By Faith in His Name
a sermon based on Luke 24:36b-48
by DGBradley

Alleluia! The Lord is risen! And the people said, “The Lord is risen indeed!” In the name of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, I welcome you to this continuing celebration of Easter. We have come here to hear the Good News that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, that the kingdom of darkness is overcome by the kingdom of light, and that Christ is alive today, present with us now in this moment and in this place. Alleluia! The Lord is risen. And the people said, “The Lord is risen indeed!”

That is good. Christianity is not a spectator sport. Christianity requires participation and involvement. Yes, I know that Easter was two weeks ago. Yes, I know that it is time to get on with life. Getting on with life is exactly what the church of Jesus Christ does. We get on with life, eternal life. However, we do not get over Easter. We cannot get enough Easter, and that is why the church of Jesus Christ celebrates Easter every week, on the first day of every week, for almost two thousand years. The Lord is risen! And the people said, “The Lord is risen indeed!”

I am going to attempt to explain why the church does this and why. To do this, let me give you an example. It is said there are four classes of people: Those who like cats, those who like dogs; those who like cats and dogs; and those who do not like either cats or dogs. If you fall into one these categories, then I thin you will like what I found a while back on the Internet: a WebPage for people told of having mean cats and the horrible things their horrible cats did. On one page, people gave a list of resolutions they hoped their cats would make. Some of these resolutions were:

1. I will not play Attack the Toes when I want to be fed in the morning.

2. I will not use the ninja kitty paw to snag my human’s dinner entrée for myself when he or she turns her head.

3. The toilet is not a good place from which to drink water.

4. I will not play “Charge of the Light Brigade” with the other cat in the hallway at 3 a.m.

5. This is the one I like, and it must have been on for a few years: I will not stand on the bathroom counter, stare down the hall, and growl at NOTHING after my human has finished watching The X-Files.

Now here is the connection. I believe that many people think the church is like a cat, staring in the darkness, and growling at nothing. I want to remind the world that cats can see into the darkness better than people can. I also want to remind the world that the church can sometimes see things others do not. I say “sometimes” because even the church does not always see Christ in its midst. Also, cats and churches don’t always growl; they can also purr especially when they sense someone who loves and comforts them.

On that first Easter, Luke tells us in his gospel; the risen Jesus stood among the disciples. How did the disciples react? Let me put it this way. If the disciples were cats, then they would have growled, fearful and staring at something they could not understand. Actually, Luke says they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. Jesus then asked them three questions. “Why are you frightened and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” The third question was, “Have you anything here to eat?” Ghosts, phantoms, hallucinations, and illusions do not ask if there is food in the house.

After convincing the disciples that he is real and alive, Jesus explained again what he had told them before the crucifixion, about how the scriptures written about him must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and that it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.

Then Jesus told them they are witnesses of these things.

Cats may not understand what it is they think they see down the hallway in the darkness, and neither do disciples and believers always quite understand. After all, the disciples were the same persons who fled at the arrest of Jesus and who hid in fear afterwards. Yet they did change, grow, learn, and went forth to proclaim the Good News about Jesus Christ as well as they could. Peter who had denied knowing Jesus now went forth in the Temple, healing a crippled beggar, proclaiming that it was not by the power or piety of the disciples that they could do anything, but only by the power of Jesus Christ, the Holy and Righteous One of God, by faith in his name. It was this same Jesus that the people had killed in ignorance; therefore God offers forgiveness for repentance, just as God had forgiven Peter. Yes, Peter had changed and grown by faith in Jesus, by faith in his name.

So it is that believers and disciples of Jesus change and grow by faith in his name. As the church, we proclaim that we see Jesus risen and alive today, opening our minds to the scriptures. As the church, we proclaim that we do nothing by our own power or piety, but only by faith in the name of Jesus Christ. We are forgiven sinners, children of God, growing in love, striving not to practice sin but love. As 1 John says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. So we will go on, not fearing what is in the darkness, yet aware that evil and sin remain real and dangerous; yet also realizing that Christ is alive and the victory won. Through the risen Jesus, by faith in his name, we receive spiritual nourishment and life eternal as Jesus shares with us broken bread as his body, and the fruit of the vine as his blood.

As disciples and believers in Christ, we still have much to see and learn. We must battle sin and indifference. We continue to grow in compassion and wholeness. We continue to look for Christ in all the world, and more we recognize Jesus in the breaking of bread and in the love of God, the more we see of the wonder of God’s creation. As Martin Luther said, “We believe in the resurrection not because of the empty tomb, but because of the Christ-filled world.”

Faith in the name of Jesus changes the world and changes us. By the free gift of faith, we learn what it means to be more like our Lord, who is the model what God intends for humans to be. As the church, we proclaim that as all humans have been touched by evil in some way, so God gives us the risen Christ that all the world may be touched by the love of God. As witness, as those who know the risen Jesus, the church challenges the world with joy and hope and assurance.

I came across a poem about a woman who is a witness in her life to the living and loving reality of the risen Christ.

^[1]  Dear Lord,

You know her.

And she knows you.

Maybe this explains it . . .

When she talks, it’s re-creative,

and when she listens, it’s . . .well . . .

redemptive.

I know why.

It’s the inexplicable magnetism of a

person who has seen.

Because she has seen,

she knows where she’s going.

She is in tune with the universe.

Her real decision are already made -

her priorities established . . .

She has that rare serenity

that is magnetic.

 

Because she has seen.

_____________________
^[1] Bless this Mess and Other Prayers, Jo Car and Imogene Sorley