Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is one of those stories that happens in all four of the Gospels. But, there are some interesting differences in how they tell the story.  Sometimes there are two donkeys and sometimes there is one. Does anyone remember which story has two donkeys? Matthew! In Matthew, Jesus sends two disciples into a village where they will find the donkey and her colt. If the owner objects, the two disciples are supposed to say, “the Lord needs them” (which is also what they are supposed to tell people in Luke). Matthew also tells us that Jesus did this to fulfill two prophecies, one from Isaiah and one from Zechariah. The Zechariah one has the colt and the mother donkey.

     In Mark, it says Jesus sent two disciples, too. But, there’s only one donkey, a young one this time. And, Jesus tells them to tell anyone who asks why they are taking it that “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” It’s really nice for Jesus to make sure they knew that they’d get the donkey back. Mark, like Matthew and Luke, says that the disciples let Jesus use their cloaks like a saddle for the donkey. All four Gospels say that the people who see Jesus coming get excited and clear the way for him, by doing something to the road. Does anyone remember what they do? Mark and Matthew says they lay down their cloaks and leafy branches. Luke says they just laid down cloaks. John is the only Gospel that says they laid down palm leaves.  That’s where we get the name of the holiday from... today’s reading from John.

     Why was it so important for Jesus to be shown going to Jerusalem that each of the four Gospel writers included it in their accounting of Jesus’ life? Hope. It’s for hope. Because the people have been waiting for a leader for a long time. And, they thought there would be some signs that the leader had come. Jesus was going to be different that they expected. He always had been. This entry into Jerusalem needs to show people that Jesus is the leader the people had been hoping for, but it also had to show clearly that he would be different. This is no Roman governor on a military steed. This is Jesus, on a borrowed donkey, showing that God’s kindom will come through humility, not military might.

     The national and religious history that Jesus was born into assumed that God appointed monarchs for the people. David was an important one. In the wake of generations of traumatic wars, his people had come to understand that God could and would save them through a ruler descended from David. Each of the Gospels describe Jesus as the sovereign the people had been waiting for. In John, it says that the people shouted “Hosanna!” Cheryl Lindsay, in her commentary on this text, reminds us that Hosanna means “save us,” something you might say to a monarch or you might say to God. The people also shouted, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord- the king of Israel!” Even on a borrowed donkey, Jesus is called “king.”

     What kind of king rides into town on a donkey, a sign of humility and peace according to Lindsay Jodrey. The Jesus kind, I guess. Or, maybe the Zechariah kind. And, even though he looked different than any royal they had seen, the crowd knew enough about Jesus to believe that he could save them. Cheryl Lindsay, in her commentary on the text, points out that the crowd who is called “great” in the reading somehow managed to not arouse too much suspicion from the Roman authorities. Remember, Rome was always on the lookout for possible rebellions during Passover, sending extra soldiers there in case the people got too inspired by the liberatory stories of Exodus and tried to throw off the yoke of the empire.

     You’d expect the soldiers to squash a parade by someone claiming to be a rival monarch to Caesar. Jesus is clearly evoking images of a monarch in his entry into Jerusalem. I wonder if the reason this parade doesn’t irritate the Romans is because it is not for them. None of Jesus’ actions are intended to inspire either irritation or hope to the Roman soldiers and politicians. This is a sign for Jesus’ people, not the Empire. The people who had the eyes to see... who knew the stories of the prophets... they were the ones Jesus was doing this for. And the humility of this parade: a donkey, a traveling teacher and his friends, branches quickly gathered... of that is to help his people, and the people who would later follow him, know him better. And, understand how he would wield power differently than Rome, and, frankly, differently than David. 

     The author of John tells us that Jesus’ friends don’t really understand everything that’s going on at the time of the triumphal entry. Their understanding only comes later, after they’ve witnessed Jesus glorified. They will have to go through the fear of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion, before they understand. They will have to experience the awe of the Resurrection in order to look back and see this parade clearly. What I hope what they realized after the Resurrection was that Jesus was not afraid to say who he was to the people who needed him the most. He was not afraid to speak and act in ways that were meaningful mostly to them. While he never hid from Rome, he also knew that Rome ultimately had no real power over him. Even their cruel crucifixion wouldn’t stop him in any way that mattered.

     On Palm Sunday, we remember the way that Jesus would not be stopped by fear of the ones who had greater military power over him. And he wouldn’t be stopped by the fear of his followers who didn’t understand why he had to be so clear in his mission, even in the face of great danger. There is much to fear these days. But, Jesus shows us that we can’t let it stop us from showing up for the people who need his love and justice. Frank Herbert once said, “I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” May we pass through the fear with Christ, and into the Reign of God he is building in this time and this place.
​
Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Cheryl Lindsay: https://www.ucc.org/sermon-seeds/sermon-seeds-fear/
Lindsay Jodrey: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/the-crucified-messiah-opt-triumphal-entry/commentary-on-john-1212-27-1916b-22-3

     ​Single grains? What’s all this talk of single grains? Is this some kind of recipe? Are we talking about cereal? Cereal is good, but that’s not what we’re talking about this time. We’re talking about seeds and what it takes to grow.

     We’ve already heard one story that took place around Passover back at the beginning of John. Now it’s a different Passover and it is closer to the end. As we get closer, you will see Jesus prepare his friends for what’s coming. And, you will see Jesus meet new people who need to see him to understand him. In today’s reading, he does both. You might expect this reading to come after next week’s. This is an encounter that follows the events we call Palm Sunday. But, Holy Week is full. We should talk about this now.

     Rev. Dr. Cheryl Lindsay reminds us in her commentary on this text that when we talk about a grain, we are talking about a seed, and often a particular kind of seed with hard covering we might call a hull. The hull protects parts of the seed that will become a plant. That part’s called the germ. In order for the germ to grow into a plant, the hull has to break. If the hull isn’t broken open under the right conditions (in good soil, with water and light to coax it out), the plant can’t grow. The grain can never become more grains. It will simply exist as a dried-up bit of potential. It will have no new life. This story is to tell us that the hull is about to be broken open.

     At this Passover, some Greek people wanted to meet Jesus. Alicia Myers says in her commentary that they were probably Gentile God-fearers who followed some Jewish teachings, including going to the temple for Passover. Cheryl Lindsay is inclined to read them as Greek Jews, given that the author of John was writing to an audience of Jewish people who followed Jesus, it’s more likely that they are intended to be Jewish. Either way, they had heard about Jesus, and came to Philip to ask “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” The teaching that Jesus would offer them and the rest of the crowd gathered that day would be the last bit of public teaching he would offer.

     I’m not sure what the Greeks were expecting when they went looking for Jesus. I have a feeling that they hoped to hear his wise and strange parables or receive healing. That’s what many people looked for when they came to see Jesus. I’m not sure that they or the disciples were prepared for Jesus to speak of his death or of his troubled soul. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies it bears much fruit.”

     It is not always easy to grow. There’s more than one parable about seeds not having the right conditions to grow into healthy plants. Sometimes seeds fall on hard places, like rocks, and get eaten before they have the chance to grow. Sometimes they fall in places where they only have a little of what they need, and start to grow, but can’t flourish. I once saw a tomato plant growing out of a gap in a sidewalk in the middle of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Sure, it had some dirt and water and light. But I don’t think it was going to produce much. Some seeds, like giant sequoia seeds, even need fire to help them flourish. The fire opens up space for saplings on the ground, helps to break open the cones the seeds form in for protection, and clears away leaf litter so the seeds land on the bare dirt they need. If you’re like me, it’s hard to look at a burned- up forest and remember that the fire is a necessary thing. The seed can’t become trees without it.

      A good leader gives their team the opportunity to opt out of a hard action. Not every seed is made for the fire. Not everyone is willing to be in the dirt.  Jesus says that a seed must fall in the dirt. A hull must be broken. No fruit can come without a change... a loss of the seed’s original form. “Those who love their life must lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” To truly grow, the grain must return to the dark earth, and trust that it will find the resources within the dark earth to nurture it into new life. Barbara Brown Taylor once said, “The great hope in the Christian message is not that you will be rescued from the dark but if you are able to trust God all the way into the dark, you may be surprised.” To follow Jesus is to become a seed, broken open in the rich darkness, fed by what we find there, reaching for the light that we hope is beyond.

     Rev. Dr. Lindsay says, “Jesus did not come to be a single grain.” Even in the moment when Jesus tells the gathered crowd that his heart is troubled, what is weighing on him will not stop him. John, more so than any other Gospel, shows Jesus fully aware of what loyalty to his mission will mean for him. Just because he is troubled, he isn’t looking for reassurance that he is on the right path. He knows he is. And, the voice from above helps make sure his disciples also know. What will come may seem like the end. It won’t be.
​
     This question of Christians seems quite pressing: what is preventing us from following Christ into the rich darkness of this current time? What hull is surrounding us, offering a measure of protection while we mature, is no longer of use. Rev. Dr. Lindsay says, “A single grain may be comforted within its protective shell.” But, a seed in a hull of comfort and stability cannot grow. In this scripture, Jesus isn’t telling his followers to be as comfortable as possible. He tells them that they must be ready to be broken open in the darkness of the Holy What’s Next. What this world needs now is seeds ready to grow through conflict into peace.  As Rev. Dr. Lindsay says, “our privilege, power, and prestige may be used for this hour.” May we cease to protect a single grain. May we let that grain fall, trusting that the Living Water will grow in us many grains for the nourishment of this world.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Cheryl Lindsay: https://www.ucc.org/sermon-seeds/sermon-seeds-single-grains/
Karoline Lewis:

• https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-john-1220-33-3
• https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3566

About the Giant Sequoia seeds: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/giant-sequoia-needs-fire-grow/15094/
An interview with Barbara Brown Taylor: https://religionnews.com/2014/04/14/barbara-brown-taylor-encourages-christians-embrace-darkness/
Alicia D. Myers: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-john-1220-33-5
 
 
 

Every three years, today’s reading from John shows up in the lectionary cycle. And, every three years I notice that this scripture contains one of the strangest metaphorical explanations of who Jesus is in any Gospel as well as one of the most well-known verses in American Christianity. When we see a verse that is as immediately recognizable as John 3:16, it is tempting to gloss over it because we think we know what it means. I’m going to invite us to not read over the familiar too quickly today. So, let’s start with the less familiar part of this reading and work our way to what we know and see if we can learn something new. Let’s start with the thing about the snake.

The story of Moses and the bronze serpent is in Numbers 21. I don’t blame you if the Exodus stories of Numbers is not as familiar to you as the Exodus stories of, well, Exodus. Numbers is mostly set in the wilderness travels of the Exodus. Within the wilderness stories, a reader will also find lots of descriptions of Jewish religious laws beyond the 10 Commandments and lots of descriptions of Moses acting as a mediator between God and the people.

The story about the serpent starts out similar to the more familiar story about manna in the desert, which means it starts with people worrying that they won’t have enough to eat and even wondering if maybe they weren't better off in Egypt. The thing is, the snake story is not at the beginning of the Exodus. It comes after 40 years of God tending to them in the wilderness. You would think that would have been enough to show them that God would provide for them.  And, yet, Numbers tells us that the people became impatient and afraid. So, they did what impatient people often do... they complained.

While Cameron B.R. Howard points out in her commentary that the scriptures don’t specifically say God sent the snakes to punish the complainers, it sure looks like God did. Especially since the book of Exodus talks about plagues of critters God sent after Pharaoh. I am inclined to think that this whole “God sent the snakes” thing says more about how people try to explain away difficult events than it says about the actual character of God. Nevertheless, we should pay attention to how the people in the story explained a weird and scary thing that happened in their community. The people in the desert thought God sent down a bunch of poisonous snakes. 
 
Having tons of venomous snakes around seems like an accident waiting to happen, which is an unusual kind of plague, largely because snakes don’t typically hurt people unless we are messing with them. Typically, when you live with something so dangerous as this plague of snakes, I’d think you’d develop a habit of vigilance. Even with vigilance, though, people are still bitten. Enough people were being bitten that the whole community grew afraid. This time, though, they blamed themselves for the problem, not God.
 
They said that they had messed up by speaking against God and against Moses. They begged Moses to intervene with God and get rid of the snakes. Moses, true to his role in Numbers, intervened on their behalf. God does help, but not in the way the people expected. God doesn't take away the snakes, but God does give the people a way to be healed when they do run afoul of a snake. God had them build a bronze serpent and mount it up on a pole. When they looked at the serpent, they were healed.

This is a wild desert story, right? And, as best as I can tell, one that isn’t cited often in other parts of the Bible. Stories from the Exodus that carry a lot of weight in a community, like the manna and quail or the golden calf and the Ten Commandments, are regularly referenced beyond their original telling. Aside from the Psalms and other prophetic books referencing the fact that the people got angry or scared and complained to God, which, frankly happened a lot of times in Exodus and Numbers, there are only two references to Moses and the bronze serpent outside of Numbers: one in 2 Kings 8:14 and the other in John 3:14. If the snake on a stick story is one that is not referenced broadly across Jewish scripture, isn’t it interesting that the author of John has Jesus describing the Son of Man, a phrase he uses to reference himself, this way. What a strange choice.

Cheryl Lindsay reminds us of something useful in her commentary on this scripture. Today’s reading isn’t from a big speech Jesus is giving a whole crowd of people. It’s from a conversation he is having with one person, a pharisee named Nicodemus. In his notes on this chapter, Obery Hendricks says that the Pharisees observed Jewish purity laws more carefully that all other groups of Jewish believers. I think Jesus and the Pharisees founds themselves arguing so frequently because both he and they took living out their religious obligations seriously. If either of them cared less, they might not have so frequently found themselves in opposition.

Perhaps Jesus references an obscure story about Moses precisely because it was from the book of Numbers. Numbers is a book about, at least in part, the instructions for shaping your life according to love of God and love of neighbor. When speaking to someone who cares deeply about the Law, you demonstrate that you, too, know the Law, even the weird parts of it, as a way to build trust and affinity. Maybe that’s why Jesus’ uses this story while talking to Nicodemus.
 
Nicodemus visits Jesus in the dead of night because he is afraid someone will see him. The story of the serpent plague is certainly a story about fear, particularly about the ways that fear can push you back into modes of behavior based on scarcity. It can keep you from embracing the walk to freedom through the desert and settling the certainty of slavery with the Pharoah. It can even make you hide away at night, rather than approach new understanding in the light of day.

Nicodemus is afraid of being condemned for even entertaining the idea that Jesus will bring insight as to how to live according to God’s covenant. And, yet, even in his fear, he seeks Jesus out. In the verses just before today’s reading, Nicodemus asks Jesus questions about where his power comes from and for clarification on some of his more metaphorical teachings about the nature of faith. Today’s reading is part of Jesus’ response. And, part of his response is that he believes that his mission is to be an instrument of healing, not condemnation.

One of the most well-known parts of this passage is verse 16. I’ll share Wil Gafney’s translation of it: “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” I am quite familiar with readings of this verse that hold Jesus up as a grand arbiter who is quick to send people to eternal damnation. If those who believe will have eternal life, some argue, the subtext is that those who don’t believe will be condemned to eternal suffering. In a commentary on this passage, Karoline Lewis encourages us not to stop at 16, but to keep reading. The rest of the passage has a more complex view of condemnation. And, it is clear that Jesus is to be held up as a passageway for divine healing, not condemnation.

​It may not be the kind of healing people expected. Certainly, the bronze serpent was not what the Israelites expected in the desert. Dr. Lindsay argues that verse 17, which says, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him,” makes it clear that condemnation is antithetical to ministry of Christ. If we are using Jesus’ words primarily to condemn other people to poverty, isolation, and suffering, we are operating outside of his mission. If we allow our fear to limit us to hidden, creeping encounters with Jesus, we will find ourselves like Nicodemus, with a glancing awareness of God’s radiant love, but an inability to fully step into it. What the world sees in Jesus is healing, not condemnation. What the world should see reflected in Jesus’ followers is healing not condemnation. We never see Nicodemus again in John, or in any other Gospel, with the subtext being that he was too afraid to live in faith in full view of those who judge him. How sad that is for him. May we make a different choice and hold up Jesus’ love for the world to see. And, may the world be changed by it.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Cameron B. R. Howard’s commentary on Numbers 21:4-9: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3606
Karoline Lewis: http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5075
Cheryl Lindsay: https://www.ucc.org/sermon-seeds/sermon-seeds-condemnation/
Obery Hendricks’s notes on John in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: The New Revised Standard Version with Apocryphya, ed. Michael Coogan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
 
 
 

Sometimes, a story we read at church is only found in one Gospel. Sometimes it's in two or three of them. And, sometimes, it’s in all four. Dr. Nyasha Junior, in her commentary on this text, reminds us that the story in today’s reading is a story that is in all four Gospels. That means that all four of the people who compiled the stories of Jesus’ life and ministry thought this was an important story to share. In three of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the story takes place the week before the crucifixion. In John, it takes place at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. First, he gets baptized. Then he invites a group of people to work with him. Then he performs the miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding. Then, after a brief respite in Capernaum, Jesus goes to Jerusalem and gets in a fight with some people in the Temple.

This story is pretty wild. Jesus chases people and animals with a whip. He knocks over people’s stuff, and he screams at people who are doing an important job for pilgrims to come to Jerusalem during religious festivals. Sometimes, regardless of which Gospel is being read, this story gets called “Jesus Cleansing the Temple.” But, as Dr. Junior writes in her commentary, none of the versions of this story in any Gospel use the word “cleanse” to describe what’s going on. That is a name that got added by later Christian readers. In fact, Dr. Junior reminds us that the version we heard today doesn’t even tell us exactly what made Jesus so mad or what the purpose of his outburst is. She jokes that it might be better to call this story “Jesus flips out!,” or “Jesus loses it!” I’m inclined to agree. It makes me wonder why the person who wrote John thought this story was so important that they made it the fifth big thing that Jesus did in his public ministry.

​Like I said, all the people selling and buying stuff in the temple were supposed to be there. It’s not like our church fair, a fundraiser (though could you imagine Jesus knocking over our Second Time Around table). That’s when we have people buying and selling things in our church. In his notes on this story, Obery Hendricks outlines some of reasons why people were selling and trading things in the temple in Jerusalem. One reason was that ancient Jewish religious practice required bringing an animal to sacrifice. What animal you brought was usually based on how much money you had. Remember from back when we talked about Jesus’ parents bringing him to the temple for the first time. They brought two doves as a sacrifice. They probably bought the doves from people working around the temple just like the people Jesus got mad at in this story.

The people called money changers had a job, too. There was a certain amount of money worshipers gave when they came to Temple. But, they couldn’t give that offering, usually called the Temple tax, in any old kind of money. Remember, people in this era of the Roman Empire might have money created by many different governments, not just Roman money. They couldn’t use the regular Roman money either. They had to get their donation converted to something called the “half-shekel of Tyre” in order to give it during worship. Hendricks says it this way: “Roman money was changed into Jewish money to pay the Temple tax.” If all these people are supposed to be there to help devout people worship in the way God told them to, why would Jesus get so mad at them?

Karoline Lewis, in her commentary on this story, makes an interesting point. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the ones that put this story much later in Jesus’ life, show Jesus calling the venders in the temple a “den of robbers,” indicating that he thinks they are cheating people who have to use their services. That’s not what he says in John. In John, he says, “stop making my Abba’s house a marketplace!” Lewis thinks that means that Jesus isn’t calling people out for cheating other people, especially since buying and selling things was necessary for the whole system of sacrifice in worship. You had to get the right stuff somewhere. Best to get it at the temple. Lewis thinks that Jesus is being critical of that whole system, and maybe even saying that the whole system of sacrifice is unnecessary. And, that is a radical statement.

I haven’t decided if I think Dr. Lewis is right yet. Part of the reason why is because interpretations of this story where people argue that Jesus wanted to replace worship practices centering God’s presence in the temple with worship practices centering God’s presence in him have often been used to justify harming Jewish people. Dr. Dong Hyeon Jeong describes this kind of interpretation as “replac[ing] the Second Temple of Jerusalem (Judaism) with the body of Jesus (Christianity).” Historically, when Christians have talked about replacing Judaism, it has led us to persecute people who opt to be Jewish instead of being Christian. Because I know what kind of harm those interpretations continue to do in this world, I am leery of leaning too hard into the idea of trading one Temple, the one in Jerusalem, for another, the one that was Jesus.

Dr. Jeong offers a bit of context on John in his commentary on this text that might help us avoid interpretations that justify harming our Jewish neighbors. Jeong notes that at the time when this scripture was written, there wasn’t actually a distinct religion called Christianity. There were only followers of the teacher Jesus, some of whom were Gentiles but many of whom were Jewish. Those who were Jewish had to contend with Rome’s destruction of the temple in 70 CE... that is the same temple that is central to this story. According to Jeong, the community that the author of John was trying to address with this Gospel was a community that was looking for an explanation for how God could allow a second Temple to be destroyed by a brutal empire. For a people who have seen their temple, the very resting place of God, destroyed, it might bring comfort to them to understand that God was still at home among them, but this time in the body of Jesus whom they called Christ. Dr. Cheryl Lindsay interprets Jesus-as-Temple this way: The God who had once given them their religious law, including directions for temple sacrifices, as a means of maintaining right relationship with God and with one another, in the wake of the destruction of the temple, would offer another means for connecting with the Divine. This time, it would be the Incarnation. 

Dr. Lindsay is the primary crafter of the seasonal theme I have been attempting to follow this Lent. She is the one who suggested “saying no to transactionalism” as an interpretation of this story. While she acknowledges that humans are relational beings, and a certain amount of exchange of goods, ideas, and services is simply part of being a person, what she is concerned about is when the give and take that is a part of human life gets shifted into a competition to see who can construct their relationships around the idea that people owe them something. You can become very powerful when people owe you things... owe you money, owe you allegiance, owe you control. When we only exchange goods, ideas, and services so that other people, or even God, will do something for us, we run counter to the kind of relationships Jesus invites us to create. Jesus doesn’t want your faith to be a transaction that gains you more power in this world. Jesus does want you to build relationships like he did, through sharing, healing, and fighting for those who have been abandoned.

Too often, Christians have traded Christ-like relationships for power that destroys. Time and time again, through our history, when Christians have felt like the world owes them power, money, and loyalty, we have strayed the farthest from Christ’s teaching. God has not given us the world to make us powerful. God has given us Christ to teach us to love. We do not need to sacrifice our neighbors’ lives and well-being in order to maintain our cultural power. If Jesus did think he, himself, was the new temple for God, Dr. Lindsay points out that he did not rebuild the temple through “force, power, or might.” He rebuilt the temple, his body, in the mystery of the tomb. May we never feel like we must build the Body of Christ using the tools that killed Jesus. May we be assured that in saying no to transactions of injustice, we can more forward, sharing Christ’s gift of love.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Cheryl Lindsay: https://www.ucc.org/sermon-seeds/sermon-seeds-transactionalism/
Nyasha Junior, "Third Sunday in Lent," Preaching God's Transforming Justice, A Lectionary Commentary, Year B Featuring 22 New Holy Days for Justice, eds. Ronald J. Allen, Dale P. Andrews, and Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm
Obery Hendricks's notes on John in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: The New Revised Standard Version with Apocryphya, ed. Michael Coogan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
Karoline Lewis: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-john-213-22-3
Dong Hyeon Jeong: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-john-213-22-6