Faith in the risen Christ will transform you for life in this world, filled with God’s love and bringing healing. Life after death is the frosting on all, but not the important thing.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday of Easter, year B
Texts: Luke 24:(33-36a) 36b-48; Acts 3:12-19
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
You might be mistaken about what these first believers realized Easter day.
There was a lot of confusion, all day. The women first saw Jesus, then apparently Simon Peter. Then the couple walking home to Emmaus, who ran back to the Upper Room to tell the others they’d seen him.
And as they’re all standing around talking excitedly about actually seeing Jesus alive that day, Jesus is suddenly standing with them in the locked room. And they’re terrified. They thought he was a ghost.
But he ate and let them touch him, proving he was physically alive, in the flesh. And something changed in them. That’s what you need to sort out.
So first try to forget all that you know 2,000 years after the fact.
We hear these stories with four Gospels in hand, the rest of the New Testament, and two millennia of theological formulation about resurrection. But that’s not what they knew that Sunday.
Something profound changed for these believers when they saw Jesus physically alive, not a ghost or a vision, and he gave them peace. As far as we can tell, it wasn’t that they suddenly believed in life after death. According to the Gospels, Jesus didn’t attract followers by promising life after death. He only spoke of it a few times. Twenty years after the resurrection, Paul has to introduce the whole idea of life after death to the Corinthians and the Thessalonians, and it sounds for all the world like they’d never heard of it before, not even in Paul’s original preaching.
So if it took the early Church close to two decades to trust that in Jesus’ resurrection they also would find resurrection after their deaths, what on earth did they proclaim at first? And why on earth did thousands flock to them to be baptized?
Well, read the Gospels.
All the teaching, all the calling, is to draw people into the life and heart of God for the healing of this world and of their lives. That’s why people followed. Love God with all you have, Jesus said, and love your neighbor as yourself, and you will know life worth living. Abundant life. You’ll be walking in the light instead of stumbling around in the dark. And people longed for that.
In Jesus, they experienced God’s love in person. And he called them to be God’s love in person themselves. He spoke words of hope that God cared for all people, and asked them to share those words of hope and live in a way that fulfilled that hope for others. And that was more than enough to drop everything and follow.
The devastating events of Holy Week broke their hope that this could be a life of abundance and grace and love. Death really was in charge, like they’d always assumed. Power and oppression always won, as they’d long believed.
But when they saw Jesus physically alive again after that horrible death, and they could be hugged, embraced, kissed by him again, when they could eat with him again, God’s love was once again theirs. In person. The only way any of us ever know love. That’s what changed them.
And with the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, they spread this news of God’s embodied love that could change the world.
That’s what drew thousands to the church, their transformed lives of embodied divine love. As we’ve been hearing these weeks of Easter, in those first days the believers shared everything with each other. They healed, like Jesus. They lived in love, reached out to those who were poor and enslaved and oppressed and welcomed them with God’s love in person.
Paul spread the news of God’s love that could not be killed, and convinced thousands of people that abundant life in this world, a life of wholeness and love and peace and grace, was possible with the life of the Risen Christ giving courage and strength.
And yes, as the years progressed, more and more it became clear that something else had happened on Easter. Death had been broken for them, too. For all. And Paul proclaims that with all his heart.
But what if you joined the church in those first years, when life after death wasn’t part of the preaching?
It wasn’t bait used to get you to trust God. It wasn’t whitewash used to make you forget about the pain of your life. It wasn’t the only reason to consider faith in Christ.
Imagine that just knowing Jesus is alive, that Christ is risen, gave you the confidence to live in love and courage as those first believers did. That it transformed your life, gave you hope, freed you from fear, helped you love your neighbor and inspired you to offer your life to God.
What if you were just as ignorant as these believers were at first about life after death. Would you still want to be a Christian?
They did. Jesus alive again was enough for them.
Now they could trust him and follow him as before. They could walk in love, proclaim forgiveness and invite repentance, let go of everything and make sure all had what they needed. They could live abundant life without the fears their neighbors had, trusting God was with them, as Jesus promised. They could expect the Spirit of God to move in their hearts and send them into the world afire with God’s love.
And it was enough. It was enough. It made these women and men leave their locked rooms and witness to the power of God to change this world through their lives and love.
So definitely hold the certain promise that you will live in Christ after you die. It’s true and it’s yours. But if you really want to live in Christ now, and know the joy of these first believers, put that hope of life after death away for when you’re facing death and you need it. Because right now Christ is risen for you, and that’s enough to change your life, right now. And through you, change the world.
Because Jesus says you are a witness to these things.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen