BY THIS WE KNOW LOVE

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And so ought we to lay down our lives for our brothers.” I John 3: 16

I have an announcement to make this morning: It has been revealed to me, by divine inspiration, directly from the throne of heaven, just what shall be the nature and goal of our missional engagement and witness in this neighborhood. I know that we agreed, on church council at least, that we would use this first year here as a time to explore this community, find out what God is doing here, find our place in it, our partners, and the gifts we have to offer, and what it has to offer us, before we jumped in feet first to make any specific local ministry commitments as a congregation. But now I’m ready to announce what I think should be the stance of our missional engagement toward this community.

Now by “divine inspiration directly from the throne of heaven” I’m not saying that I heard any voices or had any visions from heaven. I have not. I just read it in today’s Bible passage from I John chapter 3. But I think that counts as divine inspiration, direct from the throne of heaven. And as for what I mean by “our stance of missional engagement” toward the community, I’m not going to get too specific and say we’ll do this and that with this and that agency. I’m still talking generally, more than specifically. So no, I haven’t jumped the gun yet, either.

I might have, though, in response to some mail and announcements I have received about an upcoming citywide revival meeting in August. I have received mail and information and invitations to this summer’s Rock the River Tour, sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, with his son, Franklin Graham the main speaker. It will be here on August 16. With a summer like this one coming up, with two conferences and helping a daughter move to Pittsburgh, I don’t know how much time I can contribute to that. But if anyone wishes to get in on it as a volunteer or a counselor or simply to attend, and hopefully bring a friend, let me know and I’ll get you the information.

I’ve been to at least one such event. It is inspiring to see people responding to the message and coming forward to accept Christ’s acceptance of themselves. But I sensed, and people in the know have confirmed, that the majority of people going forward have usually already had some kind of relationship with the church and the Christian faith. That’s evident just by the fact that they were willing to go to the revival meeting in the first place. That doesn’t make these gatherings worthless. In fact, they often galvanize people who have been sitting on the fence spiritually. They provoke a decision after many other people, like Sunday School teachers, their relatives, friends and co-workers have planted gospel seeds in their lives long enough and strong enough to get them to come to the crusade in the first place. If you have friends or family members like that, who you suspect would understand words like “salvation” or “redemption,” for whom such a gathering would be in their comfort zone, then by all means invite them and attend.

But when I look at our new immediate neighborhood here, and who’s here in the Phillips Neighborhood, I don’t know how such a meeting would work for our Somali friends in this neighborhood, who for now would not be caught dead at such a meeting. Especially not after some of the insensitive things Franklin Graham said a few years back about Islam. To his benefit, he seems to have learned from that, and to have stopped. And fortunately, the Rock the River tour is not being called, a “crusade” this time.

But many, or most of our Somali friends wouldn’t understand the language anyway. Many of our immigrant Spanish-speaking neighbors would also have some language and cultural barriers. And then there are our Native American neighbors who often associate churches and the gospel with the brutal beating they’ve taken culturally and militarily. I can understand why. And then there are the older, former hippies and the new urban progressives who are doing wonderful things by way of urban homesteading, reclaiming old homes and entire blocks here. But few of them would answer an invitation to a revival meeting. For many of them, their relationship with the church is more like one of a divorce than of the courtship that characterizes good evangelism. Hear some of their stories about things like judgmentalism and the abuse of power in the church, and again I understand why it might take some time to earn their trust.

No, as far as our local witness is concerned, we have a lot of work ahead of us just to earn trust and the right to a hearing among the many who are culturally and spiritually distant and resistant to the gospel, often for reasons with which I have some sympathy. But I still have much hope, because of what John tells us in today’s scripture passage: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And so ought we to lay down our lives for our brothers.” I am also hopeful, even enthused about the prospects for ministry, because of how such love has been expressed, and because of the results I’ve seen of such love.

Let me give you a few stories about such love and its fruits. Many of us know the story about Dirk Willems, the Dutch Anabaptist martyr in 16^th Century Holland. Imprisoned for his faith, sentenced to death, he escaped from a cold, dark dungeon one cold wintry day. His escape was detected, and a prison guard pursued him across a frozen canal, until he fell through the ice. Hearing his cry for help, Dirk Willems remembered what Jesus said: “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, do good to those who hate you.” So Dirk returned across the ice to rescue his pursuer. Once atop the ice again, the pursuer was prone to let him go. But his superiors, safe on the shore, ordered him to re-capture Dirk, which he did. Dirk was executed a few days later.

Or let me tell you again about Prisoner #16670 in Auschwitz, Nazi-occupied Poland, 1941. Its been some years since I mentioned him. But he bears mentioning again, and his story is somewhat like Dirk’s. He was not just a number; his name was Father Maximilian Kolbe. In 1941, he was arrested for hiding and smuggling thousands of Jews in his Polish monastery, and sent first to prison, then to the death camp, Auschwitz. One morning, a man turned up missing. The prisoners were lined up in an open yard where the camp commandant told them that every time someone escaped, ten prisoners would die. In front of Father Kolbe, a man was chosen to be sent with nine others to a cell to starve to death. He hung his head and cried, “My family! What’s to become of them?” So Fr. Kolbe stepped forward and told the Camp Commandant, “I’ll take his place.”

Who are you? The commandant asked.

“Just a priest. And an old one at that,” Kolbe replied.

“Suit yourself,” the commandant sneered. “As long as there are ten.”

If anything, getting captured and executed looks like a strategy for church shrinkage, not church growth. But you never know what God might do with our efforts to love faithfully, courageously and sacrificially. Some thirty years ago there was a Japanese television series on prisoners and martyrs of conscience. One episode dramatized Dirk Willem’s story. Dirk’s story so affected one viewer, that he had to study and find out everything he could about Dirk Willems and the 16^th Century Anabaptists. The result of all his study was that he became a Christian, a Mennonite, and a pastor. His name is Pastor Takeji Nomura. Becky and I got to know him, his wife, and his story when we were part of a small group together at Seminary, back in 1984. He is now pastoring several churches in Tokyo.

As for Auschwitz Prisoner #16670, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, the man he saved was Francis Wajownicjek. Fr. Kolbe was canonized and declared a saint by Pope John Paul II in 1982, with Francis Wajowniczek alive and present at the ceremony, along with his family. And other survivors, whose bodies survived the death camps. So did their faith, their relationships with God, and their capacity to love and believe, even though they had been through the hell of Auschwitz. Because there, amidst all the squalor and brutality of a death camp, they saw Jesus present among them, in the self-sacrificial love of Father Kolbe.

So much martyrdom looks like a sure-fire way to shrink churches, not grow them. But I don’t see church growth as an end in itself. Sure, I want to see Emmanuel Mennonite Church continue to grow numerically to the point where we start other worship services, at different times, in different styles and maybe different languages. Maybe we’ll even start another church some day, and have other members who are licensed and ordained to ministry. Sure, I want to see us grow to the point where we take on extra ministry staff, preferably staff who speak other languages like Amharic, or Spanish or even Somali. I want to see us grow in ministry so that we are linked by members and Mennonite Voluntary Service workers with other churches and other ministering agencies in this community like Urban Ventures, or Lutheran Social Services and the Center for Changing Lives, or Community Emergency Services or Open Arms, which gives meals and material support to people suffering with things like ALS or HIV/AIDS without asking them, “How did you get HIV?AIDS?”

We can work toward such things, but we have no control over whether or not they actually happen. I see such growth as something secondary, a symptom or a result of another kind of growth, the growth I talked about most of last year, when I preached again and again from Mark’s Gospel on the kingdom of God. God has not promised that our churches will grow. God has promised to grow his kingdom, “on earth as it is in heaven.” Church growth, and new churches, are signs and results of God growing his kingdom.

Which makes this as good a time as any to remind us of the four main features of our local mission engagement plan. They are: 1) spiritual growth; 2) hospitality; 3) publicity, hopefully word of mouth, but any other way, too) and 4) partnership with other churches and agencies. Of those four, everything depends on number 1: spiritual growth, so that there is something contagious, compelling and unmistakable about the life we are offering, that can’t be ignored, to which people must react, either positively or otherwise. In the stories of Dirk Willems and Maximilian Kolbe, there is something just like what I described: something so compelling and contagious that you either embrace it, like Takeji Nomura did, or you disdain it and reject it, like the camp commandant at Auschwitz did. But you can’t ignore it. Not a love so strong that someone would substitute their lives for someone else’s.

So where did they learn such love? Even to the point of being able to respond and offer their lives immediately, automatically, when a moment’s hesitation would have meant the death of Dirk’s pursuer and of Francis Wojawniczek? Dirk and Father Kolbe would have said the same thing John the Beloved said: from Jesus. “This is how we know what love is: Christ Jesus laid down his life for us. And so we ought to lay down our lives for each other.”

Such a love doesn’t just happen. We aren’t born with it. If anything, our brains are wired to respond to differences and threats with a defensive, aggressive fear. And when a truck is bearing down on you while you’re walking across the street, that’s a good thing. But when we meet someone who believes differently than we do, or someone who opposes what we believe and even persecutes us for it, such fear is not so good. Not if we want to live and love like Jesus. We have to learn something deeper than our fight or flight reflexes; in effect, to re-wire our heads, our hands and our mouths and connect them to open, loving hearts. And if all our prayers, our worship and our Bible study have not served that end, to substitute the love of Christ for the knee jerk fear reaction toward others, then they have not accomplished one of their most important purposes.

That’s why our spiritual growth is the key to God’s kingdom growth. Without it, Dirk Willems would have kept on running across the ice, if he’d even had a faith to be imprisoned for. And the family of Francis Wojavniczek would have been without a father, husband and son after the war.

That kind of love, a love that is willing to die for others, is what I mean by our stance of missional engagement toward this community. Look at the picture of Dirk Willems on the cover of the bulletin, with his hands spread out towards his needy, vulnerable enemy, at great risk and cost to himself, and you get a powerful image of the kind of love that John’s letter is urging on us.

Its something that our Somali friends and neighbors have seen too little of, in this day and age when everyone is looking at them with fear, asking themselves, “Are they harboring terrorists?” or worse: “Are they recruiting terrorists?” This last weekend in Goshen, Indiana, when I tried to describe our church’s new neighborhood to friends and family members, at least twice I was asked, “So, are there any pirates in your neighborhood?” Ha-ha. The answer is No, of course not. They came here to get away from that stuff, same as you or I would. They need people to look at them not with eyes filled with fear, but eyes filled with the kind of love that would offer to do what Father Kolbe did and say, “I’ll take his place.”

The same with our Mexican and Latin American neighbors, when people look at them so often with fear and wonder, “Are you legal?” or now, “Are you carrying a contagious disease?” The only contagion I care about is a contagion of self-sacrificial death-defying love, spreading out from ourselves, and jumping boundaries of language and culture.

Now I know that very few of us will ever actually be called upon to offer our lives in the place of someone else’s. It hasn’t happened to me obviously. Or if it has, I missed the opportunity and flunked the test. But if we get that down, in our heads and hearts, the willingness to love people to the point of dying for them, everything else short of that becomes a piece of cake. Need help with lunch? Need a place to hang out for a bit? Need someone to hear your story? Need someone to set aside his schedule and give you some time? Its all okay when you have already determined that his or her life is worth your own.

And not only is it easier to give; love is also about being willing to receive. If I love you enough to die in your place, then I should also be willing to receive and learn from you, too. I should be just as concerned about your dignity as my own. I experienced this on our recent visit to a local Somali mall. When I ordered an espresso from a barista, he asked me why I and some other obviously non-Somali people were there. I told him we were visiting from a local church, just wanting to get to know our neighbors. He asked which one, and even said he’d like to visit one day. Later that next week I went back with a bag of Somali coffee that someone had given me as a gift, to ask him, How do I make Somali coffee and what do I need in order to make it? So he took me behind the counter and showed me. And there I was, suddenly, a barista in a Somali coffee shop. That’s a tough job. Fortunately, no other customers came in. But he taught me something. And then he gave me another bag of Somali coffee as a gift. We’re friends now.

Now I cannot guarantee that if we develop and harbor such love, we will automatically fill this sanctuary to overflowing and fulfill all our dreams and goals for ministry and church growth. I am just as concerned about the church that goes into the world from this sanctuary every Sunday, as I am about the church that gathers here every Sunday. I am at least as concerned about the ministry that goes out from this sanctuary, from Monday through Saturday, as I am about the ministry that happens inside here every Sunday. I see church growth as secondary, a symptom of other kinds of growth that happen outside of church, especially spiritual growth. And spiritual growth, again, is nothing less than growth in our capacity to love, to the point of being willing to die for others. Such love is how the kingdom of God grows. “For unless a seed falls into the ground and dies,” said Jesus, “it can bear no fruit.”

Not only is this helpful for our mission and outreach outside the church. Its indispensable for us within the church. In fact, that’s what John had in mind when he said, “Christ Jesus laid down his life for us, and therefore we should be willing to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” To make that practical, he asked, “If anyone has this world’s goods and withholds them from his needy brother, how can the love of God be in him?” He was saying that to strengthen fellow Christians who were oppressed by the world and depressed by recent conflicts and church splits.

So for example, consider the possibility of discussing and discerning something sensitive and controversial, like politics, sexuality or money, with a fellow Christian whose opinions you know are contrary to your own. Imagine that you both come to this discussion and discernment with the intention to beat and defeat the other and demolish each other’s arguments. Its either you or him. Now feel your wrist for your pulse rate. Is yours doing like mine? Let’s see: 68; 72; 77; 83….

Now imagine instead that both of you have come to this time of discernment not with a driving desire to beat, defeat and humiliate each other, which is how so many discussions go, but with a willingness to die for each other long before you would do anything to hurt, humiliate or even kill each other, so that the point of your discussion is to better understand each other and love each other, even if there’s a slim chance that you’ll ever come to agreement. Now feel your pulse. Mine seems to be 77…73….71…68. Come to the table with that willingness to die for your discussion partner, if need be, and you won’t even need him or her to do the same.

Or consider the testimony to the world, and the benefit to the church, if our denomination can succeed in its current plan to help all pastors and church workers gain health insurance through the Corinthian Plan, a proposed denominational health insurance plan. It will cost every congregation something, even if they don’t enroll.

And yet every expression of love is costly, even if only of our independence and isolation. But I don’t think that either Dirk Willems or Father Kolbe would say now that they were cheated and paid more than the results were worth. Because they had already determined that other lives were just as worthy and precious as their own, even the lives of their enemies. A lot of loving must have gone on in their lives long before it got to the point where they could automatically say, “I’ll take his place,” or “I’ll pull you out.” That alone draws me toward them and makes me wish I could have enjoyed their fellowship from time to time.

Where did they learn such love? I’m sure that both would say that they learned it from their Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Having learned from him what it is to die for others, they then knew how to live for others. The results are magnetic and attractive. And visible, in the shape of real flesh-and-blood persons.

As for us, such love is the goal of our outreach to the world. Whether we strive toward such love and express it is the one thing we can control. The details of the map have yet to be filled in, and the results are totally up to God. But expect great things from such love. For as the French priest, Fr. Teillhard de Chardin said, “Some day, after mastering the power of the wind, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the power of love, and then, for the second time in human history, we will have discovered fire.”

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THE TESTIMONY OF THE CLOTHS

John 20:1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples went back to their homes.

My words this morning will focus on three verses of John 20 that we heard earlier this morning, 5 through 7: “5And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.”

Someone, not to be identified, has left a few friendly notes in the church office. They simply say, “Hi Mathew!” with a smiley face attached. They make my day whenever I see them. What that signature touch of the smiley face says about the person who leaves it is all good.

Today’s Bible account of Jesus’ resurrection also includes a small signature touch that says more than meets the eye at first. And again, its all good. That signature touch is in the form of two pieces of fabric: the linen burial cloth that covered Jesus’ body, and the smaller cloth that covered his head. The cloths, and the way they were left in that empty tomb, are not just minor details. John the Gospel writer spends quite a few words on the fact that the grave cloths were left behind, and on the way they were left behind —which is significant for reasons I shall explain—and that the cloth covering Jesus’ head and face was separate from the cloth that wrapped his body, and was rolled up in a separate place, which is also important. If we were crime scene investigators looking over the scene of a crime—in this case, the alleged theft of a body, as some people explained the emptiness of the tomb—such details, like where the grave cloths were left and how, would be fairly screaming with important clues about the person who left them. We might say that these still and silent fabrics, lying in the shadows of a tomb, tinged as they are with blood, soaked and stiffened by spices, continue speaking through the ages. They fairly shout a testimony that speaks to our hearts and minds through the eyes of our imaginations.

So, why were the grave cloths left at all? And why were they left the way they were? Especially that head cloth, rolled or folded up as it was, separate from the shroud? And what does that mean? Why is that important?

One explanation that’s been making the round of emails and websites explains the rolled up and separated head cloth this way: The head cloth for any Palestinian burial would have been basically the same size and kind of cloth used in eating, as a napkin. At least the name used was the same. In Greek. When a Jewish master or mistress of the house would stop eating, his or her servants would know whether or not they should clear the table and remove the leftovers depending on what he did with the napkin. Crumple it up and that meant that dinner was done; take the bowls and cups away. Fold it up or roll it up and that meant, even if I step out for a moment, leave everything—take nothing—because I will be back. So some people say that by rolling up the cloth that covered his head and face, Jesus was serving notice that he would be back, as in, when he comes again to judge the living and the dead and reign over his rightful kingdom. Or maybe that he’ll be right back so that his disciples can see him, even that very day. Either way, he’d be back, just like the man who told his servants that he would be back to the table, by the placement of his napkin.

I really like that explanation. I would really, really, really like that to be the case. Because I do believe that Jesus is returning. Not because of this passage, though, but because of so many other Scripture passages. And having him roll up the cloth with that significance ties his resurrection and his return together quite nicely. At least he returned within the day to all but one of his disciples, Thomas.

But there’s a problem. That explanation requires a connection between a tomb and a table, a dead body and a dinner, which I think most Jews of the time would have found quite unsavory and offensive. Tombs, death, grave cloths and dead bodies were associated with ritual uncleanness, not with feasting. Though Jesus has served notice that he will come back, he’s not coming back to his former tomb for another helping of death. And no early Christian commentators, who would have known of such a dinner table custom, ever made that connection with this passage, between “I shall return to the table,” and “I shall return to the world.” What’s more, people with better grasp of the Greek than I have disagree as to whether or not the head cloth was rolled up like how you and I might roll up a t-shirt to pack it, or whether John simply means that it was still wound up the way it had been wound to cover Jesus’ head on Good Friday. In which case, all John may be saying is that the cloth covering the body and the separate cloth for the head were simply lying where they had been, as they had been, when they covered Jesus’ body. Only now there’s no body inside them. I lean toward that explanation if only because it is the simplest explanation.

But the presence and the placement of the cloths and napkin struck John the Beloved like a thunderbolt. He says that this is when he began to believe that Jesus was risen, and not stolen, even though he didn’t yet understand that this is what the Scriptures had foretold would happen. Up to then, all he had to go on was Mary of Bethany’s report: “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they have laid him.” But when Peter and the beloved disciple saw the grave cloths still there, in the tomb, they realized that was not the case; it was highly unlikely that anyone would have taken the body and left the grave cloths. Or even that they could have taken the body and left the grave cloths.

That’s what the earliest commentators we have on record, from the 2^nd Century forward, say about this signature placement of the grave cloths: that they lent credence to John’s faith—and our faith– that the body of Jesus was risen, not stolen. Those earliest commentators knew all about the burial customs of the time. They were in a position to tell us that if anyone were to take the body or steal it, they probably would not have left the grave cloths behind. Anyone who made it past the guard posted outside that tomb, anyone who managed to roll away the stone and get inside the tomb, in the dark, undetected, who probably would not have wanted to come by torchlight nor do their dirty work by torchlight, would probably not have either the means nor the time to unwrap a dead body. Anybody who had gotten that far, unimpeded or undetected, would probably have simply whisked away the body, grave cloths and all, and not have taken time inside the tomb to remove them, much less reposition them as neatly and purposefully as they were when the disciples first saw them.

No, the position of the fabrics speaks not of something speedy, sneaky, furtive and crafty. They speak of someone and something powerful, triumphant, peaceful, fearless, and intentional. If that head cloth had been folded and rolled up, it was probably done by we-know-whose two nail-scarred hands. In which case we would even get a glimpse into the personality of Jesus. Even in his moment of overwhelming triumph and vindication, he takes a moment to tidy up and leave a very human signature. Kind of like the friendly greeting on my chalk board and post-it notes. Even while demolishing death he does so with class, calm, and an eye for order. He wouldn’t be caught dead leaving a messy tomb. Even with the soldiers outside cowering in fear as the stone rolls away from the inside, even with the first rays of the sun turning the eastern horizon from pitch black to grey, even though all of human history has just turned on the hinge of death’s reversal, there is yet time for one last finishing touch. What’s the hurry? What can anyone do to him now that has not been done already, but that he has overcome it?

Or if its the case that the head cloth is still laying there, wrapped and rolled as it had been around Jesus’ head, then that gives us a clue into the nature of Jesus’ resurrection. I honestly don’t know how it happened, but if the death shroud and the head cloth were simply lying where they had been, undisturbed, as they had been around Jesus’ body, that means that the Risen Jesus passed through them, that his new resurrection body materialized outside of them. And that’s about all I can say regarding the manner of Jesus’ resurrection. We can more easily answer the question What happened? than the question How did it happen?

And there’s another thing that earliest commentators notice about these cloths: John’s Gospel has shown us grave shrouds and head cloths before, a little over a week before to be precise, on Lazarus, the man whom Jesus raised from the dead. But when Lazarus walked out of his tomb, he needed help getting out of the grave shroud and head cloth. He was half wearing them, half dragging them, unable to unwind himself. That’s because the power that restored life to his dead body came from outside of himself.

Jesus, by contrast, walks out of the tomb, free and unhindered, having either removed the cloths under his own power, or having passed through them the way he later passed through locked doors to visit the disciples. That’s because the power of his resurrection came from within himself, through himself, direct from heaven’s throne. Its the whole difference between being resurrected and given life, and being the resurrection and the life. Jesus could give resurrection and life to Lazarus because, as he told Martha, the sister of Lazarus, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

As it was with Lazarus, so shall it be for us. “If the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, “ Paul wrote in Romans 8, “then he shall give life to our mortal bodies through the same Spirit who dwells in you.”

Those grave cloths, left behind as they were, are not indisputable scientific nor legal proof that Jesus arose physically from the dead. They’re more like one of those incidental pieces of evidence that strikes me as something that would have been hard to think about, harder to pull off, easy to overlook, if someone were pulling a hoax. They are simply one more piece of testimony that lends weight to the probability of a real resurrection, and which makes it even more believable.

These fabrics are said by some to exist yet today. The cloth covering the body is said to be the Shroud of Turin, kept in an Italian Cathedral. The head cloth is said to be in the Cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo, Spain, and is brought out for viewing three times a year. Scientists and scholars have examined these fabrics and have come to widely differing conclusions about their authenticity. They certainly do have features which match both the Gospel accounts and what we know about death and burial in First Century Palestine. But from all I’ve read and learned about them, I’m more confused than ever about their authenticity. I honestly don’t know what to think about them.

If anyone proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are hoaxes, I won’t lose any sleep. I don’t need them to be real to believe in Jesus’ resurrection. For me, the most convincing evidence is still the resurrection in the lives of the apostles, their resurrection of hope, of courage, of energy and even defiance, when before the resurrection they had been so cowardly and confused. After being struck by the lightning bolt of Jesus’ resurrection, they faced persecution, hardship and even death with a courage that seemed to say, “Kill us all you like; we’ll only be back, and as loving as we were before.” For John the Beloved, that very transformation, from a cowardly lamb to a courageous lion, began when he saw the cloths lying where they were, and as they were. We don’t need for those cloths to be around still. They speak quite eloquently and convincingly from the pages of scripture.

Not only do the cloths urge us to trust and believe that life conquers death, and that love conquers fear. They also say “Take courage! Fear not! For our tombs will not be our final resting places; our grave clothes will not be our final dress.” And finally, they testify that this is how all who do God’s will and God’s work in this world will be vindicated, and will have their labors vindicated: by victory over every evil and idol that opposes God’s will and God’s work, even victory over death.

That hope is what sustained Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. Twenty-some years ago he was martyred by elements of the para-military death squads which terrorized the poor, the laborers, the unionists and the activists for justice and peace during El Salvador’s Civil War. He boldly challenged both rebels and government forces to lay down their weapons and work together for a more just and peaceful country. Even while he received death threats and survived several attempts on his life, he kept preaching and ministering as he did. Just before he was killed while celebrating Mass, he said, “I do not believe in a death without a resurrection. Even if they kill me, I will rise again, at least in the lives of the Salvadoran people.” He spoke as someone who has looked into the empty tomb and, like John the Beloved, came back out believing. He believed enough to live and love boldly, even while staring death in the face.

We hear much in the news about power and energy. The world is looking for the kinds and sources of power that are clean, renewable, secure, and which leave no toxic wastes behind. Few things would make me happier than success in this quest. This morning we are celebrating an even greater kind of power, a cleansing, renewing energy, the force of life and love triumphant and transforming, attested by the only things it has ever left behind: grave cloths and a head scarf.

The testimony of those cloths is that we too may live even now in the boldness and confidence of those whose lives have also been touched by the power and energy that took a once very dead body out of its grave cloths and left it standing, very much alive, looking over them, maybe even folding them up. And walking on to new triumphs.

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WHAT SORT OF ENTRY?

Mark 11: 1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’ ”     4 They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, 5 some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” 6 They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. 7 When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. 9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna! ” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” 10 “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”     11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

Had Jesus entered Minneapolis in recent history the way he entered Jerusalem long ago on that Sunday we call, “The Triumphal Entry,” he would probably have come right up Park Avenue, one block to our west. In the board game Monopoly, Park Avenue is prime real estate. And so it has been for this fair city, until electric streetcars made the Lowry Hill, Cedar Lake and Kenwood areas just as accessible to downtown, and more distant from the poor. Up and down Park Avenue you can see the grand and palatial nature of the homes of some of the first, the wealthiest and most influential founding families of Minneapolis and its industries, like milling, banking and railroads. Some are in decay now, others have been replaced, others rehabbed into condos and townhomes.

Because of its former prestige, Park Avenue was the first street outside of downtown Minneapolis to be paved. Everyone and everything important cominng to town came up Park Avenue. Whenever, in the late 19^th Century, the circus came to town, elephants trod, the caliopes played, and clowns clowned around right where some of us found parking spaces this morning. Some of the longest-living residents in the neighborhood still remember how President John F. Kennedy came right past here in his motorcade in 1961.

So if your imagination needs a place in which to put Jesus on the donkey, you could do worse than to have him crossing Franklin Avenue heading north on Park Avenue, while the crowds shout “Hosana! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” in the languages long represented in this neighborhood. Currently, that list would number into the hundreds.

I think we need a new name for this Sunday. That phrase, “The Triumphal Entry,” was borrowed from ancient Roman practice, in which a victorious, conquering general was granted the right, by the Roman Senate, to enter the city of Rome with his soldiers and to parade all the captives and all the loot he had taken. As a sign of imperial favor, the general would get to wear a crown of laurel wreaths. And that’s why I’m struggling this morning to find another name for this event. Because the original Roman precedent may have made some generals happy, and the soldiers in his army—the survivors among them at least—and the citizens who based their identity and their person worth on an allegedly invincible Roman power. But for everyone else in that parade, it was an experience of humiliation, fear and despair. Many of them knew that they would be killed for entertainment in the Coliseum later that week. The rest would be sold into slavery. So I have some real problems with associating Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem with what the Romans called a “Triumphal Entry.”

Here are some of the other ideas I’ve come up with:

How about The Assertive Entry? Its assertive, to the point of confrontational, because Jesus is now being open, public and assertive about his claim to being the Messiah, whereas before he was somewhat selective and even sometimes secretive about who he was, depending on the setting and the relationship. But now, while riding that donkey, approaching the gates of Jerusalem, there’s nothing subtle. Any Jew there who knew his Bible would immediately have thought of the prophecy of Zechariah chapter 9: “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!  See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” They saw this bold, assertive, confrontational entry and “got it.” We know they got it because they responded as was expected to welcome a king, returning safe and triumphant from battle, with the words of Psalm 118: “Hosana! (or “Save us”) Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” They knew that this Psalm was for such a royal welcome, even though there had never been an occasion to sing it like this since before the last king, the last Son of David, had been hauled away captive, in chains, to Babylon 600 years before.

In which case maybe we could also call it “The Royal Entry,” for the welcome of Israel’s long-awaited king. And yet there’s one problem: the donkey. Kings, especially victorious warrior kings, ride on battle horses, spirited stallions, big and bold enough to strike fear into the hearts of enemies, and not yearling donkeys, small enough to leave the rider’s feet just inches above the dirt. The first is an image of fearsome majesty, the other an image of humility and vulnerability that are almost comical, compared to the king on a war horse. Zechariah seemed to understand this and even to project such peaceable humility when he spoke about this king, humble and riding on a donkey, and went on to say, “I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations.”

So then we’d also have to call it “The Humble Entry.” Or maybe “The Vulnerable Entry.” Or the Peaceful, Nonviolent Entry, or even “The Anti-Violent Entry.” Maybe even “The Comical Entry.” Because there’s an element of playful, subversive humor that comes out when we consider the time and the location of this parade. It will not be news to most of us here that Jesus was entering Jerusalem during a time of war. A constant, nagging, low intensity war waged by between Rome and Jewish rebels.

To the rebels, Jesus’ way of entering into Jerusalem, claiming to be their long-awaited king, would have been like a poke in the eye, something just enough like their political expectations of him to be encouraging (Yes—he’s openly claiming to be our king, in place of Caesar!), and yet just different enough to be a big disappointment (Oh, he’s unarmed, and so are all his associates, and he’s on a donkey, not a warhorse.) But for the Romans, the joke would have even more unsettling. He’s riding into town down the same road General Pompey took 90 years earlier, and which Governor Pilate took every time he comes and goes, to the sounds of crowds cheering, singing, even on the very same route into the same city gate. And he’s doing this right under their Roman noses, in the shadow of their fortress, in full view of their sentries, in range of their spears and arrows. But riding in on a donkey, unarmed, to the acclamation of defenseless peasants and children—they wouldn’t know whether to be relieved by that, or insulted. Is this some sort of satirical political street theater? At the very least he’s acting like someone who is not afraid of them.

But I can’t really imagine Jesus doing such a thing just to ridicule someone. The joyful, celebratory nature of this event is for real, and not a show just to score points against someone. And so I am leaning toward calling this “The Celebratory Entry.”

But for us who now know the rest of the story, all this celebration takes on a flavor or a feeling that is poignant, pointed and painful. Think only of the next six days to come and it appears that Jesus has only ridden into town to be betrayed, to suffer and to die. And he knew that. He even predicted it, many times.

That would make all this celebration seem tragic and even delusional. To borrow the image of the Roman Triumphal Entry again, it is as though the victorious conquering general has returned to parade his troops, his captives and his loot through the streets of the capital city, only to get not the victor’s laurel wreath, but a crown of thorns, not to execute the most important of his captives, but to be captured and executed himself. Maybe that’s one reason why the Roman soldiers wove that crown of thorns for his head a few days later, to say, in effect, “We saw your spoof of our Triumphal Entry, and this is our spoof of your laurel wreath.”

In the presence of such powerful evil forces gathering around Jesus upon his entry, knowing what we know, and what Jesus surely knew, isn’t all such celebration and spontaneous joy irresponsible at best, or needlessly, dangerously provocative at worst? By this celebratory entry into an armed and hostile city, isn’t he just begging for a brutal backlash? Therefore, shouldn’t we call this entry not triumphal, not celebratory or royal or assertive, but foolish, irresponsible, self-defeating, self-destructive, and guilty of raising false hopes? Weren’t the Pharisees right when they told Jesus and the cheering crowds to cool it?

My answer to that is: we do enough of that already. We don’t need a special Sunday of the year to remind us to moderate our expectations or turn down the volume of our cheers or to hunch our backs and look over our shoulders while we wait for the other shoe to drop. Such wisdom, so-called, is already embedded in many of our proverbs, like the ancient Greek one that the Romans overlooking this event would have known: “Whom the gods would destroy they first make happy.” Or the ones I grew up hearing, “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” or “Trust in God but keep your powder dry.” Or, “If it sounds too good to be true, it is.”

No, it seems as though there’s nothing really to celebrate here, it all seems so irresponsible and immature to let loose and cheer, if, that is, we’re only thinking less than a week out from this Sunday morning street party.

But if we think ahead to what happens the following Easter Sunday, and if what we want from Jesus is precisely what he offers, then now there’s something worth cheering about. And we don’t have to curb our enthusiasm or watch over our shoulders and wait for the other shoe to drop. In fact, it becomes unrealistic not to let loose and celebrate. No one has taken back Jesus’ Resurrection and returned him, dead, to his long-empty tomb. If his resurrection victory gives you a measure of hope in the face of death, no one and nothing have come by to take that away, either.

Or if the Spirit of God has given us the assurance of God’s love and of our eternal safe-keeping in His hands, no one can take that assurance away unless we surrender it to doubt and the devil’s accusations. Or if we should find that the Spirit is cultivating the gifts of faith, or of spiritual gifts for ministry, and of new desires in our hearts for peaceful and holy relationships, then that too is just what Christ’s coming to the Holy City is about. These are just some of the things we can celebrate today and any day without watching over our shoulders for the other shoe to drop and ruin our joy and confidence.

Such gifts we can experience and celebrate even now. Others we can enjoy by anticipation. For the One who entered Jerusalem that day on a donkey has promised to return in such a way that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Such a return will be also be a celebratory reunion, of heaven and earth. It shall also be a reunion with all whom we have lost to death, and whom we have had to confide into God’s hands awaiting their resurrection, and ours.

But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. During Lent, in the weeks before Easter, the sermons and prayers are usually expected to be more somber and introspective, as we trace the path of Jesus toward the cross. I know that most preachers leave the talk of resurrection and reunion and eternal life for Easter Sunday and beyond. I’ll get to that again, too. But the joyful, celebratory events around Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, less than a week before his death, force upon us a choice: either to say that all this joy and celebration are irresponsible, premature and even self-destructive, or to say that such joy, confidence and celebration are the wise, realistic and even courageous way to face life and death because Jesus really is the rightful king. And if the latter is true, then for Lent its not enough to just examine oneself for the ways in which we might over-indulge ourselves or engage in “irrational exuberance.” The exuberance and delight and joy that Jesus encouraged and approved forces us to ask ourselves: Are there ways in which we wrongfully stifle and subdue ourselves, ways in which we collaborate with the world, the flesh and the devil to lock ourselves up inside dungeons of doubt and despair, all the while forgetting that the dungeon doors are often locked on the inside and that the key is within reach?

Its one thing to experience the natural and inevitable times of depression, disappointment, grief or fatigue. We all go through those, and often for very real reasons. When we recently celebrated my mother’s wedding in Florida, we were celebrating a new, life-long union. In a way though we were also celebrating the fact that the period of intense mourning after the death of her husband and my step-father, Bill, almost four years ago, had ended. We haven’t stopped missing Bill, or loving him. Its just that we have embraced the chance to move on and include another person, and his family, into our circle of love and celebration, now that the grief has mellowed over time. Before it had, though, it would have been cruel and irresponsible to tell each other to just buck up, cut loose and rejoice.

So its not those natural griefs, losses or periods of depression that I’m speaking about today. Its rather the ways in which we may sometimes take the place and role of the Pharisees and the Romans around the Celebratory Entries of God into our lives, the ways in which our first responses to such invitations to celebrate may amount to fear, mistrust and self-subjugation, always asking ourselves first, “So when is the other shoe going to drop?” When joy comes knocking at our door, can we welcome it in, even though we know it can’t stay forever? Not yet, at least?

A North American volunteer, working with Honduran refugees in Mexico during the Honduran civil war, was forced to consider such questions. A Honduran woman asked her why she always looked so serious and sad. The volunteer said that it was because of all the painful, difficult and destructive things she was seeing and hearing in the the lives and histories of the refugees. The woman replied that that is how one might look at things if you were a foreigner who only expected to stay a short while and to fix as much as you could in that short time. Sure, there are plenty of problems and needs and tragedies in this camp. But if you expect to be here long term, or even just to survive, you can not only permit yourself an occasional moment of celebration, you must work at it. Rejoicing is the responsible thing to do if you’re thinking long term commitment. In fact, although the Honduran refugee camps were uprooted and displaced several times, each time they claimed a new place to set up camp, they formed three committees: an education committee to build, staff and run schools, a construction committee to build homes, sheds and latrines, and a committee of joy, to plan and carry out exercises in celebration and jubilation. The third committee is just as important as the first two, the refugee woman said, especially if you’re in this for the long term.

I think I hear in that Honduran woman’s wisdom the voice of God. It certainly sounds biblical, because right after all the times we’re told in the Bible to “fear not,” in terms of sheer frequency and numbers, we are told to rejoice. Yes, it sounds as strange to me as it might to you to think of rejoicing as something that anyone can command. But this is God doing the commanding. And at the very least we can hold our natural fear and distrust lightly enough to open our hearts and heads to the possibility that God is indeed giving us much to celebrate and anticipate, and the joy with which to celebrate it, without worrying how long it will last.

Which leads me to what I finally think we should call this event, besides “The Triumphal Entry.” I recommend calling it “The God Entry.” Why? Because,God was in Christ, in a unique way reconciling the world to himself; that the man riding that donkey is the very presence, the power, the wisdom and the image of God in a way that God has never been present and active before nor since.

And not only in that person: Ours is a God who reveals himself in relationships and in events, as well as in persons and places. God was present and powerful in the joy and celebration and worship acclaiming that man on the donkey. He is, according to Psalm 22, “the God who dwells in the praises of Israel.”

And so God comes to us still, in all the ways that I have tried to describe this event: faithful, in keeping with his promises; bold and assertive, yet still vulnerable, nonviolent and even anti-violent; royal and regally confident, yet still invitational, humble and gentle; with an air sometimes of that gentle humor which peels off our pretensions, and takes us down off our pedestals; and with fresh blasts of hope that free us to rejoice and celebrate, regardless of what the present and the immediate future seem to hold.

I know these are tough times. I know this is Holy Week, under the shadow of the cross. But if ever the urge comes to celebrate or anticipate, if ever and whenever the urge strikes us to sing or play that favorite, confident hymn, or even just to let the dishes sit in the sink and go enjoy a moment of sunshine, on the south side of a building, away from the north wind of course, then don’t fight the feeling. It really is the responsible thing to do, even the realistic thing. Because of who God is, and what God does and how God comes to us. Amen.