Opened Minds and Transformed Lives

Luke 24:36b-48

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."

They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?

Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.

Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?"

They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you--that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled."

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things.

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We are Easter people – Resurrection people.

The resurrection is the defining point of our faith.

We often place our focus on Christ’s crucifixion and death, on how Christ died for our sins.

 I wonder if the reason that we think and talk about that more than we do the resurrection is because we all understand death – or at least we have all been touched by it personally, directly, in one way or another. So death makes sense to us – it’s real for us all.

But the Good News of the gospel is that Jesus Christ is Risen, that He lives, that the resurrection happened…

 And despite the reality that resurrection is such a hard thing to understand – Christ’s resurrection truly is the transformative power of the Gospel – that God has conquered death, and we no longer need to fear it.

And this is transformative not just for when we die – but it changes every day of our lives, because if we truly believe it, then we live our lives differently because of it.

But it’s a hard thing to truly believe the resurrection.

And so it’s good that the Easter season lasts more than one Sunday – that there is a whole Eastertide season in our church calendar, going all the way up to The Day of Pentecost, at the end of May. This allows us to return week after week to the various scenes and stories in scripture of the resurrected Christ, and we can be right there with Christ’s beloved followers, as Jesus comes to them and they are seized by joy and amazement and disbelief and wonder, all that the same instant.

In this story at the end of the Gospel according to Luke, the writer is getting us ready for the sequel, which is the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. Some call this the Book of the Acts of the Holy Spirit. They were both written by the same author.

Here we have Jesus once again suddenly in the midst of a group of his followers. The two who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus are telling the others what happened, when suddenly the risen Christ is right there with them.

As with the other resurrection stories we have read this season, the disciples are startled, terrified, still disbelieving even in their joy and their wondering. And just like the other stories, Jesus greets them with “Peace be with you”, and he offers evidence that he is not a ghost – “look at my hands and feet. Give me something to eat.”

When he begins to speak, he says this:

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you.”

While I was still with you.

This is implying that even as he is present with them now, that things have somehow changed – that he is somehow changed. The resurrection is more than mere resuscitation. It is new life.

John’s gospel alludes to this as well when Jesus says to Mary “don’t cling to me for I have not yet ascended – but tell the others that I am ascending.” Many interpret this to mean that Jesus is in the process of transforming – and that this is what explains his appearing to the disciples in rooms that are locked tight to keep people out.

But the next words he says to them have caught my attention and have been the focus of my prayer and thought and meditation this week.

He opened their minds to understand the scripture.

You see, we can’t just read the scriptures to fully understand their meaning for our lives.

We need our minds to be opened by Christ.

We need the voice of the Risen Christ to speak the scriptures into our hearts.

We need to understand the scriptures through the lens of the resurrection, through the risen Christ.

What does this mean? How do we do this?

The specifics that Christ focused in on, according to this passage and the other gospels that recall this time, can help us know how we, too, should focus.

In this gospel, Christ shares with them that the Messiah is to suffer, and to rise from the dead – in other words, to conquer death;

and that repentance and forgiveness is to be proclaimed in his name.

That, as witnesses to the forgiveness and saving love of the risen Christ, we are sent by Christ to live as forgiven and forgiving people, to set aside fear in order to obey Christ’s commands. And Christ knows that we cannot do this alone – it is only by surrendering to the power of the Holy Spirit that this is possible.

This is how the Risen Christ opens their minds and interprets the scriptures according to Luke’s gospel.

In Matthew’s gospel, this interpretation of the scriptures takes shape in the words of what we call The Great Commission – “Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember – I am with you always – to the end of the age.

Jesus calls us to be witnesses of and for him in the world – to show and tell the Good News so that others will want to know him too, to be touched by his love so they will want to follow and obey. We are called, first, to obey what He has commanded us, to put on our oxygen masks first so that we can help others, to forgive so others can understand the healing grace of forgiveness.

And then in John’s gospel, the focus is placed on what Christ has commanded us over and over again – to love one another.

This is the story where Jesus asks Simon Peter three times – Do you love me?

Of course the three times mirrors those three times that Peter denied.

And in reply to Peter’s earnest, pleading answer, Yes, Lord. Yes Lord, I love you. Yes Lord, you know how much I love you…”, Jesus says,

“Feed my sheep. Tend my lambs. Feed my sheep. Follow me – no matter where it takes you.”

So if we look across these stories of the resurrected Jesus and his instructions to his disciples, now that he has their attention and now that they can begin to hear and understand his commands, now through the lens of the resurrection, here is what we have:

·      to proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all nations, all people;

·      to share what you have witnessed about the saving love of Christ in your life, both in word and in deed;

·      to make disciples by helping others to see what life looks like in obedience to Christ’s commandments –

o  (and what were Christ’s commandments again?)

§  to love God with everything you have and everything you are

§  to love your neighbor as yourself

·      to feed his sheep,

o  to tend his lambs,

o  to follow him, no matter where it leads.

When we live lives filled with love an forgiveness for others, no matter what, we are showing the amazing grace of Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, the steadfast love of God.

We are showing, revealing, reflecting what a transformed life looks like.

We understand and trust this only by hearing scripture with our minds opened by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I came across a story this week that was shared by the man who founded StoryCorps – which is a nonprofit founded 11 years ago that, so far, has given over 10,000 Americans the chance to record audio interviews about their lives. A copy of each 40 minute conversation is given to those who made it, and another copy goes to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, where it will be preserved for generations to come.

Short excerpts of some of these stories are shared each Friday on NPR’s Morning Edition radio show, and are available by podcast.

The founder of StoryCorps, David Isay, recently shared what he calls “the seven stories he just can’t get out of his head”.

We are going to hear one of these stories, a three minute excerpt from a conversation between a mother, Mary Johnson, and Oshea Israel, the man who murdered her child.

(StoryCorps Clip)

You see, following Christ is about radical forgiveness, unconditional love, setting aside judgment in order to do so.

It’s about seeing the circumstances and opportunities of each new day with eyes of faith, obeying Christ’s commands and revealing Christ’s love to others, through our own Acts, which will be initiated and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, if we open our minds and hearts to let it happen.

It’s that kind of radical trust, love, forgiveness, mercy, and obedience that causes our lives to be transformed into something we could scarcely believe. We are transformed into resurrection people – Easter people.

May it be so for us all, now and always.

Realistic Resurrection Responses

John 20: 19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were 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 his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “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.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.

But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

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Thomas really didn’t ask for anything more than what the other disciples received. So why do we focus on his alleged doubting?

Our gospel passage begins right after the one we heard last week, Easter Sunday, when two disciples looked into the tomb, saw the linens set aside, saw no body inside, and went home to ponder what had happened. The story says “one saw and believed”.

And even though Mary could not conceive of anything other than Jesus’ dead body being stolen, once her eyes of faith were opened and the resurrected Jesus was revealed to her, her response was to go to the disciples and proclaim to them – “I have seen the Lord!” It has been said that in that very act, Mary preached the first sermon of Christian witness.

But those same disciples, that very same day, are now together in a house with the doors tight shut. They are not full of joy from what they have seen, and what they have been told. They are full of fear.  They perceive their lives to be at risk, just as Jesus’ life was. They do not understand that Jesus is really alive, and that this means that Jesus has conquered death for them all, for us all. They do not understand those words Jesus had said to them even before his death by crucifixion, that those who save their lives will lose them, and those who lose their lives for his sake will save them. All those times they heard, “Do not be afraid” – but they are still locked in out of fear.

And still, Jesus suddenly is there. The door didn’t open or close, but there he is. Is he a ghost? No, he shows them his hands and his side. His wounds are real. His body is real. But he is also transformed somehow into new life. And when they all see him there in front of him, that is when they are ready to rejoice. The story from others doesn’t do it for them. The circumstantial evidence of the empty tomb and the linen left behind, that doesn’t do it for them either.  Seeing him there with them, seeing how he got there without opening the door, seeing the wounds in his hands and his side, this convinces them. Is that faith? or is that proof?

But Thomas is not in the room. Where is he? He must not be as afraid as they were, if he is not cowering in fear in the upper room like the rest of them. I would imagine that, much like Mary, Thomas had seen his beloved teacher, friend, and Lord nailed to a cross and crucified, and he saw no reason not to believe that Jesus was dead and gone. Perhaps he had gone back to work as a fisherman.

Whatever his reason for not being there, when the rest of the disciples find him and say to him, “we have seen the Lord”, his reaction is just about the same as theirs had been when Mary said the same thing to them. Clearly they didn’t believe her, since they had been hiding out in the room that same night. To say he is doubting is putting it mildly. He simply does not believe them. Since they saw the wounds in his hands and side, I would imagine they told him as much, and so it was natural for him to say that unless he saw Jesus the same way they saw Jesus, he would not believe them.

He’s not saying he doesn’t believe Jesus – he is saying he doesn’t believe the disciples. It is simply too absurd to believe.

So a week later, the disciples are together, and Thomas is with them, and Jesus is suddenly there again. Jesus knows that Thomas has been skeptical, and so Jesus singles him out, and offers to show him the wounds in his hands and side. But Thomas doesn’t need that any more. Just like Mary, just like the disciples, it is clear to him now that this Jesus is risen and is his Lord and his God.

Jesus doesn’t treat Thomas any differently than the rest. He had said to them a week before, “Peace be with you.” He says that again now. He had showed them his hands and side a week before, and he offers that to Thomas now. Jesus understands that it is hard for us to trust without verification.

John’s last words from Jesus are “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” And John ends this gospel by saying that many other signs were done by Jesus that are not included in this book, but that these are written so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and that through believing we may have life in his name.

Belief and doubt are not opposites. They are not an either / or. It is not surprising for a claim as crazy as a man being crucified and then rising from the dead three days later to be met with doubt. It is not surprising for the claim that God would come to earth to give himself up for death to prove that death is not the end for us - to be met with doubt. It is not surprising that Mary could not convince the disciples, nor could the disciples convince Thomas. It’s the same reason why we are not called as disciples to convince others to believe. We are called to believe, to accept Jesus’ offer of peace and grace which is freely offered to us all. We are called to feed His sheep, to tend his lambs. This is the way that Jesus is revealed to the world. This is the way to make disciples – not to convince people or to win them over, but to show how we are Christians by our love. Not to hide our doubts and questions, our own sin and darkness, but to acknowledge them. Not to fear death, but to show that we truly believe Christ has conquered death, has disabled its power over us. Not to judge others, but to forgive them, just as Jesus says to the disciples, “if you forgive the sins of others, they are forgiven”. Our forgiveness brings healing and grace to others. Similarly, our inability to forgive others causes their sins to be retained, according to Jesus.

If we can open the doors of our church and our hearts to those who find it hard to believe, and to share both here and wherever we go that that it’s ok for it to be hard, sometimes, to believe something this incredible and amazing, and that this is a safe place to express and explore and to show our fears and doubts and wounds and sins, then maybe, just maybe, they will experience the amazing grace and peace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ in and through us and will come to believe and to follow.

Seeing and Believing

John 20: 1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them,“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,

and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first,

also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there,

but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples,

“I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

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There were no witnesses to the resurrection. Literally – not one. All we have are the stories people passed on from the stories people told about going to the tomb, seeking the body of the crucified Jesus, and not finding what they expected.

The stories varied, as eyewitness accounts often do. We can’t read them all and take them literally, because they don’t all fit together. They conflict with one another. But each of the stories, whether they are told in the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, tell us about Christ’s followers, men and women, who all expected to see one thing on that Easter morning and instead, saw something entirely different. And that seeing, in one way or another, led them to believe on that Easter morning that resurrection happened – that Jesus was alive.

We heard the Easter story this morning as it is captured in the gospel according to John. Here we have Mary Magdalene, getting up before dawn, if in fact she had slept at all, given the sorrowful events of the past few days. It was dark, and it was probably hard for her to see her way into the garden where she had seen Jesus being laid in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea.

We aren’t told in this gospel story exactly why she was going to the tomb. In some of the other gospels they identify specifically the names of a group of women, including Mary Magdalene, and what they were bringing with them, in order to anoint and prepare his body. But in John’s story, Mary seems to be going by herself, and apparently she is carrying nothing with her. She just needs to be there.

And when she gets there, what she sees is that the stone has been removed from the tomb. She doesn’t look any further, or wait to contemplate what she has seen.

She takes off running.

She runs to find Simon Peter, and another unnamed disciple, probably John, and she says to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”So the two disciples head off toward the tomb, also running.

Apparently they outrun Mary, and the unnamed disciple gets there, and bends down to look inside. And he sees linen wrappings lying there. He doesn’t go any further. By that time Simon Peter has arrived, and he goes into the tomb.

We are told he, too, sees the linen wrappings lying there, and something more – he sees the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, rolled up separately and set down.

Then the first disciple went in as well, and the story tells us that “he saw and believed.”

At that point, for whatever reason, this story version tells us that the two disciples turn around, and go back to their homes, and they leave Mary standing there, weeping.

When she bends over to look into the tomb, she sees something there that neither disciple had seen – two angels. They are sitting in the tomb. One is at the head, and one is at the foot.

It sounds like they were bookending the place where Jesus’ body was laid. The angels speak to her. “Woman, why are you weeping?” Her response to them tells us that she still believes Jesus is dead, and someone has taken away his body.

And just when she has said this, she turns around, and sees someone standing there in the early morning light. We have no way of knowing how dark it still was then, but what we do know from the storyteller is that this was Jesus standing there, and she does not know it.

Jesus says the same words as the angels: “Woman, why are you weeping?” and then continues by asking her whom she is looking for. Perhaps he is trying to shift her focus from seeking a dead body to seeking someone alive.

She doesn’t see him as Jesus. In her mind, Jesus is dead, and anyone who is alive in this garden at this moment must be able to tell her something about what has happened to his body. She says to this man, whom she assumes must be the gardener – who else would be in this garden at this early hour of the morning? – “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

How politely she speaks to someone she thinks might have robbed this grave.

And it’s not until she hears Jesus call her by name – “Mary” – that she sees with new eyes, with eyes of faith, that Jesus is there, right in front of her. Jesus is alive!

Jesus tells her to go tell the disciples what she has seen, and that he is ascending to “his Father and her Father, his God and her God”. And Mary goes off running again, I’m sure,

and when she finds the disciples she tells them, “I have seen the Lord”.

There are times in Scripture when our English translations just can’t do justice to the details and nuances of the words that were originally written down in Greek. And that is the case throughout the gospel of John, and especially in this passage, when the word that we have translated as “saw” – or to see or to look – is found. There are four different Greek words in this short passage that are all translated into “see” in English, but they have different meanings that are important to the story.

The Greek word “blepei” means to “just see” – it refers to visual sight, but with no indication of comprehension about what is being seen.  When Mary first saw the open tomb, and when the first disciple saw the linen wrappings, this for them was a “blepei” sighting – seeing without understanding.

But when Simon Peter went into the tomb, he “observed” the linen wrappings. The Greek word used here was “thay –o - rei” – to look with concentration, to behold, to focus in on. And yes, you can hear the foundation of the word theory or theorem in there. But still, there is no spiritual insight indicated through this word.

It’s used two other times in this passage: Mary observed the two angels; and Mary initially observed Jesus as the gardener. So Peter and Mary, in each of these sentences, observed, focused in and concentrated, but with no spiritual insights.

The other two Greek words that are translated into the English word “saw” were both words that meant seeing and understanding – that sort of understanding that leads to real faith.

The words are “eiden” and “horan”. When I was researching this, I sent a message to our own Jodie Horan, a member of this congregation, to tell him that his name, “Horan”, in Greek, meant “seeing with the eyes of faith after the resurrection”. How cool is that?

So when the “other disciple” (not Simon Peter, but the other one) went into the tomb, and “saw and believed” – that was horan sight – the kind of seeing that leads to faith. And when Mary ran off to find the disciples, when she said to them – “I have seen the Lord!” – well, that was horan sight as well.

So seeing with horan  sight - the eyes of faith – after the resurrection… what does it take for us to see like that? To see and believe? We do not have the physical evidence that these eyewitnesses had. But from this story, it appears that it took more than physical evidence for them to understand in their hearts, and believe.

Mary needed to hear Jesus call her by name.

The travelers who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus spent the whole day with him, but only recognized him when he sat down with them for dinner, took bread, and blessed and broke it – then their eyes were opened and they recognized him. Horan sight. The eyes of faith, after the resurrection. Seeing with new eyes.

In the risen Christ, God has given us a gift that can never be fully understood, completely unwrapped. Through the resurrection, God has released us to new life, to more fully live. This new life can only be seen with new eyes, with eyes of faith, and when we focus in, when we believe, we begin to understand that seeing Christ in the world and in our lives has nothing to do with what we see right in front of us.

Recognizing Christ with eyes of faith, resurrection eyes, means that we can look at something or someone and see God’s working in it all, in us all.

It’s like seeing a springtime bud and understanding there is a flower within. It’s like looking at a cocoon and knowing a butterfly will emerge. We can look at an acorn and imagine a tree.

And we can look at a sad or lonely or broken person and imagine healing and transformation. And then we can see ourselves as the agents of that healing and transformation, through the love that God has poured out for us – love that we can generously give to one another.

As our next hymn will remind us, God looks at us with eyes of love, and sees the gifts and potential and abundant blessings in us all, and knows what can happen when we share them with one another. The risen Christ shows us that endings are also beginnings, that death is not the last word, that resurrection is the victory, the promise fulfilled, the gift of God that’s meant for all of us.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!