The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for April 26, 2009

Texts: Acts 3:12-19/Luke 24:36b-48

Title: “And Still Is Ours Today”

              He might just as well be dead.  I haven’t seen him.  You haven’t seen him.  Nobody I know has seen him.  In fact, I have heard no reports whatsoever from anyone that he has been seen alive.

              He might just as well be dead.  Nobody’s seen him.  Yet, yet, despite all that people of faith insist that Jesus is alive.

              Think about it, that is quite a remarkable claim the person of faith is making.  He is alive, the person of faith declares, you and I, declare. Yet I haven’t seen him. Have you? He is alive we insist, but we are forced to admit that we have no hard evidence to support our claim.

              There was a time when people like us, followers of Jesus, went around announcing that Jesus was alive.  And that was very risky business.  It was not the kind of claim a person made in public if he or she valued his or her life. You see, there were people around who occupied their time trying to sniff out those troublemaking followers of Jesus who claimed he was alive, this despite the fact that his crucifixion and death on the cross were very public knowledge.

              The Romans and the Jewish authority stood ready to quash any report that Jesus was anything but dead and gone, enlisting people like Saul, later to be known by the name Paul, to carry out their orders. Paul, converted to the faith through a spiritual encounter with the risen Jesus, tells us in the book of Acts that he zealously fulfilled his assignment, carting off the followers of the Christ with no qualms at all.

              Dead and gone was the only acceptable outcome to the Jesus story so far as Jesus’ enemies were concerned. You have seen the four letters INRI posted on crosses in some churches you have visited, or in the pages of books or in art depicting the crucifixion.  INRI, is an acronym for the Latin words translated Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Scripture tells us that the authorities who executed Jesus posted the title over the Lord’s tortured body in order to mock his followers who had been misled into believing that he was anything but a fraud.

              The “king” was dead, and let that serve as a warning to any other aspiring king.  It just so happened that in the ranks of those who followed Jesus when he was alive there were no aspiring king or kings. Many of his followers, you see, fervently embraced the news that Jesus was not really dead at all. Now, mind you, this belief did not arise out of the air, as the enemies of Jesus loudly claimed.    

              The four gospels who vary among themselves as to whom discovered the tomb empty, agree that after his execution Jesus’ dead body was claimed for burial by one of his followers, a man by the name of Joseph of Arimathea. These were the facts insofar as the witnesses to the crucifixion were concerned. Jesus was dead, his body in the custody of Joseph. End of story.

              But not so fast.  After the Jewish Sabbath, the tomb where Jesus was laid was discovered empty by various disciples of Jesus. As to events following the discovery the four gospels offer differing accounts, while at the same time unanimously insisting that Jesus appeared to his followers alive.

              Jesus was alive. His followers were obviously overwhelmed by the news, but also cautious and altogether uncertain about what the reports meant. Scripture, however, goes on to report that the news that so gripped the community of believers would by stages move from general to specific reports, specific in the sense that in three of the four gospels Jesus is reported meeting with his disciples to instruct them how to carry on in his absence.

              One week ago, you may recall, the Gospel of John told us that Jesus appeared to his disciples while they were hiding out for fear of the authorities. He breathed his Holy Spirit into them and gave them power to forgive sins, or withhold forgiveness, at their discretion. Recall that he challenged Thomas, “doubting Thomas,” who was absent when Jesus appeared to the other disciples, to touch the nail holes in his hands and side. By this means John wanted his audience, us, to understand that Jesus was both a spiritual and physical presence.

               The news that the crucified Jesus was alive did not arise out of the air, as the enemies of Jesus loudly claimed.  To those who made that claim, and continue to make the claim today, by asserting that the resurrection and Jesus’ various appearances were somehow concocted, by Jesus’ disciples to further their own ends, or merely grief induced fantasies, [to those claims] Scripture offers sharp rebuttal.

              Last week we considered John’s account of a specific encounter between Jesus’ disciples and the Lord.  This morning we take up Luke’s account.

              No, the news that the crucified Jesus was alive did not arise out of the air, as the enemies of Jesus loudly claimed.  Let’s consider Luke’s rebuttal. The scene is the same as the one John reported last week.  The disciples are in lockdown for fear of Jesus’ enemies, their fear only heightened because word has begun spreading among the community of believers that Jesus is alive. Those reports, the disciples know full well, would force the authorities to investigate.

              The disciples are in lockdown and Jesus appears, just as he did in John’s Gospel, to offer a blessing, “Peace be with you.”  What would be your reaction if you saw someone whose body you had seen carried off to the tomb just days before now standing  before you alive?  The disciples, of course, had heard the reports that Jesus was alive, but the impact of the news was nothing when compared to this face to face encounter with the Lord himself.

              The disciples’ reaction upon seeing Jesus was what one might expect.  Luke tells us that they were “startled and terrified, and thought they were seeing a ghost.” But as in the encounter with Thomas that John reports, Jesus wanted his disciples to understand fully that he is with them in the flesh.  “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”  He showed them his hands and feet, whereupon he makes a special request. “Have you anything here to eat?”  Luke tells us “They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.”

              The news that the crucified Jesus was alive did not arise out of the air, as the enemies of Jesus loudly insisted. Not a ghost, or some sort of vision, the lessons we have looked at this week and last make a very important claim.  Jesus appeared to his disciples alive.  They could touch his flesh.  They served him food and he ate.

              The Scriptures we have been looking at the last several weeks take us back some two thousand years to a place virtually none of us have visited.  The events that occurred then were passed down by people who believed that those events were not only worth recording, but where worth preserving at all costs.

              The resurrection of Jesus is the centerpiece of the story the Scriptures relate. As members of the church he founded, we believe that Jesus’ resurrection was the decisive turning point in human history.  We believe with the church that Jesus’ death and resurrection won for us liberation from sin and death, and the assurance of eternal life as God’s own.    

              But before he could become the Jesus we have come to know through the scriptural accounts, through the letters of the Apostle Paul, and the other New Testament witnesses. Before he would become the Christ, the anointed of God, whom the church worships as Lord and Savior, he was Jesus, newly risen from the tomb, breathing his spirit into his disciples, offering the wound holes in his hands and his side for his disciples’ inspection, and eating a meal in their presence.

              No, the news that the crucified Jesus was alive did not arise out of the air. That Jesus was alive to witnesses days after the resurrection is preserved as the first article of faith in the memory of the church.    

              Yet, fact of the matter, he might just as well be dead.  I haven’t seen him.  You haven’t seen him.  Nobody I know has seen him.  In fact, I have heard no reports whatsoever from anyone that he has been seen alive.

              Practically speaking Jesus for many of us is more dead than alive. We live centuries removed from the days Jesus walked the earth. We have not seen him.  We have no pictures capturing what he looked like. Were he to show up here now I can guarantee that our first thought would not be praise, but find the exits.

              We announce to the world that we worship and serve a risen Savior, but risen in what sense? Risen because the Scriptures say he is risen?  Risen because the church says he is risen?  Risen because the congregation on Easter morning sings that he is risen? 

              If Jesus is indeed risen and alive upon what is our confidence as people who have never seen him based?  Friends, our confidence is based on the same information that was available to people just one generation or two removed from the resurrection. Our confidence is established on faith-based memory. The disciples of the Lord had a physical encounter with the risen Lord that they in turn shared with others, who shared it with others, into an ever widening circle. This circle expanded over generations as others were brought in. We occupy one of the outer rings of that circle.

              Think of a great stadium like the Super Dome that seats eighty or ninety thousand people. There are people who sit next to the field only a few yards from the action, while there are other people who occupy seats in what are often referred to as the “nose bleed” section a hundred or even more yards from the action. Both are in the stadium.  Both witness the same event. Both experience the emotional highs and lows that the action on the field induces. Some may be more distant from the action than others, but all, first row or eightieth row, are present to what is happening on the field.

              These two thousands plus years since the resurrection places us somewhere on the periphery of the action. Others, namely Jesus’ disciples, were privileged to enjoy a better, more immediate, vantage point. The fact of the resurrection itself, however, and what it accomplished for the world, are neither enhanced nor diminished by proximity to that event alone.   

              The status of the resurrection itself and the hope to which it points are in your life and mine matters we must individually decide. Such has been the case from the very first century.

              Oh yes, Jesus might just as well be dead insofar as we cannot see him, and the reports that he rose from the grave and actually appeared to his disciples and others is several centuries old. Practically speaking he might just as well be dead.  There is no time capsule into which we can enter and return to the Jerusalem of the first century and personally verify what happened there. 

              Friends, the church cannot produce Jesus in the flesh, and absent some kind of personal encounter, Jesus exists for many Christians, practically speaking, more dead than alive. No, we cannot see him, and he will remain what he is for many, a distant memory set in the frame of a story, passed down in Holy Scripture, unless, unless, we personally reclaim him from the dead, and enflesh him for our neighbor and the world to see through living our lives after his example. 

              Jesus, remote from us by the distance of several centuries, may appear, and often does appear, insofar as many of us are concerned, more dead than alive.  We, however, do not worship a memory.  We worship a living savior who was God’s gift to humanity centuries ago, and still is ours today. AMEN.   

         PRAYER

              O God, we pray that our worship today may be a worthy offering to place at your feet. You are the inspiration for our songs, prayers and praise, the inspiration and rock upon which the church is established. With the saints both living and dead we gather as the church. We are by your provision a holy people anointed in baptism to worship and serve you. Through the prophets and saints, O God, you have called, and continue to call us, to lives of purity and faithfulness. In your light may we live onto the day when our union with you is at last complete and we take our place with saints who preceded us.

               O Christ, our brother, you live. The grave could not hold you.  You live. Sin could not compromise you.  You live, the anxious pleadings of your disciples for you to save yourself, could not redirect you.  You live, and you invite us to live as you live. You live, and you call us, as you called your twelve disciples, to journey at your side. Grant us confidence to follow where you are leading, especially when we are tempted to chart another course.

You live, to reveal possibilities where we see none, to brace us when the storms of live unsettle us.  You live, and because you live we know that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that [will be] revealed to us.”

Sustain us, O God, through this period of economic uncertainty when so many are experiencing extreme vulnerability and fear. We call upon you on behalf of those who have lost, or are losing their jobs or their homes. Strengthen those who have lost confidence and hope, who feel overwhelmed and defeated. 

               May those who make and carry out economic policy do so wisely, placing the common good above partisan considerations. Likewise, may our legislators legislate for all Americans, rather than that segment of Americans from whom they draw financial support. In these unprecedented times may we see unprecedented cooperation between the legislative and the executive branches of our government, and unprecedented cooperation between Democrats and Republicans.

                 Abide this day with President Obama, his cabinet, advisors, and staff as they confront massive challenges on several fronts.  We pray that may find within themselves the physical and mental stamina sufficient to function effectively and well.

                May your Spirit, O God, attend our fellow Americans serving around the world.  Many bear arms in defense of freedom and democracy, while others are using their skills in the fields of diplomacy, medicine, engineering, education, and agriculture. We give thanks for all who, often at great personal sacrifice, have responded to the call to serve others through sharing their particular gifts and aptitudes. We pray for missionaries who carry the gospel into foreign lands through selfless acts of service.

               As the school year ends, O God, we pray your blessing, O God, on those who are preparing for final exams or writing term papers. May stress and tension not incapacitate, but find outlets in elevated achievement.

              Abide, O God, with those who are passing milestones as they graduate from high school, college, graduate, and professional schools. We lift up Dan Raymond as he graduates from dental school, praying that you will be with Dan, Sarah, and their family as they move on to the next step in their journey.

            Strengthen those who have special needs today.  We pray for the grieving, the tempted, the ill, and the vulnerable.  May your grace, O God, be sufficient to sustain those who face the trials of life. We call forth your blessings on behalf of those we know and love who have special needs, praying for Stella and the physicians who are looking for ways to treat her. We pray for…