Easter IV, Year C
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
Acts 9: 36-43 Psalm 23 Revelation 7: 9-17 John 10: 22-30
Like last week there are fascinating details in today's gospel reading! For instance, "It was the Festival of the Dedication, it was winter .................."
First of all, here's Jesus in Jerusalem, and it's not Passover! That's a reminder that, even though most of his life and almost all of his public ministry was sent in the north country around the Sea of Galilee, he clearly went to Jerusalem very regularly - probably three or four times a year - for the religious festivals. Jesus was, in other words, a very observant Jew.
The festival of Dedication takes place in December. Anyone know its popular name? "Hanukkah."
Like Passover it was a festival fraught with telling historical implications for the Roman occupiers.
In 168 B.C. Syrian Emperor Antiochus IV Ephiphanes, returning from a failed invasion of Egypt, occupied Israel, sacked Jerusalem, murdered its inhabitants, and sort to force the Jews to abandon the Torah. In particular he turned the Temple into a center of pagan worship, spilling the blood of pigs on the altar, and by setting up a rival altar within it to the Greek God Zeus.
But a group of Jewish resistance fighters led by Judas Maccabeus staged an armed uprising and, against all odds, successfully defeated the imperial power. They reclaimed the Temple and rededicated it to the worship of the one God of Israel. That is what the festival of Dedication celebrated.
So it was both a religious holiday recalling the renewal of Temple worship and a commemoration of national independence, not unlike the Fourth of July!
Which meant that, like Passover, Pilate and a cohort of soldiers would have marched up from Jerusalem to "keep the peace" - a reminder to the Jews that they were, again, under the thumb of a foreign oppressor.
The only difference - and it was important - was that, since it was December, and since it wasn't Passover, the crowds would be smaller, and more subdued by the cold. Even so John still makes an allusion to that joyful past and the expectations that came with it by mentioning "the Portico of Solomon." Solomon, son David, the king who had most gloriously extended the scope of the ancient Israelite monarchy. And the Jewish people were expecting a new "Son of David," a Messiah who would restore the kingdom to Israel.
And in walks Jesus! Don't you just want to cry "Set up!!"?! The planned "photo-op" that is also the perfect opportunity for a reporter's question! "How could they resist?! Are you The One", they ask, "or should we look for another?"
And what does Jesus say?
Well, he's already said, earlier in this chapter that he is "the good Shepherd". Now he repeats that imagery.
And it's imagery with an edge. The prophecies of Ezekiel talk about sheep and shepherds. Ezekiel, speaking in the name of God, scolded the leaders of Israel for failing to care properly for God's flock: they were selfish and careless shepherds who had allowed the sheep to be abused and scattered. And then, near the end of the chapter, we find this: "I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken." (Ezek 34:23-24).
The imagery of shepherds was about more than bucolic wandering with animals. It was about someone coming in God's name to bring God's justice to an unjust world.
In a sense, all Jews believed in that sort of Messiah. But they expected that God's justice would be exercised at the tip of a spear and the point of a sword. And isn't that a trap that Christians have fallen into ever since?
Jesus doesn't look like Messiah material according to this template. And he makes this plain - if it wasn't already - by the nature of his public ministry.
What we can know about Jesus is only in what we can see him doing - healing, creating community, feeding - which, by no coincidence, is what Ezekiel promised: acts of goodness and mercy, compassion and grace that bring authentic community into being.
The irony is this - The Jews ask the wrong question! They're saying, "Give us the plain truth about you so we can get behind you" when his actions have already spoken for him. He is a messiah they cannot embrace because they ask for his rules for the perfect Jewish community and he simply offers a relationship predicated on accepting human frailty and weakness.
This is exactly the struggle of the early Church, which is why, I'm sure, this passage found its way into John's gospel: it's a reflection of the brokenness of the early Christian community, struggling to understand how death could be a victory, while at the same time it was a reminder to those early believers that their very brokenness was both an important marker of the in-breaking of God's reign of justice and peace and a reflection of Jesus' core message that embracing each other as fallen human beings we come closest to authentic Christian community.
I think because our culture is so much based on the individual we miss the communal part of our identity - or, at least, we don't always grasp that very quickly. We focus on what faith is for "me" and forget that it really only has meaning for "us" - that the most profound think we can learn about coming together is that we don't do it for ourselves, only for each other.
Otherwise we'll just continue to come here to ache and groan in a world that remains in bondage to death. We see only cancer that will not relent, wars that seem unending, the spread of AIDS, and the more simple sorrows of the deaths of those we love and have loved, and we will continue to ask, as individuals, "How long, O Lord, How long? How long will you keep me in suspense? - If you are the Messiah - if you are the Good Shepherd - show me plainly."
It is only in community that we can find some answer - even if it is in the deepest mystery of the Gospel: that the Lamb who was slain is at the center of the throne, and that he is our shepherd. And so we wait, with hope.
Part of the answer to our pain is in Jesus' own words. On that chilly Hanukkah in the Temple, Jesus wasn't talking about politics as usual. He was making a promise that still holds for us: he was promising the redemption of the world on the other side of death and resurrection.
We can cling to that promise.
In the book of Revelation, John the Mystic paints a picture of a great multitude from every nation "who have come out of the great ordeal." They're gathered around the throne of God. It's a picture of the long-awaited resurrection of the dead. Here is how John describes the scene:
These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
It's certainly a promise that can sustain us - but there will always be some level of suspense - "How long will you keep us in suspense?" Amen.
|
