An Easter Sermon at First
Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, April 16, 2017(edited)
On Easter Sunday in most worship
services you will hear similar sermons about resurrection and faith. These
are meritorious endeavors because the faith that resurrection demands is quite
important. Resurrection is an event that mocks reason, logic and wisdom. In the
eyes of the wise, it is a foolish idea. What is worthier of celebrating than Apostle
Paul’s foolish idea of victory over death?
Last
Sunday I shared the Easter story up to the death of Jesus. Although we ended a little ahead of the timeline, it was important to share it with those of our youth who are here only every other Sunday. For all who heard or read
it, I hope one message carried through the week from that service. In the Easter
event Jesus disrupted the way the world operates - forever. That disruption began
with his entry into the World as a human and finished for all humanity in
his crucifixion and resurrection.
No one comes back from the dead...
Except Jesus who defeated death for all.
In the aftermath of the
resurrection Jesus voiced two important commands to his followers. (Remember, God is the God of the Living.) In our joy on
Easter Sunday we can overlook these commands; therefore, I want to explore with you
today the two-fold message of hope and of obligation that Jesus left us after
his resurrection.
These are commands to those he has
called to service. They are far more important than Easter Egg hunts and
wearing our finest. (In the days of my youth, I recall that Easter Sunday was
always one of the biggest Sundays. The ushers
arrived early and positioned folding chairs on both ends of all the pews. So
many people arrived for worship dressed in their finest that there all the
chairs downstairs were taken and more chairs had to be placed on the ends of
the rows in the balcony. Children were excited about Easter candy and egg
hunts. Being an impressionable young boy, I always wondered, “Where were all
these folks on the other Sundays of the year?”)
These days it is a rare event to
see the sanctuary filled to the brim. I don’t think it is because our morally lax
society turns people away from Christianity, but rather that the
“fence-sitters” do not feel the need to “make an appearance.” We could make an argument that only the
remnant of believers remains - after all, God calls us to him.
I do know that we are called here
this morning to honor the culmination of the greatest story ever told. To
appreciate it, let us place ourself with the followers of Jesus after that resurrection day.
In the space of five days, every
follower of Jesus, even the curious fence-sitters lingering in the background,
experienced the most exciting high spirits and expectations for the future as
the Messiah, the King of Kings, entered Jerusalem and revealed himself. Then
everyone plummeted into absolute fear for their lives after his arrest and
crucifixion, and all fled into hiding, abandoning Jesus… except the women.
The women, either because it was
their duty to tend to the dead, or because they held such awe, reverence, and compassion
for Jesus and his message of good news, felt compelled to go to the tomb. They
were struck with deathly fear when they discovered the body of Jesus is gone
and a man, or angel, speaks to them.
Each gospel in one way or another
relates the same experience of the women. Almost paralyzed by fear, they are
informed by a divine presence that (1) Jesus has been raised, and (2) told to take this
message to the disciples: “Meet me in Galilee.”
The Greek words of deathly fear
and amazement are sometimes used to describe powerful spiritual encounters with
the divine. In John’s gospel
Jesus reveals himself before fearful and amazed Mary and a disciple at the tomb.
Perhaps John believed that the angel in Matthew, and man in white in Mark and
Luke was the divine form of Jesus who had yet to reveal his identity?...
“He has been raised. Tell the others he will
meet them in Galilee.”…
I have given a lot of thought as
to why Jesus did not just appear to the disciples in Jerusalem after the
resurrection rather than call them to Galilee. Though in John Jesus does reveal himself to Mary
at the tomb, and to the disciples trembling in fear in Jerusalem, they seem to
either misunderstand or forget until Jesus appears again on the shore of the Sea
of Galilee (Chapter 21).
There is a powerful connection
between the good news and Galilee. Jesus recruited the disciples there, telling
them they would become fishers of men. Now after the crucifixion, they find
themselves again beside this sea as Jesus commands them to spread the good news
to the world. The Gospel of John says it most elegantly. Remembering Peter’s
three courtyard denials, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Each
time Peter replies, “Yes.” Here is John 21:15-17 (NRSV):
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon
son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you
know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he
said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord;
you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him
the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he
said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I
love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.
The reason the disciples and Jesus
began and returned to Galilee may lie in exactly what Galilee represents
relative to this exchange between Peter and Jesus. You recall among Peter’s denials
in the courtyard that a servant girl accused Peter of being one of the
followers of Jesus because of his Galilean accent.
Galilee is a transliteration of a Hebrew name meaning “District of the Gentiles.” Galilee
was part of the land of the ten tribes of Israel that broke away from Judah at
the time of Solomon. It is called District of the Gentiles because over the
years of national disruption and captivity, Assyria and Babylon sent
undesirable foreigners from other conquered lands to Galilee. Assyria and
Babylon only took from Judah the elite, educated people and their wealth, leaving the
poor behind who were of no use to them. It was rich farmland where many of these
poor Jews who were left behind after captivity lived. Although the historical
record is sparse and heavily influenced by the written record of the returning Judeans (see the
early chapters of Ezra and Nehemiah), it appears that when the elite Jewish
society returned from Babylon, they took the land from the poor leaving them to work on the farms. When Alexander and then Rome came, the land was apportioned for
political purposes. (Jewish King Herod, installed by Rome, “owned” the sea of
Galilee.)
Galilee had the reputation as a
relatively lawless place of mixed national identities and of conservative
Judaism and paganism. The people were nationalistic, even patriotic in a
way, but had little respect or trust in the authority of the government and we
suspect a “Robin Hood” type local justice operated.
So, Galilee was considered a
lawless place populated with rough and uncultured people who had a very lax religious practice. For many in Jerusalem, Galileans were considered
second-class Jews.
I chuckle when I read this
historical account of Galilee because it reminds me of the negative bias in
much of the North that we Southerners experience with our southern drawl and
easy-going ways. When I was a young boy, my family would travel to Akron, Ohio
where my mother’s family moved from South Georgia during the Great Depression. My
cousins and aunts and uncles, all in good fun, always wanted my brother and me
to talk so they could laugh at our Southern drawl. But as an adult I discovered
many people carry a prejudice about that drawl as a sign of a country
rube. After I finished graduate school
and went to Pittsburgh to work at Carnegie-Mellon University, some people there
thought I was not as bright as them because of my vernacular. Though my drawl took
on more of the hardened “Northern” style as I entered the business world, I still
found that people underestimated my intelligence because of the stereotype, often
to my advantage in negotiations.
So, Galilee in more ways than one
represents a contrast between the rarified world of “classical Judaism” in
Jerusalem and a half-breed mix of Gentiles and Jewish Galilean outcasts. It
represents exactly the people to whom Isaiah says (Isaiah 56:1-8) that God will extend the covenant betwen the Lord with Israel.
It begins to make sense why Jesus
wanted to meet the disciples in Galilee. Jesus, post-resurrection, is
sending the disciples into the world from Galilee, the place where he began his
proclamation of the good news among the outcasts of the land. They go into the new
Galilee.
That is why I put “Where is your
Galilee?” on the marque. I want us to answer what does “Meet me in Galilee” mean
for us?
If asked, “Why are you sitting in
these pews?” Your answer (ought to be), “I am called to this place by the Holy
Spirit to do God’s business.” I hope you
feel the power of that Spirit within you now with the experience of hope, awe, and
the blessing of Easter about us.
Last week we had 15 young people
here, they barely outnumbered the adults, I believe. What a blessing! What a witness of grace! All because of you.
A witness for what?...
The last two commands of Jesus to
the disciples are as operative today as they were 2,000 years ago: “Meet me in
Galilee!” and if you love me, “Feed My Sheep!”
We understand the literal “Feed my
sheep” part well. The “meet me in Galilee” part, though, places a higher
expectation of witness on us.
“Feed my sheep” is more than sharing
food, it is sharing the compassion that enables us to offer the food. Do you remember
when Moses spoke of the Law to the Hebrews at the entry to the Promised Land? Moses said that you do not need to go to the
sea or cross it to find the Law, you only need to look into your heart.
Well, you don’t have to cross the
Atlantic Ocean to find your Galilee. Wherever you are, you only need to look
around for the people that you are called to be a witness. There you will find seekers
- the lost sheep and the hungry souls, the imprisoned, the outcasts, rich and
poor, not just the economically poor, but the spiritually poor.
In our joy about being an Easter People, we all
need to keep two questions in our mind constantly, the question by Jesus, “Do
you love me?” and “Where is your Galilee that Jesus calls you to be a
minister?”
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