The audio file for my sermon recorded on Sunday, April 11, 2010 can be downloaded using the following link: http://www.box.net/shared/n6vyfcpyk8.
The sermon manuscript appears below:
The Second Sunday of Easter; April 11, 2010
Park Avenue Presbyterian Church; Des Moines, Iowa
Texts: Acts 5: 27-32
Psalm 118: 14-29 or Psalm 150
Revelation 1: 4-8
John 20: 19-31 *
“Jesus is Raised. …Now what?”
--} “Jesus is raised. …Now what?” That’s really the question the gospel writers try and answer for us, isn’t it?
I’m going to begin this morning with a couple of observations about John’s text in today’s gospel reading.
First, we should take notice that FEAR is important to understanding the resurrection of Jesus. John tells us that on the night the resurrection is discovered, the disciples have gathered, with “the doors locked for fear of the Jews.” Sometimes we’ve gotten in the habit of believing that the “locked doors” Jesus has to navigate to get to the disciples somehow “proves” his resurrection is valid—but in fact, the doors are locked because the disciples are afraid. They’re afraid because the religious authorities were out to get them as much as they were Jesus; and because dead people don’t just come back from the dead! A week later and having already witnessed Jesus alive, the disciples again show up, and again the doors are locked—they’re still AFRAID!—even when they know Jesus is alive.
Contrast that with you and I who find great JOY in the news of the resurrection and we aren’t the least bit afraid! Shouldn’t we be?
Second, “Doubting Thomas” almost always gets a bad rap. We would do well to believe the Bible’s testimony that Thomas “saw” or experienced nothing more than the other disciples got to experience and witness for themselves. Yet, BECAUSE of Thomas, we have a second—and what must have surely been an “unexpected”—visit from a “resurrected” Jesus. We have it “demonstrated” again that truly Jesus was the one who appeared to the disciples a week earlier, and not some kind of imposter or body double. We often discount that “doubt” and “fear” are a part of every gospel-writer’s account of Jesus’ resurrection. Mark, telling us that the women were amazed and terrified and they didn’t tell anyone anything. Matthew, reminding us that when the disciples are together with the resurrected Jesus on the mountain, that they worship him “but some still doubted.” Luke, informing us that the disciples were all “terrified” when he stood among them and that they thought they were seeing a ghost! Is John’s story about Thomas really that much different from everyone else’s?
But it is different from our telling and often from our experience, isn’t it? In the wake of the resurrection, “doubt” seems—well… “normal.” Quite the contrast to Christians today, who often think it is unconscionable that anyone would have “doubts” about the resurrection. And yet, even in the face of “believing” in the resurrection, we often forget how important it is for us to not get caught up in the resurrection being “true” or by the promise of our getting to go to heaven; but instead, to keep alive the witness of Jesus. That seems to be the challenge the gospel writers are pointing us toward. Not just believing in the resurrection, but keeping alive the witness of Jesus!
John’s gospel tells us in verse 29: “Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe’.” Here may be why. It’s widely believed that John’s gospel was written “last,” at the very end of the 1st Century. This is significant because by then, it’s likely that all of the “eyewitnesses” to Jesus’ death and resurrection would have died. By then, no one was left who could say, “I saw Jesus in the days after his resurrection,”—people like Thomas and the other disciples who could literally “testify” that Jesus was raised. The community for whom John’s gospel was written was going to be made up of folks who could not ever “see Jesus” and “believe” in the same sort of way. They were people who were going to have to “believe” not having seen the signs or having the visible, eyewitness testimony. John is writing to the first generation of believers who would need to speak to people saying, “I believe Jesus is raised,” but for all practical purposes, would have no “verifiable proof.”
For that first generation of believers beyond the testimony of eyewitnesses as well as for ourselves, it’s important that we remember we are not simply called to be about “proving” that Jesus was “resurrected” some 2,000 years ago, “just as the Bible says.” Instead, we’re called to give witness to what the Bible teaches: that “Jesus is alive” now just as much as he was then; but “resurrection” means more than an event of history. When we say, “Christ is risen,” we mean more than a date or a memory—we speak of reality.
Even when the disciples told Thomas, “We have seen the Lord,” do you think they meant, “we saw him die, then we saw him alive, ain’t it great!” Do you believe it was simply a matter of “proving” once and for all that dead people can be raised? Didn’t Jesus raising of Lazarus do that? But if Jesus is alive…, isn’t it true that his claims are still alive and true! And that probably means there’s something in it for us. Not just something for us to “believe,” but something for us to DO?
We often think the resurrection is about Jesus being raised—in fact; and we like to believe because of “resurrection” we are bound for heaven—in fact. But these concerns aren’t really the focus of the gospel writers. In a new book, New Testament scholar N.T. Wright offers some sage advice about the meaning of the resurrection in the gospel stories. Wright points out that none of the GOSPELS talks about the resurrection meaning anything related to what we might call “an assurance of heaven” or an “afterlife.” The gospel writers weren’t concerned with what happens to us when we die. And while we’re often used to affirming that “Jesus died for our sins …so that we can go straight to heaven,” this is not an emphasis of the gospel stories. And for us to really understand the resurrection, such claims need to be better understood.
In the New Testament, it’s Paul who introduces us to the idea of “life after death.” Yet, that we know of, Paul never met Jesus prior to the resurrection. But Paul, writing and preaching to new believers BEFORE any of the gospels were written, teaches that as surely as Jesus dies, we are buried with him in baptism, and that as surely as Jesus is raised, we are raised with him in new life. And most of the time, most of us are willing to stop there. “Good,” we think. Jesus’ resurrection means we get to go to heaven—isn’t that “good news”? But just like the question of resurrection as a singular historical moment, doesn’t the resurrection mean MORE than just the promise of life after death?
This is precisely what the gospels try to indicate for us. If you accept already that there’s life after death, the gospel stories push us in a radical new direction for how we live our lives. If we don’t have to worry about death or dying being the last word or our final destination, what we “DO” with THIS LIFE that we’ve been given seems far more important than simply convincing ourselves that there’s a life to come. And suddenly, Jesus’ resurrection can move us from a doctrine the church “believes” to the reality of what Christians are called to be “DOING” in the world, because we know the truth of the phrase, “Christ is risen!”
So when John tells us about Jesus’ appearances with his disciples, the POINT is more than life after death. We can’t miss that John’s story takes place “behind locked doors” where the disciples are afraid. While Jesus says three times, “peace,” the disciples won’t immediately follow. And “peace” becomes key when Jesus offers believers a commissioning: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And, having breathed on them, Jesus says to them and us, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” The truly scary part of the resurrection for us may be that according to the Biblical facts the resurrection doesn’t seem to be just a particular promise about heaven, it’s a commissioning to continue Jesus’ witness! Jesus being alive lends NEW MEANING to our life as FOLLOWERS. Which is maybe why the Book of Acts tells us that shortly after his resurrection, the disciples are teaching in his name! Flaunting the power of the religious authorities.
Both for the disciples and for people like us, the story of Jesus’ life and ministry, death and resurrection, means that every encounter we have with others has the potential for us to help or hurt them, to forgive sins or retain them. It means that our “faith” has consequences beyond heaven and hell. “Believing” the resurrection stories of Jesus, not only teaches us that Jesus is alive, they proclaim a ministry and mission for believers and followers that Jesus intends to enable. Freed from the threat of an “end” in death or dying, the gospel stories promise opportunities to continue Jesus’ ministry and mission between now and then.
Back in John chapter 11, before Jesus raises Lazarus, Jesus says to Martha, “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. Do you believe this?” And once again, the temptation is for us to rush ahead to the “never dying” part, tempted to think of Heaven and a particular afterlife we envision. But when Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life…,” in the present tense, surely he intends for believers and followers what he says. So that Jesus’ “resurrection” is primarily about a way of living—not just for them but for us!
If Jesus’ resurrection assures us that death is not the last word or our final destination, are we not truly “free” to live in this life? Even in the face of persecution, domination, violence, disease, misfortune; even in the face of joy, wealth, satisfaction, justice and righteousness? Jesus’ resurrection frees us in any moment—in every moment—to not only confess, “my Lord and my God,” but also to use our moments to recreate Jesus’ ministry and mission. So that Jesus is alive not only in the sense of having been raised from the dead, but that he is alive in us—in our actions, in our working, in our faithfulness to Jesus’ ways.
Or, as Daniel Ingram wrote this week in an online devotional about “how” we believe in the resurrection: “we believe that Jesus is alive because of the great joy that comes from knowing him. When we share that joy with others, the story of Jesus’ resurrection continues through us. Jesus is alive when we share the good news of forgiveness. Jesus is alive when we worship, sing and pray. Jesus is alive when we make friends. Jesus is alive when we help others. Jesus is alive!”
So it’s more than believing in an historical event, or a moment when Jesus appears, the resurrection of Jesus invites us to continue to believe in and act upon the witness of the living Christ. In fact, that’s what I believe the original commissioning for the disciples was all about—to believe that they, too, had in fact been sent by God; commissioned so that they too could act in the ways of Jesus. And, if John’s testimony about resurrection frees us from a concern about dying, shouldn’t it really inspire our living? I believe it must.
--+ Christ is risen - indeed! AMEN.
* Special thanks to my Lectionary Study Group pals who offered a lot of the inspiration for the direction of this sermon. Our study group meets on Tuesday mornings in the conference room at the offices of the Presbytery of Des Moines, where we're famous for the questions: "What are you going to preach about?" "I don't know--it's only Tuesday!" And, "Where are we going to eat for lunch." And in between happens a lot of great discussion, wrangling, and seed-planting about the lections for the next Sunday and their various meanings interpretations.
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