"WE LOOK TO JESUS AND SEE THE FACE OF GOD"
Did you ever hear of the little boy dawdling before
If you take golf lessons, you will hear over and over, “Keep your head down.” If you take tennis lessons, you will hear over and over, “Move your feet early and often.” If you wish to be shaped in ways that would make your life resemble what life looks like in God’s image, you will hear over and over, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”
The boy was quite astute. Jesus is the cornerstone of everything that happens here. As we look on Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we see the face of God.
Christianity is about something that happened to Jesus of Nazareth. It is about something that happened through Jesus of Nazareth. It is about how, with Jesus, God has put into place what NT Wright calls the ‘rescue operation’ of our finding, saving, and receiving new life. “A great door has swung open in the cosmos which can never again be shut. It’s the door to the prison where we’ve been kept chained up. We are offered freedom: freedom to experience God’s rescue for ourselves, to go through the open door and explore the new world to which we now have access.” It is a world of justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty.
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We begin this sermon series on building strong spiritual foundations because sometimes,without realizing it,we lose track of how Jesus is at the heart of it all. One way liberal Christians do that is by reducing Jesus to a great moral example, a Lincoln, a Gandhi or a Mother Teresa. Of course, Jesus’ example is important. His example can be inspiring. But truthfully his example can be also depressing. I mean, it’s like watching Roger Federer’s groundstrokes. His tennis is stunning, maybe even once-in-a-lifetime great. But I will never be able to hit a ball like that. We feel elevated and inspired in one moment and then deflated in the next. Never mind that Jesus was not content to perceive his mission in terms so small.
The way conservative Christians typically reduce Jesus’ importance is by making him no more than the guy who will punch your ticket in order to get into heaven. Of course, our lives and actions do have lasting consequences that go beyond this lifetime. But if you read the Gospels, really read them, Jesus did not make this the focus of his ministry. The focus of his ministry was the coming reign of God and the infinite ways we could get swept up into it rather than obstructing it. Jesus’ mission was not just to win me back, but to win back all of lost creation. The scope of who Jesus was and is far transcends “I, me, mine” individualism.
If we had any doubts about how essential Jesus is to everything worthwhile about the church, Paul’s letter to the Colossians (1.15-20) puts things in a cosmic perspective, far beyond getting dressed for Sunday School.
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“(Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Wow. That’s picking up the check for the whole table.
Brian McLaren says three things about what a life looks like that grants Jesus this kind of primacy and centrality in the living of our days. The first thing is to live believing that Jesus is alive. I know, that sounds so simple. But surprisingly, people act as though Jesus is as dead and gone as the next guy. Take, for example, how many approach this table of our Lord’s Supper. When the only mood there is a memorial/funereal tone of mourning the Jesus who died on the cross, and not the bright sunlit tone of the Jesus whom God raised on Easter morning, we fail to live out our belief that Jesus is resurrected and alive, not dead and gone.
Churches who remain unduly solemn and somber at this table will find that their people avoid worship on those Sundays when the Lord’s Supper is celebrated. Churches who allow themselves joy and celebration at this table typically find their own drawn into the victorious “table drama” that reinforces the Word of God.
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I have seen attendance actually spike upward at more than one of these. It’s surprising to note our many chances to live out our belief that Jesus is alive, not dead. It’s shocking at how easy it is to send a message Jesus is dead and gone.
Living in the belief that Jesus is alive is treating him as full partner in our most important relationships, like marriage. It is talking to Jesus the same way we pray to God the Father and the Holy Spirit. It is wondering what he might first say to us as we travel beyond this world and he meets us. Do we trust that Jesus is alive?
The second point McLaren makes in giving Jesus authority over our lives is trusting what Jesus said was right. We hold his teachings as true, even as we don’t fully understand them. God’s affirmation of this was raising Jesus from the dead.
This is hard on us as Americans, I note three days before July Fourth. For as Americans, we want to hold out the individual self as the arbiter of what is true. We want to decide for ourselves what is ultimately true, not give this away to Jesus. This reminds me of the joke about the wooly old preacher who would make his point, “As Jesus once said, and for the most part I agree with him…”
At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me.” He said something similar to this in our Gospel lesson from John. Are we willing to trust that? Are we willing to
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trust Jesus even more than we trust ourselves? It’s hard, when we see some Christians distorting what Jesus taught. And it’s hard, living in a society that encourages us to define the meaning of our lives for ourselves, rather than let someone outside of us provide that meaning.
But if we don’t fully trust that Jesus is on the right track, we won’t follow him or become his disciples. I mean, if we aren’t convinced that he speaks God’s truth, that he uniquely represents and embodies God, why pattern our lives after him?”
McLaren’s third point is to grant Jesus authority in the living of our days, we trust his claims about himself are true. What did Jesus claim? That he was sent from God. That he was and is the Son of God, no less than the Savior of the world. Do we hedge here or hold back? Woody Allen once claimed he believes in God, but thinks God is an underachiever. Look at the stars, Woody, look at the stars! Colossians has told us that all of this was created with Jesus in mind, with him at the center of the plan. All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in this one person alone, Jesus Christ, all things come together.
As we approach this table, as we check on our spiritual foundations, I want you to ponder these three things in your walk with Christ. Do you really believe he is alive? Do you trust his teachings, even as none of us can fully understand them, and as some misinformed Christians
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warp them? Do you trust what he claimed about himself? Take these three tests to the table and then out into your week. Amen.
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“WE LOOK TO JESUS
AND SEE THE FACE OF GOD”
Summer Series: Firm Foundations
In the Spiritual Basics
Text: Colossians 1.15-25
Rev. Dale B. Rosenberger
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Communion Sunday
July 1, 2007
