John 20:19-23
December 16, 2012
When it was evening on that day, the
first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met
were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said,
“Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “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.”
A few weeks ago, when I gave a sermon on the Second Coming
of Christ and why it hasn’t happened, I said that there was another reason we
haven’t experienced it yet. Then I said that I would hold off on telling you till
today. I’m glad you’re here, and I’m sorry about the teaser,… although not that
much.
When I spoke two weeks, I mentioned that the Christians
who are obsessed with Jesus’ return tend to pour over the Bible and the past in
order to mine evidence about the future return of Christ. They spend a lot of
time trying to prove that we MUST be in the age of Jesus’ return. In some respects
they may be right, but I believe that it’s not in the way they presume. I think
the problem they have is that their focus on Jesus tends to be on the past and future
Jesus. They ponder what Jesus did and meant in the past, and then wonder about
Jesus’ return in the future. What they miss is a more important question: Where
is Christ now?
The reason they don’t focus much on the question of where
Jesus is now is that they assume that they know. Modern Christians, and even
atheists, don’t ask much “where is Jesus now?” because they assume they know
the answer. The Christians believe that Jesus is sitting in heaven on the right
side of the Father, doing who knows what. Perhaps he’s playing Parcheesi. Who
knows? But the assumption is that Jesus is “up there” waiting to be given the
go ahead to return.
The result of believing that Jesus is in heaven is that most
people focus on the Jesus of 2000 years ago, pondering and arguing about things
such as whether he really existed. Whether what the Bible says about him is
historically accurate. Wondering whether he was really resurrected. Many Christians,
explaining the meaning of the cross, focus on his death as an atonement.
Atonement is one of those fancy theological terms that means a saving
sacrifice. Many of the ancient religions performed animal sacrifices in order
to appease God or the gods, and the belief among these Christians is that
Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was a sacrifice for our sins that procured God’s
forgiveness so that we would no longer have to make animal sacrifices.
Meanwhile, most atheists ignore Jesus’ atonement and focus on his resurrection
as a fabrication. They argue that the resurrection could never have occurred.
Either way, the focus is on the Jesus of the past.
Personally, I think we spend too much time focusing on
the Jesus of the past and not enough on the Jesus of the Now? This is certainly
not my way of saying that focusing on the gospels is wrong. Focusing on the
gospels is essential if we want to understand how to live life the way God
calls us to live. What I am saying is that when our focus is on the past, we
ignore the present, and Jesus is very present in the present.
By focusing on the past and the future, we miss is the
possibility that Jesus already has returned. Just as so many people originally
missed his 1st coming, I think most Christians have missed his 2nd
coming. The reason we’ve missed it is that we consistently fail to understand
what Scripture says not about only Jesus, but about the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Our passage for this morning is the key to understanding
what I’m talking about. Let me explain. In it Jesus breathes on the disciples
and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This
is a tiny little event in the Bible, but I believe it’s monumental in terms of
what God is doing in the here and now through Christ.
Let me take a step back and explain. To understand how
Jesus may be here now, it helps to look at how Jesus came the first time. When
Christ was born and lived as Jesus, he was not what the Jews expected in a
messiah, which is why the majority of them missed Jesus as the messiah. They
expected a very different kind of messiah. They expected a warrior. They
expected a messiah wielding both a sword and an angelic army. They expected a
stronger, more powerful version of King David. They expected a muscular Savior
who could slay the Goliath Roman Empire.
The Jews had been oppressed for over 600 years. First it
was the Assyrians who broke up the northern kingdom of Israel and for a
generation threatened the southern kingdom of Judah. Then the Babylonians
conquered Jerusalem and took the remaining Jews into exile back to Babylon as
slaves. Then the Assyrians conquered the Babylonians and returned the Jews to
Israel, but still under the rule of the Assyrians. Then Alexander the Greek
came through and conquered all of the Assyrian lands, including Israel. Israel
became a territory under the Macedonian empire. Finally, the Romans conquered
the Greeks, establishing their own rule. The Jews longed for the time that
their own king, their own messiah, would conquer all other powers and make the
Jews THE worldwide power.
Instead the Jews got a messiah who was seemingly weak and
gentle—a healer, a teacher, a peacemaker, and a crucified Christ. He eventually
did conquer the world, but not in the way the Jews expected. His teachings and
Spirit spread through the world and eventually overcame the Roman Empire
through conversion. Jesus also did something the Jews had a hard time with. He
integrated Gentiles into their faith. He opened Judaism to all people, which is
why our faith now is separate from the Jewish faith. He conquered through
conversion, and it’s transformed the world. 1/3rd of the world is
now Christian, but Christian values have transformed even those who aren’t
Christian.
A reason most Jews didn’t accept Jesus as the messiah was
that he didn’t come in the form or manner they expected. I want you to hold
onto that idea—that it’s hard to accept things that don’t come in the manner we
expect. Often things don’t happen the way we anticipate they should, and this
is especially true of the way God works. For example, let me share a poem
written by an anonymous Confederate soldier that demonstrates how God works:
I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better
things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of
men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of
God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I
hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were
answered.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.
Or another poem by another anonymous writer:
The man whispered, "God, speak to me," and
a meadowlark sang.
But the man did not hear.
So the man yelled, "God, speak to me," and
the thunder rolled across the sky.
But the man did not
listen.
The man looked around and said, "God, let me
see you." And a star shined brightly.But the man did not see.
And the man shouted, "God, show me a
miracle." And a life was born.
But the man did not
notice.
So, the man cried out in despair, "Touch me,
God, and let me know you are here.” Whereupon, God reached down and touched the
man.
But the man brushed the
butterfly away and walked on.
God acts in ways we don’t expect, and it causes us to
miss how God is acting. I believe that Jesus already has returned, but just as
the Jews missed it the first time, we Christians miss it the second time. Just
as the Jews had their expectations of how the messiah should come, Christians have
always expected Jesus to return in the ways they expect. When you hear people
talk about Jesus’ second coming, they talk about a Jesus of power and might.
They talk about Jesus as warrior king. But what if Jesus returned already in a
manner we didn’t expect, in a way that’s entirely in keeping with Scripture?
Again, look at our passage. It says that Jesus “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.’”
I believe that this passage, and the passage on the
coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost in Acts, are about Jesus’ return. The
problem is that we don’t think in a Trinitarian way when we think about the
Jesus of the past and the Jesus of the future. The whole idea of the Trinity is
not that Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are separate gods. They are the
same. They are one God whom we encounter and experience in three different relationships.
An experience of one is an experience of all three. When we receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit, we are receiving the gift of Christ’s Spirit. Paul says that
the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ in Romans 8:9, when he says, “But you are not in the flesh; you are in
the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the
Spirit of Christ does not belong to
him.” He is saying that the Holy Spirit is Christ’s spirit in
us.
In effect, he is saying that Jesus is incarnated in each
and every one of us. Jesus has already returned in those who are awake and
aware. I didn’t understand this idea until I read some of the writings of the
great Quaker writer, Thomas Kelly. Kelly really was reflecting the whole Quaker
idea that God isn’t just up there, but in here, out there,… everywhere. He says
in his book, A Testament of Devotion,
Deep within
us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine
Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return. Eternity is at
our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of
an astounding destiny, calling us home unto Itself. Yielding to these
persuasions, gladly committing ourselves in body and soul, utterly and
completely, to the Light Within, is the beginning of true life. It is a dynamic
center, a creative Life that presses to birth within us. It is a Light Within
which illumines the face of God and casts new shadows and new glories upon the
face of men. It is a seed stirring to life if we do not choke it. It is the
Shekinah of the soul, the Presence in the midst. Here is the Slumbering Christ,
stirring to be awakened, to become the soul we clothe in earthly form and
action. And He is within us all.
He is describing the return of Christ in each and every
one of us, and it is consistent with how he appeared the first time. They
expected a warrior messiah, they got a healing, teaching, transforming messiah.
Christians expect a warrior messiah, and what we got was the Light Within, the
Presence of God, the Shekinah of the Soul, the Slumbering Christ, ready to be
stirred and made alive in and through us. This is what Paul is saying when he
says, in Ephesians 4, that God is above
all and in all and through all. We are part of that all.
The whole point of this is that Christ, through the Holy
Spirit, has chosen to return through you. And the extent to which Jesus has
returned has to do with the extent to which you allow Jesus to return within
you. Most people, and even most Christians, only allow that return to be
minimal because we’re not sure of the extent to which we want Jesus to be alive
in us. All of us have an ongoing, internal struggle between our own will and
God’s will alive within us. To what extent do we demand that our will be done,
and to what extent do we allow God’s will to be done in us by allowing God to
become alive in us?
The point is that if you choose to let Christ become fully
alive in you, then you become the return of Christ in your home, your
workplace, the store, and even here in this church, the body of Christ.
I want to close with one more anonymous little poem that
I think captures the essence of everything I’ve said:
On the street I saw a small girl,
Cold and shivering in a thin dress,
With little hope of a decent meal.
I became angry and said to God:
“Why did you permit this?
Why don’t you do something about it?”
For a while God said nothing.
That night God replied, quite suddenly:
“I certainly did something about it
I made you.”
Amen.
