Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Never Too Late

Jesus arrived after Lazarus had died. It’s a hard moment – Jesus shared the grief – but it turned out that he was not too late, because he was and is the resurrection and the life.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the eleventh chapter of John’s Gospel (John 11:1-45), the resurrection of Lazarus.

It is a wonderful and uplifting story. It demonstrates that the power of Jesus was not limited to day-to-day life, but extended beyond life and was, in fact, a power over death. It features perhaps the deepest of Jesus’ “I am” statements: “I am the resurrection and the life.” It offers and reassures the promise of eternal life and resurrection for us all. It’s a marvelous story.

It also contains some truly troubling elements. It is this event that persuaded some of the leadership to seek an occasion where they could arrest Jesus and have him executed. That’s a harsh element of the story.

It is also a story that is marked with grief: the grief of Lazarus’ sisters Martha and Mary. Each of them expressed their faith in Jesus, but each of them also say something along the lines of, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Onlookers say the same thing. If Jesus had been there in time — and John made clear Jesus might have been there in time — Lazarus would not have died.

What explanation we’re given, and it’s not much, is that Jesus saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate his power over death, to demonstrate that he had authority even beyond the veil. It’s not a satisfying explanation. I don’t think it even satisfied Jesus, who stood outside the tomb of Lazarus and wept.

What are we to say? I think we are to take our lead from Jesus’ own tears. We are the followers of one, we are the worshipers of a God, who knows our grief, who has shared our sense of loss. We believe in a God, we trust in a God, who knows how we have felt, who has felt what we have felt.

And whatever we might think or feel about the timing of Jesus’ arrival, it has to be said that for Jesus it was not too late. Yes, he might have prevented Lazarus from dying, and yes, there was some grieving that happened, and grief he participated in, but there was no such thing as being too late for Jesus. Illness was no barrier to him, death itself no barrier to him. There is no such thing as too late for Jesus in our lives.

And there is that marvelous “I am” statement. “I am the resurrection and the life.”

We trust in One who is not the agent of death, we trust in One who is not the agent of suffering, we trust in One who is the agent of life and renewed life.

“I am the resurrection and the life.” And this is the one in whom we trust. This is the one we follow.

That’s what I am thinking. I’m curious to hear with you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Mountaintop

Jesus and three of his disciples had a mountaintop experience of God’s presence and love. Can we bring our mountaintop experiences into our troubled times?

Here’s a transcript:

This Sunday is the last one before the beginning of Lent. That makes it Transfiguration Sunday, so I’m thinking about the seventeenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 17:1-9), Matthew’s account of Jesus’ Transfiguration.

Jesus went up a mountain with his three closest friends: Peter, James, and John. While they were there, Jesus began to glow with some kind of inner light. Two other figures joined them on the mountain that they recognized as Moses and Elijah. Simon Peter offered to build some shelter and prolong the moment. A voice from a cloud, however, said that “This is my beloved son: Listen to him.” A moment later, the cloud was gone, the light was gone, Moses and Elijah were gone, and Jesus was saying to Peter, James, and John, “Get up, and do not be afraid.”

The Transfiguration of Jesus is a mystery. It has been a mystery since those first three disciples experienced it (alongside Jesus, of course). It was a mystery to them as they continued to follow him through Galilee and on to Jerusalem. I’m sure it was a mystery to those that they first told about it after Jesus’ resurrection. It was a mystery to Matthew, Mark, and Luke as they recorded it in their Gospels. And it’s been a mystery to all the rest of us over the centuries who have read it and sought to understand it — especially to those of us who have to preach about it.

We usually call significant religious experiences “mountain top experiences” based, in part, on this example from the Scriptures (there are other examples in the Scriptures as well). Mountains tend to be places where people have significant religious experiences, but they can have them in other places.

The point is that great epiphanies, great revelations of the heart and mind of God, are rare. We, most of the time live with the guidance we receive from Scripture, or from what we’ve been taught, from the example of other people around us. It’s not that common for a voice to sound from a cloud and say, “This is my beloved son: Listen to him.”

But most of us have something like that in our lives, some moment faith touched us more deeply than it had before, some kind of mountaintop experience unique to each one of us.

Hold on to the mountain top experience. Remember to bring its assurance down into the valley, not because the mountaintop experience makes you right about everything else, but because the mountaintop experience reminds you of the ever-present grace and love of God.

The first thing that Jesus said to his friends after that overwhelming experience was, “Do not be afraid.” Friends, I think that is what mountaintop experiences are for. When we’re down in the valleys and things are not going well, we can recall what we experienced that went so deep.

And in that memory we do not need to be afraid.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Out of Joint

It’s not uncommon to feel “out of joint” with God. What to do then? Hang on.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the thirty-second chapter of Genesis (Genesis 32:22-31), the well-known story of Jacob wrestling with an angel — or perhaps with God.

I’ve read this story many times. I’ve preached on it many times. I’ve probably thought about it many more times. What strikes me on this reading is, in fact, that portion where the man struck Jacob. The text simply refers to Jacob’s wrestling opponent as “a man,” at least until the end of the story when it’s Jacob who concludes that he had been wrestling with God.

At one point in the wrestling “the man” concluded that he was not winning and so he struck Jacob on the hip and put it out of joint. At that point, Jacob was beaten, but he wouldn’t let go until the victor blessed him.

I am also, I think I’d have to say, accustomed to wrestling with God. Most pastors will tell some story about wrestling with their call, and any of us, clergy or lay, at some point in our lives, we found ourselves in a place where we believed that God might have something in mind for us, and it wasn’t necessarily what we had in mind for ourselves.

And so we wrestled with God.

I think that metaphor of a hip out of joint is an apt one. Jacob was already out of the joint. He had been out of joint with his family. He had been out with joint with the family into which he married. He had been out of joint with God. He had been out of a joint with himself. In this wrestling match, that blow from God was a symbol that matched everything that he had been through and everything that he had done, and there he was out of joint with others, with himself, with God.

You know, I can’t think of any better advice than to follow Jacob’s example at that moment, when he realized how out of joint he was, and that there had come a time when he would not prevail: not with all of the trickery, not with all of the falsehoods, not with all of his con man skills. He would not prevail, so he held on.

He held on to God and asked for a blessing.

His blessing was to get a new name, one that meant “the one who strives with God;” and he named the place with the Hebrew phrase that means “the face of God.”

“Israel:” “the one who strives with God.” “Peniel:” “the face of God.”

When you’re in that wrestling match with God and you have realized that you are, in fact, out of joint, hold on. Not to “win,” but to receive God’s blessing for that moment. And in that blessing and in the light of that face, you can go on to follow God’s way… even if you might find yourself moving awkwardly as you do.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.