Third Sunday of Easter

 

Understanding Scripture and the Breaking of Bread

     Reading the Bible is not like reading other books. For one thing, the Bible is more of an anthology, a collection of books, rather than a single book. In it are stories, prophecies, histories, wise sayings, songs, letters, religious tracts (1 John), and the life of Christ as recorded four times. Needless to say, studying such a collection is a life-long effort; however, for us, studying is only part of the Bible’s role.

     As suggested today in the progression of readings, the witness of prophecy (Acts) sealed the deal for Peter with Jesus as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53.  For us who did not witness the historical reality of Jesus’ presence in the Upper Room, however, our belief is aided by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the other Paraclete, or advocate, sent to us that we might believe. Our faith is not something that originates solely within ourselves; it is a gift. It is this gift sent by Jesus from the Father that we realize most fully the deeper realities of Holy Scripture. Our understanding is more than intellectual, our understanding is complemented and guided by a profound connection to the Holy Trinity.

     The Holy Spirit is the spiritual link to the reality the disciples experienced in the Upper Room. It is through the Spirit that we experience the reality of Christ “in the breaking of the bread” at Eucharist, and it is in touching the very real wounds of humanity that we touch the wounds of Christ and are able to join Thomas in last week’s reading and declare “My Lord and my God.”

Second Sunday of Easter

 Resurrection and Woundedness

It was important in the early Church that the account of Jesus' resurrection not become a "ghost story".  Some followers of Christ could not reconcile the divinity of Christ with his humanity, and came to the conclusion that Jesus, being divine, could not have truly suffered on the cross; a wounded God is much more difficult to worship.  Luke writes in the tradition of Christians who share the conviction, handed down by the Apostles, that Christ's humanity and suffering did not detract from his divinity.

When Jesus invites his Apostles to touch his wounds, and then to give him some cooked fish to eat, his intent was clear: "It is I myself".  During Good Friday, we venerated the Cross and meditated on the wounds of Christ as those wounds were the sins of humanity being put upon Christ.  Today we see Jesus, the resurrected Christ, but we also see his wounds.  Jesus was resurrected with his wounds.

Being resurrected doesn't mean we jettison our wounds, or, as Hamlet put it "shuffle off our mortal coil"; the resurrection has transformed our wounds, not removed them.  We carry our wounds through our baptism into our new life in Christ, and we often take on new wounds.  What is markedly different, though, is as Christians we live with our wounds visible, proof of our resurrection.  We can share the painful wounds we've received because we live in a new body, the body of Christ.  Love has conquered death, our wounds are no longer harbingers of death, but proof we have not died, but that we live.

In a sense, our wounds, when not hidden, become the agent of connection with a wounded world.  The bumper sticker "Not Perfect, Just Forgiven" comes to mind.  Our wounds make us human, the freedom from having our woundedness lead us into despair, hate, anger, greed, etc.. is our release from death--our resurrection with the risen Christ.  Chuck Coleson's prison ministry, which has led so many to not let their wounds define them, had its genesis in the wounds of his ambition and lust for power.

What being resurrected means for us is living with the confidence that love overcomes death.  That our wounds present in our new life in Christ become a source of great hope for whom woundedness has led to death.  Like Christ, we can live a life that removes the defensive imperative to cover our wounds and move to dominate, control, and accumulate wealth.  Our life in Christ shows the world another way, the way of Jesus displaying his wounds to his followers at the beginning of their spiritual journey as people of the resurrection.

Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection

 

The older I get, the less concerned I am about the historical facts of my faith.  Don't get me wrong, if I could know some new historical facts regarding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, I'd jump at the opportunity; it's more a matter of accepting the inherent limitations of the type of knowledge faith reveals.  I see so many folks trading their faith for a kind of intellectual dishonesty that makes bizarre claims in an attempt to find empirical backing to what they claim to believe already. 

Christian curmudgeons who scour the Bible making esoteric connections that reveal the exact time Christ will return is an example of this type of dishonesty. Another kind of intellectual dishonesty that is prevalent are the myths handed down by unsuspecting pastors who “read this somewhere” that when Jesus said to turn the other cheek, rather than being a form of submission to an aggressor, it was, in fact, a Middle Eastern custom of offering your enemy your left cheek as a form of insult. Or how about the old “eye of the needle” problem for wealthy people seeking the Kingdom? I’ve heard this explained away from the pulpit by referring to unnamed sources that, in fact, the “eye” was a very narrow gate that a camel could get through, but that it had to go on its knees to make it. The good news here is that you can have your riches and make it through the “eye” on your knees. Of course, there never was such a gate in Jesus’ time, and even the metaphor itself is strained to find Good News for the wealthy (see Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 3, pp. 592-594 ). But there is no way to explain away the necessity for crucifixion before resurrection while claiming orthodox Christian faith. There is no other way to resurrection than through crucifixion.  This is the substance of my faith when I proclaim each Sunday "He was crucified, died and buried.  On the third day, he rose again in accordance with the scriptures."

Crucifixion forces our hand and breaks our plans for an orderly and carefully controlled life while putting us at the feet of the cross, or on it.  We will likely never have empirical, historical evidence of Jesus’ bodily resurrection, but one thing is not difficult to believe: Jesus was killed on the cross by Roman and religious authorities who were threatened by the prospect of losing power and control: Jesus said he was a king, and Jesus said he was the Messiah.  The only possible way Jesus could walk to the cross was a faith born not in what would come after, but in the sustaining relationship of love he had with the Father.  Jesus' fear, and the feeling of dejection in murmuring the 22nd Psalm "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" ends with the 31st Psalm: "Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit."

The Resurrection is what happened after.  The disciples witnessed it according to the accounts of Scripture.  But my faith in the Resurrection is also founded on the resurrections I've experienced in others and in myself that have their origin in The Resurrection. This yoking of death with birth is an incredibly rich source of our human experience recorded in art and literature.

 Easter is the "difficult birth" of a faith borne on the cross of a two-thousand-year-old man who claimed to be a king and Messiah, but the millions of new lives hewn from the roughness of the Cross is witness to a deeper and more profound truth than a single historical event; the Resurrection has lived long after Jesus walked the earth.

 Easter is the "difficult birth" of a faith borne on the cross of a two-thousand-year-old man who claimed to be a king and Messiah, but the millions of new lives hewn from the roughness of the Cross is witness to a deeper and more profound truth than a single historical event; the Resurrection has lived long after Jesus walked the earth.

Good Friday of the Lord's Passion

 We Call this Friday Good

Good Friday is when we recall that even Jesus' closest disciples fled into the night and sought refuge away from the Roman and Temple authorities for fear that they too would be arrested. What a spectacular failure of faith.

Today is a day we move deeply into meditating on our need to tell God, like Jesus, hanging on the cross to pull off another miracle, save yourself and save us! No? We’re out of here! I’m not going to end up like that!! 

     Peter’s famous denial three times echoes Jesus’ earlier query, also three times: “Do you love me, Peter?” Peter responded then: “You know that I love you!” Now, fearful of his life, he replies “I know nothing of this man you refer to!” This person is the disciple upon whom the Church is built: Peter, called “Rock” by Jesus, crumbles into sand at the crucifixion. 

     The cross is a spectacle of human folly, failure, and faithlessness. "Yet, in spite of that", as T.S. Eliot wrote, “We call this Friday good.” Its goodness lies in God’s total submission to his love for humanity in the person of Jesus. It is the goodness inherent when we willingly suffer for another person, perhaps a stranger, or even an enemy. Today, we contemplate how we respond to being asked to suffer for another, or whether or not the possibility of suffering sends us scurrying into the night, renouncing God. 

     “How could God allow such suffering ?” many ask and imply this is the cardinal weakness of Christianity. Perhaps the better question is “Why would God be willing to enter into our world of suffering?” The mightiness of God isn’t a lifeboat dropping out of the sky for survivors floating in a tempest; it is God falling into the water next to us to show us the way to dry land. 

     God with us, “Emmanuel”, means God suffering for and with us. God does not want to “save” us as much as he intends to be with us. We want to be “saved”, just as Jesus wanted to escape suffering; it's only natural. No one suggests that to follow Jesus we should seek out pain, but rather following Jesus we will enter the suffering of a suffering world with a resounding affirmation: “Yes” to being with the poor and hopeless, the excluded, imprisoned, tortured, and sick. “Yes” to the suffering of the world, and all its messiness and dysfunction. The Cross’s affirmation is entering into the heart of the suffering world and walking with those who suffer to find God calling us into his embrace, arms stretched out on the cross, now embracing us in all of our horror and pain, failure, and humiliation. Today we come to the cross to be embraced by Jesus’ crucifixion and to be resurrected with Christ.