Darla Blatnik
Second Presbyterian Church
Sermons: March 30, 2008

"Arise and Walk"

Today is the Second Sunday of Easter. We don’t celebrate this Sunday as a Sunday in or after Easter, the way we would the second Sunday in Advent or the second Sunday after Pentecost. Rather, we call this day and the next five Sundays before Pentecost, a Sunday of Easter to remind us that Easter isn’t just a day, it's every day; to remind us that Easter isn’t just a celebration, it's a way of life.

Last week, we talked a little about what Easter’s all about – a sign of God’s triumph over evil and death, a call, personally and collectively, to faith. This week we will continue to talk about Easter as a call to faith, a magnificent call, a call to transformation, a call to a new life, yet a call that may also have its ups and downs, its doubts and fears.

Today, the lectionary includes a reading from John that is a continuation of the verses read last week. You may remember that last week we left Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb with the risen Jesus asking her to go and tell the disciples of his resurrection. This week we go immediately from Mary at the tomb on Easter morning to the disciples on Easter evening behind locked doors paralyzed with fear and doubt.

As if to remind us that this great story continues past Easter, today’s lectionary also includes a reading from the Acts of the Apostles. The reading from Acts fast forwards about 50 days from Easter to Pentecost and the birth of the Christian church. In today’s reading from Acts, the disciples have gathered in Jerusalem with "devout Jews from every nation" (Acts 2:5). The fear-ridden disciples of John have come out from behind their locked doors. They have come into the city of Jerusalem openly and enthusiastically to proclaim the good news of the risen messiah to crowds of fellow Jews, some of whom had participated, at least passively, in the death of Jesus.

Last week, on Easter day, we heard Jesus call us by name. Today, we hear the rest of the story – a story of a real, active faith that rises not only from the dawn on Easter morning, but from the shadows of Easter evening. Today, we hear that even though the fears and doubts of our faith journeys may be strong, God’s love through Jesus is stronger. Today, we hear that God gives us what we need to believe and to arise and walk in his way, to serve his purpose and plan for all creation.

Madeleine L’Engle, a lifelong Christian and writer, wrote some time ago about the doubts that dot our faith journeys:

Sometimes I just know that I am going to come down with an attack of atheism again. It’s like the flu. Spiritual flu, I call it. I get ready to endure three or four days of doubts and deep distance from God. Then through the grace of God, I find myself spiritually well again."^[1]

Even in the most faithful among current day believers, even in the most faithful among Jesus’ first followers, doubt and fear is real and can be very powerful, just not more real or more powerful than God.

You can feel the fears and doubts of the first disciples if you’ve even seen Franco Zeffirelli’s 1977 miniseries Jesus of Nazareth. It surfaces most ever Easter and captures, at least in my mind’s eye, the gut wrenching power of their feelings. The images of the miniseries depict the darkness of Easter evening casting shadows on the walls as menacing as the mood on the face of the disciples. The disciples are huddled together, some trembling, others even physically ill perhaps from hours of sobbing. You know that kind of sobbing that deep grief can produce. We see in their faces the pain of hopes they thought had been crucified, died and were buried with their beloved Jesus. All that seemed to matter was gone.

Just think of what it must have been like for them - a world gone crazy. The disciples had put everything on the line to follow this messiah. They had left their homes, their families, their jobs; and now he was gone. He was not only gone, but he’d been put to death as the worst of all common criminals.

"Who was next?" they might have been asking each other. Where was the victory in this? Had everything they heard just been some sort of nice, but costly moral lesson from a very wise teacher or prophet and nothing more? Was there really any meaning in all they had gone through?

They needed something more even than the news brought by Mary Magdalene from the empty tomb. If they’d heard what Mary told them, maybe they didn’t believe it. Or, if they had believed it, they may have turned to each other or silently murmured to themselves, "So what?" letting their fear and grief obliterate the meaning of Mary’s news. They needed something more.

These followers needed Jesus. And, Jesus came to them. He came so that they could see and believe. He came so they might be able to tell the world. He came so that, 2000 plus years later, we can still hear their witness and believe without seeing, at least not with our eyes.

Jesus came to stand among them, not to chastise them for their lack of faith, but to give them his peace. Not once, but three times, he, "‘Peace be with you.’" Not once, but three times, he gave them his special peace, the peace that surpasses understanding. Jesus gave the disciples his peace and then breathed on them, as God had first breathed life into creation, so that they could receive the Holy Spirit.

Jesus came to say to Thomas so that, we too could hear, "‘Do not doubt but believe,’" so that we, too, can confess, "‘My Lord and my God!’" Jesus came so that we might be blessed – so that, even though we have not seen with our eyes, we "‘yet have come to believe’" (John 20:27b-28).

Yes, we may have doubts and fears. Those are part of the journey of faith, at least for most of us. Those doubts and fears, however, are just not meant to be the whole of that journey for any of us. William Sloane Coffin, a great prophet of the United Church of Christ who died several years ago, said, during one Holy Week,

As I see it, the primary religious task these days is to try to think straight. Seeing clearly is even more important than good behavior, for redemptive action is born of vision. Religious faith, far from being a substitute for thought, makes better thinking possible. You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart's a stone, you can't have decent thoughts – either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind.^[2]

Yes, we may get the spiritual flu; we may even get locked inside our own fears and doubts at times. We just need to be very careful not to stay there.

In our fears and doubts, Jesus comes to us through the power of the Spirit, the Spirit that is in this very room, as one of my favorite hymns says. The gift of his Spirit, the gift of faith is here for us yesterday, today and tomorrow. As I say so often say, Jesus’ Spirit is waiting for us- in worship, in study, in prayer, in service. Jesus’ Spirit continues to come to us, continues to give us his peace, to encourage us to believe and not doubt. Jesus’ Spirit is here waiting for those who are willing to hear from those who have seen. His Spirit is here so that others who have not seen may also hear the good news of God’s love for us revealed in Jesus of Nazareth.

Last week, I ended with a quote from St. Augustine that I’d like to repeat this morning in its context from H. Richard Niebuhr’s book, The Meaning of Revelation:

Whatever other people say, we can only confess, as those who live in a Christian history, that through our history a compulsion has been placed upon us and a new beginning offered us which we cannot evade. We must say with St. Augustine: ". . . I do not say to thee, seek the way. The way itself is come to thee: arise and walk."^[3]

"Do not doubt but believe," and declare "My Lord and my God!"

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^[1] Leonard Sweet, Out of the Question...Into the Mystery: Getting Lost in the God Life Relationship, Colorado Springs: The WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group, 2004, p. 113.

^[2] William Sloane Coffin, A Passion for the Possible: A Message to U.S. Churches, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p. 2.

^[3] H. Richard Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation, New York: McMillan Publishing, 1941, p. 139. The correct cite of the quote is as follows: "Whatever other [people] say [sic] we can only confess, as [those] who live in [a Christian] history, that through our history a compulsion has been placed upon us and a new beginning offered us which we cannot evade. We must say with St. Augustine: ‘. . . I do not say to thee, seek the way. The way itself is come to thee: arise and walk.’ The correct citation for this text was edited for ease of reading.