The God that Comes Near John 12:37-38, 42-50 Tuesday in Holy Week, April 15, 2003 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi "And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, . . ." (Jn. 1:14, NRSV) "Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him." (Jn. 12:37) "And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness." (Jn. 12:45-46) In telling the story, the author of the Gospel according to John menses no words. God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus the Christ and lived among us. We who have the advantage of over 2000 years of Christian tradition and teaching find it so easy to criticize those who rejected Jesus or even worse - ignored him - those who acknowledged that Jesus performed some wonderful signs but considered what he taught and who he was to be incomprehensible. In 1974 the residential alcohol and drug treatment program I directed admitted an 18 year old young man from Glenn Allen, a small community near Rolling Fork, in the south part of the delta. A Sharkey County deputy had arrested him after the deputy had clocked him going 120 miles per hour in reverse on Highway 61. As the deputy dragged him out of his car, the young man calmly stated, "It's okay, I'm Jesus Christ." The deputy became ecstatic as he noticed the distinct aroma of burning oak leaves coming from the young man's car, and a handful of partially smoked joints on the seat. He had arrested his first pothead. Wealthy plantation owners, his parents arranged for his referral to our treatment program rather than to jail. Besides, they were relieved to know he was on drugs and that explained the bizarre behavior he exhibited. Because the wheels of the justice grind slowly, the young man did not arrive at our treatment facility for two weeks. Thus, he had been drug free that long before we admitted him. Yet, as I introduced myself to him, shaking my hand, he said, "Hi, I'm Jesus Christ." As I have trouble backing down my driveway going 2 miles an hour, I had to admit that anyone who drive 120 in reverse and still be alive impressed me. However, it didn't take long to realize, to his parents' disappointment, that even though this young man may use a lot of drugs, he also, in clinical terms, was schizophrenic with delusions of grandiose ideation, or in layman terms, was crazier than hell. Can we not understand that the erudite who heard Jesus, thought, "Oh, he's just schizophrenic with delusions of grandiose ideation," while many of the others just thought, "He's crazier than hell." Let's forget for a moment about the footwashing about the crucifixion. We'll come to all that later in this week. Let's just consider what "And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory" really means. Let's consider what "And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness." really means. While the Jews understood themselves as chosen people of God and that God had influenced prophets who interpreted God's actions for them, they still worshiped a God "out there" - distant, detached. For those influenced by Greek or Roman religions, God was even more detached. The current war in Iraq has helped me to better understand both the type of God we worship and how hard it must have been for them to accept Jesus for who he was. Unlike the 1991 Gulf War in which we saw satellite images of buildings being hit by bombs, in this war, we have journalists and cameramen embedded - a term I find intriguing because it means to be implanted so deeply that change becomes impossible. In this war, we not only have seen distant views from satellites and bombers, we have seen American soldiers dodging bullets, dead and injured Iraqi and American soldiers, injured children, and funerals of American soldiers and Iraqi women and children. Those in charge of this war have seen the same images we have seen, but in the same way we have seen them, from a distance, by television. Yes, probably after the war is over, after it is considered safe, after the carnage has been cleaned up, surrounded by troops and special forces body guards, they may fly over the current war zone, they may briefly touch down somewhere for a photo-op. However, they will never experience the war. So it has always been with top generals with government leaders. So was the understanding of gods. Thus, how could they accept a god who walked among the flying bullets and the fresh carnage, who stood outside Lazarus' tomb and wept, who touched lepers, who mixed his spit with mud and placed ii on a blind man's eyes, who stuck his fingers into a deaf man's ears, who reached down and lifted up the lame? This Jesus had to be crazy as hell because everyone knew God was out there, whom we worship from a distance and who capriciously caused things to happen from a distance. They did not understand a God who sits next to a young GI as he dodges bullets, who weeps standing next to the bed of a young Iraqi boy who lost not only both of his parents but both of his arms to an American missile, who stands in the midst of a weeping Iraqi community as they bury wives, husbands, and children caught in the crossfire between Iraqi regulars and advancing American infantrymen, who holds the hand of a mother of a young Marine as she opens her front door to be greeted by a major and a chaplain who have come to tell her son will return home in a flag draped coffin. They did not understand a God who sits in a family vigil gathered around a wife and mother yielding her last breath to cancer, who holds a grieving mother in his arms as she learns her teenage daughter has been killed by a drunk driver, who weeps with a child molested and abused by her father. As our Holy Week progresses, we will learn even more how radically different is the God we worship and how far God will go to love us. Tonight, however, we are left to make a choice: Either Jesus was crazier than hell or we worship a God who came and who comes among us in the most ungodly times and places of our lives.