"Christ our Gate" - Sermon for Easter 4 May 7th, 2017

Sermon:

Text: John 10:1-10

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who gives us abundant life.

         Happy Easter! He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

         Yes, Happy Easter! Happy Resurrection Season! These Sunday’s after Easter, are not just the Sunday’s after Easter, they are the Easter season. This time where we really work to think and bring into our way of living the fact that Christ is Risen.

Now that Christ is Risen, now that we have the Resurrection Promise, how do we then live our lives with that fact in mind?

That’s what we’ve been talking about these last few weeks. We are the church of God, the people of God, here gathered for worship and also as we walk the roads “out there.” Resurrection Promise extends to us wherever we go, in everything we do, so our response to that promise is held and extended in everything we do.

         Today I want to draw us to the very last verses of our Gospel, “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

         Abundant life, life given to us over and above, so much more life than we can imagine. The word abundant means much more than all. That in abundant life, we have more life that all life through Christ.

         It’s a great promise, an amazing promise, a miraculous, astounding, mind-blowing promise. And a promise though, that we so often misinterpret and misconstrue. We hear abundant life and think life of abundance. Our culture has conditioned us to think that abundant life means not an abundance of life, but a life filled with an abundance of possession and money. Which causes us to think about our money first, our possessions first. Causing us to make money and wealth our false idols. Which is clearly not what Jesus is meaning here.

         Jesus is not resurrected so that we can have a whole bunch of stuff. It’s not so we can heap wealth upon ourselves, possession upon possession. That’s not abundant life.

         Jesus’ statement of abundant life comes is a response to the Pharisee’s questions from the previous chapter which we read in the midst of Lent. There we find a blind man, who Jesus heals. Jesus’ idea and concept of abundant life is what is given to this man. And it’s not restoration of sight, abundant life is the restoration to community. To those who grew up with him, the blind man was nothing. He is a beggar on the street, one to walk past and ignore, an outcast from society. Jesus in healing him gives him more than sight, he gives him back meaning, gives him relationship in community, personhood in the people of God, the church of Christ.

         Moving back to our text we see Jesus declare, ^“I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

         Part of abundant life is eternal life, salvation, we are saved through what Christ did, but it is also life here and now. Come in and go out is Greek idiomatic language talking about living in community, living fully in community, that’s the abundant life Jesus refers to, it’s the abundant life the blind man now has restored to him.

         Christ’s abundant life is life fully lived in community, life together fully lived in the realization that we are people of God. You are the church of Christ at all times. Abundant life means we know we are created for community. Our reading from Acts describes that first gathering of the church, that first church of Christ. “[The baptized] devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

This was not just one day a week, it was their way of life, not a Sunday morning thing, but an everyday thing. It’s all of the things we have talked about the past weeks, us people of God bringing the good news of God to the world through our daily life. Doing our daily work with the realization that we are the people of God doing so. Seeing that we are ministers of God as we walk the roads of life.

But, abundant life tells us that an important part of all we do is that we do it together. Abundant life again means life lived together in community. What Christ seeks for us is life where we live together, the people of God together, seeing life in the other, seeing meaning in the other. Not turning a blind eye to people like the blind man, but seeing the value of all, seeing that all are children of God.

         And then knowing that this abundant life, this life together, life lived in community is all life lived with Christ.

         Jesus says, I am the Gate.

         What is a gate? It’s a protection, it keeps out the things that may harm, it allows for a place of sanctuary and safety.

         When I was in high school I was taking a class, as you do, and when project time came up, I was assigned the idea of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. My topics there were the basic needs, things like shelter, food, warmth, water, security. I explained it through a diagram similar to the recreation on your screen. You need all of these things to be a truly functioning person.

         In Christ we find all these things, today specifically we find shelter and security, and we find them for not just yourself, but for the community. In fact, you need the community to actualize them. Christ our gate giving us protection and shelter from harm needs the community.

         Christ the gate means that as we go in and out, as we live together in community, gathering for worship, living as ministers of God in the world, taking part in God’s work through our hands, Christ is always there, our gate protecting us. We can find that gate at times as the church building doors, we can find it in the sanctuary of this space, there’s a reason it’s called sanctuary, but we can also find it in our neighbors, where we find abundant life. Life together, abundant life, means that you can always turn to your neighbor, your brother and sister in Christ and find safety, that we can turn to them and find Christ our Gate in them. Whether here or on the roads of the world. Christ our gate means abundant life is everywhere. Amen.