Today, tomorrow, the next day

I had been wanting to do it for a while.

And in half term we had the opportunity.

Lake had a book from school all about what goes on underground … he became really keen on coal miners and on the fact that his Great Great Grandfather, my Grandfather had been a coal miner.

We got out the Davy Lamp and he took it to school – and even drew a map of the underground working in the mine of his imagination that his grandfather had worked in.

And so it was that we went over to the Big Pit – wearing all the gear of a miner and facing the cage and the drop to the bottom of the Big Pit Lake lost his nerve only momentarily and then we were off … a wonderful explore.

A moving experience.

Then we made it to the place I wanted to visit this year.

We knocked on the door, had a chat with someone who had grown up in the house.  And then I got Felicity to take a photo of Lake and me on the step of the house where 100 years ago in May my father was born.

We explored the little village of Abersychan, found the house my grandparents lived in when I was small, and the park I used to play in … and the community centre which is all that remains of the chapel my father grew up in.

On the last occasion my father preached before his retirement, a sermon he announced would be his last … and indeed it turned out to be so, he spoke of the way his grandfather before him had taken him on one side as he was about to preach his first sermon.

Preach it as if it were your last, he had said.

And that’s what my father said he had done.

And now he had come to preach his last sermon.

He took a text that has been an inspiration to me ever since

Today, tomorrow and the next day … I must go on.

It was a wonderful text of resolve.

Today, tomorrow and the next day – that’s what’s important … even at the culmination of a life-time of preaching.  It’s the present that counts and it’s what’s immediately ahead.

Facing uncertainties, facing anxieties, unsure what the unknown morrow will  bring?

Today, tomorrow, the next day.

Resolve.

Onwards – keep going.

Powerful stuff.

That text is part of the story that leads up to Holy Week.

It’s part of a story that’s a powerful story at the heart of the gospels.

A story that needs piecing together a bit.

Today, tomorrow, the next day – is the resolve Jesus presents to those who warn him that Herod is out to kill him.  It’s one of those moments when you realise that you cannot stereotype the different people who have a part to play in the Gospel story.

It was an occasion when the Pharisees came to warn Jesus.

Luke 13:31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ 32He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.

It’s powerful stuff.

You don’t find Jesus speaking harshly of people very often, calling people names – I have a feeling this is one of if not the only occasion.  And not just calling anybody names, this is calling names of the one who is King.

This is resolve in the face of determined opposition.

This sets Jesus’ work over against what Herod stands for.

So what is it that Herod stands for?

That’s the story we can piece together in Luke’s gospel.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,

Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, and one of those who was to take control of one fourth of the kingdom Herod the Great had built up … but was to do that very much under the overall control of the Romans.

As his father before him, and as his brother beside him, so too Herod set out to build monumental cities that would express that Roman culture and that Roman power – Sepphoris only four or five miles from Nazareth up in the hills of Galilee, and Tiberias down on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

So what was this Herod like?   That becomes apparent in the words that follow.

It was when Herod was ruler in Galilee that

the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,

And John had a pretty powerful message – that involved preparing the way of the Lord, raising up the valleys, bringing down the mountains, ushering in the salvation of God

It was an indictment of the society of Herod’s galilee – people needed a whole new way of thinking about the world – and that was what John had on offer.

He had steren words for ordinary people,  for those particularly involved with the state and its authority, soldiers, tax-collectors, publican.

He was convinced the time was coming when one would come to usher in the kingdom – who would be the anointed one to baptize not in water but in the very power of God.

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

But good news to the people was also bad news for the authoritiets.  And John the Baptist reserved his most stringent crticicms for the one at the top

He rebuked him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things he had done.

It was a powerful critique.

 But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.

Herod thinks he has silenced John and this talk of a whole new way of thining about the world, of a new kind of kingdom, the kingdom of God under the rule of God.

But he hasn’t.

For before he imprisons John, John has baptized Jesus.

And Jesus take up where John left off.

He has the same message – what’s needed is a whole new way of thinking about the world rooted in the rule of God, the kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven, the will of God done on earth as it is in heaven.

He has a powerful message – love God, love your neighbor, love your enemy too.

He matches the message with deeds.  Bringing healing to hurting people.

And he sends out the Twelve to take up exactly the same task.

From John to Jesus.

From Jeus to the Twelve – to the world.

This is a movement to change people’s lives, to change the world.

It’s at that point when the Twelve have gone out with the same message, bringing healing into people’s lives that Herod is un-nerved.  He senses that he has not just failed to silence John, but this new message is getting out of hand.

9:7 Now Herod the ruler heard about all that had taken place, and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, 8by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the ancient prophets had arisen. 9Herod said, ‘John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such things?’ And he tried to see him.

Matthew 14 tells the story of how it was Herod had executed John …

14At that time Herod the ruler heard reports about Jesus; 2and he said to his servants, ‘This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.’ 3For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4because John had been telling him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’ 5Though Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet. 6But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and she pleased Herod 7so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. 8Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’ 9The king was grieved, yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he commanded it to be given; 10he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. 11The head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother. 12His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus.

He deosn’t manage it, however.

And the Jesus movement really is gaining momentum.

Jesus now sets his face to go to Jerusalem … and his journey takes him from Galilee through Samaria on the way to Jerusalem.

The message is clear, the hearlings are too.

And Herod’s patience runs out.

31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ 32He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.

What resolve!

But that begs the question what is the work Jesus is about.

What he goes on to say shows what that work is.

33Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.”

His work is to be the prophet John had been, challenging the powers that be to have a whole new way of thinking about the world rooted in the Kingdom of God, the rule of God on earth as it is in heaven, the will of God done on earth as it is in heaven.

Today, tomorrow the next day

Resolve.

But in that resolve is something else as well.

Compassion.

34Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” ’

It is the gentlest of pictures – of the shelter jesus offers, the shelter of a mother hen, taking her chicks under her wing.

And  indeed it is on that Palm Sunday Jesus comes into the city on the donkey, the foal of an ass, modelling his way of being Messiah on that vision of Zechariah.

He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim

And the war horse from Jerusalem

And the battle-bow shall be cut off

And he shall command peace to the nations.

And so it on Palm Sunday he makes that entry into Jerusalem.

41 As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

And he makes a bee line for the monumental work that Herod’s father had initiatied and still wasn’t completed – a total rebuilding of the temple – clad in what appeared gold, a statement of power if ever there was one

And he began to drive out those who were selling there, and he said, It is written,

My house shall be a house of prayer,

And you have made it a den of robbers.

Then the arrest, a trial before the council … and then before Pilate, the  Roman Procurator, and then Pilate realizes Jesus is from Galilee and comes under Herod’s jurisdiction …

6 When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. 7And when he learned that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him off to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. 8When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had been wanting to see him for a long time, because he had heard about him and was hoping to see him perform some sign. 9He questioned him at some length, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. 11Even Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him; then he put an elegant robe on him, and sent him back to Pilate. 12That same day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies.

And the very thing that Herod does cuts to the quick.

Herod treats him with contempt and mocks him … dresses him mockingly in an elegant robe, hands him over to Pilate.

And the two become friends.

They both recognize that their way of looking at the world is challenged by Jesus.

Today, tomorrow, the next day.

A real resolve – to stand for this way of looking at the world,

And a genuince compassion – to care and love in that world.

Personal things.

AT the start of an election campaign.

What is the vision we have for a world shaped the Jesus way?  These are the questions to ask of those who offer themselves in power.

The Bishops’ letter.   The project group manifesto.  2020 vision from Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

Interesting intitiaves wanting to have a bigger picture of what the world looks like under God’s rule.