As Jesus followers we are called into the Kingdom Life. This blog will help us converse and learn what that means. It will contain thoughts on Scripture, Sermon Reflection, Leadership Training and interesting reads. -Pastor Jeff

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Preaching Fear and Confusion at the Resurrection


Two weeks ago, many were hoping that the United States would be open for business on Easter Sunday. Many longed that the church might be able to once again hold large gatherings celebrating Resurrection Hope. I was among those that held out for that hope. That has come and gone like many predictions, advisories, and restrictions. Truth be told, it will be right around Easter Sunday that cities across the US will begin to move toward peak mortality rate due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Can you feel the dissonance? At a time when the country will be moving toward peak grief, fear, and despair, the church is called to proclaim the hope of Resurrection and the cosmological defeat of both sin and death. But how can we do so, in Tony Morgan’s words, without being “tone deaf.”

As a preacher, Resurrection Sunday was my favorite Sunday to preach. It’s the moment of victory. It’s the moment when the vain attempts of the powers and principalities of evil to snuff out the redemptive reign of God are overcome by love and faithfulness. It’s the moment when we proclaim power, hope, and triumph. It’s a moment that signifies that the new age has begun, one that will be consummated at Christ’s return.
And to be honest...when I preached, it wasn’t uncommon for me to get a little worked up.

Perhaps it’s an act of faith to speak that message with that fervor and zeal again this year. Perhaps it’s the reminder that this “ole world” needs to know that “death has been swallowed up in victory.” Perhaps the reorientation of people from the despair of the moment toward the glorious victory that is coming is precisely what Doctor Jesus has prescribed. Perhaps.

But as a preacher, if you can’t bring yourself to do that...it’s ok. The story is with you as well.

To preach with the zeal of a triumphant voice has a place. However, that place isn’t always tomb side (depending which of the gospel writers you read). When we begin to look at the first Resurrection Sunday, we begin to realize that there were no mass celebrations, victorious speeches, or frenzied preachers. Tomb side, there was fear, doubt, uncertainty, and giving up.

It’s ok to preach the whole story. It’s ok to invite the people of God into a story where the first characters weren’t be-bopping around singing “victory in Jesus.” The first characters, still on the backside of Friday, still wrestling with the heartache of death and crushed dreams, received the Resurrection as a little too much to handle. In Mark 16, after coming face to face with an empty tomb, vs. 8 states, “The women fled the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.” Fear plays a part in Resurrection Sunday.

Mark would ask, “Dare they hope again? Would they once again be disappointed?” This is just too much to take in! Fear.

In Luke’s Gospel, he tells the story of grief. A couple disciples, overwhelmed and overcome by the news of Jesus’ death and the subsequent message that His body was no longer in the tomb, trudged back home, eyes still wet with tears and hearts still filled with uncertain sorrow. It wasn’t with triumphant shouts that Jesus awakened them, but with the grace-filled, compassionate, holy presence at a table where they shared in the meal with Jesus that their eyes began to be opened, even if they were yet to understand the full implications of what they would see.
And in John’s Gospel, Thomas flat out can’t believe it and the fishermen go back to their prior vocation. Again, how much of the world had really changed with an empty tomb? Thomas was still wrestling. Rome still reigned. Their lives were still in danger. Their futures were still unsure. Victory seemed a long way off. And Thomas doubted.

Resurrection wasn’t a rebuke of doubt, instead it was an invitation by Jesus to embrace doubt as a pathway to faith. “Stick your fingers in the holes,” Jesus said to Thomas. Stay close and you will see.

The others, by John 21, they’d gone fishing. Enough was enough. Despair and uncertainty got the best of them and in a real human way, they opted to leave behind the 3 years of intensive Rabbinic training for their little bit of certainty and comfort. They went fishing!

It’s all there, the gamut of human emotion. The Resurrection embraces the human condition. It doesn’t force feelings of victory and triumph onto people. It invites them to navigate their fear, doubt, and uncertainty, under the assumption that the Resurrected One is with them all along the way.

So this year, as you preach, feel free to preach the “rest of the story,” texts in ways you might have never preached before. In this moment, it might be that “whole gamut of human emotion,” that avoids a “tone deaf” message.

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