The Painted Door Church - Chicago The Painted Door Church

Ash Wednesday Service - The Final Gathering of The Painted Door Church

At the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, God began to openly reveal the true identity of his Son. He spoke to John the Baptist of who this man Jesus of Nazareth truly was. And John testified of his identity: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” What a strange unveiling! The long awaited Messiah, the Savior of God’s people, announced as a lamb. Jesus was a lamb. This is a very different kind of savior. In this world, we are caught in our grasping for control, our quests for vinication, our struggles for power. And we look for salvation in strength. Who is fierce enough to come to our aid, to conquer? But God sends a lamb. Because God knows the salvation we long for is not the one we need. He did not come to teach us to roar like lions. He came to teach us to die like lambs. He came to make us into who we truly are.

We were made to be approved. When God first formed humanity from the dust, he pronounced us very good. And in that pronouncement, we have life. But our first parents, and all of us after them, have stepped away from God’s free approval to go in search of something we might earn, something that might differentiate us from the rest of our dust-born clan, something that would elevate us to the place of the approving one. We have tried to be God and approve ourselves. And from this vapid quest flows all that is dark in our world: malice, deceit, pride. We scratch and claw for the power we need to make something of ourselves, to prove that we are more worthy than our neighbor. But then a man from Galilee came to the Jordan River and was baptized there. And the Spirit of God descended and came to rest on Him like a dove. And a voice from heaven spoke again with the approval that is our life: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus came into the world to bring these words to our ears. Not to lord his divine approval over us, but to invite each of us to live in it with him.

Epiphany is the day in the historic Christian Church Calendar when we celebrate the manifestation of God as man on earth. Jesus is God-in-the-flesh and so was the first real “jar of clay” containing the inestimable treasure of Divine Life. Paul’s cruciform lifestyle was patterned directly after his Master’s, and while unattractive and unrecognizable to unspiritual eyes, the Cruciform Glory of the Indwelling Christ shines brilliantly through the many cracks in the apostle’s “jar of clay.”  That same indwelling Christ will hold our cracked earthen vessels together, comfort us, and get us through, as we, like Paul, follow the Way of the Cross, through Death, into Resurrection and Eternal Life and Bliss with Jesus.

The Apostle Peter knew what it was to betray Jesus. He denied the Lord three times in an attempt to save himself from the agony of the cross. But after Jesus died and rose, Peter was filled an other-wordly courage. For he saw not only that Jesus is the Christ, but also that he is the sort of Christ who rules all things. He saw that he is Lord even over the grave. And what fear can remain in service to a Lord such as this? What resistance would keep us from following him? Only the blind folly of calling ourselves lords and seeking our own salvation as if we were Christ.

The Apostle Peter calls the readers of his second letter “beloved.”  This word, which occurs four times, is in New Testament Greek, agapetos. It denotes Divine Love, characteristic of the indwelling Christ and that is experienced in genuine Christian community.  It is out of this other-centered love that Peter warns his readers against the error of “lawless people”--error that can be overt or subtle. In order to avoid the faith disruption and instability that following error brings, Peter urges his flock, instead, to dwell and rest in the grace and knowledge of the one, true Antidote to error’s poison--the Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing Jesus brings his followers a durable, otherworldly stability which shall have no end.