B, Post Pentecost 2 Proper 4 - 2 Corinthians 4:5-12 "Clay Jars that We Are"

Clay jars need rest!  But the power to rest in the right way does not come from the clay jar!  In its fragility the clay jar does not know how to rest, it needs a knowledge greater than the lack of knowledge it contains.  Clay jars can hold many things, but one thing they cannot hold is knowledge.

Saint Paul speaks of us as the clay jars holding the light that shines out of darkness.  A clay jar that has an absence of light contains only darkness.  Like creation we are clay jars without form and void.  Likewise, to creation, we need God to say, “Let light shine out of darkness,” “Let there be light”.  We need God the Holy Spirit to shine, “in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”  (2 Corinthians 4:6 ESV)

Clay jars need rest to be reformed and recast.  I’m not talking about pottery anymore, but the earthenware of our humanity, our flesh, our soul or being, both physical and spiritual.  We need the light of God that’s more powerful than the strongest laser light.  To cut with greater precision than a plasma cutter.  To open us and expose what’s hidden within.  And to burn out what’s rotting away inside of us!

Some clay jars believe that the darkness within is light, and therefore do not want to be reformed or recast.  At some point though, without rest, clay jars will return to the dust from which they’re made.  “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19 ESV)

All clay jars will crack and fall apart, explode in a shower of shards from pressure, or on Christ’s return God’s decree will be fulfilled in him.

From Psalm two we hear, “I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.  Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.  You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’” (Psalm 2:7–9 ESV)

We, clay jars, need rest in God!  Why do we need this rest?  And what does this rest do?  How do we get this rest?  What does this rest look like? 

Returning to Second Corinthians four, we know that without God, there is nothing within shining the necessary light to recast and reform us in Jesus Christ.  Even Paul says, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants (slaves) for Jesus’ sake.”  (2 Corinthians 4:5 ESV)

Even Paul needs rest as a servant slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, as do all who preach and teach for Jesus’ sake!

So, why do we need this rest?

The fragility of our being is evident in this world.  This world is one bound by death.  In fact, death is the great unifier of all people, all animals, all things, in all of creation.  Everything is dying!   You, me, the person next to you, your animals, everything ever built, everything ever created.  This is fact, this is the world in which we die.  It’s not life we’re living, but death we’re dying!

After God created the heavens and the earth, on the seventh day he rested.  God called Saturday the Sabbath, to repose from work.  After the fall into sin, where humanity’s being got its clay jar fragility, to sabbath, or to rest in God, requires more than just a physical sabbath, but our fallen nature also needs a spiritual sabbath.  After God chose the Israelites as his own, he called them through the law to faithfully rest with him in repentance and atonement through the sacrifice for sin, performed by God’s representatives in the temple.

After the Word became flesh, Jesus Christ fulfilled the Word of the old covenant.  The Word enfleshed, revealed the fragility and futility of our flesh, and finished what Israel could not finish in the weakness of its human flesh.  The sabbath, the day of rest, had become for the Jews, a day of rules, rather than a day of faith where one could rest with God after atonement was made for sin.  Jesus said to the Jews, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27 ESV)

What Jesus was saying is, the day of rest, God’s holy day, or holiday,  is made for us to faithfully rest with God.  It’s not a day for a self-justifying stoppage of work.  The Jews had turned the Sabbath into a work of righteousness, by their good works of not working.  The focus was on themselves doing, rather than being with whom they were called to be!  Their motivation was on what they did, rather than being with God!

What is your motivation in coming to church?  If it’s for a work of some kind, let the example of the Jews of Jesus’ day, stand as a warning to you!  If your primary reason for coming to church is for community, morale, making an appearance, to be seen, to be a leader, to do a certain job, to move others by one’s own motivation, or for good morals, then you’re coming for the wrong reason!

As honourable as the tasks performed might be, (I include myself as your pastor in this), if I or you come for reasons other than to rest in God, through the forgiveness of sins, atoned for by Jesus Christ, you and I have come for the wrong reason!  We’re not here to work for God, but to be arrested by him, to allow him to work for us, in us, so we can rest in him.  And in doing so we glorify the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in their honourable tasks of reposing, recasting, and reforming the clay jars that we are!  

In Paul’s leadership as a slave or servant of Jesus Christ, even he needed to rest in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  So too with you and me, now that we have been recreated and recast in Jesus Christ, as Sons of God in his works of righteousness, having been reborn with water and the word, as kings in God’s creation.  We are returned to Psalm two where we’re reminded, “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.  Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.  Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”  (Psalm 2:10–12 ESV)

Every one of us who remains and rests in God’s Son, glorifies God by acknowledging God’s righteous judgement.  As we have just heard,  “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”  What does this rest do?  It blesses us or balances us in the truth of God’s Word.  Hence, we find ourselves fleeing to this rest for refuge. 

We might think God’s judgement is Jesus’ anger as Psalm two says!  But it says this for us and others when we focus on ourselves.  When we kiss ourselves, someone, or something other than the Son of God.  However, when we’re led to kiss the Son, we trust in him and what he’s done to balance us with forgiveness and blessed rest with God our Father.

So, how do we get this rest?  We get this rest or sabbath, firstly, through Jesus Christ who being the only one to rightly rest in God the Father, paradoxically died for us who through sin struggle to rest with God.  Ironically Jesus’ rest was so perfect, this “Holy Clay Jar” rested in God’s holy judgement on Holy Saturday,  “that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,  in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison.”  (1 Peter 3:18–19 ESV)

In the continuation of Jesus’ perfect work and rest, the Holy Spirit continues this work by bringing us in faith into God’s rest.  We kiss the Son because the Holy Spirit brings us to the Son through his holy word and holy sacraments. 

The Holy Spirit calls you and me through the holy work and holy rest of Jesus, in other words, the gospel.  The Holy Spirit enlightens you and me with God’s gifts, of forgiveness, to confess, and forgive as we have been forgiven.  This happens with the enlightenment of God’s holy word and faithful trust in Jesus’ holy communion for the forgiveness of sins, continuation of life in the midst of death, and salvation from eternal death.  The Holy Spirit also makes us holy; he covers us with the robes of Christ’s righteousness, so we have free access into God’s holiness to pray and confess.

So, what does this rest look like?  We are still clay jars, fragile and easily broken.  We are holy with “the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”   But the darkness of our original state still lingers.  However, the Holy Spirit now works within you and me, so we, “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”, as we hear in the Third Commandment.

In his explanation, Martin Luther says in the Small Catechism, “We are to fear and love God so we do not neglect his Word or the preaching of it, but regard it as holy and gladly hear and learn it.”

The Holy Spirit leads us to church to hear the word, to stand under it in understanding, to unpack it in its truth and relevance for us, and to give us joy in gathering as forgiven people in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.  However, we, being clay jars, don’t always appreciate the knowledge of Jesus Christ.  Our fragility and futility, tends to lead us to see without eyes of faith, where we overlook the reality of what resting in God is all about.  Then we neglect his word and the preaching of it, regarding it as common, and turn against hearing and learning it. 

Every person struggles with this.  After all we are clay jars!  This is where we have the Holy Spirit to help us, to once again fear and love God, in a way where we no longer “have got to” read the bible.  Where we no longer “have got to” go to church.  And where we no longer “have got to” serve our neighbours as Christ serves us. 

Rather, we keep knocking on God’s door in prayer for the Holy Spirit to give us a hunger “to want to” read the bible, to give us a desire “to want to” go to church and rest in God, and to give us a longing “to want to” serve our neighbours as Christ serves us.

When you keep praying for the Holy Spirit to give you a love for God’s Word, he will lead you to Jesus Christ, deepening your knowledge of his grace and the depths of your sin in your self-justifying knowledge of good and evil.  You will get understanding as to why you might have struggled to find true joy in church, and why being daily in the Word is difficult. 

In God’s time you will find yourself looking forward to coming into rest in God.  To be forgiven and fed!  Rather than coming in cold to hear the Word of God on Sunday morning, your joy in the Word of God, will see you put off the world, so the Holy Spirit can prepare you, the clay jars, in the Word of God for rest with God in his word and sacraments.  Amen.

B, Easter 4, Good Shepherd Sunday - John 10:11,17-18 "The Good Shepherd's Power"

John 10:11, 17–18 (ESV)  "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father."

The kingdom and the power and the glory are God the Father’s.  In Jesus’ victory over death in his death and resurrection, God the Father has given Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, the kingdom, the power, and the glory.  The Father did this, “when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places”. (Ephesians 1:20 ESV)

Here in the Good Shepherd narrative, Jesus refers to the power he has, as a result of the “command”(literally in the Greek), or “charge” he has received from God the Father. 

As we just heard in Ephesians chapter one, Jesus’ resurrection is usually referred to as passive.  In all but a couple of instances, we’re told Jesus “was raised” from the dead by God the Father or God the Holy Spirit.

Here in John ten, Jesus tells us he has authority to lay his life down and to take it up.  Also, in John chapter two, after he clears the temple and confronts the Jews, he says of his own body, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  (John 2:19 ESV)

Humanity has the power to lay down its life but taking it up again is somewhat problematic!

Many valiant individuals have thrown themselves in harm’s way, to save the life of another.  Many parents or spouses have given their lives for each other or their children.  Soldiers in active combat, in service to our country, have laid down their lives on the battlefield, some even taking their own lives to protect national secrets from the enemy.  Others, blinded by hopelessness, lay down their lives through suicide.

None of these though, who have laid down their lives, honourably or otherwise,  have been able to take their lives back up again!  Once you’re dead, you’re dead!

Jesus’ authority is different.  He has the authority to lay down in death, and he has the authority to take life back up.  He has the power to give himself unto death, and he has the power to return from the dead.  Having been commanded by God, he had the right to die on the cross, and having died a sinless death, pleasing the Father, he had the right to take his sinless life back up!

As a human being, it might seem Jesus’ power to take back his life, as being on an unequal footing with us.  After all, the great claim of Jesus being our Saviour, is that he became like us in every way.  If Jesus is like me, how is it that he can raise himself from death, and I can’t!  Since when I die, despite how noble a cause my death might serve, I still can’t raise myself back to life.

We know that the majority of biblical sources tell us that Jesus “was” raised, and he did not raise himself!  Even in John chapter two after Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  (John 2:19 ESV)  John notes in verse twenty-two, “When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”  (John 2:22 ESV)  They don’t remember Jesus as raising himself but rather that he “was raised”, and they believe!

How do we reconcile Jesus being raised and Jesus raising up himself?  And in understanding this anomaly, what is God’s word to us who live in our Good Shepherd’s resurrection power and authority?

The Gospel of John takes up the new commandment of God in the work of Jesus Christ his Son.  This work was done with authority and power, and he had the  right to do so. 

Be reminded of what we’re told in John chapter one.  “He [The Word who was God] …came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”. (John 1:11–12 ESV)

This right to become children of God is the power or the authority to become children of God.  Just as Jesus had the right to take up his life, we have the right to take up our Christian life as the children of God.  In fact, just as Jesus was commanded by our Father, Jesus commands us, saying, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12 ESV)

So how Jesus takes up his life, has a very real bearing, on how we too are to take up the commandment to love as Jesus has loved us!

Jesus laid down his life and took it back up again.  But what was this life, and from where did its power come?

Jesus’ authority, power, or right, comes from the Holy Spirit who proceeds from God the Father and God the Son. 

In love, the Father and the Holy Spirit, work through the Son’s vulnerability in the flesh of a human body susceptible of sin.  He was made incarnate in the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit was caused to be seen resting on Jesus when he was baptised in the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness throughout his ministry, where angelic messengers from God ministered to him.

Commanded by God, Jesus willingly, and for the joy set before him, walked the way of the cross, laying down his life. 

When Jesus lay down his life, he lay it right down into the lowest depths on Holy Saturday, the depths of hell!  We hear in First Peter, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,  in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison”.  (1 Peter 3:18–19 ESV)

The Holy Spirit gave Jesus Christ life within his spirit.  So, even in death and descent into hell, the light of his life, shone in hell’s darkness, exposing sin.  Jesus Christ’s sinless life shone in hell!  Not for salvation!  But, as reminder to those who chose not to receive God, that they no longer have access to a Redeemer or redemption.

Jesus lay his life down and took it up again.  Jesus has the power and authority within himself, of himself, but not for himself.  This is no selfish or individualistic whim!  No!  This is Jesus’ freedom in obedience to the command and will of the Father.  He has the power to raise himself, yet he allows the Holy Spirit to raise him, despite having the authority and power to do it himself.

The Spirit gives Jesus’ life; and Jesus takes up this life once again at his resurrection.  Our Good Shepherd’s servanthood in power and authority continues today having been raised.   Jesus our Good Shepherd actively became passive so that passively he became, and now is, active.

Because this is so contrary to who we are, and how we think and work, let me say that again! Jesus actively became passive, so that passively he became, and now is, active.

You now live in the life that Jesus has picked up in power and authority.  You now have the right to be children of God.  The Holy Spirit, who brings you to Jesus in his word and sacraments, authorises you and empowers you to live in the life of Jesus.  To serve as he serves, to love as he loves, and to forgive as he forgives!

You no longer can be condemned, as Paul reminds us in Romans, “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”  (Romans 8:34 ESV)

Jesus now eternally serves and shepherds us with life.   In his power and authority, by faith, see him interceding for you before our Heavenly Father. 

But Jesus, our Good and Risen Shepherd, is not only before the Father in heaven, but he’s amongst and within us, his body.  He serves and shepherds us!  So, through us, he might serve and shepherd others with his power and authority!

It is now our right as Christians in the power and authority of Jesus Christ, to serve others as he and the Father continually send the Holy Spirit, to raise us up in newness of life in him, our Good Shepherd.  Amen.