On the evening
of the first day of the week -- resurrection day -- the disciples
weren’t practicing resurrection. They weren’t drawing
up a strategic plan for their apostolic mission. They weren’t
applying for “not-for-profit” status for their little
corporation. They were too wrapped up in fear for that. Their major
accomplishment was finding a hideout. Early that morning, the women
told the disciples they had seen Jesus, very much alive and well.
The men weren’t convinced.
Consider the
disciples’ fear. Why hide behind a barricaded, double-bolted
door? The text says it was “for fear of the Jews,” yet
there is no historical evidence to suggest there was a bounty on
the disciple’s heads by either Jewish or Roman authorities.
Fear didn’t keep Peter and the other disciple from running
to the tomb to check things out for themselves. Thomas apparently
wasn’t afraid to be seen in public because he wasn’t
with the other disciples.
Why were they
afraid? Imagine sitting unseen in a corner of their hideout. Listen
to their shock over what happened. How could Jesus promise so much
and commanded such power, and in the end die like a crook on a cross?
Why did Jesus stir their highest hopes and then desert them in death?
Listen to them confess what abject failures they were -- betraying,
denying, and running scared when Jesus needed them most. A part
of them that hoped Jesus wasn’t alive.
I was in a golf tournament at the Black Squirrel Course. Our foursome
stepped into the tee box and saw a man and a boy who weren’t
in the tournament enter our fairway and begin playing the hole.
My friend Mark teed up his ball to drive. I told him to wait because
they weren’t out of range. “I won’t hit it that
far,” he said. He hit his best drive of the day. The ball
sailed over their heads and landed thirty feet in front of them.
Plop!
Assuming he
was an intentional target, the man dropped his clubs and came charging
toward us. As he drew close, I noticed his bright red complexion
and heard a string of angry expletives. He singled me out, got in
my face and said, “You messed with the wrong guy. I’m
a member of this club and I’ll see to it that your #@#!*+#
won’t get on this course again!” I replied, “Sir,
you’re addressing the wrong guy.” I turned, and Mark
wasn’t there. No one was with me. Mark stealthfully snuck
back to the cart path, and tried to look inconspicuous behind a
group of players that gathered to watch the spectacle. Once the
smoke cleared, I turned to Mark and thanked him for allowing me
the honor of thinking the wrath that had his name on it.
Guilt over their
desertion made Jesus the last person the disciples wanted to see.
But come evening they had no choice. Without the courtesy of knocking,
Jesus stood before the disciples. They fell to the floor and braced
themselves to take their medicine. “Some rock you turned out
to be, Peter. As for the rest of you, I didn’t know you could
run so fast!” You couldn’t blame Jesus for saying it.
Under the circumstances he was justified.
Borrowing Wendell
Berry’s words, Jesus did something “that didn’t
compute.” He gave the disciples a resurrection experience
to practice with. He didn’t ask, “How could you?”
He said, “Peace be with you.” They didn’t get
the dickens; they got peace, which was what they needed most. Peace
is what Jesus was the Prince of. It was his to give. They were paralyzed
by fear, until Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness and peace was
granted to them.
This scene is
the gospel of John’s version of Pentecost. The disciples were
assembled in one place when Jesus, who was supposed to be dead,
appeared to them. He gave a double-dose of “Peace be with
you,” then he breathed upon them the breath of life to restore
their spent, dispirited lives.
This wonderful
story has something to say when we see who takes the initiative.
Check out who is going where. The women went to the tomb to prepare
Jesus’ body for a descent burial, not have a conversation
with him. The disciples didn’t camp out at the tomb waiting
for their Lord to wake from the dead. They didn’t ask Pilate
of Caiaphas if they had seen Jesus hanging around anywhere. They
didn’t look for him, but Jesus looked for them.
In Jesus’
parables of the lost, the shepherd didn’t sit on a stump waiting
for his lost sheep to find it’s way back. He scoured every
thicket and ravine until he found the poor thing. The prodigal father
didn’t wash he hands clean of his wayward son. None of that,
He-made-his-own-bed-let-him-lay-in-it” stuff. He scanned the
horizon everyday, praying that he could restore his lost son to
the family.
Someone said,
“You go get scientific knowledge, while religious knowledge
comes to you.” In the same way, we get experience, but wisdom
comes to us. We get knowledge, but insight comes to us.
I get tired
of hearing about seeker churches. Don’t get me wrong. I’m
all for churches that make christianity accessible and relevant
to people who know nothing about church. They help people who are
after meaning and purpose in life. We all should seek the God-given
purposes for which we were made. But the seeker model is backwards.
If God had said, “My love is dependent upon you making the
first move,” -- if the spread of Christianity was dependent
upon our taking the initiative in finding God, finding ourselves
and finding our way, Christianity wouldn’t have survived the
first century.
Let’s
get our directions straight. What Jesus did before the resurrection
he did after the resurrection. He searched for us.
Anne Lamott
is a writer who had made a mess of her life and experienced an earthy
introduction to Jesus. In her book, Plan B, she describes how God
comes to her in ways she cannot anticipate. She says, …One
of the top five most annoying things about God is that He or She
rarely answers right away. Some people seem to understand this --
that life and change take time.
One day I prayed,
“Help me,” and then I drove to the market in silence,
to buy my birthday dinner… When the checker finished ringing
up my items, she looked at my receipt and cried, “Hey! You’ve
won a ham!” I felt blind- sided by the news. I had asked for
help, not a ham. This was very disturbing. What on earth was I going
to do with ten pounds of salty pink eraser? I rarely eat it. It
makes you bloat. “Wow,” I said. The checker was so excited
about giving it to me that I pretended I was, too.
A bagger was
dispatched to fetch my ham. I stood waiting anxiously. I wanted
to go home so I could start caring for suffering people on CNN.
I almost suggested that the checker award the ham to the next family
who paid with food stamps. But for some reason I waited. If God
was giving me a ham I’d be crazy not to receive it. Maybe
it was the ham of God, who takes away the sins of the world.
We aren’t
the seekers. God is. God loved us before we loved him. Thomas wasn’t
around for Jesus’ first visit. A week later Jesus returned,
but not for Thomas’ benefit alone. The disciples were in the
same house. The doors were still shut. The implications of the resurrection
haven’t yet sunk in. Just as they didn’t get it before
the resurrection, and they still don’t get it afterwards.
The Anglican Bishop and bible scholar, N. T. Wright makes an interesting
observation about the gospel stories of the resurrection. There
isn’t a connection between Jesus’ resurrection and the
future hope of our own. In each gospel, Jesus’ emphasis is
upon what the resurrection means here and now. They don’t
say, “Christ is risen, and one day so will you.” It
says, “Christ is risen, now go tell the world about it! Christ
is risen, now show the world who is in charge. Christ is risen,
so he’s not leaving us to ourselves. He has work for us to
do.
Francis Thompson
was a nineteenth century poet. He dropped out of medical school,
became an opium addict, and for years lived a destitute life. Yet
Francis Thompson created what many consider to the most moving piece
of religious poetry ever written. “The Hound of Heaven,”
is Thompson’s spiritual journey written from the perspective
of a man being hunted like a dog by God.
