The Power of Living in Resurrection Time

Did you see it?  Did you see the pictures from Syria a few weeks ago?   Those images only paint a small part of a more awful picture, one full of more sadness and suffering than I can even grasp.    

Last week, in Egypt, people were just going to worship God.  And for that, someone decided to blow them up.   And the bombers said they were doing that in the name of God?   What is up with that?

You don’t need to go to Syria or Egypt to see it.  Every week, you can hear another story of the horrible things people do to each other, not in some place far away, but right down the road.  What is going on?    

How do you see God in the middle of that?   How can God even be found?   It can seem that God has left the building.  But has God left it?   And if God hasn’t, what is God doing?   How does God give hope when things seem hopeless?   How does God provide peace when so much can scare you to death?   In these words God shows you the way.   God shows you the way not only to hope and peace.  God shows the way to a life lived in the confidence that nothing, not even death, can defeat God’s love.   Let’s hear what God has to say.

Romans 8:28-39

When you see a world where so much is going wrong, how does God set it right?  How does God bring hope, bring peace to this world, to this community, to your neighbors, to you?  In these words written to folks going through horrors of their own, God tells you.   Where is God in the mess of the world?  God says.  I am there in the middle of it.   Because that’s where the battle lies, that’s where the enemy lurks, that’s where the victory is won.   And that means, whatever mess you face, God is there too.   And nothing will ever defeat that.    

These people in Rome to whom Paul was writing had begun to doubt that.  And you can see why.   Soldiers were arresting their friends, killing them even, simply for what they believed.   That’s why Paul quotes that verse from the Old Testament, “We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”     That’s how they felt.   And they wondered.  Where is God?   And Paul told them.  God is there with you.   God has not walked away.  God is working even if you can’t see it.    And no matter what happens to you, even death, God will win.

But how did Paul know that?   How can Paul be that confident?  It’s because Paul hasn’t forgotten what time it is.  Now what do I mean by that?  Surely these people knew the time. They knew the date, the day, the year.  But that’s not the only time there is.  

That’s why the Greeks had two words for time.   One word, Chronos, describes the time you see on a clock.   But the other words, Kairos, describes the time a clock will never catch.  Kairos timing sends a ball into a goal, makes a joke funny, makes a story powerful. 

Have you ever seen a great hitter hit a baseball out of the park?  He doesn’t set his watch and when the alarm goes off he hits the ball.   No, he waits for that perfect moment when his bat will slam it into the stands.  He hits by Kairos time.  When you look at someone you love, and you know that it’s time to kiss them.  Do you check your watch to know when?  No, you check your heart.   Kisses live in Kairos time. 

And Paul knows that time.   Paul knows.  It isn’t Rome wins time.  It’s Jesus wins time.   It isn’t Death has the last word time.  It’s God’s love has the last word time.   And Paul doesn’t know that because he heard a nice sermon about it one day, and signed onto the team.  If you know Paul’s story, then you know.  

He had been the guy arresting their friends, even killing them.  And he did it all in God’s name.  But one day, as he headed into the Syrian city of Damascus to do that deadly work, Jesus showed up.    The Jesus he thought was dead and gone, that Jesus showed up, and asked.  “Why are you persecuting me?”  But get this.   Paul wasn’t persecuting Jesus.   He was persecuting his followers, his friends.  But Jesus was telling him.  You hurt others.  You hurt me.   And from that moment, Paul got what time it was.  It wasn’t Jesus was dead time.   It was Jesus is alive time.   It wasn’t violence in God’s name time.  It was turn back from evil time.   It wasn’t death time.  It was resurrection time.

And so every time Paul got discouraged, he remembered that.   When evil ruled his life, Jesus had turned it around.  So when that evil led others to beat him down, to imprison him, he trusted Jesus to work again to bring good out of that evil.   And Jesus did.

So he can write, God will work all things together for good, for those who love and trust.  Now Paul knew.   That doesn’t mean evil things don’t happen.   Nor does it mean God deletes what evil does like a bad file.    Evil still leaves casualties on the battlefield.  But Paul is saying.  Evil will not have the last word.  God’s goodness and love will have that.  

That’s how the Cambodians came to my childhood church in Chattanooga.   A member of that church went to the pastor, who happened to be my dad, and said.  “We have a chance to bring Cambodian refugees to Chattanooga, but they need places to go.”   You see, that was the refugee crisis of that day, hundreds of thousands fleeing the wars of Southeast Asia.   So our church put out the word, and families across the congregation, across the community stepped up.   They took whole families, mom, dad, kids, often grandma and grandpa too, well over a 120 folks before it was all done.   Folks came together to help feed and clothe them, and get them jobs so they could stand on their own two feet.    And then, we decided to invite them to church.  But they didn’t know English yet, though they had one man who understood Chinese. So the church found John Ang, a pastor who spoke Chinese.  And the church began a worship service for them, and they showed up, with John speaking Chinese, that then got translated into Cambodian. It made for a long service, but it worked. 

Then a few months later, John came to my dad, and told him. “They all want to be baptized.”   Now, we were a little concerned.  Were they doing it just to make us happy?  And they said.    Yes, you had something to do with it.   When we lingered for months in squalid refugee camps , we had lost hope.  We had lost so much already.  Then you showed up, and brought us here.  You weren’t family.  You weren’t even Cambodian.   And we didn’t even share the same religion.  Yet you opened your homes to us.  You sacrificed for us.  You loved us.    And we wanted to know why.   And John told us.  It wasn’t you.  It was Jesus working in you.   And so we want Jesus to work in us too.   We did have a problem.    John Ang was Baptist.  That meant these folks wanted to be dunked when we Presbyterians sprinkled.  So we just found a big swimming pool.  We invited a bunch of other folks to help us.      And one Sunday afternoon, we baptized 120 joyful Cambodians in the name of Jesus.

Because it wasn’t war has the last word time.  It was welcome has the last word time.  It wasn’t refugees are strangers time.  It was refugees are Jesus calling us to love time.   It wasn’t it’s too much trouble time.  It was Jesus will make a way time.   It wasn’t evil wins time.  It was Jesus wins time.  Because, it wasn’t death time.  It was resurrection time.  

That’s why, this church years ago welcomed Cambodian refugees into our midst.  They lived in our church apartment, and one of them became our custodian.  And when that family moved on, we welcomed Bianca, our current custodian and her family. Ironically, the war they were fleeing in Bosnia was one where mainly Christians were killing mainly Muslims.  Evil exists everywhere.     

But evil doesn’t have the last word.  God’s love has that.  That’s what Paul knew.  Paul knew because evil had not had the last word in him.   And in resurrection time, even when evil kills; even when death comes, even then; God’s love lives.  

About 23 years ago it happened in the small community of Goshen, Alabama.   The folks at Goshen United Methodist had gathered for a special Palm Sunday drama.    And when the sirens went off, they didn’t hear them.  So when the tornado struck, and the roof came down, they had no warning.   Of the 145 gathered  that day, twenty perished, including the pastor’s four year old daughter, Hannah.   Twenty years later, that pastor, Kelly Clem returned for a service to mark that day.    

Here is some of what she said, “That evening, the world began to join us to make sense of it all, but Holy Week doesn’t make sense….But -- here and there -- in spite of the “why?” there would be a gleam of hope. ‘Where was God?’ people ask. But a hundred little gifts reminded us that God is here, that it’s God’s story we’re living; that, as Jesus promised his disciples, he will not leave us orphans in this storm.”

One of those gifts was a video.   A church member, Brenda Formby, had been recording the service when those walls came down.   And her camera caught something. Diane Molock had been sitting next to her 3-year-old nephew, Tyler.  And as the walls came down, she cuddled him into the safety of her arms.  Diane Molock would die that day. But Tyler would live.

TV shows offered her thousands for that video, but she refused it.   One by one though, survivors came to see it.   And when they came, that image of Diane giving her life for Tyler helped them heal.   Why? Her death echoed the death of the One who had died for them, who had died for everyone.  Her sacrifice reminded them that just as Jesus was there for them on that cross, Jesus had been there for them on that day. 

The church never rebuilt on that site.  Instead it made it a memorial park, and planted a dogwood tree for each life lost.    And in the outline of the old church, they made two stone walls.   One stands broken with rebar curling out of the top, to mark the devastation of the day.  

But another wall stands beside it with a cross shaped opening cut into it.  

And they positioned it so that when the sun sets, the light of that cross shines through the whole site.

You see.  That church knows, what time it is.   It isn’t Jesus died for no reason time.  It’s Jesus died to destroy death time.   It isn’t Jesus is dead and gone time.  It’s Jesus is alive and at work time.   It isn’t Jesus is in the tomb time.  It is Jesus is risen and at work time. It isn’t death has the last word time.  It’s God’s love has the last word time.  It’s not death time. It’s resurrection time.  

But let’s give evil and death it’s due.  It’s brutal and it’s ugly.   After all, what happened to Jesus?  The great early Christian preacher, Melito says it well. 

“This one was murdered.   Why? Because he had healed the lame.  He had cleansed the lepers. He had guided the blind with light.   He had raised up the dead. For this reason he suffered….

But is that the last word, Melito?  No.  Melito of Sardis preaches.   But Jesus arose from the dead and mounted up to the heights of heaven. When the Lord had clothed himself with humanity, and had suffered for the sake of the sufferer, been bound for the sake of the imprisoned, been judged for the sake of the condemned, buried for the sake of the one who was buried, he rose up from the dead, and cried aloud with this voice: Who is he who contends with me? Let him stand in opposition to me. I set the condemned free; I gave the dead life; I raised up the ones who had been entombed.  Who is my opponent? I, he says, am the Christ. I am the one who destroyed death.  I triumphed over the enemy. I trampled Hades under foot.  I bound the strong one, and carried off humanity to the heights of heaven.  I, he says, am the Christ.

Therefore, come, all families of women and men, you who have been befouled with evil, and receive forgiveness for them. I am your forgiveness, I am the Passover of your salvation, I am the lamb which was sacrificed for you.  I am your ransom. I am your light, I am your savior. I am your resurrection.  I am your king. I am leading you up to the heights of heaven. I will show you the eternal Father. I will raise you up by my right hand.

How can Melito, a persecuted preacher in the second century be so cocky?  He knows what time it is.   It isn’t evil has the last word time.  It’s God’s love has the last word time.   It isn’t Jesus is dead and gone time.  It’s Jesus is alive and at work time.   Because it isn’t despair time.  It’s hope time.   It’s isn’t fear time.  It’s faith time.    It’s not death time.  What time is it?  It’s resurrection time. 

And if you want to experience a God who brings hope like that, who defeats evil like that, who loves you like that, then make this the day, you figure out what time it is.  Whatever you face, God will love you through it.  God will give you triumph over it.  Because it’s not death time.  Sisters and brothers, what time is it?  It’s resurrection time.