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"You Believe At Last"
Easter has come and gone. For forty days after His resurrection
Jesus appeared to His first disciples and convinced them that
He was alive and that God’s plan of salvation for the entire
human race was on track. Then Jesus ascended back into heaven
before their eyes and ten days later the great Pentecost event
occurred. The Holy Spirit swept over those disciples and the
world has never been the same.
It is the 6th week of Easter here in the church. It is day
thirty-six in our forty day post-resurrection experience. On
Thursday evening we will celebrate the Ascension and watch
with the first disciples Jesus’ return to His heavenly throne.
Pentecost also always awaits us. The world has never been
same. We have 2000 years of history with evidence galore.
Somehow you and I need to grasp the fact that the Christian
church, your presence here today, is the goal of all human
history.
I’d like for you to chew on that for a few minutes today.
You thought you were just coming to church today, maybe
a little mother’s day gift, some family time and then
back to the real business of life. But what if this –
our worship, the content of our readings, this sermon,
the words to the hymns, the baptisms and Lord’s Supper –
what if all of this is the real business of life that is
meant to shape you, to change you in such a way that the
world – your world – starting in your family and extending
to the end of the earth – will never be the same again. You
be the judge.
The lesson for today comes from the Gospel and I’ve got
to be honest with you, it is one of those readings that
makes me scratch my head and go, “Huh? What in the world
is Jesus talking about?” You might have to keep your
bulletin open and look at the words a couple of times. But
if we start in the middle and work our way to both ends of
the text I’d like to arrive at verse 31: “You believe at
last!”
Vs. 28 is the key – the starting point. Jesus said, “I
came from the Father and entered the world; now I am
leaving the world and going back to the Father.”
There you have it: the entire plan of salvation in one
sentence and the Gospel of John’s primary purpose. This
is why John, one of the three closest disciples of Jesus,
wrote this account of Jesus life, death, and resurrection.
His solitary goal is to convince you that Jesus is God,
one with the Father, who came into the world to meet you
here today at the cross and empty tomb, and then returned
to the Father’s side until the final moment when the surprise
victory of God over all nations, corporations, false religions,
evil and unbelief will be revealed.
Now, it is no surprise that the disciples who spent three
years listening and watching Jesus struggled intensely and
continuously to grasp what was really going on. Our text
starts with Jesus saying, “In that day you will no longer
ask me anything.”
Full of questions those disciples were! The events of our
text occur on the night Jesus was betrayed – the next day
He would be crucified and their understanding of the world
would come crashing down. It would take Jesus 40 days and
the Holy Spirit a lifetime to rebuild them. At dinner that
night Jesus had announced that one of the twelve would
betray him. Peter and John had leaned close to Jesus
asked, “Who is it?”
A few verses later Jesus had said, “Where I am going you
cannot come.” And Peter asked, “Lord where are you going?”
Then it was Thomas’ turn. Jesus said, “You know the way
to the place where I am going.” And Thomas said, “Lord,
we don’t know where you are going so how can we know
the way?”
Two verses later Phillip says in a questioning voice: “Lord
show us the Father and that will be enough for us. And by
the end of the chapter, Judas (the other Judas, not the one
who betrayed Him), chimes in and says, “But Lord, why do
you intend to show yourself to us and not the world.”
And then just before our reading Jesus had said, “In a
little while you will see me no more and then in a little
while you will see me again.” The disciples talking amongst
themselves were asking, “What does me mean by ‘a little while’
and ‘Because I am going to the Father.’”
If nothing else we can take comfort in the fact that if it
was hard to grasp with Jesus standing right in front of them
it is understandable that we might have a few questions of
our own – like “where were you when I needed you?” And “Why
don’t you show yourself to the world so I don’t feel like
such a moron trying to follow you?” And “what exactly is
“a little while” in divine terms? I thought you were coming
again, SOON!”
Jesus steps back a little bit from his disciples to give
them a bigger perspective. He says, “I came from the Father
and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going
back to the Father.” Keep the perspective. Look at the world
through these lenses.
On a balmy October afternoon in 1982, Badger Stadium in
Madison, Wisconsin, was packed. More than 60,000 die-hard
University of Wisconsin supporters were watching their
football team take on the Michigan State Spartans. It soon
became obvious that MSU had the better team.
What seemed odd, however, as the score became more lopsided,
were the bursts of applause and shouts of joy from the
Wisconsin fans. How could they cheer when their team was
losing? It turns out that seventy miles away the Milwaukee
Brewers were beating the St. Louis Cardinals in game three
of the 1982 World Series.
Many of the fans in the stands were listening to portable radios--
and responding to something other than their immediate circumstances.
There is more going on than meets the eye! Jesus came from the
Father and he has returned to the Father. The work of salvation –
rescuing the entire human race from eternal suffering and
separation from God – is complete. In the context of our place
in that work of salvation Jesus says to His disciples: “My
Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now
you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will
receive, and your joy will be complete.”
Jesus isn’t talking about asking God to win the lottery or
to solve a crisis in your personal life (he talks about
those things elsewhere in the Bible which is another sermon
for another day and the subject of prayer). Jesus is talking
about your place, your part in the grand and glorious work
of saving the world!
Up to that moment the first disciples had missed the Jesus’
part of God’s unbelievable plan. They were focused on their
immediate circumstances. They looked at their history and
remembered the days of national glory and success and imagined
that was as good as gets. They looked at the Roman control of
their country and longed for a military – political solution.
They looked at their church and saw greedy, power hungry
leaders with their own personal agendas disguised in God language.
June 6, 1994, was the 50th anniversary of the Allied invasion
of Normandy, which began the historic World War II battle to
liberate continental Europe from Nazi control. All the major
television networks ran anniversary programs that included
interviews with aging veterans.
One of the programs paired two contrasting interviews back
to back. The first interview was with a soldier who had
landed on Omaha Beach. He recalled horrors that sounded
like scenes from Steven Spielberg's Academy Award-winning
movie Saving Private Ryan. The aging veteran recalled
looking around at the bloody casualties surrounding him and
concluding, "We're going to lose!"
The next interview was with a U.S. Army Air Corps reconnaissance
pilot who had flown over the whole battle area. He viewed the
carnage on the beaches and hills, but he also witnessed the
successes of the marines, the penetration by the paratroopers,
and the effectiveness of the aerial bombardment. He looked at
everything that was happening and concluded, "We're going to win!"
We are going to win! Because Jesus came from the Father and
entered the world and He went back to the Father having
accomplished his mission. Now ask the Father for whatever
you want in Jesus’ name – that is, for the sake of saving
the world, and you will receive it and your joy will be complete.
You want to become a multi-site church and start another
worshiping location in Chuluota and be able to buy some
land out there to make a place for people to come and hear
that Jesus came from the Father and entered the world and
returned to the Father? Ask!
You want to partner with the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer
in Sanford so that people can hear that Jesus came from the
Father and entered the world and returned to the Father? Ask!
You want to send mission teams to Latvia and Honduras in the
hope that some hear that Jesus came from the Father and
entered the world and returned to the Father? Ask!
You want to expand your Christian education to a high school
to instill in young people a deep abiding sense that we are
all called to make known that Jesus came from the Father and
entered the world and returned to Father? Ask!
What if we wanted to open a training center here on our campus
for Christian church workers that would produce 250 pastors,
teachers, Directors of Christian Education, Deaconesses,
missionaries, you name it in the next 20 years so that people
can hear that Jesus came from the Father and entered the world
and returned to the Father? Ask!
A man stopped to watch a Little League baseball game. He asked
one of the youngsters what the score was. "We're losing 18-0,"
was the answer.
"Well," said the man. "I must say you don't look discouraged."
"Discouraged?" the boy said, puzzled. "Why should we be
discouraged? We haven't come to bat yet."
The disciples got it briefly that night on the way to the Garden
of Gethsemane. Then Jesus was arrested, tried, condemned, tortured
and crucified and they lost it for a while. But Jesus rose again
and appeared to them over and over until they were convinced that
this His death and His resurrection is the one and only answer to
the insanity of the world we live in.
In Him they proclaimed relentlessly until they died – believe that
Jesus came from the Father and entered the world. He walked blamelessly,
holy, perfect, as a man, like us in every way before God. By His death
He secured the forgiveness of all our sins. In Christ, trusting in Him,
believing that He is God in human flesh, nothing can separate us from
Him and eternity in heaven that awaits us. By His resurrection life is
restored to our dead and dying bodies. No matter what happens to us
between here and there – even death itself cannot harm us.
Listen to the delight in Jesus voice. “You believe at last!”
It will not be easy – bad things are still going to happen between
here and there. We’ll have our moments of doubt and fear and despair,
but be sure to hear this: Jesus said, “I have told you these things,
so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble.
But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
These are exciting times my friends and you are not here this
morning by accident. It is our turn to bat!
Amen.
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