Monday's Coming, Too

Monday's Coming, Too--April 24, 2019

"When it was evening on the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you'." [John 20:19]

There was Easter Sunday... but Monday was coming, too.  And Tuesday and Wednesday and who knows how many days to come after that.

And because of that uncertainty, you can understand why the disciples (who had all been big talkers just a few days before, insisting to Jesus that they would never abandon him, even in the face of death!) would lock themselves inside.  They were afraid of what came next.  They were afraid of the unknown.  And they were afraid of who might come and get them now that Jesus, their rabbi, had been executed by the state.  

And that's not a misplaced fear--the same Respectable Religious Leaders would likely be looking to silence any more talk of messiahs, and the Empire would want to uproot any other would-be "king of the Jews" figures before the movement went to seed.  We might scoff at the disciples for being so down in the dumps or fearful on the very evening of the resurrection, but they're not wrong about the danger.

And Jesus doesn't pretend they are past the trouble.

When the risen Jesus appears on the scene--crashing their pitiable party despite the locked doors--and he says, "Peace be with you," his greeting does not erase the danger waiting outside.  Jesus, after all, was a troublemaker constantly agitating the religious and political Big Deals of the day--one would only expect him to keep being a troublemaker on the other side of the cross and empty tomb.  But we do need to say it out loud: Easter does not mean the end of danger, nor of death, for Jesus and his people.  So whatever the "peace" he brings really looks like, it doesn't mean a numbness that removes us from pain or persecution.  Jesus' kind of peace is not an exemption from danger or trouble, and that doesn't change once the organ breaks into the opening strains of "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today."

We should be honest about that, especially because of what happened in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday.  As I write, the death toll from some eight coordinated terrorist attacks across the island of Sri Lanka has climbed above three hundred.  And the developing news suggests that these attacks on churches and hotels were meant to target Christians at worship as part of an organized plot by terrorists who had pledged their allegiance to ISIS.  Making the attack even more twisted is the notion gaining traction that these attacks were carried out as "revenge" for the mosque shootings in New Zealand last month. (I know, that makes no sense, since the people of Sri Lanka had nothing to do with the events in Christchurch, and the perpetrator of the attacks in Christchurch had no connection to Christianity, either. But I do not pretend to be able to understand the logic of anyone who commits such mass violence in any case.)

But regardless of the twisted reasoning behind these atrocities in Sri Lanka, what is unmistakable is that life on this side of Easter is still marked with suffering and loss, even for the followers of Jesus.  No, let me correct that:  especially for the followers of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus does not wipe away the sources of danger and violence in the world, and Jesus has never given the hint or suggestion that it did.  To be a Christian is not to be spared suffering--it is to be given the faithful imagination to suffer differently, in ways that can creatively transform terror into opportunities for truth-telling witness.  And the peace that the risen Jesus brings is not an escape hatch that takes us off to heaven while the rest of the world comes unglued, but rather a gracious composure that allows us to remain in the midst of that world, especially in the times when it feels like the center cannot hold.

You'll notice, then, that when the risen Jesus shows up among the fearful disciples on that Easter evening, he doesn't feed them false hope by asserting, "Nothing's gonna hurt you..." like the song in Sweeney Todd.  No, Jesus speaks peace in the midst of the real danger, not as a means of avoiding danger.  And any version of the Christian faith that suggests that Christians will or should be spared the sufferings of a terror-filled world is really only peddling so much snake-oil. 

That also means--and I hate that I have to say this, but I sense that I do--that it is NOT acceptable to turn this terrible attack in Sri Lanka into a rallying cry for vengeance or violence in return.  Even if it is true that these terrible acts were aimed specifically and explicitly at followers of Jesus, our calling is never to return evil for evil, and that calling comes from Jesus himself.  If anything, the perpetrators of the attacks in Sri Lanka want  to try to provoke a violent response.  If we can be goaded into sinking to their level, they'll feel justified in more and more violence. 

But the resurrection is not a revenge story, and Jesus explicitly does not pursue a vendetta against his murderers when he walks out of the garden tomb on that first Easter Sunday.  In life, in death, and in resurrection, Jesus brings the kind of peace that does not lose its wits even when the world around is on fire.  The word to the disciples on that first Easter evening, as the disciples feared what awaited them on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and beyond, is the same word Jesus speaks to us on this day, too: peace... the kind that keeps our heads on straight when hatred and danger and evil are all around us.

How will we answer when terrible things are done that target sisters and brothers of ours?  With the love that Christ's peace makes possible.  With solidarity and support for those who are left grieving across Sri Lanka.  With a refusal to feed the cycle of violence and a refusal to let hatred take root in our hearts.  And with a refusal to turn this into a reason to lash out at whole groups of people out of some desire to lump them all together with the perpetrators.  That is what the risen Christ's kind of peace will look like in this moment.

Dare we hear, believe, and receive what the living Jesus speaks into our locked hearts?  Dare we let Jesus speak peace into this day, knowing that after Sunday, we will need that peace for the Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays that follow?

Lord Jesus, speak to us your peace.  We need it here, in the midst of our troubled world and hearts.