Sermons from Saint John’s

Sermon — May 24, 2026 (The Day of Pentecost)
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

So on Thursday afternoon, I went over to the health center for my annual physical. And after measuring my height and weight and blood pressure, after checking on my heart and lung and eyes and ears, the doctor moved on to a neurological exam. He tested whether I could feel him touch both sides of my body in roughly the same way; whether I could shrug my shoulders and flex my feet; and then came my favorite part of the exam. I want you to picture the scene: two men in their mid-thirties in an exam room: one a medical doctor, one the local parish priest. And the doctor says to the priest: “Okay, now I want you to puff your cheeks out, and I’m going to try to pop them. Don’t let me!”

What a beautifully absurd experience it is to have a human body; even the lowly cheek-puffing muscles have their own specialized test.

And then on Friday morning I drove down to New Jersey to celebrate my grandparents’ 70th wedding anniversary; which is an extraordinary achievement on more than one level. They were married when they were 19 and 24 years old, and my grandfather just celebrated his 94th birthday this week. He’s a regular listener to the recordings of these sermons, so if you’re listening to this, Grandpa, congratulations again—and I hope the rest of you will join me in giving thanks to God for the 7-decade marriage of Bill and Doris Schwint of Sparta, New Jersey.

After the party on Saturday, I drove back here so that I could celebrate another anniversary with you. Because that’s exactly what Pentecost is; not a 70th anniversary, or a 700th, but the 1,993rd anniversary of the beginning of the Church.

People sometimes celebrate Pentecost as “the birthday of the Church,” with red balloons and a birthday cake at Coffee Hour. But I like to think of it as an anniversary, instead, because what begins at Pentecost is more like a marriage than a birth. What begins at Pentecost, or what begins in a wedding ceremony, is not a new individual’s life, but a new form of common life; a way of being together that doesn’t subsume the individuals involved into one blended personality, but rather includes them in something new. In a healthy church, as in a healthy marriage, the individual identities and interests of the people involved aren’t wiped away. In fact, at their best, they’re enhanced; through the common life they share, the people entering into these relationships can grow even more fully into themselves. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts; and each one of the parts can be greater than it was before.

And this is exactly what we see at Pentecost. Faithful people from all around the world are gathered in one place in Jerusalem. They’ve come from as far away as Parthia to the east (what’s now Iran) to Rome in the west, from what’s now Turkey in the north to Egypt in the south. They come from across most of the “known world” of the ancient Mediterranean. Most of them are Jews, members of the diaspora who’ve been scattered abroad from Judea. A few are proselytes, meaning non-Jewish converts who had come to accept the monotheistic worship of God.

They aren’t all in Jerusalem by chance. They’re there to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, known in Greek as “Pentecost,” meaning “the Fiftieth Day,” a harvest festival that falls seven weeks after Passover. So the disciples of Jesus are just one small group of pilgrims who’ve come to the Holy City for these holy days. And as they celebrate the festival, something amazing occurs: a sudden rushing wind fills the house in which they sat, and divided tongues, as of fire, appear in their midst; and flames rest on each one of their heads.

And by the power of the Holy Spirit they begin to speak in in other languages. And a crowd gathers and is amazed. These people don’t look like us. They’re dressed like Galileans, aren’t they? How is it that we hear them speaking in our own language?

And Peter explains: this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: God has poured out the Spirit on all flesh.

When people say that this is the birthday of the Church, they mean two things. First, it’s the moment when the Holy Spirit arrives; when the band of disciples gathered around Jesus becomes a group of apostles sent out by the Holy Spirit. And second, this is the moment when the Church as we know it truly begins: the one, holy, catholic Church—catholic meaning “universal,” meaning “throughout the world.” It’s the moment when the small group of disciples in Galilee becomes a global movement. And so, on Pentecost, we rightly observe the anniversary or the birthday of the foundation of the Church.

Notice one detail, though: the Holy Spirit does not come and give these pilgrims from all around the world the ability to speak the Galilean Aramaic tongue of the disciples. The Holy Spirit doesn’t compress the diversity of the early Church into one homogenous mass. It’s the other way around: the Holy Spirit gives the apostles the ability to speak in other people’s languages, so that the early Church preserves the individuality, the distinct language and culture, of each of its members. And that diversity strengthens the Church, as the good news begins to spread throughout the world.

And yet as much as the miracle of Pentecost preserves this diversity, it brings unity as well. As Paul writes to the early Christians in the Greek city of Corinth, “just as the body is one and has many members, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body—so it is with Christ.” (1 Cor. 12:12) This is exactly what Paul means. Just as you have many organs—heart and lungs and eyes and ears—but they are all part of one body—so too the Church has people who are wise, and people with knowledge (not the same thing); people of faith, and people who can heal; people who can prophesy, and people who can discern whether the prophecy is real. In the Church, there are many spiritual gifts, but all are “activated by one and the same Spirit.” (1 Cor. 12:8-11)

And you know, this is elevated rhetoric. This is serious theology. So Paul writes about wisdom and knowledge and discernment; the heart and the lungs and the brain of the operation. But if we’re talking about the “manifestation of the Spirit for the common good,” we also have to say: to one is given the ability to start the dishwasher, to another the emptying of the dishwasher; to one the entertainment of babies, to another the donation of baby clothes; to one identification of roof leaks, to another the interpretation of roof leaks.

These aren’t necessarily the most glamorous of spiritual gifts. But they are important gifts, things that are necessary to the health and flourishing of the Body of Christ. They are the shoulders and the feet and the cheek-puffing muscles of the Church, and they are “activated by one and the same Spirit” as the rest.

What the body needs is for an eye to be an eye, and an ear to be an ear, and a left ring toe to be a left ring toe. And the beauty of Pentecost, of this anniversary of the Church, is the reminder that what the Church needs from you—what God yearns for you to be—is nothing more, and nothing less, than yourself. If you’re the quiet one who comes here to pray but can’t deal with the chaos that happens on the other side of that door: what the Church needs is for you to pray. If you’re the boisterous one who comes here to laugh and chat, what the Church needs is for you to bring your joy. If you’re a singer, it’s your song. If you’re a baker, it’s your pies. If you’re too tired or sad to feel like you can give anything at all, and you just need to rest—the Holy Spirit has brought you here to rest. God doesn’t need or want you to pretend to be anyone other than exactly who you are, as you truly are. And yes, there’s growth involved in Christian life; but it’s growth into the best version of yourself, not growth into an imitation of someone else.

Jesus tells the disciples, “out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38) Not “can” or “might” or “may, on occasion flow,” but “shall.” So if you believe in Jesus Christ—and let’s be honest, whatever language you may use for your faith, if you’re in church on the rainy Sunday morning of a three-day weekend then I’m gonna go ahead and call you a “believer”—if you are a believer there is a stream of living water flowing from your heart. And the question is not whether that water is flowing, it’s what that water is for you. Who are you, really? What is the stream of living water flowing from your heart? That is the gift of the Holy Spirit for you, and the question is not whether you have a gift, but how you can share it with the Church and with the world. How can you let that water flow out of your heart into a thirsty world?

Sermon — May 17, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

Today we celebrate the Seventh Sunday of Easter, the Sunday after the Ascension; the Sunday after that day, forty days after Easter, when Jesus rose into the heavens and disappeared from his disciples’ sight.

Imagine being one of Jesus’ disciples on that first Ascension Day, two thousand years ago. The last six weeks have been pretty crazy. You’d first come down to the city of Jerusalem for Passover with a group of friends who’d spent the last year following this remarkable man named Jesus as he traveled around Galilee. You’d heard him preaching about the coming of what he called the kingdom of God. You’d seen him do things you couldn’t explain. You’d come to believe that there was something special about Jesus. Surely he was going to be the one to restore the kingdom to Israel. Surely he was going to be the one to lead his nation to freedom.

But then you’d been there among the crowd when that dream was shattered on the horrifying day that we call “Good Friday.” You’d seen him arrested and betrayed, put on trial and put to death. You’d seen the hope of a better life for your people disappear.

And then, in the most amazing miracle of all, you’d seen him rise again. You’d not only heard about the empty tomb, he’d actually appeared to you and your friends, many times, over the course of forty days, and he’d continued to speak about the kingdom of God. He’d told you, and the other disciples, to stay put—not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of God to be fulfilled.

Imagine how exciting it would feel to be part of a movement on the rise, when the pivotal moment of decision has come. Surely Jesus has gathered you all here in the capital city for a reason. And so you ask him, “Lord, is this the time? Are you finally going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6) Are you finally going to ascend the throne and lead us to victory?

And Jesus says: That’s none of your business. Okay. “But you will receive power” (yes! finally!) “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This is great. Jesus is making sense. He’s got a strategic plan. It has three bullet points, so you know it’s a good plan. The kingdom of God is going to spread from the city of Jerusalem where you are right now, to the surrounding countryside of Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth.

And then, as the last words of this mission statement still linger on his lips, Jesus begins to rise into the air. He passes through a layer of clouds—and he’s gone.

If you’ve been following Jesus around for a year then you’ve seen him do some strange things. But this has got to be the strangest thing he’s done. And as you gaze up, speechless, at the sky, waiting for him to come back down and start to put the plan into action—or at least conclude the meeting with a prayer—suddenly two men appear (in dazzling white robes of course) and say, “Galileans! Why are you standing there, looking up at heaven?”

Talk about gaslighting. The man just flew away into the sky! What do you mean, why are we standing here looking up at heaven? But the two men say that “this Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the saw way as you saw him go.” (Acts 1:11)

And that’s all the explanation that the disciples are going to get. So they go back to Jerusalem, and they stay there, like Jesus told them to, and they pray.

This story leaves the disciples hanging between two worlds. Between the past when Jesus was with them, and the future when the Holy Spirit will come. Between the world in which they had a leader to follow and the one in which they’ll become the leaders of the Church. Between what they thought they knew about what it meant for Jesus to establish the kingdom of God—and what they would come to learn about what the kingdom of God really meant.

And I always love the stories in the Bible that leave people in these in-between places: the stories of Advent, as Mary anxiously awaits the birth of her first child; the story of Holy Saturday, when Jesus has died but not yet risen and the disciples sit and wait by the tomb; this story that we read on the Sunday after the Ascension, when Jesus has left the disciples alone, standing, speechless, staring up at the sky.

On the Seventh Sunday of that first Easter season, two thousand years ago, the disciples prayed alone. Jesus had gone away. He had promised that the Holy Spirit would come—but that didn’t happen until the next week, on the Day of Pentecost. Not today. Today, the disciples are alone, dealing with the confusing grief losing Jesus for a second time, all too soon after hearing the joyful news of the Resurrection. Now they finally understood what Jesus had said, in his prayer at the Last Supper: “now I am no longer in the world—but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.” (John 17:11) And this has been true for every disciple of Jesus, ever since Ascension Day: he’s no longer in the world, but we are in the world, and the world in which we live feels an awful lot like the in-between world of that first Ascension Day.

We don’t feel like the disciples did when Jesus was walking among them. And on most days, we don’t feel like the disciples did when the Holy Spirit filled them on Pentecost. If you do—thank God, and don’t let me get in your way. But most of us spend most of our lives in that in-between time, that post-Ascension pre-Pentecost time, when Jesus has gone away and we’re waiting for the Holy Spirit to come. And—while it’s certainly not my place to “know the times or periods” that have been set by God’s own authority, as Jesus would say, it often feels like the arrival of the peaceable kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed is more than a little delayed. We live in troubled times, and the truth is that we always have.

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you,” (1 Peter 4:12) Peter writes to a group of his fellow-Christians two thousand years ago. And you know what? Even in this beautiful springtime, even on these joyful Easter days, all around us, people are going through ordeals. You may be going through one yourself. A personal ordeal, a family ordeal; a neighborhood or a national ordeal; there’s a reason that one of the most popular quotes to attribute to the wise people of the past is “be kind, for everyone you meeting is fighting a hard battle.”

I wish this weren’t true. But it is. And Peter’s response is not only to acknowledge that these faithful and beloved people are going through an ordeal. It’s to reassure them it’s not their fault; it’s the human condition. “Don’t be surprised,” he says. This is what we should expect, because we still live in an in-between time, when God’s kingdom has not yet come. And for me, it’s always come as a relief to be reminded, when I’m going through a fiery ordeal, that I’m not alone.

And in fact, none of us are alone. If you’re hearing these words, it’s because you’ve chosen to do what those first disciples did when they saw that Jesus wasn’t coming back down. You’ve come to a holy place to be with one another and to pray. You’ve come to sit among people who’ve experienced some of the same things, who believe some of the same things, and who certainly have many of the same questions about the world. And whether you come and chat long past Coffee Hour has ended or you slip out the door before the Postlude ends or you are listening online—you’re a part of the community of this church, a part of the one Body of Christ. And when you find yourself in the midst of an ordeal, staring up speechless into the sky, waiting for Jesus to appear—you aren’t waiting alone.

Because we do live on the other side of Pentecost. We do receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. From time to time, we do encounter Christ, even though he’s ascended into heaven and left the earth behind. Sometimes it’s when we sit inside a quiet church in prayer, or when we reach forth our hands for a little piece of bread. Sometimes it’s when we see how green the leaves are on a spring day; when we hear a kind word from a stranger or share our struggles with a good friend.

We don’t even see God clearly in these moments. Jesus is still hidden behind the clouds. But even though Jesus has ascended into heaven, he sends the Holy Spirit again and again to earth. God shows up in our lives: in big ways and in small ways and in ways we don’t even recognize. And again and again, we find ourselves “restored, supported, strengthened, and established” by the grace of God; “To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 5:11)

Sermon — May 10, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

Nautical enthusiasts and dictionary editors alike have argued for centuries about the distinction between a ship and a boat. Everyone agrees that ships are big and boats are small; as Merriam-Webster puts it, “You can put a boat onto a ship, but you can’t put a ship onto a boat.”[1] What’s less clear is the exact nature of the distinction. Is a ship just a boat of a certain size? Or is a ship what you get when your boat comes with more boats? (Lifeboats, for example.) Who’s to say? Now, don’t worry. That’s not what this sermon is actually about. This sermon is about something entirely different: this sermon is about the difference between a ship and a raft. (Or at least that’s where we’re going to start.)

When I say a “raft,” I mean Tom Hanks tying together logs in Cast Away. And that makes the difference very clear. A ship is a tool for navigation; a raft is an act of desperation. A ship is designed by a naval architect before being carefully built; a raft is lashed together with whatever you have at hand. A ship is what you build to travel from one place to another; a raft is what you build when you mostly just need to float.

I’m not a sailor myself, clearly, but Christianity is full of nautical imagery. The first disciples called by Jesus were fishermen, after all, simple sailors who became the captains of the Church. The apostle Paul traveled all around the Mediterranean Sea, facing storms and shipwreck on the way. Right up there, you can see a stained-glass image of a ship’s anchor, an ancient symbol of steadfast hope. Indeed, the very space we’re in is called, in church architecture, the “nave”; “nave” as in “navy” or “navigation”; it comes from the Latin navis, for “ship.”And if you look up at the ceiling, you can see why: the ceiling of our place of worship is like the hull of a ship, turned upside down.

Is the Church a ship or a boat? Who cares. But is the Church a ship or a raft? To me, that’s an interesting question. Is the Church for sailing, or is the Church for floating? Is the point of all of this to chart a course somewhere far over the horizon? Or are we holding on for dear life, grabbing onto something for help when we’re afraid we might go under? To be honest, it’s probably a little bit of both.

That’s why I think it’s so interesting that the First Letter of Peter introduces the Ark as an image for Baptism. When Noah and his family boarded the Ark, with all the animals, two by two, the Ark had been carefully designed and built. God gave Noah all the details, from its length in cubits to the number of decks it should have. But it was clearly an emergency flotation device. So what do you think? Was it a ship or a raft? Was it for traveling over the water, or just for floating above it? When I learned the story of the Flood in Sunday School, I always assumed the Ark was there to save Noah from the water. But Peter says an interesting thing: he says that Noah and his family were saved through the water, as if the point of the Ark as not simply to float above the dangerous waters but to travel from an old world of evil to a new world of peace. So was the Ark as ship or a raft? It may have been a little bit of both.

And it wouldn’t really matter whether Noah’s Ark was a “ship” or a “raft,” except that Peter suggests that baptism is a lot like the Flood. Just as “in the days of Noah,” he writes, “a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water,” in the same way “baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you.” (1 Pet. 3:20-21) And if the Ark is an image of the Church, and the waters of the Flood an image for the waters of baptism, then maybe this ship-versus-raft distinction can help us see two different aspects of the sacrament of Baptism that we celebrate today.

If we think of the water as a Flood that rises and falls, and the Ark as a raft, then we might focus more on the one-time, once-and-for-all aspects of baptism: depending on your own beliefs, that might be a cleansing from original sin, or a welcome into the family of God, or a nice day to get together and celebrate a new baby. But if we think of the Ark as a ship—then the waters of baptism become the sea through which we travel our whole lives.

Peter suggests that the point of baptism is “not as a removal of dirt from the body”—not a one-time cleansing act—but an “appeal to God for a good conscience.” (1 Peter 3:21) When he says a “good conscience,” he doesn’t quite mean a “clean conscience,” an absence of guilt. He means something more like a consciousness of God, an awareness of God’s goodness and God’s love. And that consciousness of God is not a one-time act. It’s not a raft that keeps us afloat. It’s the purpose of a whole life-long spiritual journey.

This is what we’re doing every time we turn to God in prayer: when we cry out for comfort in a time of need, or for courage to do what’s right; for patience to endure the hard parts of our lives, or in gratitude for the good ones. We don’t attain “a good conscience” in a single act. We grow into it over a long time. And we turn to it, again and again, in rituals spread over the course of our whole lives: from the sacrament of baptism we celebrate today for an infant, to the rite of confirmation that four of our teenagers received from the Bishop yesterday, to the Renewal of Baptismal Vows that all of us repeat whenever one of us is being baptized. We need to be reminded, again and again, that our lives are works in progress—but that they are pointed toward a real destination, a goal at the journey’s end.

And we also need the reminder that we aren’t left alone. That, as Jesus says, although he has left the world behind, he will not leave us as orphans; he will not leave us “comfortless,” as the King James Version says, but will send us another “Comforter,” another “Advocate,” the “Spirit of Truth” to be our friend and guide. (John 14:16-18) If the Church is the ship in which we voyage, and the waters of baptism are the sea through which we sail, then Holy Spirit is the wind in our sails; and I don’t say that just to press the metaphor much too far or repeat an old cliché. I say it because that’s what “Spirit” means—the “wind” or “breath” of God, blowing through the world.

And that’s the best news of all. Is the Church a ship or a raft? Are our spiritual lives about vision or desperation? It doesn’t matter in the end. Because whether we feel like we’re on a ship through life, or on a raft—whether we know where we’re going and we’ve charted out the course, or whether we feel like we’re barely staying afloat—we aren’t left alone, subject to whatever random gusts of wind may blow. We are surrounded by the love of God, who sends the steady wind of the Holy Spirit to carry us across the waves: sometimes confident, sometimes seasick, but drawn continuously closer toward the other shore.

[1] “What’s the Difference Between a Boat and a Ship?”

Sermon — May 3, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

Back in high school, when I ran cross-country and track, I’d often find myself lost with my friends somewhere in the Middlesex Fells. There were a few kids on the team who lived near the woods, and they could usually find their way around. Personally, I have a terrible sense of direction, and so it wasn’t that uncommon for me to get turned around, and come out half a mile further down South Border Road than I thought we’d gone, and to have to slowly wind my way back to the high school from Medford.

My friends and I often ended up on detours, as a result, but we were never really that lost. After all, all the trails were marked. As long as I kept looking for the next patch of paint on a rock or the next reflective marker up on a tree, I knew that eventually we’d end up… somewhere, even if it wasn’t exactly where I was expecting. And in the worst case, we could always turn around, and follow the trail all the way back to where we began.

I suspect Jesus’ disciples often felt a little lost as well, not least during the conversation we heard in today’s Gospel. In this story, Jesus is speaking with his disciples at the Last Supper and he says to them, “You know the way to the place where I am going.” (John 14:4) As usual, they have no idea what he’s talking about. So Thomas says to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” Now if they’d thought about it for a minute, they could probably have figured it out. Jesus is sitting there saying things like, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” He’s going there to prepare a place for them, he says, as he prepares for his death; later, he says, he’ll come and bring them to himself. Surely even the disciples could’ve guessed that his “Father’s house” is some kind of heavenly reality, not a big old place on Monument Square.

But that only makes Thomas’s question more urgent. Jesus is going to return to God, and he wants us to follow him. And even if we know, in theory, where Jesus has gone, people of faith in every time and place have continued to ask Thomas’s question, because it’s as good a question as ever. We, too, want to draw closer to God; but “how can we know the way?”

And Jesus answers, mysteriously enough: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (14:6) And this is kind of an odd thing to say. It’s not just that Jesus plans out the trail through the woods, and leaves the markers for us to follow. It’s as if Jesus himself is the path along which we travel toward God. And that sounds strange, but in fact, it’s what Jesus has been saying all along. He hasn’t only been teaching them about the way of love that leads toward God. He’s been telling them that even when he’s gone, they will encounter him along the way.

Just moments before the conversation we heard today, Jesus told his disciples that he was giving them a new commandment: that they love one another, just as he loved them; and then he knelt down on the ground to wash their feet, teaching and modeling a serving kind of love. But he’s also told them that when they give food to someone who’s hungry, or water to someone who thirsts; when they see strangers and welcome them, or people who needs clothes and they clothe them; when they visit people who are sick or in prison, that they are doing these things to him, for “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,” Jesus says, “you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:37-40)

The markers on the way of Jesus aren’t paint on a rock, and they aren’t a set of correct beliefs. The markers on the way of Jesus are acts of self-giving love. And Jesus isn’t only the trailblazer who teaches us how to follow that path. He tells us that he becomes present, in a unique way, in those for whom we care. And when we carry out those acts of love—when we feed someone who’s hungry, or give water to quench someone’s thirst; when we drop off clothes for the Clothes Closet or wake up at midnight with a sick child or visit a friend who’s been in prison—then we encounter Jesus face to face, and we once again find ourselves walking on the way that leads toward God.

This means that we are never really lost on our journey toward God. Because whenever we’re not sure which way to turn, we can always look for the next act of love we can perform, and that small act will put us back on the trail toward the spacious house of God, a place with “many dwelling places,” inhabited by people who’ve come there along very different road, but all following the same Way.

We have a baptism this morning, and the baptismal vows we’ll all make provide their own trail markers for the way of love. We make promises to continue in the breaking of the bread, and in prayer; to persevere in resisting evil, and to seek and serve Christ in all people. We promise to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to respect the dignity of every human being.

But when I ask you to make these vows—“Will you this? Will you that? Will you the other thing?”—we won’t answer “I will.” We’ll answer, “I will, with God’s help.” Because it turns out that the long road toward God that begins at baptism doesn’t rely on us, with our poor senses of direction, to find the way. It doesn’t assume that we’ll always see those trail markers and stick to the path along the way. God assumes that we’ll need help, that we are lost without it. And so Jesus doesn’t just give them the directions to his “Father’s house,” and then tell them he’ll meet them there. Jesus tells the disciples first, I’m going to go and get your room ready, and then, “I will come again and will take you for myself.”

It’s as if we’re somewhere in the woods, trying to find our way back to the road, when suddenly we see the captain of the team. (That’s Jesus!) He’s gone off ahead to scout out the path, and comes running back up the trail with incredible good news: “Hey! I found the way out.” Maps and signs and trail markers are great, but nothing beats having someone who knows the way come and lead you out.

So Jack’s baptism today marks an important beginning on his journey toward God. But Jack won’t remember this day, or the vows made on his behalf. That’s why he has parents and godparents, family and friends here. That’s why baptism isn’t a private service, but part of the whole church’s worship. None of us who have been baptized travel this way alone. We travel together. We listen to the stories and traditions of our faith, which remind us where people have found God in ages past. We rely on the people around us to share the markers that they see along the trail. We look for Jesus, who tells us that he will come and take us to himself, to lead us along the way to God. And even if we don’t know where we’re going, let alone the way there, we know where he has told us he’ll be found: in the simple acts of care in which we truly love our neighbors as ourselves.

Sermon — April 19, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

Last Sunday after church, Nancy and I met with four of the kids for a class about communion. One of them is preparing for her first communion a little later this spring, one of them maybe next year; two of them were older, and joined us to lend their wisdom and eat snacks. But we were all there to talk about what exactly it is we do on Sunday mornings, and why. I showed them how we set the table at the altar. They fought over who got to break the (unconsecrated) priest’s host, like I do. And they asked me a few tricky questions about this beautiful and strange communion ritual of ours.

Why is the bread so thin and flat and bland? Why do we say such a long grace before this very small sacramental meal? How can it be the case that Jesus is really and truly present in wafers and in wine in thousands of places all around the world at the same time? Is it something to do with quantum mechanics? (The level of physics they’re teaching at the Eliot School these days is astounding.)

It’s often been observed that today’s Gospel story of the disciples on the Road to Emmaus parallels the two-part structure of the Eucharistic service of Word and Sacrament that we celebrate every Sunday. Jesus first interpreted the story of salvation for the disciples, from the sayings of the prophets to the story of his own life, and then became known to them in the breaking of bread. In the same way, we first listen to and reflect on the stories of our faith, before turning to the table, where we take bread, bless and break it, just as Jesus did; and in that moment, we recognize his presence there.

And so I thought that I would add to the children’s excellent collection of communion questions a question of my own, one that really gets to the heart of this story of the appearance of the resurrected Christ on the Road to Emmaus: “Who on earth is Cleopas?”

When this story takes place, Jesus is in the middle of a very busy day. It’s Easter Day, in fact, some time in the afternoon. And Jesus has had a busy day. Mary and Joanna and Mary have gone to the tomb, and seen that it was empty, and heard the angels say that he is not here, but he is risen; and they’ve gone and told the disciples. Peter’s run in, and he’s seen the empty tomb, but he hasn’t seen the risen Christ yet. (Luke 24:1–12) We heard the story of Easter morning back on Easter Day.

That evening, Jesus will appear to the disciples in Jerusalem, while Thomas is away, and show them his wounds. And we heard that story of Easter evening last week.

But in between, on that first Easter afternoon, Jesus appears to two disciples on the road. Not to Peter or James or John, not to Mary or Mary or Joanna, not to Paul the Apostle—that won’t come for several years—but to Cleopas, and someone else who’s left unnamed. (Luke 24:18)

Now, if you can’t quite remember who exactly Cleopas is, don’t be ashamed. It’s easy to forget. It’s really easy, in fact, because this is the only time in the whole Bible that Cleopas appears. There’s a “Clopas” who gets mentioned once, when John tells us that “Mary the wife of Clopas” was one of the women standing near the cross. And if you say “Cleopas” five times fast, the names kind of sound the same. And so maybe it’s the case that this Cleopas is the same as that Clopas, and that the unnamed second disciple is Mary, his wife; that’s all we know, and we don’t even know that for sure.

But these two obscure disciples are the ones to whom Jesus appears on Easter afternoon. Before he makes his way into the room of the more famous disciples—before he shows them the wounds in his hands and in his side, and breathes on them with the Holy Spirit, and sends them out into the world to preach the good news—he walks alongside two ordinary people as they make the tedious journey to a small village seven miles out of town.

Many stories in the Bible are about people whose lives aren’t much like ours. We hear about the faith of Abraham, who wanders across the Middle East, with sheep and goats and unconventional family arrangement. We hear about the prophet Moses, who leads his people out of slavery in Egypt with signs of great power. We listen to the teachings of Jesus, as he travels around small villages, healing the sick and casting out demons. We try to follow St. Paul on a map, as he voyages around the Mediterranean world, spreading the good news. And, I don’t know about you, but even as a professional Christian, my day to day life isn’t very much like theirs.

But then there’s Cleopas and his friend, who we see on their commute. They can’t quite wrap their heads around the things that are happening in the world. They’re disappointed that things in their lives haven’t out how they’d hoped. They’ve been told that Christ is risen; but they’re not really sure what it means, and so they stand there, feeling sad. They listen to this man expound at great length about how the Bible makes sense of everything in their lives; but it doesn’t quite seem to click. (Personally, I’ve found the congregation is more receptive if you don’t start by calling them fools! But, you’re the boss.) They’re good, and warm, and welcoming—when Jesus tries to continue on his way they invite him in for supper, because it’s almost dark—but they’re not great heroes of the faith.

And then comes that one beautiful moment. Jesus takes bread, blesses it and breaks it, and gives it to them—and suddenly they see Jesus face to face. Suddenly, they recognize that the man they’ve been with all this time isn’t a stranger, but a friend; it’s Jesus! And before they can even express their joy, Jesus vanishes from their sight.

But what they’ve just experienced is so powerful that that same hour, they get up and walk the seven miles back to Jerusalem, in the dark, and they go and tell the disciples what they’ve seen. And then nothing else worth writing in a book ever happens in their lives again.

I find great comfort in this.

Jesus’ first priority, in the hours after his death, is not to appear before Pontius Pilate and say, “Ha! I told you so! Now here are my demands.” It’s not to appear before the crowds, cloaked in radiant light, to perform a miracle so great that everyone will believe in him. Jesus doesn’t go to the room where the central leaders of the nascent church are gathered and say—“Ok, I only have time to say this once, so someone jot it down: ‘God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, …’”

No! Jesus shows up on the road next to two people you’ve never heard of before, and tells them the good news, and it doesn’t make much sense. But then something amazing occurs, and they suddenly encounter Jesus in the breaking of the bread. And even though that experience will never happen again, they realize that their hearts were burning within them all along. We don’t know anything at all about the rest of their lives, but I’m pretty sure that they would never be the same.

Like Cleopas and his companion, we come here as ordinary people trying to follow Jesus whose stories will never make it into the history books. In the midst of life, we meet Jesus face to face along the road, and we usually don’t realize that he’s there. Once in a while, just for a moment, we’ll suddenly be overwhelmed by a sense of his presence and his love—and then he’ll quickly vanish from our eyes.

But this is not a sign that we’re doing something wrong. It doesn’t mean we should be more like Abraham or Moses or Paul. The good news about the road to Emmaus is that Jesus is walking with us in our lives: on our commutes, in our conversations, when we sit down together to break bread. He really can be in thousands of places all around the world, not only in bread and wine but with us out there on the road. And even though our transcendent experiences of awe are few and far between, the fire they leave burning in our hearts remains; and the realization that he was with us on the road behind us can help us see him as we keep walking on the road ahead.

And so I want to close this sermon with the same prayer with which this service began, our opening Collect for the Day:

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Sermon — April 12, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (John 20:28)

On this Sunday after Easter every year, we read the story of the Sunday after the first Easter two thousand years ago. In fact, the story starts on Easter Day itself. Mary Magdalene has seen the risen Jesus, and she goes and tells the disciples the good news of the resurrection. And “when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week… Jesus came and stood among them, and said, ‘Peace be with you.’” (John 20:19) He shows them his hands and his side; that even though he is risen, he still bears his wounds. The disciples are amazed, and Jesus says to them again, “Peace be with you.” And then he breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and the followers of Jesus are transformed from “disciples,” meaning “students,” into “apostles,” people who are sent out into the world to proclaim the good news.

And then Thomas comes back from his trip to buy snacks at the 7-11, and as he unpacks the bags he notices that they’re all acting pretty weird. And he says, “Hey guys—What’s up?” And they say to him, Thomas! Thomas! “We have seen the Lord.” (20:25) And he says… “What?”

Well, really he says, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Or, rather, “Unless I see it… I won’t believe.”

And then a week later, on the Sunday after Easter they’re all together again, and Thomas is actually there, and Jesus appears again, and again he says, “Peace be with you.” (20:26) And then, as if he already knows what Thomas said last time to the other disciples, he says, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” (20:27) And Thomas answers him, “My Lord and my God!” (20:28)

Now, poor Thomas got stuck with the label of “Doubting Thomas” for the rest of time. But that’s not entirely fair. When Thomas gets arrives with his bags full of Pringles, all he asks is to see what the other disciples have already seen. They hear the good news of the Resurrection from Mary Magdalene, and that same day they see Jesus and it confirms what they’ve been told. Thomas hears the good news from them, and he has to wait a week, but then he too sees Jesus and it confirms what he’s been told. And okay, maybe Thomas really does doubt what he’s told more than the other disciples. He’s the only one who explicitly says he won’t believe the good news of the Resurrection unless he sees the proof himself.

But it’s also true that he’s the only disciple who really sees what the Resurrection means. It’s “Doubting Thomas,” after all, who sees the risen Christ and says, “My Lord and my God!” (20:28) The other disciples see their friend, back from the dead. But Thomas sees his Lord and God. Thomas has the deepest doubt. Thomas has had the longest time to wait for proof. And Thomas has the deepest faith.

 This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, to any of us who have tried to live a life of faith. The Christian religion is not a set of easy answers to the big questions of life. It’s not a set of rules to follow in order to live a good life. It’s a constant struggle to make sense of the relationship between the promises of a loving God and the realities of an imperfect world. You might even say that faith itself is the source of most the doubt that many of us have: if we take seriously the idea that there is a good and loving God working in this world, and we’re honest about our world and our own lives, then we’re led continually to question what on earth God is doing, and maybe even whether God is there.

A life of faith is not a life without doubt. It’s a practice of re-committing yourself, day after day, to trust in the love of God; to trust, despite the uncertainty of the world, despite the long years of doubt when God seems far away, despite the decades of distraction when God seems irrelevant, that God has been there all along. We never see the vision of Jesus that the apostles see; we always walk by faith, and not by sight. And so it is that after Jesus asks Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me?” Jesus breaks the fourth wall and turns, with a wink to us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (John 20:29)

We celebrate two baptisms today; and in a sense, there is no better day for baptism than this “Doubting Thomas” Sunday. During the service of baptism, we make traditional vows: to turn away from all that is evil in the world, and to turn toward a God of love; to strive to love God with all our hearts, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The words we say are deceptively simple: “I do,” “I do,” “I will, with God’s help.”

But the vows we make today are not a one-time thing. I can almost guarantee that Dominic and Emmie will go through many seasons of doubt in their spiritual lives; and maybe a few seasons of faith. I can almost guarantee there will be times when they draw nearer to God, and times when they feel far away. There will be times when they really live out the baptismal vows to resist evil and to seek and serve Christ in all people, loving their neighbors as themselves; and times when they fall short. And I know this because I, too, have made baptismal vows—and so has nearly everyone else in the room. And yet we find ourselves needing to reaffirm them, at every baptismal service, two or three or seven times a year.

Because baptism is not an act of certainty. It’s the first step in a life-long journey of faith. For the parents and godparents who present them, and for the families who support them, and for all of us who welcome them, it’s one more waypoint on our long voyage toward God. Every one of us who takes these promises seriously will struggle to live them out. Every one of us who takes our faith seriously will continue to doubt. But if the story of the Second Sunday of Easter tells us anything, it’s that life in Christ is not about one day of certainty—it’s about a life that’s full of doubt and faith, in which we wonder again and again whether God is even there, and we find again and again at the most surprising times the signs of God’s amazing love, markers left for us along the way “so that [we] may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing [we] may have life in his name.” (John 20:31)

Sermon — April 5, 2026 (Easter Sunday)
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

The story of Easter morning is the story of an empty tomb. After Jesus’ death on Friday afternoon, the two Marys, his most faithful disciples, don’t have time to prepare Jesus’ body for burial before the Sabbath begins. They wait anxiously throughout the day of Sabbath rest, mourning the loss of their friend. After the Sabbath is over, it’s too dark to see inside the tomb, and so they spend the night in restless sleep, and then they head out as early as they can. And just as the day begins to dawn, Mary and Mary arrive at the tomb.

But when they get there, they don’t find what they expect. The tomb is empty. The stone that was covering it has been rolled away! And they’re confused and they’re amazed. Has Jesus’ body been stolen? Has it somehow been moved? And then an angel appears, and says to them, “Do not be afraid; I know that you’re looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he is risen.” And their fear mixes with joy, but their amazement remains. The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia.

The story of Easter morning is the story of the empty tomb, and the image of the empty tomb is a powerful one. It’s an image of liberation, in which Christ breaks forth from the tomb as if from a prison, finally free from the bonds of death. It’s an image of new birth, in which the tomb in which Jesus’ body lies becomes the womb from which new life emerges. It’s an image that has turned the humble egg into one of the most festive symbols of Easter: beneath the hard exterior, new life awaits. And people sometimes take this image very literally indeed. You can buy, online, right now, plastic Easter eggs that are printed with the words, “He lives!” And when you open them up, what do you find inside? A little plastic Jesus with a smile on his face, of course! You crack open the Easter egg as if you’re rolling away the stone from the tomb, and the Resurrected Jesus pops out from the inside.

But the Jesus-filled Easter egg is completely missing the point. (There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.) There is a fundamental difference between the chick cracking open the egg, and the stone rolling away from the tomb. The chick cracks open the egg in order to escape from the shell; the breaking of the egg is the process by which it’s born. But that’s not the case with the Resurrection of Christ. By the time the stone is rolled way—Jesus is already gone.

Lent has only just ended and already I have something to confess: I lied to you, just a little bit, when I told the story of Easter morning before. I told you that when Mary and Mary arrive at the tomb, they don’t find what they expect: they find that the tomb is empty, and the stone has been rolled away. But that’s not exactly how the story goes.

Matthew tells us that Mary and Mary went to the tomb, and they saw the stone there, and then, after they arrived, “suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.” (Matthew 28:2) Notice what they don’t see. They don’t see Jesus running out past them now that the stone has been rolled away and he can escape. No, the angel tells them that he is not here; he has been raised already. The angel rolls away the stone not for Jesus to escape; but to show them that Jesus is already gone.

In other words: when Mary and Mary arrive on Easter morning to prepare Jesus’ body for burial, the tomb is already empty, but the stone is still there.

There is a moment, in other words, when they are standing at the tomb, and the Resurrection has already happened, but they don’t know it yet. In the eyes of the crowd who saw him die, in the eyes of the soldiers who guard his grave, in the eyes of these faithful women who mourn his loss, Jesus is dead. The power of the Empire, the power of violence, the power of death, has won. His followers’ dreams of a Messiah who would bring about an age of justice and of peace have come to an end. His teachings were inspiring, but his strategy was flawed. Jesus is dead and they have laid him in the tomb.

And yet behind that stone, the world has already changed.

We spend our whole lives in that moment, suspended between the stone and the empty tomb. We’ve been told the good news of a Prince of Peace, but we lived in a world wracked by war. We’ve been given the promise that God is making all things new, but we know that our world is a work in progress at best. Jesus tells us the people we have loved and lost will rise again to new and eternal life, and that we will one day see them again, but for now, we still feel their absence. On Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection, but everywhere around us, we still see a stone covering the tomb.

And the point of Easter is not for us to stand outside, trying to peer past the stone, trying to understand how Jesus could escape, and whether he’s really gone. He is not here, the angel says. He is risen, and he is going ahead of them to Galilee, to the place where they’re from. He’s not staying here, in the holy place: he’s out there, in their hometowns, with the rest of their lives.

The point of Easter is not to gather here, once a year, and celebrate the day when Jesus rose from the dead. The point of Easter is live the other 364 days knowing that he is risen; knowing that, although we still see the stone, the tomb is already empty.

The point of Easter is for us to live as people of faith, holding fast to the promise that God is working through us to build a world of peace and love, however slow that work may be. The point is to live as people of hope, trusting that the stories of our lives do not end in death, but in new life. The point is to live as people of love, trusting that although the way of humble, merciful love doesn’t always seem to be winning in this world, the most important battle has already been won; knowing that hatred and violence and anger will never have the final say, because they have already been overcome; that Christ has been raised from the dead, and he is going ahead of us to lead us on the way.

Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Sermon — April 3, 2026 (Good Friday)
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

Whether we’re leading processions through our churches, or hanging jewelry around our necks, coming up with a symbol to put on signs and flags or offering a blessing, we Christians don’t tend to choose the empty tomb or the washing of feet, Lazarus raised from the dead or the Sermon on the Mount. No; we choose the Cross, because the story of the Crucifixion is so central to us that it has become the symbol of our entire faith.

That can make it hard for us to remember that at the time, the Crucifixion wasn’t “The Crucifixion” at all. Sure, for the tiny band of Jesus’ disciples, it was a life-changing event. But for the rest of the Roman world, the death of Jesus meant nothing at all. To the few people who would’ve even heard the news, it wasn’t The Crucifixion, merely a crucifixion. It was the sort of thing that happened all the time, at the edges of the Roman Empire: the execution of a rebel, a would-be king, for the crime of claiming a throne without the permission of Rome.

This was the Roman Empire working as designed. The Empire itself was still a new thing, to be fair. During Jesus’ life, there were still a few stubborn old Romans who lamented the loss of their Republic; who wondered how they’d allowed one man to amass so much wealth and popular support, to grant himself so many honors and awards, that he could single-handedly transform their system of government, reshaping it in his own image. There were some who wondered how, just a few centuries after throwing off the rule of a king, they had reinvented the monarchy they’d abolished.

But most Romans, to be honest, didn’t care. Most Romans went about their lives, enjoying the prosperity of the fabled Pax Romana, two centuries of “Roman Peace.” Now, this was a bit of misnomer.  During that golden age of peace, the Roman legions fought fierce campaigns in the forests of Germany; waged war with the Persians in the east; and suppressed two separate revolts by the Jewish people, destroying not only the Temple in Jerusalem, but eventually the whole city just a century after Jesus’ death.

But what did ordinary people care about all that? The Pax Romana meant peace for Romans, a peace achieved by fighting constant wars on other people’s land, at the edges of the Empire. The crucifixion of Christ was hardly the most violent of these events. It was just one tiny example of the Empire working as designed: maintaining peace for people over here, through the application of overwhelming force over there.

Any student of Rome can tell you how well that worked in the long term. But this is not actually a Roman history lecture, so here’s the point: On Good Friday, two thousand years ago, not a single Roman would’ve known or cared about what had happened to Jesus. But within just twenty-five years of these events, the apostle Paul—a Roman citizen himself—would write his greatest theological work to a vibrant and growing church in Rome, a group of people who had come to believe that their own government’s act of violence against one man who lived far away had somehow saved the world. In just a few years, what had been a crucifixion had become The Crucifixion: no longer an everyday act of violence, but a transformative event changing the lives of people at the center of the Empire itself.

On one level, it’s not hard to see why. The story of the Passion of Christ is a powerful one. I find the small details to be particularly moving. The contrast between the rage and drama of the crowd who come to arrest Jesus, “with lanterns and torches and weapons,” (John 18:3) and the calm of Jesus, who simply answers, “I am he.” (18:5) The slaves and police who share their fire with Peter, warming their hands together because, even though it’s early spring, it’s still unpleasantly cold. (18:18) That heart-wrenching moment when Jesus, even as he hangs on the Cross, still tries to take care of those he loves most in his life, saying to his mother, “Woman, here is your son”; and to his best friend and closest disciple, “Here is your mother.” (19:26–27)

It’s easy to see how this story could soften even the most hardened hearts. And yet such moving scenes had happened many times before, and nothing had changed.

But on Good Friday, something happened that had never happened before. On Good Friday, the one who was being crucified was not only a human being, deeply beloved by some of those who bore witness to his pain; he was the incarnate God. On Good Friday, in other words, God was on the Cross. And somehow, mysteriously, that made all the difference; somehow, in a way that theologians have spent two thousand years trying to explain, when God took on the violence of the cross, the power of death itself was undone.

And as the story spread throughout the world—as it was told and re-told, again and again—the Holy Spirit was at work, somehow moving the hearts of some of those who heard. And their lives began to change. They began to reject the practice of worshiping the emperors as if they were gods. They began to repent of the violence of the Roman state. They began to see themselves as citizens of a kingdom of heaven, members of a body that transcended the boundaries of the Roman Empire and practiced a very different way of life, characterized by compassion, mercy, and peace.

This didn’t happen immediately, of course. And it didn’t happen perfectly; Christians have perpetrated many acts of violence throughout history. But throughout history, Christians have been inspired to follow Jesus in that way of love, and their love has changed the world.

We can hardly go a day in our lives without being confronted with the image of the Cross of Christ, and usually, we don’t stop to think about what it means; but on Good Friday, we do. On Good Friday, we let ourselves see what happens when the overwhelming mercy of a loving God collides with the overwhelming violence of human cruelty. Like those first disciples long ago, we see the God of Love hanging from a cross, and it breaks our hearts, and our lives begin to change, from the inside out.

And when ordinary people change from the inside out, the world begins to change from the outside in. It’s not the kind of change that comes from the centers of political power; but Jesus didn’t appear in Rome. It doesn’t come from the religious authorities; but Jesus wasn’t born into the family of the high priests. Jesus appears on the outskirts of the Empire, on the outskirts of his own society, and yet his movement grows steadily from the outside in. And generations of his followers, from Franciscans to abolitionists to Civil Rights activists, have followed that outside-in path and changed the world.

And so on Good Friday, we give paradoxical praise to the Cross. We venerate this symbol of brutal death. Not because crosses are good, but because this Cross overthrew the rest. Not because we glorify suffering or death, but because through his death, Jesus began to overcome the power of death. And so today, we too gaze upon the Cross of Christ: that one “Faithful cross, above all other”; that “one and only noble tree!” and as we do, we open our hearts to be changed, praying that in us and through us, God will continue to change the world.

Sermon — March 29, 2026 (Palm Sunday)
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

A few years before St. John’s was founded back in 1840, a young boy named Horatio Alger was born just across the river in Chelsea. The son of a Unitarian minister, he grew up in a family that was educated but not aristocratic. He was the kind of guy in 1840s Boston who excelled at Harvard but was excluded from joining its more exclusive social clubs. But he became known later in life as one of the pioneers of the “rags-to-riches” genre. In his books, Alger wrote stories of poor young men rising in the world through honesty and hard work, climbing into the middle class against the odds in fulfillment of the American Dream.

Alger’s novels aren’t very widely read, these days—I know them from US History, not American Lit. But the dream of upward mobility is still at the heart of the American experience. In time, “rags to riches” has turned into “Stanford to Silicon Valley,” but we still see less dramatic stories of upward mobility everywhere. My grandfather, for example, started his working life as a machinist, and went to night school to get his degree as an engineer; my mother was the first person in the family to get a four-year college degree; and here I am, at the absolute pinnacle of American society, Rector of St. John’s Charlestown. And this dream of upward mobility is only natural: What parents don’t want their children to live safer, happier, more comfortable lives than their own?

In a Lenten devotional published this year, Brother Luke of the Society of St. John the Evangelist reflects on one of the verses in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5) He notes the humility and meekness of Jesus in the stories we hear this week: “Jesus showed love and leadership by riding a donkey, not a stallion,” he notes, “and by washing feet” on Maundy Thursday. And then he connects this to a wider point: “Gentle and strong patience,” Brother Luke writes, “does not mean giving in or giving up. The meek are not weak.” And then he uses a phrase I’d never associated with Jesus before. The meek, he writes, “use power, surprisingly for good, often choosing restraint and downward mobility.”

It’s the perfect phrase for today. After all, what is the story of Palm Sunday but a story of “downward mobility?” How else could we characterize the trajectory of this day, which begins with us parading around the church, waving palm branches and singing, “All glory laud and honor…” and then suddenly turns toward sorrow and suffering, culminating in the events of the Passion of Christ. The “downward mobility” of the Palm Sunday service begins the long downward slide of Holy Week: it takes us from a royal procession to betrayal and death; from “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” to “Let him be crucified!”; from “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” to “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” At the very moment when the people welcome Jesus to the Holy City, at the very moment when they think that the long-awaited heir of the king David is finally coming to ascend to the throne—that’s when the descent toward his death begins.

Although in fact, it began much earlier. Because the story of the downward mobility of Christ doesn’t begin in Holy Week. The whole story of the Incarnation, of the way in which God became flesh in Jesus Christ, is a story of descent. The eternal Word of God becomes human; one who has reigned with God in heaven comes down to live on earth.

This larger story of downward mobility is what Paul’s talking about when he writes to the church at Philippi about Christ’s “self-emptying.” It’s likely that in these verses, Paul is actually quoting from a hymn, drawing on something the Philippians would’ve heard or even sung before to illustrate his point. And this ancient hymn, which may be the earliest part of the New Testament to be composed, is all about the downward mobility of Christ. He was in the form of God, but did not cling to equality with God; he emptied himself of divine privilege and was born in human form. (Phil. 2:6-7) Not only did he empty himself of divine power, he humbled himself to the point of death—“even death on a cross.” (2:8) Jesus descends from glory to normalcy to shame, from heaven to earth to the underworld, and he does it all because of a humble, self-emptying love for humankind: a willingness and a desire to serve us and to try to save us from ourselves, even at the cost of his own life.

Of course, we know—and Paul reminds us—that the story doesn’t end there. Jesus descended from heaven and down to earth, and from earth to the grave; but then he rose again, from death into life, and ascended from earth back to heaven. Jesus’ story of downward mobility, ends with an upward return trip.

But we’re not there yet. There’s always a temptation, during Holy Week to jump too quickly to the Resurrection: to minimize the pain of Jesus’ death by reminding ourselves that it all turns out okay in the end. And this is a good point. The Resurrection doesn’t cancel out their horror of the Passion, or its pain. It doesn’t erase the experience of Jesus’ suffering or death. But it does begin to transform what they mean. Jesus’ defeat becomes a victory, his victimization becomes self-sacrifice, his weakness becomes a particular kind of strength: the kind, as Brother Luke says, that uses power for good, that chooses restraint and downward mobility, caring for and loving others, sometimes at its own expense.

Now, none of us is Jesus Christ, thank God. None of us can claim to be equal to God. None of us have access to the kind of royal power Jesus could’ve seized in his hands. Some of us may feel like we have no power at all. We certainly don’t have the kind of power the Son of God has, and we’re not called to make the same extreme kind of self-sacrifice. But every one of us does have some kind of power in this world. And we can choose how to use that power for good.

We can choose to follow the path of upward mobility alone: to use the power and the privilege that we have solely for our own benefit, to pursue our own good without concern for anyone else. Or we can choose the more-uncertain path: the path of meekness and humility, of self-emptying love.

Jesus invites us to do some pretty radical things: to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us; to forgive one another as we have been forgiven; to love one another as Christ has loved us, in fact—to love our neighbors not only as if they’re members of our family, or good friends, but to love our neighbors as ourselves. These things aren’t impossible. They don’t require miracles. But they’re profoundly counter-cultural, and they ask us to make a choice.

We can choose to “let the same mind be in [us] that was in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 2:5) We can choose to follow our donkey-riding king wherever his path of humble service leads. We can choose the counter-intuitive, counter-cultural path of downward mobility, even if it’s only sometimes, even if it’s only in the smallest of ways. And if we choose to follow that path of self-giving love, our stories will never be as extreme as the story of Christ’s journey from the glory of heaven to the shame of the Cross and back; but we may still find that the path of humble service, of downward mobility, leads us not only down into the depths of life, but out the other side, into a way of life more abundant than even Horatio Alger could ever have imagine

I have to admit that I find some parts of this story unsatisfying. Jesus speaks to the disciples in a confusing and misleading way, telling them at first that “this illness does not lead to death,” (John 11:4) only to act like they’re slow on the uptake moments later when he tells them metaphorically that Lazarus is “sleeping,” and then “plainly,” that  “Lazarus is dead.” (11:11, 14) Jesus waits two days before setting out for Bethany, (11:6) delaying while Lazarus suffers, putting Mary and Martha through grief and pain—seemingly so that he can prove a point to the disciples about his own power. “I was glad that I was not there,” Jesus says, “so that you may believe.” (11:15) He was glad that he was not there?