Sermons

“Why Does Jesus Matter?”

John 1:1-5, 14; Philippians 2:1-11 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – June 3, 2018

“Faith Matters” Sermon Series #3

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we might deepen our understanding of your Christ and your love in our lives. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

So let’s start with the obvious: It seems a little odd for a preacher to make a big deal about the fact that the sermon is going to be about Jesus. It would be fair to assume that almost all of my sermons throughout the year should be about Jesus, right? Jesus is, after all, the central character of our faith tradition. And there’s a lot to say about him. So how is this sermon different? Is it more about Jesus? Is it the most important sermon about Jesus?

There are a lot of things we could say about Jesus, stories about him, stories he told, things written about him later by the early church. And we do that, all year. The sermon isn’t even the most important portion of the service when it comes to reminding ourselves about the significance of Jesus; we do that at the Table every week. But as we move through this “Faith Matters” sermon series, the point is to refresh our understanding of the fundamentals of our faith. While it’s important to consider all the various stories of and about Jesus, it’s also important to step back once in a while and look at the big picture. If you’re going to invite someone to come and see what our church is about, they may very likely want to know what difference Jesus Christ makes in your life. And if you can’t explain that, your invitation isn’t going to be too compelling.

This is one of the skills we’re going to be working on over the coming year. It’s all well and good to tell someone they should come try out our church because the people are really friendly and we do a lot of service to our neighbors in need. That might work if the person you’re talking to is already more-or-less a Christian. But statistically, chances are high that they won’t be. People can find friendly communities in lots of places and there are lots of opportunities to serve their neighbors. If we’re going to have these conversations effectively, we need to be able to talk about why doing these things in the context of a Christian community makes a difference. We need to be able to talk about Jesus. We need to know what our most important beliefs about Jesus are and how they impact our lives, so that we can explain that clearly to someone who may be looking for such a way of life, even if they didn’t realize it before.

This is a Disciples church, so what is most important to me about Jesus may not be the most important thing to you. But as your pastor, it’s my responsibility to guide you in discerning what it is you believe about Jesus and recognizing how that shapes your life. So I offer to you this morning a couple of broad strokes that serve as fundamentals for me, with the expectation that you may resonate with them as well. While these are understandings about what Jesus means, it’s important to note that they make a difference largely because of what they tell us about God. One of the central tenets of our faith is that Jesus is a revelation of God, something that reveals more about God to us. In scripture, Jesus is always pointing beyond himself to God, which is something we do well to remember. Learning about Jesus is learning about God.

So let’s start at the beginning. The prologue of the gospel of John is about as “beginning” as you can get in the gospels. It even sounds like Genesis as it’s getting started. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” If we’re going to get right down to the root of it, we have to ask the question “Why even have a Jesus?” Why not just keep being God, lovingly in relation with the world you created? For me, the prologue of John is a stand-in for the whole idea of the incarnation, the theological concept summed up in verse 14, “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” This is an astonishing revelation, and for me, one of the most fundamental.

This Jesus that we claim as Lord and Savior is an embodied announcement of the preciousness of God’s creation. Our human lives matter that much; they matter so much that God needed to have one too. Jesus is a proclamation that our God is a God of solidarity; our God will not leave us to go through our lives on our own. I grew up Christian and perhaps I would have stayed Christian just by inertia. But when I look at other faith traditions and think about what matters to me about Christianity, this emphatic demonstration of God’s love for us is what keeps me. God’s creation is so precious to God that God couldn’t stay separate from us; God was compelled to send the Word to take on flesh and live among us.

I stated clearly last week that our beliefs have consequences, and the ramifications of this joyous declaration are enormous. If we love God, then we must love what God loves, and God clearly adores and cherishes God’s creation. Thus, if we want to follow Jesus, we are called to care for God’s creation with the kind of love we see demonstrated in the incarnation – feeding hungry people, picking up litter, loving the lonely, reducing our carbon footprint, caring for the sick, walking alongside those struggling for justice, tending our gardens and wilderness areas, defending the widows and orphans and strangers, protecting endangered species, and on and on.

It’s not just that in Jesus God walked on earth. There are plenty of stories of Greek or Roman gods taking on human form temporarily for various purposes. But our God became human, being born as a vulnerable baby, who became a refugee even. To worship a God who became vulnerable out of love for us is to answer the call to seek out and stand beside those who are vulnerable in our world today, out of love for God. To proclaim Jesus as the incarnate Word of God has consequences; if our lives are not reflecting that proclamation it doesn’t have much point.

Now again, there may be people who live their lives this way without having confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior. And that’s great. But there is strength in having that conviction of our calling to serve the vulnerable rooted in something bigger than wanting to be a good person. There are a lot of things out there that tempt us to give up on trying to do the right thing. It’s inconvenient. It’s costly. It’s often a source of disappointment. But when this calling in grounded in our understanding of ourselves as disciples of Jesus Christ, when we know it’s bigger than our own virtue and supported by something other than our own determination, it’s easier to hold on. When we know that creation is held in God’s hands, we can afford to take time to rest. When we follow Jesus, the set-backs are less disillusioning and the trials are seen through the lens of eternity. When we follow Jesus, we remember that God pulls life from death, healing from brokenness, light from darkness, hope from despair. Living with these convictions makes it possible to continue to throw our lot in with the vulnerable and down-trodden, just as God did in Jesus.

The second conviction I want to lift up this morning comes from the other end of the story. The second chapter of Philippians includes what is sometimes called the “kenosis” or “emptying” hymn. Paul writes eloquently about the incarnation, but takes it even farther, describing not just God becoming flesh and living among us, but also the mortal consequences of that choice. Our convictions about Jesus are informed by his teachings and ministry, but they are bookended by the incarnation at the beginning and the crucifixion and the resurrection at the end.

Paul reminds us explicitly that Jesus did not exploit his power; rather, he was humble and obedient – faithful to God’s will and love, and it got him killed. And Paul doesn’t leave it there. If we are proclaiming such a Savior, Paul implies, we must proclaim it with our actions and behaviors as much as with our words. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” As Christians, we must live our lives guided by humble, sacrificial love above all else. This means putting others before ourselves, living in peace with friends and enemies, sharing the resources God has provided as any have need, and being willing at any moment to pour out our lives for the sake of love. If we’re going to share the good news of Jesus Christ, we have to spend some time figuring out what the crucifixion and the resurrection mean to us and how they impact our lives as Christians. What does it mean that Jesus’ teaching and ministry were so disruptive that he was targeted for capital punishment? What does it mean that he didn’t exploit his divine power to protect himself? What does it mean that the One we proclaim as Lord was willing to die, but not to kill? What do these truths about Jesus tell us about God? And what do they mean for our own lives? What does it look like when we live guided in all things by humble, sacrificial love?

I feel like if I were trying to explain this part of my belief about Jesus to someone without much exposure to Christianity, it might sound kind of crazy and unattainable. Who can possibly live that way consistently? I know I’m not very good at it. And that’s why I want to tack on one more thing here, one of the blessings we remember at the Table every week. Jesus is a reminder to us of the depth of God’s mercy. The solidarity of the Word becoming flesh, of the willingness to undergo suffering and death, the depth of love involved in all that shows us that God’s mercy will fill in every gap. Without that, this whole thing is untenable. When we confess Jesus as Lord and Savior and commit to following him, it’s not because that’s something we’re going to be good at. It’s because we want to try and we’re admitting we’re going to need help doing it. We follow Jesus because everything about Jesus tells us something about a God whose love is deeper than we can even imagine and we want to share in that. This is news worth sharing! Alleluia and Amen!