Acts 3: 12-19 (NRSV)
When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. “And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out,
Luke 24: 36-48 (NRSV)
Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “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, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things."
During the season after Christmas, we considered what it means to be in covenant with one another. During Lent, we looked at what it means to be church. Now in the Season of Easter, we consider again what we experience to be the nature of God.
It matters what we say is the experience of the nature of God. It matters in how we relate to God and to one another. For the Early believers, their understanding of the nature of God was shattered by Easter. The nature of God they clung to was the angry God who flooded the earth saving only Noah and his family. Pehaps, they forgot the part where God turns around from this and says that God will never destroy the world again by flood. This idea that God could change God’s mind doesn’t fit comfortably with those who would like God to be a God of lightening bolts and fiery hell. And sincerely, when someone has done you personally wrong you might hope for such a God. Still this is not the God revealed in Jesus Christ.
In the passages we read, things have changed. The great and terrible day of crucifixion and death have passed. What is more, the disciples have experienced something that has brought them out of the protection of hiding.
In the Gospel we meet Jesus as he appears to the disciples. He stands before them and greets them with the common blessing, “Peace be with You.” He has appeared without coming through the door and yet he is solid. Things have changed and still he remains in a body, a transformed body. And a body that the writer wants us to know is not a ghos. This Jesus shares food with the disciples. He starts a Bible study with them to open to them understandings of the scripture that they did not have before. He showed them how the Messiah, this one from God, would not be spared suffering.
The world had changed. The nature of God revealed in Jesus Christ is one of a God who loves beyond our wrongs, mistakes, even beyond our certainties and closed thinking. The God in Jesus radically challenges the limits put on God’s love in the time of Jesus and in our time. God comes to be among us because God seeks to be in relationship with us.
This is a central theme of the book “The Shack” by Wm. Paul Young that the Wednesday study group will read and reflect on together. I did not know this book until Lee spoke to me about it and left me a copy. It was within a week or so after that that two other people mentioned the book to me. That, to me, is usually a sign that I need to pay attention. I read the book. I had a little difficulty with the writing style at first. This was made much easier to follow when I understood that Paul Young was writing for his kids and not originally for publication.
During the next six weeks, we will be reading The Shack and reflecting on this abundantly loving God revealed in Jesus. We will consider how God is with us in suffering and does not spare us from suffering just as God did not spare Jesus from suffering.
We will follow the way of Jesus described in the Gospel, we will come with a greeting of Peace, we will eat together, and we will let our hearts and minds be open to new revelations through the fictional story of Mack and Papa God as well as look to new revelation still available in the scripture.
We will have the opportunity to consider the story as a story. Just like the parable of the prodigal father/son, the story is not a true story and it is a story that contains truths.
When Jesus appears to the disciples it is very important that the disciples know that he is transformed. He is in a body. This life here is not just a way station to a greater life beyond. This life is so valuable, these bodies so precious in the sight of God that Jesus would come back in a body to send the disciples out into the world to tell of this loving transforming God. God’s love was not just to them as Jewish followers of the Jewish Jesus. God’s love was to all people no matter what rules or what mother they had. Surprisingly, there are Christians today who limit God’s love to only those who accept a relationship with Jesus.
God loves us. God seeks a relationship with us and calls us into relationship with one another. The church is the gathering place for the Beloved community where when we gather in the power of God’s love. With that love, we will have the power to move toward lives of service grounded in the Spirit of Christ who is among us and within us.
