The Real Jesus
April 10, 2005
Psalm 16
Acts 2:22-32
The First Season of the church year is Advent, followed by Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and then Easter. Easter includes seven Sundays. Not just the one with the Pagan rabbit and eggs, but seven. Seven Sundays of Easter not after Easter but in Easter. After spending the season of Lent scrutinizing ourselves, our personal and spiritual practices, wrestling with our understanding of God, Jesus, the Spirit, and then exploring how it is we grow relationship with this God we’ve come to know – we finally arrive in the season of Easter. The season of Easter is filled with Resurrection stories, stories that relate to an empty tomb and the appearance and interaction between a resurrected Jesus and his followers. These resurrection appearances are powerful stories of community, of believers, doubters, and strugglers gathering and breaking apart, and gathering again, coming together and telling the stories of their experiences, sharing their memories of Jesus – his acts and his words – and then, as we must today, a people of faith, shining the light of Scripture on that experience and coming to new understandings. But, that’s not all. They sit at table and break bread, and often, more than intellectual understanding, they come to see with their hearts what was right before them. It’s a new reality, it’s the same Jesus, the same language, the same ritual but a completely different experience, a new knowing of who this Jesus is and the impact he has in our lives. It’s during this Easter season we begin to challenge ourselves to experience this post Easter Jesus and what level of reality we live with him.
Today our Easter story comes from a sermon delivered by Peter, Peter the rock, the rock that cracked. Peter who abandoned his mentor, his best friend, his companion, his teacher, his faith and his God when they needed each other the most. Jesus died for his truth, Peter lied for his truth. Peter, the star student, who denied and ran and hid, succumbed to fear. After a Post Easter Jesus appears to Peter, Peter is again transformed and fortified by this experience of Jesus. He begins a ministry stronger than ever. Peter, no longer ruled by fear but by peace, the peace that the presence of a new reality of God can bring into our lives. We meet this Peter today in our story, preaching. Peter’s giving a sermon interpreting the events of Pentecost, Pentecost a dramatic effusion of God’s Spirit experienced by all who were gathered. In the second part of his sermon, which is the story we heard read from Acts today, Peter summarizes the essential features of the Jesus story: Jesus had a ministry empowered by God, came to death through human hands, that death was according to God’s will, and he was resurrected from death by God. Then Peter introduces Psalm 16 to drive his point home. David said that a Lord would come who would not be left in death. Since David was dead and remained in his tomb, he spoke of some later figure who would escape death. Peter insists, this could only have been Jesus, the one who has been raised. So why is Peter working so hard to convince that Jesus was this Lord?
Peter had been turned upside down by this person Jesus. The world that he had grown up in, that he had always known, had been rocked to its core by this Jesus. Think of how that same world has now been “rocked” by the death of Jesus. Even so, he hasn’t had time to absorb that calamity when new stories have sprung up: the body was stolen, Jesus was a twin, Jesus was a ghost, the disciples took him and hid him, the soldiers desecrated the body, someone else went to the cross for him, and now that Jesus was back. In the midst of this chaos, this time when all were searching for meaning and few were finding it...those who had relationships with God, those who had relationships with Jesus were propelled to speak, propelled by the reality of the man they knew and loved, propelled by the reality of the new experience of Jesus after his death, propelled by the transformation that was taking place within themselves through this new reality of a Post Easter Jesus.
There’s a philosophical theory for understanding different types of reality. In seminary we called it the Mt. Fuji theory. It goes like this. You are drawn to Mt. Fuji. You study it, you look at pictures of it, you look at maps of it, you read and understand all the facts about it, its height, its climate, the life forms on it, the weather patterns around it, you know Mt. Fuji. However, then you book a trip to visit Mt. Fuji. And, as soon as you glimpse a portion of it with your own eyes, you realize, you do not know it at all. That everything you once thought you knew, you now do not know. You knew nothing about Mt. Fuji. So you observe Mt. Fuji, you experience her weather, you smell her life forms, you feel the sunshine as it shines on her and taste the snow that falls on her peak. You combine this knowledge of her facts and the maps and her photos with the experience of her and you now can say you once again know Mt. Fuji.
For me, this is the story of the resurrection. The living human of Jesus was a different reality from the Post Easter experience of Jesus. And it took knowing this human Jesus, and then losing his human form, to experience the reality of Jesus. A Jesus that we experience personally is different from the human Jesus who shook the purity ladder and confronted the wisdom of the time. Knowing Jesus in all these ways is a different way of knowing. It’s not just an academic knowing of our minds, but a knowing within ourselves, within our hearts, within our souls of this Jesus.
There are many moments that unfold in our lives that shake the foundations of our beliefs: unwanted pregnancy, violence, rape, the birth of healthy, beautiful babies, the death of desperately wanted and loved children, the hatred felt from those who loved us once, the death of a spouse, a mentor, a friend, dreams unfulfilled, another birthday, homelessness, addictions that haunt, the loss of a job…
What was it that happened so fast that allowed us to become unable to incorporate it into our understanding? An accident, a death, getting fired, escorted out, test results and leaving the doctor, a note left after suicide or a spouse departing…those things that leave us with that feeling that life is smearing together too quickly all around us and we have no control or presence in its midst?
Peter’s message from Psalm 16 today is that we can find refuge in God’s presence. That God’s love will give us peace and strength allowing our hearts, our souls, our bodies to rejoice, relax and become content in God. That God will show us the path of life, pulling us from death and evil into a presence, a fullness of joy, when we are present with God. Peter reminds us. Yes, it was I who lied. Yes it was I who denied. Yes it was I who turned my back and was filled with fear and shame. And Peter who will also profess it was Jesus who returned to me, Jesus who said it does not matter, Jesus who was willing to forgive, grant peace, and give me strength.
I believe these seven weeks of Easter we can allow ourselves to experience this new reality of Jesus. And we can open ourselves to knowing through more than our intellect. Through more than our pleading. But, through the very real presence of the one who meets us in the smear. Who meets us when the world has gone dark. Who meets us when we don’t know anything any more. This Easter, let’s show up for the rising of a new reality of Jesus. Let us pray.