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S. Easter 6.26 Acts 17:16–31, 1 Peter 3:13–22, John 14:15–21

‘If you love me you will follow my directions’

That’s a more literal translation of the Greek: εντολας τας εμας τηρησετε. The Greek εντολας can be a direction, charge, command, or edict, it depends on the context. τηρησετε is simply keeping, observing, holding, following as you’ve been directed. The bias of all Roman and Reformed bible translations (all we have in English, sadly) is that God lays down rules and we must obey them. If we do a good job obeying the rules God commands, we will be rewarded with heaven. If we don’t obey the rules, we’ll be banished to eternal time-out in hell…

This is the legalism of the Pharisees and James, Hebrews, 2 Peter, Jude, 2&3 John, and Revelation, books marked by fathers of the 4th and 16th as not God’s Word, not canonical scriptures. Unfortunately, this catholic witness of the 4th century Nicene and 16th century Lutheran church fathers is the minority report—the majority of Christendom being law rather than Gospel driven, insistent that we must ‘run the verbs’ rather than GOD ‘running all the verbs for us’…

The Torah (“Way”, not “Law” I would translate) that God gave Moses on Mt. Sinai is not rules to follow, but directions for sheep who have lost their way to get them back on the Road to Heaven. Sheep don’t obey commands. They are far too stupid for that! Sheep follow the Voice of their Shepherd who rescues them from lions, tigers, and bears and leads them to green pastures, beside still waters… 😉

Sheep follow where their Shepherd leads. They chase after him, trusting he means them Good, not evil, and knows how to provide for them. So Moses doesn’t lay down a “LAW” but a WAY that leads to the green pastures and still waters of Heaven. If Adam and Eve had not disbelieved the Shepherd, chosen their own way, we would not have died or gotten lost. But as sheep who have lost the Way, we need a Shepherd to rescue us.

So, it’s just Sheep-Shepherd 101 when Jesus says “if you love me, you will follow my directions”. He isn’t a hall-monitor making rules and judging if we have obeyed them well enough to deserve a reward. He’s simply LEADING THE WAY out of the hell-holes we’ve gotten ourselves into, taking the fire and the punishment we brought on ourselves and leading us down a better Road. We love him because he first loved us this way, as John says in his epistle. We don’t evaluate Jesus, judge whether he is wise enough, strong enough, and good enough to give us precepts to obey…

NO! We see what a mess we’ve made of our lives, and hear the Voice of a Shepherd who knows the way out, knows the way… home. We love him because he laid down his life for us, took on the wolf, beat him (by being beaten by him 😉 rising victorious, the wolf-trap of sin, death, and hell broken forever, for us all, by Jesus’ dying and rising… (!)

See, Jesus has done it all! All our sin he bore three years in his public ministry and conquered once for all by his three days suffering, bleeding, dying, damning and rising. How can you not love a Shepherd like Jesus!? Why would you not love to follow him wherever he goes? If he says “Stand on your head”! It would be all joy to stand on our heads! If he goes down into the hell-hole of death and beckons us to follow, we will go, expecting a Grand Adventure!

This is Xnity 101! Jesus is the Good Shepherd. We are lost and dumb sheep! This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship! He’s the super hero we always wanted to be and if he dresses us up, disguises as himself, and invites us to be little non-identical copies of him, what could be a Better Adventure, a Greater Joy than this?

Our First Reading from Acts gives a great example of how the Apostles followed Jesus’ directions on the Way. But the directions are a bit… counterintuitive!

In the actual Great Commission, Matt 10:5ff, when Jesus sends out the Apostles to reveal him to the world, he directs them not to go down ‘Gentile road’, not even to enter a city of the Samaritans (kind of half Jew/half pagan) but to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, a tiny little group scattered throughout the world and not particularly impressive…

Huh? Do you want people to find you or not, Jesus! And well, Lutheran “Yes!” to that! Jesus hides his deity under humble humanity, conceals his glory and power under the shame and weakness of the cross. Like a mouse, he hides in the corner so the cat will come and chase him. But he turns out to be the cat, the Lion of Judah, and we the hapless mouse; only, it’s by swallowing up us mice to die with him that Jesus turns us mice into Lions like himself!

Sometimes, hiding the ball makes you want to find it. Like a Treasure Hidden in a Field that a man stumbles on and is so enamored with, he sells everything he has to buy the field. “Buying the Field” BTW, was an old WWI pilots’ term for crashing and dying. Because dying with Jesus to sin, death, and hell, buried with him by Baptism, This is the Way!, the only Way to eternal life…

St. Paul is talking with a few Jews and Gentile catechumens in the synagogue in Athens and then they go to brunch in the marketplace where some busybody Athenian Epicurean and Stoic philosophers overhear him talking about Jesus and Anastasia— a little ‘inside baseball’: the Greek “Anastasia” is both the name of a female goddess and the word that means “resurrection”. The Athenians think it’s some sexy Greek mystery cult of a male and female goddess getting it on and they get lured in, curious…

Paul plays hard to get, so the Athenians accuse him of teaching an illicit religion and drag him to the Areopagus court, only to find out it’s not what they thought! Paul means this Jesus is literally Anastasiaed!, raised from the dead! Most drop it there, but a scattered few are lured in. The hidden ball trick! Gets unsuspecting runner out, every time!

Peter directs us always to hide the ball from the world! A priceless treasure should be kept hidden in a world of thieves and robbers as Gregory the Great attests… Treasure 101! But, when the curious ask, we tell the Word (with meekness and fear; playing hard to get is the best way to get the pretty girl 😉

Jesus plays hard to get, because he’s a boat anchor, a millstone that’ll drag you down to the Depths of the Sea! He’ll be the death of you to give Life to you. But, in the Depths of the Sea, in the pit of Sheol, in the deepest darkness, Jesus’ light shines brightest, catches your fancy, lures you in—turning cowardly mice into Lions like himself; and Peace, surpassing understanding, guards your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.