Don Friesen
Last Sunday Easter Sunday we pulled out all the stops and celebrated this highest holy day in a great and joyous spirit. The church was full! The Easter lilies were in full bloom! The congregational singing was wonderful! Eric blew his heart out on the trumpet! And the choir was so good I thought I had passed over to the other side! Now, the offering was embarrassingly low, and the sermon could have used a little more work and depth but it was a great Sunday! A very appropriate and inspiring way to celebrate Christ's resurrection. Last Sunday's Gospel lesson was also upbeat, telling us that those who discovered the empty tomb "left the tomb quickly with ... great joy, and ran to tell ( others)" about it. (Matthew 28:8)
The tone of today's Gospel lesson, however, is less joyful. It reminds me of an old and strange story about a man who, while travelling far from home, fell into a cataleptic state and was assumed by everyone to be dead. He was taken to the undertaker, who fitted him with a coffin, put the lid loosely on top and then went home to have his dinner. In the middle of the night, the man, supposedly dead, woke up from his trance. He sat up, looked around, and tried to figure out where on earth he was. He discovered, of course, that he was in a room filled with a great quantity of coffins. He pushed the lid off the one next to him. Finding nothing in it, he tried another, and another. All the coffins were empty! "My goodness!" he thought to himself, "I have been late all my life, and now it turns out that I have missed the resurrection!" (Smithsonian, October, 1995, cited by Joanna M. Adams, Pastor)
The Easter Saga, Part II
Our Gospel lesson for today makes me wonder whether or not Jesus' disciples missed the resurrection. The time in Jerusalem had not ended as anticipated. Their leader was dead. His movement had stopped. Their future was now in question. John's Gospel tells us that "the doors of the house where the disciples ...met were locked for fear of (those who had engineered his crucifixion)" (John 20:19) The disciples were hiding in a locked room, scared to death that the authorities would find them! The stress level in that room was high!
When Jesus popped into this Panic Room, the first thing he said was, " Peace be with you." (20:19) All sorts of things have been read into this expression Jesus' first post-resurrection utterance to the disciples but I sometimes wonder if he was simply asking them to calm down. They were like students getting back a very important exam on which they know they've done poorly, and perhaps Jesus was just trying to take the anxiety level down a notch. Twice he said, " Peace be with you" (20:19 and 21) and a week later when, one might think, they would already have grown accustomed to the idea Jesus says it again! (20:26) A week later, John tells us, the doors to the disciples' little hide-away were closed (20:26) not locked signalling, perhaps, a little less fear and anxiety, though I imagine the windows were still shut tightly and the drapes drawn.
If Part I of the Easter Saga was the amazing news of Jesus' resurrection, Part II is a story of fear, concern for security, and doubt. Not all of the disciples were present when Jesus first appeared to this group cowering behind a bolted door. Thomas was out somewhere, perhaps picking up a kebab. Those who were in that locked room with Jesus told Thomas all about it, but Thomas said, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." (John 20:25)
Thomas voices doubt, but he is not the only doubt-filled disciple; there are traces of doubt elsewhere in the Gospels. Matthew tells us that not all the disciples were immediately convinced of the Resurrection. (Matthew 28:17) Luke tells us that when Mary Magdalene told the disciples about the empty tomb, the disciples dismissed it as nonsense. (Luke 24:11) Thomas was not a lone sceptic.
The disciples were scared, and their minds were filled with doubts, but there is another thing that bothers me about Part II of the Easter Saga. I find it rather curious that a God who can effect a resurrection a feat no less than bringing a dead body back to life did not remove the scars of Jesus' crucifixion! When Jesus first appeared to the disciples in that locked room "he showed them his hands and his side" (John 20:20), referring, of course, to the wounds left by the nails which held his hands to the cross, and the wound left by the soldier who pierced Jesus' side with a spear. (19:34) And when Thomas met the Risen Lord a week later, Jesus said to him, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side." (20:7)
The One whom God highly exalted and gave a name above every other name (Philippians 2) is left with his scars intact! The body of the risen Christ the One who made others whole is not perfectly restored. Whatever occurred at the time of the resurrection, the scars were not obliterated. They remained. We have a permanently scarred Son of God! The holes in his hands and feet and the wound in his side remain.
Interesting! Surely if God can raise Jesus up from death, God can lose a few scars! Surely a little divine cosmetic surgery could give us a blemish -free Jesus. Some fourteen centuries ago the venerable Saint Bede (672-735) said that Christ kept the scars "to wear them as an everlasting trophy of his victory!" I don't know about that, but I understand the impulse. Scars tell stories. Much to the chagrin of some dinner guests, I like to show them a rather large gallstone, my most prized trophy from laparoscopic surgery that also left me with four small scars, one of them right next to the one left from a pacemaker implant. Then there's the scar on my arm, a relic from cancer surgery. And then there is a small scar on my forehead where I hit a post chasing after a young woman I fancied! I was single at the time, and it wasn't Dorothy, so I'd appreciate it if you kept that one to yourself.
I doubt that Jesus looked on his scars as trophies, but he wasn't squeamish about them. He showed them to the disciples (John 20:20), and he invited Thomas to touch them. (20:27) It's interesting that the Risen Christ is a scarred Messiah, but it's even more interesting that it is his scars that changed scared disciples into reassured and inspired disciples. The Gospel tell us that when Jesus showed the disciples in the locked room his wounds, they " rejoiced". (20:20). And when Jesus showed Thomas his wounds, Thomas' doubts turned to belief. (20:28) Jesus' scars helped Thomas and the other disciples recognize him and the wounds left by his suffering became the identifying marks of God's goodness and love.
The Easter Saga, Part III
Part II of the Easter Saga is a bit of a dispiriting story. The response of the disciples is hardly triumphant or optimistic. The wounds and scars of Jesus turned the disciples from fear to joy, and from doubt to belief, but one would be hard-pressed to believe that an enduring movement had its beginnings with this group. I don't know what Jesus thought of them, but John tells us that Jesus " breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit'" (John 20:22) an implicit challenge to un-lock their doors, and to go out into the world to be about God's work. This short sentence marks the transition from the ministry of Jesus to the ministry of the Church.
If Part II of the Easter Saga is not particularly encouraging, Part III is very upbeat. Part III is told to us in the Book of Acts, a sequel to the Gospels which begins with the same challenge. The Risen Lord tells his disciples, "...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:8) And the Book of Acts then tells stories of the disciples, now the Church, attempting to rise to the challenge. It's an amazing story. Lives were changed! People were brought into the streets, expecting physical and spiritual renewal just by being in the proximity of the disciples. The Church grew, dramatically! Acts tells us that "more and more believers ... joined them, both men and women in really large numbers." (Acts 5:14, Phillips) It grew from twelve scared disciples hiding behind locked doors, to thousands of believers, spread across the Near Eastern world.
There are a lot of stories in Acts that illustrate this dramatic transformation, but one incident in particular intrigues me. The disciples soon began to attract negative notice, and by Acts, chapter 5, we find them in prison. (Acts 5:17-42) Again they are behind locked doors, " securely locked" doors (5:23), but the mood is not one of fear. The disciples are quite different behind the second set of locked doors than they were behind the first set.
It's hard to believe this is the same group! They were transformed into bold witnesses of the Gospel. When I read through Acts I'm surprised how often the response of those who see these transformed disciples and hear them share the gospel is one of astonishment! Their transformation is remarkable! The Risen Lord replaced their old nature, a weary, tired and timid nature with a new nature. He replaced their mistrust, doubt, and discouragement with faith, love, and hope.
When Jesus breathed on the disciples he set an amazing movement in motion. The witness of the disciples-formerly-known-as-wimps proved irrepressible! Part II of the Easter Saga led to Part III, the establishment of the first churches, which in turn led to Parts IV, V, VI and XCIX (99)! It shaped Western art and philosophy, and our legal and judicial systems. It gave impetus to advances in education and medicine, and encouraged the founding of great universities. It bequeathed us Dante, Shakespeare, Bach, Mozart, and whole host of other gifted people.
An Indescribable and Glorious Joy!
Peter was one of those first disciples transformed by the Risen Christ. Peter carried around his own wounds and scars. He had denied Jesus three times. On other occasions he had done things that earned him discipline and rebuke. I would not expect Peter to weather the post-resurrection times well. In our epistle reading, however, Peter is overflowing with joy and confidence. He writes, " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ...into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.... In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy...." (1 Peter 1:3-4, 6-8)
What happened? Where's the old Peter, the one that sank like a stone? (Matthew 14:30) As one of our Easter hymns phrases it, Jesus " burst the bars of the tomb's dark portal". ("Come, ye faithful, raise the strain," Hymnal: A Worship Book, #264) The same Jesus who got past the locked doors of the disciples' hideaway got through the locked doors of the disciples' hearts.
Like Peter, we also have wounds and scars. Some of them are visible. Some of them are invisible, but no less memorable. William Willimon, chaplain at Duke University, tells of a friend who spent much of his life in an orphanage. His mother took him there when he was a little boy. She let him out of the car under a big cedar tree, telling him she would return that afternoon, but she didn't return. When Willimon arranged to meet this friend for lunch one day, Willimon arrived fifteen minutes late, only to find the middle-aged man in a state of high agitation, pacing about, perspiring heavily, and visibly upset! It seemed an over-reaction to fifteen minutes of tardiness, and the man later apologized for getting so bent out of shape, explaining, "I can't help it. My mother kept me waiting under that tree at the orphanage all afternoon. And she never, ever returned. I just can't stand for someone I love to be late." Though an adult, functioning well in all other respects, the scars of that early rejection remained.
We all carry scars: scars of rejection, perhaps of something we wrote, or something we did; perhaps rejection by our family; or by an employer. We may carry the scars of a failed marriage; the scars of a debilitating illness, or a financial crisis. There are times when we feel trapped, times when we have painted ourselves into a corner. Sometimes we feel locked in by our doubts, our faith locked out by doubts. Sometimes we're locked out of faith by an arid logic that leaves no room for mystery.
What would have seemed like insurmountable obstacles to the pre-Resurrection Peter are now described by him as " trials," to be borne but for "a little while," and that in fact strengthen our faith. A character in a book by Madeleine L'Engle says, "There isn't anything that happens that can't teach us something, that can't be turned into something positive. One can't undo what's been done, but one can use it creatively." And then referring to a difficult experience, she says, "I wouldn't undo it, have it not have happened. The only thing is to accept, and let the scar heal. Scar tissue is the strongest tissue in the body." And then she adds, "I shouldn't be surprised if it's the strongest part of the soul." (A House like a Lotus, cited in Glimpses of Grace, by the same author, page 271)
We are all wounded, but God wants to heal us, to turn our Good Friday wounds into Easter morning scars. The One who can do it is one whom the NT remembers as a priest who is able "to sympathize with our weaknesses, ...one who in every respect has been tested as we are.... Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness," says the NT, "so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:15-16)
Only a Risen Jesus with scars can understand our scarred hearts. Only a wounded healer can heal us and turn our trials into that indescribable and glorious joy" whereof Peter wrote. (1 Peter 1:3-4, 6-8) The scarred Jesus who appeared to his first disciples comes to us, with whatever scars we bear, with whatever wounds we carry, and with whatever doubts we harbour, and offers us the reassurance of someone who's been there.
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.