Lent 5

Hanging above the altar in Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, is a rather unique crucifix. It can rotate 360 degrees on its vertical axis, so that Jesus on the cross can face those in the choir stalls for daily prayers and liturgies, then turn around and face the nave for Sunday masses and larger celebrations. To move it, a monk takes a forked pole about 4 or 5 feet long, grabs the bottom of the crucifix with the pole and turns it.

It just so happens that the two foot tall Jesus on the cross is magnetic. He sticks to the cross securely, but is taken down during Lent.

Magnetic Jesus — what a concept. I wonder what magnetic Jesus does when he’s not sticking to the cross? Hold up menus on the refectory refrigerator? Keep monastic art projects securely in place on a community bulletin board? How powerful is his magnetism? Do the monks have to keep their credit cards and thumb drives at a safe distance?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John is convinced that the lifting-up part refers to the cross, with Jesus’ still-living body writhing upon it. Surely, to the disciples, it’s an inscrutable saying. Only later, after the cross and resurrection, will his followers discern the full extent of its dark meaning.

There was a time when a magnetic Jesus was a common item in religious bookstores. The little statue of the Savior, his arms extended in blessing, was meant to be placed on the dashboard of a car. Its purpose was reassurance, a reminder of the Lord’s caring presence during morning and evening commutes. As the old song goes, “I don’t care if it rains or freezes, as long as I got my plastic Jesus, ridin’ on the dashboard of my car.”

It’s hard to find a magnetic Jesus nowadays, mainly because dashboards are now made of fiberglass or plastic. But old-timers know they used to be a thing.

The real Jesus is magnetic in a different sense. Just by being himself, he draws people towards him.

Gossip columnists laud the magnetism of certain movie stars or political leaders. By that, they typically mean a combination of good looks and a winning personality. These fortunate few have “star power.” They draw ordinary mortals into their orbit.

Another word used for this sort of superficial attraction is “charisma.” It’s a religious word at its root — although that’s not the sense in which the writers of People and Us Weekly magazines use it. A charism — closely related to charis, the Greek word for grace — is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The Christian understanding of charisma is far richer.

Jesus Christ, of course, is more than a mere celebrity. What he offers the human race is far more than mere star power. The story of his life, death and resurrection speaks to our deepest spiritual hungers. The promise of his continued presence assures us that we are never alone.

Jesus is magnetic in a way similar to those old-fashioned bar magnets that our grade-school science teachers used to explain the physics of magnetism. Remember how, if you placed two of those bar magnets together on a lab table in a certain way, they would fly together to meet each other? And do you remember how, if you spun one magnet around the other way, you could bring the two of them together, but you couldn’t make them stay there? As soon as you let go, one or both of the magnets would go spinning off in the opposite direction, unable to resist the powerful force of magnetic repulsion.

There was something attractive about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem — as described a few verses earlier in this very same chapter of John’s Gospel. (We’ll focus on that story next Sunday, of course.) That spiritual attraction causes the crowd to cheer. But there’s also something repellent about Jesus to those who are as yet unwilling to welcome him into their hearts. “Look,” say the scribes and Pharisees in amazement, as they see the surging crowd, “the world has gone after him!” (John 12:19). They speak those words not in admiration, but in revulsion. Soon enough, through their schemes, they will turn that world against him, squeezing his lifeblood out upon the stones of Calvary.

If you lay your ordinary, acquisitive life up against Jesus’ life, if you seek to align your life with his teachings, you may sometimes discover that your own life is spinning around until you’re facing the opposite way. It’s that power he has — God’s power — the power of righteousness, plunged into this world of sin like a hot poker immersed in a vat of water. It’s no wonder the principalities and powers crucified him. Once they discovered who he truly is, and what his presence in this world really means, they realigned the repellent poles of their magnet against his by brute force.

“I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” That’s spiritual magnetism at work! On the one hand, he repels; but he also attracts. Once the power of his love gets hold of you, you want to get closer.

At his birth, he attracted shepherds to a Bethlehem hillside, and wise men from afar. In the temple when he was 12 years old, the wise and the learned gathered round to hear his teaching. He called to his side fishermen who left their nets and tax collectors who abandoned their account books. Even the wise Pharisee, Nicodemus, came to him by night, to learn how to be “born from above.”

He called to his side women of every description — everyone from the practical, no-nonsense Martha to her dreamy sister, Mary.

Jesus can do the same thing for you today. Have you felt the pull of his love in your life, calling you out of your old habits? Have you experienced the fascination that comes from hearing his story? Have you ever turned to him in grief or worry or fear, and discovered at the center of your being a calm and peaceful place, where none of life’s storms can harm you?

If so, you’ve felt his magnetism. Perhaps it’s what has drawn you here to worship today.

Have you ever seen a magnet at work in a junkyard? It’s an impressive sight. Junkyard owners attach a large electromagnet to the end of a crane. The crane operator swings the magnet way out, over a barren field strewn with the wrecks of automobiles, and the magnet is strong enough to attract every kind of metal that’s worth refining. Everything that’s not attracted, the junkyard owner ships off to be destroyed or buried in a landfill. Everything the magnet has grabbed is saved and put to use.

There’s one other characteristic of those clunky, old bar magnets, so beloved by science teachers. If you take a magnet that’s powerful enough, and you strap another piece of metal right up against it for a sufficient period of time, that metal, too, becomes a magnet. Somehow the magnetic force leaps the gap, and the other metal bar becomes imbued with the magnet’s power.

Then, it too can attract others. It too can invite and guide others to the one source of all attraction.

If we’ve felt the pull of Jesus in our lives, and if we’ve submitted ourselves to his power, we’ll soon discover that our lives become magnetic, too. His magnetism will work through our own lives to invite others into a relationship with him.

Perhaps you’ve already begun to feel the attraction. Maybe you feel your soul yearning for that saving story of King Jesus, riding on a donkey, then hung from a cross, then bursting forth from the tomb that could not hold him in.

As we move towards Holy Week and our celebration of those world-changing events, know that the entry of the Son of God into human life is not only a matter of teaching, of blessing and of healing — it’s also a disturbance. His story reminds us that God still has plans for the world, big plans. And within those plans is our own particular place: the unique duties God is calling us to perform.

We can respond to that divine disturbance with hostility and rejection, or we can welcome the Lord as liberator and life-giver. How will we answer that call?