"By His Wounds" (Acts 9:1-19a)

The Season of Resurrection

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the children’s sermon in which the pastor patiently plays a guessing game with the circle of children gathered around him. “What’s small and covered with fur and has a big, bushy tail?” Silence. “It climbs in trees.” More silence. “It gathers nuts to prepare for the winter.” Finally a little girl timidly raises her hand. “It sure sounds like a squirrel,” she says, “but I know that the right answer must be Jesus.”

The Easter season is a bit like this little girl’s answer. Easter is the season of resurrection, and so we look for the risen Christ in everything that we see. It is common, of course, to read stories of the risen Jesus himself appearing to his disciples after his crucifixion. (We’ve read two such stories the last two Sundays.) But we don’t stop there. We also read other stories from the New Testament where it becomes clear that the risen Christ lives in his followers. Resurrection is not a reality that ends when Jesus departs. It is a reality that begins…and that grows in the faith of trusting hearts.

Saul the Persecutor

1   Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

When the book of Acts first introduces us to Saul, we find him presiding over the first documented execution of a Christ-follower, the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58-8:1). According to the book of Acts, that execution initiates “a severe persecution…against the church” (Acts 8:1). And at the heart of that persecution is Saul, who according to Acts “ravag[es] the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3).

All this to say, Saul seems to be the principal persecutor of the first followers of Christ. He is their chief threat. Public enemy number one.

Christ the Persecuted

3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5 He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

In the most literal sense, these words are a contradiction. Paul is not persecuting Jesus; he is persecuting Jesus’ followers.

But that’s just the point for Jesus. He identifies so fully with the human family that when they suffer, he suffers. We heard this already in the gospel of Matthew when Jesus identifies with the “least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46)—the hungry, the homeless, the hurting, the imprisoned. Of course, in today’s story Jesus is referring more specifically to his followers, like Stephen who was recently stoned. Later, Saul-turned-Paul will tell the church that they are “the body of Christ.” It may well be this encounter with the risen Christ that inspires that profound metaphor. Jesus does not ask, “Why do you persecute my followers?” He asks, “Why do you persecute me?” Paul connects the dots to realize that Jesus’ persecuted followers are inextricably a part of Jesus—his “body” here on earth.

“No Body but Ours”?

6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

There’s a popular saying in the Christian tradition, often attributed to Teresa of Avila, that Christ has “no body but ours.” No hands but ours, no feet but ours, no eyes but ours, no voice but ours.

On the face of it, however, today’s story would seem to suggest otherwise. Because the risen Christ intervenes in Saul’s life in a miraculous, seemingly supernatural way, without the aid of our bodies—a blinding light, an unidentified voice. This is not a natural, everyday experience. (If it is, you should probably see a doctor!) It would appear in today’s story Christ can supernaturally do things on his own without our help, without our bodies.

This supernatural view of God, however, has the unfortunate tendency of evicting God from our “natural” world. It leads to the view that there are really two worlds: the “natural” world where we’re left to fend for ourselves and the “supernatural” world (or “heaven” if you’d like) from where God will occasionally stoop down to intervene in our world. At its extreme, this two-worlds view of things is a “pie-in-the-sky” theology. It’s a theology that has lost its nerve, maybe even lost its faith, as it’s unable to see God in this world, unable to trust in the way of God’s non-violent love in this very violent world.

I would like to suggest an alternative, namely a one-world view of things, in which there is no separation between God and the world. In a one-world view, God does not “intervene” in our world. Rather God is continually moving in it, continually “at work in [us]” (as Paul will say in Phil 2:13); God is the one “in [whom] we live and move and have our being” (as Paul says later in Acts 17:28), and God’s great purpose is not an evacuation from one world to another but, as Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, the reconciliation of all things in creation to Godself (Col 1:20). In a one-world view, Christ indeed has “no body but ours,” which is really intended to say not that Jesus is gone (although that is true in a bodily sense) but rather that our bodies—this one world—is the only place where Jesus really matters, where Jesus has any real effect.

If everything I’ve said in the last minute or two seems besides (or beyond) the point, then please leave it behind. Because what I really want to say is this: I strongly believe that Saul’s first encounter with the risen Christ does not happen on the road to Damascus. It happens before then. It happens, paradoxically, at the execution of Stephen. In Stephen’s fallen body, Saul catches a glimpse of the risen Christ. For me, Stephen’s death is the real miracle, not what happens on the road to Damascus (which I think is just the fulfillment or completion of the real miracle). The real miracle is that when Stephen dies, he does not do so with cries of pain and vengeance but with faith and forgiveness. He is truly a disciple, or “learner,” of Jesus. He dies as Jesus died, entrusting his life to God (“receive my spirit” he prays) and forgiving his executioners (“Lord, do not hold this against them”). These are decidedly not natural words to utter as one dies a violent death. If we insist on talking about the “supernatural” in this story, I would point to Stephen’s death. Only a person who has been thoroughly changed, inside-out, by Jesus, could utter such words.

All this to say, I think Stephen’s radical witness at his death plants a seed in Saul’s heart. Saul’s encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus does not come out of nowhere, out of the blue, out of a miraculous divine intervention from on high. No, I think God has already been “at work in” his heart since the moment he caught a glimpse of the risen Christ in Stephen’s extraordinary faith and forgiveness.

Last week, we saw the risen Christ present his wounds to his followers at the same time that he declared “Peace” to them. Perhaps it is more than a coincidence that today Saul first encounters the risen Christ by his wounds. When on the road to Damascus he hears the voice ask, “Why do you persecute me?”, he is confronted with the wounds of  Christ that he first saw in the wounds of Stephen, wounds that he himself administered. And those wounds become an invitation, an open door, into a radically different way of life. For in those wounds he caught a glimpse of God’s way—not force, but forgiveness; not retribution, but peace.

Christ Risen in Another Disciple

10   Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, 

“Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” 13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16 I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

If Saul’s first encounter with the risen Christ begins with Stephen, then his next encounter with the risen Christ happens with Ananias. The book of Acts privileges us with a glimpse inside Ananias’ heart prior to his visit with Saul. In a vision, Ananias feels compelled by Christ to go lay hands on Saul to heal his loss of sight. From where does this vision, this calling come? Again, I don’t think it comes out of nowhere. I don’t think it’s a supernatural intervention from another world. What’s “supernatural” in this event is not the vision but the very notion of approaching public enemy number one to touch him tenderly so that he might be healed. By our world’s logic, Ananias would have had every right to think that Saul’s blindness was an act of God’s justice, a bit of karma, his evil deeds finally catching up with him. “Serves him right,” the world would say.

But like Stephen, Ananias is a disciple or “learner” of Jesus, who has been so thoroughly transformed by the Jesus way that he has left behind the worldly notions of retributive justice, of God as punishing judge. In Paul’s later language, we might say Ananias had “died” to the world—to its way of seeing “us versus them,” its way of judging and condemning. What we see in Ananias is not the world but the risen Christ. His vision is no out-of-the-blue-divine intervention; it is simply the blossoming of what was already in his heart, namely that as a follower of Christ he would pray for his persecutors and love his enemies.

How the Church “Fights” Its Enemies

17 So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Just to make the contrast as stark as possible: Saul pursued his enemies with threats and violence. He approved of their execution.

Ananias approaches his enemy—public enemy number one—and addresses him, “Brother.”

One commentator muses that today’s scripture shows us how the church “fights” its enemies. The world fights with fists, with swords, with guns. The body of Christ “fights” with tender touch, with trust, with care.

Paul’s “Conversion”: Persecutor to Peacemaker

Readers have traditionally labeled today’s story “the conversion of Saul.” In one sense, this label is misleading. It suggests that Saul (who becomes Paul) went from being a Jew to a Christian. But Saul does not abandon his Jewish faith. Rather he comes to reinterpret his Jewish faith in light of Jesus, who was himself a Jew. At this stage in history, there is no such thing as Christianity. There is simply a movement of Jesus-followers, most of whom are Jewish. It would be more accurate, perhaps, to see this movement as a sect within Judaism, just like the Pharisees or the Sadducees or the zealots.

So, no, Paul’s conversion is not a case of switching sides, of swapping jerseys, of moving from “Team Jewish” to “Team Jesus.” His conversion demands much more of him than simply ticking a different box for religion on the census form. Think about it for a moment. Simply switching sides would not have necessarily entailed a different way of life. Paul could have switched sides but continued playing the same game. He could have decided this Jesus fellow was right, and everyone else needed to be forced—by hook or crook—into the same camp. He could have continued breathing threats and violence, just against a new enemy.

But he doesn’t. His conversion is deeper. More profound. This is not the tale of how Saul the Jew became Paul the Christian. It’s the story of how Saul the persecutor becomes Paul the peacemaker. Because if you think about it, that’s what Paul becomes in the early church. Not only does let go of his violent ways, but he also proclaims the reconciliation of all creation into the family of God: “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Of Christ, he proclaims: “He is our peace; … he … has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Eph 2:14).

And Paul’s “conversion” begins in the weirdest, seemingly weakest of ways. It begins with the wounded Christ, whom he encounters in the executed Stephen who nevertheless proclaims forgiveness upon his executors; it begins with the wounded Christ, whom he encounters in Ananias, who as part of the wounded body of Christ receives him in a tender embrace and calls him “brother.”

There is a prophecy from Isaiah that the early church cited time and again about a mysterious figure known as the “suffering servant.” One such citation actually appears in the story that immediately precedes today’s (Acts 8:32-33). Isaiah insists that somehow this suffering servant’s wounds will heal us all: “By his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). In today’s scripture, I see just such a healing. The wounds of Christ transform Saul, snapping him out of his distorted, worldly thinking, and showing him a different way, God’s patient way of mercy and forgiveness.

Saul’s real conversion—not from Jew to Christian, but from persecutor to peacemaker—suggests just how radical the Jesus way is. Think about the worldly logic that prevails today, from the schoolyard to the world stage. It’s stuff like “survival of the fittest,” and “it’s a dog-eat-dog world,” and “the one with the most toys at the end wins,” and “better to be feared than loved.” It’s the worship of power. That’s the logic the young Saul followed. (You could be a Jew or a Muslim or a Christian and underneath your religion this is what you really believe. There are plenty of religious people who really believe in this worldly logic of power.) But the logic of the wounded yet risen Christ is antithetical to this worldly logic. It’s stuff like “blessed are the poor and the meek,” stuff like “God will provide,” stuff like “love is better than life” (to quote a psalm), stuff like “all of life is a gift.” In a word, it’s the worship of Love, which is another name for God. (“God is Love” as John says).

The wounds of Christ show us—as they showed Paul—not only the hurtful consequences of our worldly logic. They also show us the way of God…and the way we are healed, if we would believe it.

Prayer

Crucified and risen Christ,
Whose woundedness offers us
An invitation into your healing love
…
Work in our hearts
As you worked in Paul’s,
That we might be
Not conformed to this world
But transformed by the renewing of our mind.
Lead us in the way of your mercy. Amen.

The Story of a Scar (John 20:19-31)

Not a Safe Bet

There once was a young man who fell in love. After some time, he began to wonder about marriage. But he agonized over the idea. How could he know beyond a shadow of a doubt that his beloved was in fact “the one”? So, one day he visited his father and asked, “How can I know if she’s the one?”

His father chuckled, shook his head, and said: “You can’t.”

“What do you mean?” the son asked. “Didn’t you know Mom was the one?”

His father shook his head and said, “Love is not something you know. It’s not a safe bet. It’s something you do, come hell or high water. If I had known everything that would have happened between your mother and me, then marriage wouldn’t have been such a big decision. It would have been about as big a decision as where we’re going to eat dinner tonight. In other words, we know exactly what we’re going to get at each restaurant. But when I asked your mother to marry me…I had no idea what was coming.”

Over the next hour, the young man’s father opened up and shared about several disappointments. He shared how, in moments of misunderstanding, he and his wife had said and done hurtful things, things that had since been forgiven but could never be forgotten. He shared how their desires for the future sometimes conflicted and how they had both given up on some of their own dreams. He shared how raising children and caring for parents had placed a heavy tax on their own time together.

His father said, “No…I had no idea what I was getting into. There’s been a lot of joy, but there’s also been a lot of hurt…hurt that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. If you look closely enough, you’ll see that this marriage has a number of scars.” He paused here, with a pensive look. Then his face relaxed, and he said, “But a scar is not just a wound. It is a wound that has been healed. And what heals a wound…is love. Every scar that we bear is a story of our love.”

“Love is not a safe bet,” he concluded. “It’s not something you know. It’s something you do. And it changes you, and it changes the world.”

The Desire for Certainty

Today’s scripture is well known particularly for its depiction of a single character, Thomas. “Doubting Thomas,” as he is now known in teh Christian tradition. We all have a little sympathy for Doubting Thomas, because we can all relate to the desire for proof. “Seeing is believing,” as we sometimes say. Or as our youth might exclaim, “Pictures, or it didn’t happen!” But even as we might reserve a little private sympathy for Thomas, we recoil from him too. “Oh, they’re just a Doubting Thomas,” we might say to describe someone who expresses reservations or has not fully committed to an idea. No one wants to be singled out as a Doubting Thomas. We would prefer to be grouped with the other disciples.

But today I wonder: are the other disciples really any different than Thomas? Remember, they have already heard the good news from Mary Magdalene that Jesus is risen. But where we do find them? Behind locked doors. They are too afraid even to leave the house. At this stage, they are just like Thomas. They have heard the good news that love is stronger than death, but they do not trust in it. Just like Thomas, they desire certainty.

Thomas desires the certainty of knowledge, the certainty of proof. “Unless I…put my finger in the mark of the nails…” (John 20:25). The rest of the disciples desire the certainty of safety, the certainty of locked doors and known quantities. They are holed up in a small space, “for fear” of other people, John says (John 20:19). Thomas and the disciples are the same. What characterizes their doubt is the desire for certainty. They both want to know—to know that they will be safe, to know that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

When Jesus speaks to Thomas, he does not chastise him or any of the other disciples for doubting. Jesus is human, after all. I imagine he sympathizes with their natural reflexes of fear and doubt. Instead of chastising them, Jesus simply reminds them all that real blessing is to be found not in certainty but in faith, in trust: “Have you believed [trusted] because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe [trust].” (John 20:29).

A Brief Aside: Of Weddings and Bets

It’s a little bit like the father’s advice to his son, who desires the certainty of knowing that his beloved is “the one.” The father suggests that this desire for certainty misses the point. Love is not about a safe bet. It’s not about knowing what you’re getting. Love is something you do, not something you know.

I find it extremely fascinating that our word “wedding” actually derives from the same root as our word “bet.” In a very real sense, love—whether it’s love that leads to a wedding or just love for your family or your neighbor or your friend—is a bet. But unlike modern gambling, where bets are made on the outcome of things far outside the realm of our responsibility, love is a bet that we ourselves strive to make good on, that we ourselves strive to make true. That it’s a risky bet is made plain in the traditional vows: “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health….” In other words, this is a bet where we don’t know the material outcome, we don’t have certainty over how things will pan out. But we make the bet anyway because—and this is the wager—we trust that however things unfold, it will be worth it because love is worth it. It boils down to our trust in the way of love. As followers of Christ, we bet—we stake our lives—we trust that love is worth it.

Empowered, Not to Know but to Love

There’s a curious pattern in today’s scripture. Jesus repeatedly does the same two things. He shows his scars, and he says, “Peace be with you.” He does this first with the disciples, and then again with Thomas. What is going on with this demonstration? I wonder if it is a response to the disciples’ desire for certainty. He shows his scars not only as evidence of his identity, but as evidence that love is indeed a risky, uncertain thing. “Here’s what you can expect,” he seems to say. Yet he follows it with a stunning proclamation, “Peace be with you.” In other words: “You have nothing to fear. Look, I was wounded. But these wounds have been healed. They are scars now. Trust me. Love can bear the pain, and it can transform it.”

Jesus is empowering his disciples. But he’s not empowering them as knowers, as people who can plan and calculate and be secure in everything they do. He’s empowering them as lovers, as risky agents of love who can heal and transform the wounds of the world. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” he says, meaning that he is sending them outside their locked doors into a perilous world of power struggles and hurt feelings and crucifixion. It’s not that God does not care for them or their safety, but that God cares for the world and has empowered them to help the world in the same way that Jesus has helped the world. When Jesus breathes on them, on this first day of the week, he is doing the same thing that God did at the beginning of creation. He is empowering them with the divinely creative spirit. God empowered Adam, the earth creature, to become a partner in caring for creation. Jesus empowers his followers to become partners in a new creation, companions in welcoming the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

And right after he breathes on them, he reminds them of their secret power as agents of love. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23). Forgiveness is the strongest demonstration of love. It is what turns wounds into scars. It is risky, and it is messy, and it is the only way our world will ever be healed. If we only ever stay behind locked doors or do what is a safe bet, if we never risk love for others because of all the liabilities that it entails, if we never take the risk of love, the wounds of our world will only fester and we will be further and further divided against every potential threat or difference. And worse, we will never know real love and real life.

The good news of the risen Christ, is that love can bear the pain that it will encounter, and indeed it can heal it. Wounds can become scars that tell the story of love. If it’s difficult to see this in the risen Christ, then perhaps we can begin with stories closer to us, which are no less real and reflective of God’s love. Perhaps we can look at the saints around us—maybe our parents, or good friends, or mentors—whose love was indeed wounded and yet jubilant and undefeated. For like Jesus, they show us their scars, not as warnings, but as reassurances of love’s power. Like Jesus, they can say, “Peace be with you” as we leave the locked doors and embark on the risky way of love.

Prayer

Wounded God,
Whose love is not a safe bet,
Sometimes we, like the disciples, are afraid.
Sometimes we desire the certainty
Of knowledge or safety
…
Help us to see your scars
As emblems of healing.
Inspire us to trust in your love and forgiveness
And to be agents of your healing.
In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.

"Supposing Him to Be the Gardener" (John 20:1-18)

Self-Limiting Beliefs 

I recently heard the story of a young man in his 20s who runs into an emergency room with a pill bottle in his hands. He collapses on the floor just as he arrives, and the medical staff hurry to pick him up. Amid his gasping, he exclaims, “I took all the pills, I took all the pills!” They rush him to an operating room to observe him. His vital signs are poor. Blood pressure dangerously low. Heart rate failing. They think it must be a case of overdose.

The doctor looks at the pill bottle to see what he’s taken, but there’s no information on the label. The young man mumbles that the pills were given to him in a drug trial. So the doctor calls the people who are running the trial and asks, “What was in those pills? We need to know so we can help this young man get better.” The researchers ask for his name. After a long pause, they respond, “Oh…he was in the placebo group. There’s nothing in those pills.” Dumbfounded, the doctor returns to the operating room and informs the young man. And within fifteen minutes, his blood pressure, his heartbeat—all his poor vital signs—have returned to normal.

It’s a rather extreme example of a rather common truth. What we believe determines what we experience. The student who believes he’s not a good learner and is destined to fail…he doesn’t study and then fails. The woman caught in an abusive relationship who believes that she’s somehow to blame for the abuse…she stays trapped in the destructive cycle. The young man growing up in the projects who believes he’ll never be able to get a “real” job…he settles for life in a gang, selling drugs.

Is Life Cyclical?

In the ancient world, people understood our experience in cyclical terms rather than linear. What that means is, they saw time as a circle. They saw that things are always repeating themselves. And so ancient mythology is filled with stories that explain these cycles. There are stories explaining the cycle of the seasons, why spring follows winter, and fall follows summer. There are stories explaining the stages of human life, how birth and growth give way to decline and death, how sons and daughters take the place of fathers and mothers. There are stories explaining the cycles of empires, how they rise and fall. The common denominator in all these myths is one simple idea: life repeats itself.

It’s not too difficult to see how this ancient way of understanding our experience persists today. As the self-limiting beliefs provided in the earlier examples suggest, we tend to see ourselves as bound by the patterns of our life, destined to repeat our past. I have a Buddhist friend from Burma who likes to say that we humans are like clay. At the very beginning of our lives, we can be molded and shaped. But as we get older, the patterns of our lives seem to fix in place, getting more and more rigid.

Perhaps we can notice this in the some of the self-limiting beliefs that we tell ourselves: “I’m just a procrastinator,” some of us might say, and so we proceed to procrastinate. Or “I’ve missed the boat” on this or that, some of us might say, and so we give up on an old dream. Or “the system is rigged—why even bother?” some of us might say, and so we resign ourselves to the status quo. Just as the ancient myths tell us that life repeats itself, so our own self-limiting beliefs keep us trapped in a cycle.

Gardens

There are so many things that could be said about Easter. Today, I want to narrow our focus to one element that we find only in the gospel of John. In other words, John has something special to say about resurrection that none of the other gospels do.

It all begins before the crucifixion. We find Jesus in a garden. He could flee if he wanted. He knows what’s coming. But he doesn’t. After he is crucified, we find Jesus in a garden again, this time being buried in a tomb. And then finally this morning, we have Mary mistaking Jesus for a gardener. Now, none of the other gospels make any mention of a garden in any of these scenes. Only John. So what’s going on? Why this emphasis on gardens?

If you’ll remember, John’s gospel begins differently than the other gospels. While Matthew and Luke begin with the birth of Jesus, and Mark with the beginning of his ministry, John goes all the way back to the beginning of everything. “In the beginning was the Word,” John intones, taking us all the way back to when God created everything that is in the heavens and on the earth. And if you’ll remember, in the beginning…was a garden. The world as God intended it. A landscape of care, where everything we needed was provided, and where God entrusted us to care and provide for the earth around us. God entrusted us to be “gardeners” in a broad sense. Gardeners with God. Remember that—God created us to be gardeners who would care and provide for the earth around us.

Of course, we know how that story ends. Adam and Eve do not trust God entirely and seek instead to be in control of things. Their overreach results in a catastrophic breakdown of relationships: between each other, between them and God, between them and the earth. This episode comes to be known in both Jewish and Christian traditions as “the fall,” in which humanity is put under a “curse.” As though we’re doomed to live in conflict. Doomed to live in alienation. Doomed to live in hard, fruitless labor. In one sense, this “curse” that we see at the beginning of our story comes to define our story, to limit it. All those self-limiting beliefs, all those self-accusations—I’ll never break free from this habit, I’ll always be rejected when it matters, I’ll always fall short at the end—are just part of the larger circle of sin that we believe ourselves doomed to repeat.

But another way to read the story of what happens in the garden of Eden—and “Eden” by the way, is just a word that means delight, so that the original garden is a garden of delight—another way to read what happens in the garden is to recognize that the conflict and alienation and hardship that follow from humanity’s failure to trust God is not so much a curse as a consequence. God simply tells the humans the results of their lack of trust—how life will be when they do not live in God’s care and in care for one another.

In fact, the rest of the biblical story can be read as God’s attempt to restore the garden, to renew the original paradise that humanity enjoyed with God and all creation. What else is the story of Abraham, whom God charges to be a blessing so that all the families of the earth might be blessed, than a story of God restoring the goodness of creation? What else is the story of Israel, whom God charges to be a holy people modeling the way of God for all the world, than a story of God restoring the goodness of creation? The problem is that humanity seems to believe itself doomed. It seems to believe itself destined to repeat the past. To live a life outside the garden.

All the Difference

The good news according to John is much more than a tale of isolated resuscitation. It’s much more than a single heroic figure, rising up from the ashes. For John, the resurrection is absolutely cosmic in scope. It changes the narrative completely. It changes the story the world has been telling itself. When Mary encounters the risen Jesus in the garden, her mistaking him to be the gardener is no mistake. It’s part of John’s message: in Christ, we have returned to the garden.

That ancient, deeply engrained way of thinking—that life is cyclical, that we are doomed to repeat the patterns of the past, that we are trapped in a cycle of sin—that way of thinking that has us rushing into the emergency room like that young man, thinking we’re on death’s doorstep…that way of thinking is ruptured in the garden that first Easter morning. It’s no coincidence that Paul refers to Jesus as “the last Adam.” Whereas the first Adam led us onto a path that we felt doomed to repeat, forgoing God’s care in order to wrest what control we could over our surroundings, Jesus as “the last Adam” has broken the cycle and brought us back to the garden. In Jesus—whom Mary supposed to be the gardener—humanity has a clear path, a clear way, to return to being who we are created to be. “Gardeners.” Not just in the literal sense, but in the full sense of people who live in and care for the life of the world around them.

Early Christian paintings and depictions of the resurrection regularly show the risen Christ in a garden paradise, Adam in one hand and Eve in the other. The message is clear: Christ has restored us to paradise. Not just later, in some afterlife, but now, if we would have eyes to see it. These paints show sheep, doves, shrubs, streams of water, starry skies. And at the center: Christ. The good news of Easter is that Christ is alive, and all the world in him. Christ leads us back to the garden.

As we saw with that young man who rushed into the hospital, convinced that his life was ebbing away, the story that we believe about ourselves and the world may make all the difference between life and death. If we believe ourselves doomed to repeat the past…then we very likely will. But in the risen Christ, we discover that our stories of doom are misplaced. God never wanted us out of the garden. In Christ, we receive God’s clear invitation to return.

Friends, wherever you are in life this Easter morning, please hear this good news: we are not doomed to a circle of sin and suffering. Life is not destined to repeat itself. There is a way back to the goodness of life that sometimes seems so distant.

And it all begins with the risen Christ, who restores us to be the “gardeners” we were always meant to be.

Prayer

Loving God,
Who does not leave us doomed
To repeat the patterns of the past
…
May the risen Christ inspire us
To see your garden of paradise in our midst
And to live as your gardeners
In the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

In whose spirit we pray: Amen.

Into Our Hands (John 19:23-30)

Today is called Maundy Thursday because traditionally on this day the church has reflected on the final “mandate” that Jesus left his followers. (“Mandate” is where the word “Maundy” originates. You can hear the similarity: “Mandate”...“Maundy.”) A simpler way to think about Maundy Thursday is that it is Jesus’ last lesson. The last “mandates” he gives to his disciples. Typically on Maundy Thursday we read the story of the Last Supper, where Jesus issues several instructions, or “mandates.” Such as when he gets on his own knees and washes his followers’ feet and tells them to do the same. Or when he says “Love one another as I have loved you” (cf. John 13).

But the Narrative Lectionary, the scripture calendar we’re following, invites us this year to read a different set of mandates. Tonight, instead of reading about the Last Supper, we read about Jesus’ last words on the cross. While this breaks with longstanding tradition, it is not entirely without reason. If Maundy Thursday is meant to be about Jesus’ last lesson, his final mandates, then we might indeed look to the cross. Death often reveals the truest character of a person’s life. On the cross, Jesus is not serenely reading from a script. He’s not following a lesson plan he drew up the night before. On the cross, we see Jesus’ most natural reflexes.

When on the cross Jesus beholds his mother and the disciple whom he loves, two of his most cherished companions, he sees beyond the despair of the present moment to the new family that God is creating, a family defined not by blood but by love. And so he says, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” Which is another way of saying, “In the kingdom of God, we all belong to one another. Like family.” It is not a coincidence that the earliest Christ-followers were frequently accused of living a promiscuous lifestyle. Outsiders could not otherwise understand how it was that people from such different backgrounds of race and class and occupation could regularly come together and care for each other. They could not understand this new family.

Jesus next “last word” is in fact a single “word” in the Greek: “I thirst.” It is a remarkable thing to me, that as Jesus dies, he does not despair of his incredible pain and wish for a quicker death. Instead, he clings on desperately to life, even as he knows it will soon be gone. “I thirst” is a way for Jesus to say—despite all the evil he has encountered, despite all the pain: “I want to live. Life is good. I want more of it!” And is it any surprise that Jesus would say this?  He could never conceal his love for this life.  When he told stories, all he could talk about was this life: the serenity of birds, the beauty of wild flowers, the sun and the rain that fall on us all; children who dance and play flutes, brothers and bridesmaids, weddings and feasts.  On the cross, Jesus was not looking forward to heaven.  He was insisting that heaven had come to earth—was this not his life’s prayer? (Matt 6:10).  He was insisting, despite all appearances, that this life already contains all the goodness of God’s love.

Jesus’ final “word”—“It is finished”—should be heard in the same register as an artist pronouncing the completion of his masterpiece, or a composer declaring her satisfaction upon writing down the final note of her song. In other words, “it is finished” is Jesus’ defiant pronouncement that this death is not about defeat and suffering. Rather it is the ultimate act or deed in his life’s work—the finishing touch to his masterpiece. It is the capstone, the final achievement, completing and fulfilling all that has preceded it. Popular theology has frequently made the cross out to be part of some sacrificial equation, which stipulates that Jesus must die so we can live. This leaves us with some disturbing implications, such as a God who demands the blood of his own child, which in our world we would call “child abuse.” But what I read in this passage is not the outworking of some complicated sacrificial equation. The cross is a symbol not of mortal suffering but of an immortal love. As Jesus himself put it earlier in the gospel: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

The word “mandate” literally means something like “given into one’s hands.” To give a mandate is effectively to say, “It’s in your hands now. I have done what is mine to do, but I cannot do what is yours.” If that sounds rather bleak and lonely, well—I suppose that’s how Jesus’ followers felt when they saw Jesus on the cross. I suppose it’s how we all feel from time to time when it seems we are up against it all on our own. Maybe we feel this loneliness when a loved one or we ourselves receive a troubling prognosis. Or when we see injustice and suffering in our world. Or when our own plans fall to pieces and we can’t see a way forward. Is this difficulty and grief ours alone to bear? Is Maundy Thursday saying it’s all in our hands now, it’s all up to us?

Far from it. Jesus’ last words—his final lesson—are not without hope. First, he gives us to one another, reminding us of our divine heritage and that we are all brothers and sisters in God’s family. We do not walk alone. No burden is ours to bear alone when we live in God’s family. Next, he affirms the goodness of life no matter how dark things get, inviting us to see God’s gracious hand in all creation and to treasure life’s many gifts and to “thirst” for what is good. And lastly, he insists that the cross is not his passive defeat, but in fact the crowning demonstration of his love, the final touch to his masterpiece of a life, a witness to the way God works in the world—not by overpowering force, but by a love that endures to the end.