"Resurrection is Being Sent In Again", April 7, 2013

John 20:19-31 Acts 5: 27-32 The Resurrection is not about God's Final Victory. Over 2000 years later, Midnight Christmas Eve, we all gathered together, to lift the Light of the World, singing “Silent Night, Holy Night,” but when this Gift of God was given, when God became Incarnate the babe was born in a dark dank stable to a frightened couple alone, because the world had no room. On Palm Sunday crowds gathered, shouting Hosanna, but they envisioned a very different victory, where miracles happen, where underdogs become Emperor, where governments are overthrown. On Good Friday, the disciples did not gather to sing and pray, carrying the Cross for Jesus, but instead the Savior bore the cross for all the sins of all the world. He suffered and he died utterly alone. Easter, was not an event with choirs, organ trumpets, chocolate, eggs, lilies and Alleluias. Easter was God raising Jesus from death to life to send him in again. The Resurrection is only understood over against death, doubts and denials, where faith is sent in again. The Resurrection is not only Jesus return from death to life, but the redemption of each of us being sent in again. As a culture, what is memorable are not the ordinary circumstances of ordinary people, but we create caricatures of persons drawn large. Mark Zuckerberg is not simply the Geeky creator of a social network software while a college student, but the hooded pajama defiant youth changing the world through relationships. The problem being that we routinely scapegoat and blame individuals for their failures, rather than seeing the whole person redeemed, and we scapegoat as denial of seeing ourselves by blaming others. Our Christian Culture has accepted Peter as a Saint, and all the succession of Popes as being in the lineage of St. Peter, when each were men, Peter was a man who perpetually got things wrong, and when it seemed Jesus needed him most he denied 3 times. Judas has become synonymous with betrayal. When in truth, I believe there is nothing which the power of God cannot forgive, but what Judas did was to embrace an ending before forgiveness, before resurrection could be given. Thomas we identify as Doubting Thomas, when in fact Thomas was a realist, and according to John's Gospel one of the heroes of the story. When Lazarus had died, Jesus and the disciples were not there. They had not witnessed his illness, his dis-ease, his cold lifeless corpse buried in the tomb. The last they had been at Bethany, the people were ready to stone Jesus and the disciples for what they had said and done. So when news came of Lazarus, Thomas' response was “Let's go, even if we die with Jesus, let us go.” But at the cross, they had witnessed Jesus scourged, brutally beaten, made to carry the cross-piece timber of his own execution, stripped and humiliated, and left to strangle under the weight of his own body. And when he was dead, they took his corpse down, smelling the sweat and blood, the vinegar they had tried to have him drink, the cold lifeless dead and perforated flesh. Thomas was one of them who had placed the body in the tomb and watched as it was buried and sealed up. Because of circumstance, Thomas was not there in the upper room the night Jesus first entered in again. Having witnessed all that, having smelt and seen and touched Christ's death, Thomas names what realistically he must see and touch as proof in order to believe. To be honest, all of us have doubts. Doubt is not the absence of faith. Doubt is essential to belief. Only against the backdrop of death, doubts and denials is faith real. One of my Seminary Professors was Walter Brueggemann, and Brueggemann has named that “the problem for the Christian Church today, is that for most people God is no longer a primary actor in the story of their lives.” It is not that people do not believe in God, they do, we do, it is that apart from Church we do not think about God much. At Midnight on Christmas Eve, on Easter Morning in the Sanctuary, but not in the midst of life. When we bifurcate our lives in this way, death becomes only about loss and burial and faith becomes myth. A television special to watch. But if we accept that doubts and death, failures and denials and scars are part of a life of faith, then our faith becomes far more rich. The question is not whether God exists or not, even as a small actor among the cast of extras in our lives, God is there. The question is not whether we have doubts or whether we believe. Our doubts, the reality of death, all of our reality is what makes the convictions of faith, the redemption of our doubts into a witness that is so powerful. The Gospel of John had begun with a great mystery, a poetic puzzle that defied logic, reason and the imagination. “In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD was God. HE was in the beginning with God, all things were made through Him, without Him was not anything made real that was made. In Him was Life and that life was to be the light of all. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome the light.” Then we have the whole story of Jesus' baptism, calling the disciples, preaching and teaching and healing, and the Last Supper, his arrest and death and burial. And on this day, eight days after Easter, when the disciples were all together in this Upper Room with the doors locked for fear, and Jesus entered in again, and said “Peace be with you.” And Thomas' response, Thomas confession of Jesus is “My LORD and My GOD!” To Thomas was given the answer to the riddle of John's Gospel. No one else had ever said this before. Simon Peter had jumped to the conclusion that “Jesus was the Savior, the Messiah sent from God.” A Roman Centurion who had witnessed Jesus' suffering atonement and death had professed “Surely this was the Son of God.” But Thomas, whom all history has named The Doubter, after naming the realistic conditions brought on by his doubts, Thomas confesses Jesus to be “My LORD and My God.” The point is not whether we make mistakes. Whether we sin, whether we have failures, angers, doubts. We DO. We are human. When I was very young, my brothers and I spent summers on our grandparents' farm. What I recall most, were my Grandfather's hands. Whether genetically, or from years of milking morning and night his hands were like hams. And from years of farming, they bore many many scars. One in particular was at the center of his palm. He told the story that as a young boy, he had snuck out to the chicken coop which was the most secure and private hiding place he could imagine. He had taken a box of matches and when the door was locked, he had lit one. He was fascinated by the spark, how by turning the match this way and that he could make it burn faster, until all at once it burnt his fingers and he dropped the match. The match fell on a small amount of straw and the straw began to catch fire. Trying to not get caught and not get into trouble he grabbed a clump of straw to smother the flame. At first it worked, but then the flame grew bigger and hotter. He took a larger clump of straw and with his hands extinguished the flame and being fire he had gotten burnt. The flame put out, he left the chicken coop to go about his chores and play. However the flame was not extinguished and smoldering beneath the straw grew in intensity until the whole chicken coop was burnt to ashes. My grandfather said his father had his doubts and never knew for certain how the chicken coop caught fire, but he had carried the scar on his hand all these years. We each have those scars. The Sanhedrin were the local court, the local authorities who had arrested and tried Jesus. They were the very ones who had condemned and turned Jesus over to Pontius Pilate. The Sanhedrin believed the fire of this Jesus was put out when the spark was buried. But where this had been one man, now his disciples began preaching. They debated how to extinguish their heat, when Gamaliel named that if this fire was from God, nothing could ever put it out. Years ago, I served a church in another community. As a pastor, part of my responsibility is to have no agenda. The Session together are to lead us, but the role of the pastor is three-fold, to be a professional able to guide the Session in implementing what the Church wants to do. To make certain the people of the church are ministered to. To reflect spiritually and about God. In the course of things someone collapsed at the church, and as their pastor I went to the hospital. As they waited in the emergency room I sat with them and held their hand to calm them. The Medical staff reviewed their full history, that they had had breast cancer and lymphoma, and the variety of different medications. I tried to be invisible and to not listen, only to be that hand they squeezed when worried and afraid. But afterward my knowing their scars and vulnerabilities became something they were afraid of. They dropped out of activity in the church. One day I went to visit and brought communion. There is nothing magic about this meal, that like Alice in Wonderland makes you especially small or bigger. But the Sacrament names this life is not about us, not about our scars, but how the Christ entered in no matter what.