John

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.

            This is the last sermon in a series called the Well-Remembered Word and I’m almost sorry to see it come to an end.  I have enjoyed thinking about how some of these biblical characters might have shared their memories of Jesus long after his ascension.  We’ve heard from Mary Magdalene, Doubting Thomas, those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and the Apostle John—twice.  We’re actually going to hear from him one last time because he has something to say that may prepare us perfectly for the Day of Pentecost, two weeks from now.  And so, to close out the series, let’s welcome back the Beloved Disciple!

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            Thank you.  And thank you for staying until the very end of this conference.  We’ve heard moving testimonies of Jesus’ resurrection and meaningful remembrances of his famous last words.  We could leave right now.  But I hope you will stay, because in closing I want to share with you one of the very last things Jesus said to us in that upper room.  He said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” although for him there was always ever only one.  There were the Ten Commandments, of course, and all the other commandments that came along later.  There was Jesus’ insistence that the entirety of the Law and the Prophets could be summed up in the command to love God and love others.  But there was only one commandment that Jesus, himself, gave us, and you know which one it was: it was the command to love one another as he had loved us.  “If you love me,” he said, “you will love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another.” 

            “Do that,” he said.  It wasn’t a suggestion; it was a commandment.  But he also said, “If you do that, then I will do this: I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever.”  Another Advocate.  Those are the words I clung to on that night when Jesus was telling us goodbye, words I want us to look at a little more closely today, beginning with that second one.

            Advocate is not a bad translation.  If you were going to court you might want to have an advocate—a lawyer—who would stand beside you and plead your case.  But the English word advocate doesn’t begin to touch the depth and meaning of the Greek word Paraclete.  That’s the one I used when I wrote my Gospel, and it was only the closest word I could find to what Jesus implied in that promise.  Because Paraclete comes from the verb kaleo, which means “to call.”  Parakaleo means “to call alongside.”  And Paraclete is the noun form of the verb:  it’s the person you call alongside yourself in a time of need. 

Think about it like this.  When you were a child and had a bad dream that woke you up in the middle of the night, who did you call?  Your mother, right?  And when you were older, and some bully was picking on you on at school, who did you call?  Your teacher, right?  But now, now that you are an adult, who do you call when you are in trouble, when you are lonely, or sad, or afraid?  You may not know who to call and maybe that’s why Jesus said, “I’m going to ask the Father to give you a Paraclete: someone you can call alongside yourself when you are in trouble, when you need some help.”  But get this: Jesus didn’t only say he was going to ask the Father to give us a Paraclete; he said he was going to ask him to give us another Paraclete, and that requires further explanation.

There are two Greek words for “other.”  One is allos and the other is heteros.  Allos means another of the same kind; heteros means another of a different kind.  When Jesus said he would ask the Father to send us another Advocate he used an Aramaic word that had the same meaning as allos.  I don’t know what that says to you, but what it said to me on that night was that Jesus was the first Paraclete, and that if we would love him and love one another he would ask the Father to send us another Paraclete of the same kind!  In other words, whatever Jesus had been to us this new Paraclete would also be, but this time it wasn’t going to be temporary; this Paraclete wasn’t going to stay with us a few years and then disappear; this Paraclete was going to be with us forever. 

He was talking about the Holy Spirit.

If I can be honest, we were a little disappointed at first, because we had gotten used to having Jesus with us, and Jesus was God-in-the-flesh.  We could see him, we could touch him, we could hear his voice.  You can’t do that with a spirit.  But, as we would learn in the next 24 hours, you also can’t kill a spirit.  You can’t strip it and beat it and nail it to a cross.  That’s what they did to Jesus and I was right there when it happened.  I was standing at the foot of the cross.  I saw the whole thing, which means that I watched him die.  In my Gospel I described it like this: “[Jesus] said, ‘It is finished.’  Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”  All I meant when I wrote it was that he let out his final breath, because in Greek the word for “spirit” and “breath” is the same word.  But since then I have wondered if there was something more going on: if when he let out his last breath he was actually letting out the Holy Spirit, as if that’s what had filled him up throughout his earthly ministry and given him his extraordinary wisdom and power.  I’ve wondered if that Spirit roamed the earth over the next couple of days, no longer contained in the person of Jesus, until early on the first day of the week the Father roused his only begotten Son from the deep sleep of death and filled his lungs once more with that life-giving Spirit, so that he could get up, and unwind the cloth from around his head, and strip off his grave clothes, and roll back the stone and step out into the cool, damp darkness of the garden.

He wasn’t there when I got there.  You may remember that part of the story: how Mary went to the tomb early in the morning while it was still dark, and when she didn’t find Jesus she came running back to tell us the news.  She thought that someone had stolen his body.  Peter and I jumped up and ran to the tomb, and when we got there I looked inside, but all I saw was his empty grave clothes and the cloth that had been wrapped around his head, rolled up and lying in a separate place by itself.  Peter pushed past me and went on in, headstrong as ever, and then I went in, and as soon as I was inside I knew what had happened: I knew that Jesus had risen from the dead.  Or maybe I should say I believed he had risen, but my belief was so strong you could not have convinced me otherwise.  I knew, in my heart, that the Spirit of Love was alive in this world, and that Jesus was no longer dead.

Mary saw him.  Later that day, after Peter and I had gone back to the upper room, she saw him, in the garden, and came running back to tell us.  I wasn’t even surprised.  Overjoyed, yes, and vindicated, in one of those “I told you so!” kind of ways, but not surprised.  And then that night he came through locked doors to be with us.  One minute he wasn’t there and the next minute he was.  He held up one nail-scarred hand and said, “Shalom,” and that’s all it took.  That’s when we knew it was really him.  We were so relieved and happy!  Some of us were jumping up and down so that he had to say, “Peace!” again, this time almost laughing.  But then he said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  It was a commission, and it held the hint of danger.  We saw what they had done to him.  If he sent us as the Father had sent him, and if they did to us to what they had done to him, none of us was going to make it out alive.  I think he saw the anxious looks on our faces.  I think he could tell we needed help.  So, he breathed on us and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  But this time he didn’t give it up, he didn’t even give it away.  He simply shared the Holy Spirit with us.  And if you’re thinking that makes us special, you’re right.  Others have received the Spirit in other ways.  You may have received it in another way.  But we received it from Jesus himself, and even as we did we could tell how much like him it was, as if all the things he had been to us his Spirit would now be.

The prologue of my Gospel says that in the beginning the Word was with God and the Word was God, that he was in the beginning with God and all things were made through him, but a few verses later it says the Word became flesh and lived among us.  Some people have said it this way: that Jesus was “God with skin on.”  Well, this is what I want you to know, and what I hope you will be able to hear: that if Jesus was God with skin on, the Holy Spirit is Jesus with skin off.  I don’t know how that makes you feel.  It may sound a little spooky.  It may be why some people refer to the Spirit as the “Holy Ghost.”  But in my experience it has been anything but spooky; it has been enormously comforting.  That’s one possible translation of the word Paraclete, you know: comforter.  Like one of those big, fluffy blankets you people pull up over yourselves on a cold night.  That’s what it’s been like for me in those moments when I was missing Jesus the most, when I was feeling his absence.  Suddenly, there was this presence.  I can’t explain it.  These kinds of things rarely make sense.  But I could feel his presence with me through the Holy Spirit, just as he had promised. 

And that’s not all.  Jesus promised that the Paraclete would be a friend, a counselor, a comforter, an encourager, a teacher—in other words, all the things that Jesus was to us when he was with us.  But he also said it would be the “Spirit of truth,” which reminded me of something else he had said, that we would know the truth and the truth would set us free (John 8:32).  Do you remember when Philip asked Jesus to show us the Father, and Jesus said, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father”?  Well, I think he would say, “If you have seen me you have seen the Spirit.”  Because when he first told us about the Spirit of truth he said the world could not receive him because it couldn’t see him or know him, but then he said, “You know him,” and I think he meant that we knew the Spirit because we had known Jesus, that the same Spirit that was in him would now be in us.  In fact, that’s what he said: “You know him because he abides with you, and will be in you.” 

Jesus said all of that before he was crucified, before he rose from the dead and came to that upper room and breathed on us, but when he did we felt it: we felt that the Spirit that had been in him was now in us, and that it would teach us, comfort us, and encourage us, even on the hardest of days.  I have to tell you, those days came for me just after Jesus ascended.  I don’t think anyone has ever felt more alone than I felt.  But has this ever happened to you?  Have you ever loved someone and lost them and then, sometime later, thought about what they would say in a certain situation and found that you could almost hear their voice?  That’s how it was for me.  At first I thought it was just the memory of Jesus, but then this voice—this whispered voice—began to tell me things Jesus had never said.  And that’s when I remembered something he did say, at that last supper.  He said, ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:12-13).  Well, that’s just how it felt: like the Spirit was picking up where Jesus left off, and teaching us things that Jesus could no longer teach.

And that’s a good thing.  Because there are so many things that Jesus didn’t teach us: things he didn’t mention, maybe because they hadn’t happened yet, or maybe because we weren’t ready for them yet.  But the Paraclete is still with us, and the Paraclete sees everything that is happening in the world and whispers in our ears.  The Paraclete tells us the truth.  I’ll tell you the truth: sometimes that whispered voice sounds so much like Jesus that I sit straight up in bed and look around in the darkness.  I say, “Jesus?  Is that you?”  But then I remember that he isn’t with us anymore, and I remember what he said: that he was going to send us another Paraclete to be with us forever.  And that’s a comfort.  That’s the Comforter.  And so I lie down again, and pull the covers up to my chin, and fall asleep with a smile on my face knowing that I am not alone, and never will be,  And neither will you.

—Jim Somerville © 2023

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

Today we continue a series called, “The Well-Remembered Word,” in which we are imagining how some of the people who knew Jesus best and loved him most might have eulogized him.  So far we have heard from Mary Magdalene, Thomas “the Twin,” the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and last week from the Apostle John, the author of the Fourth Gospel, who had so much to say that we’ve invited him back this week.  Without further introduction, let me turn things over to John, the Beloved Disciple.

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Well, thank you.  Thank you for coming.  And thank you for listening to my memories of the Word-made-Flesh.  Today I’m remembering what happened in that upper room on the night he was betrayed.  Most of you weren’t there, but if you have read my Gospel you know that Jesus got up from the table, wrapped a towel around his waist, filled a basin with water, and then washed our feet.  Of all the memories in my head that one may be the most unforgettable: that moment when he took my own feet in his hands, and washed them, and looked up at me with eyes full of love.  I couldn’t say anything for the lump in my throat, but if I could I might have said, “You’re leaving us, aren’t you?”  Because it was obvious that something was about to happen. 

After he came back to the table he asked us to wash one another’s feet, just as he had washed ours.  And then, a little later, he commanded us to love one another, just as he had loved us.  He didn’t say it out loud but you could tell that he was trying to get us ready to live without him.  I think that’s when the first tear rolled down my cheek, and I think that’s when he said:  “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.”  Because I wasn’t the only one.  He could tell, just by looking around at us, that we were all troubled.  We were like family members gathered around the deathbed of a loved one, straining our ears for every last word.  And Jesus did not disappoint. 

He gave us some good ones.

After he said, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled,” he said, “You believe in God; believe also in me,” as if belief were the remedy for a troubled heart.  Maybe it is.  And then he said something I almost wish I had never written down, not because it’s not true, but because it has been so misunderstood.  Jesus said, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”  The reason I wish he hadn’t said it that way, and the reason I wish I hadn’t written it down, is that ever since my Gospel was published people have been asking me about the Father’s house, and how to get there, and what their dwelling place will be like.  That is, they have been thinking about it primarily as a place, and some of them have been thinking about it as a very nice place.  I understand one of your translations uses the word “mansion,” and some people can scarcely think of anything else.  “I’m going to have a mansion in heaven!” they say.  No matter how poor and pitiful their lives have been on earth, they seem to believe that when they get to heaven they will live in the most extravagant house anyone has ever imagined.  Well, I don’t know.  They may be exactly right about that.  But that wasn’t the point I was trying to make and I’m almost certain it wasn’t the point Jesus was trying to make. 

What he said was this: “I’m going to prepare a place for you, and then I’m going to come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.”  I don’t know what you hear in that statement, but what I heard in that moment was that heaven is not a place, but a person.  I didn’t care what it looked like, or where I got to lay my head.  I didn’t care if it was a ten-million-dollar mansion or a two-bit boarding house.  I only cared that Jesus was going to be there because wherever he was, was heaven.  Do you know what I mean?  Have you ever loved anybody like that?  Where you didn’t care where you were or what you were doing, so long as it was with them? 

And that reminds me of another thing I almost wish I had never written down, and that’s the verse people now refer to as John 3:16.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  I mean, it’s true.  It’s beautiful.  But some people get so focused on the everlasting life part that all they want to know is what they have to do to make sure that they live forever, and suddenly it’s not about Jesus anymore; it’s about them.  “How do I get to heaven?  How can I have a life that never ends?  How do I get a mansion with a view so I can watch the sun set over the crystal sea?”  Does that not sound a little selfish to you?

What I was trying to say is that life begins in a whole new way when you get to know Jesus.  And when you believe in him, really believe in him and not just believe things about him, well, that’s living!  In the Greek language it is literally “the life of the ages,” which some people have translated as everlasting life, which some people have interpreted as life that never ends.  Let me just ask you: if you were sentenced to life in prison, would you want that life to last forever?  No.  Of course not.  But you also know about those moments when you felt so completely alive that you never wanted them to end.  That’s the life of the ages!  That’s what I’m talking about.  It’s not quantity; it’s quality.  And for me, that kind of life happened when I was with Jesus.  “God loved the world so much,” I said, “that he gave us his Son!”  Yes!  That’s what we were longing for!  That’s what makes life worth living, whether it’s a day, or a year, or a thousand years.  So, to believe in him the way you believe in those people you love most in this world is not a requirement for everlasting life: it is life itself.  But I also believe that life like that never comes to an end.

I think that’s what Jesus was trying to tell us on that night when our hearts were so troubled.  He said, “I’m going to prepare a place for you in my Father’s house, and when it’s ready I’m going to come and get you and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.”  It reminded me of how they used to do it back in Capernaum when I was growing up.  Some young man would ask a girl to marry him and then he would go back to his father’s house and start building on a room.  It might take as long as a year for him to finish it, because he wanted everything to be perfect when the wedding was over and he brought her back to the place he had prepared.  That’s what came to mind when Jesus said he was going to go and prepare a place for us.  And then he said he was going to come back and get us, and take us to himself, so that where he was we could be also.  And then, for some reason, he said we already knew the way to the place where he was going.  And that just confused us.  We sat there for the longest time until Thomas finally said, “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going.  How can we know the way?” 

You’ve already heard from Thomas.  You know he had his reasons.  He was determined to follow Jesus.  He needed to know the way.  But Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  And again, if there is anything I wish Jesus hadn’t said, or I hadn’t written down, it might be this.  Because the same people who are so concerned about living forever in a mansion in heaven have used this verse to keep others out.  I don’t know why.  Maybe they think heaven will get too crowded.  Maybe they want to be sure they get one of the good mansions, one with a view.  Maybe they have forgotten that Jesus is the Gate—that he is the one who lets people in—and not them.  But if you were listening closely he didn’t say “No one gets to heaven except through me,” he said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Once again, heaven is not a place but a person.  Jesus is inviting us into life with the Father, into the “life of the ages,” and he is the way to that kind of life. 

Once you get that into your head the rest of what he said that night becomes clear.  He said, “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”  And that’s when Philip spoke up and said, “Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.”  Jesus said, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?  Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”  I’ve been trying to think if there is another way I can put this to you and the best I can come up with is this: 1) that there is a Room called Relationship (as in, relationship with the Father); 2) that Jesus is that room; and 3) that he is inviting us to come in.

 Why would he need to do that?  Because some people still have such scary ideas about God that they need someone like Jesus to come to them, and love them, and reassure them that God is not like that at all.  They need someone to hold open the door of relationship and invite them in, and still they stand outside, wringing their hands and biting their nails.  Jesus might say, “What are you so afraid of?  The God you are about to meet is my Father, and I am his Son, and I am so much like him that if he were standing here instead of me you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between us.  What he tells me to say, I say.  What he tells me to do, I do.  My words are his words.  My works are his works.  If you’ve seen me you’ve seen him and if you’ve loved me then you’re really going to love him.”

It all started to sound so good on that night, in that upper room, that if Jesus had said, “Let’s go!” I think we would have jumped up and gone with him right then.  But that’s not what he said.  He said, “I’m going to prepare a place for you, and when I get it ready I will come and get you, and take you to where I am, so that we can be there, together, forever.”  Which meant that in the meantime we would be here, without him, temporarily. 

Friends, I’m still here, although I never thought I would live this long, and you’re still here, although you might rather be there.  So, what are we supposed to do with the time we have until then?  Well, here’s what I think: I think we are supposed to tell people about the God revealed in Jesus.  I don’t know how it is for you, but sometimes I find that people don’t want to believe in God because they are afraid of God, and if they can pretend that he doesn’t exist then they won’t have to be afraid.  But here’s a better way: convince them that God is love and then they will begin to look for him everywhere.  In the first chapter of my Gospel I remind my readers that no one has ever seen God: that it’s Jesus, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.  And this is what he has made known to them: that the Father’s heart beats with love; that they don’t have to be afraid of him.  I mean, he didn’t give his Son because he hated the world; he gave his Son because he loved the world.  He gave his Son because he wanted the people of the world to have life that is abundant, overflowing, and everlasting.  We find that kind of life in relationship with God and we enter that relationship through Jesus, who has shown us the Father.  He has shown us that we can love the Father and trust the Father.  He has shown us that we have nothing to fear, because God is love. 

So, there’s Jesus—a Room called Relationship—holding open the door and begging us to come in.  If we do, we may discover what he has known all along: that heaven is not a place; it’s a person. 

Thanks be to God.

—Jim Somerville © 2023

Jesus said, “I am the gate for the sheep…. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

            In the first sermon in this series I let my imagination run just a little bit wild.[i]    I talked about the Apostle John putting together a weekend conference in Ephesus called, “The Well-Remembered Word,” where he would invite people to gather for a memorial service for Jesus, the Word-made-flesh, decades after his ascension.  He would charge a small registration fee so he could afford to print the brochures and fly the participants in from faraway places: Mary Magdalene from her home in Galilee, Thomas from the mission field in India, and those two disciples from Emmaus (who agreed to come but said they would rather walk).  Since then I’ve been imagining what each of those speakers might have said at such a conference, and it’s been interesting, hasn’t it?  To hear from these biblical characters “themselves” rather than hearing things about them?  Today I want us to hear from the Apostle John, the Beloved Disciple, the author of the Fourth Gospel, the “convener” of this imaginary conference.  I want to let him speak for himself and see what he might have to say.  Let’s listen in.

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            Friends, first of all, let me say thank you for coming to this conference!  It’s been an amazing weekend so far.  I’ve been grateful to our speakers for sharing their memories of Jesus: to Mary Magdalene, who (you may recall) delivered the very first Easter sermon and has been called “the Apostle to the Apostles”; to Thomas, who some people still call “the Twin” not because he looks so much like Jesus, but simply because he is so much like Jesus; and finally to Mary and Cleopas, those disciples on the road to Emmaus, with apologies for any confusion about their identities.[ii]  But now it’s my turn, and this morning I want to talk about one of the things I remember best about Jesus.  I want to talk about him as “the Good Shepherd,” which could have been the title of one of the chapters in my Gospel. 

Speaking of that: maybe it’s not fair to call it “my” Gospel at all.  You pastors out there will agree that in every congregation ten percent of the people will love you no matter what, and ten percent will not love you, no matter what, and eighty percent will appreciate you if they think you are working hard and doing a good job.  It’s called “the 80-10-10 rule.”  Well, when I retired a few years ago some of that ten percent that loved me no matter what presented me with something they called “the Gospel According to John.”  It turns out they had been taking notes on my sermons, writing down what I said almost word-for-word, so they could put it all together in a single book.  They wrote up an introduction and a conclusion and then presented it to me at my retirement celebration.  I was deeply moved, especially when I saw that everywhere I had referred to myself in my sermons they had substituted the phrase, “the disciple Jesus loved.”  Isn’t that sweet?  And it’s true!  Jesus did love me.  But I think he had that effect on everyone he knew.  When you were talking to him he had the ability to make you feel as if you were the only person in the world, and that you were worth all the attention he was giving you.  Yes, he loved me, but not only me.  He loved all of us.  I believe he loved Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.  That’s just the kind of savior he is.

            But I didn’t come to talk about the Savior; I came to talk about the Shepherd.  It’s how Jesus referred to himself once when he was in the middle of a heated argument with the Jews.  Oh, I know.  I know I’m not supposed to call them “the Jews.”  It sounds anti-Semitic.  But can I remind you that all of us were Jews: Jesus, and his disciples, and all of the people he preached to?  It’s not like I have anything against Jews—I am one!—I just have something against this particular group of Jews.  Maybe there are some people in your own religious group who have done you wrong, treated you badly, and maybe you talk about them in a way that is not entirely flattering.  Fundamentalists.  Liberals.  Moderates.  Conservatives.  Need I say more?  Well, these were people who were so proud of being Jewish I just started calling them “the Jews.”  But I can call them something else if it will make you feel better.  I can use the Greek word—Ioudaioi.  Will that work?  OK, then: 

Ioudaioi it is.[iii] 

            These are the ones I was talking about in the previous chapter of my Gospel, when Jesus healed the man born blind.  Do you remember him?  The other disciples and I were right there with Jesus wondering who had sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind, but Jesus wouldn’t even entertain that question.  He said, “It wasn’t this man or his parents.  He was born blind so that the works of God might be seen in him.”  And then he stooped down, spit on the ground, made some mud, smeared it on the man’s eyes, and told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam.  After that we moved on.  We didn’t stick around to see what happened.  But what I heard later is that the man came back to his old neighborhood and everyone was amazed that he was able to see.  Except for the Ioudaioi.  They weren’t amazed; they were upset.  Who did this?  How did he do it?  Why did he do it on the Sabbath day? 

They asked the man born blind and he told them it was Jesus who had done it.  They said, “Where is he?” and he said, “I don’t know.”  So they brought his parents in for questioning, but they said, “He’s old enough to speak for himself.  Ask him.”  But according to my Gospel they said it partly because the Ioudaioi had already decided that anyone who confessed faith in Jesus would be put out of the synagogue. 

Now, let me just say, that’s not entirely true.  The good people who wrote up my Gospel got a little ahead of themselves.  That wouldn’t happen until after the Fall of Jerusalem, in 70 AD, when we couldn’t worship in the Temple anymore and had to conduct services in the local synagogues.  A group of priests got together and decided which scrolls could be read in worship and which ones could not (because there were a lot of scrolls out there in those days, and not all of them were divinely inspired).  But they also wrote up something they called the Eighteen Benedictions: eighteen blessings they believed good and faithful Jews should recite every day.[iv]    Well one of them, number 12, was “the blessing against heretics,” which was actually a curse.  See if you can hear the phrase that might offend the followers of Jesus:

For the apostates, let there be no hope, and uproot the kingdom of arrogance speedily and in our days.  May the Nazarenes and the heretics perish as in a moment.  Let them be blotted out of the book of life,and not be written together with the righteous.  You are praised, O Lord, who subdues the arrogant.

Did you catch that?  The Nazarenes?  The actual benediction wouldn’t be written until the Seventies, but the spirit of it was alive even during the earthly ministry of Jesus, when the Ioudaioi became jealous of his popularity and didn’t want anyone to follow him.  So, that man born blind, when he asked them if they wanted to become Jesus’ disciples too, should have expected what they said to him.  They said, “You are this man’s disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.  We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he has come from.”  And that man born blind (bless his heart), he said, “Well, here is an astonishing thing!  You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?”  And they drove him out—out of the synagogue, that is.  They thought he was a heretic because he believed in Jesus.

            In chapter 10 of my Gospel I wrote about Jesus, the Good Shepherd, but I still had this man in mind.  They put him out of the synagogue, you see?  Out of the sheepfold.  He was out there wandering around on his own, lost and afraid.  But then Jesus came to him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”  He said, “Who is he, sir, that I might believe in him?’  And Jesus said, “You have seen him.”  Don’t you love that?  The man who was born blind had seen him.  With his own eyes.  “You have seen him,” Jesus said, “and the one speaking with you is he.”  And then he said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. 

I want you to put all this together in your mind if you can.  In chapter 10 of my Gospel Jesus said that he was the gate for the sheep.  You know the gate?  The one that opens so the sheep can come into the sheepfold?  The one that closes behind them to keep them safe?  The one that opens again in the morning so they can go out and find pasture?  Jesus says that he is that gate.  And he says it after the Ioudaioi have kicked this man out of the synagogue.  They were the gatekeepers (and every religion has some), but Jesus is the gate itself.  So this man comes to Jesus.  He professes his faith.  And in that moment the gate swings open, and that little lost lamb is welcomed in. 

            I’m telling you, this is what Jesus does: he goes around looking for everyone who has been kicked out, put down, pushed around, everyone who has been denied a place in the existing religious establishment, and then he opens the gate for them, he lets them in, he makes room for them in his sheepfold.  You know what I’m talking about!  That’s how many of us were feeling after those Eighteen Benedictions were published, after the Ioudaioi started kicking us out of one synagogue after another because we could not stop professing our faith in Jesus, the Nazarene.  We were out there on our own, wandering around lost and afraid, but Jesus—the gate—opened up and took us in.  Now we have a place.  We are no longer alone.  We are at home with the Good Shepherd. 

Jesus said some other things about people who cared more about themselves than they cared about the sheep.  He said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”  And that’s true.  There are people who look at a sheep to see how much wool they can get off of it, how much it weighs, how tender its meat might be.  And then there is Jesus, who looks at a sheep to see how he can care for it, and give it what it needs.  “I came that they might have life,” he said, “and that they might have it more abundantly.”  How does he do that?  He brings us in from the pasture in the evening.  He opens to us and brings us into the safety of the sheepfold.  He beds us down for the night so we can sleep in peace.  In the morning he leads us out again.  He makes us lie down in green pastures.  He leads us beside still waters.  He restores our souls. 

            He is the Good Shepherd.

            There’s one more thing I want to mention before I close.  Jesus said that his sheep hear his voice and follow him.  I was thinking about that man born blind again.  When Jesus healed him he couldn’t see, remember?  He could only hear.  Jesus told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam and he did, but when he came back Jesus was nowhere to be found.  And then he went through all that questioning by the Ioudaioi, he kept singing the praises of the one who had healed him, and as a result he got himself kicked out of the synagogue.  He was out there wandering around on his own when someone asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”  And he recognized that voice.  His ears perked up, his eyes lit up.  He said, “Who is he, sir?” knowing the answer even before he asked.  “You have seen him,” Jesus said, and the one speaking with you is he.”  And that’s when the man said he believed.  That’s when he fell down and worshiped.  Because he trusted that voice, and he knew that if he could only follow that shepherd, he would have abundant life. 

            The same is true for us, friends.  We’ve got to listen closely for the voice of the Good Shepherd.  There are some people who simply want to take advantage of us, who want to use us for whatever they can get out of us.  There are thieves and bandits out there who are sizing us up even now.  But then there is Jesus, whose greatest joy in life is taking such good care of us that we have everything we need.  “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” he said.  “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.”  Is that true?  Is there anyone here who has found abundant life in Jesus.  You don’t have to say anything out loud, but maybe you could lift your hand.  Anyone?  Anyone?  Well, I have.  I wrote an entire Gospel about it.  And if you’ve read to the end of it you know that I say, “Now Jesus did many more things that are not written in this book, but these things are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through believing you may have life in his name.”  Anyone want a life like that? 

Anyone?

—Jim Somerville © 2023

[i] Jim Somerville, Sermon, “The Well-Remembered Word: Mary Remembers” (preached at Richmond’s First Baptist Church on April 9, 2023: Easter Sunday (https://fbcrichmond.org/video/the-well-remembered-word-mary-remembers/)

[ii] See my sermon from April 23, 2023: “The Disciples Remember.”

[iii] John makes a distinction between the Pharisees and the Ioudaioi in chapter 9. While the Pharisees were certainly of the same mindset, the Ioudaioi had some actual authority, and probably included the Sadducees and the members of the Sanhedrin.

[iv] https://instonebrewer.com/publications/18%20Benedictions.pdf

Thomas said to the other disciples, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

You came back!

Not everybody came back this Sunday, but you did, and I’m glad you did. I think you will hear in this morning’s sermon that sometimes very good things happen for people who come back on the Sunday after Easter.

Today we continue the series I started last week, one called “The Well-Remembered Word,” in which we are imagining a memorial service for Jesus, held several decades after his ascension, where some of the people who knew him best and loved him most stand up to say a good word about the Word-made-flesh. Last week it was Mary Magdalene who remembered Jesus. This week it’s Thomas, the one featured in today’s Gospel lesson, the one who is often called, “the Doubter.” Let’s give him a few minutes to speak for himself, and tell us how he really feels. Thomas?

——————–

Thank you. It’s an honor to be with you today, and an even greater honor to be asked to speak just after Mary Magdalene, who has been called “the apostle to the apostles.” She is certainly not the person some people have imagined her to be. But I think you will find I am not the person some people have imagined me to be either, not a doubter at all but one of the truest of true believers. We’ll get there in a moment, but let

me begin with my nickname—“the Twin.”

That’s the part that some people skip right over in their haste to label me as a doubter. They don’t even notice that the only nickname the Bible ever sticks me with is this one: “the Twin.” It’s in John 11: “Thomas, who was called ‘the Twin.’” It’s in John 20: “Thomas (who was called the Twin).” It’s in John 21: “Thomas called the Twin.” But what does that mean? Does it mean I had a twin? Does it mean I was a twin? And if so, whose twin was I? It’s only a rumor, but maybe you’ve heard the rumor that I was Jesus’ twin, that I looked just like him. The people who started that rumor say that’s why Jesus picked me to be one of his disciples, so that we could trade places from time to time, so that he could get away. Some of them have even gone so far as to suggest that it wasn’t really Jesus who was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, that it was me, and that that’s why I didn’t say anything when I was standing before the Sanhedrin: my voice would have given me away. They say it was me who was stripped and beaten and nailed to the cross, that it was me who died on that terrible Friday and got buried in someone else’s tomb. They say that’s how Jesus could show up three days later and pretend that he had risen from the dead.

It’s a pretty good theory as far as conspiracy theories go, and some people would probably believe it. Some people will believe anything. But not me. I know that wasn’t me on that cross, you know why? Because I’m not as good a person as Jesus. Even before they crucified him they flogged him. If that had been me I would have cried out with the first lash, “You’ve got the wrong man!” But not Jesus. He just stood there and took it, took all the abuse, all the punishment, that should have rightly fallen on people like me, and he never said a mumbalin’ word. So, no, I wasn’t Jesus’ twin. Maybe we did look a little something alike but Mary can tell you: I’m not Jesus and would never

pretend to be. I don’t think I would have been willing to die instead of him, but I once offered to die with him. Do you remember?

We were on the other side of the Jordan, near where John used to baptize. We had gone down there because things had gotten ugly in Jerusalem. The religious authorities were asking Jesus if he was the Messiah. They said, “Just tell us!” And he said, “I have told you but you don’t believe me.” And then he began to tell them about the Father, which was fine, until he said, “The Father and I are one.” That’s when they started picking up stones. He said, “I’ve been doing all these good works. For which of these are you going to stone me?” But they said, “It’s not because of your good works; it’s because you’re making yourself equal to God. That’s blasphemy!” And let me just say: when you get to the point in a conversation where somebody is calling you a blasphemer, the conversation is pretty well over. Jesus tried to make one last point (and it was a good one), but we got him out of there as quickly as we could and as far away as possible. We took him down the Jericho road and across the Jordan, well away from the religious authorities.

Still there were lots of people there. Everywhere Jesus went people followed. One day someone showed up with a message that his friend Lazarus was at the point of death, but Jesus didn’t seem too concerned about it. Two days later, however, he said, “We’ve got to go back to Judea.” We said, “Why? The last time you were there they were ready to stone you, remember?” But he said, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep and I need to go and wake him up.” One of the disciples (I’m not saying which one), said, “Lord, if he’s fallen asleep he’ll be all right.” Jesus said, “Let me put it bluntly: Lazarus is dead, and for your sakes I’m glad I wasn’t there, so that you might come to believe. But come, let’s go to him.” And I’m not bragging, but I’m the one who said,

“Let’s go with him, so we can die with him.”

Does that sound like a doubter to you? I’m telling you, I may have had trouble believing that dead people can come back to life, but I didn’t have trouble believing in Jesus. Wherever he went, I went, right? That’s what it means to follow someone. And that may help you understand why I said that other thing John quoted in his Gospel. We were at that last supper, right? In that upper room. Jesus had washed our feet, Judas had gone out to betray him (although we didn’t really understand that at the time), we had pretty much finished the meal, and Jesus was just talking to us, telling us every important thing he wanted us to know before whatever happened next happened. But you could tell something was wrong. You could tell by the way he was talking to us. He said, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe in me! In my Father’s house there is plenty of room. I’m going to prepare a place for you, and when it’s ready I’ll come again, and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.” And that sounded good, but it also sounded like he was getting ready to leave us. That’s why our hearts were troubled.

And that’s when he said, “You already know the way to the place I am going,” but I didn’t, and I said so. I was thinking, “How am I supposed to follow you if I don’t know the way?!” But then he did the kind of thing he was always doing: he spoke in parables. He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” People have understood that in different ways since he said it, but here’s how I understand it, at least this is how I understand it now: he said he was going to the Father’s house, and that we already knew the way, and then he said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” I think he meant, “I am the true way to life with the Father. If you want to get to him you’ve got to go through me,”

or maybe, “you’ve got to get to know me.” And I think he meant really know him, right? Not just know things about him. Because I can’t speak for the other disciples, but my life didn’t really begin until I got to know Jesus.

And then there is the third time I was quoted in John’s Gospel: the time I said I wouldn’t believe Jesus had risen from the dead until I saw the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and put my hand in his side. That’s what got me labeled as a doubter. But you’ve got to understand: I was grieving. Hard! I’m not sure any of the others were grieving as hard as I was except maybe Mary, maybe John. I had been ready to die with him, remember? I wanted to know the way to where he was going so that I could follow. I was ready to follow him anywhere, but then they arrested him, and tried him, and crucified him, and there wasn’t a thing I could do but watch him die. When he breathed his last it was like I breathed my last. When they stuck that spear in his side I felt the blood drain out of my own body. The others all went back to the upper room to think about what they would do next but I couldn’t think about that, and I surely couldn’t talk about what had just happened. I needed to be by myself, on my own. I went to the place he went when he needed to pray, and just as he did I poured out my heart to the Father. It took a long time.

But early on the first day of the week, for whatever reason, I began to feel better, and by the end of the day I was ready to see the others again. I went to the upper room, and when I got there they practically pounced on me. “We’ve seen the Lord!” they said. “He was right here! He just…walked in, through locked doors. He showed us his hands and his side and then he breathed on us and told us to receive the Holy Spirit. He said, ‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ And then he said something about forgiving people’s sins, or maybe holding on to them? We can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. But

this matters, Thomas: he was here! Right here! Alive as you or me!” And I could see that something had happened. I mean, those disciples didn’t get excited about much, but they were excited about this. At the same time I wasn’t about to build the rest of my life on some ghostly apparition. I needed something solid. So, I told them, “Look, I’m not saying you’re lying, but unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

And then a week went by—an entire week when they were looking at me like, “Why don’t you believe us?” and I was looking at them like, “Why don’t you prove it?” Things were a little tense. Mary was telling everybody she had seen the Lord. The others were telling me they had seen him. It seems like everybody had been blessed with a vision of the risen Lord except me and then, on that next Sunday night, there he was. It was kind of spooky, you know? We were having supper. I had just turned to ask Andrew a question and when I turned back he was there. I jumped up from the table and backed into a corner but he stood up and said, “Here I am, Thomas. You said you wouldn’t believe unless you saw me with your own eyes. Here I am. You said you wouldn’t believe unless you put your finger in the mark of the nails. Here they are. You said you wouldn’t believe unless you put your hand in my side. Here it is. I don’t want you to doubt any longer, Thomas. I want you to believe. Look at me; here I am.”

That was all the proof I needed.

I didn’t need to put my finger in the marks of the nails after that. I didn’t need to put my hand in his side. I just said the first thing that came out of my mouth: I said, ‘My Lord and my God!’ And he said, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me, Thomas? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ And he was talking about you, about some of you in this very room, who have never seen him

with your own eyes and yet have somehow come to believe that he is both Lord and God.

If you’ve read the rest of John’s Gospel you know that’s why he wrote it in the first place. After telling my story he wrote, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” I think he wanted you to see that if someone who had been a doubter, like me, could become a believer then you could, too. And did you notice he didn’t say, “These things are written so that you will believe,” but rather, “These things are written so that you may come to believe,” as if faith might come slowly, gradually, over time. For me, in the end, it was not about my ability to believe unbelievable things; it was about my ability to believe in Jesus, the same way you believe in the people you love. Even now, when people ask me, “Have you stopped doubting, Thomas? Do you believe that dead people can come back to life?” I say, “It’s not so much what I believe as who: it’s Jesus. I believe in Jesus.

My Lord and my God.

—Jim Somerville © 2023

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.

My friend John Ballenger is one of the most creative people I know.  He’s a member of my Preacher Camp group, and last year, when we got together to plan our preaching for this year, it was his assignment to come up with some good ideas for Easter.  John came up with 41 pages of ideas, many of them good ones, but the one that captured my imagination was this one called “The Well-Remembered Word.”  John asked us to imagine a memorial service for Jesus, held several years after his ascension, where some of the people who had known him best and loved him most would gather to remember him, and since I have a good imagination, I pictured it like this. 

I pictured John, the Beloved Disciple, who was teaching and preaching in Ephesus in the latter part of the first century, wanting his church to hear from some of those who had actually spent time with the Lord.  And so he started thinking about an event, maybe a weekend conference called “Remembering Jesus.”  But the more he thought about it, and the more he thought about Jesus as the Word made flesh, the more he started thinking of it as, “The Well-Remembered Word.”  Yes!  He could almost see the brochures now.  He would invite not only the members of his own church in Ephesus, but all the other churches in the region: Smyrna, Sardis, Pergamum, Thyatira, Laodicea, and Philadelphia.  And as speakers he would invite Mary Magdalene, Thomas, who was sometimes called the Doubter, those two disciples who had walked with Jesus on the Road to Emmaus, and, as the Disciple Jesus Loved, he would share some of his own memories.  It would be wonderful!  And, if he could remember to do it, he would ask the speakers to write down what they were going to say so that the church would have it forever. 

And that, my friends, is where the ball was dropped.  In my imagination they did it, they had that conference.  John flew Mary in from Magdala, Thomas from India where he was serving as a missionary (and actually that’s when John made the decision to charge a small fee for conference registration, in order to cover the cost of airfare and accommodations and printing the full color brochures [which did not come cheap in the first century, I assure you]), but those two disciples from Emmaus, who were real Christians and wanted to save John some money, walked, as they usually did, but this time all the way to Ephesus.  It took about two weeks.  But the conference, once they got there, was everything John had hoped it would be.  Christians came in from all over and sat there in awe as people they had only heard about in the Gospels shared their memories of Jesus.  John’s only regret when it was over was that he forgot to ask the speakers for a copy of their remarks.

So, what we have for this series is my best guess as to what those eyewitnesses might have said.  It may be inspired (as I said, I have a good imagination), but it will certainly not be inerrant or infallible.  Please don’t go around telling people that you now know what Mary was thinking as she went to the tomb.  But I’m going to do my very best to draw my inspiration from the Scriptures themselves, rather than myths or legends or Dan Brown novels, so that you can follow up later on your own, and see how much of what I said holds true.  Are you ready?  Here it is, then, the first chapter of the book the Beloved Disciple should have published after that incredible conference, a chapter called, “Mary Remembers,” in which she may have said:

——————-
            Let me begin by thanking our host, the Apostle John, although I have to smile when I say “Apostle” because I’ve known him since he was a teenager.  And let me say how good it is to see a few others I’ve met along the way: Thomas, the two disciples from Emmaus, and of course Luke, who once interviewed me for a Gospel he was writing.  If I had known he was going to include everything I said I might not have told him so much.  I might not have told him about those seven demons that he mentions in chapter eight.  But maybe that’s where my story begins, because that’s how I met Jesus in the first place. 

I had been tormented by those demons for so long I had a name for each one.  I could feel them waking up inside me and when they did it was misery.  I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep.  I gnashed my teeth and tore my clothes.  And then one day I heard about Jesus, this prophet from Nazareth in Galilee, who was making his way from one village to another healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, raising the dead, casting out demons, and above all preaching the good news of the coming Kingdom.  Apparently he was telling people that when the Kingdom came there wouldn’t be any more sickness, any more death, any more…demons.  But I couldn’t wait that long.  I wanted him to do something right then.  I didn’t even wait until he got to my town, to Magdala: I went looking. 

When I found him there were crowds of people pressed in around him, long lines of people waiting to be cured, some hobbling on crutches, some carried on stretchers by their friends.  It was a good day for me.  The demons hadn’t bothered me in weeks.  But I knew it was only a matter of time.  And when I finally stood in front of him he knew it, too.  He looked into my eyes, “the windows of the soul.”  He saw what was in there.  He said, “Demons, listen to me.  Stop tormenting this woman.  Come out of her, I command you.”  He said it so calmly, but with such authority, as if he absolutely expected to be obeyed.  And he was!  It wasn’t dramatic.  I didn’t fall to the ground and start convulsing, but I could feel it: the light that was inside him driving away the darkness that was inside me like the sun coming up in the morning.  It broke across my own face, and I smiled for the first time in years.  “My name is Mary,” I said, although he hadn’t asked, but he smiled too and repeated it: “Mary.”  And somehow that word, on his lips, was the sweetest sound I had ever heard.

But no, it wasn’t like that.  It wasn’t like we were in love or anything although some people have suggested that we were.  And in case you’re wondering, I wasn’t that woman Luke wrote about in the seventh chapter of his Gospel, the one who wet the Lord’s feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  Remember?  When he was at the home of Simon the Pharisee and Simon was thinking, “If he knew what kind of woman she was he wouldn’t let her touch his feet”?  No, I was not that woman, and I was not that kind of woman.  Some people have made that suggestion, too.  Some preachers have said as much from the pulpit.  Shame on them.  But do you remember what Jesus said about that woman?  He said that she showed such great love for him because she had been forgiven of so many sins, and then he said, “The one who is forgiven little, loves little.”  Well, I was not that woman.  I did not wet his feet with my tears or wipe them with my hair.  But if I had thought of it first I might have.  Greater love hath no one than the woman from whom seven demons have been cast out.   

But I did do something: I began to follow Jesus, and along with a few other women began to provide for him and his disciples out of my means, limited as they were.  Susanna was with us, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward, and a few other women like myself who were just so grateful to Jesus we would have done anything for him.  It gave us the opportunity to learn from him when we stopped for the night, after we had cooked supper and washed up the dishes, Jesus would sometimes sit by the fire with his disciples just talking and he always let us sit close enough to listen.  I began to call him “Rabbi,” and sometimes even “Rabbouni,” as if I were the teacher’s pet.  But he didn’t seem to mind; he could tell I was taking his teaching seriously.  And I was!  I got to watch him help and heal, I got to hear him preach and teach.  I liked it best when he talked about something he called “the life of the ages.”  He made it sound as if, when God’s kingdom finally came on earth as it is in heaven, all of us would be living the life of the ages—life that was abundant, and overflowing, and everlasting—which sounded like just the opposite of the kind of life I was living before I met him.  But in the meantime it was enough to follow him, to provide for him and his disciples, to listen to his teaching, and to learn what real love was all about, the kind the Greeks call agape.

It was about sacrifice.

We could feel it coming, those of us who were paying attention.  He started talking about it well before it happened, but even his closest disciples seemed to dismiss it.  Jesus would say he was going to Jerusalem where he would suffer and die and Peter would say, “God forbid, Lord!  That will never happen to you!”  But he kept on saying it, and some of us could see why.  The things he said didn’t always sit well with people.  When he talked about bringing in the Kingdom of God some people thought he was trying to replace the existing kingdom, to pull Caesar off the throne and put God there instead.  It sounded like insurrection.  And to others the way he talked about God, as if he were his father, made it sound as if he were the Son of God.  It sounded like blasphemy.  For both the religious and political authorities Jesus was becoming a problem that needed to be solved.

So, when we got to Jerusalem we begged him to be careful.  We could see how they were watching him.  But that didn’t stop him.  He was out there day after day, teaching and preaching as always.  If anything he was more open than he had been before, almost as if he were asking for trouble.  So, what a relief to get to that Upper Room, and lock the doors behind us.  That’s where we had the Last Supper, and of course we women were there.  Who do you think did all the cooking and serving?  But because we were there we heard everything, and it became clear, the longer he talked, that he was trying to get us ready to do all this without him.  I didn’t want to do it without him.  If he had asked me I would have said so.  But he just kept saying, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.  I’m going to prepare a place for you.  I’m going to go and come back and take you to myself so that where I am you can be also.” 

And that sounded good.

But what happened next was horrible.  We went to the Garden of Gethsemane and that’s where Judas betrayed him with a kiss (!) and the soldiers arrested him and took him away and for the longest time we didn’t know what was happening.  He was at the home of the high priest where they were interrogating him, calling him a criminal, charging him with blasphemy—anything they could think of to get rid of him.  The next morning they took him to the governor’s palace where they claimed that Jesus was going around saying he was the King of the Jews.  Well, that led to a long conversation with Pilate that didn’t go well, apparently.  Pilate condemned him to death, but only after his soldiers had flogged the Lord and put a crown of thorns on his head and dressed him in a purple robe, saying, “Hail to the King!”  They were making fun of him, is what they were doing, and it was one of the saddest things I had ever seen.  Jesus just stood there with his head bowed, taking it, as Pilate said, “Behold the man!”

You know the rest of the story.  You know they crucified him.  I was there, and I stayed there the whole day, standing at the foot of the cross beside his mother and a few others (John, you remember; you were there).  It was horrible.  Just to stand there and watch him die; to see the blood running down his legs; to see him suffering, gasping for breath.  And yet, through it all he was what the sign above his head said he was: the King of the Jews. 

I was there when he said, “It is finished” and breathed his last.  I was there when the soldiers pierced his side and blood and water gushed out.  Only when they were absolutely sure that he was dead did they take him down from the cross and give his body to Joseph of Arimathea, who put it in a new tomb where nobody had ever been laid.  I followed him to the garden.  I saw where he put the body.  I was planning to come back.  I couldn’t the next day, because it was a Sabbath, but oh, how I wanted to!  And even before the sun came up on the following day I was up, making my way to the tomb, feeling my way through the darkness.  I don’t know what I was thinking I would do.  Maybe just sit there.  But when I got there the stone had been rolled away, and when I looked inside Jesus wasn’t there.  I went running back to tell the other disciples, “They’ve stolen his body!”  Peter and John jumped up and ran back with me, but when they got there they didn’t find him either.  They went back to tell the others but I stayed behind, and when I looked into the tomb this time I saw two angels sitting there.  They asked me why I was weeping and I said, “Because they’ve taken away my Lord!”  And when I turned around there was a man standing there who asked me the same question, “Woman, why are you weeping?  Who are you looking for?” 

People have asked me ever since why I didn’t recognize it was Jesus, but can I tell you this?  I watched him die.  No one has ever been so completely dead.  The last person in the world I expected to see alive and well was Jesus.  And yet there he was.  I knew it as soon as he called my name, as soon as he said “Mary.”  As I told you, it was the sweetest sound I had ever heard, and even sweeter under those circumstances, when I thought he was dead and gone forever.  To hear him call my name, to see the light in his eyes and the smile on his face?  I couldn’t help myself.  “Rabbouni!” I said.  I ran to him, I hugged him hard, until he finally had to pry me loose and say, “Mary, don’t hold on to me.  I’m not finished yet.  I still have to ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.  But go and tell my brothers that you’ve seen me, alive and well.”  And then he was gone, and I was there in the garden, all alone.  I wandered back to where the disciples were staying in a daze, still feeling the warmth of his body, his breath on my face.  When they opened the door they just looked at me.  They could tell that something had happened, something big, but they didn’t know what.  So, I told them.  I said,

“I have seen the Lord.”

—Jim Somerville © 2023