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Thursday, April 19, 2007
Full Circle Faith
Psalm 118:1-2,14-24; Luke 24:1-12
They rose with the sun that Sunday morning. Made their way quietly to the garden tomb, hearts filled with grief and hands filled with what it would take to give his body at last a decent burial.
When they reached the tomb, though, their hearts leapt to their throats at what they saw...
The stone door was rolled bck from the entrance to the cave. The body was nowhere to be found. And there in front of them were two bright glowing angels -- who told them Jesus was alive again -- just as he'd promised he would be!
Pulling themselves together, the women circled back to the safe house where the disciples were hiding, and told them the great good news.
Except... Except they wouldn't believe them! They called the women's message an "idle tale." Empty talk... A silly story... A foolish yarn... Utter nonsense....
Do you suppose they doubted the story because it came from women?
What a shame that would be! To turn down God's Gospel because its preachers didn't measure up to their idea of who was worthy of the job.
Or maybe it was just too overwhelming for them to take in, break down, and trust.
I read about a young boy who absolutely loved both Mister Rogers and Captain Kangaroo. He watched their shows as often as he could, and one day it was announced that Mister Rogers would soon pay a visit to the Captain's neighborhood.
The boy was beside himself with excitement. Both his heroes together on one show! Every morning he would ask, "Is it today that Mister Rogers will be on Captain Kangaroo?"
Finally, the day came, and the whole family sat together in front of the television set. Just a couple of minutes into the show, though, the boy suddenly stood up and walked out of the room.
His worried father followed him. "What is it, son? Is something wrong?"
"It's too good," said the boy. "It's just too good."
Maybe that's how the disciples felt when they heard the news that Jesus had risen from the dead. "We can't take it in all at once. We don't know how to believe it just yet. It's too incredibly good to be true!"
In any case, Peter decided to go see for himself. So off he ran to the garden tomb, poked his head in, and -- of course -- he found no body. Then he circled back to the hideout, scratching his head at what he'd seen. Or, what he hadn't seen.
But finally, he and all the disciples got it right. They remembered at last what Jesus predicted about his death, his burial, and his resurrection from the dead. And what it all would mean -- for them, and for the whole wide world.
Several years later, the Apostle Paul put it this way:
Jesus Christ gave all humanity a brand new start with God, and with each other, for he was a kind of Second Adam. And by his perfectly consistent relationship with God he undid all the consequences of the first Adam's failure to stay true to God.
By that analogy, Paul creatively circled back himself -- from the Garden Tomb of Easter to the Garden of Eden.
Back there, God created the first man and woman to be his partners in taking care of everything else that was made. Adam and Eve were to do that in a spirit of mutual love and trust -- towards each other, and between themselves and God.
Maybe they felt like that little boy did -- that what they had was all just too good to handle.
For the day came when they started wondering what God was up to. With more than a little help from a certain talking snake.
God had told them they could enjoy the entire garden any way they wanted to -- except for one single tree -- the one whose fruit would give them the knowledge of good and evil. "Eat that, and you'll die!" God said.
So -- what sane person would want to eat it?
Except... Except, they got to wondering. Worrying. Whining, even, when you get right down to it.
"Does God really have the best in mind for us?" (Meaning, maybe God doesn't love us!)
"If God does love us, then why can't we have anything we want whenver we want it?" (God is mean to us!)
"Maybe God's afraid we'll become as wise and strong as he is?" (God is jealous!)
"Well, let's just see about that!" (God can't stop us!)
So they ate the forbidden fruit. And, guess what -- they didn't die!
At least not physically, not right then. But they did die spiritually, their souls shriveling up from that moment on.
Adam and Eve's story is a case study of how every one of us goes through temptation. And I'm convinced their experience afterwards demonstrates the ways each of us suffers in our own heart and mind as the result of sin.
Now they were at odds within themselves. They saw that they were naked, and they blushed with shame. And for each one of us it's frightening to be known transparently, for who we really are -- even, or especially, by the people we care about the most.
They also were alienated from God. The next time God stopped by to visit, they ducked behind the bushes in hopes he wouldn't find them. Good luck! Ever since, it's in our human nature to hesitate at the idea of meeting God face to face. (I invited a friend to join us in worship on Easter. He answered, "Only if your insurance is paid up. No way will I be responsible for the ceiling falling in!") It's always an awesome thing to find yourself in the presence of God's holiness.
And now they were divided against each other, too. Answering God, they pointed the finger and said, "She did it!" "No, he did it!" And so do you and I all too easily find someone else to blame for our fears and failures, for our problems both real and imagined. It's so much easier to flail about defensively than to admit we might be afraid of getting hurt. It's just too hard to trust in each other's good intentions.
Finally, all of life now became a huge struggle. The garden sprouted thistles and thorns. Adam's work became tedious and tiring. And Eve discovered labor pains. For you and me it's: cuts and bruises... flus and fevers... OSHA, outsourcing, and job security... spare the air days, paper or plastic, and global climate change... And finally, for every one of us sooner or later, our bodies die.
But Paul says that, in Jesus, God has closed the circle on all of that!
Because Jesus never once did what Adam and Eve had done. He was the one man among all of us who stayed true to God's intentions of perfect love and trust. His constant life-long prayer was simply "Not my will, but yours be done" -- even in that other garden on the night one of his own disciples turned him in.
Having no sin of his own, he became the innocent sacrifice to take away the penalty for the sins of all the rest of us together.
What looked for all the world on Good Friday like a victory for God's greatest enemies -- sin and death and the devil -- turned out on Easter morning to be the death of death itself when Jesus came out of the grave!
And so the circle is complete.
Outside the church, Easter is a day for bunnies and bonnets and colored eggs, for bright new clothes, white lilies and forty shades of green glistening in the sunlight. And why not? They're all nature's silent echoes of the Bible's story of Resurrection Life. Which is...
There is not one thing in all the world -- not in heaven and not on earth, not even sin and death itself -- that can finally separate us from the love of God, which we've received once and for all in our risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Alive with Christ in resurrection life, you and I are able to experience a little bit of heaven right here on earth. God's will is being done, here and there, now and then, the same way it's always done in heaven. By ordinary people like you and me, committed to live for Jesus. To live like Jesus, as God makes us able.
It can be as simple as giving people a reason to smile, or doing the right thing when it needs most to be done. By being kind or helpful or strong in an hour of trial. Such small investments these are, when measured on the scale of world events.
But who can predict what dividends God may choose to pay on them, when all is said and done?
The current film "Amazing Grace" tells the story of two men in 19th century England, whose faith in Christ transformed their own lives and ultimately changed the world.
John Newton had been a slave ship captain, transporting African men and women to be sold for cheap labor. A day came when he realized God loved each one of those people he treated like so many cattle and pieces of property, just as much as God loved any preacher in "civilized" England. Filled with guilt and remorse, John Newton gave his life to Christ if Christ would have it.
He became a pastor, and one of his parishioners was William Wilberforce. That man felt called by God to serve in the Parliament, and his career in national politics spanned decades of faithful service. His greatest achievement, spurred on by Newton's encouragement, was persuading Parliament to outlaw slavery in England and all its colonies. Forever. Eventually, our own nation saw the light and did the same right thing.
And that's the way the light of God's grace and truth extends in ever-widening circles to bring more and more of heaven into this world of ours. Because of Easter. Because Jesus lives... and he dares to work his will in the world... through ordinary people just like you and just like me.
Amen. And hallelujah!
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:45 PM
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