Easter Sermon 2

Sermon # 1039
May 1, 2011
John 20:19-31
Dr. Ed Pettus

“Post Resurrection”

I discovered in some reading this week that this Sunday has sometimes been called Low Sunday. The Sunday following Easter traditionally has the lowest attendance and in many churches the minister takes this Sunday off to recuperate from the busy Easter festivities. Easter is such a huge day, lots of people, extra music, new dresses, Easter egg hunts, and then, when it’s all over there is the feel that the party is over. The good news is that the party is just getting started! This is not Low Sunday; this is the second Sunday of Easter. This is a continuation of what we started last Sunday! Christ is risen, his body is not in the tomb, and the joyous celebration rolls on.

We are a post-resurrection people. Every Sunday is a resurrection celebration in the sense that the very reason we are meeting on Sunday instead of Saturday is because we celebrate the resurrection on this day, the Lord’s day. Last Sunday we celebrated the great testimony of Christ’s resurrection from the tomb. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the testimony the women brought back from the tomb. It is the testimony the disciples would tell Thomas. This Sunday we continue with the story, the on-going story of resurrection.

In John’s gospel Mary Magdalene had come to the tomb and found that Jesus’ body was no longer there. Mary ran back from the tomb to tell Peter and John that Jesus was gone and they in turn ran back to the tomb to see and when they saw for themselves they returned to their homes. Mary was weeping outside the tomb and looked inside to see. Two angels appeared and asked her why she was weeping – she told them that someone had taken Jesus. She turned around and Jesus appeared to her, but she did not realize it is him. He asked her why she was weeping and during their conversation he speaks her name and she recognizes him. She goes back to the disciples and tells them what had happened.

That evening the disciples gathered together. There is no explanation for their meeting, only that they locked themselves in for fear of the Jews. They probably feared that the Jews might take action against them as well. It is Sunday evening and the disciples are afraid, Mary’s words are still fresh in their ears: “I have seen the Lord.” What do they make of that? What is going on? So they lock the doors and the story just abruptly states: “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you’” (John 20:19). “Peace be with you.” It is a statement Jesus says three times, peace be with you. They are afraid and only God’s peace could relieve their fears.

Thomas was not among them that night, so they give their testimony to Thomas when they see him again, that Jesus had appeared to them. It is a week later when Thomas is with the disciples that Jesus appears again and Thomas is able to see for himself that Jesus is alive.

Thomas is the “seeing is believing” disciple. He was skeptical of the testimony that the disciples gave. He could not believe this wild story. He needed to touch and see and smell and hear before he would believe. We live in a world and culture that approaches Jesus Christ with great skepticism. Our culture lives without belief because Jesus’ presence today cannot be proven through sensory perceptions. Jesus is thus largely dismissed because he does not fit any objective criteria for existence. Every time around Easter several programs appear on television asking if Jesus was real or who Jesus was or something about Jesus that seeks to refute the biblical narrative.

One of the joyous celebrations of Easter that continues for us is in telling the story. We get to celebrate Easter, not just on Sundays, but with every opportunity to give testimony about Jesus. That is what we have – the testimony – given to us that we may come to believe. Jesus does not fit any provable theory or method. Jesus confounds the wise. "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile," says Paul in 1 Corinthians (3:20). We run a great risk when we trust in only what we can see and prove. Yet, that is how we live because we think that is wise. It is the way we have learned to reason and think about truth. The gospel of John affirms that life does not begin with what we can touch and see and prove, but with the testimony of faith. John writes: “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (20:31).

The world says the Bible is ancient, out of step with the modern world, it has no relevance for living today. The very opposite is our testimony. We begin with the gospel. The world is being called to live up to the standards of the gospel of Christ. What often happens is that the gospel (and by “gospel” I mean the whole of scripture) the gospel is reinterpreted to conform with the world rather than the world conforming to the commandments of Christ.

There is a great battle on going about science and religion, usually fleshed out in the evolution and creation discussion. Barbara Brown Taylor notes the difference between how science and religion know things:
“While both rely on reason and experience, the most obvious difference is that science depends on observation while religion depends on revelation. You ‘go get’ the first kind of knowledge. The second kind is ‘given’ to you” (The Luminous Web, 81).

We go get observations. Revelation is given to us! Take Thomas as an example. It seems that Thomas would not receive that which was given to him - revelation, he could not accept it, could not believe the testimony of those who had seen already. All Thomas could do was “go get” the observations for himself. He had to see and feel the nail scars and the wound in Jesus’ side.
The good news for Thomas, and for us, is that Jesus accepts Thomas’ need to see and feel for himself. Jesus does not reject him for his need to see. Jesus seems to say, “You can come to me seeing or not seeing, just come.” Jesus receives us whether we think like modern day scientists or not. But Jesus does say this to Thomas: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe" (John 20:29).

Thomas had the tendency to put proof ahead of faith. Thomas did not trust the witness of the other disciples when they told him they had seen the Lord. But we cannot blame him too much. Jesus had been crucified, dead, and buried. How quickly would we have believed anyone who claimed to have seen Jesus alive after that? That is why the celebration of Easter goes on…because the news is so stunning and remarkable that is takes us a life time to celebrate!

We celebrate post resurrection the grand good news that he is risen. Because he is lives we can face tomorrow. Because he lives, we live. We live in him. It is the revelation that goes beyond explanation, it goes beyond scientific understanding, and it goes beyond our ability to control. The Spirit moves in uncalculated, unpredictable ways. The wind of God blows in mysterious ways. There is no routine manner to the breath of God.

That is one thing the disciples quickly learned after the resurrection of Jesus. God works in ways that defy understanding. I wonder how much more of Thomas’ life would depend upon touching and seeing first hand. Would he go on in his life to trust more in the testimony of others? Would he expect others to trust his testimony? That is what we are called to do, trust in this testimony, this word we call the word of God. Jesus calls us to abandon ourselves to this message of resurrection, we need not rely on proof through archeological data. We do not have to prove Jesus was dead and is now alive. Our life is not based upon our ability to prove these things; it is based on the testimony of several witnesses who tell us:
“I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18).
“The Lord has risen indeed” (Luke 24:34).

John concludes today’s gospel reading with these words, “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (20:31). The testimony is written so that we might believe and through believing we may have life. A central focus of the gospel of John is life!

In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. (1:4)
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (3:16)
The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. (4.14)
I am the bread of life. (6.48)
I have come that they may have life. (10.10)
I am the way, and the truth, and the life. (14.6)

The testimony of John’s gospel is that life comes through believing and John wrote these words of testimony for the sake of faith, “that you may come to believe”.

Paul indeed had it right: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). Such discernment comes through revelation, through the word of God, through God’s gift and through believing our testimony of scripture.
In 1 John 5:9-13 we read:
If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. 10Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. 11And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
This is our post resurrection testimony!
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
Amen.