Mystic Congregational Church, UCC

Mystic, Connecticut

Sermon from April 23, 2006

“I’ll Be There”

Rev. Thomas Ratmeyer

Scriptures:

Acts 4:32-35

John 20:19-31

Sometimes I wish the Gospels were a little more wordy and not so economical in their storytelling.  There’s so much going on in these first few verses.

The disciples are gathered on the day of the resurrection.  Yet, they are still in fear behind locked doors.  If they have heard Mary’s account of the risen Christ, they don’t grasp the complete significance of it.  If anything, they are still closer to Good Friday than to Easter.

Then Jesus appears.  That alone deserves a little more storytelling, don’t you think?  Jesus appears and it’s not just that he, apparently, is just there and doesn’t need to open the door.  It’s not just that he is resurrected but he is resurrected in quite a physical way so that the wounds are still there.  He greets them.  The first time he says, “Peace be with you”, it maybe just the greeting that was common in those days.  But then he shows his wounds and he shows the disciples that it’s really him and he is resurrected and he’s not just a ghost of some sort.  Then he says it again, “Peace be with you” and it carries so much more meaning the second time around because now, it’s the peace of Christ that he is offering to them.

Then, immediately, he commissions the disciples.  The story of the resurrection is not done until we are commissioned to go into the world and do the work of Christ.  “As my father has sent me, so I send you.”  He gives them the Holy Spirit in this act of “breathing” on them.  Yes, it’s supposed to remind us of the very creation itself where we are given the spirit of life.  This is new life that he gives to them.  This word “breathing” on them in Greek appears only this one time in all of the Gospels.  So it’s a very significant choice of word.  It is a new creation.

How do we understand this new life that we get as disciples of Christ?  How do we understand new life as a result of Jesus’ resurrection?  At the very least, we can understand it in a pragmatic way.  If we look at death differently because of the resurrection, if we die differently because of the resurrection, then we look at all of life differently as well.  So, fundamentally, our understanding changes.  But new life goes so much beyond that.  We are now the Body of Christ.  Our new life is the continuation of Christ’s ministry on earth.  Christ does more than change our perspective.  He really makes us into a new people, and  we are commissioned to serve God.

What are we to do?  Forgive sins and retain sins.  John’s gospel definition of sin is not the moral one that immediately comes to mind.  It is a more theological one.  Those are sinners whose life is not connected to the presence of God.  To be free from sin essentially means to know the presence of God in your life.

We are never the Christian church just unto ourselves.  We never experience Easter just as something that we celebrate unto ourselves.  We are not the Christian church until we go out into the world and act on Jesus’ commissioning us. 

Let us talk about Thomas.  The question always is “Where was he in the first place?”  My colleague and friend, Moira, always says he is out shopping for groceries.  That’s one of those things the gospels never talk about.  I’m just not sure that men were empowered to do such a things in those days.  We don’t know.  Thomas gets a bad rap for wanting to see the wound, for wanting to put his hand where the nail was.

But if you think about it, Jesus volunteers his wounds to the disciples the first time without them even asking for anything.  Jesus knows exactly that we, as disciples, need to come to believe that he is really there, that he is really resurrected, that he is not just some sort of ghost appearance but that it is him.  Jesus knows exactly what we need and so he shows his wound.  He shows the marks of the nails.  All Thomas does is say what they all thought, “We want to see for ourselves.”  (The second time that the disciples are gathered, the doors are still shut but there is no mention of fear anymore.  Maybe the Spirit that he gave to them is already at work.) 

What makes Thomas significant if he is, in fact, not so different from all the others, if his needs to see and feel are just like everybody else’s?  What makes him significant is not what he says before he sees Jesus.  It’s what he says after he sees Jesus.  You remember that it simply says of the disciples in the first encounter that they “rejoiced”.  Again, we would love to hear a little more, don’t we?  But it was simply that they “rejoiced”.  When Thomas sees him, he says, “My Lord and my God!”  He proclaims in the risen Christ the son of God, God’s revelation to us.

Let’s think back for a moment to John 14 which has such significance when we gather for a memorial service.  “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places … And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”  I love the notion that God has a plan for us that reaches beyond life as we know it here, that God has prepared a place for us.  It’s Thomas who is at that point asking the question, “How do we get there?  How do we know you?  How do we know that place?”  Jesus says, “If you know me, you will know my Father also.  From now on you do know him and have seen him.”  That is exactly what Thomas proclaims when he says, “My Lord and my God.”  By knowing the risen Christ, he now knows God as well.

I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about us.  Today is the first Sunday after Easter.  Today is also a Sunday where a group of prospective members are going to gather and consider whether they want to join our church.  In a sense, they ask us, “What are the ‘marks’ of your community of faith, of your manifestation of the body of Christ that show that you truly believe in the Risen Christ and that you live as Christ’s disciples in the way that he commissioned you to live?”  They are going to ask us, “What shows us that you are the real thing?”  I don’t mean real and not-so-real along the lines of denominations.  It’s not like the Episcopalians or the Lutherans are more real than the Methodists or the UCC or the other way around.  That is not what I mean.

I don’t even mean that you can draw that line anywhere between mainline Protestantism on the one side and Evangelical Christianity on the other side.  I think, instead, that there are at least two “markers” of genuine discipleship. 

One is Compassion.  Compassion with those who suffer in the world.  One of the things that marks us as disciples of Christ is that the existence of suffering in the world does not leave us cold.  If you think about the word “compassion”, you can split it up and in there is the “passion” of Christ.  Compassion and sympathy both mean to “suffer with”, to “experience with”, to “join” in the suffering.  Compassion is my understanding (I’m saying this very personally; I don’t know if there’s any theological back-up for this) of what it means to “take up your cross”.  When Jesus said, ‘Take up your cross”, it’s a little difficult to understand what that means.  Some people take it very literally.  There were three Filipino men this Easter who asked others to nail them to the cross.  They use ropes in addition to nails so that they wouldn’t actually die but they wanted to come as close to Jesus’ experience of suffering as they possibly could.  I don’t want to discredit their commitment but I don’t think that that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Take up your cross.”  I think Jesus meant for us to suffer with those who suffer and to work against their suffering.  Think of Mother Teresa goes into the midst of suffering and devotes her life to easing those burdens.  That’s closer to an understanding of “Take up your cross” that I can subscribe to.

A second “marker” of genuine discipleship—I think a life that is grounded in the resurrection is, in the best sense of the word, otherworldly.  I don’t mean esoteric.  I don’t mean saintly.  I mean a life enough based on our faith in the risen Christ that the attractions of this world cannot ultimately take us hostage.  What are the attractions of this world?  I think it comes down to power and money.

Now we have a choice.  We can either chase after both of them and make them the center of our life and our reason to be, or we can use them as tools of discipleship.  We can use power to empower others.  We can use money to share with those that don’t have it.  Neither power nor money are bad.  We wouldn’t be good fundraisers if we categorically hated money.  Neither power nor money are bad.  The question is, “How do we use them?”  I want to say this about this country and this culture.  I am always impressed how this country and this culture has translated an appreciation for money and wealth into a habit of philanthropy especially on an individual basis.  You guys do a good job sharing what you have.  I think that stands out as one of the great traditions in this country.

So what are we to do in the week after Easter?  We do more than celebrate the Risen Christ.  We receive our own commission to live and act in this world as disciples, to be compassionate toward those who suffer, and to proclaim the life and the love that are the gifts of our God.  In Christ’s name, Amen.