The plot thickens in the story of Jesus as we head toward Holy Week.

Transcription

1 The Hidden Jesus John March 22, 2015, Lent V Tim Phillips, Seattle First Baptist Church The plot thickens in the story of Jesus as we head toward Holy Week. After teaching and healing and, most recently, raising his friend Lazarus from the dead with that command, Come out, there is a plan being hatched (for the good of the people) to get rid of Jesus. So, at the end of John 11, the story says: Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the people, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness, and he remained there with his disciples the religious leaders gave orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him. (11.54 & 57) Surely, the religious leaders thought, Jesus wouldn t dare show up in Jerusalem with all those pilgrims for Passover. He does, of course. But that s next week s story. Suffice to say that Jesus comes out the wilderness in a big way. [Wilderness Canticle: Come Out the Wilderness. ]

2 Sermon In the game of hide-and-seek, you know it s time for everybody to be found when someone yells out: Come out, come out, wherever you are! According to John 11, Jesus had been in hiding because of the threats by the religious authorities. He couldn t walk openly among the people anymore. But the time came for Jesus to come out of the wilderness and to find himself among that great throng of people going up to Jerusalem for the Passover. So the story continues in John 12 John (adapted from the NRSV) 20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, Sir, we wish to see Jesus. 22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus answered them, The hour has come for the Son of Man or the Human One -- to be glorified. 24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, my Abba will honor. 27 Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say Save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28 Abba, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, An angel has spoken to him. 30 Jesus answered, This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people * to myself. 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. 34 The crowd answered him, We have heard from the law that the Messiah * remains forever. How can you say that the Human One must be lifted up? Who is this one?

3 35 Jesus said to them, The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light. After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them He hid from them. We would see Jesus, the Greeks just asked. And he hid from them. He just got done saying, when I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself. And he hid from them. He just said, walk in the light so that you become children of the light. And he hid from them. What is Jesus doing in hiding again? On my office door is a postcard my sister sent to me several years ago. The picture purports to be the sign of the Willow River Baptist Church that reads: Have you found Jesus? Please call , as if Jesus has wandered off somewhere and is one phone call away from someone filing a missing person s report. I imagine images of the baby Jesus on milk cartons. In response to the postcard on my door, someone gave me a button that says: I ve found Jesus He s been hiding behind the sofa the whole time. If it seems a little silly or worse, sacrilegious, that I would have that postcard and that button on my office door, it s actually for a very serious reason. It s because I spent a lot of my life assuming that I had Jesus all figured out. I didn t need to look for him because I had all the information I needed. And then I discovered that the Jesus I had all figured out, was not the one I was looking for.that Jesus was hidden somewhere beyond my certainty, moving somewhere beyond all that scholarship I loved so much, hidden even beyond my ability to believe.

4 The hidden Jesus was the one that kept me looking for him. In fact, the early church was convinced that this Jesus, who had been hidden from their sight for generations, could show up anywhere and at any time. In Matthew s gospel, the faithful ones are those who look for Jesus in the hungry and the naked and the imprisoned. When did we see you? they ask. And Jesus says, Inasmuch as you did this for any of the least of these inasmuch as you went looking for me among all those folks in all those out-of-the-way places, you found me. Rather than living like they already had him all figured out, rather than treating him like just another historical figure that was dead and gone, they kept looking for him. For them, maybe he was hiding behind the sofa the whole time. The hidden Jesus is the one who keeps us looking. Now, as you know, there is hiding. And there s hiding. The hiding Jesus is doing at the end of John 11 is about protection. There s a threat on his life so he doesn t walk openly among the people anymore. He goes out to a village near the wilderness. When I was a kid, I was inspired by the book and then the movie called, The Hiding Place. It s the story of Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian and, by the way, the first woman ever to be licensed as a watchmaker in the Netherlands who used her influence and her home to hide Jewish friends during WWII. She and her sister were eventually found out and both sent to the concentration camp at Ravensbruck where her sister, Betsie, died. Corrie survived and spent the rest of her life working with survivors. She died in 1983 but her name is honored at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. The Hiding Place made me wonder if the Jesus we are looking for might be found in the places where people know what it is to hide for their lives. In refugee camps. In the homes of the undocumented. In shelters from domestic violence. In the fears of people, young and old, who have to hide the truth of who they really are I know, we have come a long way but there are still lots of people, for lots of reasons, who are afraid to death of being found out.

5 When I found myself hiding for my life, I could hear my mom s voice singing that old version of Psalm 27, written at the turn of the century by Frances Allitsen: The Lord is my light and my salvation For in the time of trouble, He shall hide me in His tabernacle. Yea, in the secret places of His dwelling shall he hide me, And then there is a transition in the music. The quiet lines become confident, And set me up upon a rock of stone. Here s the thing, the Hiding Place, isn t about building better places to hide. It s about building a world where no one needs to. If the hidden Jesus in John 11 is about refuge, safety, protection, the hidden Jesus in John 12 is something else. Jesus isn t hiding from his enemies. He is hiding from his own disciples. In this case, it s not about protection but it may be a lesson in resurrection. Jesus has just said, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. And then he hid from them. Maybe this is a little exercise in resurrection. Jesus is making himself scarce so those disciples have to figure out what it will take for them to carry on this work they have been doing together. If Jesus said, for instance, that he would draw all people to himself, what would it take for them to continue that gathering how far and wide would they have to go? There is, what seems to be, a parallel passage in the prophet Ezekiel. Like John 12, it also talks about glorifying God: I will display my glory among the nations, God says, I hid my face from my people but now I am drawing them back; I am gathering them and I will leave none of them behind and I will never hide my face from them again. Jesus is part of this legacy and he hides, I think, to encourage them to continue this practice of gathering people all kinds of people even when it doesn t seem like he is around to make it happen. If a seed falls into the ground and dies, he says, it will bear much fruit. One seed hidden in the ground will produce many seeds. And those will produce more. And those even more until the whole world is seeded with new life.

6 All this reminds me of one my favorite Robert Fulghum stories. It s especially fitting today given our concert this afternoon celebrating life in the face of cancer because it s about a doctor who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was a doctor, Fulghum says, [so he] knew about dying, and he didn t want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Everybody said how brave he was But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn t trust their strength He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. The good doctor was hiding as a way to protect his family and friends and maybe himself from the truth they would all have to deal with anyway. Better than hide-and-seek, Fulghum says, is Sardines. Sardines is a game where the person who is It goes and hides and everyone goes looking for that person. When someone finds her, that person hides with her. And then the next person joins them and the next until they are all crammed together in the same place thus Sardines. I think old God is a Sardine player, Fulghum says, and will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end. Is it too much to hope for a world where nobody has to hide and everyone gets found? Maybe the sound of laughter at the end, with all of us heaped together, is the sound of amazing grace. It s always been surprising to me that the old hymn Amazing Grace is so popular. It s written by a slave trader after all who, in those first lines, refuses to hide anymore how wretched his own life has been and how he participated in a way of life that was truly wretched for hundreds and thousands of people.

7 Maybe that s it -- no matter how wonderful our lives may be, there is something freeing about not having to hide anymore that our lives can also be we can also be wretched, miserable, lost. And maybe not having to hide it anymore means that we can finally allow ourselves to be found. Perhaps you have noticed that Jesus is never mentioned in this hymn. But I m pretty sure he s there because this is what I keep looking for a world where nobody has to hide and everyone, finally, gets found. Are you tired of hiding? Has the façade grown to heavy? Is it too much work to keep up all those pretenses? Maybe it s time to get found. Come out, come out, wherever you are; whoever you are. And today if you hear that voice a voice that sounds like amazing grace -- don t harden your hearts. NOTES The Hiding Place, both as book and film, is available on Amazon. Robert Fulghum s story is in his All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, pp