Keeping it Real

I told a story recently that I’ve told frequently at Easter time, about a young person who once asked me if Jesus was a zombie. True story. And practically biblical. The disciples may not have been familiar with zombies, but they sure knew a ghost when they saw one and, according to Luke, Jesus had to convince them he wasn’t one (Luke 24:37).

As I confessed when I recounted the zombie story, I don’t have an answer to the question “how, then, is Jesus alive?” I mean, if you’re looking for a physiological one, I don’t have one. It’s a miracle. I’ll come back to that, but where I was going at the time was, of course, how Jesus is alive in each of us today. For all the moments of grief and brokenness, all the crucifixions large and small, all the moments of loneliness and heartache, there is always an Easter. The story is about the promise of new life, the hope of a new dawn.

Yes, that’s lovely and warm. And true. I still think it’s the main take away, the big picture of the story. But why, then, doesn’t Jesus just appear as a spiritual manifestation - a ghost, if you like - or a bright light and a voice, like Paul experiences Jesus? Why do each of the post-Easter stories of Jesus emphasize the disciples seeing and touching Jesus? In that passage from Luke where Jesus has to convince them he’s not a ghost, he tells them to touch the wounds and even asks for food. Everyone knows ghosts don’t eat. Only a human being would. Why is it so important that they see his face, touch his body, hold him close and share a meal with him? Why did they have to see him whole again?

Well, that’s the first thing. He wasn’t whole. He was wounded. He carries the marks of what he experienced. We all do. And he’s changed by it, as we all are.

And that’s another thing. The physicality of the resurrection reconnects us to the physicality of Jesus birth - the story of the incarnation, “the Word made flesh,” Emmanuel which means God-with-us. Jesus is one of us. And that’s crucial to understanding how Jesus is alive in us today because Jesus shows us how to be fully alive. When we hear Jesus say “love one another as I have loved you,” it’s not an impossible task or a bar set too high, it’s the fulfilment of what’s already in us. We also are created both in God’s image and of the earth, divine and human. We are meant to embrace Jesus and hold him close for that very reason, wounds and all, not put him on a pedestal to be worshipped at a distance as something unattainable.

Everyone who meets Jesus after the resurrection seems to need this physical contact. It’s not just Thomas who doubts, all do. And they wonder and are amazed and still cannot explain it. But wonder and doubt are part of the journey of faith. Which is why it is so important for us to hear this story, so far removed from it. To see Jesus, to know Jesus, to experience Jesus, to share Jesus, we need to look to ourselves and each other. That’s where the love is, waiting to be brought back into life, waiting to be shared, waiting to bring new life to all of us. That’s the miracle part. I don’t know exactly how it works, but it does. Love is not ended by death. It simply brings new life.

We'll take it from here together

One of my favourite theologians these days is David Hayward. After a lengthy career in ministry, he’s better known to many as The Naked Pastor, artist and creator of many insightful cartoons that challenge the status quo and encourage questions and dialogue. If you’re interested in knowing more - including why he calls himself that - check out the Six Ways From Sunday podcast. Ben Wilson interviewed him a few weeks ago. He’s Canadian, by the way.

He has a great Easter cartoon - which could easily be about the history of christianity in general - in which there’s a small group of women on the left and a large group of men on the right. The caption reads “So ladies, thanks for being the first to witness and report the resurrection and we’ll take it from here.”

In the days and weeks following the day of resurrection, let’s remember - and wonder at - a couple of really important things.

First, let’s stop talking about how Jesus went to the cross alone and abandoned. I think it’s true to say that the chosen twelve disciples left him. We can see that Judas would run off. Peter hangs around long enough to deny Jesus before he runs away. The gospel of John says “the disciple whom Jesus loved” was at the crucifixion, but we’re not really sure who that is and, well, it’s John, and that’s the later gospel that’s less of a narrative. But, for the most part, as far as we can tell, the twelve did desert him.

But the women stayed. They were at the cross. They saw Jesus placed in the tomb. They waited through the sabbath and were the first ones at the tomb Sunday morning. Mary is the first to see Jesus. And yes, they go and tell the men and the men don’t believe their “idle tale” (thanks for that, Luke’s gospel). Until they see Jesus themselves.

For these women, their understanding of Jesus’ resurrection is anchored in their experience of his suffering and death, the emptiness of waiting through the sabbath and the emptiness of the tomb. For them death has become truly a part of life.

So has the reality of doubt because, second, let’s stop talking about “doubting” Thomas as if he’s the only one who did. I’m not suggesting that Mary’s first response to the empty tomb was “I knew it!” It wasn’t. It was confusion and anxiety. But that was everyone’s response. The women wondered what had happened to Jesus body until they meet him or Mary meets him as the gardener and doesn’t recognize him at first (depends on the gospel). When Jesus appears to the disciples in a locked room, they need to touch him, just as Thomas will. The men on the road to Emmaus, the disciples by the sea, whatever story, no one recognizes Jesus because they aren’t expecting to see him “alive, just as he said.”

The point is, doubt’s okay. So is grief and fear. They’re part of the story. Also part of the story? Companionship. We aren’t alone. In our grief and brokenness, in our anxiety and fear, in our doubt, in our confusion, even in our joy, we aren’t alone. And Jesus, the one we would see as abandoned and alone in death and apart from us in resurrection, represents the very thing that binds us together: love. 

Undead or Alive

How is Jesus alive?

I’ve told this story more than a few times, I’m sure, but I think it bears repeating. Much likes Easter. A few years ago, a young person I know asked me if Jesus was a zombie. The presumption that zombies might be real aside, I asked what made him think that. He said that the story of Jesus’ resurrection reads pretty much like he was a zombie: body was gone from the tomb, he's seen walking around and he still has the wounds of his death. I assured him that Jesus wasn’t a zombie.

Mercifully, I thought, the conversation ended there. But I’ve come back to it many times since. Every Easter, in fact. How is Jesus alive? Let’s recap the story.

Only days after being welcomed to Jerusalem by adoring crowds, Jesus is suddenly, shockingly, unbelievably, dead, killed in a cruel and humiliating manner. His closest followers are in hiding, fearful for their own lives, grieving the end of their life with Jesus. But it's not the end. After the sabbath, the women go to the tomb and it’s empty. He's alive, just as he promised. Mary sees him, not recognizing him at first. The women tell the disciples about the empty tomb, but they only seem to believe when he appears to them. He appears to many and after this Jesus is gone, his followers tell the story and share his teaching - his life - with everyone they can.

The women watched him die and saw him placed in the tomb. For as much as his chosen disciples abandoned him at his arrest, the women seemed to have stayed with him. They see him die. Their experience of the resurrection is anchored in their experience of his death. They’re not the only ones to see him die, of course. The Roman authorities, the Jewish authorities, the crowd that called for his death, they all saw him die. Even his closest followers thought he was dead. 

So, how is Jesus alive, then? 

I don’t know. I’m okay with admitting that. There are many theories and explanations, I’m sure, but the circumstances of the physical appearance of Jesus simply aren’t central to the meaning of the Easter story for me. Jesus is alive because death isn’t the end of the story.

The power of the resurrection story is that there was death and it wasn't the end. That bears repeating, just as it is, because by knowing what "was" in the story, we know what "is" in our lives.

In our own lives, we experience hurt, grief and pain. We experience the sudden shock of loss, crushing and dispiriting. We experience moments of "crucifixion." No matter how others might regard or value them, we know those moments for the feeling we experience.

But that's not the end.

Jesus says "I am the resurrection and the life" - am, not just “was” or “will be” - and offers life in, and after, each of those life challenging and life changing moments. In our own moments of "crucifixion," we find life rising out of death. Or loss or sorrow or grief or fear. Jesus shows us the way to new life, not just in his death and resurrection, but in his life. Life comes from living as Jesus taught us to live. That bears repeating, too.

These Days

Last year, as we approached Holy Week and Easter, we were wondering how we could make this work with no in-person church services. Or community gatherings. Or family gatherings. There’d be no classic hymns of the season, no waving palm branches or parading around on Palm Sunday, no crowded communion celebrations, no Easter breakfast or big Easter egg hunts. We had to be creative and find new ways to connect, new ways to tell the story through a screen, or things we could send out or drop off at peoples’ homes, new ways to do big things in a small way.

But we were only going to have to do that once, right? Well, no, as it turns out. Here we are again. So maybe one of the things to consider is that our creativity isn’t just coping until it’s over, it’s finding new opportunities, new ways to learn and connect that might last, that compliment - not replace - the personal connection we’ll return to one day.

Certainly, one thing is to see how disrupting our habits and practices can draw our attention to things that our old “normal” may not have. Easter, for example, isn’t just a day. (It’s technically a season, by the way, that begins with Easter Day.) It needs the story around it. It needs Palm Sunday and Holy Week. We call it Holy Week because it’s story of a week and a day, Sunday to Sunday. Eight days, altogether, because, of course, Easter Day is “the first day of the week.” It’s the only time we can assemble a day-to-day account of Jesus’ life. And death. And life again.

We know, Robin, you remind us about this every year. Yes, I know, but this past year maybe has taught us that it’s more than just a question of a chronological account, it’s about the personal geography of those days.

Look, a very long time ago, we might have gone to church every day this week. But we became a tradition of Sunday. Many churches are trying to break that habit these days, but here’s a moment when it’s obvious: if we celebrate Palm Sunday and Easter Day only, then we miss the point of the week. It’s not about chronology, it’s about geography. The personal, spiritual, emotional geography of a week in which Jesus is celebrated and welcomed as the messiah, angrily tears down the sellers and buyers in front of the temple, is repeatedly challenged by the Temple authorities, is betrayed, arrested, abandoned, abused and killed, buried and appears, alive, to his closest companions. That’s a full week.

We need to travel that geography and see how it speaks to our own lives. Lives that have their own ups and downs, joy and grief, confusion and hope. We might also see how the week is full of moments that contrast the behaviour of crowds with more personal, intimate moments. Embrace the story, not for its ancient images, but for how it speaks to us today about those daily moments we all encounter.

We might also see that our relationship with God has Palm Sunday moments and Good Friday moments. Our relationship with God might struggle through celebration, anger, learning, loneliness, death, even emptiness. But there will always be an Easter.

The days are surely coming

The pandemic has shut down lots of things over the past year, churches are just a part of that. And it’s not only about services, of course, it’s events, dinners, small groups. Yes, being “the church” isn’t about a place or a building and we are discovering new ways of being connected. Still, for a church like ours that believes we may not have all the answers to life’s questions but we’re part of the journey to finding some, the loss of conversation and discussion is a very big loss indeed.

Recently, someone told me how much they were missing in-person bible study and I said that, soon as we’re able to get together again, we should have a bible study on the book of Job. I mean, who suffered more than Job, right?  Hmm. I’ve thought about that a bit and I’m mistaken. We need to look at Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was a prophet through some pretty difficult times for the Hebrew people, including the defeat and conquest of their nation, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of people to Babylon. It was a time that people had moved away from God, even to the point that Jeremiah says that they’ve broken their covenant with God. Jeremiah is full of gloom, sadness and despair, enough to earn him the nickname “the weeping prophet” for the grief he and his people shared.

Great, Robin, bring us down some more. That’ll be what we need to hear. 

That’s not why. It’s because Jeremiah turns to hope. In fact, Jeremiah says that God offers a new covenant, one that will be written on the heart of each person. “The days are surely coming,” says God, when I’ll make a new covenant that will be different from the ones we’ve had before, the ones that have been broken or forgotten, that were written in stone. Instead of being a covenant that builds on behaviour, it’ll begin where we all begin: in the heart. And through it, the people will truly know God.

Know. God.

By whatever name you call God, knowing is more than knowledge or understanding, it’s an awareness of what God is and finding that “is” in ourselves, in our own heart, mind and soul, with every fibre of our being. That means we begin with love and we live in love and we live out love in all things.

Christians interpret Jeremiah’s prophecy as being fulfilled in Jesus, the one who shows us how to live the love that is in each us. That’s why it’s so important to understand Jesus as one of us, not set apart, so that we can see that we are one with Jesus and each other and creation. We are unique and individual, but our hearts, like Jesus, hold all the divinity and humanity that is love and grace. It’s written there for us to share.

“The days are surely coming,” says God. They are. Hope says that’s a certainty. Jesus framed it as “heaven is near.” Perhaps the days are still to come, though we see glimpses, every day, of what it means to live love.  But perhaps we’re still learning. Jesus, and others, have pointed out that we are created of God and of the earth. That same divinity which is Jesus is in you already. Has been since the beginning. What we need to work on is our awareness of it. That, and our willingness to live it, is our part of the new covenant. How are you doing your part?

Snakes on a Plain

There’s a pretty bizarre story about snakes in the Bible. Not the one in the garden, these snakes are out in the desert. It’s part of the story of the Hebrews being led out of Egypt by Moses and cared for by God in the wilderness.

Goes something like this. Having been freed from Egypt and now out in the desert, the Hebrews had complained repeatedly about things, including food and water, and God had provided for them. Now, they’re impatient and unhappy and complain about the food they have. So God sends them poisonous snakes. Not to eat. The snakes bite and kill many and the people go to Moses, saying that they’ve sinned and ask him to ask God to save them. He goes to God, and God tells Moses to put a bronze snake on a pole and hold it up. When they’re bitten, the people who look at the snake will be healed. And they are.

On the surface, it might seem like this is a pretty straight forward “punishment for complaining followed by a demonstration of God’s power” kind of story. After all, they’ve complained a lot since leaving Egypt perhaps God’s tired of their lack of gratitude.

Or … perhaps God understands that the complaining isn’t dissatisfaction, it’s fear. It didn’t take long for the Hebrews to move from celebrating their freedom to being afraid of the new unknown in which they found themselves. They question Moses - and God - from the very beginning. They seem to let fear overwhelm their faith in God’s presence, despite the constant evidence to the contrary.

So here’s a symbol, a sign of God’s presence. See it and believe and together, we’ll overcome this. The snakes don’t go away, they don’t stop biting, but their fear of the snakes is met with a sign of God’s presence and their healing can begin. The object of their fear, itself, becomes a sign so that all could see it and choose healing over fear.

There will be hard work and many challenges and it may be a long journey, but healing can begin with this covenant with God: I am with you, here’s a sign to show you, have faith that you are loved and not alone. Take the next step and build the next moment.

Later, the writer of John’s gospel will tell how Jesus referenced this story as a way of understanding the cross. Just like Moses raised up the snake on a pole in the wilderness, he’ll say, I will be on the cross, so that those who believe will have life. And that’s just the thing about holding up a sign: it’s a sign of something greater. It’s not to be held up and worshipped as itself, but as a way of connecting to that greater thing. That, however we know God, we are loved by God and we are not alone because God - and all God is - is with us.

There are a lot of poisonous snakes. We may find much to fear, many ways in which we feel broken, hurting, grieving, many feelings which might hold us back. They’re not going to go away, but we can face them, acknowledge them, and find a way forward. We are loved, we are love, we can share that love.

Saying it again for the first time

It’s no secret that I like to re-engage Bible stories in ways that might make them speak more meaningfully to our lives today. I think we need to constantly be doing that, sometimes over and over and even over again. How else will we find what’s true in the story, the heart that still beats there, the life that still speaks - there’s any of a thousand metaphors we could use, and there will always be more, because we grow. Our context changes. This is a new time. Every day is a new day.

Among the stories I revisit regularly is what I’m going to call Ten Great Ideas for Living Together. I know that sounds like one of those things that shows up in your Facebook feed or on YouTube - that’s kinda the point - maybe from BuzzFeed or WatchMojo, they get your attention. These days, odds are that you’re more likely to keep reading if it says “Ten Great Ideas for Living Together” rather than “The Ten Commandments.”

Calling them “commandments” isn’t even original - we started using that term in the 16th century - and it reflected, I think, a particular perspective that we should let go. They’re not commands or laws, definitely not as we would understand those terms today. They’re a way to build and facilitate relationships. That’s the point of them being a covenant. Together with God and each other, we covenant to create community with these ways of living. We begin with the love that we are and we share that love with these sayings as a starting framework.

Remember, too, the context of the people who first heard them. Because the Ten Great Ideas for Living Together is part of their story, the story of the Hebrew people in Exodus, newly freed from Egypt, feeling alone, confused and wandering in the desert. They knew law and order, what they didn’t know was relationship.

These ten sayings are an attempt to say something much more fundamental about how we live, with God, with ourselves and with each other, something that needs to be taught new to every generation in a way that generation understands. They’re about how we should live because we should live. We should live with freedom, not fear. With love, not hate. With peace, not conflict. With joy, not hurt.

One way we could get started is to frame them as affirmations of that love that is in us. There’s a lot of “thou shalt not” in what’s been handed down to us. Perhaps “thou shall” is a better way to go. How about this.

There is one great life-giving energy that is God. We know God in different ways, by different names, but we’re all one with God.

Only devote yourself to God. Stuff is just stuff, people are just people, God is love.

God respects you. Respect God.

Have a day of rest to reconnect with God.

Love and honour your parents. They gave you life.

Honour all life and keep it safe.

Build relationships and honour them.

respect what belongs to others.

Be honest and true.

Be happy with what you have, share with others, and love.