Rev. Susan M. Craig
April 23, 2006
Luke 24: 36-53, John 16: 16-24
Running on Joy

On this Second Sunday of the Easter season, we gather as resurrection people, as people who have moved from “Running on Empty” with God ruminating around shouting, speaking, and declaring the most unexpected, to people who have had their hopes affirmed and fears relieved.

Today it is in that spirit that we begin a new sermon series, entitled, “Celebrating Life, Journeying in Joy.” And in this time we will be addressing what it means to go on with our lives in the shadow of the empty cross, able to celebrate life and free to encounter the deep joy that God intends for each of us.

On that first Easter morning, the tomb was empty, Jesus the Christ had risen. The strife of love against evil was o’er. That morning which began as a day of sorrow, fear and anguish, turned to triumph, and resurrection! Alleluia!

Our scripture lessons for this morning complete the story begun last Sunday. The women told the first part of the story, knowing beyond reason, and knowing more surely than reason, that Jesus had risen. But God did not want to leave her supreme act of love completely to question or debate, for to my mind, God was much too invested in our being able to understand what had happened. “Invested” may seem an odd term, until you think about the fact that God gave up the life of her son on a cross, that we might be forgiven, and that we might understand that death was not the end of life. The Easter story is the story – and reality -of the triumph of love over death. And our God of love wanted those who were in mourning that day to find an end to their suffering and to understand.

We see this as we look to today’s scriptures in which Jesus appeared late in the day to his disciples in that upper room where they had been hiding. Certainly, stories would have been circulating throughout the day – of the women going to the tomb - and their fantastic reports, of Peter and how he had gone and looked into the tomb and seen the linen clothes neatly folded, and later of Simon who had left town, walking toward Emmaus. He had not recognized the figure who walked alongside him, until he sat down to dinner, but then he had known him in the breaking of the bread. So many stories - of hope and triumph – and there probably were more. However you look at it, hope and joy were being breathed into the air for those who would let themselves believe…

But for all the good news, you can just imagine those who were there not quite able to believe, yet desperately wanting to believe. They were praying in words, or in silence, the prayer of those who doubt and want to rely upon their faith. They were praying, as the father did in Mark’s gospel, when he asked Jesus to heal his son. “I believe. O God, help my unbelief.”

God must have known that day of the pain and anguish the disciples had experienced, the pain and anguish, which while temporarily quelled by stories of hope, were in fact, waiting just a hair’s breadth away. So we find Jesus coming to them, appearing in their midst. He began by saying “Peace be with you.” Then, reading their minds, he began to respond to all those things that worried them and were causing them to doubt. Jesus came to assure the disciples that he had risen, even going so far as to show them his wounds. And realizing, that even then they doubted themselves, he proceeded to eat a piece of fish. Jesus physically revealed himself to them. And then, as a matter of faith, explained how his dying and his rising were just as he prophesized. Then, he opened their minds, as scripture records, so that they could understand.

Jesus was there, taking care of the disciples, of those he loved, pointing them toward the day of Pentecost, but there, at that moment, assuring them that deep down, a song of triumph had begun.

Death was no more.
Sorrow and sighing and pain were no more.
God was true to the prophecy that had been told to them by Jesus.
They were forgiven, set free from their sins, to live a faithful lives, knowing that even death need not be feared.

Deep down, in the reservoirs of their being, there was beginning to be a deeper joy than had ever been known before, and a trust in a God who loved them and would look out for them – even after Jesus’ death.

After being together in the Upper Room, Jesus then left the house with the disciples and went up to Bethany, and there - in their sight - as he was blessing them, he was taken up into heaven; all of this, a call to them to trust in the seen – and the yet to be revealed. Humanity had encountered the holy, and the good news of Easter had been told. The disciples had reason to rejoice, and reason to believe.

The Easter promises of forgiveness, hope and life after death are amazing gifts to us as well – with the potential to lift our hearts and spirits and set them soaring. “Soar we now where Christ has led!” They call us to run the good race trusting in God to lead us forward, even in the darkest of times. But none of this news calls us to be any less human than we have ever been. Humanity has the capacity for love and joy – but also the capacity to feel pain, and know real grief.

I mentioned on Easter morning, that perhaps one of the reasons the disciples did not believe the women at first, may have been because they were so sad and hurt, so shamed and guilty that they couldn’t dare risk anymore pain, or shame, trying to believe Jesus had risen. There wasn’t room in their bodies or spirits for anymore hurt. But, as I have considered it across this week, it was just for that reason that Jesus’ came. He came so that we could trust that the sorrows and hurts of this world would not be the final word and would never be too much. Love is not pain free, but whatever the struggle, we have the potential to be healed, and to help heal.
Over the past ten days or so, our world lost a theological and human giant as recognized through the eyes of faith and social justice, The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. Coffin served in the army in the area of military intelligence, went to Union Theological Seminary. He served as Yale University’s Chaplain and worked for many years as the head of Riverside Church in New York – in fact he preached his candidating sermon for Riverside Church right here in our Meetinghouse. His list of accolades is long, but his causes are better known. He was a peace activist, committed to working for social justice, and engaged in civil disobedience. He is known for having a well spoken “lover’s quarrel” with America. But for all his social concerns and actions taken, Coffin is perhaps best known for the eulogy he delivered at Riverside Church, just ten days after the death of his son, Alex.

I would like to share a portion of that eulogy with you today, because, as far as I can understand, it speaks to the same truth that was delivered by Jesus, personally, on that first Easter to the disciples. Jesus offered them reason to hope in the midst of their pain at losing him, offered hope that they and we might all be able to run on joy in the midst of our humanity. And I quote Coffin:

As almost all of you know, a week ago last Monday night, driving in a terrible storm, my son – Alexander – who to his friends was a real day-brighter, and to his family “fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky “- my twenty-four-year-old Alexander, who enjoyed beating his old man at every game and in every race, beat his father to the grave…”

“My own broken heart is mending and largely thanks to so many of you, my dear parishioners; for if in the last week I have relearned one lesson, it is that love not only begets love, it transmits strength.”

“When a person dies, there are many things that can be said, and there is at least one thing that should never be said. The night Alex died I was sitting in the living room of my sister’s house outside Boston, when the front door opened and in came a nice-looking middle-aged woman, carrying about eighteen quiches. When she saw me, she shook her head, then headed for the kitchen, saying sadly over her shoulder, ‘I just don’t understand the will of God.’ Instantly I was up and in hot pursuit, swarming all over her. ‘I’ll say you don’t, lady!’ I said.”

“For some reason, nothing so infuriates me as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn’t go around this world with his hand on triggers, or on knives, or on steering wheels…My consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over his sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.”

Coffin could not say enough about the ministry of care and presence his friends and congregation offered him. But ultimately, he credited the Easter story for pulling him through. “And finally I know” said he, “that when Alex beat me to the grave, the finish line was not Boston Harbor in the middle of the night. If a week ago last Monday a lamp went out, it was because, for him at least, the Dawn had come.”

“So I shall, so let us all – seek consolation in that love which never dies, and find peace in the dazzling grace that always is.”

That is the deep joy that was there, and is here, enabling us to run freely and most humanly through our days. And it is not a joy reserved only for the most revered and well known. Just this week I heard from a friend with whom I work in the Connecticut Conference. She wrote the following in an e-mail to her committee. “My husband and I have had a difficult month. We received some tough news about our son. When he was 13 months old he had surgery on a tube that connects the kidney and bladder. All went well, and after years of checking on him, he was released from medical are after puberty. Recently he complained of severe headaches, and was tested – finding irreversible kidney failure. He was only born with one kidney. We have started to address this situation, educating ourselves about transplants and dialysis.” And here is where my friend also grasps onto the Easter news… “My mind and heart are struggling with this news. We feel so incredibly blessed with our church family. Their love and prayers and support is almost overwhelming. I need some time to get on my feet. My mother’s heart is still crying. We are Easter people, and we will have new beginnings…as people, as a ministry team, and as a church family. God bless you all for what you do and have a blessed Easter.”

We are Easter people, too - you and I - and we will and do have new beginnings.

Our reading from Luke’s gospel completes the stories of the events on the first Easter Day. John’s gospel picks up where it leaves off and addresses our going on with our lives, our living the good news of Easter. John speaks of the prophecy, and what had come to pass. He also speaks of human pain, as pain that will in time turn to joy. For instance, he poses, a mother, who goes through childbirth no longer remembers the anguish involved because of the joy that is there at the child’s birth. As wee go on and live our lives, joy and love will continue to conquer our fear and pain.

But, John’s gospel does not stop there. He redirects the disciples from Jesus to God, telling them to ask God for what they need in Jesus’ name, assuring them that God will give it to them. John’s words call us to prayer and to faith when we are in need, and ask us to trust in God to provide. Even the most human anger and frustration with God, when times are dark are not beyond our inclusion in prayer…as in Jesus’ cry while on the cross, “My God, My God, why have thou forsaken me?” Even in his dying, Jesus was calling out to the one who had born him, and was even then bearing him into new life.

“God help us.” We say without thinking. “My God!” Sometimes I think that our swearing – the ways some think we “take God’s name in vain”, are perhaps some of the most elemental prayers we make. Life happens, and we find ourselves calling upon God. I believe that is just what Jesus was hoping, that we would call upon God at any and all times. Jesus’ final instruction in John’s gospel confirms his hope for our joy. “Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”

Easter brought to a close the struggle and strife with the powers of this world, even the power of death. The battle is over. The battle is won. Alleluia! Jesus died, rose again, and returned to us and for us, that we might forever know and trust the deep joy that God intends. Alleluia ! and Amen!