No. 01. “Can He Really Be Alive?”
STEVE – Bothwell & Clachan March 30, 2008
Series: 50 days of “Easter” Why Did They Believe This?
Message: No. 01. “Can He Really Be Alive?”
1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31; Acts 2:22-32
INTRODUCTION
Easter in Us
The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins once wrote an ambitious poem entitled 'The Wreck of the Deutschland.' It commemorates the death of five Franciscan nuns who drowned as the German ship Deutschland sank at the mouth of the Thames in the winter of 1875. One half-line especially intrigues me: 'Let him Easter in us.' Let Christ 'Easter' in us. A rare verb indeed, but it suits this post-Easter season.[1]
With that in mind, I would like to use a similar theme for the next few Sundays. But instead of Manley’s “Easter in Us” I want to use the phrase “50 Days of Easter.” The “50” refers to the length of time from Easter Sunday until Pentecost Sunday. That occasion is celebrated in the Bible as the day on which the Holy Spirit came upon the Disciple/followers of Jesus after he had ascended into Heaven. This year that day falls on Mother’s Day. As we check out some of these readings and themes I hope it will provide us with an opportunity to reflect on whether we do believe that Jesus is alive in our world, and if so, is present and alive in our hearts.
Faith in the Unseen
There are at least two ways to look at belief; the first, although humorous, might also be seen as rather negative. Vesper Bauer of Audubon, Iowa, writes in the Christian Reader:
My aunt and uncle had a missionary family visiting. When the missionary children were called in for dinner, their mother said, "Be sure to wash your hands."
The little boy scowled and said, "Germs and Jesus. Germs and Jesus. That's all I hear, and I've never seen either one of them."[2]
But just because we cannot see something does not mean that it is not real. Although we also cannot see them with the naked eye, the germs, viruses, and bacteria that cause diseases, such as Flesh Eating Disease and the common cold, are also real. We see the results of their presence in our bodies.
Christ's Alive and at Church Today
The other way of looking at faith is exhibited by the youthful enthusiasm of the following young boy.
Peggy Key, of Portage, MI. writes in Today's Christian Woman:
While driving to church on Easter Sunday two years ago, I told my children the Easter story. "This is the day we celebrate Jesus coming back to life," I explained. Right away, my 3-year-old son, Kevin, piped up from the back seat, "Will He be in church today?"[3]
That was the challenge that faced Thomas in our reading from Johns Gospel. Would Jesus ever be at Church again?
Do we think he is dead or alive?
In his book "Living Jesus" Luke Timothy Johnson declares: The most important question concerning Jesus, then, is simply this: Do we think he is dead or alive?
If Jesus is simply dead, there are any number of ways we can relate ourselves to his life and his accomplishments. And we might even, if some obscure bit of data should turn up, hope to learn more about him. But we cannot reasonably expect to learn more from him.
If he is alive, however, everything changes. It is no longer a matter of our questioning an historical record, but a matter of our being put in question by one who has broken every rule of ordinary human existence. If Jesus lives, then it must be as life-giver. Jesus is not simply a figure of the past in that case, but a person in the present; not merely a memory we can analyze and manipulate, but an agent who can confront and instruct us. What we can learn about him must therefore include what we continue to learn from him.[4]
This is the same type of shocking new reality that faced the two disciples who had traveled that Easter afternoon with the mysterious stranger on the Road to Emmaus. It led them to rush back, even though during a dark night, to share “good news” with the other disciples, still huddling behind the locked doors of the Upper Room where Jesus, not so many days before, had led them through his “Last Supper.”
HOW DO WE APPROACH THE UNBELIEVABLE?
It is not easy to embrace the unbelievable. Eugene Peterson writes this about “Resurrection's Difficulty”:
The do-it-yourself, self-help culture of North America has so thoroughly permeated our imaginations that we don't give much sustained attention to the biggest thing of all: resurrection. And the reason we don't give much attention to it is because the Resurrection is not something we can use or manipulate or control or improve on. It is interesting that the world has had very little success in commercializing Easter, turning it into a commodity, the way it has Christmas. If we can't, as we say, "get a handle on it," and use it, we soon lose interest. But resurrection is not available for our use; it is exclusively God's operation.[5]
So how does our world try to get a handle on things? Especially things that it cannot see, taste or touch, like “truth”?
THE WAY THAT THE WORLD LOOKS AT BELIEF
“Secondhand Lions": Does Truth Matter?
A few years ago during “30 Hour Famine” we were introduced to the movie “Secondhand Lions.” At the heart of the movie, is a scene that teaches an idea about beliefs and truth that sounds good but is a far cry from what the Bible teaches about faith. Walter (Haley Joel Osment) lives with his mother, a selfish woman who chases after men, often to the neglect of her young teenage son. But when she decides to move to Las Vegas, she leaves Walter in Texas with two distant relatives, Uncle Garth (Michael Caine) and Uncle Hub (Robert Duvall).
While there, Uncle Garth tells Walter an epic story of how Uncle Hub spent 40 years in the glamorous French Foreign Legion, sword fighting with sheiks in Africa and loving a princess named Jasmine.
One night, out by his uncle's pond, Walter confronts Uncle Hub. Walter's mother has lied to Walter many times; he is disillusioned with life, with growing up; and he secretly hopes that Uncle Hub really is the heroic father figure Uncle Garth has told him about. Walter hopes that someone, anyone, can tell him how to be a man.
"Those stories about Africa," Walter asks, "about you—they're true, aren't they?"
"Doesn't matter," Uncle Hub answers.
"It does too. Around my mom, all I hear is lies. I don't know what to believe in."
"If you want to believe in something," says Uncle Hub, "then believe in it. Just because something isn't true, that's no reason you can't believe in it."
Walter stares at him, confused. Uncle Hub continues, "There's a long speech I give young men; sounds like you need to hear a piece of it…just a piece.
Sometimes, things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most—that people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power, mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and (I want you to remember this) that love…true love never dies. You remember that, Boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if they're true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things…because those are the things worth believing in. Got that?"
In contrast to this movie idea, Christians believe not just because they want to believe in something worthwhile, but because they believe the Bible is true.[6]
I was sorry that the movie approached the topic of truth in that way, because at the end it turns out that the stories, although unbelievable, had been true all along. It is important that what we believe in, is true.
Christ's Identity Not Important?
Another example of this type of thinking is illustrated by Jeremy Bowen, the presenter of a new British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary on Jesus. Bowen stated, "The important thing is not what he was or what he wasn't—the important things is what people believe him to have been. A massive world wide religion, numbering more than two billion people follows his memory—that's pretty remarkable, 2,000 years on."
Bowen couldn't be more wrong. Who Jesus is and what he did is the foundation of our faith.[7]
THE BIBLE’S APPROACH MAY BEEM BACKWARD
Augustine on Understanding and Belief
I will be the first to admit that the Bible’s approach to truth and belief may seem backward by the standards of our often skeptical world. Many years ago, Augustine commented on the Bible’s approach to truth. He wrote “Do not seek to understand in order that you may believe, but believe so that you may understand.”[8] Unfortunately, for most of us, that is exactly the opposite of the way in which we have been educated.
"The Polar Express": Believing
More recently, in The Polar Express, a doubting boy boards a magical train on Christmas Eve, which is headed for the North Pole. As adventure after adventure befall him, a little girl becomes his friend as they are guided along by the conductor.
As the train ascends a particularly steep hill, this threesome is climbing from the top of the engine down into the coal car. The conductor is telling them to watch for ice when the boy slips. The conductor grabs him just in time and swings him back on board, which reminds the conductor of his first trip on the Polar Express. As they make their way back in the train, they talk about what it really means to believe.
Conductor: Years ago, on my first Christmas Eve run, I was up on the roof making my rounds when I slipped on the ice myself. I reached out for a hand iron, but it broke off. I slid and fell. And yet, I did not fall off this train.
Girl: Someone saved you?
Conductor: Or something…
Girl: An angel.
Conductor: Maybe! (But said with the conviction of a Yes!)
Boy: Wait, wait! What did he look like? Did you see him?
Conductor: No sir. Sometimes seeing is believing. And sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can't see.[9]
An Odd and Challenging Resurrection
This is not to say that there is no content in our belief. It is the very content of our belief that can lead directly to a problem. Wolfhart Pannenberg, the German theologian once said “The evidence for Jesus' resurrection is so strong that nobody would question it except for two things: First, it is a very unusual event. And second, if you believe it happened, you have to change the way you live.”[10]
That was reflected in the reading from Chapter 2 in the Book of Acts. Peter has been so transformed by the reality of Jesus Resurrection that he becomes a brave orator who boldly preaches to as many as will listen. Later that boldness to tell others of this new development in his relationship with Jesus results in his imprisonment. We know it will cost something to accept and believe in Jesus.
Patricia Heaton Says Jesus Reveals Our Allegiance
"I think Jesus is a scary subject. “God” you can make into anything you want. But confronted with [Jesus] you have to say, 'I believe that or I don't.' It's very powerful."[11]
OUR RESPONSE
Unbelievably Good Gospel
Ken Taylor, of New Orleans, Louisiana illustrates the situation very pointedly with this account:
A friend of mine serves as a missionary in a restricted access country. For many years the government of this country has taught the people that there is no God. My friend had the opportunity to interact on a regular basis with a nonbeliever of that country who is a highly educated professional.
After developing a friendship with the professional, my friend had the opportunity to share the gospel story with him. My friend was taken aback by the man's response: "What you have told me cannot be true. If it were true, it is such good news that someone would have told this to me before."[12]
Garrison Keillor on the Book of Acts
And it is just that needed attitude and approach that motivated these people in the Bible that we have read about this morning.
In a 2007 edition of Newsweek magazine, author and radio personality Garrison Keillor was asked to choose what he considered to be the five most important books. Some readers were probably surprised to find that he ranked the Book of Acts at the top of his list. When describing the Book of Acts, Keillor offered this concise but potent summation of the events which happened on the Day of Pentecost: "The flames lit on their little heads and bravely and dangerously went they onward."[13]
CONCLUSION
I want to deliberately leave this sermon on an unfinished note this morning. We will continue to listen and watch as these folks who knew Jesus both before and after his death react to the implications of the new reality of believing that he is now alive.
Some of you are still seeking and searching and trying to discover if Jesus is the answer to your spiritual quest. I would invite you to enter into these next few weeks and really look at the reactions of real people who met Jesus and knew him both “before and after.”
For those of you who have been a part of this journey with Jesus for a longer period of time—I trust that these weeks will provide encouragement, and a further sense of thankfulness for what Jesus has done for you and continues to do in you.
Just before this sermon we sang together “How Great Thou Art.” Now I would like us to end it by singing together another hymn of faith “To God be the Glory.” If you wish to use the books it is found at #3.
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[1] Walter J. Burghardt, Let Christ Easter in Us, Dare to Be Christ: Homilies for the Nineties (Mahwah, NJ.: Paulist Press, 1991), 51.
[2] Vesper Bauer, Audubon, Iowa, Christian Reader (Sep/Oct 1998)
[3] Peggy Key, Portage, MI. Today's Christian Woman, "Heart to Heart."
[4] Luke Timothy Johnson, Living Jesus.
[5] Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (Eerdmans, 2005), p. 232
[6] Secondhand Lions (New Line Cinema, 2003), written and directed by Tim McCanlies; submitted by Drew Zahn, Stratford, Iowa
[7] Alan Wilson, Nyon, Switzerland; source: Alex Webb, "Looking for the Historical Jesus," BBC News Online,(3-26-01 column)
[8] Augustine of Hippo, On the Gospel of John, 29.6
[9] The Polar Express (Warner Brothers, 2004), written by Chris Van Allsberg and Robert Zemeckis, directed by Robert Zemeckis; submitted by Bill White, Paramount, California
[10] Wolfhart Pannenberg, German theologian (1928—) in a conversation with Prism magazine
[11] Actress Patricia Heaton, star of Everybody Loves Raymond, and a believer in Christ - Submitted by Bill White, Paramount, California
[12] Ken Taylor, New Orleans, Louisiana
[13] Ted De Hass, Bedford, Iowa; source: Garrison Keillor, "My Five Most Important Books," in the "Life in Books" section of Newsweek magazine (12-24-07), p. 17