Easter 2 (NL4)
April 8, 2018
John 20:19-31
INTRODUCTION:
We last left off on Easter morning: a
weeping Mary Magdalene had just encountered Jesus in the garden tomb. Jesus
told her to go tell the disciples that he was ascending to his Father and our
Father, to his God and our God. Mary does so, telling them, “I have seen the
Lord!” Mary becomes the first apostle – the first one sent to tell the Good
News of the living God.
John doesn’t
tell us how the disciples react to the news in the moment, but whatever the
case, now they are scared. The disciples have gathered in a locked room,
afraid. Did they not believe Mary? Or are they scared because they did believe her?
Whatever the
case, we will see that Jesus comes to them with some pretty important
statements. Our reading today is actually two different resurrection
appearances, both to the disciples, but one without Thomas there and one with.
The first is known as John’s version of Pentecost, the day the Spirit infuses
the Christian community, because Jesus will breathe his Holy Spirit into them.
The second features the guy who has come to be known as “doubting Thomas.”
Let’s see what happens. Please rise
for the Gospel!
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
This past
week, several of my colleagues, including our synod and presiding
Thinking of
another giant in faith from a quarter century before that, today, April 8th,
marks the 73rd anniversary of the last worship service Dietrich
Bonhoeffer led while in prison, before being executed on April 9th.
Bonhoeffer was a pastor, ethicist and theologian during World War II, and was a
part of a plot to assassinate Hitler. Though the attempt was unsuccessful, he
was arrested for his part in this. The life and work of this German Christian
activist is often compared
These two
anniversaries have made me hear some of Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel reading
a bit differently than I have before. First, his initial greeting. Three times
in this reading, Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” I have usually heard this as a
word of comfort to the fearful disciples. But thinking this week about the work
of King and Bonhoeffer, I’ve thought about those words differently, because
while the end goal of peace might in fact be something resembling calm and
reassurance, getting there can be anything but calm. Just ask King and
Bonhoeffer, who were both martyred at age 39 because of their working for
peace! Ask those trying to raise their voices and make people aware of their
various plights, whether that is as a victim of a racist system, or one that
keeps people living in poverty, or someone speaking up about being harassed or
abused or bullied, only to be told they are imagining it or lying. Ask anyone
who spends every day working toward a more fair and just system how peaceful that
work is (or isn’t!) while you’re doing it!
The irony of
this exchange is that I suspect peace is exactly what the disciples were trying to find by locking themselves
behind that door in the first place. We do that, don’t we – lock ourselves away
from reality in an effort to get away from it all? If there is something out
there that we don’t want to deal with, that we want to get away from, we just
lock ourselves away behind the door where no one can reach us, and where we can
pretend that everything out there is not really happening. Maybe it is an
actual locked room that we turn to, or maybe to some other coping mechanism
like shopping or alcohol or our technology of choice. Maybe it is adamant
denial that a reality could exist that doesn’t fit with how we perceive the
world to be, or how we wish it was. However it looks, we try to find peace by
locking ourselves away from a reality that does not bring us peace.
And so I
wonder if, when Jesus offers those words, “Peace be with you,” he might be
saying, “You’re not going to find true peace locked in here. True peace comes
from faith in me.” And I also wonder if in those words might be a charge to
seek that peace themselves, to be agents of seeking peace for the world. Because
look at the very next thing Jesus says: “As the Father sent me, so I send you.”
If Jesus truly meant to offer calming words, that seems like a tough line to
chase it with, no? “Hey guys, calm down, everything is going to be fine.
Because I’m sending you out into the world that just had me killed. Good luck!”
Yikes! That makes me feel the opposite of peaceful! But you see, the mission is
not to feel peace now, but rather, to seek
peace in the broken world – not the peace that comes from avoidance, but the
peace that comes from confronting the brokenness of the world with the good
news of the abundant life given to us by a God who so loves the world and loves
each of us who are in it.
That brings
to mind a question I’ve been thinking about lately. If you’re here today, I
assume you are like me, in that you love to come to church on Sunday and hear
about God’s love and be nourished and encouraged for the week. Yes? But when we
leave here, do we leave that good news locked up safely where we can find it
when we need it? Or do we take that news and put it up against the broken
realities of the world and ask, “What does the Good New of Jesus Christ have to
say to this?” In other words, what does the Gospel of Jesus Christ have to say
to the economic, political and civic realities that occupy people’s minds most
of their waking hours, to those struggles that we and other real people face
every day?
What does the Gospel say to a woman
being abused by her husband, but who feels she and her children are in even
more danger if she leaves him?
What does the Gospel say to those
protesting in Sacramento following Stephon Clark’s death?
What does the Gospel say to a young
man who got caught up in a gang for his survival, and now wants out, but is
being threatened if he leaves?
What does the Gospel say to people in
Flint, MI who still don’t have clean water, or people in Puerto Rico who still
don’t have electricity?
What does the Gospel say to young
believers who identify as gay or transgender, who are considering suicide
rather than coming out?
What does the Gospel say to undocumented
families being torn apart? Or to refugees who flee for their lives, only to be
sent back home?
What does the Gospel say to a planet
whose temperatures and water levels are rising and whose oceans are full of
plastic?
What doe the Gospel say to someone so
deep in depression, they can conceive of no way out but to take their own life
– and what does it say to that person’s loved ones?
Because if the Gospel doesn’t speak
to those things, those life-or-death struggles millions of people face, then
what really is the point of coming here week after week?
You see, that’s
the mission Jesus is sending the disciples on. “As the Father sent me, so I
send you,” he says, to speak this word of life into a hurting world. Not to
keep it for yourself (though that, too), but to bring Christ’s life to those in
need.
And that is not a charge that brings
peace to the heart right away, because it is really hard. Martin Luther King
lived every day in fear for his life, as he spoke the hope he found in the gospel
to the oppressive reality of racism that plagued his community and the country
he loved.
But it is a charge that ultimately
brings peace to the world God loves. And that is the role Jesus is giving to
these disciples, now apostles, being sent out: to speak a word of life, and
work for peace in this broken world.
Finally,
Jesus breathes into them and says, “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 word translated here as “retain” does not mean “withhold”
forgiveness, but rather, like, “hold fast.” It’s like, holding to account. It
is like Christ refusing to turn a blind eye to human suffering and wrong-doing,
refusing to “just let it go,” and thus enable bad behavior. “Holding fast” to sin
is Dietrich Bonhoeffer saying, “What Hitler is doing is wrong, and it needs to
stop.” It is Martin Luther King proclaiming that God did not intend that human
beings should be anything but free, that indeed all men and woman are created
equal and must be treated as such.
In other
words, “retaining” or “holding fast” to sin is not refusing to forgive it. It
is refusing to tolerate sin that would keep the world from living in the peace
Christ died to bring to this world. And so as a follow-up to, “Peace be with
you,” Christ charges the disciples to hold to account and confront wrong-doing
whenever they see it, to keep sin and abuse from having their way.
That’s a
tall order, too, a very difficult call for Christ to extend to his followers.
No wonder they were back in that same room the next week, with the doors still
shut! In fact, I think many of Christ’s followers today are still in that same room with the door
shut. Because being a disciple is hard, and it is even harder being an apostle,
who goes out into the world and finds the places most in need of healing and
speaks to those places a word of peace and life.
Of course,
Jesus knows that. That’s why he also offers to his apostles that night – and to
all believers since then – the gift of the Holy Spirit. Back before he died, he
called this Spirit “another Advocate,” someone to go along with them and work
with them and for them, helping them to do God’s work in the world. It’s that
same Spirit that we celebrate coming on Pentecost at the end of the Easter
season. It’s that same Spirit that we pray to come upon every child of God who
is baptized (in fact, included in the baptismal promises are these words: “to
work for justice and peace”). It’s that same Spirit that we pray to come into
the bread and wine before we take communion. We are continually infused with
this Spirit of peace, love and life, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel
and might, knowledge and joy.
We are not alone in this call. God
has given us all that we need to make those words, “Peace be with you,” truly
come to be in this world. And even when we do lock ourselves away from the
realities of the world that so desperately need a word of hope and life, Jesus
comes to us – repeatedly! – to once again give us the strength to pursue his
work. The question is, will we open the door, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and so many others, and go do it?
Let us pray… Risen Christ, you come into our locked rooms when we are scared and
would rather avoid the pain of the world, and you breathe your Holy Spirit into
us. Empower us by this Spirit, that we might bring your words, “Peace be with
you,” into the parts of God’s beloved world that need to hear it the most. In
the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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