Seeing Jesus in the Sanctuary

John 12:20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. ²¹ They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. "Sir," they said, "we would like to see Jesus." ²² Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. ²³ Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ²⁴ I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. ²⁵ The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶ Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. ²⁷ "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. ²⁸ Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." ²⁹ The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. ³⁰ Jesus said, "This voice was for your benefit, not mine. ³¹ Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. ³² But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." ³³ He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

At the beginning of Disney’s version of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” gypsies try to enter the city of Notre Dame but are discovered by Judge Claude Frollo and his soldiers. Frollo’s soldiers kill the husband and Judge Frollo, on horseback, chases the wife through the city, thinking that she is carrying a sack of gold. She comes to the cathedral of Notre Dame, pounds on the door and calls for “Sanctuary!” But no one answers. Frollo catches up with her and takes what she was carrying, knocking her down with a steel boot into the stone steps of Notre Dame, killing her. Frollo opens the sack and discovers that it wasn’t gold the woman was carrying, but a deformed baby. The archdeacon comes out of the cathedral and makes Frollo adopt the baby as penance for killing the innocent woman.

In the middle of the movie, the deformed baby, now named Quasimodo, is locked up in the bell tower of the cathedral by Frollo. The Judge teaches Quasimodo that because of his deformities, he will not be accepted outside the walls of Notre Dame. This church is his sanctuary.

And in the climax of the movie, Quasimodo rescues the beautiful gypsy, Esmeralda, from the flames engulfing the city and rushes into the Cathedral of Notre Dame, shouting for sanctuary.

Whatever liberties Disney may have taken with Victor Hugo’s novel, they are at least drawing on actual medieval practices that considered the church a place of refuge. During conflicts between church and state in Europe during the Middle Ages, church land was beyond the reach of the law and thus a sanctuary, literally a safe place, a refuge from the outside world. We still use this word today to refer to the inside of our church as the sanctuary, a sacred place, a safe haven for those being hounded by the world.

This morning we, like the Greeks in today’s Gospel lesson, look for refuge and safety by seeing Jesus in the sanctuary.

It was the Feast of the Unleavened Bread in preparation for the Passover. Jerusalem was packed with out-of-towners. Jesus had just entered the city on a donkey and was greeted as a triumphant king to the shouts of “Hosanna.” Then He had gone into the temple to worship, but discovered the chaos caused by all the sacrificial animals being sold and the money being exchanged in the temple courtyard area, so He chased away the animals and overturned the moneychangers’ tables. For they had turned the temple courtyard into a marketplace instead of a sanctuary.

Some Greeks, either Jews who lived in Greece or Greek converts to Judaism, were in town for the Passover celebration. They had heard about this Jesus who performed miracles and taught with authority, and they wanted to meet Him. And now, after everything that happened on that Palm Sunday, they really wanted to meet Him. So these Greeks find the disciple with the Greek name, Philip, and request, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” Philip isn’t sure what to do, so he goes to Peter’s brother, Andrew, and the two of them go to Jesus.

But Jesus gives what at first appears to be a strange answer. He doesn’t say anything about setting up an appointment for a private audience or even a brief appearance. Instead He says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” In other words, Jesus tells them that the time has come for Him to be lifted upon the cross, just as Moses had lifted up a bronze serpent in the wilderness. This will be the hour of Jesus’ greatest glory. For Jesus did not come into the world to be the object of attention, a handshaking politician or a smiling celebrity. He came to be the Savior who will bear our sins in His own body, dying to give us life.

It is this Jesus we need to see. It was this Jesus that the Greeks came hundreds of miles to see. They left their homes to travel to the temple in Jerusalem to offer up their sacrificial animals at the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They came to the temple, a sanctuary from the rest of the world, in order to receive forgiveness, hear of salvation, worship and give their offerings. The temple was the symbol of God’s dwelling place on earth. But, earlier in his Gospel, John described Jesus as being God’s physical dwelling place here on earth. The Greeks had come to find sanctuary in the temple but Jesus, Himself, was God’s sanctuary, a safe haven for sinners, a refuge for the rejected, a sacred place for unholy people.

We still need this sanctuary. Think about what your children face daily. Your grade schoolers find disrespect, poor parenting, crude humor and inappropriate relationships on supposedly children friendly TV on channels like Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and even the Disney Channel. Your high schoolers are being attacked by the pressures of underage drinking, illicit sex, and the mindset that there is no right or wrong. Your college students are being bombarded by promiscuity among students, attacked daily for their Christian faith by liberal professors and ridiculed for their quiet pro-life stance by in-their-face pro-choice groups. In the workplace, you are tempted by your sinful flesh to have an affair with a co-worker, to join in the gossip around the water cooler, to denigrate your supervisor in the office and to join with the other potty mouths on the assembly line.

You and your children are being attacked daily by the world around you. It sounds like you need a sanctuary. Then I have a question for you. Why do you stay away? Why isn’t worship important to you? If you need a break from the world, if you are looking for refuge, if you need a place to escape to from the pressures and temptations that surround you … then why aren’t you here more often?

This sanctuary of Epiphany Lutheran Church is very different from the rest of the world. It’s meant to be! You walk into church and there is quiet whispering before the service, for we are in the house of the Lord. The prophet Habakkuk reminds us, “But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him” (2:20). The vocabulary is different in here. We speak with reverence and awe. We preach Law and Gospel, not cute stories that make you laugh or cry or be motivated, but words that drive you to your knees in repentance and contrition and words that lift up your soul in forgiveness and joy. The pastor’s vestments are different. Though you may see me at various times in soccer shorts or khaki pants or a nice suit, I wear a white alb or a black gown to reflect that something holy and reverent is going on inside these walls. The music is different, too. You don’t hear the same music you hear on the radio on the way to work. We sing Psalms from the Old Testament hymnal and chant liturgies from the ancient church and sing deep, doctrinal, theological hymns that touch both our hearts and our minds.

You do not come here to receive more of the world and its culture. You come here to escape the world and immerse yourself in the culture of Christ. All around you, out there, you can hear the devil’s lies, view the world’s temptations and fulfill your sinful flesh’s desires. But in here … in here you see Jesus. You see Him as the Shepherd of the sheep and the One who was baptized in your place. You hear Jesus’ voice. You hear His absolution in the beginning of worship and hear His blessing at the end. And you taste and see that the Lord is good. You taste the body and blood of the Lord in His holy supper.

Jesus said, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20). Though God is with you everywhere, yet it is here in the sanctuary, where we gather for Word and Sacrament, that He gives us His special gifts. The Word of God is always powerful, even when read alone, but God commanded us to meet together that we may hear the Word preached and receive the Lord’s Supper in a fellowship of believers. This is why you need to come to church often and regularly, for this is where you see your salvation and feel it on your tongues. It is in the sanctuary and safety of the Christian Church that we receive the forgiveness of sins, the strengthening of our faith and life everlasting. Without these blessed gifts, how can we hope to resist the assaults of the world, the devil and our very own flesh? Apart from these gifts we receive inside this sanctuary, how can we hope that we and our children will remain in the faith? If we cannot find sanctuary here, then where?

The sanctuary of the church is where we can better see Jesus’ biblical imagery found in Scripture. The caretaker gives fertilizer and tender care to the fig tree so that it will bear fruit and not be cut down (Luke 13:6-9). You are the fig tree and your pastor is the caretaker, so that you will grow in faith and not be cut down on the Day of Judgment. Many of you are attending some kind of school, either elementary, high school, college or graduate. Is it not fitting and proper that alongside the knowledge that your school teaches you, that you should also receive Him who is Wisdom Incarnate (wisdom in the flesh) (Ephesians 3:10). Racine is a dangerous place, not just physically, but spiritually. There are wolves all around you, growling, biting at your heels, chasing you and waiting to devour you. Epiphany is the sheepfold where the Good Shepherd gathers His lambs and sheep for safety and protection. It is here where the Shepherd provides the green pastures and quiet waters for restoring your soul. For this is the place where you may seek sanctuary from those who are attacking you, where you may cling for mercy at the altar of the Lord, where you may find safety in the holy ark of the Church in your Baptism, and where you may receive the very body and blood of the Shepherd who laid down His life for us.

The temptations of this world are both old and new. The paths to hell are both many and varied. There is an ever-increasing darkness in our world. The crosses you bear are becoming greater and heavier. Yet this is the place where you can come to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” Where you can follow the narrow path of Christ’s righteousness. Where the Word shines as a lamp to your feet and light for your path. And where Christ who bore the full weight of our sins on His cross says, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).  

You are lambs and sheep that love to wander and stray. But this is where the pastor, your shepherd, chases down the lost sheep. Satan prowls like a roaring lion. The world hunts you like a pack of wolves. The Old Adam of your sinful flesh seeks to kill the New Man created inside of you. But your pastor, elders, council members and WLS teachers stand as guardians at the gate and watchmen on the watchtower, protecting you from harm to your soul. You are prodigal children who like to run away from home. Yet this is the place where the faithful Father calls for you to return.

The Greeks were looking for sanctuary from the world by coming to the temple for the Passover. Quasimodo was calling for sanctuary in the cathedral of Notre Dame. Epiphany Lutheran Church is your sanctuary. Like the Greeks, you may or may not find Jesus out there in the world. It is hard to hear His voice in the cacophony of distractions out there. It may be difficult to decipher His grace out there amidst all the attractions and temptations. It may be tough to feel His presence amid all the turmoil and troubles out there.

But it is in here – in the sanctuary – where the other voices are shut up and the distractions are shut out. Here you see, feel and hear Jesus. Jesus had prayed among His disciples, “Father, glorify your name!” This is where we call upon God’s name. “Our Father, who art in heaven.” This is where we come to Him in prayer. Where we can come to call upon Him in our hours of suffering. And this is the place where God speaks to us. His voice thunders from the lectern with His wrath over our sins. His voice calls out from the pulpit with His pronouncement that “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). His voice soothes before the font with water and Word washing over you and before the altar as He gives us a new covenant in His body and blood. Here you find fellowship and friendship among your fellow believers. When the world out there is attacking you, take the time, every week, to come in here to the sanctuary and see Jesus. Amen.