I have yet to do this but thought today might be the day to post the manuscript for the sermon I preached this morning. Mind you, though it is a manuscript it never comes out the way it is written.
Your comments are welcome!
The text is John 14:1-14 Read it first!
Some interesting events have unfolded in these last few weeks with Harold Camping, president of Christian Radio Network, predicting the beginning of the end, or the rapture, yesterday. Interestingly Family Radio’s website was offering special promotions as late as Friday that expired May 28.
All false prophets and shenanigans aside, If it was your last day, or if you knew death was imminent is there anything you would have made it a point to do, like something on your bucket list, or made it a point to say to your loved ones?
I confess I have not thought a lot about final words in regards to my own life, though I have had the privilege to sit with both loved ones and practical strangers as they passed from this world. I’ve thought about hymns and music for my funeral and scripture that I want read, but as far as the words that will be said before that day, not so much. The closest I have come was when after having Sierra I experienced some strange symptoms that prompted many medical tests and a possible diagnosis of MS that really rocked my world in considering the span of my life and just how much of my two daughter’s I would be able to be a part of. I began to think about what I would want them to know about me, my life and my hopes and dreams for them, what wisdom I would want to share born of my own experience, and what comfort and love and peace I would want them to know in spite of my own imminent death.
Oddly enough most of us don’t give a lot of thought, at least with great intention, to these things unless they are staring us right in the face. Thing is, life is fatal. We will all die a physical death. What are your hopes and dreams for those whom you love? Do you tell them or hold them in your heart for the “right time”. Will your own loved ones be able to find peace and comfort and a reason for living differently in your absence? Will their journey be different because of your life?
Death bed confessions, death bed instructions…or as this text is referred to by biblical scholars, a farewell discourse is a place where deepest desires and concerns are expressed and a quality and character of one’s life is shared. A farewell discourse, a speech delivered in the face of imminent death or departure, known from ancient Jewish literature. The speaker makes known his deepest desires and concerns for those he leaves behind. In this text Jesus expresses his concern for the community he leaves behind, for the quality and character of their life together, and for the witness they bear to him in the world.
Jesus repeats the words believe and dwelling several times in this passage. So much so that one is led to believe that we come to believe and know based on where we dwell.
These words are words of comfort. Christ, knowing he was about to face a bodily death, a painful death, was comforting those whom he would leave behind. Those who would be asked to carry on what he began. How are they to do this? The way “Hodos” in the Greek is also used as a path or a road, journey. The path of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is one that we are being called to as well. We try to make it complicated, we strive, to work, and maybe these words of comfort should resonate more deeply…just do what I do, just dwell in me, live in me. The disciples are troubled, saying “don’t leave us we don’t know what we are doing, we don’t know where we are going, where you are going”. Jesus says, “Don’t be troubled”. I am the image of the invisible God…you know me, you know God. You know me, you know the way. You’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.
Many get caught up in the “no one comes to the Father except by me” and many a heated debate has been had in regards to these words. Like all of scripture we have to consider the context in which they were spoken before jumping to conclusions.
These words are meant to bring comfort to some pretty distraught disciples. They are words of peace and assurance. “I go to prepare a place, a dwelling, and I will come back”. This place, this Oikos in the biblical Greek this (household)—oikia house…also used in the same context is monay…dwelling
As Peter’s epistle instructs, we too are being built into something as we dwell in Christ we become a dwelling of his Spirit. The way can be understood as a place or as an action, a state of living with vitality. A way of living, the journey, not the destination at all. It is in the journey that we are being built into this house, this dwelling for the Spirit of God.
If you knew your death was imminent what would you say to those you leave behind? What would your wishes be? What great wisdom would you want to share? Would you make video tapes like some of those who are dying to their children? What I wish for you. Would it be a means of comfort or a charge as to how to live? Because, if you read a little further Jesus is doing both, comforting and charging. Would your words convey something to the effect, I have done some living, I am facing death, do it this way. Or, if I could do it all over again. If you were on your death bed, what would you want to tell your loved ones? How would you give them peace? What legacy would you leave? How would you bring them comfort?
This is what Jesus is doing in his farewell discourses. Death was imminent and yet he wanted to leave those closest to him with some final words of comfort and peace as well as instructions on how to live and assurance that they would be together again. Are the instructions something you do joyfully in loving memory or are do they become a burden to those you leave behind? Lest they do become a burden, Jesus assures them further if you read further in this passage, that he is not leaving them orphans but instead is providing an Advocate, that will equip, counsel, comfort and convict in his absence, the Holy Spirit.
You do know the way. I am the way. No one comes to the Father, except through me. So rest assured, you know me therefore you know my Father and the way to him. Christ’s message to his disciples is the same for us today. Know me, know the way.
He is the way, the journey. Do you know him? Where are you living? It is not just about that one time decision to make Christ your savior, it is about molding your life after his example. It is about joining him on the path, the road, the journey toward God. Your life is hidden with God in Christ. Christ, as Paul writes in Colossians 1:15, is the image of the invisible God. Know him, know God. Know him, know the way. How? What do you know about the way he lived his life? Anyone can tell you he was a good man. Anyone can tell you he did good things. How? Why? How do our lives embody the same today? What does it look like in the 21st century? What is righteous anger because Christ displayed it when injustices were done and when people served themselves instead of others, particularly those in places of authority and wealth? To him who much is given, much is expected, or with great power, comes great responsibility. Christ gave his disciples all authority in heaven and on earth.
Hearing these words, these parting words from this perspective, then can change some of the common hang-ups about them. They are meant to bring comfort and simplicity and peace, not division, and exclusion.
These words meant to bring comfort and peace to Christ disciples both then and now call us to live accordingly, following him with our lives, making him our dwelling place. Modeling our lives after his example, not because we have to, but in response to what has been done on our behalf in his life, death, and resurrection, in a desire to embody his way and point to him with our lives for others.
What would our journey, our way look like if we lived as though we were part of the household of God; not self-righteous but the embodiment of the righteousness of God, like Christ, the image of the invisible God, faithful in the small things? Making our lives about knowing him and making him known. What would it look like if our dwelling was the very heart of God rather than one made with human hands?
The way, is the journey. Live in him. Dwell in him. Be a household of faith. Abide in him. Abide in the vine that as branches we might bear much fruit. Read your Bible. Pray. Study. Share the stories of God’s faithfulness, forgiveness, transforming love and grace in your life. Bear one another’s burdens and know with Christ as your savior, the forgiver of your sins and the Lord of your life you know the way.
