Sometimes, sermons move easily, and sometimes they seem to emerge step by step, drop by drop.The Spirit is powerful. It is the breath of life here. It turns away death. It creates new life in dead relationships. dis-spirited. Jesus offers spiritual CPR here, When Jesus died, they thought they had drawn their last spiritual breath. If Easter is a story only, already consigned to memory, how is it life giving. I do not think it too far to go that Jesus is breathing life into them, as God gave Adam, the breath, the spirit of life. That content of that life is : forgiveness.The breathing body of Christ offers to maintain the mission of Christ in this crucial, indispensable work, forgiveness.
Disbelief or doubt, as some call it, is not the death of faith but its crucible. It is a manger, not a tomb.Thomas is a twin within, the same but split nonetheless. .Part of him believes the resurrection but he is skeptical. Maybe he cannot bear to be disappointed yet again. This go round, it hit me what is the proof Thomas seeks, the marks from the cross. For Thomas, as William Temple wrote: “the wounds of the cross are his credentials to the suffering race of humanity.” Lately, I keep circling around that Thomas is at first in our position. He hears about the resurrection,but the others had a direct experiene)see mini great commission at 21).Part of me thinks Jesus merely says shalom, hello, peace. Part of me thinks that he could be offering the gift of peace mentioned in John 14 in the beginning of the Farewell Section. Notice that even if Jesus thinks Thomas is in the wrong, we get no hint of it. Instead Jesus offers him precisely what he asked for. Jesus is in full relationship with thomas; he is not rejected for his skepticism.
The Risen Jesus is certainly elusive, as he moves in and out of locked doors. The truth is that we live in prisons, tombs, of our own devising or as responses to our fears.Sometimes we want to make religion that hiding place from the world. for an hour we don't want the world to intrude, even in our needy prayers, but to be shelter from the storm, to lock the world out.
While Jesus is dealing with flesh and l blood people about basic religious issues, at another level, we see the reality of this figure in heaven. Look at the titles strewn about here. At one level of reality, are ordinary people in a corner of the Roman Empire. At one level of reality are people in a small rust belt city, on the edge of St Louis, those hardy few who come to church the Sunday after Easter. In worship, our lives are shown to be connected to the goings on of heaven itself. Jesus Christ is the bridge to a whole different world. from this perspective, the roman power that took his life is of little consequence in the grand scheme of things.
Against power over others, Jesus gives a charge of forgiveness. ( I am going to forego discussion of retaining sins as a sacred court). The church here is pictured as an odd sort of court similar to the truth and reconciliation commissions in South Africa where telling the truth won the promise of amnesty for one’s crimes against humanity. If a torn relationship is going to receive the breath of life, forgiveness is usually at the heart of the process. Forgiveness is the great Easter practice. On our Easter window is a picture of a phoenix, and out of th3 ahses can come new restored relationship through the ife giving energy of forgivness.
No comments:
Post a Comment