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April 26, 2020
By the Rev. Alex Leach
Friends,
You have been invited to join these two disciples traveling down the road.
The emotional content of their conversation may be familiar to you, even if the details are a bit different.
They are talking about Jesus, the messiah who has been killed,
while you and I are talking about the hopes and dreams we had for this spring and summer which are now dead.
The two disciples were longing for freedom. Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was supposed to be the inauguration of that liberation from Rome.
We are longing for freedom. We have hopes that one day we can again visit family, hug friends, and gather for church.
The disciples are mourning Jesus’ death. There is anger and grief…bitterness and despair…sadness and anxiety. Rome has triumphed. Nothing has changed.
But for us, everything has changed and we can’t go back to what was. There is a death in our midst too…not just the death of people, but also the death of ways of living and being with one another.
And like all grief, we are so in the midst of the pain that we cannot even imagine what life will be like on the other side. All we know is that it will be different.
And with that unknowable future and the loss of how we used to live…we too are feeling anger and grief…bitterness and despair…sadness and anxiety.
The disciples are leaving the beloved community. What’s the point now that their center, Jesus, is gone?
Many of us are now asking the question of ourselves “what is really essential?”
“Do I need to belong to that gym anymore if I can’t go there?”
“Can I really afford to keep this business going? Do I have to fire people?”
“Am I really going to go to a digital church?”
“Who am I going to stay in touch with during this pandemic? And who am I not?”
Sure, the disciples have heard the rumors that Jesus is somehow alive. But frankly, that only makes things worse. Those stories sow seeds of confusion and uncertainty…they make this so much more painful because they touch the raw scars on the disciples hearts. “Don’t get your hopes up,” one spits to the ground. Lines are being drawn in the community: “do you believe the women or not?”
We have all heard the stories of states beginning to re-open.
And while some of us find these stories hopeful, others just feel more pain. “Don’t get your hopes up,” some mutter under their breath.
What some consider being good news, others find dangerous…and that disconnection, that lack of shared reality, causes further confusion, alienation, and distance between people.
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As we all walk along this road together, the disciples and ourselves, having this hard and sad and difficult conversation….Jesus comes and joins us.
Jesus has promised to be always with us. Jesus is with us whether we feel that presence or not. Jesus is with us whether we recognize that presence or not.
In the story, Jesus doesn’t wait to come to the disciples until they believe. Jesus comes to these disciples in the midst of their unbelief.
Jesus, and the God who he reveals, loves us so much that he comes towards us, and is with us, before we are ever able to recognize it.
Christ, the Word and Wisdom of God, is always walking with us. We may not recognize it. Our eyes may be blind to the presence of love and hope in our midst. But that does not actually mean Christ is absent.
These disciples did not ask God to join them…perhaps they were mad at God for letting Jesus die on that cross. Perhaps they even thought: “what kind of God would allow this? Is there even a God?”
After all that they have been through, their anger and their doubt is justified.
But God comes near anyways. God doesn’t hold that anger and doubt against them. God doesn’t wait till they have reached a place of hope and new faith to come. God joins these disciples in the midst of their pain, anger, and doubt.
Christ isn’t terribly interested in your fake hope. Christ doesn’t want your inauthentic belief in a certain doctrine.
Christ wants you. Just as you are. Christ wants to & has promised to be with you always. In the midst of your joys and in the midst of your sorrow. Christ shares his own wounded hands and side in the hopes that you will share your scars too.
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This is how God has always acted in human history. God seems to prefer to act in subtle ways. God does not dramatically enter in and stop human pain and anguish.
God works with and through and in the midst of people to draw all things into Life.
When the Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt.
There were famines and plagues…there was a disease that swept through the population that killed every first born.
And in the midst of this pain and death,
an oppressed people,
slaves,
were liberated and freed.
But that liberation was not clean and easy.
It involved real struggle.
That freedom involved wandering in a desert for what seemed to be endless days…time collapsed into a meaningless continuation of the same thing over and over again.
And in the midst this endless wandering,
there was sustenance found in surprising places: water from rocks, bread from dust.
The people finally find a land of their own,
a land that has abundance.
They find land in which to rest and build new lives.
But soon enough,
they have a new Pharaoh,
a new abusive king who is power hungry and mad.
A new tyrant.
After a series of leaders who have no interest in a God who is merciful to the poor and the oppressed, their land is invaded and conquered.
The people go into exile.
But God is not done with them.
God writes them love poems and songs spoken by prophets.
God promises to bring them home.
Indeed, the day comes. And they can return home. But the home they have been taken from is now gone.
They must restore its streets; they must rebuild the walls and the Temple.
This homecoming requires hard work.
And throughout scripture this pattern never ends.
God never prevents human suffering.
But God is always walking with and through and in the midst people, drawing us and all of creation into some new life.
——————
But this is not a one sided story. God is not our cosmic care taker, always coming along behind us to clean up our mess.
God invites humanity to participate, to co-create this New Life.
Moses and the Hebrews had to do the work of fleeing Egypt and withstanding the torment of wandering in the desert if they were going to see the New Life God had promised.
The Israelites who were brought out of exile and back to their homes had to do the work of rebuilding their country if they were going to taste the New Life.
The disciples had to go out and proclaim the Good News of Christ’s resurrection. And we know that meant that they were often tortured, imprisoned, and killed.
Americans, and all the people of our world today, have to do the hard work of reorganizing our public life to care for the sick and most vulnerable, to finally actualize true racial justice & reconciliation, to preserve the Earth for the next generation.
God is inviting all of us into new life in the midst of this global death. But that transition isn’t painless, and it isn’t effortless.
We are invited to co-create with God, to participate in God’s act of resurrection.
It will be hard work. It will not be easy. It will not be free of suffering.
And Christ, Jesus, will be with us every step of the way. Jesus shall carry the pain and the suffering with us. Jesus shall share our scars and our struggle.
Christ is making all things new. Christ is making a new resurrected world in the midst of this pandemic.
And Christ wants you to come and join in.
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Christ has made you unique, and given you unique gifts and skills and talents. Christ wants you to use those gifts, skills, and talents to help create a new and better world.
God has always chosen to be in partnership with humanity, wanting to working alongside us, with us, and through us.
God wants us to be walking on this journey together.
Friend,
How are you going to use your gifts, skills, and talents to participate in God’s New Resurrected Life for all?
