Tuesday, April 30, 2019

It Bears Repeating

John 20:19-25
2nd Sunday of Easter

What is the Easter Bunny’s favorite restaurant? IHOP.
How does the Easter Bunny travel? By hare-plane.
What is the Easter Bunny’s favorite type of music? Hip-hop.
Knock, knock.  
Who’s there?
Some bunny.  
Some bunny who?
Some bunny has been eating my Easter candy!

So last year, we stopped doing Holy Humor Sunday.  I started getting the impression that I was the only one who was into it still, so I tried an experiment: I decided that we’d skip it one year and see if anyone complains.  Needless to say, no one complained.  Which is fine; that’s how I learn; but those awful, awful jokes were my passive-aggressive revenge for you letting me kill Humor Sunday.  

And actually, it’s not the end of the world; I’ve even discovered there’s a good point made in letting it go.  There is something important that happens on the Sunday after Easter: you find out who is serious about all this.  The people who are lingering around an empty tomb, the people who are holed up in an upper room, the people who are talking about “things” on a lonely road, and people who go to church on the Sunday after Easter; those are the people you want to talk to.  Those are the serious ones.  

And as joyous and fun-filled as the news of a Risen Savior is, those who are called to tell that story need to be serious about it.  So no, I’m not actually bitter about having to cancel Humor Sunday; because those who show up for Easter Sunday… and then the Sunday after need the reminder that it’s time to get serious about it.  

Today we find the followers of Jesus exactly where we left them on Easter Morning: scared and hiding in a locked room.  They had good reason.  The powers at be were out to get them just like they got him.  You can imagine it, right?  Sweating it out; occasionally checking to see if the door was really locked; checking the peephole; looking out the window. 

If you’ll recall, much like it was for us last Sunday, Jesus had a lot more fans not long ago.  When Jesus rolled into Jerusalem a week before, there were crowds, and cheering, and palms, and a parade.  Now, it was twelve and maybe a few more.  Where did everyone go?  Where was Thomas, even?  

Mary had come to tell them that she had seen the risen Lord, but who are you going to believe?  Some grieving, maybe delusional woman, or the death you saw?  What is it that’s going to shape your actions: hope that can’t possibly be possible, or real and determined authorities who want to hang you on a tree next?  What are you going to believe?  

What is the most mind-blowing and extraordinary thing about what Jesus does next is not that he now walk through walls, it’s what he brings.  He brings peace; and a lot of it.  

Peace is an elusive thing; these days and all days.  For those unsteady few, there were reasons not to be at peace.  In their exact circumstance, there were reasons to be at anything except at peace; but peace is what Jesus speaks.  What strikes me here is that Jesus doesn’t just say it once; as if it’s an easier thing to say than find.  Peace is a word that bears repeating; especially when it’s the very thing we’re lacking.  It will need to be spoken to us more than once and it may take more than that.  

Yes I, your holier-than-thou pastor has a hard time believing it too.  “Peace be with you,” Jesus says, but it’s easy for him to say.  There is literal un-peace in our world, much less our hearts.  Conflict and violence everywhere; natural disasters; racism; politics; crummy neighbors; crummy family members.  “Peace,” he says, but peace is inherently hard to find.  How are we supposed to find peace?  How do we empty our minds of all the worry, fear, resentment, and pain that living in this sin sick world brings?  How do we find that peace that Jesus calls us to?  One man said that he had been told that one way to achieve inner peace is to finish the things he's already started.  He said, "Today I finished two bags of potato chips and a chocolate cake.  I feel better already."  This outlook perhaps can give us temporary peace and helps to relieve stress—probably not your waistline—but when Christ shows up, he says, “peace.” 

But Jesus is never is just talk.  A man doesn’t get up from the grave just to talk.  No, Jesus hasn’t come to talk; he’s come to breathe.  John gives us a different Pentecost experience but the point is the same: it isn’t just words, it is the Spirit that breathes them.  I have questions about the ways the Bible speaks of God’s Breath, but I know what it does: the Breath brings something into being that wasn’t a moment before.  What is it that our Savior breathes into them in this moment?  Peace.  Peace that doesn’t just make them feel better; some days, quite the opposite.  Peace; peace of the One who walked away from his grave so that one day we could walk away from ours.  Peace that the Presence of our Risen Savior would abide with us always.  Peace to know and experience that Presence, even as we are shaped to do his work in this un-peaceful world.  

I used to watch Popeye the Sailor when I was a kid; remember Popeye?  I don’t think they can make cartoons for kids like that anymore.  There were some questionable themes: he was always being brutalized by his nemesis, Brutus; beating up Popeye and trying to steal his girl, Olive Oyl.  And then there would be that moment Popeye had enough: “That’s all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more!”  Then you remember what he’d do, right?  He’d pull out a can of spinach, pop it open, down the thing whole, and suddenly—filled with superhuman strength—he’d beat up Brutus and put things right.  

They say cartoons influence the behavior of children.  I’m here to say that the Popeye cartoon made me neither violent, nor a fan of canned spinach.  But more to my point: by the time the next Popeye cartoon came on, Brutus was up to his same antics, and Popeye would eventually need to power up with another can of spinach.  That is not so with the Breath of Jesus.  The Peace that Jesus breathes into us is a power that sends us into this world as already more than conquerors.  We have the peace to know that, not only do we have a promise of life everlasting, we have our Savior’s presence to walk with us in this life as well.  

Friends, we are never alone.  If your heart is troubled today—and why wouldn’t it be—take hold of the peace that has been breathed in you.  Remember the promise of Easter joy; stand firm in the promise of an ever-present Savior; and then go into this world, breathing out the peace that you have received.  Knowing that Jesus has shown up to give us peace, let us repeat that peace it again and again.

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