Well, Y’all….this is it.  Today marks the end of the Easter Season.   And yes, I can see the confused looks on your faces and hear the “Huhs?” you’re exclaiming, coz, you know, the Easter Bunny has already gone back to his Easter Basket Factory to start his process all over again, we’ve finally found that one (now smelly and rotten) Easter Egg we couldn’t find, and Jesus has done been raised from the dead and ascended into Heaven.  So what gives here?  Imma tell ya.

Today is Pentecost.  Today we celebrate that day long ago when the disciples were all hanging out together wondering what in the world they were posta be doing, when, according to The Good Book,  suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.  Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.  At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd,
but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language.  They were astounded, and in amazement they asked,
“Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?  Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?

Well what’s up with that?  Let’s back up just a hair first.  Remember a few days ago, during the Ascension when Jesus did that whole disappearing into the clouds thing?  Right before that, he said to his disciples, he said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  And BAM!  The disciples (and we) were given a job to do.  We were told in no uncertain terms to go hither and yon and tell folks about Jesus and his message to the world, and the lucky disciples were given the ability to do just that, to go and preach so that folks could understand what the heck they were saying.  (This would have been awesome for my French classes, but I digress.)

So reckon wonder what does all this mean for us today in the here and now?  Well, first of all, if we’re supposed to go all over the place preaching what Jesus wanted us to preach, before we do anything else, we gotta know what it is we’re preaching.  The whole central tenet of Jesus’s message, before anything else was love.  Love first, love last, love period.  Us having the courage to step out from wherever it is we are and say, in every language and to all people, “God loves you, I love you, and how can we help you?”  Pentecost reminds us that we are the only Bible some folks will ever read.  Pentecost reminds us that we are the only Jesus some folks will ever see.  How do we put that love into action?  Again, Jesus tells us in Matthew 25 to feed the hungry, house the unhoused, and make the world a better, more loving place.  Jesus did NOT tell us to crack on someone’s skin color, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, body type, political affiliation, or any other perceived difference.  Jesus told us to love.  I’m not a big fan of Paul, but he certainly got it right when he wrote “love is patient, love is kind.  Love is gentle.  Love is longsuffering.”  Heck, even the Beatles had it right when they sang, “All ya need is love.”

Now there ya have it.  I’m gonna end this with the words of St. Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Amen.

The solemn feast of the Ascension of the Lord is one of those feasts that can cause fear to the preacher. How does one talk or write about this event? We cannot comprehend this event in our understanding.

It is not like death. Jesus was killed on the cross and is risen to die no more. It is not comparable to someone going away. If our friend goes away, they go somewhere. We can read about that place, we might even visit them, but Christ is taken up beyond the old creation.

In these days when men have walked on the moon, we might be forgiven for thinking that Christ is up there somewhere. Indeed, some have pondered the thought of a spacecraft picking him up. But Christ is not like those brave men who at this very moment are circling overhead in the international space station. Christ is no longer confined by his creation.

What we celebrate today cannot be understood as an isolated incident. It cannot be separated off from the death and resurrection of the Lord, and neither can it be separated off from the descent of the Spirit of the Lord. Death and descent into the grave, rising to new life, ascension into glory and descent of the Spirit are all parts of a single dynamic unfolding of the divine mystery in time; as well as the unfolding of our new life in the eternal. A moment becomes an eternity.

Within this moment the confines of human potential have been swept away. Within this eternal moment life becomes endless, the Son returns to the Father, and ‘earthbound’ creation finds a new home beyond the limits of mortality.

In this endless moment Christ transforms his followers into instruments of the divine. This transformation is both the glorification of the Father in the Son and the glorification of people in Christ. We might say, then, that the ascension is as much about ourselves as it is about Christ.

We tend to focus on Jesus disappearing from sight, but the movement of the divine reaches out beyond the figure of Christ. In Mark’s Gospel the ascension is sandwiched between instruction and action. Before the ascension the disciples are sent out by the risen Lord into the world. After the ascension the disciples take up this call and leave behind their former reality to enter into the world as instruments of the divine.

In Mark there is no explicit account of the descent of the Spirit, but we are told that when the disciples went out into the world the Lord collaborated with them. In John’s Gospel, Jesus comes to the apostles in the locked room and breathes on them and they receive the Spirit.

In the Acts of the Apostles the apostles are in the room when the Spirit descends on them as if it were tongues of fire. But last Sunday we read in Acts 10 that, as Peter was speaking, the Holy Spirit came down on all the listeners, even the pagans. The descent of the Spirit is not restricted to one event but streams out from that moment of ascension into all times and places.

Here is the great wonder of the ascension. By being lifted up Christ has not deserted us but made it possible for his Spirit to enter all times and places. In this way it is possible for each of us to be transformed by the power of the Spirit into the agents or instruments of Christ. We become enlivened with his Spirit. Our actions become transformed by the Spirit of the God we love and serve. We have become Christs within the world.

The resurrection, ascension and decent of the Spirit continues to be realized in our lives. We draw on that moment suspended in eternity and hope that it will lead us to eternity with God.

We are approaching the end of the Easter season and the great feast of Pentecost, and already the sound of the mighty wind that will descend on the apostles like fire on that day is echoing in the background of this Sunday’s readings. The great gift of the Holy Spirit when he comes is certainly charity. When the Holy Spirit makes his dwelling within us at our Baptism, he forges in us a bond of love which binds us to Jesus and through Jesus the rest of his Church. It is to this gift of love that our readings this Sunday attract our attention.

In our first reading, a group of Gentiles experienced an intense experience of being loved by God when the Holy Spirit came upon them in power, and such was their joy that they exploded with praise. St. Peter and the Jewish Christians who were with him understood that the love of God is universal, extending beyond their own nation to embrace the entire world: all of us are loved by God.

We heard St. Peter declare: ‘The truth I have now come to realize’ he said, ‘is that God does not have favorites, but that anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him.’

This love of God that becomes ours, part of us, through the Gift of the Spirit is unique and personal. God does not love human beings in a general manner, such as a group or an undifferentiated mass. He loves you and me particularly and individually. As my old university chaplain used to say, God does not only like you; he loves you! We are personally cherished by God and the sign of God’s special love for us is that we love God in return.

We heard in our second reading: My dear people, let us love one another since love comes from God and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.

‘Loves come from God’ because God is love. When the Spirit of God emerges from our hearts and minds, he fills our sails and moves us towards love of God and neighbor. We love God because he loves us, and his love is wind in our sails that prompts us to return his love and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But what does it mean to love God? What does it mean to love our neighbor? To answer that question, we need to look to Jesus.

Jesus makes God’s love visible and tangible because he is created by God. Jesus is a divine individual who has assumed a human nature like ours, so that through this sacred humanity God himself can love us in a way that we can see and hear and feel and understand. Jesus shows us in his own body what a human life is when it is completely docile to the impetus of the Holy Spirit.

Our second reading continues: God’s love for us was revealed when God sent into the world his only Son so that we could have life through him; this is the love I mean: not our love for God, but God’s love for us when he sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away. (“A reading from the first letter of St John (4:7-12) God is love”)

Initially, we have God’s love for us. Secondly, that divine love that we perceive in our human experience of love is made visible and tangible for us in the person of Jesus. Jesus fully reveals the extent of God’s love for us in his sacrifice on the cross which is offered for each one of us personally and individually. There is a third step, and Jesus emphasized this third step in our Gospel reading: we are to imitate the love of Jesus, which is the love of God, by loving one another with the same self-sacrificial love with which he loved us.

Jesus says to his disciples, and that means to you and me: This is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you. A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you… What I command you is to love one another. (“Gospel – Liturgy Office”)

First, God is love. Second, his love is revealed to us, manifested to us, in the person of Jesus and especially his self-sacrifice for our sake on the cross. Third, we are called to reflect and share this divine love by loving one another with the same self-sacrificing love with which Jesus loves us. How is this possible? By our own strength, of course, it is impossible. But nothing is impossible for God. When the Holy Spirit comes, he will bind us to Jesus, and empower us to live the same kind of self-sacrificing life that Jesus lived: empower us to love God and neighbor. As St. Paul tells teaches us in Romans 8:14: ‘All those who are driven by the Spirit are children of God’. The Spirit is the wind in our sails: God himself enables us to love Him and love our neighbor. We must recognize that God loves us, and he showed us through Jesus and to love Jesus is to love our neighbor.

Did you know that God is a farmer?

Jesus said to his disciples:  “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.  He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.  You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.  Remain in me, as I remain in you.  Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.  Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither;  people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.  If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.  By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

God has planted people. We are his garden, and he wants to produce fruit. You and I were created by God for a purpose—to produce fruit for God. But what kind of fruit is God looking for? He is looking for obedience, righteousness, worship, and glory from his creation. But if we are God’s garden, and if we are created to produce fruit for him, we arrive at a fundamental question: How can we be sure that God is pleased with our fruit?

Each and every religion has a different way of answering that question. What will it take for us to be acceptable to God? Do we need to follow a strict set of rules and regulations? Do we need to perform certain sacrifices and rituals? What do we do with the nagging feeling that we do not measure up?

Let’s talk about that.

In verse 1 of our reading today, Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.” Did you notice the “the” in there? Jesus did not say, “I am like a vine.” He is not just comparing himself to a vine. He is the vine. Similarly, he doesn’t say, “I am a vine,” as though there were many vines, and he is just one of them. No, Jesus says, “I am the vine,” the one and only vine.

But that is not all. Instead of simply saying, “I am the vine,” he says, “I am the true vine.” But what does that mean? How can a vine be true? The word true is the whole point. We then ask the question: If Jesus is the true vine, who or what is the untrue vine?

In today’s world, there are many “untrue vines:”  money, popularity, power.  All of these produce fruit.  But is it fruit that matters?

Jesus is the vine, and He said that we are the branches. In verse 5 Jesus tells his disciples, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” Jesus makes it clear that there are two different kinds of branches: fruitful branches and unfruitful branches.

Which one are you? Are you a fruitful branch? Do you produce what is pleasing to God? Or are you an unfruitful branch? How can you be sure of which one you are? This passage tells us there is only one difference between the two. Fruitful branches abide in the vine. Verses 5 and 6 explain this clearly:

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

So the secret of the fruitful branches is that they abide in Jesus. What does it mean to abide? Abide basically means “to remain,” “to stay put,” “to linger in one place,”  “to dwell,” “to stay connected.”  The most important thing for a branch to do is to stay connected to the vine. Only a branch that receives life-giving sap from the vine will live and bear fruit.

And so it is with us.  Are you connected to Jesus?  Picture a lamp.   What is the purpose of a lamp?  What is the “fruit” of the lamp?  Light.  What has to happen before that lamp can work?   It has to have a bulb.  It has to be turned on.  It has to be connected to a power source.  And you say to me, Bishop, what does this have to do with vines?  Let me tell you.  The bulb of the lamp is our soul, our faith.   We have to turn on our faith by prayer and study….but does that shed any light? Not if the lamp isn’t plugged in it doesn’t.  In order for the lamp to work properly, or at all, it must be plugged in to the power source.  Like us.  We must be “plugged in” to Jesus.  Before we can bear any fruit at all, we must be connected to Jesus.  He must be our Power, our Strength, our Source.

And what, exactly, is our fruit to be?  We are told in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Chapter 5, verses 22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” The fruit of the Holy Spirit is the result of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the life of a Christian.  And so, what is it that our Christ expects of us?  He was pretty specific about it.  In Matthew 22: 36-40, Jesus says, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

How can you, how DO you, show the world Christ’s love?  How do you show the world that our Christ IS love?  DO you produce fruit?  What kind of branch are you?

Father God, You are indeed the Supreme Gardener.  We ask that you tend to us, nurture us, help us to grow and to bear fruit for You, that the world might see your love, and that we may bring others to the Light of your Salvation.  Through Christ our Lord, Amen.

The early Church portrayed Christ as a young shepherd
lovingly caring for his sheep. In today’s Gospel of John, we discover this
image once more. Christ, the Good Shepherd, is the person who lays down his
life for his flock. This contrasts with a helper who abandons the sheep,
leaving them vulnerable to the dangers at hand.

On this Fourth Sunday of Easter, we are reminded that it is
Christ, who knows each of us, and that knowing brings us a new life. He knows
us, and he knows the Father who loves us. This echoes the great command to love
God and love our neighbor.

In this context, the understanding of Christ is one that
binds us together. All those who listen to his voice are drawn in unity to that
one flock that knows the one true Shepherd. Our understanding of Christ makes
us one. We are not hired individuals.

The first reading, from Acts, also presents this concept of
understanding. Peter preaches that Jesus Christ is the keystone in our world,
as he explains. However, there is a twist. Peter wants us to know the danger,
that of rejecting Jesus Christ in our lives. As Christ knows us and loves us,
we cannot accept and refuse to acknowledge Christ in our lives.

Most of us would be horrified to think of ourselves as
rejecting Christ, of rejecting our faith. However, there are other lesser ways
in which we reject Christ as the keystone of our lives. The truth is that we
are unable to comprehend the light of Christ. In our hectic life, we often
forget all too often. We neglect to devote time to prayer, or attend a class or
retreat, or read a book or article on the Christian faith.

These are all ways to enhance our understanding of Christ
that we take for granted. Other people also assist us in identifying Christ in
our lives. Who are the people in your life that show you the face of Christ? Do
we recognize how Christ is present to us even now? It may be a parent or
grandparent that showed you the love of Christ. For many of us, our list will
include a priest, a sister, or a brother. They have all been people who
listened to the Good Shepherd and shared that voice with us in our lives. Their
vocations help us to become more aware of Christ. This Sunday, Good Shepherd
Sunday, is in many dioceses, a day designated as ‘Vocations Sunday’, God’s
calling in our lives.

Clearly, each of us, as a Christian, has a message that was
born from the font of our baptism. Unfortunately, we may take this role as a
Christian for granted. If so, we must once again hear the Shepherd’s voice calling
to us amid our daily concerns and the loud drone of all our activities.

The vocation to marriage, with its unique call to
parenthood, takes on its wealthier meaning when we, as spouse or as family,
together hear God’s words in our lives. When we engage in worship at Mass, or
at prayer in our homes, we hear the Shepherd’s call in our hearts. Today, when
the clamor of this world rejects Christ, how do people hear God’s call, that
unique sense of who I am in God’s heart?

If you hear God speaking to your heart, don’t disregard such
gentle voices. I don’t believe that God suddenly stopped calling people to a
religious vocation. Rather, today we can easily put God in the background or
flat out refuse to hear His voice.

You might be at the start of your career and still a voice speaks to you. God calls us, but we for our part, must hear his voice. Don’t

reject the cornerstone of your life, don’t refuse Christ’s calling for you. Explore
and discover if a religious activity is a part of you.

At the end of the day, listening to this message is not a
waste of time. For the early Church, the image of the youthful Christ
shepherding his flock reflected hope, let that same hope be yours. Listen to
the Shepherd’s voice speaking to you.

Do you remember when we were kids and our parents would tell us to not do that thing because if we did, we would cause all manner of problems AND get into trouble?  And because we were us, we went right ahead and did that thing and we caused all manner of problems and got into trouble.  And our parents said, “I told you so.”

And, poor Scott.  Sometimes I feel so bad for him.  He has it rough.  You see, he lives with me.  And one of my very, very, very favorite things to say to him is, “I told you so.”  (Scott is much smarter and a heckuva lot wiser than I am, but do you think I’d let HIM know that?  Uh unh.  I ain’t doin’ it.)

And of course, there are those (infrequent, oh so very infrequent!) times Scott gets to say to me, “I told you so.”  (I hate that.)

So why do we not listen?  Why do we not accept what we are told?  Why must we, in our (self-centeredness) have to learn the hard way that what God says, He means?  Or do we ever learn?  As many of you know, Jeremiah 29:11 and Romans 8:28 are two of my very favorite verses of Scripture.  Both of them give us assurance that God has things well in hand and that we really don’t need to worry about things.  And God has proved himself over and over and over and over ad infinitum in my life.  He has cared for me when I had nothing else.  He has shown Himself faithful and true and proved to me that I have no need to worry.  So WHY do I worry?  Why can I not get it through my head that I have no need to worry, I have no need to doubt?  I would dare say that many of you have had similar experiences. 

Whatever the answer to that question is, we are in good company.    Over and over and over again, throughout the Hebrew and Christian scriptures both, we continually hear God tell us, “Have I not told you…  I told you….”  In the Gospel reading for today, when Cleopas and another disciple are on their way to Emmaus, Jesus appears to them and teaches them and says to them (are you ready) “I told you so.”  (Well, actually, according the NIV  He said, “ “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Luke 24:25)  They recognized Jesus and he disappeared and then they hightailed it back to Jerusalem, straight to the disciples.  And as they were telling the disciples what had happened, Jesus appeared to them all. They were, of course, amazed, frightened, excited!!!!!  And what did Jesus say?  He said, “I told you so.”  (NIV:  “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.”Luke 24:44)  Now, these weren’t your every day, run of the mill, ordinary disciples.  These were THE DISCIPLES;  hand picked by Jesus, his closest companions.  They who had witnessed miracles first hand.  And they had trouble getting with the program and believing.  But ya know, Jesus then gave them yet another chance, kinda started from the beginning again, and did a reteach.  (NIV:  Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.  And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.” Luke 24:45-48) 

How awesome is that?  Even after all the things the disciples had seen, had witnessed, had had first- hand experience with, Jesus taught them yet again.  And so it is with us.  When we truly desire to increase our faith, when we truly seek another chance to learn the lessons that Christ teaches us, He will always, always give us another chance to try again.  It is up to us to continually open ourselves to learning those lessons.  The hymnist, Clara H. Scott certainly had the words right when she wrote in 1895: 

Open my eyes, that I may see
Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me;
Place in my hands the wonderful key
That shall unclasp and set me free.

Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready my God, Thy will to see,
Open my eyes, illumine me,
Spirit divine!

Open my ears, that I may hear
Voices of truth Thou sendest clear;
And while the wave notes fall on my ear,
Everything false will disappear.

Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready my God, Thy will to see,
Open my ears, illumine me,
Spirit divine!

Open my mind, that I may read
More of Thy love in word and deed;
What shall I fear while yet Thou dost lead?
Only for light from Thee I plead.

Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready my God, Thy will to see,
Open my mind, illumine me,
Spirit divine!

Open my mouth, and let me bear,
Gladly the warm truth everywhere;
Open my heart and let me prepare
Love with Thy children thus to share.

Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready my God, Thy will to see,
Open my heart, illumine me,
Spirit divine!

It is my hope and prayer that each of us open ourselves to learn the lessons that God teaches us, and that we do our utmost to learn, and to live those lessons.  Amen

If you were going to be famous for one thing, what would it be?  I can think of a host of reasons for which I’d like to be famous.  Curing cancer.  Discovering how to teleport.  Ending world hunger.   I suppose the list goes on.  There are folks who are famous, or infamous, for doing that one thing that they prolly shouldn’t oughta have done.  Typhoid Mary.  Mrs. O’Leary and her cow.  Jim Jones.  Brutus.  Whoever designed the Ford Pinto.

And Doubting Thomas.  Thomas the Apostle—often referred to as “Doubting Thomas”—was one of the twelve main disciples of Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of John, Thomas famously doubted Jesus’ resurrection, telling the other disciples, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25).

Jesus then appeared and offered to let him do just that.

So our boy, Thomas, is most noted for one thing, and one thing only.  He doubted that Jesus had been resurrected, and wanted proof.  He had to see it to believe it.  Just for the heck of it, I’m gonna share with you some “fun facts” about Thomas:  Thomas is mentioned a total of eight times between the four gospels and Acts. Most of what we learn about him comes from the Gospel of John—the only book of the New Testament that gives him any specific role.  And dig this:  In three of the times Thomas is mentioned, the Bible notes that he was called “didymos,” a Greek word meaning “twin,” which was often used as a name. Unless your name is Thomas, it may surprise you to learn that the modern name “Thomas” comes from the Aramaic word tĕʾomâ, which means . . . twin.

Yup. The Apostle Thomas doesn’t even have an actual name in the Bible. Poor guy!  Everyone literally just refers to him as “the twin.” Interestingly, tĕʾomâ is just a description in Aramaic—it doesn’t appear to be used as a name—but didymos was used as both a description and a name.  And The Bible never mentions who Thomas’ twin is. 

So there ya have it, St. Thomas the Apostle in a nutshell.  Now, let’s talk about this “doubting” thing he had goin’ on.  The bummer here, for Thomas anyway, is that, again, he’s known as the “doubter.”  But, y’all, he wasn’t the only one!  Remember when Mary Magdalene and company went to the tomb last week, found it empty, and ran back to tell the disciples that Jesus was risen?  Did they believe her.  Big ol’ nope.  The thing about Thomas though, is he got a “special appearance” by Jesus Himself:  Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’

Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’

Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’” —John 20:24–29

So, where does that leave us?   There’s this:  Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.   And when I was in teacher training many years ago, it was hammered into our heads, “Show, don’t tell.” And “If you want a behavior, teach it.” 

Same thing goes for our lives and showing the world what and who Jesus is.  Jesus ain’t gonna pop up wherever we are and say, “Yo, look!  Here I am!”  We have to show that.  We have to teach that.  We have to do that.  Us.  You’ve heard me say it at least a zillion and one times:  You are the only Jesus some folks will ever see and the only Bible some folks will ever read.  We spread the Good News by living as Jesus has commanded us to.  (Remember that “mandate” thing I talked about on Maundy Thursday?)  We love.  Regardless of sex.  Regardless of gender, or gender identity.  Regardless of sexual preference.  Regardless of politics.  Regardless of socio-economic status.  Regardless of anything else that might separate us, divide us, or causes us to see people as “other.”  There is no one on this planet who God doesn’t love.  There is no one on this planet who Jesus didn’t die for.  Period.  Love.  One.  Another. 

No, it’s not always easy.  Were it so, Jesus wouldn’t have told us to love our enemies.  Wouldn’t have said to ‘turn the other cheek.’  Wouldn’t have said “bless those who persecute you.”  Remember that song, “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love?”  That.   We gotta do that.  Be known for that.

During this Eastertide, let us all examine our hearts, our lives, our attitudes.  We, all of us, need to check ourselves, ask ourselves, “Is what I’m doing/saying/being something that Jesus would say/be proud of/want?”  If the answer is even a tiny little negative, then maybe/perhaps/probably we need to do a bit of changing of our ways.  Again, you are the only Jesus some folks will ever see, the only Bible some folks will ever read.  We gotta do better.  We have to show the world.

Let there be no doubt about that.

Ya know what irritates me?  Well, yeah, plenty, but….Scratch that.  Lemme start over. 

Conspiracy theories abound in our world today.  The bridge coming down in Baltimore was orchestrated by….  Jewish Space Lasers are responsible for……  Every jet in the sky is seeding the world with…….  And they are nothing new.  After Jesus was raised from the dead on Easter…oh boy.  The Spin was alive and well……  his body was moved….stolen…..reburied somewhere else….put out to sea…..he was never dead in the first place…..and on and on and on and on……..

And folks then, like today, drank the Kool-aid and believed what they wanted to believe.  I’m sure that Mary Magdalene was irritated out of her skull when, after meeting Jesus in the garden, and having a little chat with him, she, all excited, runs to the disciples and says:

I have seen the Lord!

And they, of course, didn’t believe her.

Doesn’t it bug the crap out of you when you KNOW something to be true and no one believes you?  And usually it’s a pretty important ‘something.’ 

I have seen the Lord! 

What a testimony! 

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what he had said to her.

What wouldn’t we give to be able to say those words?  And yet, Mary was greeted with disbelief.  No one expected Jesus to rise from the dead.  In fact, one of the common elements of the resurrection stories across the gospels is that NO ONE expects the resurrection. Even though Jesus predicted his death … and resurrection … several times across his ministry, no one greets the news that God has raised Jesus from the grave and defeated death and the devil by saying, “Praise God!” No one shouts “Hallelujah” when they hear that their friend and Lord has been raised to life. And absolutely no one, upon hearing the news that death itself could not hold the Lord of Glory captive, says, “I knew it – just like he said!”

How often do we do the same?  We, like the disciples, actually deny the resurrection.  How so you ask?  We deny the resurrection every time we talk poorly about someone, refuse to serve our neighbor, refuse eye contact with someone who is different, fail to smile at a stranger…..every time we lose our patience, get frustrated when someone doesn’t get what we’re saying right off the bat, every time we spread something as truth when it isn’t, every time we act with less than love.

That’s right – we do that. 

However, like the disciples, we can change that.  In the Resurrection Story, no one expects the resurrection and no one, quite frankly, believes it at first. This is true, as I said, across the gospels, and it is certainly apparent in Luke. The women come to the tomb expecting to anoint Jesus’ dead body. That is, they have no expectation that he has been raised. In fact, only when they are reminded by the “two men in dazzling clothes,” do they recall Jesus’ promise.

Energized by this encounter, they run back to tell the rest of the disciples … who greet their tale with utter skepticism. In fact, Luke says that those who received the testimony of the women regarded their message as an “idle tale.” That’s actually a fairly generous translation of the Greek work leros. That word, you see, is the root of our word “delirious.” So in short, they thought what the women said was crazy, nuts, utter nonsense.

Resurrection, in other words, throws off the balance, upsets the apple cart, and generally turns our neat and orderly lives totally out of whack. Which is why I think that if you don’t find resurrection at least a little hard to believe, you probably aren’t taking it very seriously! And, truth be told, I suspect that’s where most of us – we’ve heard the story of resurrection so often it hardly makes us blink, let alone shake with wonder and surprise. Which is rather sad, when you think about it, because this promise, as difficult as it may be to believe initially, is huge, and when it sinks in and lays hold of you, absolutely everything looks a little different.

And isn’t seeing the world a little differently what being a Christian is supposed to be all about? 

We, who take the name of Christ, Christians as it were, are COMMANDED, to do things differently.  We are to love, regardless of whatever divides us.  We are to love, in spite of the fact that people irritate us.  We are to love.  Period.  We are to be like Jesus.  And what does this mean?  Chris Kratzer said it well when he wrote: 

Being Jesus will get you hated, mocked, demonized, betrayed, bullied, and even killed.  Be like
                Jesus anyway.  Loving unconditionally, defending the oppressed, favoring the outcast, Protecting the vulnerable, fostering equality, championing inclusivity, speaking truth to power, resisting
                the religious, and extending radical compassion.  If we’re not getting flogged, are we even
   following?

If then, if Jesus has been raised, and is alive to us and in us, who are we to not follow his command to let that love that Jesus talked so frequently about actually be alive through us.  In other words, if we are, indeed, to be like Christ, we cannot do other than to model Christ for others, to BE Christ for others. If Jesus has been raised, and is alive to us and in us, and through us, then we must remember, in the words of St. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582):

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Like the disciples, like the women at the tomb, let us proclaim the resurrection by living our lives so that others see that we are, in reality, living the fact that the Lord is Risen!  The Lord is Risen indeed!

Amen

Funny, isn’t it?  How Holy Week is kind of a mirror of our lives as Christians. 

Today is Palm Sunday.  Today we are all about welcoming Christ, waving our palm branches and shouting Hosanna!  Today Jesus is king!  Today Jesus is the best thing going since sliced bread!  Today we are all about loving Jesus! 

But Thursday and Friday are coming….

Jesus will be arrested, tried, convicted, and executed.  And don’t we do the same?  We proclaim Jesus, proclaim ourselves to be Christians, and then….  We, like the crowd before Pilate, scream for Jesus to be crucified.  We fail to welcome the stranger.  We fail to feed the hungry.  We fail to house the homeless.  We fail to love as He loved us.  We, like Peter, deny Jesus.  We, like the Roman soldiers, pound those nails into Jesus’s flesh, every time we fail to do what our Christ has taught us to do.  Turn the other cheek???  Nope.  Pound!  Spread stories that are not true???  Yep.  Pound!  Make snide and cutting comments???  Yep.  Pound!  How often do we crucify Jesus, over and over and over again???

But Sunday is coming, just as assuredly as Thursday and Friday….

And Jesus will rise again.

We, as Christians, proclaim ourselves to be “Easter People,” all about resurrection.  All about a new life in Christ.  And we pray for forgiveness, humble ourselves, and start over again. 

As Holy Week begins, let us remember that we reenact Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem every time we proclaim Christ.  Let us remember that we reenact Jesus’s crucifixion every time we act in a manner that is in opposition to Christ.  Let us remember and celebrate that Jesus died that we might be forgiven, and every time we are forgiven, Jesus reenacts our own personal Easter.  Forgiven.  Resurrected.  Risen again. 

I wish each of you a most blessed Holy Week, one in which you spend time reflecting on just what makes this week holy.  What makes this week life-changing.  And how we can, indeed make changes to our lives, in order to live as Christ has taught us to live.  Amen.