Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:27-33; March 17, 2024; The Fifth Sunday of Lent
Most of my colleagues from Princeton Theological Seminary were trained in the delivery of a classic three-point sermon. I was not. I was instead taken in by the great Dr. Cleophus LaRue, professor of Homiletics, scholar of African American preaching and worship, who once told me, “Don’t worry about the script and the points, and just preach creatively to your congregation, mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart.”
As such, I don’t usually follow a script, which, admittedly, can sometimes get me into trouble. Seemingly veering off course here or there as I reference Radiohead lyrics; movie scenes; and quotes from strange mystics and theologians; while sometimes also inventing stories outright about neighborhoods and trees, while also offering allusions to such things like the scandal of the gospel, and those funny, if not terrifying, confessional booths, which we will not be installing. Someone last week thought I was being serious. I promise, my friends, the Youth Lounge is staying, the Sin Stall is out. In fact, it was never in.
But, for a change of pace today, I thought that I’d try something new, and offer you a script. But rather than three, here instead are four. A four-point sermon, Brian-fied all the same, which hopefully, prayerfully, will come together in the end, squaring with what God wants each of us to hear today.
Sound okay, all? Sound okay, Valerie? Okay, here we go. Point 1:
“The Hardest”
- The Cosmic Background. It’s a scientific term better known by the more complete title: The Cosmic Microwave Background (or its acronym, CMB). You’ve heard of it, right? If not, it’s featured on our bulletin cover. It refers to the radiation which fills all space in the observable universe, that points back in time to the origin of all creation. As the Harvard Center for Astrophysics explains, about 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the expansion of the universe allowed the first stable atoms to form. And because of something called “recombination” we now see CMB light coming from all directions, looking almost exactly the same, no matter which part of the sky you look at. Which is pretty darn cool!
In other, simpler words, The Cosmic Background is quite literally everywhere. All around us. A remnant of creation which permeates everything, time and space, and which has been with us, and will stay with us, from the beginning of all time all the way to the end of all time.
Got that? Still with me, my friends? See perhaps where we are going today?
Okay, so that was point 1, “The Hardest.” You’ve done well. Here is point 2:
“The Strangest”
- “You [Jesus] are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” – Hebrews 5:5-6.
What’s that you say? Melchiz-a-who? Melchizedek. Say it with me now… Melchizedek. And this guy rocks. Though preachers never really talk about this guy — because he’s an absolute mystery, and way too strange — he apparently has an order of priests behind him, of which Jesus falls in line. Yeah, as I told you, strange.
And, Hebrews 7, two chapters later, takes it another huge leap further by saying that Melchizedek has no father, no mother, no beginning, and no ending. And that he is to be forever known as the “King of Righteousness” and the “King of Peace.” Remind you of anyone? Moreover, this strange dude also appears way back in Psalm 110 and Genesis 14. And in Genesis, the first book of scripture, he appears before Abraham, the patriarch, with two gifts in hand. Any guesses what they were? Bread and wine… remind you of anything?
I told you all, this second point is the strangest. … As the author of the blog “Is That in the Bible?” writes, “Because Hebrews is vague about the precise relationship between Jesus and Melchizedek, and even seems to leave open the possibility that Melchizedek is a superior being, some later Christians assumed that was the case.”
For instance, the third-century theologian Hippolytus wrote disparagingly of a group called “Melchizedekians” who believed Melchizedek was greater than Christ in power. While others believed that Melchizedek was actually the Holy Spirit incarnate, which our own Kurt Heiselmoyer in Wednesday’s Bible Study wondered aloud the same.
Moreover, the Nag Hammadi texts found in Egypt sometimes identify Melchizedek as a manifestation of Christ himself. And Mark the Hermit in the fifth century wrote of Christians who believed that Melchizedek was the Logos/Word prior to becoming Jesus through the incarnation! Which, to all of this, our good friend from The Princess Bride would say, “Inconceivable!”
But no matter who he actually was, or who he might still be, this Melchizedek character in the end is pretty strange, but also pretty darn rad, because like cosmic radiation, he is apparently everywhere, always lurking, always manifesting in the background of creation. From the beginning in Genesis all the way to Scripture’s near end in Hebrews; the dude simply permeates both time and space.
Whew!
“The Quirkiest”
- “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say — “Father, save me from this hour”? No! It is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” John 12:27
In the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) which come before John, Jesus falls to his knees and cries a prayer of distress in the garden of Gethsemane anticipating his betrayal and death. He says there, “Father, my soul is troubled, please save me from this hour and let this cup pass before me. Even still, not my will be done, but yours.”
But here in John, Jesus says, “But what should I say, ‘Save me from this hour?’ No! It is for this reason and according to my own will that I have come to this hour!” …Hear the difference? It’s as if Jesus is openly questioning if not critiquing his previous/yet present Jesus-self. Or at least, so seems John in his handling of the synoptic material which came before him.
And so here, in John, Jesus has been reinterpreted if not entirely transformed, moving from a cry of obedient anguish to a declaration of self-motivated assurance. It’s quirky then, I think, peculiar and somewhat unexpected, but it also gives us hope.
For if the gospels can be self-critiquing, if not changing time over time, writer to writer, audience to audience, perhaps then the good news can be evolving still. Such that the canon is never ever fully closed, but still open to addition, recombination, and reinterpretation, expanding like radiation from the moment of an incarnational singularity, such that even Jesus’ revelation to humanity can permeate throughout time and space, in all generations, and in all people, from the beginning all the way to the very end.
Which leads us to our fourth and final point today:
“The Bestest”
- That God is always there, for God is always here. In the extraordinary, yes, but also, in just the ordinary. In everyday human interactions or just a stroll through the woods. In Scripture, and yet also in science; in church hymns and yet also in interfaith work. For from the beginning of creation, all the way to its end, and in all the days, events, and places in between, God permeates all time and space, such that we are never alone.
I understand that Pat Jones, a member of our choir, offered a short devotion at this week’s rehearsal, which came from the famous third chapter of Ecclesiastes. The one that The Byrds made famous with their hit, “Turn, Turn, Turn.” Which says that in every season, in every time, in moments of peace, and even in moments of anxiety and war, God is there. For God is also here, with us abiding, and in us, expanding in meaning.
Which means, open your eyes and open your ears today my friends, for in more ways than one, God is with us. In the rising of the sun to its final setting; in all things, small and large, in all directions, no matter where we look, God is there in the cosmic background, in places both light and dark, radiating still and moving through it all.
Isn’t that awesome? Thanks be to God. Amen.
