At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

Debi and I are fans of the TV show 24 which is based upon a day in the life of the remarkably resilient Jack Bauer who has the ability of being able to be tortured almost to the point of death and 12 minutes later is foud with pressed pants and combed hair. In every episode someone threatens to kill or harm Mr. Bauer, or someone he cares about, and I will invariably say “Oh, that’s a bad idea.” And it always turns out to be a bad idea.

I had the same feeling, as I was working on the sermon this week and I read this threat from Herod concerning Jesus: “Oh, that’s a bad idea.”

You see, neither Jack Bauer nor Jesus Christ is motivated to do or not do anything based upon a fear of death. Nor are most of us, we aren’t afraid of death.

Now I want to distinguish between dying and death here. In all of my years of ministry, all of the people I have watched die, I cannot think of any of them who were regular worshipers and active participants in the Church of Christ who were worried about death. The confident faith that people have in God’s loving reception at the end of our lives is unspeakably, indescribably inspiring.

But dying, that’s a whole different subject.

We deeply believe that what lies ahead of us exceeds all that we could imagine, we trust the promises of scripture and sermon, but we don’t want to go through the dying part; the pain, the illnesses, the surgeries, the treatments, the farewells, the regrets. These are all part of the ending of life moments that diminish us and strip us of our dignity and identity and no one looks forward to it. Nor should we, someone once said, quite accurately, that “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die”, because dying is a nasty business.

Jesus knew that, scripture makes no apologies for that, dying is a nasty business and no one in their right mind wants to go through it.

You can hear it in Jesus’ prayer from the Garden on Maundy Thursday “if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

He knew what we all know, dying is real and ugly and painful and yet he went into it bravely, for he also knew what we all know: on the other side of dying there is a beauty and a peace and a joy that swallows up the pain.

That’s why he wasn’t afraid of death when Herod threatened him. “You go tell that old fox that I will do what I do, I will be who I will be until I am done”. It’s not easy standing up to the rulers of this world whether they are Kings or Presidents or Governors or Church leaders, yet Jesus gives us that example of what John Kennedy would later call Profiles in Courage, that example of doing what is right even when others are telling you that you are wrong.

Decades after Jesus dismissed the King, St. Paul would put this courage in words that carry us through funeral after funeral and I only wish we would pay attention to it the rest of the time: For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, not angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You see, the courage that Jesus displayed becomes our courage.

That’s the value of the Lenten Season, not that it gets us to Easter and we can celebrate the promise of how wonderful life in Heaven will be, but far more importantly Lent allows us to face up to the very real dangers and heartaches and pains of life in this sin-sick world of ours, it allows us to speak our truth courageously without concern for the consequences. Not with the despair filled courage of a fictional character who doesn’t care if he lives or dies, but with the faith filled courage of Our Lord who cared very much about living, yet he insisted that it would be living with honesty and integrity and love and pleasure and not even a king who could kill him would stop him from living his life the way God intended.

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

Now I’ve gone through all of that with somewhat of a sense that I am preaching to the converted, because I have seen you, I know you, I have watched people in this room come to grips with the reality that they are dying and as I said before, being dead isn’t what bothers us, it’s the dying part that we, and Jesus, would like to slide right by, but I’ve also seen his courage in lives that overcome the fear of dying.

However the second half of today’s sermon title is where so many of us fall short, we don’t know how to overcome our fear of living. We are afraid that we will fail and so we hold back.

We are afraid that we will fail in our relationships and so we don’t offer ourselves to each other, we get by on surface cordiality and conversations about the weather.

We are afraid that we will fail in our workplace, so we play it safe and we fly under the radar and we live out our vocations that are thin and empty and unsatisfying.

We are afraid that we will fail if we speak of our faith and our God and so we never know the joy of watching someone’s growth in faith and know that we have been a part of that process.

And here’s the important part, if you are listening to all of that and you are saying “well that doesn’t describe me!” If you have never failed in your relationships or in your occupation or in sharing your faith, this much is absolutely true: you haven’t tried enough! We need to realize that failure happens.

It only happens to be people who try, but it happens.

And success, real success, only happens to be people who try and fail and try again.

One of the reasons that I love baseball is that it is built upon failing until you succeed, that’s God’s Own Game: The greatest players fail to get a hit 70% of the time, they are worse at their craft then the weather people and the economists.

Failure happens when we extend our hearts to others, failure happens we get enthusiastic about our work, failure happens when we try to share our faith.

Jesus failed.

Yes, that’s what I said, Jesus failed.

Now before you petition the Classis to start a heresy trial against me, as if they need any encouragement these days, but before you start, let me take you back to the gospel lesson and listen to Jesus’ pain over his failure.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

There he is holding out his heart to the Beloved City and there they are, there we are, rejecting it. All of our Lord’s works and actions, teachings and healing, knowledge and faith were not enough to melt the frozen hearts of political and religious powers.

And it hurt him, it hurt him deeply.

But it didn’t stop him from living, his fear of failing never stopped him from trying and from remaining faithful.

Jesus failed.

But Jesus succeeded as well, in unexpected ways.

Did you notice who it was that warned Jesus about Herod’s intentions?

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

Some Pharisees.

We’ve all read and heard enough scripture to know that the Pharisees are the bad guys, except when they’re not. Apparently some were touched by Jesus message and life and so they came to help, apparently some were willing to be gathered under his protective wings. He had succeeded where most of us thought he had failed, he had touched the hearts of some Pharisees.

We never know where the unexpected support that God provides will emerge from, but it will always emerge.

Jesus didn’t let his failure to reach everyone stop him from reaching some. And we can’t let our failures stop us either, we can’t be afraid of living.

You’re heard me say, over and over again, that positive thinking many not always work, but negative thinking always does. Or, on this hockey Sunday, here’s a Wayne Gretzky quote: You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

We can’t be afraid to shoot, we can’t be afraid to live, we can’t be afraid to reach out – as individuals, as families and as a Church – and offer ourselves to others, provide pride and enthusiasm in our work and let others know about the source of our happiness and serenity.

And the results aren’t ours to measure, the success and failure stuff is all left to God to evaluate and to use.

That’s true for us individually, as families and as a Church, we can only be, we should only be, who we are at our best. We can’t be afraid of living.

Let me leave you with something that hung on the wall of Mother Theresa’s Children’s Home in Calcutta, it is about overcoming our fear of living:

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.? Love them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.? Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies.? Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.? Be good anyway.

Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable.? Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.? Build anyway.

People need help but will attack you if you help them.? Help them anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.? It was never between you and them anyway.

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”