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18.04.2010_John 21 и Acts 9
| 20.04.2010, 10:10 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Psalm 30; Revelation 5:11–14; Acts 9:1–20; John 21:1–19 Paul, Peter and Ananias "before” and "after” Christ is risen! This week I read what Karl Barth wrote about resurrection: "The essence of Easter is: Jesus is victor! Jesus – is it not he who was born in humblest lowliness, who died on the cross crying the cry of a derelict of God, he who forgave sins but who collapsed under the burden of sin, he, the humble, smitten by his fate; and of all those laden with grief, is he not the most burdened man? And he is to be victor?” You see, Barth realized that for many of us "resurrection” is a difficult truth and a hardly tolerable word, because to understand its power we first must come to terms with the ultimate hopelessness of this world, our lives so deeply enslaved, full of tragedy, doubt, unanswered questions, death on all levels and admit that there is nothing we can do to change it. Resurrection requires that we admit that there is no way out of death, sin sickness, being lost and deceived unless God intervenes in some incomprehensible, saving way and mercy and will lead us from death to life that comes from Him. That is exactly what God did, His life-word spoken in the resurrection of Jesus! Barth writes: "Resurrection – not progress, not evolution, not enlightenment, but a call from heaven to us: "Rise up! You are dead, but I will give you life!” That is what is proclaimed here but we often make it something much smaller, belittle its ultimacy and thus take away from ourselves our last hope. We don’t like to see that we are deeply imprisoned, and that we are absolutely cannot in any way help ourselves; that we are a people who live in a shadow and darkness of death – that’s what word "resurrection” proclaims to us. And before we can really understand "resurrection” we must hear and understand "death” and that our lives as blooming and healthy it is, there is a yawning chasm, which cannot be filled by any power of man. Only one word is sufficient to cover this chasm: "Jesus is victor!” - His resurrection. Before we can experience resurrection we must see this chasm. For resurrection proclaimed true freedom and lets us painfully discover our prison chains and how deeply enslaved we are without it. Yet, too often we romanticize the truth of Easter, thinking of resurrection only as some symbol or human renewal or thawing of human heart. We don’t understand "Jesus is victor” literally but only as a symbol of what happens in our lives and because of that believe that the world in not so bad off and after each evil there naturally follows something good. Just the other day we talked with Natalia Ivanovna about people's tendency to say: "everything will be alright...I hope”. But most of the time there is no real basis of hope. The truth is: there is nothing in our lives, no education, no promotion of culture; no evolutionary development will help us beyond sin. We must receive assistance from the ground up that will break down our walls of security and convictions, and force us to become humble, poor and pleading, so that we can finally hear and experience the power of true resurrection. These discovery moments, however, are not just about finding an answer or words of explanation of why things went wrong. Our Scriptures talk about Divine revelation, and how God’s presence opens eyes and transforms everything. These stories testify about moments of revelation, which totally transformed the lives of very different people, dividing their lives into clear "before” and "after”. And these lives "after” exemplify lives in which resurrection is real, in which the power of the Risen One broke the chains of death once and for all. And by rising from the dead and destroying death's grip, Jesus also delivered those people’s lives from their own personal deaths. But those appearances of Christ to His disciples after resurrection also tell us that we don’t need to wait for our physical deaths to know resurrection; rather, we are invited to new life in the here and now. Already today, an encounter with the Risen One can "change our mourning to dancing…” for He "took off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness”! That’s exactly what happened in the lives of three people of whom we read today in the New Testament. These stories are about their revelatory encounters which took away the illusion of the "normality”, of "orderliness” of Peter’s, Saul’s and Ananaias’ lives, and transformed those very different individuals splitting their lives into "before” and "after”. In their lives "after” resurrection became reality for the power of the Risen One tore the chains of death once and for all. Christ risen from the dead broke down the power of death and freed their lives from the things that were putting them to death. And for all of us – rising from the dead will only happen the same way – by admitting the seriousness of our sin and the ultimate hopelessness of our lives without Jesus, by seeing the death and resurrection of Jesus as the only invitation to new life and the only entrance into it already here and now. Already today, an encounter with the Rise One can "change our mourning into dancing” for He "took my sackcloth and bound me with joy”. Let us see how that resurrection became reality for Saul, Ananias and Simon peter, finding how it can become real for us as well. Let’s start with Saul – a Pharisee, a good and a jealous one. He was jealous about Israel, believed in the prophecy that God will raise His people, purify them and renew their chosen-ness, while gentile occupants (and with them all the apostate Israelites) will perish. But Saul didn’t only believe that the Lord is already beginning the cleansing but was eager to do whatever is needed to hasten the Day of the Lord and so he had a mission: to do away with the apostates, to get rid of this new movement of those who followed Jesus of Nazareth, this impostor who misleads true, faithful Jews. Departing for Damascus, Saul acquired something very important for himself – he had letters from Sanhedrin that gave him legal authority to extradite Jews, following Christ anywhere to Jerusalem for trial. These letters were sort of a rabbinic "gold card”, a sign of Saul’s success, of his influence and of his power. Saul had made it in his chosen field and those letters proved it. Saul was certain that he was doing the right thing, that the ultimate problem was those "heretics” and their leader Jesus. Yet, Saul, God’s servant will help God to solve that problem and things will be well again; everything in this nation will be put back into its places. It was then and with these letters in his pocket that Saul discovered the real power of the resurrection. On the way to Damascus risen Jesus, that troublemaker who died a shameful death appears to Saul and therefore His death, His becoming nothing, His shame, bearing of sin can only mean one thing – He is victor, He is risen indeed! And that meant that Saul was wrong, that he had persecuted the God he thought to serve. It meant that the world has a much deeper problem of sin and he himself was also a part of that sin problem and was hopelessly lost. But he also discovered something even more important than his own wrongness and lostness. He discovered the power of God’s grace and through that grace everything changed. Saul discovered that everything he had done, as wrong, as misguided, as fundamentally evil as it was, all of that was so completely overwhelmed by the reality of the resurrection of Christ that it was not even mentioned. Note that on that road to Damascus on that day not a word of Saul’s condemnation for his past. Instead, he was told how something new was about to begin for him. And we never hear about those letters again, those very important signs of his power and of his status; they just drop out of sight. We know what happened to Saul; we don’t know what became of the letters – the sign of the life "before” the discovery of the risen Christ. We can assume that those letters were left somewhere behind. He couldn’t posses his new life while still holding onto those letters, the sign of belief that he can somehow participate in solving his people’s problem of sin. There is another person in this story - Ananias. Ananias enters the picture here, and only here. Everything we know about him, we heard today. We know that he was a follower of Jesus who had to make a choice between doing what he felt God wanted him to do, and doing what made sense. He knew about Saul, he knew Saul was his enemy, and the enemy of the Church. He doubtless knew the comfort that comes from having someone to hate and fear and name as "evil”—and so make it easier to name himself "good or better.” His life was a "good life”; after all he served risen Lord, and yet he was convinced that to reach out to the one he had named evil was dangerous and stupid. Like us, Ananias would prefer that grace and transformation happen to him or to his friends. The idea of an enemy being chosen upset his entire world. So he argued with God, and he had to choose. If he chose to obey, he had to do something with his preconceptions, with his hatred, and with his fear. He had to leave them somewhere, (the same place Saul left his letters) in order to be able to go to his enemy, call him "brother,” touch him, and heal him. The main thing we know about Ananias is that he chose well. Ananаias’ life "before” was not a bad life; after all he was the follower and minister of Jesus. But this encounter with true power of resurrection meant he had to gave up his old ideas and to take a big risk; and that risk gave to the church and to the world the ministry of Paul. Ananias’ life "after” that moment of resurrection moment was a liberated life, free from a need to hate someone, a need to know that someone is "evil” allowing ourselves to feel "good” about ourselves and thus "everything will be alright”. His life was transformed into a life of real God’s grace that could now act and heal through him. Then there is Peter who, warming himself a charcoal fire in the courtyard of the High Priest, three times denied Jesus. Peter, in spite of everything that had happened after the crucifixion, had gone home to Galilee. Peter decided to go fishing because that was who he was—he was a fisherman and he thought it was time to settle down and go back to what he was best at doing. All this messiah-chasing was just too much for Peter. But it was over now, and there were fish to be caught, a living to be made. He knew about resurrection but never came to terms with what it meant for him. And it was in the midst of that intension to go on with life as it was, Peter found himself faced with risen Jesus—and with a net full of fish that were worth a tidy bit of money. Fish that could be the start of a new business: "The Former Disciples Fresh Fish, Inc.” All Peter had to do was get those fish to market—now. Before they started to rot and everything "would be alright”, finally everything will begin to work out for him. Instead, Peter stayed by another charcoal fire where risen Jesus broke bread with them, and in the breaking of the bread Peter and the rest knew what it meant that Jesus rose from the dead, and things changed again—resurrection became real. No amount of fish in their nets will make their lives "alright”, only He was dead but is alive and is offering them not only bread but is the Bread of Life can take care of their main problem – sin, and to demolish their main enemy – death. And they make a choice and fish were left behind, left at the same place Saul left his letters, and Ananias left his hatred and his fear and his self-confident type of ministry. They were left behind. You know, "behind” is a very good place—a big place. There is plenty more room behind, at that place where things from the life "before” get left, the things that we hold onto thinking they can help us be "alright”. And most of us have a thing or two we need to add to that pile—the pile of Peter’s future fish business and Paul’s letters of authority, and Ananias’ righteousness, hatred and suspicion. This pile is a place for everything that we think can make our lives better, "to fix it up”, to make us a bit happier and to mask the fact that we are so deeply not free, so dead and still cannot understand what Jesus’ resurrection is all about. We often think about spiritual renewal, and change, and revival like this: through Jesus’ resurrection God, or the preacher, or the church give us something spiritual, something that makes our lives somewhat better. But most of the time true resurrection does not primarily mean finding something that was missing in our lives but leaving something behind. Often, what stands between our life "before” and our life "after, what separates us from living out much more deeply what it to be a risen Christian—is not something we lack, but something we have, something that we hold onto, something we refuse to let go and leave in the life "before”. And much too often we have a stereotypical view of these stories as unique and therefore irrelevant for us, ordinary people. In the case of Paul’s encounter with risen Christ we believe that the most important thing was that this encounter was extraordinary, something that no other follower of Christ has experienced. But in reality, the most important aspect of this story is that by the grace of God, its main character is transformed from an enemy in the life "before” into a foremost evangelist of the gentiles in the life "after”. He becomes such, having experienced his own hopelessness and depth of sin and that only Christ’s victory over sin and death is the real answer and salvation. And Ananias, having also encountered God’s grace, left in the life "before” his fears and hatred and entered a life "after” by coming to his enemy and making him a "brother” through a healing touch. And Peter, perhaps, more than the other two felt his own hopelessness, prison and therefore gladly receive Jesus’ words: "Rise up! You are dead but I am giving you life!” and was finally saved. Hearing these stories today we are called not to leave them aside as something unrealistic or irrelevant to us, but to face God’s grace and to admit what our own "piles of fish”, "authority letters”, "fears and hatreds”, everything that makes us continue to believe that "everything will somehow be alright”. We are called today to boldly proclaim what resurrection really is: true freedom, which can only be experienced by the one who is ready to admit his/her own slavery and death. Let us not be content with our small ideas of resurrection, and comforted by our common "oh, everything will be alright”. Let us not be blind to the seriousness of human sin and the radical solution Christ brought. Our risen Lord is here, and there is a lot of space in the past where we can leave the things we tried to use for solving what we thought were our problems. And ahead of us is the full life in Christ but to enter it we must go the same way those three individuals did: through bold admitting how hopeless we are in our sin but Christ rose from the dead and we rose with Him. Our hope either rests on the fact that Christ has risen and trampled death by death and or we only have an illusion of hope! Christ is risen! What do these words mean for you now? | |
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