title: Who Sits Upon the Throne

themes: interpreting-revelation theocentric-perspective identity-in-christ kingdom-politics worship-and-liturgy holy-communion holiness

text:
**Scripture:** Revelation 4:1-11; Ezekiel 1:5-10; Mark 4:30-32
**Series:** 2022

> Preaching on the throne vision of Revelation 4:1-11, this sermon argues that the book of Revelation is fundamentally about identity: the discovery that we are not the center of the story. Using his son Dominic's question about living in a movie and George R.R. Martin's doomed character Quentyn, the preacher exposes the narcissistic, Hauerwasian modern illusion of being the self-authored protagonist with everyone else as supporting cast. He parallels this to Rome's claiming of every people's story, which Revelation unmasks by revealing who truly sits on the throne, not the emperor but the lamb that was slain. The maximalist, symbol-upon-symbol imagery shows the magnificence of God's presence, and the elders' song gives us a place to worship with the heavenly host now. Communion, like the mustard seed, looks insignificant but is God doing something great; the victory of Christ is never in doubt, so the drama of faith lies in the present journey. The sermon closes with a call to holiness, to jump fully into life with God through prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, pointing always to the lamb who has already won.

**Illustrations:** dominic-living-in-a-movie, quentyn-plot-armor, hauerwas-no-story-but-the-one-you-choose, bart-simpson-punching, rome-stolen-menorah-citizenship, bauckham-creator-and-lamb, holy-holy-holy-sanctus, mustard-seed-communion, revelation-struggle-within-the-heart

---

# February 13
## Who Sits Upon the Throne
After this I looked and there was a door that had been opened in heaven. The first voice that I had heard, which sounded like a trumpet, said to me, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in a Spirit-inspired trance and I saw a throne in heaven, and someone was seated on the throne. The one seated there looked like jasper and carnelian, and surrounding the throne was a rainbow that looked like an emerald. Twenty-four thrones, with twenty-four elders seated upon them, surrounded the throne. The elders were dressed in white clothing and had gold crowns on their heads. From the throne came lightning, voices, and thunder. In front of the throne were seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God. Something like a glass sea, like crystal, was in front of the throne. In the center, by the throne, were four living creatures encircling the throne. These creatures were covered with eyes on the front and on the back. The first living creature was like a lion. The second living creature was like an ox. The third living creature had a face like a human being. And the fourth living creature was like an eagle in flight. Each of the four living creatures had six wings, and each was covered all around and on the inside with eyes. They never rest day or night, but keep on saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is coming.” Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to the one seated on the throne, who lives forever and always, the twenty-four elders fall before the one seated on the throne. They worship the one who lives forever and always. They throw down their crowns before the throne and say, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, because you created all things. It is by your will that they existed and were created.” Revelation 4:1-11

## Intro
A few years ago, I was talking to my son Dominic. We were having breakfast. Out of the blue he asked me, ‘Daddy, are we living in a movie?’ Whoa! This was a really deep question for 5 year old. It is a wise question for a 50 year old.

My first reaction would be to say ‘no’ and move on. But I wanted to engage him. I love his curiosity and interest. I probably talked a little too much and did not give him the space to rethink the question

So I mentioned how it may seem like we are in a movie. But it is important to remember that, 1) God is not really far away watching us and just observing us from a distance. And 2) we are not the center of the story. We are not protagonists in our own film of life.

And the important thing about that is that it means that the people around us are not just extras or supporting characters for our life. Because it is so easy to fall into this narcissistic trap. to think that all the people in our lives are just there to serve us, to amuse us. To give us things and to help us.

I am going to geek out for a little bit, but it is super relevant. In the fifth book of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. There is a character who was not in the TV show, Game of Thrones. They cut him out. So He only exists in the book, A Dance with dragons.

If you haven’t read any of Martin’s books, they are structured in such a way that each chapter is written from the point of view of one of the characters in the story. My own readings usually meant skipping over chapters with characters I found boring. The first time, I read Dance with Dragons I skipped over the chapters of this character named Quentyn. If something relevant happened, I would go back and read,

It was only later, when I reread the books, that I came to appreciate Quentyn’s chapters. His purpose in the novel is to function as a metacritique of the fantasy genre in general. He is going on this great adventure, but the first time we see him, most of his friends have already died. It is right after this storm at sea and his best friend has been killed and his mentor has been killed and another helper on the journey has been killed.

But he thinks that becoming king is his destiny. He thinks he has plot armor. Plot armor is the idea that there are certain characters in a story or movie that cannot be killed because it would ruin the plot. Quentyn thinks that he is being protected so he goes on this journey to try to marry the princess. He thinks it is destiny but he is scared. His interests are not with being a hero. He would rather read and garden then go fight bad guys and ride dragons. That is not who he is but it is who he thinks he needs to be. And he thought that the narrative would save him. He thought that the story would save him. He thought that he was the center of the story.

But it does not end as he expects.

His last ditch effort, after being rejected by the princess, is to bargain with some evil mercenaries to sneak him into the castle where the dragons are being held. Because of who he thinks he needs to, he is going to try and tame a dragon.  But it does not go well. Instead of becoming king, the dragon opens his mouth, And Quentyn is burned.
### Series Intro
My friends, we are continuing today in our series on the book of revelation. Revelation is about our identity. What is the source of our identity. What kind of story do we think we are in? What do we think we need in our lives? What do we value in our lives.

One of my teachers, Stanley Hauerwas, once said that “the project of modernity was to produce people who believe they should have no story except the story they choose when they have no story.”

People who think the only story and meaning of their lives is what they create, as if meaning, purpose, and history can be changed like a jacket or a hat. I find my own way and I am the only judge. My favorite illustration of this comes from the simpsons. Bart and Lisa are arguing and Bart says, “I am going to be punching, and if you get in my way it is your own fault.”

people who believe they should have no story except the story they choose when they have no story. This is super essential for Christians or anyone today to understand this as false. That is, the realization that there is not this null point where we get to decide what story we are a part of because we are not the center of the universe. And the project of modernity is to say that each one of us is the center of the universe. All the adds this afternoon are going to be about how awesome you are, but also how you could be more awesome with this product. And so there are six billion centers of the universe and so we are just competing for a fixed amount of resources . In grade school, we are competing for a fixed amount of slots in our college. As we grow up, we are competing for a fixed amount of desirable partners. This competition is constant because we are each the center of the universe and we each choose our own story and that is it! And there is nothing that comes before unless it is what we choose to accept.

This is a very similar narrative to the Roman Empire. The Romans swept across the ancient world and claimed each story as its own, claimed its people as its own. This is why the Romans stole the giant Menora from the Temple in Jerusalem. They claimed the Jewish story, too. They bequeathed the right of citizenship to some people and slavery to others. Citizenship in Rome had some political consequences, you had a right to trial, you could appeal to the Emperor. It also had some economic consequences. You did not need to fear starvation. There is always free bread for citizens of Rome.

And people could be content with that story, but it is a lie. It is not ultimately life-giving. And we see it falling apart in the book of Revelation. We see the lie falling apart when we see who really sits on the throne. We see the story of the world is not about us. You can’t Napoleon your way or pick yourself up by your bootstraps to the throne of heaven.

### The Throne
The one who sits upon the throne is not the emperor in Rome with illusions of grandeur but the lamb who was slain. As Richard Baukham says, ‘The creator and the lamb are the theological center of the book of Revelation.’ The throne vision in chapter four puts them at the heart of the created order. And what do we see at the heart of the created order? We see and hear a song. We hear Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord, God almighty.

During communion service, we say those words, Holy, Holy, Holy. At Christmas, the shepherds are out with their flocks by night and a heavenly host appears singing ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’

There are a lot of other symbols going on here. There are thrones and rainbows and gems of jasper and emerald. There are 24 thrones and 24 elders. There are seven flaming torches. And there are all these symbols upon symbols. There are these four creatures with different animal parts which resemble the creatures at the beginning of the prophet Ezekiel. And it is symbol upon symbol upon symbol, showing the maximalist view of heaven. One image cannot contain the presence of God, and so we need an image upon an image upon an image.

This is what all that symbolic structure, all that vividness of the imagery is to show how magnificent the presence of God is. And the elders on the throne show that there is a place for us with God. There is a place with God. And even more, there is a place for us now with God. Where we can sing to God.

This is why we share table together. This is why we sing with the heavenly host, Holy, Holy, Holy are you Lord God almighty. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

We sing along with the elders in heaven. We are given space in the drama of creation history. We are contingent beings in a broken world and yet we matter to God. Not just in the future but here today.

And what is so important for us to remember and what this story of revelation shows us is a spoiler about the end of the story. We know who is going to win. We know who has already won.

### Communion
When we share in communion, it seems like a small thing. Just a little bread. Just a little juice. And yet God is here doing something great. Like the mustard seed in the Gospel of Mark. It will grow to be enormous. The kingdom of heaven is here at this table. And it will grow. And even though it can look insignificant, that does not dictate what is going to be. Even when you feel insignificant. Even when you feel like you don’t matter to someone or that you don’t matter to the right someone, Or you don’t matter to yourself. that does not define who you are. You are part of a larger story.
The book of Revelation, from the beginning to the end, does not hide Christ’s victory. It is never in doubt. There is not a moment when it seems like the forces of wickedness are going to prevail. They are ultimately impotent compared to the power of God in Jesus Christ. The drama of faith is not found in the destination but in the journey. We all know where we are going to end up. Not what it is going to look like to get there. For that, we are given images upon images upon images. We have glimpses to see of what the presence of God is like.

The drama is not found in our future but in our present. And how we are going to take our understanding of our future with God and live our life now. Live a life of hope. Live a life of peace. Live a life of love. From about 390, some Christians have read Revelation not as centered about us  s them but as the struggle within the human heart. Is our heart set towards Babylon or towards the one who sits upon thrown? This is not a way to get out of responsibility but puts more on us. Let us live a heavenly life now and not wait around.  Don’t accept Jesus tomorrow. Accept him today. Don’t ask for mercy tomorrow. Seek it today. Don’t forgive tomorrow. Forgive today.

## Holiness
Live a life of holiness. To be holy means to be set apart. It can be a simple, a simple word. I am set apart from you in the congregation.

What is set apart in your life? What is holy? Christ includes us in this story of redemption. Let us participate fully. Let us not stand on the sidelines. Let us jump in with all that we have.

Let us jump in with our prayers. Let us jump in to life with God with our prayers knowing that God wants to have conversation with us. Let us jump in with our presence with being present for other people. With being as concerned for other people as for ourselves. With being present to fulfill the commitments of our life. With being unafraid of making new commitments because we don’t need to be afraid because God is looking out for us. Let us jump in with our gifts. With our spiritual gifts as well as the gift of generosity. As the gift of giving financially to what matters in our life. Of the gift of not building up storehouses in this life because we realize that they do not ultimately protect us.

Let us jump in with our service. With our willingness to serve others for God. Let us jump in with our willingness to receive service from others. Peace from others. And let us jump in with our witness. With our willingness to point to the one who sits on the throne. Not the conqueror. Not the emperor. Not the president. Not the CEO. Not even the bishop, the lamb that was slain. Jesus Christ. Who has won this victory. Who has offered his life for you. that you can life fully and hopefully now. Now that we together can sing Holy, Holy, Holy now. And that this little mustard seed is going to grow. And that our life, even when we feel as insignificant as a mustard seed, is going to grow because God is with us.

Let us pray,

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for revealing your love in the life of Jesus and the resurrection love of our future with God, offered to us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


site: sermons

title: Who Suffered Under Pontius Pilate

author: Wilson Pruitt

church: bee-creek-umc

themes: apostles-creed suffering-servant faith-and-science biblical-authority power-in-weakness witness-and-martyrdom

text:
**Scripture:** Isaiah 53:2-8; John 20:30-31; 2 Timothy 3:16; Luke 2:1-2
**Series:** 2022

> An All Saints' Day sermon in a series on the Apostles' Creed, focused on the phrase 'suffered under Pontius Pilate.' Using Isaiah 53's suffering servant and a detailed biography of Pilate, Pastor Wilson argues that the incarnation is rooted in concrete secular history—especially military history. He confronts the discrepancies between Luke's census account and Roman records to argue faith rests not on one-to-one historical verification but on the crucifixion and resurrection; making faith depend on verification puts faith in technique rather than God. He contrasts a falsely desired conquering, 'manly' Jesus (citing Andrew Tate) with the Christ who, though more powerful than Caesar, willingly chose weakness and loss, because victory in battle would mean defeat for our souls. Christians are called not to conquer but to witness, as the saints did.

**Illustrations:** family-military-service-history, ukraine-kharkov-offensive, alexander-hannibal-caesar-battles, pontius-pilate-biography, luke-quirinius-census-discrepancy, house-of-cards-faith, andrew-tate-weak-jesus, conquering-generals-roster

---

# November 6
## who suffered under Pontius Pilate,
### All Saints’ Day

He grew up like a young plant before us, like a root from dry ground. He possessed no splendid form for us to see, no desirable appearance. He was despised and avoided by others; a man who suffered, who knew sickness well. Like someone from whom people hid their faces, he was despised, and we didn’t think about him. It was certainly our sickness that he carried, and our sufferings that he bore, but we thought him afflicted, struck down by God and tormented. He was pierced because of our rebellions and crushed because of our crimes. He bore the punishment that made us whole; by his wounds we are healed. Like sheep we had all wandered away, each going its own way, but the Lord let fall on him all our crimes. He was oppressed and tormented, but didn’t open his mouth. Like a lamb being brought to slaughter, like a ewe silent before her shearers, he didn’t open his mouth. Due to an unjust ruling he was taken away, and his fate—who will think about it?

Isaiah 53:2-8a

I have never served in any armed forces. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone here. I have cousins who both served in the Navy and Air Force. My father-in-law was in the IDF during the Lebanon conflict. Both my grandfathers both served in World War II: one in Europe and the other at Iwo Jima, because he had a German last name.
My great-Grandfather served in World War I in France. I have family members on both sides of the Civil War and family members in the Revolutionary War. I could probably trace a few back to the English Civil War and the wars of Spanish succession, if I was really eager.

Despite my lack of service, i have always been very fascinated with military history, with the direct conflict between powers, between the different levels of strategy and tactics. I love reading Sun-Tzu and Musashi and Clausewitz.

Anytime you really engage with military history, going back even to what is going on right now in Ukraine in the Kharkov offensive  that took place last month, where the Ukrainians were able to break the lines of the Russians and have this salient and spearhead that they were able to use. You can take that language and go back to battles fought 30 years ago, 50 years ago, a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, 300 years ago, 2000 years ago. You can make connections to Alexander the Great and Hannibal at the battle of Cannae, to Scipio Afticanus and Marius and Sulla and Julius Caesar and the Roman Legions.
Because humans have fought each other across the centuries, most of the historical record, most of the history we have actually is the history of these battles.
This was history. In these accounts of the militaries, we have the Romans ruling a large part of the Western world for hundreds of years. This is history. And in the middle of the Apostles Creed, there is an encounter between this great statement of Christian faith and Roman history. In this small phrase, Jesus suffered under Pius pilot.

## Series Intro
My friends, we are continuing our series on credo, on what to believe as a Christian, what Christians believe as seen through the Apostles creed that we have.

Today the words, he suffered under Pontius Pilate. This part of the creed addresses two major concerns: history and suffering. We see both history and suffering in Isaiah 53, the song of the suffering servant. Jesus will come not to conquer but to suffer for us. He will not be handsome but unremarkable and sick, but let’s get back to the creed and look at who was Pilate?

Records of Pilate are found in many sources across the ancient world, but we don’t actually know is first name. Pilate was cognomen or third name, which was usually a nickname of sorts or designated a branch of a family. The word Pilate may have referred to someone of prowess with a Javelin, it could be the person mentioned in the creed or a parent or relative. Pontius was a family name of the equestrian class, the minor nobility of Rome. Most governors of Judea were equestrians. The Pontius family is from Samnium in southern Italy and goes back many centuries.

Pilate had some sort of military career before becoming governor, because that was a requirement of the post. It was probably on the frontier around the Rhine river or the Danube.

Pilate was the fifth governor during the reign of Emperor Tiberius and he reigned for 10 years, from around 26 AD to 36 AD. As prefect, Pilate had a mostly military role, but he also served as the judicial administrator for the area and was able to appoint the high priest of the Temple.

Going over ancient biography can seem quite dull, but the particularity of Pilate matters. When Christians' claim that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate, the claim is that the incarnation, God becoming human in Jesus Christ, is not just in our hearts, but in the deepest historical reality.

We find the person of Pontius Pilate in a myriad of secular histories. We have Pilate in the Gospels. We have Pilate in the creed. This is not always the case with figures and events in the Bible. The Bible and secular histories that don't merge perfectly. Just as an example, Roman and Jewish history and the beginning of the gospel of Luke, the birth narrative, don't merge perfectly. Finding the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria, Herod the Great was king, and Augustus was Caesar, and a census took place is difficult. Herod the Great died in 4 BC. Herod’s successor was deposed in 6 AD and Augustus named a Roman Governor, Quirinius. Quirinius administered a census in Judea, not Galilee, so it wouldn’t effect people living in Galilee. There were no Empire wide censuses during the reign of Augustus. As well, a census functioned then as it does today. It is a count. You don’t have to go to your parents house or your families town for a census.

So this history is not perfect. It does not line up one to one. There have been Christians over the years who have done acrobatic feats of interpretation in order to make Luke’s account line up with secular historical record, but it does not.

Does any of this make the Bible wrong or inaccurate or false? By no means, because the hinge of the gospel, the hinge of the good news of Jesus Christ is not based on the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, but the end. It is based on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is based on this encounter between divine history and secular history in Jesus' suffering under Pontius Pilate. The precise date of Christ's birth wasn't recorded because precise dates of births weren't important in the Jewish faith. It was when you were circumcised that mattered and even then it, it just wasn't a huge deal for the record books.

The hinge of the gospels is not in the one to one verification of every moment, but in this resurrection of Jesus Christ, in this encounter with the world and this willingness of the God-man to suffer under Pontius Pilate. And this gets to the question of what is our faith in: is our faith in a one to one verification of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation? Is our faith a house of cards wherein one card shifts and the whole tower crumbles? And I am not talking about literal interpretations here. Literal just means the letters and the letters of Scripture matter and I take them seriously. I'm asking if we need every moment in the Bible to be verified outside of the Bible according to modern historical techniques, then our faith is in those modern historical techniques. Our faith is in the verification. It's not in God.

Now, this may open up a Pandora's box for some people. “Well, what are we supposed to believe?  Pastor Wilson is not saying the Bible is un-true.” I do not make that claim at all. People hear what they want to hear, but I am not making that claim. I believe the Bible is not God breathed and sufficient for salvation with the words of second Timothy. I believe in the words of the end of the gospel of John in chapter 20 of John, that if all the words, all the acts of Jesus were written down, it would fill all the books in all the world. And yet these were written down so that you may have life, and have it abundantly. These words are here for a reason, for a purpose, for you to have life in God. And in this modern world, there's a question of what we believe in, and this is why the creeds matter.
This is why believing in the right God matters and not in an idol. The source of Scripture is God like the source of a river is its spring. The Bible is not a history textbook but the word of God. The Bible connects with secular histories in particular places, and the deepest place it connects is with Pontius Pilate.
Jesus lived in our history, encountered our history, the depths of the most concrete history we have, which is military history.
Pontius Pilate was a military governor. He was not an economic governor. He was responsible for the Roman army in Roman Palestine, making sure the Persians didn't attack.
Under Pontius Pilate, Jesus suffered for us in the encounter with the secular world. The Son of God did not triumph in a military way. This isn't a Trojan horse kind of thing. He suffered. He took it even though he didn’t need to. God's power was greater than Caesar's power. But instead of overpowering Caesar in the conventional way, instead of taking the life of Pontius Pilate, Jesus took that suffering, took that pain for us. Because victory in battle would have meant defeat for our souls. Defeat in battle meant victory for our souls.

Isaiah 53, the song of the suffering servant, shows us that Christ comes in history in this most unlikely of ways. The prophet writes, “He was despised and avoided by others; a man who suffered, who knew sickness well.”

Some people wish for a Jesus that didn't suffer under Pontius Pilate. Some people wish for a Jesus that was confident, that was masculine, that conquered Caesar by the sword, that conquered the Pharisees by the sword, that gave them what they deserved explicitly. Some people wish for a Jesus that triggered the Pharisees, but that is not the Jesus of the Bible.
That is not the Jesus of Christianity.

The social media guru Andrew Tate recently said he thinks Islam is better than Christianity because Jesus isn’t strong enough. Jesus isn’t manly enough for him. Christians don’t fight enough.

Are you willing to worship a savior who suffered for you, who was weak for you? Who in a moment when he could have been strong, chose to be weak, chose to suffer? In the encounter with historical reality, chose to lose? Our God does not look like Alexander the Great or Hannibal or Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Robert E. Lee or Grant or Blackjack Pershing or George Patton or Admiral Nimitz. Our God is a God who came face to face with historical power and willingly lost even though he didn't need to. He was able to lose. Our faith is that in this moment of loss and suffering, God's truth is revealed. In this encounter with the historical world, God does not need to conquer in order to save us. The Christian encounter with the world is not about conquest, but about submission. It is about witness to a world that is greater.

This is why we celebrate All Saints Day. We remember the saints in our church and in our life who witnessed to a world that is greater. The saints who showed us how to love, and to suffer gracefully, how to care, and how to die.

We do not need to defeat the world. Christ has the victory. We don’t need to conquer the Caesars and Pilates and Bully’s we face, Christ has won the victory in history. We are called not to conquer but to witness to Christ by having faith in Him and showing that faith by how we live our lives.

Let us pray,
Heavenly Father, you did not see fit to love us from afar but came down in history so that we might have life abundant. Bless us in our own history to seek first your kingdom and not the kingdom of the world. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sometimes life is full of joy and praise (hallelujah!)
Other times are filled with crying days (Lord, have Mercy).
When i am sad and nothing looks alright (Maranatha)
I know Jesus has been there long weeping nights (Come Lord Jesus).

Je-sus wept, and Jesus cried.
Under Pontius Pilate, Jesus suffered and died.
To be with us, in sad or happy times.
Under Pontius Pilate, Jesus suffered and died.

method: authored, not translated

license_apparatus: CC BY-NC 4.0


themes: incarnation apostles-creed theotokos faith-and-science mary-says-yes salvation-and-transformation

text:
**Scripture:** Isaiah 7:13-14; Judges 12:5-6
**Series:** 2022

> Part of a series on the Apostles' Creed, this sermon expounds the line 'conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary' from Isaiah 7:13-14. Pruitt opens with the Hebrew translation debate dramatized in Guy Ritchie's Snatch, clarifies the Catholic Immaculate Conception versus Jesus's conception, and refutes empiricist objections (Hume) by framing the virgin birth as a singular, unrepeatable miracle of God entering the world as a vulnerable infant. He defends Methodist orthodoxy via Article 2 of the Articles of Religion, argues that denying the virgin birth usually accompanies denying the resurrection, and closes on Mary's faith: chosen not for works or status but because she said yes, modeling how ordinary, limited humans can bear God and be transformed.

**Illustrations:** snatch-antwerp-hebrew-translation, almah-virgin-or-young-woman, franco-harris-immaculate-reception, hume-against-miracles, 23andme-jesus-dna, shibboleth-judges-bridge, umc-clergy-group-chat-virgin-birth, faith-as-social-club

---

# October 30
## Who was conceived from the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary

Then Isaiah said, “Listen, house of David! Isn’t it enough for you to be tiresome for people that you are also tiresome before my God? Therefore, the Lord will give you a sign. The young woman is pregnant and is about to give birth to a son, and she will name him Immanuel.
- Isaiah 7:13-14

The Guy Richie movie, Snatch, is about a few small time thieves in London. They get into the big time when a diamond thief comes to town with an enormous diamond he stole from Antwerp. Now, there are not a lot of scenes from Snatch that I could show on Sunday morning. Not a lot of scenes that don't have blood or incredibly graphic swearing going on. What is interesting is that the movie begins in Antwerp between two people whom we assume are Hasidic Jews, who are talking about what Christians get wrong about the Hebrew Bible. It is a funny conversation. It's a conversation you might imagine that two Hasidic Jews would be having as they're going into a diamond repository. It hinges on the translation of a Hebrew word in Isaiah seven that we have here.
הָעַלְמָ֗ה
Christians often translate the word as virgin. In Hebrew it could be virgin or young woman.
In the movie, this ambiguous translation issue is framed as this gotcha moment. It's like, “Oh, these incredulous Christians, they don't even know Hebrew. They can't translate it. What are they doing?”

The reality is that, in the ancient world, if you were a young woman who was not a virgin, you would be referred to by a different name then the one spoken of in the prophet Isaiah. Yet, even still, what's the deal with the virgin birth? Seems a little bizarre. Why is this going on?

## Series Intro
My friends, we are continuing our series on the apostles creed, the historic doctrinal statement of the faith. We are going to look at how the creed encapsulate scripture and offers it to us in a way that shows us what has been revealed from God about who God is, how the world is, why we are in need, how Jesus saves us, and what we should do about it.

Two weeks ago, we talked about, I believe in Jesus Christ, His only son, our Lord, and how the Lordship of Christ and the sonship of Christ can shape us today. Today, it is “who is conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.” So we have the conception of Jesus and the virgin birth.

Now, one of the things that a lot of Protestants get wrong about Catholic belief concerns what’s called the immaculate conception. Not the Immaculate Reception, when Franco Harris amazingly caught the game-winning touchdown in the 1972 playoffs to defeat the Raiders, the immaculate conception. it's a high holy day for Catholics, December 8. And sometimes Protestants assume that the immaculate conception is about Jesus and the conception of Jesus.  It's not. It is the Catholic doctrine that Mary was immaculately conceived without sin or the stain of original sin, which allowed her to be the God bearer, to be the mother of Jesus. The conception of Jesus is celebrated at what is called the Annunciation of Mary, March 25, nine months before Christmas.

So we are not talking about the immaculate conception in the creed when we say: “he was conceived by the Holy Spirit”: what is going on here?

First of all, the Holy Spirit doesn't have sperm. Just gonna lay that out there. It's really important. The conception of Jesus Christ and the virgin birth is not this assumption that Mary had relations of a kind with a spirit or a ghost. A spirit is a nonmaterial being that cannot take up space. A spiritual conception that would be in anyway analogous to physical conception is contradictory.

Jesus doesn't have a genetic father that is the spirit. If we did a 23andme on Jesus, it wouldn’t have any of Joseph’s DNA, nor the Spirit’s DNA. Genetics and blood relations weren’t important in the ancient world. Your name was. This is why the Gospel of Matthew starts with a genealogy of Joseph. Not because of the genetic connection, but because of the covenantal connection of the names. No man co-operates in the incarnation of Jesus. It is God through Mary.

Now, one of the ways that the virgin birth has been discounted or diminished in Christian history is because it is unlikely to have occurred naturally. The 18th century philosopher, David Hume, wrote against miracles. And one of the miracles that he wrote against was the virgin birth. And part of it is that he had never seen it happen before. It's not empirically proven. So, okay, that is an argument that people make.
To prove something empirically is to be able to repeat it. One of the claims of the virgin birth is that this is an unrepeatable event.
This encounter between the Holy Spirit and humanity, this conception by the Holy Spirit of the Son of God into human form, the incarnation of God, the enfleshedness of God; it can only happen once. This isn't Jesus shapeshifting into a human form. The Son of God, the logos of God, out of which all things were created, has no physical shape or form outside of this moment.
And the quest to discover by what natural capacity Mary could conceive of a child by the third person of the trinity is impossible. Even if we had a time machine, and could go back to the moment of the Annunciation when the Angel Gabriel came to Mary. If we could just be there, have X-rays, have an ultrasound machine and watch the physical conception of the zygote of Jesus Christ within Mary's womb, it would not answer the question of how the Holy Spirit conceives Jesus.
This is an article of faith that has been revealed to us, not by empiricism, not by reason, only by God working through the scriptures to show us the reality of who Jesus is. That Jesus is not a son who was adopted but conceived from the beginning by the Holy Spirit, and then born of the Virgin Mary.

In opposition to folks like Hume, some Christians use the virgin birth is kind of this litmus test to see whether or not you believe in the supernatural activity of God. This is honestly where I mostly see it or hear it discussed. In videos or articles shared about how the methodist church doesn’t believe in the virgin birth anymore. This is a disprovable lie. Our doctrinal Articles of Religion, which cannot be changed, says in Article 2 that

>The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin;

The virgin birth is used as a shibboleth like in the Book of Judges where it was tested at bridge crossing to see if people were from the right tribe.

The virgin birth is much more than a litmus test or a shibboleth. I don’t personally know any pastors who deny it. I was in a group chat on my birthday with a bunch of UMC clergy talking about how awesome the virgin birth is. There are 30,000 methodist churches in the US, I’m sure you can find someone who does deny it, but I don’t know them.

Even still, people who don't believe in the virgin birth, usually also don't believe in the resurrection. Ultimately, in a crass way, for them, faith is a social club. It is nice to be together and do kind things and sing lovely songs, but if Jesus isn’t the son of God, why are we here? If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, we all have a lot of better things we could do with our time. Let us eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.
But if you believe in the resurrection, what really is keeping you from believing in the virgin birth? The internal logic of empiricism already denies the possibility of this event. But the internal logic of empiricism denies a lot of human activity. It denies the actual love between you and your children, between you and your spouse.

I’ve shared a little about why I think arguments against the virgin birth don’t hold water. But I wanna say as well, why it's important and why we should believe that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin married in the first place.

If Jesus really is God, if Jesus really is the second person of the Trinity, the son of God, and he really takes the form of human flesh in the incarnation, that cannot occur by normal means. God doesn't enter the world by fiat, by just saying this is so. In fact, God enters the world, the creator of everything enters the world as a vulnerable mass of needs. This is the miracle of Christmas

And to make this possible itself is a miracle. God becoming human is a miracle. It is the cracking of the fabric of the natural world through which God enters.
To say I believe in Jesus Christ who is conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary is to make a claim about who God is and to make the claim laid out in Isaiah seven that God is for us in Jesus Christ. The angel gabriel doesn’t highlight Mary’s virginity but her belief. She is chosen because she says yes to God. She is who she, a virgin betrothed to Joseph, but it is not by works that she is chosen but by faith.
God entered the world of the flesh, this world of sin, this world in need, in the only way that would allow us to be saved from our sins. God entered into the world in the fullness of human freedom, and in the limitations of human freedom. It is the freedom of the gracious God. “The flesh, what is human, becomes free to be assumed into that unity with the Son of God only through the Holy Spirit, not through its own capacity.”[^1] We cannot, on our own, unite with God and be healed of sin. We need grace to enter the world in a particular way, at a particular time, with a particular person.
Ultimately, to claim that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary is to claim that Jesus actually has the power to save us. That Jesus is worthy of worship, that Jesus is not like just another wise teacher and that encountering Jesus Christ, whether on the mountain top, on Sunday morning or in the dark night of the soul, encountering Jesus Christ is going to change your life.

And the question always comes back to: do you want to change your life? Are you satisfied with where you are? Are you satisfied with your needs, with your expectations, with the easygoing nature of the usual thing? Or are you ready to respond to the same Holy Spirit which conceived Jesus?
That spirit is with us today and that spirit is with you and for you this day. One of the most powerful things about Mary bearing Christ is that it shows us that we humans, we non-divine humans, like Mary, can also bear God, even with our limitations.
God saw us as worthy of salvation. God saw our flesh as capable of bearing Jesus. To claim, “I believe in Jesus Christ who is conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary” is a radical claim about the possible transformation of each of our lives.

That we can become finished in Christ, we can become complete in Christ.

Mary was beloved by God not because of any great physical attributes, but because she believed. She was chosen by God and she said yes. The angel did not come at a convenient time or to a convenient person. The paragon of human perfection is not a great warrior or king or politician or entrepreneur, but a young woman, a virgin. She is not an influencer or a celebrity but a child from a podunk town who received the call of God and said, Yes.

We can all hope and strive to be like Mary and have the courage and faith to say a radical Yes to God that changes everything in our life and everything in the world.

The all powerful God, who created heaven and earth, did not see our weakness as something to be avoided, but instead became weak and human like us because we are worthy of it. You are worthy of it. And so God is worthy of praise. We thank God for this miracle of the conception of Jesus Christ. We thank God for this miracle of the virgin birth that shows us that even I, even you are loved, are forgiven, are offered new life and a chance to say Yes.

Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, in the midst of so much confusion in this world, you offer us hope. You offer us hope and yourself and in your son Jesus Christ, whose entry into the world through Mary saves us and gives us life.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

[^1]: Barth, Credo, 70.


title: Aldersgate

themes: conversion aldersgate assurance-of-salvation confirmation repentance sacrificial-love transformation

text:
**Scripture:** Acts 2:14; Acts 2:36-41; Mark 1:4
**Series:** 2023

> An Easter-season sermon launching a series on Acts ('What do we do now?'), preached on Confirmation Sunday with a baptism. Drawing on Peter's Pentecost call to 'change your hearts and lives,' Wilson frames conversion as metanoia—a change of mind, not mere emotion or logic—fulfilled in Christ the logos. He parallels Pentecost with Wesley's Aldersgate experience of assurance: grace cannot be earned, and God, not the believer, is the agent in baptism (so baptism is not polish that grackles can ruin). Confirmation lets the infant-baptized claim faith through the bold renunciation questions. The life offered is one of self-sacrifice rather than self-protection (as Peter learned at the cross), available to all regardless of origin. Closes with the Aldersgate Sunday prayer for hearts warmed at the altar fires.

**Illustrations:** having-first-child-changes-everything, peru-sand-hill-call-to-ministry, thanks-bob-change-your-heart, kafka-gregor-samsa-cockroach, mind-changing-meme, wesley-aldersgate-warmed-heart, car-polish-grackles

---

# April 30, 2023
## Aldersgate
### Acts 2:14,36-41

Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, “Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words “Therefore, let all Israel know beyond question that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” When the crowd heard this, they were deeply troubled. They said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter replied, “Change your hearts and lives. Each of you must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is for you, your children, and for all who are far away—as many as the Lord our God invites.” With many other words he testified to them and encouraged them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” Those who accepted Peter’s message were baptized. God brought about three thousand people into the community on that day. Acts 2 :14,36-41

One of the most universal forms of advice that people give couples who are about to have their first kid is that everything is going to change. Get ready. It's all going to change. How you may ask, all of it. You will be a completely different person. But can you explain it? No, I cannot explain it.

Your life changes after having a child, but it is not the only life change. Your life changes after leaving home for the first time. In some ways that are clear, and in some ways that are not clear. Your life changes after falling in love. Your life changes after a breakup or a divorce. Your life changes after grief or loss or terminal ailment. Your life was going one way and then it's going a different way.

My life was going one way when I went to college. It went a different way after I received my call to ministry. After I went to Peru and talked about Jesus to the indigenous folks who were coming in from the rainforests to the outskirts of Lima and the favelas there. I remember running up a hill of sand and feeling God's love and feeling that my ambitions before that time were suddenly dust, they were nothing, they were like the sand I was standing on, and that God was calling me to serve his people wherever they were.
My life changed directions. I believed in God and loved God before that moment, but my life changed directions. It was my Aldersgate Moment.

At Pentecost, Peter shares about the changed hearts of the people and their hearts actually change. They become new people.
At Aldersgate, John Wesley, the stodgy young church of England priest who had failed to convert the Native Americans, felt his heart strangely warmed and felt that God loved even him.
## Serious intro.
In the season of Easter, we're going to take the time to look through the beginning of the Book of Acts where the disciples are left with the question:What do we do now?
For Bee Creek United Methodist Church, that is the season that we are in: What do we do now? And as we worship together over the next few weeks, I want us to be praying and thinking through and responding actively to God's movements as we not only ask this question, but answer this question, what do we do now?

Today, Conversion and Aldersgate

Very few of us enjoy being told to change our hearts and our lives.
“You know what you should do, Wilson? You just need to change your heart and your life, and then everything will be better. Okay?”
“Thanks Bob.”
There's a natural human reaction to that form of judgment.
We each need to find our own space to receive that call to change. That's why conversion is metanoia, the Greek word for conversion is similar to the term metamorphosis. Like the beginning of Franz Kafka's, the metamorphosis. Gregor Sansa woke up and found himself a giant cockroach.
Metamorphosis is a change of your body. Metanoia is a change of your mind. Your noos. If conversion in the Bible was just about the soul and not the mind, the word would be metapsyche. But it is not. Metanoia is often translated as repentance as well. In Mark 1:4, when John the Baptist proclaims a baptism of repentance, he is proclaiming metanoia.

I don’t know how often you have seen someone’s mind changed. Not just about religion but anything. Sports, politics, favorite foods.

This photo has been turned into a meme. For me, the absurdity of it is that actually changing our minds is rather difficult. Logical debate only goes so far. Conversion, repentance in the Bible, is not the result of logic. That doesn’t mean it is illogical, just that there is an extra step filled in by the source of actual logic, Jesus Christ. The logos. The word made flesh. Logic is fulfilled in a person, God with us.

## Pentecost
At Pentecost, a change took place with the many people of Jerusalem. Peter had shared his message of revival, who was excited for the possibilities, but it wasn't just an entertaining speech for people to go back to what they were doing before.
No, he said, “change your hearts and your lives. And you know what happened? Their hearts and lives changed. Their minds changed.

## Wesley
When John Wesley returned to England after his failure in Georgia, he didn't really know what God had in store for him. He tried different things, but they were unsatisfying. He was a member of some societies, but they didn't quite fit the bill. until one night, late in May of 1738, John Wesley was at an evening prayer service at St.
Paul's Cathedral in London. Then he went to a society meeting with a reading from Martin Luther's preface to the letter to the Romans, and as he left, he was on Aldersgate road in London. It is still a road today. John Wesley felt his heart strangely warmed.
He was warmed by Grace. He was more warmed by an assurance of grace. He couldn't earn his salvation. He couldn't make God like him. He was already surrounded by love.

## Confirmation
Today is confirmation Sunday day where we confirm together the faith of young people who have decided to follow Jesus. There will also be a baptism. That's why we got the tank here.

We confirm people in the Methodist tradition so that those people who are baptized as infants can accept faith for themselves. We baptize infants because the Bible says that whole families were baptized. Families include children. It doesn't say the parents were baptized or only the older kids were baptized, but families were baptized. There's nothing in scripture that excludes children from baptism. In fact, baptism, the central actor in baptism is not the person, the child, the adult, the believer is not the one doing the action or performing the act. It is God. God is the agent in baptism and God doesn't change. God doesn't make a mistake. So when we baptize a child, God doesn't make a mistake. A baptism isn't like polishing a car, where even if you do a great job of polishing your car, if you park under a colony of grackles, they totally mess up the polish. You wouldn't even notice that the car had been clean before.
No. Baptism is not a wash job for your soul. Not is it a guarantor that later in life the baptized person will not make bad decisions. Baptism doesn't turn people into holy robots who no longer err or sin. Sometimes we present it in this kind of way. You talk about, oh, I don't know if the baptism really stuck.
Again, it's not polish, it's not a new set of clothes. It is a life that has been buried in Christ's death and risen in Christ's life. God is the one who baptizes. We offer confirmation to give opportunities for people who do not remember their baptism to confirm their faith, to answer the same strong questions, powerful questions.
There's some bite to these questions.

>On behalf of the whole Church, I ask you:
Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness,
reject the evil powers of this world,
and repent of your sin?

>I do.

>Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you
to resist evil, injustice, and oppression
in whatever forms they present themselves?

>I do.

>Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior,
put your whole trust in his grace,
and promise to serve him as your Lord,
in union with the Church which Christ has opened
to people of all ages, nations, and races?

>I do

These are not meek questions. They are asked parents at the baptism of their child, and they are asked of confirmands at confirmation.

Aldersgate was not the beginning of the Methodist movement. It really started in Oxford. It was small and they gathered together. Aldersgate is the confirmation of the Methodist movement, the confirmation of grace, that the grace of God is not limited by where you are from.
The Holy Spirit moves where it wills. And whether you come from a good family or not, whether you are wealthy or poor, a sinner or a saint, there's grace for you and you are worthy of it. And you can be assured that you are loved by God. Not only receive grace, but be assured of that grace. That you have done enough because there's nothing we can do. It is grace all the way down.
Aldersgate is a release of guilt, a letting go of guilt for the past and a step again to the future.

We can only let go of the past if we have repented of the past. Remember. Repentance in Greek is the same word as conversion. If we have repented, God is there with mercy. If there is something you need to repent of, do so. If there's someone whom you have harmed, seek forgiveness. But don't linger in guilt.
You are worthy of forgiveness. Christ assures you of that. You have new life in Jesus Christ. It is offered for you.

Peter was a logical man. This is why he denied Jesus. He was confronted by his own mortality and sought to protect it. Peter showed them limit of earthly logic that has the goal of self-protection and self-satisfaction . The cross changed him. Peter offers at Pentecost the life of faith that no longer has the goal of self-protection or self-satisfaction. It has the goal of self-sacrifice out of the love of Jesus Christ. That is what is offered at Baptism and confirmation. A new life with a new goal.

John Wesley’s life had a goal before Aldersgate and it changed. Whether you were confirmed today or not, your life can change. Your mind can change. Not just because of Logic, but because of Grace. The Grace that you are loved. The Grace that you are forgiven. The Grace that you are good enough to live the life of love Jesus shows us and teaches us in the love commandments. For those being confirmed, this is the life offered to you. A life where you can love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. For the rest of us, this life is also offered to us. Our past does not define us. It molds us, but it does not define us. We are all offered a chance to change our hearts, to repent, to convert, to go a new way as Peter did, as John Wesley did.

We're going to say a prayer together for this day. It is a prayer of Aldersgate Sunday, which is officially next month, but we can celebrate it early. Remember that powerful experience and remember that we can have a powerful experience of God too. God can move in our lives, too. We should be able to expect God's movement and assurance in our hearts,

Let us pray,
Almighty God, in a time of great need you raised up your servants John and Charles Wesley, and by your Spirit inspired them to kindle a flame of sacred love which leaped and ran, an inextinguishable blaze. Grant that all those whose hearts have been warmed at these altar fires, being continually refreshed by your grace, may be so devoted to the increase of scriptural holiness throughout the land that in this our time of great need, your will may fully and effectively be done on earth as it is in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.


title: Ash Wednesday

themes: repentance fasting hidden-piety forgiveness treasures-in-heaven bearing-fruit patience-as-faith

text:
**Scripture:** Matthew 6:1-21; Matthew 13:1-9; Matthew 5:48; Matthew 7:13-14
**Series:** 2023

> An Ash Wednesday homily built on Matthew 6's teaching against showy piety and on storing treasure in heaven, drawing heavily on Alexander Schmemann's Great Lent. The pastor frames Lent as liberation from enslavement to sin through fasting (freeing the spirit from the dictatorship of flesh) and forgiveness (breaking sin's division). He insists fasting is not a cleanse or self-improvement project but a means of growing closer to Christ by grace, warning that true fasting brings temptation and failure, and that the real test is starting over with patience rather than quitting after the first failure. Lent's purpose is to soften the heart for communion with God.

**Illustrations:** explaining-ash-wednesday-to-isaac, tilling-soil-for-costly-fruit, parable-of-the-sower, media-broad-way-vs-narrow-way

---

# Ash Wednesday

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Explaining Ash Wednesday to Isaac this morning

Repentance, above everything else, is a return to the genuine order of things the restoration of the right vision. -20

Sin is not only the transgression of a rule leading to punishment; it is always a mutilation of life given to us by God. (81)

Parable of the sower

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.” (Matthew 13:1-9)

It is costly to be tilled by God, but only then can we bear fruit.

When we till, we give up the easy plants for the costly ones. We give up the weeds for the fruit.

It is not easy, indeed, to reject a petty ideal of life made up of daily cares, of search for material good, security, and pleasure, for an ideal of life in which nothing short of perfect is the goal: “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” This world through all its “media” says: be happy, take it easy, follow the broad way. Christ in the Gospel says: choose the narrow way, fight, and suffer, for this is the road to the only genuine happiness. And unless the Church helps, how can we make that awful choice, how can we repent and return to the glorious promise given us each year at Easter?

Lent is the liberation of our enslavement to sin, from the prison of the world. The Gospel lesson from Matthew sets the conditions for that liberation.

1. fasting: the refusal to accept the desires and urges of our fallen nature as normal, the effort to free ourselves from the dictatorship of flesh and matter over the spirit.
2. forgiveness: The triumph of sin, the main sign of its rule over the world, is division, opposition, separation, hatred. Therefore, the first break through this fortress of sin is forgiveness: the return to unity, solidarity, love. To forgive is to put between me and my “enemy” the radiant forgiveness of God Himself.
(28)

“What then is fasting for us Christians? It is our entrance and participation in that experience of Christ Himself in which He liberates us from the total dependence on food, matter, and the world. (96)

The lenten fast is not a cleanse diet or an attempt at self-actualization. The goal is not to improve yourself but to grow closer to Christ as Christ's body the church.

We should not ignore the challenges of fasting nor speak glibly of it. And fasts aren't just for some people. We do not fast for God as a sacrifice to him. God gives us the fast for our own benefit. We don't earn our salvation, we experience grace.

After all this is said, one must still remember that however limited our fasting, if it is true fasting it will lead to temptation, weakness, doubt, and irritation. In other terms, it will be a real fight and probably we shall fail many times. But the very discovery of Christian life as fight and effort is the essential aspect of fasting. A faith which has not overcome doubts and temptation is seldom a real faith…Too many people start fasting with enthusiasm and give up after the first failure. I would say that it is at this first failure that the real test comes. If after having failed and surrendered to our appetites and passions we start all over again and do not give up no matter how many times we fail, sooner or later our fasting will bear its spiritual fruit. Between holiness and disenchanted cynicism lies the great and divine virtue of patience—patience, first of all, with ourselves. There is no short-cut to holiness. (98-99)

The purpose of lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to “soften” our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the Spirit, to experience the hidden “thirst and hunger” for communion with God.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Amen.


title: Credo: I Believe in the Holy Spirit

themes: holy-spirit apostles-creed trinity wesleyan-covenant-prayer fruit-of-the-spirit discernment sanctification

text:
**Scripture:** Psalm 143:10-11; Galatians 5:22; Galatians 5:19-21; Acts 7
**Series:** 2022

> A New Year's Day sermon in a series on the Apostles' Creed, focused on the line 'I believe in the Holy Spirit.' Pruitt untangles the word 'spirit' from cultural associations (school spirit, ghosts, New Year's spirits) to affirm the Spirit as fully God, the third person of the Trinity, present and at work in unseen ways. Drawing on Psalm 143 and Wesley's covenant prayer, he argues the Spirit is not a benign affirmer of our desires but a wild, revolutionary presence who transforms hearts, discernible by the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5) tested in community. Stephen's martyrdom models a faith so Spirit-formed it seeks God even to the point of death, and the sermon closes with the congregation praying Wesley's covenant prayer.

**Illustrations:** school-spirit-am-consolidated, spirit-halloween-ghosts, translucent-ghosts-tv-movies, big-sky-daddy, divine-megaphone-binitarianism, lover-beloved-love-between, wesley-covenant-prayer, martyrdom-of-stephen, refiners-fire, mary-magdalene-empty-tomb

---

# January 1
## Credo
### I believe in the Holy Spirit

Teach me to do what pleases you, because you are my God. Guide me by your good spirit into good land. Make me live again, Lord, for your name’s sake. Bring me out of distress because of your righteousness. - Psalm 143:10-11

Spirit is a funny word. I remember at my high school, A&M Consolidated in College Station, how we had spirit days on Fridays and always played ‘the eye of the tiger’ by Guns N Roses in between classes. That was a different spirit than the Holy Spirit. School spirit is about possessing a general positivity towards your school, cheering on the relevant team. Spirit Halloween pops up every year with costumes of all kinds. Spirits often refer to ghosts or dead souls.

Last night was New Year’s Eve, a date known for its spirits. The Holy Spirit is the the third person of the Trinity. What does this spirit have to do with any of the others?

## Series Intro
My friends, we are continuing our series on the apostles creed, that historic doctrinal statement of the faith. We are going to look at how the creed encapsulate scripture and offers it to us in a way that shows us what has been revealed from God about who God is, how the world is, why we are in need, how Jesus saves us, and what we should do about it.

Today, I believe in the Holy Spirit.

New Years is a fitting day to talk about the Holy Spirit. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, loved to say a special prayer on this day called the covenant prayer. It was for people to covenant with God for the next Year.

It starts with these words

“I am no longer my own, but yours.”

These are not the words of the new-you or me-time or self-care or a lot of other New Year’s resolutions. Something different is going on with the covenant prayer. And something different is going on in Psalm 143.

The scripture from Psalm 143 could be a fitting New Year’s resolution for any Christian.

>Teach me to do what pleases you, because you are my God. Guide me by your good spirit into good land. Make me live again, Lord, for your name’s sake. Bring me out of distress because of your righteousness.

I am going to come back to Psalm 143, but we need to start with this word spirit, because if we don’t understand what the creed means by Spirit, we limit ourselves in understanding how God acts through and by the Holy Spirit.

The King James Bible often translates the Greek, ieros pneuma, as Holy Ghost. Ghost or spirit refer to non material objects or substances. Ghost is a term that only recently has become connected to dead people, but it became that way because of the idea of a soul, which is non material, neither entering heaven or going to hell.  A lost soul of sorts. With television and movies, in order represent these souls, white or semi-translucent people were designed. But in books and other media, ghosts are invisible.

Spirits at Halloween or ghosts are described in such a way because they do not follow the basic physical laws of other material things. They are invisible yet present.

God is present and working in unseen ways. The God who works in unseen ways is fully God. This is the power of the Trinity and the uniqueness of the Christian faith. God is not just a big sky daddy controlling us, ordering us around, punishing us when we are naughty or nice. God is for us, here.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the word made flesh, is fully God and fully human. We are still celebrating the birth of Jesus and the amazing reality that God has come down to us. Some early Christians were Binitarians who believed Jesus was God but the Spirit was just a mode in which God acted, like a divine megaphone of sorts.

The Spirit is not simply a mode of God but fully God and this is amazing! God created everything from nothing. God created humans in the image of God, in the likeness of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. All of humanity is a reflection of the life of Christ which became fleshly and material at Christmas.

And God’s presence with us didn’t lesson or weaken with the ascension of Jesus Christ. God is with us fully in the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Comforter, the instructor. My favorite analogy of the Trinity is love. God the Father is the Lover. God the Son is Beloved. And God the Holy Spirit is the love between the Lover and the Beloved. That Love is present with us in the Holy Spirit. And the only way to see or understand the Holy Spirit is by faith.

God is with us fully. God is not with us metaphorically or in any way secondary to who God is. God is with us fully.

But God isn’t just with us to affirm whatever we want anyway. The Spirit moves in us to transform us and change us in ways that may be uncomfortable. The Spirit is mischievous and wild. I think one of the more challenging aspects of being a Christian is saving space for the Holy Spirit. That is, not planning or dictating everything about worship or the life of the church.

Some denominations talk a lot about being Spirit-filled. Pentecostal churches especially claim a special connection to the Holy Spirit and practices like speaking in tongues. Extemporaneousness is a virtue. Authenticity is found in being “Spirit-led.” And yet all these denominations or non-denominations are tranditioned. Even if they are quote-unquote not traditional. They are. There is nothing Christian that is not traditional or else it wouldn’t be Christian. Tradition means what is worth passing down. If you believe Jesus Christ is the only Son of God who died for your sins and rose again to give you life, you are following a tradition of the Good News that has been passed down since Mary Magdeline and the other Mary first noticed the empty tomb. They shared the word and it passed on to the Peter and John and they passed it on and others passed it on, generation after generation until we come to today.

The Good News of Jesus Christ is a tradition that has been passed down. But not everything that has been passed down in each generation is inherently good. That is, something is not valid because it is old but because it is valid. Something is not good because it is traditional but only if it is good. But how do we know whether something is good or old? We have the Bible, not as a dead book but the living word of God. We have the Creeds as the summation of Christian doctrine. We have our capacity to think and discern as people made in the image of God. And we have our experience of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The important word here is “our”. Christians can’t figure anything out alone. And the amazing thing is that God didn’t leave us alone. God is with us in the Spirit, which not only helps us individually, but gathers us together as the Church.

And we are not finished. Neither as individuals nor as a church. Some of you have been a part of churches in simpler times, but that didn’t mean the Holy Spirit was finished transforming people. We see the direction of transformation with the fruit of the spirit.

The fruits of the Spirit from Galatians are not static. They are dynamic. To have them is to be constantly changed by them.

>“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,”
Galatians 5:22 CEB

We know when the Spirit is present when these things take place. Likewise, we know when the Spirit is not present when the fruits of selfishness take place, from earlier in Galatians.

>“The actions that are produced by selfish motives are obvious, since they include sexual immorality, moral corruption, doing whatever feels good, idolatry, drug use and casting spells, hate, fighting, obsession, losing your temper, competitive opposition, conflict, selfishness, group rivalry, jealousy, drunkenness, partying, and other things like that. I warn you as I have already warned you, that those who do these kinds of things won’t inherit God’s kingdom.”
Galatians 5:19-21 CEB

A good tree bears good fruit. We hold to the presence of the Spirit through the fruit. In order to tell the fruit, we need other people. I can’t tell if I am loving by myself. I can’t really tell if I am patient.

The challenge is to not turn the Holy Spirit into an alter-ego of ourselves. That is, to not use the invocation of the Spirit to justify whatever we wanted to do anyway. It takes faith to discern the difference between our will and God’s will. I may be causing conflict but I tell myself I am being obedient. I may be competitive but I tell myself I am seeking faithfulness. Only God knows my heart and I must seek God with others so God can speak through them to let me know if I bear fruit of the spirit or selfishness.

Also, it takes faith because God’s will may look like something radically different from anything else you see in the world.

God’s will for you may not look traditional. One of the earliest traditions of Christianity was martyrdom. Witnessing to Jesus to the point of death. Stephen, one of the first deacons, was arrested for blaspheming in Acts 7. He took the opportunity to joyfully share the story of Jesus as revealed through the Old Testament while he was waiting to be stoned to death. Even at the point of death, he prayed for his executioners.

Do you have a faith like Stephen’s? Or more importantly, would you ever want a faith like Stephen’s? Would you ever desire a life that ends like that? It is a total waste of a life according to the world. It is a total waste if God doesn’t exist or if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. But if Jesus is Lord, then Stephen is not only an example but a goal to strive towards. And the Holy Spirit is a part of this. The same Spirit which taught Stephen about Jesus and comforted him at his trial, that Spirit is with us today. As we read Psalm 143 again in light of Stephen’s death, we may have a new respect for what please God.

>Teach me to do what pleases you, because you are my God. Guide me by your good spirit into good land. Make me live again, Lord, for your name’s sake. Bring me out of distress because of your righteousness.

To say I believe in the Holy Spirit is to have faith that God can transform our hearts and desires through God’s real and true presence with us. Converting our desire from one that fears sickness, fears poverty, fears death, into a heart that seeks God to the point of sickness, to the point of poverty, to the point of death.

The Holy Spirit is not a benign advocate but a revolutionary who causes the world to turn on a different axis, the axis of Jesus Christ. To believe in the Holy Spirit is to be open to revolutionary change within yourself that may lead to the loss of everything you used to love because all those things are seen as loss next to the light of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit will illuminate our lives to point out what is not love in us, that is, what in us needs to be burned away by the refiner’s fire of God’s love.

May you be willing to receive this fire that created the world, this fire that created the church at Pentecost, the fire that still spreads this day. May you be willing to pray the words of the covenant prayer together

>“I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by you or laid aside for you,
exalted for you, brought low for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.

>And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
You are mine, and I am yours. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”


title: Discipleship

themes: discipleship witness-and-martyrdom servanthood resurrection almost-christian holiness communal-worship

text:
**Scripture:** Acts 7:55-60; Acts 6:1-4; Acts 6:8-10
**Series:** 2023

> Opening a post-Easter Acts series asking 'What do we do now?', this sermon on Acts 7:55-60 presents Stephen, the deacon stoned for caring for widows and orphans and confessing Christ, as the model of true discipleship. Drawing on Wesley's 'The Almost Christian,' the preacher argues that Christian faith is not mere decency or moral behavior but holiness rooted in the truth of the resurrection, calling the congregation to follow Jesus down a windy path even to the foot of the cross, immoderate in love.

**Illustrations:** following-someone-before-gps, boss-who-made-bad-decisions, trusting-the-boats-captain, wwjd-bracelets, wesley-almost-christian, wall-of-being-decent, teacher-learning-to-die

---

# May 14, 2023
## Discipleship

But Stephen, enabled by the Holy Spirit, stared into heaven and saw God’s majesty and Jesus standing at God’s right side. He exclaimed, “Look! I can see heaven on display and the Human One standing at God’s right side!” At this, they shrieked and covered their ears. Together, they charged at him, threw him out of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses placed their coats in the care of a young man named Saul. As they battered him with stones, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, accept my life!” Falling to his knees, he shouted, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” Then he died. - Acts 7:55-60

One of the aspects of life that has been lost with the advent of navigation apps on our phones and in our cars, basically everywhere, is the act of following someone somewhere. Let us go back 15 years. You are in a group and someone says, “let's go here.” And then another says, “Oh, let me just follow you.”
 Now, in the good old days, when this was done, some people would lead others in very different ways. Some people would drive in a very conservative manner if someone was following them; always mindful of the person behind them; never taking a yellow light; never turning without being seen. Others would drive in a seemingly more reckless way, always racing through the yellow light, always going a little step further.
If you're driving behind someone and they make a turn, and then they make another turn, and they make another turn to the point that you question where you are going to begin with, how much longer are you going to keep following that person? At some point you have to stop and reassess what you are doing.

The last days of Jesus' life took a few turns that very few of his followers were expecting. First, the arrest and then the trial and the crucifixion; then the resurrection and his return. Imagine the disciples thought things would kind of just continue as they had been. It was great. And then it took another turn.
At Pentecost, the Spirit descended on the church. New disciples were made. They met and shared with one accord, and then it took another turn.
They realized that a group of people needed to be set aside to care for widows and orphans. They distributed food. They called these people deacons, which means servants, and they gathered a group of seven of them, and then the path turned again. Stephen, one of the first deacons, was offered a chance to deny Jesus, and he did not. And the Christian faith took another turn.
Jesus, when he called his disciples, said, follow me. The word disciple means student. A disciple is one who follows another through whatever turn that happens.
To be a Christian is to be a follower. In our world today, who wants to be a follower?
## Series intro.
In the season of Easter, we're going to take the time to look through the beginning of the Book of Acts where the disciples are left with the question:What do we do now?
For Bee Creek United Methodist Church, that is the season that we are in: What do we do now? And as we worship together over the next few weeks, I want us to be praying and thinking through and responding actively to God's movements as we not only ask this question, but answer this question, what do we do now?

Today, Discipleship.

I’m sure most of you have had bosses at some point in your life who made decisions that you disagreed with. You knew that it would turn out bad and it ended up turning out bad.
If we look at both Jesus and Stephen, it seems like the decisions that they made turned out bad. Like let's just look at it from a more objective perspective. Jesus comes, heals, preaches, loves, and they kill him for it.
Stephen brings water to widows and orphans. They stone him for it. From the point of view of an every day citizen of Jerusalem, the decisions of Jesus and Stephen both turned out bad. They would have had a much more productive life if they hadn’t done such and such.
If you're on a boat together in some way, you want to trust that the captain knows where they're going, what if they know where you're going, but it's not the place you think you're going. That's usually the issue with faith.
God never promises we're going anywhere save an end in God’s presence.  Over and over again, throughout the gospels, Jesus says that there will be suffering and persecutions, there will be division, and struggle. And yet we selectively hear the comfortable aspects of the life of faith.

In the end, it doesn’t come down to whether we like it or not but is this true or not? Is Jesus the son of God or not? Did Jesus rise from the dead or not? Because if he didn't rise from the dead, then none of it matters. And following him is just as good as following anyone. It's a nice set of moral values to pass along: be kind, don't steal, help people on the side of the road. But if Jesus did rise from the dead, and we're in the season of Easter, so it should be present on our mind, if Jesus did rise from the dead, then discipleship looks different, following looks different.
Most examples I've seen of following Jesus are much more of the moral leader-kind than of the Stephen kind. The What Would Jesus Do bracelets of my youth were about ethical behavior, not martyrdom. Sure, we have stories of Christians being persecuted across the world and that is dreadful. Remember, Stephen was a deacon. Stephen wasn't an evangelist. Stephen wasn't a preacher. Stephen was a deacon. Stephen was set aside to care for widows and orphans. He was ordained for this.

Acts 6 starts in this way.

>In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

Stephen was the first one called. Then later in chapter six

>Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia—who began to argue with Stephen. But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.

The wonders and signs Stephen performed had to do with caring for widows and orphans. He was stopped because he was caring for widows and orphans. And when asked why he was doing it, he confessed the whole story of Jesus Christ.
He starts with Abraham and tells the story of Israel and faith and meaning leading up to the promise fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

To follow Jesus is to rennarrate our lives in light of Jesus. This is what Stephen does in the face of the Sanhedrin. He doesn’t shy away. He was serving widows and orphans. The men in charge were offended by this and confront him and he doesn’t shy away. It isn’t about a series of truths or good morals. As one of my teachers once said,

>Look, if you need a series of truths to assure yourself that Jesus has been raised from the dead, worship that series, don't worship Jesus. So then you begin to see what a radical position you're in because that means there isn't any more primitive metaphysical claim than God, the father, raised Jesus from the dead, having previously raised Israel from Egypt. Now, that's how you've got to learn to narrate the world. And that is no easy matter among a people who think that Christianity gives your life meaning. I mean, your life just isn't that interesting. This is about learning to die.

Stephen was persecuted for living out his belief, for serving too much, for loving too much, for giving too much because Jesus rose from the dead, for being immoderate in his kindness, immoderate in his love because Jesus rose from the dead. He cared so much he was a threat to the civic order of the place. He cared so much for the widows and orphans. I think it also reminded the leaders that they weren't caring about the forgotten of the city.
There's a way that that Stephen was stopped as much because he was a deacon as because he confessed Jesus Christ as God. They go together. You cannot separate it.
Stephen wasn’t just trying to be a good person or find meaning in his life. He had the love of Jesus in his heart. He was trying to be holy. He was being set apart for God.

There's a line that all of us reach when we’re just trying to be a good person. For some of us, the line is further than others. When we're just trying to do good, we all hit a wall. That is Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhist, it doesn't matter your religion, you're all going to hit a wall of just being decent. The Christian faith is not about just being a good person because we all hit that wall.

John Wesley has this great sermon called the Almost Christian. It talks about the limits of just trying to be a good person. Going to church. Praying with your family. Giving to the poor. Doing the things. Wesley mentions how pagans do a lot of these things, and sometimes better than Christians.

He then compares the almost Christian to the altogether Christian. The difference is love and assurance. The love of God shed abroad on their heart and the assurance and confidence in Christ’s offering for us. This is seen with Stephen. He was confident enough in Christ’s love to offer mercy to even his persecutors at the moment of his death.

We should not be satisfied at the wall of being a decent person. I mean, we should try to get there and Lord knows a lot of us don't even get there, but we should not be satisfied there.
If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, it doesn't really matter. But if he did, we don't have to be satisfied there. We can give more of ourselves to others. We can share more of our life with others. We can share more of our life with our children.
We can give them more of a life than just keeping up with our neighbors, making sure we have the latest screens, the latest summer camps. Jesus called people together to do this thing called discipleship. It's a communal act centered around the person of Jesus Christ, the sharing of his word, the offering of his body and blood.
It's not just a thing up here, it's not just something you do at home. It's not just something you do in a small group. It's not just something you do at a breakfast. It's not just something you do at a retreat. It's not just something for the mountain. It's not just something for the valley. It is for the gathered people to hear the word proclaimed, to share the body and blood of Jesus Christ and to go forth as students, go forth as followers, go forth as children of God.

Jesus calls us to follow him and that path is windy. According to the world, it is absurd. Why follow Jesus if that path ends up like Stephen or it ends up like the cross?

Let us have faith in the path Jesus has for us. Let us be willing to follow even to the foot of the cross. Let us follow not by just being a decent person. Let us seek out to be holy. May God empty us of all but love.

Let us pray,

Heavenly Father, you offer us not just life, but abundant life. Help us to follow up even when life turns, because we trust you more than life itself. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


title: Easter

themes: death-and-resurrection vulnerability scripture-interpretation faith-over-fear bodily-resurrection identity-in-christ

text:
**Scripture:** Mark 16:1-8; John 20:24-27
**Series:** 2023

> An Easter sermon on Mark 16:1-8, the starkest and most hidden resurrection account, which ends abruptly with the women fleeing in terror. Pruitt argues Easter is not a cancellation or covering-over of the cross but its very meaning; faith looks through the cross to the love it reveals, so we must come to tears on Friday to know the joy of Sunday. Drawing on the women who came to anoint the body unwatched and on Jesus' hidden scars, he warns against masking our woundedness too completely, then proclaims the resurrection as a new bodily world and a new self: you don't have to be who you were yesterday, you can live unafraid because Christ has won the victory.

**Illustrations:** private-habits-when-unwatched, easter-dressed-up-vs-private-good-friday, fake-it-after-hard-night, jesus-hidden-scars-thomas, end-of-the-sopranos, mccabe-easter-meaning-of-cross

---

# April 9
## Easter

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they could go and anoint Jesus’ dead body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they came to the tomb. They were saying to each other, “Who’s going to roll the stone away from the entrance for us?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away. (And it was a very large stone!) Going into the tomb, they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right side; and they were startled. But he said to them, “Don’t be alarmed! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He isn’t here. Look, here’s the place where they laid him. Go, tell his disciples, especially Peter, that he is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you.” Overcome with terror and dread, they fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. - Mark 16:1-8

What are the things that you do when nobody is watching. Some  of the things may not be super hygienic. Farting, picking your wedgie, nose picking, popping shoulder zits. I mean, some of us do those things in public, but still...

What are the things that you do when nobody is watching. Are you more yourself or less yourself? That is, do you let yourself go or do you discover who you really are.

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome came to the tomb of Jesus when no one was watching. They didn’t do it for the disciples.

There are things that all of us do when we know others are watching. Different ways that we stand and we talk and we act. I think a lot of the Bible and its moral guidelines are to make sure that the distance between how we act alone and how we act with others is very small, but it's not completely eliminated. How you dress and prepare yourselves for being in public, on Easter Sunday, for example, is based on what you think the perception of others is. Even if you are intentional about not caring, that itself is a presentation to the world.
The distance between what we do alone and what we do in public, as well, is seen in the distance between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Easter's a done up day. We dress to the 9s. We have a flowering cross. We have easter eggs and family meals and familiar songs.
Good Friday is a Private affair. There are no Good Friday parties. Some of us worship together. Nobody says, happy Good Friday. How's your good Friday? Or, nobody at the office or the golf course says, what are ya’ll doing for Good Friday?

Sometimes when we're hurting, we can put a good face on a situation. You fake it till you make it. This is not pastoral advice. This is just what happens in life. If you have a really hard night. You try not to wear that hard night on your face the next day in everything that you do. Sometimes you can't hide it,
But there's still a desire when you are wounded to not just show your wounds to everyone who comes by. Beyond the issue of infection is total vulnerability.
I think it's interesting that after the resurrection, when Jesus comes to the disciples and Thomas is doubting what is going on, and Jesus shows him the scars, the scars weren't evident at first. They weren't obvious. Jesus wasn't walking around with these bloody holes in his arms and his side and his feet for all the world to see. He had to point them out. Even Jesus was not a wallowing mass of vulnerability.
God does not desire us to be a wallowing mass of vulnerability, but there can be this temptation to cover up our woundedness a little too much. It is the temptation to cover up Good Friday with Easter and claim Easter is something different from Good Friday.

>Easter is not a cancellation of the cross. It does not, in any important sense, celebrate anything different from the cross. It is the meaning of the cross. Of course, there are two events: a crucifixion, and, later, a rising from the dead. But these two events are part of a single story with a single meaning...

>Faith is not, though, a pair of rose colored spectacles for looking at the cross – as though we could forget that the cross is an instrument of torture and horror. Faith does not gloss over the cross or reinterpret it by wishful thinking. Faith, the celebration of Easter, is a looking further into the cross, seeing in and through it to the mystery of love, which is what it really is. It is not an alternative to the cross. We have to go through Good Friday to Easter. If we have not come to tears on Friday, we shall miss the mysterious joy of Easter.

Mark gives us the starkest view of resurrection. There is no upper room. There is no Emmaus road. There is no ascension. The whole account is hidden. All we have is the testimony of the women who come to clean the body of their rabbi when no one is watching. They tell us of a terrifying angel who says strange words

Don’t be alarmed! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He isn’t here. Look, here’s the place where they laid him. Go, tell his disciples

And the women flee in terror. The end. Gospel over.

Later Christians added an ending to line the book up with the other gospels. They wanted to wrap it up in a bow, but Mark has no time for it.

Throughout his Gospel, Mark sticks to the facts. The story builds and builds and builds until right before the Good News is actually shared for the first time. It’s like the end of the Soprano’s and we have to fill in the missing pieces.

But we have the key. It is all there already. We are the ones who were told the Good News that he has been raised! Jesus is alive! Everything that comes after this is secondary to this.

The resurrection offers us a new world that we can live into. There are many questions: what should I do now? How should I live? How should we treat each other? What happens if people hurt me? What is the church? How should it be organized? How should we worship Jesus? How should organize society? How should we reconcile those whoa are apart?

So many questions that we can easily skip over the answer given to us by the angel to the women.

Don’t be alarmed! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He isn’t here.

Easter is not different from the cross. The old testament is not different from the new. Our life today, though, is different from our life yesterday.

Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia!
Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia!

>The resurrection sets the seal on incarnation: it is not that God was man, but that God is man, a human, bodily, animal, alive with the battery life of God. Because this man Jesus carried his obedience and love to the point of excepting destruction (not just the torture of the cross, but death, and ending, a total failure), because of this, he has been raised up beyond death to love, which is the life of God. The resurrection of Jesus was the creation of the new, bodily world, the new way of being human, the new way of being bodily. The risen Jesus did not enter paradise. He is paradise. It is because our bodies share in this bodily life of Christ, it is because we belong to this bodily world, that we conquered death, that we are able to live not for ourselves, but by love, the love that Christ brings to us from God.

You don’t have to be who you were yesterday. You don’t have to live that kind of life. You don’t have to hide who you are. You were created by the God who is love for love. You were created for a purpose. The brokenness of this world makes us stray from that purpose but Christ has won the victory.

The angel says to the women, “Do not be afraid.” This is the Gospel. You can live unafraid.

Let us give thanks for Christ’s freedom this day. Let us live into that freedom from now on.

Let us pray,

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the mystery of Easter by which you save us from ourselves and love us into our true selves. May we let go of our path of self-destruction that led to the cross. May we quietly rise up in the early of the morning to follow you as the first evangelists did going to the tomb. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.