The Hour

What happens to us in the “hour?”, the hour that in our understanding Jesus moves from being an interesting person to being the best teacher to being the glorified savior?

Remember how in Charles Dicken's fantastical tale called A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is enabled to review his whole life in no time at all.

As the bell tolled what he thought was his doom, in the end the tolling is transformed into glad ringing and he discovered that he had not missed Christmas at all!

Our story this Easter Day is even better than that.

The bell tolls yet today; what does it mean?

It tolls about things mundane, and eternal; about time and eternity, about past, now, and not yet.

It tolls about everything about our lives being broken open and examined at the same time.

It tolls about the truth that presses beyond the boundaries of language to contain it in a sermon.

It tolls about Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, and our resurrection in anticipation.

It tolls about creation and new creation, hope, promise, and fulfillment.

Remember back in January when we heard the second chapter of John's Gospel, when Jesus attended the wedding in Cana of Galilee.

When his mother urged him to do something, to take care of the embarrassing hospitality problem, he retorted, “My hour has not yet come.”[John 2:4] He went ahead and did the first of his signs, and the bell begins to strike the hour.

To the woman at the well that we encounter in chapter 4, Jesus says “My hour is coming.”[John 4:23]

To those who questioned his authority to heal the man at the pool on the Sabbath, Jesus said, “The hour is coming... I testify that the Father has sent me” [John 5:25,36]

Opposition increases as the bell tolls, and many no longer go about with Jesus. [John 6:66]

When his disciples urged him to show himself to the world, he declined and stayed in Galilee, telling them “my time is not yet fully come.” [John 7:8]

No one arrested Jesus when he was in the Temple , “because his hour had not yet come.” [John 7:30 and 8:20]

It was finally at the time of the festival, when Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and when some Greeks asked Philip to take them to Jesus that Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.”

And he wondered out loud, Should I say 'Father save me from this hour?'[John 12:27]

The clouds of controversy swirl and darken around Jesus.

After Judas dips his bread in the dish with Jesus, indicating that it was he who would betray Jesus, Judas leaves and the evangelist reports curtly, “And it was night.”

The darkness of abandonment and betrayal was upon him, but Jesus resolutely moves ahead as the hour continues to toll.

He said to the confused disciples, “I am going away, and I am coming to you” [John 14:28]

In prayer he says, “Father the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.... I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.” [John 17:1,4]

To Pilate he says, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” [John 18:37]

On the cross he said, “It is finished, completed.” [John 19:30]

And in completing that part of his work, he gives up his spirit.

He is in charge of things the whole way, from the start of creation...”In the beginning was the Word”...[John 1:1], through the disciples confused reaction, past the terrors of crucifixion and death, to the resurrection that we hear yet today.

The striking of the hour was not concluding, as the disciples feared, but just starting!

This was not a tragic end of the story, but one more step on the way.

Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb while it was still night, facing the darkness of nature and the darkness of sorrow and despair.

She comes to grieve at a grave.

But the hour is still striking.

Neither she nor the disciples find the body of Jesus in the tomb.

As they are trying to make sense of what has happened, Jesus appears to Mary, but she does not recognize him.

She first calls him “sir”, thinking him to be the gardener.

When Jesus calls her by name, then she addresses him as “rabbi”, the old title by which she had known Jesus.

And then a bit later as she begins to understand that everything is now different, she reports the news finally to the others, and she calls Jesus “Lord.”

From “sir” to “rabbi” to “Lord.”

It is a signal that the darkness of both sorts is broken.

The bell that we thought was tolling for sorrow, continues to ring now for joy.

What happens to us in this “hour?”, the hour that Jesus moves from being an interesting person, to being the best teacher, to being the glorified savior for us?

We can look around the world and see any number of dark things, broken relationships, cloudy times.

The list of them is as long as life itself, but that is not the end of the story.

For you see that the ringing of the bell that Christ lives a new and resurrected life was not limited to that first Easter day, but continues each day we gather in his name and under his promise.

The Lord's hour is still ringing upon us.

It rings whenever we gather gladly in his name for worship.

It rings when we receive the promise of new creation in Holy Baptism.

It rings whenever we hear his word proclaimed and receive the down-payment on the fullness of Christ's presence with us in the Holy Communion.

It rings as we wrestle with what it means to be a good steward of all the things that God has placed under our dominion.

It rings when the we share Christ's good gifts with others.

It rings when Jesus helps us to laugh Satan away from us.

It rings at the hour of our death when Satan thinks that at last he has won, but Jesus says “No, this is one of mine, who shall live even as I live.”

It rings as the darkness is broken forever; it rings on that eternal Easter Day.

Let the rejoicing continue: Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.