Sunday, May 11, Fourth Sunday of Easter
Psalm 104:24-30; Acts 4:1-12; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-33
Divine Service III without Communion
Hymns: #465 “Now All the Vault of Heaven Resounds”; #537 “Beautiful Savior”; #831 “How Shall They Hear Who Have Not Heard”; #851 “Lord of Glory, You Have Bought Us”
It’s All About the Fruit, Part III
Who Do You Know Who Needs a Little Good News?
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:8)
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our risen Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.
The psychiatrists and sociologists have a concept they call “negativity bias,” defined as the tendency for negative information and experiences to overwhelm the positive ones. In other words, in people’s minds, the bad is stronger than the good. The news and media people would say, “If it bleeds, it leads.” When something bad happens, people are likely to look for someone to blame; but they’re much less likely to give someone credit for doing something good. A scandal gets more attention than a good deed. I looked down the headlines on my newsfeed this week, and some of the words repeated most often were: bombshell, scandal, murder, war, conflict, outrage, conspiracy, coverup, crackdown, violence, crime, terror, pandemic, outbreak, panic, horror, and shock. I’d give you a list of the positive words, but there didn’t seem to be very many of those.
Given all that, it’s so easy to go negative, and to become a negative person. It’s so easy to become overwhelmed by all the negativity in the world. Those people who someone once called “the nattering nabobs of negativity” can bring anyone down, if you listen to them long enough. That’s just the devil at work, using all the bad news to drown out anything good.
The trouble is, being negative is easy. We can just put our sinful selves on autopilot, let our minds “wander where they will go,” and we’ll soon find ourselves negative as negative can be – and not a lot of fun to be around. But being positive – looking for the good in things on purpose, trying to lift people up instead of bringing them down – takes work and effort and a lot of prayer. It takes understanding that I can’t be of help to anyone else, unless I guard my own heart and my own attitude first. I can make it my aim to contribute to the good and positive side of things in this world – for which My Lord will be pleased and the people around me will be glad - or I can let all that negative stuff carry me away.
I found this pretty good version of the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know… it’s me!”
You and I, of all people – you and I who know the Good News about Jesus – ought to be the happiest, most blessed, most positive people in the world. The fruits of faith have been planted in us, and it’s our joy and our privilege, and our holy calling, to share what we know with a sad and always-tending-toward-the-negative world. Who do you know who needs a little good news?
So what exactly is this Good News we need to tell? If we’re going to tell it, we need to be able to define what it is. For that we go to today’s Gospel from John 10.
“Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem.” The Feast of Dedication is known to Jews around world as Hannukah. The history behind it is that there was an evil, despotic king named Antiochus Epiphanes, who’d overrun Judea and taken Jerusalem around 160 BC, and slaughtered the Jews by the thousands. Then he entered the Holy of Holies in temple, and profaned the place with idols, profanity, and any manner of nastiness you could imagine.
Then, it what’s called the Maccabean Revolt, the Jews defeated Antiochus, and reclaimed Jerusalem and the temple in 164 BC. The temple needed to be cleansed and rededicated before it could be used again, which required an eight-day ceremony; but Antiochus had profaned the sacred oil for the lamps. One uncontaminated vial of oil was found, but it was only enough for one day. Then, so they say, a miracle happened, and the lamps burned for the entire eight days, in spite of the lack of oil; so Hannukah also came to known as the Festival of Lights.
So Jesus, walking into Jerusalem at the time of the Dedication/Hannukah Festival, took up a whip and cleansed the temple of the moneychangers, the salesmen, and the sin He found there. Then He sat down to teach God’s Word, to rededicate the holy place to its intended use; and He told them, “I Am the Light of the world.” He wasn’t changing the Festival, but turning it back to what it was meant to be.
“It was winter,” says our Gospel, “and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon's Colonnade.” That was a covered area, also known as Solomon’s Porch, part of Solomon’s original temple.Being winter, it was a good place to be out of the rain and the elements, a place where people and worshipers could gather in the winter and rainy season. The Good News is that the Son of God, the Savior, the Light of the Word, was here, walking in His own temple, just as God had always promised.
And now, says our Gospel, the Jews gathered around Him, saying, "How long will You keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly." Here come the nattering nabobs! Everyone was asking and wondering if the Good News could be true: “Could this be the Christ?” The leaders of the Jews wanted a definitive statement, from His own mouth. Some of them may have been ready to believe. (Many later did, according to the Book of Acts).But most were looking for the words they could finally hang Him with. “If You are the Christ, tell us plainly” - and we’ll charge You with blasphemy and put You to death.
Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for Me, but you do not believe because you are not My sheep.” Jesus had told them, numerous times, exactly who He was; He said, “I am the Light of the World; I am the way and the truth and the life; I am the Good Shepherd; I am the doorway for the sheep. Before Abraham ever was, I AM!”
And that Good News was backed by “works of power,” by great miracles, for the Jewish leaders and everyone else to see - all done in the Father’s name, all done by the power of God, all meant to put the exclamation point !!! on His claim to be the God who calls Himself “I AM Who I Am.” Who He was, was true without a doubt, beyond denying, to anyone willing to take a look and open their heart to believe.
Faith is the fruit of the Spirit. Faith makes a person a sheep (as opposed to a goat!) St. John, at the end of His Gospel, gives his reason for writing down everything Jesus said and did: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” That’s Good News, great news, for everyone.
But still we’re free to say no to God’s gift and turn away; and sadly, so many do… But as long as there’s life, there’s hope! Faith comes by hearing! It’s all about the fruit!! It’s “the fruit of lips that confess His name” that makes all the difference in the world. Just because someone is a goat today doesn’t mean they have to be a goat forever. A sinner can be forgiven and come home to God, any day, any time, and all heaven will rejoice when they do; don’t ever give up on anyone! God’s sheep aren’t born, they’re re-born. We’re not created as sheep, but sheep is what we by the grace of God can become. You’ve all heard of “the sinner’s prayer”; but the best sinner’s prayer I know is, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Just ask, and God will do it!
My sheep, says Jesus - once the saving Word and the grace of God have turned them into sheep - come to listen to the voice of the Shepherd - the voice of His Spirit that speaks through His Word. “I know My sheep,” says Jesus, “and My sheep know Me.” And He does know You! He knew you by name, before You were ever born. He loves you, and He wants you to be His. So He sends You His Spirit, He sends you His messengers, He sends some dear servant of His to give you a Bible to read or put the Good News in your ears. (For most of us it was our mothers. Thanks, Mom!) He plants the seed of faith in you in your Baptism, and waters the seed with His Word. And I know I’m mixing my metaphors, but then your little lamb self grows into a full-grown sheep. To follow Jesus is to obey Him and to be faithful to His Word. And what He asks of grown-up sheep like us is that in following Him, we bear good fruit for God and His kingdom. “The harvest is ready, but the workers are few.”
And here’s the Good News again, right from the mouth of Jesus Himself: “I give them – My lambs, My sheep, My children – eternal life.” That’s the Easter promise, that’s the final fruits of faith, that’s the great reward that’s ours for following Jesus; not just life in this world, blessed gift that that is – but life forever in heaven with God. “And they – My sheep – shall never perish,” says Jesus. That’s an astounding statement. “He who lives and believes in Me will never die,” Jesus says, and He means exactly that. “Death is but the gate to life immortal,” one of our Easter hymns says. “Whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord,” St. Paul says. The promise is not that we’ll live and then die, but that we’ll live, and then we’ll live on.
And, says Jesus, “no one can snatch them – My sheep – out of My hand”. That’s Good News! In that Good News is a certainty that this negative, nay-saying world just can’t give you. That’s “real and living hope” that just can’t be found anywhere else. What a wonderful thing to know that you’re held in the hand of God, who’s promised to never let you go.
Jesus says, “My Father, who has given the sheep and precious lambs to Me, is greater than all.” That’s greater than the world or anything the world can do; greater than the devil and anything he can try; greater than sin, greater than death, greater than hell. The fruit of everything Jesus did for us on the cross is life. Out of His death, for our sakes, comes newly created life, born-again life, that eternal life that Jesus has promised us; and that’s a promise nothing in all creation can take away from us.
“I and the Father are One,” Jesus told the Jews who were questioning Him. A bold statement, and one that finally got Him crucified. Jesus, by His perfect life and marvelous miracles – and especially that final, awesome Resurrection miracle - proved Himself to be “one with the Father,” the Son of God, Almighty God Himself, come to earth in the form of a human being, as the fulfillment of every promise God made to the human race. Believe it and live, simple as that.
Jesus said, “I and the Father are One,” and at that the Jews pick up stones to stone Him, because that claim of His to be God left them with a choice they couldn’t get around. If He was who He said He was – the Sovereign God, the Lord and Creator of the Universe, the Holy Lord God of Sabaoth - then their only choice (and ours) was to bend their knees and beg Him for forgiveness and mercy, and to “amend their sinful lives” and live them ever after according to His will.
Or, for the sake of preserving their status quo, and keeping their lives as they wished to have them, they could reject the evidence that was clear before their eyes and throw stones at Him instead. They chose to throw stones; and many in the world are throwing them still; and not just at Him, but at His sheep as well. “Stones of negativity,” I guess we could call them; but sometimes those hurt more than the real ones. Ah, but what can we do? “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples,” Jesus says. The fruit we’re called to produce in this world – or better, to reproduce - is faith in Christ. And faith comes by hearing – hearing the Good News. And that hearing only happens if someone opens their mouth to speak it out loud. From your heart, to your lips, to somebody else’s ears. So who do you know who needs to hear a little Good News?
Father, we pray for an end to all the negativity in the world, and especially an end to any negativity in ourselves, or among ourselves here in Your Church. We pray for those who are overrun by negativity and buried in it, and for those who see no hope. O Lord, grant us positive and hopeful and joyful spirits, as we bring this world we live in the happy Good News: Jesus is Lord! Jesus lives! And Jesus lives to love us forever! Help us, O Lord, to remember that it’s all about the fruit, and to bear good fruit for You. In Jesus’ name; Amen.