SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER – 23 APRIL 2006

St. Paul Lutheran Church, ABQ NM – The Rev. P. L. Holman

Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:-2:2; John 20:19-31

Easter Bright Every Day!

Last week we celebrated Easter Sunday, and now for the fifty days following we celebrate the season of Easter.  The Words of scripture and themes of these Sundays build on the Good News we celebrated last Sunday - Jesus was dead, now alive; followers come to the tomb despairing and leave the empty tomb with lives transformed. Many questions remain, many signs of the resurrection still to be celebrated, yet as we learned last week, what this season is all about is that “Christ is risen – Christ is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

You may recall that here at St. Paul over the past two years we’ve observed Holy Humor or Bright Sunday on this first Sunday after Easter.  It’s a Christian tradition that celebrates the fact that the resurrection of Jesus is God’s ultimate joke on evil and death. Bright Sunday can help us continue the celebration of Easter joy. Pastor Hal Nilsson has been our preacher and is his unique way offered a testament to the God who "sits in the heavens and laughs" [Psalm 2:4] at the foolishness of humanity, at the foolishness of those forces that seek to play God.

While I can’t begin to compete with Pr. Nilsson, in honor of Bright Sunday I’ll try a couple of jokes:

On the Saturday afternoon before Easter a woman was doing some baking for her special family dinner the next day. There was a knock at the door. She went to find a man, dressed in shabby clothes, and looking for some odd jobs. He asked her if there was anything he could do. She said, "Can you paint?"
"Yes," he said. "I’m a rather good painter."
"Well," she said, "there are two gallons of green paint there and a brush, and there’s a porch out back that needs to be painted. Please do a good job. I’ll pay you what the job is worth."
He said, "That’s great. I will be done quickly."
She went back to her baking and did not think much more about it until there was a knock at the door. She went, and it was obvious he had been painting for he had it on his clothes. She asked, "Did you finish the job?"
He said, "Yes."
She said, "Did you do a GOOD job?"
He said, "Yes. But lady, there’s one thing I would like to point out to you. That is not a Porsche back there. That is a Mercedes."

Or how about the man and woman who had been friends for many years; they both died and went to heaven. They told St. Peter that they wanted to be married.
“Take your time and think about it,” said St. Peter, “you have eternity so take fifty years and see me then.”
Fifty years later, the couple returned and once again told St. Peter they wanted to be married. “Well,” said St. Peter, “take another fifty years and really think about it….”
This time the couple was insistent, “We know we want to be married now….”
St. Peter replied, “Well, take another fifty years and if we don’t have a preacher up here by then, I’ll marry you myself.”

The lightness of humor is good reminder to us this day of the light that is God, light for all God’s children, for all times, no matter the burden or chaos or challenge.  In the evening of the day of the empty tomb, John’s gospel tells us, the disciples were locked in fear, and Jesus appeared.  That in itself was a gift of light – a sign of the resurrection for them for sure.  And then Jesus gives them – and in the witness of the faithful through the ages, gives us – three more gifts that are also signs of the resurrection for us: a blessing, a call, and the breath of forgiveness.

A blessing: Peace to you.  It was a common blessing by the standards of the day, yet uncommonly graceful in its place and time.  “Peace” Jesus says as he offers his hands and side, himself, to ease their fears.  Whatever the fear that brings us to tears, that tears apart families or friendships, that creates enemy lines/ power lies/ broken lives, whatever causes us to cry, “O God, where are you in this suffering?” here is the answer: here in the wounded crucified and risen Lord, present for us and for the world, offering Peace beyond our understanding.  The “new hymnal” has been in use for almost 30 years, and some folks are still upset about the newfangled sharing of the Peace.  Yet in the midst of this gathering as we prepare to receive the holy meal and be fed to go into the world, this simple act of turning to one another is anything but new – it is as old as God’s relationship with the world.  It is tangible reminder of the uncommonly graceful presence of the risen Christ with those first disciples, and with us…

The second gift: a call.  “As the heavenly father is sending me, so I am sending you.”  The risen Christ appeared to the disciples in those early days following the discovery of the empty tomb.  They were blessed with a tangible resurrection sign.  Where is that sign today?  It is first and foremost in the church.  Yes, this congregation, and every manifestation of the body of Christ in the world.  Through the readings from Acts in this season we learn about the way the early church organized itself: today we hear they held everything in common, and with great power offered their testimony to the resurrection of Christ.  The church in our time is organized quite differently, and just like the early church we have our share of conflicts and disagreements.  Yet just like the earliest followers we too are called, sent out to engage the world with the good news of God’s saving love.  All life is interconnected – from the global economy to the global ecology to the global impact of foreign and domestic policies.  We are called by Christ to engage the world for the sake of the Gospel – to speak to the injustice that flies in the face of peace; to wrestle for a blessing in matters of local and global economics; to be faithful in our homes and in care of our bodies just as we are called to be faithful with our money and our time.  And when we fail, we are called to trust in the God whose great love for the world embraced every suffering and failure – to trust that this God’s embrace will never fail us.

Which brings us to the third gift: the Spirit of forgiveness.  I really appreciate Eugene Peterson’s translation [THE MESSAGE] when it comes to this part of the gospel for today.  Listen:

“Then [Jesus] took a deep breath and breathed into them. ‘Receive the Holy Spirit,’ he said. ‘If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?’”

Good question: if you don’t forgive someone’s sins, what are you going to do with them? Among the hardest things for me to see in the lives of people I’ve cared for over the years is the unwillingness to let go, the determination to be right, bear grudges, seek revenge.  It can be personal – family estrangement that boils over in to protracted lawsuits or bitter divorces.  It can be social or political revenge – like support for the death penalty, a policy that serves no healing purpose as it ultimately precludes people on both sides of the transgression from the possibility of reconciliation and forgiveness.  And if you can’t or won’t or don’t forgive someone’s sins, you end up carrying them like so many bricks on your back, and they become your burden as well.  In a recent reflection on forgiveness ELCA presiding bishop Mark Hanson asked, Why is it that it seems easier “to hold onto resentments than to seek reconciliation? Why do we [find more security] behind locked doors than in the promise that the crucified and risen Christ is alive in the world and bids us to come and meet him there?” 

The breath of Christ inspires us this day, with a blessing and a call and the breath of forgiveness.  I learned a new phrase the other day: Caesar’s breath.  Apparently it relates to the theory that energy never dies or disappears.  The molecules of Caesar’s breath, 2000 years ago, are still in our atmosphere today.  They have scattered around the globe and we are breathing them with every breath we take.  Caesar’s breath.  Ah!  Then the breath of Christ is still inspiring us literally.  The Spirit and power of God is still circulating, far more powerful that Caesar’s breath, reminding us that the One whose spirit hovered over the face of the deep at creation is still present in the world today – in the church, in the schools, at home and on the streets, wherever God’s people are bearing witness to the risen Christ by working together for the peace that is justice, the love that is mercy, the healing that is forgiveness.

Some years ago in a congregation I served in Aurora, Colorado, I had a good friend named Sam Johnson.  He loved to meet for coffee, and to try his Norwegian jokes out on me.  Every coffee break we shared was like a mini “bright Sunday” – his jokes were usually pretty bad, but I loved him for trying.  One day, as Sam was in the hospital struggling to hang on to his sense of humor while his body was rapidly and painfully failing, I spoke with him about all the changes he’d seen in his 80 years of life.  A man who’d seen both the Great Depression and WWII, Sam used to teach cloud-reading skills to United Airline pilots.  While he’d kept up with all the changes in technology, some of the changes in society and corporate politics were harder for Sam to reconcile.  “Where’s the hope, Sam?” I asked.  He thought for a moment, cleared his throat and said, “I’ve spent my life studying clouds and weather patterns, and I’ve spent my life in the church studying the word and the people God made.  I’ve seen some pretty bad situations in my time, and this I know – God has always managed to bring something good out of the worst situations, God has always managed to do something new even with the likes of this old man.  Pastor, I don’t think God will fail us now.”  Indeed – there’s light to walk by any day. 

Christ is risen – Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia.  Amen