He is...We Are To Be: The Gate - John 10:1-10
Three friends
die in a car crash, and they find themselves at the gates of heaven.
Before
entering, they are each asked a question by St. Peter himself, “When you are in
your casket and friends and family are mourning, when they look down, what
would you like to hear them say about you?”
The first guy
says, “I would like to hear them say that I was a great doctor and a great
family man.”
The second
guy says, “I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and
schoolteacher.”
The last guy
replies, “I would like to hear them say…LOOK!!! HE’S MOVING!!!”
Today, after
last week’s wonderful service by the laity, we return to our series on the “I
Am” statements of Jesus.
We need to
remember just how controversial these statements were to those who heard Jesus
speak them. To understand this, we have
reflected on the fact that when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and
sent Moses to bring the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt, Moses asked,
“When the people question who sent me, who shall I say, “what is your name?”
God replied,
“My name is I Am that I Am, tell them
that I Am has sent you…you shall
teach this name to all future generation, and it shall be My Name forever.”
The Hebrew
people listening to Jesus would have heard and known this, and upon hearing
Jesus say, “I am…” would have heard Jesus say, “I am,” and felt that He was
equating himself with God…the irony of which is that we know that Jesus is
God…but they would not have heard it that way, they would have heard and
accused Jesus of blasphemy.
We also noted
that as we examine these “I am” statements and understand the significance of
what Jesus was saying about himself with each statement, that we also need to
understand that the Church, as the Living Body of Christ, is to be for the
world the same things that Jesus says of himself.
We heard
Jesus say, “I am the Bread of Life,” and understand that Jesus reveals Himself,
as God, to be the only thing that can truly fill the empty holes in our lives
that leave us hungering, not simply physically, but emotionally and
spiritually. As the continued presence
of Christ in the world, the Church is to be the Bread of Life, providing
sustenance to those who are hungering…not only sharing food with those who are
hungry, but also sharing with them the Gospel of Christ, introducing them to
the God who can fill that void that leaves us hungering for something.
We heard
Jesus say, “I am the Light of the World.”
As the light of the world, we know that Jesus is the one who brings
God’s creative order into the chaos of our world, illuminates the path we are
to travel on, reveals our intentions and our sin, gives life to God’s people,
and draws those who love God together.
We know that as Christ’s presence still on earth, the Church is to be
this same presence—offering peace, revealing God’s way, confronting sin in
order to redeem, giving life, and drawing God’s people together.
I would have
to say that at least once or twice a year, if not more often, I get an email
containing jokes about folks getting to heaven and running into St. Peter
standing outside Heaven, at the Pearly Gates, and suggesting that there is some
kind of test or quiz that must be passed in order to get into Heaven, or maybe
a review of our lives that determines how our lives will be once in heaven,
what type of robe, house, or car we will have once inside the Pearly
Gates. We have these images of Peter
acting like the hostess at The Cutting Board, O’Charlies, or Texas Roadhouse,
determining whether or not we can get in and be seated.
How have
these images come to be? I’m not sure,
it is as if someone has taken images from John’s Revelation with images of the
gates of heaven being pearls, the references to the Book of Life, and the fact
that Peter was the initial leader of the followers of Jesus after the Day of
Pentecost, and combined them into the image of Peter being the gatekeeper,
determining who gets into heaven and who doesn’t. This image, though humorous at times, is not
Biblically accurate.
Jesus,
however, gives us the image of a gate, actually, “the gate.” The image He gives us is that He, Himself, is
the gate…He is the gate that leads to pasture and abundant life.
How often
have we hear the phrase, “the grass is always greener on the other side of the
fence”? Urbandictionary.com suggest that
this comes from the idea that when we stand on our own land and look at someone
else’s yard, their yard always appears to be greener, healthier, more
attractive. Yet, it is not usually the
grass that we are looking at. It is
usually some other aspect of someone else’s life that we think that if we have,
then our lives will be as great, or greater, than our neighbors. We look at our own lives and are
dissatisfied, and think, if we just had that, we would be happy.
Maybe it is
our house…we think to ourselves, if I just had a nicer house then we would be
truly happy. That is kind of the idea
behind shows like Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition. In this show, we usually
see a family that is in some type of dire straits and whose homes leave a lot
to be desired…then through the generosity of this show and its sponsors, these
home designers swoop in, send the family away, work feverously while we watch,
and present the family with a newly redesigned, larger, fancier home. Everyone’s excited, tears of joy are shed,
the family is on the other side of the fence in its greener pasture, and the
show is over. However, in articles I
read earlier this year, those tears of joy have turned to tears of sorrow as
larger utility bills and other expenses have forced many of those families out
of their dream homes.
Maybe it is
our car…we look at the car we have had for years and think, if I could just get
rid of my old jalopy and get a new car, I’d be truly happy, my life would be
complete. Yet how many times have we
finalized the deal and driven that new car off the lot and suddenly found
something we didn’t like about it, or realized that something was wrong with it
that was not covered by the remaining warranty (if it was a used car). It may simply be that we go from a vehicle
that is completely paid off, to having to make car payments once again.
Maybe it is
our job…we are unhappy with our job and think, if only I had a better job, one
making more money or having better hours, then I would truly be happy. So we apply for promotion and get it, only to
find that the stress level is not worth the pay increase. Maybe we change careers, thinking this other
field of work is easier, only to find out while there are less demands, there
are also less benefits. Maybe we leave a
hard job with a good boss to find ourselves working an easier job with a harsh,
demanding supervisor.
In the end,
if we are unhappy with the pasture that we find ourselves in, and try to find
the good life by passing through the gates of this world, houses, cars,
careers, politicians, or anything else, we are going to find that the grass on
the other side of the fence, if we are blessed, is the same shade of green, but
often we may find that it is drier and more brittle than where we were.
There is only
one gate through which we pass that will bring us true happiness and abundant
life. Jesus says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will
come in and go out and find pasture…I came that they may have life, and have it
abundantly.”
Jesus says,”
if you are looking for a way out of the unhappiness and misery in which you
find yourself trapped, nothing else in this world is going to truly fulfill
you. Like a thief that will come in,
steal, kill, and destroy, those things will still leave you troubled,
struggling, and empty…they will always leave you searching for a greener
pasture. However, if you come to me, I
will help you pass through to find yourself in a place that will give you not
only peace, but abundant life.”
Paul would
experience this. Paul tells the church
in Phillipi, “If anyone has reason to be confident in the flesh, [if anyone has
reason to find security and happiness in the things and accomplishments of this
world], I have more, circumcised on the eight day, a member of the people of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a
Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the
law, blameless.”[i] A biography I listened to as an audiobook
earlier this year suggested that Paul would have probably come from a wealthy
background as well. Yet Paul says, “Yet
whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of
Christ. More than that, I regard
everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord. For his sake I have suffered the
loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain
Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes
from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ….”[ii]
It is only in
Jesus that we can find true happiness, true joy, true abundant life. It is in knowing the love of Christ in our
lives, the salvation He brings to us, that we can find true contentment in
whatever circumstance we find ourselves in this life. He is the place where we can know and
experience the love of God right where we are and know that nothing in this
world is greater. Everything else is
fleeting and temporary, but it is only in Christ that we find life everlasting.
Too often we
think of life everlasting as being something we will experience on the other
side of a fence, the fence of death. We
think of eternal life as beginning when we die.
But the eternal life that Jesus speaks of in his conversation with
Nicodemus in the third chapter of John is life that is filled with the Living
Water that Jesus shares with the Samaritan woman at the well and the Bread of
Life that we discussed a few weeks ago.
Life eternal is the abundant life that Jesus speaks of in our reading
today. It is not about the quantity of
life that is to come, but about the quality of life we can experience right
here and now in knowing the grace of God surrounding us each and every moment
of every day. It is knowing that God
loves us enough that He came to us in Jesus Christ and voluntarily laid down
His life for us, atoning for our sins, and freeing us the threat of death and
eternal separation from God. In that is
abundant life, a life of contentment and peace that we find passing through the
Gate that is Jesus Christ.
How do we
become that gate? We become that Gate as
we share with others that true peace, contentment, and fulfillment is found not
in what someone else has, but it is found in what God has given us. It is in offering them the acceptance that
God has given to us, it is in offering them the forgiveness that God has given
us, it is sharing with them the love that God has freely offered us, and in our
life together we will find that we have life, and have it abundantly.
In the Name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment