Resurrection and Vindication

text of a sermon in March, 2008

Resurrection and Vindication

When I was 16 years old one of my closest friends was the caretaker at Rosedale United Church.
Bill Cranston was a gem of a guy, Scottish, a great sense of humour; one of the few adults in my life at the time that I could really talk to. He took me under his wing as his right hand guy and out of respect for our friendship and my ability to stack chairs after church functions, he gave me a key to the church.
So on Sunday afternoons, when the church would be empty, I would used to go to church, make my way into the pulpit and open the massive Bible that was on the lectern to Matthew Chapter 5. And to an imaginary congregation I would read aloud all three chapters of the Sermon on the Mount – to the point where I almost knew it all by heart.
They were wonderful words to read aloud – the noblest words ever spoken…
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God
Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted
Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth…
The words would captivate me. They were at complete odds with the world I lived in, but there were times in which they seemed like the only words that mattered. They represented the kind of world I wanted to live in.
And when I’d get to the part about God so caring for the birds of the air that he feeds them and so cares for the flowers of the field that he clothes them…that to read God loves us even more - such that we should never worry about where our next meal is coming from or what we’re going to wear…it all seemed so idyllic, and yet so utterly possible.
It would be another 7 years before I became a Christian but even at 16 years of age, these words had a profound effect on me.
Let me say this. If the only reason you are sitting here in church this morning is because your parents made you, I am going to ask you to do something that I promise you will make this service something other than a waste of time.
I want you to find a modern translation of the New Testament, I want you to turn to Matthew Chapter 5 and in a place where nobody else can hear you, and there is nothing else to distract you – computer, MP3 player whatever; I want you to read aloud Chapters 5, 6 and 7 of Matthew’s gospel. I want you to read as though you first objective is not to understand the words, nor even to believe what it is you’re reading – I want you to get accustomed to the sound of the words, get some feel for how different they are and how powerful and how incredible they are. Don’t be shocked at their power – they have had a profound effect not only on Christians like Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa, but non-Christians like Mahatma Gandhi.
I am thoroughly convinced that before we can say yes to Jesus, we must experience him.  Going to church is great, making Christian friends is great, helping the poor is great but to experience Jesus you must first experience the power of his words. They must resonate in you like an echo resonates within you when you are standing in a cave and yell ‘is there anyone in there?’
For fundamental to becoming a Christian – not just for a day but for the rest of your life – is to hear Jesus for yourself. For there will come a day where to follow Jesus will mean being courageous when everyone around you has chickened out; standing beside someone and calling them ‘your friend’ when everyone else has abandoned them; it will mean seeking justice for others and foregoing privileges for yourself.
But before you can go there, you must experience the echo of Christ’s words. To read his words aloud is very much like standing in a cave and asking God ‘is there anyone out there’ and having God answer ‘YES’.
But as I mentioned before it was another 7 years before I became a Christian. I stopped reading the Sermon on the Mount. I probably stopped when they changed the locks on Rosedale United Church.
But for some reason, the words became too fantastic to believe. I went to university, I got a job - I became schooled in how the world really operates where the race is won by those who can afford the best running shoes, and where the tough guys beat up the weaklings and the words of Jesus seemed out of touch, naïve.
I became skeptical. I saw the church as society’s way of keeping us all in line, but good for little else.
But deep down inside, there was the echo of Jesus’ words – faint, but still there.
Deep down inside I still longed for the kind of world Jesus spoke of, where the poor would be blessed, and the efforts of peacemakers would be blessed…but they seemed so pie in the sky. In the late 1960’s when I was in my late teens, the war in Vietnam was killing so many needlessly. But to advocate for peace at the time was tantamount to treason, of being willing to surrender to the Communists.
Some Christians I knew at the time told me – Don’t worry, Jesus is coming back – he’ll sort this whole mess out. Let the world go to hell in a handbasket, it’s enough to simply believe.
I found such talk to be abhorrent – I still do – the notion that the kind of world Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount would have to wait until after Jesus came back again seemed escapist and fatalistic. What good is God if his only answer to the world’s problems is: ‘don’t worry – I’ll get it right the next time!’
Now – just so you don’t misunderstand me. I do believe Christ will return. I believe it because I believe in the resurrection. As Paul writes to the Corinthian Church:
Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. But there is an order to this resurrection, Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back.
After that the end will come, when he will turn over the Kingdom over to God the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power. For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies under his feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. For the scriptures say, ‘God has put all things under his authority.  (I Corinthians 15:20-27a)
Can you hear what he is saying here? He is saying it as much to us as he was saying it to the Corinthians.  When Christ returns, he will be turning over the Kingdom to God the Father.
What kingdom you ask? Why of Kingdom of God – the Kingdom that Jesus is talking about in the Sermon on the Mount. The Kingdom where the poor are blessed and those in mourning are comforted and the meek inherit the earth.
The resurrection of Jesus is not simply some after this life consolation prize; it is the vindication of everything Jesus stood for – it is the vindication of everything he ever preached – it is the vindication of who he said he was, the vindication of who he said God was…the proof that God is loving and merciful and true and ever present in this world. It is the vindication that God’s kingdom reigns and has been reigning ever since that glorious Easter morning when God raised Jesus from the dead. No wonder among the last words Jesus said to his disciples before he ascended to heaven were: ‘I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth’ (Matthew 28:18)
I looked up the word vindication and learn that it comes from the verb ‘to vindicate’. To vindicate means to justify by evidence or argument, to clear of suspicion, to establish the existence or merits or justice of one’s veracity, courage, conduct, character and assertion’.
An example would really help.
As of this morning’s paper, the Toronto Maple Leafs are 8 points out of a playoff position, in 12th position in a division of 15 teams. They have 12 games left in the regular season to catapult over 4 teams to gain the 8th and final playoff position. A tall order to say the least, but not impossible.
Now if you listen to the Sports Station like I do, or read the Sports pages, practically everyone is saying the Leafs are in dire need of an overhaul – that they are years away from winning the Stanley Cup. They are poorly managed, the executives at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment could care less about ever winning the Cup, they making money by the boatload; the players are a bunch of has beens with no trade clauses who are selfish and more concerned about lining their pocket book than about doing whatever it takes to be on a Stanley Cup contender.
But what if – on June 6th, 2008 – you were to open your Toronto Star newspaper – and there is the Headline – ‘The Leafs Win the Cup’.
All that talk about the Leafs needing an overhaul is out the window. Mats Sundin is a hero for having stuck it out with Toronto – even though mere months ago, pundits were calling him a selfish ‘so and so’ not to waive his no trade clause.
VINDICATION!
To be vindicated means that whatever you put your life on the line for has been justified– validating one’s veracity, courage, conduct and assertion.
Vindication is a big theme throughout the Bible. Joseph has dreams of assuming a place of authority where even his own father and 11 brothers bow before him. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego defy King Nebuchadnezzar’s  edict to fall down and worship his golden idol and are thrown into the fiery furnace only to come out unscathed.
When the religious leaders charge Jesus with blasphemy after he tells a man who is paralyzed ‘Your sins are forgiven’. Jesus responds: Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Stand up, pick up your mat and walk? So I will prove to you that the Son of God has the authority on earth to forgive sins.’
Then he turned to the paralyzed man and said: Stand up, pick up your mat and go home!’
Jesus’ claim to forgive is vindicated by his power to heal.
His resurrection vindicates everything he stood for – the poor, the hurting, the hungry, the stranger, the outsider. It vindicates His Kingdom.
His resurrection vindicates everything he taught about forgiveness, loving one’s enemies, selling one’s possessions to provide for others, turning the other cheek, seeking peace and not war.
His resurrection vindicates everything he claimed about himself – his being one with God the Father, of his being the Son of Man, of his being the friend of sinners, of his power to forgive and to restore us.
But it is also the vindication of those willing to believe in God enough that they rely on him for their daily needs – for employment, for food and shelter, for his direction in their lives. It is the vindication of all those who seek God’s honour regardless of being ridiculed. It vindicates those of child-like faith who resist the temptation to be skeptical of God’s love; who live their lives as though they really are in God’s hands regardless of what they suffer.
The resurrection is the vindication of those who instead of hitting back turns the other cheek; the vindication of the one who sacrifices the ‘good life’ to ensure the hungry are fed.  It is the vindication of the one who seeks peace with the terrorist even if it costs  him his life.
I hope that strikes you as naïve. It does me. And so it would seem naïve to many Christians.
In an address called ‘Christianity was never designed as a tool for war’ the American Religious history professor Richard T Hughes observed:
At the outset of the war in Iraq, Charles Stanley, pastor of the First Church in Atlanta affirmed: ‘we should serve the war effort in any way possible…God battles with those who oppose him and fights against him and his followers’. Others including Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and Marvin Olasky, editor of World Magazine suggested the war would open a whole new field for converting Muslims to the Christian faith. Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind series of end-time books suggested that by virtue of the way, ‘Iraq would become the focal point of end-time events’. With preaching like that, it is hardly surprising to learn that one month after the United States launched its pre-emptive strike against Iraq, the decision to invade drew support from an astounding 87 percent of all white evangelical Christians.’
How is this possible when Jesus clearly taught that to live by the sword is to die by it; that we are to love our enemies which presumably means we’re not to bomb them? How is this possible when the Apostle Paul clearly taught that our enemies are not flesh and blood but evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world (see Ephesians 6:12) against which cruise missiles and shock and awe tactics are of no use.
And so I ask you as I ask myself – do we really believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do we really believe that what he taught and the way he lived is the way we are meant to live?
Or are we living lives which confess belief in the resurrection but who deep down inside believe his teaching as totally impractical for our time, too naïve to be worth repeating?
There is a scene from the movie Gandhi where Gandhi and an Anglican priest are on a street in South Africa. As they are walking together they realize that in their path is a gang of white thugs, from whom they can expect a beating.
As they approach, the priest suggests to Gandhi that they turn around and go another way. But Gandhi says – ‘But doesn’t Christ teach us that when are confronted by our enemies, we are to turn the other cheek?’
The Anglican priest affirms that indeed Jesus did say those words, but that he was pretty sure that Jesus meant that we treat these words as metaphorical, subject to interpretation. The Hindu, Gandhi disagrees – insists that he believed Jesus meant what he said to be lived out literally – recognizing that the most effective way of combat violence is to turn the other cheek.
I wonder how many of us have become like the Anglican priest – we treat Jesus words as though they are metaphorical, subject to interpretation – rather than to be simply lived out as he instructed?
It reminds me of something Soren Kierkegaard once wrote:
The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the moment we understand it, we are obliged to act accordingly.
Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. ‘My God’, you will say, ‘if I do that, my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?’
Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian Scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close.
Oh priceless Scholarship – what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the Living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
That seems a little harsh and I apologize to all the Christian scholars who tirelessly work to strengthen our faith in biblical truth. But there is more than a grain of truth in what he says…otherwise why is it that most people outside the church, especially people under 30, can’t see much of a difference between the world and the church?
Another way of saying the same thing is to say that what we really believe isn’t what we can recite from the Bible. What we really believe is reflected in the lives we lead…
It was GK Chesterton who wrote : The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
If we truly believe in the resurrection, then we must be willing to try…
But with this one very huge proviso. With Moses came the Law, but with Jesus comes grace and truth. More than once Jesus repeated those incredible words from the prophet Hosea ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice’. God is not interested in the sacrifices we make to serve him, he desires mercy…he desires that we learn mercy in discovering he is merciful with us; he desires mercy in our being merciful with others. ‘Blessed are the merciful, Jesus said in his sermon from the mount, for they will find mercy’.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the vindication of mercy over judgment.
This should fundamentally affect the way we see things. If the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the vindication of mercy over judgment, then so too will His return to judge us all be the vindication of mercy over judgment.
I say again, this should fundamentally affect the way we see things.
When I take off my glasses to look at you, to see you with my own eyes, everything is a blur. But when I put my glasses on, I can see each and everyone of you clearly..
When I look at the world through my own eyes, I see violence, the ruthless pursuit of power, extravagance and vengeance. And I can justify it…it’s what’s needed to survive. And I can justify my indifference to my neighbour’s welfare and giving God no more than lip service.
But when I/we look through the lens of the resurrection, we see the world Jesus spoke of when he said ‘blessed are the poor’. We see the exaltation of humility and the need to advocate for those who can’t speak for themselves. We see the imperative for simple living, unburdened by the weight of material possessions. We see forgiving those who hate us, and loving our enemies, even if they’re terrorists. We see death swallowed up by life. And mercy prevailing over judgment.
For some of us we may have to re-think our interpretation of the Book of Revelation. Others may decide to behind the ‘Left Behind’ series of books and embrace the God sized dimensions of a mercy Paul so beautifully captures in Romans Chapter 11:32-36
For God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone.
 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge!
 How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!
 For who can know the Lord’s thoughts?
Who knows enough to give him advice?
 And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back?
 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory.
All glory to him forever!
Amen.