Wherever You Go, Jesus Will Meet You There!

Easter Sunday:  April 24, 2011

Matthew 28: 1-10

We’ve heard a lot about earthquakes in recent weeks and months: in New Zealand and Japan.  The destruction has been devastating!  Almost every hour of the day an earthquake shakes the ground where someone lives.   These quakes are usually less than 5.0 magnitude- so small a person might not ever feel them but they are happening just the same.  

The US government has a cool website that tracks earthquakes around the world in real-time.   Earthquake Website     Yesterday a 6.9 magnitude quake hit the Solomon Islands and a 6.0 quake hit Japan, 100 miles ESE of Honshu. Just this morning two small quakes shook Alaska and another in the British Islands.   At the bottom of the webpage is a button you can click on that says, “Did you feel it?”  You can go in and report what you felt and compare your experience of the tremor with what others in your area felt.

Imagine for a moment our gospel text for this Easter morning, as Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb where Jesus had been laid two days earlier, an earthquake shook the ground on which they were standing.  We don’t get many earthquakes in Ohio but I do remember one when I was in late elementary school.  I was at my cousin’s house on a Saturday afternoon and the shelves in her room started rattling.  It only lasted about ten seconds or so but it sure seemed a lot longer.  Her dad ran up to her room and asked us, “Did you feel that?”  The report was that it was a 5.0 earthquake that shook southern Mansfield.  It was eery and strange, I wouldn’t say scary because no damage was done, but at the very least it got our attention.  

St. Matthew says that the earthquake that shook the ground near Jesus‘ tomb was caused, not by seismic activity, but by the presence of an angel coming down from heaven right to that very spot.  The rumbling, no doubt, came from the stone that sealed the tomb as it was being rolled away.  The angel then sat on that stone and addressed the two Marys.  The guards standing by, whose only job it was to make sure that Jesus did not leave the tomb somehow or that robbers wouldn’t steal his body, fell to the ground in fear.  Matthew says they looked like dead men!  Perhaps because the women were in grief and shock over the death of their beloved Jesus, they didn’t seem phased at all by the earth shaking underneath them.  The angel told them not to be afraid- he knew what they were doing there- who they were looking for and he gave them the news that Jesus was no longer there.  The One that the women had served and loved, the One whom they watched be beaten and spit upon, the One who had taught them and made them feel like they mattered, the One who was crucified on that torture device of a cross. . . He . . . was. . .  not. . . there.  He has been raised, the angel said.  Just like he told you he would be and he is going ahead of you to Galilee where you will find him.  

Matthew doesn’t give us many details about how the women received this message.  Did they have questions for the angel?  Did they almost faint from what they were witnessing?  Did they worry that no one would believe them if they reported what they saw?  We don’t know. . . what we do know is that the two Marys ran back with fear AND great joy to tell Jesus‘ disciples what they had learned.  They took the angel’s advice and trusted that Jesus would indeed meet them where he said he would.  

On the sprint back to where the disciples were the women were met on the road by none other than Jesus!  Imagine their surprise!  This was turning out to be quite an eventful day- first an earthquake, then an angel and now Jesus- alive and well and right in front of them!  He reiterates what the angel has already said, “Tell my disciples to meet me in Galilee; there they will see me.”  The women fell at Jesus‘ feet and worshipped their Lord.    We can only imagine their relief and utter joy as they once again kneel at Jesus’ feet.  

As a community of believers, we have just made another journey through Lent with all of its disciplines, to Palm Sunday with the Hosannas to the King of kings and then on to the Last Supper, the footwashing, the new commandment to love one another, the stripping and beating of Jesus, and the hanging on the cross to die.  Like that button on the earthquake website asks, so I ask you, “Did you feel it?”  Did you feel anything?  Did it shake you to hear about Judas betraying Jesus for 30 coins?  Did it make you tremble to hear Peter deny him three times?  Was it like a punch in the gut as you heard those words, “Oh my people, Oh my church, what more could I have done for you?”  As the tomb was sealed did you notice anything different about yourself?  Did you feel it?  

And today as the two Marys receive the good news of Christ’s resurrection, where we learn that what seemed like the end was only just the beginning, did you hear the promise?  Or were you too frightened by the earthquake to hear the ultimate in good news?  The angel said it: Go, he will meet you there!  You will see him there!  And then Jesus says it too:  Go!  Tell them!  Meet me there and you will see me!  

Friends, Jesus wants nothing more than to meet you and me wherever we are!  Jesus meets each of us here this morning!  Death no longer has the last word for us who believe!  The stone is rolled away and he is loose in the world!  Not even death can keep our Lord away from us!  He meets us in the bread and wine- his body and blood; he meets us in water and word of baptism; he meets us at the front door of this place and right there in your seat!  He meets you wherever you happen to be going, wherever you are in any given moment.  He will meet you at work, he will meet you on vacation, he will meet you at the hospital, or in the grocery store or on a mission trip, or at a ballgame.  Jesus has promised to go ahead of us. . . don’t worry, he says, I will meet you there, there you will see me!  This is the joy-filled good news of Christ’s resurrection from the dead; this is the message of Easter!  Wherever you find yourself, where ever that place is, Jesus will meet you there!  He is risen!  Amen!

Image Credit:  Chinese Artist He Qi "Empty Tomb"

Love One Another as I Have Loved You

Ever think about those first words in the Words of Institution of the Eucharist?  "In the night in which he was betrayed. . ."  Each week those words set the tone of what is to come:  bread, wine, sacrifice, body, blood, forgiveness, death, resurrection, Jesus being fully present to us who are prone to betray, forget, run away, deny, fail to care, fail to act, fail to love.  And yet Jesus offers to each of us his precious body and blood which draws into deeper in the divine life, sustains us on our journey, strengthens our faith and sends us out to be different for the sake of a hurting world.  It is literally the bread of life and the cup of salvation!  

John 13: 1-20

In John's telling of the Last Supper it is not yet Passover.  Jesus will die on Passover in John's Gospel and be the true Passover Lamb- the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  In John's Gospel Jesus will invite his closest friends to have their feet washed: including Judas who will betray him, including Peter who will deny him, including all the rest who will run and hide in fear.  We are included as well with all the things in which we fail.  Thanks be to God!

When I think of this night the words of that old hymn ring in my ear:
Ah, holy Jesus, how hast Thou offended,
That man to judge Thee hath in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by Thine own rejected,
O most afflicted.

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone Thee.
’Twas I, Lord, Jesus, I it was denied Thee!
I crucified Thee.

Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;
The slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered;
For man’s atonement, while he nothing heedeth,
God intercedeth.

For me, kind Jesus, was Thy incarnation,
Thy mortal sorrow, and Thy life’s oblation;
Thy death of anguish and Thy bitter passion,
For my salvation.

Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay Thee,
I do adore Thee, and will ever pray Thee,
Think on Thy pity and Thy love unswerving,
Not my deserving.

But still Jesus invites us to come, sit and have our feet washed.  He gives his disciples (of which are numbered) a new commandment which is about radical humility and service:  Love one another as I have loved you!  And Jesus loved his own and he loved them to the end.  Though faithfulness can be difficult sometimes, we all struggle with it from day to day, Jesus calls us back to himself and pronounces his great love for us-- then he sends us out to love the world.  One person at a time.  One foot at a time we wash.  One kind word at a time we give.  And we remember. . . we remember what our Christ has done for us, how he died in our place that we might live.  And we give thanks and praise to him falling on our knees in worship and adoration.  

As you enter these three holiest of days leading up to the Resurrection of our Lord, I pray that you will be touched by the Spirit and led into a deeper life in Christ Jesus who loves you with an indescribable, unmeasurable, unfathomable love!  

Image Credit:  Sadeo Watanabe

Free to Confess

A Brief Exhortation to Confession

       As we journey through this Holy Week with Maundy Thursday where Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment to love one another as he has loved them, and Good Friday with the story of Jesus' trial and death, it might be the proper time to think about confession and forgiveness.  It is a vital part of our weekly worship- confessing that we have fallen short on things we have done and left undone, thought about and failed to think about.  Then we hear that word of grace pronouncing that we sinners are forgiven once again.  We get a second change, again.  We are FREE to confess and FREE to receive the blessing of a clean slate once more.  

It has been said that confession is good for the soul. Martin Luther, who struggled with the rigorous demands of confession in his life as an Augustinian friar, eventually found God’s grace through the holy scriptures.  In this section of his Large Catechism entitled "A Brief Exhortation to Confession" he criticizes the papacy for forcing Christians to come to confession because “it so greatly burdened and tortured consciences with the enumeration of all kinds of sin that no one was able to confess purely enough.”

 However, he did not desire to abolish confession altogether like some reformers did, namely Johann Agricola (best known for being a part of the Antinomian Controversy with Philip Melanchthon).  Instead Luther wanted people to be able to come voluntarily to confess their sins so that they might be set free from a burdened conscience and receive a word of forgiveness that gives hope and comfort.  

Luther points to the Lord’s Prayer as a confession and says this kind of confession which we make to God and to our neighbor “must take place as long as we live” because it is the “essence of a genuinely Christian life.”  He identifies three types of confession which all give comfort and peace: to the pastor, to God alone, to a spiritual brother or sister.  He encourages believers to, at any time, go to a fellow Christian and confess what is on our heart so that we may receive strength and good advice.  “Thus by divine ordinance Christ himself has placed absolution in the mouths of his Christian community and commanded us to absolve one another from sins.” It is through another person, Luther declares, that God absolves sin.  

Confession consists of two parts according to Luther.  The first part is where the sinner laments and seeks to be forgiven.  That is our work in the matter.  The second part is God’s work where he absolves our sin through the kind words of another believer.  In this way we do not need to work ourselves up wondering if we have made our confession rightly, if we have remembered everything, or even if our hearts have been pure enough.  That only drives us to despair!  This “priceless treasure” of confession and forgiveness may be obtained without coercion.  It is a wondrous gift given to us by God and gives us the assurance of mercy and grace.  May you experience true forgiveness this Holy Week, forgiveness that frees you for all that God has planned for your life.  This is most certainly true!

The Church is Your Mother

In 1528 Martin Luther gave Ten Sermons on the Catechism that would be the heart and soul of The Small Catechism for parents to teach their children the faith, and The Large Catechism to teach pastors.  I am fascinated by Luther's catechisms and have been studying them in greater detail for the past couple of years.  Recently I came across this quote from Luther that intrigues me. . . "The Christian Church is your mother, who gives birth to you and bears you through the Word.  And this is done by the Holy Spirit who bears witness concerning Christ." (LW, Vol. 51, 166)

I have a wonderful mother, I hope you do too.  One thing that I always know about my mother is that she loves me no matter what and that she will always, always be there for me.  She's demonstrated that over and over for 42 years!  She has always thought I could do anything I put my mind to and she has helped me do quite a few things over the years which I could not have done without her!  I also have a wonderful mother-in-law so I am doubly blessed.  These two women are probably my biggest cheerleaders (next to my husband of course.)  My mother literally gave me birth just as yours did and I thank God that she was so diligent about instilling the faith in me so that Mother Church could do her work in my life.  Where would I be without that grounding that she insisted on?

Mother Church has kept my spiritual journey alive and well.  The Holy Spirit which preaches the word to each of us happens in the midst of Christian community.  As the Spirit deepens our walk with Christ we become more and more supportive of others within the communion of faith.  As a pastor I see this happening amongst the people I serve.  (That is one of the joys of a long pastorate- you have years to look back upon!)  I see people being formed into disciples-- those that love Jesus with all their hearts and only want to serve and obey him and who are concerned with loving their neighbor.  I see people when the faith light bulb turns on and they are captured by the Spirit's power in their lives.  If they miss worship one week they are starving for Jesus the next Sunday!  They are hungry for the sacrament and they cannot get enough of the Lord.  What a joy to see, to be a part of; it helps to inspire me and others!!

The Christian Church is your Mother!  She nurtures you, she blesses you, she is your biggest fan!  She is a place to go where you can be yourself, where people love you because Christ has first loved them!  It is a community of believers who are on a mission to share Christ's love and mercy with the surrounding neighborhood and world.  This Mother will pick you up when you are down, dust you off when you get dirty, hold you when you are hurting, pray for you like a biological mother does because when you hurt she hurts!  The outpouring of love and support from this Mother is incredible!  You are one of her own because you belong to Christ!  She sees you like no one else sees you and she supports you when you attempt to grow and learn and do things you never thought you could do!  All the while she feeds you the most wonderful bread and wine which is nothing less than the pure gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thank you mom for bring me and keeping me in the holy church; thank you Mother Church for continuing to nurture me and all of my friends so that we might grow deeper in the divine life.  Amen.

Falling in Love with Jesus

My friend Katie recounts to me how she spent many hours on her backyard swing set, rocking and swinging up and down all the while singing songs into the air.  She wasn't just singing tunes from her favorite movies or cartoons but she sang to Jesus.  It was her daily dialogue to sing all of her thoughts to the One she loves.  

I contrast that to my own childhood play.  I loved to set up all of my teddy bears and dolls in a nice neat row and either teach them lessons that I learned in school like fractions or spelling, or get an old hymnal out that used to belong to my grandmother.  I would sing to those stuffed animals the liturgy and then we would move on to sing a hymn.

Perhaps both of these stories sound to you like a couple of nerdy girls who didn't know what to do with their time.  To me it seems that God had something in mind for both of us -- we are now both parish pastors having worked in other fields before succumbing to the call of the Holy Spirit.  

But when I look at my friend Katie's story I see something that I think was missing in my own story for a long time.  I see a girl on a swing set who was in love with Jesus.  In my case I see a girl who wanted to play church.  There's a qualitative difference there you know.  Playing church is much different than being fully and deeply in love with Jesus Christ!  Loving Christ is to give one's life over to him so that he can be in charge.  After all he knows what's best for us anyway!  Loving Christ is wanting to please the Beloved.  Loving Christ is singing love songs to him about whatever is on our heart at the time.  

I'm happy to say that the love Katie felt for Jesus in her childhood years and still now as an adult, is the same love I feel for Jesus in my adulthood.  That love is life transforming and the thing is, sometimes we don't even know that we don't have it.  We "play" church rather than basking in the love of the Risen Christ.  May you be filled with his love so that you may love others like he loves you!  Amen.

Image credit: zeodo.com

What's your favorite Gospel?

By Gospel I mean Matthew, Mark, Luke and John not THE Gospel which is the good news of Jesus Christ. . . I mean do you like Matthew and the way he tells the story of Jesus with the Magi who visit, with Joseph's side of the nativity story (12% of people who answered the March poll said they liked Matthew the best.)  Or do you like Mark's telling of the gospel and all of the urgency and the "immediately"s?  (12% liked Mark best.) Or do you prefer Luke, the longest gospel with the most parables (37% of respondents liked Luke best.)  Or is it John with all of his unique contributions to the story, the "I am" sayings, Mary and Martha and Lazarus, the Blind Man, the woman at the well, the wedding at Cana?  (37% said John.)
Post your answer here and tell us why you like the gospel that you chose!

Image credit: evcsj.org