Ebenezer Presbyterian Church
April 19, 2015
The Third Sunday Of Easter
SERMON
There’s one thing that I’m
certain of when we are dealing with God.
The encounter rarely turns out to be what we expect. We’d like to think that we know what’s best,
what we need, what we want God to do for us, but we are usually wrong.
The late Maya Angelou used to
say that every rejection was merely a redirection. We might not get the answer or the thing we
thought we wanted or needed, but what we did get turns us in a new direction,
provides us with a new opportunity, surprises us with a perspective on life
that we never expected.
That’s usually what happens
when we seek out the Lord.
In the lesson in Acts,
there’s a man who has been lame all his life.
He was placed at one of the gates of the Temple every day so that he
could beg in a busy and conspicuous place.
He thought that was the best he could hope for. Along come Peter and John. They pause to look at him. They have no money to give him.
Then Peter and John do
something that the man never expected.
They told him to look at them.
And when they had his attention they told him: “...in the name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”
And he held on to them and for the first time in his life his legs and
feet supported him and he walked into the Temple, jumping and leaping and
praising God. It wasn’t what the man
expected. He just wanted some money to
help him get by.
In the Gospel lesson, as Luke tells the story, Jesus appeared to
the two disheartened followers as they walked along the road to Emmaus. This is the first post resurrection
appearance that Luke records. After they
had recognized the risen Jesus, the two returned to Jerusalem to tell the other
disciples – who were still in hiding – that they had seen the risen Lord. While they were doing that, Jesus appeared in
the room with them.
These people who had spent three years with Jesus, listening to
him and watching him, were terrified.
The last thing that they expected after Jesus had died on the Roman
cross was that he would show up in their midst.
Despite everything, they hadn’t really expected the resurrection. Despite all he had told them, they still
weren’t sure what to expect. They surely
would have settled for a whole lot less than they got.
Luke uses an interesting phrase: “While in their joy they were
disbelieving and still wondering....” Apparently
they couldn’t believe their eyes. They
were filled with joy and disbelief. Just
to prove that he wasn’t a ghost, he asked for food. And then he once again, patiently explained
the whole thing to them, reminding them that his resurrection had been promised
all along.
They had
expected a new David to lead them to earthly glory and victory over Rome. He was not the new David. He came to bring them the glory of God’s
kingdom, here among us, and victory over death itself. He wasn’t what they expected. They wanted so little compared to what he
actually brought them.
We are no
different. We want God to intervene in
the annoyances and discomforts of everyday life. We want God to intervene in the petty
squabbles we get into with friends and neighbors and family. Like the beggar at the gate of the Temple, we
want God to protect our investments whether it’s just keeping our jobs, or defending
the money we have in the bank or the stock market or the money we have invested
in the land, the soil and the seeds.
And God says,
patiently, “I think you missed the point.
I want to give you so very much more than you ever expected. I want to bring you to new life in my
kingdom. I want to show you how to live
with one another in the way that life is meant to be lived in my kingdom. I want you to enter into my joy.”
If we’re not
worrying about trifling things from daily existence, we want assurances from
God about heaven - or hell.
We have expectations about heaven and hell. Heaven and hell are interesting
concepts. John Milton wrote: “The mind is a universe and can make a heaven
of hell, a hell of heaven.” Mark Twain puzzled about some of the nasty
people he knew who were convinced that they would be going to heaven. He thought if all of them were in heaven it
would be hell for him. For some people
the only interest they have in religion at all is as a hell aversion program.
I think
that when people start talking about heaven, whatever that might mean to them,
they often have a very biased view. They
have expectations. They see it as a
place where everything good that could possibly happen to them is going to
happen. The problem is that what one
person defines as “everything good” is likely to conflict with what another
person defines as “everything good.” If your
view of life here and now is selfishly defined by prejudice and bigotry and
hatred and ignorance, why do you think that anything will change? If you aren’t already living actively today
as citizens of God’s kingdom, loving one another and working to spread God’s
justice and righteousness to all the world, why do you think you would want to
live in God’s kingdom later? If you
aren’t willing to change your ways now – to repent and restart your life today
– as Peter says to the people standing around the Temple, why would you change
later?
Again
God patiently asks: “Is that all you
care about? My son has told you over and
over what life in my Kingdom means. I’ve
given you the opportunity to have a clean slate and start fresh here and
now. I’ve offered you so much more than
pie in the sky by and by, and it’s meant to change your life right now.”
Expectations! What do we base them on? Where do we get them?
At the
end of this morning’s reading from Acts Peter summarizes the promise and the
hope of the Gospel message. It’s a
promise that runs through the whole history of God’s relationship with us, his
created children. Peter says: “Repent therefore, and turn to
God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may
come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed
for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of
universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.”
Repent. God will refresh you right now through his
presence in your life. Jesus will remain
with God until the appointed time when he will return to a universe that has
been fully restored to all that God created it to be. When that day finally arrives God’s kingdom
will be completed here on earth and the living and the dead will arise to greet
their risen Savior. That’s the hope and
the promise of the Gospel.
What
were you expecting?
In a few
moments we will sing one of the most fervent prayers in the history of
Christianity. In it we implore God to
give us the wisdom and strength to make us commit our lives to God alone. The second verse says: “Riches I heed not, nor vain empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now – now –
and always; Thou and Thou only, first in my heart, Great God of heaven, my
treasure Thou art.”
There is
nothing in all the world that is more valuable than the gift that God has given
to us. There is nothing in all the world
that we should desire or pursue with more energy and commitment than our desire
to be with God. God offers us life in
his presence, lived joyfully according to his commands, lived as the creatures
he created to bring him delight and to share his joy, and yet we want so much
less. God promises that his risen Son
will return to us one day and we will live forever in the jubilant expectation
of creation redeemed and restored.
What did
you expect?
Amen.
Let us
pray:
O Lord, take and receive our egotistical
sense of personal freedom and self-sufficiency, our memory, our understanding
and our whole will.
All that we are and all that we possess You have given us: we surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will.
Give us only Your love and Your grace; with these we will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.
In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
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