hallelujah was a hoodrat
& now you finally know that
The resurrected Jesus turns up in their midst; they look upon the wounds from that terrible day. Indeed, it is the same Jesus they followed, ate with, watched preform miracles, and then, horrifyingly, gawked at as the nails were driven through his hands and feet, and finally ran from as he died.
Now, though; now here he is.
It’s Jesus, and he still has the scars to prove it.
Instead of being overjoyed, though, Luke tells us there was joy,yes; but joy and disbelief, joy and wonder…
It’s an odd detail, isn’t it?
You’d think that after the terror and tragedy of the cross, Luke would be more than ready to move on, and talk about Jesus perfect victory that casts out all doubts.
Only that isn’t what Luke does; which should serve as a perennial reminder that the truth is stranger than fiction.
In that simple line, you could even call it throw away one, you get the sense that Luke knew for himself, just how strange the resurrection is; “while in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.”
The resurrection isn’t that quaint, little flip line at the end of some fairy-tale, “and they lived happily ever after.”
The resurrection is the ‘alleluia’ that hasn’t come easily - the alleluia that only comes after the thing that shouldn’t have happened, did; the dead brought back to life - the one we placed our hopes in rising.
The resurrection isn’t some thing that suddenly makes everything alright again. No, the resurrection is God’s refusal to leave us in this world where everything isn’t alright…
The resurrection doesn’t remove the scars from that horrible day, and it doesn’t even abolish the disbelief and plain wonder we have, when we look upon this thing God has done, either.
No, the resurrection isn’t some easy, too good to be true; rather it’s miraculous. And miracles never come easy, and they are not simple.
When folks like us look upon this thing God has done, then, the resurrection; we’re not sure what to do with it.
The truth is, we’d like our Good News to come easily. We’d prefer to avoid the resurrection altogether, if we’re being honest. Deep in our hearts, we just want a convenient life - preferably we’d just avoid those crosses where God gets to work.
Martin Luther once quipped, “the world seeks God in the heights of success, but God meets his people in the depths.”
I believe this is true…
That is why the resurrection is so odd for us.
Today Emery will talk to us about his time serving in the ELCA program, “Young Adults in Global Mission.”
Each year, many of our best and brightest in the ELCA, put off success, and spend a year in some corner of the world - a corner the rest of the world has assumed is God-forsaken; and there, these folks get busy with the business of resurrection.
I’m going to tell one quick story and then get out of the way for Mr. Ellington.
In college there was this girl, she was easy to spot on campus because she was on the student council, she was on the campus ministry team, she got good grades, went on mission trips during spring break, and even found the time to volunteer at the youth detention center near campus once a week.
And there was another guy on campus, and he was easy to spot, too. He was easy to spot because he was loud, he had an opinion about everything and he wasn’t afraid to pontificate on these thoughts of his.
Well one day, he was feeling cranky, I guess; and she was in the coffee shop leading a Bible study. When he came over to the table, we could all tell he planned to cause some trouble. After the passage was read, he spoke up.
“I don’t see how you can believe this stuff,” he said.
“Well,” she ventured, “Paul was talking about…”
“No,” he interrupted, “I mean any of it; God and all that.”
“…What do you mean,” someone else asked.
“Well just look around you, you mean to tell me a loving God would let all this rottenness just go on,” he fired back. And the words did ring like bullets.
And everyone was quiet, and it was awkward. But then she spoke up, “if you would go to those place, you would see what God can do with all this rottenness.”
I don’t remember what else she said, or even what happened next. But I knew that if there was anyone who could talk about resurrection; it was this young woman who didn’t try to avoid the crosses.
That is what Young Adults in Global Mission is about. Frankly, sisters and brothers, that is what we are called to be about here, too. And whether we avoid that call or not; it’s what God is about.
The resurrection is odd, yes; but thank heavens it’s what God is about. We all know for ourselves that the cross is what’s in store; and unless we have a God who can bring forth alleluias from the cross, scars and all, disbelief and wonder too, then we don’t have a God who can save us.
Alleluia that the one who shows up is the one who bears the scars from that cross and still rises.
Amen.
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