“Born Anew in a Living Hope”
by Bruce J. Johnson
April 7, 2002
1 Peter 1: 3-9; John 20: 19-31
The church office received a pastoral letter on Friday from our conference minister, the Reverend Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree. The following are her opening two paragraphs:
“If there was ever a year in which the world needed the message of Easter, this is it! All around us we hear of war and violence. We are overwhelmed with reports of terrible acts of cruelty and exploitation of children and youth by those charged with representing the Man of Galilee who cared so deeply for children that he rebuked the disciples for keeping them away. We turn on the news and learn of increased hostilities in the land once known as terra sancta.
The world needs the message of hope and transformation that is the good news of Easter and it needs it urgently…”
(Pastoral Letter, dfc; April 3, 2002)
Well, today, on this second Sunday of Easter, (and as it was last week and for that matter, every week), the world has its message, a message of hope and transformation for every level of human life. In coming here this morning, however, after a week’s worth of experience not unlike what is recounted for us today in John’s gospel, I’m thinking and I’m feeling that the message is not enough. As essential and as urgently needed as the message is, what is more urgently needed is an Easter people.
Its not easy being an Easter people in a world that seems trapped in Good Friday. Here we are a week later— the flowers and their fragrance are gone, save a few. The pews that were filled to capacity last Sunday are a bit empty today. Only some discarded bulletins and hymnbooks occupy the balcony that was full last Sunday. The message is the same; and so does the world seem the same. The big question is--- are we the same?
This week’s U.S. News and World Report, for which the feature article was about the Crusades of all things, ends with what I think is an extraordinary column by David Gergen. He writes:
“A familiar dread gripped and twisted inside each of us last week as we watched new disorders develop in the world. How could any human being blow up Jews sitting down for a sacred dinner? Why would Israeli tanks seemingly threaten Yasser Arafat’s life, knowing his martyrdom would bring everlasting revenge? And what, pray tell could we in America do to stop the injustice, the brutality—the sheer breakdown of civilized life—that seems to be spreading before us? Only a few years ago, it appeared we were at the dawn of a bright new millennium. Now darkness intrudes everywhere. Terrorists strike us out of the blue; admired corporations collapse overnight, done in by corruption; a shelf of Antarctic ice the size of Rhode Island, thousands of years old, disintegrates, perhaps because of our own excesses; and the Middle East runs deep with blood.
We are seeing the grisly underbelly of human nature…
And as Edmund Burke wrote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
(Gergen, U.S. N &WR, 4/8/02; p.60)
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, Easter message or no Easter message, is for an Easter people to be silent and inactive, hiding in fear behind the closed doors of our upper rooms.
The lesson from John’s gospel and for that matter, also our passage from 1 Peter is all about what happens in people when their fear and doubts don’t get the best of them but rather are transformed into faith and confidence. It is about that moment when a hope they have for a better life and a better world gets born anew. In today’s lesson, it is first the disciples as a group and then Thomas as an individual. And of course, at issue is this whole ‘seeing and believing’ thing. The disciples get to see him and touch his wounds and they believe! Both Jesus and the writer of 1 Peter, however, make the same point. Namely, the truly blessed are those who have not seen but still believe and then show that they believe by going into the world in courage and confidence and filled with the Easter spirit, truth and hope—the spirit that makes it clear that love always wins!
I love the words of 1 Peter:
“Without having seen him, you love Him.
Though you do not now see him, you believe in Him…” (vs. 8)
I would add: In the sure and certain hope of seeing Him some day--- you live for Him. You live his resurrection life now!
In yesterday’s New York Times, there was this truly fascinating article/interview with Laura Blumenfeld. She is the daughter of the New York Rabbi who was shot and wounded in 1986 by a Palestinian militant name Omar Khatib.
Please permit me this one digression:
Twelve years later, Laura Blumenfeld, a staff writer for The Washington Post, set out to seek revenge in a most interesting way. Concealing her interest in the case, she began exchanging letters with the jailed gunman and through these letter exacted her revenge by showing him his victim’s humanity. She talked about her father and her mother and herself and her family. Her book is titled, Revenge: A Story of Hope. In this interview with the Times she reveals that one of her goals was “to make my father human in the gunman’s eyes because I think that terrorism is not so much about killing people but dehumanizing them to make a political point.” The headline for the article in the Times read:
“Punishing a Terrorist by Showing Him His Victim’s Humanity”
She was successful and what an insight!
Now back on point:
She was asked another question. “You spoke about revenge with military men, tribal leaders, religious leaders, messianic Israelis and nationalist Palestinians. None of them seemed to be troubled, as you were, by the issue of revenge and its place in one’s life. Does this have something to do with being American?”
Her answer: “Definitely. When I mentioned it to anybody in America, just that I was researching revenge, there was this pinch that always appeared between people’s brows, and often there would be this slight start, and people would step back and say, “revenge?” The word itself is threatening to Americans, even in death penalty cases, even when you talk to victims’ families. After September 11th George Bush first said, “we want revenge,” but then a speechwriter told him to change it and then he was saying that we want justice, not revenge.
I think it has to do with what America is all about. America is about tomorrow and what’s new and next. So we don’t encourage memory and history and tribal differences. We endure the worst terrorist attack in our history, and Mayor Giuliani tells us to go shopping.”
(New York Times, 4/6/02, A19)
Jesus must have had some American blood in Him! His emphasis is on tomorrow. That day in the upper room where the disciples were huddled in fear behind some bolted door, Jesus said to them:
“As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”
You’re not to stick around here—
silent in fear
immobile in doubt
and maybe most important of all,
dead in sin
but go forth from here and show the world that you are alive in forgiveness, active in faith and that love has new and many voices.
I am risen and your hope is a living hope, born anew because you have seen me and touched me and received from me the power of the Spirit. Now go forth and make it possible for others who have not seen me to love me, others who have not seen me to believe in me, and others who have not seen me, to live as my followers.
IT IS NOT EASY TO BE AN EASTER PEOPLE IN A GOOD FRIDAY WORLD BUT IF WE WOULD SIMPLY LOVE HIM AND BELIEVE IN HIM AND FOLLOW HIM, WE CAN BE HIS EASTER PEOPLE. AND GOD KNOWS, THE WORLD URGENTLY NEEDS US.
AMEN