The end or the beginning?
Commentary
What does it feel like for you and your congregation this Sunday after Easter? I suspect
that this Sunday is more of a bellwether than many other days in church life. Granted, we
cannot remain at the Easter high forever. There must be some "come down" if we are
going to be emotionally healthy. However, in many places it feels more like a crash than
a come down. Once again, patterns of the secular culture have taken over. We are no
longer living to the beat and the rhythm of Holy Week.
One wonders if this is because much of the preaching of the last Sunday has been about reassuring personal immortality, rather than seeing the resurrection as initiation of a new phase of God's intention for the world. In the texts for this Sunday we are presented with three responses to the resurrection in three different contexts. In the book of Acts, we are presented with people who are seemingly fearless and are convinced that they must obey God rather than human authority because they are convinced that they are living out the post-resurrection phase of the plan. One does not quite sense that tone in many churches. Even for many clergy, the post-resurrection plan is more likely to include time off and time with the family. While one understands, it seems that the urgency and intensity of the book of Acts feels more primitive than powerful to many members of our churches.
The second lesson comes from the book of Revelation. We come predisposed to be on our guard with anything from Revelation. No doubt here, too, there is plenty of good reason to be wary. Many of the folks that I serve see themselves as refugees from literal readings of the book of Revelation and tedious attempts to determine the time and place of the second coming of Christ. It seems counterintuitive in a world of many faiths where the future seems more dependent on finding common ground than on the vision of the book of Revelation. In such a world there is good reason to steer clear of such language.
Perhaps the most appealing of these post-resurrection texts is the gospel lesson from John. The story of "Doubting Thomas" appeals to moderns. Though many of us might not go to the extremes that he did, many of us must settle for having our doubts blest rather than having our faith confirmed. However this fails to take into account the outcome of this story in which Thomas leaves as a believer who is able to say of Jesus "My Lord and my God." The early church will narrate his story as part of the phase of events initiated in the resurrection, crediting him with the founding of the church in India.
There is further reason for caution in handling the Thomas tale. In some ways, Thomas has lost his luster as a vehicle of faith. Many simply want to banish their doubts, rather than find them as a means through which their faith can be deepened. Randi Jones Walker, professor of church history at the Pacific School of Religion, points out that in the great liberal conservative battles of our age the real pivot center is around how churches handle doubt. The more conservative banish it; the more liberal embrace it. The response of many moderns to modernity has been to banish doubt, irony, and Tillich's principle of correlation. One ponders how this text will fare in a post-modern world.
In each of these texts we confront a post-resurrection world. Certainly this Sunday becomes the time to consider whether we feel that we are at the beginning of a new phase of Christian experience initiated in the resurrection or do we see the beginning of the end in membership and attendance figures.
Acts 5:27-32
This text comes in the middle of the chapter that contains the famous speech from Rabbi Gamaliel: "But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a short time. Then he said to them, 'Fellow Israelites consider carefully what you propose to do to these men. For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about 400, joined him; but he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and disappeared. After him Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the census and got people to follow him; he also perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them -- in that case you may even be found fighting against God!' "
One cannot deny the soundness of that kind of strategy. The Lukan author has presented us with the inescapable obvious. If the resurrection is a turning point in the plans of God for the world, the Christian movement will be unstoppable. If it is not, then this movement will harmlessly fall apart of its own accord. This has to be a bit unnerving for anyone in the mainline church as it faces diminished influence and power and struggles with its future. The Lukan community believes because they saw in their experience a continuation of the same power that was manifest in Jesus and that raised him from the dead. In chapter 5 of Acts it is hard not to come to this conclusion. Already in this chapter, the church has experienced this power: "Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord." A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured." And while in prison, "But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors, and brought them out."
Of course, it is entirely possible that you can look at these events and not see in them the beginning of a new epoch. While Gamaliel is willing to let the future be decisive in determining the meaning of these events, the high priest is not. He views these happenings as a personal affront. Earlier we are reminded of verse 17, that the contention here centers on the resurrection, "Then the high priest took action; he and all who were with him (that is, the sect of the Sadducees), being filled with jealousy." Recall it is the Sadducees that said there was no resurrection. It is not so much the power that the disciples are demonstrating but that they attribute it to the continuation of God's plan made manifest in the resurrection that has evoked the ire of these leaders of the council.
Peter, once afraid of a young serving maid, in the post-resurrection experience has now found his voice that speaks with clarity and power. All of this is to be understood as the unfolding of God's plan: "But Peter and the apostles answered, 'We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.' "
Being a witness to these things, Peter finds his voice. Yet, it feels that often the church looses it voice and is on the defensive about the resurrection. These events recounted in Luke's story of the early church point to the God of our ancestors whose work is still to roll away the stone that is too heavy for humankind to move. This is God's plan as we move into a world that cannot imprison the message of Jesus. Though the church in America is weak, many souls are being added to the church's number worldwide. Many have found healing and given healing by following in the steps of Jesus through mission and service. The plan is for us to enter the world in hope. This Sunday we should be able to speak of those experiences in our common life of which we are witnesses that point to the God who is rolling away the stone too hard for us to move.
Revelation 1:4-8
This text puts us at a somewhat strange place because it sweeps us up in an event that is beyond time much as the actual resurrection is an event that happens outside the normal dimensions of human experience. Occurring outside those dimensions, it is an event that itself is not repeatable or producible by human hands. However, it is something to which human hearts can be open. John writes to the seven churches as representative of the whole church and sends them the blessing of the one who was and who is to come. Jesus is clearly part of God's plan from the start, who is experienced now and who is the consummation of God's plan. The emphasis in Revelation is that Jesus is the one to come. No doubt we are more comfortable with the one who is and was than the one who is to come. Yet, it is also the coming one who is a faithful witness and who has freed us from our sins. If the book of Acts builds its Christology around the experience of the one whom we deal with in the present, then Revelation builds its Christological understanding around the one whom we must deal with in the future.
We might ask how anyone can make this claim. Certainly John makes the claim from the unusual place of being in exile. The early church makes this claim from a deep place of marginalization with little concrete evidence to the contrary that life will ever be different.
How are we to make such a claim without appearing to be hopelessly arrogant or incredibly foolish? For John this knowledge makes Jesus' followers a kingdom of priests who are to mediate this truth. John lifts up the role of post-exilic Israel as the role of the church. The claims of John are not in any sense new; the novelty lies in his extension of them to the followers of Christ.
How are people to say that they are the followers of the firstborn from the dead to the live? In this short text, John simply says, "Look." Look -- anyone else who makes this claim has it wrong. Look -- beware of those who claim that their ideology is absolute, or their theology complete. An example of failing to look comes from a pastor I knew very early in my ministry. He claimed all one needed was to understand Niebuhr and a couple of others, and there would be enough theology to last a lifetime. Look -- beware of anyone who invests themselves in complete loyalty to any human institution. Look -- he is coming. The moon-eyed mushiness of marriage has often left young couples unable to look beyond seeing into each other's eyes or at the need for a midcourse correction. Look -- he will sustain you in these times of exile. Look -- beware of making free markets or worldwide socialism as the ultimate good for humankind.
Christians as people of the resurrection are folks who keep looking because we know the living one has not yet fully come in any of our philosophies, relations, or accomplishments. When in exile this is no doubt easier. However, as portrayed in the book of Esther, many do stop looking beyond exile and settle in trying to pass into the culture. But the living Lord has not come yet. Keep looking. I have lived long enough to see enough to know that what many thought would not pass away has. Those who relied on the certainties of the 1950s or the continuing success of military power, or laid the foundation stone of 475 Riverside Drive in New York City, the ecumenical headquarters of the National Council of Churches, have all had the expectations overturned. Keep looking, there is a living Lord who is coming and has not yet fully come in any human endeavor.
John 20:19-31
John's gospel is written in the context of deep questionings and some serious conflicts. John portrays the struggle between communities that cheer on Peter and the beloved as they make their run toward the empty tomb. There are those who see and believe but there are also those who have not seen these events firsthand. This is surrounded with the experience of the Christian community being expelled from the synagogue. Such a time must have seemed to John's people to be the end of the world and hardly the beginning point of anything. No wonder that John portrays the early Christians as behind closed doors out of fear. Is it any wonder that Jesus comes and despite their fears announces, "Peace be with you." Again, after having shown them his side, announcing that as he has been sent into the world so will they be sent into the world, he says, "Peace be with you." John's community whose principle experience of the world has been being pummeled by it was now sent into the world where peace might be found even in the midst of their troubles. As Jesus has taken away the sins of the world, they might further the release of others from bondage to their sin.
This could be the beginning of the end of an old world; however it might be the end of a promising beginning. No sooner has Jesus uttered his words than we ominously read, "But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came." We are aware that somebody has been left out of this experience and is in danger of being marginalized because he has not participated in this foundational experience.
What is at stake here is not Thomas' personal destiny, but the experience of the community that he represents: conflicts between Peter and the beloved communities, exile from the parent Jewish community, and the sense that the intervening years have left the entire community distant from the foundational experience. Thomas has also missed out on the bestowal of the Holy Spirit that might allay his fears and place him on an equal footing with the others.
Thomas, like many of us, sets the bar high as to what will bring him to faith. He said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." However, it does not come to feeling and touching the side of Jesus as the wounded one. Seeing the wounded Jesus as alive, who is more alive than the disciples, puts his doubts to rest.
This must have come as great assurance for John's church -- the wounded ones who were alive who could participate in the ministry of taking away the sins of the world, who would, as Jesus told them, do even greater works than he had done. They would do this despite and because of the wounds they had picked up along the way. The future was not closed because of their wounds. Through the gift of the Holy Sprit this is as possible for those who have not seen even as Thomas has.
As one who is a member of a denomination who is going through a bone-crunching financial crisis at all levels, whose year book seems to indicate a tipping point to oblivion, and whose leaders are not on the White House guest list: I know something of what it means to be wounded. Yet, in spite of this in many places the church seems more alive, more a servant, and authentic than before -- "My Lord and my God!" For John, the living Lord comes to us not only in the present and in the future but gives us a future.
Application
The scriptures are adamant in their refusal to completely harmonize the accounts of the resurrection. The authors are simple and uninteresting in providing us some objective photographic record. They do not lurk in the background waiting with cameras to capture snapshots of Thomas reaching out to touch Jesus or Jesus walking out of the tomb. Nothing is to be gained in such a venture. What they are passionately interested in is how communities were able to live in the present, live into the future, and anticipate the future to come. Something made all the difference for the followers of Jesus that got them beyond the reality of Good Friday in a way that changes their understanding of past prophecy, present living, and what would be the culmination of history. Such a broad change in understanding can only be understood in terms of a living one who enables people to find a new voice, to avoid the temptations of exile, and live into the future in faith.
Alternative Application
Revelation 1:4-8. The text from the book of Revelation reads in part, "Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen." Tears of joy at the presence of the living one are fine, but the notion of wailing seems entirely out of place in the context of Easter. What seems to be most disturbing is that no tribe escapes this wailing. No nation can claim to be an exception from this.
Yet, a nation that knows the blessing that can be found in mourning is less likely to repeat the errors of unresolved grief. Certainly, all tribes that pretended to divine status will find that much wailing is in store. However this wailing is the starting point of living into a new future. The coming one comes not to raise our comfort zone but to help us live into the fullness of life. The book of Revelation says that he will wipe away every tear, not that there will be no tears.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 118:14-29
Anyone can throw a party. It's easy to jump up and down and shout loud "alleluias." Pay the DJ, set out the drinks and the buffet table, and that's about it. At first, it's a blast! Whirling bodies and pulsing rhythms fill the night. Laughter and clinking glasses seem like an endless and joyful dialogue. But, by midnight it all starts to get a little old. People get tired of shouting and dancing and head home because they have to work the next day. The DJ was only hired for a few hours and he, perhaps, has another gig at an after-hours club across town. The food is mostly gone, and there is a ghastly mess to clean up by the few people who weren't smart enough to leave earlier.
Yes. The party is easy. It's the next day that's hard.
The thrill of the resurrection and the empty tomb spill and disperse through another week at work only to find the faithful with the second part of this psalm. One can hear the stifled yawn and the whispered assertion, "Wasn't Easter last week?" "This sounds awfully familiar."
In truth, the Easter "reality," though thrilling at the start, is no easy thing to maintain. Thrust back into the sullen world as the people are, this Easter notion of new life and new beginnings; even of a new reality are kind of hard to hang onto when one's sales quota has been raised. If it's any comfort, it wasn't easy for the disciples either.
There is, in this post-Easter haze, what poet and prophet, Daniel Berrigan, has referred to as a "smog of disbelief," even among the most passionate of believers. It is indeed difficult to keep celebrating the "day that the Lord has made," when the people live, work, and breathe in a world that the Lord has had little to do with -- indeed a world the people are called to shun.
It is at this point that the incredible gift of community takes hold. Yes, each person who shouts, "Alleluia," on Easter Sunday has to step back into a Good Friday world. Yes, each person who claims the new reality in Jesus Christ must return to the reality of time clocks and quotas. But praise God! There is a Christian community that remembers the alleluias. Praise God there is a community where this new reality not only survives but thrives. Here, in the sanctuary of community the party continues. Perhaps the songs are different. Maybe the dance steps change, but the table is spread, the feast is always ready as people shout once more, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"
One wonders if this is because much of the preaching of the last Sunday has been about reassuring personal immortality, rather than seeing the resurrection as initiation of a new phase of God's intention for the world. In the texts for this Sunday we are presented with three responses to the resurrection in three different contexts. In the book of Acts, we are presented with people who are seemingly fearless and are convinced that they must obey God rather than human authority because they are convinced that they are living out the post-resurrection phase of the plan. One does not quite sense that tone in many churches. Even for many clergy, the post-resurrection plan is more likely to include time off and time with the family. While one understands, it seems that the urgency and intensity of the book of Acts feels more primitive than powerful to many members of our churches.
The second lesson comes from the book of Revelation. We come predisposed to be on our guard with anything from Revelation. No doubt here, too, there is plenty of good reason to be wary. Many of the folks that I serve see themselves as refugees from literal readings of the book of Revelation and tedious attempts to determine the time and place of the second coming of Christ. It seems counterintuitive in a world of many faiths where the future seems more dependent on finding common ground than on the vision of the book of Revelation. In such a world there is good reason to steer clear of such language.
Perhaps the most appealing of these post-resurrection texts is the gospel lesson from John. The story of "Doubting Thomas" appeals to moderns. Though many of us might not go to the extremes that he did, many of us must settle for having our doubts blest rather than having our faith confirmed. However this fails to take into account the outcome of this story in which Thomas leaves as a believer who is able to say of Jesus "My Lord and my God." The early church will narrate his story as part of the phase of events initiated in the resurrection, crediting him with the founding of the church in India.
There is further reason for caution in handling the Thomas tale. In some ways, Thomas has lost his luster as a vehicle of faith. Many simply want to banish their doubts, rather than find them as a means through which their faith can be deepened. Randi Jones Walker, professor of church history at the Pacific School of Religion, points out that in the great liberal conservative battles of our age the real pivot center is around how churches handle doubt. The more conservative banish it; the more liberal embrace it. The response of many moderns to modernity has been to banish doubt, irony, and Tillich's principle of correlation. One ponders how this text will fare in a post-modern world.
In each of these texts we confront a post-resurrection world. Certainly this Sunday becomes the time to consider whether we feel that we are at the beginning of a new phase of Christian experience initiated in the resurrection or do we see the beginning of the end in membership and attendance figures.
Acts 5:27-32
This text comes in the middle of the chapter that contains the famous speech from Rabbi Gamaliel: "But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a short time. Then he said to them, 'Fellow Israelites consider carefully what you propose to do to these men. For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about 400, joined him; but he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and disappeared. After him Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the census and got people to follow him; he also perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them -- in that case you may even be found fighting against God!' "
One cannot deny the soundness of that kind of strategy. The Lukan author has presented us with the inescapable obvious. If the resurrection is a turning point in the plans of God for the world, the Christian movement will be unstoppable. If it is not, then this movement will harmlessly fall apart of its own accord. This has to be a bit unnerving for anyone in the mainline church as it faces diminished influence and power and struggles with its future. The Lukan community believes because they saw in their experience a continuation of the same power that was manifest in Jesus and that raised him from the dead. In chapter 5 of Acts it is hard not to come to this conclusion. Already in this chapter, the church has experienced this power: "Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord." A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured." And while in prison, "But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors, and brought them out."
Of course, it is entirely possible that you can look at these events and not see in them the beginning of a new epoch. While Gamaliel is willing to let the future be decisive in determining the meaning of these events, the high priest is not. He views these happenings as a personal affront. Earlier we are reminded of verse 17, that the contention here centers on the resurrection, "Then the high priest took action; he and all who were with him (that is, the sect of the Sadducees), being filled with jealousy." Recall it is the Sadducees that said there was no resurrection. It is not so much the power that the disciples are demonstrating but that they attribute it to the continuation of God's plan made manifest in the resurrection that has evoked the ire of these leaders of the council.
Peter, once afraid of a young serving maid, in the post-resurrection experience has now found his voice that speaks with clarity and power. All of this is to be understood as the unfolding of God's plan: "But Peter and the apostles answered, 'We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.' "
Being a witness to these things, Peter finds his voice. Yet, it feels that often the church looses it voice and is on the defensive about the resurrection. These events recounted in Luke's story of the early church point to the God of our ancestors whose work is still to roll away the stone that is too heavy for humankind to move. This is God's plan as we move into a world that cannot imprison the message of Jesus. Though the church in America is weak, many souls are being added to the church's number worldwide. Many have found healing and given healing by following in the steps of Jesus through mission and service. The plan is for us to enter the world in hope. This Sunday we should be able to speak of those experiences in our common life of which we are witnesses that point to the God who is rolling away the stone too hard for us to move.
Revelation 1:4-8
This text puts us at a somewhat strange place because it sweeps us up in an event that is beyond time much as the actual resurrection is an event that happens outside the normal dimensions of human experience. Occurring outside those dimensions, it is an event that itself is not repeatable or producible by human hands. However, it is something to which human hearts can be open. John writes to the seven churches as representative of the whole church and sends them the blessing of the one who was and who is to come. Jesus is clearly part of God's plan from the start, who is experienced now and who is the consummation of God's plan. The emphasis in Revelation is that Jesus is the one to come. No doubt we are more comfortable with the one who is and was than the one who is to come. Yet, it is also the coming one who is a faithful witness and who has freed us from our sins. If the book of Acts builds its Christology around the experience of the one whom we deal with in the present, then Revelation builds its Christological understanding around the one whom we must deal with in the future.
We might ask how anyone can make this claim. Certainly John makes the claim from the unusual place of being in exile. The early church makes this claim from a deep place of marginalization with little concrete evidence to the contrary that life will ever be different.
How are we to make such a claim without appearing to be hopelessly arrogant or incredibly foolish? For John this knowledge makes Jesus' followers a kingdom of priests who are to mediate this truth. John lifts up the role of post-exilic Israel as the role of the church. The claims of John are not in any sense new; the novelty lies in his extension of them to the followers of Christ.
How are people to say that they are the followers of the firstborn from the dead to the live? In this short text, John simply says, "Look." Look -- anyone else who makes this claim has it wrong. Look -- beware of those who claim that their ideology is absolute, or their theology complete. An example of failing to look comes from a pastor I knew very early in my ministry. He claimed all one needed was to understand Niebuhr and a couple of others, and there would be enough theology to last a lifetime. Look -- beware of anyone who invests themselves in complete loyalty to any human institution. Look -- he is coming. The moon-eyed mushiness of marriage has often left young couples unable to look beyond seeing into each other's eyes or at the need for a midcourse correction. Look -- he will sustain you in these times of exile. Look -- beware of making free markets or worldwide socialism as the ultimate good for humankind.
Christians as people of the resurrection are folks who keep looking because we know the living one has not yet fully come in any of our philosophies, relations, or accomplishments. When in exile this is no doubt easier. However, as portrayed in the book of Esther, many do stop looking beyond exile and settle in trying to pass into the culture. But the living Lord has not come yet. Keep looking. I have lived long enough to see enough to know that what many thought would not pass away has. Those who relied on the certainties of the 1950s or the continuing success of military power, or laid the foundation stone of 475 Riverside Drive in New York City, the ecumenical headquarters of the National Council of Churches, have all had the expectations overturned. Keep looking, there is a living Lord who is coming and has not yet fully come in any human endeavor.
John 20:19-31
John's gospel is written in the context of deep questionings and some serious conflicts. John portrays the struggle between communities that cheer on Peter and the beloved as they make their run toward the empty tomb. There are those who see and believe but there are also those who have not seen these events firsthand. This is surrounded with the experience of the Christian community being expelled from the synagogue. Such a time must have seemed to John's people to be the end of the world and hardly the beginning point of anything. No wonder that John portrays the early Christians as behind closed doors out of fear. Is it any wonder that Jesus comes and despite their fears announces, "Peace be with you." Again, after having shown them his side, announcing that as he has been sent into the world so will they be sent into the world, he says, "Peace be with you." John's community whose principle experience of the world has been being pummeled by it was now sent into the world where peace might be found even in the midst of their troubles. As Jesus has taken away the sins of the world, they might further the release of others from bondage to their sin.
This could be the beginning of the end of an old world; however it might be the end of a promising beginning. No sooner has Jesus uttered his words than we ominously read, "But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came." We are aware that somebody has been left out of this experience and is in danger of being marginalized because he has not participated in this foundational experience.
What is at stake here is not Thomas' personal destiny, but the experience of the community that he represents: conflicts between Peter and the beloved communities, exile from the parent Jewish community, and the sense that the intervening years have left the entire community distant from the foundational experience. Thomas has also missed out on the bestowal of the Holy Spirit that might allay his fears and place him on an equal footing with the others.
Thomas, like many of us, sets the bar high as to what will bring him to faith. He said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." However, it does not come to feeling and touching the side of Jesus as the wounded one. Seeing the wounded Jesus as alive, who is more alive than the disciples, puts his doubts to rest.
This must have come as great assurance for John's church -- the wounded ones who were alive who could participate in the ministry of taking away the sins of the world, who would, as Jesus told them, do even greater works than he had done. They would do this despite and because of the wounds they had picked up along the way. The future was not closed because of their wounds. Through the gift of the Holy Sprit this is as possible for those who have not seen even as Thomas has.
As one who is a member of a denomination who is going through a bone-crunching financial crisis at all levels, whose year book seems to indicate a tipping point to oblivion, and whose leaders are not on the White House guest list: I know something of what it means to be wounded. Yet, in spite of this in many places the church seems more alive, more a servant, and authentic than before -- "My Lord and my God!" For John, the living Lord comes to us not only in the present and in the future but gives us a future.
Application
The scriptures are adamant in their refusal to completely harmonize the accounts of the resurrection. The authors are simple and uninteresting in providing us some objective photographic record. They do not lurk in the background waiting with cameras to capture snapshots of Thomas reaching out to touch Jesus or Jesus walking out of the tomb. Nothing is to be gained in such a venture. What they are passionately interested in is how communities were able to live in the present, live into the future, and anticipate the future to come. Something made all the difference for the followers of Jesus that got them beyond the reality of Good Friday in a way that changes their understanding of past prophecy, present living, and what would be the culmination of history. Such a broad change in understanding can only be understood in terms of a living one who enables people to find a new voice, to avoid the temptations of exile, and live into the future in faith.
Alternative Application
Revelation 1:4-8. The text from the book of Revelation reads in part, "Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen." Tears of joy at the presence of the living one are fine, but the notion of wailing seems entirely out of place in the context of Easter. What seems to be most disturbing is that no tribe escapes this wailing. No nation can claim to be an exception from this.
Yet, a nation that knows the blessing that can be found in mourning is less likely to repeat the errors of unresolved grief. Certainly, all tribes that pretended to divine status will find that much wailing is in store. However this wailing is the starting point of living into a new future. The coming one comes not to raise our comfort zone but to help us live into the fullness of life. The book of Revelation says that he will wipe away every tear, not that there will be no tears.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 118:14-29
Anyone can throw a party. It's easy to jump up and down and shout loud "alleluias." Pay the DJ, set out the drinks and the buffet table, and that's about it. At first, it's a blast! Whirling bodies and pulsing rhythms fill the night. Laughter and clinking glasses seem like an endless and joyful dialogue. But, by midnight it all starts to get a little old. People get tired of shouting and dancing and head home because they have to work the next day. The DJ was only hired for a few hours and he, perhaps, has another gig at an after-hours club across town. The food is mostly gone, and there is a ghastly mess to clean up by the few people who weren't smart enough to leave earlier.
Yes. The party is easy. It's the next day that's hard.
The thrill of the resurrection and the empty tomb spill and disperse through another week at work only to find the faithful with the second part of this psalm. One can hear the stifled yawn and the whispered assertion, "Wasn't Easter last week?" "This sounds awfully familiar."
In truth, the Easter "reality," though thrilling at the start, is no easy thing to maintain. Thrust back into the sullen world as the people are, this Easter notion of new life and new beginnings; even of a new reality are kind of hard to hang onto when one's sales quota has been raised. If it's any comfort, it wasn't easy for the disciples either.
There is, in this post-Easter haze, what poet and prophet, Daniel Berrigan, has referred to as a "smog of disbelief," even among the most passionate of believers. It is indeed difficult to keep celebrating the "day that the Lord has made," when the people live, work, and breathe in a world that the Lord has had little to do with -- indeed a world the people are called to shun.
It is at this point that the incredible gift of community takes hold. Yes, each person who shouts, "Alleluia," on Easter Sunday has to step back into a Good Friday world. Yes, each person who claims the new reality in Jesus Christ must return to the reality of time clocks and quotas. But praise God! There is a Christian community that remembers the alleluias. Praise God there is a community where this new reality not only survives but thrives. Here, in the sanctuary of community the party continues. Perhaps the songs are different. Maybe the dance steps change, but the table is spread, the feast is always ready as people shout once more, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"
