Which disciple are you?

      If you are strolling into Advent today for the first time in a while, I may make some statements which, if heard in the context of the last couple weeks, make a lot of sense; but if they are heard as “one-off’s,” may leave you scratching your head.  So let me encourage you now: if I say something that causes you to scratch your head or wonder, ask me.  Grab me in the parish hall after the service, shoot me an e-mail after you have enjoyed your Easter feast, or give me a call next week.

     John’s Gospel has the reputation of being the “high theology” Gospel.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke give an account of the vents of Jesus’ life and death and Resurrection from particular perspectives, but it is John who often gets the credit for the needed theologizing.  I see confused faces.  So let me explain.  How do the other Gospels begin?  They speak of the birth of Jesus.  They may include other details, but the essential story begins with the birth of the Child placed in a manger.  How does John begin his account?  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  Right off the bat, John is teaching us that Jesus is part of the Godhead.  He existed before creation and is, to use fancy-speak, co-eternal with the Father.  It is also part of the reason that you and I will come to know Jesus as the living Word.  Better.  I see the nods of understanding.

     It is unfortunate, of course, that we divide the Gospels along those lines.  I think we try to create categories that don’t really exist.  Certainly, John’s Gospel differs from the Synoptics, but he is also giving quite an account and telling a story with a purpose.  Adventers who have attended these last few weeks and managed not to fall asleep during my sermons or Bible study classes can speak to one such purpose of John.  He may write the “theology” of the Gospellers, but he is an ancient predecessor of Dick Wolf or Stephen Bochco.  I know, it’s crazy.  I watch tv and read the Bible.  Who knew?  For those of you who cannot place those names, they are famous for writing crime drama series on television.  In a way, that’s what John is doing for those who read or hear his Gospel.  He is laying out the evidence regarding Jesus in a courtroom setting.  We get to see the deliberations of the Sanhedrin, the high priest, and the Roman governor-- those who sat in judgment of Jesus—and we are called to decide for ourselves.  You and I and all who read John’s Gospel are not passive viewers like we might be on one of those iterations of Law & Order; we are called, instead, to decide who we think Jesus was and is.  And, contrary to the gross oversimplifications you may accept, John’s account is full of a number of details with which we must grapple.  You may cynically accept the claim that the Gospellers were mere propagandists, but, if they were, they sure went about it a stupid way.

      Take for example the beginning of his account today.  It is John who tells us that the events began before dawn.  More amazingly, it is women, we are told, who confront the empty Tomb first.  In a society where women could not testify in court, why would you ever begin a propaganda piece with that detail?  It should have been the men who discovered the empty Tomb; in truth, if it was mere propaganda, it should have been men who expected the empty tomb!   We will talk about their responses in a moment, but they are not exactly presented as super human figures of faith in the Scriptures.  They are normal, everyday human beings like you and me.  Most had families.  Most had jobs.  They had normal interests and hobbies.  They were, in a word, like you and me.

     These women, we are told, risk the darkness to go to the tomb.  Living in modern and well-lit Nashville we may skip this detail, but it is important.  These women felt compelled to leave the safety of the city and journey to the tomb.  Were they motivated by grief or depression because their Lord had been killed and could not sleep?  Were they motivated by love because the men had rushed to prepare Jesus’ body on the Day or Preparation?  Did they not know that bandits preyed on pilgrims during those Holy Days of Obligation?  Of course they did!  But they head out, and they find the tomb empty.

     If you were writing this as propaganda, how would you write it?  Probably, Mary would expect to meet the Risen Jesus or be ecstatic at the surprise of finding Him.  Instead, she heads back to tell the men, convinced that someone has hidden Jesus’ body.  And she is distraught.  If we are writing propaganda, she is filled with joy proclaiming things happened just as He said they would!

     The men hear Mary’s story and accept it as true, right?  No.  They have to go to the Tomb and see for themselves.  After all, she’s just a woman.  Peter and the disciple who loved Jesus, though, are the only two who go.  Presumably, the rest of the disciples roll over and go back to sleep.  That they do not come does not make for good propaganda.  Should not they all have gone?  Did they not all expect this?  Again, it seems insignificant detail, the men’s response, but when we slow down for a second, when we take a moment to notice that none of these “superstars of the faith” are acting like we think they should, we realize that these accounts are not propaganda.  They are accounts of what was seen, what was heard.

     The two men race there and, as we might expect, the younger beats the older to the Tomb.  Though he was the disciple whom Jesus loved, the younger disciple stands outside the tomb.  It is Peter who first enters the tomb, even though he arrives after the ladies and after the disciple whom Jesus loved.

     Notice what Peter sees.  The strips of linen and the burial cloth are lying there.  That’s weird for those of us raised on Law & Order, right?  I mean, if someone carried off Jesus’ body, would they not have kept it in the burial wrappings?  That would have been easier, right?  Or, conversely, if one was going to unwrap Him and then carry off the body, should not the wrappings be set off to the side?  Or, if they carried off the body and the burial cloths fell off, would they not be on the floor?  Odd details, to be sure.  Even the face cloth, which was used to keep the mouth closed seems rolled up and by itself.  What’s weirder is that John has not talked about such a cloth since the raising of Lazarus way back in chapter 11.  It is a scene which does not seem chaotic or rushed.  It is a scene which conveys to us a sense of purpose.

     Now, the skeptics among us might want to stop me for a second and raise the objection that the crime scene has been staged, that these details have been arranged to convince the disciples that Jesus was raised from the dead.  We’ve all seen those plot twists in movies and on television, right?  If the disciples did not expect the Lord to be alive that Easter morning, who is doing the staging?  Why?  Is it a classic version of Punk’d?  People do stupid things; I get it.  But who would be willing to risk the wrath of Rome to punk some followers of the recently crucified?  Would you?

     Then come the responses, and this is where I want you to focus this Easter.  The disciple whom Jesus loved enters the tombs, sees the details I just mentioned, and believes.  If it was propaganda, such would make sense.  His faith was so great, the disciple believes Jesus.  Then comes the next verse: They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.  How can this really be propaganda if the paragons of the Church are confused?  Worse, what exactly is the disciple whom Jesus loved believing, if he does not understand from Scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead?  And what about Peter?  Why is there no commentary on his faith, if this is mere propaganda?  And, should he not believe as much as the other disciple, if not more, since he is to be the leader of the Church?

     The men, having now verified the veracity of Mary Magdalene’s account, head back to the other disciples to share what they have seen.  Mary is left alone in her grief . . . except for the two angels who now appear to her.  Two things, at least, should be noticed now.  One, the presence of the angels indicates that God is at work in this.  Whatever has happened is supernatural in origin.  They sit on either end of the preparation table.  One asks a kind of rhetorical question in the Greek.  Woman, why are you crying?  The implication of the question is that this is not a time for sadness or mourning, as if her response with tears and worry is somehow out of place.  The second piece we should notice is that God is not involving the so called “inner circle” of Jesus in this revelation.  If anyone was going to get the supernatural confirmation of the miracle that is taking place, it should be the Eleven.  Yet, here is God blessing a woman much as He did the shepherds during the birth of His Son.

     Mary’s grief, though, is apparently unassuaged by the angels’ question and appearance.  Jesus Himself comes to her.  She is so focused on the Tomb and the perceived loss that she pays no real attention to the figure that approaches her from behind.  Jesus repeats the angels’ question, reaffirming the idea that grief should not be expected here, and He goes deeper by asking her who it is that she is seeking.  John tells us that Mary presumed that the man was the gardener, that he knew where her Lord’s body was, and she answers Him as such.  Then Jesus calls her name, and it is only at that point that this sheep knows her shepherd’s identity.

     In another curious detail, how does Mary address her Lord?  Does she call Him God?  Lord?  Christ?  No, she calls Him Teacher.  The most significant event in human history has just occurred.  If Mary truly understood the significance of that event, what should be her response?  Let me put it to you like this: if you were there that Easter morning and Jesus called you by name, how would you address Him?  I know we have a number of educators in this congregation, but I doubt many of us would turn first to Teacher.  I would bet great money on the fact that the honorific chosen by Mary would be far down our list of titles.

     We get yet another curious detail at this point from John.  Mary literally clings to Jesus, and Jesus tells her to let go.  Theologians have wrestled with what happens in this.  Why does Jesus tell her to let Him go?  Is He not yet finished resurrecting?  Is He radiating in some way that may damage her?  Heck, does her presence in some way defile Him?  If you have read John, you understand that what remains is to explain the new way that Jesus’ disciples will relate to Him.  Before they walked and talked and joked and argued and cried and partied and all those things with Him physically present.  Now, He is getting ready to ascend to the Father.  Now, He is preparing to send the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit.  God will still be with them, just in a different way.  But, in a curious command for those who like to argue against women serving as bishops, the receivers and inheritors of the go and proclaim instructions, Jesus tells Mary to go and tell the others that He is alive, that she has seen Him!

     I bring out all these details for a couple reasons this morning.  First, I wasn’t to remind us all that the details really happened in this world.  The world has become so cynical, so rejecting of things that it cannot accept or understand, that there is a huge effort to reject the Resurrection as a historical event.  I have harped a bit this morning on propaganda as I watched a couple shows on cable this week that presented the Apostles as geniuses.  There is an argument in the wider world that the Apostles plotted taking over the Roman Empire through all this, that they, a bunch of fishermen and other country yokels from Judea, had an idea which would bring power and authority to their disciples, not their families but their disciples, three centuries later.  What’s sad is that those folks think that clergy who believe the Bible are gullible!  But that cynicism has made its way into the Church.  There are too many theologians who agree with the world.  Most of us gathered here today have heard people speak or read the writings that claim the disciples were overcome by grief, suffered from mass hysteria, or “thought of Jesus as risen in the minds.”  Part of the reason for my highlight of these details is to remind you that it was not propaganda to those early disciples.  The Resurrection was, in one way, messy.  No one expected this!  Yes, Jesus taught it, but they did not understand it . . . yet.  It really was the most significant event in human history!  But it was so far outside the bounds of rational thought that it took time for people to process it.  And God, gracious as always, gives you and me reason to be faithful disciples and grace to understand that not everyone comes to faith in Him in the same way.

     Put in clearer language, this account of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was written for you, and for you, and for you, and for me.  It was written for every human being who ever existed and will exist.  And it is important because it allows us to see ourselves in the response of other, earlier disciples—disciples who lived and spoke and ate and travelled with God Incarnate Man Divine.  And if they had their struggles, should we be surprised that we sometimes struggle with our faith?

     Perhaps you are like the disciple whom Jesus loved.  Perhaps you have come to faith in an unexamined way.  Maybe your parents or grandparents raised you always to believe and you never questioned what they taught, even though you were not sure what you were believing.  The outside world may think you a simpleton or living a life unexamined or gullible or some other such nonsense.  Our Lord calls you His own, one whom He loves.  Such folk may not be able to articulate the reason why they believe or a systematic theology that arises as a consequence of that belief, but they know they are loved by God and can trust Him in all things.  It is a simple faith, but often powerful and encouraging to others.

     Perhaps you are like Mary.  It’s not until He utters her name that Mary recognizes the identity of who it is that is speaking to her.  She may not have recognized His presence at first; but when He speaks her name, she knows that voice.  If I asked a show of hands, some of us may have encountered Jesus in a personal way.  Some of us present, no doubt, have been on the receiving end of God’s grace and experienced that call of our name, that bestowal of peace, that sense of belonging and belovedness that we cannot explain sufficiently to others.  It is our mystical experience with God!  That’s not to say it’s merely spiritual.  We have simply experienced God in there here and now in an intimate way which causes us to realize He is Risen.

     Although the other two responses fall outside our readings, I think it important for you to see yourself in that account.  How do the bulk of the early disciples respond?  Do they consider the words of Mary and then the two who entered the tomb and come to understand the Resurrection?  No.  Next week we will read that they are in a locked room for fear of the Jews.  They are afraid that the same people who conspired to kill Jesus will now turn their wrath on them.  If they understood the Resurrection at this point, why should they be afraid?  If they trusted Peter and Mary, why should they worry?  But Jesus appears to them as a group.  Naysayers will discount Mary’s experience because she was a hysterical woman deeply grieving and there were no witnesses to her experience.  The group has the added support of being able to ask each other if they have lost their minds, if they are seeing things.

     My guess is that most of us fall into this group of disciples.  Why do we gather at various times during the week?  Part of it is worship—in our tradition we give God thanks for the saving work He has done in Christ for us.  It is our bounden duty and service to use familiar language.  But we also gather to share stories of what God is doing in our lives or what we hope he will do in our lives.  One of my chief responsibilities as a priest in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church is to point out to us where God is at work in our lives!  Sometimes, like in the case of miracles, it’s obvious; much of the time, though, God works through the normal and every day.  One week I may be sharing a story of how after more than a decade of work, legislative minds have finally decided to work to help law enforcement protect those enslaved and marginalized in our midst.  Politicians fighting sex slavery.  Wait, that’s more a miracle than a patient working out of God’s grace!  That’s a bad example of the slow drip of God’s redemptive power.

     You laugh at the example, and rightly so.  But think about the powerful sermons you have heard in your life.  Do we get excited about the discussion of Greek participles or historical context or budgets and tithing?  Of course not.  What we want to know is that God loves us, that He is still keeping His promises to us, that we truly belong to Him!  That’s the job of clergy.  We are supposed to show you where God is or wants us to be!  And then we encourage, equip, cheer, support, do whatever is necessary to help you live into the calling that God has placed on your life!  Yes, I am fired up.  How could I not be, this day most of all?  This day when we remember that God demonstrated His power to conquer and redeem all that afflicts us.  If He can raise you from the dead, what can He not do in your life?  That’s why we gather.  And yes, sometimes we gather to mourn with each other.  Life as a disciple is by no means easy—our Lord calls it cross-bearing.  But even in those tough times we remind ourselves of the hope to which we are called.  If He can raise us from the dead, we truly have nothing to fear.  If we believe in Him. . .

     The last faithful group revealed in the Resurrection is the one that gets the most grief in the Church, even though, in one sense, we all belong in it.  I’d like to think we Adventers do a pretty good job with and for this group.  If you are interested, speak to the guy in the choir who probably sneaked his mimosa or bloody mary in with us about Wrestling with Faith.  I cannot see Jim, but he and Robert are back there and would love for you to join them as they struggle with the questions of faith.

     Poor Thomas.  We do him such a disservice.  The disciple that encourages the other disciples to head to Jerusalem with Jesus and die there with Him is known as “Doubting Thomas” among us, his fellow believers.  Thomas gets to hear the testimony of Peter and the other disciple, of Mary, and of the group, and how does he respond?  Unless I see and unless I touch, I will not believe.  Thomas gets what he needs from the Lord.  Even though all those other disciples whom Thomas knows tell him they have seen the Lord, Thomas cannot bring himself to the faith so easily evidenced by the disciple whom Jesus loved.  He is in a real way at the opposite end of that faith spectrum.

     In one way, Thomas is no different than the other disciples.  They did not come to their faith until the saw Jesus. So, we who would be judgmental of Thomas and his lack of faith need to remind ourselves that Thomas was just like the other disciples in the room that day.  But because Thomas must have that proof, that ability to see and to touch, he misses out on the blessing given to us, to those myriads of believers who do not get to see the wounds or place our hands in them—in a word, all of us. 

     I compared John to courtroom drama writings at the beginning of this.  As frequent attenders can testify in the Parish Hall over food and drinks, John has presented each of us the evidence of Jesus’ Resurrection.  Now, the burden falls to us.  Will we choose to believe in Jesus, or will we reject Him?  The answer to that question, my friends, is the most important answer each one of us will ever give to any question over the course of our lives.  Our answer carries significant consequences.  If we reject Him, if we choose to trust in someone or something else, we have rejected the One who made us, who redeemed us, and who promises to dwell with us one glorious day in the future, the One who promises that nothing, not even death, can keep Him from fulling those wonderful promises to each one of us.

     But if we choose to believe in Him, life is no fairy tale, no idyllic world of make believe.  Bills will still need to be paid, relationships will still be strained and in need of repair, issues of health will plague us, and the sin will still hound us.  Jesus calls us to pick up our cross and follow Him—a call that presumes splinters, bruises, aching muscles, mockery, struggle, and even death.  In short, the path to glory is hard, is painful.  It’s full of potholes and washouts.  Heck, whose kidding, it’s full of other sinners, sinners who make other drivers in the Nashville rain seem competent.  You laugh, but think on those words later this week.  We have to navigate this world dealing with the consequences of the sins of not just ourselves, but of others, and worse, of the intentional evil inflicted by those who reject God.  It’s the craziest piece of propaganda or worst fairy tale ever . . . except for that remarkable claim that He is Risen.

     Who are you in His story?  With which disciple or group of disciples’ faith do you find yourself?  Are you the one for whom faith comes easily?  Are you like Thomas, who craves that certainty that seems visible and audible in the faith of others?  Are you like Mary?  Are you like the other disciples?  The great wonder of this ultimate courtroom story is not that anyone believes or rejects God.  It’s that He created a redemptive story that could graft in the story of a Mary, a Thomas, a John, a you, and a me and use it, overcoming the physical distance between that empty tomb and Nashville and the interceding years, to present His loving case to others and that His story would be conveyed, shared, across that distance and time, that people, ordinary people like you and me, might come to see and know that He is Risen, indeed!  Which disciple are you?

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†