This past Sunday, as mentioned in my previous post, we heard another sermon from a layperson. This is something new for our church, and I don't know how many of our congregants will get tapped to do this. I would like to post the contents of these sermons, but given the sometimes testy comments posted here, I suspect many laypersons might be a bit leery of this blog. It still took much cajoling and a glass or two of his finest for my friend Deep Pew to weasle his way into this Sunday's preacher's confidence. Thanks to D.P., I was able to obtain a copy of Sunday's sermon (which was based on John 6:1-21) for further review given the questions raised by at least one comment. Here it is.
Wow,
the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, and walking on water!
Now those are tough acts to follow.
The
last time I stood in a pulpit was when I was thirteen and the
narrator in our Epiphany pageant, and that was a point in my faith
journey when I was just beginning to struggle with doubts. I was
starting to go from the simple and close relationship with God that I
had as a child to the doubt, rebellion, and eventual denial of God
that I experienced as a teenager. When was a rebellious 17 year old,
I remember writing a paper on the new rock musical Jesus Christ
Superstar for my religion class. In the process, I found that I identified with “Herod’s Song” which contained the
lines,
“So,
you are the Christ, you're the great Jesus Christ.
Prove to me that you're no fool; walk across my swimming pool.”
And,
Feed my household with this bread. You can do it on your head.”
Prove to me that you're no fool; walk across my swimming pool.”
And,
Feed my household with this bread. You can do it on your head.”
By
the time I was a College Freshman, I was a vocal opponent of the
Gospel, and stories like the ones we heard today were among my
favorite targets.
But
later that same year, I accepted the challenge put to me by my
Christian friends at school, the challenge that I examine the
evidence in scripture for myself, and it was after studying the
Gospel of Luke and his orderly account, that I gave up the fight,
submitted to God's will, and accepted Jesus as my Saviour.
Finding
myself standing here today, reflecting on my faith journey, and now
tasked with discussing the signs, and wonders found in the sixth
chapter of John, after having vigorously denied them in my youth, is
a miracle of sorts. You just never know where God will lead you.
The
early followers of Jesus, as described in the sixth chapter of John,
were following Him
because they saw the signs
that he was doing for the sick.
John's
choice of the word for “sign” is intentional. A sign is unique
and a bit different from “miracle” or “wonder” in that a
sign definitely points to something else.
When
I was growing up, our family would take long road trips. We kids
would be fascinated by colorful road side signs like ones for “The
World's Largest Snake Farm 15 miles ahead.” Those signs usually
had a painting of a beautiful woman being threatened by a huge
snake... the kind of thing that would make us kids beg for Dad to
stop. And there was never just one sign, they were staggered, with
another one at 10 miles, 5 miles and so on. And if we ever succeeded
in getting Dad to stop the car at the snake farm, we were
disappointed to find that the reality of the thing was far inferior
to what we had created in our imaginations.
Man
made signs are like that.
After
witnessing the first sign we heard about today, the multiplication of
the loaves, the crowds following Jesus thought that this sign pointed
to “the prophet who was to come into the world,” They were
probably thinking of Jesus as the second coming of Elijah, and Jesus
will have to correct them later on in this chapter of John. His
explanation will not sit well with many of his followers.
The
other sign John tells us about today is Jesus walking on the water.
It is a curious account because in John's account we are left
guessing if Jesus ever gets into the boat, and we see the boat
immediately getting to its destination. This account seems
incomplete, but John, unlike Luke, never said that he was going to
give an orderly account of things.
These
two events, should be familiar to all of us. They are pretty much
foundational for most of us. While the walking on water stories
differ somewhat in detail amongst the Gospels and in fact, the story
gets left out of the Gospel of Luke altogether, the story of the
feeding of the five thousand is repeated with remarkable similarity
in all four Gospels, and is said to be the only such miracle to be so
documented apart from the Resurrection itself.
Foundational:
They certainly were to the early Christian Church to be told so
often.
But
are these stories foundational for us today?
How
can we be sure that these signs are pointing us in the right
direction?
And
how do we answer the rebellious teenager's assertions, “It was all
a trick,” or “People made it all up.” That was me.
Now,
arguments that the signs and miracles were parlor tricks are nothing
new. The First Apology or defense, was an early work of Christian
apologetics addressed by Justin to the Roman Emperor around AD 165.
Part of his argument against the claim that Jesus was just a clever
magician was that these acts had been prophesied in the Old
Testament.
Justin's
Apologetic didn't work with the Emperor and that's why we call him
Justin Martyr.
And
his call to look to the words of the O.T. prophets may not work for
people today many of whom either discount much of the Old Testament
as irrelevant, or deny that the older scriptures contain things that
foreshadow the coming of Jesus at all.
You
certainly can't deny the parallels between Jesus and the O.T.
Prophets. We heard one today in the story of Elisha and the feeding
of the 100, although Jesus beats Elisha’s deed 50 fold.
And
before Elisha, we had Elijah (1 Kings 17) feeding the widow and her
son, with the inexhaustible jar of flour and jug of oil, a story you
did not hear today...
And
there were water miracles associated with the older prophets as well.
So
was Jesus just another prophet like Elijah or Elisha as his early
followers thought? Or was he the clever magician that Justin's
opponents claimed? Or was he the fraud that Andrew Loyd Webber's
Herod mocked. If all I had to work with was today's little snippet of
the Gospel of John, I might still struggle with these miracles, but
there is more to the story.
Indeed, it is
only with our post resurrection eyes that we can even imagine
where these signs are pointing. Let me present the
viewpoint of C.S.
Lewis on “Miracles.”
“If
we open such books as Grimm’s Fairy Tales ... we find ourselves in
a world of miracles so diverse that they can hardly be classified.
Beasts turn into men and men into beasts or trees, trees talk, ships
become goddesses... Some people cannot stand this kind of story,
others find it fun. But the least suspicion that it was true would
turn the fun into nightmare. If such things really happened they
would, I suppose, show that Nature was being invaded. But they would
show that she was being invaded by an alien power. The fitness of the
Christian miracles, and their difference from these mythological
miracles, lies in the fact that they show invasion by a Power which
is not alien. They are what might be expected to happen when she is
invaded not simply by a god, but by the God of Nature: by a Power
which is outside her jurisdiction not as a foreigner but as a
sovereign. They proclaim that He who has come is not merely a king,
but the King, her King and ours. It is this which, to my mind, puts
the Christian miracles in a different class from most other miracles.
...
when Christ walks on the water we have a miracle of the New Creation.
... This miracle is the foretaste of a Nature that is still in the
future. The New creation is just breaking in. ...That momentary
glimpse was a snowdrop of a miracle. The snowdrops show that we have
turned the corner of the year. Summer is coming...None of the
Miracles of the New Creation can be considered apart from the
Resurrection and Ascension: and that will require another chapter.”
Today's
readings from John's Gospel clearly show the new creation breaking
in, and that should make us curious as to what the next chapters will
bring.
This
Chapter of John is a good example of his
way of conveying that message. Of course, the signs point to the
divine nature of Jesus. And, if you read further, you will see Jesus
chastising his followers and explaining to them the meaning of the
multiplication of the loaves. In the course of his explanation, Jesus
repeatedly makes the point that the feeding of the five thousand is
not about food for the stomach.
It is about something else, something new that has entered the world.
Now
this is where the people following Him start thinking that Jesus is
not a magician or a fraud but must be crazy, because He starts
claiming to be the bread from heaven, and not only that but He
is the Word made flesh, and they are supposed to gnaw on that. (Yes
the word is translated as gnaw)
That
was not what they thought the signs pointed to, and this presents a
real problem to His followers, and in fact proves to be way too much
for many of them who choose, at this juncture, to leave Him.
“Feeding
five thousand, walking on water... okay, Elijah and Elisha could do
that, but being the Word made flesh, forget it.” Even many of those
who had eaten of the barley loaves, could not stomach this claim.,
and they say to Jesus, in verse 60 “…This
is an hard saying; who can hear it?”
Who
can hear it today?
Now,
We who know the post resurrection Jesus, have an advantage here and
are less likely to walk away because of these bold claims.
Fast
forward to the end of John's Gospel to see how the resurrection helps
us to accept the“hard saying” of Jesus by looking at the
parallels between the early signs and the final ones. After Jesus'
death, his disciples had returned to fishing, and they were having no
luck at all until a man on the beach, who they later learn is the
risen Lord, tells them where to cast their nets. When they listen to
Him and follow His instructions, their catch is multiplied.. shall I
say… a thousand fold? They are then invited to breakfast where
Jesus gives thanks, breaks bread, (sound familiar) and opens their
eyes once again.
Next
Peter gets instructed repeatedly, to feed Jesus' sheep. Think back to
the other Gospels and their pictures of the feeding of the five
thousand, reclining on the green grass where Jesus had led them, and
Jesus, before performing the miracle, tells his disciples, “You
give them something to eat.” The disciples couldn't do it then,
they did not understand, and they had yet to receive the Holy Spirit.
But here, at the conclusion of John's Gospel, Jesus is telling Peter
to feed His sheep not with bread and fishes but with the bread
from heaven. This bread is the Word made flesh, and it is the good
news transmitted to us through the Gospel of John, one example of
which we saw back in chapter six, verse 40, “That you believe in
Him and have everlasting life, and He will raise you up on the last
day.”
Isn't
that what people still hunger for?
It
took me a long time, but after reading, studying the witness of the
Gospels, and chewing on God’s word contained therein, alone and
with friends, I confess my belief.
Yes,
I no longer have a problem with Jesus walking on water or feeding the
multitudes. After all, I believe that He rose from the dead, and I
believe that He died so that we might live to tell the tale that the
signs of Jesus point to something greater than we can imagine. Man
made signs with their promises to satisfy the desires of the human
heart will always disappoint. The problem for many of us is how do we
tell if a sign is man made or not, particularly when the sign claims
to be the fruit of the Holy Spirit. If we go chasing after every
one of those, we will never arrive at our destination. No, the
message of John's Gospel is quite simple, look no further, the signs
are all there, Jesus staring you in the face, believe in Him, fill
yourselves with Him, and live.
I am really enjoying the sermons by members of the congregation! I look forward to the ones to come! Here is a link to the church's newsletter with Jessica Taylor's sermon from youth Sunday. Feel free to print it if you like.
ReplyDeletehttp://ecoos.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/08Augus-20121.pdf
Allison,
ReplyDeleteYou may get a turn too you know.
Not a chance!! I'm more of a behind the scenes person!!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great, orthodox, and inspiring message. Thank you so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteYou are very welcome J. Landless.
ReplyDelete