Saturday, April 2, 2016

“Now It’s Your Turn”- April 3, 2016



John 20:19-31


            In 1799, a French army officer from Corsica led a coup that put him in charge of the government.  After that, he began a series of battles against other claimants to control of the country and then against other countries, and in 1804 he was in a strong enough position to crown himself Emperor Napoleon I.  He proceeded to spread his dominion over Europe in all directions, but in the East he overreached himself and in 1812 his advance was halted by the Russian army and the Russian winter.  Two years later the Napoleonic Empire had crumbled and Bonaparte was exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.  (“Able was I ere I saw Elba.”)

            Then in February, 1815 the British Navy let its guard down briefly and Napoleon slipped off the island with 1,000 men and landed in France on March 1.  By March 19 he was in Paris and his former troops were returning to arms.  Within a week, Europe was at war again.  This time it was quick, though, with the French meeting their Waterloo on June 18.  On July 15, Bonaparte surrendered himself to the British.  This time they stuck him on an island in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa and they did not let their guard down until he died.  I share this history lesson, which comes courtesy of Wikipedia, because it validates something about the way that people behave when their efforts to establish an empire fail but then they suddenly get a second chance.

            It also shows how different King Jesus is from the rulers of this world.  A writer named Josh Way says of the Resurrection of Jesus:

“Clearly no one in the gospel stories expected Jesus to be resurrected. Even when Jesus made cryptic predictions about his death and vindication, his followers told him to stop talking crazy and asked when he was going to become king and kill all the bad guys. In its native Jewish context, the designation ‘messiah’ had little to do with dying and coming back to life and everything to do with winning wars. After Jesus was executed, no one was looking at their watch wondering what was taking him so long. They were defeated and dejected. Their candidate was gone. The end.

And so when Jesus is resurrected, according to the synoptic gospels, it’s a surprise that completely blindsides his friends and followers. The shock and terror of the disciples is dramatized in the gospel texts, and we sympathize. Running into someone you watched die would be unsettling, to say the least. But once again, a deeper consideration of the historical and political background amplifies the drama. No one had ever imagined that a messianic candidate would die and be resurrected, but if that were to ever happen, surely the vindicated one would start the holy war to end all holy wars. With God clearly on his side, nothing could stop him. The disciples aren’t just scared because they think they’ve seen the ghost of a beloved friend, they’re staring at the risen body of the prophet they betrayed and abandoned. They must be thinking that judgment day is upon them.

But it wasn’t. Jesus announces ‘peace!’ and tells them not to fear. The disciples (and innumerable Christian interpreters since) still want to know when the war will start, and Jesus smiles patiently and shakes his head.”[1]

Jesus is not about revenge.  He’s not about getting even.  He’s not about settling scores, or even keeping score.  There was a time when Peter had asked him how often he had to forgive the same person, whether seven would do it.  Jesus told him,

“Not seven, but seventy times seven.” [Matthew 18:22] 

That wasn’t so that on offense number 491, Peter could feel free go off on someone.  It was so that neither he nor anybody else could or would keep count.  Jesus’ death involved his plea that God would forgive humanity.  Jesus’ resurrection brought with it a call for his followers to live out that forgiveness:

“‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” [John 20:21-23]

Yes, there is that warning at the end that not forgiving someone is possible.  But who “retains” those sins?  Does someone who seeks forgiveness not find it because it is denied?  Or could it be that the one who will not forgive is the one stuck with the sin’s effect, that they are the one for whom it remains a reality?  Jesus carried the marks of his crucifixion into his resurrection, and the record of our terrible abuse of God remains there, but that is not the controlling fact.  The controlling fact is Jesus’ offer of peace.

            He asks us to live the same way.  He gives us our own marching orders.  “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” [John 20:21]  Like him, we are going to get hurt.  Like him, we are going to know sorrow and defeat.  Like him, we are going to face a world where a call to march across Europe and freeze to death in Russia will meet a more rousing response than a call to love your neighbor and to share your goods with the poor.  But living like him and dying like him, we also rise like him.

            Napoleon is dead.  Jesus is alive.  The Empire is gone.  The Kingdom stands forever.



[1] Josh Way, “Three Glorious Surprises in the Resurrection” at
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistchristians

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