Jonah 2:1-9; Acts 2:14,22-32 or 1 Cor. 15:1-11; John 14:1-14

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” So declares Jesus in John’s Gospel.

One common phrase in the Bible is the term “good news.”  We preach the good news.  We want to hear the good news.  Ever thought about that?  What exactly is the GOOD NEWS?  In our Acts readying today, we get one of the clearest pictures of what that is.

Peter addresses the crowd: “You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power…handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law.  But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.”

He goes on to speak of the fulfillment of Scripture and how he experienced the resurrection of the flesh – in his life!  I would think this is pretty GOOD NEWS!

It is a wonderful way to begin our daily readings again, the day after Easter.

I can imagine the days following the resurrection were chaos.  What was happening?  What is God doing?  How do we fit in?  What’s next?  But it appears the disciples got the story straightened out, and moved on pretty quickly.  News of the empty tomb got out.  The pieces of the puzzle began to be put together – scripture fulfilled, conquering of evil rather than a political king to destroy the Romans.

God was on the loose.

The words “I am the way, the truth, and the life” did not make much sense at the cross, but now these words take on new meaning as Jesus appears in his post-resurrection form.  He walks, he talks, he makes the disciples breakfast.

He is out and about – unbridled, unbound, uncontrollable.

And most importantly, he lets us know that being “the way” is the best news of all – a way from death to new life – a life in which we are invited as well.

-Matt

Exod. 12:1-14** or Isa. 51:9-11***; John 1:1-18** or Luke 24:13-35***, or John 20:19-23***   ** Intended for use in the morning, *** Intended for use in the evening

Happy Easter!

It is a morning filled with brunches, Easter Egg Hunts, and much music!  We celebrate Christ’s Resurrection.  For us at FPCOKC it will be filled with organ, brass, and the “Hallelujah” from Handel’s Messiah.

The readings are spilling over today – numerous snapshots of the “Lord’s coming” – of the post-resurrection narrative.

It was hard to choose.  And it got me thinking….

As the Easter story unfolds in these coming days (as they always do with our post-Easter lectionary stories) – 50 Days of Easter to be exact – we discover that Easter is much more than simply a resurrection of one person – it is a whole new chapter of existence, a new being with God, of intimacy and closeness, of grafting into a new body.  It is so much more than an Empty Tomb or an excuse to have brunch.

Easter is about new life – not only with ourselves, but a new life with God.

May your Easter Season be rich in self-discovery, celebration, and new intimacy with God.

I hope you are finding joy in togetherness this Easter Sunday.  If not, join us at First Pres for a free Brunch at 9:30am and services at 8:30 and 10:55am.

-Matt

Holy Saturday – Job 19:21-27a; Heb. 4:1-16**; Rom. 8:1-11***
**  Intended for use in the morning
***  Intended for use in the evening

Romans is cloaked with a ton of theological language, especially today.  Sin.  The law of sin and death.  Righteousness.  Talk of flesh.  Don’t be scared!  Paul is on to something good – really good!

At the end, we hear Paul declare “and his Spirit is within you.”

It’s unfortunate Paul is so twisty and wordy, because ultimately his points are central to our understanding of the Christian Journey.

His argument is that WE ARE CHRIST’S BODY, and if so we are his hands and his feet – his heart and his mind.  We carry out his will.  We do good deeds.  The Church IS still Christ – alive and well.  

But the flip side is also true.  Christ died on a cross, so in very many real ways we have also been put to death.  Our will is no longer intact.  Our flesh is obsolete.  Our old life is past!  We are dead (to ourselves).

We are now new creations, with Christ’s spirit in us – guiding us – using us.

Today is Holy Saturday.  Christ is in the tomb.  And so we wait.  And so we remember, those parts of our lives are dead and gone too.  The past can no longer hold us tight.

Today is a day to let go.  It is a day to purge our flesh – with fasting, with prayer.  To embrace all that is within us that corrupts and brings us to death, and know ultimately, secretly, that it does not bind us – that it is already released and washed away, just as our sin is washed away in the life-giving power of God.

That’s the power of Holy Week!  That’s the power of Good Friday and Holy Saturday!  The darkness does not win.  And so with confidence we sit in the darkness, unafraid.  For we know who holds our future.

-Matt

Good Friday – Wisdom 1:16-2:1,12-22 or Gen. 22:1-14; 1 Peter 1:10-20; John 13:36-38 or John 19:38-42

Good Friday is always a strange day.  What on earth is so “good” about it, you may ask?  For Christians, the good news ironically starts here – that Christ died for us, rose for us, prays for us, reigns in power for us.  So however dark this day is, we remember the good news was born today, in the midst of the darkness.

It was just a couple months ago, I came back from Israel, having walked the Via Dolorosa, and put my hand onto the hill of Golgotha.  This year’s Holy Week is all the more vivid and real.

The darkness of this hour began last night, with our own human failure.  Directly after the giving of the New Commandment to us, “to love one another as I have loved you,” as we heard last night before we broke bread, Jesus foretold of the denial of Peter.

In some ways we have all denied and abandoned our God.  The story of Peter is the story of ourselves. 

Jesus, after explaining that, “Where I am going, you cannot come,” Simon Peter asks him, “Lord, where are you going?”  Jesus reiterates: “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward.”  Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now?  I will lay down my life for you?”  Jesus predicts that “before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.”

How similar our lives are to Peter.  We want to follow.  We want to be on the right path, but sometimes that is just so hard.  And we deny Jesus on more levels than just saying, “Jesus?  No.  I don’t know him.”  Our allegiances wane in other ways too.

I have come to realize how similar our paths all are.  Whether a single mom struggling to make ends meet, a drug addict fighting the demons of physical addictions, or the oil and gas attorney trudging through daily work, we all have felt times of spiritual bankruptcy, of inadequacy, of the unfulfilled life, the loneliness.  Good Friday is a day to come face to face with a God who walks on the road with you.

Amidst life’s trouble, denying Jesus can take many forms.  We are good at surrendering to greed, alcohol, the power of money, broken relationships, whatever.

The difficulty is in trusting.  The brokenness and questions of life are part of the reality. It is easy to succumb to oppression or difficulty – to think that God denied us, and has abandoned us – when in fact we were the ones who gave up long before.

At the end of the day, we come to know that the way to the Father is hard, and it will require Jesus to help us get there.  And in coming to know Jesus, we discover someone who walked through the muck of this life too, who knows about suffering and struggle.  Our God can relate.

Even at the desolation of the cross of Good Friday, we can know most fully that the burning love of Christ is never snuffed out.  Oh, we may reenact it with Tenebrae services, and hiding the Christ Candle, but in the darkness, we sit together as a community of love, drawn together by the fire of the Spirit and the love of Christ at the cross.

At the end of the day, despite our remembrance of the tomb, we know that Christ lives on, and we have each other to help us through.

May you find your way in the darkness, and ironically may the darkness give you comfort.  May your Friday be “Good.”

-Matt

Maundy Thursday – Jer. 20:7-11; 1 Cor. 10:14-17, 11:27-32; John 17:1-11(12-26)

“Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread,” says Paul. What a great symbol for the church to contemplate!  One bread.

Many churches ironically do not use “one bread” when celebrating the Lord’s Supper.  But there are other symbols of unity within their practice if you look closely!  Whether it’s individual wafers or many pieces of matza, those churches often focus on unity through practice – they all come forward to the same spot to get the bread, or they are all served and we all eat as one.  Because of numbers, many churches have wafers.  In those instances often you will find a common cup to capture the symbolism of oneness.  There are countless possibilities.

At First Presbyterian in OKC, for instance, we have a common loaf, and a common cup, but we take it one at a time, through a process of intinction (coming forward to dip the bread in the cup).

Whatever the way, we all celebrate we are part of the ONE BODY OF CHRIST!

Just as with the feeding of the five thousand, thanks is given and bread is broken.  In breaking the loaf in two we find service for two, break those pieces and we can serve four, etc.  The miracle in the feeding of the five thousand is that in breaking it, it seems to multiply.  So too with the Lord’s Supper.  We have service for more people, but only through the mystical oneness of Christ, and the bounty of the grace of his own body being broken.  Suffering and joy meet at the table.

Today is Maundy Thursday.  It is a day when most of our churches celebrate the Last Supper.  “Take.  Eat.  This is my body.  Take and drink.  Remember me.”  The betrayal.  The Garden of Gethsemane.  The arrest.   We are on a crash course with the cross.

And while some churches do foot washing or other rites, many of us find ourselves called to the table.  There in the midst of friends and family, we find ourselves drawn back 2,000 years through this ancient ritual of the Lord’s Supper, and we find ourselves sitting with Jesus.

We examine our own lives, and seek the oneness to which we were called.

This meal was most probably tied in with the Jewish Passover meal, although passover meals look much different than they did back then when Temple sacrifice was still in order.

I remember my first Seder experience, an invitation to dine with orthodox Jewish friends in Israel.  I just recounted parts of this story a couple days ago.  I remember  the seriousness they had about this meal – hardly like the haphazard reenactments some churches treat the Lord’s Supper.  With my Jewish friends we were all thrust into the heart of the story!  We recounted the story of Moses and the deliverance across the Red Sea.  We plugged up the kitchen sink.  With water was spilling out on the floor, I gasped.  “Shouldn’t we fix the sink now?”

“No!  Not until someone parts the Red Sea so we can flee from Pharaoh and the army,” was the response to my question.  Now that’s my prayer for Maundy Thursday!  That is how engaged I want us to be in our story tonight!  To become the story.

We are not looking back 2,000 years.  We ARE back 2,000 years.  We are one of the 12 disciples.  We are passing one another the cup, praying not to betray our Lord, or denying him three times.  We are there with Jesus, and with the saints of every time and place, breaking bread, and bound together in the blood of the NEW covenant.

One of the ways our community is celebrating this aspect of “becoming part of the story” is the Guided Labyrinth Walk I will lead at 5pm and 6pm today.  It is entitled “Manna in the Wilderness” when we will BECOME those wandering pilgrims in Exodus.  Perhaps God will feed us along the way.  We will then depart to the chapel to encounter Jesus at the Last Supper.

Holy Week is a time to pause from our crazy-busy lives and hear once again those mystic words of the one who came and died for us, even those of us who feel we have fallen short: “This is my body, broken for thee…. This is my blood, shed for thee for the forgiveness of sin.”

And the Lord handed me the cup.

-Matt

Wednesday of Holy Week – Jer. 17:5-10, 14-17; Phil. 4:1-13; John 12:27-36

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice! says Paul in Philippians.  John’s Gospel speaks of being drawn into favor with God.  Despite the dark themes that Holy Week offers, today is some REALLY GOOD NEWS.

In John’s gospel, Jesus begins: “And what should I say – ‘Father, save me from this hour’?  No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.”  Then later: “Now is the judgment of this world…And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” Despite judgments ominous presence, and despite our shortcomings, being washed in the blood of the lamb, we will be drawn into favor with God.  And not just us….but all the other people.

Some see this as a declaration of universal salvation.  Grace upon grace upon grace.  That’s what I see.  It is made clear that through Christ, the grace that will be showered on the earth is way more than people are expecting.  All through Paul’s writing, we see grace open to gentiles as well as Jews.  “Other people” seems to indicate that the flood gates of good news are open to “all the rest of the people”.

Those who buy into individual salvation never seem to notice that “Christ died for all.”  I suppose the question is what happens then.  But it is clear to me that way more than we expect are under God’s gracious welcome.  (For a better understanding of how I see the concept of “individual salvation” as a heresy that the church needs to repent of, I refer you to the Very Rev. Katharine Jeffer Schori’s take on it, in her 2009 opening sermon as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.)

In Philippians we hear one of Paul’s famous exhortations: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice….  Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

He says these things to a church that apparently has, not one, but two leaders: Euodia and Syntyche.  These two women, in obvious leadership positions, attest to the truth that Jesus spoke of with grace coming to others.  In a Jewish world where men ran the show, the church has opened its doors to the other half of the population.

This means listening to the Spirit, and trying to not listen to what society is telling us.  That is why Paul insists, “guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  This is a battle!  Coming to know and understand God’s gigantic YES in a world of NO is not easy.

If you still aren’t convinced, ask yourself who it was that discovered the empty tomb, and became the Church’s first evangelists.

-Matt

Tuesday of Holy Week – Jer. 15:10-21; Phil. 3:15-21; John 12:20-26

If there was a theme for the readings for this year’s Holy Week it would be “Follow me.” In John we hear those words – again actually – this time in the context of Philip.

There are some Greeks who wish to see Jesus.  They come to Philip, who tells Andrew, who tells Jesus.  Jesus responds with a somewhat odd response: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit…. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.”

If you die, you truly live.

OK…if you die to self, you truly live.

This is a wonderful metaphor for the Christian life.  In order to have life, you must lose it.  In order to follow Christ and come to eternal life, one must be a servant.  This flies in the face of all those who were looking for a triumphant king to save them from Rome.  It flies in the face of all those who trust in earthly kings and not God.

But here…eternal life is now the focus.  (The question is what is meant by eternal life…and I will give you a clue, it doesn’t mean simply going to heaven.)

It also means that in death we find life.  That sounds pretty odd too, doesn’t it!?!?!  This self-emptying trajectory of the Christian life is certainly something Paul dwells upon deeply.

And this is the heart of Holy Week.  Wrapped up neatly in a seven day package, one can discover the entirety of the Christian message of new life.

How are we called to be like that seed?  How are we to bear much fruit in the face of our death?  What will our fruit look like?  What does it mean to be fruit that bears out eternal life?

These are the questions, not of Holy Week, but of our daily lives.

-Matt