「イエス・キリストの遺言、その一」 棕梠の主日礼拝 宣教 2025年4月13日
ヨハネによる福音書 John 19章25〜27節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. The rain is falling in blessings, and we are thankful to be able to praise and worship with you this morning. To our guests, welcome to Okubo Church! We welcome you. Welcome back, church members! This morning, we are worshipping God as the Palm Sunday service, and we have prepared a prayer calendar for this year as well, hoping that you will walk through the Passion Week in prayer until Saturday. It is in Japanese only, but we hope you will find it useful.
Last week, I expressed my concern that due to copyright issues, we would not be able to stream hymns and other songs during worship services, but in God’s mercy, special measures will continue to be taken until the end of March 2026, so we will be able to offer praise together via live streaming in the future. This is all God’s mercy. I thank the Lord. Let us offer this thanksgiving as praise.
Well, yesterday we were able to hold our first big event, an egg hunt, on the lawn of Toyama Park, and over 100 people participated, including children, parents, and volunteer staff. It rained on Thursday and Friday, and we prayed a lot, but merciful God gave us wonderful and perfect sunny weather. We thank God for that. It was very hard to share about the true meaning of Easter to children who have never been to church before in a simple way, and I prayed all the way until Saturday morning. I was able to talk about the cross and resurrection of Jesus and the hope that God gives us. Everything is God’s mercy and grace. I am truly thankful that we are able to walk daily, receiving God’s abundant mercy as we live up to the annual slogan of Okubo Church.
The way to receive abundant mercy from God is to trust in God and Jesus. It is to seek His mercy with prayer every morning. In our lives, we must always magnify God and live humbly, keeping ourselves small. It is to believe that all blessings come from God, to believe in Jesus as our Savior, to hear God’s words from the Bible, to rejoice always that we are being kept alive daily in God’s love, to pray constantly, and to walk while giving thanks for everything. Do not try to live by your own wisdom, intuition, or strength alone, but entrust your life to God, the source of grace, and walk in that way.
As usual, I have to preface my remarks at length, but I hope that this morning we will hear together Jesus’ thoughtful words on the subject of “The Testament/last word of Jesus Christ, Part I.” Before His death on the cross, Jesus Christ left a testament to His disciples. This morning, I ask you to remember that. This morning we will hear from the Gospel of John what Jesus’ last will and testament was about, and next week at the Easter service on the 20th, we will hear the words of the resurrected Jesus, and the week after that, on the 27th, before the resurrected Jesus is lifted up to heaven, we will hear about the last will and testament he left to his disciples. The following week, on the 27th, we are preparing to hear about the last will and testament left to the disciples before the resurrected Jesus was taken up to heaven. This morning will be part one and the 27th will be part two, so please join us for worship.
This is a very personal matter, but a few weeks ago I received a phone call from my mother in the United States. She will be 88 years old this July. She just retired from her job of 19 years last month, and I guess she has more free time. I’ve written my will, so please take care of me according to my will! But his voice was full of power, brightness, and hope, as if he might live another 20 years. I briefly listened to the content of the letter, but I was overwhelmed by its content. For the past 59 years, my mother has loved and prayed for me, and I respect her with all my heart, so I would like to grant her wishes as much as possible, but what can I say, it is a bit crazy, it transcends time and space, it is like a fantasy, so after careful consultation with my younger siblings, I decided to grant about half of her wishes. I thought I would grant them about half of their wishes and ask them to forgive me for the rest. LOL!
Did you know. It is voluntary but Okubo Church receives wills for funerals initiative. Although family funerals are becoming more common these days, we ask that you fill out such a form so that there is no stress on your family regarding the funeral service when you are called to be with the Lord, and so that your wishes and intentions are clearly expressed to your family and the church before your death. The stress on the family and the church can be very different if there is no will, so if you are interested, please contact us for more information. For those who have prepared them previously, we recommend updating them as many years have passed.
As we read in the Gospel of John, Jesus, facing his death, left several wills to his disciples. One of the most representative is in chapter 13, verse 34: “I give you a new commandment. Love one another. Love one another as I have loved you”. This is Jesus’ wish and will for his disciples to become God’s family, to always care for each other, to pray for each other, to help each other, and to walk together. This is Jesus’ wish and will for us, the members of Okubo Church.
There are other testaments of Jesus: chapter 14, verse 1, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. And believe in me” is another testament. 15:4, ”Stay connected to me. I am connected to you. As the branch of the vine cannot bear fruit by itself unless it is connected to the tree, so you cannot bear fruit unless you are connected to me.” is also Jesus’ testament, as in the second half of 16:23, “If you ask anything in my name to the Father, if you pray to him, he will give it to you. Ask, and it shall be given you. Ask, and it will be given to you, and you will be filled with joy.” is also Jesus’ last will and testament.
This morning, we wish to listen to the last words of Jesus, who was about to be crucified and die on the cross. In the calendar of prayers for Passion Week, we are introduced to the seven words that Jesus uttered on the cross, four of which are his words to God the Father. Another is a word of promise of salvation to the prisoners who were crucified with him. And the other is John 19:28, “I thirst.”
The only testament in these seven words is from the Gospel of John, chapter 19, verses 26 and 27, and I would like to read from verse 25, which reads. ‘25 but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
For any parent, it is unbearable pain when a child dies before them. For any child, it is a great pain to die before his or her parents without fulfilling the child’s responsibility to them. Jesus was also concerned about his mother whom he was leaving behind, and verse 25 says, “her mother and her mother’s sisters,” indicating that his mother Mary had a sister or sisters. Jesus also had several half-siblings born to Joseph and Mary.
However, instead of requesting such immediate and extended family members to take care of his mother, he says to his mother Mary, “Mother, live relying on him who is now with you as your son,” and to the “beloved disciple,” who must be John, Jesus says, “I ask you to take care of my mother”. But why did Jesus leave a will, asking John, his disciple, to take care of his mother, rather than his immediate family? One would normally think that family members or relatives should take care of one’s parents. But Jesus seems to have other ideas, considerations full of compassion.
First, Jesus did not ask his brothers because they had not yet believed in him as their Savior. It is believed that they became Christians around the time of the birth of the church in Jerusalem after Jesus’ resurrection. Also, being sisters of Mother Mary, their ages must have been close. In that case, their later years would have been what we would call today “nursing care for the aged by the aged,” and the burden on each other would have only become greater. I wonder if Jesus took this into consideration when he made his decision.
The important thing to remember here is that he probably thought it best to entrust his precious mother to a trusted disciple, and that is why he made his will. But why entrust her to a disciple rather than to a blood relative? It is because God’s love is stronger than blood relationship. In our church, people of different genders, nationalities, languages, and races are gathered together as one church and worship together. What is it that makes Okubo Church the body of Christ, the family of God?
It is the redeeming blood of Jesus who is giving His utmost care for His beloved mother while in agony and anguish on the cross where Mary, His mother, and John, His disciple, look up at Him while standing in sorrow. It is the new life given in exchange for Jesus’ life. We, Okubo Church, are connected to God through the grace of being made children of God by His mercy through the cross of Jesus, for we are called to be God’s family by His love.
More than blood relations, we can love one another, remember one another, pray for one another, support one another, and serve one another because we are kept alive by God’s mercy through Jesus’ blood and life. Jesus’ last words on the cross are words of trust. We are trusted by Jesus to love one another, and God continually pours out His love for us to love one another.
Whenever we suffer in our daily lives, whenever we are tired of loving others, let us look up to Jesus who suffered on the cross in our place. His suffering is for us. We give thanks to the Lord. Let us walk as a church that responds to grace in a lively way.