"At the Name of Jesus"

My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

My brothers and sisters, I give sincere thanks that we are joined together as family, inseparably committed to each other and to the God and Father of all, Who loves us with a love beyond measure. Consider the billions of people the world over who love Him and honor Him and pray to Him! Go on-line and experience a living, breathing worldwide fellowship who profess His Name, calling themselves Christians! Miraculously, I am able to know the hearts of Facebook brethren scattered throughout the world, and they are able to read mine, and from moment to moment, instantaneously! Unthinkable only twenty years ago and a revelation to us today! Where could you possibly go on this vast earth and not find Father God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit being worshiped, honored, and loved? Truly, this is an awesome thing to ponder! No tick of the clock ever passes without millions of prayers being said and heard all over the world offered in the Holy Name of Jesus.

So many people collectively! Yet, each is an individual disciple of the Master. Each woman, man, and child reads His teachings over and over, collected from those who heard His voice, and then offer their own words as one heart speaking to another. We long for the day when we might kneel before Him and feel His hands upon our heads, voicing with His own voice His blessing.

In this, we count ourselves as being among His first Disciples, whether twelve or seventy or more. As they followed Him, so we follow Him today, billions of us, joined to a little band who were called one after one and then sent out two-by-two. Each of us has given Him our solemn commitments and promises and vows, and each of us is marked as belonging to Him, the Master, the Teacher, the Lord, the Christ. Let us walk behind Him this morning following Him with the others, keeping our heads down in humility, remaining silent, lest we miss something Jesus has said. This journey will require, not a few days, but years, for He will lead us through Phoenicia, Samaria, Judea, Idumea, the trans-Jordan, on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee and on the west shore, through the wastes south of Jericho and thence to the Dead Sea, and then again up north to the headwaters of the Jordan.

Today, we rest at Baneas, where the Jordan rushes up from the ground in clear, cold springs. This area has long been known as holy ground. We can hear bubbling water and feel the cold mists upon us in the heat of the day. In the near distance we see temples at the foot of a mountain — on the left the huge Temple to Augustus Caesar, on the right the Temple of Zeus, in the center, the natural cave-temple of Pan. Amongst these, carved in rock out of the side of the mountain, are booths where the statues of other deities are placed. It is good to take our rest. It is good to ponder. In the background are monuments raised to pagan gods. In the foreground sits the only One Who is God. After a time, He asks us a remarkable question: "Who do you say that I AM?" We understand, especially in this setting, that He has just asked the central question of our discipleship, our moment of truth. Watching in silence, we come to see that many of our compadres struggle with this question. Peter ventures to say, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." It is finally said. And the Master approves its saying.

A day or so later we follow Him to the top of a nearby mountain. Suddenly, He is transformed into the God Who He is .... directly before our eyes! Then, Heaven itself opens with Moses standing before us and Elijah. Peter blurts out, "Let us carve three booths — one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He is confused. Yesterday, he said Jesus was God. Today, he makes all three gods. But then, cutting through the confusion, the clearest of all voices ever heard is heard, the voice of God: He says, "This is my Son, the Beloved .... listen to Him!"

Listen to Him! But somehow, though He speaks clearly, those having ears do not hear Him. He is born in poverty to a homeless mother and father. Living in Galilee, they are not Jews, but outcasts, living neither in Judea, nor even Samaria. His connection to David is tenuous ... through an adoptive father. By birth, by manner of life, by personal intention, He has completely dissociated Himself from political kingship. He also has placed Himself at a distance from the religious hierarchy and aloof from the competing parties within the Jewish religious establishment. He is .... something else, someone else. As His otherworldly wisdom and powers clearly evince, if He has any kingdom, it is not of this world. Indeed, He often uses the phrase, the Kingdom of Heaven, never before heard in the Sacred Scriptures, never heard by anyone until the moment it first proceeded from His lips. Thousands follow Him, nearly like a migration out of spiritual and political bondage. He leads them into a wilderness place, five thousand it is said. We have read the Scriptures. We know that the scene is one that every Jew should cherish: God alone in the wilderness with His people. And, then, removing all remaining doubt concerning His identity, He feeds them with bread, a new manna, .... even with fish, whose very name spells His identity: ΙΧΘΥΣ (Ichthys), "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior."

What might we expect at this sublime moment, when His people discover that they unaccountably find themselves alone on Sinai with God? Do they worship Him? Do they accord Him the reverence due their Creator and God? Do they prostrate themselves pressing their foreheads to the ground? No, they compare Him favorably to Herod, promising to back His candidacy for Jewish kingship. Promising to back God for a junior executive position! A client king to Caesar?! What is more, their motive is painfully obvious. It is the same motive that prompted Peter and James and John to secure senior positions in His future royal administration. Everyone who has discovered this something about Him wants to get in on the ground floor before others discover His awesome powers. It is here that Jesus, the Christ, sets His face toward Jerusalem and Calvary, for He has failed. God's aspiration to be received and loved by His people has failed. Even His Disciples do not get it?

"When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" They said to Him, "Twelve." "And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" And they said to him, "Seven." And he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?"

And when they arrive to Jerusalem, He perceives that this "draft Jesus for king" movement has preceded Him and calls for not a horse, which David would have chosen, but rather a lowly donkey, rejecting any more discussion of political kingship.

The palms and Hosannas are nothing that we should exult in. They are of a piece with Judas' betrayal, with Peter's betrayal, and with the betrayal of all His Disciples excepting John, His mother, Mary Magdalene, and certain other women. Indeed, along the way south, after feeding the five thousand, Philip demands an additional sign from Him. And as He replies (and we can hear the weariness of His human heart): "Have I been with you all this time, Philip ... and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father."

Following Him, being close to Him, seeing His Transfiguration with our own eyes, watching Him repeat the scenes of His Father feeding the people Israel in the wilderness, hearing the Father's voice endorsing His Son, we know, beyond all doubt, that "Here in our midst is God, the Living God. Emmanuel, God-with-us.

Knowing His identity as we do, we understand that when He is betrayed and arrested by jealous and petty religious leaders, that this scene is finally no different from the mania of hosannas that had just preceded it. Moreover, He has told us that this would come to pass. And we are not surprised when this great speaker and teacher, upon whose words thousands listened in rapt silence, Himself now falls silent. We know His Divine Estate. We know His regal manner, His obvious sovereignty. Would God plead His own case or strive to explain Himself? Would God permit Himself to be placed under the authority, much less judgment, of .... anyone on earth? He is obedient to One alone, the One Who had sent Him on this very journey and Who counseled Him along this very course.

Now, His silence and royal bearing and unwavering obedience to the Father have led Him to a hill, where He is nailed to a Cross. Yet, even here He is the One upon Whom all eyes are fastened. We see His mother standing before Him beside His Beloved Disciple. And now, closer to where we are standing, we can see a Roman soldier looking up at Him with a searching expression. He recalls that his superior, a Centurion, had always regard Him as being someone special. And he turns to a nearby Essene and asks,

"He is saying something, but I cannot make it out?"

The Jewish scholar turns to the soldier and translates for him in Latin:

"Deus, Deus, meus, quare dereliquisti me?"
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

"Oh!" says the Roman soldier, "so in the end He is defeated!"

"Well, no. Not quite," the scholar replies. "These are not His words, actually. They are the first words of a prayer composed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years ago. By saying the first line, you see, He is simply invoking the entire prayer ... the way we Judeans would simply say, Shema, indicating the entire Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. No, He is simply placing before us this ancient prayer, which is a poem from our Sacred Scriptures."

"Then, how does this poem go? How does it end?" the soldier wants to know.

"Hebrew prayers can be complicated," the scholar replies. "They use chiasmus where opposites exchange places and collapse into one other or pronoun references that conflate into one another. But to say it simply, this prayer, the Deus Deus meus, is a poem that describes His wretched state at present, but ends by predicting, and based on other things He has said, that all the ends of the earth and a people yet to be born will kneel down and worship Him."

The Roman soldier draws closer to the Cross and looks up into Jesus' face. Here is a nameless beggar, a convicted criminal, whose disciples all have fled. It is said that none of His teachings have been written down. They will die with Him. He owns neither the clothes on his back nor even a grave to lay His dead body in. And all around Him on every side, fanning out in every direction, the Roman soldier sees the invincible Roman Empire ruled from the Eternal City, whose Temples dot the landscape of the Eastern Mediterranean. And he repeats the words to himself, "All the ends of the earth will worship Him?" And he laughs. He looks up and shakes his head and then laughs again.
Beloved in Christ, travel where you will on this planet two thousand years later, and you will meet with people who bow at even the sound of His Name. Drive through any state in the U.S., and from a distance you will see steeples spiring above every town. Visit the most remote island on earth, where the Little Flowers Hermitage carries on its life of prayer and service, and you will see humble people whose every moment and motion and thought is a never-ending prayer to the Holy Name of Jesus, the Christ.

But let us never forget this imaginary Roman soldier, who gazed upon a friendless and deserted beggar whose teachings had all been lost. And then ask yourself, "How could this have happened? How could His Name be the Name above every Name .... and two thousand years hence? And then lift up your voices and your palms, not to David's royal son, but to God's.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.