Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church

Waiting for the Bell

by Dave Wilkinson

John 10:40-42

March 5, 2000

Waiting is one of the hardest things we can do in life. When I was a child, it seemed as if my birthday would never, ever arrive. The time between my birthday and Christmas stretched into infinity. After Christmas miraculously arrived, there was the endless stretch of school until summer.

For adults, of course, birthdays arrive all too often and Christmas is upon us before we know it. Children are in school hardly any time at all before they are home for the summer making noise around the house. I love that commercial where a dad dances some glum looking children in a cart around an office supply store for the back to school sale. The music plays: "It’s the most wonderful time of the year." As Albert Einstein sort of said in his Theory of Relativity, "It all depends on your point of view."

But even for adults the onrush of time can suddenly slow down to an agonizing crawl -- waiting for the doctor to come out and tell the results of a surgery, waiting for test results from the lab, waiting for the time to go ask the boss for a raise.

This is the first Sunday in our Fifty Day Spiritual Adventure. In our text for this morning, Jesus is waiting. He is waiting for the bell that will pit Him in battle against death itself -- waiting, as John would put it, for "His hour to arrive." While he waits, He stays connected to His father. That close connection characterized His whole ministry.

Jesus has been ministering actively now for almost three years. He has experienced times of great public acclaim and times of popular rejection. He has received increasing opposition from the religious and political leaders of His nation. Already two attempts have been made to stone Him for blasphemy -- at the Feast of the Tabernacles in the fall and at the Feast of the Dedication or Hannakuh in the winter.

Now, in the interlude between the Feast of the Dedication and the Feast of Passover in the Spring, the time appointed for the final act, Jesus goes to the place where John the Baptist had been first baptizing on the other side of the Jordan River. John says that this is the place where Jesus Himself had been baptized. While He was there, He prepared Himself for the climatic journey to Jerusalem. Jesus returns to His starting place at Bethany-beyond-Jordan to prepare for the Passover.

A question that is important for us to consider as we look at this passage is what Jesus knew of His own identity and at what point He knew it?

In the very first chapter of his gospel John describes Jesus as the pre-existent Logos or expression of God. He says that Jesus was with God and was God before anything was created and was Himself the agent by which creation occurred. Jesus Himself was aware of His pre-existence. In John 8:58, He told the religious leaders, "Before Abraham was born, I AM" -- taking upon Himself the very name of God -- I AM THAT I AM. Jesus knew that when He died, He would be raised from the dead. We must certainly recognize that Jesus had personal insight as to where He had come from and where He was going. He knew that He would return to judge the earth as the heavenly Son of Man. He told the religious leaders that one day they would be standing before His court of law.

But Jesus was also very human. He got tired and He felt pressure and He wept at the death of a good friend. In the Garden of Gesthemane, right before His arrest, Jesus prayed that the cup of the cross might pass away from Him. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to take the sin of the world upon Himself. He didn't want to be separated from His Father on the cross. Jesus was God but He was also man and a part of Him did not want to die an agonizing death at age 33.

The Apostle Paul puts this human/divine interaction together in the Letter to the Phillippians. In the second chapter Paul writes that Jesus voluntarily emptied Himself of some of the attributes of being God in order to know life as we know it. This means that Jesus, though powerful, was not all powerful. Though Jesus knew much, He didn't know all. He Himself said that He did not know the day or the hour of His own second coming. God is able to be everywhere at once. When Jesus went somewhere, He walked along the dusty roads of Israel.

All this is because Jesus came to live life as we live it. And part of our living life from a human perspective is to live in uncertainty of our own identity and in ignorance of the future. This was Jesus’ experience as well. Remember that a key part of Satan's temptation of Jesus in the wilderness was the temptation of proving His own identity: "If you are the Son of God throw Yourself down from this high place and He will save You." "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread." Satan was tempting Jesus to remove from Himself the uncertainty which is a part of living human life.

It is in light of this self-imposed uncertainty as to His own identity that we can understand Jesus' decision to go to prepare Himself for the final contest at the site of His baptism. He returned to the place where the voice of God had come to Him and assured Him that He had made the right decision and was on the right road. Before the end, Jesus went back to the place where the beginning had happened.

Our Old Testament lesson for this morning dealt with a similar experience in the life of Jacob. When Jacob was young and was fleeing from the anger of his brother Esau, God met Jacob at Bethel. While Jacob slept with his head on a stone He was given a vision of a ladder reaching up into heaven. And he received God's promise that He would fulfill through Jacob the promises made to his grandfather Abraham.

That was a supreme moment in Jacob's life. It should have set the tone for all that he did in the future. But has Jacob got older, he seemingly forgot that God had ever spoken to him. He settled down to the life of a dishonest businessman and began to worship idols. He pushed away the experience of his youth like a childish toy that he had outgrown. But God saved Jacob from his decay and called him back to being the man he had once been before the world had rusted his spirit. In Genesis 35 we read that God called Jacob back to Bethel. And Jacob cleaned up his act, put away the idols, and went to meet God. Jacob's life had turned very, very sour. But God spoke to Jacob and Jacob remembered that God had helped him once before in a time of great distress. He suddenly recognized that God had been with him in life, even when Jacob was not aware of God's presence.

There is a tremendous lesson here -- in Jacob and in Jesus -- for all of us. Sometimes, when things have gone sour or when we are just going through religious motions or when we are facing a difficult task, we need to go back to our Bethel or our Bethany-beyond-Jordan -- to our place where God has spoken to us in the past. We don't necessarily to go back physically but do need to go back mentally. For me, my Bethel or my Bethany would be the skid-row deliverance center in Spokane, Washington where, at age 18, God finally got my attention. For some of you, your Bethel might be a time of physical or emotional healing or, perhaps, an experience at a Christian camp. But especially as we grow older, it is important to go back to a place where God has met us in a decisive way so that we do not forget who we are and whose we are.

A thermostat was located near the door of one church. When people came in who were a bit chilly, they would go to the thermostat and turn it up. Then someone would come in perspiring from a brisk walk and immediately turn the thermostat down. One day the head of the building committee was orienting a new custodian to the bright and shiny thermostat. The elder then said with a sly wink, "That thermostat is purely ornamental. It's not connected to anything. The real controls are back here in the closet."

Where are our controls? No matter who we are, there are always people around us who want us to be "warmer" or "cooler" -- people who are trying to get us to march to their drumbeat. Jesus, however, was able to hear people and love them but not be inappropriately controlled by them. He was marching to a different drumbeat. The magnetic authority and power of Jesus comes from the fact that He was connected to an unseen power source, and He was not directed by the demands of other people, not even by his close friends. This gave him a focus for his life that enabled Him to say "yes" to the Father and "no" to the lure of others' agendas. He had clarity about his mission.

We begin our 5O-Day Spiritual Adventure this morning rejoicing in the revelation that Jesus, regardless of His circumstances or surroundings, stayed spiritually connected and directed. His every word and deed mirrored the Father's will. The beauty and integrity of His life made men, women, and children thirsty for something more -- and He still does. The Jesus we celebrate this morning is alive and walks among us. He longs for us to be connected to the Father as He was and is. He calls us to give up our small ambitions about what we want to be and what we want to do with our lives. He calls us to hear and to do what the Father has in mind. Jesus is saying to each of us to get our marching orders directly from the Father. To do less is to settle for second best.