The Three Days are ancient
in Christian observation. For centuries the rituals and liturgies have cradled
believers, opening safe space to relive the emotion fraught passion of Jesus
and embrace the counter-cultural audacious Gospel. Immersion in this powerful
series of events situates the faithful to be fully present in the world, and
amid fear break-open fulfilment of God’s promises. Through these Three Days
each sermon reflects on one of three responsive approaches garnered from the
Gospel to navigate and care for the world as we know it. The responsive
approaches are: repose, despair, and respair.
Respair: A state of fresh
hope; a recovery from despair
That’s the conclusion of the
sentence from Good Friday. Respair.
Most certainly respair. The
women have solemnly walked to the tomb, wrapped in cloaks coated with despair.
As they reach the grave, it is perplexingly open. Stunned, shoulder-to-shoulder
they squish together to poke their heads into the cavern. The musty damp air
pulls on them, seeps into their cloaks. And then in an instant -as their eyes
adjusted to the dimness, a growing awareness solidified in them: Jesus was not among
the dead – the stale air surrounding them was sucked into the void taking with
it the despair that had clung to their cloaks.
Resurrection dawns. Patient
hope blossoms again, only it is not so patient. This resurrection respair ushers
them out into God’s garden, God’s world. If there was ever a time to yell OMG,
Oh my God, this is it!
Unbounded, with hope germinating
in each step, they rush to tell the disciples and other followers.
Jesus is alive.
A week ago, I came across a
meme that read: “Both faith and fear demand you to
believe in something you cannot see. You choose.”
Both faith and fear demand
you to believe in something you cannot see.
The women chose faith, faith
flourishing in respair. The disciples – still smelling of despair - chose fear.
We hear Luke describe the scene as the apostles presuming the women were
telling an idle tale, chose not to believe them.
Except for Peter – there was
something about the patient hope of the women that wears on Peter, their
enthusiasm disturbs his despair, sews something deeper in him. The women’s respair
seems to be mending his hurt. He is drawn to go investigate. Jesus is alive!
And I wonder - the
choice of faith or fear? The women were present at the cross side-by-side,
patient hope bearing the suffering of Jesus to the very depths of despair, to death
and from there to resurrection, to respair, to life.
And Peter, Peter too went
with Jesus at a distance to the courtyard, denying Jesus he too sat in the
depths of despair. Was it this experience of despair – nudged by the women’s
story- that was the turning point from
fear to faith? With fear and
trepidation, and the respair of the women, Peter mends, heals enough to see the
bigness of it all. Jesus is alive!
Perhaps the other disciples
and followers fled, fled that night in the garden and avoided the plunge into the
despairing events that ended in death, and thus, to choose faith was
momentarily unavailable for they had avoided despair.
Both faith and fear demand us
to believe in something we cannot see.
Jesus performed signs and
wonders. Jesus turned water to wine, multiplied loaves and fish, cast our
demons, cured the lame, raised the dead. All while preaching a counter-cultural
audacious Gospel and the immediate coming of God’s kindom.
On that morning at the empty
tomb, whelmed with respair, the women embark into resurrection. Everything in
their being changed.
It is impossible to explain
the internal shift, how the hearing of the words Why do you look for the
living among the dead? blew despair from their shoulders and filled their spirits
with conviction of resurrection. Jesus is alive!
Even more astonishing was faith
that in Jesus’ resurrection God’s kindom came!
And yet, the world remained
much the same: the Roman Empire still occupied Jerusalem and Judea, sedition
still brought death, poverty was rampant, the sick were still sick, the hungry
were hungry, justice was for some and not others.
The counter-cultural
audacious Gospel preached by Jesus and the immediate coming of God’s kindom, blossomed
in the respair of the women. Respair was a new hope, a faith of full
resurrection, although living in a reality of continued shadow and suffering;
being at peace in the complexity of that. A peace where the kindom was present
and yet not fully here. Respair was living resurrection as a work in progress.
Consider resurrection
moments, those times when respair of generations has ushered into the world
change, a movement from fear to faith. Glorious, Alleluia moments … yet still resurrection
in progress because the change is in the spirit of those who have been in
repose, sat in the depths of despair, and been whelmed by respair --- resurrection
blossoms --- and the world is released from bondage, healed in part by the
respair of the faithful.
That resurrection, Alleluia
moment is healing but not the end of the story-
The glorious alleluia of Emancipation
was not an end to slavery.
Black Lives Matter was not
an end to racism.
Legislating women’s right to
vote was not an end to sexism.
Flying Pride and inclusion
flags was not an end to homophobia or transphobia.
#MeToo was not the end to misogyny.
World Inter-faith Harmony Week
was not the end to antisemitism, Islamophobia, or anti-Christian sentiment.
The Truth and Reconciliation
Commission was not an end to the work of Treaty negotiation and reconciliation.
Brokered ceasefires are not
the end to war.
Social assistance is not the
end of poverty.
Vaccination and medical advances
are not the end of illness or death.
Green energy and recycling are
not the end of addressing climate crisis.
Although not yet complete,
all are glorious alleluia resurrection moments, sprouting from the ashes of despair,
blossoming in respair—humans choosing faith over fear. Resurrection comes in
the work towards lasting and abundant justice, the fulfilment of God’s kindom and
God’s promises, life and life abundant.
Faith and fear demand us to believe in something we cannot see. Resurrection, respair, is choosing faith for the healing of the whole world.
No comments:
Post a Comment