The Fool at the Pool John 5.1-15

Introduction

            C. S. Lewis, the master Christian apologist of the twentieth century, became an atheist as a teenager after being raised in a Christian home. In his spiritual autobiography Surprised by Joy Lewis recalls the death of his mother when he was nine years old:

My mother's death was the occasion of what some (but not I) might regard as my first religious experience. When her case was pronounced hopeless I remembered what I had been taught; that prayers offered in faith would be granted. I accordingly set myself to produce by will power a firm belief that my prayers for her recovery would be successful; and, as I thought, I achieved it. When nevertheless she died I shifted my ground and worked myself into a belief that there was to be a miracle. The interesting thing is that my disappointment produced no results beyond itself. The thing hadn't worked, but I was used to things not working, and I thought no more about it. I think the truth is that the belief into which I had hypnotized myself was itself too irreligious for its failure to cause any religious revolution. I had approached God, or my idea of God, without love, without awe, even without fear. He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither as Savior nor as Judge, but merely as a magician; and when He had done what was required of Him I supposed He would simply---well, go away. It never crossed my mind that the tremendous contact which I solicited should have any consequences beyond restoring the status quo.

            What Lewis describes is excusable in a child, but fatal in an adult, and it is my belief that much of Christianity, as now preached and practice in pulpits and pews across America, rests on just that unstable theological foundation. The story we have read this morning gives us crucial insight into this false faith and its true alternative.

Text

            This is a strange story, in some ways the strangest in all the accounts of all the miracles performed by Our Lord. The story falls into three distinct parts: We have the man's first encounter with Jesus in v.1-9. We have his final encounter with Jesus in v.14-17. In the center of the story, v.10-13, we have the pivot-point of the narrative: this man's reaction to the healing action of the Savior.

            Our first difficulties come in the first part of the story. To begin with, there is this rather bizarre account of the angelic Jacuzzi, the divine bubble-bath of Bethesda. Somehow, this rings false in light of the way character of God is revealed elsewhere in the Scripture. The healing is random, second-hand, and selective. It is random because the water only moves "at certain seasons," It is second-hand because, instead of doing the healing in person, God jobs it out to a subcontracting angel. It is selective because only the person who enters the water first receives the miracle! Of course, we can take some comfort in the fact that the last part of v.3 and all of v.4 do not appear in the oldest and best-attested copies of John's gospel. However, the man's remarks in v.7 certainly seem to express the same idea so we can reasonably conclude that v.3b-4 were added by a later scribe, some disciple of the Apostle John, to explain a custom no longer familiar after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70.

            The other troubling aspect of this part of the story is Jesus' question: "Do you wish to get well?" The man is lying crippled by a pool that offers the merest chance of recovery from his condition; he's been doing this for nearly forty years. Of course he wants to be made whole!

            The other - and perhaps even more - troubling part of the story comes in the final section where Jesus seems to imply that the man's original illness came as a result of his personal sin. While such an idea fit with much of the Jewish theology of the day, Jesus himself refutes this idea in John 9.1-7, the story of the man born blind. Jesus encounters this individual by the wayside and his disciples want to use the occasion for a theological debate: "Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" Jesus, in essence, replies, "Neither, and that's not the point: The question is not whether or why God did this to him, but what, in God's name, we intend to do about it." If Jesus here traces physical malady to spiritual malefaction, he contradicts himself.

            As I say, these problems come in the first and last parts of the story. The answer, I believe, lies in the center. The key to this story is not how Jesus acts when he meets this man, but how this man acts after meeting Jesus.

            The religious authorities see him carrying his pallet in obedience to Jesus' orders. Why does Jesus give this rather unusual command? This was his begging-bed and he no longer needed it. True, he gives the same command to the paralytic in Mark 2, but in that case the bed was taking up space in Peter's already-crowded home. More importantly, that was not a Sabbath-day healing as this one is. Jesus knew the Law; he also knew the extra provisions the Jewish rulers had added. They had made the mistake of confusing their interpretation with God's revelation to such an extent that there was actually a rabbinical debate about whether one was allowed to pray for someone's healing on the Sabbath! In giving this command to this person in this city, Jesus deliberately sets him up as a marked man!

            Notice how the man reacts. When rebuked, he shifts the blame: "He who made me well was the one who told me, 'Pick up your pallet and walk.'" When interrogated, he pleads ignorance: "But the man who was healed did not know who it was." It is true, as John notes, that the place was crowded and Jesus left quickly, but if someone heals me after thirty-eight years, I think I would at least want to get his name! The first chance he gets to bear witness to Jesus he blows it! In his fear of religious rejection he passes the buck and plays dumb.

            This, to me, explains why Jesus asked him if he really wanted to be healed, and how Jesus corrects the false idea of God implied by the impersonal miracle of the pool. Jesus says, in effect, "Those impersonal waters of a distant and indifferent deity cannot make you whole, but the personal God revealed to you in Me this moment can. But while that impersonal theology offers and impersonal healing with no strings attached, the problem is that if I heal you, I own you, and I require you to bear witness of who I am."

            It also explains Jesus' words to the man in v.14. It does sound, on a first reading, as if Jesus blames the man for his previous condition and warns him not to relapse. But the grammar of John's original language corrects this misunderstanding. There were two ways to give a command in Greek: One means not to start doing something and the other means to stop something you are already doing. It is the difference between, "Don't you dare do that!" and "Stop doing that!" Jesus command is of the latter kind. A better translation would be, "Stop sinning, so that nothing worse happens to you." This implies that, whatever sin Jesus has in mind, the man was in the act of committing it. I can see only one option to explain that.

            Notice where Jesus finds this man: in the Temple. Why go straight to the Temple? Probably to offer sacrifices and seek reinstatement as a full member of the Jewish religious community. This tells me that he dropped that pallet the second the religious authorities ordered him to do so and is now in the process of fulfilling their religious obligations. His very presence in the temple means that he has bowed to peer pressure and chosen not to bear witness to Christ. Then notice what the man does as soon as Jesus leaves: He hotfoots it back and rats Jesus out to his enemies! Notice the result in v.16: Instead of condemning the healed man, they turn their wrath toward the Healer! This man does not hesitate to lay the action off on the Lord! What, then, is the "worse thing" that Jesus warns him against? Not a return to paralysis, not even physical death, but eternal judgment for denying Christ!

            Indeed, we can contrast this story, as I believe John means us to do, to the story of the man born blind in John 9. THAT man bore faithful witness until they kicked him out of the synagogue. THIS man sells Jesus out for acceptability in religious society.

            This man had the same problem C. S. Lewis described: He was the fool by the pool determined to play it cool. He wanted the healing without the headaches! He wanted the powerful results without the personal relationship! He wanted the water without the witness! He wanted to take up his bed without risking his head! He didn't want a Master, he just wanted a magician!

Application

            So what does this have to do with you and me, here at the St. Matthew Missionary Baptist Church on a Sunday morning in November of 2014? Well, notice one more thing from this passage: Jesus tells him, "Pick up your pallet." It is the same verb Jesus uses in Matthew 16.24, Mark 8.34, and Luke 9.23 when he orders his followers to "take up your cross and follow me." This man's pallet was his cross for two reasons: first, it bore witness to his encounter with Christ, and second, it got him into trouble!

            And the question this text poses to you today is this: Do you wish to get well? Now think before you answer! Because Jesus is not a magician and the Christian faith is not some divine bubble-bath and salvation is not a day spa to pamper the lusts of the flesh!

At the cost of the cross, at the price of complete surrender, do you wish to get well?

            Do you wish to get well?

            Some of us want a mate but we don't want to wait! Are you single and yearning for a spouse? a decent man to love you as Christ loved the church and lay down his life for her? a loving wife to love you with the love of the Lord? Then if you are single, take up the cross of sexual purity and bear it as a witness to this sex-soaked, love-starved world that our desires are not our deity and our glands are not our God!

            Do you wish to get well?

            Some of us husbands want to be boss but we don't want the cross! If you are already married, take up the cross of complete faithfulness in a world where promiscuity is a pastime and divorce is a spectator sport! Men, you want your wife to treat you as the head of the house? Then behave like the head of the church - set your own needs aside in service to her! Take up that daily cross of dying to yourself! You lead your wife as Christ leads the church and your wife will love you as she loves her Lord!

            Do you wish to get well?

            For some of us, the problem isn't that we can't get in the waters of Bethesda but that we won't get in the waters of baptism! Some of us have claimed Christ as our Savior but have shamed him as our Lord! If I have professed Christ but never been baptized, I am refusing to take up my cross and walk. If I own Jesus as my Redeemer but to not commit myself to his gathered body, the church, I disrespect Jesus with a de facto denial and invite a worse thing to come up on me.

            Do you wish to get well?

            Some of us want to fall on our face in church on Sunday but we won't stand up and face the world on Monday! When I have an opportunity to bear witness to my saving faith but stay silent out of fear of rejection from the world, I refuse to take up my cross and invite a worse thing to come upon me.

             Do you wish to get well?

            Some of us want our bodies made whole but don't want God to mess with our soul! Some of you are praying for healing from bodily afflictions and there is everything right in doing that. But let me ask you: When healing comes, will you use it as permission for sin or a commission from the Savior? Will you go about your business or set out on the King's business?

            Do you wish to get well?

            Do we want the results or do we want a relationship? Do we want the healing or do we want the Healer? Do we want the power or do we welcome the Person? Do we want the waters or do we want to bear witness? Are we the church on the move or are we the fools by the pool? Make your choice today: Do you wish to get well?

Conclusion

            I referred earlier to C. S. Lewis and his childhood idea of God as a magician. Some twenty-five years later, as an Oxford scholar and a convinced atheist, Lewis came face to face with the inescapable fact of God's existence. It did not make him happy, because he realized that this was no magician, but a Master. In that same spiritual autobiography Lewis confesses:

Remember I had always wanted, above all things, not to be “interfered with.” I had wanted. . .“to call my soul my own.” . . .I had pretty well known that my ideal of virtue would never be allowed to lead me into anything intolerably painful; I would be “reasonable.” But now what had been an ideal became a command; and what might not be expected of one? . . .Not the slightest assurance on that score was offered me. Total surrender, the absolute leap in the dark, was demanded. The reality with which no treaty can be made was upon me. The demand was not even “All or nothing.” The demand was simply, “All.”

            And that is the same demand that faces you today. Christ does not demand your best, he demands your all! Christ does not require that you give him something but that you give him everything. Christ does not demand that you do your duty but that you die to yourself. Christ does not tell you, "Take up your cross for a while," but "Take up your cross and walk. . .all the way. . .every day. . .in every way, walk, walk WALK!"

The Kindness of Strangers: Adventures with One Wild Engine

I am late for my bus. About eight months late. 

I'm also a little late with this blog. But I promised myself I wouldn't write about this experience until I accomplished two successful trips without incident. It's taken longer than one might imagine.

Sometime toward the close of last year I conceived the idea of riding the city bus to work. The reasons vary: I'm a little worried about the rain forests; it's cheaper; and there's always that whole simplicity thing. (Would Jesus own a car if the Father had set the incarnation in twenty-first century America? The one time he rode anywhere he used Hertz Rent-A-Burro.)

But mostly it's easier to give the reasons I didn't take the bus - not for a long time, at any rate. There's convenience, for one. I live three-quarters of a mile or so from the stop I need. But that's sort of a ruse. I own a serviceable bicycle, and every City of Corpus Christi bus mounts a bike rack. I couldn't hide behind scheduling. These reliable diesel conestogas set off at half-hour intervals all day long. Arrival at the South Texas School of Christian Studies, where I teach, does not require a transfer; they set me down on the campus of Texas A&M University of Corpus Christi, hardly a PGA par-five tee-shot from my office.

No, the real reason was the haunting fear of looking foolish, of not knowing what I was doing, and note knowing it in front of an audience. "Now I know,"says the Green Lady of Venus to Elwin Ransom in C. S. Lewis' Perelandra, "that people in your world do not like to be laughed at." Well, at any rate I don't care for it. And, like Lewis' hero, I'm an academic. I saw riding the bus as one more way to demonstrate the ineptitude of someone with a terminal degree when he attempts to do what folks who didn't finish high school do on a daily basis without a second thought.

So I hesitated - straight through the start of the spring term, telling myself that I'd figure it out during Spring Break. But I let the second target go by as well, temporizing that when summer came I'd have more chances to experiment without running the risk of getting to work late. So, of course, I found myself hull-down on August with another academic year ready to roll by. So it was that one morning, a fortnight or so before classes began, I asked Becky to deposit me at the little shelter at the corner of Texan Trail and Alameda, there to await my fate. I'd like to share a few lessons I've learned so far.

First of all, there is the ability to laugh at oneself. Here is a brief chronicle of my misadventures on that first day:

• Arrived late: Bus #1.
• Got on the next bus that happened along, only to discover that it was the #19, not the #5, and was going the opposite direction I desired. The kindly driver deposited me at the nearest stop and I hiked double-time back to the original station: Bus #2.
• About a hundred feet from my stop, I looked up to see the vehicle I wanted roll majestically into traffic: Bus #3.
• Waited a half-hour for the next one, carefully read the scrolling sign above its front windshield, like the mark of the beast, saw it was indeed the #5, climbed on board, payed the seventy-five cent fare, and sat down: Bus #4.

Let me just say that when I hove up at work, nearly an hour behind my usual time, my coworkers displayed none of the civility of the Green Lady of Perelandra. 

Second, there is the humility of needing help. Like Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire, I quickly found myself depending on the kindness of strangers. When I finally thumped down on board the correct bus that first day, I found myself seated by a friend, a former pupil, in fact, on his way home from working the night shift at a temp job he's taken until going abroad on mission work. As we chatted, I suddenly realized I had left out a key calculation in my new mode of transport. "John," I half-whispered (I don't know why the soto-voce; no one appeared interested), "how do you get them to stop when you need off?" My student replied with the hesitant and embarrassed tone of one who wants to answer a stupid question without making the questioner feel stupid. "Uh, you pull this little cord here." 

Then there was the next day when, as originally planned, I biked to the stop. It was indeed true that each bus sported a bike rack, but I had no idea how the device worked. The driver unshipped herself and demonstrated - it involves pulling a handle to lower the device, then raising a bar to secure the bike's front wheel. She waved aside my apologies in the kindest possible way. 

Best of all was the time I boarded for the homeward voyage only to find the driver absent. (My school sits at the end of the route and the drivers regularly disembark there, perhaps for some sort of union-mandated bathroom break.) I slid my cash in the slot, watched it disappear, and heard a strangled cry from the bowels of the device. When the charioteer returned and I confessed my dilemma, he gently explained that the driver turns off the meter upon leaving, and one should not use it until he returns. Meanwhile, it seems I'd jammed the device and it wouldn't accept fares, so everyone for the remainder of the route got a free ride. If you caught the #5 that afternoon, you're welcome. 

Finally, there is the loss of control. If I take the bus, I don't decide when I leave and when I arrive. Well, I do, but within a window. For some thirty-eight years now I have had pretty much sovereign control over my departure and arrival times. On bus days (I ride about three times per week), I have to hit the target named by another. And this has its compensations: I can read, talk on the phone, stare at the beautiful scenery along Ocean Drive, and let someone else worry about minor irritations like steering and braking. 

Most of all, though, has been a renewed sense, not just of gratitude, but of wonder. I too seldom stop to contemplate the goodness of God, who built a reliable world that operates on a consistent basis. We talk about natural "laws," but the medievals spoke of the "kindly inclining" of inanimate objects, an equally metaphorical but far more gracious turn of speech. Similarly, I could speak of the drivers and dispatchers of the Corpus Christi public transportation system as doing their jobs or following their orders. But I have come to prefer thinking of them as showing a kindly inclining to give me a lift, get me where I need to go, put me back on track when I stray, help me with my bike, and forgive me my blunders. "Route" and "routine" come from the same root, and I have learned a new appreciation for those who routinely run their routes in order to free me from worry. Sure, just as God's consistent physical universe means that sometimes hurricanes happen as well as spring showers, so keeping a consistent schedule means that sometimes the drivers leave me behind when I run late, but the alternative is to ask for chaos.

In short, I have learned to appreciate the miracle described by G. K. Chesterton in his novel The Man Who Was Thursday. 

The rare, the strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street, or to Baghdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! It is Victoria.

And so I give thanks for those two consecutive days when I looked up and behold, the bus said "TAMU-CC," and lo! It was TAMU-CC.

TOLE LEGE: A Review of "Chesterton: The Nightmare Goodness of God" by Ralph Wood

Of all the many good things I could think of to say about The Company They Keep, Diana Glyer's magisterial study of the Oxford writer's group The Inklings, the best would be that it made me want to put down Glyer and pick up Tolkien. The best criticism directs the reader away from the critique and toward the critiqued. 

I can say the same thing about Ralph Wood's Chesterton: The Nightmare Goodness of God. Wood, University Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University, offers a book of literary criticism that actually brings the reader closer to the subject. His writing illuminates both the writer and the writing in ways that invites new readers in and old readers back. I finished Chesterton with my paperback copy of The Man Who Was Thursday at my elbow so that I could begin it as soon as I read Wood's last page.

Not that Wood indulges in hagiography. He takes Chesterton to task for his simplistic rejection of the theory of evolution, his jingoistic support of the First World War, and other errors. None of this, however, is done with glee, nor does Wood make it his main theme. In his "Tale of a Tub," Jonathan Swift sarcastically scoffs at critics who point out a work's flaws "with the Caution of a Man that walks thro' Edenborough Streets in a Morning, who is indeed as careful as he can, to watch diligently, and spy out the Filth in his Way, not that he is curious to observe the Colour and Complexion of the Ordure, or take its Dimensions, much less to be paddling in, or tasting it: but only with a Design to come out as cleanly as he may." Wood is this kind of "failed" critic: If he warns us of what he sees as GKC's weaknesses, it is to help the reader "come out as cleanly as he may."

Wood deals in turn with a selection of Chesterton's works: Orthodoxy, Christendom in Dublin, Lepanto, The New Jerusalem, The Flying Inn, the Ball and the Cross, The Ballad of the White Horse, and The Man Who Was Thursday. He unpacks each book with skill and enthusiasm. His voice reveals his relish of Chesterton, and his notes and bibliography reveal the depth of his scholarship. (Another similarity between Glyer and Wood: Both write incredibly readable and valuable notes. I urge the reader not to skip them! I could wish that Wood's publisher, Baylor Press, had seen fit to use footnotes instead of endnotes. The constant turning back and forth becomes tedious; I repeat, however, that it is well worth the effort.) I hasten to add that this is not a set of discrete essays, though a reader wishing to approach a given book or poem could not do better than to read the chapter that lays it under examination. Wood has written a homogenous book, one that, in peering into Chesterton's thought in a given work or passage, does not lose sight of the whole man and his complete, and very consistent, thought.

We need - or at least I need - this kind of help with the Great Paradoxist. In dealing with The Man Who Was Thursday Wood quotes the famous lines from Walt Whitman:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

He quotes it as an idea equally applicable to Chesterton (who admired Whitman) and makes a good case. I, however, seem to see the contrast more than the comparison, and hear GKC say,

Do I repeat myself?
Very well, then, I repeat myself.
(I am large, I contain consistency.)

Chesterton was a large man, both physically and intellectually. A story tells that when a woman berated him for preaching up the Great War while not himself being at the Western Front, he replied, "Madam, if you will step around to the other side of me, you will see that I am!" I have the same experience of Chesterton the writer. He seems to embrace the entirety of any issue and occasionally, when I believe he has chosen only one side of an argument and ignored the other, I turn the next page and find that he is on that side as well. But Wood masterfully demonstrates that what can appear as inconsistency is in fact comprehensiveness. Chesterton, while never afraid to take a stand, is too large a man to entrench himself in a simplistic reading that ignores the complexities of the debate.

Ralph Wood has given us a very good and very necessary book on one of the great minds of the twentieth century. That his was a Christian mind is perhaps not, as C. S. Lewis learned, incidental. As Chesterton's prophecies of a new barbarism come true all around us, it is more important than ever for Christians to hear and heed his words. Chesterton provides a vital aid in that task.

Apache Cicada - A Poem for Late Summer

Yesterday I sat alone in the car for a few moments while Becky ran into the house to retrieve some overlooked item. I had the windows down (it's August in South Texas, after all), and could hear the cicadas singing their road drill song in the oak trees. It reminded me of this little poem I wrote some time back and I thought I would re-post it.

In the Sonoran Desert of the Southwest United States the Apache Cicada appears every summer around the solstice and leaves, clinging to tree branches, it's shed skin, crackly little chitinous exoskeletons that make a very satisfying crunch between thumb and forefinger. The Apache Cicada are sometimes called "rain bugs" because they seem to emerge just prior to the summer showers.

In Greek mythology, Eunomos (Good Name) was a great cithara player who entered a competition only to have a string snap at a crucial point. The myth tells us that a nearby cicada leapt onto the lyre and sustained the note, allowing Eunomos to win the prize. Because of its annual emergence from the earth, the Greeks and Romans associated the cicada with eternal life. They considered the insect's wild, droning song an expression of religious ecstasy and held the bugs sacred to Apollo.

Apache Cicada: A Desert Sonnet

Dry tymbal-click grits song on slate-hard heat

And rends the weft and woof of warmth-warped air.

Sound pounds, rebounds, resounds, redounds, repeats

Staccato scrape that whets spines sharp and spare.

My soul's string snaps short, twangs, and silence stills

Sweet praise I sought to render to my Lord,

Frustrates the proffered offering of my skills.

Dry, chitinous crackling chokes the sundered chord.

The locust leaps upon my wounded lyre,

Sustains the stifled note to swelling praise.

Rain-bringer, singer, you who never tire:

Draw out the strangled chord of my brief days.

O God, let desert sever self-sought fame,
And sing through me instead the one Good Name.

Pentecost at the Fords of Jordan

Then they would say to him, "Say now, 'Shibboleth.' " But he said, "Sibboleth," for he could not pronounce it correctly. - Judges 12.6

Today each tongue can say the shibboleth.

Un-babbled language once again unites.

On either side of Jordan one wild Breath

Breathes one wild Name that to one God invites.

This water not a border, but a ford,

This muddy bank too safe a place to die,

This word proclaimed a swifter-slaying sword,

This stream a font for living sacrifice.

Accent and intonation harmonize

The rich mosaic of His kingdom come.

In symphony, not sameness, come the cries

Of every world-wide nation, tribe, and tongue.

All welcome to the water on this day!

Speak Friend and enter: Word that all can say.

Fire Ship: A Prayer on Pentecost Sunday

Today the windward gauge fills bellied sails

And blasting broadsides roar from canon's throat!

The Church with storm and shot the foe assails

And pierces flesh with sweet salvation's note!

But I'm a ship becalmed. No zephyr's sigh

Stirs desiccated canvas rotting there

Aloft in rigging hoist to haunted skies,

Stretched forth like hands upraised in unmoved prayer.

No nimble-kindled leaping agile tongues

Dart delicate and deft to dance the truth,

But corposants burn cold like pales ghosts hung

To chill hard hearts' congealed in thawless ruth.

Lord, torch my rotting timbers. Drive me forth,
Charred to the waterline, to serve in death.

Graduation, Ascension, and the Wounds of Christ - A Sermon in Triptych: Luke 24.36-52, New Life Baptist Church, Corpus Christi, TX June 1, 2014

And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, "Have you anything to eat?" - v.40-41

Collect

Our God and Father, Christ Our risen Lord

Displayed His strength through hunger and through scars.

Now grant us grace to show the world Your love

Through our own weakness and humility,

That at the heart of our faith all might find

The Christ who understands their every need.

And this we ask You in the holy name

Of Jesus Christ, Our Savior and Our Lord,

And to the glory of Our Mighty God,

The Father, Son, and Spirit three in one,

Who lives and reigns forever without end,

Amen.

Introduction

            Last Thursday, May 29, was Ascension Day - calculating forty days from Our Lord's resurrection on Easter Sunday we arrive at that date for His return to the right hand of the Father on high. (I know Luke makes it seem here as if it happened all on one day, but he's compressing things in order to get the main points of the story across. In the first chapter of Acts he expands his account and mentions the actual time-frame [Acts 1.3]). For that reason, many churches set today aside as Ascension Sunday, a time to remember and reflect on what it means that Jesus returned to Heaven.

            But this is also Graduation Sunday, a day when many churches take time to do what we are doing today - to praise God for those who have achieved significant milestones in their education. And that is a good thing to do, because just as Jesus entered a new phase of his life and a new ministry as our advocate before the Father (1 Jo 2.1), you now enter a new phase of life which offers new opportunities to bring the love of Christ to the world.

            My purpose this morning is to see if we can't bring those two events together - Jesus' "graduation" to glory and your own graduation from school. And I don't think I'm abusing the text to make that attempt: You see, the life of the Christian basically consists of discovering what is true of Jesus and then asking how that applies to our own experiences. Your classmates and colleagues may be asking themselves, "Now how can I get a good job?" or, "Now how can I get a scholarship for the next phase of my education?" Those are good questions and you are probably asking them too, but ultimately the Christian graduate asks: "Now how can I better represent Christ to the world?"

Central Panel: Christ in the Text

            So we need to begin by looking at Jesus in this passage. As I do that, I see two things I want to point out: I see that everything is different but at the same time everything is the same.

            At either end of this passage, we see that Jesus has changed radically. At the beginning of this story he appears suddenly on the inside of a room with a locked door. He doesn't pick the lock; he doesn't batter it down; he doesn't even lift the latch and enter - he's just sort of there all of a sudden. And at the end of this story, he ascends into Heaven as the disciples stand watching.

            But in the center of this passage, we see that Jesus remains radically the same. His changed body is merely the case that carries and protects the precious jewel of radical continuity. Look at two actions Jesus' resurrected body performs.

            To begin with, He showed them his hands and his feet. That means he showed them his wounds from the crucifixion. This is important for two reasons. First of all, it is important in terms of proving the truth of the resurrection. You cannot argue that the disciples mistook someone else for Jesus, that this was some kind of hoax. More powerful than a fingerprint or a DNA sample, the wounds were an irrefutable way of saying, "It's me. I'm the same guy you've always known and whom you saw die on the cross."

            But second, and more important for our purposes, it showed his weakness and woundedness. His sudden appearance didn't convince them; his scarred flesh did.

            Jesus, who could smooth the scars of the lepers until their flesh was soft as the skin of a newborn baby, kept his own scars! Jesus, who could command a mangled limb to blossom into length and strength, left his own maimed skin unchanged. Jesus, who could call life back into a dead body chose not to remove the marks of his own death from his living flesh. At the moment of his greatest power he proves his identity by showing his need.

            Next, He said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" Again, this is important in terms of proving the resurrection. From the first Easter Sunday until today, people have tried to dismiss the resurrection as a mirage, a mistake of mass hysteria in which people hallucinated what they wanted so badly to see. But it takes a lot of faith to believe that - too much faith for me. You have to believe that multiple people saw the same thing at different times and places. And anyway, Jesus eats a piece of fish, something a hallucination cannot do.

            But again, the more important thing for our purposes is that Jesus asked for their help! Apparently resurrection bodies still get hungry, still need nourishment. And Jesus, who fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish, asks for food! Jesus, who after his resurrection blessed his grieving disciples by cooking their breakfast with his own hands (Jo 21.9),  asks for food! Jesus, who the night before he died fed the disciples and promised them the food of his own flesh and blood, asks for food!

            Now here's the point: The ultimate proof of Jesus' glory is not the ways in which he is different, but the ways in which he is the same; not his power, but his poverty; not his divinity, but his humanity. The miracle is not so much that he ascends into the Heavens as that he takes his scars with him. The risen Lord, the King of kings, looks toward us from the throne of glory and his wounded body cries out, "I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, need friends."

            And here's the real payoff: It is that Jesus who sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven and ever lives to make intercession for you! (Heb 7.25) Hebrews 2.18 says of him that since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.

Right Panel: Our World in the Text

            So what does any of this have to do with graduation?

            Well, in an important sense, everything is different for you now. True, you do not have a new body - yet - but you are wearing very distinctive clothing, clothing you really can't wear to work or the mall or the beach, clothing which says to everyone that you have passed a significant milestone.

            This clothing says that you now have access to places from which you were previously locked out! You high school graduates - you can now enter the doors of the university to continue your education. You college and tech school graduates - you can now enter the doors of graduate schools, jobs, and other places which would otherwise be closed to you.

            This clothing also says that you are ready to ascend: not to Heaven, of course, but in the ranks of society. You are ready to ascend financially. An American high school graduate stands to earn fifty to one hundred percent more over a lifetime than someone who drops out. College graduates on average earn nearly one hundred percent more than those without a degree, the highest gap in our nation's history.

            And for someone who is not a Christian, I suppose that's enough: You can now enter elite places and ascend the economic scale. But, of course, that's not enough for a follower of Christ. We must always ask the same question of anything that happens in our lives, including our graduation: How do I follow Christ in this experience? The answer is, keep your humanity, compassion, and vulnerability at the core of your achievement.

            Look at the place that Jesus chose to go. He could have walked through any locked door. He could have barged through the locked door of the chamber of the Sanhedrin and taken his place as the religious leader of Israel. He could have strolled through the locked door of Pilate's palace and occupied the throne of political power. He could have busted past the padlocked doors of the tax collectors and become the wealthiest man in the world. Instead, he walked through the locked door of a pitiful band of faithless and frightened disciples who were the basis of the local church. With power that opened any door, he chose the door that opened into a place of weakness and need.

            So your calling is to let your education open doors into places of need rather than places of privilege, into places of want rather than places of wealth, into a powerless church instead of a powerful world.

            Look at the witness Jesus chose to show. Jesus could have ascended to Heaven in invulnerable power. He could have burst into the presence of the cherubim who surround the throne and ceaselessly cry out "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts," and flaunted his perfect palms and flawless feet and vaunted his invulnerability. Instead, he retained his wounds as his most precious eternal possession.

            Look at the hunger Jesus chose to know. He could have called forth a feast with a wave of one wounded hand, yet instead he signals a hunger so sharp that he's willing to gnaw a cold fish stick, humble enough to take pot luck and hungry enough not to turn up his nose at leftovers!

            So let your education continually remind you of the needs of the uneducated. Let your achievement make you the servant of everyone around you. Don't use your education as an escape hatch from lowlifes but as a port of entry to a life of lowly  service. Don't let your knowledge make you an insufferable, stuck-up Somebody, but a scarred and suffering servant. Don't think of your schooling as a way to be sure you always have plenty to eat, but as a way of seeing that there are always plenty of people you can feed!

"How can I use this experience to demonstrate the love of the weak and wounded Christ?"

Left Panel: The Individual in the Text

            But now let's broaden our reading of this passage. We have seen how it speaks specifically to our graduates, and we can all understand how that applies to our own achievements whatever they may be. But now I want to talk to those of you who do not profess Christ as your Savior. It may be that you have factual or intellectual problems with the Christian story. I have attempted to address some of those from this passage, but I don't think it is usually those kinds of things that keep people away from Jesus. I think that often those things are a tool we resort to in order to cover up our real worry: That there is no way God could ever love us, that our sin is too real and too raw and that even Jesus cannot forgive.

            Well, I want you to look for a moment at the eternally hungry, eternally wounded Christ. He sits at the right hand of the Father, and he has not forgotten what it is like.

            I teach Greek at the School of Christian Studies. In fact, your pastor just finished his first year of studying that language. It's a difficult language to learn. I once had a student who flew Harrier jump-jets in the Marine Corps. He told me that flight training for that incredibly complex airplane was easier than New Testament Greek.

            Well, there's a story that I always tell on the first day of class to every group of aspiring Greek scholars. I tell them that in my first semester of Greek as a college student, I made a D, the only D of my college career! Why do I tell them that? Well, first of all, I'd rather they hear it from me than find out from someone else. And then there's the encouragement factor: I struggled at first but eventually managed to learn the language well enough to teach it. But mostly I tell them that because I want to let them know - and to remind myself - that I know what it's like to feel overwhelmed, confused, and utterly helpless in studying New Testament Greek.

            And that's the real picture in this text: Jesus has not forgotten what it is like. Hebrews 4.15 says he has faced every temptation that you and I do. He remembers how, in the wilderness, his body screamed for food so loudly that he was almost willing to satisfy it instead of honoring his Father. He remembers how, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he cried out for relief from what love demanded. He remembers how, as he hung on the tree of Calvary, he felt abandoned by his own Father. He has taken his wounds and his hunger into Heaven. There is nothing you have ever experienced that he does not understand, and will not forgive.