Your God Is Too Small

Rebecca Sheridan
Good Friday, April 18, 2025
John 18:1-19:42

    They laid Jesus in a tomb, sealed it with a large stone and placed Roman guards in front of it so that Jesus could be contained.  None of that resurrection stuff like happened with Lazarus.  No escaping death this time!  They thought death by crucifixion would be the end of it.  They saw him die on the cross, and he said, “It is finished,” so, that was that.  Or so they thought.  And so maybe we are tempted to think:  death is the end, that’s that, for us, too.
    When Judas betrays Jesus and the religious and political authorities come to arrest him, Jesus asks them twice, “Whom are you looking for.”  Jesus answers, “I AM.”  He answers with the holy name of God – I AM – a name only to be uttered by God himself.  They step back and fall to the ground in shock.  This is our first hint that Jesus cannot, in fact, be controlled by death on a cross, or contained by being sealed in a tomb.  Peter tries to stop them from arresting Jesus with force, but Jesus stops him, saying there is another way.  Others mock him because they cannot believe this man, suffering, humiliated, seemingly giving himself up to death, could possibly be the Son of God.  We see in John’s retelling of these events that many people’s understanding of Jesus is way too small.  Still today, many people’s understanding of Jesus is way too small.
But there are inklings that some people believe Jesus actually might be greater than he appears to be. John tells us that even Pilate of all-powerful Rome is afraid of Jesus.  “Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” he challenges Jesus.  But Jesus says, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above.”  Maybe this is why Pilate lets the inscription “The King of the Jews,” not, “This man said, I am King of the Jews” stand as it is.  Pilate is starting to understand the truth that earthly powers cannot hold Jesus – his kingdom is greater, his purpose in dying on a cross is greater.  
 Jesus insists that his kingdom is not of this world.  His kingdom cannot be contained by the four corners of the Earth.  Death cannot hold him, even as he hangs there on that cross.  He will break open our boxes that say that violence is the only answer, there’s only one way to solve a problem, there’s no way that in our sinful state we can be saved, that death is death and that’s it.  Victory through death over all evil and death itself has happened – THIS is what Jesus means when he says, “IT IS FINISHED.”  Jesus’ death is not the ending, but a new beginning!
So, how do we still today attempt to put Jesus in a sealed up, guarded tomb and leave him for dead?  How do we, like Peter, deny that we know who Jesus really is?  How do we, like Judas, deceive and betray instead of help people who are looking for Jesus?  How do we doubt the truth about Jesus like Pilate, or mock Jesus like the political and religious authorities?  How do we misunderstand Jesus’ final words on the cross, ‘It is finished” as words of despair rather than the triumph of the cross?  We still make God too small, wanting God to operate by the ways of the world instead of looking to the cross as the glory and victory of the Son of God, for us, and for our salvation, once and for all.  We think God is as limited as we are by time and space and history repeating itself.  But Jesus comes to show us a different way, to glorify God so that he might increase and we might decrease – to help us trust that God is bigger, greater, and that the empty tomb is coming soon.  The stone cannot contain him.  Victory is ours through our Lord Jesus Christ!  Thanks be to God.  Amen.