April 3, 2005

Easter 2

Have you heard the story of the Yugoslavian judge who was electrocuted when he reached up to turn on the light while standing in the bathtub? This guy’s poor wife found his body sprawled on the bathroom floor. He was pronounced dead and placed in a preparation room in the town cemetery for twenty-four hours before burial.

Well, in the middle of the night, the judge came to! He looked around and suddenly realized where he was. He rushed over to alert the guard. But the guard was terrified and ran off. Fortunately though, the guard returned with a friend, and they released the newly-revived judge. The judge's first thought was to phone his wife and reassure her that he really wasn't dead. But he got no farther than, "Honey, it's me," when his wife screamed and fainted!

So, he decided that the best course of action was to enlist some friends. He went to the houses of several friends; but because they all had heard the news from his distraught wife, they all doubted that he was really alive. They were all convinced he was a ghost. Finally, in a last desperate effort, he contacted a friend in another city who hadn't heard about his death. And that person was able to convince his family and friends that the judge really was alive!

On Easter, Jesus also had to prove to his friends that He was alive! Only difference was that He had really died and they had really seen Him dead. So that evening, the risen Christ appeared in a locked room to his depressed, frightened disciples. After getting their attention, He comforted them with his loving words: "Peace be with you." He showed them his scars and then they saw that it was Him. He proved He was alive! They were overjoyed!

The truth that Jesus was alive was huge! He conquered death. He came through on his promise! He was who He said He was! But maybe the greatest significance was made clear in the way the risen Jesus greeted them: “Peace be with you.” Peace was now with them. Real peace between them and God. The peace of forgiveness. Jesus didn’t hold it against them for deserting Him a few nights earlier. He didn’t hold their lack of faith against them. He assured them there was PEACE between them! Forgiveness!

That peace, that forgiveness, is also ours! That’s why Jesus went to the cross! To win that forgiveness for us by paying the price for the things we needed forgiven. His death did that. His resurrection proves He finished it, and that there is peace between us and God. We have the peace of forgiveness because of a risen Jesus! That is the most important message of Easter, and those were the first words Jesus spoke when He was reunited with his followers.

Jesus has not only assured us of peace. He has also commissioned us to announce that peace to others! We are going to be messengers, with our words and actions, of the spiritual peace that exists now between us and our living God! We have a duty to share this good news of peace with others. Friends, let people who are struggling with guilt over their sins know that they are forgiven! Let them know Jesus died and rose again to prove that those sins are gone! We also need to let people who could care less about their sins know that those sins are still with them and will kill them. Sharing that message is hard, but necessary if we really love the person. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to release them from their burdens that Jesus released them from!

In the movie, The Mission, a slave-trader of Brazilian Indians is converted to Christianity. But he insists on doing penance, dragging a heavy bundle through the jungle back to the Indians he used to enslave. Once back, in a dramatic, cliff-side scene, where the bundle threatened to make him fall, the Indians cut away the bundle. The people he had formerly enslaved forgave him and set him free. We have the power to do that for each other!

As Martin Luther pointed out centuries ago, we are a priesthood of believers who are to be priests for one another, forgiving one another as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. We do have the power to forgive as God's sons and daughters! Just as Jesus said on Easter evening, “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. When you forgive someone, you are sharing the victory with them that I won by rising from the dead!" Friends, our risen Lord wants us to share this message of peace with others!

A pastor was once conducting a service where everything went wrong. The power went out, interrupting the service. The organist sounded like he was wearing boxing gloves. The choir forgot their cues. He lost his place in the sermon. The communion wine spilled. In earthly terms, it was a disaster. As the service finally came to an end, the pastor, with great relief, pronounced the blessing: “The peace of Christ be with you all.” Just as he said it, a child’s voice from somewhere in the room called out strong and true: “It already is!”

Those three words transformed that doomed service into one of joy and triumph. That small voice captured what a living Jesus wanted us to know that his resurrection was all about. In a group of people who are confused, weary, lacking in faith, and afraid, the risen Christ comes to give peace. Because He is alive, we have peace and forgiveness, Jesus assures us.

But that first Easter, one of the disciples, Thomas, wasn’t there to hear that message. He wasn’t there to be encouraged by his disciples and his living Lord. Boy, doesn’t that speak to us about the importance of gathering together around Jesus’ powerful Word? Look what Thomas missed out on! Seeing and hearing Jesus! We miss out on the same thing when we drift away from the group of believers who gather to be strengthened by his Word!

I can’t tell you how often that I, as a pastor, have had people come to me with the difficulties of fear, worry, anger, or the challenges of a weak faith, and ask me “Why?” In almost every case, I can ask, “Well, have you been regular in your worship and devotional life? Have you been hanging around with Jesus and his disciples?” And the answer is “No. I guess I haven’t.” Friends, when you are absent, look what you are missing! Look what Thomas missed.

He missed a chance to see Jesus, and so he didn’t believe Jesus was alive. He wouldn’t. Not unless he could see the nail prints. He was the first modern day skeptic. A week later, Jesus appeared again to bolster that weak faith of his disciples. Again He reminded them of what his life means: “Peace be with you.” Jesus wasn’t angry with Thomas. He was kind. Patient. Forgiving. Meeting his doubter’s demands was an act of pure grace. He wanted him to believe. Jesus’ powerful words and actions led Thomas from doubt to faith. Thomas’ confession was one of the most powerful and clear confessions of faith in all of scripture: “My Lord and My God!”

There is a reason why many Christians have latched so quickly onto the discovery of what may be the ossuary or burial box for James, the brother of Jesus. There's a reason why every time archaeologists discover some inscription referring to King David, Pontius Pilate, or some other biblical figure that this news immediately makes a splash in the pages of Christianity Today. Here, we are told, is further "proof" that the stuff in the Bible really did happen! It's not just that we want to meet atheist scientists on their own turf! So many of us also quietly wish for something tangible that can bolster our faith. Something we can see.

But Jesus said to Thomas: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” And for those people, who happen to be us, Jesus gave us his Word. His scripture. John tells us that is why they were written. To lead us to faith that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing, we will have life in his name! Real life! Peace and forgiveness with God!

A French bishop once told his congregation this story: Three university students of Paris were walking along the road one Good Friday afternoon. They noticed crowds of people going to the churches to confess their faith. The students began talking about these poor, unenlightened people, and how religion would never survive because it was “superstition.”

Suddenly two of the students challenged the third, ‘Go into this church and tell the priest what we have been saying to each other!’ ‘OK, I will,’ he said, and went in. He lined up with the people going to confession, and when his turn came, he looked at the priest and said, ‘Father, I have come here to tell you that Christianity is a dying institution and that religion is superstition.’ The priest looked at the young man keenly and said, ‘Why did you come here, my son, to tell me this?’ And the student told him of his conversation with his friends.

The priest then said: ‘All right, I want you to do one thing for me. You accepted the challenge of your friends; now accept my challenge to you. Walk up to the chancel and you will find the figure of Jesus on a large wooden cross. I want you to stand before that cross and say these words: ‘Jesus died and rose for me and I could care less.’ The student looked defiant but, to save face, agreed. He went up and stood before that cross and said: ‘Jesus died and rose for me and I could care less.’ He came back to he priest and said, ‘I have done it.’ ‘Do it once more,’ said the priest; ‘after all, it means nothing to you.’ The student went back and looked at the cross for some time, and then he stammered it out: ‘Jesus died and rose for me and I could care less.’ He returned to the priest and said, ‘I have done it; I am going now.’

The priest stopped him. ‘Once more,’ he said, just once more and you can go. The young man walked up to the chancel and looked at Jesus. He stood there for a long time. Then he came back to the priest and said, ‘Father, can I make my confession now?’ The bishop stunned the congregation when he concluded with these words: “My dear people, that young man was me.”

Jesus showed us He was alive. He shared with us the peace that brings. The risen Jesus and his powerful words led Doubting Thomas to faith. He led that Bishop from skeptical doubt to faith. And He can lead us from doubt to faith. May Jesus’ Peace be with you! Jesus is alive – so it already is! Amen.

 

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