The low attendance and participation at worship services brings us to an obvious conclusion: most people will pay lip-service to a faraway God, but run like anything when this God shows up on their doorstep! Lessons to be heard on this Second Sunday after Easter remind us that a pro-active God continues to pitch God’s tent in our backyard. How will I acknowledge that God’s here?
ACTS 5:27-32 continues the story of Peter & John, who have been arrested for preaching in Jerusalem about the Lordship of Jesus. (Readers should try to put this into context, which is all of Chapter 5.) Their challenge–our challenge–is to discern how to obey God rather than the System. This is no easy task, because the voices of the System are loud and strident and widely accepted as the Way Things Are. Can we do this successfully without harming others? Now that my life is just about over, what shall I risk of all my hard-earned perks?
We turn also to the beginning of the Book of REVELATION 1:4-8. This is the start of the message of John of Patmos (not the disciple/evangelist) to the community in the Mediterranean area which affirms their ideas of the Presence of God. In this pericope, the author tries to tell his audience that Jesus is not only REAL, but involved in their daily lives: “Look! He is coming with the clouds…” and that coming is to straighten out the bent part of this world. The question remains of his immanence: When? and has he already come? Or is this coming a daily thing which has influenced our ancestors and will influence us and our descendants?
It’s traditional, this Second Sunday, to read the story of “doubting Thomas”, JOHN 20:19-31. Actually, it’s the story of God’s breaking in–again!–to the lives of God’s People. This year, I’d like to lift up the idea of Jesus’ presence even though the doors were locked. What locks are on YOUR doors? Are they there out of fear of “the Jews” (the System)? Why can’t people, even GOD’s people, expect that the Holy Presence will be among them, encouraging their risk, sending them into the rest of the earth with the News that we are not condemned? Perhaps it’s more comfortable for us to accept that we’re really tarnished beyond salvation, and live accordingly…
Worship on this Sunday after Easter will be low in attendance. Very few of us will catch a glimpse of the resurrected Jesus, because it’s more convenient to let him stay in the grave. But he hasn’t.
In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King
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