Posted on 04/09/2007 9:38:42 PM PDT by Huber
Reading: John 20:1-18
Theme: VICTORY AND PEACE OF THE RESURRECTION
PRAYER: May I speak in the Name of the Son, in the Power of the Holy Spirit, to the Glory of God the Father. AMEN
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In 1922 an estimated 33 million people were in danger of starvation in Soviet Russia. A story is told of Nikolai Bukharin, whom Lenin once called the "darling" of the Bolshevik Party, as head of the Communist International and Editor of the then leading newspaper, Pravda, and later in the 1930s, of Isvestia, at that time the government mouthpiece. Tradition has it that Bukharin was sent from Moscow to Kiev to address a vast anti-God rally. For an hour he abused and ridiculed the Christian faith until it seemed as if the whole structure of belief was in ruins. Questions were invited.
An elderly priest of the Orthodox Church rose. He faced the people and gave them the ancient Easter greeting, CHRISTOS ANESTÇ EK NEKRÔN, “Christ is risen from the dead”.
Instantly the whole vast assembly rose to its feet, and the reply came back like a crash of breakers against the cliff, “ALITHOS ANESTE” - "He is risen indeed".
Nikolai Bukharin's mistake, and the mistake of many, was to treat the Christian faith like an ideology. Looking, as it were, for Jesus Christ among the dead.
There are those who regard Jesus as the greatest man who ever lived - but who then died. That won't do. Jesus isn't dead; he is alive. He isn't merely a hero of the past; he is a living reality, the Lord of the present.
There are those who regard Jesus simply as a man whose life must be studied, his words examined, his teaching analyzed. Beyond doubt study is necessary but Jesus isn't only someone to be studied; he is someone to be met and lived with every day.
He isn't only a figure in a book - the Bible - even if that book is the greatest in the world; he is a living presence.
There are those who see in Jesus the perfect pattern and example. He is that; but a perfect example can be the most heart-breaking thing in the world.
For centuries the birds gave the human race an example of flight, and yet not till modern times could man fly. Jesus isn't only a model for life - like birds for aeroplanes. He is a living presence who helps us to live as he lived.
This is precisely what we see him doing in the lives of three kinds of people on Easter Day.
The first, is the broken-hearten disciple: Mary Magdalene. She was distraught and listless. The one person who gave meaning to her life had died on the Cross. And now his body had disappeared. She is even cheated out of performing her last loving service of anointing his dead body with spices and aromatic oils. She weeps her heart out - weeping, weeping - and the tears refused to dry. On peering into the tomb she sees angels who try to tell her that this is no time for weeping: she is looking in the wrong place!
Comforting angelic experiences and voices are no substitute for the Lord; nor is looking into the grave of past experiences - however glorious!
Fortunately for Mary, the risen Lord is standing by, and asks her "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?"
And he says her name, "Mary". She cries out, "My Master, my Teacher." Excited with the encounter she goes and tells the disciples. "I have seen the Lord. He who forgave me my sin, lifted by burdens, cast out demons from me and set me free. I have seen him. He is alive! I'm now at peace".
Are you broken-hearted? The risen Jesus who is life longs to give you life; longs to med your broken heart. That Carpenter of Nazareth knows how to deal with rough-hewn and broken lives. He is alive. He is inviting you to participate in his death and resurrection.
The second kind of people Jesus meets are the confused disciples on the road to Emmaus. They discussed the events of Good Friday without getting anywhere. They saw the death of Jesus as a tragedy.
Jesus joins them and they treat him as the only ignorant stranger in Jerusalem. As he speaks, their hearts burn within them but their eyes remain closed because of their confusion and disappointment. And as Jesus breaks bread, they catch sight of the wounds in his hands, and their hearts are liberated from blindness and confusion; their questions are questioned and then answered; they are set free.
They had gone crawling to Emmaus: they returned with exhilaration to Jerusalem. They had gone with confused news: they returned full of good news. They went to Emmaus in blindness: they returned with a clear vision of Jesus Christ. That's what the risen Christ did for them. He lifted them out of their confusion.
Are you confused? Full of many unanswered questions ? The risen Christ longs to walk with you and to open your mind to understand yourself and him who is the truth. He longs to lead you out of a maze of confusion. To liberate you from the paralysis of analysis. He is the life: live him. He is the Way: walk Him. He is the Truth: know Him.
The third kind of people are the frightened disciples. On that first Easter Day Jesus came to a group of disciples absolutely dominated by fear.
Many people today are thoroughly afraid: afraid of demonic powers, afraid of what they can't understand, afraid of the future, afraid of the present, afraid of the past. Some people can hardly look at the past because it's full of guilt: some can't face the future because its full of threatening voices.
The disciples were full of fear even though it was the very day of the resurrection; even after Mary had given her lovely testimony that she had seen the Lord. “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews” The what? I wonder who are the people you are afriad of ? The disciples were afraid so they shut the doors, and they sat inside the house, thoroughly frozen!
And remember this is not anti-semitism - the disciples were Jews themselves ! Fear turned their kith and kin into enemies to be feared. Those no longer of our company. This same fear of “the west”, so to speak, has played its part in the horrendous kidnap of the BBC journalist Alan Johnston.
In God’s name please release Alan Johnson. He is not your enemy. He is a symbol of ensuring that freedom of the press is not violated – an issue Palestinian journalists are too familiar with after facing routing attacks, harassment and arrests. Let the Man Free !
I sincerely pray to God that we learn a clear lesson from the frightened disciples. Their fear blinded them which resulted in a blanket condemnation of all their country men. How awful!
The events of 7/7 should not cause the same blindness in us. Seeing all our Muslim neighbours as responsible. Guilt by association is dangerous.
I pray that the events of 7/7 will not create a ghetto and bunk mentality in the Muslim community, like the fear created in the disciples who hid behind closed doors.
All of us must overcome fear by love. Love our neighbour as ourselves. Do to others what we want them to do to us. Be the change we want to see in our neighbours. Hate violence and be reconciled to one another and to God.
Returning to the frightened disciples locked in a room: Suppose you come to them and suggest that they ought to go out and witness to other people. Witness? Where do you begin when you are frozen? They were captives of fear. They couldn’t go outside, because all round them were threatening voices. So there they sat, frozen disciples within the walls. Fear always exaggerates. Not all of the Jewish people were against them. A small and vocal group was but not all. Their understanding of community and belonging makes the Apsotle John write as he does. That is: in a covenant relationship “all are involved in what some are doing. Some are guilty all are responsible”. (Abraham Heskel)
Oh, what a wonderful Saviour! Just as he came to Mary, now he comes to the disciples. The doors are completely shut. No one is expected to come in: Jews are kept out, and everybody else too! Have you an experience like that? Sometimes you feel no one should step into your life. So you shut every door carefully, bolts and everything; you turn the key in the lock, and you sit in that prison of security.
Do you know that security can be a prison? Here are people who wanted to be spiritually secure and physically secure, but they became prisoners of their security. And the Lord Jesus came through the shut doors. Wonderful Jesus! Has he ever reached you that way? You don’t want anyone to peep in, but he comes in. You don’t know how he came in - you look around and . . . there he is, right in the midst. “Jesus came and stood among them” (verse 20) not at the side, but in the centre. “And he said to them, ‘Peace be with you’.”
Now suppose that when Jesus came he had behaved like many keen Christians.
There was Peter, he had denied him: as for Thomas, he was still doubting: a number of the disciples were there, all shaking with fear. What sermon would most of us have given to these people? What would you have preached to them? Don’t you think you would have come with a big Bible and told them where they had gone wrong? “Why are you so afraid? Don’t you remember how often I told you that I would rise again?” You would have rally beaten them with your rebukes.
The Lord Jesus knew that they had enough beating. He did not come to beat them any more, but to release them. So he stood right in the centre. He did not put a throne of judgement there to judge them or condemn them.
The doors are completely shut and they sit in the prison of security. Until the Risen Christ comes in and says to them, "Peace be with you". Then he showed them his hands. Symbolically saying "Look! These wounds are the proof that I've won your freedom once and for all. You needn't stay in this prison of fear any more. Get out and enjoy the liberty I've won for you".
Now listen to the testimony of these frightened disciples. St. John writes, "The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord".
What about their fear? It had been taken care of. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the Guarantee of your joy, the passport which you can hold firmly and say, "Weak as I am, because he rose from the dead and left my fears in the grave, I can now walk as a loved child of God". Are you frightened?
The Risen Christ, who is the way, longs to lead you out of your prison of fear. Jesus Christ's resurrection assures us of God's help to know his presence, forgiveness and peace.
It assures us of God's help to fulfil his wishes and to respond to the needs of others; and to become fulfilled, caring and loving people. It is also the assurance that God will one day transform this decaying and dying world into a completely new world.
But, like Mary, the broken-hearted disciple, and like the confused disciples on the road to Emmaus and like the frightened disciples behind locked doors, you must have a personal encounter and experience of the Risen Lord. Christ has to be risen for each one of us. For the belief that Christ rose on the third day is based more on encountering Christ in experience than the discovery of the empty tomb. We have to be prepared for an encounter with the Risen Lord.
He will then lead us in the triumph of the resurrection wherever we are. And every day will become a celebration of his feat of victory. We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song.
Alleluia ! Christ is Risen from the Dead ! He is risen indeed.
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Speak the truth in love. Eph 4:15
That’s quite a sermon! No doubt where the Archbishop of York stands on the Resurrection!
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