Pentecost, 23.5.21
Text: Acts 2.1 – 21.
Rev Paul Cannon
Do we really want the Holy Spirit to come among us?
This text raises three words for me. Vulnerability, speaking and listening.
You can’t really speak with or listen to the world behind closed doors. Whatever closed doors might mean – a house, a room, or an attitude, a routine.
Behind closed doors we can find comfort and security in the familiar. We the church can crave the safety of closed doors, but which leads to locked hearts, and closed minds. Yet Jesus breaks through those doors challenging and calling us to go into the world around us.
As Jesus said (John 14.12) “… the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” We will do greater works! We are invited to kingdom work by the Spirit.
These are words of promise. Come Holy Spirit we intone, but are we ready, do we understand?
Come Holy Spirit means we are saying yes to God, to being utterly vulnerable, having a willingness to be challenged and changed, not once but daily, hence the verse – new every morning.
Those first disciples were holed up in that house, waiting for something to happen, not knowing, timid, grieving, confused.
I’m struck by the movement from verse one to verse two.
Verse one shows us the pre-pentecost community, they are together in one place, they are indeed united, but yet they are waiting, fearful, expectant, but they’re not going anywhere, they’re behind closed doors.
In verse two the unthinkable happens, the Spirit bursts in disrupting everything. The Spirit shoves the community beyond closed doors into the world, the Spirit enables mission. So, the disciples go from hiding and waiting, to speaking and doing.
In verse eighteen it is worth noting that the true translation is not “I will pour out my Spirit, but rather: “I will pour out of my Spirit. “Out of.” God is self-giving, and this is a gift direct to us. It means an ongoing bursting into life, an ongoing bursting into our lives. Luke isn’t speaking of a one-off moment, but that the Spirit is now constantly roving and bursting onto the scene, constantly being poured out of God into the world.
Is that the Spirit we are ready for?
The sound of the Spirit rushing in carries a series of meanings in the Greek.
The sound of the Spirit is in fact conveying that this moment is an echo of other moments in the past and a vision of moments to come in the future. The Spirit involved in the act of creation in the very first instance, upholding the universe in the present, and bursting into our lives tomorrow and the next.
The presence of the Spirit as tongues of fire, as a rushing wind is, in the Greek, a force of power. The Spirit undertaking the Herculean task of kicking us out the door and into the world.
The sound of the Spirit also conveys a sense of upheaval. That nothing is straightforward, comfortable, predictable, safe, or in our control. The Spirit is unpredictable, uncontained, wild and free. In fact, the Spirit is often referred to as the great disturber.
And through this irruption of the Spirit, the disciples are pushed beyond their fear and their comfort to action. Are we ready for that Spirit?
And then comes the moment of engaging with the world, are they drunk, are they babbling, are they mad, what are they saying?
The closest I have come was standing in the Doha airport terminal and hearing what I suspected to be not only Arabic, but also Urdu, Indonesian, Turkish, Bulgarian, French and more judging by dress. It was so different to experience such a myriad of languages in one place.
But I had no understanding of what was being said. So, when I occasionally heard English it was a sense of joy that I was not alone.
This moment in Jerusalem is different.
There are two movements as the Spirit acts and forces the disciples out the door.
The Spirit enables the disciples to go out and speak what God desires for those they encounter. If you remember, all heard in their own language, their own dialect and their own idiom, as Luke puts it. There is no mistaking the message as it is made clear for them. The Spirit meets the people where they are.
As we go out into the world we are invited to speak God’s message into the lives of those we encounter. Not to burden them with some fearful message of our own or some moral obligation, but the message of God’s love and forgiveness.
It is important to note verse 21 which is often deliberately translated as “shall be saved”, but which in English gives the wrong slant. It would better be translated as “shall be made whole, shall be healed.”
Meeting people where they are and as they have need.
But the miracle of speaking would have no value if the even greater miracle of hearing didn’t correspond. Those who listened on that day were drawn by the Spirit and they were able to understand God’s call to them.
The listening is two ways, the disciples are enabled by the Spirit to hear what to say, and the people hear the message.
In some ways we don’t need a miracle of speaking at all, we need a miracle of listening. We need to listen to the community around us. Who needs to receive understanding in our broken world?
That day the Spirit burst in and enabled the disciples to meet the people where they had need. Is that the Spirit we want?
We are asked to make ourselves vulnerable to the Spirit, that we might be lead or pushed into new experiences and places. To be united, to wait expectantly, though not behind closed doors.
Can we, dare we, listen to the needs of others? To be vulnerable is in fact, to listen. Are we listening to God’s invitation? Are we hearing God’s Spirit?
Easter 6, 9.5.21
Text: John 15.9 – 17.
Revd Paul Cannon
John chapter 15 is one of those really special moments in Jesus’ teaching.
To think that these teachings from chapter 13 – 17 all occurred immediately prior to his arrest. These are the last meaningful words that Jesus shares with his disciples before his death.
The word love occurs nine times in this passage. Other significant words occur too – Command occurs five times, the words joy, choose, and fruit each occur twice. This is clearly an important teaching.
The whole the upper room teaching hinges on the command to love.
But love cannot just be a platitude, it’s a verb, Jesus requires action.
Again Jesus reinforces that love is foundational to being a disciple, if we don’t love one another, then who are we? 1 John 2.4 reminds us: “Whoever says ‘I have come to know him’, but does not obey his commandments, is a liar …”
But in this segment Jesus introduces a new quality of this love.
Jesus says: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Takes your breath away. I think it must have shocked the disciples, though there is no mention of their reaction. To love one another has an ultimate cost.
The polish priest Maximilian Kolbe demonstrated this in a confronting way. Kolbe was arrested by the Gestapo as a subversive, suspected of hiding Jews, relocating refugees, and writing pamphlets against the German Reich.
At some point in 1941 there was an escape from Auschwitz and the commandant sought reprisals by randomly selecting ten prisoners for execution. One young husband and father pleaded for his life, at which point Maximillian Kolbe asked the commandant to allow him to stand in this young man’s place. The commandant agreed, and Kolbe was executed.
Perhaps he had come to know the young man in the camp, but essentially they were not close friends. To step forward and say I will give my life away for that person over there! Who does that? Kolbe did! But then his model was Jesus, who gave his life for all. As 1 John 3.16 “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”
Centuries before, when Moses was preparing to die, and that Joshua would take the leadership of the people of God, Moses says to Joshua: “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”
In John 14, that familiar passage about death and resurrection, Jesus says (14.27) “Do not be afraid.”
In 2 Timothy 1.7 Paul writes to Timothy: “God didn’t give us a spirit of cowardice.”
Do not fear, do not be dismayed, do not be afraid, do not be cowardly.
Fear has no place in the community of Jesus. Again, 1 John 4.18 makes it clear for us: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.”
There’s a clue here as to what Jesus means by don’t fear. Firstly, he means don’t fear death, because his love has opened the way to eternal life. But he also means that we mustn’t fear each other, that we mustn’t fear God, that we mustn’t fear making mistakes along the way. If our motive and action is love, then it takes us beyond punishment, love takes us beyond fear, to the very heart of God, that place of pure love.
To take up the command of Jesus to love one another, to risk mistakes, to offer our lives openly, these things are pure love, and that is when we find that in the Spirit, God is in us and we are in God, the meaning of abiding.
John Mark – Mark – wrote a gospel account, even after he had fallen out with Paul because he had given up on the first missionary journey. Barnabas established communities, even after he had fallen out with Paul, Peter was restored to the group after denying Jesus, all the disciples had run away and were restored.
There are different types of sacrifice. To lay down our lives with time given to the community of Jesus, to give of our income for the community of Jesus, to give of our abilities for the community of Jesus, to offer forgiveness is a special sacrifice of letting go, to listen to another is a gift. These are just a few ways of giving out of love.
Few, if any of us, will ever be called to do what Maximillian Kolbe did, but we are called to live into love to such a fullness that our lives are focussed on loving God and loving one another, to the point that we would if asked, lay down our lives.
Unlike those who live in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, our faith is not under threat.
But, whatever the sacrifice of love we are called to make, Jesus asks: what is it you are afraid of? He knows we fear, that’s why he asks us not to be afraid, so what is it that we fear?
Losing our time, our spare cash, our identity, our privacy, control? Or perhaps that we will be discovered as frauds in gifts, forgiveness, or lacking the love we really say we have?
This is the paradox we live, we strive to offer love and we miss the mark often, yet Jesus knows that we will miss the mark, no one is perfect. But his forgiveness is sufficient when we do, that’s why we need not fear punishment, fear missing the mark, fear death itself, his love is a big love and it encompasses all who follow.
The danger is in not understanding what John means by perfect love. True love is perfect love, love is either perfect or it isn’t love, there is not strata of love. So, for Jesus the intention, the act, the reaching out, in love is perfect, in spite of our failings, it is enough, because perfect love accepts failure, it offers and receives forgiveness, and it returns to love at every twist and turn.
As we conclude our communion time we will come to that timeless prayer of self-offering, “Father, we offer ourselves to you as a living sacrifice …”
But strangely enough, we don’t do it, we do it “Through Jesus Christ” and we are sent out in the “power of the holy Spirit.”
The sacrifice proper is to live and work to and for God’s praise and glory.
We are simply called to fill those spaces of community God invites us to, that is our living sacrifice, that is our opportunity of love in action, imperfect, failing, and at times wrangling wrong, but finding that as we all love, there is love for us and more.
Do you understand love? What do you need from God in order to live love to others?
Easter 5: 2.5.21
Text: John 15.1 - 8.
Revd Paul Cannon
I wonder how many of you have experienced growing grape-vines? It takes a lot of care and time to nurture good fruit.
The humble grape vine is so useful and complex because most of it can be used in some way or another. You can eat the leaves, you can burn the canes or use them in the veggie garden, you can use the canes in craft, you can eat the grapes, dry them, or crush them for drinking. And the eating and drinking of the grape is also considered healthy.
You’ve probably all noted that commercial vines are radically pruned every year so that they will produce abundantly next season?
I’ve visited a few farms where the vines have been let go, untended and unwatered they are gnarled and give only a little shrivelled fruit. They haven’t been pruned in years, they are technically unproductive.
What might this image of a vine say to us today?
The world is hungry for spirituality. We have more recently awoken from a materialist haze that has not proven to be enduring or satisfying. There is a constant interest in literature on spirituality. People are searching and seeking.
“I am the true vine and my father is the vine grower.” “Abide in me as I abide in you.” “Apart from me you can do nothing.” If you abide in me and my words in you, ask whatever you want.” says Jesus. (vv. 1,4,7).
There is a whole sense here of the mystery of faith, of how we enter into an intimate relationship with God.
This particular passage is deep and speaks of further possibilities, an invitation to journey to spiritual places we haven’t begun to imagine.
I want to draw your attention to two aspects that may encourage you to take the next steps in a journey you are already on.
Firstly, In biblical times the grapevine was an essential part of every garden and crucial to survival.
But the vine was also a spiritual image. It was a symbol of Israel. The Psalmist declares “God brought a vine out of Egypt and planted it in a good land.”
The Maccabees introduced a coin with the image of the vine upon it to remind Israel of its calling, to be a fruitful people for God.
The prophet Isaiah wrote a song about God’s vineyard. The prophet Hosea spoke of God finding Israel like grapes in the wilderness.
But something went wrong. The psalmist records how foreigners and wild beasts ravage and uproot the vineyard. Isaiah tells of how the vines produced wild grapes. Israel was let go.
And now at the heart of this gospel we find a young man on whose shoulders the hope of Israel had come to rest, the one whose followers believed that he was the Messiah. The one who had recently entered Jerusalem to shouts of Hosanna, and saying to his followers that he is the true vine and they are the branches, whose task it is to bear fruit by sharing in his life.
Jesus is the true Israel. But Jesus means that he is calling together a spiritual community, not a nation.
What might this mean for us?
The quest for spirituality can often become very self-centred if we don’t recognise that it is about community. The image of the vine while calling us to a real personal depth of spirituality sets that personal quest in the context of the community of God, stretching through time from Abraham to the current moment. Stretching from Israel to all the peoples of the world as one community of faith. Stretching from within ourselves to bear fruit in the world.
What does it mean to abide in the vine? To live in Jesus, to make our home in him together. Abide means to walk alongside, to wait with, to join together with, Jesus bids us join with him. We are grafted into the vine, into him when we work with him and together.
The vine image is all about community, living and working together in our faith journey. The parts of a vine all work together to produce growth and fruit. Living in Jesus means costly companionship, being a part of the rigour of community life and gathering around his table as one in love and forgiveness.
Secondly, and this is a much sharper image of community, because God the vinedresser must prune.
Every branch which does not bear fruit must be removed so that part may regrow. And every branch that does bear fruit must be trimmed for more growth. Either way you get the knife and that’s precisely what modern spirituality doesn’t like. Modern spirituality tells us to find our true selves so that we can be fulfilled and happy. But the ancient mystics all spoke of finding oneself in living Christ in community.
True spirituality is like a lake that is constantly replenished by water from the hills and tributaries at one end while giving out through streams and rivers at the other that share the goodness downstream.
The vine works in the same way, we are not to simply grow our bit in isolation for ourselves, in a true vine the branches must work together for the good of all. If branches of a vine work only for themselves the vine becomes sick.
Bearing fruit for Jesus in the world today isn’t an optional extra tacked onto receiving bread and wine. It is the fundamental calling of every Christian.
Genuine spirituality is the fruit of drawing closer to Jesus and finding our true and fulfilling potential in him. It is his loving guidance that will prune us for the good, cutting out some of the useless, the awful, the unproductive parts of our lives or even some the good but which have no real potential. Pruning is always painful. But like a surgeon the vinedresser helps us to be whole. Pruning may be daunting, but afterwards we will flourish.
The call to abide in the vine is a call to an active spirituality which takes place in the community of Jesus. It’s a call to corporate fruit-bearing.
Jesus is the true vine who challenges, draws, pushes and guides us.
Are you willing to be transformed by Jesus as he challenges us to bear the fruit of love and forgiveness. Are you ready to submit to Jesus so that you might be pruned to better conform to his likeness?
We may find this challenge a bit daunting. We may be put off by the thought of reshaping our priorities, by committing more to the venture of God’s community, by stepping out and taking up our gifts and abilities for the good of the whole.
But listen to what Jesus says to us in verse 11: I have said these things to you, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
Life in the vine may not be what we were expecting or even wanting.
But we might just find that it’s what we really needed all along.
I wonder how many of you have experienced growing grape-vines? It takes a lot of care and time to nurture good fruit.
The humble grape vine is so useful and complex because most of it can be used in some way or another. You can eat the leaves, you can burn the canes or use them in the veggie garden, you can use the canes in craft, you can eat the grapes, dry them, or crush them for drinking. And the eating and drinking of the grape is also considered healthy.
You’ve probably all noted that commercial vines are radically pruned every year so that they will produce abundantly next season?
I’ve visited a few farms where the vines have been let go, untended and unwatered they are gnarled and give only a little shrivelled fruit. They haven’t been pruned in years, they are technically unproductive.
What might this image of a vine say to us today?
The world is hungry for spirituality. We have more recently awoken from a materialist haze that has not proven to be enduring or satisfying. There is a constant interest in literature on spirituality. People are searching and seeking.
“I am the true vine and my father is the vine grower.” “Abide in me as I abide in you.” “Apart from me you can do nothing.” If you abide in me and my words in you, ask whatever you want.” says Jesus. (vv. 1,4,7).
There is a whole sense here of the mystery of faith, of how we enter into an intimate relationship with God.
This particular passage is deep and speaks of further possibilities, an invitation to journey to spiritual places we haven’t begun to imagine.
I want to draw your attention to two aspects that may encourage you to take the next steps in a journey you are already on.
Firstly, In biblical times the grapevine was an essential part of every garden and crucial to survival.
But the vine was also a spiritual image. It was a symbol of Israel. The Psalmist declares “God brought a vine out of Egypt and planted it in a good land.”
The Maccabees introduced a coin with the image of the vine upon it to remind Israel of its calling, to be a fruitful people for God.
The prophet Isaiah wrote a song about God’s vineyard. The prophet Hosea spoke of God finding Israel like grapes in the wilderness.
But something went wrong. The psalmist records how foreigners and wild beasts ravage and uproot the vineyard. Isaiah tells of how the vines produced wild grapes. Israel was let go.
And now at the heart of this gospel we find a young man on whose shoulders the hope of Israel had come to rest, the one whose followers believed that he was the Messiah. The one who had recently entered Jerusalem to shouts of Hosanna, and saying to his followers that he is the true vine and they are the branches, whose task it is to bear fruit by sharing in his life.
Jesus is the true Israel. But Jesus means that he is calling together a spiritual community, not a nation.
What might this mean for us?
The quest for spirituality can often become very self-centred if we don’t recognise that it is about community. The image of the vine while calling us to a real personal depth of spirituality sets that personal quest in the context of the community of God, stretching through time from Abraham to the current moment. Stretching from Israel to all the peoples of the world as one community of faith. Stretching from within ourselves to bear fruit in the world.
What does it mean to abide in the vine? To live in Jesus, to make our home in him together. Abide means to walk alongside, to wait with, to join together with, Jesus bids us join with him. We are grafted into the vine, into him when we work with him and together.
The vine image is all about community, living and working together in our faith journey. The parts of a vine all work together to produce growth and fruit. Living in Jesus means costly companionship, being a part of the rigour of community life and gathering around his table as one in love and forgiveness.
Secondly, and this is a much sharper image of community, because God the vinedresser must prune.
Every branch which does not bear fruit must be removed so that part may regrow. And every branch that does bear fruit must be trimmed for more growth. Either way you get the knife and that’s precisely what modern spirituality doesn’t like. Modern spirituality tells us to find our true selves so that we can be fulfilled and happy. But the ancient mystics all spoke of finding oneself in living Christ in community.
True spirituality is like a lake that is constantly replenished by water from the hills and tributaries at one end while giving out through streams and rivers at the other that share the goodness downstream.
The vine works in the same way, we are not to simply grow our bit in isolation for ourselves, in a true vine the branches must work together for the good of all. If branches of a vine work only for themselves the vine becomes sick.
Bearing fruit for Jesus in the world today isn’t an optional extra tacked onto receiving bread and wine. It is the fundamental calling of every Christian.
Genuine spirituality is the fruit of drawing closer to Jesus and finding our true and fulfilling potential in him. It is his loving guidance that will prune us for the good, cutting out some of the useless, the awful, the unproductive parts of our lives or even some the good but which have no real potential. Pruning is always painful. But like a surgeon the vinedresser helps us to be whole. Pruning may be daunting, but afterwards we will flourish.
The call to abide in the vine is a call to an active spirituality which takes place in the community of Jesus. It’s a call to corporate fruit-bearing.
Jesus is the true vine who challenges, draws, pushes and guides us.
Are you willing to be transformed by Jesus as he challenges us to bear the fruit of love and forgiveness. Are you ready to submit to Jesus so that you might be pruned to better conform to his likeness?
We may find this challenge a bit daunting. We may be put off by the thought of reshaping our priorities, by committing more to the venture of God’s community, by stepping out and taking up our gifts and abilities for the good of the whole.
But listen to what Jesus says to us in verse 11: I have said these things to you, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
Life in the vine may not be what we were expecting or even wanting.
But we might just find that it’s what we really needed all along.
Easter 4.4.21
Text: John 20.1 – 18.
Revd Paul Cannon
Christ is Risen!
But where are we? Are we people of the risen Christ, or are we just Good Friday Christians?
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once remarked: “You Christians will have to look a lot more redeemed before I start believing in your Saviour.”
Nietzsche is right. If we stay with Good Friday we are defeated. But can we really let go of the romanticized Jesus, the Jesus who was. Can we get past the horror of crucifixion? And can we get past the need to stay in the garden by the tomb and saviour the moment and instead really live the life of those set free?
Good Friday is how we get to Easter morning. But even Easter morning is not where we are called to remain.
Mary grieves for the Jesus who died, perhaps a grief for all that had been so special in his earthly life with them all. And Jesus asks: “Woman why are you weeping?” an echo of his words in Luke 23: “Daughters of Jerusalem do not weep for me …”
Then when Mary recognises Jesus, she reaches out for him. But Jesus says: “Do not hold onto me …”
Both comments indicate how the past is not where Jesus wants to focus. Jesus’ focus is on what comes next.
The trap is to try and explain the resurrection, and in another sense it is an easy way out, to stay cerebral and avoid the personal.
You see we don’t need to explain the resurrection, it explains us because it establishes who we are.
Or at least it should. Nietzsche’s charge is a good one. Do we live and act as a people set free? Does the world know us by our love? Do our lives point to the risen Christ?
Because the resurrection of Jesus has happened we can now be the people of the resurrection.
Perhaps the details of the story are too familiar and the details might escape our attention.
Note that the stone over the entrance to the tomb has been rolled away.
Not to let Jesus out, but rather to let us in. To let us in on this mystery of mysteries.
Ordinarily the tomb would be the dead end of all our own efforts. And historically the tomb has been a symbol to wither and mock humanity as irrelevant, fleeting, hopeless.
But on that day of resurrection, as Matthew and Luke tell it, the angels present say: “Do not be afraid, I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.”
Easter rolls away the stone door of the tomb for us that we might penetrate the mystery of death. The empty tomb takes us into a new place, an eternal hope.
God rolls away the stone door not to let Jesus out, but rather to let us in, to allow us to see and to know that the promises of Jesus are real.
However, the tomb is not completely empty. It has the grave cloths, but it is also filled with the voice of God through his messengers. Without those elements, and all the post resurrection appearances, we would be relying on mere speculation.
But our faith isn’t based on emptiness or speculation.
For Mary it is an encounter, “I have seen the Lord.”
For the women it is the angels and the sight of the empty tomb.
For Peter it is unclear.
For the beloved disciple it is unnecessary to see or hear anything, he already believes.
All those who went to the tomb, left it never to return there, they turned around, turned their backs on it and went out to proclaim the good news of resurrection.
No, our faith isn’t based on silence. Our faith is a response to the voice of God who reminds us of his promise in Jesus as given to Martha in John 11: “I am the resurrection and the life.” And in this moment through the voice of angels, through a direct encounter for Mary, the voice that proclaims, “he is risen.”
It is those words that fill the emptiness of our world, our lives today.
The empty tomb boldly proclaims the victory of life over death. As Paul says: “Death is swallowed up in victory, O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” “… but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15.54 ff).
Death may be sorrowful, but it is not an ending for the faithful.
And as the truth dawns on his disciples that first Easter, there is great joy, because they now knew that all he had taught had come to pass. And more importantly, death could not hold him, and therefore death could not hold them either, nor can it hold us. Instead we too can turn our backs on the tomb.
In the Greek the word for tomb and for remember share the same root. Its okay to remember, but if we stay in remembrance it becomes a tomb, in other words, we become a grave.
Could our lives be the answer to the philosopher’s charge? Do we live as if Jesus is risen, do we believe we are forgiven, or are we stuck in Good Friday, wanting to hold onto Jesus?
The focus of Jesus is how we are called to move on and live into our lives as his disciples in the world now. Living in such a way that the world will know who he is by the very way we behave.
As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15.58: “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord …”
What would this resurrection life look like? Paul echoes Jesus, but in practical detail. In Romans (12) he says: “Let love be genuine … love one another … rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to the strangers. Bless those who persecute you … rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly .. overcome evil with good.”
The tomb is empty, we cannot hang onto Jesus or our past.
God gave us love in the death of Jesus, we are set free. How do we live in response? What is our fruit? Can we prove the philosopher wrong?
Easter 3, 18.4.21
Text: Luke 24.36b – 48
Revd Paul Cannon
During his earthly ministry Jesus shared many things with his disciples, things that were mystical, things that were hard to fathom, things that were unclear at that time.
It was only afterwards, after the resurrection appearances, that everything became clearer.
Jesus appeared many times to his disciples, and those appearances were mystical.
Mary thinks he is the gardener at the tomb until he opens her eyes to who he really is.
The two on the road to Emmaus do not recognize him until he breaks the bread. And then their eyes are opened to everything he had been saying on the road, but also, everything he had said during his ministry.
But when Jesus yet again appears in the room with the disciples they are terrified.
They seem to think it is Jesus but remain afraid of this spirit being.
And why wouldn’t they be afraid? This is not normal, this is a new and unusual experience, and they are uncertain. They had witnessed his death, but what is happening? Who is this? And so Jesus finds his disciples disbelieving and wondering.
Jesus utters those words again “Peace be with you”, Shalom. He makes it clear that he means no harm to them. And then he invites them to see and touch his hands and his side, just to make sure.
These resurrection stories raise those difficult questions, what is resurrection, was Jesus’ body whole or was he merely a ghost, and what is the point of resurrection?
The resurrection stories move from being simply encounters with Jesus where he encourages them and convinces them that he is indeed bodily raised to something more important. Jesus opens their minds to be able to understand what has happened and who he is. If we used a modern phrase the disciples would say Jesus blew their minds.
And so, from verses 44 - 48, this is the content of what Jesus reveals to them.
v.44 Jesus taught before his crucifixion that “it is necessary for all the writings of the law of Moses and in the prophets and the Psalms concerning me to be fulfilled.”
v.45 After the resurrection he opens their minds to the meaning of those scriptures.
v.46, 47 What the scriptures mean is: “Christ is to suffer and to rise out of death on the third day, and that repentance is to be preached in his name in all the world, beginning in Jerusalem.”
So Jesus’ resurrection is a tool for interpreting scripture from the very beginning.
V48 And then the community’s commission is this: “You are witnesses of these things.” So, we too are his witnesses.
It is tempting to spend some time speculating as to what the risen body of Christ is really like. Jesus can appear in the middle of a locked room but can also display the wounds he bears, and he can eat fish. A mixture of possibilities and no clear answer.
But can we answer that other question, what is the resurrection about?
Jesus already shows us in Mark 12 where he demonstrates that resurrection is the key for understanding God’s words to Moses from the burning bush, when God says: “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.” God not only points to God’s existence over time but also to the continued existence of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob over time. God says I am, not I was or once was, but I am the God of Abraham.
So how does scripture look when viewed through the lense of resurrection? It sheds new light, of course, the light of Jesus raised opens our eyes to deeper meaning.
The creation stories show how death is part of the rhythm of life. A seed must fall to the ground and die in order to produce abundance.
The story of the flood is a story of how life is renewed through devastation. The story of Abram and Sarai show how two people whose fertility was dead can bring forth life. The stories of exile and destruction are counter balanced with renewal and abundant new life. The expectation that as Elijah is transported to the heavens he will again return in the clouds – all are stories that tell us that as much as God lives so do God’s promises live.
So resurrection makes all the difference between seeing scripture as merely historical records from the distant past but which are not happening now, and accounts of things that wonderfully occurred and wonderfully continue to be happening because God is happening, God is alive.
I find that truly astounding and thoroughly inspiring.
So how might we see it right now?
In a time when ecosystems, species, and sustainable life are imperiled, that the world suffers great conflict, that our lives are not perfect, what does it mean for us that death is still real, but yet death is not the final word?
Just as the early Christians found resurrection to be the power that disarmed the Roman Empire’s culture of death, resurrection today can redefine the powers that threaten to undo us or diminish the meaning of life.
But that is not how we speak of resurrection. We normally speak of resurrection of some sort of third party insurance so that death is made irrelevant because we have more life to come.
This leaves us with no reason to care about life or death, or the environment, health, justice, or anything that matters, just so long as we believe enough to get into heaven.
That is not what God intends, that is not what Jesus taught.
When God speaks to Moses through the burning bush it was not to say: “Tell my people to put up with slavery, because I will reward them later.” No, this was a call to liberation, to throwing off the shackles of empire by the power of the living God.
Resurrection is not a fatalistic giving in to inevitability of death. Nor is it an insurance.
Instead, resurrection is a revaluing of life as we give it and live it for God. It is a revaluing of life for ecology, for community, for living with the enemy, because where there is life – there is God.
Resurrection is being the hands and feet, the ears, eyes, and mouth of Jesus in the world by speaking resurrection, speaking life into the death that occurs all around us. Resurrection is living in the midst of death. It is speaking justice, hope, mercy, and love.
Resurrection is God alive in us and working through us in the Holy Spirit giving that life to everyone we encounter through love as well as hope. Resurrection is now, not in the future, because it is Jesus as we live him for others.