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Some folks can’t wait to get to the end of a novel to see how it comes out.   There are even those, I’m told, who will skip ahead to the last chapter to make sure the story ends well, and that the main characters live happily ever after!  But what of the fine prose between the introduction and The End?  As the travelogue says, “Getting there is half of the fun!”   Sunday’s scriptures are delivered with Jesus’ resurrection in mind, yet still wrestle with understanding the full implication of traveling with the Risen Christ.

The passage from the Acts of the Apostles continues Peter’s Pentecostal sermon.   The faithful of Jerusalem and those come to the festival realized all too late that they had crucified God’s Anointed, and now stood guilty.   “Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (2:36)  But Peter announces a Second Chance:  “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (v.38)   Turn around, change your minds, and sign on–God’s Glory and righteousness are still being revealed….

The Epistle is again from the words of St. Peter, traditionally sent to to the persecuted Believers in Asia Minor.  God’s presence in Christ is nothing new, even though the recent Easter Event announces it firmly.  “He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake.”  (I Peter 1:20)   A potent sentence, it speaks of Christ as the Creative Force of the universe, set aside for just this time!  Revelation, becoming known, unfolds for each generation in a different manner, yet builds on this hope of God’s constant care.

This Gospel lesson is read every year, two Sunday’s past Easter.  Don’t let its familiarity lull you to sleep, because there’s always something “new” that you may not have seen before.  It seems that two of Jesus’ disappointed and tired followers were heading home to Emmaus (near Jerusalem, not Allentown), and didn’t apprehend that their companion was Jesus himself.  They didn’t catch on even when he told them all about Messiah-hood , not until they observed how he broke the bread at supper.  “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to upon the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)  These two, of course, were You and I, often dense and unwise to all the possibilities of God.  Yet it wasn’t too late to recognize and honor Jesus as the Risen Savior.

Eastertide is a challenge: first to believe, and then to act as if we really do!  Today’s message tells of a Lord who doesn’t say, “Well, you had your chance”, but one who keeps showing up again and again and again until we finally get it.  I used to tell those I just married, “Now your troubles are at an end: don’t ask me WHICH end!”  Please don’t think of Easter as the End of the Journey; there’s a lot more.   “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.”

God Bless Us, Every One!      Horace Brown King

Rats!  Frank said he’d be here, and now it’s late.  I knew it.  Well, what can I expect?  “This year, Charlie Brown, I won’t pull the football away; I promise!”   Well, what did he expect?  The Nevada cattle-baron abuses his grazing-rights, and the state government backs him!  Well, what did we expect?  The regressive Supreme Court kills Affirmative Action and interracial rights, pandering to once-sleeping Jim Crow….Yeah, what could we expect?

So this Second Sunday of Easter is an in-your-face to our meager expectations by affirming the world-changing news that God continues to defeat the tarnished and the tawdry!   Eastertide is a 50-day campaign to pull the skeptic back into active belief:  Peter rallied those on the doorstep of faith by saying of Jesus, “But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.” (Acts 2:24)   Our jaded expectations may be prevalent, but not permanent!

We continue to explore Peter’s understanding, as he writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ!  By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” (I Peter 1:3)  Just in time: most of us had almost given up.  Roland McGregor opines, “What God did in the resurrection of Jesus is change the expectations of everyone who hopes and believes…. The resurrection is not a manifestation of wishful thinking on the part of first-century Mediterranean people but rather a new hope that was created by the creator.”

Sunday’s Gospel is the famous story of “Doubting” Thomas, my hero who asked the silly questions that everyone else wanted to…  He appears in John’s Gospel as the foil, the one who HAD to feed our questions to Jesus in order to elicit a teaching response.  None of the disciples really expected Jesus to show, on that first Easter: the doors were locked.  Thomas, speaking for me, didn’t expect a physical presence.  Then as now, John’s readers themselves had low expectations of a God and Risen Savior who had to break in…  We enlightened ones through the years have limited our hopes to “reasonable” expectations.  We grieve over society’s abuses, yet won’t expect anything to change…

And so, on this Sunday just after the brass and majesty of the announced Resurrection, we expect a horde of newly -revived Believers to pour through our sanctuary doors!   As Easter People, we expect our brothers and sisters in Christ to be in the halls of government and the corridors of commerce, busily changing the prevalent ethic!  Touched by the Resurrection, I expect to be kinder, more forgiving, less prejudiced than I have been!   So what do YOU expect??

God Bless Us, Every One…..                             Horace Brown King

So many people know the Easter story…or maybe not.  It often seems to this jaded preacher that 95.7% of the population lives as though the cemetery is the end of the line:  gratification NOW, win at any cost, sell your soul for Fame ‘n’ Fortune.   Has it made any difference over 20 centuries that my colleagues and I have brought an audacious message of Life overcoming Death, and that subsequently Believers may live in an ethic of Love and Justice and Humility??

There are several Easter accounts; the one that many will hear this Sunday is from John’s Gospel, 20th chapter.  Here is faithful Mary of Magdala, come to the tomb of Jesus to weep and remember…and the stone covering has been removed!  What’s more, two angels were sitting inside the empty tomb!  Turning in puzzlement, she met Jesus himself, who called her by name since she was crying too hard to recognize him…  Well, she saw him die:  why then should she expect to see him alive?  What do you expect after Good Friday?  Is there life beyond the tomb??

The prophet Jeremiah caught an early glimpse of this undergirding life when he assured his hearers, “Again you shall take your tambourines, and go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.” (31:4)  Funeral memories don’t have to rule our lives!  We can live as though there’s something more beyond the graveyard!

“So’, say St. Paul, “if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:1-3)

The new pastor was traveling about his rural parish, trying to meet as many of his flock as possible.  He was delighted to find elderly Farmer Wright at home, and asked for his wife.  “She’s over in the cemetery ‘cross the road,” the old man said.  The eager preacher said that he’d sit on the porch until she returned; and so he stayed conversing with the venerable gentleman.  The hour grew late, and finally he asked, “How long ago did your wife go over to the cemetery?”   Farmer Wright took only a second to reckon, “Well, it’s been almost four years, now!”   Well, what do you expect?  Is there life beyond the graveyard??

A Blessed Resurrection to All!                        Horace Brown King

“The skies are bright on this brisk Spring morning in Old Jerusalem, and the street crowds are more excited than usual for this Passover holiday.  Our correspondent passes on the rumor that one Jesus, from either Nazareth or Bethlehem, will be making a major statement about the current state of Roman occupation.  Some of his followers claim that he’s the new Messiah, a reincarnation of David, ready and able to seize the crown and establish a righteous Jewish nation again!  But they’re from Galilee, hardly a center of political understanding…

“This Jesus has made quite a reputation for himself as a teacher and healer, working many amazing miracles in the name of God.  The Pharisees accuse him of blasphemy, and of circumventing the ancient Law.  Sadducees and Temple Officers have also considered him dangerous to the Temple grounds, although he and his disciples have made several visits there to observe the Jewish holy days and festivals.  So this morning his retinue has gathered on the Mount of Olives, the traditional site where the Messiah  is said to appear.  We expect him to be at the Jerusalem gates at any moment…                                                                                                               

“And look!  Now I believe that something is happening!  A large company of street-people are shouting “Hosanna!  God has saved us!”, and they’re making a way of coats and palm branches for his horse and chariot.   This may get unwelcome attention from the Roman Legion, since palm branches have been outlawed since other revolutionaries used them as symbols of insurrection.  Wait…there’s no chariot, but Jesus is astride a colt!   Hardly what we would expect from a would-be King and challenger to the Roman might…

“Sir, what do you expect of this Jesus?…..a leader for the zealots who will make our life better?

“And you, miss?  ….someone who’ll bring prosperity and break the yoke of slavery?

“Many are quoting Psalm 118, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.  We bless you from the house of the Lord.  The Lord is God, and he has given us light.  Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar.’  Will this poor man meet the expectations of the People, or is he just one more pretender to holiness?  For today, the street-crowd expects a shift in power… and tomorrow?

“This is Eli ben-Smuel, reporting from the Old City of Jerusalem.”

Followers have been tortured and killed, others of us shunned for our stance on justice, equality and acceptance.  Neighbors snicker when they see us en route to worship.  Jesus said to expect these things, even as the Kingdom of Heaven unfolds.

This may be a week when your own expectations of Jesus shall be changed: may the turmoil of the City be yours as well, and may you ask “Who Is It?”….until the Sign of Jonah, Easter Sunday….

God Bless Us, Every One                       Horace Brown King

Sometimes I’m speechless.  Often I’m breathless–such as when carrying a  load of laundry from the basement to the second floor.  Or after singing an especially fast and rambunctious show-tune.  Or when treading upon Lucy, the cat, in a dark hallway.   Sunday’s readings are well-told stories which talk about some people who’re REALLY breathless!

Most of us are familiar with Ezekiel’s vision of the Field of Dry Bones (37:1-14).  Zeke thought there was no way for these lifeless skeletons to be Real People again; but God called a Holy Wind (ruach”/spirit) to put breath into them — and they lived again!  The praise band will now sing, “the toe bone connected to the…foot bone, the foot bone connected to…now hear the Word of the Lord.”  It’s an analogy, said The Lord.  God’s People felt dried up, hopeless and cut off.  “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”

St. Paul reminds the Roman Believers and us, their descendents, that even though Death and Despair are to be seen all around, God’s Spirit provides an alternative: Life!  Change and decay have you discouraged and hopeless?  “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11)

The wonderful story about Lazarus and New Life (John 11) is full of suspense and a final resolution.  It has fully human characters — Mary, Martha and even Jesus weep over Lazarus’ death — and sympathetic neighbors.  And,of course, it’s a preview of Easter’s resurrection.   The preacher or teacher needs to spell out the Good News: that just as Lazarus (and later, Jesus) were given Life-after-Death, so each Believer shall ALSO receive this newness of life!

I’ve heard these stories so many times that I’ve almost forgotten how to marvel over their promise.  But many are hearing these for the first time, and need to catch a glimpse of awe-filled excitement.   Certainly all of us have yearned for the dawn.  These readings invite us to consider the promise of resurrection even in the daily scrabble for sustenance and meaning.

God Bless Us, Every One        Horace Brown King