When the Revolution Began
April 9, 2023 (Easter) • Mount Pleasant UMC
When you hear that someone is a “revolutionary,” you might think of soldiers, maybe professional but more likely amateurs, fighting against an oppressive regime, probably trying to overthrow the government and replace it with something better. Our own country was founded in the midst of a revolution, so we know a bit about it, at least historically. When you Google “revolutionary” the names that turn up are Spartacus, William Wallace (of Braveheart fame), Joan of Arc, Napoleon and George Washington. More recent revolutionaries that turn up include Valdimir Lenin, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. Every one of them are considered revolutionaries because of their violent and often bloody challenge toward the “powers that be.” The word “revolutionary” probably doesn’t make us think of tears and a prayer for peace.
During this year’s Lenten season, we’ve been walking fairly slowly with Jesus through Holy Week, exploring how so much of what he said and did that week flowed out of a single prayer he prayed over Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Luke tells us Jesus stopped along the side of the Mount of Olives and began to weep when he looked at this holy and beautiful city. There are only two times in the Gospels where Jesus cries. The first time is at the death of his friend Lazarus, and the word used there means he silently cried, perhaps just a few tears rolling down his face but without any sound (John 11:35). That’s not the word Luke uses. When Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, it’s a loud wailing. Here are all these people singing and shouting and there’s Jesus in the middle of it, crying loudly, louder than he did when his friend died. I think that’s because he knew he could raise Lazarus, but Jerusalem was determined to reject him and that broke his heart. He cries and he says, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace…” (Luke 19:42). And with a broken heart, he spent a week in and out of the city, showing and teaching and living out his revolutionary message. And for that, like a lot of revolutionaries, he was killed. The “powers that be” killed Jesus on a cross, one of the cruelest forms of execution ever invented. And still, from the top of that cross came words that would spark a different kind of revolution: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). And then he died. Unbelievably, the one who came to save the world died. And it seemed to those who knew him that the revolution was over. Once his body was in a grave, what more could happen?
So his followers went home. Or actually they went back to where they had been staying in the city. It was the Sabbath, the day of rest, and they weren’t allowed to travel all the way back to Galilee where they were from. So they waited. Can you imagine how long that Saturday was? Normally Sabbath was a day of rest, renewal and worship. It was a celebration. But for these friends of Jesus, this particular Sabbath must have been a time of exhaustion, grieving and wondering why. I seriously doubt if any of them slept much on Friday or Saturday nights. And by Sunday morning, only a handful of women had enough energy to go out to his tomb and try to finish the burial. Make no mistake: they were not headed there to do anything other than cover his body in spices, wrap it in a cloth and place it in the burial space. No one on that morning had any sort of revolution in mind.
As John tells the story, Mary Magdalene is the first one to encounter the risen Jesus. First she sees that the tomb is empty, so she runs back to tell the men disciples that Jesus’ body is gone. Two of them run, check it out, and then go back to where they are staying. Mary stays around the garden and gets a chance to chat with Jesus. She doesn’t recognize him at first, which is usually the case because apparently his resurrection body is the same as before and yet different than it was. He tells her to go back to where the disciples are, and when she does, the first words out of her mouth this time are, “I have seen the Lord!” (20:1-18).
So what were they feeling now? Wonder? Belief? Disbelief? Fear? Confusion? We’re not told how the disciples reacted, and it isn’t until that evening that the rest of them get to see Jesus, according to John. They are together (except for Thomas, who has left the group for a while for probably a lot of reasons), when Jesus appears among them. Luke says they were “terrified and afraid” and “startled” (Luke 24:37-38). Well, of course they were. I mean, think for a moment about the last time they saw Jesus. For most of them, it was in the Garden of Gethsemane, sometime on Thursday night or Friday morning. When Jesus was arrested, both Matthew (26:56) and Mark (14:50) tell us that all the disciples ran away to hide. Only Peter and John ended up following Jesus to the high priest’s home, where Peter then proceeded to deny even knowing Jesus—not once, but three times—to protect himself. The only one of them to stay with Jesus all the way to the cross was, apparently, John (cf. 19:26). So, imagine if you had a group of friends and in your most desperate hour of need, they all fled, ran away. They all abandoned you. Then, you run into them again a few days later. What would you say to them?
They probably expected something like a curse, or a tongue-lashing. “Why did you run out on me? Couldn’t you tell I needed you right then? Some disciples you turned out to be! Take this—zap!” “They have every reason to think he’ll want revenge” (Byassee, Trinity, pgs. 96-97). I think those kinds of expectations probably accounts for the “afraid” part of their reaction. But Jesus doesn’t say any of that. Instead, he “offers them renewal” (Byassee 97), echoing his prayer from a week before: “Peace be with you” (20:19). One scholar describes it this way: “There’s not a trace of anger, resentment, retaliation or vengeance. There’s no argument, no ‘I told you so,’ no condemnation” (qtd. in Porterfield, Fight Like Jesus, pg. 174). From the resurrected Jesus, there is only a word that can bring healing, hope and reconciliation: “Peace be with you.” It’s his deepest longing for them and for us.
Behind Jesus’ greeting is the ancient Hebrew word shalom. Still today, shalom is used as both a greeting and as a word of departure (cf. Whitacre, John [IVPNTC], pg. 479). It is God’s deepest desire for humanity to experience true shalom, which means shalom is not just a warm, fuzzy feeling. It’s not just, “Have a good day!” Shalom is deeper than that. It means wholeness, well-being, a life lived and experienced the way God intended it to be. It’s about restored relationships between God and humanity, between people individually, and between nations and people groups. Shalom is all-encompassing and ultimately, it’s something that is only possible when God shows up. So Jesus, God incarnate, shows up on this Sunday evening, and he brings shalom to a group of people who are troubled, confused, agitated. He’s not mad at them. He’s not coming to get revenge for the way they deserted him. Instead, he’s here to restore life to the way it was intended to be. And in case they missed it or misunderstood it the first time, he says it again: “Peace be with you!” (20:21; Swartley, “Peace in the NT,” New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 4, pg. 422).
Then Jesus gives them their mission: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (20:21). Whatever hopes of “getting back to normal” the disciples might have had evaporated at that moment, because Jesus says nothing about “normal.” Instead, they are now being sent to take over his mission, the same mission he has had from the beginning. “There is but one mission, it is the mission of the Father, and the Son and followers are the ones sent. The story is not over” (McKnight, John, pgs. 319-320). The mission is to spread peace—shalom—and Jesus has already shown them how he does it. When he first entered the room, he showed them his hands and his side, the wounds he received on the cross. It’s always fascinating to me that when Jesus was resurrected, his wounds were not healed. We talk often about when someone dies, they are healed and made whole; the Bible promises that for all who believe—except for Jesus. He is always recognized by his scars (cf. Card, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, pg. 207). In those wounds, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah had said, the world will find healing (cf. Isaiah 53:5). Jesus’ wounds represent the path to shalom with the Father; they show us that Jesus gave his life so we could find peace. That’s the message; that’s the mission. Jesus, crucified and risen to life—that’s the good news that brings peace for all who hear and receive it.
Then Jesus does something strange as he gives further instructions. First, he breathes on them. What do you suppose Jesus’ breath smelled like? Ever thought about that? Yeah, well, now you won’t be able to forget about it, will you? Anyway, he breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (20:22). Earlier in John’s Gospel, Jesus had promised that when he “went away,” the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God living within believers, would come, and now is that moment for these disciples. The Spirit will reside within them (14:17), guiding, directing, empowering and encouraging them. Jesus had said the Spirit would do these things: he would be their advocate (someone on their side, 14:16), he would help them know what to say when they are arrested and put on trial for their faith, he would help the disciples remember and understand what Jesus taught (14:26), and he would guide them into all truth (16:13). The Spirit’s main job, though, is to give glory to Jesus (16:14), to point us toward Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord, and it’s fascinating to me that in the midst of teaching about the Spirit’s work, Jesus again returns to this promise. When the Spirit comes to reside within Jesus’ followers, they will receive “peace” (14:27). So in the aftermath of the resurrection, Jesus breathes on the disciples: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (20:22).
Then Jesus tells the disciples what they are supposed to do with the power of the Holy Spirit living inside them. Most of them would have thought he would tell them to go out and conquer the Romans, or conquer the world. Maybe now was finally the time when they would defeat their enemies. But that’s not even close to what Jesus focuses on. What is the most important thing for this one who has been crucified, who is risen from the dead, who stands before them in his resurrection glory? Here it is: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (20:23). Forgiveness. The thing uppermost in the mind of the Son of God the evening of his resurrection is forgiveness. The way we experience the peace he has worked and prayed and hoped for is through forgiveness. “Put simply, forgiveness is our superpower” (Porterfield 175).
One of the finest modern Biblical scholars, N. T. Wright, describes it this way: “The cross was the moment when something happened as a result of which the world became a different place, inaugurating God’s future plan. The revolution began then and there; Jesus’ resurrection was the first sign that it was indeed under way” (The Day the Revolution Began, pg. 34). Without an exception, that’s what the early church believed: that the resurrection of Jesus was the signal that a new world had begun. It might look just like the old world, but there is within this world a new people who live differently, who live as if forgiveness is possible, who live as if God’s future kingdom of peace has already arrived. And the world sees that demonstrated through the power of forgiveness.
Maybe we struggle with forgiveness because we haven’t yet grasped what a world full of it could be like. I knew a woman once who struggled with forgiveness because she couldn’t imagine letting go of the anger and bitterness she held toward her family of origin due to abuse that had taken place when she was younger. She no longer lived near her family, so she could hang onto that and, really, not have it affect daily life all that much. But whenever she came to church and heard that word—forgiveness—it brought up all those feelings and it took her some work to stuff them down again. She told me she knew she needed to forgive those who had abused her, and she also knew that it was actually affecting her emotionally and spiritually more than it was her family members. One day, at the end of a worship service, she came down to kneel for prayer and felt God begin to give her a vision, an idea of how she was being held back in her life because of her unforgiveness. She told me later that she began to cry and began to lay down her anger, her bitterness, her fear of forgiveness. It took more than a few more trips to the altar for her to fully forgive; it was not an instant process. It rarely is. But after a time, she would tell me how much better she felt, how less angry she was, and how forgiveness had given her peace. Imagine that—peace because of forgiveness. Her whole world became different. That’s the promise of Jesus’ resurrection—that a brand new world can come when we allow the Holy Spirit to do his work within us.
Some of you may know the name of Corrie ten Boom, whose family hid Jewish refugees in their home in the Netherlands during the early years of World War II. It’s estimated that Corrie and her family saved some eight hundred Jews from the concentration camps through a network of safe houses. In 1944, though, the ten Boom home was raided, the family was arrested and Corrie and her sister Betsie ended up in a concentration camp. Betsie died, but Corrie survived the war. And it would have been easy and, somewhat understandable for her to be bitter and angry, to lash out in revenge. Instead, Corrie turned to God and asked him to help her forgive her captors and those who killed so many Jews during the war. She founded a rehabilitation center for concentration camp survivors and even opened a shelter for unemployed Dutch men who had collaborated with the Nazis during the war (cf. Porterfield 178). Forgiveness really can change the world. The peace of Christ is revolutionary.
Contemporary Christian artist Josh Wilson sings about that this way:
Maybe you're not like me
Maybe we don't agree
Maybe that doesn't mean we gotta be enemies
Maybe we just get brave
Take a big leap of faith
Call a truce so me and you can find a better way…
Why does kindness seem revolutionary?
When did we let hate get so ordinary?
Let's turn it around, flip the script
Judge slow, love quick
God help us get revolutionary…
(“Revolutionary,” Josh Wilson, 2020)
I love that last line—a prayer, really: God, help us get revolutionary. I think I’d like to make that my prayer for the next few weeks.
John, the author of this gospel, was given a vision near the end of his life when he had been exiled to the island of Patmos. We know it as the book of Revelation, and near the end of that book he describes what the world to come will be like, the world promised in Jesus’ resurrection, the world of peace Jesus came to bring. Trying to describe the indescribable, this is the best John could do: “God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4). That sounds like a world of peace, of shalom, to me, and the promise of that world is why you hear me often say that the worst thing is never the last thing. Jesus’ resurrection assures of that. The worst thing is never the last thing; there is something better coming, and it arrives inch by inch and day by day as we become people of peace, people of forgiveness, people of hope, people of shalom. I don’t know about you, but I am counting on that. I have placed all my hope in the revolution Jesus started, in the kingdom of peace he brought. What about you? Will you put your hope there, too? Will you sign up for the revolution? Jesus is risen, the worst thing is never the last thing, and his promise of peace is real. Thanks be to God!
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