Welcome to the second Sunday of Easter, the second Sunday of a 50-day period of celebrating the risen Christ and the new life that God makes available through Christ to all who follow him.
Today’s scripture reading comes near the end of John’s gospel, when the risen Christ appears to his disciples. Poor Thomas was not there; some have guessed that perhaps he was out getting some food for everyone, this being back in the days before someone would come up with that wonderful idea of pizza delivery. By the time Thomas returned with three extra larges (anchovies and olives, yes, but no ham) the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord!”
As Thomas set the pizzas down, he said, without looking up, “Right. Sure you did.” When the disciples insisted that they were telling the truth, Thomas said, “Come on, guys. That’s not funny.” But still the disciples persisted, so finally Thomas, about to bite into a piece of pizza, said: “Look. Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later, the disciples were gathered together once again, and this time Thomas was with them. And Jesus appeared to them, and Thomas believed.
After this, the gospel writer says that Jesus did many other signs. This is kind of a reminder to the reader of the seven signs John did write about. Each sign that Jesus did appears to be greater than the one before it. They are, in order:
• Turning water into wine
• Healing the son of a royal official
• Healing a lame man at the pool of Bethzātha
• Feeding 5,000
• Walking on water
• Restoring sight to a blind man
• Raising Lazarus from the dead
I’ve mentioned to you before that it is probably not a coincidence that John writs about seven signs, even though (as he says) Jesus did many other signs as well. Seven is a symbolic number signifying completeness, wholeness, goodness. The earth was created in seven days. The number seven appears repeatedly in the dreams Joseph interpreted for Pharaoh. At Jericho, on the seventh day, seven priests carrying seven trumpets marched around the city seven times before the walls fell.
Many times in scripture, seven seems to be just the right number. Six is not enough, and eight—well, eight is too much of a good thing. Eight would be having the whole number, plus one extra.
Seven sons of Jesse were brought before the prophet Samuel; and when the prophet saw all seven, he said to himself, “surely the Lord’s anointed one is among them.” But in fact, the Lord’s anointed was the eighth son, David, who was out in the field, taking care of the sheep. In this case, there was too much of a good thing, and the Lord’s anointed came from outside that inner circle of seven.
John’s gospel has seven signs of Jesus, but then there is the resurrection: the eighth sign. In raising Jesus, God went beyond what was good. God went beyond what was expected. God did something truly remarkable, not just for the people of Israel, but for all the nations of the earth.
These eight signs are written (John says in his gospel) “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
So, this is what it’s all about: having life in Christ’s name. That’s the main thing here. If those who read John’s gospel find new life through believing, then John has succeeded in accomplishing his purpose.
Now, I don’t know about you, but as a reader of John’s gospel, I can’t help but what wonder what it means, exactly, to have life in Christ’s name. What does that mean?
Does it mean to get a job, buy a house, and work hard so you can fill that house with nice things: furniture, appliances, and so on?
Does it mean to make a name for yourself, through your accomplishments or charitable gifts?
Does it mean raising a family, doing everything you can to provide for your children everything they could need or want, from the right style jeans to the latest electronic devices?
It’s easy to say no to questions like these. It’s easy to say what we know is the right answer. We recognize that life in Christ’s name does not mean a life of wealth, does not mean making a name for yourself, does not mean providing everything for your family. By themselves, these things are not necessarily bad or evil, except that they can and do confuse us as to what life in Christ really is, and how we can achieve life in Christ.
Throughout John’s gospel, Jesus himself talks repeatedly about “eternal life.” In John’s gospel, people are always asking Jesus about eternal life, and Jesus talks about eternal life often, sometimes even without being asked. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”
We often think of that phrase – “eternal life” – as meaning little more than a life that will go on forever. But here at the end of the gospel, for some reason, John switches from “eternal life” to “life in Christ’s name.”
Both phrases mean the same thing, and they mean much more than a life that goes on forever. It is the life of the ages, a life that is deeper, richer, more fulfilling, both now and in the future. It is life filled with an intimate awareness of God. It is life in the kingdom of God, as Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe it. It is a life of wholeness that is possible, even in a fragmented world.
The path to living this life is often counterintuitive, which makes it a difficult life to life…. I have, several times, enjoyed walking the trails at the El Dorado Nature Center. It never fails that, after walking most of what is called the two-mile trail, I come to a junction; and the way this junction is aligned, my sense of direction – which is normally really good – tells me that I need to take the left trail in order to return to the parking lot. The first time I hiked there, that’s exactly what I did – and I ended up hiking a lot further than I had intended.
The next time I hiked those trails and came to that same junction, I was again tempted to go left. It just seemed so right, to go left! I literally stood there for ten minutes, fighting with myself, resisting the urge, the instinct, to go left, even though I knew that the right path was the way to go. It just looked so wrong to me! It was the strangest feeling, because as I said, I have a very good sense of direction, and yet, for whatever reason, at this particular trail junction, that sense of direction is wrong.
I did, eventually, convince myself to take the right trail, even though my intuition kept repeating over and over “this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong” like some sort of mantra echoing in the back of my head. Every step required a great mental effort, until the trail slowly started to curve back around to the left, and the mantra died away.
One of the scouts in Troop 29 is in the process of planning and organizing his Eagle Project, which will involve replacing all the trail signs at the nature center. I’ve already put in my request for him to add a sign at this particular trail junction pointing to the exit. I think I’d even like to be the person who sticks that sign in the ground, except that I would probably have it pointing in the wrong direction.
So many people in scripture had a hard time understanding what Jesus was talking about when he described eternal life or life in the kingdom. The Jews disputed among themselves; the disciples threw up their hands. Jesus said over and over, “this is the way to go, the way that will lead you home,” but it just didn’t seem right. It just doesn’t seem right. Our own instinct, our own sense of direction, pulls us the other way.
Wealth brings us happiness? That can’t be right. Military might won’t bring us security? Forgiving our enemies will bring us more satisfaction than seeking revenge? Seeking reconciliation will bring us more satisfaction than holding on to our prejudices and our grudges? Really?
Living a life of service, a life of sacrifice, will bring greater joy? I don’t think so, Jesus. That can’t be the way. You want me to follow you? That way? But everything inside me says, “this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong…” No, this path over here is the right way, Jesus; I just know it is. Why don’t you follow me?
John’s gospel was written so that you may believe. “Believe,” in scripture, doesn’t mean just that you believe that something happened, that you believe what you’ve heard, that you believe that Jesus actually existed. Even Satan believes that Jesus actually existed.
To believe means to believe in – to believe in – Jesus, to trust in him wholeheartedly, to place your faith in him.
John’s gospel was written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the one anointed by God, the one who knows which path is the right path. To believe in him means to follow him on that path even though every instinct in your body is telling you this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. To believe in Christ means to trust that the path Christ leads you down will eventually curve back around, revealing itself to in fact be the right path, the path that leads you home, the path that leads to life in his name.
No comments:
Post a Comment