Hippie talk: "Man, That's Like Really Heavy!"

5 Lent   B          March 18, 2018
Jer. 31:31-34      Ps. 51:11-16       
Heb. 5:1-10        John 12:20-33    
Lectionary Link

Imagine yourself in the community that generated the Gospel of John some 5 to 6 decades after Jesus had left the earth.  How would you write about Jesus knowing what you knew had transpired in the last 60 years?

What was not written was this: Jesus died and the Romans put down a insurrection movement and ended the life of Jesus and his Movement.  This could not have been written because if no one remembered Jesus, nothing would have been written about him.  Many crucifixions happened and yet none was remembered like the Cross of Jesus.

As a Christian, 6 decades after Jesus was gone, one had already inherited traditions of Jesus in the way his story was told.  Writing is done with a purpose and one of the purposes of the Gospel of John was to explain why things had happened in the way in which they did.

What had happened?  The members of the John's Gospel community were proof of the survival power of Jesus Christ.  Jesus was gone but the Risen Christ had become replicated in the lives of many, many people.  How could this happen?  Why are so many people still gathering in the name of Christ?  Why does the spiritual energy still get transmitted to new people?  How can we explain the Risen Christ effect that has continued for so long and shows no sign of diminishing?

To speak about the blossoming Risen Christ effect, the writers used a religious term for "fame:"  The word "Glory."  

All of us know, wittingly or unwittingly, the word for Glory in Greek.  "Doxology" Doxa as in the offertory song "praise God from whom all blessings flow."  The word "Doxa" was used to translate  Hebrew words for glory.  "kavod" is a Hebrew word for glory and for those of us who still speak "Hippie" we can understand "kavod."  When a hippie was profoundly moved he would say something like "far out," or "Man, that was like really heavy!"  "kavod" means "heavy or weighty."  Another Hebrew word for "glory" was "shekinah."  This was used to refer to the manifest presence of God in  such a dwelling as the holiest of holy in the tabernacle.

Theological words become so commonplace that they can lose their meanings.  We speak about events in the life of Jesus: his birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension and glorification.

In the succession of events in the life of Jesus, we are living in the phase of the glorification of Jesus Christ.  What does this mean?

The glorification of God in Jesus Christ is the word used to explain why the Risen Christ had become present and replicated over and over again into the lives of many people.  It was so phenomenal, the writers had to say this was happening because God was glorifying Christ above all.  If God were not doing this, it could not have happened.  The dwelling and heavy presence of God in Christ was being made known within the lives of many people. The answer for the earthly fame of Jesus was not like that of the Caesar; the Roman empire had their propaganda to speak about the divine fame of the Caesar.  In the cult of the Caesar, citizens bowed before him because they feared for their lives.  The glory of God in Christ was much different.  It was verified by the winsome presence happening over and over again in the lives of people.  The writers of the Gospel of John had to retell the story of Jesus to account for the replicating proof of the Risen Christ in the lives of many.

In our Gospel story, the heavenly voice declared the glory of  God in Christ happened when?  When Greeks came to the feast and asked to see Jesus.  What had happened in the churches of the Gospel of John?  Many Greeks and Gentiles had come to see Jesus as he was experienced as the interior Risen Christ through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.  The Gospel of John was a thundering voice declaring the glory of God in Christ.

The power of the Glory of God Christ is known in its power to re-make events of the past.  What is the death of Jesus?  It's like the planting of the seed that dies when buried in the earth.  The afterlife of the seed is a great plant which produces many, many, more seeds to become many more plants.  You can plant Jesus in a dark tomb to get him out of sight, out of mind but from there he exploded and morphed into the lives of innumerable people.  Why did that happened?  The booming voice of heaven thunders: I have glorified God in Christ and will continue to do so."

The Bible is a book about how people have chronicle the glory of God; how God has marked human history such that people have come to confess God and God's presence.  In the Hebrew Scripture perhaps the greatest event of God's glory was on Mount Sinai.  It was an event of the "shekinah" glory even to make the face of Moses shine.  The law was written on the stone tablets.  The law was visible in exterior writing.  It had to be enforced by judges, priests, kings and prophets.  The kings of Israel did not always do well in living the law or enforcing it. The prophet Jeremiah wished for a democratic understanding of God's law; he wished that the law would be written on the hearts of people as an interior fact and not just as an exterior suppressive force.

The Glory of Christ was viewed in this succession of the Glory of God found in Hebrew Scripture.  Christ was the eternal Word of God and where does word dwell?  It is inside us so close that our lives cannot be separated from how we are constituted by the words of our lives.

Today, you and I still live as proof of the glory of God in Christ.  We, like St. Paul, can say, "Christ in us,the eternal Word,  the hope of glory."  We are proof of the glory of Christ, even as we share in the glory of Christ.  And why is this important?

The human counter for divine glory is, "fame."  Fame is an attractive drug of human culture. A certain amount of recognition is needed for the sense of personal esteem.  But people want repeated and sometimes excessive proof that they are loved and adored.  Why do people want quantity of proof that they are loved and adored?  It's a drug and it actually may be a sign of deep insecurity and it may be the sign that they have not yet been able to say with deep meaning, "Christ in me, the hope of glory."  To know Christ in us as the hope of glory is the most profound event of self esteem.  To have this experience is to be delivered from the vain glory of the drug of needing excessive fame.

My prayer for us that we will know the glory of Christ and that our parish may be a place where the glory of Christ might be known.   Amen.