Tag: Jesus

The Beginning of the Beginning

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

(Sermon for Sunday, December 4, 2011 || Advent 2B || Mark 1:1-8 )

The Gospel writer Mark wastes no time telling us what the story he is writing is about. The very first words of his account of the Gospel proclaim without hesitation: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Whereas Matthew begins with a genealogy that links Jesus back to Abraham; whereas Luke begins with a short address about his research methodology; whereas John begins with a mysterious poem about creation, Mark just hits the ground running and never looks back. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Now, until I started thinking about this sermon, I had always taken this verse at face value. The “beginning” that Mark is talking about is simply the launch of the story he is telling. The “good news” is the marvelous effect of the life, death, and resurrection of the main character, whose name and identity Mark helpfully provides at the end of the verse: “Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The immediate, no frills manner, in which Mark relates the rest of the Gospel, makes this face value interpretation of the opening verse quite attractive. However, just because Mark’s narrative tends to hurtle forward from one encounter to the next, doesn’t mean that the narrative has no depth or intricacy. With that in mind, and because Advent is upon us, let’s slow down for a few minutes and really digest this first verse: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

In today’s parlance, when we hear the term “good news,” the two words are usually embedded in the sentence: “Well, I’ve got some good news and some bad news.” We’ve all used this conversational staple.

“The good news is the Patriots won their game; the bad news is so-and-so outside linebacker broke his leg and is out for the season.”

“The good news is no one was seriously hurt in the accident; the bad news is the car was totaled.”

“The good news is I found the recipe; the bad news is we’re out of eggs.”

In meetings, around kitchen tables, on the bus, we use the words “good news” to talk about the sometimes funny, sometimes bland, sometimes serious details of our lives. These two words are so ordinary, so normal. Because they sound so common, I wonder how we encounter the words “good news” when we hear them right at the beginning of Mark’s account of the Gospel. Perhaps Mark is really excited about the story he is going to tell. Perhaps Mark is employing a specific term that Jesus’ himself or his first followers used to describe his message. Either way, Mark is almost certainly doing something that we 21st century citizens would miss entirely because of our modern connotation of “good news.”

You see, in the first century Roman Empire, of which Israel was an occupied region, the term “good news” had a special connotation. The word was used exclusively for propaganda about the empire and usually about the Roman emperor himself.

“Good News: the Emperor won a victory in Gaul!”

“Good News: the Emperor’s wife has given birth to a strapping infant boy!”

“Good News: the Emperor has had another birthday!”

The Roman propaganda machine churned out these ancient press releases, and the strong arm of the military bade the cowed citizenry of occupied countries to celebrate. This was one small way that the Empire kept control of all that conquered land.

So when Jesus and later Mark proclaim their own “Good News,” they are tacitly setting their story, their message, their view of who’s really in charge squarely in the face of the Roman establishment. The “Good News,” which Jesus and his followers proclaim, is a stark challenge to ruling order of the day. Indeed, Mark shows his faith and his gutsiness in the simple act of writing those two words on the page.

Okay, file the challenge away for just a minute and let’s back up to the first two words in the verse: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The beginning. I’ll confess, until this week, I never thought there was something odd about these two words, which open Mark’s account of the Gospel. But think about them for a second: the beginning. The two words obviously start the story. They’re on page one. They would have been at the top of the scroll in Mark’s day. Why does Mark need to tell us that we are reading the beginning of the story when we are obviously reading the beginning of the story?

Perhaps Mark isn’t just stating the obvious. Perhaps this “beginning” is greater than “the opening verses of Chapter One.” Perhaps the “beginning” that Mark has in mind encompasses the entirety of his sixteen-chapter Gospel. Now we’re on to something.

If the whole, entire Gospel is the “beginning of the good news,” then the natural question becomes, “What is the middle and end of the good news?” And this is where followers of Jesus Christ down through the centuries come in. Jesus lived the beginning of the Good News. Mark, along with Matthew, Luke, and John, wrote down the story of that beginning. And you and I are characters in the middle of that same story begun two thousand years ago. You and I are players in the unfolding drama of the Good News. You and I have taken up the narrative of the Gospel that God continues to tell in our lives.

Alright, go ahead and un-file the challenge we talked about a minute ago. Remember that Mark’s usage of the term “Good News” was a gutsy, implicit challenge to the ruling order of the day. This ruling order touted their empire as the “Pax Romana,” the “peace of Rome.” Of course, this “peace” was accomplished through conquest, coercion, occupation, and fear. But Jesus Christ replaced this so-called “peace” with a peace of his own invention. Jesus’ own Good News, his own triumph was accomplished through welcome, healing, sacrifice, and love.

Of course, when these two versions of “peace” clashed, the broken, imperial establishment utterly crushed Jesus. However, by not fighting back, by sacrificing himself to halt the cycle of violence, Jesus succeeded in his challenge, even though he died. But even then, the story was just beginning. With his resurrection, Jesus demonstrated that his version of the Good News is truly the Good one. As characters who have now appeared later in this same narrative, we have the opportunity to take up the same challenge that Jesus and Mark after him championed. The Pax Romana of our day rules through apathy, self-centeredness, greed, and (as then) fear. But when find ourselves in the middle of the story begun in the Gospel, we find the strength and courage to combat those evils with Jesus’ own arsenal of welcome, healing, sacrifice, and love.

Now, I’ll end this sermon with some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first? The bad news. Sure. The bad news is there is still so much brokenness in this world, so many places where God’s Kingdom seems so far away. The good news is that with God’s help, we can challenge the ruling order of our day and bring the wholeness of the Kingdom to those broken places. The good news is that we are the current characters in the story begun in the Gospel. The good news is that the story isn’t over yet.


Make Your Face Shine

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

(Sermon for Sunday, November 27, 2011 || Advent 1B || Mark 13:24-37; Psalm 80 )

Imagine with me the Apostle Peter, who is imprisoned in Rome near the end of his life, talking to his cellmate about the day when Jesus spoke about his coming again.

We were used to hearing Jesus say strange things. He would get this faraway look in his eyes, like he was seeing another place and time, or perhaps every other place and time. When we noticed him go distant like that, the twelve of us would gather around close because we knew he would have something to say when he came back to us a moment later. More often than not, the faraway look meant something strange and sometimes unsettling was about to come from his lips. But, as I said, we were used to Jesus saying strange things, having traveled with him for months or years. In fact, I suspect that a few of us – Bartholomew especially – followed Jesus precisely because of those strange things he said.

But this one time was different. I think Bartholomew was just trying to bait Jesus into saying something memorable when he pointed out the architecture around us and said: “Teacher, look! What awesome stones and buildings!”

I don’t think Jesus was in a mood to banter with Bartholomew because his response was short and clipped: “Do you see these enormous buildings? Not even one stone will be left upon another. All will be demolished.”

I remember seeing the smile drain off of Bartholomew’s face. The conversation ended as quickly as it had begun. But Jesus’ words had unsettled me. I knew that the temple had been demolished in the past by invaders, but if the Romans had wanted to destroy such a grand building, wouldn’t they have done so already?

Later that day, we were sitting on the Mount of Olives, and James, John, Andrew, and I went to Jesus privately to ask about what he had said. The temple rose out of the city across from us, and Jesus gazed at those old stones for several minutes. But he had that faraway look in his eyes, so we knew he was seeing something other than Jerusalem’s skyline.

We waited patiently, and finally he came back to us. He spoke in low tones for a time, as if the sky and the trees around us weren’t prepared for what he had to say. He spoke of wars and earthquakes and famines. He spoke of deceivers and false prophets. He spoke of stars falling from the sky and the sun going dark. I had hoped for something comforting after his clipped response to Bartholomew, but what Jesus had to say troubled me even more.

Seeing the distressed look on my face, Jesus squeezed my shoulder and said, “But after this they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.”

He meant the words to be reassuring, but my mind was still filled with images of famine and falling stars. All I could think to say was, “When will this happen, Lord?”

Jesus shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “No one does but the Father. That’s why you need to keep alert. Think what happens at a house when the master goes off leaving the slaves in charge. They don’t know when the master will return – in the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or at dawn – so they stay awake.” Jesus fixed his eyes on each of us in turn and said: “The same goes for you: keep awake.”

A week later I failed to do what he said. It was the most important week of Jesus’ life, of my life, and I failed to keep awake to the great power and glory of God being revealed in the world. Even during his trial and crucifixion, even during that pivotal moment, I could not keep awake and alert. Did Jesus know? When his eyes went faraway on the Mount of Olives, did he see me falling asleep in the garden at midnight? Did he hear the rooster crow when I abandoned him? Did he see me sobbing when I realized my betrayal?

After such total failure, I vowed from then on always to keep alert for the Lord’s coming. And over the years, I discovered three things. Very quickly, I discovered just how easily the distractions of this world can lull me to sleep. There is always something other than God clamoring for my attention, something immediate and important. And yet this something doesn’t necessarily lead me astray from following God. Rather, the things that clamor for my attention simply make me walk with my head down so I don’t see God’s glory all around me. The distractions win out much of the time because God doesn’t clamor. God whispers. God nudges. God invites. I don’t know about you, but keeping awake and alert is the only way I ever notice God’s subtle movement.

I also discovered that Christ still comes to me even now – again and again – but like God’s movement, subtly. Now, I know what you’re going to ask. Before you do, the answer is yes. I do believe Jesus when he said the Son of Man will come again in great power and glory. But I also know that I saw him in the face of the woman who brought us fresh clothes, and I see him in you. I know this sounds like a paradox – how can Jesus be present with us here in this rotten prison and still be coming again? I wish I could explain, but I’m no theologian. But Jesus taught me how the truth tastes, and this seeming contradiction tastes true.

Thirdly, I discovered that the best way to keep awake was to keep a light burning. Yes, I know they don’t allow us candles in this stinking cell, but that’s not what I mean. Many years ago, I wandered into a synagogue somewhere in Galilee and found the scroll of the book of psalms open on a table. I glanced down and read the first few lines of the eightieth psalm. And one of them has been with me ever since, rising unbidden from my consciousness whenever I begin to fall asleep. The verse reads: “Restore us, God! Make your face shine so that we can be saved!”

“Make your face shine!” God is the light that shines to keep me awake. Now, my friend, I don’t think you know the history of my people. Well, the psalm was written when Israel was in exile. That’s why they prayed, “Restore us, God!” But what they discovered in exile was that God was there with them even though they assumed God had stayed in Jerusalem. So they prayed: “Make your face shine” so they could see God more clearly when they were far from home. And I have taken up their prayer.

I am far from home. I have been distracted by many things clamoring for my attention. I don’t always notice Christ’s subtle presence in the people I meet. But when this prayer to God springs to my lips – “Make your face shine” – I become more alert. I notice Christ’s face shining in the faces of those I meet. I look up from all the immediate and important things and notice God’s glory shining all around me. I may be far from home. And the Son of Man may not come in great power in glory for years, even centuries. But I have tasted the truth that Christ’s face shines in the darkness of my life. I failed to keep awake during Jesus’ own dark days. But because his face is shining light on my path, I will not fall asleep again.

In My Name

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

(Sermon for Sunday, September 4, 2011 || Proper 18A || Matthew 18:15-20 )

Near the end of the film Shakespeare in Love, the crowds who have just witnessed the first performance of Romeo and Juliet sit stunned into silence. Then one person begins clapping and soon the playhouse is shaking to thunderous applause. But in the midst of the cast’s curtain call, a group of soldiers storms into the theatre led by Mr. Tilney, the Queen’s Master of the Revels. “I arrest you in the name of Queen Elizabeth,” shouts Tilney.

When asked why he is attempting to arrest everyone present, he says that they all “stand in contempt of the authority vested” in him by Her Majesty because they just participated in a display of public lewdness – because (and here he points to Gwyneth Paltrow who is playing Lady Viola who, in turn, is playing Juliet) “that woman is a woman!” Then he employs the Queen’s authority a third time: “I’ll see you all in the clink in the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.”

“Mr. Tilney,” thunders a voice from the audience. Then the Queen reveals herself and says, “Have a care with my name or you will wear it out.” And stepping regally to the stage (as only Dame Judi Dench can), she takes charge of the situation.

Now the monarch happened to be at the play, but neither Mr. Tilney nor anyone else knew that. Mr. Tilney was doing what was expected of him as the person in charge of public performances in the Queen’s realm. The Queen, of course, could not possibly attend to all matters of governance alone, and so she appointed all sorts of people to handle affairs in her name. These people, like Mr. Tilney, used the Queen’s name to generate the authority they needed to do their jobs, which in the big picture always meant looking after the Queen’s affairs. Apparently, in Mr. Tilney’s case, he has traded on her name one too many times.

This is the model that first comes to my mind when the Gospel references doing something in Jesus’ name, as so happens in today’s reading from Matthew. I think of the absent monarch delegating to an underling some portion of her authority so that some minor affair of state runs smoothly. In this model, the name of the monarch functions as a badge or a seal, some sort of official statement that the underling is speaking for the monarch because the monarch is elsewhere.

Now I want you to time travel with me back about three minutes. I climbed into this pulpit, crossed myself, and said, “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” You said, “Amen,” and then you sat down while I took a sip of water. And then I started talking about Shakespeare in Love. Okay, back to the present.

How is my invocation of God’s name any different than Mr. Tilney wearing out Queen Elizabeth’s? If Mr. Tilney invokes the Queen’s name primarily because she is absent, what am I saying about God’s presence here with us at St. Stephen’s? Could I possibly be implying that God is an absent sovereign, and I am speaking on God’s authority because God couldn’t quite get here this morning?

I surely hope not. And here is where we disciples of Jesus Christ diverge from the underlings of Queen Elizabeth. Notice what Jesus says at the end of today’s Gospel reading: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.” Whenever we invoke the name of Jesus, we do not do so in order to stand in for an absent savior; rather, we invoke Jesus’ name to awaken ourselves to the ultimate reality of Christ’s very presence in our midst.

Jesus expresses this ultimate reality when he says, “I am there among them.” In Greek, this phrase literally means, “I am there in the middle of them.” In other words, the presence of Christ forms the invisible connective tissue in our relationships. We make this connection visible when we love one another, when we serve one another, when we respect the dignity of one another, and when we reach out to those who we might not think are all that connected to us.

And we make this connection visible when we gather intentionally in Christ’s name to share Christ’s presence with each other. Later in this service, we will turn our attention to the table. And the very first words out of our mouths will demonstrate that a gathering of at least two is necessary to celebrate God’s connection to us and to each other. I will say, “The Lord be with you.” And you will respond, “And also with you.” We will engage in this short conversation in order to notice that we are gathered together in God’s presence.

During the ensuing prayer, we will thank God for all the gifts God has given us. And because this thanksgiving comes attached to the sharing of something, namely bread and wine, we will be reminded that the best way to thank God for our gifts is to share them with others. At the end of the prayer, I will break the bread so we all can partake in this act of sharing. And through the praying, thanking, breaking, and sharing, we will participate in the presence of God among us. We will celebrate the connective tissue of Christ in each of our relationships.

But this is not the end of our awareness of the connecting power of God. This is the training, the exercise for the real work of disciples of Jesus Christ. When we walk out through those doors, we will bring with us the desire and the ability to make visible the connective tissue of Christ’s presence in all of our relationships. The final dialogue of this service will be, “Let us go forth in the name of Christ,” to which you will respond, “Thanks be to God” (plus a few “Alleluias”).

We go forth in the name of Christ, not to divide, but to gather. We go forth in the name of Christ, not rejecting the chance to form a bond, but rejoicing that the connective tissue of God’s presence stretches forth from us, seeking the lost and the lonely. We go forth in the name of Christ, not as delegates of an absent savior, but as beacons of the light of Christ, which fills the space between people and pulls them closer together.

Digital Disciple Chapter 5: Googling Prayer

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

After a midsummer hiatus, here’s the fifth in a six part video series produced to accompany the book Digital Disciple. This video series is designed to be used in a class setting to introduce the material and spur discussion. Of course, watching it by yourself is fine too!

Don’t forget to head over to the Facebook page and participate in a little quiz about this video. We’ll pick a random winner from those who participate and he or she will receive an autographed copy of the book, the DVD, and one of the t-shirts that Adam wore in the video (again, not the actual shirt but one just like it). Check it out!

Digital Disciple Chapter 4: Empty Minds and Disposable Bodies

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

Here’s the fourth in a six part video series produced to accompany the book Digital Disciple. This video series is designed to be used in a class setting to introduce the material and spur discussion. Of course, watching it by yourself is fine too!

Don’t forget to head over to the Facebook page and participate in a little quiz about this video. In a few days, we’ll pick a random winner from those who participate. The winner will receive an autographed copy of the book, the DVD, and a mystery T-shirt, since the one Adam wore in the video is a one of a kind that his then fiancee made him for Christmas because she is awesome.

The Sheepfold

Published on by Adam Thomas3 Comments

(Sermon for Sunday, May 15, 2011 || Easter 4A || John 10:1-10; find it also on Day1.org as part of the series “Young Leaders of the Church” series.)

Having the flu changed my life. The day was Thursday, March 13th, 2008, and I was sitting on my futon with my computer on my lap. Quite suddenly, I realized how clammy and hot I felt. Half an hour before, I had felt just fine, but in just thirty minutes my insides decided that they needed desperately to become my outsides. I put my computer on the floor, leapt up, and staggered into the bathroom. I was ill for five days, and during that time all I did was sleep and watch my recently acquired complete series of Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD. For those five days, I did not open the lid of my laptop. I did not press the power button. And I did not log in to the computer game that had dominated my life for nearly two years.

The following Tuesday, when I felt that I could walk around without gripping the furniture for support, I stumbled over to the computer and deleted World of Warcraft from the hard drive. I tossed the game discs in the trash. And in the three years, two months, and two days since contracting the flu bug, I have never logged back into the game. The flu acted as the catalyst for the breaking of my addiction to the computer game. The illness put me on the disabled list for a week right before Easter, but no matter how awful the flu made me feel, I thank God every day for the not-so-gentle push away from the stagnant life I was living. I thank God every day for yanking me out of the comfortable sheepfold that I had built up around me. I thank God every day for pulling me kicking and screaming through the gate, away from my dormant life and toward a life full of God.

This not-so-gentle shove out of the sheepfold happens in today’s Gospel reading, although I doubt you noticed any mention of being kicked through the gate in Jesus’ words. We’ll get back to this shove in a moment. First, notice that in John chapter 10, Jesus employs the imagery of first century shepherding practice in an attempt to reveal his own identity and his relationship to us. Now, the most experience I’ve ever had with sheep was in southern England, where I spent one windy afternoon dodging the sheep’s ubiquitous droppings while trying to appreciate the mystery of Avebury’s standing stones. If you’re anything like me, you have no clue about shepherding practice of any sort, ancient or modern. Therefore, in order to access what John calls a “figure of speech,” we first acknowledge our lack of personal contact with Jesus’ choice of image, and second we embrace the opportunity to use our imaginations.

So imagine with me a rolling plain, dotted with humps and hillocks. Dusk descends, and the shepherd leads his flock into the sheepfold. One of the hillocks has been hollowed out, and the sheep huddle inside next to the sheep of several other shepherds who share this particular fold. A pair of piled rock walls extends out a few feet from the sides of the hill. The shepherd lies down in the space between the low walls, effectively sealing the enclosure. Thieves and bandits and wolves will have a difficult time getting in with the shepherds on guard. The sheep are safe in the sheepfold.

When the shepherd arises the next morning, Jesus explains, “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” The sheep can’t spend their whole lives in the sheepfold, no matter how safe the enclosure may be. There’s no food in the fold, after all. The sheepfold may be comfortable and safe, but the sheep must follow the shepherd out of the fold in order to find sustenance, in order to live.

Jesus’ choice of words here is telling, but our translation into English hides the special word that Jesus uses. “When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them,” says Jesus in the version we use in church. In this verse, there’s a fairly weak rendering of a Greek word that appears over and over again in the Gospel. We hear this word every time Jesus casts out a demon. We hear this word when Jesus makes a whip and throws the moneychangers out of the temple. We hear this word when Jesus speaks of driving out the “ruler of this world.” In every instance of this word in the Gospel, Jesus is doing some sort of battle: he is pushing, pulling, throwing, yanking, driving, exorcising, casting out. But in this instance about the shepherd and the sheep, the translators decided a nice, safe, neutral translation was better. The shepherd simply “brings” his sheep out of the fold.

Now, perhaps those dimwitted, wooly animals trod placidly from the fold every morning at the beckoning of the shepherd. But Jesus is, of course, not talking about real sheep. He’s talking about us, about you and me. He’s talking about calling out to us, about speaking the word that will bring us forth from our own sheepfolds, from those places of comfort and safety that we have built up around us. The seductive force that pulls us into these personal sheepfolds tells us that everything will be okay as long as we keep quiet and stay put. Play another hour. Have another drink. Watch another show. I don’t know about you, but I need to be pushed, pulled, thrown, yanked, and driven out of that place of stagnation and dormancy every time I start settling into my comfortable enclosure.

For two years, my sheepfold was the virtual world created in the computer game World of Warcraft. I lived there more than I did in the real world. I played every day. Often I ate all three meals in front of my computer. But during those stagnant months that stretched into years, I didn’t live. I existed. I simply settled myself in my sheepfold. My mind numbed. My heart hibernated. My spirit deflated. But I didn’t notice because I was safe and I was comfortable. Then the flu hit, and I was too weak to resist the pulling and yanking that God had been doing for who knows how long. God drove me out of my sheepfold. And my life began anew.

This is the message of the Resurrection: life cannot be conquered – not by death, not by sin, not by the powers of darkness. Life happens – fully, intensely, eternally. Indeed, Jesus tells us this morning: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” The Resurrection of Jesus Christ ripples out to touch every life, everywhere, for all time. The wonder of Easter morning shows us the utter lengths that God goes to offer us abundant life.

And yet, while life cannot be conquered, life can be delayed, put on hold, made dormant. When we retreat to the safety and comfort of our own personal sheepfolds – whatever they may be – we refuse to participate in the fullness of a life lived in God. Of course, existing in the sheepfold is easier, less demanding. But existence is not life. Ease does not bring joy. And less demanding often means less fulfilling.

We cannot import into our sheepfolds the abundant life that Christ offers us because the very fullness of that life cannot fit inside a safe, comfortable enclosure. Christ drives us out of the sheepfold so that our lives have the opportunity to expand, that we may embrace God’s unrestrained abundance. During this season of Easter, join God in the expansive life found in the Resurrection. Listen for the voice of the shepherd calling you by name, calling you out of complacency. And give Christ the chance to cast you out of your sheepfold so that you may find the fullness of a life lived in the abundance of God.

Digital Disciple Chapter 3: Remote Intimacy

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment

Here’s the third in a six part video series produced to accompany the book Digital Disciple. This video series is designed to be used in a class setting to introduce the material and spur discussion. Of course, watching it by yourself is fine too!

Don’t forget to head over to the Facebook page and participate in a little quiz about this video. In a few days, we’ll pick a random winner from those who participate. The winner will receive an autographed copy of the book, the DVD, and a Doctor Who t-shirt like the one Adam wore in the video! It could be you!

Breathing on Statues

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

(Sermon for Sunday, May 1, 2011 || Easter 2A || John 20:19-31)

Imagine with me the Apostle Peter, who is in Rome near the end of his life, talking to a friend about the day when Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples in the locked house.

"Aslan Breathes" by Melissa Carter. Click the picture to see more of her paintings.

I wish I could tell you that seeing the empty tomb was enough. I went inside the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there and the cloth that had covered Jesus’ face folded up in a corner. Thinking back now, surely grave robbers would not have folded his ceremonial burial garments while stealing his body! But in the semi-darkness of that early morning, I wasn’t thinking rationally. I wasn’t thinking at all. I was numb on the outside, immune to the sliver of hope that the empty tomb brought.

I was numb on the outside, but on the inside, I was at war. I always thought of myself as his most faithful disciple, but at the time of his greatest need, I abandoned him, I lied about knowing him to save my own skin. In the garden, I had been ready to fight to the death for Jesus. But the moment he took away my sword, I crumbled. I wasn’t strong enough to remain by his side without a weapon in my hand. I wasn’t strong enough to trust him, to trust that his plan included death without fighting. I was at war within myself, and I could not access a single crumb of the peace that Jesus had always radiated.

I saw the empty tomb, but the conflict within kept me blind to what the emptiness might mean. The war inside of me – with fresh reinforcements of guilt – was still raging when I returned to the house we had used a few nights before, on the night when I didn’t want Jesus to wash me feet. Nine of the others were there; they had been locked in the room since the mob had formed three days before. As I was shutting the door, Mary Magdalene rushed up and squeezed her way into the room. “I have seen the Lord,” she shouted.

She was breathing hard. I had left her standing outside the tomb, so she must have raced all the way to the house to catch up with me. I looked at Mary: her face glistened with sweat, her eyes were bright. If the conflict within had not been blinding me, I might have identified the brightness in her eyes as “joy,” but how could there ever be joy again after what had happened? The other disciples barely looked up when she burst in shouting. She looked around the room, then back at me. “He has risen from the dead,” she said, defiantly.

I took a step toward her. “Just because the tomb was empty,” I began, but my voice trailed off. She backed away, and now her voice was very small, small and wounded. “But I did see him,” she said. And I shut the door with Mary on the other side.

Sliding the bolt home, I slumped against the door and slid to the ground. Oblivious to Mary’s pounding on the door, I looked around the room. Judas was gone, of course, but everyone else was there, I was sure. We had escaped the mob and the authorities. Would they be content with the death of our leader or would they be coming after us, too? I counted the others. Nine, and I made ten. Someone else was missing. “Where’s Thomas,” I called out.

Philip looked up for a moment and managed a one-word response. “Gone,” he said, and he put his head back into his hands. I sat with my back to the locked door. Eventually Mary gave up her pounding. I could hear her sobbing, her breath coming in great heaves. She was, no doubt, sitting against the other side of the door. Three inches of wood separated us: three inches of wood and my disbelief and the war raging within me.

Inside the room, we might have been statues. I couldn’t even hear the others breathing. Hours passed and no one noticed. No one spoke. No one ate or drank. We were entombed in the locked house, alive but acting like dead men. And all the while the war raged on while numbness froze my body against the bolted door.

The ten of us were still frozen in place when evening fell. I had been staring at nothing in particular when I began unconsciously counting the others again. “Eight. Nine. Ten.” I counted aloud, and then I put my finger to my own chest. “Eleven.” I counted again. Eleven again. I leapt up and stared at the man in the center of the room. He was slowly spinning in a circle, studying each statue in turn. I looked where he was looking: at the hollow eyes, at the sunken cheeks, at the dried up streams of tears that had washed clean lines on dirty faces.

As far as I could tell, I was the only one who had noticed his presence. Since my rational mind was still turned off, I didn’t even wonder how someone else had entered the room while I was sitting against the locked door. I just stared at him, uncomprehending, but the sliver of hope that lay dormant in me since the tomb was beginning to glow. Then he said, “Peace be with you.”

They were the first words spoken since Philip’s one-word response to my question hours earlier. The words rang out, and the others began to stir. They raised their heads. Some stood up. The man walked over to me, gripped my arm in a firm grasp, and I noticed fresh wounds that cut through both of his wrists. He went around the room clasping the others’ shoulders and lifting their chins with his fingers. “He can’t be,” I said, as the war of guilt and pain and loss continued to rage within me, stronger now that the faint glow of hope was illuminating the battlefield.

The man heard me and turned to face my direction. “Peace be with you,” he said again. We were all standing now. The room, so empty a moment before, seemed full now, but not full enough for him. He gestured to me. I turned, unbolted the lock, and opened the door. Mary, still slumped against the other side, fell into the room. I helped her to her feet. “Is he?” I whispered to her. She looked from the man to me, and she beamed at me through brimming eyes.

“As the Father sent me, so I am sending you,” he continued. With these words, we, who had been as still as statues mere minutes before, all leaned in, like trees bending toward the sunlight. And he exhaled a deep, cleansing breath, then another and another. As he breathed out, I breathed in. I breathed in his breath, the wind of his life. I breathed in the words he had spoken twice since his arrival, the very peace that he proclaimed, that he radiated. This was Jesus, and he was alive, and he was breathing life back into us, into the ones who had entombed ourselves in that locked house.

As we leaned closer, Jesus said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And his breath washed over me, into me, through me. His Spirit brought peace to the war raging within. His breath blew across the faint glow of hope, turning the glow into a spark, and the spark into a flame, and the flame into a fire. And the fire set my heart alight with all the fervor of rekindled belief in this Jesus, this risen Lord, this one who would not abandon me to the grave even after I had abandoned him to die.

I tell you, friend, that in the years since that day, my daydreams have often brought me back to that moment when Jesus breathed his Spirit into me. When I am in distress, when I am in grief, when I forget that I believe that I am with God, I can take a breath. And I will remember that I am breathing in the peace that our Lord has given to each of us, the peace that passes all my ability to understand and lodges where I need that peace the most – in the secret places within where the war still rages from time to time. You see, every time I take a breath, and, for that matter, every time you take a breath, we are not only filling up our lungs with air. We are filling up our souls with the Holy Spirit of God, who continues to breathe into us the new life of the Risen Christ.

Digital Disciple Chapter 2: From Connection to Communion

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

Here’s the second in a six part video series produced to accompany the book Digital Disciple. This video series is designed to be used in a class setting to introduce the material and spur discussion. Of course, watching it by yourself is fine too!

Don’t forget to head over to the Facebook page and participate in a little game about this video. In a few days, we’ll pick a random winner from the first 23 players. The winner will receive an autographed copy of the book, the DVD, and a Battlestar Galactica t-shirt like the one Adam wore in the video! It could be you!

These Things Last

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

 (Sermon for Sunday April 17, 2011 || Palm Sunday Year A || Psalm 118; Matthew 21:1-11)

You may or may not have noticed that we skipped sixteen verses of today’s psalm. We read verses one and two, and then we leapt to verse nineteen and read to the end. Now, I don’t know about you, but the lectionary prompting me to skip things just makes me more and more curious about what I’m being told not to read. Perhaps this is the rebellious streak that never manifested in my adolescence finally coming out in bouts of unruly biblical interpretation. If so, I invite you to join me in my insubordination for a few moments.

Steve McQueen's Capt. Hilts goes to the "cooler" for insubordination about once every half hour of the legendary film "The Great Escape" (1963).

The opening verse of the psalm, which we did read, says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his mercy endures for ever.” Other translations render “mercy” as “loving kindness” and “faithful love,” as in “his faithful love lasts forever.” The psalmist then moves from this declaration of love to the verses we skipped, which tell of a difficult military campaign. The middle section reads: “All the nations surrounded me, but I cut them down in the Lord’s name. Yes, they surrounded me on every single side, but I cut them down in the Lord’s name. They surrounded me like bees, but they were extinguished like burning thorns. I cut them down in the Lord’s name!” The psalmist continues with a victory shout: “The Lord’s strong hand is victorious! The Lord’s strong hand is ready to strike! The Lord’s strong hand is victorious!”

With the bloody, militant verses through, the lectionary picks back up on safer terrain for the final ten verses of the psalm. Isolated as they are in this morning’s reading, these ten verses depict an innocuous procession to the temple for some sort of sacrifice of thanksgiving. But the militant verses show this psalm in a different light than we might have otherwise expected. This is no ordinary procession to the temple; this is a victory march. This is the triumphant rally following a hard-fought war. The victors parade into the city with verse 19 on their lips: “Open for me the gates of righteousness; I will enter them; I will offer thanks to the Lord.”

A few verses later, we hear the chants of the crowd lining the streets as the troops pass: “Hosannah, Lord, hosannah! Lord, send us now success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Wait just a second. We heard these same words again this morning, again from a crowd, again during a parade. As Jesus rides into Jerusalem, the crowds chant, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” Could we have just heard the same story twice in a row? We sure did, but you’ll notice some glaring differences, which show that the story in the Gospel will soon come to quite a different ending, which we will hear at the end of this service.

In the psalm, the ones who come in the name of the Lord are the ones who cut down their foes also in the name of the Lord. In the Gospel, the one who comes in the name of the Lord is the prince of peace.

In the psalm, the speaker shouts that the Lord’s strong hand is victorious and ready to strike. In the Gospel, Jesus offers no retaliation upon his arrest and reprimands the disciple who lashes out with the sword. Jesus shows his power not in victory, but in sacrifice.

In the psalm, the speaker declares: “I won’t die—no, I will live and declare what the Lord has done.” In the Gospel, Jesus gives up his life in order to declare what the Lord is doing.

In the psalm, the people call out for success. In the Gospel, Jesus knows that sacrifice, rather than success, is his calling.

In the psalm, the parade “form(s) a procession with branches up to the horns of the altar,” where the blood of the animal of the ritual sin offering will be smeared. In the Gospel, Jesus takes on the role of sin offering and sacrifices his own life for the sins of the whole world.

Whereas the psalm tells this story of a parade as the end of a triumphant military campaign, the Gospel tells this same story as the beginning of a defeat so great that the subject of the parade is put to death and his followers betray him, deny him, and desert him.

And yet, we are left to wonder: which one is the true victory? Which parade truly tells the story that the first and last verses of the psalm proclaim: “Give thanks to the Lord because he is good, because his faithful love lasts forever.”

God’s faithful love lasts forever. The triumphant military campaign in Psalm 118 is fleeting. Those same victorious soldiers marching through the gates of the city will, sadly, march out into battle again. But the death of the one whose only crime was truth-telling, the defiance of the one who stands against the forces of darkness and domination, the sacrifice of the one who drew all the world to himself while being raised up on a cross – these things last.

Jesus says to his disciples, “This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13). Jesus modeled this commandment in his own magnificent defeat. But we know that this isn’t the end of the story.

Because God’s faithful love lasts forever.