Christ Lutheran Church

1701 Arroyo Chamiso

Santa Fe, NM 87505-4775

(505) 983-9461

church@clcsantafe.com

  

Sunday, April 11, 2010
Second Sunday of Easter

Bright Sunday

GOSPEL: John 20:19–31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the [authorities], Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 27Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." 28Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" 29Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

The Easter Laugh

 

+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

I owe my Sermon this morning to my dear friend and colleague: Retired Pastor Hal Nilsson who lives in Albuquerque.  Before his retirement he was the Senior Pastor of St. Luke’s Church in that city (where at one time almost 4 decades ago I was the Associate Pastor) … Now, Pastor Nilsson is a vibrant member of St. Paul’s Church in Albuquerque.  He is also a great bicyclist.

Which reminds me of the story of a very devout bicyclist who dies and goes to heaven. Saint Peter meets him at the gate. First thing the cyclist asks is are there bicycles in heaven?

“Absolutely,” says St. Peter, “let me show you,” and he leads the cyclist into the finest Velodrome you can imagine (a Velodrome for our non-cycling friends is a steeply banked wooden oval racetrack for bicyclists.) “This is great!” the cyclist exclaims.

“It certainly is,” says St. Peter. “You will have a custom bike and the best cycling clothes you’ve ever seen, and your personal masseuse will always available.”

As they are talking a blur streaks by them on the boards riding a gold plated Rivendell Homer Hilsen.

“Wow!” the cyclist exclaims. “That guy was so fast … it can only be Lance Armstrong!”

“Nope,” says St. Peter, “that was God on that Rivendell, he only thinks he’s Lance”.

Well, welcome to Bright Sunday, when we proclaim the Good News about what God has to say to us concerning the Resurrection of Jesus, that life is the end of the human condition, not death … but life, life with God, life so wondrous and beautiful and fulfilling and free of pain that it could for any bicyclist be nothing less than riding in a heavenly Velodrome on a Rivendell Homer Hilsen drafting behind God herself!

Today is called “Bright Sunday” or Holy Hilarity Day, or in Latin, the Risus Paschalis, the “Easter laugh.”  The practice of telling jokes and funny stories on the Sunday following Easter goes back centuries in some places in Europe.

Some say the practice stems from an observation by St. John Chrysostom, the great 5^th Century preacher and Bishop of Constantinople.  It was St. John Chrysostom (Chrysostom is a Greek Word meaning “Golden Mouthed”) who called Easter a cosmic joke that God played on Satan.  (And by the way if you really want to impress your friends and neighbors, inform them that Satan is actually pronounced Sah-tawn both in Hebrew and Greek).

So, when Jesus was killed on the cross, Sah-tawn thought it had won.  Goodness was defeated.  But the Tempter had only a few hours to laugh.  Because on Easter morning God shamed and defeated Sah-tawn and the forces of evil for all time.  God pulled off the greatest practical joke ever!  God had the last laugh! 

And so do we, the children of God who live by grace and love and hope.  Although we still contend every day with the forces of evil, because Jesus lives we can and ought to travel the journey of faith with a smile on our faces.  Difficult sometimes for Lutherans, but let’s try hard this Sunday, this Easter Season … in fact, this lifetime!!

And by now you should have paged through the Bulletin for this Sunday and seen all the images of the Smiling Jesus, the Laughing Jesus … these are the Jesus images I more prefer to look at (dangling a preposition out there for everyone to see, because this is after all Bright Sunday) … the Smiling, Laughing Jesus is the Jesus I much prefer to look at because that is the Jesus I believe is there in the Gospels, holding up children in the air and making them giggle, embracing teenagers with arms of understanding, and passing no judgment upon anyone because they have committed a sin, except the judgment of making amends and making things better, and making the world a better place.

Oh, that’s the Jesus I read about in the Gospels!  That’s the Jesus in whom I put my whole faith and trust!

Which brings me back to my friend Pastor Hal Nilsson.  He is a faithful and trustworthy pastor of the Church, he really is, even though he’s half-Swedish and half-Norwegian (what we call in technical terms a Swedgian). 

Now you know that we are not allowed anymore to tell ethnic jokes, not at all, it’s just not done! … especially in a church that is as welcoming as ours.  But, we can tell Hittite jokes, because there aren’t any Hittites left in the world anymore.

So, a typical Hittite joke begins this way: “There were these two Hittites, one named Sven and the other named Ollie …”

By the way, how many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?

None.  Lights will go off and on at predestined times.

How many Roman Catholics does it take to change a light bulb?

Sorry, only use candles.

How many Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb?

[Steve, the President of the Congregation jumps up from the Choir and exclaims:]

“Change?!  Who said anything about change?!”

Speaking of Holy Week, the Three Days in Latin is called the Triduum, but if you really want to annoy the Corps of Liturgical Engineers, you could pronounce it the “Tri-DEE-um” … Speaking of Holy Week, you remember how the story ended as we read the Passion of our Lord on Good Friday —  Joseph of Arimathea asked to take the body of Jesus to his own tomb.

A neighbor asked Joseph why he gave his beautiful hand-carved tomb to someone else.  Joseph replied, “Well, he only needed it for the weekend.”

It is that kind of light-heartedness and hope that Easter gives us.  Somehow Thomas in our Gospel Portion this morning was unable to discern that joy and hope when his friends told him that they had seen Jesus alive.  Perhaps Thomas was so devastated by what had happened that he was mired in depression.  Crushing blows will do that, as many of you in this room can attest. 

A week later, a patient and caring Jesus broke through Thomas’ doubt and despair.  I cannot help but believe that there was a good bit of laughter behind the closed doors that day when Thomas saw Jesus and knew that life would never be the same.  That’s implicit in the biblical text.

You have to be careful with the message … that is the message; it’s a golden treasure that we have to treat it with love and care.

Just like Fr. Benito in the book written by Sabine Ulibarri back in 1971 … the book entitled Tierra Amarilla: Stories of New Mexico.  Fr. Benito came to Tierra Amarilla and Ulibarri writes, “The good father brought us light and life, tenderness and joy.  He filled the town with talk and gaiety.  He drew us to the Kingdom of Heaven by the strangest method ever used in the history of religion.  If dying of laughter is a good thing, Fr. Benito brought us to a good death many, many times.”

… “He spoke terrible Spanish, fluent but mutilated.  He could not pronounce the word reino in his favorite expression, el rein de Dios (the Kingdom of God), but repeated it so often that it acquired a strange, fatal importance.  Sayuing mass, he used to chang in magisterial tones, ‘In order to enter into the relleno of God …’” 

Think of that the next time you order chilies rellenos!

 

We need to pay close attention to the text … that’s a key message of Easter.  Like when the cake decorator was asked to inscribe First John 4:18 on a wedding cake.  That verse reads “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”  Unfortunately he misread the verse, and when the cake arrived at the wedding reception it was discovered that not First John 4:18, but John 4:18 was inscribed: “For you have five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband.”

Speaking of Bible verses, a mother was cleaning her teenage daughter’s room when she saw a post-it note on her bulletin that said Job 7:11.  The mother looked up the verse and read, “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” 

Although she had not detected anything amiss, the mother wondered if this was a serious cry for help.  She asked their pastor to come over to meet with the family, which she did.  The pastor prayed with them for reassurance, for trust and courage for the young woman, and most of all for a sense of hope for her.  As they said “Amen,” she asked what that was all about.  They showed her the note and expressed their concern.  “Oh that,” she said, “that was there to remind me that there’s a job opening at 7/11.”

There’s been a lot in the news about health-care and our national concern and compassion about those who are poor and need assistance especially in the arena of those who have been forgotten in our country, and now we are beginning to change that … it’s the hilarity (if you will) of the Gospel, the loving laughter of the Gospel that compels us to do a simple thing really … so simple that a lot of people just miss it completely… you know “love your neighbor as yourself.”

So about Health Care … it happened that one day Jesus was walking down the road when he encountered three men.  The first was blind.  Jesus asked the man what he wanted, and the man said he wanted to see.  Jesus touched his eyes and the man could see.  The man went off happy.  Jesus then asked the second man, who was limping, what he wanted, and the man said he wanted to walk in a straight manner.  Jesus touched him and he was healed.  The man ran off, praising God.  Then Jesus began to ask the third man what he wanted.  But before Jesus could get out the question, the man said, “Whatever you do, don’t touch me, Lord. I’m on disability.”

It wouldn’t be Bright Sunday if we didn’t say something about one of our beloved members who died last Monday and whose Funeral Eucharist we are going to celebrate this afternoon at 4 o’clock … you know that I’m talking about Raoul Bach.  I knew Raoul for almost entire time I’ve been the Pastor of this congregation … his was a life of pain, constant … he made the Biblical title “Suffering Servant” come to life … he worked through his suffering and became a servant … none of us will forget in recent months the “Man with the Dollar Bill” who engineered his way into the middle of the aisle and suggested that if each of us gave him a dollar bill each Sunday and allowed him to turn that accumulation into the offering for that week, then the deficit would be reduced significantly …

And you know what it was, it happened, it took place … and that is what we call the Easter Laugh … taking what is and what seems to be and turning it from sadness into laughter, from sorrow into joy, from death into life … it is what we call, week-after-week … the Gospel, the Good News.

Let’s end with one more.

A Pastor was talking to a group of 2^nd Graders about Jesus’ Resurrection when one child asked, “What did Jesus say right after he came out of the grave?”

The Pastor explained that the Gospels don’t give us that information.

A little girl raised her hand, “I know what he said!”

“What was it?” asked the Pastor.

“Tah-dah!” said the little girl.

Well, that’s a good way to end the Sermon on Bright Sunday, the Day of Holy Hilarity.

So after a bit of silence, let’s listen to a wonderful song by Carrie Newcomer, she’s a great singer/songwriter … and some of us heard her in concert recently in that beautiful little village of Corrales … we are going to listen to our own Charlie Pineda play it and sing it for us, it’s called … “If not now, tell me when …”

I can think of no more beautiful way to prepare ourselves for the blessed Sacrament of Love and Hope and Joy and Forgiveness and yes … Laughter that we are going to celebrate than through this song …

We may never see this moment

Or place in time again
If Not Now, Tell me when?

Deo Gratias (+)

The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III
Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church
Santa Fe, NM