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He has Risen, So Now What?
Dan Shelly
Elma United Methodist Church
April 23, 2006
(John 20:19-31, 1 John 1:1-2:2)
I was talking with Nona on Thursday and I asked her if she’d seen my mid-week email yet. For those of you who don’t know or aren’t signed up for it yet, each week while I’m up in Federal Way, I send an email out as sort of an electronic newsletter - it contains not only information on upcoming events, but also each week’s scripture readings and the title for the coming Sunday’s sermon. Since this email came out only days after Easter and also only days after my grandchildren helped me begin to consume my chocolate Easter bunny, I decided that the name of this week’s sermon should be,
He has Risen, [and we've eaten the chocolate bunny's ears] So Now What?
Of course when I told this to Nona, she just kind of stared at me for a minute, then she shook her head and said something about what a scary mind I must have inside my head.
People often ask me how I come up with a sermon each week. Let me tell you a little about how that happens. Each Sunday afternoon, I try to look up and read the lectionary scriptures for the following week. Then I pray about them and put them on the back burner to let them cook. I re-read the scripture several times throughout the week, spend my week living with these scriptures, and invariably something about them comes alive for me as the week goes on. By the time the mid-week email comes out, hopefully I have at least an idea about what the topic will be. If not, I end up sending out some kind of cute generic sermon title like the one you got for this week.
And I have to admit that I was having a bit of a problem with this week’s sermon because this gospel reading about Jesus, the disciples, and Thomas is the very same reading that I preached on last year when I asked the question “Did Thomas Get a Bum Rap?”
Last year I said that throughout history Thomas has commonly been known as “Doubting Thomas” but in reality he was perhaps the bravest of all the disciples and a disciple who refused to just go along with the crowd. But that was last year’s sermon and I didn’t want to rehash that story. So I began to look for something new within our reading for this week, and I kept coming back to the part where Jesus breathed on the disciples, told them “Receive the Holy Spirit”, and then he instructed them that if they forgave anyone’s sin’s, they were truly forgiven, but if they retained anyone’s sins, they were retained. Jesus told them that they now had the very same power and authority that Jesus had during his ministry here on Earth; the very authority that got Jesus in so much trouble with the Scribes and the Pharisees. And that brought to mind the great story in Luke about the friends trying to bring a lame man to Jesus. The crowds were so great that they couldn’t get him into the house where Jesus was teaching, so they pulled off some of the earth and thatch from the roof and lowered him down through the hole in the roof to Jesus.
And what did Jesus do? He saw the faith of these friends and told the man “Friend, you sins are forgiven you.” That statement just made the Pharisees hit the roof themselves! They accused Jesus of teaching terrible blasphemy. They asked him, “Who do you think you are? Only God can forgive sins!” And Jesus answered them, “Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven, or stand up and walk?” “But so that you know the Son of Man has authority here on Earth to forgive sins – he told the paralyzed man – Stand up, pick up your bed, and walk.” And immediately he stood up, took up the mat he was lying on, and went home glorifying God.” This claim to power and authority was the very stuff that eventually got Jesus crucified, and now, the first time his disciples encounter the resurrected Christ, he breathes the Holy Spirit upon them and tells them that they too have this same power and authority - power not just to heal, but even to forgive or retain sins. That’s an amazing claim, and one that would help the Apostle Paul come to understand that through the atonement of Jesus, something radical had happened. Our status had changed. We often don’t realize it, and even more seldom do we ever claim it, but through the actions of Jesus we too have become Children of God. Adopted and heirs right along with Jesus who Paul calls the author and originator of our faith. Paul comes to understand that Jesus is the “First Fruit” of God, but we too are part of God’s harvest.
With that in mind, I went back and read the New Testament reading from 1 John that went along with this week’s gospel and the words that now jumped out to me were,
Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ… This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
Our fellowship is with the Father and with Jesus, and we know that we are in fellowship when we walk in the light. If we’re walking in darkness and say we’re walking with God, we don’t get it, because God is light and in him there is no darkness! It helps to try and understand what they were talking about here by looking at what light meant at the time this was written. The use of light was synonymous with the terms truth or understanding and that’s the meaning from which we later derived the term enlightenment. So in 1 John we’re being told, “If we say we’re walking with God yet we don’t understand who we are, we don’t get it.” But if we do understand that we too can walk in the light just as Jesus walked in the light, then we have fellowship with one another.
Does that mean that when we walk in the light of enlightenment we’re perfect and have no more sin? Absolutely not! 1 John tells us, if we say we have no more sin, we’re deceiving ourselves. But as we walk together in the light, we understand that our sin is covered by Jesus’ atonement. That because of Jesus, we are no longer left in darkness, but are now aware that even though we may not appear to be whole – in God’s eyes we are.
Each of us may see ourselves like that Easter Bunny who’s missing his ears, but in God’s eyes we are each a wonderful chocolate treat wrapped up and ready to be shared with the world. And that’s when it struck me…
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BUNNY!
It’s all about the bunny. I’m sure you’ve heard the expression before, he’s a few bricks shy of a load, or she’s a few cards short of a full deck. Well in this case we could say that because of our own sin, our own shortcomings, the things we do that keep us from God, each of us is a few bites shy of a bunny. But through the resurrection of Easter, God is saying SHOW ME THE BUNNY! The world may claim that we are less than whole, the world may see us as less than perfect, less than a full Child of God. But as we walk in the light of enlightenment, as we dare to claim the awareness and understanding of who we really are as disciples (followers) of Christ, we have fellowship with God and with one another. Like the man on the mat, Jesus claims that our sins are forgiven, and he says, stand up and “Show Me the Bunny!” Stand up and be God’s present of Easter for others, God’s gift of healing and forgiveness to those who still need to see that light.
And don’t forget our fellowship together. It’s through fellowship together that we become God’s gift for others. Each of us may have a few bites taken out of us along the way. There may be some things that we can’t do, some things for which we need to rely on others, but together, together we bring the World God’s gift of Easter. Together we become God’s Easter Bunny.
I had a few people come up to me after last week’s Easter service and thank me for how wonderful the sanctuary looked. And I had to tell them, it wasn’t me. I got up on the ladder and changed the cloth on the cross, and I hung the banners. But those banners behind me were made by Jenny Goeres, and the banner on the wall was made by Nona. All the fun and beauty of the kid’s Easter bush was made by Nancy Thiel, and Nancy, Garnet and Sun Cha all brought in Easter lilies. Jody Nelson made us our small wooden cross and John Hayes fixed up the large cross, then Carl Edem brought us daffodils to decorate it. Kathy Baker spent hours getting things cleaned and shiny for Easter morning, the trustees swarmed over the kitchen remodel to make sure it was all finished, and music from Connie, Marilyn, Antha, and the entire choir filled this space on Sunday morning. The list goes on and on… As we walk and work together in fellowship, we become God’s gift for the World.
And God is telling us now, to stand up, pick up our mats, quit just lying around here, and walk. Walk out the doors and out into the world. Walk out in the light and let people see the light of God’s love for the world.
This Easter, God is saying “Show Me the Bunny!”
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