part of God’s family.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God, who created us from the dust of the earth and from your own breath. You created us to be in communion with you and with one another.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You sent Jesus among us so that we might know you and so that we might know how to live as your children. But we have made Jesus so otherworldly that we fail to follow him. He taught us to pray to you as ‘Our Father' but we act like we aren't your children. Forgive our foolishness and help us to follow Jesus as our elder brother.
We give you thanks for all the ways you remind us that we are your own dear children. You provide for us from the bounty of your creation. You give us your Spirit that dwells within us. You give us Jesus the Christ who teaches us how to be part of your family.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for those who have not heard that you are their loving parent and for those who have heard but find it hard to believe. We pray for your Church that we may be so filled with your Spirit that we are able to draw others to your loving embrace.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMONWe Want to See Jesus
by Katy Stenta
John 12:20-33
In this story the Greeks say “We want to see Jesus.”
They come and say, “we want to see Jesus”.
Now Jesus has been trying to tell everyone what has been going to happen to him, that he is going to die and be resurrected, but people aren’t really getting it because they don’t know the end of the story like we do.
This time Jesus says, “Tell them that Jesus isn’t really here, because he hasn’t died yet.”
Jesus is basically saying, “Don’t bother yet, because, it’s not Easter yet, so they won’t be seeing the best version of me yet. Tell them to go away and come back later.” That just confuses everyone.
Do you think the disciples or anyone thinks that Easter is coming or Jesus is going to rise from the dead? No — so they do not understand what Jesus is talking about. It’s like Jesus is the only one in on the joke.
Now I’m going to tell the joke Jesus told and you all are going to understand it because it’s a secret joke. Ready…?
Isn’t that funny? It’s almost like a bad joke, a dad joke, or a bad pun. Now I’m going to tell the Jesus joke like a bad knock, knock joke. Are you ready?
“Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Wrong Jesus.
Jesus who?
Wrong Jesus who hasn’t risen from the dead yet. Tell them to come back later.”
Isn’t that silly?
Prayer
Dear God
We thank you
That there isn’t actually a wrong Jesus
And that Jesus was only joking
Send Jesus to be with us
Whenever we look for him we pray
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, March 17, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
