Easter People, raise your voices...

..sounds of heaven in earth should ring.

On Sunday morning, I delighted in the liturgical response all good Methodists (and plenty others) know so well. Pastor: Christ is risen! People: He is risen indeed! In fact, I got a text message at 6:30 Sunday morning from a friend who simply sent "Christ is risen." I responded, sort of in my sleep, with the joyous response. "He is risen indeed." Where, oh death, is thy sting? Lord, you have delivered us from captivity to sin and death! ...But, oh how quickly the joy of Easter morning can fade. I have worked two days this week and I am worn out. I've had five of my patients die in these two days. I have not been in one single joyful room. I am a little weary, and it's only day two of my week. So, for comfort I turn to the familiar Easter evening text in which the disciples felt weariness in even greater measure than I feel right now at 8:30 on Wednesday evening.

John 20:19-23
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

First of all, with absolutely no statistical support for my claim at all, I will say that of the pastors who preach on the Jesus' appearance to the disciples after the resurrection this Sunday, 70% will talk about Thomas (who appears in the next few verses which I have not included). Old Doubting Thomas. Remember, I made that number up, but I bring it up because of how often I've heard about that Thomas character who has forever gained the title of doubter.

I doubt, I question, and in a week like the one I'm having, I would be a hypocrite to be hard on Thomas. And really, is it so far a stretch of the imagination for you and me to understand how Thomas's mind might not have been able to stretch far enough to believe someone who was dead had somehow come back from the dead? I, for one, could use a break as I doubt and fear, so I am going to give Thomas a break as well.

The others in the upper room that day weren't all that prepared either. There they were, sitting in that room with the doors locked. They were sitting on their hands in fear and perhaps a little regret. They'd not stood up for their teacher when it mattered most. They'd not showed up at the cross. They had fallen asleep in the garden, denied the one they had been following, and found themselves powerless and afraid. And then something so strange happens. Jesus appears. He came right through the locked doors and appeared among them. He drew so close to them that they could touch his wounded body. Rather than giving them the scolding they may have deserved for their faithlessness, he loved them. In moving past the locked doors of the upper room, he moves past the locked doors of our hearts--doors that have been locked by fear, sadness, worry, anger, and hatred. He moves among us and rather than chastising us for all our failures, he draws so lovingly near to us that we can feel his breath on our skin. For a brief moment, in the midst of utter chaos, there is peace.

As he breathes out the Holy Spirit on us, we are empowered and challenged to show that same peace to the broken and hurting world. In the world around me, I can see the marks and wounds of Christ's body. I am so close I can touch them. What I do everyday, the sad and broken places I enter into, what that's all about is reaching out and touching the holes in hands and putting my hands in the wounded side of Christ. And what I can and should do is draw near, as Christ has done for all of us, and share the peace that I know in Christ's resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit. Quite honestly, that's the reason I make myself get up every morning and go to work. That's what it means to be an Easter people, I guess. Peace making and peace showing. Easter people, let us sing. Alleluia and Amen!

Lent 40!

It is finished.

The sixth word is one that we know oh so well. Surely when Jesus uttered those words, he was thinking, "Finally. The end of this suffering." But the Greek word he utters--tetelestai--really is something greater than that. It's more than "it's over," more like "it is over and completed." Jesus had fulfilled his purpose. He had introduced to us the kingdom of God. He had showed us abiding love and grace. He finished the work of salvation. And the reason it's important for us to remember this last word in terms of completion is so that we can know that Christ completed it and we don't need to, nor can we, add to it.


Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

This final word from Christ on the cross is another quotation from a Psalm. Here are the first 5 verses:

Psalm 31
1 In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
deliver me in your righteousness.

2 Turn your ear to me,
come quickly to my rescue;
be my rock of refuge,
a strong fortress to save me.

3 Since you are my rock and my fortress,
for the sake of your name lead and guide me.

4 Free me from the trap that is set for me,
for you are my refuge.

5 Into your hands I commit my spirit;
redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth.

Psalm 31 begins with petition for deliverance. To quote this means that Jesus asks to be delivered after he has already suffered. The implication is that Jesus is already pointing to the resurrection, right there from the cross. He would not be delivered from suffering and death, but there would be something beyond this, something wonderful.

Jesus went ahead and pointed to Easter. Easter is nearly here. Lent is nearly complete. While we know tetelestai, it is finished, we also know our spirits are committed into the hands of God who moves in us and with us, showering us with grace as we live as Easter people. We need not do anything for our salvation, but God doesn't leave us to sit on our heels. May we, as Easter people, live our lives to the glory and honor of God who creates, redeems, and sustains us.

Lent 39

5. I am thirsty.

I went to a Good Friday service this evening that was a Seven Last Words and Tenebrae Service. While the pastors read each word and the passages that went with them, I tried to stay centered and reflect on the word. When we got to this word, I kept flashing on a memory. I remember a retreat I attended when I was in high school. The theme was "Come to the Water" and during each session we sang the song "For Those Tears I Died." Come to the water, stand by side. I know you are thirsty. You won't be denied. I felt every teardrop, when in darkness you cried. And I strove to remind you, for those tears I died. (M. and R. Stevens Jesus made a simple statement from the cross. I am thirsty. What a natural human urge! Thirst! And they gave him sour wine to drink, hardly a thirst-quencher. What I remember from that retreat was a feeling of my cup being full. I remember feeling spiritually fed. I had drawn near to the living water and was not denied.

On this Good Friday, I am reminded of the thirst of Jesus Christ was so that I might never thirst again. Except that I am thirsty. I am not thirsty for sour wine but for the new wine, the new wine of the kingdom. Hearing Jesus utter words and a request so human tells me once again of the importance and wonder of the incarnation. "We need the practice of incarnation, by which God saves the lives of those whose intellectual assent has turned as dry as dust, who have run frighteningly low on the bread of life, who are dying to know more God in their bodies. Not more about God. More God" (Barbara Brown Taylor, Altar in the World). I hunger and thirst, not to know more about God, but just for more God.

Lent 38

4. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

More honest words have never been spoken. If you've never asked this question, I either don't believe you or you're fortunate not to have had to cry out in desperation.

I've spent a significant portion of my day today talking about the death of my father. I wrote about him for a CPE assignment and I couldn't help but carry him with me on this day which is so focused on pointing towards the cross and death of Christ. The death of my father represents the great sadness of my life up to this point. He died in the first semester of my first year of seminary. You might think that being surrounded by a community of pastors and pastors-in-training would be a good place to experience loss and grief. You might be wrong about that. Because everywhere I turned, I couldn't escape people who shouted praises to a God whose steadfast love will always sustain us. I didn't feel that so much. I didn't doubt God existed. I only doubted God's caring about me. I stopped praying. I only went through the motions of school because I didn't want to quit. I was lonely and depressed, in the pits of despair. I was truly crying out, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?! After a while, I worked through my grief and learned that my crying out was better than turning away at all.

I spend a lot of time talking to folks about how it's okay to question and to be angry and to feel whatever it is they feel about their situations and about God. Somewhere along the way we got this idea that we cannot ever question God. The psalmist sure missed that memo.

I understand that everything Jesus did wasn't just for my peace and comfort. I realize that I am also meant to be challenged and guided and all that, but here again, I find myself comforted by Jesus crying out on the cross. My God, my God why have you abandoned me? Jesus cried out in that way, and I know that's the natural response to crisis.

Psalm 130
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;

2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.

3 If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?

4 But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.

5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.

6 My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

7 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.

8 He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.