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26.04.09_Signs of Resurrection
| 29.04.2009, 23:26 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Psalm 133; Acts 4:32–35; 1 John 1:1–2:2; John 20:19–31 2nd Sunday of Easter, 2009 Signs of Resurrection Christ is risen! I hope that you’ve not set aside Easter joy yet, for the life of resurrection goes on. Last week we heard that the first Easter morning was an event that totally turned the world around and gave a beginning to the world reborn. But that first Easter morning was just the beginning, not some awesome show that thundered and ended right then. The Easter event was not just a one-day thing but an even that set in motion the rebirth of all God’s creation. And in our Scriptures today we see signs of that rebirth and transformation evident in the very first days of the existence of Christian church. After Jesus was crucified His disciples lost all hope and hid in fear from authorities lest they have to suffer the same fate as their Lord. According to John, on the first day of the week risen Jesus appeared to Mary and said to her to go and tell others that He is alive. That same evening Jesus comes to the place where His disciples were, comes saying “peace to you” and shows His wounds. They were sitting behind the locked doors, with a deep trauma, full of uncertainty and having all the reason for fear. But in the midst of their fears Jesus’ “peace to you” and His wounds replaced fear with joy. He came and his presence changed everything. His appearance didn’t just prove that He was alive; His presence transformed disciples and called them to follow Him anew. You see, “peace” (Shalom) that Jesus greeted them with is much more than serenity or absence of war. God’s Shalom is the harmony, enjoyment of abundance, and freedom from any slavery. It is what prophets believed the messiah was to bring into this world – an eternal peace, a unified community of people. Joy, peace and freedom – they believed, would characterize the time when God will break into this world and bring harmony not only into human life but even animals will live in peace with one another and the whole universe will be in harmony. People will finally live in peace with God! That’s why when Jesus entered through locked doors into their fears and uncertainty, this God’s Shalom entered with Him into the lives of Disciples. And then John says, “Jesus breathed on them, saying, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive sins, they will be forgiven; if you will not – they will remain” (22–23). This breath reminds us of the first breathe of God when He created a human being and breathed life into them. The resurrection of Jesus, His victory over death became the beginning of a new creation, world reborn, beginning of the reign of God’s Shalom in this world! But Shalom does not mean “rest”. With His words “peace” and the gift of the Spirit Jesus didn’t just bless his followers, but summoned them to become the bearers of that Shalom to the world, to share the life of the risen Lord with all consequent generations. Unlike those first disciples, later generations will not see the risen Christ bodily, will not touch his wounds to dispel their doubts, like Thomas, or even see physical signs of His resurrection. But if they won’t see risen Jesus with their own eyes, if they will not hear with their ears the evidence, what will they base their faith on? Jesus appeared to His disciples, gave them the gift of the Spirit and His Shalom so that later generations “having not seen Him” could have signs of resurrection. And the signs of resurrection for all generations is His Church. The life of the Church, which He created and to which He gave Shalom and His Spirit was called to become a testimony that Christ has risen from the death, conquered death and sin, overcame all fear. Church was born exactly when first disciples realized that Christ is with them until the end and no one can take that away. And revived and encouraged Disciples started living with such passion and compassion, with such love and grace, with such generosity and power that their community life became a testimony, the signs of the power and presence of the risen Christ. In Acts 2 we read: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (2:44–47) Such joy and worship, wellbeing, such compassion and generosity and love could only be explained by one thing: Jesus was with them. And because He was among them, they were not afraid to give themselves to those in need, pain and suffering. They shared their lives and everything they had from the least to the great. They deeply loved one another, gently cared for the neighbor and were dedicated to God. They were no longer afraid of authorities because they believed: “Jesus rose from the dead and we are witnesses. We cannot keep silent about what we heard and seen” (2:32, 4:20). And to everyone’s amazement those unlearned, simple followers of Jesus proclaimed about Christ’s resurrection so convincingly that thousands of people joined them, having believed and experienced the power of the risen Christ. And the power of their words was their amazing communal life: “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.” (4:32–35) Justin Martyr some time later spoke about the attractiveness of Christians: “Those who were once delighted in fornication now embrace chastity alone…we who once took most pleasure in accumulating wealth and property now share with everyone in need; we who hated and killed one another and would not associate with men of different tribes because of their different customs now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them and pray for our enemies.” And in the 4th century gentile emperor Julian the Apostate (4th century), who opposed Christians and stripped them of their rights and privileges said: “These Galileans feed not only their poor but ours also. And ours are seeking in vain help which we should have been rendering them”. But what happened to the church with time? What happened to our church? In a book “UnCristian: what a new generation really thinks about Christianity” a statistic is given about people’s view of Christians, which shows that people we are so very far today from “enjoying the favor of all the people”. And while it is true that Christians are often accused unjustly, too often instead of a signs of Christ’s risen life in us, they see the following - 91% – haters of sexual minorities; 87% – judgmental 85% – hypocrisy, 78% – old fashioned, 70% – our of touch with the world, 70% – boring. Others say that we consider unbelievers less then humans and bearers of evil, only care to spread our ideology and judge others for their sin. No wonder that the skeptic of his time Nietzsche said to Christians, “I would believe in you Redeemer if you looked more redeemed”. How said it is to hear similar comments about our own church. What happened to us? Why have we left our first love, why so many relationships summer in recent years, why people instead of love see here personal ambitions? Those who are already skeptical about God come here but don’t find people’s lives though imperfect but redeemed by the blood of Christ and “those who have one heart and soul and all things in common, calling nothing their own”. On the contrary, more and more I hear “mine-yours”, “ours”, see people who can’t be in the same room and not say something nasty to one another. Whey have we ceased to be a unified community and the worlds sees it and says, “I would believe in your Redeemer if you would look more redeemed”. No wonder that no only thousands but not even some people find our risen Christ here and join our community. People do not see here the sings that Christ is really alive and transformed our lives, took away our fear, broke down walls and gave us Shalom and creates the world reborn and community reborn! I don’t know all the reasons of why it happens but I don’t think we need to lay out reasons here today. Disciples had their reasons when they sat in a locked room and in that time of fear they ceased to be a community. They lost hope, the presence of their Lord, lost all dimensions of community. But what’s important is Jesus’ resurrection, His coming to them with Shalom and uniting them again into a community, calling them back to a life of faith, faithfulness and mission to give Shalom to one another and to those outside the church. Nietzsche would not have to say his words to those first Jerusalem believers because at first look at their life people saw in them the power and presence of God. Wherever you looked, you saw in their relationships and life – signs of resurrection. Early church was the first living testimony of Christ. It wasn’t perfect and infallible. It was made of people like Peter who denied Jesus saving his own life, and ambitious James and doubting Thomas. They were imperfect and Acts talks honestly about their conflicts and problems. But nevertheless, this community of imperfect people was able to rise with Jesus above all their pettiness and to become people of resurrection. And I believe that we, despite our imperfections, can experience the presence of the risen Christ anew. I believe that despite heaps of misunderstandings, disagreements, hurt feelings, offences, fears, Christ wants to come today through the locked doors of our hearts and to stand among us alive and say, “peace to you. As the Father sent me, I send you. Receive the Holy Spirit.” Jesus is here today, He knows what is in our hearts, know the pain, offences, and fears, knows the walls that we erected to defend ourselves from others. He know all that, but He is risen and He is alive and He is here to take all these deadly for our community and our testimony things and to give us in return His shalom, His power of resurrection, one heart and one soul. So that we being freed from fear and sin and shackles of death can break down with him all the walls separating people, fences that we made to separate the clean from the unclean, worthy from the unworthy, respectable from unrespectable. Jesus is among us today and He offers us His life in return for things that kill us and our community, He offers us His power to break down accepted social barriers built on wealth, nationality, and religion, so that we can become a community in which there is no “Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female, Armenian or Russian, pensioner or manager, member of the Board or visitor, staff or one time comer but where all are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). In a movie "We Were Soldiers" there is a scene that depicts the families (mostly the wives) of the soldiers, who are in church days after their husbands have gone off to war, and as we see in the very beginning of the clip, even as their husbands are on the choppers taking them to the battlefield. One of the young wives is introduced by the pastor, and is to sing the "Offertory Hymn." She begins, tentatively, singing the opening words from "My Hope is Built." She soon falters, apologizes and begins again, but again falters and cannot continue. After a couple of seconds, you hear the sound of another woman singing, "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." It is the wife of the commander of the division, and soon the other wives, and then the entire congregation are singing. This is a wonderful illustration of how, when we are afraid, or unsure of our faith, or under some extreme trial, the faith community undergirds us, and reminds us of the faith that we, by ourselves, may not be able to articulate or even access. This is an image of that first Jerusalem church that had one heart and one spirit and it can be an image of our church. This is not Utopia, friends, it’s reality because of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus who set in motion the world reborn. And He wants to set the signs of this rebirth in this community of faith. People today are so estranged, so lonely that often times all they need is an unrushed look in the eye, a kind word that will revive them. And today the church as never before has a chance to become a place where Jesus can embrace the world with our arms, speak kind words with our mouths, give peace and show justice through our actions, words, attitude and compassion. Lord, open our eyes that we can see the risen Christ and receive His power, His Spirit and allow Him to transform our doubts into faith, fear into love, despair into hope, offences into compassion, our Church of imperfect people who think mostly of their own fears, hurts and needs into community full of signs of Your resurrection. Christ is risen! Do you believe it? Let us pray about our own resurrection with Him, resurrection from all that puts us and our community to death. | |
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