I want to begin with gratitude to our church for taking on the challenge of reading the gospels this fall. I have loved hearing your stories of how this reading plan helped you engage in a new way with Jesus, inspiring you and opening space for new questions. I appreciate you taking this adventure together, whether you’ve made it all the way, you popped into it occasionally, or just picked things up recently. It is my firm belief that engaging with Scripture is fundamental to the Christian life. Reading the gospels is like drinking straight from a spring. It sustains life and strengthens us to follow Jesus in the world. So, thank you.
And, if life got away from you this fall, there is no reason you can’t dive in now. Our program may be done, but seeking to know Jesus through scripture and prayer continues on. It’s always available.
We end in a familiar spot — the end, which of course is a place we get every year as a church leading to Easter. I’ve intentionally skipped Jesus’ final days throughout this series because I wanted us to experience some aspects of his life that lead all the way to Jesus’ death and resurrection. Over the past weeks, we’ve looked into the meaning of discipleship (You remember my three B-words, right? Believing, belonging, and becoming). We’ve talked about how John the Baptist, Jesus, and the disciples experienced rejection. We’ve looked at Jesus as a teacher, as a secret Messiah, as a healer, as a boundary breaker, and as a savior. He’s all those things, and if you kept at your reading, you’ve seen he’s far more than we’ve had time to preach about on Sundays.
We’ve taken the time to look more deeply at all these aspects of Jesus because he is so much more than the end of his story, as important as that is. The gospels are very much about how God’s kingdom, God’s reign, has come near and about how that changes everything in the world and, more specifically, in how you live.
I really hope you’ll take time to consider who Jesus is to you. I hope he’s more than an idea or an image you’ve taken from art or stained glass. I hope he’s becoming a friend. I hope he’s your Lord and Savior. I hope he’s the one who is sending you with purpose in the world.
So, today we have come to our ending. If I were to ask a random person on the street what they know about Jesus, I suspect they’d bring up his birth and his death. The stuff in between would be a bonus, but most people focus on those bookends. (And if it’s unclear at all, the stuff in between profoundly matters to how we respond to Jesus today; it’s why we’ve spent all fall on it!)
We know this is a violent world. In my lifetime, our country alone has fought wars all over the world. According to the Geneva Academy, there are currently more than 110 armed conflicts throughout the world — 45 in the Middle East, 35 in Africa, 21 in Asia, 7 in Europe, and 6 in Latin America. Wars don’t even take into account the violent means by which governments assert control. That’s what crucifixion was in Jesus’ day — a way of Rome saying they had ultimately authority over people.
That kind of violent control wasn’t just something the Romans invented. It was widely practiced in antiquity. Several hundred years earlier, King Darius of Persia reportedly crucified 3000 Babylonians. Alexander the Great of Greece had 2000 people crucified. The Romans took this practice and increased its frequency and severity. Shortly before Jesus’ birth, 2000 Jews were crucified together, so folks were well aware of the threat of crucifixion.
The Bible is actually sparing in describing the humiliating violence of this death penalty. I won’t go into those details because that’s not my point right now. Besides, we usually try to keep church PG-13 or lower. But, here’s what I want you to think about: It’s into the evil world of routine crucifixions that Jesus comes, knowing full well the costliness of it. As I read the gospels this fall, I often found myself struck by how sure Jesus was of his purpose. He was born with a death sentence hanging over his head and a brutal one at that. Still, he came. For you. For me. Because God so loved the world.
We know the story of Jesus’ crucifixion through the eyes of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It’s a story we retell every year, especially from Palm Sunday through Easter. We’re ending this series here because these gospels all culminate with Jesus in Jerusalem, spending his final days encouraging the disciples, accepting his betrayal, standing with integrity before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, resolutely and faithfully going to the cross, dying on that dark afternoon, and crying out in how utterly alone and forsaken he felt at this cruel end.
But, if we end there, we are without hope. The story of human violence winning just keeps going. That’s not how the gospels culminate. In the stillness of Sunday morning, something inexplicable happens. Jesus is alive. He has conquered death. He has overcome evil. It is in that resurrection that we find hope for living still today. Evil does not have the final say. In the words of a declaration of faith that I use in many funerals, “We treat death as a broken power.”
That’s where this connects so importantly back to how we live now. Jesus didn’t do this simply so that some day we could be with him in heaven, although that is part of the plan. Rather, all the stuff Jesus was doing between his birth and resurrection was showing us what God’s kingdom looks like, pointing us to how we should be living now as disciples.
We see this in the restoration of Peter at the end of John’s gospel. Things could not have gone worse for Peter. He’s Jesus’ “rock,” yet he has failed when Jesus was at his lowest point. The last thing Jesus utters to Peter before he dies is a word of correction. “Put your sword away, Peter,” Jesus says, revealing that Peter still does not understand how God’s reign is one of peace that rejects the violence of this world. And Peter’s final words? “I swear to you that I don’t know the man,” denying Jesus three times.
Imagine with me that you’re Peter. You had a normal life, fishing the waters of the Sea of Galilee to make a living. One day, Jesus comes by, invites you to follow, and you devote the next three years of your life to following him. But when the going got tough, you failed. You tried violence to protect Jesus and were scolded. You tried to stay close to Jesus but didn’t have the courage to risk your own life, so you denied knowing him in his time of greatest need.
And then, Jesus dies. You visit his tomb, only to find it empty, your mind racing through all he has said, trying to make sense of what this could mean. In your confusion, you go back to what you know — fishing. It is on one of those normal days that Jesus shows up on the shoreline. You see him and don’t even wait for the boat to come in. You jump in and swim to shore, and there you all share in breakfast.
It’s in the afterglow of this that Jesus restores Peter. No longer is failure the end of his story. Jesus asks Peter if he loves him three times — once for each denial. With each Jesus gives him work to do.
Feed my lambs, Peter.
Tend my sheep, Peter.
Feed my sheep, Peter.
Restoration leads to purpose.
It also leads to a promise of persecution. “Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” John adds that Jesus said this to indicate how Peter would die.
For the next few decades, Peter spread the gospel. We read about some of that in Acts. We also see in his own letter that he remains aware that his faithfulness is going to cost him. In 2 Peter 1, we read these words, “I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to refresh your memory since I know that my death will come soon, as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.”
While we do not see this in Scripture, early church tradition holds Peter was crucified, hanging upside-down in Rome during Emperor Nero’s purges in the 60s. That tradition is consistent with this gospel, even if the details go well beyond John.
Jesus pulls no punches with Peter. He restores him. He tells him the truth that the very world that is so wicked it would hang God’s Son on a cross would just as easily do the same to others who live in this manner. It’s the same world Jesus chose to enter, knowing fully the costliness of that choice. Still, Jesus’ final words are an invitation. “Follow me,” he says.
To be honest, the world is still cruel, our weapons have just shifted. What are we to do now? Follow Jesus. We aren’t following to escape any harsh realities. We are following precisely because we believe that living in the manner of Jesus is the healing balm needed still. Restoration leads to purpose.
The invitation to read these gospels was an invitation to see how being with Jesus in his stories could re-story and restore us and call us more deeply into following, no matter the state of things. Jesus is still with us. Be strong and courageous. Live like Jesus because that makes a difference. We’re still being called every day, imperfect though we are, to be the very presence of Christ in a broken and fearful world.
“Follow me,” Jesus says to you and me. Come what may, “follow me.”
