Sermon: If Easter Had A
Face
Text: John 20:19-31
If Easter were a human
person, like any other regular human being that I could meet face to face, I
would like to ask, “Hey, Easter! We meet again this year, one more time. Yet,
it is not just ‘another time’. Since I have known you, every year you come to
me with a different face, with a different look. Hey, what’s up?”
I imagine Easter as a
human person and it makes sense to me only if she has a face, just as Jesus,
the Jewish healer, wisdom teacher, Kingdom of God movement initiator, who
breathed his last breath on the cross, had a human face. Easter has a human
face. The communal resurrection of Christ has a human face – people. People.
People who resurrect with Jesus. The communal resurrection of Christ comes
after, only comes after the communal crucifixion of Jesus. Only after we
communally experience and respond to and share the sufferings of another, only
after we give our ears to the cries of the people in bewilderment, in pain and
even in anger over the injustices that impact their lives, only after we choose
to stand at the foot of the cross and go through Good Friday to cry with and
for those who have no more tears left to shed, can we see the face of the
communal Christ amongst our human faces. We see the face of Easter in people,
ordinary, common people like us.
It is the second Sunday
of Easter, yet I still desire to meet Easter face-to-face, looking Easter right
in the eyes. I am longing to hear the beat of Easter’s heart. I imagine what it
feels like calling Easter and being with Easter, as if it were a friend, a
neighbour, or a stranger, who has a face. A real human face:
Easter in a dying friend’s face. Easter in the tears the
people of Calgary shed for the victims of last week’s stabbings and their
families. Easter in the faces of the Korean people in their collective grief
over the hundreds of deaths in last week’s ferry catastrophe, and in their
sharing of the families’ sorrow, grief, shock, bewilderment, and even their
outrage.
Korean people are,
again, rising to ask what has gone wrong with themselves as a nation, as a
society, to allow this tragedy to collapse upon these young people, and kill
those who should shine like jewels, blossom like flowers. Their destiny should not
end like this; entombed in the cold, cold sea when at their age, the idea of
their own death should be so distant as to be unimaginable. The Korean people
are outraged, believing personally and deeply that, more than ever, they must
truly protest the fascist societal system that allows economics and
wealth-creation to take priority over people’s safety and lives, the government
which runs roughshod over the people’s rights to know the truth, and the mass
media acts as a puppet delivering government’s propaganda. Easter must seem so
distant to the grieving and devastated Koreans, yet I discern the dimmed light
of Easter Hope getting brighter in their eager desire to see another human
being’s face in the light of truth and to understand another’s pain as their
own.
Through the past two
years of serving Chemainus United Church, I have been so privileged to look you
in the face, and witness the Face of Easter in you. We have journeyed together
in a communal faith walk that has led us through the depths and peaks of life,
personally and spiritually. I thank you for your openness and willingness to
look me in the face, so we could see each other as we truly are.
Emmanuel Levinas says,
“The idea of infinity, the infinitely ‘more’ contained in the less, is concretely
produced in the form of a relation with the face.” The infinite variety of humankind, the unlimited number of ways that we
relate to the world, to each other and to God, can be seen and appreciated when
you look at another person’s face, and to know that there is another person
there a singular being who may not be completely knowable but who is always
worthy of love and respect. In the encounter of the Other, in the face-to-face
encounter with another human being, the human face ordains us in the sacred
relationship between I and “Thou”, not I and “it”.
These past two years has
been a time for me to witness the infinitely ‘more’ that is concretely
produced in the form of a relation with the face. You hugged me. You gently
squeezed my hand as you encouraged me. You showed your teary eyes and said
‘Thank you.’ You expressed your concerns, sharing with me your ideas of how I
can become a better minister for you and others – and here I am. I am proving
that you are right! (* grin *) You let me hold your hands beside the hospital bed to pray.
You asked me to say the words for your families in their loss. As we see each
other face-to- face, looking each other in the eyes, as we hold one another’s
hands, and share our hearts, you let me witness the infinitely ‘more’
that is your community, your lives. So I thank you.
The infinitely ‘more’ is
what we Christians call God. And in God, the duality of the beginning and the
end as the two opposite poles in a linear order of time - dissolves. Beginning
is going on. Everywhere. Amidst all the endings, bursting with promise.
Even now. Even amidst this ending, this last Sunday service we are now having
together.
Here is a piece of a
poem that I like, Song of Myself, written by Walt Whitman.
“I have heard what the
talkers were talking,
The talk of the
beginning and the end;
But I do not talk of the
beginning or the end.
There was never any more
inception than there is now.”
One of the Christian
doctrines that has engaged our Christian imaginations for a long time is Creatio
ex nihilo, meaning ‘Creation out of nothing’. God has created the whole
universe – the Sun, the Moon, the stars, animals, birds, bugs, water, earth,
flowers, human beings, the complicated and delicate, organic life system, every
entity in it and its beauty – ‘out of nothing’ at once, in a singular event.
Yet the God of Creation, God of Easter, exclaims to us that “You are created
from everything!” Not out of the void, not out of emptiness, not
out of the vacuum, you are created from everything! From light as well
as darkness – from the tidal waves of human experiences of loss and grief,
anger and disappointment. You are created from everything - from the
squalling of infants, from supernovas on the far side of the universe! You are
created from everything! Your beginning is already full, flooded in the
water of everything; God’s breath is hovering upon the face of your beginning,
vibrating upon the face of the deep.
Beginning is still going
on. Everywhere. Amidst all the endings, bursting with promise. Even now. The two polarities of the
chronological order of time – the beginning and the end - dissolves.
I am standing on the
promise, neither the end nor the beginning, but where the duality of the end
and the beginning dissolves - and so are you. You are standing on the promise;
it is our Easter hope. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says to doubtful Thomas, “Put your
finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand, put it in my side. Do not
doubt but believe.”
Some days ago, a church
member knocked on my office door, and uttered an incredible comment that
cheered me up. He said that he went to the Men’s Breakfast that morning. Most
of them were from the other churches in the Chemainus area, yet they had known
that I had been a minister at Chemainus United Church, and also knew that my
term with CUC would end soon. He said, that morning, my next step was the "subject" of their discussion. I exclaimed, “Was I discussed?!” with surprise and some
excitement.
“Yeah, you’ve made a
good reputation around here.”
I became even a bit more
playful. “Am I popular?” “Yeah, Min Goo and you, both of you. Min Goo was the
first. And you were the second. You came to us. You were opening up the culture
and acceptance.”
The last sentence – Min
Goo and I were opening up the culture toward acceptance – was so
affirming. So right. It cheered me up. Opening up is a great description to
explain what the ‘beginning’ is about. “To begin” means, in Hebrew, ‘To cut
open, to open up’. The beginning does not lie back, does not lie in the past, like
an origin, but rather it opens out.
Thank you, everyone, for
the last two years. Together we, communally and collectively, have opened
up the culture and practiced acceptance, learned it and embodied it to
truly see the face of another – not the colour of our skin, not the
differences in how we look, what languages we speak, but to look each other in
the face – the human face.
We are standing on the eternal now, the infinitely more. We are standing on the promise that is concretely fulfilled in our endeavour and journey to make right and authentic relationships with one another through the Risen Christ. The beginning is still going on, and is everywhere.
Chemainus United Church,
I love you. You were my first congregation. My Lay
Supervision Team members: Ken Graham, Gloria Cope, Lana Palmer, David Thomas. I love you. You have been a lighthouse for my journey through the past two years. My
earnest prayer is that you may continue to be a warm and remarkable community
that thrives with the vision and practice of acceptance, hospitality, and the
love and warmth of Jesus Christ as you have shown them to me. God bless. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment