Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
April 4, 2010 Easter Sunday – 9 AM Service
John 20:19-31
There is an old legend concerning Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus. The story goes that after his death, Judas found himself at the bottom of a deep and slimy pit. For thousands of years he remained in that pit, weeping in repentance for what he had done. When his tears were finally spent, he looked up and saw – way, way up – a tiny glimmer of light. After he had contemplated this light for another thousand years or so, he began to try to climb up toward it. But the walls of the pit were dank, slimy and slippery so he kept slipping back down. Finally after great effort, he neared the top, but then slipped and fell all the way back to the bottom. It took him many years to recover from that fall, all the time weeping bitter tears of grief and regret, but then he started to climb again. After many more falls and efforts and failures, he finally reached the top and dragged himself into an upper room where he saw twelve people seated around a table. “Judas, welcome, we’ve been waiting for you,” said Jesus. “We couldn’t begin until you came!”
Now, when this story was told at a clergy conference, many were deeply moved. But many others were deeply offended at the thought of Judas being forgiven and welcomed back into Jesus’ company. It would seem that not even one such as Judas is left behind closed doors, locked away from God’s circle of forgiveness and love; God simply will not abandon or give up on us, no matter how long it takes. Says Madeleine L’Engle, who told this story, “The happy ending has never been easy to believe in. After the crucifixion, the defeated little band of disciples had no hope, no expectation of resurrection. Everything they believed in had died on the cross with Jesus. The world was right, they had been wrong. Even when the women told the disciples that Jesus had left the stone-sealed tomb, the disciples found it nearly impossible to believe - to believe that it was not all over, to believe that the truth was just beginning.” Again, what God begins God will not abandon. A good work, once begun, will be carried to completion. God is going to get what God wants, and that would include you and me. And nothing, no sealed tomb, no locked door, will be allowed to get in God’s way. We’re talking Easter here.
“When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you’” A week later his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them, although the doors were shut Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.’ It would seem that the Easter story, at least as told by John, involves a lot of shut and locked doors – doors of fear, of uncertainty, of doubt and disbelief. But the Easter story also wants us to know that such doors don’t really do much good, not if the risen Christ wants to get in. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Well you may not believe this one.
Reflecting on what Jesus’ disciples must have been feeling that night, United Methodist Bishop, William Willimon, writes, “For about three years they have trooped along behind him on the Galilean highways and byways. They have tried to understand his teaching, which hasn’t always been easy. But all of that seems distant to them now – only a dream after the horrible nightmare of the last week. Can you imagine the trauma of seeing the one you thought to be the Savior of the World arrested, beaten and crucified? Now Jesus has been sealed in the tomb for three days, Pilate has shut the door on Jesus, once and for all. And that is what the disciples have done. The Gospel of John says that the doors were shut and locked ‘from fear.’ And they had much for which to be fearful.
“The same authorities who had killed Jesus, could well now be after his followers. But some of them must also have been filled with grief, for in the death of Jesus they had suffered a great loss. Now they are adjusting to the fact that it was over for them and for Jesus. It was good while it lasted, but it was now time to close the door.”
And then, at their lowest, in the dead of night, Christ came through their locked doors. The dark tomb could not hold him, nor could the darkness of their despair and resignation. He came back to them. And herein is our Easter hope. “Resurrection doesn’t simply mean that Jesus rose to eternal life. It doesn’t simply mean that we have the hope of seeing our loved ones when we die. It also means that the very first thing the Risen Christ does is to return to his disciples, to the very same ones who had disappointed, and forsaken and even denied him. He came through their locked doors.” And what he did for them, he does for us.
Exciting news. I hope its good news. Because let’s be honest, Jesus would be a lot easier to deal with, would be a lot less challenging, if he would have just stayed locked in the tomb. Well, it was nice while it lasted but I guess we had better get on with life. We know how to deal with death and disappointment. But resurrection? Easter? What this day means is that there is no security system yet invented that can keep us safe and secure from Jesus’ intrusions into our lives. He came to the first disciples and he promises to keep coming back to us, to keep intruding among us, keep pressing in upon us, to keep opening the doors we don’t even know how to unlock. What do you think of that? Is that good news?
A Fred Craddock story - some of you have heard this before, as you know, Craddock is one of my favorite preachers: “For about three years, I ministered in a little community in southwest Oklahoma named Custer City. The population was 450 on a good day. There were four churches in town: Methodist, Baptist, Nazarene and Disciples of Christ. Each had its share of the population and attendance rose and fell according to the weather and whether it was time to harvest the wheat. But the most consistent attendance in town was at the little café where all the pick up trucks were parked and all the men were inside discussing the weather and cattle, hail and wind, and was there going to be a crop this year. The churches, where their wives, sons and daughters were, had good attendance and bad attendance, but the café had consistently good attendance. They were always there. Once in a while they would lose a member there at the café, because their wives finally got to them or their kids, and you’d see them sheepishly going off to one of the churches, but the men at the café still felt strong, meeting on Sundays and every other day, discussing weather and crops – these were good men, family men, hard-working men, just not church men.
“The patron saint of the group was Frank. He was seventy-seven years old when I met him. He was a good man, a strong man – a pioneer born in a sod house, a rancher and a farmer, and a prospering cattle man too. He had his credentials. ‘Ol’ Frank will never go to church,’ they all said. I met Frank on the street one day. He knew I was a preacher. I was just shaking hands and visiting with him when he took the offensive. He said, ‘I work hard, I take care of my family, I mind own business. Far as I’m concerned, everything else is just fluff. So leave me alone. I’m not a prospect’”
Says Craddock, “It’s never been my custom to accost people in the name of Jesus, so I didn’t bother him. I left him alone. That’s why I, the church and the whole town were surprised, and the men at the café church were absolutely bumfuzzled, when old Frank, seventy-seven years old, presented himself before me one Sunday morning for baptism. Some of the talk in the community was, ‘Frank must be sick. Guess he’s scared to meet his maker. They say he’s got heart trouble. Going up and being baptized, never thought ol’ Frank would do that. But I guess you never know what will happen when you get scared….’All kinds of stories.’ “But,” says Craddock, “this is the way Frank told it to me. We were talking the day after his baptism and I said, ‘Frank, you remember that little saying you used to give me about working hard and taking care of your family and minding your own business.?’
“He said, ‘Yeah, I remember. I said that a lot.’
“I said, ‘You still say that?’
“’Yeah.’
“’What’s different now?’
“He answered, ‘I didn’t know then what my true business was.’”
The doors were locked, but Jesus himself came and stood among them. “Jesus will never get through to Frank. Frank will never change, he’ll never see things differently. Nobody gets through Frank’s locked doors.” Everybody in town knew that. Everybody, I guess, but Jesus. “Frank, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” And, you see, Frank’s story is an Easter story. Frank’s story is our story. Are you ready for that? Frank’s story is our story. For if Christ can get through to one like Frank, he ought to have no trouble getting to us, no matter how securely we have locked the doors – the doors of grief, of resignation, of hopelessness, of despair, of doubt, of anger, even of cynicism and disbelief. Christ is ready to break through and breathe his life-giving breath upon us and to raise us to new life. Even in the dark door of our deaths, Christ promises not to forsake us.
That’s Easter. Not a story of something that happened in a tomb then and there, but rather an affirmation about what is happening here and now; not the absence of a corpse, but rather a living presence – a God, a Christ, a Spirit who is still alive and active, still busy, still going ahead of us, blazing a trail for us to follow, and always, always, breaking through any locked door we might put in the way. Maybe it sounds completely crazy, Easter is completely crazy, but it is precisely when we pronounce hope dead that the birth pangs announcing new life are likely to commence.
As one colleague has written, “We make pilgrimage to the tomb of some long-dead dream or desire, only to be surprised by the contradictions of resurrection: hope still stirs. We glance up from our daily commute and our eyes meet the eyes of a stranger who nods in a moment of holy recognition: the birth pangs of resurrection. We clasp the hand of an aging loved one or playfully count the toes of a toddler, and our minds are opened to understand ourselves and our place in the world yet again. We are, all of us, children and heirs of resurrection – which is God’s affirmation that creation matters, that love and justice matter, that humanity in all its ambiguity and complexity, is still fearfully and wonderfully God-made. We are evidence of Christ’s continuing in-breaking, of the resurrection which was and is and is to come.” Christ is risen, risen indeed, and he has opened, is opening, will open…any door.