Scripture: Luke 24: 36-48
(36) While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said
to them, "Peace be with you." (37) They were startled and frightened, thinking
they saw a ghost. (38) He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise
in your minds? (39) Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a
ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." (40) When he had said this,
he showed them his hands and feet. (41) And while they still did not believe it because of
joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" (42) They
gave him a piece of broiled fish, (43) and he took it and ate it in their presence. (44)
He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must
be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the
Psalms." (45) Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
(46) He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the
dead on the third day, (47) and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his
name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (48) You are witnesses of these things.
Sermon
Two stories caught my attention on the local news Monday evening. Both involved black
sport-utility vehicles. Both involved light-skinned young males. Both stories involved
senseless death. They are a study in contrasts.
The first story was a follow-up to the tragic accident at The Chandler School last
Saturday in which a 16-year-old lost control of his vehicle, driving into group of
pedestrians, killing a mother and her 3-year-old daughter and injuring six others, one of
whom still clings to life support. In the news story I saw, the principal of The Chandler
School told the reporter that after Howard Karesh comforted his dying wife and daughter,
he went across the street to comfort the young driver of the SUV, whose life has now also
been forever changed. If this is so, it is a model of tremendous grace and compassion in
the face of a terrible accident and deep tragedy. It is a witness to the love of God.
The second story was of a man in his 40s who, while driving home on the 101,
accidentally angered another driver. This driver and his passenger chased the man along
the 101, pelting his car with eggs and beer cans until finally the man made what turned
out to be a fatal mistake. He stopped his car on the shoulder and got out to talk with the
other men about what was wrong. The SUV stopped, but instead of getting out, the driver
gunned the engine and ran the man down, killing him in cold blood out of frustration for
the way he was driving. The victim's 18-year-old son was shown on the news, asking for
help in finding his father's killers.
I wonder how many other viewers perceived the ironic contrast between the two
back-to-back stories. A study in contrasts of how we respond to the uncomfortable,
frustrating, painful and tragic dimensions of life: an enormous tragedy responded to with
grace; a minor frustration responded to with rage and violence.
Life is filled with joy and love and friendship and beauty as well, but every life
includes suffering: A medical test shows cancer. Our bodies age. Our loved ones die. We
pass through adolescence. Our job ends. Our dreams remain unfulfilled. We're called upon
to accomplish tasks in both our external and internal world that we would rather leave
undone, or have someone else do for us. Suffering is a part of human life.
It is natural to want to avoid suffering because it hurts, and sometimes it hurts so
badly we don't think we'll be able to stand it. We often think that as Christians we ought
to be exempt from suffering, as if our faith were a magic vaccination against sorrow and
pain and disease and death. Then the voice of wisdom returns and we remember that we
follow Jesus Christ, whose faith and faithfulness won him death on a cross, not life in an
easy chair. Our faith does not eliminate suffering. It makes a faithful response possible.
In a book entitled Suffering, the German theologian, Dorothea Soelle, writes that after
we have raged at God and asked the question that can never be answered satisfactorily,
"Why did this happen?", Christians have two choices of how to respond to
suffering. Soelle calls these choices being a martyr for the Devil or a martyr for God.
We become a martyr for the Devil when we allow ourselves to remain bitter, resentful
and hostile; when we blame others, God and ourselves for all that has gone wrong; when we
refuse to forgive; when we become angry and abuse others out of our own pain; when we try
to flee from our suffering or bury it or hold onto it like a prized trophy. In each case
we give witness to a belief that suffering and evil are greater than the power of God to
overcome them. In the words of I John, we sin, and God is not in us.
But there is another way. We can follow the way of Jesus, who chose the cross and in so
doing opened the possibility of Easter resurrection. Whether our suffering is chosen or
not, we can respond to it in a manner that makes us a witness to the power of God to
redeem every situation, no matter how painful or frightening it may seem. We stop asking
"Why did this happen"? and instead ask, "Now that this has happened, how
can I work with God to bring good from it?" When we choose to enter fully into our
pain and let it be an instrument of God's grace, we grow spiritually and emotionally. We
become able to walk with others through their suffering. We feel joy more fully and love
more freely.
For some reason that I don't understand but I know from my own life to be true,
suffering seems to be necessary for our growth and our maturity, much as plants grow
better when their roots are nourished with manure. We can be overwhelmed by the stench, or
we can be a witness for God, who raised Jesus from the dead and brought him back to the
disciples so they so we might know that resurrection life begins right now, not after
we've died, but now.
Resurrection is not something we can test, like gravity or true north. It is a reality
beyond what we can see, taste, or feel. As people of Easter faith, we believe that God has
power beyond all human understanding, that life is stronger than death, that none of us
can ever say for sure that everything is over for us. If God can raise Jesus from the dead
and, just as important, if we believe God can raise the dead, then our despair will be
temporary and our hope invincible, not because we know how to keep it alive, but because
God has never forgotten how to breathe life into piles of dust.
We do not know what resurrection will mean for us in the end. We cannot know how it
will feel or work or look. But we do have evidence it is so. God has woven enough
resurrection into our lives that we can be witnesses for the power of Easter that triumphs
over evil and despair. God has woven resurrection into our daily lives so that we can
learn the shape of it and perhaps learn to trust the strength of it when our own time
comes.
A young driver causes deep suffering this week in a moment of inattentiveness. In
response, people reach out to the injured, the grieving, one another, the young man and
his family. Their actions witness to the power of God to bring life from the ashes of
despair.
A sanctuary catches fire while under renovation and the whole church burns to the
ground. The next Sunday, the church members put up tents and baptize babies while they
stand in the ashes of their ruined church. Their actions move beyond the why's to the
power of the resurrection today.
A woman diagnosed with a fast moving cancer uses her remaining time to try her hand at
painting and plays on the beach with her nieces and nephews. When she dies, surrounded by
her friends, she is as alive as anyone I have ever known.
These are not stories about Jesus appearing and eating a fish before us. Yet they are,
nevertheless, true stories about the Risen Christ who comes to us and says, "Peace be
with you." The Risen Christ who suffered and was raised on the third day and in whose
name we now proclaim the love and the power of God.
These are true stories about what happens when the children of God love one another as
God loves us. Stories about being martyrs for God, not the Devil. "Stories about
people who are laid low and by all rights should never rise again who suddenly sit up in
their ashes, brush themselves off, and go on to live more than they ever lived
before." (Barbara Brown Taylor)
Being a martyr for God, overcoming evil with good, raising the faithful from the dead:
It is entirely unnatural. It is also, as Barbara Brown Taylor says, "how God works,
now and forever not by protecting us from death [or suffering] but by bringing us back to
life again because life, not death, is God's will for us. Every moment of our lives
carries the seeds of that truth." (Barbara Brown Taylor)
When we work the soil of our suffering with the God of Easter power, the manure of our
lives gives bloom to beautiful orchids and roses and daisies and wildflowers. Suffering is
inevitable. Easter faith redeems it. Amen.
