John 11: You Don't Have to Keep Coloring the Onion

So if you've been with us the last few months, uh you can tell right away that we have broken away from the book of Exodus.

We've been going through this second book of the Bible for uh a couple months, really.

And so we've broken away because we are uh two weeks out from Easter this week and then next week's Palm Sunday, and then Easter.

And so I wanted us to come into the Easter story so that when we get to Easter, perhaps some of us, if uh you're new to church or um new to us, uh Redeemer, uh, when we get to Easter, uh we know what we're talking about, that we're all on the same page.

We know what we're celebrating, that we've entered into this storyline of Jesus coming into Jerusalem and what's going on.

Well, who are the players?

What's going on?

Who are these people and uh what's going on?

So that's why we're taking a break for the next three weeks from Exodus to join in in John chapter 11, 12, 13 for the next few weeks.

John 11 · chapter mention

So we're gonna work our way through this story that Janine read for us.

But let me retell it just a little bit, and that's that um people are starting to see what Jesus is up to, and he sort of ups the stakes because right before this passage, he raised Lazarus from the dead, and so he is he is coming on the scene and he is making it known that he's just not another radical, um, but he actually is God himself in the flesh, the incarnation.

And so he's on the scene, and this is what's playing out.

And now the Pharisees are gathering because they're seeing this, because some people are believing in Jesus to be the Messiah, and the Pharisees are showing up and they're gathering together and saying, This is going to be a problem.

Uh because, right, if you want to fight, just uh threaten establishment.

That's how you get a fight.

You get a fight, threaten establishment, threaten somebody's power if you want to fight.

I mean, that's how it was, right, on the playground.

Still true in a boardroom, at your office, it's the same way somebody has power over the copier.

And if you step into how the copier works, you know, you're threatening somebody's power.

Anytime you threaten somebody's power, you're gonna get a fight.

And so a fight is brewing, a real soap opera, to tell you the truth.

Um you know, so if this is a new story to you, uh, I mean, it is it is captivating.

And for those of us that we've heard this story, maybe grown up in it, um, it's so good to kind of walk our way into Easter, remembering all of this.

So we're gonna look at this story Janine read, uh, make a few points to work our way through it.

And so, three points.

So the first point is it is futile to live a life of trying to purify yourself.

It is futile to live a life of trying to purify yourself.

And here's what I mean by that.

So in the Old Testament, there were seven festivals.

Uh, God set up these seven festivals.

There were there were four in the spring, there were three in the fall, and these festivals are organized around celebrating their history, celebrating their faith, celebrating what God had done for them.

This is how they remembered.

And so Passover is one of these feasts.

And that's in this passage what's going on.

All these people are coming into Jerusalem.

They're coming to Jerusalem as a city up in the mountains, and they're coming to Jerusalem, they're walking up the mountains, they're singing probably psalms, a lot of the songs of ascent in the book of Psalms.

They're probably singing these songs walking up to Jerusalem, and these families are bringing an unblemished male lamb, and they're bringing that sacrifice to make at the temple for their sins.

And there's probably a group of people there even before the festival who are coming to purify themselves.

It says that in that passage, that there's a group already there purifying themselves, and then a group's coming later for the festival where there's gonna be a sacrifice, which is the purification of their sins.

So this earlier group, it could be, um it looks like it was probably like people maybe who had done an arrangement of different things during the year, like maybe they touched a dead body or different things like this, and they were there purifying themselves even before the festival.

So there's lots of purifying going on here.

And in this idea of bringing this lamb, this was this was just this was the biggest part of the festival.

And this is a big festival.

I mean, this is this is the Jewish nation converging on a city.

This is game day, right?

Like, I don't know what your town is.

This is game day in Athens for me.

Like, there are people everywhere.

Every inn is filled, uh, you know, every campsite is filled, there are there are tents in the parking lots, every everywhere.

It is full.

And it is festive and it is celebratory, and there's going to be sacrifices being made, and people are going to be making these sacrifices because it's a way of expressing that all things are reconciled.

You go, what is all this crazy sacrifice stuff in the Old Testament?

It is a way that they are expressing all things are reconciled, darkness and brokenness and sin does not win.

That there's a gift to receive.

And the gift is outside of yourself.

Right?

So the way to make oneself right and whole with God, and then thus also with yourself, is not by your work, but by receiving a gift outside of yourself.

And that's what that lamb is about, and that's why that lamb actually points us to a final sacrifice, so we don't have to keep making the sacrifice over and over and over and over again.

So now these people in the Old Testament, so they're being forgiven and saved by grace because in the sacrifice they're looking forward to a final sacrifice.

They're looking forward to a Messiah.

And then in the coming chapters, what we see is a lot of these people miss it.

Right?

I mean, Jesus shows up on the scene, and a lot of these Jewish people that are practicing the sacrifice, they miss it.

They miss the practice that they've been practicing.

That they've been they've been doing this, their family's been doing it, this is their heritage, they've been doing it their whole life.

And it's all been pointing towards Jesus, the final sacrifice, and they miss it.

It's like they're so entrenched in the religious practice, they miss what the practice points to.

And you go, oh man, I mean, how we can do that.

We can still do that.

We can become so entrenched in some religiosity of our own that we miss what it points to.

Right?

A lady I heard speak years ago, I heard her word it this way, and she said, you know, for she she accepted Christ through Savior, the grace of God, welcomed her into the family, and then it was like at that point on, she just moved into like a Christian religiosity, and she left Jesus like at the point of becoming a Christian.

She just left that back there, and from then on, she was living by merit.

We can become so entrenched that we forget the practices we practice point to a person and it points to God Himself.

And this is all over.

It's not just in the Christian world, it's not just in the Jewish world.

I mean, it in the in the Hindu world, every 12 years in one of four places in India, millions and millions and millions of people, they gather, tens of millions of people will gather and they will bathe in a holy river, and by bathing in the holy river, before going in the river, their sins are on them.

And after getting in the water and bathing after when they come out, now they are clean.

And you go, well, that's a great act of devotion.

And I'm not going to say it's not a great act of devotion.

To make that pilgrimage to do that, it's a great act of devotion, but it is still like a behavioral action to receive purity.

I was listening to a podcast recently, and the host was talking, sort of talking, he was incredibly just he's he was so enamored by this Buddhist monk who he this guy he burns his fingers like as an act of devotion, an act of purifying himself.

And in this podcast, he was just you know, super pop culture podcast, talking about how cool this was.

And I'm going, like, we don't have to do that.

Like, we don't have to sacrifice ourselves, and we don't even we shouldn't even be judgmental of the Hindus or the Buddhists because we we we still do this in our own way.

We do this in our own way.

I mean, anytime we leave Jesus back at the front door of coming into the Christian faith and we move into like merit or become overly focused on behavior unto feeling pure or whole or righteous, or as Paul would say, a returning to the law.

I mean, we're doing the same thing.

And maybe maybe you can think, man, I mean, this is so theological.

But see, what happens is when we do that, Christians, when Christians do this, what happens is you end up with a Christian culture where anybody except the Christian can be hurting.

Right?

Like, like because the Christian should be striving and meriting and maintaining, but they can't be having a hard time.

Now, now the non-Christian would have a hard time.

We'll give grace to the non-Christian, but but to the Christian, we're not quite sure if we'll give grace to the Christian.

And that's the culture that develops out of a religiosity for purity.

And I still do this, right?

I mean, this is this is this is still when when I wake up and I feel like, well, I'll be pure before God or whole before God or feel pure or whole by uh reaching that next level of Christian maturity or getting that next nugget of truth, and then, right?

And then I'll be uh pure or whole or at peace before God.

Then the position will be maintained, or or maybe for some reason, like I mean you mess up, or I mess up, and there's shame, or maybe you're remembering something in the past, all that shame is on you, and you feel like, well, well, if I can just get the scales back to like a balance, then.

And what this is, is whenever we're in that world of merit, it's a nod, it's a nod at the work of Jesus.

And then it's us being entrenched and enamored with our own work and our own merit.

So last Sunday afternoon, Christy and I and the girls, it's a beautiful last Sunday afternoon.

It's yard work season, by the way.

If you're into working in the yard, this is what's going on.

Y'all have been mulching, perhaps, starting to plant some stuff if you're into that.

And so we're into that.

So we're out Sunday afternoon and we're planting some variegated vinca.

Anybody planting variegated vinca and vinca?

Anybody into vinca?

Only one.

All right.

Well, variegated vinca, fantastic.

You should look into a good perennial.

So, ground cover, so we're planting variegated vinca in the section of our backyard, and I have finally hit the life stage where I have a little workforce.

Like, I I mean I looked around, I was like, this is fantastic.

So I was digging the holes, Christy was dropping the plants in, and then Izzy and Josie, seven-year-old, five-year-old, are coming behind Christy, and they're putting the soil back on top and pushing it down.

And we are motoring.

I mean, we are motoring through this thing, and I was thinking of how long this would take me on my own.

It's amazing.

I have labor.

And so we are just motoring through this, and they're, I mean, it our hands are getting nasty, right?

Like all under the nails and caked on, and inevitably, because they've been over, their hair would get in front of their face and they would want to, you know, brush it away.

And so, you know, at first, I'm like, well, clap your hands, you know, clap your rub your hands, and you kind of do the back of your hand, try that, and every once and then their nose would itch, and and so you know, and you have to teach them these things.

They don't know these things.

So you so you teach them, oh, you go over to the grass, right?

Go over to the grass, rub your hands in the grass, like that's pretty basic.

We kind of know that.

And so go teach them that, and and then you go, well, uh it didn't work as much as they wanted to.

So I teach them the pine straw trick.

You know the pine straw trick?

You get a whole bunch of pine straw and you rub it in your hands, and it actually works pretty good.

I mean, it gets a it gets a lot off.

But when we're finished, right?

Like when we're finished, I mean the fact is, is like the grass and the pine straw and the clapping or whatever.

I mean, I mean, you can get the chunks off, but you your hands are still filthy.

And when we're finished, there's only one way that you really are gonna get your hands clean, is soap and water.

I mean, I mean, that's it.

I mean, and every everything else is just kind of like moving the dirt around.

I mean, the dirt's still gonna be there.

And that's probably a very bad illustration, but here's what it's about is how many different ways we try to clean ourselves up.

Like, let our ego try to wash our soul, let our merit try to wash our immorality, let our discipline or hard work or even devotion wash away some shame.

But it's only pine straw.

I mean, all of that's just pine straw.

I mean, you might be able to knock some chunks off here and there.

But by cleaning the soul with behavioral, I mean even religious practices, it just isn't enough.

And that's why this Old Testament sacrificial system, it's pointing toward a final sacrifice that is fully enough forever, once for all.

Point number two.

Look at these religious leaders.

So you have the people, but then you also have these Pharisees, the religious leaders, and this is point number two.

It is blinding to live a life of defending power and position.

So the the Pharisees, highly religious group, they're leaders, they're very serious in terms of their religion.

They're vested.

These are very vested people in the system.

They're vested in the system of all these people coming to Jerusalem.

They're vested, their lives are built around this.

Here's what it says in verse 48.

Uh, one of them says this is the Romans are going to take away our place and our nation.

And so, in one commentary I read this week, is talking about how this idea of our place and our nation is actually even more emphasized, it's almost like our very own.

Like they almost feel like that they have ownership.

Like that their own, that a mass conversion to Jesus would not be a good thing because it is truth, but it would take down their ownership, the system that their life is built around, and to some extent, incredibly, you know, some pretty good financial and social reasons for Jesus not to be the Messiah.

He's a threat.

He's a threat to their lives, to their system, to their income, to the way that their lives are built.

So then Caiphus, the high priest, he's one of these guys in charge, he says in verse 49, it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.

And for a second there, you kind of think, well, so is he on Jesus' side, or where is he coming in?

And a commentator, he rephrased it this way, that it's better to kind of read that sentence this way.

Better for Jesus to die than for thousands of us by the hands of the Romans suppressing rebellion.

In other words, if there's a mass conversion, there's gonna there's gonna be some social upheaval here.

And when there's social upheaval, the Romans, the soldiers are gonna come in, they're just gonna start killing people, just shut it down.

And so Caipus is coming along and he said, Hey, we don't want that, right?

We don't we don't want that.

We want to keep things, just keep keep it going.

Just keep the system going.

And so let's just kill him.

Let's just get rid of him, let's shut him down.

Better for him to die than this whole system to kind of go into upheaval.

So there's layers here.

Because if Jesus causes too much of a ruckus, Rome's gonna step in and kill people.

So let's take down the innocent man, and we get to keep our safe positions.

So on one level, they saw it, right?

They saw the miracles going on with Jesus.

They sought it enough to know like something special is going on here, and we have to do something.

In order to maintain our system, we're gonna have to act.

What's interesting is they're so busy defending their power and their position that they're not willing to consider that it might be true.

So they're using power and position to try to find wholeness or life.

But then because they're trying to defend the power and position, they miss the life that is truly offered for them in Jesus.

And I read this, I was thinking about this, and I wrote these two questions more for myself, I'll share them.

Is this when will I be done exerting my heart and energy to meriting and maintaining some position or wanting some status?

When will I finally be done with this and trust that he is enough?

See, if I would trust in this radical message that the final sacrifice did come in the position of being fully known and fully loved, that is true that I am his beloved and I am righteous and I'm whole, and I don't have to keep sacrificing myself at the judgment of other people for their approval to merit some status, to maintain some status.

I don't have to take other people down in order to keep some status.

Well, there's freedom.

I mean, there's freedom for us.

I mean, that's not just theology right there.

I mean, that's life, practical freedom for today.

Point number three, and this is such good news is that it's relieving to believe.

To believe position and purity are given, not merited.

It is relieving to believe position and purity are given, not merited.

They are a grace.

So because what we've seen, we've seen kind of two groups of people.

We see the people who, as this plays out in the next couple weeks, a lot of these people miss that Jesus is the fulfillment of the practice that they're um they're practicing, and some would argue, entrenched in.

You have the Pharisees exhausting themselves by defending their position, and because of that, they're they're blind to the truth that's right before them.

And we feel this, right?

We feel anxiety and fear when we enter either of these ways of life.

You using religion to attempt to feel pure or whole before God, or feel like I got to do something else in a religious world in order to feel pure or whole before God, and then you screw up, you mess up, and you go, Oh, I've got to maintain this or earn it back, so the shame will finally go away.

Or over in kind of the world of defending social status or building social status or having power and you're defending it, and you're needing it, and you're trying to use it to feel whole.

And that's exhausting.

And there's such anxiety and fear and both of those kinds of ways of life, and we we can feel that when we enter those ways of life as such insecurity, and we think it could lead to purity, we think it could lead to wholeness, but we never quite get there.

Because these things can't be earned, they have to be given.

That's what that unblemished lamb was about.

Was receiving something from outside of yourself.

So you don't have to keep sacrificing yourself.

Maybe you're here and all this is kind of new, and I've been kind of bouncing around and you're thinking this is all kind of crazy.

And so it's just, I like to break it down as simple as possible for me.

Um so to me, I was thinking it kind of looks like this.

This isn't perfect, mind you, but it kind of looks like this that we so easily uh busy ourselves.

Let's say ourselves, you know, this onion, which actually has been quite smelly up here.

I did not plan on that aspect.

Y'all didn't realize that.

So uh we just busy ourselves just with our actions, our behavior, our religiosity, defending our power, gaining our social status, and we're just we're just trying to cover, just trying to cover, trying to cover, trying to cover, and trying to cover, trying to cover.

Now, we now we never stop, maybe perhaps to to realize what Jesus teaches in the New Testament, that our sin is from the inside, not from the outside, right?

But this is what we do anyways, and we just cover and and what happens inevitably, just as we're trying, just as we get an area under control, right?

Like we get this area under control, and inevitably what happens is it's just deeper than we thought, right?

I mean, it was going so well, and you go, Oh, I I didn't know, I didn't know that motive was under that behavior, and then you you start to deal with that, and you're back to work, just back to work, defending, earning, back to work, back to work.

And you go, oh, I'll skip over here to this area.

This area is pretty nasty over here.

I'll work on this for a while, and then you just don't plan on it, but then you just see just another layer and another layer, and it just keeps going, right?

Like it goes over and over.

It's deeper than you thought.

And you come at some point you come to the realization.

Some point you you end up, you have to come to the realization.

I need a love.

I need a love, not a behavior, but a love from outside of myself to solve this problem.

God, what God is saying to us in Jesus, through Jesus, He's saying this even though even though you are this, I see you as this.

Like I like I cut.

I see you for the very thing you're trying to be the entire time.

Right?

And that's what's going on here the whole time.

God's right before them.

And He's headed to the cross to be the sacrifice.

So they don't have to keep sacrificing themselves.

And God's saying to them, you don't have to keep coloring the onion.

You don't have to do that.

Sure, life won't be perfect.

I mean, there's plenty of struggles, but the struggle for purity or wholeness before God, and then thus also to learn to know it here now, that struggle, that doesn't have to be a fight for today.

That doesn't have to be a pursuit.

Here's how it happens.

We see it in verse 45, I think it's contrasted with verse 55.

Verse 55 was the old way, purifying yourself, leading into all the Jews are coming up to sacrifice the lamb.

So the old way, here's the new way.

Verse 45.

Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary had seen what he, Jesus, did, believed in him.

Christian faith is radical enough to say belief in God's grace through Jesus' work for you is enough for you to be pure and whole.

Listen, what we see in John 11, 12, and 13, this Easter story, this is the climax of the entire biblical story, which is the story of humanity and God, which is also your story.

And we see that God pursues you and moves toward you, wants to speak to you, and it is the worst sadness.

I mean, we should read this and we should look at these people, and we should have set it should be sadness for them.

It's the worst sadness that religious or worldly illusions and pursuits would keep us from the grace of God.

I want to close with reading some verses from Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

I'm going to read 18 verses, a bit of a reading.

It's not in your bulletin.

You have to just hang with me.

I just want to read it and read it kind of over you as it ties it all together.

You can reread it later at home if you want to.

Hebrews 10, verses 1 through 18, I'm reading from the message Bible.

Hebrews 10:1–18

The old plan was only a hint of the good things in the new plan.

Since that old law plan wasn't complete in itself, it couldn't complete those who followed it.

No matter how many sacrifices were offered year after year, they never added up to a complete solution.

If they had, the worshippers would have gone merrily on their way, no longer dragged down by their sins, but instead of removing awareness of sin, when those animal sacrifices repeated over and over, they actually heightened awareness and guilt.

The plain fact is that bull and goat blood can't get rid of sin.

That is what is meant by this prophecy put in the mouth of Christ.

You don't want sacrifices and offerings year after year.

You've prepared a body for me for a sacrifice.

It's not a fragrance and smoke from the altar that wet your appetite.

So I said, I'm here to do it your way, O God, the way it's described in your book.

When he said, You don't want sacrifices and offerings, he was referring to practices according to the old plan.

When he added, I'm here to do it your way, he set aside the first in order to enact the new plan, God's way, by which we are made fit for God by the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus.

You still with me?

We're halfway through, but it's worth sticking with it.

Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem.

As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it.

Then he sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in.

It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people.

Amen.

Anybody?

You with me?

That's us.

By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process.

The Holy Spirit confirms this.

This new plan I'm making with Israel isn't going to be written on paper, isn't going to be chiseled in stone.

This time I'm writing out the plan in them, carving it on the linings of their hearts.

He concludes, I'll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins.

Once sins are taken care of for good, there's no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them.

I wonder if if at some point you you wonder what's on your slate.

Like what do you need to outperform?

What is it you need to overcome because of something that you did?

Like what level of power are you trying to get to and then and then it'll all be okay?

What sacrifice do you think that you need to make for finally, to finally be okay with God?

Once sins are taken care of for good, there's no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them.

It's been taken care of.

See, when your belief is in Christ's work and sacrifice, not your own, you rest and live in the comfort of Christ's substitutionary death for you.

This is like you're in a basketball game and you are playing horribly.

You're not even good at basketball, you're not sure why you're on the team, and it is so, it is, it is awful.

You are you're worse for the team, the crowd is seeing it, you are ashamed, and it is like a substitute.

It's like Michael Jordan shows up to check into the game and he comes and he takes your spot.

And it is so relieving.

It is a substitute for you.

So this isn't just theology.

This is theology that means something.

It's the polar opposite of the coldness of religious merit and social maneuvering that we see in this passage.

It's the gift of security and relief that we know in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

Let's pray together.

God, would you help us delight more in the work of your son?

Would you help us to know your great love for us, the restoration you have for us?

Would rightful thinking about this story of your pursuit of us, your fulfillment of an Old Testament plan of sacrifices into this new plan, of your sufficiency, of stepping into this?

Would we be in admiration?

Would we be in freedom because of it?

Would our lives be lives of gratitude and worship and response because of it?

God, would you help us to see in greater ways the ways that we right now sacrifice ourselves?

Unneedingly.

Thinking that it's going to make us whole or make us pure or make us righteous.

Would you show us the ways that we use religion or spiritual practices in ways that entrench us rather than free us and point us toward you?

Would you show us ways that we defend our power and defend our status?

And we miss your grace.

We miss living in the fact that you have named us righteous and whole and pure.

Help us to trust greater in the great work of Jesus for us.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.