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A New-Fangled, Non-Fiction MysteryApril 06, 2008 Third Sunday of Easter As Luke tells the story, later on the same day that several women discover Jesus’ tomb was empty, two of his one-time followers were traveling by foot to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They’re discussing the bewildering events of the prior week, and I can imagine they’re overwhelmed with several very complicated and deeply felt emotions, confused and upset. In the first place, wracked by great grief at Jesus’ shocking demise. And in the second place consumed with great guilt. After all, as all the gospels tell the tale, none of his supposed friends and admirers stood by him at the end. He was abandoned by every last one of them, including the supposed “Rock” upon whom the church would be built, namely, Peter, the lead disciple. And now the women reported that his tomb was empty. Hearing their report, Peter ran to the place to check for himself and found the linens folded neatly with no sign of the man who had met a brutal death three days earlier. What were they to make of all this? And why did these two friends now head away from the epicenter of all this commotion? Did they need to distance themselves from their own role in the last week’s events? Putting myself in their shoes, I could imagine wanting to get out of town and as far away from my own complicit behavior, a sort of short-distance geographical cure, as in “out of sight, out of mind.” Let’s just get out of town, Cleopas. Our own lives might be at stake. But then, they couldn’t empty their minds of the week’s events. How could it be? What did it mean that the tomb was empty? If Jesus were somehow alive, wouldn’t their cowardice and betrayal be all the more obvious? A stranger approaches and joins their conversation and, in the process, reveals how these events tied together into an astonishing wholeness. Captivated by his wisdom, they invite him to dinner, and there, as he blesses and breaks the bread, the stranger is made known to them. This recognition emboldened them to turn around and journey back to Jerusalem where they joined the others in astonished wonderment at what was transpiring among them. Nothing short of an otherwise incomprehensible resurrection, whatever that meant. What follows in the next few weeks and months, of course, is one of the most mystifying human transformations in recorded history. The rag-tag band of fisher-folk and their hangers-on – dispirited, despondent, guilt-ridden and cowardly – are reconfigured as a dynamic, hope-filled, band of friends in possession of a remarkably powerful story about forgiveness, love and life abundant. A real story, some kind of a new-fangled, non-fiction mystery that sat just beyond the range of completely believable. Still, when embraced, when allowed to seep into one’s consciousness, and even deeper, into the very center of one’s being, the wondrous mystery had life-transforming power to take some dead-seeming thing and squeeze life back into it. And that included all the disciples who had fled for their lives when Jesus hung from the cross-beam. Surely some part of each of them died along with Jesus on that dreadful Friday. As we heard in our first reading, about fifty days later, Peter, the rock, the one who had famously denied Jesus three times, was now boldly able to say to the people of Jerusalem that God had made Jesus Lord and Messiah, the very same one whom we all crucified. The text reports Peter’s starkly frank assessment “cut the people to the heart.” In other words, he hit the bulls-eye. We all killed him!! And yet he lives! Astoundingly, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, loving forgiveness was exposed as God’s most awesome power, making possible restored relationship with both God and neighbor and releasing a torrential spiritual energy that upended every other competing power in the world. This would not have been possible if Peter had not found the restoration of forgiveness for himself about which he now wouldn’t shut up. Whatever else might be said about this, one thing is very certain: Peter was very much like a man who was dead, but was now more alive than he had ever been before. And this seemed to personify the very thing he was proclaiming about Jesus. In some mysterious way, Peter seemed to at least partially reflect the essence of resurrection within his own person. And not Peter alone, but all the rest of them as Luke unfolds the continuing drama in the book we call The Acts of the Apostles. Frederick Buechner points out that we experience the God of resurrection in three ways: as something beyond, something among, and something within. Beyond, among, within. Resurrection is out there as something revealed by Jesus, but also among us within these walls as a living dynamic, and individually within the depth of each one of us. At least, that’s the potential, assuming we allow ourselves to take it on. If we do take it on, however falteringly, it will inevitably start working its mystery in much the way it did for Peter and the others. That’s the promise anyway. And that would account for our presence here whether or not we have any conscious awareness of this mystery at work. So you can see that an authentic profession of resurrection faith will show up among and within a community of believers. And further, as our scriptures relentlessly reveal, one of the markers of resurrection faith is the work of forgiveness. Wherever authentic forgiveness is at work, evidence of resurrection is in play. Why? Because the work of forgiveness isn’t about fixing the past, but giving back our future life, which is one way of speaking about resurrection – hope for our future life. A profound example of this theology at work is described by Bishop Desmond Tutu, who you will remember was the chief architect and advocate of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission that dramatically aided the dismantling of apartheid and the transition to majority rule in that nation. The title of his book, No Future Without Forgiveness, part memoir, part prophetic proclamation, announces the stark truth – a hopeful future is dependent upon the work of forgiveness. He recounts Nelson Mandela’s release after a 27-year imprisonment, eventually becoming the first president of a representative democracy. Tutu writes, “A poignant moment on [inauguration day] was when Nelson Mandela arrived and the various heads of the security forces, the police and the correctional services strode to his car, saluted him and then escorted him as the head of state. It was poignant because only a few years previously he had been their prisoner and would have been considered a terrorist to have been hunted down. What a metamorphosis, what an extraordinary turnaround. He invited his white jailer to attend his inauguration as an honored guest, the first of many gestures he would make in his spectacular way, showing his breathtaking magnanimity and willingness to forgive.” [1] Peter Gomes reasons that hope allows us to see beyond what is and to imagine what might and what ought to be. Hope is meant to guide us into the place where we have not yet been and become the persons we have not yet become. If this is true, and I very much believe it’s so, then you can see how forgiveness is an engine of hope and it lies at the core of resurrection faith. It offers a future where none seems possible, where dead is dead and that’s all there is. Now we don’t have nearly enough time this morning to travel down all the pathways this opens up for us. Over the next months I will be returning to this theme from time to time, believing that we don’t spend nearly enough time addressing ourselves to this matter of forgiveness. As Mandela’s experience reveals, the sort of forgiveness we’re speaking of here has nothing to do with sentimental and ultimately hypocritical expressions of regret, but something far deeper and more elemental to our human condition, something that actually meets the rigorous demands of the hope we require, the muscle and sinew of resurrection faith. Friends, every one of us here holds a place on both sides of the forgiveness equation. We have need to both offer forgiveness and to receive forgiveness. This is a universal human condition. I know from personal experience as well as from hundreds and hundreds of conversations (probably thousands) with an astonishing array of people that much, maybe most, of our suffering, both individual and collective, is agitated by the corrosive forces of resentment, anger, bitterness and guilt. This is true of the suffering we experience inside our own souls, among our families and immediate communities and as citizens of the world’s nations. Resurrection faith powers a hopeful future. That’s what Cleopas and his friend experienced when the stranger they had welcomed into their midst blessed and broke bread. Their eyes were opened, and an incredible discovery was glimpsed: their future was given back to them and they rushed home to share their remarkable experience with their friends where the first waves of forgiveness were already in evidence. Remember this as you share in the same meal in moment. The same hospitality offered among strangers then is offered today because Jesus remains the host. That’s a remarkable thing to claim, I know. But that’s the new-fangled non-fiction mystery we profess that rests just beyond the range of our comprehension. More remarkable still, if we let this sink into the very core of our being, no dank or dead place in our lives stands a chance of winning the day. Forgiveness, love and hope are the hallmarks of this meal. Thanks be to God!
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