Sunday,April
11, 1999
The Rev. Shirley B.
Coll
"WINDOWS IN TIME"
l Peter l:3-9; 
John 20:19-31
Windows possess a power of their own. Windows have power because they enable us to see more clearly what is on the other side - through the use of windows, we can see a part of life that we were not able to see before. This past week, at my house, we opened up the windows wide for the first time since last fall and the sensation caused by the fresh air and the cool breeze that filled the rooms of our house was enough to make us sing. I think it must have been like that, long ago when the resurrection suddenly became the key to Christian faith.
When the early disciples preached the centrality of the resurrection, they were preaching from their experience. After the cross they were bewildered and broken, with their dream gone and their lives shattered. It was the resurrection which changed all that. The cross and the resurrection were windows in time that allowed them and still allow us to gain a perspective on life and death - on hope and despair.
One of the most magical and wonderful stories ever written is Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland", the tale of a little girl who fell down a rabbit hole and discovered a marvelous land of adventure. Carroll wrote another story, less known, but also fascinating in its teaching. He told a story about a padlock. It was just an ordinary padlock, except it was alive. It had long, thin arms and legs and was always very nervous, running here and there. One day, another character in the story stopped the twisting, turning, wriggling padlock and asked, "What is the matter with you? Why are you so excited and unhappy?" Waving his thin arms wildly in the air, the padlock exclaimed, "I am seeking the key to unlock myself!"
The Christian gospel says there is a key that will help a person come to grips with himself or herself. That same key opens up our futures and the way we look at reality in such a way that something happens. Peter presented it in his sermon in our epistle text this morning; That something is Jesus, the risen Christ.
But Easter then and now, with all of its good news, also raises a lot of doubts and questions. This is, after all, the Sunday after Easter. We are on the other side. The fullness of last Sunday's service, the flowers, the music, the number of people, still linger in our thoughts. Those who first saw the risen Christ also must have experienced joy. It was only after time passed that they were able to gain a clearer understanding of what it all meant. The people who were privileged to visit the garden on that first Easter morning were terrified at the empty grave, at the angels, and at the risen Christ. The resurrection met them with despair, and doubt and fear. They needed time. to gain perspective. They also must have done a lot of doubting and questioning in the weeks that followed the resurrection. It was after the high experience of Easter and the events immediately following that Peter said, "I'm going fishing." Some of the other disciples said, "We will go with you." In going back to their familiar surroundings maybe they felt they could better deal with the questions of Easter. Maybe that's true of us as well.
I will have to admit that on a personal level, I have always been someone who has a lot of trouble with the high points of life - a lot of success tends to make me nervous rather than sending me soaring. I loved the service last Sunday - it was magnificent. I miss the choir today and the service is not the same without them, but I also know that I will feel more relaxed after today's than I did last week. Last week it took me two days to finally relax and I didn't have that large a role to play. Last week was special - very special - but not the way life really is played out.
Thomas the disciple also had a problem with a high experience - the high experience of seeing Jesus. It is important to remember that Thomas is pictured in the Bible as a loyal disciple. Before this encounter with the risen Christ, Thomas was so devoted to Jesus that he had said to the other disciples, "let us go to Jerusalem that we might die with him. But at the sight of Jesus standing there, after the resurrection, he doubted what he was experiencing and he insisted upon physical evidence - not only what he could see but what he could touch.
This was not the first time Thomas or another one of the disciples had had trouble with Jesus' s teaching about his relationship to God. Earlier when Jesus had gotten word that Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha was dead, Thomas who was with him, said, "We will go with you", fully expecting it was too late to do anything for the family except to comfort them in their loss. He had courage but not hope. Then when Jesus was saying those familiar words about going to prepare a place for them, because, "in my father's house are many mansions," Thomas was there listening intently. When Jesus kept on, saying, "and you know the way where I am going," Thomas broke in with "Lord, we don't know where you are going, how can we know the way?"
Like the disciples, we also tend to make life difficult for ourselves. Like them, we also are often inconsistent to say the least. We rejoice when we should be afraid; we are terrified when there is every reason for great joy. But one thing I think we would all agree upon is that pondering and asking questions is an important part of faith - we would not be in the United Church of Christ if we didn't feel that way -- for questioning represents a willingness to open ourselves to new ways of perceiving. Doubting and questioning can become windows to a new vision of life.
The followers of Jesus, as well as the crowds that gathered were constantly asking for proof, for signs from Jesus. In our text for today, Thomas, like others at various times, and like many of us today, is making demands. Thomas is saying - I'm not satisfied. I need more information. I have too many questions. I'm not ready to commit without further proof. The story of Thomas also assures us that God is not afraid of our doubts. God is willing to deal with our demands.
A story is told that during the early days of our country a young soldier was separated from his company and was attempting to make his way back to the safety of the fort. There was no path to follow in this wilderness. Only the slowly setting sun gave him the general direction he should travel.
Suddenly out of nowhere, an Indian scout appeared alongside of him. He was not certain whether to trust him or not, but in this wild and dangerous territory, he was glad for the companionship of even a doubtful friend.
As they rode toward the fort, they came to a river swollen by the recent rains. The water was wild and swift, filled with jagged rocks and slippery boulders. The young soldier knew that the fort was directly ahead across the rapids. The Indian pointed to a curve in the river, "Down there beyond the bend, he said, "The river is wide and shallow. Much better for crossing."
The young soldier looked down the river. It was quite a distance to the bend, and he was not sure what possible dangers might lie in wait for him along the banks on this hostile side of the river.
"No", said the young man, "I'll go my own way -- the way I can see -- straight across."
The Indian left him and went on down stream toward the bend in the river.
The young soldier plunged into the river. The current struck him with stupendous force. Frantically, he fought the raging current. He was thrown against a boulder. His arm snapped, and the jagged rocks cut into his legs and sides. He clutched to a rock. Regaining his strength, he struggled against the brutal current and painfully made his way from one rock to another until he reached the other side of the river and crawled out onto the muddy bank exhausted, cut and bruised with his broken arm throbbing with pain.
From this vantage point he could look down the stream, beyond the bend in the river. As the scout had said, the river was wide and calm. He watched as the old Indian easily and comfortably rode his horse across the shallow waters.
In today's world, far from the event of resurrection, and given our free thinking background, few of us will not struggle along the way. Wasn't it Alfred Lord Tennyson who said, "There is often more faith in honest doubt than in the unthinking acceptance of a conventional creed." Paul Tillich once said, "Many Christians feel anxiety, quilt and despair about what they call "loss of faith". But serious doubt is the confirmation of faith. It indicates the seriousness of the concern."
The perspective on doubt, that I have found the most helpful, is a statement made by Dr. Elton Trueblood (one of today's leading proponents for the idea of equipping all church people for ministry) who said, "the dangerous person is not the person who doubts, but the person who does not care."
This year it seemed to me that the glory of Easter was overshadowed by the events in Kosovo. War and episodes of ethnic cleansing have been with us before. They are always and have always been, evil, horrid and unacceptable.
We can not help but be aware of the fact that two world wars have started in this same area - making this the third time that we have looked for hope. What seems to be different, in my thinking, is the number of human stories that have been captured by the press and television as they happen and reported graphically to us complete with pictures that often speak louder than words. As we hear the stories and see the pictures, we get to know the people at a deeper level and we find ourselves more willing to stand with them publicly than at other times in history and to challenge those whose words, actions, or policies harming them. Personal relationships foster a love that overcomes fear. As we grow in love for those who are victimized, no matter what the situation, we grow in courage. We are getting better and better at this - it is really almost impossible not to care. We also have information on both sides of the conflict. That in itself is a miracle. What is frightening is the fact that in Serbia the people are being denied the same complete exposure.
When we care, at Dr. Trueblood stated, we become less dangerous. Caring allows Easter to stretch our faith and our hope to preserve us and the world from the death of spirit that stops looking for something better in life for ourselves, and of equal importance for those in the world who have little. For when we do grasp the reality of resurrection, the reality that there is hope and that despair can be overcome, when we grasp that and choose to be inspired by it, rather than discouraged by our distance from it, our lives are changed. Windows of time, do possess the power to open up hope in the present.
I would like to suggest that the question each of us has to ask ourself now that the day of Easter is over, is, is Easter really over? Or has the life of Easter just begun? If Easter is a doctrine or a creed that one intellectually accepts or rejects then it is possible for each person to make their individual decision and move on to something else.
But if we recognize, as the church has in the past, that Easter is not simply a doctrine or the highest holy day in the year, but represents a window in time - then we will realize that Easter calls forth a continuous life-time response from each of us in every time and place. We must care. It must matter to us what is happening all over the world in the lives of people who suffer. I do not know what the right response should be, militarily, to the current situation in Kosovo, but I do know that we have the power through our humanitarian help to bring resurrection experiences into the lives of people, and Easter calls us to do that very thing.
Several days before he was killed, religious leaders had asked Jesus a complex question about resurrection. At the end of his answer Jesus said, "And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses - how God said - I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead but of the living.
Living with resurrection as a central window of our experience means that we have won the battle of faith and victory, but that victory is not yet a fully realized victory. There is still much brokenness within us and around us. As we look toward the millennium, there is no way we cannot be aware of this. But let us live into that window which is Resurrection with quiet trust and active caring. For we are a people of hope and promise, and we have the capacity to enter the experiences of others as if Jesus were still with us. In living out of resurrection, we live into faith. Maybe then we will be able to love like we have never been hurt and dance as if no one is watching. Amen
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