John 13: 31-35
John 13:31-35 [MSG]
When he had left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is seen for who he is, and God seen for who he is in him. The moment God is seen in him, God’s glory will be on display. In glorifying him, he himself is glorified—glory all around!
“Children, I am with you for only a short time longer. You are going to look high and low for me. But just as I told the Jews, I’m telling you: ‘Where I go, you are not able to come.’
“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
SO, WHAT’S MY PART AGAIN?
Introduction:
This morning, we have four passages of scripture, each of which says something glorious about God. The Psalm calls us to lift praises to God and speaks of His work creating and sustaining His world. In Acts, we hear the hugely important story of the beginning of the ministry to the Gentiles. Revelation speaks of no less than the recreation of the universe, the great final act of God’s plan of creation. And the Gospel reading is part of Jesus' words of love and encouragement to his disciples in the upper room, just before he went to the cross—four momentous and pivotal expressions of God’s sustaining presence in the world. And I would suggest that these passages represent what most of the Bible is about, which is why we find it so hard to read it sometimes. We want to know when it’s going to start talking about us. Where is that character we can identify with? The good Samaritan who helps his neighbour or the awake servant ready to serve his master. Truly, they are few and far between and often require some creative reading to apply to our situation. No, we have a hard time reading the Bible because it seems like it’s all about God. Which is why we’re asking this morning, “So, what’s my part again?”
Sermon:
The first question we ask in any situation we’re entering is, “What’s my part in this?” Whether starting a job, walking into a social gathering or even going to church, we want to know what’s expected of us. What do I need to do to be successful, and what will it cost me? So when we’re ignored or worse, asked to stand aside and wait, we experience significant anxiety and stress. If you’ve been asked to help out with something and then discover there’s one person doing everything and taking all the glory, it can leave you pretty flat, cold, and alone.
This tendency to find our place isn’t bad; it’s part of being social creatures. We like to know where we belong in the intimate herd of three-hundred-fifty-thousand Caribou, which is a good thing if God truly made us social creatures to begin with. But we might wonder why the Bible seems to be all about God, and not about us. Indeed, making the Bible about us seems to be the focus of all the daily devotionals and many of the “How to be a better Christian” books you may read. They ask, “What does this Bible passage say to you about what you can do to help God’s creation, to make this world a better place?” And again, that’s not a bad thing or a negative consideration. However, you have to read between the lines to make the Word of God give you the answer, or at least, the answer you think it should.
The Psalm we read praises God for His mighty work of creation. But it’s not we who are doing the praising. The heavens themselves, the very created things, are a praise to God’s glory. The heavenly created beings, the sun, the moon, and all high heaven praise Him. And the Earth, the hills, forests, snow and ice, and creatures, all praise His name. At the end of the psalm, people, the high and the low, old and young, and Israel and His intimate friends praise God, but as part of this whole created universe that expresses His glory. “He’s built a monument, “ it says, “—his very own people!” Like the universe, mountains, and creatures, it is our presence created by God that praises him, not anything of ourselves that we do or say. It truly is a grand “Hallelujah!” but not one we need to do anything to be a part of. God has done it all already, and He is glorified in it and because of it.
The story in the book of Acts, chapter 11, we read is the continuation of actual events set forth in chapter 10 that are being recounted here for the enlightenment of the new, burgeoning Jewish church in Jerusalem. It records the miraculous conversion of the first gentiles, Cornelius, the Roman centurion of Caesarea, and his household, by Peter, who was prepared for the experience by God in the threefold dream about killing and eating the unclean animals. The most significant factor in Peter’s retelling of the story is his passive participation. You’d suppose he would be tempted to accentuate his role in such a momentous happening as the conversion of the first Gentiles, and it may be he was, which only strengthens my point.
Peter had no intention of associating with Gentiles; he was staying with Jewish friends in the small Jewish town of Joppa, not in the nearby modern, Roman metropolis of Caesarea. God gave him a dream that prepared him to understand that if God accepts something, then it is acceptable. Peter, for his part, was “fascinated,” but that’s all. God timed this with the arrival of the three servants of Cornelius, so Peter, encouraged by a word from the Spirit, would go with them, albeit with six Jewish companions for security. Cornelius told Peter of the visit by an angel that prompted his sending for him, and then, Peter, we are told, “started in talking,” as we all would have done, wanting to make our mark and have our part in the situation. However, he barely got to the introduction. “The Holy Spirit fell on them just as he did on [the disciples] the first time.” Peter, to his credit, understands what has happened remembering Jesus words that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit and asks the rhetorical question, “So I ask you: If God gave the same exact gift to them as to us when we believed in the Master Jesus Christ, how could I object to God?”
None of this miraculous event had anything to do with the wisdom, knowledge, skill, will or holiness of Peter or Cornelius. God reached out to Cornelius, God prepared and led Peter, and once the stage was set, God sent the Holy Spirit to bring it all to completion. The most important thing Peter did was step aside, out of the spotlight, and give all the glory to God. “They started praising God. “It’s really happened! God has broken through to the other nations, opened them up to Life!” All without any help, just an audience.
“I saw … I saw … I heard … Then He said.” is how the four paragraphs of Revelation we read this morning begin. A new Heaven, a new earth, a new Jerusalem, resplendent and ready prepared to be God’s bride, is what John saw. What he heard was that God had come to be with us, “‘tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone,’ The Enthroned continued … ‘I’m making everything new.’”
In his defense, John wasn’t a total spectator; he had a job, he had to “write it all down” because each word was dependable and accurate; dependable because God was doing it himself. He hasn’t given away the responsibility for executing any of His plans. The so-called great commission notwithstanding, God is not waiting for or depending upon His church to get the job done for Him. If we drop the ball, it isn’t putting a kink in His designs or forcing a heavenly planning crisis. As our passage in Revelation attests, God is the beginning and the conclusion, and there is no middle man in between.
Don’t let anyone fool you into believing that the cross was plan ‘B’ after Adam and Eve screwed up in the garden of Eden. When God spoke the words, “Let there be light!” he already knew it would mean going to the cross. And He said the words anyway, because he loved you that much. It was the plan from the beginning; what needed to be done to bring all his work of creation to that glorious conclusion, a water-of-life well from which we can freely drink.
But surely in the intimacy of the Upper Room Discourse, in the Gospel of John, we will find our place in God’s plan. Jesus, speaking of Judas' departure to betray him to the authorities, says, “Now the Son of Man is seen for who he is, and God seen for who he is in him. The moment God is seen in him, God’s glory will be on display. In glorifying him, he himself is glorified—glory all around!” Even in this pivotal moment, it is Jesus himself who initiates the vehicle of his betrayal, egging Judas on in the previous verses by saying, “‘What you must do,’ said Jesus, ‘Do it and get it over with.’” And it is not the faithful disciples remaining who will make the Son of Man known and God known in Him. It is Jesus who will glorify the Father, and God the Father who will glorify the Son, no human intervention called for, planned or required. In truth, it’s even more exclusive than that. Where Jesus is going, we are not able to come.
As I said when we began, we don’t like feeling left outside of something; we need to know our part. But this is far, far worse because we’re not just excluded, we’re incapable of being included. This work is way above our pay grade. It requires the divine; it requires Jesus. The best we have to offer, the most we can muster, is woefully deficient for the work of God in this world. Which is why I want to bring you this good news that I have tried to make clear today, the good news that the Bible hammers home over and over; that God has done it all and continues to do it all and will continue to do it all so that all will come to its planned conclusion, and it’s not up to you to make it happen.
And now you may rightly ask me, “So, what’s my part again?” Jesus anticipated this question; he knew his own disciples would be asking this, and so he tells them, and you and I, “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” Not by your charity or faithfulness going to Church, although that’s very good, nor your moral purity or family ethics, although they’re fundamental, nor your hard work or dedication will anyone come to know you are a child of God in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit and set aside for that glorious kingdom promised in the book of Revelation. It is by “the love you have for each other.”
Think of it like one of Jesus' parables. God is holding a banquet. He set the stage at creation; not just a rental, He built the whole thing from scratch just for this occasion. And like the consummate epitome of a caterer, he has orchestrated everything down to the last detail. Nothing is amiss, nothing is forgotten. There’s an elevator for those less ambulatory; security and medical are on sight, and there is a sommelier, seamstress, and everything and everyone that could possibly be needed. The event is guaranteed to come off without a flaw, a grand success. You were invited and have been whisked to the occasion in a limousine, and here you are, tailored, dressed, and ready, everything you need provided. The one and only thing the host asks you to do, the one and only responsibility you have, is to love one another.
In the 1991 Kevin Costner movie, “Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves,” there is a throwaway line that always chokes me up, goes straight to my emotions. Robin of Locksley Manor has just entreated Maid Marian to risk her life to inform her cousin, King Richard, of a plot to take his throne, and he asks, “Will you do it for your king?” And she replies emphatically, “No! I’ll do it for you.” Jesus asks us to do one thing. Having given his life to free us from the slavery of sin so that we can, enabled by His Holy Spirit whom he gives liberally, do this one thing for him, He asks us to love one another as He, who sacrificed all for us, has loved us.
It’s not the glorious job we’d like to have. It’s not the big thing we’d like to be asked to do. It’s messy, tiring, unrewarding, tedious, and degrading; it is certainly not what we readily choose and not the kind of job and work the church, through history, has been noted to promote. But it is what Jesus is asking us to do, the one thing He’s asking us to do, and the most important. Can you love each other, this whole world, for Him?
Amen