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A Children’s Sermon on John 17:6-19

Christ Taking Leave of the Apostles, Duccio (public domain)

On the 7th and last Sunday of Easter season each year, the Revised Common Lectionary appoints a portion of John 17. It’s a little strange to me when the Gospel readings in Easter are on passages prior to the resurrection, but so it goes. My task this year is to write a children’s sermon on John 17:6-19.

(I’ve written meditations on all three sections of this wonderful chapter. If you want to check them out, here they are: John 17:1-11, John 17:6-19, John 17:20-26.)

As is often the case, the fact that this isn’t a story makes it a little harder. But my other go-to approach serves me well: Just give the kids a relevant point from the text in a kid-friendly context.

Not too many points. Nothing abstract. Just part of what Jesus is trying to get across, emphasizing what kids need.

By the way, if you have any doubt about my first point in this children’s sermon, that Jesus in heaven prays for us, see Romans 8:34.

A Children’s Sermon on John 17:6-19

Good morning kids! Welcome. I am so glad you are here today.

I want to talk to you about the passage from the Gospel that we read in this morning’s service. The Gospels are books of the Bible that tell about Jesus’ life and what he taught. We always read a passage from the Gospels on Sunday morning.

This morning, the Gospel reading came from just after Jesus shared the Last Supper with his friends. He knew he was about to go to the cross. He knew his friends would be so sad when he was gone.

So Jesus did something very important: Jesus prayed for his friends.

It is kind of a long prayer, actually. We only read part of it this morning. But I think there are three things in that passage that you might find very interesting.

Jesus Prays for You

One very important thing is that this passage shows us that Jesus prays for his friends. That night after dinner he prayed for his first friends.

But now Jesus is in heaven. Do you know what Jesus is doing? The Bible tells us that Jesus prays for you and for me. Because we are his friends too.

That’s right. Jesus prays for you — because you are his friend and he loves you.
This passage also shows us some of the things Jesus asks God to do when he prays for us.

“Protect Them”

The first thing Jesus prays for is that God will protect us.

Jesus knew that his friends were going to face very scary things. So he asked God to protect them, and keep them safe.

Here’s how he put it:

Holy Father, protect them …

John 17:11 NRSV

he said. Then he said it again:

… I ask you to protect them from the evil one.

John 17:15 NRSV

Jesus knows that you get scared sometimes too.

Sometimes people get scared when they have bad dreams.Sometimes people get scared when they hear funny noises and imagine them to be monsters.Sometimes people get scared when other people do mean things and hurt them.Sometimes people get scared when they don’t have enough food or a safe place to live.

But no matter what scary things happen, Jesus is praying for you, asking God to protect you. Because God loves you, and Jesus loves you.

“Sanctify Them”

The second thing Jesus prays for is that God will help us love him back.

Jesus said to God,

Sanctify them.

John 17:17 NRSV

That’s kind of an unusual word: “sanctify.”

To “sanctify” something means to make it “holy,” set apart, devoted to God.

For a person to be holy means that they love God. They try to live in ways that please God, because they love him.

That’s some of what Jesus prays for you. Jesus asks God to protect you from harm because he loves you. And Jesus asks God to help you love God back, so the two of you can be really close forever and for always.

I wonder if you ever get scared.I wonder if it helps to know that Jesus is praying for you.I wonder what life will be like when all of Jesus’ prayers are answered.

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You are, of course, free to use this children’s sermon, or adapt it as you find most useful. But please, if you use it, do one (or more!) of the following.

You can let me know that you are using it, either in the comments below, or using the contact form above. You can put a little notice in your church bulletin that your children’s sermon is adapted from one published on GaryNealHansen.com.You can support my work over on Patreon. (Every little bit keeps me going…)

The post A Children’s Sermon on John 17:6-19 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

A Children’s Sermon on John 15:9-17

Joy!

Writing a children’s sermon on John 15:9-17 is challenging in a familiar way. The text is part of a longer speech, and has no real narrative to it. 

(It’s the lectionary Gospel for the 6th Sunday of Easter, year B. I wrote a meditation on it here and I wrote on this week’s epistle reading here.)

Stories about Jesus are easier. Stories Jesus told are really quite easy. Bits of teaching that can be woven into a narrative, either straight out of the biblical context of straight out of my imagination are pretty workable. 

Conceptual teaching? That’s a harder thing. 

It’s hard in the same way that it’s hard to write children’s sermons on Paul’s letters–or a great deal of other biblical material.

However: It’s mostly challenging if the only mode you choose to use in a children’s sermon is story telling. 

If you are a regular here, you know I totally favor story telling for children’s sermons. Just tell the biblical story, and help kids wonder about it. Your children’s sermon will be really helpful.

But as a pastor I’ve often preached on non-narrative passages. And when I do, I still want to do what I think of as my first priority in a children’s sermon: I want to help the kids understand and wonder about the morning’s biblical text.

For non-narrative texts, usually I bring to my aid another pair of principles: 

Make one point from the text.Make it in a way kids can understand.

You are, of course, free to use this children’s sermon, or adapt it as you find most useful. But please, if you use it, do one (or more!) of the following.

You can let me know that you are using it, either in the comments below, or using the contact form above. You can put a little notice in your church bulletin that it is adapted from one published on GaryNealHansen.com.You can support my work over on Patreon. (Every little bit keeps me going…)

A Children’s Sermon on John 15:9-17

Hey, good morning! I’m so glad you are here today.

This morning, instead of telling you a story, I want to tell you about something Jesus told his friends after they shared the Last Supper. 

It was an important night: It was their very last evening together before Jesus went to the Cross. I think Jesus wanted to say some very important things to them before he left them on their own.

I wonder if Jesus’ friends were worried. 

I wonder if they were wondering why Jesus had them follow him for three years. He had taught them so much — but now he was going to leave them behind.

Maybe you wonder sometimes why Jesus calls you to follow him. 

He does call you, you know. He wants each of us to stick close to him and belong to him for all of our lives. 

But why? 

Maybe you wonder why Jesus wants us to stick close to him always.

When Jesus talked to his friends that night, he had an answer for that question. Here’s what he said. He called them and he taught them, he said,

…so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

John 15:11 NRV

Maybe you thought what Jesus really wanted was for us to behave better.

Maybe you thought Jesus came to change the world and make it more fair.

Or maybe you thought Jesus came for some other reason.

But Jesus himself said that he wanted you to have more joy.  He wanted to give you a gift: His very own joy. 

Jesus wants you to have a lot of that gift: He wanted your joy to be full.

So how do you suppose we get all that joy that Jesus wants to give us? 

Do you and I feel totally joyful every hour of every day?

No. Sometimes life is really hard. 

I’ll tell you a secret though: Jesus told us a way to have more joy as we go through life.

He said it comes through living the way we are created to live. 

He came and loved people. He cared for them when they were lonely. He fed them when they were hungry. He helped them when they were hurting.

That was Jesus showing us how we were created to live.

Then he turned it into an instruction:

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

John 15:12 NRSV

That’s the way Jesus says we’ll find his joy inside ourselves.

Every time you show love toward other people, you are living the way Jesus showed us. And that’s the way we find his joy.

Maybe not right away. Maybe not every hour. Maybe not every day. Maybe not every time.

But in the long run, the more you love like Jesus loved, the more joy there will be — for you and for the world.

I wonder why it is that showing love leads to joy?I wonder if the people who showed us love this week feel joy?I wonder who you might show love to this week?

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If you enjoy these weekly meditations and children’s sermons the coming Sunday’s texts would you consider supporting the project over on Patreon? Even $1 a month is a huge encouragement.

(Patreon is a crowd funding site to let you support people who do creative work you value. There are a variety of rewards for different levels of support…)

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What Faith Believes — 1 John 5:1-6

Moebius Strip, CC by David Benbennick-SA 3.0

1 John 5:1-6 — What Faith Believes

On the Sixth Sunday of Easter the Epistle reading continues our journey through the strange and wonderful world of the First Letter of John — specifically 1 John 5:1-6, with its fascinating exploration of what faith believes. (I wrote about this Sunday’s Gospel a while back and you can read that by clicking here.)

As ever, John’s letter is kind of like a Moebius Strip — see the picture above for an example. Follow all the way around the loop and you find it has only one side. 1 John twists and turns to show a variety of sides of a finite set of issues.

I won’t write about every interesting detail in this short passage. Honestly, anywhere you look there is an opening to a different, but of course interrelated, major theme.

In fact, I’ll just look at one thing.

The Importance of Faith

These six verses give us a nice window into one of John’s rather odd themes: The question of what we are supposed to believe as Christians.

It isn’t an odd topic in itself, or even in the context of the New Testament. Paul, of course, makes faith the main event. We are justified by faith, or by grace through faith. Naturally we want to know what the content of that faith is supposed to be.

Our culture gives us one slice of the question, based on the dominant reading of Paul. We need to believe in Jesus as our “personal Lord and Savior.” If we probe it a bit we probably say we need to believe that Jesus personally bore our sins on the Cross.

However, this isn’t the whole of the New Testament’s story about what faith is.

This letter of John points us in a surprisingly large number of directions about faith. Two are here in this particular passage of the letter. (You get still more if you ponder all the statements about faith in John’s Gospel.)

John clearly thinks faith is super important. But just what faith believes is a bit less consistent.

What does faith believe?

A. Faith that Certain Things Are True.

The two statements about faith within this Sunday’s reading perhaps sound most familiar to those who have been listening to Christian conversation in our culture for, oh, the last one or two hundred years.

Here they are together:

Everyone who
believes that Jesus is the Christ
has been born of God,
and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.

1 John 5.1 NRSV

Who is it that conquers the world but the one who
believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

1 John 5.5

Notice how both include the little pointer word “that”? One must believe “that Jesus is the Christ” or “that Jesus is the Son of God.

These are assertion of doctrinal points. Faith, or “believing,” here at least, starts with holding that these are true statements about Jesus.

Really faith goes well beyond believing these things are true. But it is easy to think John is saying that if we hold these particular opinions we’ve got real faith.

The idea that faith means holding particular propositions to be true has had a big place in Western theology, especially in the Reformed tradition earlier on, and recently in broad swaths of Evangelicalism.

(I won’t go into the still more recent tendency of American Evangelicalism to be kind of wiffly about its commitment to things being objectively true or demonstrably false. That’s a very sad, but different story.)

B. Faith as Trust in a Person

The second kind of faith here (the more important, actually) is about trust in a person. It comes in multiple versions. For this you have to look at the broader context in 1 John.

John has other passages where faith is not nearly so propositional. It is much more personal.

Let me give you some examples.

B1. Believing In God

First is just after today’s passage. Actually it’ a twofer:

Those who
believe in the Son of God
have the testimony in their hearts.
Those who do not
believe in God
have made him a liar
by not believing in the testimony
that God has given concerning his Son.

1 John 5.10 NRSV

In this verse we don’t believe “that” something is true. We believe “in” someone. We are to “believe in the Son of God” and we are to “believe in God.”

In our cultural milieu it’s easy to think John is talking about truth claims again: We either do or don’t believe God exists. We do or don’t believe that Jesus lived and did what the Gospels say he did.

We can slip into that way of thinking because the view that faith is propositional is so prominent. Also because atheism is common today. It’s hard to wrap our minds around eras before ours, when atheism really wasn’t conceptually possible.

But in New Testament times, atheism as we think of it wasn’t a thing. What you had was a choice of which God or gods you believed in.

(The Romans called Christians “atheists” because they didn’t believe in the Romans’ gods.)

But if you set aside those modern notions, John is actually talking about something else. “Believing in” Jesus or in God is about where you put your trust.

These references are moving toward faith as something interpersonal, not propositional.

B2. Believing In God’s Name

Then there is a semi-matching pair of verses, one from still earlier in the letter and one from just a smidge further past Sunday’s reading:

And this is his commandment,
that we should
believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ
and love one another,
just as he has commanded us.

1 John 3.23

I write these things to you who
believe in the name of the Son of God,
so that you may know that you have eternal life.

1 John 5.13 NRSV

This is, I suppose, the most foreign to us of John’s references to faith.

Believe “in the name” of Jesus? Duh… his name is “Jesus.” I believe that.

But this is something that has echoes elsewhere in the New Testament and the Old.
Think of Paul telling us

at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

Philippians 2:10 NRSV

And think of all the many passages about the power of names, whether it is important people who meet God and get their names changed, or the great revelation to Moses at Sinai.

When God told Moses his actual name, it was a very big deal.

In the Bible names have power. They point to the essence of who a human person is. And in the divine realm, even with angels names are mysterious. Knowing the Name indicates a kind of connection, an influence, something enormous.

But the angel of the Lord said to him, ‘Why do you ask my name? It is too wonderful.’

Judges 13:18 NRSV

Believing in Jesus’ name is trusting in the core of his identity. It is a deeply interpersonal trust, because it is trust in his deepest nature and his power.

B3. Believing God’s Love

An earlier verse from the same letter is much plainer about this interpersonal quality of faith:

So we have known and
believe the love that God has for us.
God is love,
and those who abide in love abide in God,
and God abides in them.

1 John 4.16

So here, “believing” is all about trusting God’s good will towards us. We find ourselves trusting that the creator of the universe really does love us personally.

It’s absolutely interpersonal. We hear about or we experience the love of God and we say

Wow! God really does love me — and that makes all the difference.

We sort of put the weight of our lives down on it, trusting God to continue being there for us, to continue loving us, forgiving us and guiding us despite it all.

Interpersonal Trust and Truth

The risk is that we choose one or the other meaning of faith.

John’s wisdom here is that, in his circuitous Moebius Strip kind of way, he reminds us of both. We need to trust in God personally. And we need to trust that the things taught about God are true.

This belief “in the name” and the belief “in the love” and the belief “in the Son” or “in God” all go together. They point us to faith as a matter of deep relatedness, of ongoing and transforming relationship.

Interpersonal, relational faith actually goes together with believing that theological statements about God are true, wether we receive them from Scripture directly or through the voice of the Church.

The question we should think about is which one leads to the other.

I remember a drive across the continent some years back. I scanned for radio stations day after day. Every day brought up Christians haranguing the airwaves that people should believe the Bible is authoritative and true. They had less to say about Jesus. It seemed so … backward.

Few people, I would imagine, start with accepting the Bible as true and are then led to a life-changing relational faith in Jesus.

On the other hand, if you encounter Christ, and come to believe in him, trusting his love, then you will find yourself open to what the Bible says. Belief in the truth of doctrinal statements grows in the hearts of those whose lives are knit to God in faith.

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Preaching this text? If you want a refreshing take on making your sermon both biblical and useful to the people who listen, check out my book Your First Sermon: Getting from Here to Sunday in Five Manageable Steps.

Amazon reviewers consistently say it has great input for seasoned preachers as well as first-timers. Click the affiliate link to check it out on Amazon.

The post What Faith Believes — 1 John 5:1-6 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

Vaccinated!

Getting my 2nd Moderna vaccine!

Vaccinated!

I didn’t get much writing done this week. Though I did get vaccinated!

No blog posts — though I did write on this week’s Gospel three years ago. You can see it by clicking here.

I may still get a post up. But it’s Thursday night and I have that vaguely hit-by-a-truck feeling.

No complaints. It’s the last (hopefully) residual after-effect of getting vaccinated. Last Friday I had my 2nd dose of the Moderna vaccine.

Saturday I was pretty much down for the count. Not as bad as the flu. More like a really very bad cold without the sniffles. Each day it is better. The last couple days I’ve felt like I was quite over it until around dinner time. Then I feel pretty wiped.

A Good Trade

It’s a trade-off. I’ll admit, it was a little strange getting a shot that I thought would likely make me feel pretty crummy for a few days. I knew several who had the Moderna and felt some days of significant after-effects.

But there is a very clear trade-off.

Moderna vaccine: At least one day, but probably less than a week, feeling rotten.COVID-19: Significant chance of a lonely, miserable death in the ICU.

The vaccine wins, hands down.

An Intelligent choice

I don’t know if you are already vaccinated, or holding back with doubts of one kind or another. If you are someone who likes to read what I write, who trusts my voice in any small way, then let me just say it: Get vaccinated.

The best scientists in the world teamed up to get us working vaccines in one heck of a hurry. Still, they tested using solid scientific models with tens of thousands of volunteers.

Scientists trained to evaluate risks with the utmost care found that the vaccines work and that they are safe.

There’s no plot here — unless you think of bringing great minds and huge resources together to save human lives can be called a plot.

Getting vaccinated is the smart thing to do. You’ll likely live longer. Choosing life is honoring the God who gave you that life.

If you love God and value lives made in God’s image, save one. Yours. Get vaccinated.

An Act of Love

If you still have lingering doubts, and you are a Christian, remember that Jesus said that loving your neighbor was right up there beside loving God.

Get vaccinated as a way of loving your neighbor.

The vaccine is not going to kill you. You might feel bad for a day or a week, But you will stand far less chance of infecting other people if you are immune due to vaccination.

Jesus said it quite nicely:

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

John 13:15 NRSV

Paraphrase:

Greater love hath no one than to roll up their sleeve, take the jab, and persevere through the side effects — so that you don’t infect and kill some elderly relative or some friend with a compromised immune system.

Seriously, O Christian. Love your neighbor. Get vaccinated.

(I usually get a lot more readers than commenters. If you’ve been vaccinated, let me know below!)

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A Children’s Sermon on John 10:11-18 — The Good Shepherd

Sheepfold CC by Ameixial 2.0

The challenge of writing a children’s sermon on John 10:11-18 is that there is so much going on in such a tiny space. That’s the Gospel reading for the 4th Sunday in Easter for Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary.

You’ll see what I mean about the number of things packed in here if you click on over to my Monday Meditation on the text. (You can also check out my meditation on the same Sunday’s Epistle, 1 John 3:16-24 by clicking here.)

In a children’s sermon you just can’t include every possible emphasis. You have to pick one thing.

And in a children’s sermon, most of the time you do best if you stick with narrative. Kid’s love stories. Really everyone learns important things through stories. Jesus seemed convinced of that so maybe we should give it a try too.

The trick here is that Jesus isn’t really telling a story, like in a parable. And this isn’t really a story about Jesus, like when you see him doing a miracle. Here he’s in the middle of a teaching time, and his teaching is all bound up in the implications of a metaphor: Jesus as “the good shepherd.” 

So what do we do? We take a bit of editorial liberty, and spin a yarn around Jesus’ metaphor. And as usual, I like to do that by creating some conversational context.

To be quite honest, I think that the folks who wrote the book Young Children and Worship did a far better job than I do on the Good Shepherd, though I didn’t want to copy their approach. Check it out through this affiliate link. If you study that book and you’ll be prepared to do some amazing children’s sermons.

If you like the children’s sermon, you are totally free to use it — but please do one or both of the following. First possibility: Just let me know by email or a blog comment below that you are using it. Second (or additionally): You can include a reference in your church bulletin like “This morning’s children’s sermon is based on one published on GaryNealHansen.com .” 

A Children’s Sermon on John 10:11-18, The Good Shepherd

One day Jesus was talking with his friends.

Peter said,

Jesus, you’re always telling us stories about the kingdom of heaven. But we’ve been wondering: could you tell us a story about yourself?

Jesus said,

To tell you the truth, Peter, when I tell you about the kingdom of heaven I’m telling you a lot about myself.

Peter said,

That’s not what I mean. Tell us, maybe who you really are, and where you came from, and what you’re doing here.

Jesus said,

Okay. But first, do you know what a shepherd is?

Peter said,

Sure. A shepherd is someone who takes care of some sheep.

Jesus said,

Well, I’m a shepherd. That’s who I am. Do you think all shepherds are good at their jobs?

Nathaniel said,

No, I don’t think so. In my village there was someone who got a job as a shepherd but ran away when a wolf came after the sheep. Boy, did he get in trouble.

Jesus said,

That really doesn’t sound like a good shepherd. That sounds like just a hired hand. I’m the kind of shepherd who really loves my sheep. I actually know all my sheep by name, I love them so much.

Peter said,

That’s cool. What are some of their names?

Jesus said,

One of my sheep is named Peter. Another is Nathaniel. One is Mary. Another is called Martha…

Martha said,

Hey, those are our names!

Jesus said,

Now you’re catching on. Well in the morning I take my sheep out to the lake so they can drink the cool clear water. Then I take them to the pasture so they can eat the rich green grass. And at night I bring them into my sheepfold. Have any of you ever seen a sheepfold?

Mary said,

Sure, I used to have to tend the sheep. Our sheepfold was a wall all around in a circle with a little gap where the sheep could come and go.

Jesus said,

That’s right. At night I bring my sheep inside the sheepfold where they can be safe and warm. Then I lay down across that gap in the wall.

Nathaniel asked,

Why do you lay down there?

Jesus said,

Well, a good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. When I lay down in the gap in the sheepfold, the sheep can’t wander out and get lost. And if a wolf or some other wild animal comes, it can’t harm the sheep because it can’t get past me.

Wow!

said Peter.

That sounds dangerous!

It is kind of dangerous,

said Jesus.

But I’m the good shepherd—not some hired hand. I love my sheep—so I lay my life down for them. I want to keep them safe and make sure they are okay.

Nathaniel asked,

But aren’t you afraid the wolf will kill you?

No Nathaniel,

said Jesus.

I lay my life down, and I can pick it right back up again. I’ll keep that wolf away from my sheep. It’s my life—and I intend to spend my life helping my sheep.

I wonder how many ways Jesus laid his life down for his sheep?I wonder if one of his sheep has the same name as you?I wonder if you’ve ever felt like Jesus was guiding you like a shepherd?I wonder how you and I might stay close to our Good Shepherd and be safe?

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Preaching this text? If you want a refreshing take on making your sermon both biblical and useful to the people who listen, check out my book Your First Sermon: Getting from Here to Sunday in Five Manageable Steps.

Amazon reviewers consistently say it has great input for seasoned preachers as well as first-timers. Click the affiliate link to check it out on Amazon.

The post A Children’s Sermon on John 10:11-18 — The Good Shepherd appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

Practical Love — 1 John 3:16-24

Foot Washing (public domain)

4th Sunday of Easter, Year B — Practical Love

The lectionary epistle reading assigned for the 4th Sunday of Easter in Year B is 1 John 3:16-24, where John meditates on the practical love Jesus expressed in his ministry. I wrote on this Sunday’s Gospel reading a couple years back and you can read that here.

1 John is a funny sort of epistle, at least compared to Paul’s letters. He doesn’t address a particular community. He doesn’t work through a logical argument.

Instead, John sort of winds around and around on a small set of topics. He drops wise sayings and declarations about his topics. Each topic sort of rubs up against the others in ever-changing combinations.

1 John 3:16-24

So here are a few meditative observations on 1 John 3:16-24. The themes here include Christ’s exemplary love, the practical nature of that love, our own inner reassurance and condemnation, and prayer.

One thing I find striking is the way the presentation of themes here echoes key moments in John’s Gospel. You’ll see what I mean.

The exemplary love of Christ

John starts the section with comments on how we know about love.

We know love by this,
that he laid down his life
for us

1 John 3:16 NRSV

You’d think he would say “We know that JESUS LOVES US by this,” since what he points to is Jesus’ self-giving love for his disciples.

But no. This reference to Jesus’ laying down his life is to help us figure out what love actually is. We know love when we look at Jesus freely giving his life.

Perhaps John thinks we already know something of Jesus’ love. Certainly he affirms that we have inward knowledge of the love of Christ expressed as his abiding presence with us. That’s how he ends the passage:

And by this we know that he abides in us,
by the Spirit that he has given us.

1 John 3:24 NRSV

But 1 John 3:16 echoes the far more famous 3:16 in John’s Gospel:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

John 3:16 NRSV

The numerical similarity is just serendipitous — verse numbers were not added until the 16th century. But the conceptual parallel is important.

We tend to read John 3:16 as if it is a reference to the Cross, but we should think twice about that: It comes at the beginning of John’s Gospel, near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

In context, God giving his Son is more closely related to the first chapter of John, where it is all about the incarnation — the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

In 1 John 3:16, though we are more justified in thinking about the Cross, we should again be thinking about the incarnation of Jesus, and of what Jesus did in the years before the Cross.

This verse should bring to mind the Maundy Thursday discourses in the Upper Room. There Jesus laid aside his garments and took the role of a servant, washing his disciples’ feet. He told him that this was the example to follow, and gave them a command to love one another in the way that he had loved them.

For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

John 13:15 NRSV

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

John 13:34-35 NRSV

Most of the time we pay too little attention to the sheer wonder of the incarnation. And we pay the wrong kind of attention to Jesus’ earthly ministry before the Cross.

That is, Jesus “laying down his life” means that God, the 2nd Person of the Trinity, shed his rightful divine glory and power and became human to save us. That laying aside of rights to benefit others is, says John, love defined.

It’s what Paul talked about in Philippians:

…Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.

Philippians 2:5-7 NRSV

And Jesus “laying down his life” means all the practical ways he cared for the people he created. He called them, given them purpose and mission. He healed them. He fed them. He broke down the walls of xenophobia and nationalism to welcome and care for foreigners and outcasts.

The practical nature of love

We should note carefully also the connection between John’s next point about the practical nature of the love he calls us to, and Jesus teaching about self-giving love in the same scene of the Gospel.

Once he gave them the new commandment based on his model, he made their application of that practical love the mark by which they would bear witness to the world. Here it is again:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

John 13:34-35 NRSV

Compare with what John says now in the epistle as the obvious implication of what Jesus taught us that love is:

—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.
How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods
and sees a brother or sister in need
and yet refuses help?

1 John 3:16-17 NRSV

It seems perfectly obvious to the apostle.

Christian love is a really practical matter. It isn’t just words. It’s actions. Use what you have to help others.

It’s probably more obvious in Greek where love is a verb. It’s something you do, not primarily something you feel.

Love is what Jesus did, laying his glory aside and pouring out practical love for us when we were needy and helpless.

Love is what we need to do, laying aside our riches, pouring out practical love when we see our family members in need.

There quickly arises a question of whom to love: Natural family? Christian family? Human family?

Well. yes.

There quickly arises a question of how much to love: Can we fill every need in all these categories?

Well, no.

But we can do something.

I am challenged by an essay I read from an Orthodox priest to someone just coming to the life of the ordained. The younger cleric was given his first cassock, the long black garment many Orthodox priests wear a good deal of the time.

The older priest suggested that the pockets of one’s cassock always contain some money. Marked as Christ’s by what they are wearing, they should be prepared to live out Christ’s love by being able and willing to give to those in need around them.

We Protestants don’t usually wear cassocks. But heaven help us if we use that as an excuse to not live out the love we see in Christ and hear taught by John.

Reassurance and Condemnation

These loving actions, as we take on the call to live out the love we learn from Christ, teach us something.

And by this we will know
that we are from the truth
and will reassure our hearts before him
whenever our hearts condemn us;

1 John 3:19-20

Odd, yes? What we do teaches us something about the truth of the Gospel.

We don’t just learn by studying the Bible or hearing it taught. When we live it “by this we will know” something.

The message comes full circle into our broken lives.

We don’t pick up the truth of the Gospel very easily. You know this if you’ve ever tried to help someone who feels guilty understand the grace of Christ. It doesn’t often sink in as quickly as you wish it would.

There is some wisdom if we take apart the process John writes about and reassemble it:

Q. How will we reassure our bruised hearts? So often our own hearts condemn us.
A. By loving, in practical ways, those whom we call family — natural family, family of faith, human family.

You see the love happen in and through you, and then your heart is assured. “Jesus must be abiding in me or I wouldn’t be doing this!”

And it happens in real time, in genuine truth, not because we started the process but because God is at work.

Hey,

God is greater than our hearts,
and he knows everything.

1 John 3:20 NRSV

It’s a process with interlocking steps.

Jesus shows us what love is. (3:16)We begin to show others practical love, just as he has shown us. (3:23 and 16-18)We begin to believe, to trust Jesus, to have assurance. (3:23 and 19-20)And we begin to know that Christ himself is abiding in us. (3:24)All of which leads to a life in harmonious partnership with God. (3:22-23)

Prayer

That’s how we need to see the tantalizing little phrase in verse 22:

…and we receive from him whatever we ask…

It’s way to easy too yank it out of context, so much so that it loses touch even with grammar. So often, we want so badly to have a practical way to get our prayers answered that we hold tight to biblical sentence fragments.

In context this really is a promise about prayer. But it is a promise with hefty conditions.

Yes, God gives us everything we ask — if we obey his commandment, loving our neighbor the way he loved when he laid aside heaven to take the form of a servant, believing and abiding in him.

And you know, it just might be that if we had our whole lives set on loving that way, in really practical terms, it might have a significant effect on the kinds of things we ask for.

++++++++++++

Preaching this text? If you want a refreshing take on making your sermon both biblical and useful to the people who listen, check out my book Your First Sermon: Getting from Here to Sunday in Five Manageable Steps.

Amazon reviewers consistently say it has great input for seasoned preachers as well as first-timers. Click the affiliate link to check it out on Amazon.

The post Practical Love — 1 John 3:16-24 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

A Children’s Sermon on Luke 24:36-48

Fish for Dinner (public domain)

I’m back with a children’s sermon on Luke 24:36-48, for the 3rd Sunday of Easter.

A year ago I was writing a children’s sermon each week here on the old blog, supplementing my “Monday Meditation” on the week’s lectionary Gospel. Well, what with pandemic malaise and a few other issues I slipped out of the habit.

I miss writing them. And whether you missed reading them or have stumbled onto my blog for the first time today, reader interest has nudged me to get back to it. They are getting to be the posts most frequently found by new readers who go searching and land on my site.

One of the most joyful things that happened when I was writing these regularly was that I got word from people that they were using them in their congregations. A time or two I even got to join in via Zoom and hear how people presented them.

So if you find yourself wanting to use this children’s sermon on Luke 24:36-48 in worship, please know that you have my permission – but please let me know that you used it. And if you want to do me a real kindness, include a mention of this website, GaryNealHansen.com, in your bulletin.

The challenge in writing a children’s sermon on Luke 24:36-48 is telling the story so that it makes the particular point of the text in a way that is at a child’s level. I’ll let you judge whether I hit the mark or not!

(By the way, if you want to see my regular meditation on this Gospel passage, click here. If you want to see my meditation on this Sunday’s epistle, click here.)

A Children’s Sermon on Luke 24:36-48

On the very first Easter Sunday, Jesus’ friends weren’t actually very excited.

Mostly they were sad – they loved Jesus, but he had died on the cross two days ago.

And they were scared – maybe the people who killed Jesus would come and hurt them too.

Plus they were confused – some of the women found Jesus’ tomb was empty, and then Peter said he actually saw Jesus alive. And two of Jesus’ friends who had gone back to their own town came running back saying they saw Jesus alive too.

That was confusing. It was exciting too, if it was true. But how could Jesus be alive? They had all seen him die on the cross. They knew where he had been buried.

Well, that evening, Easter evening, Jesus’ friends were all in one room. The door was locked. They didn’t know quite what to do.

All of a sudden, right there in the room – there was Jesus!

Surprise!” he said. “I came to do a miracle!”

Okay, he didn’t really say that. But he did show up in their locked room.

I think I know what Jesus’ friends said. I think it’s the same thing you and I would say if someone we knew was dead showed up in our living room. I think they said,

AAAAAHHGG!

Let’s pretend we were there in that room.

All of a sudden, Jesus is standing there. What do we say? Everbody together. One, two three,

AAAAAGGHHH!!!

Then Jesus looked at him with his big brown eyes all full of love and said,

Peace be with you!

That really did sound like Jesus. They all felt a little bit better.

Peter spoke up.

Hey, I really do feel more peaceful! Was that the miracle you came to do?

Jesus said,

No, Peter. I just wanted you all to calm down a bit.

Thomas said,

Okay, you look like Jesus, and you sound like Jesus. But we saw Jesus die. How can we know you’re really … you?

Jesus said,

Yeah, Thomas, you all still look a bit doubtful. Check out my hands and feet. You can see where the nails were. It’s really me.

Peter said,

Wow! That’s amazing! I’ve never seen a dead person come back to life. Was that the miracle you wanted to show us?

But Jesus said,

Actually no. That was a miracle, all right, but there’s another one coming. You know, I’m kind of hungry. Haven’t had a bite to eat since our Last Supper on Thursday. Do you have any food here?

Andrew said

We have some fish left from dinner. Here you go.

(Andrew always knew where the food was.)

So Jesus ate it all up.

Peter said,

Wow! I’ve never seen a formerly dead guy eat a meal before. That’s amazing. Was that the miracle you wanted to show us?

Jesus shook his head.

Not really Peter. I was just hungry. Now let me explain some things to you.

And Jesus talked with them about how God’s prophets in the Bible, what we call the Old Testament, had said the Messiah would come, and that he would suffer, and that he would die, and that he would rise again – and that his friends would bring the whole world the news that death was conquered.

John said

Wow! I totally get it now!

Mary Magdalene said

Wow! I totally get it too!

And they all said the same.

Jesus waited a moment. Then he cleared his throat.

Um, Peter?” he said. “Did you notice anything?”

Peter looked up.

Oh, yeah, Jesus. I understand too. Thanks for the explanation.

Jesus said,

Peter, Peter, Peter – that was the miracle!

Peter was a bit confused.

What was the miracle?” he asked.

Jesus said,

You understand now. I’ve been telling you all this stuff for three years. I just opened your minds to understand it all.

They all looked a bit confused now.

Understanding about who you are and what you did is a miracle?” Peter asked.

Jesus smiled.

Yes Peter. When you all go out to tell others about me, every person who understands and believes gets that same miracle. It’s called ‘faith.’

Peter smiled.

Wow!” he said.

Jesus said,

I have to go now. So long! And thanks for the fish.”

And he was gone.

I wonder if you’ve ever been confused and scared about something, but then come to understand and felt better.I wonder what part of Jesus’ visit would have seemed most exciting to you – seeing him appear, seeing his wounds, watching him eat, or hearing his explanation.I wonder whether Jesus makes you feel more at peace or more startled? More confused or more clear? More afraid or more confident?I wonder, when you come to understand about Jesus, whether a miracle is happening inside of you?

++++++++++++

Preaching this text? If you want a refreshing take on making your sermon both biblical and useful to the people who listen, check out my book Your First Sermon: Getting from Here to Sunday in Five Manageable Steps.

Amazon reviewers consistently say it has great input for seasoned preachers as well as first-timers. Click the affiliate link to check it out on Amazon.

The post A Children’s Sermon on Luke 24:36-48 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

1 John 3:1-7 — 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B

Father & Daughter, CCO

1 John 3:1-7

In Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary, the epistle reading through Easter season is 1 John. On the Third Sunday of Easter, we have 1 John 3:1-7 — we’ve skipped most of chapter 2, alas.

But skipping a bit of 1 John is not like skipping a bit of one of Paul’s epistles. Paul tends to sustain an argument, making a point over a period of chapters.

1 John is less a sustained argument than a patchwork quilt of interrelated aphorisms and images. Skip a bit here and you’ll probably cover the same territory another week.

(I’m not saying the lectionary doesn’t skip bits of Paul. It does, but at a different cost.)

That said, in any given chunk of 1 John there is a lot going on. And quite often, John writes in a confusing way. That is, he puts his thoughts in strong declarations, statements that sound quite absolute — until you read another bit of the same letter and find him saying the opposite just as absolutely.

Does this mean John contradicts himself? Well, yes, I guess it does. On the surface he is saying opposite things. And he’s so very sincere. He clearly means both points with passion.

Seeing the contradictions leads to better understanding than denying them.

Sometimes people make their points based on this letter without reference to, or even awareness of where the author made the opposite point. If we do that, we end up baking up a strong and rigid theology that accounts for precisely half of the evidence.

You could say the result is “half-baked” theology.Or you could imagine a loaf that leaves out half the ingredients—fully baked, but completely inedible.

Remembering both sides of this author’s statements is an application of an important “rule” of biblical interpretation: you have to interpret Scripture with Scripture.

You can’t take one biblical statement and say you know God’s revealed will on the topic. You have to weigh it against other statements on the same subject, by the same writer and by other writers. You have to let the whole of Scripture speak before clarity emerges.

That is important in 1 John 3:1-7.

Sin

The case in point within this passage is John’s seemingly absolute statements about sin.
It starts in verses 4 and 5, but is strongest in verse 6:

No one who abides in him sins;
no one who sins has either seen him or known him.

1 John 3:6 NRSV

Sounds perfectly clear, right?

And it sounds like an absolute policy statement.

But if it’s an absolute statement of divine policy, you and I are in a world of hurt.

John has other statements that sound quite similar. It doesn’t sound like “Three strikes, you’re out.” It sounds like “One strike, that’s it.”

Here’s the thing: John also says the opposite. It was in last week’s section of the letter. For example,

If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

1 John 1:8 NRSV

I like to think about these seeming absolutes as descriptions of the trend of your life, your chosen direction.

If we jump whole hog into sin, choosing that as our life’s direction, then we are facing the wrong way, unable to see Christ.

Or you can say that they provide a kind of test of the truth of the faith we proclaim. If we’ve really encountered Christ it changes our life. That’s real faith.

If we’re living a life aimed toward sin, it sort of says we didn’t have a life-changing encounter with Christ.

It’s like we haven’t seen him or known him.

Regardless of these tensions, these seeming paradoxes, there is a bunch of wonderful imagery here about the direction and meaning of our life in Christ.

He gives us a fascinating list of things we should be putting our attention on along the way.

Adoption

First is the gorgeous opening statement:

See what love the Father has given us,
that we should be called children of God;
and that is what we are.

1 John 3:1 NRSV

John is speaking of the people who belong to Christ by faith. These are the ones who have this gift of love. It is Christians who get to be called “children of God.”

John is using a theme that is quite explicit in Paul’s letters to the Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians. Paul describes the nature of our relationship to God as “adoption.”

Jesus assumes the same idea when he tells his disciples to pray “OUR Father in heaven…”

He knew that he himself was God’s only begotten son. The rest of us, coming to salvation by faith, are adopted as God’s children.

This idea is actually in pretty stark contrast to the common assumption that all people are God’s children, and can equally claim God as their father. That was a point of classical liberalism, but is not traditional Christianity.

I’m not saying that God doesn’t love people outside the household of faith. Far from it.

I’m saying that the New Testament use of this terminology is a way of describing salvation. It’s one of the wonderful things that happens when we come to God in faith and love. We find God is no longer our judge but instead has become our loving adoptive Father.

We are much more comfortable thinking of our new relation to God in terms like “atonement” and “forgiveness.” John (and Paul and Jesus) tell us that we should cherish salvation as adoption into God’s family.

Becoming Like Him

John delves briefly into eschatology in this passage. Though his words on the topic are few, I find them both evocative and helpful.

…what we will be has not yet been revealed.
What we do know is this:
when he is revealed, we will be like him,
for we will see him as he is.

1 John 3:2 NRSV

When eschatology is the topic, most in our culture ask very different questions. We want to know when Jesus is coming back, and what the signs will be, and what the events will look like. Whole shelves of popular literature try to lay out the narrative in excruciating and scary detail.

John asks instead, “What will we be? What will we become when Jesus comes again?”

I have to say, I really like that. I think it is a much more helpful focus.

The usual focus on matching up biblical apocalyptic images to things in the news tends toward the same kind of fatal pridefulness as current political conspiracies. People suffering from lack of power become puffed up with the conviction that they are the insiders to Big Secrets.

John is certainly aware that this age will draw to a close, Jesus will return, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. But he wants us to focus our attention on what matters: our own journey to the fulness of salvation.

We don’t know just what we’ll be.

We do know that we’ll be like Jesus.

That’s very like what Paul says about the purpose of God’s action in our lives, remaking us in the image of Jesus. John points us to this journey taking great leaps forward after this life.

(If you want to read a serious and fascinating theological exploration of this journey of transformation, pick up St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses. And if you want a guide as you read it, I did a four video series on it over on my Patreon page. It’s all still there if you want to join up at the “Education” level.)

Seeing

I’m quite fascinated by what 1 John 3:1-7 portrays as the reason, or the evidence for this transformation.

Here’s the core of the claim:

…we will be like him,
for we will see him as he is.

1 John 3:2 NRSV

We are prone to say “Seeing is believing.”

John is saying “Seeing is becoming.”

I’ve long been fascinated by the idea of contemplation in Christian spiritual life. The word “contemplate” means “to gaze” or “to look” at something.

In contemplative prayer, one turns one’s spiritual “eyes” toward God, giving God your attention. You look, and you wait. In Jesus’ phrase, you “keep watch.” This includes watching for the answers to prayers. More directly it is about watching for God who is ever coming into our lives.

I’m currently re-re-rereading the great 14th century English book on contemplation, The Cloud of Unknowing, which is all about that gaze. In The Cloud, the contemplative gaze is a metaphor for giving the loving attention of our hearts and souls and minds to God.

Physically we see nothing, so it’s not a literal gaze. But gazing, looking, trying to see, is a fantastic metaphor for the attention we pay to God, pouring out our our love on him in fulfillment of the Great Commandment.

John is telling us that when Jesus comes again, at the dawning of the new heaven and new earth, we will finally see. And having spend our lives looking in love toward Jesus, seeing clearly we will at last become like the one we love.

Hoping

This, says John, is what it means to have hope within us.

Paul gave us the triad of lasting things, faith hope and love. Traditionally these have been called the “theological virtues,” of far greater importance than the virtues we exercise with more simple effort. Really they come as gifts of grace, as part of our ongoing transformation in Christ’s image.

Faith makes sense, and so does love.

But hope is kind of vague.

This is where John is really helpful. After saying that

…we will be like him,
for we will see him as he is

1 John 3:2 NRSV

John goes on to describe this as hope:

And all who have this hope in him
purify themselves, just as he is pure.

1 John 3:3 NRSV

Wonder what hope is? 1 John 3:1-7 gives something like a definition. Hope is gazing toward God, waiting for the transforming revelation of Jesus’ return.

Wonder how to nurture hope, as you’ve already been learning to trust in faith and love God and neighbor? Nurture hope by turning your gaze toward God, waiting for the transforming revelation of Jesus’ return.

This kind of hoping has an active transforming effect in itself. John says it purifies us, just as Jesus is pure.

Which is quite a promise.

Abiding

And then you stay there in that hopeful contemplative place, standing with your inner gaze attending to God. You remain, or “abide” there.

You remember Jesus’ wonderful meditation on abiding like a branch on the vine, back in John 15.

Here again 1 John 3:1-7 is talking about abiding, building on what he’s taught about contemplation being transformative and hope purifying us. He tells us

No one who abides in him sins;

1 John 3:6 NRSV

That’s the very hopeful thought John provides, sandwiched between the scary things he said about sin.

So just stay there, remaining, abiding, gazing toward God in hope.

Clearly it’s good for you.

Doing

1 John 3:1-7 closes with a little statement to comfort us that we’re following true Christian counsel in this. Despite all the potentially worrisome bits about sin, we should rest assured:

Everyone who does what is right is righteous,
just as he is righteous.

1 John 3:7 NRSV

Should we read this as a reference to some kind of legal behavioral perfection? Obey all the rules and you’ll be as righteous as Jesus?

Well no, of course not. That wasn’t what Jesus seemed to emphasize in his living or most of his teaching.

And we need to read it in the context of this letter, particular in the context of this very passage.

How do you be someone “who does what is right”?

Celebrate being adopted by God.

Turn your heart’s loving gaze toward Jesus.

Nurture hope by abiding in that stance.

That’s what leads to transformation.

For now just keep doing it. You’ll see it much more clearly when Jesus comes.

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If you enjoy these weekly meditations on the coming Sunday’s Gospel text would you consider supporting the project over on Patreon? Even $1 a month is a huge encouragement.

(Patreon is a crowd funding site to let you support people who do creative work you value. There are a variety of rewards for different levels of support…)

The post 1 John 3:1-7 — 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

Walking in the Light — 1 John 1:1-2:2

Monday Meditation — Walking in the Light

This Sunday the Epistle reading assigned by the Revised Common Lectionary is 1 John 1:1—2:2, where the Apostle says we should be walking in the light. That’s my subject this week.

“What?” you ask, “Isn’t this going to be a Gospel meditation?”

Here’s the thing: I started writing these “Monday Meditations” three years ago. If you come by regularly or occasionally, you know that I’ve tried to post a meditation on each Sunday’s Gospel text as assigned by the Revised Common Lectionary.

Why? For you, dear reader, just in case you are a lectionary preacher and want to have someone else’s thoughts on the upcoming text—say, somebody with a Ph.D. in Church History/History of Christian Doctrine and an abiding interest in the history of biblical interpretation.

But also for myself, to be quite honest. I haven’t been pastoring a church during these years, but the church my family attends uses the lectionary texts in worship each week.

It’s an old Puritan spiritual discipline, actually: I wanted to come to worship prepared, already steeped in the Word, ready to hear it preached on by someone else.
It’s been a way of keeping myself in Scripture on a regular basis. That’s been good for my soul.

Of course I’ve missed quite a few weeks. 2019 brought significant periods of ill health, and 2020 – well, you know what 2020 was.

Still as I come to the 2nd Sunday of Easter, I find that I wrote on the Gospel text, John 20:19-31 both in 2019 and in 2020 and – all three years have “doubting Thomas” on that Sunday. Plus I did a children’s sermon on this text last year as well.

So I’ve decided that on weeks when I’ve already written about the lectionary Gospel I’ll write on one of the other texts for the day. I expect I’ll stick to the Epistle, at least for a while.

I hope to get back to the children’s sermons too. They are much more popular than the Monday Meditations, so I really should…

The First Epistle of John

All through Easter season of Year B, the Epistle is 1 John. I’ve always liked 1 John. The tone is warm and generous, full of love and light. It’s the kind of tone I’d like my life to have. All the more reason to spend a few weeks there.

John’s enthusiasm

The opening to the epistle has always struck me as poetic. John bubbles over in a series of sensory images.

We declare to you what was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we have looked at
and touched with our hands,
concerning the word of life—

1 John 1:1 NRSV

Maybe it is even more enthusiastic than poetic. He is just so excited about having encountered Christ. He bubbles over with all the evidence that the Christ he followed is now the Christ who is risen.

Wouldn’t it be great to be that overjoyed at knowing Christ this Easter? He had the advantage on us, with those very sensory encounters. But if we look hard at our lives, searching out the traces of God’s providence and grace, we could find something much like it.

The great example of this is Augustine of Hippo. I’ve recently reread his famous Confessions a couple of times and his searching honesty about what God was doing in the background and through people and through circumstances, all to bring him to faith and discipleship, is astounding. Everybody should do that kind of searching and fearless life inventory.

(If you are looking for good company in reading the Confessions, swing over to my Patreon page and join at the “education” level. It’s a sort of online book group with videos. We’re just getting rolling on the Confessions now.)

John’s Reason(s) for Writing

I’m intrigued by another feature I’ve always thought of as poetic: John’s repetitive musing about his reason for writing.

On the one hand, he is writing out of joy in finding new life in Christ.

…we have seen it
and testify to it,
and declare to you
the eternal life
that was with the Father
and was revealed to us—

1 John 1:2 NRSV

And on the other hand, he is writing to bring you and me into fellowship.

…we declare to you
what we have seen
and heard
so that you also may have fellowship with us;

1 John 1:3 NRSV

And on the other other hand (where would one put it?) he is writing so that our joy, his yours and mine, can be complete.

We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

1 John 1:4 NRSV

I offer you the proposition that all three reasons are the same.

Life, Fellowship, Joy

Knowing Christ is the Good News. It brings new life, and the joy just has to be shared. It is a message of love that eagerly wants to draw others in. And when others are drawn into the circle of those in fellowship with Christ and each other, then there is more joy all around.

When you see what he says this “fellowship” includes, you can see why it is such good news: It is not just some lame human club. This is a connection to the living God.

…truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

1 John 1:3 NRSV

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to tell the world that what you love about your fellowship, your church, is that together you find yourself in fellowship with the Trinity?

In those early years the Christian understanding of the Trinity was in its infancy. John doesn’t even mention the Holy Spirit. But clearly he’s saying that he wants you and me to join an intimate circle of loving relationship with God who created the world, and God’s own Son, the Word made flesh, Jesus.

And really, who wouldn’t want that? God is mighty good company.

Light and Darkness

John then goes on a little theological riff about God and what it means to be in fellowship with him.

First comes a claim about what God is.

…God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.

1 John 1:5 NRSV

It is what one might call a substantive metaphor. (That’s not a technical term that I know of. I’m grasping for a good description here.)

John is not putting this in the form of a simile. In case you haven’t been thinking about your high school English class lately, a “simile” is an explicit comparison. That would be “God is LIKE light.” The reader should know that it is a partial parallel used to make a comparison of some kind.

On the other hand, a “metaphor” is an implicit, assumed comparison. It leaves out any explicit comparative term. A metaphor makes a rhetorical claim like “God IS my rock.”

Well we all know that God is not actually a hunk of granite or marble. But you are supposed to know something about the qualities of actual rocks so that when you hear a poetic claim, like God is a rock, you infer something about God being strong and reliable or things like that.

You know the comparison is imperfect (even if God IS a rock, no rock IS God) but it communicates at a more subtle level than a simile.

So when John says “God IS light, and in him there is no darkness at all,” he’s using a metaphor—but he’s making a substantive theological claim. He’s not spinning poetry like with the whole rock thing.

And please note that he’s not making a claim about colors. This is not apostolic authority to prefer white things over black or brown things.

Rather he’s working with the physical phenomenon of light.

If you have a dark place, say a closet or a cardboard box, and you shine a light inside, it’s not dark any more. The light eliminates the darkness.

On the other hand, if you have a place full of light, like a room with windows on a bright sunny day, you can’t come in and shine a bunch of darkness around, eliminating the light.

Light is a presence.Darkness, on the other hand, is an absence—an absence of light.

This metaphor points to something substantial, about the reality of God.

God IS light, even if light is not God.

When light shines after a long scary night, you might even feel like it’s the presence of God. In God there is no darkness at all.

It is God’s very nature is to shine and reveal, to make plain so we see and understand and find our way. This is the one with whom John says we are to be in fellowship.

Walking in the Light

And that has implications for what we say about ourselves.

This idea that God is light, and we are in fellowship with this light, means we can’t be hiding in the shadows.

If we say that we have fellowship with him
while we are walking in darkness,
we lie
and do not do what is true;

1 John 1:6 NRSV

Living lives of shadowy deeds, or hiding away so that the truth is not known makes the claim of faith a lie. Two kinds of lies actually: there is lie of the claim and a lie of the deed. Walking in the light requires we “DO what is true.”

Does this mean that we are, and must be Percy or Priscilla Perfect? Actually no. We need to let the light shine by telling the truth about our deeds of darkness.

If we say
that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us.

1 John 1:8 NRSV

Living in the light includes seeing our failings (because the light shines on them) and admitting them honestly (because we want to live in fellowship with the one who is Light and Truth).

Our Advocate

John isn’t condemning us in any way. He’s inviting us to a kind of deeply honest, truthful life where God’s grace in Christ can reach us.

He writes, he says, so that we may avoid sinning — but we must admit that we do sin, and when we do admit our sins we find we have an Advocate. Jesus Christ himself is on our side, walking in the light and welcoming us into his light.

If we confess our sins,
he who is faithful and just
will forgive us our sins
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9 NRSV

As He Is in the Light

The challenging call here, and the mystery, is the particular standard we are given.

… if we walk in the light
as he himself is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

1 John 1:7 NRSV

We know from the Gospel that Jesus claimed for himself the title of “Light.” He IS the Light.

But here, rather than saying Jesus IS the Light, John wants us to notice that Jesus is IN the light.

Jesus waked in the light of God, even as he himself was God incarnate.

He walked in the light, speaking truth and being truly who he was and who he was called to be.

Jesus didn’t put up with lies, even when teaching the truth was confusing to his hearers. Even when the truth cost him his life.

There is a sobering call in this today.

Many millions of Christians seem to have given up the call to walk in the light as Christ is in the light, letting light shine on the truth and falsehood of what is going on in the world around them. We must let light shine and seek to know reality, truth based on evidence — rather than conspiracy theories.

Do I have to enumerate the obvious lies that are superseding all evidence in our culture these days? Better to walk in the light.

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Preaching this text? If you want a refreshing take on making your sermon both biblical and useful to the people who listen, check out my book Your First Sermon: Getting from Here to Sunday in Five Manageable Steps.

Amazon reviewers consistently say it has great input for seasoned preachers as well as first-timers. Click the affiliate link to check it out on Amazon.

The post Walking in the Light — 1 John 1:1-2:2 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.

The Myrrh-Bearing Women — Mark 16:1-8

Holy Myrrhbearing Women, CC by Ted-SA 2.0

The Myrrh-Bearing Women

And so we come to Easter! In Year B the text is Mark 16:1-8, which is the story of what Orthodoxy remembers as “The Myrrh-bearing women.” (There is also an Easter text from John this year, but I’m opting to stick with Mark.)

I’m writing and posting this early in Holy Week. As will be familiar to all who preach in this season it seems slightly surreal: I’ve just had Palm Sunday and have yet to experience Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, but I must think ahead to the Resurrection.

Mark’s Gospel seems to come to an end with this passage, though it famously has a “second ending” that has the sound of something tacked on later, perhaps to spackle over a distinctive and odd feature of this first ending. This passage is full of emotion, despite its brevity, which is part of its message, really.

The Myrrh-Bearing Women

The story picks up on Holy Saturday, actually. On Friday afternoon the women disciples saw where Jesus’ body was entombed. From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, faithful Jews that they were, they kept Sabbath, resting from work and, as much as humanly possible, even laying aside grief.

Then, “When the sabbath was over,” i.e., Saturday evening,

Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome
bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.

Mark 16:1 NRSV

In Orthodoxy, the myrrh-bearing women are remembered in icons and hymns. They get sung about very regularly, actually. Since every Sunday is a miniature re-living of Easter, they are sung, prayed, and read about in Saturday Vespers and Sunday Matins.

Yes, Orthodoxy has only male clergy, but in their worship they speak, pray, and sing about women far more often than any Protestants I’ve encountered.

These myrrh-bearing women show a beautiful faithfulness, willing to come and do a hard thing for someone they loved, despite sorrow and probably danger. (Less danger in Mark perhaps, where there are no guards mentioned at the tomb.)

So, Sabbath rest over, when the shops reopened Saturday evening they picked up all the materials needed to properly anoint the body of a loved one.

The spices, remembered as myrrh, nicely echo the gifts of the Magi in Matthew’s nativity narrative. Mark does not actually state that it was myrrh.

It is John’s Gospel that mentions myrrh, brought not by the women but by Nicodemus. Mark’s explicit reference to myrrh was at the crucifixion, when wine mixed with myrrh was offered to Jesus.

So we think of myrrh as a burial reference but in the OT it is seen as an ingredient in the holy anointing oil and as a perfume, especially in the Song of Solomon. It leads me to ponder the death of Jesus in connection with his role as anointed prophet, priest, and king, as well as his role as bridegroom, united to the Church in marriage.

The Young Man

Once the women arrive they find the great stone door rolled away from the tomb. They step inside to find not Jesus but – whom?

Many of us eagerly fill in the blank: an angel. Or maybe two depending on which Gospel we’ve been reading.

But Mark doesn’t say there was an angel, does he? No: it’s a young man, dressed in white but not, apparently, shining with borrowed splendor from standing in the presence of God.

Who is this guy?

Here’s a tantalizing connection: Back in Gethsemane Mark said “a certain young man dressed only in a linen cloth” fled the scene – naked, actually. Had one of the soldiers grabbed the hem, trying to catch the fellow, who figured it was better to run through town alfresco than spend the night a prisoner?

Well what if this certain young man went back and picked up his linen, or maybe stopped home for his bathrobe, then went to the cemetery to pay his respects? And then, perhaps he was first to meet the risen Christ, who said to pass on a message to the myrrh-bearing women when they showed up?

Give this theory all the credit it deserves – which is none at all. The text does not designate the young man as one of those mysterious creatures the angels, but certainly he plays the role of messenger – which is precisely the meaning of the word “angel.”

Plus he uses the stock first line of most angelic encounters: “Don’t be alarmed!”

And thus we have the core of the first Easter encounter. The myrrh-bearing women do not encounter the risen Christ. They bump into a stranger where they thought they’d find Jesus’ body, and by this stranger’s witness they understand that Jesus is alive.
It is worth noting that their experience is not unlike our own.

And Peter

Among the interesting features of this encounter is that the myrrh-bearing women are given a calling, a mission: “…go, tell…” says the stranger.

It is often said that they were commissioned to be the fist evangelists. True enough – though their mission was within the Church, not to the world at large. “…go, tell his disciples…” they are told.

Interesting, though, their commission goes one step further:

…go, tell his disciples AND Peter…”

Mark 16:7 NRSV

This makes it quite clear that, at least in the eyes of the young man in white, Peter was not currently counted among Jesus’ disciples.

Maybe after the Certain Young Man ran off naked from Gethsemane, he picked up his bathrobe and made Jesus’ trial his first stop. Maybe he heard Peter deny three times that he even knew Jesus – with curses, no less.

Peter himself was probably wondering whether he could carry the title “disciple” any more, much less “apostle.”

Lovely that the first mission from the first Easter encounter included reconciling the heart-sore man who had apostatized so egregiously.

Maybe we should consider this Easter a time to welcome home those we know who have strayed far into the same kinds of troubles.

He Goes Before You

There is another lovely note hidden within the commission to the myrrh-bearing women, one that we would do well to meditate long upon.

Where is the risen Christ, they wonder?

…he is going ahead of you to Galilee; There you will see him, just as he told you.

Mark 16:7 NRSV

Ah yes, we ask that question too: Where is the risen Christ?

Well, the creed tells us he’s ascended into heaven – gone before us, where we will see him, just as he told us.

But isn’t there a sense that it remains true down here, all the while, throughout our lives?

We long for the moments, the events or the seasons, when Jesus seems to be right here beside us.

But most of the time he is going before us, traveling first where we will go, preparing the way for us to do his will and be changed into his image.

And many times, after we go to these places life sends us, though we don’t see him with our eyes, we walk away convinced that he really was there all the while – just as he said.

They Said Nothing

Ah, and then the end of the Easter story: Jesus comes by, shows them his wounds, big hugs all around… Actually no. That’s it. Mark doesn’t record a meeting with Jesus. Just a message from a stranger.

But they fulfilled their commission, right? They were the first evangelists after all.
Actually no. They were pretty wrecked by the whole scene. What kinds of emotions does Mark say they felt?

Alarm.Terror.Amazement.Fear.

How much of the message did they share? Just how far and how wide did the first evangelsts spread the word?

…they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

And that, dear reader, is how the experience of most modern Christians is just like the real experience of the very first Easter.

My prayer for you this Easter is that you will find Jesus going before you wherever you go. And that finding that he was mysteriously there all along will give bring new and lasting life, as well as the counter-cultural courage to tell others about him.

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Preaching this text? If you want a refreshing take on making your sermon both biblical and useful to the people who listen, check out my book Your First Sermon: Getting from Here to Sunday in Five Manageable Steps.

Amazon reviewers consistently say it has great input for seasoned preachers as well as first-timers. Click the affiliate link to check it out on Amazon.

The post The Myrrh-Bearing Women — Mark 16:1-8 appeared first on Gary Neal Hansen.