BIBLE READING: John 10: 22-30
SERMON
It was the Festival of Dedication, John writes. Now it is called
Hanukkah, an eight day celebration in Judaism
which Jesus observed, held in memory of the re-dedication of the Second Temple
in Jerusalem.
The festival’s history began in 333 BCE, when Alexander the
Great conquered Syria, Egypt and Babylonia and promoted a lenient form of Hellenistic
culture, encouraging the study of the language, custom and dress of the Greeks.
A legend says that Alexander asked for his statue to be added to the Temple,
and the High Priest told him that was forbidden, but that the Jewish people
would honour him in a living memorial, naming their first-born sons after him,
and Alexander agreed.
A century later, in 167 BCE, his successor, Antiochus IV, known
as Ephiphanes (God made manifest),
appointed a Hellenised high priest to the Temple and required pigs to be
sacrificed on the high altar, thus desecrating it. The Jewish people changed Epiphanes
to Epimanes (madman). In 165
the Hasmonean family of the legitimate High Priest, Mattityahu,
and his son, Judah Maccabee (The Hammer) organised a revolt, and
eventually evicted the Syrian-Greeks from Israel.
The legend grew that upon liberation there was only enough
purified oil to keep the Eternal Light burning in the Temple one more day, but
the oil lasted eight days, until more could be prepared. The festival remembers
the eight days in joy. The Light of the presence of God did not go out. And the
Temple was saved from true desecration, the loss of the light of the presence
of God. This deliverance came not by war but by miracle, not by the sacrifice
of blood on the altar or in the streets, but by the miraculous light in the
darkness of those days. And yet, the association between these events, revolt
and miracle, winning and miracle, the belief that God-is-on-our-side and
victory, is also part of the festival.
Jesus, John writes, was in Jerusalem for these festival days.
And so were the Pharisees, defenders of Jewish religious purity.
They longed for the restoration of Israel. And they knew how many
ways and times Jesus had bent the Law, indulged uncleanness, and even
assimilated the unclean into his flock. They were unsure of him.
John writes that Jesus was standing in the Portico of Solomon
when he spoke to them. Solomon, the wisest of Kings, assimilated wives from a
thousand tribes and nations into his household. Solomon assimilated land, laws,
customs, wisdom. His children were hybrids, his vision was expansive, his reign
was not purist. Solomon built the First Temple.
Are you the Messiah or not? the Pharisees asked Jesus. They were living
in a time not unlike that of Antiochus IV. Caesar had put a Romanised king,
Herod, on the throne of Solomon. And the successor son of Herod was proving
worse than the father. The Pharisees and others looked to the Temple, for
signs of deliverance and for a Messiah.
Jesus tells them their question arises from their own inner
confusion, their lack of faith and light. His own flock, he says, know him,
know they will not be separated from him, know they are in eternal life with
him. And then he adds, What my Father has
given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s
hand. The Father and I are one.
Jesus is permeated with this Oneness, baptised into this
intimate union. He shares it with all the world: one Creation, one God, one
People. Jesus does not do the maths of Might plus Right equals One God. He does
not do the maths of Victory plus Divinity equals Holy God. Jesus’ maths adds
the Many to himself in Love, until All are One.
His Jewishness is not tainted by his inclusiveness Judaism is rich
in assimilated wisdom, wonder, and ways. Elohim and Adonai, the ancient names
for God, both have roots in other cultures, as do a number of
treasured biblical tales. Jesus understands that true assimilation is love at
work, not Antiochus IV’s dreadful domination, in which he crushes what is in
his way.
Arguments against assimilation, arguments rooted in purity as
strength, are part of the angry conversation in our world every day. And they
cost lives and cause suffering, as we arm ourselves in fear of people of other
faiths and cultures. Terrorism, boat people, fear of people of radically
different faiths, are the price we have paid for generations, a price rooted in
such fears, which all too easily become permission to destroy.
The Father and I are one belongs to Jesus’ inclusive wisdom sayings,
along with: And I when I am lifted up will draw all people unto me, Love
your enemies, and even his praise for the Syrophoenician woman, who came to
him acknowledging she was not of his religion: Great is your faith!
As this world hurtles into a time of rapidly increasing intimacy
between religions and cultures, we need the wisdom of Solomon and the mind and
heart of Jesus to make the peace to which Christ’s Easter calls us: peace with
nations, neighbours, the children our children choose to marry, and the changes
our times will require of us and our culture.
May this passage from the Wisdom of Solomon guide us today and
give us hope for tomorrow.
“For she is a reflection of eternal
light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness.
Although she is but one, she can do all things, and while remaining in herself,
she renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes
them friends of God, and prophets; for God loves nothing so much as the person
who lives with wisdom. She is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars. Compared with the light she
is found to be superior, for it is succeeded by the night, but against wisdom
evil does not prevail. She reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the
other, and she orders all things well. ” — Wisdom of
Solomon 7:26 – 8:1.
Acknowledgement: Nancy Rockwell