Meeting with the Resurrected Jesus

Meeting With the Resurrected Jesus

1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31 

In my reading to prepare for this, the Sunday after Easter, I found a great story by Diane Roth a Lutheran pastor. She tells of a tour a friend of hers took to see cathedrals in Spain. Often the tour guide would walk them through churches, even when there was a worship service in progress. 

The tour guide had been very careful to explain to the travelers that they needed to be careful and not “too trusting” because there were pickpockets and worse, ready to take advantage of tourists. Inexperienced travelers need these kinds of reminders. It takes a while to absorb this sense of awareness and let it linger beneath the surface during routine encounters with the world. 

One day they passed through a church during worship, and woman turned and approached her with her hand out, speaking rapidly in Spanish. The traveller recoiled and scurried back to her tour group. Only later did it sink in what the woman had said, “La paz de Dios.” The peace of God. 

It is so easy for us to recoil when we are out of our element, or do not understand or comprehend the routine. When we pass the peace of Christ in worship here, we can easily overwhelm a visitor who is not connected to the congregation, or may be inexperienced with the level of enthusiasm with which we perform this element of our liturgy. 

A theme I will be repeating for the next few weeks is what theologians call “the scandal of the particular.” In general it refers to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth represents God’s good love. Jesus was a specific person, at a specific time and specific circumstance. 

You and I realize that no self-respecting church committee would design the appearance of God’s love to come this way. I mean, a child born to an unwed mother? Really? Born in poverty, away from home, and not in the midst of family? How on earth does such an appearance reflect the power and majesty of the eternal and almighty God? 

The entire story is so unlikely. The confrontation with temptation in the desert before he begins his public ministry. Undignified. Surrounded by uneducated disciples who so often are missing the big picture. Not a priest among them. The conclusion of the story, torture and public execution. It is not just a suitable way to conclude this story that should be inspiring. You see, the scandal of the particular is that it is so real, so human-sized that it feels, well it feels wrong and unbelievable.   

Today the apostle Thomas gets singled out for embarrassment because he cannot resist saying the obvious, “You guys are too much. You don’t believe that stuff about resurrection, do you?” 

Into this very human scene steps the magical, resurrected Jesus, walking through walls and locked doors and saying, “Peace be with you.” Terrifying. The peace of God can be terrifying. We can imagine Thomas doing a double take, blinking his eyes, trying to get his eyes and his mind to focus. 

The peace of Christ, the peace of God, what on earth is that kind of peace? Is it a quiet night by the fire? Is it the absence of war? Is it a life of leisure with no stress allowed? None of that fits with the scandalous and human-sized Jesus, love in action, that we worship. 

No, the peace offered by Christ is more like confidence. Confidence that goodness can persist in a world run amok. Confidence that there are blessings to share, even when the powers of the world pretend that they know everything, and that the future is scripted to be in continual decline. The peace of Christ is about being faithful and joyful and confident when there is no earthly reason to be confident. 

Part of the requirements for a Master of Divinity degree from McCormick Theological Seminary, was to take a unit of CPE, Clinical Pastoral Education. In CPE we are exposed to a lot of classroom time: talking about how to “be with” people in their time of need; how to identify our own needs so we can keep “our stuff” away from those we serve; and practical experience. My experience came on the hospital floors and Emergency Room at Edward Hospital in Naperville in the summer of 2002. 

As a CPE student we were assigned one overnight a week to be the chaplain on call, and the six of us in the class each had at least one full weekend when we were on call. One night, my pager buzzed, and displayed an unknown number. I called and reached the nurse’s station on a surgical floor. The nurse explained there was a patient scheduled for early morning heart bypass surgery, and he was a religious man, and very agitated and unable to sleep. 

I went and sat next to his bed. He explained he was very worried about the surgery. He felt like he had a lot to live for. And then he said, he was terribly ashamed. He was an ordained Deacon in the Catholic Church, and he felt that his anxiety was a grievous sin against God, and that compounded his fear of death.  

I am not sure if you know any of the men who are called to serve as Catholic Deacons. I know several, including my own cousin. These are particularly devout men, who have been vital supports of their parishes, usually through many years and many pastors. They are invited into the Deacon program, usually through the pastor. They are given bible classes, and preaching classes, and taught about the sacraments. Once they are ordained Deacons can baptize, witness marriages, and perform funeral and burial services outside of Mass. As a second career pastor, I feel very close to these men. 

So sitting in the dark night of the hospital room, I assured my new friend that being anxious about serious surgery was certainly no sin. Not only would God not hold that against him, but God was reaching out to hold him in this anxious time. All of the resources of the church of those who love God, are his to confront those anxieties. 

Next I told him, that it was clear that he loved his family, and he loved the life he was given to live, and that pleased God. God celebrates how much he felt a part of so many lives and enjoyed representing God’s love to them. He was a good man with a good life, and it pleases God. He should count that as a blessing. 

Confident now that God knows and loves him, it should be easier to know that God will give him what is best. If God chooses to take him tomorrow, it will be the best day of his life. If God chooses to leave him in Naperville, serving God, it will be a good life. He was in a “can’t lose” position. Whether you live or die, you are in Christ Jesus, and that is all good.  

The peace of Christ is integrally connected to the resurrection of Jesus. The peace of Christ is wrapped in the understanding that the resurrection is an entire new way of being a community organizer. Because Jesus lives forever, we will live forever. Because Jesus embodies the love of God, we embody the love of God, and offer it to each other. “La paz de Dios.” Terrifying. 

The peace of Christ encourages us to lean into the future, even as we are shaking in our boots. Your Search Committee has already realized that seeking a pastor is not like a committee designing the ideal pastor. You do not get to choose a perfect person, you have to choose from among ordinary human beings, with experience and the scars that authenticate the experience. 

Some are tall, and some have bigger egos than others. Some are male and some are female, and some live in between that ‘either/or’ imaginary world that we think is commonplace. They are all black, and white, and Hispanic, and Asian, and increasingly, are a mix of cultures and races. As hard as it may be to believe, pastors are scandalously particular. 

So how do we dare to confront the uncertainty of the future? How will our traditions ever get sustained in the midst of such change? 

What did the doubting Thomas do? He chose to believe in Jesus. He chose to reach out in heart, mind, and soul, and accept the peace of God when it was offered to him. We are walking into the terrifying future, but we are walking with Christ, the love of God in action. 

We recognize what a scandal Jesus was, such an ordinary human to represent the all powerful, all knowing God. We recognize the scandal of  being the church that believes, and still admits to our anxiety. And because we are anxious, we grab a hold of that peace of Christ, that love of God, and put it to work. We share it. We give it to each other. We crave the opportunity to share it with strangers. We look forward to wrapping it around the new pastor, and seeing where God’s love will take us. ‘La paz de Dios,’ the peace of God be with you.