John 14:6
Second Sunday in Lent
4 March 2007
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
It is at Disneyland’s Fantasyland that one finds “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride,” the attraction that begins with the car you’re riding in smashing through a road block posted with a danger sign. After breaking through that road block, you soon realize why the road was blocked, why that danger sign was posted, as you experience a truly wild ride with twists and turns and bumps and near mishaps. “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” is truly a road of danger.
So also was the road of danger the road that both Jeremiah [Jeremiah 26:8-15] and Jesus [Luke 13:31-35] chose to walk in life.
Jeremiah got himself onto the road of danger after simply repeating what the Lord had commanded him to say. That is, after all, the job of a prophet. That’s actually even what the word “prophet” means: to speak on the behalf of someone else; not to carry your own message, but to carry the message spoken by someone else; simply being their mouthpiece; not adding to what they had to say and not subtracting from what they had to say. That’s what Jeremiah did and his action of serving as a prophet of the Most High God got him onto the road of danger. “This man must be sentenced to death because he has prophesied against this city.” That was the verdict pronounced against Jeremiah. Most people would have taken off running, but not Jeremiah. Instead Jeremiah walked that road of danger, telling the people, “Do with me whatever you think is good and right, but just know that even if you kill me, that won’t change what I’ve had to say. In fact, that action against me might even make matters worse.”
Jesus also got Himself onto the road of danger, also for simply doing what He had been sent to do. The Pharisees sent word to Jesus, “Herod wants to kill You.” Now that’s a line that Jesus had gotten used to. This was Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, the ruling king at the time of the birth of Jesus who had been visited by the Magi, the Wise Men, the king so threatened by the announcement about the birth of the King of the Jews that he gave orders for all the baby boys two years old and under to be killed [Matthew 2:16]. That action drove Mary and Joseph to flee to Egypt with the baby Jesus [Matthew 2:13-15]. This Herod Antipas had not fallen far from the tree of his father. He lived with the same fear, the same threat, the same worries. This Herod Antipas had already killed John the Baptist because John acted as a prophet and told him that he had done something wrong [Mark 6:14-29]. After “offing his head,” Herod turned his sights onto Jesus, believing that Jesus was John the Baptist come back to life.
That dangerous Herodian threat didn’t deter Jesus. In fact, much in the style of the prophet Jeremiah, Jesus stood firmly on the road of danger, setting His sights resolutely on Jerusalem, knowing that’s where He was being sent, that’s where His mission would be completed, that’s where He would suffer, that’s where He would die. Jesus was a prophet. The message He was carrying was Himself, “the Word become flesh” [John 1:14].
Before setting off for Jerusalem, though, Jesus cried a prayer over Jerusalem: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem [this repeating of the name “Jerusalem” is a common literary tool used to show compassion, to show endearment, to show love] ... how I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing...”
Talk about a road of danger to walk! Someone is willing to provide protection. Someone is willing to provide unity. Someone is willing to provide love. However, the intended object of that protection, that unity, that love decides they don’t need it and they don’t want it. They would rather fall from their own two feet than stand safely and securely under the wings of someone else.
That’s the same fierce independence we see today, isn’t it?
We as the people of God stand in this world with danger signs. At least we should be. It is our beholden duty to warn people like the prophet Jeremiah. It is our beholden duty to weep over people like Jesus. But so often we shy away from that beholden duty we have as the people of God because we don’t want to offend anyone and certainly because we don’t want to get ourselves onto a road of danger.
As fun as is Disneyland’s “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride,” it truly does us a great disservice because after breaking through that roadblock and after a relatively short few minutes of a harrowing ride, we come right back to the calm place where we started. Many people think the same thing about life in this world. They believe there is no need to believe in God. They believe there is no need to know or to believe in Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, who suffered and died to forgive sin. They believe there is no need to gather together with others in a place called “church,” this place established by God Himself as the place where He shelters and protects, the place where He pours out His love. So many people believe that while life may have bumps and unexpected twists and turns, in the end everything will turn out OK, everything will end calmly.
But that’s not the road of truth we looked at last week, is it? The road of truth taught us to say, “Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved” [Romans 8:13]. If that’s the message of the Truth proclaimed by God Himself, then the opposite must be just as true, that everyone who does not call on the Name of the Lord will not be saved, that everyone who independently decides to stand on their own are standing outside the heartfelt cry of Jesus.
Maybe you’re OK with that, but as your pastor, I am not OK with that. I am not OK with people walking their own road, with people risking eternity because they want to be independent in life, because church is too inconvenient, and because the people of God have condoned and coddled their walking their own road.
Jesus Himself said, “I have desired to gather you ... but you were not willing.” If we stand as the people of God as His modern day prophets, speaking His message instead of speaking our own message, it is not OK to let people walk their own road outside the people of God because is a very dangerous road, a road that doesn’t end calmly, a road that ends with eternal death and separation from God. To Jesus – don’t blame the simple messenger standing before you – there is no belief in Him outside His wings. Either we are willing to be gathered or we are not willing. There is no such thing as being gathered but outside the wings of Jesus on our own terms.
That message about the singularity of Jesus as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” [John 14:6], I realize, is not a popular message. It never was. It gets us as the people of God onto a road of danger where people get angry at us, they argue with us, they accuse us of not caring about people and their free will to believe what they want to believe. But, actually, it’s just the contrary. It’s because I do care – and I hope you also do care – about people that I am willing to walk that unpopular road of danger, speaking God’s Word clearly and accurately so that I might save some [1 Corinthians 9:22], entrusting myself under the same promise God made to Abraham, “Be not afraid ... I am your shield, your very great reward” [Genesis 15:1].
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena