Where Jesus walks; where we walk. Part I: In deep conversation with the Father.
Ash Wednesday - February 6, 2008
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Please note: The following sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him. |
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Today we hear Jesus in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, and on Sunday we will hear Jesus facing Satan in the three tests. In one sense, they deal with the same thing, don't they?
It is the problem of evil that plagues Jesus, and us. Where does Jesus walk with this crisis, and where do we walk, day by day?
We confess in the Creed that Jesus is become completely human as well as being completely God. The purpose of this to live through everything that life can throw at us, including a horrible and horrifying death on a humiliating cross, so that when he conquers that death by way of the resurrection, he can and will make promises that we are sure he is able to keep.
He walks on a harsh road, without being swallowed up by the deep potholes. He faces all the possibilities of sin, without succumbing to any of them. But he is the absolutely unique individual who does not give in to the things that bring us down time after time.
We walk on harsh roads also, but things with us are a far different state. Where Jesus prays with intensity and single-mindedness, we pray with mixed feelings and distraction.
Where Jesus prays with full recognition of what is going in around him, we pray with short-sightedness.
Where Jesus prays with full vision and communion with the Father as to the outcome of it all, we pray as if fumbling in the dark, only knowing a bit at a time how things fit together.
Jesus is able to pray in calmness of spirit “Not my will but thine be done,” while we are always struggling to have our prayers fit that pattern.
And that is the key element to the whole enterprise. In our weakness, we turn our prayers into demands against God... “Do what I want or I won't believe in you anymore.” or a Christmas wish-list of the most childish sort: “Fix this ...., give me that, Lord...,
or maybe we despair of prayer at all, so that it becomes only a set of words recited without ourselves really being involved.
And that brings us to the next point to know: effective prayer, prayer modeled on that of the Lord Jesus, is prayer in which all of our being is involved. Jesus backed his prayer with his whole life.
Jesus prays “Thy will be done” while knowing the kind of sacrifice that is involved. Some time ago we worked on the definition of a sacrifice as “prayer attached to an object”. In this case, the object attached to Jesus' prayer is himself. Together with his words, he is ready to offer himself up to cruel death, so that an even greater victory might result. Is Jesus asking us to put ourselves on the line as he does? Is Jesus asking that we offer ourselves as part of the answer for which our prayers call?
So when we pray that the Lord remember those who are ill, a corner of God's answer might be that we have an encouraging word for doctors, and also that we visit and aid the sick ourselves. When we pray that God remember those who serve in our armed forces, one portion of the answer to that prayer is that we sit down and write to them. When we pray that God grant us the blessings of nature in doses that we can handle, neither too much rain nor too little, then one portion of God's answer may be that we learn and practice good stewardship of those blessings ourselves, for the sake of all. There is much more to the sacrificial prayer, of course, but that is one portion of what it means.
We need to look at another part of this relationship called prayer. In John's telling of the story of Jesus, the Lord prays on that fateful night: “All that I have is yours, Father,” and it seems that he is talking about his life, the life of his disciples, and the lives of the believers of every age, all at the same time. The truth of our lives is tied up in that prayer of Jesus. We are living our true existence as we are offering ourselves to the will of the Father: “All that I have is yours, Father, ...Thy will be done.”
So many persons say to me “Why am I here?” As we wrestle with the question, this has to be part of the answer ...that we give ourselves into the hands of God and use Jesus' own words: “Not my will but thine be done.”
Young people at a recent retreat came to understand this in an impressive way. In the late evening before bedtime they read what Paul says about life and death to the Romans: “By Baptism we were buried with him, and lay dead, “ and each student blew out the candle each was holding. Then in the morning when they gathered again, they continued with the verse from Romans: “By Baptism we were buried with him, and lay dead,...in order that, as Christ was raised from the dead in the splendor of the Father, so also we might set our feet upon the new path of life.” And then each of them lit a new candle from the Christ candle. Whenever we say that such an understanding and such a life are only for a super-disciple, we need to hear again our first lesson for this day. In the vision of the glory of God, Isaiah rightly responds, ”Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips.” Rather than saying: “Right you are, get out of here,” the Lord's angel purifies him, so that when the Lord calls “Whom shall I send?”, Isaiah squeaks out “Here am I, send me.”
This day --we have heard the admonitions at the beginning of Lent. --we have confessed our sinfulness and unworthiness of the notice of God. --we have overheard our Lord in conversation with the Father as he sets the pattern for our praying. --we will shortly receive the assurance of his presence and pardon in the Holy Communion. --what comes next is our true reception of all of this by amending our lives and giving ourselves over to prayer in the manner of Jesus, knowing that his victory will at length be ours. To this life, to this work, to this following of Jesus, let all say AMEN.
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