March 7, 2010 Introduction
Holidays fill our annual calendar. New Year’s, MLK, Valentines, Presidents, St. Patrick’s, Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial, Father’s, 4th of July, Labor Day, Columbus, Veterans, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Over time, however, they tend to loose their meaning. What do people really know or celebrate about George Washington or Martin Luther King?
Ever read any of their speeches or writings? You won’t hear anything about St. Valentine or St. Patrick; only cupid, candy hearts, shamrocks or corn beef and cabbage (not to mention Guinness). Easter is about bunnies and eggs; Christmas is Santa Claus and elves. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to recover the meaning, appreciate the holidays, and allow them again to influence our lives for the good intended?
The Jewish people of Jesus’ day also had long-standing holy days. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover. In the Gospel of John, Jesus shows up on the various holidays to reveal his identity through the festival imagery. On the Sabbath in chapter 5, Jesus said, “Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it” (5:21). In chapter 6, at Passover, Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry” (6:35). At the Festival of Tabernacles in John 7, Jesus said, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (7:37-38). And today in our reading, it’s Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication.
I. Forsaken Holy Day (vs. 22-23)
“Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in Solomon’s Colonnade.” Hanukkah is celebrated in winter during the Jewish month of Kislev (November/ December). The festival remembers the corruption of the temple priesthood, the desecration of the temple by the Greeks, and its rededication under Judas Maccabeus (all between 332 and 165 B.C.). Hanukkah became a season that asked hard questions about failed leadership and false shepherds. How did the temple leadership lose its way during this Greek period?
During the same week, Jesus gave his Good Shepherd sermon while synagogues were reading the prophet Ezekiel. “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! You do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost… I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock…” (Ezekiel 34:2-10).
Before Judas Maccabeus won the Maccabean war against the Greeks and rededicated the temple, Israel (God’s people) had been forsaken by its religious and political leaders. Following the conquest of Alexander the Great, Israel had adopted numerous Greek cultural and religious habits and way of life. Even their Bible was translated into Greek (the Septuagint) for Jews who could no longer read Hebrew. The party called Hasidim that opposed this Hellenization met opposition not only from the Greeks but also from Jews who had compromised their commitment to Jewish culture and their faith.
I never knew this background to the celebration of Hanukkah; only the eight miraculous days when Judas’ supply of oil burned in the temple. It was into this context that Jesus tries to make his identity clear.
II. Forsaken Messiah (vs. 24-26)
“The Jews who were there gathered around Jesus, saying, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’ Jesus answered, ‘I did tell you, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.”
In a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, Calvin says to his tiger friend, “I feel bad that I called Susie names and hurt her feelings. I’m sorry I did it.” Hobbes suggests, “Maybe you should apologize to her.” Calvin ponders this for a moment and says, “I keep hoping there’s a less obvious solution.”
Through his words and works, his message and miracles, Jesus made it as plain as he could that he is the Messiah/Savior; not only for Israel but for all who would trust in him. Oddly enough, like Calvin, people back then as well as now “keep hoping for a less obvious solution.” “I did tell you,” said Jesus. “But you do not believe because you are not my sheep.”
Yeshua, Iesous, Je-`sus, Jesu, Jesus is the One. He is the obvious solution to our human need to love and be loved; to be saved, redeemed, guarded for life. We are not kept in suspense. God has said and shown Jesus to be Messiah, Savior, Lord. All who hear his voice and trust in him are his sheep.
III. Forsaken Shepherd
Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.” And yet, Jesus spoke of himself saying, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
Here’s the essential, unique message of the Christian faith. You will find this nowhere else in the history of human beings in our philosophies or religions. Jesus, Immanuel, God-with-us gave up his life for us. He was crucified, offered himself as a substitionary atonement. Jesus died in your place and in my place so that we could be forgiven, reconciled, saved, and given eternal life. Had not Jesus said, “The Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many?” Did not Jesus suffer the deepest physical and spiritual pain as he who knew no sin became “sin for us?” (II Corinthians 5:21).
From the cross, Jesus knew and prayed through Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? All who see me here mock me; they hurl insults. I am poured out like water. They divide my clothes among them. But you, Lord, are my strength.”
This is one of the hardest sayings of Jesus in the Bible. Just think how hard it was for him to say it, to realize it? “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Ever feel forsaken? Abandoned? Left all alone? Jesus knows it. And ever so much deeper. Through his death we are forgiven. Through his resurrection, there’s promise of new life for all who trust in him.
Conclusion
What will these coming holidays bring for you this year? Colored eggs and chocolate bunnies? Or new life, new faith, new hope! Lent, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Day. The answer is there. God left his Son, his dear and only Son, to be forsaken so that you and I might never be. Jesus was forsaken there… for you. The Savior was forsaken there for me.
Let us pray together. |
