The Easter Mystery Unfolds
2nd Sunday of Easter

Luke 24: 36b-48 Rev. Todd B. Freeman
Bethany Presbyterian Church, Dallas May 4, 2003

Here's the bottom line: the Easter event is a mysterious and unexplainable experience, both in the life of the first disciples and in the life of the church ever since that time. Easter is not easily grasped nor readily investigated or interpreted. The resurrection is not subject to experimental proof or rational verification. I caution you about anyone who would tell you otherwise.

Out of that mystery, however, comes real and concrete promises: promises of new life, transformation, and hope. Today's Gospel Lesson shows that the risen Lord is mysterious but real. Christ was real to those first disciples and Christ is real in the church today. By whatever means Christ was made real after Jesus' crucifixion, the early church became a community that witnessed (by word and by its very life) to a real chance for new life.

One of the Easter mysteries that unfolds is that the community of faith can be empowered and reorganized, and that individual members can be transformed. Transformed from fear to courage; transformed from feelings of hate and resentment to love and forgiveness; transformed from a sense of worthlessness to understanding oneself as a valued child of God.

We learn that change in the old order is not only possible but necessary. The Easter event proved to be very disrupting. If it hadn't been, there never would have been the religion we know as Christianity.

Our gospel text describes one of Jesus' post-resurrection visits with his disciples. Of particular interest to me was Jesus' assertion about his disciple's witness to the reality and meaning of his resurrection. I began to wonder how modern-day disciples of Jesus, like you and me, best share that witness. How do we, as Bethany Presbyterian Church, share that witness?

The New Testament reveals that perhaps the most lasting reaction and the most powerful witness to the resurrection took the form of a community of faith in which people cared for each other and took care of each other. The resurrection not only causes people to get excited about their faith, it causes people to love each other.

The early church was known as a community of the resurrection. In such a community, people transcend difference - including differences of culture, social status, and religious backgrounds - in order to live in unity and see to it that no one is left alone in need. That is the community that changed the world. That is the community in whose heritage we stand. A non-Christian world listened to the message of the early Christian community because the world saw in the lives of those Christians a distinct love and a unique unity.

Frankly, the church today has a problem communicating its message of love and redemption because the church itself so often appears neither loving nor redeemed.

At any rate, another Easter mystery that unfolds before us, then, is a blueprint of how to live as a community of the resurrection. At the center of this community resided a conviction that no one can be church alone. These first followers of Christ became a church to the degree that they became committed to living as a community - a family. That is a term we often use here to describe this congregation.

Not everyone, of course, in that original community (nor ours) held the same opinion about everything. Individual members differed in strengths and weaknesses. Unity developed as people matched strengths with weaknesses and considered the purpose of their community more important than their own individuality, as important as that was and is. Undoubtedly people offended each other and got mad at each other in that kind of living arrangement. But all knew the forgiveness at the heart of the one in whose name they had come together and practiced that forgiveness even when it hurt.

We, too, are called - in all of our diversity and differences - to do the same. Forgiveness is at the very core of Christianity. It's the only way people can hope to live in right and mutual relationships with one another.

Scripture and tradition consider the church as a family of faith. Today's Epistle Lesson from 1 John reminds us that we are all children of God. Conventional wisdom says we can choose our friends but not our family. Think about it.

Do we see the church as a place to choose our friends, or as a fellowship in which to live out our ties as family? The difference between those perspectives impacts the manner in which we move in and out of a fellowship of faith and determines the possibility of real unity within our church.

C. Welton Gaddy, pastor of Northminster Church in Monroe, Louisiana, puts it in perspective this way:

Culture presents a problem to the church. Culture is about me: my wants, my ideas, my wishes, my plans - do it my way or not at all. [At times we all, including myself, are guilty of that. And for those times, I ask your forgiveness.]

Church is about community, compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, and ministry - acting together in the name of Christ. Culture prizes an individualistic consumer economy. Church pursues a community of sharing in which individual possessions are the means for meeting needs throughout society.

A community of the resurrection embodies the spirit and compassion of the resurrected Christ, accepting within it persons at all stages of spiritual development, emotional health, and physical sufficiency.

The strong minister to the weak; the assured to the doubting; the calm to the angered; the healthy to the sick - all knowing full well that at some point in the future the situation will change and those receiving ministry will need to minister because those who have been offering ministry will be in need of receiving ministry.

As an example of that I want you to look at something that I brought with me this morning. This is an "Angle Nurse Bear." I gave it to Howard Jacob about 2 years ago when he was in the hospital. He said it was a reminder to him of this congregation's love and presence. Two months ago, when I was in the hospital, Ann Jacob brought me this bear. It reminded me of your love and presence as well. Now that I am well I am returning this bear to Ann to pass on to someone else who may need it in the future.
Let me state that we, as Bethany Presbyterian Church, mature as we discover family among each other. And, our community of faith becomes a powerful witness to the resurrected Christ - not just because of what we say, but because of what we are; not just because of our message, but because of our ministry; not just because of our hopes for the futures, but because of our present identity.

The proof of the resurrection, therefore, is found in how we, as a family of faith, minister to and treat one another, and how we minister to and treat the people that we come in contact with on a daily basis.

So may the Easter mystery - the very real, spiritual presence of Christ - which we celebrate each and every time we share in the Sacrament of The Lord's Supper, continue to unfold and be evident in your life, and in the life of this congregation.

Amen.