Simon

While certainly, Jesus takes center stage in the Gospel stories, there is a man who always seems to be rather close at hand. He is one of the first disciples whose calling we are told of, one of the first disciples (often) to speak, the first disciple to enter the empty tomb in search of His master. 

He is Simon. 

Kind of.

The first thing we have to do when we think about Simon the disciple is to separate him from other individuals named Simon in the Gospels and in the New Testament. And there are a fairly good number of them. It seems that Simon was quite the popular name around that time. 

Well, it might be easy, you say. We shall just call him Simon the Disciple. That way, we distinguish him from other Simons we might know or read about. But very quickly, this does not work, for there were two Simons among the twelve - the Simon currently in question and Simon the Zealot, with whom we should never confuse our current Simon. 

There's also Simon the Leper, as we saw briefly last week. Simon the Leper is the man who hosted Jesus and a number of others at his house in Bethany near Jerusalem just days before Jesus sacrificed Himself on the Cross. It was at Simon the Leper's house that the sinful woman poured out the expensive bottle of nard as an offering/an anointing. We should not confuse this Simon with our current Simon, either.

And then when we get to the book of Acts, we see yet another Simon, the Magician. He is known for his amazing deeds and acts of wonder, and he comes seeking the gift of the Holy Spirit - not because he thinks it will be of life-giving benefit to him but because he is fairly sure it will improve his magic ten-fold, if not more. Again, we should not confuse this Simon with our current Simon (although we will look at this Simon later this week, for it is quite an interesting story and just the sort of thing that God would do). 

So our first challenge when we say that we are going to look at Simon is to answer the question: which Simon? Who is he, and how do we set him apart from all the other Simons in the story? 

The Simon we're talking about is impetuous. He speaks, or acts, often without thinking about it first, and this causes some very interesting ideas to come out of his mouth. For example, when witness to the Transfiguration, Simon is the one who pops off and says, "This is great! Since we're here, we can build little shelters for each of you!" It makes no sense; why would three holy spirits need shelters on a mountain, and just how long does Simon plan to be on that mountain, anyway? In the blink of an eye, what was is gone, and there is just Simon and the echo of impetuousness left. 

That echo of impetuousness follows him. He just can't let things sit; he always has to answer, always has to speak. In the courtyard at the trial of Jesus, as Jesus remains silent before His accusers, Simon speaks quickly to his. "No, I don't know the man. I'm telling you I don't know Him. Would you give it up already? I do not know the guy." Unable to keep quiet, he denies the Lord three times, just as predicted.

It is Simon (we think) who cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus is arrested. He's the one who draws the sword and starts swinging it, even though Jesus Himself doesn't seem all that concerned. 

And when Jesus asks the disciples who they say He is, it is Simon who says, "You are the Messiah" without missing a beat. And when Jesus asks His disciples if they, too, would like to desert Him, it is Simon who quickly says, "To whom else would we go?" 

It is Simon who plows into the empty grave while John merely peeks around the corner to see what might possibly be going on in there, and when the disciples are fishing in the days after the resurrection and discover that Jesus is the one on the shore calling out to them, Simon jumps into the water to swim toward Him. 

Over and over and over again, this Simon we're looking at is one who speaks, and acts, quickly, without a whole lot of thought to it. He is a man driven by his passions, reckless to his heart. He is all-in, wholly devoted to what he's got going on. 

And there's something endearing about him, isn't there? There's something about Simon that we deeply love, not the least of which is that we love the way that Simon loves Jesus.

But there's a lot more to this man than we often consider, a lot more woven into his story than we often read. It takes the patience to sit down and listen not for his mouth, which is so easy to hear, but for his heart, which is not unlike our own. And the way that Jesus handles Simon's heart, the way that God writes his story, is breathtakingly beautiful.

Stay tuned...

A Waste of Flesh

Now, in our Holy Week, we have come to Good Friday. By the time that you are reading this post, there will already have been a sacrifice, already blood dripping down from the Cross, already fatigue setting in on His body. For He was slaughtered with the morning sacrifice, the echo of the horn from the Temple heard all the way on the hill; not a faithful Jew in all of Israel would have failed to hear it. 

And we who have the benefit of hindsight, who know how the story ends, who are not stuck on Friday but know full well that Sunday is coming, call this Friday "Good," although at the time, it would have been no such thing. 

Remember that it was less than one week ago that Jesus triumphally entered the city of Jerusalem. Finally. After all of the waiting, after all of the prodding, after all of the begging for Him to come to the central city of leadership in Israel. The faithful had lined the streets with palm branches, singing and shouting and dancing for the long-awaited coming of their promised King. In the days that had followed, He had done not one particularly kingly thing, but they were still hopeful, still expectant. 

Not any longer. Not this morning. This morning, as their long-awaited King hangs on a Cross just outside the streets where palm leaves have already begun drying and decaying, there is no hope in Israel. No expectation. This is not their King. How could He be? He's dying.

Remember that it was just a couple of days ago that a woman, a prostitute, had put it all on the line to walk uninvited into a leper's house and anoint this Man, this Rabbi, this Teacher, who was supposed to become their priest. He had commended her for her act of faithfulness and obedience. He had changed, to some degree, her reputation, and everyone had seen it. He still smelled a little like nard, even this morning. 

But this morning...this morning, none of that matters. This man who had spoken so kindly to her is nothing more than a criminal. This Rabbi who received her tremendous gift is going to waste. It was, it turns out, no anointing at all; it was an embalming. He who was supposed to bring life has walked the road to His own death, and it was all for nothing. He has just a few hours left.

Remember that it was just one day ago that He was in the Upper Room, celebrating the Passover with His disciples, talking about the wondrous things that God had done. Remembering the mighty act of God in sparing the firstborn children of Israel so that He could lead them out of captivity and into new life. He spoke like a prophet, the bold truth of God rolling off His tongue so eloquently, so assuredly. 

And for what? For nothing. Because this so-called prophet who speaks such beautiful truth has been condemned by liars and now? Now, He barely has breath to speak. It won't be long until He has no breath left in Him at all. 

On this Friday, this Promise - this long-awaited King, this priest, this prophet - hangs dying, along with all the hope and expectation and anticipation of Israel. For years they have believed that this truly was the Son of God, the presence of Him in the flesh. 

But what a waste of flesh. 

On this Friday, it's almost over. No, hold that - it's done. His limp, lifeless body hangs shameful on the Cross, just breaths removed from all of the hope that things were finally, finally about to be different. "Good" Friday? "GOOD" Friday? There is nothing "good" about this Friday....

Preparing the Passover

On Thursday of Holy Week, what we often call Maundy Thursday, the disciples inquired of Jesus wherein they should prepare the Passover meal to eat, and He directed them to a man's house in Jerusalem, to the Upper Room. There, the disciples set to work preparing the lamb.

By the structure of Israel's sacred society, it was traditional that it was the priest who would prepare the sacrifice, but the exception to this rule was the Passover. At Passover, every family prepared for themselves the lamb. If one family was too small to eat a full lamb by itself, they prepared it with a neighbor family. Here, the people slaughtered the lamb, divided it, prepared it, and ate it as a feast unto the Lord. 

This, of course, is what the disciples were doing. 

Our narratives don't give us the fullness of this feast as it was, taking for granted that those who would have read about it in the early church would have understood the significance of Passover from the Hebrew roots of the faith and would have known all that this feast entailed that evening. All that our narrative tells us about is the new thing - the bread/the body that is broken for us and the wine/the blood poured out. 

Make no mistake about it, however - the disciples also prepared a Lamb.

It is an interesting way to think about what was going on in that Upper Room, not just as a historical feast of Israel's faithfulness for which a lamb had been prepared according to tradition, but the preparation of the Lamb Himself for the Passover. It makes you wonder what Jesus was taking in that the disciples probably didn't even notice, what was feeding Him or fueling Him without their awareness, that perhaps they only realized much, much later (if, of course, at all).

Looking around in the Upper Room, what did Jesus see? He laid eyes on the diversity of humanity, represented there in His disciples. A tax collector. A faithful Jew. A Zealot. Men who knew the story and didn't know the story and were living out the story with Him. Men who had been broken, men who had been healed. Men whose personalities were sometimes too big for them but were always just right for Him. He looked around and saw the kinds of men that God so loved that He sent Him into the world in the first place, and certainly, this had to steady His heart to love them through the Cross.

Looking around a borrowed room, what did Jesus notice? He noticed the hospitality, the space that had been made for Him to walk among them. Just like the old days, just like the first days - when God had walked so openly with man. Here, He walked openly once more and men sought Him, really sought Him, and certainly, this comforted His heart that He would be found.

Looking around the Passover feast spread before them, what did Jesus realize? He realized He was among people who could remember with both gratefulness and anticipation the powerful acts of God that were done among them, who looked forward to His next redemptive movement, who celebrated with great joy what they thought they knew even in the midst of what they could not possibly understand. And certainly, this assured Him that He would not be forgotten.

We so often think about what Jesus gave us in that Upper Room - a new feast, a new paradigm, a new Passover remembrance and hope and anticipation that we celebrate each week in the Last Supper - but let us not forget that there was a Lamb prepared there, as well. A Lamb who would, in just a few short hours, walk to slaughter as an offering.

No longer because the firstborn son was spared, but because He was given. 

A Woman in Bethany

For many, the story of Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday and skips straight to Maundy Thursday, from the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem into the Upper Room in which He shared the Last Supper with His disciples. But there is on this Wednesday a moment that is so Jesus that we cannot dare ignore it in our celebrations. 

It is the story of Jesus in Bethany.

Take yourself there. Bethany was a place with which Jesus was intimately familiar. A number of His friends lived there, and several of the Gospel stories take place within its bounds. Several beautiful stories, of which this one is no different. 

Today, Jesus is in the house of Simon, whom Matthew calls "the leper." Now, you know the Old Testament Scriptures as well as anyone - the lamb that is to become the sacrifice can have no uncleanness. It has to be a perfect, a spotless lamb. Yet here He is with the leper, the outcast, the contagious, the unclean (although we must say that since there was quite the crowd gathered in the home of Simon, he likely was a healed leper, a cleansed one, though no one would have forgotten his spotty white past). He comes in a weary traveler, and it is in this story that He chides Simon for not being the most gracious of host - he did not even bring the Rabbi some water to wash His feet. 

A large crowd here has gathered; Simon's home is packed to the brim. Like we said, Jesus had a lot of friends in Bethany, and although many may not have known what His presence in Jerusalem this week truly meant - they might not have been present for His prophecies of the sort - they relished a chance to see Him again, and so they came. We can imagine that Mary and Martha are there. Lazarus, too, having once died yet lived again. Simon the Leper is of course present, as it's his house. And the whole thing is a general gathering of good nature. 

Until a sinful woman walks in. 

She would have been noticed right away. She had, after all, a reputation. There were probably not a lot of places she could have gone in a place like Bethany, perhaps even in Jerusalem proper, without being spotted. And she knew it. She was fully aware of her position. She knew that all eyes would turn on her in an instant, that the room would fall silent, that it wouldn't take long for the whispers to begin once she invited herself into this party. 

That's why she kept her eyes focused firmly on Him. 

What she was about to do wasn't about her. It wasn't. She knew it probably looked that way, making a spectacle as she was. Uninvited as she was. Known as she was. But for her, it wasn't. For her, it was about Him. It was about this one opportunity - who knew when she would have another - to give back to Him some measure of what He had given her. You see, she was a sinful woman, but for all those who had "known" her, this Man knew her. This man alone had taken the time, we don't know precisely where or how, to acknowledge her, and He had given her back something she thought she had lost forever - her dignity. 

The full bottle of nard was not enough. She knew it. Expensive though it was, it paled in comparison to His tremendous gift. But it was all that she had, and there was no better use for it. Traditionally, it might have been used in preparation, when the woman had finally become betrothed to a man and was to wed. But let's be real about this: there was no man who was going to marry her. Not this sinful woman. 

And so, the nard was His and she tried her best to give Him the moment, too. Forget all the whispers. Forget the stares. Forget the pointing fingers and the crossed brows and the shouts for her to get out of this place, this unclean woman in a leper's house. (Are you catching the irony of that alone?) 

She walked straight through, straight to where the Rabbi was sitting, and she knelt before Him, letting her long hair fall as it may. She pulled out the bottle of nard and broke it, and if there had been among them any who had not noticed her presence yet, let them notice it now, for she was making truly a scene. She poured it out upon His feet and began to wash them with her hair, and among all the whispers, what does Jesus say about all of this? 

He says, She has anointed me.

Anointed! By a sinful woman. And by the way, "a sinful woman" is probably a nice way of saying, "a prostitute." A prostitute just walked into a leper's house and performed the sacrament of a priest, anointing our Lord just days before He will offer His sacrifice. Let's not miss this. It is a vital and beautiful and wonderful part of this Holy Week. 

And it is so Jesus, isn't it?

Living Into the Living Lord

Holy Week, perhaps like no other week in the Christian calendar, serves as a poignant reminder of how severely we have diminished the story of Christ...and an invitation back into the unfolding drama of His redemption.

Throughout their history, the people of God have always had a living faith. That is, their lives were led by the sacred rhythms of their story in His story. Israel lived her story through sacrifices, feasts, and remembrances, all events that invited them to live out what God had done for them in an act of faithful living. The early church gathered in its own rhythms, breaking bread together as in the Upper Room, gathering their resources in an offering, living out the Passion of the Christ in the new Passover, the same kinds of Holy events that we are invited into this week.

But somewhere along the way, perhaps in the vein of a modernism that determined that all things could be rationally explained and empirically studied, the contemporary church shifted from the living out of a living faith into something much less - the learning, perhaps, of it. 

For years, we have preached, taught, lectured, and written about God, as though to know Him is the same as to know anything else in the world. We have said that we could study Him the way that we study, say, history or mathematics. We have said that we could study ourselves as His people the way that we study any anthropology. We have invested a great number of our energies in knowing all that we can about Him, though somewhere along the way, we have forgotten simply to know Him. 

And then, in reaction to such a dramatic shift in our theology of knowing, we attempted to recapture some of what we had lost by deciding that perhaps God was not best lectured and preached and taught and written, but that perhaps He should be done. That is, we can "do" God in the same way that we "do" church or "do" our grocery shopping or "do" our chores. So in an attempt to bring back the living aspect of our faith, we brought in a doing element of it, and today, there are all kinds of things we can (and do) do. Yet we are still not experiencing it. 

This is the kind of approach that I cautioned against yesterday. We cannot allow our faith to be something else that we "do," just one more thing on a long list of tasks to be completed, one more activity on our resumes. We cannot let it be that we go to church in the same way that we go to the grocery store or the gas station or the bank or the doctor, as though our mere participation in the activity of the church or the Christian faith is somehow a justification for its existence...or our identification with it. 

There's something in us that understands this. There has to be, or we would not have turned our faith into an act of doing; we would have been content with the mere knowing of God. But we are not. For somewhere, we know that the real knowing of God is the loving of Him (and the loving by Him) and the loving of Him is the living of Him. 

We must have a living faith.

That is the greatest blessing of this Holy Week.

It is a week that is meant to be lived. It is one that requires experiencing. There can be no mere sentimentality about the Cross, not if we are truly to be the people of God. No, there must be a loving of it. And if there is to be a loving, there must be a living. And if to be a living, there must be an experiencing. 

There are all kinds of things to "do" this Holy Week - bread to break, prayers to observe, tears to weep, silences to mourn, graves to investigate, hopes to hold onto, but if the noise and the dust and the dirt of Jerusalem doesn't catch in your throat, you have not really done anything. You have been busy, but you have not been present. 

Be present. Get into the story. Live into the living Lord on this amazing week in which He has given us the opportunity to truly live in both remembrance and anticipation by actually being there, being right there with Him...in the Upper Room, in the Garden, on the Cross, in the grave, on the road. There is this week a Christ to be lived in His dying; let us never forget that.

For the people of God have always been those living His story, not those merely learning it.