Dying To Ourselves -- To Live In The Joy Of Resurrection

John 20:19-31    Second Sunday of Easter   April 11 2021

For the folks of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Hampton, Virginia

 

            Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

            How do you need to die to yourself – so you can live in the joy of resurrection?  Unless there is death, there is no resurrection.  This is what we are baptized into!

            Here’s what Easter means (speaking words from the funeral liturgy!): “When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death.  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”[1]

            “The fear of death…is at the bottom of all apprehensions,” writes Joseph Sittler.  “To say of any of us that we do not fear death is a lie.  To be human is to fear death.”[2]  How do you try to hold that fear of death at bay?  What do you do to deny the reality of death?

For me (and maybe this is true for some of you, too), this is what’s going on when I’ve overly concerned about keeping everything under control!  Do you need to die to your need to be in control, before you can to live in the joy of resurrection?

The Easter stories are about people who have entirely lost control!  Have you ever noticed their terror?  In the earliest account of Easter, the gospel of Mark ends with these words about the first witnesses: So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.[3]  The resurrection is terrifying in the later stories of the open tomb, too.  In the gospel of Matthew, the angel has to tell the first witnesses, “Do not be afraid.”  In the gospel of Luke, we read, The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground.  In the gospel of John, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb, finds it to be open, and runs to tell two of Jesus’ disciples the fearful news that “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”  For the first witnesses, those women who have had the courage to remain faithful to Jesus who was crucified, the resurrection totally disrupts any illusion that they have anything under control. 

Look at how Jesus’ disciples are trying to work their way through all of this, in the story we read this morning, from the gospel of John.  It is evening on that day, the first day of the week.  (This is the evening of the day of resurrection).  The disciples are hidden away: the doors of the house…were locked for fear of the Jew[ish leaders].  Remember what happens?

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 [Jewish leaders], Jesus came and stood among them and said ‘Peace be with you.’”  Why does Jesus have to say “Peace be with you?”  Isn’t because the disciples are so far from peace?  Over the past four days, they have seen Jesus arrested, tortured as a political prisoner, and crucified (which is one of the most barbaric methods of execution that human beings have ever devised).  They have seen Jesus dead! 

And now they see Jesus alive!  In his resurrected body!    Can they even begin to understand what they are seeing?  Aren’t they feeling terror and bewilderment, as with the other witnesses of the resurrection?  Jesus, in his risen bodily form, is able to penetrate solid walls and locked doors.  [H]e showed them his hands and his side.  Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  The reality of resurrection breaks through their terror and bewilderment and their fear of death!  They rejoice!

This is big.  When resurrection shatters our fear of death, the result is joy!  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin famously said, “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.”  When we have died to our fear of death, to our need to keep everything under control, to our need to keep everything together, we can let go.  The result is joy!  We find ourselves living in resurrection!

In the story, Jesus says to them again, “Peace be with you.”  He breathes the Holy Spirit into them to equip them for their ministry: they are to go out into the world with God’s compassion, with God’s forgiveness and reconciliation.  Then we read this: But Thomas…one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.  And now, the second part of the story begins.

No matter how afraid we are of death, unless there is death, there is no resurrection.  We do our best to deny the finality of death.  We say “pass away,” instead of “die.”  In obituaries you read that a loved one “peacefully transitioned to his heavenly home,” or “stepped into eternity with the Lord,”[4] as if death is simply a continuation of this life.  But, do you remember how real and final death was for Jesus, according to the words of the Creed?  Jesus, we confess, “was crucified, died, and was buried.”[5] 

Thomas knows that, for Jesus, death has been final.  And so, when the other disciples [tell] him, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas does not believe them.

How does Thomas need to die to himself – so he can live in the joy of resurrection?

He needs to die to only believing what his eyes have told him to be true.  (Isn’t that right?)  He has to die to his distrust of what his friends are telling him.  He has to die to whatever it is that is making him unable to receive the good news of the resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

What aborts joy for you?  How do you need to die to yourself, so you can live in the joy of resurrection?

These are good Lutheran questions, rooted in our lives of baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Luther explains the significance of baptism in this way, in the Small Catechism: “that the old person in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through daily sorrow for sin and through repentance, and on the other hand that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”[6]  Daily the old person in us needs to be drowned, Luther teaches.  (For me, this has to happen eight or ten, or maybe 12 or 14 times a day!  I don’t know about you.)  Daily, we have to die to ourselves, so we can live in the joy of resurrection.

What do you need to die to?  Is it a need to be liked?  Do you need to die to “a propensity to focus on the negative,” as I read recently?  Father James Martin asks it in this way: “What keeps you from being more loving, more free, more mature, more open to following God’s will?  Can you let those things die?  If you do, you will surely ‘find’ your life, because dying to self means living for God.”[7]

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:3-5)

The good news of Easter invites you and me to die to ourselves, so we can live in the joy of the resurrection!

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!

-- Pastor Andy Ballentine

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[1] Evangelical Lutheran Worship, page 280, a translation of Romans 6:3-5.

[2] Joseph Sittler, Grace Notes and Other Fragments (Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1981), page 119.

[3] Mark 16:8

[4] To quote two obituaries from this past week’s newspaper.

[5] To quote the more startling Apostles’ Creed.

[6] Small Catechism, The Sacrament of Holy Baptism

[7] James Martin, Jesus: A Pilgrimage (HarperOne, 2014), page 413.