2 Easter C April 7, 2013
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Acts 5: 27-32 + Psalm 150 + Rev. 1: 4-8 + John 20: 19-31
Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Yes, it is still Easter. For fifty days after Easter Sunday the church remains in the Easter season. We celebrate with gladness the resurrection.
This year, during this Easter season, the second reading on every Sunday is from the book of Revelation. Now I must tell you that Revelation has not been one of my favorite books – it has some pretty graphic imagery and some other stuff that’s disturbing and just plain weird. And this is to be expected. The author of Revelation, John of Patmos, not John the Gospeler, was writing using cues from that time. Of course we don’t understand it. It would be as if I wrote something today and said that the church serves as Jesus’ 12th man. We would all know what I meant. We’d all get the sports metaphor, the Seahawks metaphor. But in 3000 years, if someone found my hard drive and saw that I’d written that the Church was Jesus’ 12th man, they’d no doubt spend countless hours trying to figure out the other eleven and why they were men and not women, etc, etc. But it’s a metaphor that is particular to a time and place. So it is with Revelation.
During this Easter season, then, Vicar Inge and I will be focusing on the reading from Revelation as the text for our sermons. Because whether you are drawn to or repelled by the book, it is from this book that we get much of our liturgy. It is a book that ends the canon, at least as it stands today.
And so we have the reading from the first chapter of Revelation today. Let’s listen to it again.
4John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from the One who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before the throne, 5and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, 6and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 7Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen. 8“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
If we were asked today to tell someone who God is….what would we say? Now, I know this isn’t something we do all the time, but neither is preaching from Revelation….so I’d like for you to turn to the people around you or the person next to you…just place yourselves in conversation groups and spend a few minutes with this question. Who is God? In a couple of moments I will call us back together.
(When called back together – ask for some shared answers)
Even for the early church and certainly for the church today, this is a pressing question. Who IS God? The Council of Nicea answered that question in the form of the Creed we will read during the season of Easter. Last year’s confirmation class answered that question in the form of a creed they wrote that, frankly, I find, rivals both the Nicene and the Apostle’s Creed in its depth of understanding. Creeds, or statements of faith are one way the church has attempted to answer the question “Who is God?”
In today’s reading from Revelation, though, we get some very specific answers to this question. In this reading we learn of God’s presence in the world throughout time…that God is the one who was and is and is to come and that God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
Perhaps this comes close to your understanding of who God is. As all encompassing, as ever present. Those are very big ways that we think of God. For some, it is helpful to place more accessible attributes on God – as Father or Lord, as Teacher or Creator.
In the burning bush God was revealed to Moses as I AM. This was God’s self understanding. I AM.
At the time of the writing of the book of Revelation, many others were claiming to have ultimate power and authority. Kings and dictators, rulers and Romans – and what John was trying to point out was quite simple…only God was God. Only God was God.
And that is the word for us this day also. Only God is God. No matter who else may be tempted to consider themselves in such a way, no matter how powerful a person they might be….only God is God.
And God has always been God, according to this passage, and God will always be God.
The author Louis L’Amour wrote “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” In the Gospel reading today, Thomas missed out on his chance to see the risen Christ, so it is entirely possible that he believed that everything was finished. That this mission they had been called to by this radically political teacher had ended when he hung there on the cross. That when Jesus cried “It is finished” it really was. And now that has changed and when Thomas touches the proof that Jesus is alive, when he places his hands in the nail prints in the flesh of Christ, he cries aloud “My Lord and My God!” Thomas knows that Jesus is God.
We are, as the children and I talked about this morning, much more comfortable with things that have a clear beginning and a clear ending. But God doesn’t have either. God is. I Am. Risen. Lord of Lords. Prince of Peace. Words are inadequate.
May we, like Thomas, and like John the author of Revelation know that God is alive and at work in the world. In part, God is at work in the world through the ministries of this place and through our hands. And in part God works in ways we can neither see or understand. But we know that God is God. Alpha and Omega. The one who was and who is and who is to come. And for that we give thanks during this Easter season and always.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
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