Worship for Sunday, May 1, 2011
Easter 2
John 20:19-31
Morning Prayers
Let us pray: Gracious God, when you were preparing your disciples for that time when you would be leaving them, you shared with them words of hope and promise. And even better, you said that you gave them the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Helper. In this Season of Easter, we are trusting in your promise that your Holy Spirit will indeed come, just as the Spirit came upon those first Disciples when you breathed on them in the upper room.
Come Holy Spirit, bind up the brokenhearted and for those who have been entrusted with the responsibility of caring for our resources.
Come Holy Spirit, come and remind us what it means to be your disciples in the midst of turmoil and adversity.
Come, Holy Spirit, come and bring peace to our world, and strength and wisdom and courage to the leaders of our nation, especially our President Barack, our Vice-President Joe, ourSenators Sherrod & Rob, and our Representative, Jim. Give them wisdom, justice, and mercy.
Come, Holy Spirit, come and heal the sick and the sick of heart. Bring healing and comfort to us.
Come Holy Spirit, come and surround First Christian Church as we go through this time of significant transition facing our congregation.
Come Holy Spirit, come and surround us in our uncertainty, in our pain, in our questions, in our frustrations, and in our fears.
Come Holy Spirit, come and surround this great church as we seek to find unity in the midst of our diversity and what it means to walk side by side as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Come Holy Spirit, come and empower and equip your church, so that we can be the church that you have created us to be.
Come Holy Spirit, Come. Amen.
John 20:19-23
19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
"Heavy Breathing"
Those of you who have been a part of a graveside service that I have perfomed know that I begin with a handful of dirt. I recall the second creation story, in which God scoops from the earth the mud which he forms into the shape of the first human being. I then go on to add that when our breath is no longer in us, that we are returned to the earth from which we came.
That image of God breathing life into the nostrils of the limp and lifeless form of a man is a haunting one--and it should be. It's a reminder that without the spirit--the breath of God, we are nothing.
And that's the same image given by our readings for today when Jesus breathes on the Disciples and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit. Let's face it, the church--such as it was on Easter night on the first Easter-- was in shambles. This frightened little band had locked itself in the upper room and was fearful of anything that might be outside. After all, if they could kill Jesus, who know who might be next? They were sullen, depressed, and ready to give it all up and go back to fishing.
And suddenly, Jesus appears. Now, this is something new. They'd seen Jesus heal the sick, even raise the dead. But the pre-Good Friday Jesus had never once walked through walls, or beamed in like on Star Trek. This was big!
And then, Jesus changed the landscape of the church forever by re-creating creation. By, breathing on the Disciples (and thereby the whole church) and giving them the Holy Spirit, Jesus re-enacts that initial act of creation in which God breathed life into the human race. Luke writes that the Holy Spirit comes upon the church in a mighty noisy rushing wind in on the day of Pentecost, but for John it happens before that--right here--when Jesus breathes.
Oh, and by the way, in Greek, there's one word--(pneuma)--which is translated, breath, wind, and spirit. The breath of God is the wind, and the spirit.
And by breathing on the church, Jesus empowers it for mission and ministry. Jesus specifically empowers the church to forgive sins. That's good, because forgiveness is very hard. And by entrusting the church with that authority, he is not so much giving the church papal powers as he is giving them the task of taking God's ways into the world in the name of Jesus. He sends them out in mission to take the radical ways of the
I have shared with you my assertion that the disciples of Jesus were a bunch of world-class idiots. Scratch that. That's an insult to idiots everywhere. They'd have to have a promotion to idiot.
Right here, folks, is where they get the promotion.
So we see what the Spirit is.. The Spirit is the Breath of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ.
When you or I breath on someone, we give them a blast of Carbon Dioxide, a gas which if inhaled at high concentrations can cause asphyxiation and ultimately death. But when the Crucified and Risen Lord Jesus breathes on someone, they get a blast of the Holy Spirit, which in any concentration causes conversion of life, the ability to change the world in the name of the breather, peace of mind and heart, and ultimately eternally happiness.
The Orthodox theologian Joost Van Rossum, sees the two stages of giving of the Holy Spirit as the mark of a “gradual process” of the giving of the Holy Spirit - a process which continues until now. You could use the metaphor that He comes as a tidal wave or like the tide. For VanRossum, John 20 merely marks the beginning of the process.
To this problem various understandings can be taken mostly falling into two categories, symbolic and literal.Some do not consider this symbolic, but rather a literal breathing of the Spirit. Others do consider this symbolic, in that it anticipates the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost. Jesus was play acting to prepare them for the real coming.
Jesus also charged the disciples saying, “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” Did Jesus give the authority to the disciples to forgive sin? No that would contradict with Luke 5:21, where Jesus said only God forgive sin.
I agree with Van Rossum. This is a literal trasfer of the Breath of God, which continued at Pentecost, and continues today--every time we celebrate the waters of baptism. Every time we lift our voices in song. Every time we pray for God to fill us with the Spirit and the ability to be the church.
It's appropriate that we look at this lesson today--the day on which we receive the reports of the small groups who met to examine the New Beginnings reports and consider where and what God is calling us to do and to be. We began this day praying for the Spirit of God to come upon us and bless us in the work of the church.
When we gather downstairs and enjoy our meal, let's not speak in terms of “I want...” or “we need to...” Let's see what happens when we set out to discern which way God's wind is blowing--and let it catch our sails.
I'm sure I'll find out just what you're thinking. Amen
Offering Invitation
Let us offer a bold witness to the world with our gifts and with our lives, so that peace may be with our generation. Let us worship God with our offering.
Offering Dedication
Come, Holy Presence, and grant us peace, for we are anxious about many things. Let us see anew the marks of your Lordship. Let us meet anew the bold faithful witnesses who have gone before us. Come, Holy Presence, and ease our paralysis of doubt and caution. Grant us this day peace and certainty that you walk among us, that you are risen, that you invite us to follow boldly where you have walked. Come, touch us afresh, for we are needy. Come, prepare us for the challenges and joys of this week.
In the name of the Risen Christ. Amen.
Benediction
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