The Other Side of Easter: The After People

John 21:15-17

After they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time, Jesus said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” A third time, Jesus said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter, hurt that he had asked him a third time, “Do you love me?,” said to him, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”

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I hope you’ll notice a theme of sorts over the course of the next few weeks both in my Sunday morning sermons and in the newsletter article I hope you’ll read after you either pick it up on your way out today, get it in the mail soon or find it online – at our website or in e-mails. And I hope all of this carries over into all we’re up to in a million ways around here.

I’m thinking about life “on the other side of Easter” these days and trying to take advantage of our time together in worship – and this bully pulpit I have – to invite you to join me in that. In the next few weeks, I hope to share information and invitations and inspiration together about how – now that we’re living life blessed with the good news of God’s grace and mercy, love and new life – hopefully we’ll be encouraged in some new ways about what that can look like around here, in our personal lives, as part of our life together, and for the sake of the world we’re called to serve.

The short of the long is, I want to share some scoop with you all that is as practical as it is holy about what we’re trying to accomplish as a congregation. And I’m making no bones about the fact that we’re in a place – not just on the other side of Easter, but as we try to get to the other side of this pandemic – where we could use as many hands on deck as we can get to make it all happen.

(If you’re one of the many people who join us online and who may wonder if any of this is going to apply to you, please bear with me. I believe that if what we do as a church is faithful in any way, it should be meaningful for anybody to know about and join us in – however you’re able – or at least pray about on our behalf.)

Quite frankly, I’m starting to feel called back to my Mission Developing ways again because I think there’s so much potential – post-Easter and post-pandemic when that time actually arrives – to do Church differently and with an eye to the growing, changing community and world around us these days. I know we’re all excited about “getting back to some of whatever ‘normal’ was” for us before COVID-19 upset the applecart of the Church. And I’m grateful for that, too.

But COVID has also revealed and accelerated a lot of need for change in the way we live as the body of Christ in the world, and in the next few weeks, I hope to share some of what that could look like for us at Cross of Grace.

Today, I want to start by talking about and celebrating the Stephen Ministry program as a part of all this. We’re going to commission this cohort of 14 Stephen Ministers shortly and give thanks for the last six months of time they’ve invested in learning and praying and preparing to serve as Christian caregivers. And I love this handout that Amanda Terrell found – which is in your bulletins – and how it describes Stephen Ministers as “The After People.”

I won’t read it all for you, but it describes beautifully what Stephen Ministers have been called to do: this idea that they offer care and love and conversation and companionship for people “after” the funeral; “after” the diagnosis; “after” the baby arrives or “after” the last child leaves home; “after” your friends and family have heard about whatever it is too many times, but you still have more to say… you get the idea.

It is a beautiful thing to be one of these “after” people. And it’s a beautiful thing to receive care from one of these “after” people, too.

This is what our Stephen Ministers have been learning to do over the last six months – to walk alongside others who are hurting or struggling or lost or longing, in any number of ways – to get through something they shouldn’t have to do, or don’t want to do, or can’t do as meaningfully, all by themselves.

One of the first things I learned – day one of my own Stephen Ministry Leader training – was how I wished we would have/could have/should have made this ministry a part of our life together way back in the day. It would have changed the DNA of who we are and how we can be different – and even more faithful, I believe – as a congregation. To follow Jesus by teaching and encouraging and preparing and commissioning one another to care for and tend to and love one another – and not leaving all of that only up to the Pastors of our congregation, I mean.

Even though that’s the way it is in too many congregations – and no small part of the reason there has been this phenomenon that’s become known as “the Great Resignation” in clergy circles in the last two years – it was never meant to be that way. Just ask Simon Peter…

Just before what we heard in this morning’s Gospel story, Jesus had surprised the disciples by showing up on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, after they’d spent a long night and very early morning NOT catching any fish. From the shore, Jesus tells them to cast their net on the other side of the boat, which they do, and they catch so many fish they can barely get them into the boat.

And then, after they grill some fish for breakfast, Jesus grills Peter with this little Q and A of his own.

“Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?,” Jesus asks him.

“Yes. Yes. Yes.” Peter promises.

“Then feed my lambs… Tend my sheep… Feed my sheep.” Jesus commands him.

“Care for my people. Tend to my children. Love one another.”

“Do for others what I’ve done for you.” “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

And I didn’t pick this Gospel reading because it was going to be Stephen Ministry Commissioning Sunday. This is always the assigned reading on this Sunday after Easter, because this is just who and how we’re supposed to be on the other side of the resurrection.

See, none of this was or should have been news for Peter or for the others who were having breakfast that morning. Jesus had been asking and showing them how to do all of this all along the way. The difference was that everything had changed. Everything had changed because they were “after” people now, each and every one of them, just like you and me.

People after the crucifixion and death of Good Friday, I mean.

People after the resurrection and empty tomb of Easter.

People after that moment in the upper room we heard about last week, when Jesus showed them his hands and his side; after he breathed on them and delivered the Holy Spirit; after he gave them authority to forgive or retain the sins of others; after he gave them every reason to believe that he was who he said he had always been.

And the good news is, we’re all “after people,” people. We all live on the other side of Easter’s good news in a way that is meant to move us to love differently and to hope more boldly and to give more generously and to humble ourselves more vulnerably and to serve more willingly and to follow Jesus more faithfully.

So today … yes … we’re giving thanks for and blessing in a special way our Stephen Ministers and all they stand to add to our life together. But I’m praying every one of you will be praying about and planning for how to love and follow and live more like Jesus on the other side of Easter … as a Partner in Mission with Cross of Grace … loved, freed, and forgiven as one of God’s “after people,” just the same.

Amen

Wilderness Wandering

Luke 4:1-13

Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness were, for forty days, he was tempted by the Devil. He didn’t eat anything during those days and when they were over, he was famished. The Devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus said to him, “It is written, ‘one does not live by bread alone.’”

Then the Devil led him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world. He said to him, “I will give to you their glory and all this authority, which has been handed over to me, and which I give to anyone I choose. If you will bow down and worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus said to him, “It is written, ‘you shall worship the Lord, you God, and serve only him.’”

Then the Devil led Jesus to Jerusalem and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple and said, “Throw yourself down from here, for it is written ‘he will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘on their hands they will bear you up so that you won’t dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘do not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’”

And when the Devil had finished every test, he departed from Jesus until an opportune time.

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The wilderness seems pretty close these days.

In First Century Galilee, Jesus apparently had to be “led out into it,” by the spirit. He had to go somewhere else to find it, it seems. …away from the river where he’d just been baptized along with crowds of people. …away from towns and villages like Cana and Capernaum. …away from whoever was looking to follow him, as would happen soon enough. Maybe Jesus had a hunch about what was to come in that regard, so he let the Spirit lead him out … lead him away … lead him into whatever and wherever the wilderness was for him.

And if “wilderness” is a metaphor for something… if “the wilderness” is a place of uncertainty, loneliness, disconnection, temptation, and fear … I’m not sure Jesus would have had to go very far to find himself there, if he were walking around in the world today.

“The wilderness” seems right around every corner, or maybe even following us around, no matter where we go, these days.

Maybe it’s the constant presence of social media in our lives …

Maybe it’s the news these days – the 24/7 nature of it all reminding us about our own broken politics, our own divided nation, and everything going on in Russia and Ukraine, of course.

Maybe it’s the ever-evolving list of prayers and concerns and challenges we wrestle with as God’s people in this place and out there in the world, ourselves…

Whatever it is, the wilderness doesn’t seem so hard to find… or so very far away… or too difficult to get to, if you ask me.

So I hope it’s strangely comforting for us to see Jesus out there in the wilderness this morning, doing his thing with the Devil.

The point of Lent – and the point of this Gospel story, for me, anyway – is to wonder what it means to be called into the wilderness. I think we’re invited to wonder – not so much about conversations with a guy and his pitchfork – which is how this story with Jesus gets reduced and dumbed-down a lot of the time. I think, instead, we’re called to wonder about the lonely places … the uncertain places … the scary places in the world where – and the lonely, uncertain, scary times in our own lives – when we are tempted to choose the darkness. I think, in these days, we’re called to seek out and to put a finger on the sin, the evil, the faithlessness and the temptation in our own lives. We’re called to name it, to stop denying that it finds us from time to time, and to confront it in ways we would rather not.

But that's hard to do, this wilderness wandering – whether it’s the First Sunday of Lent or any other day of the year – or we would do it more often, more faithfully, with more resolve and courage and success, I believe. It seems to me we don’t head out into the wilderness enough, following the Spirit’s lead. We’re more likely to find ourselves pushed there, dragged there, kicking and screaming, against our will. Or we end up there, in the wilderness – much to our surprise – before we know what’s coming. And then the temptation of it all is to let it overwhelm us – the grief of it; the fear of it; the unknown and uncertainty of whatever the wilderness is for us.

And so we fail the tests too often, don’t we? We fill ourselves with all the wrong things too much of the time. Where Jesus refused to turn a stone into bread – we grab the potato chips or the ice cream; the booze or the weed, the cigarettes or the pills.

Where Jesus turned down the offer for more power and glory, we go after as much as we can grab and look for it in all the wrong places – our ego, our work, money, things and stuff.

And where Jesus refused to put God to the test, we do just that … every time we throw up our hands and wonder why God won’t – why God hasn’t – just fixed everything that’s wrong with us, with the world, and with this wilderness.

Where Jesus went… followed… left...? We stay home… stay put… and stay safe… so much of the time.

And I think the reason we fail the proverbial tests so often is because we forget something Jesus knew and held onto, from the start. Remember, Jesus entered into the wilderness “full of the Spirit,” “led by the Spirit,” and on the heels of his baptism. I like to imagine his hair was still wet when he met up with the devil in the desert, because he was fresh from the Jordan River where the heavens had opened, a dove had appeared out of nowhere, for crying out loud, and God had declared him beloved, “the Son, the Chosen” with whom the Creator of the Universe was well pleased.

And it’s with all of that in his back pocket, that Jesus made his way into the wilderness to duke it out with the Devil, which makes it easier for me to imagine how he might have resisted all of that temptation and passed all of those tests, in the first place.

And that gives me hope. To remember, however and whenever we find ourselves in the wilderness (whatever that is for us) that – just like Jesus – we can enter it all on the heels of and filled with the promises of baptism. And we can go there, led by God’s spirit of wisdom and understanding, God’s kind of counsel and might, with faith and fortitude to endure the lonely, scary, uncertain, dark wilderness places that wait for us in this world.

In our Stephen Ministry class Thursday night we had a pretty hard, holy, heavy discussion about suicide – and tending to someone who may be in the throes of that kind of wilderness struggle. We were wondering about what to say and what to do and how to find the words and wisdom to respond in such a circumstance – should we ever find ourselves in that kind of wilderness with somebody else. I shared something with the class that seemed to resonate with them, so thought it might be meaningful to share with you all this morning, too.

It’s not rocket science, but whenever I find myself headed into a wilderness like that – an emergency of some sort, a crisis full of uncertainty, a scary situation where something is required of me that I’m not sure I’m prepared for (that maybe there is no preparation for, to be honest) – I try to remind myself that God is already in that place, around that person, gathered together with whatever or whoever has called me into their wilderness with them. And that kind of prayer, that sort of reality check, that exercise of faith has proven to be helpful and True over the years, and I believe it’s something like we see Jesus trusting, doing and believing this morning – out there in his own kind of wilderness, way back when.

See, I believe Jesus was able to enter his own wilderness because he knew he didn’t go there first, or alone. He let the Spirit of God lead him there, remember. And he was full of the Holy Spirit in the first place.

So, when the wilderness looms, when it seems too close… too easy to find… too hard to navigate… too difficult to escape... When the temptation to quit… to choose the selfish, prideful, destructive way… to get lost in it all… to take the devil’s hand and follow his lead – remember that God is already out there, too, in your wilderness, waiting for you.

I like to think of God, in the wilderness, as like a dad in the swimming pool promising to catch his terrified toddler about to jump from the diving board into the deep-end. Or maybe God, in our wilderness, is like a mother, waiting in the front office, to rescue her child from a bad day at recess. Or like the good friend who walks with you after the divorce, or the diagnosis, or the death, because they’ve been through it already themselves.

Whatever the case, we can enter into any wilderness trusting that God will be there waiting to walk with, stand beside, and catch us, even, if necessary. And we can go there, with the waters of baptism still dripping from our foreheads and divine promises of grace always ringing in our ears…

And we can go, following Jesus’ example so that we don’t have to be so afraid about any of it. So that we might even enter it all willingly – whatever our wilderness brings – and go boldly, bravely, with faith, to see God transform it all into something sweet, something safe, and something sacred, on the other side.

Amen