April 22, 2012
Basking in Resurrection Light: The Disciples Encounter the Risen Lord
- John 20:24-29
- Rev. Jim Capps
Just for a moment, harken back to the first church of your remembrance in which you or your family was active. For me it was a little country church in Southwestern Michigan that was on the corner of three gravel roads and one paved road.
While at the time I lived quite a distance from it, at age 7, I was invited to ride their rickety old bus to attend. I’ll never forget the bus pulling up to my corner and looking up with some fear and anxiety as it pulled up and the big door opened. The bus driver had the biggest, most welcoming smile. That moment was so tantalizing. It was my first impression of God, the church, and the whole Christian enterprise.
That little church was so different than this one. Maybe the comparative difference would be like the gym in Hickory in the movie, Hoosiers, and Banker’s Life Fieldhouse, where I saw the Pacers play on Monday night. The sanctuary with balcony had a capacity of about 100-110. There was very little educational space. Sunday School classes met in different parts of the sanctuary. It was in that building that I was the worship leader when I was a freshman in high school, sang duets on a couple occasions with my mother and preached my first message.
While it was so different than this setting today, the phenomena that is exactly the same is this- when people encountered the Risen Lord their lives were joyfully, wonderfully changed. One of the great joys of living life with you these past 8 months has been seeing the Risen Christ in so many of you and hearing the stories of how you have encountered Him.
As I recall those early years, a gospel song we used to sing comes flooding back to my mind. It was titled, “When Jesus Comes.” Citing lots of the situations we experience in life, it talks of how “When Jesus Comes” life changes for the better. It takes on new meaning and significance as people encounter the Risen Lord.
As we continue to bask in the light of the Resurrection, in these weeks between Easter and Pentecost, once again we will be looking at John’s Gospel. Last Sunday, Scott Shelton talked about how Mary Magdalene encountered the Risen Lord there in the Garden Cemetery.
This morning, we are going to view together the scene where Jesus first encountered the men in whom He had poured His life for 3 long years. These are men who were shattered and scattered at his betrayal, trial and crucifixion, except for John, the author of the Gospel.
Buckle your seat belts and hold on tightly my friends. This is an amazing, life-altering encounter.
Read: John 20:19-23
JESUS CAME AND STOOD AMONG THE DISCIPLES.- VERSES 19-20
John begins by telling us that it was the evening of Resurrection Day. All the disciples, except Thomas, were gathered together behind the locked doors of what I imagine to be the same Upper room where they had celebrated the Passover. They were very much griped by the fear that the religious leaders would believe that they had stolen Jesus’ body. They perceived that their lives were in grave danger. They had gone through extreme emotional upheaval with probably very little sleep.
Then Jesus, the Risen Lord, came and stood among them. He didn’t knock on the door and ask to come in. He didn’t sneak in when they were in another room or distracted. No! The doors were locked. It was “poof” and suddenly Jesus was standing in their midst. It’s like the many accounts in the Bible when people are encountered by an angel.
As Jesus always does, He meets them where they are and says, “Peace be with you!” He’s using the common greeting, “Shalom,” still used today. It was anything but common or routine for them. In the midst of their fear and extreme emotional upheaval, they needed the kind of peace Jesus was talking about. “Shalom” has the idea of more than absence of conflict, stress or strife. It also held the idea of experiencing a deep sense of well-being and goodness. Oh, how they needed “Shalom.”
Then John tells us that Jesus showed them the nail prints in His hands and the scar the spear had made in His side. There would be no question later, when He was gone, that they had encountered the Risen Lord. They knew exactly who He was. He was not an angel or some kind of ghost. This was their Master, Jesus with whom they had spent three long years of ministry. Yes, a thousand times yes! Emmanuel was “with them” once again.
Notice the change that happens when Jesus, the Risen Lord, comes. From being frozen in fear, we are told that they were overjoyed. When Jesus comes, He brings joy.
Please note that the joy He brought them did not mean that their lives would always be euphoric with no more pain, grief, or stress. No, joy is much different from happiness. Happiness comes from the outward “happenings” of our lives. Joy comes from deep down inside of us. It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. While happiness is wonderful and to be fully embraced, it is fleeting. Make no mistake about it. It is transient. There would be many times in their futures when these same disciples would be anything but happy. But, they would be filled with joy. Their joy would always be rooted in their relationship with the risen Lord.
This morning, do you see yourself with that group of disciples?
Listen to these pensive words of Roger Fredrickson, pastor and biblical commentator as he views the disciples in this passage: ( Slide)
“How often the contemporary church finds itself behind closed doors, fearful and ineffectual, living on the wrong side of the Resurrection. The problems are so vast and the enemy so overwhelming and all the talk about Jesus seems so futile. What can be done but hide in the sanctuary discussing how desperate the situation is?”
Does that sound like you and me? Us? Are we huddling in fear today?
- · Maybe we afraid of financial failure; of votes and decisions coming from our denomination; of what changes might take place when a new pastor arrives.
- · Maybe it’s a fear of the future for those we love in the midst of a world where there are terrorists. As I held my new-born granddaughter this week, I wondered what challenges she will face in the future.
- · Maybe we face the fear of the unknown, the greatest of which is death. Even worse, we fear what will happen to us before we die.
- · As was true for the disciples, fear can paralyze and immobilize us, causing us to huddle behind closed doors as if we are on the wrong side of the Resurrection.
Dear friends, I proclaim to you that Jesus, the Risen Lord, has come and is among us today. He says to us as individuals and a church- “Shalom! Peace be with you!” He knows you and your fears and apprehensions. This is His church. He is the One who founded it in 1983. Just as He has in the past, He understands our fears and sources of worry and anxiety.
Yes, like those early disciples, when Jesus comes, He meets us where we are and brings us peace and joy.
NEXT, IN VERSE 21, JESUS COMMISSIONS HIS DISCIPLES.
Having established His presence and identity, Jesus lets the disciples know that they can’t stay in that hallowed place. Once again, for the second time, He says, “Shalom! Peace be with you!” His repetition of this common greeting must have been for emphasis as He relates to them where they are.
Then come His simple, yet, profound, words of commissioning- “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” They are to be God’s presence in their world as they share and enact the good news of God’s love and grace in the world in which they live.
There is a sense in which they are to carry on the same mission as Jesus.
- · They are to preach the good news of forgiveness and new beginnings when people experience a personal relationship with God.
- · They are to teach their contemporaries all that Jesus has taught them so that they grow deep in that relationship with God. They are to pour themselves into others like Jesus had poured Himself into them.
- · They are to be healing, caring for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of hurting, sometimes traumatized, beleaguered people regardless of their life-situation.
As Jesus commissioned His beloved protégés, He was sending them forth knowing that they would experience the same joys and sorrows, opportunities and challenges He faced. By the way, as you may know, each of His listeners that day, except for John, would die a martyr’s death just like He had. John would be exiled.
My dear friends, as this same Risen Lord comes and stands among us in our fear and apprehension, He also commissions us. He wants to make sure that we realize that we were never meant to be a “holy huddle” whose sole purpose is to preserve our funds, buildings, programs, etc. We are called to be “spent ones” who give of ourselves to the world like Jesus did.
I like what our Book of Order has to say when talking about our mission to share the good news and care for people like Jesus did: (Slide)
“The church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and giver of life, sharing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the world that point beyond themselves and the new reality in Christ.”
As Jesus commissions us anew, I pray that we might be willing to risk and trust like Jesus’ disciples did as they responded to Him.
KNOWING THAT THE DISCIPLES COULD NOT CARRY OUT THIS COMMISSION ON THEIR OWN, JESUS BREATHED ON THEM THE HOLY SPIRIT. VERSES 22-23
It would have been natural for the disciples to think, if not say, “Lord, we have a problem here. You are sending us forth to do what God sent you to do, but we aren’t you.” After having been with Jesus for three long years and seeing first hand all that He had done, they were keenly aware of the fact that they weren’t Jesus. How could they ever be capable of doing what He did? They were in awe of Him, now the Risen Lord, but they were not God, like He was.
Jesus always knew what they were thinking. He was going to give them the ability to do what He did and more. In verse 22, John writes that Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Remember in the Genesis account when God creates man, He forms Him out of the dust of the earth and then “breathes” him into being.
The Hebrew word for breathe is “Ruach” which also has the idea of wind or spirit. It’s the same idea that Jesus has when He talks to Nicodemus in John 3 when He says that the Spirit is like the wind. You can’t see it, but you can see where it is moving the leaves in the trees. In essence, Jesus is recreating them, giving them a second wind, unlike any wind they have ever known, giving them a new spirit.
Earlier in the year, when we talked about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we talked about the fact that in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit came on special people, for special occasions, but was sporadic not constant. The disciples are special people who are going to do special things, yet, they are still “Pre-Pentecost.”
That will all change in a few days at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit comes on all believers in all situations continually giving them power. The Holy Spirit was Christ living in them so that they could be and do what would otherwise be impossible. They would be empowered, guided, encouraged, gifted to do the very things Jesus did and even more.
For example, by God’s grace, as they proclaimed the good news of Christ’s salvation, people would be forgiven of their sins when they confessed Jesus as Savior and Lord. As was true for Jesus, if those who listened to them chose not to believe and receive the good news, then their sins would not be forgiven.
APPLICATION
When Jesus comes and appears among us, as was true of those first disciples who encountered Him that first Easter evening, He empowers us to continue or replicate His ministry in our world today. This is made abundantly possible by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
I like the way Time Keller, Presbyterian pastor in New York City puts it when he says, (Slide) “Properly understood, Christianity is by no means the opiate of the people. It’s more like the smelling salts.” We are called to be positive agents of change and transformation, waking up people and helping them experience life as God always meant it to be.
There was an early Christian document known as the Epistle to Diognetus (c.A.D. 120-200) written by a man named Athenagoras. Listen to these words in one important section describing how Christians are alike—and different from others:
“The difference between Christians and the rest of mankind is not a matter of nationality, or language, or customs. Christians do not live in separate cities of their own, speak any special dialect, nor practice any eccentric way of life… They pass their lives in whatever township—Greek or foreign—each man’s lot has determined; and conform to ordinary local usage in their clothing, diet, and other habits.
Nevertheless the organization of their community does exhibit some features that are remarkable, and even surprising. For instance, though they are residents at home in their own countries, there behavior there is more like transients. … Though destiny has placed them here in the flesh, they do not live after the flesh; their days are passed on earth, but their citizenship is in the heavens. They obey the prescribed laws, but in their private lives they transcend the laws. They show love to all men—and all men persecute them. They are misunderstood, and condemned; yet by suffering death they are quickened into life. They are poor, yet making many rich; lacking all things, yet having all things in abundance. … They repay [curses] with blessings, and abuse with courtesy. For the good they do, they suffer strife as evil doers.”
When Jesus comes, not only does He meet our deepest needs, but He challenges us to be more than we could ever dream of being on our own. Listen to these words from Dan Kimball, a large church pastor from Seattle:
“A few Sundays ago, I was heading home after preaching three times. I was tired and looking forward to opening my laptop and reading my favorite blogs—particularly ones focused on missional theology and leadership. Just then I received a text from a friend. He was inviting me to a club to see a band with a number of non-Christians, including one I had been trying to build a relationship with.
I suddenly faced a decision. Do I go home and read blogs about being missional, or do I go to the club and actually be missional? It sounds like an easy decision, but it wasn’t. In all honesty, part of me truly wanted to go to the comfort of home and just sit in front of my laptop.
That moment forced me to begin reflecting how much time I spend on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and other online social networking sites? I wondered, If I spent less time online, could I be spending more time building friendships?
As was true for those disciples when they were encountered by the Risen Lord on that first Easter evening, you and I are confronted with choices. What is He calling you to be and do?