Sermon for the 3rd of April, 2023 - Monday of Holy Week

Isaiah 42: 1-9
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him;he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching. Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.

John 18: 28-38
Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” They answered, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.” The Jews replied, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death.” (This was to fulfil what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.)
Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, “I find no case against him.

Meditation on "The Passion and Literature"
C. S. Lewis spoke of three biographers who have given us lives that leap off the page into our consciousness: Plato's depiction of his teacher Socrates, James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, and the Gospel writers' Jesus. All three of these sets of writers have created such extraordinarily vivid, compelling portraits of an individual life that all three of these figures have endured through the ages to continue to be real to us today. But Jesus, in particular, and to such an extraordinarily larger, wider, degree---why does Jesus emerge for us with such force in these four accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John---all somewhat different?

Isaiah prophecies a figure who will both bring forth justice to the nations but at the same time not quench (even) a dimly burning wick. He will be a charismatic prophet in his own right, a worker of miracles of power---of healing and restoration to those who are suffering, but he will also allow himself to be submissively brought before both the Jewish and Roman authorities. He spoke with mildness to those who really wanted to know what they thought he might have to reveal to them about God but he spoke with great anger at those whom he knew were betraying their own sacred tradition. He called simple people to be his closest followers---fishermen and artisans and women---but entrusted them with the precious message of God's kingdom. And commissioned them to carry this message of hope to all the world after he left it. Such paradoxes....

That lead us, this week, to the greatest of the paradoxes of Jesus's life, that his death brought life. Out of the humiliating depth of self-abasement and submission to worldly authority, the act of crucifixion, he enabled all of humankind to be lifted up from the despair of death. And so, unlike the remarkable figures of Socrates and Samuel Johnson, worthies though they are, instructive and inspiring for us all as we live out our lives from day to day, Jesus transcends the medium of biography to invite us to embody, as he did, the kingdom that he ushered in. Don't just talk about the virtues of goodness and truth and beauty--embody them. Don't just find like-minded companions and form academies or clubs to converse about these abstract virtues---live them out in imitation of Him. Don't just consider what these virtuous concepts are---put them into action in the real world you are given, in this day and time.
In John's account of Jesus's life---a kind of biography that verges upon mystical theology even in its description of Jesus's actions---we are given the question Pilate asks at the end of his interrogation of Jesus at the climactic moment of his trial:What is truth?

What is truth? Truth not as in the mastery of knowledge useful to the practice of a skill---say, engineering---but truth as in God's truth. The truth of what it means to live out God's destiny for each of us. As a uniquely created adored child of God, for whom God has the highest hopes and over whom God watches with unceasing care. The destiny we have from God will be unique for each of us. If we faithfully live out that destiny we need fear nothing--not being measured and judged by others as a success or failure, not failing in our own expectations of success for ourselves, above all, not in disappointing God. And certainly, surely, not in any fear of death.

What is truth? When Pilate asks this question of Jesus, John does not record an answer. But our own answer can be yes. Yes to living out the love of God in the world that is so full of imperfection, inequality, violence, and suffering. Every act we register in our own lives tips the balance of good and evil in the world. It was to enable us to act in this way that Jesus underwent crucifixion. What is truth, God's truth? It is action in the face of hopelessness, overwhelming evil, and the reality of human weakness. Loving action that will defeat even the powers of death.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John created more than biographies; they created Gospels. And a Gospel is good news, indeed. To hear about the life of Jesus is good news for each of us, and for all the world. And to respond in action to the good news we have heard transforms us and transforms our world.
How will our own biography read? God is the only reader who matters, and He already knows the ending. We live and move and have our being in Him, thanks to the Good News of Christ who has acted for us, for all time. Thanks be to God! Amen!