Text: John 20: 19-31 Title: Easter for Grown-ups Date: 04.15.12 Roger Allen Nelson I was reminded recently that Fredrick Buechner once said in an interview on National Public Radio: I don t go to church all that regularly. And one reason I don t is, very often when I go, I am bored out of my wits. I find myself being addressed by men and women, mostly men preachers who I assume were led by some initial passion for Christ, for the truth of God, for the More. But that has gotten buried under all the debris of having to run a church. It comes as something that simply has no living conviction to it anymore. They re not telling me anything I haven t heard before. They re not moving my heart. They re not touching me. And I think ~ what am I doing here? Many of you are regular church goers. This Sunday, in the backwash of Easter glory, is particularly reserved for those who regularly push through the debris of life in hopes that you ll hear something with living conviction, that you ll hear something that you haven t heard before, that you ll hear something that will move your heart, that you ll hear the truth of God. This Second Sunday of Eastertide is particularly situated for those who are left to struggle with the meaning and implications of the resurrection. The big crowds are gone. It s just a little gathering of disciples, maybe behind locked doors, who are wondering, wanting, wrestling, wishing that all of this would mean something. Let s come at this resurrection story this way. There s a childlike quality to Christmas. Angels sing in the heavens and sheep are being watched at night. There is the gentle love of a mother and the attentive provision of a father. Under a guiding star, exotic kings bring extravagant gifts. Everything is silent, holy. All is calm and bright. The cattle are lowing; the baby doesn t cry. And, Christmas is easily dressed up for children with gifts and lights on evergreens, for there is a wonderful innocence to a God who would visit us as a baby with tidings of peace on earth and good will to men and women. Ah! But, Easter is for grown-ups. We do our best to gussy it up with flowers and bunnies and chocolate. We hide eggs and wear bright colored hats and serve up ham with rum-raisin sauce, but Easter is celebrated in the shadow of the cross and the shiver of the tomb. Easter is linked to the sadness, the
unfairness, the injustice, and the harsh-hard-horrors of life. It s not easily contained or sentimentalized. Try as we might it doesn t even fit nicely as an annual celebration of spring s return. There is something cosmic and grand and decisive and bewildering because Easter s resurrection is the triumph over death. Easter is meant for the cancer ward and the mourner s bench. Easter is about the bloody fields of battle and the dungeon s dark corners. Easter is for parents who bury children and everything else that is out of order. Easter is for grown-up adult concerns.. Frederica Matthews-Greene puts it this way: If Jesus didn t rise from the dead, who cares whether he was born in a manger or a 7- Eleven? If he didn t rise from the dead, Christmas is meaningless too. Seems a little harsh, but you get the idea. The gospel (what you re here for) swings on the resurrection. And, the resurrection is about the defeat of death and all of death s minions. And, that, dear friends, is not for children or the faint of heart. Maybe that s why the disciples were hiding. Let s say there were ten of them ~ Judas was gone and Thomas was at the store buying bread and wine. The rest of the disciples were huddled together. The text says they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, the Judeans, but scholars argue that there was no evidence that the religious establishment had the means or the moxie to initiate a campaign to clean up the followers of the one who had just been crucified. If the disciples were afraid it may have been a fear of their own making. Maybe they felt foolish for following one who was crucified. Maybe they were frightened by the mystery of it all. If what the women said was true, and the body was gone, there was no telling what might happen next. Maybe they were hiding because they were the ones who denied and deserted him. Or Or, maybe they were hiding because if it was true, if Jesus had risen from dead, then everything that they knew about life and death was turned on its head. Everything that they thought they knew about Jesus was upset-apple-cart. What manner of man was he? If it was true that Jesus had risen from the dead ~ then everything was different than what was. But, whatever it was that they were afraid of, they weren t out looking for Jesus. They were cowering in the corner; when Jesus slips in among them. For my money the post-resurrection stories are some of the most intriguing stories in scripture. Jesus appears and disappears. Vivid and vital enough that he can show his nail-torn-hands and his side split by a spear, he is still muted and mysterious enough that those who knew him and loved him don t recognize him.
In this story Jesus appears among his disciples. The detail of the locked doors would suggest that he didn t stand and knock, but that he simply appeared among them ~ maybe he materialized like the transporter on Star Trek? All that is to say his entrance here is oddly configured. Jesus greets them as if he had just returned from a long weekend at the lake. The disciples were flummoxed and floored. So, to calm their fears Jesus shows them his wounds. He offers them the same evidence for which Thomas has been chided ever since. There is something physical and tangible here. Put your hands here. Look here. Touch here. Smell ~ no stink of death. What you saw lowered from the cross ~ limp, lifeless dead weight ~ is now some form of resurrected body. The one crucified is the one risen. Alive. Alive. A central them in the Gospel of John is that Jesus comes to bring life ~ the fullness of life. John quotes Jesus in the tenth verse of the tenth chapter: I have come that they might have life and have it to the full And, then, here he is standing among his disciples ~ the fullness of life. A life beyond death. A life death can t defeat. A life that is not deterred by the locked doors of fear or shame or sin. A life that can t be contained. Jesus is loosed on the world. Alive. Brother Curtis Almquist, a modern day monk, frames it this way: Wherever we bury Jesus, he comes back to life. We can bury him in the Bible or in stained glass windows. We can bury him in creeds and formulas and the heritage of our own tradition. We can bury him in movies and plays and music. We can bury him in our past. We can even bury him in bread and wine. And each time from each place he rises from the dead. He sheds the words and images and walks right on out into the world. Trying to come to grips with the good news that Jesus is alive. Because as Jesus is alive ~ resurrected, alive, present tense ~ not just alive in our memories or alive in our religious rituals then Jesus is elusive and somehow just beyond our grasp. As Jesus is alive we can have hope that once in awhile even trumps doubt. As Jesus is alive then peace is possible, forgiveness is possible, and every expression of death ultimately holds no sway. Oh, clearly there are days when cancer will seem to have the upper hand. And, without a doubt, there are times when the black dog of depression is our constant companion. There will certainly be times when unspeakable terror and horror have the day. But, as Jesus is alive then none of those things has last the word!
And, dear friends, that means that we can never give up on anybody. Post resurrection, no matter how dire the circumstances, no matter how dim the situation, no matter how lost the soul, we don t have permission to give in or give up on anybody. Jesus is alive. You see most of the time I am like Thomas. I don t know what to make of the resurrection news. I ve got more doubts and questions then I have answers. I wasn t there to see and touch and smell. Most of the time depravity is the only doctrine for which I have irrefutable evidence. The evidence that Jesus is alive is slippery. If Jesus has the last word then the sentence leading up to that word is spoken through a veil of tears.. But, what if there is something more? The disciples had all bailed or betrayed Jesus in one way or another. They didn t believe, trust, or understand what he said; they weren t sure how to follow him; they disappeared when he was in trouble; they had no idea what to make of the news of his resurrection. And yet, when Jesus appears among them his first words are, Peace to you. There is no condemnation or criticism. There is no word of repentance or confession. There was no checking orthodoxy or challenging them to be more or believe more. There is just Jesus extravagantly and preemptively announcing peace and forgiveness. And, then he breathes on them commissioning them to do the same. Now, there is a great deal packed in these few lines of John s Pentecost. But, it is essentially the gift of the Spirit ~ the encouragement and courage of God to side with the resurrection. To side with forgiveness over retaliation, to side with mercy over judgment, to side with hope over despair, to side with love over fear, to side with Christ over self. Even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death ~ to side with resurrected life over death. Siding with the resurrection. Opening heart and life, not to the brokenness and banality of this day, but to the sure and fixed hope of the resurrected Christ. Even so, come Lord Jesus. Amen. Note: I am indebted to an essay by William Willimon for the Christmas ~ Easter distinction and setting me on this trajectory.