O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen.
Amen.
How different this day seems to be from Last Sunday. One week ago we sparkled and smiled - we sang and we soared as we took part in the Great Festival of our Faith - Easter Sunday and our Celebration of the Resurrection.
But today - today seems to be just another Sunday.
Gone too are the secular aspects of Easter
- the chocolate bunnies have been consumed
- the gaily coloured eggs which were hidden have been found and eaten
- the jelly beans have been mashed into the carpet and removed,
and our children were just as much trouble to rouse from bed today as they
ever have been on those days which are not special.
Gone too is the contrast between the sombre sanctuary on Good Friday with the black drapes and low lighting and the beautifully arrayed communion table of Easter Day. Gone is the aroma of lilies - and our choir, which swells so much for Easter - well it seems to be entirely on holiday.
Indeed, I suspect that most of feel as though we are right back where we were before Easter - fighting familiar frustrations and bearing well known burdens, as if Easter had never occurred.
That is precisely why we need to grasp the message of this the Second Sunday of Easter, the message concerning how the Risen Christ gave new life to the disciples, how he gave them the Holy Spirit and energized them and gave them confidence, how he made them into people who were filled with both peace and power.
I think it is important for us to understand just what the disciples were like after the first Easter Sunday.
The vast majority of Churches around the world today, and every Sunday following Easter every year, read the same text, the same scripture, the same story, that we heard this morning: the story of how Jesus appeared to his disciples in the Upper Room.
We all know that the first generation Christians did not hesitate to preach the good news of Christ's resurrection. They knew what they had seen, and they knew God had sent them to tell others what he had done in Christ - and they did so - with verve, and conviction, and courage - so much so that they converted thousands of people to the new faith.
But it was not always that way.
At first the disciples were scared, they were afraid, and insofar as they met together, they met behind closed doors - behind doors that were locked, so the scriptures tell us, because they feared the authorities; because they were afraid that what had happened to Jesus might happen to them.
They knew already that Jesus was risen -
the women had told them about the empty tomb,
and about encountering Jesus in the garden,
and they had, over the previous years, witnessed many great miracles
performed by Jesus.
Peter had himself managed to walk on water with the help of Jesus,
- and everyone of the 12 faithful followers had brought healing to the
sick in his name,
- each one had commanded demons to come forth from the possessed,
- and many more had eaten of the bread that seemed to never end, the
bread and the fish brought to Jesus by a small boy to help feed a crowd of
thousands.
The disciples had witnessed much and taken part in much and been commanded by Jesus to do much.
But after Good Friday - and indeed even after Easter Sunday they were powerless people.They could not make themselves do what the Lord had commanded.
Their frail faith could not be made formidable simply by declaring, "We have seen the Lord". They could not be made strong by another requirement from the Redeemer. They could not be made dedicated through demands.
Certainly Jesus knew that. So he did something else.
When he appeared to them he not only blessed them,
saying "Peace be with you"
He not only told them "As the Father has sent me, so I send you"
He breathed on them - he said "Receive the Holy Spirit"
And by his presence - by his command - by the breath of live in him,
he gave the breath of life to them.
As one commentator puts it - he gave power to the powerless
You and I often share the feeling of hopelessness of those persons who huddled in the upper room till the Spirit came to them.
We, too, are often shattered by the strain of battle, the strain of living, the strain of trying to make sense of out things, the strain of trying to do what is right -but of not being sure of just how to do it, where to do it, and when to do it.
Like the first disciples before the Spirit came we are often fearful, and in our fear we cling together, spiritually hiding ourselves away behind closed doors, behind locked doors as it were, so that what little energy, what few resources, what slender hope we have left might be kept safe.
We regard the church as important - and its mission as important - but we have no energy - no life - we feel worn down.
We are fearful because the whole matter of God, and of heaven, and of resurrection and re-birth just seems a little too much to believe in in a world of multi-culturalism, mass communication, and myth debunking science.
We are fearful because of our declining numbers our empty Sunday School class rooms and our drained bank accounts.
We are fearful because we know that the world scorns us - and because we realize that as we are get older each day the world itself is getting ever more hostile, ever more unfriendly.
And in fear - we come to believe that no program, no promise, no plan, no powerful preaching, no perky youth ministry, no parking lot, no persistence, can possibly save us.
And we are right in this belief.
When all is sad and done we are no different than the first disciples. We have absolutely nothing going for us that the world does not have going for it - perhaps in fact less - except, that is, for one thing -- The Risen Christ and the Spirit he gives us.
And that is the point of today's story from the gospel of John.
In the final analysis, it is a story of how the risen Christ pushed open the bolted door of a church with absolutely nothing, of how the risen Christ enters the fearful chambers of every church, of every believer, and fills the place with his own life.
What we are asked to recognize - what I want you to realize, is that every church is this way!
No matter what a church says about itself in the Saturday newspaper, if it is left to its own devices, if it draws only upon its own resources, it is nothing.
Apart from the Risen Christ the church is an empty place. Apart from the Spirit that Jesus breaths upon us we are hollow vessels - with nothing to offer - nothing of significance to share, no different in the end than any social agency or service club.
Indeed the ceaseless and frenetic activity of many congregations with programs ranging from "Mother's Morning Out" to "Fitness for Faith" is often the lonely attempt of a group of scared and hopeless people, to fill in the void where God, "the most missed of all missing persons" should be.
A doomed attempt - because in the end - the Shopping Mall, the Day Care, and the YMCA, even, dare I say it, the government, offers better facilities than can St. Barnabas of the Upwardly Mobile, St. Jude's of the Inner City, or St. Paul's of the Cozy Country Community.
The answer my friends is not in better programs, plans, promises, or projects (though all of these have their purpose and their place in the church) it is in the person of Christ Jesus - and in the gift he brings us even when we are hiding behind locked doors out of fear.
The fundamental reality of our faith lies not in what we believe, - it rests not in our acceptance of dogma and creed - or even in thinking that resurrection happened and that miracles can still occur.
The reality of faith - the significance of our faith lies not in these things, nor in our belief, but in who we believe in.
The power that transformed the first disciples from fearful people into men
and women who were unafraid to speak to crowds of thousands,
- unafraid to testify before the very authorities who crucified their
Lord,
- willing to travel vast distances and endure stoning, imprisonment,
and poverty
- and able to convince men, women and children that something
important hinged on their acceptance of their message concerning the
person of Jesus Christ,
was not the power that is unleashed by their being reflective
- by their writing down their dreams in a journal
- or even by their praying a lot,
it was the power granted by the one in whom we believe -
the power that he gave to them in their locked room when he breathed the
Holy Spirit upon them - and then again poured out that Spirit upon all
believers on the day of Pentecost.
For thousands of years, my friends, there have been many men and women and
children who have huddled together out of fear.
- They have seen their hopes and their dreams in this world turn to ashes
- They have believed in God and in bitterness and in grief gazed upon what
seems to be his death.
- They have locked the doors to their hearts, afraid of experiencing one
more pain, one more disappointment.
- They have all but given up hope.
And for two thousand years their have been men and women and children in this situation who have experienced what the first disciples experienced.
As they have assembled to worship, as they have sought the face of God, as they have striven to understand what it is that God is about, they have experienced Christ suddenly standing among them, they have heard his word - peace be with you and felt his breath touch them and fill them and they have gone out and - with nothing else but this experience, this encounter in the deep and silent place within their hearts, transformed their homes, their communities, and indeed their world.
All of us - if we have an ounce of conscience long for something more than what we see now around us - within the church and within the world.
The renewals that have happened and which most surely will happen again, happen not because of us and our inner strength and purpose, they happen because of God - and his love; they happen because Jesus is alive, because he has been able to burst out of the sealed tomb and to enter into locked rooms and fill hearts that need him.
The good feelings of Easter Sunday may be seven days in the past, the afflictions of daily life may have returned full force, but the reality of Easter - the Risen Christ - is still with us.
He has not forsaken us.
Trust him. Give thanks to him - knowing that as he has risen to new life so he is here to bring new life to us all.
He is here -
and he will bring that life -
even though there be locked doors in his way.
Blessed be God, day by day.
Amen.
Rev. Samuel King-Kabu
March 30, 2008