A New Story for Slow Hearts--April 21, 2026

A New Story for Slow Hearts--April 21, 2026

"Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, 'Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?' He asked them, 'What things?' They replied, 'The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.' Then he said to them, 'Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?' Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures." (Luke 24:18-27)

There is a tension in this part of the story that keeps poking and pulling at me in a way that I think I really need.  At one and the same time, the risen Jesus meets these two despairing disciples precisely where they are, as they are, and also brings them to a new place and a new perspective.  And of course, the same is true today: Christ encounters us with no preconditions, and yet he never leaves us with quite the same viewpoint as when he first found us.

As we continue through this story that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, it strikes me as important that both things are true simultaneously. Jesus appears but remains unrecognized this far along the way, even though these two disciples are so deeply distraught they don't even realize that Jesus is not only alive, but with them. Jesus doesn't wait until they understand or believe properly first--it is his presence with them that will enable them to understand and to believe.  That's important: Jesus' presence is never a reward for our steady faith or brilliant insight.  He comes to us precisely when we don't get it, when we fail to trust, and when our hearts are so heavy we can't lift them up to God on our own.

These two disciples, Cleopas and his companion, they are stuck in that place of despair because of the story they have accepted--maybe without even knowing that they have accepted it.  They already take it for granted that Jesus couldn't have been the Messiah--the "one to redeem Israel"--because he got crucified, dying a shameful death at the hands of the empire that they expected the Messiah to free them from.  They've heard the reports of the resurrection and the empty tomb, including the fact that some of Jesus' inner circle of disciples corroborated the initial eyewitness story of the women at the tomb, but they still feel disillusioned about Jesus.  The narrative they had had been ingrained with went something like this: "When the Messiah comes, he's going to zap our enemies, kill the Romans, give us power, and make himself king. Since Jesus didn't do those things, but rather in fact seemed to do the opposite of that list, he couldn't have been The One we were waiting for."  Or, in other words, "We must have been wrong about Jesus, because Jesus didn't do what we expected the Messiah to do."  They are heartbroken, not only because they are still pretty well convinced that Jesus is still dead, but because they feel like they bet on the wrong horse. They were expecting revenge, or at least glorious triumph, and so far, it sure looks like the oppressive powers of the day are still calling the shots.

It is at this point that the Stranger on the road (who is, of course, the risen Jesus) speaks up more directly. So far he's basically been just a good listener--asking them questions, letting them vent what they needed to vent, and walking beside them.  But now it has become clear that Cleopas and his friend are ensnared in the wrong story.  They are held captive by their perspective, and they can't see a way forward because they can't make sense of a Messiah who saves through suffering rather than showing off.  To borrow the old line from the band U2, they are "stuck in a moment, and now they can't get out of it."  The Unrecognized Jesus speaks up, then, to give them a new way of looking at things.  He gives them a new story for their slow hearts.  

"How foolish and slow of heart you are!" the Stranger says, insisting that the problem was never with Jesus, but rather with their expectations.  The two walking disciples had assumed that the Messiah was going to be a conquering king or a military commander, destroying their enemies in the name of God. The Risen Jesus shows them that this was a misreading, both of their own Scriptures and of the character of God.  From Jesus' perspective, God's way of saving has always been about self-giving and suffering love rather than vengeance and vanquishing enemies.  They just couldn't see it, but Jesus helps them to see a different way of telling the story.

From this new perspective, the cross isn't the place of defeat, but rather the point at which God's saving love triumphs.  Jesus' willingness to lay down his life, praying forgiveness even for his enemies and executioners, is not a sign that he was weak; it is the definitive sign of his enduring strength. Jesus shows Cleopas--and us as well--that we have been misreading the story. And with that, he opens up an entirely new way for all of us to understand the Scriptures.  Once we see what Jesus has been showing us, we realize that it's been there all along, but we couldn't recognize it (much like Jesus himself on the road).  If we didn't see it before, Jesus helps us now to recognize what was true all along. God has been the gracious giver, the merciful forgiver, the lover of enemies, the healer of the broken. If we expected God's Chosen One to become a violent bully or warlord, we have misunderstood who God is.

With that change of perspective, now Cleopas and his companion (and us, reading their story) can at last move forward.  The new story gives us a new way of making sense of the world.  The perspective of God's triumph through the cross, rather than in spite of the cross, changes everything. And now it becomes clear: the lack of an armed attack on Rome, led by General Jesus, is not a failure on Jesus' part, but rather makes total sense. God's way had always been about suffering love, so the Messiah's way of saving and setting things right shouldn't have looked like a sneak attack but surprising love.  God's plan hadn't been derailed or defeated; they had just misunderstood what it was the whole time.  A new story to make sense of the data in front of them opened up a way to take the next step on the journey.

Truth be told, if we are going to continue on our journeys with Jesus in this life, we should be prepared for something similar to happen.  Jesus will absolutely meet us where we are, as we are, even for all the ways we've got it wrong and missed the point.  But when he meets us, Jesus reserves the right to change our perspective, correct our misguided vision, and help us get to know God all over again. If we have been suckered into that tempting (but definitely wrong) thinking that God's plan is to raise up someone to zap enemies, conquer the world, and build an empire like the previous ones of history, Jesus has come to free us from that illusion. Instead, he shows us that God's way has always been cruciform love that reaches out to transform even enemies.  If our hearts have been slow like Cleopas and his companion, Jesus reserves the right to give us a new story to bring us up to speed.

How might Jesus be at work already, changing our perspective and how we face the world?

What might it look like for us to let Jesus give us a new way of seeing the world--through his cross?

Lord Jesus, make our hearts to beat in time with yours, and our eyes to see the world from your perspective.

Meeting Us On the Way--April 20, 2026

Meeting Us On the Way--April 20, 2026

"Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, 'What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?' They stood still, looking sad..." (Luke 24:13-17)

I know this isn't the end of the story. And yes, I know that usually, when someone points out "Hey, this isn't the end of the story," it's because they want to jump ahead to the part that is yet to be told. The kids get scared in the middle of the story, so you skip past the bit with the wolf right to the happy ending with the woodcutter. (Or they start to yawn with boredom in the story, so you skip ahead past the exposition to the next exciting bit of swashbuckling or magical happenings.)

We church folk do it, too. The quintessential case in point is the slogan, "It's Friday... but Sunday's coming!" that you sometimes will see posted on social media or church signs when folks don't want to dwell on the scandal, the sadness, and the cruelty of God on a cross. At its best, that motto, "...but Sunday's coming!" is a reminder that death doesn't get the last word. But when we get sloppy, lazy, or scared, that becomes away of fast-forwarding through the parts we don't like, or the elements of the story that make us squirm, and to skip ahead to the happy ending. At its worst, it shows up in the terrible practice of skipping Good Friday altogether and jumping right from a happy parade celebration on Palm Sunday to smiling happy angel faces (no weeping women, of course--they are edited out of the picture, too) on Easter Sunday. If that isn't the way popular religion tries to handle the cross, I'll eat my hat.

But for a moment, stay with me here (to borrow a phrase from later in the scene). Stay with me in this part of the story we often call the Walk to Emmaus, before we get to the realization that the seemingly uninformed stranger really has been Jesus all along. Stay with me in this moment before the happy ending, before Cleopas and his companion (wife? roommate?) realize that their hearts were burning within them while Jesus spoke, and before the famous line from the last line of this episode, "The Lord is risen indeed!"

Stay with me to consider what it means that, before Cleopas and company are ready to believe it, Jesus shows up anyhow. Stay here for a moment and let's allow it to sink in that the risen Jesus neither waits for an invitation nor demands a sure enough faith before he will make an appearance. Let's just let it percolate through our theological systems that Jesus invites himself into the situation first because the two travelers on the road are too scared, too hopeless, too dense, or too heartbroken to ever dare to believe that the rabbi was alive again without help.

We usually get it backwards, we religious folks. We tend to think (and often put this into pamphlets, tracts, and best-selling titles in the "Christianity" section) that Jesus is more than glad to come into someone's life, provided that they (1) take the first step of inviting him into their lives, (2) can correctly and completely articulate a faith-statement of correct propositional statements about Jesus, and (3) are now going to leave behind all their doubts and sadness in exchange for a permanent smile that does wonders for the church's P.R. But that is exactly NOT how this story goes.

No, instead, Jesus meets the travelers on the road exactly when they can't believe the resurrection news, and he breaks into their conversation to help them understand what has happened without being invited first. Jesus takes the first step when we are too chicken-hearted to take it ourselves. Jesus opens our minds and clarifies our vision when we do not see clearly or understand what to believe. And the fact that these two travelers are on the verge of hopelessness--even though they have already heard the women's report that the tomb was empty--doesn't prevent Jesus from sharing their walk and their heartache.

And this is what gives me such hope when I am on the verge of hopelessness, too: Jesus shows up even for folks who know the Easter message but are still trudging through despair. This story is set on the evening of that first Easter Sunday, and as Luke tells it, Cleopas has heard the report from Mary and the other women that an angel of God vouched for Jesus' resurrection. That means, the hopelessness of Cleopas and his companion isn't a matter of a lack of information or up-to-dat news. They have come through the news of Easter morning and are still despondent--and now they are running out of daylight on Sunday, and Monday's coming. But Jesus makes a special trip to see them... and he stays with them to lay the groundwork that will enable them to believe. And he does it even though they already had the "news" that Jesus was alive.

Jesus meets us where we are at--on the way. He walks with us for the journey we are actually taking--not one prescribed by where a religious pamphlet tells us we are supposed to be. And he makes it possible for us to face returning to life on the other side of Sunday. He knows that Monday's coming, too, and that we need to be prepared to face how we live in a world where it sure looks like death is still calling the shots.

So yeah, there's more to the story here--and more even than just the happy ending when the risen Christ is revealed "in the breaking of the bread." There will be Sunday night, and Monday, and its night, too, and a whole new week and lifetime beyond that. And not all of that will be sunshine and gumdrops. In fact, a lot of it will be kind of heartbreaking. (As the wise line from The Princess Bride puts it, "Life is pain, your highness--anyone who says differently is selling something.") But what lets us face this day is not simply a one-time message, but a Christ who keeps on showing up and inviting himself into our heartbreaks to help us sort through them, to walk with us in them, and to invite himself into the mess in our minds before we have had the wisdom or courage to ask him in.

This is really where all the "You have to ask Jesus into your heart first" stuff out there just comes completely unglued. Because if you actually read the stories, it's just the opposite. We keep carrying our fear and sorrow, which keeps us from ever daring to ask Jesus in the first place, and he just invites himself into our mess and goes to work on us. And because we know he is willing to meet us in our confusion, grief, and fear, we know he will keep on being with us when Sunday turns to Monday again and we have to head back into the regular routines and expectations of the day.

So, to be sure, there's more to the story. Some of it will have a happy ending moment on Sunday. But Monday's coming, too--and now that it is here, the same Jesus who met us in our fear and sadness on the way will keep walking with us through it all on this day, too.

Lord Jesus, keep showing up in our midst, even before we have invited you in--so that we will recognize you, listen to you, and let you kindle our hearts in this moment.

A Strategy of Joy--April 17, 2026

A Strategy of Joy--April 17, 2026

"In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Although you have not seen him, you love him, and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your very selves." (1 Peter 1:6-9)

Easter people laugh.

We laugh, not because we are trying to pretend that rotten things don't happen in the world. They do. They happen to everybody, and they happen to us, who are a smaller subset within "everybody." Easter people laugh even while it is also true that we are called to weep with those who weep.

But we laugh because the resurrection of Jesus gives us the ability to disarm the powers of death and sin and cruelty. The resurrection gives us a way to see the worst that they can do, and still say back, almost tauntingly, "You do not get the last word."

Laughter, then, for the followers of Jesus, isn't a distraction, or a way of ignoring the awful things, the sadness, the injustice, the brokenness, and the violence of the world. Laughter becomes our way, or as First Peter here says it, "rejoicing" is our way, because we are in on the great cosmic eternal joke that death thought it had won over Jesus the innocent victim, but resurrection shows death that it has been duped. The powers that killed Jesus were fooled into thinking they got the last word, too. The rulers of the day were convinced that they could make an example of Jesus and silence any opposition... but the rolled-away stone shows us that they could not stop his momentum. And still today, laughter is our way of disarming and disrupting the dismal dark.

I am reminded of a remark Mel Brooks would often make in interviews, when people would ask about the repeated habit he has of making fun of Hitler and the Nazis in his movies and comedy. Whether it's the all out parody musical "Springtime for Hitler" in The Producers, or the shots he takes in History of the World, Part One, or wherever else in his movies you find it, Mel Brooks has often said that laughing at Hitler is part of what undercuts the power of his hate and cruelty all these decades later. When The Producers was being adapted from a movie into a stage show in the early 2000s, he gave an interview where he said, for example, "by using comedy, we can rob Hitler of his posthumous power and myths."

In other words, without denying the atrocities of what evil can do, one kind of effective resistance is to poke fun, to laugh, to ridicule the powers that think they are in total control. By using laughter to combat the powers of the day, their insecurity is revealed, and we point to another, truer, Power--the power of abundant life, the power of resurrection, the power of the risen Jesus.  Because of Jesus' resurrection that broken open the worst that the powers of the day could do to Jesus (hanging him on a cross), we, too, can practice a strategy of joy.

First Peter calls us to that kind of response to evil, to suffering, and to the powers of cruelty and death. We will "rejoice"--which is to say, we will laugh--and get under the thin skin of the those powers, and unmask them as impostors. First Peter says that the resurrection gives us the kind of hope it takes to learn to rejoice in the midst of suffering, even of persecution, and to let that joyful laughter be part of our resistance against death, against greed, against sin, and against cruelty.

This is critical, and this is revolutionary, if you think about it. Our own gut tendency is to want to get very serious in the face of the powers that persecute. We can even think that we have to respond to the mean-spirited anger of those powers with more mean-spirited anger of our own. In the first century when First Peter was written, there was the specter of official persecution from the empire, and of unofficial persecution from local pockets of people who didn't like these Christ-followers. There were people in the administration of the empire who were trying to stamp out early Christianity, and there were others who just viewed Christ-followers with suspicion (us and our crazy way of including poor and rich, free and slave, men and women, like those old boundaries and distinctions do not hold anymore!). From the beginning, Christians have lived in cultures that were hostile in varying degrees. But First Peter's word to us is that we aren't supposed to make a fuss and insist on official protection from that hostility. Followers of Jesus are not supposed to go around complaining that it's not fair, or that we should be free from the persecution. And we are certainly not called to spend our energy trying to make things "easier" for ourselves--that just smacks of self-serving and self-interest and the impulse to stay comfortable. Instead, First Peter says, our calling in the midst of hostility is to rejoice--to laugh. Laughing provokes bullies to overplay their hand. Laughing shrugs off whatever angry threats the powers of the day will make. Laughing strips them of their power... and instead, finds joyful hope in the resurrection.

For followers of Jesus two thousand years later, we still struggle with the question of how to live in a wider culture that doesn't often line up with the things we believe Jesus is teaching us to hold dear. Much like in the first century Roman Empire, sometimes the tension is with the official powers who govern, and sometimes it is from being at odds with the general "feel" or atmosphere of culture at large. And, yeah, sometimes we run the risk of standing out from the crowd, or saying unpopular things. But First Peter calls us, like he is simply following Jesus' lead, to rejoice in the midst of being rejected by others--to laugh in the midst of it all. We don't go looking for special treatment, or for special protection, and we don't expect to get an easy time with the powers of the day. Instead, in the face of the mean-spirited bluster of the bullies of the day, the community of Jesus dares to rejoice, and we take away the power that was meant to make us afraid. And so we laugh.

Today, laugh. Laugh full and deep. Because you and I are in on the biggest punch-line in the history of the universe. We are Easter people.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to be joyful in this day, confident that you will not let despair get the last word.

All Grace, Baby--April 16, 2026

All Grace, Baby--April 16, 2026

"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 and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." (1 Peter 1:3-5)

There is something beautiful--and honest--about the expression in English for how new lives come into the world.  Typically, we say that the new mother "gives birth" to her child, and it's that first half, the verb "give," that strikes me as I hear it in these words from First Peter that many of us heard back on Sunday in worship.  Giving, by definition, isn't something that requires earning--otherwise, it's not a gift.  To say that our mothers "gave birth" to us is a reminder that we did not earn or achieve our own existence, but could only receive our own lives as a gift. And to say as First Peter does that God, like a mother, has "given us a new birth" makes it clear that our lives in Christ are also wholly gifts of grace, not our accomplishments.

Framing things that way is a big deal, because it compels us to be honest about how we get into relationship with God, who does the action to bring us into that relationship, and what kind of assurance that gives us as well.  After all, most every other kind of relationship in our lives is conditional and at risk of being broken by our messing up.  If I'm an employee for a company, my employer will only keep me around as long as I'm earning my keep and doing enough to keep the first quarter profits up.  If I'm a member of a club, I belong only insofar as I pay my dues, and I can only get in if I'm deemed good enough or meet the criteria for membership.  If I want to make the team, I have to make it through try-outs to prove my ability and keep in good enough condition, scoring enough points and winning enough games, to hold my place on the roster.  But when a mother births a child, there's nothing the child can do to earn it.  And when you are brought into a family, whether through birth or adoption, your belonging is not dependent on worthiness, accomplishments, or even promises of what you WILL do when you grow up. It's all grace, baby, from beginning to end.

All of this makes the Christian story different from all the offers of "self-help" and the old narrative of "pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps" that are so prevalent in our culture.  The Gospel insists that our standing before God has never been up for debate, and it's never been the result of our earning, achieving, or even initiating.  God gives us the new birth into Christ--that is, God is the subject of the verb, and we are the object of the verb.  God does the birthing.  God does the giving.  God is the One to thank--not ourselves, our resumes, or our natural talent and charisma.  If our mortal lives are all the result of our mothers having sweated and suffered in labor for us, then our lives in Christ are also wholly God's labor, and we find ourselves as recipients of that gift.

So much of what passes for Respectable Religion in our culture is hung up on what WE have to DO in order to "get saved."  Sometimes it's framed as a matter of keeping the rules well enough, racking up enough good deeds on your permanent record, giving to the church, serving on mission teams, winning other souls, or believing the correct facts about God.  Sometimes it's described as a matter of taking the first step, praying the right prayer, asking Jesus into your heart (adequately, of course), having the proper spiritual experience, or joining a church.  But whatever the list of requirements that folks offer in the name of Respectable Religion, it misses the point--the Scriptures keep insisting that this is God's gift to us, God's action for us, and God's initiative moving toward us. Like a mother who gives her children their own lives before they've done a thing and hands them both their own existence and a relationship with her, God has done the labor and "given us new birth" into Christ, not only for this life but into resurrection life beyond death. All of it is a gift, and the most we can do with a gift is to receive it with grateful (empty) hands, allowing the gift to deepen our relationship with the Giver.

That's the Christian life--not a set of theological transactions in order to acquire a spot in heaven, not a self-help scheme for us to earn our way into God's approval, and not a tenuous, conditional deal that could fall apart at a moment's notice at the whim of a capricious would-be deal-maker, but a gift. And it's been a gift all along, from before we were even aware of its having been given, right up even though this very moment, like a mother giving birth to her child.

Yep.  It's all grace, baby.  It's all grace.

Lord God, we give you thanks, because that's all we can do, for having birthed us into new life in Christ as a gift.  Let our lives grow into the relationship you have already begun with us.

Un-Transactional Grace--April 15, 2026

Un-Transactional Grace--April 15, 2026

"But Thomas [who was called the Twin], one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So 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'." A 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.' Then 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.' Thomas answered him, 'My Lord and my God!" (John 20:24-28)

It's not our faith that makes God's forgiveness possible, but the other way around. It's because God chooses to set aside our failures with grace that we are able to believe. If we weren't clear about that already, Thomas' story here shows it to us for sure.

Here in this scene from the same story many of us heard this past Sunday, we get our heads on straight by the way Jesus initiates things with Thomas. He doesn't chastise Thomas for not believing well enough, strongly enough, or correctly enough; rather, Jesus meets him at his place of honest skepticism and lets faith grow from there. Jesus starts by assuring Thomas that he's not holding his past doubts ["Unless I see the nail marks for myself I won't believe!"] against him, but instead has come to enable Thomas to trust that Jesus is indeed alive and risen.

This is important for us to understand, because honestly, a lot of times we Respectable Religious Folk get it backwards. Sometimes we make the Christian faith sound like a transaction between us and God, where our belief is the currency that we trade in, like ticket and Chuck E. Cheese, for prizes of grace. Believe well enough, or firmly enough, we say, and then your sins are forgiven. And we end up packaging it in the slogan, cribbed sloppily from the sixteenth-century reformers, that says, "We're saved by faith."

But of course, the Reformers like Luther, Calvin, and the rest didn't mean to say that our believing the correct facts about God earns God's forgiveness. After all, forgiveness, like all forms of grace, cannot be earned--that's part of the definition. And second, those voices of the Reformation understood, too, that even our faith itself is a gift we receive from God in Christ, not something we present to God as our accomplishment in exchange for prizes from under the glass ticket counter. Faith doesn't start as our bright ideas about God, for which we win a reward, but as the new creation made possible by God's coming to us first without holding our doubts or disbelief against us. In other words, God doesn't wait until we believe correctly enough to forgive our sins or skepticism; rather, it's God's coming to us while we're struggling that enables us to believe and trust God. That's what makes the Christian story good news rather than a deal we transact with God.

And it's that willingness of God to come to us without preconditions or grudges, that leads Jesus to appear for Thomas' sake a week after that first resurrection day. A Savior who kept score and held our failures against us would have left a note under the door to the upper room that said, "When Tommy gets his act together and can recite the catechism or at least the creed, then I'll make another appearance." A Savior whose forgiveness was contingent on proficient faith would have given a theology exam for Thomas to take before letting him know he was in the club. But that's just not how God's kind of love works--it doesn't withhold acceptance until we've proven our worth, but announces that we are already accepted even before we can believe it's true... in order that we can come to believe. Getting that straight is a matter of putting the horse before the cart, and it makes all the difference in the world.

Today, a lot of the folks we'll cross paths with have gotten it in their heads that God's waiting on them to believe well enough or hard enough before telling them they have enough faith points to win the big box labeled "Salvation" up on the top shelf of prizes. And that not only sucks us into the vortex of constantly fearing our faith is never good enough, but it also just doesn't align with the way the risen Jesus shows up for Thomas while he still can't bring himself to believe the resurrection. Today's a day for us to be clear that it's God's grace that makes our faith possible, not our faith that wins us a clean slate from the Almighty. Today's a day for us to tell someone else who needs to hear it that there is no ticket counter... and there never has been.

Lord Jesus, meet us where we are, and let your grace call forth faith from us to follow you where you lead us.

You Are What You Breathe--April 14, 2026

You Are What You Breathe--April 14, 2026

"When [Jesus] had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained'." [John 20:22-23]

Breath is a curious thing.

Right now, there is a breath of air in my lungs (whoops, there it went; now there's another). That air is not just contained within the space that my body occupies, but in a very real sense, that air is me. The oxygen in the air I just breathed actually becomes a part of me, coursing through the blood in my body, and fueling every cell that makes up the human called "me." The breath I take in comes to be a part of my body, which is to say, at least in part, that if it is true that you are what you eat, then it is also true that I am what I breathe.

And then, of course, the reverse is true with every breath out. When you and I exhale, we give back carbon dioxide, which had been accumulating throughout the cells of our bodies, and we expel that out into the world. What used to be a part of us is now "out there," joining up with the invisible ocean of air in which we are all swimming all the time. And some of the air I have just breathed out, the person next to me will breathe in, while my lungs take in air that they have just breathed out as well.

Breath is funny that way--it is, in a sense, just about as personal and intimate as you can get--and yet, it can be shared (and is being shared all the time) with the rest of the world all the time. (This is not even mentioning the exchange between plants and animals, in which the carbon dioxide I exhale is taken in by the trees and grass around me, and they give me oxygen I need.) So in a real sense, it is possible for breath that was a part of me just a moment ago to fill your lungs and become a part of you--at least if we were in the same room breathing the same air, or when a first responder does rescue breathing.

There's a sense of that closeness, that intimacy, there when Jesus "breathes" on his disciples and gives them the Holy Spirit in this passage from the story many of us heard in worship this past Sunday. It echoes the early scenes from Genesis when God takes the lifeless lump of clay from the ground and brings humanity to life by breathing into the dust of the earth, as the Spirit of God broods over creation at the beginning (see Genesis 1 and 2). You can hear the Spirit-breath-wind connection, too, even in the word "spirit," which comes from the same root ("spir-") as "inspire," (to be "breathed-into," as by divine presence), "expire" (to breathe out one's last breath), and even "conspiracy" (literally "breathing together"). The Greek of the New Testament carries a similar connection between the Spirit and the wind or air, with the word for "spirit", pneuma, related to the word for wind/air, and carried over in English into words like "pneumatic" or "pneumonia."

So there inside this locked room on the first Easter evening, Jesus breathes out some of himself and gives himself to the disciples. He communicates the Spirit to them. That hopefully reminds us that for whatever Christians think they mean by "the Holy Spirit," we are talking about a reality connected to Jesus. We are not talking about an abstract impersonal Force, a la Star Wars. We are not talking about a different deity with a different personality or different rules of engagement. To be filled with the Spirit of God is to be filled, in a sense, with the same breath that was in Jesus and now resides in us--indeed, like air molecules, the Spirit even becomes a part of us.

That means that for whatever the Spirit does in our lives, it will bear a certain similarity to the character of Jesus himself. The way that Jesus provocatively crossed barriers to share a table with the people written off as just "tax collectors and sinners" became the way the Spirit of Jesus led the early church to cross barriers out beyond Judeans like themselves, to Samaritans (the scandal!), to Gentiles of all languages, cultures, and religious backgrounds. The way Jesus taught and practiced radical forgiveness became the same way the Spirit of Jesus gave the huddled band in the upper room the authority to announce forgiveness of sins. The way Jesus healed people regardless of how much it upset the Respectable Religious Crowd and unnerved the powers of the day became the same way that the Spirit of Jesus inspired the apostles to heal people even when it got them into trouble with those same religious and political so-and-sos. See a pattern here?

What the walking, talking Jesus did in 30AD Palestine was connected with that the Spirit-led followers of Jesus did--because the Spirit we are talking about is, after all, the Spirit of Jesus! There's no bait-and-switch. The early church was not given license, like a restaurant franchise, to take the cross-shaped corporate logo of Jesus-Corp for brand recognition and then take their mission in whatever new direction they wanted. No, the Holy Spirit who indwells the people called church is the Spirit of the same Jesus--so at our most faithful, we will continue loving, acting, speaking, and reaching outward in the same ways Jesus did.

This is really important to be clear on, because it is the presence of the Spirit that makes us more than simply a Jesus-Appreciation-Club or a Ancient-Palestine-Historical-Society. We don't just gather on Sundays to recite our favorite past acts of what-Jesus-once-did-but-is-no-longer-in-the-business-of-doing, but rather the Spirit of the same Christ Jesus is let loose among us, so that we will continue to do what Jesus did: pushing across boundaries in love, practicing radical mercy even to our enemies, working for healing for all people, regardless of whether it scandalizes the Respectable Religious Crowd. That's what the church is always to be about--not just because that's what Jesus was about in the first century, but because it is still what the Spirit of Jesus leads us to do and to be in the twenty-first century.

See? It's like breath. Jesus breathes (the Spirit/wind/breath/pneuma) onto his followers, and now the same vision and mission and love and passion that animated Jesus become a part of us. And ever since, in a long chain of followers, the same Spirit has been breathed from one generation to another, all the while still being the Spirit of Jesus, who leads us in his particular direction.

Our job as Christians is not to try and forcibly copy what the historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth, did in his setting--or else we would all be wearing tunics and sandals, speaking Aramaic, and trying to get a modern person to crucify us. It's not that we have to slavishly duplicate what Jesus did two thousand years ago. It's that the Spirit of this same Jesus has been breathed into us, so that the Spirit fills our very being like oxygen in our bloodstream, and so that the living presence of this same Jesus will lead us to work and act and love and dare in ways that look like Jesus, and sound like Jesus, but played in a new key, so to speak.

You are what you breathe, it turns out--and Jesus has breathed the Spirit into you. Where will the Spirit lead you today? How will someone see Christ in you?

Lord Jesus, let your Spirit animate us today, and then send us where you will...

The Relentless Gift of Peace--April 13, 2026

The Relentless Gift of Peace--April 13, 2026

"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 Judeans, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.' After he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you'." (John 20:19-21)

You know the scene--it's been played out in some form or another in a hundred variations on TV and movies. The spacecraft ominously hovers over the ground, while tense music plays in the background. The army has cordoned off the landing zone, and representatives of Earth's leaders [or just of the country where the ship lands] stand at the ready, flanked by soldiers and s to greet whoever--or whatever--disembarks from the flying saucer. Then, often with a hiss of steam or smoke, and a flash of lights, the strange silhouettes of alien visitors emerge, and then proceed down a landing ramp onto the ground.

And in the span of time between the arrival of the alien craft and the moment of first contact, the question just hangs there in the air: why have they come? Are they here to conquer? To exterminate? To broker an alliance? To use us as guinea pigs or collect us as specimens? Could they be reliable if they say they have come with good will? And then, classically, the alien delegates say [sometimes sincerely, and sometimes with ulterior motives], "We come in peace."

There's something of that same tension for the frightened band of Jesus' disciples on that first Easter evening, isn't there? They are already afraid of what the outside powers might do to them if they were found out. The disciples had seen the horror of what the brutal Roman army, the ruthless religious police, and the bloodthirsty lynch mob could do when they laid hands on Jesus. And so, of course, they were afraid of going out of doors and being caught themselves--they could end up on crosses just as easily. But beyond that fear is a deeper, more ominous anxiety, because they have heard the rumors by Sunday evening that Jesus is alive again. They just don't know what to expect from a resurrected Jesus.

After all, the disciples all remember how they had left things with Jesus, in the last moments they were all together. While a handful of the women in Jesus' circle stayed with him at the cross, Jesus' hand-picked group of twelve had all abandoned him, despite insisting that they would all face death before denying him. Some had just slipped away into the night out of fear when the police and the mob came for him in the garden, and some [ahem, Peter, the "rock" of the church] outright denied even knowing him. They had literally left Jesus hanging, and many of them had either implicitly or explicitly said they had nothing to do with Jesus--and then he died. So now that there are rumblings that the tomb was empty and Jesus is on the loose, there's got to be some of that sci-fi alien visitor movie vibe in the room when Jesus just appears out of nowhere, through locked doors, to find them. Why has he come? What does he want from them? Is he angry for their betrayal and abandonment? Has he come for revenge?

With all of that in mind, it makes perfect sense then that Jesus' first words to these fearful disciples is to say, "Peace be with you." It's not just a throwaway greeting. It's not a scornful, "Where WERE you guys when I needed you?" There's no scolding, "Didn't you believe me when I said I would rise from the dead?" And there is no hint at all of, "You thought you could hide from ME, did you? Well, I've come to settle a score..." Rather, Jesus says, reliably and emphatically, "I come in peace."

The risen Jesus' first impulse when coming face to face with the whole group of his gathered disciples is to assure them that he's not holding their past failures against them--and he never did. Jesus does not weaponize the past, but lets it go. In other words, resurrection and release from guilt go hand in hand. And together, both make it possible for fearful disciples to be restored into community with Jesus and with one another. Jesus doesn't rise from the dead in order to get revenge on his faithless disciples (or his murderers, for that matter), but rather announces that he has come to give them peace.

And almost as if to make sure they didn't miss it or dismiss it as a perfunctory greeting, Jesus says it again: "Peace be with you." The repetition is important: it is how Jesus demonstrates that his gift of peace is relentless--it is continuously given even when we have rejected him and turned away. Jesus makes it clear that not even the disciples' fearful abandonment of him when things were at their darkest will exclude them now from his community, his new life, or his peace. And if even that can't get you kicked out of Christ's grace, I can't imagine what any of us can do or say (or fail to do or say) that could exceed the limits of his reconciling presence. All of this is to say that the resurrection of Jesus is what assures us that God's love in Christ will not let go of us and will not hold our past against us. God's kind of love just doesn't hold onto our mess-ups that way, and the risen Jesus brings no resentments inside that locked room on Easter evening.

Taking that seriously in our lives will set us free, too. It means there need be no fear that Jesus has come to zap us like an invading space alien in a movie. There is no plot twist that he's really out to get us, and there are no shoes waiting to drop. Jesus has left our past failures behind, and he's not bringing them up any longer. Instead, he comes in peace.

For so many people around us, all they've heard from Respectable Religious people is to be afraid that God is going to zap them for all their past, present, and future wrongs, unless the adequately go through whatever steps or jump through whatever hoops they have in mind when they talk about "repentance." Did you pray the right prayer, did you do enough to show God you are serious about changing your ways? Did you mean the apology sincerely enough? Did you believe hard enough in Jesus? Jesus' disciples in the locked room do none of those things, and Jesus doesn't even wait around to be invited into the room, or into their hearts. He comes in and announces peace and forgiveness first, knowing that's the first step to getting them to unlock the door and head out into the world with the same message.

So for you and me today, our calling is much the same--to dare to trust what Jesus says to us, and then to help other people to know what Jesus makes clear from the first words out of his mouth: he comes in peace.  

And he relentlessly gives that same peace to us still--even now.

Lord Jesus, enable us to trust your promise of peace and forgiveness, so that we can pass it along to everyone around us, too.