A Dream Come True (a message for May 17, 2020)
Last week I had a big “Aha” moment, which I talked about in last week’s sermon.
Last week’s gospel reading was probably already familiar to many of us from its frequent—and understandable use—in funerals and at the time of death.
“Believe in God, believe also in me,” Jesus says.
“In my Father’s house,” he goes on to say, “there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”
At the time of death, that passage gives wonderful comfort as we hear it saying to us that, when we die, Jesus comes to take us and welcome us to our new home with him. Wonderful!
But what I hadn’t known until last week—which became the basis of my big “Aha!” moment—was that the language that Jesus was using was the familiar and everyday language that a bridegroom would use with his bride!
Jesus’ departure—his dying on the cross—was being reframed by him as nothing more than a bridegroom’s brief journey away from his bride so that he could prepare the “place” where they would soon live happily-ever-after!
“And if I go and prepare a place for you,” says Jesus, “I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” Living happily ever-after in wedded bliss! Aha!
I mention all this because today’s gospel reading is the continuation of this conversation between Jesus and his disciples. Where last week left off, this week continues.
And so, as we reflect upon it today, we should continue to hear the echoes of Jesus reframing his departure in death as the brief journey a bridegroom makes to prepare the happily-ever-after home for him and his bride.
Last week I also said that, while it’s perfectly fine and appropriate that we understand our happily-ever-after dwelling place as occurring after we die—in heaven—as it were, Jesus actually means something more immediate.
Something that’s true right now!
This year on Easter Sunday itself and the first Sunday after Easter we focused on how Jesus came to where his disciples were behind closed doors to give them peace.
Jesus does it on Easter itself, coming to where they were, behind closed doors. And he did it again the following week, making sure to come to Thomas who had been missing the week before.
In a message titled “It’s Spread by Breathing!” we talked about how Jesus gave peace to his disciples when they were locked and barricaded behind closed doors, by breathing on them!
We didn’t talk about it this way then but, in many ways, this is how the Gospel of John describes what the books of Luke and Act say happens on the Day of Pentecost.
John seems to enjoy doing this, taking stories already familiar to us and telling them differently. I guess we could say John loves “reframing” them!
In our readings this week and last, Jesus had promised that he would only be away a short time from his followers. And that they should reframe his going away—in death—as the brief journey a bridegroom makes to prepare the dwelling place for him and his bride to live in happily ever-after.
And, already, her—on Easter—Jesus is fulfilling that promise!
Right then and there, by breathing on them, Jesus shares himself with his disciples, joining them together as one.
And that means a long-promised Biblical dream has just come true!
When God’s people were in the midst of their darkest days—when they had lost their land, their king, and their Temple—God sent prophets to reassure them of better days ahead.
In, perhaps, its most famous expression, God sent Jeremiah to say to them, “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”
“It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors … —a covenant that they broke, … says the LORD.
“But this is the covenant that I will make … after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, … for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”
What a dream—which is repeated by other prophets—that is!
A time would come when God would perform a miracle. He would give his people new hearts, the gift of which would overcome their disobedience and separation from God. But how could that be, and when?
Do you see now why, on each of these services in the season of Easter, we’ve begun our worship with Thanksgiving for Baptism? (You have been doing that each week, haven’t you? You haven’t been skipping it?)
By faith, we trust that in each of our baptisms, that dream has come true for us, in us, and to us!
“Joined to Christ in the waters of baptism,” we say in the Thanksgiving for Baptism liturgy, “we are raised with him to new life.”
“We give you thanks, … for in the beginning you created us in your image …. When we did not know the way, you sent the Good Shepherd to lead us …. [G]ive us the life only you can give.”
It is not easy to live by faith, trusting that God’s promises are dreams that have come true in us. As Luther taught over and over again—and he was basing it on the writing of St. Paul—that, just as Jesus needed to entrust himself to God when it seemed God had abandoned him, so we need to trust that God’s promises to us in baptism are true, even when there is little evidence of it!
“Joined to Christ in the waters of baptism, we are raised with him to new life.”
And so, again, “We give you thanks, … for in the beginning you created us in your image …. When we did not know the way, you sent the Good Shepherd to lead us ….
“[G]ive us the life only you can give.” And make our dreams come true. In Jesus’ name. Amen!
