The following is the sermon I preached at Eagle Rock Covenant Church on August 17, 2008. The biblical text is John 20.19-23 [1] Audio of the sermon is available here.

In the halls of my childhood church we had a bulletin board filled with prayer letters and pictures from of all the missionaries our congregation supported. I didn’t realize until much later how much this board shaped how I understood the idea of missions. I remember one missionary we supported in particular. She grew up in our congregation and would send my family personal letters that we read aloud at dinner. She served in Afghanistan, giving basic medical care and teaching classes to women and children. Because it was the 1980’s her letters were filled with stories of the war between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. More than once her team had to escape from attacks on their city with shells exploding behind their Jeep. After the Soviets left, she told similar stories of the civil war that brought the Taliban to power. Oddly enough, the one story that sticks in my head, came from a letter she wrote to my family when I was nine or ten. She wrote something she thought my brother and I would enjoy. She said in her report that the first snow of the year had fallen in their community. In the language of the people group she went to serve, the word for snow is, “barf.” She thought—rightly I might add—that my brother and I would appreciate the fact that it was “barfing” outside. We thought that was hilarious. I still think it’s hilarious.

And for most of my young life, my vision of what it meant to be a missionary was to go to a place where women had to cover their faces, where you had to evacuate cities under attack and mortar rounds exploded around your fleeing car, and where people said funny things like “barf” for snow. I thought missionaries were strange, exotic people, and incredibly rare in the Church. God sent them out into the far reaches of the world, but God clearly didn’t send all of us to those nations.

This story from the Gospel according to John that we read confronts the understanding I had of God and missions and being sent by Jesus. While in this story Jesus speaks to his disciples, I think the words are meant for the entire Church to hear. And if we’re all meant to hear these words, that means Jesus sends us all out on a mission. Missions and the call of God to reach the world are not reserved for a few special Christians. Missions are not just one ministry among many ministries of the Church. Nor is mission just an aspect of the kingdom of God or an piece of his character. Our God is a God of mission. We have a God who is active in the world, a God who engages, and who sends his Son. Mission is not just an attribute of his character—mission is God’s character. [2] God calls the universe into existence and seeks out a relationship with the world. He calls people into his kingdom, he seeks to create a new family, and he sends his people out to work alongside him in this mission. God has done this in many ways throughout history from the calling of Abraham that we heard about last week from Brian, to sending his own Son, Jesus, and to creating the Church to be his representatives in the world. I know this is all rather large and lofty, but then again so is God.

Eagle Rock Covenant has been going through Veritas, a program that evaluates a church’s health, created by our denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church. Veritas has four different categories of churches. The one category that Veritas leads us towards is a “Healthy Missional” church. So as this congregation continues the Veritas process, people will use the word missional a lot. I know it sounds kind of made up, but I think it’s a helpful term that allows us to look at God, the Bible, the kingdom, the Church, and our personal lives in a new light. The idea behind missional is basically what I said before: that we see that God’s heart is mission-oriented. There wouldn’t be a Church if God were not missional. There wouldn’t be a world if God weren’t missional. Why don’t we get back to the story that we read?

Where were we? Yes, the disciples hiding out. It’s only been two days since Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. Instead of observing the Sabbath at the Temple, his remaining disciples have locked themselves inside a room, afraid of the people and authorities who just killed their leader. All they know is that Jesus, the man they followed, and in whom they put all their hope, has been arrested, tried, and executed. Some people may want to call the disciples cowards or hard-headed at this point, but I think their reaction is understandable. I can only imagine they must have felt a mix of fear, disappointment, and doubt that they made the right decision to follow Jesus for three years. I think I would be holed up in a room, too. Mary Magdalene claims to have seen a risen Jesus and two of the disciples also saw the empty tomb, but those stories may not be so comforting when the memory of bloody crosses and crowds yelling, “Crucify him!” are so recent.

These verses really read our natural instincts. When radical change has happened and we face a lot of unknowns, it is seems sensible to protect ourselves, get in tight with the people we know and trust, and wait out the storm. When we feel rudderless, it doesn’t seem appropriate to embark on new ventures. Instead, we try to get perspective. Only the ironic thing is that we can’t get much perspective on what is happening outside when we lock ourselves inside. Even if the disciples had a window from which they could look outside, they wouldn’t have been able to see very much.

And so, all of the sudden, the resurrected Jesus stands before the disciples. He says, “Peace be with you.” Now this is just the normal Hebrew greeting that you’ll hear Jews and Israelis still give to each other today. I think, however, Jesus was saying more than just, “Hello.” His greeting here might be the richest use of, “Peace be with you,” in the history of the world. He probably knew the disciples were already on edge. Imagine sitting in that room where people have cried so much that they are out of tears. I’m sure a few had chewed their nails to the point that their fingers bled. They were hurting, rudderless, and simply afraid. And then, in this room of frightened people who just saw the man die for whom they gave up everything, that man shows up, alive and well. Could you imagine it? One of the disciples had to have cracked. Peter, maybe not. But Nathanael always seemed to be a bit nervous to me. Jesus knew that they could probably use some divine peace. So when he meets with them, he says, “Peace be with you.” [3]

I take comfort in the fact that he doesn’t chastise the disciples for locking themselves in the room. Jesus doesn’t show up and say to them, “What’s wrong with all of you? Why are you cowards locked up in this room?” Instead, he proclaims peace and presents himself to them so that they can know it really is Jesus who stands before them. He still bears the wounds of his crucifixion, but here is God’s one and only Son alive again and victorious over sin and death. Now can you imagine the joy of the disciples? This is another example in the Gospel of John where Jesus meets people where they are at and calls them into something bigger than themselves.

Jesus again proclaims peace to the disciples and commissions them to be sent out. They are to go on their mission in the peace of God. He says, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” The remarkable thing about Jesus sending us is that his mission acts as our example for our mission. Jesus does not call us to something that he himself did not do. So we must naturally ask the questions, why and how did the Father send Jesus? We read from John 3 earlier, where Jesus explains his mission to Nicodemus. Let’s hear those words again.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

God the Father sent Jesus the Son with a message of love for the whole world. God has not abandoned his creation, but wants to redeem it, to bring it back into a right relationship with him. This love for the world God created is so great that nothing will limit the lengths God will go to in order to save it. Jesus embodied this love and eternal life given by God. Jesus sends his disciples out with the mission to also proclaim and live into this message. He sends them out because his Father sent him. Jesus’ life incarnated God’s mission to the world. His ministry in the Gospel of John is chock full of examples of the reality God creates. It challenges my understanding that mission is only going to the other side of the globe. Let’s take a quick look at some moments of Jesus’ ministry in John.

When Jesus meets with the Samaritan woman at the well (4.1-26), he shows us that God’s mission breaks down the ethnic, gender, and religious barriers erected to separate people. What barriers of race and gender still exist in our society? We live in a time that sees a lot of distrust between different faiths, or even between different Christian traditions. We must ask the Lord, how does the good news of God address these walls?

When Jesus overturns the tables in the Temple (2.12-25), he shows us that God seeks to overturn greedy and evil systems that keep people from worship and prayer. In what ways do Christians here in Los Angeles hinder people from full worship? Where do we see greed in our churches? The money changers were part of a racket that exploited poor people coming to worship and make a sacrifice. Do those on the margins of our society feel like they can fully participate in our congregations?

When Jesus feeds the giant crowd with a few loaves and fish (6.1-15), he shows us that to follow God is to feed the hungry. Where are the hungry and hurting in our cities and how can we reach out to them? How can we faithfully give to Jesus our few resources and see him perform miracles?

When he stands up for and forgives the woman caught in adultery (8.1-11), Jesus fleshes out the message that he came to save and not condemn the world. Who are the forces of condemnation and who are the people breaking under the pressure of their own shame and guilt? How can we stand on the side of the “sinner” against the powers of hatred? How can we announce to lost people the freedom of Jesus and the good news that they no longer have to live a life of sin?

When Jesus takes the lowest servant position, kneels down, and washes his disciples’ feet, he gives them and us an image of what it means to be great in the kingdom of God (13.1-17). Being a Jesus-follower means having the humility to let Jesus do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. It is a hard message to hear in our bootstraps society, that we cannot save ourselves. Being a Jesus-follower also means we do not grasp for a greater station in our culture, but intentionally take the lower positions and serve others. Where are the places in our community that we can serve?

And when Jesus stands before Pontius Pilate (18.26-40), Jesus says to him, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Pilate cynically responds, “What is truth?” Pilate denies any notion of real truth in the world and replaces it with a quest to hold on to power. Jesus goes to the cross and shows Pilate and us what real power is and that the truth in this world is that we have a king, that we have a God who loves us. Our world also proclaims that the most powerful, the most influential, and the richest determine reality. How do we proclaim humbly and clearly that God defines reality and that the truth is that God loves the world so much that he sent his Son to save it? [4]

I say that the story of Jesus in John challenges my younger perceptions of mission as only going to remote places on the Earth, because these questions that arise out of reading about Jesus’ ministry are relevant all around the world, including right here in our city. The good news still speaks to us and transforms us. Now, I don’t mean to demean overseas missions at all. If that is what I have communicated, I apologize deeply. What I mean to say is that the whole world is still the mission field. Even America. Even Eagle Rock. And we are all called to participate in God’s great mission to save the world—it is not limited to a few superheroes of the faith. God will call some to live in foreign lands, but those of us staying in the States need to hear Jesus’ call to follow him right here and right now.

The questions and issues that Jesus’ ministry raise seem way too big for us to ever address. When I read John and consider all the possible issues Jesus might want to bring up in our cities, I feel like crawling under a rock or perhaps locking myself in a room. Sometimes our world seems more broken than beautiful. It can be easier to see ongoing pain than to see redemption. Sometimes, in the face of injustice, crime, and death, it can be hard to see God at work around us. Why would Jesus send us out into that kind of a world? The problem seems to get worse when we realize that in the time of the Bible, messengers and representatives carried a lot more authority than they do now. Jewish writings from that time proclaim that the “One who is sent is as he who sends him.” [5] When Jesus was sent by his Father, he came with all the authority of the Father. When Jesus sends us, he likewise gives us authority and expects us to behave like he did. This is way too much. Where is that rock? I’m going to crawl under it for a while.

Let us not forget that as Jesus commissions his disciples, he gives them the Holy Spirit. Or, to put it in the language we’re using today, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to them. This gift of the Spirit is not an afterthought, but is directly related to Jesus sending out the disciples. Without the Spirit, or God’s ongoing presence in our lives and congregations, we would probably be wise to lock ourselves in a room. It only takes five minutes into a newscast before we could feel overwhelmed, which is why we need the Spirit. We need to listen to the Holy Spirit, to discern where it is leading us. As this congregation goes through the Veritas process, much of the work will be to discern where God is leading Eagle Rock Covenant in mission to the neighborhood and city. The Holy Spirit has shaped you and made you ready for this moment ahead.

The Father sends the Son, the Son sends the Holy Spirit, and the Son sends the disciples. In these few sentences, Jesus reminds the disciples to look back, look around, and look ahead. He reminds them to look back at the God who created the world and makes himself known to people, drawing them into relationship with him. Look back to the ministry of Jesus and how his life embodied the missional heart of the Father. They are to look around to see God at work in their midst. And he leads them to look forward to a greater participation with God in the ongoing mission to save the world.

Thankfully John retells this scene to us so that we can hear these words as well. And we too need to always look back, look around, and look ahead. Eagle Rock Covenant, as Jesus commissions you for ongoing mission, look back and remember the great work that God has done in this community. Remember the people here. Tell each other the stories of how you came to faith and how you grew in this congregation. Recount to each other and to your children how God has been faithful in this church and in this city. Look around at what Jesus is doing in your midst right now. How is God using you to reach the world around you? Tell each other about how Jesus acts in your life now, what you are learning from him. Look ahead to the future rooted deeply in God’s revelation in the past. How does your history as a congregation prepare you for continued ministry? Discernment is the work of the congregation, and everyone needs to listen for God’s leading as you start to envision a future. This will be a season of hope, tears, laughter, story-telling. God is going to push you and pull you. God is forming this congregation and thankfully its a formation that will never end.

In participating with Veritas at this congregation I’ve heard beautiful stories of God’s work here. People have come to faith here and have grown into maturity. I’ve heard people express hope for what is next though no one is sure what God might have in store for this congregation. I imagine people are also feeling uncertain or anxious during this time and I want to say, that is OK. If people are honest about their thoughts and feelings and express them in ways that build up the church rather than hurt it, Eagle Rock Covenant will be better off. The most consistent perception I’ve heard from people is that this congregation has excitement and hope for the future. That’s good, because you know what? God has excitement and hope for the future too. Peace be with you.

1. All biblical quotations and references come from The Holy Bible, New International Version (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, 1984).


2. Darrell L. Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 19-20. I follow Guder’s conclusion throughout the sermon that theology and ecclesiology, if they are to be faithful to the Bible, must necessarily be missional.


3. Gordon R. Beasley-Murray, John, vol. 36. Word Biblical Commentary, ed. David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1987), 378-379.


4. I take this interpretation of Jesus and Pilate’s exchange as a discussion about truth and power from Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), 264-271. Whereas for Pilate and Jesus’ other accusers, “The only truth they will recognize is ‘the truth of power,’” Jesus reminds us that “truth is a power from a different world. The insturment of this power is not ‘violence,’ but ‘witness.’” (Emphasis in the original.)


5. Beasley-Murray, 379.

Further bibliography:

1. Paul J. Achtemeier, Joel B. Green, and Marianne Meye Thompson. Introducing the New Testament: Its Literature and Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001. 177-178, 200-205.


2. Raymond E. Brown. An Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Doubleday, 1997. 358-360.


3. Marianne Meye Thompson. “John, Gospel of.” Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. Ed. Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, and I. Howard Marshall. Downers Grove: IL, 1992. 368-383.