Is it Jesus? Or is it AI?

April 12, 2o26. Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

When was the last time you suspected a widely shared rumor was not true?

Did you ever get an email from a Nigerian prince who claimed he had millions of dollars to share with you and all he needs is your social security number?

Did you ever get a call from an insurance company that claims your car maintenance insurance has expired and you need to send them money immediately?

Have you received texts that appear to be from a close relative who says he’s in jail and needs you to send bail money immediately?

Most of us can recognize a con when we see one. In the Internet age we have to be very careful when outrageous claims or pictures are posted about the lives of rock stars or politicians.  Sometimes it’s easy to see through the deception of Artificial Intelligence; that's probably not Ronald Reagan and Jack Kennedy schmoozing happily while putting together on a Trump golf course. In such cases we embrace our doubts.

At other times it’s possible to tell the difference between AI and reality. Did Rachel Madow really report the landing of an alien space craft at exit 7 of the Taconic Parkway? Is Prince William really putting his Uncle Andrew in irons and dragging him to the Tower of London?

Well, it looks real. But we are entitled to our doubts.

But was Thomas entitled to his doubts?

    The anecdote that made Thomas famous will be read in thousands of Christian churches this week. It's from John 20:24-25, one of the accounts of Jesus' appearances after his resurrection. 

"But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’" (NRSV)

    So Thomas didn't believe dead people get up and walk. That's not a hard position to defend. Such a thing is impossible to believe.

    A lot of things are impossible to believe. Thomas would have been appalled by the approach conceived 1800 years later by Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland.

    "Sometimes," Alice says after interacting comfortably with a talking white rabbit, a disappearing cat, and a mad hatter, "I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

    What an admirable trait: establishing a quota for the number of impossible things you will believe. We all know people who can believe just about anything. What a blessing that is. Doubt is so dark and lonely, while belief is so comforting, so blissful.

     Have you ever believed impossible things?

    If you haven't eaten breakfast yet, here are some impossible things that thousands of people devoutly believe and insist on convincing their family and friends.

    One, NASA scientists have discovered a "missing day" in time which corresponds to biblical accounts of the sun standing still for a day.

    Actually, the "missing day" discovery goes back to a book written by Harry Rimmer in 1890, titled, The Harmony of Science and Scripture. The discovery has been particularly popular since at least 1936, when it began to be reported by radio preachers. I can't begin to understand the math that would reveal a missing day in history, but perhaps that is not important.

    Two, Scientists drilling in Siberia went too far and ended up punching a hole through to Hell, where the screams of the damned drifted up to them.

    Accompanying this report are possibly contradictory, possibly plausible stories that the scientists (a) ran screaming from the hole, shouting, "I can't listen to the agony," or (b) promptly accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior, or (c) both.

    Three, a group known as "The Second Coming Project" is seeking to clone Jesus from the DNA of holy relics, such as the Shroud of Turin.

    It's hard to tell from these reports whether the project was inspired by Jurassic Park, the novel and movie in which long extinct dinosaurs are cloned when scientists retrieve their DNA from mosquitoes trapped in prehistoric tree sap, or whether the scientists knew that carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin reveals it to be 1500 years too young to have been Jesus' burial garment. The curious thing is that no one from the Second Coming Project has been interviewed by Fox News.

    Four, airlines will not pair Christian pilots and co-pilots out of fear that the rapture will snatch away both crew members capable of landing the flight.

     I can't remember when I first heard this report, and there are several versions of it. It may be the reason the Wright brothers didn't fly together at Kitty Hawk in 1903.

And, Five, perhaps the hardest claim to believe of all of them:

   Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.

    Thomas will be remembered as "Thomas the Doubter" until the end of time, and many Christians reserve a special place of scorn for him. How, we ask ourselves, could this ingrate doubt that his Lord has been raised from the dead?

    Despite our derision, it seems likely that we would have been in the same place as Thomas. If there is one thing we have learned about life, one thing we have seen with our own eyes, one thing we have experienced as irrefutable and irreversible truth, it is that death is the end.

    The dead do not rise.

    As soon as life leaves the body, the body's inner parasites multiply exponentially and the body begins its inevitable return to dust. "I will not believe," Thomas says. And when you come right down to it: why would he? Would you?

    Let's give Thomas credit: he says what he means and he isn't trying to deceive anybody. You don't often encounter that kind of integrity, even in the church.

    I have a social media friend who tells about an experience she had while visiting a church. The pastor – no doubt one of those glib guys who brandishes his broadly beaming mug on his webpage and on Facebook – told the congregation: "If you don't have a smile on your face, you shouldn't be here. Christianity is a religion of joy."

    The woman, whose daughter is seriously ill, fled the service in tears. She did not come to church to smile. She came looking for comfort and she is told that God dismissed her because she was not smiling.

    When Jesus appeared to his disciples, they were in no mood to smile, either. They had every reason to expect that their fate would be the same as Jesus' fate – in fact, Jesus had predicted that would come to pass. In days following Jesus' arrest and crucifixion, they had abandoned him and hid themselves in shame, tortured by a gnawing sense of failure. But when Jesus found them in hiding, all he said was, "Peace be with you."

Thomas missed that first appearance of the resurrected Jesus and he continued to dwell in the miasma of doubt.

But let's not let that darkness define Thomas for all time. When he did finally encounter the resurrected Jesus, when he could run his fingers across the nail holes in his hands and the sword wound in his side, a faith was born in Thomas that was unlike all others.

    Thomas, as we all know, responded to Jesus' offering of peace with an unequivocal declaration: "My Lord, and my God."

    Thomas was a doubter and he said so. What a great model he was for the rest of us doubters. We may come under some social pressure to falsify our testimony, and we may be told we are Judases if every day with Jesus is not sweeter than the day before.

But once we experience the presence of Jesus we can assure ourselves that Jesus will be with us, in times of joy, in times of sorrow, in times of discouragement, in times of exultation.

And so it was with Thomas, who never turned his back again on the living Christ.

    Thomas was very busy following his final appearances in scripture. After he had embraced Jesus as "my Lord and my God," he embarked on a missionary journey that rivaled Paul's. He traveled thousands of miles to South Asia, and founded two of the world's oldest Christian churches - the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and the Mar Thoma Church of India. The testimony of these two churches thrives today, and their message is the same good news Jesus brought to the disciples, and the same good news we are compelled to bring to our neighbors everywhere: Jesus is alive.

And we respond in hope and faith when we feel the presence of Jesus:

“My Lord and my GOD!”

Selah.

Jesus' Swell New Body

 

Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026. Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

For the past several hours, the disciples have hidden in a darkened room, confused, grief-stricken, frightened.

The central figure in their lives, Jesus of Nazareth, has snatched from them. They have watched his agony on the cross. They have watched him die. They may even have thought that their own lives are over. What could the future hold for them in the dangerous byways of Roman Palestine?

But now it’s Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene is the first to visit the tomb of Jesus. In one of the most moving stories in scripture, in John’s gospel, she encounters a man she assumes is the gardener.

“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means teacher.)

How quickly her grief turned to joy. For me, this is one of the most poignant and dramatic scenes of the New Testament. After weeks of threats, days of fear, hours of horror, finally: a happy ending.

But why didn’t she recognize him?

Perhaps Jesus was the last person she expected to see walking around a graveyard and her mind wasn’t focused on the man.

But Mary was not the only apostle who didn’t recognize the resurrected Jesus.

In Luke 24, the resurrected Jesus joins two of his disciples on a walk to Emmaus, but Luke reports “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” (v.16). Mark reports, a bit mysteriously, that Jesus appeared to them “in another form” (Mark 16:12), which, as author Garry Wills writes in What Jesus Meant, is “hard to interpret.”

In Luke 24:36b-48, the resurrected Jesus startles the disciples with an abrupt and unexpected appearance.

He appears ghost-like through a solid wall.

But Jesus insists he is no ghost. He demonstrates the solidity of his flesh by eating fish.

How does he do it? What is going on?

“Jesus appeared in numinous form” writes Garry Wills in What Jesus Meant, “his body was not the earthly body anymore, but one both outside time and space and affecting time and space.”

The resurrected body of Christ could pass through walls and, ultimately, ascend into heaven, but Jesus could also allow Thomas to touch his wounds of crucifixion. Even more amazing, Jesus could eat with his companions.

And now it is Easter and we’re still wondering. What was Jesus’ resurrected body really like?

We can’t get the question out of our minds because the Jesus we see moving in and out of the closing scenes of the Gospels is not the Jesus we thought we knew.

That Jesus was – how shall we put it? – a hale fellow well met. He was good company, a charismatic preacher and teller of tales, an imbiber of wines, a bon vivant. His enemies took advantage of his epicurean ways by calling him “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” (Matthew 11:19). When Jesus was offered the physical pleasures of a foot massage or a soothing anointing by a beautiful woman, he accepted. When a fruitless fig tree denied his impulse to nosh, he cursed it (Mark 11:20).

There are other things we know about the pre-resurrected Jesus. When anguished, he wept. When pricked, he bled. When he met an obstacle, he had to go around it.

But in his post-resurrection period, so much about him is different. The dark circles of overwork have disappeared from beneath his eyes. His face seems younger, more relaxed. He looks like the old Jesus but he can make himself unrecognizable when it suits him. He somehow manages to walk through walls, but his body is corporeal enough to eat broiled fish. Even odder, the nail wounds of his crucifixion are visible, observable, touchable. He isn’t a ghost. He isn’t a zombie. Jesus’ resurrected body, which he defines in his own words as “flesh and bones,” is an unprecedented manifestation, a new state of being not seen since the dawn of creation.

We can’t stop wondering about it. We’re overflowing with questions we can’t wait to put before God. And one of those questions is, why did Jesus need a body? Wasn’t his soul’s immortality enough? Wasn’t it supremely liberating to shed his body and allow his spirit to fly free and unfettered for all eternity?

Let’s face it. The human body can be an uncomfortable thing to carry around with you, especially when it ages or falls ill. St. Francis of Assisi referred to his own body as “Brother Ass,” an obstinate encumbrance that led him into unspeakable temptations and had to be beaten into submission. Both Francis and St. Benedict, another mystic, punished their insubordinate bodies by throwing themselves naked into patches of thorns and writhing until they were suitably chastised and bleeding. Toward the end of his life, Francis concluded such behavior was patently nuts and began to protect his body to keep it well enough to labor, as a humble ass, in the vineyard of the Lord.

For C.S. Lewis, the human body is as likely to steer us toward faith as it is to lead us into temptation.

“There is a stage in a child’s life at which it cannot separate the religious from the merely festal character of Christmas or Easter [he wrote]. I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began ‘Chocolate eggs and Jesus riz.’ This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.”

The pleasures of the flesh may the succubae that lead us to sin, but they are just as likely to lead us to a more intimate experience of God. Olympic sprinter Eric Liddell preached that sermon in a single line in Chariots of Fire: “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.”

There is no better instrument for detecting God than our bodies, even when they become old rattle traps. We feel God in the kiss of the sun on our backs, in the soothing caresses of a lover’s hands on our shoulders, in the culinary pleasure of a good meal, in the relief of slaked thirst or the contentment of a good wine. As a lifelong Baptist, I like to fast before partaking the Eucharist because the warmth of the wine fills my chest like a subtle indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

C.S. Lewis also believed that erotic pleasures were portals to heaven. Christianity’s embrace of sensuality – beginning with Jesus’ own fondness for food and drink – sets Christianity apart from other more ascetic religions and from the heresies of Christians who believe God wants them to suffer, flagellate themselves or avoid earthly delights as a preparation for heavenly bliss. The body is a gateway, not a barrier to God, and the more people love one another, the better they will understand what heaven is like. “To love another person,” the chorus sings at the end of Les Misérables, “is to see the face of God.”

But perhaps the definitive evidence that God created the body as a gateway rather than a temporary encumbrance is the resurrection of Jesus. Because Jesus’ soul, like ours, is immortal and indestructible, his eternal personality – like ours – was never in jeopardy. Mysterious as it is to us, God deemed that our bodies would be inseparable vessels for our souls and essential transoms for our insights into God’s truth. The resurrection of Jesus seals the relationship between our body and our soul forever.

And just as important, the resurrection of Jesus seals God’s deal with us that we, too, will have the same experience.

Just how that will happen is unclear, and Christians have always wondered about it. Even in the beginning of the church, so many had doubts about it that Paul adopted a scolding tone:

“How can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain … For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (I Corinthians 15:12-17)

You can spend hours in theological libraries or on the Internet, reading tomes and sermons about each of these issues, and many of them are exceedingly clever. Some surmise that our resurrected bodies will have no gender and cite the Pauline declaration that “in Christ there is no male nor female,” while others conclude optimistically that our resurrected and improved bodies will be spectacularly superior to our old shells.

Those answers will have to wait and may depend on whether our resurrected bodies are still curious.

But what is clear today is that God created our bodies to fulfill the destinies of our immortal souls, and Jesus affirmed it when his sudden appearance scared the disciples out of their wits. It seemed ghostly enough, but he said, “It is I myself. Touch me and see.”

The resurrection of Jesus that was witnessed and proclaimed by his followers is, as Winston Churchill said in another context, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Even more so is your resurrection, and mine.

But amid all the speculation and puzzlement, one fact emerges clearly enough: God proved his love for us in “that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us … For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.” (Romans 5: 8-10).

Something extraordinary happened that Passover long ago that kept Jesus’ contemporaries returning worshipfully to the site of his crucifixion and inspired his disciples to risk their lives to keep his story alive.

According to Paul, the numinous body of Jesus gives us a glimpse of our own numinous bodies when he shed our earthly shells.

“So it is with the resurrection of the dead; what is sown as a perishable thing is raised imperishable. Sown in humiliation, it is raised in glory; sown in weakness, it is raised in power; sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.” (I Corinthians 15:42-44, REB)

We hope, of course, that our resurrected bodies will be young, attractive, and more vigorous than the husk we carried through life.

But the promise of Jesus is that God will restore us to a higher level of understanding when our own numinous live outside time and space but continue to experience the effects of time and space.

But for those who view death as an inevitable result of the time and space in which we are imprisoned, it’s good to be reminded that God transcends our earthly limitations.

The Creator God who loves us all unconditionally sent God’s son into the world to conquer death. Regardless of how God did it, Christ is raised. And because Christ is raised, so will we be raised.

We cling to this hope: that what has been sown in us in weakness will be raised in power.

Christ is Risen. Hallelujah.

To Die Twice for the Gospel

March 22, 2026, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. 

In 1968 I completed my four years as an enlisted assistant to Air Force chaplains and headed off to college.

Those four years in the Air Force went by so quickly and were such a tiny   segment of my life that it seems remarkable the impact of those years remains so strong sixty years on. I was 18 when I enlisted, which means I spent the entirety of those years before my frontal cortex was completely developed.

Even so, the Air Force was an invaluable introduction to ecumenical and interfaith customs and traditions. I typed sermons for Baptist, Methodist, and Catholic chaplains. I typed, prepared, and duplicated worship bulletins. I prepared the chapel altar for Catholic Mass, Protestant worship, and Jewish shabbat.

I also observed the gulf between evangelical and mainline Protestants. One active couple in the chapel was a master sergeant from a Lutheran background and his wife Muriel, a recovering alcoholic and passion born-again Christian.

Muriel was on Sarge’s back night and day to get “saved,” to find Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. Sarge figured Jesus had saved him two-thousand years ago through his death and resurrection. 

Enduring Muriel’s evangelical coercion day after day, Sarge finally capitulated and said the magic words. Muriel rejoiced mightily and sent a hand-written message to everyone she knew: “Sarge has been saved!”

By this time I was in college preparing to be a journalist. One night I received a late-night telephone call in the dorm. It was Muriel.

“Sarge is gone,” she said, her voice shaking. “Heart attack.”

Not quite awake, I said, “Oh, Muriel, I’m so sorry.”

“He’s gone,” she said. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she added, “Of course he wouldn’t come back now even if he could.”

Those words echoed in my head as I returned to my room and went back to bed.

“He wouldn’t come back now even if he could.”

I kept repeating the words in my head.

“He wouldn’t come back now even if he could.”

Well, why would he? Why would anyone, safely past the dreaded veil from life to death, want to go through it all over again?

Did Lazarus of Bethany want to come back to the travails of life? Or was he perfectly happy where he was, free of pain, free of worry, free of the agonizing illness that killed him?

When Lazarus walked out of the tomb, was he aware of the stench of the burial cloths still clinging on him? Was he elated to see his sisters rejoicing? Was he surprised to see Jesus standing in front of him? Was he pondering what might happen next?

Lazarus returned to his sisters’ house in Bethany. Did he pick up his life as he had left it. What would be the new normal of life now? News of his resuscitation spread rapidly and he was a celebrity, sought by crowds who wanted to see him, touch him, perhaps ask him what it was like on the other side? (Many scholars use the word resuscitation to describe what happened to Lazarus because he would die again. Jesus was resurrected and will live forever.)

Did Lazarus know a contract had been put out on his life? 

“When the great crowd … learned that Lazarus was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.”

Thus Lazarus returned from his untroubled repose to extraordinary stress in his resumed life.

Some writers try to interpret what Lazarus was going through by portraying him as desperately unhappy. Nikos Kazansakis, in The Last Temptation of Christ, depicts a ghoulish Lazarus still decaying, much like the dead in Beetlejuice who exhibit the causes of their deaths, whether by ax, disease, or decapitation, as they sit in an eternal waiting room.

We can’t be sure if Lazarus is happy or not because he disappears from the Gospel at this point. He was present when Mary poured expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. Knowing the miracle Jesus had recently performed, we understand why Lazarus’ sister was so overcome with gratitude that she would go to such extravagant lengths. 

The Bible does not provide any more information about Lazarus. Any further details are based on church history and may or may not be reliable. According to one tradition, after Jesus ascended to heaven, Lazarus and his sisters moved to Cyprus, where Lazarus became the bishop of Kition and died naturally in 63 CE. Another theory suggests they went to Gaul to spread the gospel, with Lazarus eventually becoming the bishop of Marseilles and being executed under Emperor Domitian. Ultimately, what happened to Lazarus remains uncertain. However, it is clear that he died again physically and will one day be resurrected to join all God’s saints in eternal life.

Jennifer Garcia Bashaw, Associate Professor of New Testament and Christian Ministry,Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina, notes that the story of Lazarus of Bethany is a pivotal moment, a high point for how Jesus reveals who he is.

“Throughout the Gospel, Jesus makes several "I am" statements about his divine identity, using metaphors that link him to God's work and affirm his unity with the Father. In his conversation with Martha, before bringing Lazarus back to life, Jesus announces that he is the resurrection and the life, which is the fifth of these metaphorical "I am" declarations:

* I am the bread of life (6:35, 48, 51)

* I am the light of the world (8:12; 9:5)

* I am the door of the sheep (10:7, 9)

* I am the good shepherd (10:11, 14)

* I am the resurrection and the life (11:25)

* I am the way, the truth, and the life (14:6)

* I am the true vine (15:1)

Beyond the emotional and identity-related peaks, John 11 also features a peak of confession or belief. After Jesus tells Martha that Lazarus will rise again and identifies himself as the resurrection and the life, he adds, “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Martha’s answer becomes a central declaration in John’s story:

“Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

While Peter gives the Christological confession in the Synoptic Gospels, in John's account it is Martha who offers the climactic confession—with the language of belief unique to John. Martha’s role as a model of belief highlights the significance of women disciples in early Christian communities.

John emphasizes this theme again in 20:31: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

The resuscitation of Lazarus is the climax of the Gospel of John. It’s at this point that Jesus clearly affirms that he is the Messiah, the resurrection and the life.

Lazarus, whether he did so voluntarily or not, emerges from the tomb as a powerful testimony of God’s power and Jesus’ mission.

“Jesus said to Martha, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?’ So they rolled away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’” (JN 11:41-42.

And when Jesus’ said, “Lazarus, come out,” this quiet, loving, reanimated man of Bethany became the authoritative, commanding, mighty exemplar of the power of the Triune God.

And Lazarus lives in our hearts as the only person in history who gave his life twice for the Gospel of love.

Blind sight

March 15, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y.

There are three instances in the gospels in which Jesus cured blind people.

In John 9, Jesus restored the sight of a man who had been blind since birth.

There is the healing of blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52.

Earlier, in Mark 8:23-25, Jesus delivered a two-part remedial on a blind man who initially saw people walking around like trees but, after Jesus touched him a second time, “saw everything clearly.”

There is no question that the restoration of sight is a monumental miracle. Just how monumental the miracle may be is hard to access by we who have always taken our sight for granted. 

“I never thought of being blind as a disadvantage, and I never thought of being black as a disadvantage,” said Stevie Wonder. “I am what I am. I love me! And I don't mean that egotistically – I love that God has allowed me to take whatever it was that I had and to make something out of it.” 

Ray Charles said blindness clarified his perception of other people. “I knew being blind was suddenly an aid,” he said. “I never learned to stop at the skin. If I looked at a man or a woman, I wanted to see inside. Being distracted by shading or coloring is stupid. It gets in the way. It's something I just can't see.”

Because I have never been blind myself (at least physically), it’s inappropriate for me to speculate how blind people feel about their lack of sight – except to reiterate that blind people I have known were undeterred by it.

Curiously, the blind men who sought Jesus help were utterly incapacitated by their plight, beggars who sat by the road and spread their cloaks so passersby could toss coins in their laps. 

Blindness was regarded by passersby as a terrible affliction, perhaps a punishment for some unknown sin. Jesus had to clarify for his disciples that no one was to blame for a blind person’s disability. 

When his disciples introduced Jesus to the blind man in John 9, they asked a strange question: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). 

The question is an odd one because – as British theologian Leslie Weatherhead pointed out – it implies that the blind man may have sinned in a previous life. Weatherhead, writing in The Christian Agnostic (1965), sees deep significance in the fact that Jesus did not scoff at the disciples’ assumptions about reincarnation (one of many eccentric views that led his critics to redub him Weslie Featherhead). 

Jesus however, was more intent on making another point: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus said, “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” (John 9:3) Meaning, of course, that restoring a blind man’s sight calls vivid attention to Jesus’ as an agent of God’s power.

So it was with Bartimaeus, a blind beggar sitting by the road when Jesus passed by.

“When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.” Mark 10:47-52)

It’s interesting that Bartimaeus suggests he once had the ability to see, while other blind persons cured by Jesus had been blind all their lives. Doctors tell us that would make a big difference because the brains of persons who have never had sight are incapable of interpreting images and it wouldn’t matter if their optic nerve suddenly started to send signals. 

But miracles are miracles whether they require a quick fix or a massive cerebral reconstruction, and Jesus appears equally adept at both.

The blind men cured by Jesus appear to be ordinary persons – that is, neither excelling nor lacking in moral character. Nothing is known about the state of their souls before Jesus brought them into the light.

But over the centuries, preachers and theologians have used recovery of physical sight as a metaphor for the restoration of ethical insight. 

The Apostle Paul, who persecuted Christians with Pharisaical zeal, was blinded by his encounter with the resurrected Jesus and his sight was not restored until he was touched by the disciple Ananias: 

“And immediately something like scales fell from Paul’s eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized.” (Acts 9:18)

One of the best examples of the metaphor was provided by repentant slave trader John Newton. Although Newton had a lot on his mind when he wrote “Amazing Grace,” he summed it up in eight syllables: 

“I once … was blind but now I see.”

Newton, an English cleric and poet, was a crew member on a slave ship in 1748 when an Atlantic storm threatened to send the ship to bottom. Newton experienced a sudden religious conversion, but the moral scales about slavery did not drop from his eyes for several more years. In 1755 he quit the sea and began to study theology. He wrote the famous poem to support the three points of his New Year’s sermon on January 1, 1773.

In his moral blindness, Newton made a fortune transporting African slaves to their dissolute masters. Once his sight was restored, Newton joined forces with abolitionist William Wilberforce, who wrote the Slave Trade Act of 1807 that abolished the trade in Britain. 

The miraculous transition from blindness to sight provides the structure for an apt allegory of what happens when Jesus enters our lives.

The physical blessing is breathtaking enough. One blind man initially saw people walking around “as trees,” but when Jesus touched him again he saw clearly. 

But many of us who have always seen with our eyes sit in moral and ethical darkness along the sides of the road, spreading our cloaks to capture whatever self-centered schemes and hand-outs may be thrown our way. For many of us, the darkness prevents us from seeing the fullness of God’s love. In our blindness, we may nurture hatred, greed, and bigotry, and we reach out to grasp whatever pleasures and amusements may be tossed in our laps. 

But as we sit in our darkness, the day will surely come when Jesus will pass by our perch on the side of the road.

That is our cue, as the blind man cured by Jesus in John’s Gospel declared, “I do not know whether (Jesus) is a sinner. One thing I do know, that, though I was blind, now I see.”

That is our cue, as it was for Bartimaeus, to begin shouting out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus, according to his promise, will stand in front of us and say,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” (Luke 4:18).

And just as surely as the blind man testified his sightedness to those who accused Jesus of being a sinner, and just as surely as Bartimaeus began to see the amazed crowd that surrounded him, we will experience the spiritual liberation declared by Jesus. The demons of our darkness – self-absorption, religious chauvinism, racism, sexism, islamophobia, homophobia, xenophobia – will be extinguished by God’s eternal light.

And then we can dance with Bartimaeus and feel the sweet release of the famous chorus:

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.

Woman of Light

 

March 8, 2026, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx. N.Y.

John 4:5-42

John’s gospel introduces us to two people who are not mentioned in the other three gospels. And they are two very different people.

One is Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a rich man of high status who was intrigued by Jesus but was afraid to be seen with him. He came to Jesus in the still of the night.

The other is a Samaritan woman who encountered Jesus in the heat of the day at what is traditionally known as Jacob’s Well. John does not reveal her name but the Orthodox church has dubbed her Photiní, “the luminous one.”

The Samaritan woman is obviously not a woman of means. Many have read this passage in John and concluded she was a pariah both in her own community and among Samaritan-disdaining Jews.

She has been married five times. She has come to the well in the sweltering noon time when no one else is around, suggesting she is shunned by her neighbors because of her marital infidelity. 

But are we jumping to confusions about this poor woman?

If you read this passage in our trusty Lutheran Study Bible, you’ll find a clarifying footnote.

“While we tend to think that Jesus is questioning the woman’s morals, her marital history is not the point and most likely not her fault.” A woman of her time would have little control over the men who desire her and she may have been passed around from man to man.

Professor Laura Holmes of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., also cautions against judging the woman too hastily.

“While some wealthy women in Rome may have had the legal authority to divorce their husbands,” she points out, “this was only possible with the permission of their fathers … and would not have been likely or possible for a poorer woman in the province of Samaria. Therefore, she most likely had five husbands due to tragedies, either death or being divorced or both.”

“The reason Jesus asks her about her husband,” the commentary notes, “is to get her to another level of understanding, because she then sees Jesus as a prophet.”

It quickly becomes apparent that Jesus’ encounter with the woman is no accident. He and his disciples are walking from Judea to Galilee and it’s necessary to pass through Samaria on the way. But when Jesus pauses to talk to a woman at Jacob’s Wel, we know his reason for passing through Samaria was not merely a geographic convenience.

“Give me a drink,” he tells the woman, not one to beat around the bush.

The woman is astonished. It is certainly not done for a man to approach a woman he doesn’t know, especially a Jewish man and a Samarian woman.

But Jesus does have her attention. Like Nicodemus before, she takes Jesus’ words literally. When Jesus tells Nicodemus, “You must be born again,” Nicodemus asks, “How can this be?” When Jesus tells the woman she might ask him about “living water,” she responds, “Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?”

She may have been confused because the Greek word for “living” water also means “running” water—in other words, water from a river or stream, rather than well-water. 

“Since a well can be poisoned or tainted, running water was understood to be safer and more valuable,” writes Professor Holmes. “But even with this misunderstanding, she still wants what this running (living) water does: It will forever quench her thirst, and that is what she desires.”

But as she continues her conversation with Jesus, especially when he shows he knows how many husbands she has had, it becomes clear to her that this is no ordinary man.

“The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming …When he comes he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’” (Jn. 4:25-26)

That sounds very matter-of-fact in English. But the woman must have been astonished by his declaration. There is no “he” in the Greek John is using to interpret Jesus’ Aramaic words. What the woman heard was “I Am,” the name of God that was revealed to Moses at the burning bush. Later in his narrative, when skeptical Jews in the Synagogue questioned who he is, Jesus responds, “Before Abraham was, I am.” (Jn 8:58) Jesus’ words were explosive and dangerous, a declaration that he and God are one. If this were not true, he would be speaking blasphemy, and the men in the temple attempted to stone him. 

Indeed, the Samarian woman seems skeptical about Jesus’ declaration. But at that point Jesus’ disciples, who had been out buying food, returned and couldn’t hide their astonishment that Jesus was talking to a mere Samarian woman.

“What do you want,” they demanded. “Why are you speaking to her?” (Jn 4:27)

That must have been an awkward moment for the woman, suddenly confronted by a dozen surly men. She decided this would be a good time to leave. She left her water jar by the well and hurried back to the city.

She still had questions, but she was eager to share her experience with people in the city.

“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” (Jn 4:29)

As further evidence that the Samaritan woman was not shunned by her neighbors, the people were persuaded by her hesitant witness.t

John reports what happened:

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.”  So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” (Jn 4:39-42)

At this point the Samaritan woman disappears from the Gospels. In order to get some idea what happened (or might have happened) to her, we must turn to the traditions of our Orthodox siblings.

Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine tradition identifies her as Saint Photiní (also spelled Photina or Photine), which translates to "the luminous one". In Russian Orthodoxy she is called Svetlana, which also means bright.

She is revered as a martyr and "Equal-to-the-Apostles" for her role in spreading the Gospel.  According to tradition, she was baptized, became a great evangelist, and was eventually martyred in Rome under Nero.

 "Photiní" comes from the Greek word for light, signifying her role in bringing the light of Christ to others. Tradition indicates she had five sisters and two sons (Photinos and Joseph), who were also martyred. 

We Lutherans do not honor her as a saint.

But we can honor her because, even before she fully understood, even while she was asking if he could be the Messiah, she chose to tell others about her encounter with Jesus. The persons she told were moved to seek their own encounters with Jesus. And as a result of the witness of the woman at the well, they believed.

At times we, too, wonder if our faith and understanding is strong enough to share it with others.

When we hesitate to speak, the woman at the well – Photiní if you will – shines a much needed light on our path.

Amen.

Borning Again

March 1, 2026, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

My own encounter with Nicodemus goes back to 1966 when I was 19 years old. 

I was an airman with two stripes stationed in England, a member of a group of Americans who called ourselves the “Christian Vocation Group.” On Sunday evenings we brought worship services to vicarless Anglican churches. We took turns leading the hymns, reading the scriptures, leading the litanies, and preaching the message. One night in November it was my turn to preach.

I have to cringe a little at my teen-age presumption that I had something to say to a tiny congregation of mostly elderly women. But lack of experience didn’t stop me. Back then most of my sermons were Billy Graham imitations consisting of hoisting my bible and shouting, “The BIBLE says …”

That night I was preaching on Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus as it is told in the King James Version.

“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

Whatever that means.

My exegetical insights were limited at 19, but I knew enough to cover my ignorance by shouting.

Our group members were mostly Southern Baptists so we concluded each worship service in evangelical style: we extended an invitation to the elderly congregants to come forward and be “born again.” Most nights the ladies stared at us in polite silence and continued their knitting.

On this night however, a young man – possibly the son of one of the women – walked toward me with tears in his eyes and collapsed at my feet.

“You said just what was in my heart tonight,” he said.

I was dumbfounded. Something I had said had led someone to Christ? And, if so, what did I say? And how would I know to say it again?

I stood aside as the older members of our group surrounded the young man to tell him about Jesus. That was just as well because I really had nothing more to say to him.

But I confess all this because it is so typical of evangelical interpretations of what Jesus meant when he said, “You must be born again.”

In my brief flirtation with Southern Baptists I understood that being born again was my own responsibility. Jesus wasn’t going to do it for me. If I was going to spend eternity with Jesus I had to decide that on my own. If I didn’t profess my faith in Jesus I was lost for all time, and God would cast me into the eternal darkness.

That seems harsh but I have known many evangelicals who grieved that their spouses or siblings or children were not “born again” and would not be joining them in Heaven.

The thought of eternal darkness was also a terror for me. I sat through many an invitation at evangelical services, swells of “Just As I Am” in my ears, frozen in my pew, unable to rise to my feet to accept Jesus as my personal Savior. I couldn’t wrap my brain on what it would feel like to be saved. I saw others going forward, smiling through their tears, to profess their certainty they had been saved. But how did they really know? And would they feel the same way when the euphoria passed?

I wonder if Nicodemus felt the same confusion, the same uncertainty about what it would mean to follow Jesus?

Nicodemus is a prominent figure in John’s Gospel, the only Gospel in which he appears. We know he is a Pharisee, an influential religious leader in the turbulent times in which he and Jesus lived.

Beyond that we don’t know very much about him. But one thing is clear whenever he makes an appearance: he loves Jesus very much. He has perceived that this charismatic teacher has much to say about the mysteries of God. He approaches Jesus with apparent shyness, perhaps even awe. We know that his love for Jesus continued to the end when he took custody of Jesus’ body after the Crucifixion.

In John 3, Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night to have a secret dialogue with him. 

In my drawing above I have pictured him as perplexed and confused by what Jesus is saying: “You must be born again.” 

But Nicodemus may not have been confused at all. Theologian Charles Ellicott writes that “after the method of Rabbinic dialogue, [Nicodemus] presses the impossible meaning of the words in order to exclude it, and to draw forth the true meaning. ‘You cannot mean that a man is to enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born. What is it, then, that you do mean?’” 

Jesus may have feigned surprise, perhaps ironically, that “a teacher of Israel” does not understand the concept of spiritual rebirth: “Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness,” (KJV John 3:10–11.)

As we read about Nicodemus’ struggle to receive Jesus’ witness, it’s easy enough for us to conclude that it is Nicodemus’ responsibility to “get it.” Jesus is not going to do it for him. This is the interpretation of many evangelicals over the centuries: You must be born again. Your choice.

But look again at Jesus own interpretation:

“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

Yes, we must be born again. But we are not in control of how or when that happens. Just as we cannot control where the wind blows, we are not in charge of when and how the Holy Spirit moves in our lives. It is the Spirit – grace, as we Lutherans say – that brings us to faith. It’s not up to us. 

One of the instructors in the leadership classes I attended said she has a simple Lutheran answer when evangelicals ask her, “Have you found Jesus?” 

“No,” she says, “Jesus has found me.”

This is most certainly true.

Shortly before becoming Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the eminent theologian Thomas F. Torrance was asked if he was born again.

“Yes,” he replied.

Then he was asked, “Do you know when you were born again?”

He replied, “I was born again when Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary and rose again from the virgin tomb, the first-born on the dead.”

When was I born again?

More than two-thousand years ago when Jesus died on the cross to fulfill God’s mission to put an end to sin and death.

It is this powerful insight – salvation not by our own decision but through the Grace of the Holy Spirit – that I find most attractive about our Lutheran faith. 

Carolyn Winfrey Gillette is a Presbyterian theologian know for writing new verses for well-known hymns to highlight different themes. She has written powerful hymns expressing God’s presence amid natural disasters, in times of national grief, in times of national celebration, and throughout many holidays and highlights of the church year. Her hymns are available free of charge, with appropriate accreditation, to any congregation that is a member of a denomination that is a member of the National Council of Churches. Her website is https://www.carolynshymns.com/

Carolyn has written a wonderful hymn, “Nicodemus Sought Out Jesus,” that can be sung to the tune of “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”

Nicodemus sought out Jesus at a lonely quiet hour.

He said, “Teacher, God is with you! For in you we  see God’s power.”

Jesus turned and gave an answer filled with challenge and with love,

“You can never see God’s kingdom till you’re born from heav’n above.”

“Born again!” said Nicodemus. “Is that something one can do?”

Jesus said, “Don’t be surprised now that you must be born anew.

And it’s not by your own doing: wind and spirit will blow free!

They are not for your controlling; trust in God for what will be.”

God, your spirit still surprises like an ever-changing wind,

Bringing life and love and justice where despair and death have been.

May we see your Spirit working as a gift from heav’n above.

Blest, may we then be a blessing to this world that you so love.

Selah.

Temptation

February 22, 2026, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y.

The waters of baptism have scarcely dried from his skin when Jesus is led to the desert to be tempted by the devil.

If we imagine ourselves in this scene, alone in the desert, we can feel the pressure. 

Every day when we pray we repeat the plea: Do not lead us into temptation. But we are surrounded by temptation. And because we Lutherans are simultaneously saints and sinners, it’s not unheard of that we surrender to it.

For me, this is so commonplace that I don’t even sense the presence of the devil. I do take some solace that in my 80th year my debaucheries are limited to too many sweets, too much overeating, too much television, too much grumbling about the next door neighbor, and too much dawdling over things that must be done. If I had been with Jesus in the desert I might have suggested we call it a night and send out for bagels.

Sometimes, at least in opera and literature, the devil’s temptation is transactional, as when the devil promises to give you your heart’s desire in exchange for your soul. 

One of my favorite depictions of this Faustian bargain is the musical Damn Yankees, a 1950s musical comedy written by Douglas Wallop and George Abbott.

As the story goes, a flabby middle-aged man named Joe Boyd is an obsessed fan of his favorite baseball team, the so-called Washington Senators. The Senators are in a losing season with the New York Yankees and Joe dreams of being a major player on the Senators. He is visited by a dodgy figure named Mr. Applegate who promises to grant Joe’s wish with the proviso that at the end of the season his soul is forfeit.

Following the Faustian formula, flabby Joe Boyd is morphed into the lean and sinewy Joe Hardy, whose athletic genius enables the Senators to win game after game until the team is tied with the Yankees. Will Joe Hardy surrender his soul to win the closing game or will he bow out at the last minute so that the Senators will lose and his soul will be returned to soft, saggy Joe Boyd?

Sorry, no spoilers. You can see the movie version on YouTube for ten bucks.

As Jesus, exhausted and hungry, sits alone in the empty desert, the devil comes to him. Not as an amusing con man named Mr. Applegate but Mephistopheles himself.

Jesus’ empty stomach is likely growling and the devil proposes that Jesus use his powers as God’s son to turn stones into bread.

For all of us, food and nourishment are basic needs and we can’t live without them. Food is also a pleasure and it’s not uncommon – for me, at least – to eat even when we are not hungry. But hunger is a potent motivator. If we have missed lunch we keep checking our watches to see how close it is to dinnertime. If we don’t eat for a day our thoughts turn to food every few minutes. If we fast as a spiritual discipline it may become difficult to focus on God’s presence rather than on the emptiness of our stomachs. In extreme cases people may be driven to do anything for food, as in Les Miserables when Jean Valjean breaks the law by stealing bread for his family and ends up in prison for 19 years.

How easy it would have been for Jesus, who was wholly human as well as wholly God, to miraculously produce the food his body craved. But Jesus reminded the devil that he was not sent into the world to serve his own needs but the needs of vulnerable and struggling humanity. He sharply rebuffs the devil, which must have been a unique experience for Satan.

Trying again, the devil places Jesus on the pinnacle of the temple and urges him to show his godly power by casting himself down.

If Jesus had done so, is there any doubt God would have saved him? We’d only have to guess what the nature of the miracle would be, whether it would be transporting or literally angels lifting him up.

But Jesus made it clear that Messiahship was not a circus, not an entertaining reign of light and mirrors and dazzling events to call attention to himself. Jesus did not come into the world to bedazzle us with his power but to bring persons closer to God through love, healing, teaching, and empathy for all he encountered. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Churches in Philippi. 

“(Jesus), though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.” (Phil 2:6-8)

So when the devil asked Jesus to show him something really big by jumping off the pinnacle he replied, “Again it is written, do not put the Lord your God to the Test.” (Mt 4:7)

But the devil, demonic and devious to the end, saved the greatest temptation for last. He tempted Jesus with political power.

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.” (Mt 4:8-9)

The devil knew that enticement usually worked. It had worked, certainly, with Caligula and Tiberias and Claudius, the most recent Roman emperors

In Damn Yankees, Mr. Applegate sings nostalgically about other persons in history who surrendered to the temptation of power.

“I see Bonaparte, a mean one
If ever I've seen one
And Nero fiddling through that lovely blaze
Antoinette, dainty queen:
With her quaint guillotine
Yeah-ha-ha-ha, those were the good old days.”

The obsessive pursuit of power affects many people. It touches the forepersons of the shop who become so enamored with their status and 

authority that they bully and abuse the workers rather than look out for their welfare.

It touches politicians who run for office to help people but soon find themselves abusing the power of their office to accept bribes and grant illegal favors for their friends, while ignoring people in need.

It touches pastors who want to do good among their congregations but become so affected by the deference they are shown by adoring parishioners that they begin spewing out commandments and rules for conduct for members. Some members may not even realize they’re in a cult. So it was with Jim Jones. So it was with David Koresh. So it was with L. Ron Hubbard.

It touches all of us, sometimes at the most elemental level. My own childhood memories include children on the playground who rose naturally to positions of leadership among us. Some of them earned my respect and I was proud to call them friends when they grew up to be adult leaders. Others took advantage of their power and became bullies and refused to pick me for kick-ball teams.

Thankfully, Jesus had no interest in power. 

As he fasted in the wilderness and engaged the devil in a dangerous discourse, Jesus was being prepared for his mission to bring all persons into the kingdom of God.

It was in the desert that he understood he would be a messiah who focused on the needs of people and not on himself.

It was in the desert that he understood he must not use his power merely for shock and awe or to draw attention to himself. It was to be used for God’s purpose: to teach about God’s kingdom, to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to set an example for loving human conduct, to be an exemplar unconditional love. 

It was in the desert that he understood that his power was not to be used for his own benefit but for all humankind. His concept of power was different from most people idea. It was, ironically, the power of the weak, the power of the meek, the power of the least. It was power that required the first to be last. In God’s kingdom it is the last, the weakest, the meekest, who are first.

On this the first Sunday of Lent, shall we think of ourselves as living in a spiritual desert? 

Unlike the wilderness Jesus endured, this desert has food in the fridge, warm beds, running water, and a color television.

But we can use this fanciful desert to reflect on what God wants us to know; how to use our hearts and hands for God; tasks that God wants us to take on; things that God wants us to put down; ideas God wants us to change; persons God wants us to reach out to in love; persons God wants us to forgive.

Let us pray that this desert, this Lenten season, will be a time of prayer and a time of understanding what God needs from us, and what we need from God.

And let us never forget:

As we walk through the wilderness, Jesus walks with us.