October 28, 2012 at Calvary
Evangelical Lutheran Church – Mechanicsburg, PA
“Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than
his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept
My word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on
account of My name, because they do not know Him who sent Me.”
Being Jesus’ friend is a
hazardous enterprise. That is what is made clear by Jesus’ own words that you
heard on this day when the Church commemorates Saints Simon and Jude. On the
night of His betrayal, Jesus spoke at length with His disciples. Gathered
around the Passover Meal, they heard Jesus disclose things about His future and
theirs. Jesus made clear that He was going to leave the Twelve, leaving both to
make atonement for the world’s sin by suffering crucifixion and then to ascend
in resurrected glory to His Father. He revealed what would happen after He
left, what the Twelve could anticipate as they lived as His faithful followers.
Jesus’ statement to the Twelve
indicates that they were being given a new status that night: “Greater love has no one than this, that
someone lays down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I
command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know
what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have
heard from My Father I have made known to you.” What Jesus would undergo at
the hands of the Jewish leaders and Roman officials was done for the benefit of
the Twelve. They were now His friends; He was laying down His life for them.
They had been made Jesus’ friends because He had handed over to them everything
that His Father had delivered to Him. From that night on, there was no mystery
about what Jesus was doing, about His identity, or about His purpose. After
receiving what Jesus had made known to them, the Twelve were going to be sent
to fulfill His commands, including His great command: “that you love one another as I have loved you.”
But Jesus discloses something
about what the Twelve would encounter as they fulfilled their callings. Their
status as Jesus’ friends, those to whom He had handed over all the teaching
from the Father, would bring them opposition: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you.
If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you
are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world
hates you.” Hatred and enmity are what the Twelve would face, what they
would experience in their lives. The cause of that hatred and enmity is the new
identity that Jesus gave the Twelve: they no longer belonged to the world, but
to Jesus. That difference put them at odds with the world.
The difference between the
Twelve and the world was not going to be kept hidden, since what Simon and Jude
and the rest of the apostles were going to do was not secret. They were going
out into the world to do something very public: to take the words that Jesus
had handed over to them and proclaim them in the hearing of all. That was their
task. And so Jesus reminds them of the word that He had spoken about their
calling: “Remember the word that I said
to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they
will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will also keep yours. But
all these things they will do to you on account of My name, because they do not
know Him who sent Me.”
This is what friendship with
Jesus would bring Simon and Jude and the others. Jesus’ words that they spoke
and Jesus’ actions that they imitated would be noticed. The Twelve’s identity
would be shown by what they said and did. It would be noticed just as the
preaching of the Old Testament prophets was noticed. Just as Jeremiah spoke the
words that the Lord gave him in
the Temple, so the Twelve would speak the words that Jesus gave them. Those
that heard the truth of Jesus and treasured it would also welcome His apostles
who spoke the same. But Jesus promises that those who had persecuted Him for
what He said would also persecute those who confessed the same truth about His
identity and work. This is how it would be for the Twelve; what Jesus said is
true: “A servant is not greater than his
master.”
What Jesus spoke concerning the
Twelve is also true about you. You also have been given a new identity. That is
what Peter, one of the Twelve, describes: “According
to [the Father’s] great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living
hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance
that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by
God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time.” Such words tell what has been done for you and
the benefits of that divine action. You have a new birth given to you in Holy
Baptism. You have a new hope found in the resurrection of Jesus. You have a new
fate that will be revealed at the end of this age. This is all yours because
Jesus laid down His life for you, His friends, and has made known to you all
that the Father willed, especially His great mercy for you who were ensnared by
sin, imperfection, and death.
But Jesus reminds you about what
comes with that identity: “If you were of
the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the
world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
Jesus’ calling you to follow Him, His identifying you as His friends, brings
opposition. You also stand at odds with the world. For what you do as
Christians is not secret, just as the apostles’ work was not. No, your identity
becomes evident in what you say and do. And there are many who desire not to
see or hear any of it.
Jesus tells you: “You are My friends if you do what I command
you.” What has Jesus commanded? What has He disclosed to you? He has told
you about His identity: “I am the
resurrection and the life…. No one comes to the Father except through Me…. For
this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear
witness to the truth.” He has handed over a way of life to you: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
Jesus has given you instructions on how you are to think and act in all manner
of aspects of living, including very personal things: how to consider human
life, how to act on one’s sexuality, how to utilize your property and possessions.
Because you are Jesus’ disciples, His words shape and form you. They direct
you.
But the way that you think,
speak, and act runs counter to the way the world thinks, speaks, and acts. It
is this way, because you begin to think, speak, and act as Jesus did. That is
what Jesus reveals: “If the world hates
you, know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but
because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore
the world hates you.” At the heart of this enmity and hatred is the
sinfulness of the world, the same sinfulness lingering in you that requires
constant repentance and restoration. There is no desire to be subject to anyone
or anything. There is no love of God and His ways that would limit or constrain
our independence. “Who are you to tell me what to do?” is the question directed
at the Creator, the question that even spills out of our mouths from time to
time.
Confrontation exists when the
ways of the Lord encounter the
ways of the world. It is so in your own hearts, minds, and souls. And when you
abide by the ways that the Lord Jesus handed down to you through Simon and Jude
and the Twelve, your practicing them becomes a living, walking presentation of
the same message that Jeremiah brought to the world: “Mend your ways and deeds, and obey the voice of the Lord your God.” And what Jesus said
would happen comes to pass: “If they
persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will
also keep yours.” This makes being Jesus’ friend a hazardous enterprise.
But in the midst of the
hazardous enterprise of being friends of Jesus, there is the reminder of what has
been done for you. You have been called out of the world. You have been given
new birth. You have something that awaits you beyond this age. The apostle
Peter reminds you: “In this you rejoice,
though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various
trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold
that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and
glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” This is what kept Simon
and Jude faithful and zealous in their mission. It is what sustained the
prophets like Jeremiah. It is what the psalmist clung to, saying: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why
are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation
and my God.” It was the source of strength for Luther and the Reformers.
And it is what will keep you going in these days.
Jesus’ statement to the apostles
and you stands true now: “If they kept My
word, they will also keep yours.” You keep the word that the apostles
spoke, the words that delivered the identity and work of Jesus, His way of
life, and His promises of a glorious inheritance to you: “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see
Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled
with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
Such joy is found even in the midst of the opposition, enmity, and hatred that
the world has for you and all of Jesus’ friends. The confrontation will come to
an end, when the Lord sends out
His light and truth to lead you to His holy hill and eternal dwelling. That is
the greater fate that awaits you who have been made Jesus’ friends, the ones
for whom He laid down His life and raised it up again.
+ In the Name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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