John 20:19-31 "Peace, Power, and Purpose"

            You would have thought that the disciples would have been celebrating – like we did last Sunday.  Christ is risen.  Christ is risen indeed. 

            You would have thought that they would have been singing rousing hymns with trumpet accompaniment – like we did just seven days ago, Christ the Lord is risen today – alleluia! 

            You would have thought that they would have been feasting with family and friends – like we did after worship on Easter –baked ham or roast lamb (well, maybe not ham), but asparagus and some special springtime dessert. 

            But, no, they were hidden away, fearful and silent in a dark upper room.  If we piece together all four Gospel accounts of the resurrection, we know that by this time the disciples had all the details from the women – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome.  They knew all about the empty tomb. 

            According to one account, Peter and one of the others had seen with their very own eyes that the rock had been rolled away from the cave entrance.  Upon peeking inside, they had spotted the grave clothes stashed in a corner of the tomb. More significantly, they had seen no sign of Jesus, their crucified, dead, and buried rabbi and leader. 

            By another account, Mary Magdalene had recognized the Christ in the very same cemetery garden and had even had the briefest of conversation with him when he had gently spoken her name.  “I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear falling on my ear…”

            Oh, they had heard the news.  The disciples had certainly heard the news, but they were hardly overjoyed and ready to party.  No – they were hidden away, fearful and silent in a dark - and locked - upper room somewhere in the back alleyways of Jerusalem, the Holy City. 

            And they were afraid.  You could smell it in the dusty, closed up, too hot room.  You could smell it in the sweat that trickled down their arms.  You could see it in their eyes, darting to the windows whenever a floorboard creaked or a breeze rattled the old olive tree in the atrium.  You could feel it in their tense muscles, their shallow breathing, in the way their hearts beat too fast for a springtime day.  Their fear was so profound and so intense that you could almost taste it.

            They were all afraid, though perhaps the least fearful among them was Thomas because he had left the upper room, no doubt furtively making his way through the least known streets and byways of the city. 

            We do not know why he left.  Perhaps they all were hungry and Thomas had picked the short straw and so was venturing forth to beg, borrow, or steal some provisions to last them for a few days until they could figure out exactly what to do next, now that all hope for a future together was dead and buried along with Jesus.  Or maybe Thomas just wanted to get a breath of fresh air.  Maybe he could not stand the fear any longer.

            Of course, those disciples – including Thomas – had good reason to be afraid.  First of all, protecting themselves both from the Roman authorities as well as from the Jewish temple bigwigs made a lot of sense. 

            After all, the crowds had turned against Jesus in a heartbeat.  One minute they were cheering him into the Holy City of Jerusalem, the seat of Jewish religious power and prestige. And the next minute they had apprehended and tried him, mocked, scorned and crucified him along with all of their anger, resentment, and petty malice, and left him for dead – which he was, of course - most horribly dead.

            Peter, James, John, and the others surely knew that they could still be caught up in the same torrent of events.  Being from Galilee and followers of the rabbi who had stirred up so much trouble in the past week was not advantageous. 

            Who knew if the dust had really settled – or whether they were simply experiencing the eye of the storm?  Jesus’ appallingly undignified death was still fresh in their minds – as well is should be.  He had only departed this world a couple of days ago. 

            Of course, it was not only the potential for their own demise that might have had the disciples sweating out their fear.  There was also the other possibility – as farfetched as it may have seemed.  What if the women’s rumors were true?  What if Jesus had returned?  What if the love of their God had bullied and finally overcome death itself – as Jesus said that it would?  What if Jesus was alive?  What if – Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed?

            What then?  That remote chance was also troubling the disciples – as well it should have.  After all, the man who had been their teacher, the one whom they had followed for three years, the one for whom they had left their homes and to whom they had pledged their faithful lives had been murdered – and they had not done much to stop it.  What if Jesus was really angry with them? 

            Peter was undeniably (no pun intended) the worse off from that perspective.  Peter who, while warming his hands by the fire burning beneath the hall where Jesus was enduring a trial of sorts - had denied, denied, denied Jesus – three times with growing resentment and ire – declaring that he did not know the man, swearing that he had never met him, lying through his teeth that he was not a follower from Galilee.  What if Jesus had heard Peter’s weak words of denial?

            But the others as well, each in his own way, had also betrayed Jesus.  Looking back on the events of just a couple of days ago, they were deeply, deeply ashamed of their actions.  A couple of them had split the scene there in the garden when Jesus had been arrested. They had seen trouble coming - lit by torches held high in the nighttime gloom, and punctuated with the glint of Roman swords and knives.  They had hightailed it to safety to save their own hides.

            Others of the disciples had stood by silently as Jesus was led away, his arms roped behind him.  They were afraid to say anything in his defense, fearful that they too would end up in chains. 

            Still others had followed the little procession from a distance, curious to see what would happen next.  They were the ones who became part of the gathering crowd and when Jesus was brought out to the balcony and the masses got all riled up yelling “crucify him, crucify him” and Pilate the Roman governor washed his hands of the whole mess and went inside and locked his doors and they realized that nothing good was going to come of the night, they melted into the background and ran away. 

            Each disciple had betrayed and denied Jesus.  In later years, their shortcomings would be called sins of omission because it was not what they had done so much as what they might have done but did not. 

            Jesus would surely be angry with them.  After all, they had all – every single one of them – deserted him.  And of course he would be deeply disappointed in them.  It had all turned into a terrible mess, not what they would have expected, and now here they were in a dark upper room, locked away with the sweat of their own fear and waiting for Thomas to get back with dinner. 

            What if Jesus had returned armed for revenge?  After all, they had left him on a cross to die.  Worse yet, they had watched him die slowly, agonizingly – and had done nothing.  Not even a prayer for his safe passage to whatever it is that comes next had escaped their lips.  No wonder they sweated now in fear and trembling.

            It was then, of course, that Jesus appeared among them.  The locked door and bolted windows were inconsequential.  They could not have kept him out if they had tried.  Jesus just showed up.  They could not believe it at first and surely under the circumstances they probably did not want to believe it.  But Jesus displayed his scarred hands and feet, and so they believed in their hearts what they had seen with their eyes.

           

            Thomas, of course, got home with the take out bucket of chicken a wee bit too late – and down through history has received a bad reputation for his timing.  Ever since, he has been called doubting and one of little faith when all he asked for was the same documentation freely offered to the others. 

            We tend to focus on Thomas’ seeming faux pas when we read this first account in the Gospel of John of an appearance of the Risen Christ.  However, the significance of this tale for us as we try to wrap our minds around the resurrection lies not Thomas’ request for proof.  Rather it lies in the first words to come out of Jesus’ mouth both times he entered that dark upper room.  “Peace be with you,” he said.  “Peace be with you.” 

            Jesus was not angry – though he might have been.  He knew that Peter had denied him.  And certainly he was disappointed (who would not have been?) that none of them had manned up to the situation at hand.  However, he chose not to critique and belittle them. 

            And Jesus was not vengeful – though he might have been.  He knew they had stood by and watched as he rolled his eyes in agony and eventually died. He knew that in the end they did not have a courageous bone in their bodies.  He knew that they had racked up a lot of sins of omission that fateful evening.

            And yet, the first thing he said to them was “Peace be with you.”  They first thing he did was forgive them.  Jesus returned, and his concern was not about himself, but about them.  He offered them peace, and they dissolved into joy – as will Thomas a week later. 

            We often presume that the story ends here – and the party finally begins.  But not so!  You see, Jesus not only forgives the disciples.  He also empowers them with a mission.  The Gospel writer tells us that Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on them (whatever that means) and sends them forth to forgive with authority, to forgive as he has now forgiven all of them. 

            As Episcopal priest Charles Hoffacker writes, “This action is a second creation, an early Pentecost, a commissioning of them for ministry.  Their business is to be about forgiveness, the reconciliation of humanity with God and each other. The prototype for their work is to be the forgiveness (Jesus) has given them.  From this upstairs room, forgiveness is to spread like wildfire.”

            The power of forgiveness is profound – and a deep set need for all of us.  We learned that here in church a couple of weeks ago when I shared a story by Ernest Hemingway.  It was such a wonderful tale – and so applicable here – that I am going to briefly re-tell it.  Remember, it is about the Spanish father who sought reconciliation with his son who had run away to the city of Madrid. The father put an advertisement in the local newspaper, which read:  "Paco, meet me at the Hotel Montana at noon on Tuesday. All is forgiven! Love, Papa."

            Now Paco was such a common name in Spain that when the father went to the Hotel Montana the next day at noon there were 800 young men named Paco waiting for their fathers!  You see, forgiveness is about the most wonderful gift we could ever give to one another.

            But Jesus gives the disciples even more than peace and the power of forgiveness. He also gives them a purpose for their lives. They are to be the mouthpiece for Jesus, forgiving and offering peace to all they meet.  They are also to be the hands and feet of the Risen Christ, ensuring that peace and forgiveness are more than empty words. 

            And so it is for us, we who call ourselves followers of the Risen Christ, we who in so many ways have shut the doors of our minds, imprisoned our hearts, and locked our lives away.  It is not enough for us to celebrate the resurrection with rousing hymns, festive meals, and acclamations that Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed. 

            There comes a time when we must live the resurrection. Jesus has come through the locked doors and barriers we have set up and blown as much of the Holy Spirit on us as he did on the first disciples in the dark and locked upper room in the Holy City. 

            Jesus has offered us peace - forgiveness.  But Jesus has also given us the power to forgive those around us, the power to forgive all the Pacos of our lives who gather in the village square, desperate for a clean slate and a new start. And Jesus has challenged us with a purpose – not only to be his mouthpiece in the world proclaiming his gospel message of the power of love and reconciliation, but also his hands and feet – healing, blessing, feeding, and eventually transforming the world.

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, ME

www.rvccme.org

Mark 16:1-8 "When is an Ending Not an Ending?"

            What were they thinking?  Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, I mean.  Whatever were they thinking? 

            If the three women had been at all rational and logical, they would have brought fulcrums and levers to move that stone that blocked the entrance of the tomb.  But no - all they carried with them into the cemetery that early morning as the sun first began to peep over the horizon, scattering forth its pink and yellow and orange hues, were sweet spices. 

            Surely the women knew that tubes of aloe and jars of myrrh were not going to make a whit of difference when it came to shifting the rock that sealed the tomb where Jesus’ body had been hastily laid just before the Sabbath sundown.  The stone was an issue – no doubt about it - and the Gospel writer of Mark takes great pains to tell us that it was a very large stone – like a boulder, we can presume.

            Surely the female mourners realized that they would have been better served by insisting on a couple of strong backs – Peter maybe or even Andrew – but, no, the disciples who had emerged from hiding after melting into the Good Friday crowds that had screamed their insults and epithets at Jesus – Crucify him! Crucify him! – those rather cowardly and faithless followers were sleeping it off this Easter morning. 

            And so it was just the three women and their embalming ointments making their way through the dawn dew to the tomb.  And why did they bother?  Oh, perhaps it was so they could say that at least they had tried – tried to pay their respects, tried to acknowledge that they realized that Jesus had loved right to the very end –even when the whole world had turned against him.  Perhaps the women wanted to give Jesus posthumously the dignity that had escaped him when he died in the appalling way he did.  Maybe this was just their way to say they had loved him.

            Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome came prepared to wash the dried blood from his face and hands and feet.  They came to comb his hair that had gotten all tangled in the thorny crown he had been forced to wear.   They came to anoint his body with sweet spices – aloe and myrrh – ancient embalming fluids.  In the end, they had come to offer him a final bit of kindness, something they had been unable to do on Friday with the Sabbath coming on.

            They knew that the rock would be problematic, but they came anyway.  We have no idea what they were expecting to find.  However, the Gospel writer does tell us what they did find and that was the rock rolled aside, revealing a cavernous and dark entrance to the tomb. 

            Evidently not creeped out by this macabre turn of events, the women ventured inside the cave, only to find in the shadowy dank a young man.  The Gospel writer tells us that he was dressed in white and was sitting to the right (Such marvelous little details, undoubtedly to remind us that he (the writer) was not making all this stuff up).

            It was only at this point that the three women became alarmed, as our translation says.  But “alarmed” hardly does justice to their emotions.  The Greek translation is more like “unspeakable fear,” that “bottom falling out of everything,” “end of the world,” “being out of your wits” kind of feeling.  It is the same word actually that the Gospel writer uses to describe Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane,  looking up to the skies for the face of his father only to find the empty blackness of a empty universe.  (John Meunier) Kneeling in the garden (Jesus) feels that unspeakable” what we so glibly translate as alarm.

            In our vocabulary, the three women were not simply alarmed.  They were freaked out, especially after the man in the tomb preached the first Easter sermon in history. 

            “Don’t be alarmed,” he cautioned.  “Don’t be filled with that unspeakable fear, for Jesus has been raised.  Now go – go and tell the disciples (including Peter, the Gospel writer makes a point of telling us, including Peter who had so blatantly failed Jesus and had so fallen short of all expectations when he did his three part denial – maybe there really is hope for all of us).  Go and tell them the news, every last one of them – and tell them to hightail to Galilee where it all began three years ago.

            But the women had harbored that unspeakable fear thing, and so they do not tell a single….And that is the end of the story in this particular Gospel. Though the English translation ends with a complete sentence and a period, some Biblical scholars believe that the original Greek ended in the middle of a sentence. 

            What was the Gospel writer thinking?  Did he forget to save the account to his hard drive?  Did someone rip out the last page?  Did the dog eat it?  Is this any way to end the greatest story ever told?  The Good News dies with the women at the tomb?  How good is that?

            Later writers apparently thought it was an awful way to end the story because a couple of them went so far as to write their own endings and tack them on.  You can read them there in the Bible.  However, the original Gospel ends in fear, trembling, silence, and maybe, just maybe, in the middle of a sentence. 

            But you know, I like the idea of an unfinished ending.  I agree with those Biblical scholars who maintain that the Gospel writer concluded the story this way – with a non-ending – quite intentionally.  He knew what he was doing.  After all, a story without an ending can be quite tantalizing.

            And maybe that is why so many people come to church on Easter Sunday – even people who do not ordinarily come to church.  Maybe deep down inside people gather in sacred places like this one hoping against hope that this year – maybe, just maybe – they will hear the end of the story – and it will be to their liking.

            Well, if that is a reason you came here this morning, then, sorry – you will be deeply disappointed because I do not have the end of the story tucked neatly up my sleeve. 

            In short, resurrection is not that simple.  For one thing, the meaning of resurrection is not irrevocably bound to a past event, as some folks believe.  That is, resurrection is not something that occurred at a single point in time 2000 years ago and therefore cries out for a logical explanation today.  And what is more, resurrection is in no way tied to our own future deaths either (as some people also think) because resurrection was never intended as some sort of heavenly guarantee of life forever – at least not life as we know it.

            The meaning of resurrection lies in the present – and that is why I believe that the Gospel writer ended his story mid-sentence. You see, the story has not ended yet.  Really!  It is as Presbyterian theologian Frederick Buechner said, “What really matters is not so much what happened there (at the tomb). It's what happens now. What happens in your life and my life.”  To understand the meaning of resurrection, we need to revisit the sermon of the young man in white in the tomb.  “He is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him”.

            Presbyterian pastor Laura Collins puts it this way:  “This is the key to our Easter morning promise. The women did not hear that Jesus was raised to sit at the right hand of God on some throne in some far away heaven. What they heard was much more radical. He is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him.

            Where is Galilee? Galilee is where these disciples came from. It was their home. It was the place where they had families and jobs and ordinary routines. It was not Jerusalem — the Holy City, the center of power — but Galilee, the place of everyday life.”

            And so for us gathered here today trying to come to grips with this resurrection business, that means – go back.  Leave this sacred space and go back – back to your homes and jobs and families.  That is where you will find the Risen Christ.  That is where you will discover the potential – if you so choose – to be empowered by him.  In short, you and I are the ones the Gospel writer is calling upon to finish the story. 

         As Laura Collins continues, “This is not the end; God's business is not finished. This is the beginning. This is where your work begins. This is where your life begins…Don't stand at a tomb, paying homage to a dead teacher. Don't set your sights on simply putting ointment on wounds already dealt. Go back to the place where you live your life.”

            There you will meet the God who walks among us with love so powerful that it was strong enough even to overcome death.  There you will run smack into the Christ who rose above the intolerance, the fear, the violence, and the greed that tried to destroy him.  There you will find the Spirit of the One who lives and who will not be stopped by hatred or war or injustice.

            Resurrection is the clearest and best sign we have that God is not finished yet.  God’s business did not end in a tomb 2000 years ago with a handful of women overcome by unspeakable fear. 

All the malice and pettiness and spite we could muster could not hold God back.  Even that large stone in front of the tomb could not limit the power of God.  Not even death could keep God’s love from making a comeback in the world. 

            So, on this Easter morning, regardless of why you came to church today, I challenge you to finish the story the Gospel writer began and purposely left unfinished.  As United Church of Canada pastor, Richard Fairchild wrote, “We are a people who are called to believe in the power and the love that it shows -- to believe in the power and love of God to bring goodness out of evil; life out of death; and hope out of despair.”

            I challenge you to continue this tale of resurrection when you leave this place today and go back to your ordinary lives.  I challenge you to fulfill this stirring account of the power of love.  After all, the Gospel writer is depending on us – you and me.

by Rev. Nancy Foran

Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

www.rvccme.org