First Reading: Ephesians 2: 7-15, 20-22
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is God’s idea, God’s work. All we do is trust God enough to allow it to happen. It's God's gift from start to finish! God does both the making and saving. Each of us are created by Christ Jesus to join in God’s work, the good work God has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. But don't take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways had no idea of any of this, didn't know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel, hadn't a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.
The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.
God is building a home. We are all being used—irrespective of how we got here—in what God is building. God used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now God’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.
The Gospel: John 20:19-31
Later on that day, the disciples had gathered together, but, fearful of the Jews, had locked all the doors in the house. Jesus entered, stood among them, and said, "Peace to you." Then he showed them his hands and side. The disciples, seeing the Master with their own eyes, were exuberant. Jesus repeated his greeting: "Peace to you. Just as God sent me, I send you." Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. "Receive the Holy Spirit," he said.
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God—here we are, the Sunday after Easter, seeking your presence in a real way in our lives. Move among us today; breathe your life into us so that we may truly know your will and ways. Amen
God is building a home, right here, right now. And Paul tells us that God is using each and every one of us—irrespective of how we got here. Each of us are created by Jesus himself to join in God’s work, the good work God has gotten ready for us to do. What a marvelous gift we are—a gift to each other, a gift to the world, a gift to God. We don’t normally connect the idea of gifts to Easter—that’s more a Christmas kind of thing. But nevertheless, with the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on the evening of His resurrection day, Jesus calls us to a gifted and giftable life of following the will of God and becoming the bricks and mortar that form God’s holy temple.
What does it mean to receive a gift from God, to be a gift from God to others and to simultaneously become a gift to the very God who made us? It’s a three-fold process, this receiving and giving and being and it will take us several weeks to look at it fully. Today, we begin with our gospel passage. First, Jesus’ friends are hiding; terrified for their lives, uncertain of the future, as low as low can be. And in walks Jesus, the resurrected Jesus—walking back into their lives after the 3 worst days of their lives.
I think sometimes we fail to grasp how those disciples would have felt, they become such minor characters in the presumed ending of a story that focuses solely on Jesus’ death and resurrection. But, in order to understand the magnitude of the gift that Jesus gives, we must understand the enormity of their loss, their desperation, their hopelessness. Prior to Jesus’ death we encounter the disciples first as people who have relinquished their claim to their former lives, their wealth—if they had any, their homes, their prestige and their families. They leave it all and follow this man, Jesus, who says ‘come’. For the next three years we see various examples of Jesus teaching them, molding them into those who would eventually be left behind to carry on the word—his word—the word of who he was and is. Jesus has a tough time with this crew—God didn’t exactly give him the brightest and best scholars of the time and we see these folks troubled and thick-headed at times, but Jesus never gave up and loved them to the end. But nothing could have prepared them for this—so they are hiding, scrunched together in this room, waiting for who knows what.
They’ve heard the women’s story, but most of them have not seen Jesus for themselves and, suddenly, there he is in the midst of a room where the door is securely bolted and locked. And he looks at them—how Jesus’ loving eyes must have scanned the room—seeing who was there—holding each desperate face in his view just long enough for them to know that he loved them and that he cared about the pain they had endured. This Jesus, beaten almost beyond recognition and crucified in the cruelest way possible, looks at them and softly says, “peace to you”. And because he knew their need for more, he showed them his hands and side. And then our scripture says, “The disciples, seeing the Master with their own eyes, were exuberant. Jesus repeated his greeting: ‘Peace to you. Just as God sent me, I send you.’" And then the miracle happens and Jesus gives them his greatest gift. He took a deep breath and breathed into them. "Receive the Holy Spirit," he said. He breathed into them. He didn’t simply blow over them, he breathed the very life and energy of the Holy Spirit directly into their bodies.
Think of it like CPR. They were defeated, having nothing left to go on—indeed, spiritually as dead as could be. And if you perform CPR on a dying person, you don’t simply blow your breath at the dying person, you fill their lungs with your very breath—you use your breath to become their breath and thereby give them the gift of life. This is exactly what Jesus did that day and the disciples went from there to spread the miracle to all.
While Jesus may not breathe life into us in such a dramatic way, the giving of the gift is the same. It is there for us—the Holy Spirit, the gift of God to us that brings all that we are to life in new and wonderful ways. And so, this is it, the first step, the receiving of the gift itself and all the other gifts that God gives us as parts of who we are, what we are able to do and be, people to love and to love us and, even, a church where we have come home.
Before we reach the second and third steps which we only briefly introduce today, we must look at Paul to see the radicality of this amazing gift. Paul reminds us that we are where we are because of God’s gift. We are where God wants us to be—in a place in our lives where we can receive, but he reminds us: “Saving is God’s idea, God’s work. All we do is trust God enough to allow it to happen. It's God's gift from start to finish! God does both the making and saving.” And then he reminds us of why we are created and how: “ Each of us are created by Christ Jesus to join in God’s work, the good work God has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.” The excitement increases. Paul is talking to the Gentiles at Ephesus. And in Jesus and Paul’s time there were only two kinds of people—Jews and not-Jews. So, everyone except the Jews were ‘outsiders’ in Paul’s world. And the radicality of the gift becomes evident in what Paul says next to those not-Jews at Ephesus, “It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways had no idea of any of this, didn't know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel, hadn't a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.”
Paul, exuberant in his message continues, “The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together on this…He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance… Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.”
And Paul almost shouts—you can see him rising up off of his stool as he writes: God is building a home. We are all being used—doesn’t matter one bit how we got here—we’re all together in what God is building. And then he gives a quick history lesson—the disciples and apostles laid the foundation—telling the story and starting churches, but now God is using you—some as bricks and stones, some as mortar—all centered around Jesus Christ, the cornerstone who holds all us parts together. Paul says “We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home. “
We must not miss the importance of the truth that Paul is calling us to hear. It forms the backbone of all the gifts among and between us. Quite simply, Paul is saying that there are no differences between us—that Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into each and every one of us who will receive—that former differences don’t matter and current differences are washed away in the love of this Christ who broke down the wall. Indeed, we are all engaged in the building of God’s temple—short, tall, heavy, skinny, smart, not so smart, rich, poor, spiritually mature, those new to the faith—we are all gifted by God to build this Temple where God is ‘quite at home’. What a thought—we are building a community where God is “quite at home”.
And so, it is here that we begin this journey, ready for God’s gift to us, the gifting to each other and, finally, the gifting of ourselves to God. Join us for the next few weeks, studying together the specific gifts that God gives us along the way—those gifts that enable us to be gifts to each other and, ultimately, gifts to God. Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Let the gifting begin. Amen and amen!
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