Second Sunday of Easter
April 19, 2009
Eye & Ear Witnesses
1 John 1:1-2:2
Alleluia! Christ is Risen. He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
Surprise!
The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggion (1601-02)
Here we go again with an old familiar part of the Easter story. It is the part that children like to hear because of its great surprise and happy ending—the way in which the Risen Lord appears to his disciples on Easter Day. Through doors locked tight with bolts of fear emerges the resurrected Christ.
And if we take this dramatic entrance and play with it a bit with childlike imagination, I can almost picture Jesus jumping out from behind the stone of death with a big grin upon his face shouting, “Surprise!” And surprised they were. Too surprised to believe this was their Lord.
And so, Jesus had to eat a little fish to prove he was no ghost. And he had them touch his hands and feet. And he opened up their ears to understand the Scriptures that it is written “that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise…and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.” And that they are witnesses of these things.”
Which simply is to say that this great surprise really should have been no surprise at all. God always had it in his heart to do these things all along.
The Father Enters With Jesus Too
They saw him. They touched him. And they heard him. They were eye-witnesses and ear-witness and finger-witnesses to the Risen Lord. And because they were there, we can be there and be in this happy ending, too. We can hear what they heard. And see what they saw. And feel what they touched. Just like we were there, too, that first Easter day.
And what they saw and heard and touched was the resurrected Jesus. They saw Jesus. But through the eyes and ears and lips of John, the telling of this story takes on one additional twist.
There is one other person in the room, who is really present there with Jesus, for the disciples to see and hear and feel. There is not one but two who walked into that room that first Easter day.
And we could go as far to say that if in fact that other person had not been there with Jesus, then his death and resurrection would have no purpose in it. Do you see him? Do you feel him there with Jesus.
“What was from the beginning, what we heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands,” this John says, “we declare also to you.”
And what was it that John heard and saw and felt? It was the Father. It was God the Father and the Life the Father had given that entered that locked-up room with Jesus.
Our Drapes Are Closed
Saint John Reflecting on the Resurrection
I doubt if John saw it at the time. I bet he was too surprised, too scared, too amazed just like all the rest of them, to see God the Father working in and through Jesus. The drapes were still closed before his eyes and the light bulb in his brain was off. The circuit still was broken.
Only when Saint John had time to think about it and reflect on the resurrection of Jesus did he see so clearly how God the Father, too, was there. The dad of Jesus was present there in his son.
At first all they noticed was that Jesus had come back alive. But, as the days went on, they discovered something more had happened. They had come alive in a new life with the Father which was as different from the old life as night is from day.
And I doubt whether we see it all the time, either. Often our heads are closed up in dark little rooms with dark and heavy shades over our eyes and darkness in our brain. And the presence of a fatherly God goes totally unnoticed.
God is the Author of our life and its Provider. God gives us a place to live and the where-with-all to live it. God takes an active interest in everything we do and gives us both freedom and direction.
God is always as close as a single word of prayer away. Just the word “Abba” connects us with him right away. Instantly. Immediately.
The Sin of Brushing God Aside
And yet, we brush God right aside and act as if he were not there. As fallen children we make a tyrant out of “Dad” and we rebel against his rule. Our Father doesn’t help us build our lives, but ruins it with his prehistoric ways of thinking and weird ideas of what we are to do.
If only he would come out of the dark ages into the light he might be an okay guy. But for now Dad is the enemy. And would we do best to keep our distance from him.
And yet, if God our Father seems far and distance, it is not because of God. It is because of us. Our distance and our sin. And if ever it seems that God is far away in outer space, unapproachable and unknowable, it is because we have put him there in our attempt to run our lives alone.
And so, John, an original eye-witness puts it to us this way: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [But] if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” BECAUSE… “we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the entire world.”
A Great New Beginning—Another Genesis
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not so much a “happy ending, as it is a Great Beginning, another Genesis, that puts us back on track again on good terms with our Father.
The death which separated us from God. The sin that made us strangers. The darkness of our mistaken understandings. The lies we tell ourselves to shift the blame. All these no longer stand between us and God to keep us apart from our Father in a little room closed tight with locks of our own making.
Christ has broken through. Jesus has been on both sides now. With one hand he reaches out for his Father and with the other hand he reaches out for us. And first through death then resurrection he pulls the two together.
Jesus did not appear in that Upper Room to dazzle us with another miracle or to make a theatrical entrance with a dramatic flair. He did it to open up a new way of life. A life with dad.
The resurrection of Jesus a happy ending? Oh, no. It is not a happy ending. It is a Great Beginning! Our Life with the Father.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen. He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
© 2009 Pastor Paul Jaster