Sermon Series on Jesus During the Season of Lent
Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus" (John 12:20-21).
In spite of the time and distance that separates his world from ours, Jesus continues to inspire people to experience the true meaning of life by giving themselves away in service to God and others. Though he is one with us, he is neither casually nor promptly known, not because he is so mysterious but because he is so very different from us because he is also one with God. You can know him for many years, yet never really know him as well as he knows you. He manages to be unfathomable, deep, ungraspable, and yet oddly close, intimate and relentlessly relational.
Because Jesus is the most fascinating person in the world, I'm going to offer a sermon series on Jesus during the season of Lent. I will tell stories (especially those that are wild and weird and improbable) loving repeated by those who knew him best, whose testimony to Jesus is verified in lives radically transformed by Jesus. People who knew Jesus well enough to follow him even through suffering and death. We must meet Jesus as presented by his first followers, or we meet him not at all.
Few followers of Jesus trudge after him because of historical details. Jesus is interesting not only because of what he said but for who he is and yet shall be that is most compelling. There is a sense in which the contemporary followers of Jesus-that bumbling, sometimes faithful body known as the church-know more about Jesus than his first disciples. This is not simply because his first followers are routinely represented in the gospels as utter fools. It is because Simon Peter and the rest were around Jesus for less time than we have been.
The longer you know someone, the better you know that person, especially if that person is determined to be known by you. Most of us don't discover Jesus; he discovers us. Jesus remains the "one whom you do not know," even for people like me who have spent a lifetime trying to know him better.
In my experience, its people who think they really, really know Jesus who don't know him that well at all. So when you show up at worship this year during Lent and are challenged by Jesus, know it's a good thing making the world far more interesting than if Jesus had not risked all on us.
Do you wish to see Jesus? Come and see.
~Pastor Dan