Lent 5 Year C

The Rev. Canon Mary Holmen

Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:4b-14, John12:1-8

Change is a constant of life. It’s there; we deal with it all the time; and yet it’s something we’re not altogether happy with. Change is stressful. Even a good change. Case in point: when John and I got married, we decided to live in Minnesota, which is his home. So we were married in Winnipeg, drove out to the Rockies for our honeymoon, came back and stayed at my parents’ house, picked up the last of my belongings that hadn’t already been moved, and then left – John driving his car and I driving mine, which we were taking with us. So here I am at the start of this wonderful, exciting, happy time in my life, and I’m driving through the streets of Winnipeg, bawling, because I was leaving home. 

When I hear people talk about the future, talk about change, I often hear anxiety, I hear apprehension, I hear a sense of loss for the way things used to be. One of the most beloved hymns of all time is “Abide with me”, which contains the line, “Change and decay in all around I see; O thou who changest not, abide with me.” Not what you would call a positive view of change. However, our scripture readings for today give us quite a different perspective.

“Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” A message to a people in exile, living under oppression, demoralized and abandoned. Remember what I have done for you. Remember the time when I made a path through the sea; remember the time when the pursuing army was overthrown.

This oracle is full of creation imagery: the watery chaos, the dominion and power which even the foreign army obeys, the forming of a people as God once formed human kind. God’s saving acts are a new creation. In the events of the exodus, God created and formed a people for himself. And this is not only something which happened a long time ago. God now says to Israel, “You know about this desert thing. We’ve been through this before, you and I. Didn’t I care for you then? So don’t be afraid. Let the wilderness of exile seem ever so desolate. Let the way home seem ever so impassable. When your hope and your joy and your creativity seem to have dried up, there are still resources hidden in the desert, if you but look for them.”

And so memory becomes the basis for hope. Because having recalled the liberation of the past, the prophet’s very next word is, “Forget about it.” Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. God has in store a new thing, beside which the great events of the exodus will seem like a pale foreshadowing. God is planning a new exodus, but history does not simply repeat itself. In contrast to the wanderings of the first exodus, God will make a path through the wilderness so that the people may come directly home. Where before there was a dry path through the water, now there will be water in the desert places, flowing beside the highway to refresh the people on their journey. One thing, though, will never change, and that is God’s constant care for his unique possession.

We should notice that this new thing is described in the present tense. Behold, I am doing a new thing. The word of the prophet to every community, every person in exile, every person living in oppression, is this: when you have assessed your situation, explored every possibility, measured every resource and come up empty, you have still neglected the one reality which will make a difference. Even as you wrestle with futility and despair, God is at work doing a new thing. So the message of the prophet is clear. Remember the past, and then leave it behind. Look ahead to what is coming, for it is God’s work.

Paul also speaks of leaving old things behind. This part of his letter to the Philippians is his assessment of the meaning of his whole life. It is a kind of audit under the headings of loss and gain. Perhaps the forced inactivity of imprisonment or anxiety about what might happen prompted Paul to take stock of himself. His real purpose, though, is his desire to promote appropriate attitudes within the church at Philippi.

Paul outlines his religious ancestry: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, a Pharisee, initially a zealous persecutor of the church, blameless in legal righteousness. All this is something to be proud of – and he is. And yet, says Paul, it all pales into sheer insignificance – it is all loss – compared to the absolute importance of knowing Christ Jesus.

Paul forms three conclusions as a result of his audit:

1. He concludes that his life follows the same pattern established by Christ. As Christ made no claim based on his prior existence, so Paul counts his former life as loss. As Christ was found in human form, so Paul wishes to be found in him. As Christ took the form of a slave, so Paul wishes to be formed in the pattern of his death. Christ was exalted on high; Paul transforms the image of running a race into a heavenly call.
2. Paul already knows Christ. He knows the power of Christ’s resurrection, and so he knows that he may also be called to share the fellowship of Christ’s suffering. Indeed, Paul is able to rejoice in his suffering for the sake of the gospel, to the point where he even speaks of dying daily. Paul knows that Christ’s death and resurrection are not only events to be remembered, but the basic pattern of Christian life, which is to be lived out again and again and again.
3. Paul realizes that he has not yet reached his goal. Christ has already made Paul his own – that is an accomplished fact. It remains for Paul to grow up fully into the new life in Christ. Paul’s conclusion is very similar to Isaiah’s message: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on. There lies a simple prescription for the Christian life. God calls from beyond us, not from behind. Paul sees himself heading down the home stretch. He knows that God is calling him from the finish line, a point both beyond and higher than where he is now.

As we near the end of our Lenten journey, our thoughts begin to turn to the new thing which God has accomplished in the death and resurrection of Jesus. As we prepare to recall and celebrate God’s mighty act of deliverance, memory again becomes the basis for hope. It has been said that Lent is an annual refresher course in the meaning of baptism. Certainly our first reading is full of imagery that speaks at once of creation and baptismal – water gushing, running, flowing in the desert. In our baptism we are incorporated into the new humanity God is creating. We are reminded that Jesus is the way through the wilderness of despair, the one who offers himself as living water to quench the thirst of all who find themselves exiles in a dreary land. At the Transfiguration, Luke tells us that Moses and Elijah spoke with Jesus about his “departure” – literally his “road out” – his exodus – which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. By the death and resurrection of Jesus, and our baptismal participation in it, we are brought out of the desert of slavery to sin and oppression into the Promised Land of the freedom of the children of God. 

What about the gospel reading? What does it have to do with baptism? If the first reading overflows with water, the gospel contains the baptismal image of anointing. This story takes place immediately after the raising of Lazarus. John tells us that, because of what Jesus has done, the authorities are out to get him, and Lazarus too.

Today we see the beginnings of God’s new thing as Jesus sits at table with his friends. It is a beginning marked by extravagance in the midst of ordinariness. Jesus comes to Bethany – home away from home, a place to relax and find respite from the constant demands and rising tensions that are leading inexorably to the point of crisis. A dreadful foreboding hangs over the scene as Jesus lingers at table with some of the dearest friends of his earthly life. The scene that follows has remained engraved on the consciousness of all who have come after. What prompted Mary to offer this impulsive, extravagant gift? Perhaps she knew no other way to express her love and grief.

For early Christians, Lazarus was a powerful baptismal image. He was the man to whom new life was given. In the ancient Egyptian church, they read a secret account of the raising of Lazarus to candidates on the day of their baptism, because baptism was their rising to new life in Christ. So Lazarus, who was raised, is there. Martha, the figure of service, waits on the table. Mary, the figure of devotion, anoints the feet of Jesus and wipes them with her hair.

There is a complex play on words running through this story. The Hebrew word for one who has been anointed is “messiah”, in Greek “Christ”. Mary anoints the anointed one; she “messiahs” the Messiah. But what a strange inversion we find in this ritual. Mary anoints not Jesus’ head but his feet. As a woman she is a most untraditional minister of anointing. She literally lets her hair down in a culture, a time and place, where a respectable woman did not touch a man to whom she was not related. And Jesus interprets her action in relation, not to his life but to his impending death, not to expectations of military victory and temporal power but to suffering and rejection.

Jesus, as usual, stands the accepted values of his society – and ours – on their heads, and reveals in both teaching and way of life a new way of being. And Christians have from a very early point in their history been anointed at their baptism – anointed with an oil called chrism, because such an anointing lays bare one of the essential meanings of baptism. To be baptized is to be anointed - “christed” (or christened if you want the old English term, so long as you don’t restrict it to getting a certificate and a silver spoon). Baptism means that we, too, are in this messiah role, this inversion of values inaugurated by Jesus in his new way of being. This story reinterprets what the word “messiah” means. It is drained of grandeur, drained of the usual signs of power. The promised reign of God is visible in a small group of caring people, gathered around the supper table. The promised reign of God is at once revealed, formed, and shaped, in a community of caring people gathered around the Table. To be a Christian is to be committed to looking for God’s “new thing”, for signs of life and refreshment where only fear, alienation, and barrenness appear.

What, then, do these scripture readings say about the future, about change? They say that it is God’s work; it is done in God’s time. It is an opportunity, not a threat. It is a natural part of life with Christ. God is unchanging, yet the encounter with that God will lead to profound changes.

The bible has a number of major narratives: creation and new creation; liberation; exile and return; life, death and new life. All of these are present in today’s readings. God has done a new thing. God is doing a new thing. God will do new things – in our lives, our community, and our world. St. Francis of Assisi prayed, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” May our prayer today also be, “Lord, make us instruments of your change.” Amen.