Easter – Salvaged Faith

The End of the World as we Know it.

Posted on May 1, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Revelation 1:4-8

“It’s the end of the world as we know it… .

It’s the end of the world as we know it…

And I feel fine.”

More than fine, actually.

I feel hope.

I feel promise.

I am clinging to the love of God that is bursting forth alive in this world!

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

As we journey together through this season of Easter, we are going to wade into the elusive and strange revelation shared by John of Patmos.

United Methodist pastor and theologian, Magrey DeVega writes that this book can be used “as a guide to experiencing the resurrected life. John’s vision allows us to see the world, the church, and the Christian life in the way God envisions it: not for how it is, but for how it can be.” (A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series, Vol. 2, p. 197).

The world as we know it, well, it is kind of a mess.

As we lifted up in prayer already this morning, it is a world filled with hunger, violence, oppression, death, disease, and inequality.

I can’t help but think of the opening of the seven seals in Revelation chapter 6, where four horsemen are unleashed with authority “to kill by sword, famine, disease, and the wild animals of the earth.” (6:8)

Persecution and natural disaster are close at hand (6:9-17).

We may not know where to start interpreting or unpacking the verses of these texts, but we don’t have to look far to see the realities they present in moments of crises all around us.

And you see… that is the thing about apocalyptic literature.

It is an unveiling of what is already there.

The Greek word apokaluptein literally means to uncover.

It means to pull back the curtains and let the light in.

It is not necessarily a prediction of the future.

The prophets of our Old and New Testaments spoke God’s truth and power into their time and place as they point to God’s intentions and will for our lives.

It is also a word from the one who is… and who was… and who is coming…

In that sense, they do point towards the future and the kind of actions and behaviors God is calling us to embody as we are formed into God’s people, made into a kingdom, set apart to serve.

The prophets tell us the truth about the world as it is and beckon us to leave it behind…

No, not just that… they promise us that God is in the business of transforming the world as we know it into a new reality, a new creation, a new life centered on God.

Sounds like an Easter kind of story to me.

So why all the strange images and numbers and blood and violence?

What are we supposed to do with all of the weird stuff that we find within the Book of Revelation?

I must confess that our series on Sunday mornings is not going to dive into all of the nitty gritty of every verse and metaphor and vision.

We will skip large sections of this book.

And part of the reason for that is that it would probably take us a couple of years to really take the time in worship to do this right.

But the other reason is that we don’t need all of the details about what this beast looks like or what is in the fourth bowl or what happens when the fourth trumpet sounds to understand the main point of the text.

As the authors of “Crazy Talk” describe it: “No matter how bad it gets, Christ has already emerged victorious and because you are joined in the body of Christ, you will emerge victorious as well.” (Crazy Talk: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Biblical Terms)

What I can do are give you some tools to help think about and interpret the things that we will encounter as we read this text.

The first tool that I want to give us is a key to decipher the meaning of the weird stuff that we find.

I want you to think of it like a political cartoon.

In newspapers today, you’ll find images of donkeys and elephants and those of us living in the United States today can understand that it is not about animals, but about people and positions.

Take for example this political cartoon from World War II.

It isn’t a literal depiction of a baby fighting a three headed giant… but depicts the U.S. as newly entering the war against the Axis powers, using the tools of our allies. We are familiar enough with the images and dates that we can interpret the meaning.

But if we were looking at a political cartoon from 100 years ago… or from Nigeria or New Zealand… we might have a harder time deciphering the meaning.

Philip Long writes that when we look at texts like Revelation, “we need to cross two different boundaries. We need to study the imagery in the proper time and in the proper culture… put it in the right era…. [and] know the cultural cues implied by the art.” (https://readingacts.com/2012/04/05/revelation-and-apocalyptic-imagery/)

Knowing that the book of Revelation is from the late first century, written on a Greek island in a time where Christians were persecuted by the Roman Empire, we can start to unpack and interpret some of the vivid and dramatic imagery that we find.

Numbers, for example, have meaning.

The number seven represents completion or totality… the sum of all of the heavens (3) and earth (4)… like the seven days of creation

Twelve represents God’s people… three times four… like the twelve tribes of Israel or the twelve apostles.

We can start to see the beasts as the empire of Rome and its allies and the throne is about where power ultimately resides.

The second tool I want to give you is an orientation in time.

I brought with me this morning a commentary on the book of Revelation that lays out at least four different ways that you can approach this text and then provides at least four different interpretations of a verse based on which approach you are taking.

How many of us here have read “The Late Great Planet Earth” or the “Left Behind” series?

Those authors and some preachers that you might have heard on the t.v. or radio, have a future orientation to the Book of Revelation. They believe that it predicts things that will happen, but haven’t yet.

Or maybe that are happening as we speak.

But just as I wouldn’t take that political cartoon from WWII and use the metaphorical imagery to speak of future events, I don’t think this is the orientation we should take towards Revelation.

It might sell, but I’m not sure that it is truly faithful to the text.

And neither do the leading people who study the Book of Revelation.

In his book “Making Sense of the Bible”, Adam Hamilton writes:

“I’ve got ten commentaries on Revelation in my library, written by some of the foremost scholars to study this book, and every one of them holds some combination of the preterist and idealist perspectives. This is in stark contrast to the views of most television evangelists and many conservative preachers, who favor the futurist view. Most mainline scholars see the book as describing events of the author’s day.” (p.285).

Now, he just threw some big words at us, but the “spiritual” or “idealist” view thinks that the book is timeless… that it uses metaphor to talk about how good and evil constantly battle in this world with the promise that God will ultimately win.

The “preterist” view is oriented towards our past and John of Patmos’s present.

John isn’t reading tea leaves or telling the future, he is describing events that are happening as he is writing and speaking about how God is present in the midst of it.

Many scholars hold those two in tension.

They look back to what was happening in the time of John of Patmos… apocalyptic literature after all is about revealing what is there… but believe we can apply the themes of the text to the struggle between God and the powers of the world we experience and remembering that God will ultimately prevail.

This orientation is probably the most helpful to us today as we try to figure out what to do with this strange writing.

Finally, I want to remind you to keep the main thing the main thing.

The text we began with this morning from Revelation is a sort of overview or introduction to the themes that we will discover within the book.

John of Patmos has received a word, a revelation, from Jesus Christ the slaughtered and risen Lamb and is sharing it with the world.

The message is simple: Jesus is coming and he will sit on the throne and the world and all its powers will not.

Our work is to allow God to make us into a kingdom, to serve as priests, and give God praise.

That’s it.

Those are the basics of this entire book and it is the lens we can use to make sense of every verse we read.

The locusts and plagues and persecution… the worst things will never be the last thing.

And we have a choice about whether we will serve God and worship God or if we will choose to throw our lot in with the powers of this world that bring nothing but disaster and death.

And friends, we know the end of the story!

We know how it turns out!

God wins!

Friends, this is a book of hope and love and life!

These aren’t meant to be texts of terror or designed to confuse or scare us.

As Nadia Bolz-Weber writes,

“originally… apocalyptic literature —the kind that was popular around the time of Jesus—existed not to scare the bejeezus out of children so they would be good boys and girls, but to proclaim a big, hope-filled idea: that dominant powers are not ultimate powers. Empires fall. Tyrants fade. Systems die. God is still around.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/03/14/were-in-the-midst-of-an-apocalypse-and-thats-a-good-thing/

The world as we know it… with all its trials and tribulations… is coming to an end, and we are fine.

More than that… we have hope because it is all in God’s hands.

You Will Be My Witnesses

Posted on May 16, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Luke 24:44-50, Acts 1: 9-11

Forty days after Jesus rose from the grave and conquered death, he led the disciples out to the countryside to the little town of Bethany. And he reminded them of everything he had done.

Jesus reminded them of how he healed and forgave.

He reminded them of his words and truth.

He connected the dots for them and helped them to understand his suffering and death.

I’m pretty sure that he probably talked about love.

And then he said five simple words: “you will be my witnesses.”

He blessed them.

And he left them.

On that day, forty days after Easter, Jesus was taken up into heaven.

And the disciples, our scripture says, returned to Jerusalem with joy in their hearts to spend time in worship and prayer and to wait.

You will be my witnesses.

You know, we started this series on what it means to practice resurrection by talking about how we are called to be the living witnesses of the resurrection.

We are the proof that Jesus is alive and that God is real and that the Holy Spirit is moving.

Everything we say and do is a sign to the world of the reality of resurrection power.

There are some days, however, when I wrestle with why Jesus couldn’t have just stayed with us and done all of this himself.

Wouldn’t it be so much better if Jesus was standing here teaching and preaching? Leading us? Showing us how to live?

There are so many problems that we face in the world today…

The ravages of illness and death…

The exploitation of workers…

Natural disasters…

And then there are the political tensions and violence…

Our scripture today takes place in Bethany – just two miles from Jerusalem in the time of Jesus.

But today, that journey would require traveling from Israel into the West Bank through a separation barrier.

Today, the conflict between the Palestinian and Israeli people over land and the right to exist and live and move freely makes this a dangerous place.

As rockets and missiles fire, and the death toll rises… especially among the Palestinians who are far more vulnerable.

How I long and pray for peace for these peoples.

And how I wish that in that very spot where Jesus once stood, he might stand again, raise his hands, and breathe peace upon the world.

What is the ascension all about? Why is it good news?

Why were the disciples… who were so scared and timid in the days after his death, so filled with joy at this experience?

This language of going up or ascending is really the “language of enthronement.” (GBOD)

In the ascension of Jesus, he rises not simply from the grave, but up to his full authority.

He no longer walks and talks among us but he is now “seated at the right hand of the Father.”

He is no longer the prophetic carpenter from Galilee, but he has risen to his fullest stature as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

The ascension is the completion of the resurrection.

And that is a good and holy and awesome thing.

But there is something else to the ascension that we often miss.

In the incarnation of Jesus, we celebrate the word of God was made flesh. We witness how God came down and was born as a tiny babe in Bethlehem.

Every aspect of our human life was experienced by God.

Love and loss.

Stubbed toes and broken promises.

Laughter and tears.

Disappointment and overwhelming joy.

Fear and grief.

Jesus experienced the fullness of our lives – and the ultimate depths of suffering and death.

God entered our humanity in the birth of Jesus… that little child who was fully divine.

And when Jesus Christ – a man of flesh and blood, a fully human being who ate and drank and lived and died – when Christ is taken up into heaven, all of humanity is taken up to God also.

These two moments: the incarnation and the ascension unite the human and the divine. They establish an unbreakable relationship.

And so we don’t need to stand on the Mount of Bethany, with our mouths open, staring at the sky waiting for Jesus.

As the angels – those messengers in white robes who show up remind the disciples – ask, what are you doing standing around for?

Jesus has not left us… he has united us with the divine.

“You will be furnished with heavenly power,” he says as he is carried up into heaven.

You will be my witnesses.

You are going to tell my story.

Jesus blesses us and empowers us to carry on the work of love and grace and transformation in the world.

To be the people of the resurrection.

As I think about our graduating seniors, I think about how this time of transition is just like that blessing and ascension moment.

For years, we have been pouring our love and faith into you.

Today, we have the opportunity to bless you and send you out into whatever God has prepared next for your lives.

But you aren’t leaving us.

And we aren’t leaving you.

We are simply moving into a new phase of our relationship and lives together.

You are crossing a threshold and claiming your lives in new ways.

You are going out to be witnesses for Jesus.

To tell the world what Jesus has done.

To love people as Jesus has loved us.

To share God’s kingdom with the world… as you learn and grow and teach and play and serve.

But there is another truth here…

Sometimes, I bet you as students have heard that your real life begins after you graduate.

But you have been pouring love and ministry back into us through your leadership and energy and service and witness this whole time.

You are not the future of the church… you ARE the church and have been the church.

You didn’t have to wait until you graduate or until you finish college or get a job… you get to serve Christ right now.

One church put on their sign, “We believe in life before death.”

And in the church, just like we sometimes get it wrong about our young people…

We can get so caught up in life after death, in what happens up there with Jesus and whether or not we are going up there, that we forget about this life.

Jesus invites us to live before we die.

He invites us to go and share and tell and bless and love.

He invites us to not only live, but to share new life with the broken and hurting of this world.

William Herzog II writes that “neither resurrection nor ascension is about human longing for life after death. Resurrection is a call to mission. Nothing is said about the disciple’s resurrection… they are focused on waiting… until the mantle passes to them and the power from on high endows them for the mission ahead.” (Daily Feast, Year C, pg 277)

We practice resurrection and work to make God’s will happen on earth as it is in heaven.

We practice resurrection because the Kingdom of God has come.

And in the ascension, we are connected and reminded of the divine power that will allow us to do so.

You know, those disciples were asked to wait… but they didn’t have to wait long.

Next week is Pentecost Sunday and after just ten days of praying and praising and expectation, the Holy Spirit rushed into their lives and forever changed the world.

You know… if Jesus had simply stayed with us – he would have just been one person.

But the Body of Christ… the church… is greater than one man.

And we are going to explore in these coming months how those first disciples claimed the power of the resurrection.

How they found the courage to speak God’s truth.

How they reached out in love.

And how the message of Christ moved from Jerusalem, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Quick spoiler alert… it wasn’t easy.

At times it felt impossible.

As impossible as it might feel today to pray and work for peace for the Palestinian and Israeli people… or to respond to a natural disaster… or to navigate forces of oppression… but…

That is our mission.

To receive God’s power.

To share God’s love.

And to change the world.

May it be so.

Behind Closed Doors

Posted on April 12, 2020Leave a comment

Text: John 20:18-20

Almost every Easter, we focus on the tomb.

We focus on the women.

We spend all of our time and attention on that glorious moment when they discover the tomb is empty and Jesus is alive and they have a story to tell.

But this morning, I want to focus on the rest of the disciples.

As my friend, Rev. Allison Lanza, reminded me a few weeks ago, the rest of the disciples were not at the tomb.

They were not in the garden.

They were not taking risks and bringing oils to honor the body of their Lord.

As Rev. Lanza wrote,

“On the very first Easter the disciples were locked in their house. It was dangerous for them to come out… They were living in a time of such despair and such fear. If they left their homes their lives and the lives of their loved ones might be at risk.”

Only a few of us are able to gather here at this empty church to lead worship for this morning… just like only a few ever gathered to witness the empty tomb.

The rest of the disciples… the rest of the church… the rest of the faithful…

Well, you are home.

You are home where you are safe.

You are home where you are doing everything you can to protect your loved ones.

You are home because it is dangerous not just for ourselves, but for our vulnerable neighbors as well, to go out.

It is not irrational fear keeping you home… but very real concerns and worries and sensible measures that we need to take to care for one another.

This year, we may not be dressed up in fancy clothes and crowding into the pews.

One of our biggest disappointments might be missing out on that beautiful and delicious Easter Breakfast put on by VIM.

We aren’t watching the kiddos squeal and run past each other finding eggs and crashing after eating all the candy.

But maybe what we are experiencing this year is a glimpse into what that very first Easter was like for those who followed Jesus.

It wasn’t about candy or food or clothes.

It was a group of people who were grieving and lonely and scared.

They were heartbroken and frustrated.

Everything they had planned and all of the possibility vanished on the cross.

They were desperate for a glimmer of hope, a hint of good news, a ray of possibility.

We don’t have to imagine what that was like.

We are living it.

We have loved ones who have tested positive for Covid-19 and you are worried about them and unable to go visit.

We are longing for connection and know you shouldn’t risk it.

We are grieving people in our lives that we have lost but have been unable to go and properly mourn.

All of the plans that we had for this spring… concerts, games, graduation, weddings… heck, even simply barbeques or camping trips or playdates…

In the blink of an eye it was gone.

Postponed indefinitely.

We are desperate for a glimmer of hope, a hint of good news, a ray of possibility.

I have to be honest… somewhere early in the midst of this crisis, I suggested that we postpone Easter.

I just couldn’t wrap my head around Easter with the church filled up with people.

I couldn’t imagine laughing and singing and praising God and shouting CHRIST IS RISEN… without having all of you shouting it back to me.

And Easter is technically a moving holiday… we celebrate it on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox… which is another way of saying, it doesn’t matter what day it is.

So I got this idea that we should just wait and sit in Lent for a little while longer and postpone Easter until that Sunday when all of us could gather and hug and sing and shout and stuff our faces with food.

But then I realized… this was not going to be a delay of a week or two.

And maybe more than ever we need a glimmer of hope.

We need a hint of good news.

We need to see that ray of possibility.

Easter wasn’t cancelled or postponed or forgotten because the disciples were huddled together, shut behind locked doors, closed off to the world.

Easter wasn’t limited to the few people who were able to gather at the empty church… I mean tomb… on that morning.

Easter wasn’t simply a rumor or a story told by others.

And you know what, that first Easter wasn’t even something the disciples had to risk their own lives to go out and experience.

No, John tells us in his gospel account that even there amid the apprehension and uncertainty and fear, the miracle of Easter showed up.

The resurrected Jesus somehow slipped passed those dead bolts and latches and stood among them.

Right where they were.

In the safety of their homes.

God-with-us… Immanuel.

On Easter Sunday, there were a few who were called to go out and proclaim the story.

In some ways, I resonate with Mary, tasked with bringing the news from the empty tomb to share it with all of you.

But not everyone could.

Not everyone was safe.

Easter was for them, too.

I don’t know what your Easter will be like this year, but here is one thing for which I am certain.

God is with you.

The Lord of Life is with you.

The Hope of the World is in your midst.

And when he showed up with those first disciples in their homes, the first words he uttered acknowledge their… our… difficult reality.

“Peace be with you.”

He didn’t scold them.

He didn’t open the doors and push them out into the world.

Jesus offers a word of reassurance.

He simply offers peace.

Peace unlike any else that the world gives.

A breath of the spirit that reminded them of the words spoken just days earlier as they gathered around the table in the upper room.

“do not Let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27 NRSV)

“In the world you have distress. But be encouraged! I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33 CEB)

We sometimes think about peace as a calm.

Or as the absence of war.

But the Hebrew use of peace was an all-encompassing word of complete and total well-being.

It meant salvation.

It meant being “uninjured and safe, whole and sound.” [1]

Jesus stands in their midst, wounds still visible, and yet he reassures them that all is whole and well and that his earthly work among them is complete.

Jesus is our peace.

He is our shalom.

Through him, we are restored to God…

We are restored to one another…

And we are sent forth to restore the world…

My prayer for you, today, is that that same peace would show up in your homes.

That the Easter blessing of peace might find you wherever you are.

I pray that in spite of everything, you might be able to breathe in that gift of peace.

The apostle Paul knew a little something about being under house arrest, imprisoned, unable to go out and visit and care for those whom he had grown to love.

But even in a prison cell, the peace of Christ was with him.

And so his words to the people of Philippi, I share now with you.

⁴Rejoice^[^c^] in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.^[^d^] ⁵Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. ⁶Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Wherever you are this morning, friends, let that Easter gift of blessed peace fill your lives. Amen.

[1] https://www.efca.org/blog/sunday-resurrection

This is Love: Love that Conquers Death

Posted on April 21, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Song of Songs: 8:6-7, Luke 24:1-10

In the sensual poetry of the Song of Songs, we hear the tale of a young couple madly in love with one another. Their love is made every more delicious by its scandalous nature, and explodes with emotion and passion. Every time I read through its passages, my mind wanders to the forbidden love of couples like Romeo and Juliet. So taken are they with one another, death itself could not drown out their love.
“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm,” the young woman speaks, “for love is as strong as death, passionate love unrelenting as the grave.”

In some ways, we find the overwhelming love and passion of these verses a little silly and sentimental.
But the truth is, we have known that love.
When we hold the hand of a dying parent or grandparent, we know the strength of the love that cannot be defeated by death.
When we say goodbye to a loved one, to a spouse or child taken too soon, we know the unrelenting passion for that beloved and precious life that will never leave our hearts.
Every birthday. Every anniversary. Every time we come across their favorite flower or song or team, that love pours back into our soul.
For me, it is the smell of lemon verbena. I am instantly transported back to my grandmother’s side and the smell of the lotion that was on the side table. Memories flood my heart with all of those moments of laughter and lessons… baking casseroles in the kitchen… hearing her encouragement for my endeavors.
And then I open my eyes and remember it has been nearly eighteen years since she passed.
We live with the reality of our loss. The love we have for another cannot snatch them from the arms of death. It cannot keep someone breathing or their heart pumping. It cannot bring them back to life.
Our love endures death.
The silence of the grave cannot take away the love we have for another person…
But neither can our love cannot defeat it.

On Good Friday, we carried Christ to the tomb. The stone at the entrance was secured and then we began to sit in lament.
Death is the final wilderness.
It is imagined as a place of suffering, darkness, silence, and nothing.
Our love endures, but the reality of death continues.

That enduring love brought three women to the tomb on Easter morning.
Their beloved teacher and friend… the one who had showed them what it truly means to live… had been taken by the powers of the world and had been executed.
They came to the tomb early that morning with love in their hearts.
Love that caused them to set aside any fears they might have about being arrested.
Love that was stronger than the desire to remain safe.
Love that couldn’t be extinguished by a criminal’s death on a cross.
Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James went to the tomb with love in their hearts expecting to encounter death.
They were going to look death square in the face and anoint the body of their Master.
They were going to tell death that it might have taken away their hope, but it could not destroy their love.

They discovered something they could not understand.
The tomb was empty.
His body was gone.
Angels suddenly appeared among them…
“why do you look for the living among the dead?”

On that Easter morning, so long ago, we discovered a love that was stronger than death.
God’s love for the world.
And that love poured out through the cross.
That love entered the reality of death.
It was a love so strong that the forces of death could not contain it.

Our journey through Holy Week rarely spends much time with the reality of Holy Saturday, but I want to take you back there this morning.
You see, the power of death is all around us.
And it can only truly and finally be defeated if it is confronted head on.
God’s love for this world is so great and so deep and so wide that nothing and nobody can escape it.
Not even the depths of hell.

In the Apostles’ Creed, we recite words handed down for centuries that convey the most important realities of our faith.
I actually want to invite you to pull out your hymnals and turn to page 881… or peek into the back corners of your memories… page 881… and recite with me once again those ancient words.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried;*
The third day he rose from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The holy catholic church,
The communion of saints,
The forgiveness of sins,
The resurrection of the body,
And the life everlasting. Amen.

How many of you noticed that little asterisks in the printed version in the hymnal.
Look down at the bottom of the page at what words we so often leave out.
After Jesus suffering and death… after he was buried in the tomb… the traditional way we remember this story is that Jesus descended to hell.

In the First Epistle of Peter, we are told that the God who made everything, came to us in the life of Jesus Christ… and that in order for all of us to be brought back into the life and presence of God, God’s love descended even to the depths of hell… even to the spirits who were in prison… and shared with them the good news of life and love and light.

My friend and colleague, Mary Bellon, wrote these words for her Holy Saturday devotion for the Annual Conference

“I think it must have been so quiet
In heaven, when God came home
Dragging with him the souls
Who had been lost, carrying them
On his shoulder and over his back
One by one, up from all pure lost-ness
Into heaven and such still silence,
Nobody wailing or weeping but held now
In the abiding, in the coming home.
For three days, he carried the lost
And shut the door on hell… ”

You see, in the holy moments between the cross and the tomb this morning, Christ was busy.
Christ was busy breaking this world free from its chains.
Christ was busy opening up all of creation to the power of God’s restoring, redeeming, recreating love.
Jesus entered the wilderness of hell itself and rescued the disobedient, broken, lifeless, defeated people from the prison of death.
And when he got up on Easter morning…
When he rose up from the depths of hell…
When he stood in body and spirit, in all of his resurrected glory before the disciples…
Christ ushered in a new kingdom where every power that would destroy life, every force that would bind us up, every authority… was now put on notice.

As the Apostle Paul writes to the people of Corinth,

“Christ has been raised from the dead. He’s the first crop of the harvest of those who have died. Since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead came through one too… Each event will happen in the right order: Christ, the first crop of the harvest, then those who belong to Christ at his coming, and then the end, when Christ hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he brings every form of rule, every authority and power to an end. It is necessary for him to rule until he puts all enemies under his feet. Death is the last enemy to be brought to an end.” (1 Cor 15: 20-26, CEB)

Whenever a new kingdom comes to rule, the old powers don’t just give in.
They go kicking and screaming to their end.
All around us, death is trying to claw its way back into power.
The forces of evil are fighting back.
We still experience loss, and pain, and grief.
But the Kingdom of Christ is already reigning among us.
And we have been given the promise, the assurance…
The resurrecting love of God will conquer all… even, finally, death itself.

What is the power of resurrection?
It isn’t merely rescue from the brink of death, like we saw with the cathedral of Notre Dame… as brave souls worked through the night to prevent utter destruction.
It isn’t simply reanimation, as we saw this past week when scientists brought a spark of life back to pig’s brains.
It isn’t only resuscitation, where those we thought were dead were pulled back from the brink through extraordinary measures.
Resurrection is not rebuilding…
It is not renovation.
It is not restoration.
It might be a little bit of all of those things, but it is also so much more.

Resurrection is what happens when those who were dead and hopeless and defeated and gone stand up in the love and grace of Jesus Christ.
When we thought the story was over.
When we thought victory was firmly in the hands of death.
Love burst forth from the grave and said, not today Satan.
And resurrection happens all around us when we take up the life and the mission and the ministry of Jesus Christ.
It happens when we die to our self and rise with Christ in baptism.
It happens when we commit to resist the forces of evil, injustice, and oppression in the world.
Resurrection is the addict who hit rock bottom who is now a minister of the gospel.
Resurrection is the church showing up to sing praises in the ashes of a burned building.
Resurrection is a challenging the powers that be who seek to stifle life.
Resurrection is entering the prison.
Resurrection is mucking out a flooded home.
Resurrection is sitting with the dying.
We practice resurrection, we participate in resurrection, we are agent’s of God’s amazing resurrecting love every time we go to those people and places that the world has declared dead, hopeless, defeated and gone and we proclaim with our hands and feet and lips and hearts… not today, Satan. Not today.
Love is not just as strong as death.
Today and tomorrow and at the end of days, the love of God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit has conquered death once and for all. Amen.

Go Back Home

Posted on April 1, 20181 Comment

Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!

When those women showed up at the tomb on Easter morning, they didn’t know they were supposed to shout for joy.
They were confused and disoriented and more than a little startled by the angel appearing before them.
Christ has been raised?
He isn’t here?
What on earth is going on?

The only miracle they had thought to pray for was that somehow they would be able to roll away the stone.
They had come to this place expecting that the stench of death would fill the tomb.
In their arms, they carried only spices and oils for anointing the body of their friend, their teacher. Patiently they had waited until the sabbath was over and the sun had peeked over the horizon.

Many of us have been in that place.
We have trudged through the valley of the shadow of death, overwhelmed by our grief, going through the motions of ritual and closure because it is the only thing we know how to do in that moment.
Except unlike us, these three women: Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Salome, had no hope left in their heart.
There was no light at the end of this tunnel.
They were witnesses to a world-transforming, miracle-working revolution of thought and mind and now that it was snuffed out before them… now that Jesus was dead, three days in the tomb… now that the disciples had scattered… it was all over.
They were alone.
The empire had won.
Or so they thought…

Until they arrived at the tomb just after sunrise, carrying objects of mourning, and discovered the stone had been rolled away.
They slowly stepped inside the cavern, unsure, unsteady, unknowing… and were startled by a man in white standing in the room.
I can imagine one of them hoisted up the jar of spices, prepared to use it as a weapon to throw so they could make a quick escape.
But the man quickly spoke: I know you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the One they nailed on the cross. He’s been raised up; he’s here no longer. See for yourselves – this place is empty.
The Message translation of this passage notes that they got out of there as fast as they could, their heads swimming, completely beside themselves with this good news of great joy… but before they stumbled out the door, the messenger in white had some very clear instructions for these ladies, these first messengers of the gospel, the first preachers of the resurrection.
“On your way, ladies! You have work to do! Go and tell the disciples that Jesus is going back to where this whole thing started… back to where your ministry began… Go back home… and you will find Jesus there.”

Go back home.

Sometimes, we need to go back to the beginning of our story.
We need to remember where we have come from to understand where we are supposed to go next.

This Friday, we laid to rest our friend and church member, Donna Bales. In the midst of their grief, I listened as Donna’s children and grandchildren shared stories of their loved one. They talked about going back through Donna’s things and they even went back to the stories that Donna herself had told about her life growing up… about her parents and grandparents. In the process, they tapped into the core of who she was – an incredibly strong, yet humble woman, who taught them each how to embrace their own strength in life.

Perhaps you have had a similar experience when you have lost a loved one. When you go back home and start sifting through those memories and artifacts, revisiting things you thought were behind you, you start to discover a rich heritage in your past that has shaped who you have become.

The disciples of Jesus had made a lot of mistakes along their journey. They were human, just like you and me, and they fumbled and failed like we all do. Every step of the way, Jesus was there to guide them, set them back on the path, and to help them understand God in a new way.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples either betrayed him, denied him, or ran away in fear of their own lives. Their grief and shame hung heavily upon them.
How do you even begin to hear the good news of the resurrection in that moment?
How can you begin to start anew?
You go back home.
You go back to the place where Jesus first spoke your name, first called you into ministry, first showed you that God is present in our lives.
You go back to where it all began.

The messenger in the tomb that morning tells the women, and through them the disciples, that Jesus has already made a plan to meet them back home in Galilee.

It was there that Jesus began to announce the good news of God – “Change your hearts and your lives – Here comes God’s Kingdom!”
It was there by the Sea that he discovered Simon and Andrew, James and John, casting their nets into the sea.
It was there that Jesus cast out demons, healed the sick, turned water into wine, and multiplied the loaves and the fishes.

Jesus calls them back home to the place where their story began together.
Because it is about to begin all over again.
And they are going to need to tap into those rich memories and stories of forgiveness and the memories of miracles to help guide them as they take their next steps along the journey of God.

This past week, a good friend and mentor of mine, Rev. Michael Williams, died in Nashville. That city was home for me during my seminary years and while I couldn’t go back for the funeral, I found myself reconnecting with friends via facebook as we shared memories and I was able to livestream the funeral – a powerful service of death and resurrection – from here.

I sat in my office, watching the choir process into the sanctuary at West End United Methodist Church and as friends and colleagues stood in that pulpit to speak a word of God’s love. That church was my home for four years. It was where I worshipped. It was where I began my ministry. It was the place I first stood behind a communion table to break bread and share it with my congregation. That church home and those people formed and shaped my ministry and I would not be the pastor I am today without those experiences.
It was powerful to go back home, even if only through the wonders of technology, and to be reminded of where I have come from and where I am called to go next.
Where did you first encounter Jesus in your life?
Who were the people who surrounded you at that time in your life?
Was it at summer camp? At your grandparent’s church? Was it right here in this building?
Did that place come to feel like home for you?

My friend, Michael, wrote: “the people who have formed and shaped our lives while they were among us can still live inside us and influence the way we live even after their death. In some sense, as long as we continue to tell the stories of loved ones, they remain a presence within us and among us.”

When it feels like defeat and death have won the day, we are invited to go back home.
We are invited to go back to the place where this journey started for us and start retelling the stories of our faith.
And we discover there the presence of God all over again. We encounter the risen Savior. We are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. We are met by the Holy and Triune God who has promised to always be home for us.

In this season of Easter at Immanuel, we are going to be exploring what it means to have a place to call home in our faith lives. Our scriptures and messages will remind us that God wants to make a home among us, God-with-us, Immanuel… and that we are invited to make our home in God – to abide, to dwell in the presence of the Risen One.
Maybe today you have come home to this place, this family, this Body of Christ, and this is an opportunity to reconnect and get reenergized.
Maybe you haven’t yet found a place to call your spiritual home. If that’s the case, we invite you to join us over these next weeks and to go on this journey with us. And I pray that the welcome so many of us have discovered here might be shared with you.
But above all, wherever you call home, know that you are not alone. “In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us.” We are never alone. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Scattering Fear and Gloom

Posted on April 16, 2017Leave a comment

Easter Sunday is a rollercoaster of emotions.

We felt that as we began worship today… instead of starting with the joy of the resurrected Christ, we began with the despair felt by Mary and the disciples because their Lord and Teacher was no longer with them.

You see, for the disciples, Easter morning began with a hopeless situation.

It began with fear of the unknown.

It began with the gloom of death.

When I wrestled with what I should preach about this morning, I couldn’t help but think about all of the hopelessness and fear and gloom in this world.

I hear it in the halls of this church, and around our dinner tables… in the grocery store, the halls of work or school… all of the varied and sundry places that we gather in our lives.

We worry about family who just can’t seem to get their act together.

We struggle with illness or money in our personal lives.

We watch the evening news and everything seems wrong with the world.

After a while, the daily grind starts to take its toll and we become numb to all of that stuff around us. We find ourselves settling into the rut and start to believe that this is just the way it’s going to be.

The violence of the world almost ceases to phase us. What is a crucified Savior when another bombing in Syria has taken lives? Another shooting at a school last week? Another gun related death in our city?

We can barely keep ourselves abreast of the human rights violations occurring across our planet as war-torn countries continue to destroy the lives of innocent men, women and children. So many of these places of conflict feel utterly hopeless and without end. It seems that no matter what we do, or maybe because of what we do, new groups and new people spring up to fight, instead of searching for ways to work together and to rebuild lives.

In our gospel reading this morning, Mary goes to the tomb and she is not going with expectant hope. She is going to bring spices and oil and to continue to prepare his body for burial.

You see, Jesus was laid in the tomb just before sunset and the beginning of the Sabbath Day and so the women did not have enough time to properly lay him to rest.

As the sun rose on this Easter morning, Mary Magdelene went to the tomb to mourn, to pray, and to say her good-byes.

She was someone who desperately loved Jesus. He was her Teacher and her Master. He offered her new life and a brand new beginning when he cleansed the demons from her life. And ever since that time, she had followed him faithfully. Then, in one fell swoop, everything that she had begun to put her trust into was taken away.

Her Lord was gone.

The disciples who followed him had scattered and those who remained were hiding out in fear of the Jewish authorities.

Mary had no one to turn to and nowhere to go.

The only thing she knew to do was go to that tomb and rehearse a ritual practiced by Jewish women for centuries. She would go to the tomb to honor Jesus and to mourn for him properly.

But as our scriptures this morning remind us, when she arrived, everything was in disarray!

The stone was rolled back and her Master was nowhere to be found!

His body was gone!

Desperately, she ran to the house of one of the disciples for she knew that some of them would be there…

They have taken away his body! She cried out….

They have taken him and I don’t know where they have laid him!

Two of the disciples, run back to the tomb with her and find her story to be true. They enter and find the burial clothes there also, neatly folded and placed on the stone. They know that something has happened… but none of them really knows what it means.

Mary, in the midst of all of her desperation and mourning saw Jesus standing before her but did not recognize him. She couldn’t see the promise that was right before her eyes!

Jesus even called out to her, trying to scatter her fear and her gloom:

“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

As Mary stood in that garden weeping out of desperation she heard her Master call her voice. One moment of startling fear and overwhelming joy – a moment of holy awe – as the significance of what is seen – and what is unseen comes crashing in.

And Christ is calling out to us all the time, every day.

He asks us constantly what we are weeping for.

He longs to wipe away the tears from our eyes.

Jesus is Risen. Death could not hold him.

And if it cannot hold him, it cannot hold us.

All that Jesus said about life and death

all that was understood only as idea – as a concept – as a vision

is made real in that empty tomb and in that encounter in the garden.

The disciples and the women heard Jesus talk SO MANY TIMES about his death and resurrection and it just never sunk in.

They couldn’t understand the promise because they never believed it would happen.

So when Jesus shared his final meal with them on Thursday night they let him down and failed to remain faithful.

And when Christ was crucified on Friday afternoon, they were paralyzed by their unbelief and forgot the promises he made to them.

They couldn’t see past their own pain and fear and gloom to remember the promise!

The ancient promises from Isaiah:

“No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime… They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”

And he wants us to see him, to recognize him as the Jesus who is alive – the Jesus who is risen – the Jesus who has the power to bring that new creation to bear on our lives.

But like Mary, our hearts are often so slow to believe, to trust, and to accept he is standing before us.

There are so many things in our lives that we could feel hopeless about:

Loved ones who die too young,

People who work away their lives for a wage that won’t pay the rent,

Hungry families… including the 55,000 people in Des Moines who don’t have enough food on their tables,

But the power of the Easter resurrection didn’t just bring Christ to life.

The power of the Easter resurrection took a rag tag bunch of disciples who barely knew their left from their right as far as following Jesus was concerned…. And turned them into apostles.

It turned these doubting, stammering, disobedient fools into the leaders of a movement that would transform the world!

When Christ rose from the dead, the Body of Christ that is the church was brought to life – a community was formed that would love and cherish and carry on the mission and the ministry of Christ!

Each and every single one of us is a living testimony to the power that Christ’s resurrection had on our world.

Each one of us is who we are today and is in this place this morning because those first disciples experienced the risen Christ.

And because that experienced so radically changed their lives that they had to tell others.

So what is this Easter morn?

It is God’s promise of a new day

It is God’s promise of a new life

It is God’s promise of a new world

coming to pass in our midst.

Jesus is risen. Death could not hold him. And it will not hold us either.

Wherever in your heart there is weeping, Christ promises to turn your tears into laughter.

Jesus is risen! Death could not hold him!

And the forces that tear us apart in this world will not defeat him either!

Christ has risen!

And we… as the body of Christ, in this time and in this place… are called to continually live our lives as a beacon of that promise!

We are called to visit the sick and those who mourn and pray for healing in this life or the next.

We are called to work for those who are struggling and help to create a better way.

We are called to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.

We are called to welcome the stranger and the outcast, the person who is not like you:

whether that means they were born here or not,

an NRA member or fighting to limit guns,

someone who wants sidewalks in their community or doesn’t,

whatever the color of their skin or whomever they love.

You and I… because of the reality of what we experience this morning… are called to go forth and scatter the forces of fear and gloom in the world.

We are to find small ways to live out and practice the resurrection power in our world today.

Christ is risen!

Let us crown him the lord of Life, the Lord of Peace and the Lord of Love

and may we believe in his power to truly transform our lives.

Amen.

What's Your Story?

Posted on April 5, 2015Leave a comment

Living, Risen God, May the words of my mouth be your words, and may I be blessed with the courage to say them. May the thoughts of all of our hearts and our minds, be your thoughts, and may we be blessed with the courage to live them. Amen.

This morning, I invite you to hear our gospel reading from Mark once again…

We know the story, about how the three women made their way to the tomb just after sunrise. They went expecting to finish the funeral rites for their beloved teacher… but what they discovered forever changed their lives.

In that tomb, they discovered not their teacher, but a man in dazzling white who whispered to them:

Don’t be afraid! You’re looking for Jesus of Nazareth, but he’s not here! He has been raised, just like he promised. Go – tell the disciples and Peter that he will meet you in Galilee. He’s waiting for you!

What surprises us about this story, however, as Mark tells it is that the women freeze. They had come to honor a dead body and they were met by a mystery. He has been raised?! He’s… waiting for us? Was it a trap? Was it true? Could it possibly be?

It was all so completely overwhelming. They felt like they were standing in the presence of the holy – like Moses before the burning bush – like Elijah standing on the side of the mountain and hearing God in the silence… and yet nothing made sense.

The world was turned upside down for these three women by this radically holy encounter. Terror and amazement seized them and they turn and fled from the tomb.

Was it unworthiness?

Was it the weight of the message that they were called to proclaim?

Was it fear and awe that come from being face to face with God’s power?

The world may never know. But Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome said nothing to anyone… for they were afraid.

They said nothing to anyone… for they were afraid.

Believe it or not – that is the way that the Gospel of Mark ends. Jesus never shows up in his resurrected glory, there are no witness from the disciples, no sharing of the good news. Mark ends his account of the life of Jesus with three women, fleeing from the scene because terror and amazement had seized them and he tells us they said nothing to anyone.

We, of course, can say this probably didn’t actually happen for a number of reasons.

First of all, Every gospel has Mary Magdalene there at the tomb, witnessing first hand the resurrection of Christ. And every other gospel tells us how she and other women who may have been with her shared the good news with the disciples.

Secondly, if we believed Mark’s account above the others – if that truly was the end of the story – then how did we get here? If they didn’t tell anyone, then how was the church born?

No, Mark has a reason for telling his story this way. His goal, in writing the gospel, is to teach us about what faithfulness looks like. Every time the disciples make a mistake, we learn something. Every time they fail, we find out what it truly means to follow God.

And this cliff-hanger ending functions the same way. Mark tells us the women were afraid and said nothing to anyone… so that WE are invited to live the rest of the story. So that WE are invited to take up the call and tell the story ourselves.

Peter was also called to take up the story. Even after his failure on the night of Jesus’ trial, he was called by Jesus to tell the story of resurrection wherever he went. And he found himself in the home of Cornelius… a Gentile… someone who was never part of the plan of salvation that Peter had imagined… and he found him telling the story of how God saves to even such as him.

We are all called to tell the story, and we are called to tell it to anyone and everyone we meet.

Because the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus… it is your story!

From the Sunday School teacher that first taught you the words to Jesus loves me…

to the grandparent who always encouraged your faith…

to the girlfriend who made you get up and come to church this morning…

Someone, somewhere along the way shared the good news with you. You heard the story and you believed it enough to show up. You have responded. You are here.

And because you are here this morning, you have a story to tell.

Your story might not be as dramatic as peering into an empty tomb and being a first hand witness to the resurrection, but you do have a story to tell.

A story about how God has been present in your life. Your story doesn’t have to be filled with drama… it just has to be yours.

Sure, God chose some people with wild stories, like Moses the murder and Jacob the deceiver and Rahab the prostitute… but God also used people like the farmer Amos and the fishermen James and John and the midwives Shiphrah and Puah, to pass along the good news of salvation to the world.

And we are here because they did.

We are here because they were not afraid to speak about what God was doing in their lives.

Over the next two months here at church, we will be following some of the first disciples of Jesus who were not afraid to talk about what they had seen. And along the way, we will use their stories to help us claim our own story of faith.

We discover in that book of Acts that the message moves from Jerusalm to Samaria and to the ends of the earth… all the way to Des Moines, Iowa in 2015!

But here is the real question we have to wrestle with this morning.

What if they women really had been silent?

What if the disciples had never left Jerusalem?

What if Peter had not gone to Cornelius?

… who would have shared the story?

And who is not hearing the story today, because we are too scared to tell it? Who isn’t hearing the good news of God’s love and mercy and grace and forgiveness because we have been overcome with terror and amazement and haven’t figured out what to say?

We have fear in our hearts because we have come face to face with the holy and we are no longer in control. And any encounter with the holy rightly puts awe and trembling in our hearts.

It is the kind of fear portrayed in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, as the people rightfully fear and revere Aslan the Lion. He is dangerous, he is righteous and there is no escaping him, no containing him, no forgetting him. He is wild and wonderful.

And the wild and wonderful Christ, who cannot be escaped or contained or forgotten is calling our names and has a word for us to proclaim. That on an old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine, Jesus suffered and died to pardon and sanctify us all….and…. AND… this is the part we leave out of the song… AND death itself has been defeated.

Sharron Riessinger Lucas calls this: living in the tension of holy fear and prodigal joy.

We are filled with joy because God has run out to meet us like a father who destroys all barriers in order to welcome home us wayward children! Christ is Risen! Jesus destroyed death in order to give us life! The tomb is empty! Amen!

But in the midst of that joy, that holy fear is present… Because with the empty tomb comes the amazing and awesome announcement that “Jesus is risen and on the loose in this world” (Lucas).

And if God is really out there – really present in this world that we live in… then as the great theologian Karl Barth once said… “each of us has some serious changes to make in our living.”

This morning… you have encountered the presence of God and witnessed the miracle of the resurrection…

So, what will you do?

Will you let fear close your mouths?

Will you roll the stone back in front of the tomb and conveniently forget that this all happened?

Will you be silent?

Or will you find the courage to risk it all to share the good news with the world?

As Mark asks us: when – not if, but when the terror and amazement of the gospel seizes your life – what are you going to do?

Scars

Posted on April 22, 2012Leave a comment

I have a couple of scars in my body.

Right below my left knee the area is numb and without feeling and there is a small whitish mark. That scar is from the time I thought it was a good idea to do a cartwheel in the girl’s locker room and I ended up hiting my leg… hard… against the corner of the wall.

I have a few tiny scars on my belly from my gall bladder surgery a few years ago. They are nearly imperceptible… unlike the scars many have from days when that surgery was performed open and not lapriscopically.

And I have a scar on my left forearm from an iron last summer. After going through the entire pile of t-shirts for Vacation Bible School and getting all of the transfers ironed on… I reached over to unplug my iron and my arm hit the hot plate. There is a triangular shaped mark on my arm to this day!

But none of those are extremely noticeable. Especially not compared with some of the scars that others have in their lives.

My dad is one such person. In an accident at work, his hand was caught in a gear of a machine that processes hot sugars. After months of surgery and rehabilitation, he lost two fingers on his right hand, part of his pinky finger, and had a large skin graft around his thumb and forefinger. His right hand will never be the same. And while his hand looks a bit gnarled and ugly, to me it is a sign of his perseverance, his incredible work ethic, and a reminder of how he got through that difficult part of his life.

The scars in our lives tell stories. Whether they are small marks or large ones, they are visible reminders of the lives that we have lived. Maybe it is not a physical scar, but a nickname you bear, or a tattoo, or an item that you keep around in your life to remind yourself and others of something important that has happened.

I want to invite you to turn to a neighbor or a small group around you and share what kinds of scars and battle wounds you might have. If you feel comfortable, share a story about that scar with the group.

…

There was a classmate of mine in high school who had a large scar that ran down the center of her chest. She had had open heart surgery when she was fairly young, but will carry that scar with her for the rest of her life. And I remember the day I discovered that scar. We all went swimming at a friend’s house and for the first time, she revealed her scar. She had kept it carefully covered up all those years. She wore shirts with high collars, or scarves, or jewelry, anything that would keep people from seeing the scar she thought was ugly… and embarrassment. But when she told us about the story of the scar, I thought it was such a powerful sign of her strength – that she got through that journey and came out on the other side a strong and healthy and powerful young woman. She continued to feel uncomfortable about her scar, but that scar helped me to see the strength and the beauty inside of her.

Did anyone learn something about a friend based on those scars? Anyone want to share?

Will you ever look at that person the same way again?

There is a reason that twice in our gospel reading for this morning Jesus hands and feet are mentioned.

The first time is when he appears to some of his disciples on the evening of the resurrection. They were huddled together – scared, frightened, unsure of themselves – and suddenly the Risen Lord shows up. He breathes into their lives peace. He forgives them. He gives them a job to do. AND he shows them his hands and his side.

He shows them who he is.

He shows them what he has been through.

He shows them what he has overcome.

And then, a week later, the disciples don’t seem to have moved. They are still there, in the house, only this time Thomas was there also. Thomas missed the first appearance, and said that unless he had seen the nail marks and put his finger where those nails were, that he wouldn’t believe.

So when Jesus stands among them, the first words he utters are: “Peace” – but then he offers an invitation. An invitation for Thomas to come and to reach out his hand and to touch his scars. And Thomas recognizes those scars, remembers what they have all been through together and cries out – “My Lord and my God!”

The Rev.Dr. Janet Hunt writes:

Our scars tell part of the story of who we are, what has mattered to us, what has happened to us, the risks we’ve taken, the gifts we’ve given. And as we are reminded in the story before us in John’s Gospel, this was surely also so with Jesus, too.

Which is why Thomas insisted he needed to see, no more than that, feel the scars in his hands and put his own hand in Jesus’ side to be sure that it was him. One would think he would have recognized him with from the features of his face or the sound of his voice, but no, for Thomas, Jesus had become something more since that long walk to the cross a week before. Jesus’ very identity was now defined by the sacrifice he had made in our behalf. A sacrifice made most visible in those wounds that by then could have only begun to heal. (words.dancingwiththeword.com)

So what are the lessons that we learn by seeing the visible wounds of Jesus? What are the lessons that we learn from seeing the visible wounds of one another?

We see Jesus wounds, and in spite of how the disciples failed him… in spite of how we have failed him, Jesus tells us that we are loved… we are forgiven… that peace is freely offered… and that we have a job to do.

1) We are loved: Jesus comes to us. When someone shares a scar with us, when they are vulnerable with us, it means that they trust us and care about us and are willing to share their lives with us.

2) We are forgiven: Each of us played a role in the crucifixion of Christ. Each of us is responsible for the wounds he bears. And yet, he tells us we are forgiven. When we encounter wounds in our lives, they can be symbols to us of our failings… but they can also be symbols of forgiveness, healing, and love.

Story of running into a pole in Brandon’s car… I was in a bad place, my grandpa had just died… he wasn’t happy, but his love for me in the midst of that experience of loss and grief that got me through. My mind was in a million places when I was backing up the car and I did not even notice the parking pole before I slammed into it. The bright yellow scrape on his car marred it in the same way that my soul was grieving and broken and needed some healing. But just as that car was patched up good as new, so too, with time and love, did we both make it to the other side of the grief process.

3) Peace is offered: This may seem to go with the idea of forgiveness, but it really is about releasing ourselves from a heart full of fear.

In her reflection, Kathryn Matthews Huey talks about life one week after Easter… when we return to life as usual: “wars and uprisings that drag on for months and years, with hundreds and thousands dead and maimed; an economic crisis that still threatens thousands with foreclosure and bankruptcy, high unemployment, high gasoline prices, high health care costs, and a political season poisoned with ugly rhetoric and personal attacks. And then there are our own private griefs and burdens: health problems, kid problems, too much work, too much worry, too much coming at us, so much to run away from, so much to fear. What’s an overwhelmed person of faith to do? Even one week after the music of the trumpets and the splendor of the lilies have faded, how are we to live “as Easter people”?
William Sloane Coffin once said, “As I see it, the primary religious task these days is to try to think straight….You can’t think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart’s a stone, you can’t have decent thoughts – either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind. When our hearts fill with a fear we can’t organize or get our arms around, a fear that makes us feel weak and small and inadequate, all of us disciples receive that same gift of grace, forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit, a gift that limbers up our minds and our hearts, turning them from hearts of stone to hearts full of love.”

4) We have a job to do: The visible wounds of Jesus and of our own lives can also remind us that there is a job to do.

Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners, and there is a world full of people who need to know that love and grace.
Jesus takes our wounds and scars and uses them to ministry to others
There are wounds in this world that need healing. And in the end, Jesus sent his disciples out from that upper room… and “Jesus sends us out into the world, to put our hands on the marks of its suffering, to bring good news and hope to all of God’s children.” (Kate Huey)

Amen!