Fifth Sunday of Lent: YHWH Makes a Way in the Water

Unedited Transcript Follows:

Of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy spirit. Amen. So, we're coming in to this story. This gospel story in the middle of kind of a?

Significant conflict, like probably the central conflict of the Gospel of Luke. So we're coming right in the middle. Next week on Palm Sunday, we're actually going to rewind the clock a little bit, so we're going to turn back the clock a little bit to Jesus triumphal entry, and his greeting is a king, right?

So, we're going to rewind it a little bit, and this hailing of Jesus is King and Lord. But now, we're like a little bit. After that, he's come in, and his first stop in Luke is the temple, right? So, after he comes in the first place, he goes got that.

The Gospel of Luke sends Jesus. Um, remember that the things don't happen. Like, directly in order. It's not like someone's following around Jesus with a pen and paper. Luke is putting these stories in in order to teach us something. So, Luke sends Jesus. Into the temple right after? Right after this triumphal entry, right?

And this is the second temple. And it, really, I mean, really. Recently, it had just been expanded and renovated by Herod about the time of Jesus birth. So, just a little bit before Jesus was born. In the court of the Gentiles Sadducees. Ran a really large business. Selling Temple approved sacrifices?

Right, so they could make sure that, and this was a big time of year. We're getting close to the Passover right, and so big time of year, they're running the temple approved sacrifices. They could have the little trademark, you know, ta Temple approved, right? So they ran a business in the court of the Gentiles with Temple approves sacrifices.

Mentioned somewhere north of a quarter million, such sacrifices being sold and perform one year around Passover. So this was a large money-making Venture for these people, and this was the case. With all the temples to the pagan gods, right? You guys right, remember the story of the Temple of Artemis of the Ephesians in the book of Acts, right?

And what made them all mad and about the Temple of Artemis of the Ephesians was? Hey, if these people stop worshiping Artemis, we will stop making our money building. Right, like that's, that's big money for us. And we would like that money to continue. And so, here we have the very same thing happening right after the triumphal entry.

Jesus walks in. To God's people, the Jewish people with a big business selling template-proof sacrifices in the court of the Gentiles. When the first temple was built? You know, the Solomon prayed? He is familiar with that. He said. When foreigners pray toward this house when the peoples when the Nations pray toward this house, do what they ask or that all peoples may know that you are the Lord.

And that you're with this people. That was what Solomon prayed at the construction of the first temple. Did you know that in the we we just read in the daily office? For those of you that are following the daily office, if you're not plugged for the daily office, I'll do it every time.

So good. I read the Bible, you get to go through the Bible a lot, but we just finished Exodus. We had a lot. It kind of gets boring after the whole thing because we had a lot of instruction about. With how to construct the Tabernacle later. The temple will come, but.

It's a lot. There's a lot of detail in my sometimes, like when I'm bringing five kids through it. I'm like, how long are they? Us, how many qubits? Every piece of fabric was, you know, uh, so I, you know, it can get long. But one thing in a really long description, one thing that isn't mentioned.

A court of the Gentiles. You know that that's not mentioned in the original description of the temple in the original description of how the temple will be built. You don't have any mention of a court of the Gentiles. You had one in the second temple, and you had one where there was a big business set up by the Sadducees.

If you know anything about the Sadducees? There are a group of people that, like, they'd be like. Your main lined groups that don't believe this stuff is true anymore. You know, they don't even really buy what anyone's selling they're. They're just like, whatever, they're just making money in the court of the Gentiles and making a lot of it, right?

See why Jesus was mad, so he overturns it. He flips over a bunch of tables. Uh, he makes a scene, right? Calls this a den of robbers? Because isn't that what they are? The temple that was supposed to be a sign for the Nations, drawing them toward God, began built a court to keep the Gentiles far out and to make money on Temple approved sacrifices.

You know? What happens? Is what we see Jesus doing here when he flips over tables, which I know we haven't even gotten to. What we read today is doing what the Lord Yahweh has always done. The Lord has always made a way for Wayward people, the very building that was supposed to be a ways for the people to connect with the true God became a way to exploit the Nations for profit.

Just like all the specialized priests for pagan gods did the same. When we see in these readings today is what it looks like for God to make a way through murky Waters of this world. We also see what it looks like to follow him on that way, as we're invited to do so as we walk through Holy Week together with the church.

So, God always has made a way, and he make just like he made a way when he flipped over the tables in front of the temple he made. He's made a way all along. First, we might know the story. He made a way through the Waters of the Red Sea.

You guys know that story, right? Are Isaiah reading tells us the Lord is the one who makes a way in the sea? What's he talking about talking about the Red Sea? I've talked to you guys before, but it's worth rehearsing of what the Deep the sea the Deep represents in scripture.

I remember the Book of Jonah. When Jonah is cast into the deep? Um, swallowed by a fish. And. Talks about the Deep, but the deep is like. I mean. You guys know that. I mean, if if you're not strange? What. Like, if you're out on a big body of water, it's kind of scary, right, like, especially like?

It might not be scary if everything's working properly, but let like one thing go wrong. And it's scary, really quick, right? Like, so if you're out on like I used to do deep sea fishing with my grandpa, go out on the charter boat. That was all well and good.

That was fun. Let that boat break down, and I would have been freaking out, right? Quick, because I'm in the middle of the ocean and I, I can't see anything under the surface of the water, and I know it's deep because I just let my line down there, and it went, and when and when and when, and went before it hit the bottom, and I would be freaking right out real quick, right, and people always knew that that the water is scary that the deep is scary, and so it was always the place where Cosmic battle takes place.

You might remember the stories like the Leviathan, like the sea monsters. By the way, we we're like, we have a disease. We just disenchanted the whole world. We forgot that the whole world God made is like magic and full of all sorts of things that we can't explain and we can't see.

I have no problem thinking there's like that. People experience something like a real sea.

Nerdy than smart, you know, and uh, and the the world's this exciting, mysterious, crazy place. And the Leviathan was something they all knew was in the deep sea, right? Everyone knew everyone in the scriptures knew if you go out in the deep sea, the leviathans out there, the Demonic forces the dragons.

Right? Gk Chesterton you guys remember this with his quote? He said, you don't tell your kids the dragons aren't real. You don't. When you read fairy tales. The kids already know the dragons are real. You just tell them that the dragons can be overcome. The kids already know that dragons are real.

You just tell them that the dragon can be defeated that God's bigger than the dragons that God can win. That God's Mighty that God's strong, right? So the people of God are on the edge of the deep at the Red Sea. There have Pharaoh's Army on one side. They have the Red Sea on the other.

They're between death and death. And the Lord makes a way. He makes a way in the water. That's what Isaiah reminds the people of God of. He's the god that made a way between death and death. Now here, the picture the the water is still pictured as a means of death, right?

Look what the waters are used to do in verse 17 of our reading. The Chariot and the horse are brought into them and they are extinguished. Like, a candle that can't rise. So the waters the? Crush Pharaoh's Army. That's what happens in the store. That's what we remember in the story.

So, Isaiah gives us this vivid picture of people trapped by their enemies. That are behind them, meaning certain death and then certain death before them in the Deep. And he shows a God who makes a path, makes a path through the deep, and then uses the deep to crush their enemies behind them.

The same water that meant death to their enemies was the pathway to their salvation. They were saved by the waters that destroyed their pursuers. And our psalmist remembers this day in Psalm 126. When he says, when the Lord overturned the Captivity of Zion, then were we like those who dream.

So, yes, the waters were salvation for Israel. But make no mistake. At this point, the water is still primarily an agent of death. There's a way made for God's people, but it's a way that's open shortly. And closes up on the Egyptians, right? And it brings judgment and ultimately death.

But Isaiah immediately shifts how we should view water, doesn't he? He goes to the warning that he's gonna shift, he tells us. Right, remember, not the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Right, and he makes a shift. Invert by verses 20 and 21 of our reading.

This is a short reading water is being talked about entirely differently, isn't it? I'm giving water in the wilderness. Giving you water in the wilderness, life-giving water water that gives life. The psalmist does the same thing. Overturn our captivity, O Lord, as when streams refresh the deserts of the South.

These were seasonal streams, so they were completely dried up. I I get I when I was reading that and recognizing that about these streams of the? Cuz, we're just reflecting on, um. Here in Utah. On what it might have looked like, I mean, we just we, we know how to freak out about things we have no control over.

So, like we, we might do some freaking out. Um, when we talk about snowpack and things like that. But, like, can you imagine before any of the infrastructure was built or anything like that. What it was like to wait on that snow to melt, which was the only source of water.

For all the crops that they were. Needing for their survival, the only source of water. For them to be. Waiting. Waiting on the water. This was like that. No, so, can you imagine what it felt like the first trickling of water? As a snow pack starts to melt, like, hey, it's, it's coming again.

We're gonna we're gonna live another year, you know, we're gonna it's gonna we're gonna be okay, another year, and that's what the picture that we should probably have for when he talks about, like when water's well, like when streams were fresh. The deserts of the South? Here. The streams are flowing again, right?

And this talk. All of this, this shift about Howard if you water points toward the way that our Waymaker God continues to use water to make a way. Because he makes a way. Through the Waters of baptism, doesn't he? He makes a way through the water. You guys remember what we talked about with the deep, big, scary place.

A lot of when the fathers talk about Jesus baptism, yes, they talk about him. Hearing the the word of the father that he is the Beloved Son. They talk about all the identity, but when Jesus is baptized, what the fathers all felt the need to say why he said something like this is necessary.

John, then it would fulfill all righteousness. The reason, he said, that, is that the water?

For us for baptism. Jesus went into the deep. He went down to the deep. He conquered that Leviathan. He came out Victorious. And he prepared the Waters of baptism for us. Who would then see the Lord who makes a way through the waters? Because that's what the very means of death, the Deep the scary deep is.

The very means that God uses to give us the grace. Coming into the Church of being part of the family of God, it's the Deep. Redeemed. It's the. With Victory proclaimed over it.

Jesus makes a way through the waters because this is what Yahweh always does. Just as Isaiah described him, the Lord who makes a way in the waters. And the thing that was the means of death. Becomes the means of. And ultimately, God makes a way through the Waters of the valley of death, the chasm of death.

See I. I was reflecting on why are we discussing all this on Passion Sunday, which is like our prayer books label it passion Sunday, and this is the Sunday that's the hinge of Lent, and it's we're learning. We're not going into Hollywood, but we're turning toward it. We're almost there, right?

Next Sunday will be Palm Sunday.

I think as we look at what Jesus as we look at Jesus doing what the Lord has always done, which is making a way in the waters. We're meant to look at the ultimate fulfillment of all of this, which is Jesus making a way through the chasm of death.

Baptism's a picture of death itself, right? Into the going to the deep. And come out a lot, right? So, we're in this conflict, this conflict that will ultimately lead to Jesus arrest and crucifixion, where only a few short days away and in the midst of this conflict. Jesus gives us this story.

The story of this? Vineyard led out to tenants and the several fathers interpret this story as a story of Salvation history. Or these different servants or different phases of Salvation history where we might have. We have the law, the Psalms, and the prophets. Probably the most common ways to describe it.

Different ways that God reveals himself to us. But finally, the master sends his son. This one isn't all that mysterious. Who were referring to? Right, not a hard one. This is your Sunday school. Answer it's always Jesus. Right, the Sunday school answer. It's always Jesus, and so it's finally.

The master sends his son, Jesus, the stories about Jesus, the punchline. At the end is that Jesus, like, remember, he's just cleared a path through the court of the Gentiles for the Gentiles to be able to enter God's house? Says to the Jewish leadership, the vineyard is going to others.

So the ones that were profiting off the Gentiles, he says, The Vineyards going out to others. But he does it while telling a story that isn't just their story. It's all of our story, right?

New Testament commentator James Edwards raised the question, what is the sum total of human history, if not the attempt to rid the universe of God so that Humanity can rule? All along. When you're reading this story, the master could be accused if you didn't know. It's referring to God of being like, downright idiotic, right?

Why does he keep sending more Messengers look what they're doing to The Messengers? Why does he keep doing that? Why would the behavior of the tenants lead him to believe that his son would receive better treatment. Right? It seems almost foolish. But then, you realize it's a whole of our story.

And our God is always a way maker. The human response to the way that we've sinned against God is always vindictiveness and revenge. But God has always chosen to make a way he's chosen to make a way through the water, he's and, and when we've rebelled against him. When we decided that we didn't want anything to do with him when we chose death.

Over life in the garden. God made a way, and he's been doing it ever since. He's been doing it ever since. In the midst of our own sinful, like? And he uses this. This is what struck me. He chose to make a way in the water.

He chose the murky path. Do you realize that the way that, like, he could have told the story God could have made any story wanted, I suppose, but the way that he chose to bring Redemption was that he used the very anger and malice and hatred and wickedness, and the shouting for blood and the blood.

Thirstiness, and the worst that sin could offer. To enter into his death. And to make a way through that water into new life. That's a story. He chose the worst example of human sinfulness when the powers of the state and the powers of the religious powers and everyone else came together, and they worked together to kill God.

That's what he chose to be the way. That's what he chose to be the. Through the water. So, this week we're considering whether we. Will make the journey through Holy Week and walk with him on that way. Saint Paul says he considers all lost in order that he might share in the sufferings becoming like God, or like Jesus in his death, that by any means possible, he may re attain the resurrection of the dead?

That's what our Philippians reading said, right? We're considering whether we're ready to turn toward walking that Journey with Jesus. We consider our Lord as the Waymaker. He is the god who makes a way through the murky Waters of this world when we rebelled against him and chose death over life and tried to be our own.

God's God made a way for us. He sent his son, Jesus. Jesus chose the very way of death to be the means of life for us. This week on our last Sunday before entering Holy Week, we're invited to follow Jesus Through the murky Waters. We're invited to share in his suffering that we might joyously Triumph in his victory.

So, may God give us Grace to follow the way he's making for us. Praise be to God, who makes a way through the waters. Let us follow him on that way. Amen.