The Explicit Inclusion--April 12, 2023

The Explicit Inclusion--April 12, 2023

"When the women looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, 'Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you'." [Mark 16:4-7]

"Go tell the disciples--yes, Peter, too."  

With that simple invitation, it is clear from Easter morning onward that God's resurrection power is also the power to put away the past.  The message from the angel waiting in the tomb for the women's arrival includes all of the disciples, even Simon Peter who had last been seen denying he even knew Jesus.  Jesus still counts Peter among his company of friends and disciples, and he wants to make sure Peter knows he has not been kicked out or expelled from the circle of his love.  Peter is explicitly included, called by name, and forgiven. The resurrection makes that reconciliation possible.

That really is amazing.  If Jesus were of the mindset to get even with the ones who let him down, this would have been the chance.  If Jesus were looking to stick it to someone for their faithless denial, Peter would be Public Enemy Number One.  And if Jesus were really intent on rejecting those who had rejected him first, Simon Peter would have been left off the ol' Easter morning invitation list.  But instead, the angelic messenger does just the opposite--making sure that Peter will get the message that he is still included, and that his earlier denial of Jesus has not earned him Jesus' denial of him in return.

The only way that is possible is that God's kind of love is determined not to hold our wrongs against us any longer.  Not even the painfully fresh wounds of publicly denying even knowing Jesus, which Peter had done to save his own skin back on the night of Jesus' betrayal and arrest.  As the familiar story goes, Peter had explicitly denied--even swearing an oath--that he didn't even know Jesus, much less follow him.  You can't get much clearer of a rejection than that, and yet here at the empty tomb, you can't get much clearer of a welcome and statement of forgiveness than what the angel says:  "Make sure Peter knows, too.  This message is for him as well.  Jesus will see Peter along with the rest of the group when they all meet up in Galilee."  What else can that mean but that Jesus has set aside Peter's denial and refuses to hold it against him?

I can only think that the same kind of love welcomes each of us as well.  The same one who could [and did] forgive Peter's conscious, willful, repeated denials speaks the same call and forgiveness to us as well.  "This is for you, too," he says.  "I count you among my friends," he says.  "I choose to include you, no matter what you have done, and no matter what anybody else thinks about my choice."  That is how the risen Jesus pursues us.

The apostle Paul would come to a similar conclusion, too [certainly based on his own experience with meeting Jesus on the Damascus Road while he was still hunting down cells of the Christian movement] when he wrote to the Romans, "I am convinced that neither death, nor life... nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."  If nothing can separate me from God's love in Christ, then surely my own actions, past, or failures of faith cannot cut me off from him, either.  That's not because I haven't messed up [which I do on a daily basis], but because God refuses to hold those mess-ups against me.  Or any of us.

Dear friends, this is how we are loved by God.  The Scriptures abound with story after story, life after life, passage after passage, in which our failures, mess-ups, and sins are not held against us because God's love refuses to let them remain as a barrier between us.  We cannot be kept away from God's resurrecting love by the fickleness of our faith, the paucity of our piety, or the multitude of our mess-ups.  God's love in Christ welcomed Peter by name, so it sure as heaven includes you.

And once we're clear on that, it becomes clear that there is nothing anybody else can do that is too bad, too disappointing, or too faithless to keep them apart from God's love in Christ Jesus, either.  Every last one of us has been called by name by the risen Jesus.  He welcomes us all into his presence.

Now... what will we do with that invitation?

Lord Jesus, enable us to believe that your love really does include us, and allow us to pass along that welcome to everybody else we meet.