"The Resurrection HAD to Happen" (Luke 24:36-48)

 

Watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvoY6A1tZIk

Sunday, April 18, 2021

 

            The universe and everything in it belong to God.  It is created by God; all of it.  Physicists, astronomers, chemists, biologists, and geologists weigh in on how the world came to be.  Their scientific methods of observation describe what God has done.  Everything is God’s.  God’s values are ultimate values and apply to everyone. 

            This is why the death of Daunte Wright last Sunday in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota at the hands of a police officer who mistook her firearm for her taser, is so awful.  One of God’s ultimate values is life.  Jesus says, God is God of the living.  Speaking in Luke 20, “to him all [who have died] are alive” (v.38).  God has no place for death.  The death of a 20-year-old young man is an offense to God.

            The list of unarmed black people killed by white people in America is impossibly long.  It is our national shame that it keeps happening, and that people – mostly white – emotionally defend the integrity of the police instead of mourning the evil of institutional bias that results in so many defenseless people dying.  We hear that most police are people of good character.  That’s true, but it’s not the point.  We hear that Daunte committed some misdemeanors.  Again, not the point. 

            I have an 18-year-old son.  He has had public encounters with the police; not as many as I did when I was his age.  And he hasn’t done anything dangerous or too destructive and he does not have a record.  But, if a simple encounter with an officer ended in his death, it would tear my world apart.  Think of someone you love, deeply, about my son’s age, or Daunte Wright’s age.  Think of how devastated you would be if that young person died.  How hard would it hit you?  The death of Daunte Wright should hit you and me that hard.  It hits God that hard because God made us to live.  You and I and my son and Daunte Wright, God made us to be alive. 

            Parents of black young people have to have a talk with their kids about how to act when pulled over by the police for the most minor of offenses or even for doing nothing.  They have to have this talk because black people are so much more likely to be pulled.  And those encounters are so much more likely to end in death at the hands of officer we trust to protect us. 

We can talk all about systemic injustice, slavery, Jim Crowe, and mass incarceration. We can talk about the root issue being white people’s desire to hold onto to power and to keep black people in a socially subjugated role.  Individual white people do fight alongside black and brown brother and sisters for a more just and equal society, and we may be gaining ground, the trial of Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd and the death of Daunte Wright at the hands of 26-year police veteran Kim Potter make it clear we aren’t there yet and we have along way to go.  

We could have that racial justice conversation, but on this third Sunday of Easter I bring up Daunte’s death for a theological reason.  God is offended and dishonored by what happened.  The fear our black neighbors have to endure every time they do the most mundane thing, drive a car, is unacceptable to God.  Remember.  America is God’s possession.  You and I might tell ourselves we are masters of our own fate, but it’s a fallacy.  The truth is we are God’s.  God’s values are ultimate for us.  God values life.  To God, Daunte Wright and George Floyd are alive.  Don’t believe me?  Wrestle with what Jesus says in Luke 20:38. Take all the time you need.  Jesus insists that God’s ultimate value applies universally; to everyone.

Racism is only one space in which we mock God’s creation with our prolific killing.  What are others?  When I preached Luke 24 in 2007, I had only been pastor here a year.  As I read the resurrection story, I looked around my life and saw death in every direction.  First, I was called to my previous church to preach the funeral of a beloved member.  We wouldn’t call the death of one in his 80’s, by natural causes, a tragedy.  God actually would.  God did not create us for death; not death by Gunshot, not death by cancer, not death by old age.  God created us for eternal life. In April 2007, I preached my friend Ralph’s funeral and God was honored by the love we showed.  But even that, what we call ‘sensible,’ death was an affront to God.

A few months later that year, senseless killing followed.  August 14, 2007, over 200 Yazidis in Iraq were killed in a terrorist bomb.  Americans don’t know who the Yazidis are, so we pass off such news as ‘something terrible that happened over there.’  I hate that vacuous phrase ‘over there.’  When Americans use that phrase, we are insulting ourselves.  ‘Over there’ means ‘not here,’ so, not my problem. 

What happened on August 16, 2007, certainly was our problem.  Seung-Hui Cho shot and murdered 32 of his classmates and professors at Virginia Tech, and then killed himself.  It happened at Tech, not ‘over there.’  It could happen at UNC. 

All of it disregards God’s intent for humanity.  As Jesus said, he is God of the living.  Death in situations of racial prejudice or racial profiling or unconscious bias, death in school shootings, death in war, and death of natural causes; all of it is the opposite of what God had in mind when God created Adam and Eve. 

In God’s vision, nature, humanity, and God all live in beautiful harmony with each other.  The Jewish idea describing this beautiful state of Eden is ‘shalom,’ a combination of peace, bliss, safety, provision, and most importantly, right relationships.  This was lost in the fall and this is what God restores in the coming of Jesus, the death of Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus.  The story is not complete until the disciples meet and touch the risen Lord. 

The empty tomb did not convince Jesus’ followers he was alive.  On Easter morning, when the women told the disciples, they had seen an angel who told them he had been raised, Luke 24:11 they did not believe it.  Do we think the empty tomb was evidence that would show skeptics, scribes, and Romans Jesus was alive?  The empty tomb didn’t even convince his own followers.

Then, two others, Cleopas and his wife who is not named, meet Jesus making the 7-mile walk from Jerusalem back to their home in Emmaus.  Though they were his followers, they do not recognize Jesus until he breaks bread with them.  He breaks the bread, a physical act in their presence, and then vanishes.  They immediately turn around and hike 7 miles back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples what they’ve seen!  Jesus, alive! 

As they tell their story, Jesus, who they saw vanish, now materializes before them and the eleven disciples.  This is where our reading for this morning picks up.  We know the disciples did not believe Cleopas.  They didn’t even believe their own eyes.  Resurrected Jesus says to them, “Peace be with you,” but the next verse describes them as ‘startled and terrified’ thinking they are seeing a ghost. 

The empty tomb, testimony of friends they absolutely trust, and even their own eyes are not enough to shake the hold death has on these disciples.  They saw Jesus’ miracles and heard his teachings, yet they remained locked in their sense that natural forces, not God, determine how things are in the universe.  The dead stay dead.  It’s what they expect.  It’s what we expect. 

What’s the first recorded meal in the Bible?  It’s Adam and Eve, eating forbidden fruit.  The first meal rips apart the serenity of God’s creation and brings death in when God never intended death to be in this story.  Adam and Eve made a choice.  They were in a garden full of fruit trees.  Clearly God intended eating to be part of his creation when it was at its best.  God wants us to enjoy life, just on God’s terms. 

At that first meal, the first humans rejected God’s ultimate value of life and instead opted for toil and death.  We chose the wartime massacres of people like the Yazidis and we chose school shootings and we chose institutionalized racial bias and the death that comes with it.  Every time an Officer Kim Potter shoots a 20 year-old Daunte, Adam and Eve and you and I take another bite of that apple, when we could be eating all the other fruits God put there for us to eat. 

Jesus announces new creation with a meal.  In this act, he undoes the harm of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, and begins the new day.  He asked the disciples in Luke 24:38, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.  Touch me and see for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” Then he asked if they had anything to eat. 

The resurrection had to happen.  What was lost as Adam and Eve and you and I munched on forbidden fruit had to be restored.  Eating fish with his scared disciples, Jesus reset creation, with our sins atoned and eternal life assured. 

At the first meal of new creation, there was no white supremacy or systemic injustice or violence or death.  Those things had no place there.  There were and there are places set for you and me to sit down together in love and right relationship.  The resurrection assures our place at Jesus’ table alongside Trayvon Martin, who sits with George Zimmerman, next to George Floyd sharing fellowship with Derek Chauvin, and Daunte Wright and Kim Potter.  None is killer or victim because sins have been covered and death is no more.  Because of the resurrection, we sit in right relationship with one another, with God, and with all that He has created.

AMEN

"He Shall Command Peace" (Zechariah 9:1-11)

 

watch it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H54szh1HFZA

Second Sunday of Easter, April 11, 2021

 

            What God has done?  I’ll tell you.  Jesus crucified for the sins of the world?  That was God’s doing.  Then, he rose on the third day.  Resurrected! So what?  Does it make any difference? How does the resurrection – what God did – define your life?

            Theologian Stanley Hauerwas writes, “Through Jesus’ resurrection, we see God’s peace as a present reality.  Though we continue to live in a time when the world does not dwell in peace, when the wolf cannot dwell with the lamb and a child cannot play over the hole of the asp [as imagined in Isaiah 11], we believe that peace has been made possible by the resurrection.”[i]

            Hauerwas believes that because of the resurrection of Jesus, peace is inevitable in God’s kingdom, and God’s kingdom has begun breaking into this present reality.  We can be sure of both – peace and the inbreaking of God’s kingdom.  Count on it. 

However, there’s the rub.  The world does not know peace right now.  The Bible is full of war.  Last century saw two massive world wars.  Local, enduring conflicts seem ubiquitous and unending. 

            I think of the January 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol which ended in bloodshed and death. We Americans can no longer brag about transferring power peacefully.   We can no longer wag disapproving fingers at other nations we deem not democratic enough.  We saw deadly violence in the very heart of our democracy.

            I think about Honduran immigrants moving across Mexico to the southern U.S. border.  Homicidal gangs vying for control of the illegal drug trade and a corrupt government unwilling to confront the gangs make life in Honduras unlivable.  Honduras has the fourth highest numbers of murders per 100 people in the world.  Neighboring El Salvador is number 1 on the list, Guatemala is 14^th, and Mexico is 16^th.[ii]   Also, the region is often battered by hurricanes.  The masses to enter the U.S. aren’t “migrating.”  They’re desperately fleeing death. 

            I think about the trial of Derek Chauvin, the white Minneapolis police officer whose killing of a black man, George Floyd, set off protests and riots last year.  The crime and the trial is emblematic of how violent racial tension in America is.  So too is the recent spate of hate crimes committed against Asian Americans.

            Whether it is political division, immigration and nationalism, racial strife, or something else, hate and violence are the flavors of the day in America.  We love Easter.  We bask in the light of the empty tomb.  We believe God is all powerful and we follow Jesus.  But, how can possibly we see God’s peace as a present reality?  When we read “he commanded peace to the nations,” don’t we assume that’s some distant, future thing that we won’t see in this lifetime? 

            That quote is Zechariah 9, 9:10 to be specific.  Zechariah chapters 1-8 are attributed to the prophet.  He and the prophet Haggai were late 6^th century BC peers who heard God’s call to rebuild the temple as a catalyst to reestablish Israel’s God’s people after the Babylonian exile ended. 

            Zechariah 9-11, Zechariah 12-14, and Malachi 1-4, three distinct units probably written in the 400’s, the 5^th century BC, close out Old Testament prophecy.  Through these anonymous prophets, God offers a special insight into his future promises.  In Zechariah 9 we hear God’s command for peace,  Because the resurrection has happened, we can begin living this peace even in a violent world. 

            The Gospel accounts of Jesus riding to Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday, refer to Zechariah 9:9. “Rejoice greatly, O Zion; … your king comes to you triumphant and victorious, humble and riding on a colt, on the foal of a donkey.”   Matthew and John quote this directly; Mark and Luke allude to it.   Entering Jerusalem prior to his crucifixion, Jesus fulfills the unknown prophet’s prophecy. 

            These promises come from Israel’s story.  Read about Samson and the other Judges.  Read about Israel’s greatest Judge-Prophet, Samuel; and the first Israelite king, King Saul, and the greatest, King David.  Each of these notable Old Testament figures fought the same enemy, a persistent foe who dogged Israel relentlessly: The Philistines!  After Solomon’s reign, as Philistia’s international influence diminished, a greater empire arose to threaten God’s people:  Assyria! 

            Zechariah 9:1-8 along with a prophet from a few centuries earlier, Amos, 1:3-8, name Syrian and Philistine cities.  Relating God’s vision through prophetic poetry, Amos and Zechariah recount God’s response to the Philistine and Syrian threats.

Syria: “The word of the Lord is against Damascus.”  The capital city of Aram belongs to the Lord.  The island city-state known as Tyre was thought to be impenetrable, but the prophet says, “The Lord will strip it of its possessions and hurl its wealth into the sea.”  The Philistine: Ashkelon shall be afraid, Gaza shall writhe in anguish, the hopes of Ekron are withered, and God will make an end of the pride of Philistia (Zechariah 9:5-6).  This prophet never bothers to tell us his own name, but repeats Amos’ condemnations of all these Syrian and Philistine cities.  Why?  Why tell us about the downfall of Israel’s oldest, fiercest rivals? 

            After describing how God will humble the enemies of His people, in verse 7, the perspective changes.  “I will,” God says, “take away … [the] abominations from between [the Philistines’] teeth.”  Is God going to wash Philistia’s mouth out with soap?  God says Philistia will also be a remnant for God.  God has always promised to save a remnant from Israel.  Since when did those cursed Philistines who cut Samson’s hair, harassed Samuel, and intimidated Saul get to be God’s remnant?  They aren’t us!  But God cares about Philistines and Syrians, Iraqis and North Koreans, black people from Alabama and white from Alabama.  Peace comes because of what God has done, not because we learn to be peaceful. 

Verse 7 says Philistia will be like a clan in Judah.  Just as God ushers in justice and peace for the Chosen People, God brings a new, peaceful age for all people.  What difference does the resurrection make?  The prophet of Zechariah 9 paints a picture of a united Israel with former enemies now a part of God’s community. 

It’s because of that king who rides in on the donkey. He will reign from “sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth” (Zech. 9:10).  He commands peace to all nations, and He has defeated death.  Jesus Christ, the resurrected Lord, fulfilles this prophecy. 

Time out, Pastor!  Where’s peace?

I hear your objection.  Our political division is as bad as ever, the poor souls at the Mexico-Texas border are living in anything but peace, and the Derek Chauvin trial is a powder keg that should drive all to our knees.  Where is this promised resurrection peace? 

It began with what God did: he resurrected Jesus.  New creation began, an age in which all sins are forgiven, and all who follow Christ will have eternal life.  It grows as we – God’s church – begin living the new creation reality today, even in the midst of a murderous, violent world. 

When we live the peace God commanded, we don’t let politics determine who are enemies are.  We may doggedly fight over policy differences with someone or a group from a different political party or persuasion, but when fight for our case, we do it with kindness, manners, and recognition of the other’s dignity.  We don’t hate Biden supporters or Trump supporters.  We give grace and love to all, as our Lord commands. 

When we live the peace God commanded, we recognize the plight of the immigrant fleeing death and seeking hope in America.  These are children of God.  Because we are in Christ, we do not act on some selfish desire to preserve an impression of what America is supposed to be.  We don’t fear how new arrivals change America.  We’re not driven by fear at all.  When we react to what God has done in the resurrection, we welcome people in distress just as Christ welcomes us.  

When we live the peace God commanded, we stand with the victims of prejudice and systemic injustice.  Those privileged to be in the dominant group don’t fight to protect what they have.  They share it.  Defending white privilege is akin to fighting to hold onto our share of stale crackers while ignoring the resurrection feast God offers to share.  When we throw down our old loyalties and insecurities, and accept God’s invitation, we discover that the joy of God’s table is not found only in the endless delicacies we eat, but also in eating those heavenly foods alongside our black brothers and Chinese sisters and African friends and arab friends and white cousins and Mexican neighbors. 

We begin anticipating that grand banquet by making space in our lives for black, white, Native, Arab, Asian, and Latin people right now.  God commanded peace.  That same God defeated death.  Can we see that this God has absolute authority to command peace?  Will we trust that in the risen Christ, this promised peace has come, is coming, and  as his return will come in full? 

Jesus has risen.  God has done something.  Will we live in God’s new reality, or hold on to our old rivalries and hatreds?  Go out this week, and share resurrection peace with someone who looks and thinks differently than you.  Ask God to put someone like that in your path.

AMEN

---

[i] Hauerwas, S (1983), The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), p.88-89.

[ii] https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5/rankings

Easter 2021

 

Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021

watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_E2nGr_nWo

Easter, April 4, 2021

 

A man overhears his friend say the police were at the elementary school.  He turns white with horror.  These are dads of second graders, and the first guy has been watching the news and become fixated on stories of mass shootings.  Panic-stricken, he asks, “What happened?” The second man, the story-teller, looks at him and says, “Nothing.  I was just talking about how cool it was that the police were at the school doing a demonstration with K-9 unit dogs.”

False assumptions distort our perception, of reality.  In the dark, early Sunday hours, Mary Magdalene discovered that the entrance to the tomb where Jesus was laid to rest on Friday had been opened.  The rock sealing the tomb entrance was rolled aside.  She assumed someone had stolen the body, so she ran to Peter and the Beloved Disciple and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (20:2).  We do not know.  We bump into several unknowns in John 20.  Mary did not know where Jesus’ body was. 

Bible readers, avoid what Mary did.  Avoid jumping to conclusions without knowing the full story.  Bible readers, do what Mary did.   Mary readily acknowledged what she did not know.  We should too. 

I have discovered freedom in saying three simple words: “I don’t know.”  Acknowledging my own ignorance protects me from leaping to false conclusions.  It makes me curious, especially when reading the Bible.  When confused, I tenaciously seek answers.  And, I don’t confidently assert untruths as if they were true.  The church does not demand that I have all the answers, so I shouldn’t pretend to know things I don’t know.

Mary ran to tell Peter and the “one whom Jesus loved,” the Beloved Disciple.  Most readers assume the Beloved Disciple is John, but the actual book we call “John’s Gospel,” doesn’t say that.  Anywhere.  Later tradition equates the Apostle John with the Beloved Disciple.  Since the gospel doesn’t name him, I will refer to him as the Beloved Disciple.

He outran Peter, but didn’t go into the tomb upon arrival.  Why did he hesitate?  I don’t know.  Upon arrival, the slower Peter went in, and then the Beloved Disciple followed.  They discovered the linens meant to enwrap the body lying where the body should have been.  The head cloth was not with the rest of the linens.  The head cloth was rolled up and set off to the side in a place by itself.

Head cloths do not unwrap themselves from around the corpse’s head.  Head cloths do not then roll themselves up and set themselves off to the side.   Something happened.  Mary, seeing the stone rolled aside knew something happened, and now, seeing the scene inside the tomb, Peter and the Beloved Disciple did too.  Neither they nor Mary knew what; they only knew something was going on.

John tells us the Beloved Disciple believed, but did not understand.  What, exactly, did he believe?  Belief soaked in incomplete knowledge comes up more than once in this gospel.  When grief-stricken Martha talked to Jesus in chapter 11 about her dead brother Lazarus, he said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (11:25-26).  He’s saying this where Lazarus, Martha’s brother, lay dead.  He then asks Martha, “Do you believe?”  “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

Does she?  He talked about being “the resurrection and the life.”  She says, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”  Did she hear Jesus’ words about people never dying?  When she said, “I believe,” did she understand what it was that she believed?  When we express our faith and belief that Jesus rose from death and in him, we will too, do we understand what we are saying?

The beloved discipled believed, though what he actually believed we cannot say because he also misunderstood the way Jesus’ resurrection fulfilled scripture.  And what about Peter?  What did believe was going on?  The gospel doesn’t say.

It does say after they left, Mary lingered and then looked into the tomb herself.  She saw two angels.  Peter and the Beloved Disciple didn’t see angels.  They saw clothes and head wrappings for a corpse, but no corpse.  Were the angels invisible to them, but then visible to Mary?  Did the angels slip in after the men left? 

The angels ask Mary, “Why are you weeping?”  She answers, still locked in her false assumption that Jesus is dead and someone has nefariously robbed the grave.  “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him” (20:13).  Did Mary know these were angles?  Was Mary startled or upset to find two unknown persons in the tomb of Jesus?  The Gospel doesn’t say. 

She steps away from the tomb and faced toward the surrounding garden.  For the first time, the narrator announces the resurrected Jesus.  For the first description of the risen Savior, wouldn’t we anticipate something more forceful and theatrical than what the fourth Gospel gives us?  It’s as if the resurrected Lord is a background character in a drama where Mary is the star.  Mary has been locked in on what she does not know.  She does not know where Jesus’ body is. 

Now, that which she has so earnestly sought, Jesus, stands before her and she thinks he’s a gardener.  He repeats the question the angels asked.  “Why are you weeping?  Whom are you looking for?”  Mary has spent this morning in the land of false assumptions, and who can blame her?  It had been a traumatic couple of days and that was before she discovered graves unable to hold in their residents.  Assuming he’s about to pick up his hoe and go to work on pesky weeds, she repeats her mantra to him, this time thinking she may finally make some headway. 

“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (v.15).  In this statement, made in the land of false assumptions, made from a place of not-knowing, we have a hint of why the resurrection is the event upon which all of reality stands. 

In the world as we understand it, the dead don’t bury themselves.  It could be in unmarked mass graves, it could be in cheap pine boxes or gold inlaid, elaborate caskets, or it could cremation; whatever form we choose, we, the living, have to deal with dead bodies.  If we don’t, there will be carcasses in various stages of decomposition all over the place.  This is our reality as it was Mary’s. 

What does Jesus have to say to our ideas about reality?  Back in John 10, Jesus said, “No one takes my life. I lay it down of my own accord” (v.17-18).  Mary lives in a reality where she, or someone, has to deal with the corpse of a man they know and love.  Jesus announces a new reality.  The corpse she seeks is the living, breathing man before her.  She finally sees him when he speaks her name.  “Mary!”  

Remember what I said?  I found freedom in the phrase “I don’t know.”  I don’t know how this story hits you.  I don’t know what you think about Jesus’ resurrection or resurrection in general.  I do know I have become convinced through my reading of 1000’s of pages from New Testament scholars that the writer of John’s gospel believed he was writing about a fully raised, fully physical body.  Mary grabbed hold of Jesus.  In Luke’s Gospel, and later in John 20, and again in John 21, we see indicators that Jesus’ raised body was tangible but also different.  He could cook fish and share it; he could be bear hugged by Mary; but he could also pass through closed doors without opening them.

That different quality of existence signals that the resurrection of Jesus is the dawning of New Creation.  Do you want to be part of New Creation?  We believe in the resurrection because we believe God is free to step outside the boundaries of natural law, and more importantly, is free to do new things.  Please do not mistake this assertion of new creation for the insufferable platitude “God can do anything.”  That’s something someone says if they get the job they were hoping for, or their teams wins a title.  That sentiment is essentially meaningless. 

Forget God can do anything.  Respond to God has done something.  In the risen Jesus Christ, God has ushered in a new age in which all who believe in Jesus and follow him as Lord, will have eternal life.  Jesus declared this in Chapter 3.  His resurrection is the stamp of approval affirming his power to overcome of death. 

I am comfortable saying “I don’t know” when I really don’t.  I readily accept there is far more knowledge that I seek than what I possess, and there is far more I am unaware of than that which I seek.  But there is something I do know.

What I know is that I have studied the evidence of the resurrection.  I believe, historically and logically speaking, the most plausible conclusion is that Jesus’s resurrection happened in actual history. I know that I have studied the scientific method.  I believe the resurrection cannot be proven or disproven scientifically.  I know my experience with God tells me that God is real and that the Spirit of the risen Christ is with me. 

Based on what I know, I believe in Jesus Christ, crucified, resurrected, ascended, and present as Holy Spirit.  He is my Lord.  Because I know him, I believe New Creation has begun overtaking a dying world.  Because of what I believe, I invite you to consider the resurrection –death is no more.  Considering the resurrection, I invite you to give your life to Jesus.  Commit to follow him.  There will still be much you don’t understand, but when you give yourself to Jesus, you will know life, abundant, joy-filled, everlasting life.

AMEN

Easter Sunrise 2021

 

watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxWu19VfHys

Easter Sunrise, March 31, 2021

 

            My grandmother’s house, was always a buzzing hive of activity.  On this night, as the adults sat hunkered around the table in steely-eyed consideration of their Diamonds, Spades, Hearts, and Clubs, I about 8, hovered behind, wondering when I would be old enough to learn Pinochle, a Tennant family rite of passage.  “Twenty-one.” My Papa cut the tension-filled air with his opening bid.  Betraying nothing but surveying his own hand with concentration and brain surgeon would envy, My Uncle Ed considered his response.  That’s when a shrill scream pierced the anxious quiet. 

            Like EMT’s filing out of the ambulance, we all vacated the kitchen and made for the source of terror, My Aunt Jane.  Lounging lazily on the livingroom couch, her eyes glanced up to see demonic face peering in.  It was her pranking older brother, My Uncle Jim, delighted by the terror he caused.

            This was 1978.  Channeling his own “easy-rider,” Jim had taken off on his motorcycle with no plans other than to leave Michigan and head west.  With no cellphones, My Meme didn’t know if her third son was lost somewhere in Utah, soaking up the sun on a Pacific beach, or right back here in Michigan, once again terrorizing her only daughter, my Aunt Jane.  Jane’s astonished scream announced how unexpected his arrival was. 

            When were you last disoriented by something thoroughly surprising?  Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go to the tomb intent on caring for Jesus’ dead body.  They meet an unnamed young man, notably dressed in white, and discover Jesus’ tomb is empty.  The Gospel writer Mark says they were seized by, in Greek, ‘tromos’ and ‘ekstasis;’ ‘trembling’ and ‘confused astonishment.’ 

My Aunt Jane surely needed a few minutes to recover the shock of her brother’s unannounced arrival.  Disruptions throw us off.  Once our hearts stop racing though, we can begin to make sense of reality, accounting for what has happened and how it changed things.  The trauma is brief.  She wasn’t entirely sorry her brother, who picked on her a lot growing up, had gone on a western walkabout; but, she was also probably, once the shock wore off, happy for his safe return. 

Could Mary, Mary, and Salome recover as quickly?  Resurrection is just a bit more destabilizing than the return of a prodigal son.  In most cases, we expect the dead and buried to stay dead and buried. 

            The women we meet approaching the tomb in Mark 16 would have lived by the beliefs of 1^st century Messianic Judaism.  They believed the dead would rise and be judged, on the last day.  Prior to that day, they did not expect any resurrection. 

They also believed a Messiah would come, sent by God to restore the fortunes of Israel.  They did not believe that Messiah would be divine.  They did not expect that Messiah to die and then rise prior to the end time resurrection.  In fact, if someone thought to be the Messiah did in fact die, especially a death as shameful as crucifixion at the hands of the dreaded Romans the Messiah was supposed to defeat, his death would prove him to be a failed Messiah!  Such a view would not mean these women were guilty of lacking faith.  They simply lived within the worldview of their times.  They heard the things Jesus had said about his own approaching resurrection.  They loved him, so they listened intently to his sermons.  They believed, but when he died, they also were quite sure he’d stay dead. 

On the day that we read about in the Gospels, the women, overwhelmed by grief, expected a dead body.  Fluctuating between the dumb absence of feeling numb and excruciating, debilitating grief, it was all they could do to carry out their task of mercy, preparation of the body of one they loved for final burial.  We’re never ready for a surprise, but soaked in sorrow, they were especially unprepared.  These women, Jesus’ most faithful followers in the darkest of hours, were sure the story was over. 

We’re never given a comprehensive list of the women who followed Jesus.  The 12 named male disciples found listed in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, formulaically hearkens to the 12 tribes, as the Gospel writers envisioned Jesus awakening the calling of God’s chosen people, Israel.   John offers no such list and the other three who do, do not offer identical lists.  Matthew and Mark include Thaddeus.  Luke, in place of Thaddeus, has a discipled called Judas son of James.  Acts chapter 1 makes it clear that the community of disciples was larger than 12 all the way through Jesus’ story. 

Perhaps we could construct a list of women.   At least three were named Mary.  There was Joanna, Salome, Junia (Romans 16), and many others.  Ancient custom did not count the testimony of women to be as reliable as that of men.  However, in spite of this misogynistic attitude, the Gospel writers identify these female disciples as the first witnesses of the resurrection.  The event that undid history and humanity’s understanding of the way things are rested on the testimony of women who had the temerity to approach the tomb while their male counterparts huddled in fear behind locked doors. 

These women visited the tomb of a seditious, condemned criminal.  So unbelievable is both this story and how it first came to us, some, even today, refuse to believe it.  Bible scholar John Dominic Crossan, a dedicated student of the gospels but also committed adherent to natural causes rejects any divine input in the course of history.  The women never came to the tomb.  According to Dr. Crossan all that we read in Mark 16 is fiction, created by Mark to justify the beginning of Christianity.

After crucifixions, the Romans threw the corpses into a pit, a mass, unmarked grave.  Crossan places his confidence in his knowledge of Roman tradition and his certainty that God, if there is a god, does not interfere in human affairs. 

Crossan’s conclusion runs right into the inferior place assigned to women in antiquity.  If Mark concocted a false narrative intended to prove that a dead Jesus was actually alive, would he make women his prime witnesses?  Already this story demands anyone who believes it to completely change their understanding of resurrection.  Now Mark’s asking people to willingly accept that paradigm shift on, what would have been taken as woefully shaky testimony?  Crossan may think he’s grounded his skepticism in science, but it fails the test of logic.

Standing on deduction and documentary evidence, I believe without doubt that the women really did set out early on Sunday morning as Mark said they did.  Their testimony along with the fact that shortly after that day, a group of Jews claimed that Jesus was the Messiah and was God in the flesh – an unprecedented claim – convinces me that the resurrection really did happen as Mark reports. 

It was as unbelievable as it was unsettling.  Imagine your reaction if one of the members of our church whose funeral we hosted in last two to three years walked in here for worship this morning.  You can’t imagine because we simply do not believe it will happen. 

Remember the words Mark used to describe the women - Greek, ‘tromos’ and ‘ekstasis;’ ‘trembling’ and ‘confused astonishment.’  One sense of the Greek is that one is so overwhelmed by some unexpected event it is as if one has fallen into a trance.  In the version of the Bible called The Message, translator Eugene Peterson tries to capture this rendering it this way.  “Their heads were swimming.” 

The women, Mark writes, “Said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.” Most likely, notations in your Bible cite verse 8 as the original ending of Mark and then after that there are notes indicating the “shorter” and “longer” endings.  Scholars almost universally agree those “shorter” and “longer” endings were added much, much later. 

Verse 8 is accepted as the original ending.  Most translations say, “They ran out for they were afraid,” but the Greek literally says, “They were afraid for …” and it stops.  The conjunction is the final word.

Imagine Mark is here, presenting his account of Jesus.  We hear from his own mouth the very first reading!  We lean forward, pushed to the edge of our seats by his fast-paced prose. He tells us Jesus has been raised!  What will the women do?  “They ran out.  They were afraid. For” … And he stops!  He smiles as if to say, OK, you finish it.

Will we?  Will we allow this story to topple what we knew to be certain – that dead people stay dead?  Will we listen as Mark tells of dead guy who didn’t stay dead?  Jesus rose from death.  Can we believe it?  Will we allow ourselves to be confronted by Easter? 

All people die, everyone; you, me, everyone.

Death is not the end.  Jesus has risen from death and prepared a way for us.  His followers will rise and be with him.  too.  This is as sure as anything we can be sure of.  It seems unbelievable!  By evidence, by logic, and by faith, I join those women, and the writer, Mark, and millions of Christ followers in definitively declaring that the unbelievable has happened!  Will we believe it?  Will we choose to follow the risen Christ?  Mark knows the answer comes when we respond to the story by putting our faith in Jesus.  God call us to write the ending of the story. 

AMEN

Maundy Thursday 2021

 

April 1, 2021

 watch it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCSrqJrfnSE&t=19s

School was really cool on Tuesday, January 28, 1986, because in the last class before lunch, Health and PE, we were doing neither Health, nor PE.  We were watching television, at school.  It was ‘totally awesome’ as we liked to say in the ‘80’s.  We watched the triumph of American ingenuity.  The Space Shuttle Challenger took flight, and our hope in America went with it, and we watched as it exploded 73 seconds into the flight. 

A million moments pass through our lifetimes, but one or two sit fixed, because they are possessed by meaning-making power.  The Fall of the Berlin wall, November 9, 1989; terrorists attacks on September 11, 2001; these and other moments define how we see the world.  Perhaps January 6, 2021 will achieve such dubious immortality, the assault on the U.S. capitol.

In the Bible through sign-acts, prophets speaking and acting out God’s word instigated such moments.  On this day, Jesus, in one of the many roles he filled, the prophetic role, defined his church in two sign-acts performed at last supper.

            Examples of these sign-acts are found throughout the Bible.  To show that Judah would have a future, even after exile, Jeremiah bought a field, when Jerusalem was on the verges of collapse in the face of the Babylonian onslaught.  To demonstrate the way God loved a people who in turn were unfaithful to him, God compelled the prophet Hosea to marry an unfaithful woman and then to give the children born to that union specific names that depicted the unfaithfulness of God’s chosen people.    These are but a few of the many sign-acts we encounter in the Bible.  Each memorable display called attention to the prophet’s message. 

The first of Jesus’ sign-acts is recorded in John 13:1-17. 

John 13:1-17, 34-35

13 Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ² The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper ³ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, ⁴ got up from the table,^[a] took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. ⁵ Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. ⁶ He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” ⁷ Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” ⁸ Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” ⁹ Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” ¹⁰ Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet,^[b] but is entirely clean. And you^[c] are clean, though not all of you.” ¹¹ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

¹² After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. ¹⁶ Very truly, I tell you, servants^[d] are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. ¹⁷ If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

³⁴ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

 

            John’s gospel explains that when Jesus got up from the table with a towel and a basin of water, he did so “Knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God.”   Departure was on his mind as he bent before each of the 12 disciples, face to feet level.  Their feet were as dirty as yours or mine would be if we walked everywhere only on dirt roads wearing only sandals.  Washing their feet, Jesus performed a needed service, usually performed by a household servant, not the revered rabbi.  Defying convention was intentional.

            Jesus meant to show what life in the kingdom of God is like.  Knowing he wouldn’t be with them bodily after the resurrection, he wanted them to remember.  In his kingdom, leaders serve.  Leaders meet the lowliest of people at their level and raise them up.  The disciples were to follow their teacher’s example and serve one another, and also the poor and lowly of the world, and everyone in the world. 

In Christianity Today magazine, Michael Horton writes, “Jesus enacts a performance parable about power.  … Taking off his outer garment, he wraps a towel around his waist and begins to wash his disciples’ feet.”[i]  Horton refers back to John 10 where Jesus asserted that there is no power that takes life from him.  Rather, he lays his life down (10:17-18). 

Horton then points out that the kingdom of God is founded in blood, but not the blood of the people, but rather the shed blood of the king who defined his reign with compassion and sacrifice.  Contrast this stance with that of American politicians who claim the name Jesus, but then grasp desperately for earthly power that is divisive, destructive, and temporary.  “When Christian leaders are drawn to breath-taking expression of ungodly power, it raises questions about which kingdom and which sort of king they find most appealing.”[ii]

Peter felt the weight of what Jesus was doing.  He wanted to exalt Jesus, so he at first refused to see his master kneel at his feet.  Peter was ashamed to be over Jesus.  Jesus corrected him.  Then Peter, who badly wanted everything Jesus had to give, went from rejecting Jesus’ overture to asking that Jesus wash his entire body (v.9).

Jesus told him he was clean.  Peter would go on to deny knowing Jesus, misspeak when he met the resurrected Jesus, and later have a falling-out with the Apostle Paul.  Why did Jesus tell him he was clean?  The forgiveness God gave and the atonement Jesus would achieve in his own death on the cross, were already effective for the disciples.

I had a discussion recently with someone unsure about baptism.  He said, “The reason I hesitate to be baptized is I know I will sin again.”  Jesus knew Peter would sin again.  He predicted Peter’s denials.  Yet, he declared Peter clean because forgiveness and atonement would be achieved.  The salvation Jesus won for Peter, and for you, and for me, could not be undone by any mistake Peter or you or I make.   

Washing the disciples’ feet was a sign-act that defined the kingdom of Jesus, the church.  In the church, we show our love for God and each other through humble service.  In verse 15, Jesus says is plainly.  “For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

The foot-washing is only recorded in John, and Jesus’ sharing of the bread and the cup is only in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  Taken together, as different accounts of the same meal, we see Jesus perform two sign-acts.  Foot-washing established that the church will be a community that loves through humble service, a community in which everyone is called to serve everyone else. 

The serving of the bread and cup, calling to mind Jesus’ broken body and shed blood, establishes the church of Jesus as a community of sacrifice.  Jesus took something familiar to the disciples, the elements of the Passover meal, as his canvas.  They knew of the blood of the Passover lamb that atoned for sins once.  The Passover meal and sacrifice would need to be repeated again each year. That ritual was now changed.  He told them, when you take the bread and drink the cup, remember that I was the Passover Lamb who died for the sins of all people. 

That eating the bread and drinking the wine is a normal, regular part of our worship is a reminder of what Jesus did for us.  It is also a defining act.  The Kingdom of Jesus, the church, which is a Kingdom in which love is expressed through service, is also a kingdom of sacrifice.  We are forgiven and made new because our Lord died in our place.

Every time we eat and drink, we remember.  We remember our sins are forgiven.  We remember we are children of God.  We remember that Jesus is Lord.  We cannot go back to being who we were before we began to follow Jesus.  There will be moments when we stumble in our following after him, and we don’t look very much like disciples at all.  In those moments of failure, we repent, again come to the table, and again eat and drink, and thus step back onto the path Jesus lays before us.  Eating and drinking, we remember who he is and we remember that because of God’s grace, we are his. 

Washing the disciples’ feet and instituting the bread and cup as His, the Lord’s, supper, Jesus established the values of his kingdom and the way we are to relate to each other if we want to be part of his kingdom. 

In ending Our Maundy Thursday worship by consuming the bread and cup, we receive the gift of forgiveness and the new life God gives.  And, we step into the world of meaning Jesus creates.  This world of meaning, where love is seen in service and sacrifice, is what makes sense of our lives. 

AMEN

 

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[i] M. Horton (2016) - http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/march-web-only/theology-of-donald-trump.html?start=2

[ii] Ibid.