Asking Jesus: "Who are you?"

Easter Octave (F): Acts 4.1-12 and John 21.1-14
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory and Church of the Incarnation

PODCAST!

Because they know that he is the Lord risen from the dead, the disciples do not ask of him, “Who are you?” They’ve seen most of this before: the lesson of abundance fishing by the sea; the sharing of a meal; the cryptic instructions that seem to point to something larger but hidden; and the subtle reminder of their last meal together: the breaking of the bread and the subsequent spiraling into accusation, betrayal, violence, abandonment, self-surrender, and death. Perhaps they do not ask him “Who are you?” b/c they do not want to hear from him, “I am the one you denied in the garden. The one you fled from on the cross.” Can they ask him who he is?! There’s danger in that question.

But here they are now, fishing. The children of our Lord fishing…together fishing and without much luck. Jesus appears on the shore and tells them to throw their nets on the other side of the boat. Success! A catch too large to load into the boat. And all they needed was the Risen Lord to show them how to do.

If you see Christ later today, would you ask him: “Who are you?” I mean, you know it’s him. No doubt. But would you ask? If not, why not? Why wouldn’t you just walk up to him and say, “Excuse me, who are you?” And then what? Wait for him to say, “Here, have some bread and fish”? Or, “Here, poke around in my crucifixion wounds if you like”? Maybe there’s no direct answer to your question b/c Jesus is confident that you will recognize him in his sacramental signs, those moments of grace where he most intimately touches you body and soul and draws out of you the best of your gifts for service. OK. But still, would you ask him the question: “who are you?”

If you did, he might say, “I am the only name given under heaven and on the earth to the human race for its salvation.” He might say, “I’m the stone the builders rejected b/c I was obviously physically weak, politically unstable, too clever by half, obstinate with authority, defiant in the face of death, woefully naïve, hopeful, trusting, loving …” But he could easily add here, “Now, I am the cornerstone. Solid granite. Perfectly cut. Smooth and proudly set up. I mark a place and time for starting out; an ‘X’ you will all touch before you run off and flourish with my blessings. I am the Crucified Healer, the Resurrected Judge. I am the Garden beautifully flowered, the Desert savagely bare. My tomb is empty b/c I want to be here with you.”

Then he turns to look you in the eye. Holds for just a moment. Deep breath. And says, “Who are you?” Will you flutter around with a name, an occupation, a study major, a party affiliation, a philosophical allegiance? Will you be haughty, falsely modest, celebrity seeking, shy? Jesus just looked you in the eye and asked, “Who are you?” Can you say, “I am Christ”? You can. But would you? Would I?! I mean, what if Jesus asked to see my crucifixion wounds, my lash marks, my punctured side? What could I show him but my baptism and my anointing? Maybe he would frown at the lack of bread and fish and wine at my table? What could I show him instead but the meager service I’ve done in his name? What of yours would you show him? What joys would you celebrate again with him? What suffering would ask him to take from you? What anxiety exhausts you? How are you crippled? You said you wanted to follow Christ? Name your cross. But tend the wounds.

This is the third time Jesus reveals himself to the disciples after his resurrection. He is not revealing a philosophy nor a theology; a political agenda nor scientific method; a therapy nor a diet for wellness; a military plan nor insurgent training. Jesus is revealing Jesus. . .as he promised. HE is always with us. HE left the tomb empty to be with us. So, when he comes to look behind the doors of your heart and asks you, “who are you in there,” what will you show him? What will he see? Pray, brothers and sisters, that he sees his own reflection.

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Eyes open, hearts ablaze

Easter Octave (W): Acts 3.1-10 and Luke 24.13-35
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

PODCAST!

How foolish they are! And how slow of heart they are to believe all that the prophets spoke! And all that their fellow disciples have seen. And all that the people of Jerusalem report to be true. And everything that they have hoped for, dreamed of, and longed after. How foolish to be so slow of heart that even on Easter day itself they despair and fail to trust God’s Word! No wonder Jesus himself returns to walk with them; to open his Word for them; do everything for them in fact but sit you down with a My Bible Stories coloring book and help them fill in all the lines! They finally “get it” when he blesses and breaks bread with them: their Christ is with them still; and, so long as they faithfully bless and break bread together, he will never leave them! With this revelation, Christ vanishes and the disciples’ hearts burn within them. Whatever spiritual morass slowed their hearts, it is now consumed in the refueled furnace of faith. Grit and fluttering ash. They reverse course, run back to Jerusalem, find the Eleven, and loudly preach: “The Lord has truly been raised…!”

It’s three days past Easter day for us. Where is your heart? How’s it running? Luke warm, burning hot, cold as winter stone? For answers, none of these are surprising, are they? So difficult is the struggle to remain faithful that admitting even now—just three days into the octave!—admitting that our hearts have grown cold or colder wouldn’t take us by surprise. Why is it so difficult for us to believe? We can blame our secularist culture. Easy. Lax parents. Even easier. Fallen human nature. Easiest of all. And none of these is false for being easy, of course, but I wonder if they are by now stale cliché? Our disciples on the road to Emmaus are slow of heart to believe. Why? They admit to the stranger with them: “…we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel…” They were disciples, students and friends, of Jesus b/c they expected him to redeem Israel. Their disappointment is contagious—it spreads from their hard heads to their warmish hearts, gumming up the trusting works and turning Jesus suffering, death, and resurrection into a disheartening execution of yet another disappointing messianic figure. Though they call him “a prophet mighty in word and deed,” it appears that they skipped class on those days when Jesus all but strings a sign around his neck, reading: “I AM THE PROMISED MESSIAH!”

So, why do we find believing so difficult sometimes? One small answer from the gospel: God tends to act in ways that disappoint our expectations. How do we trust someone who often acts contrary to expectation? Someone who frequently surprises us? Or shocks us? Trusting someone else to do things correctly is exhausting work. Besides, bending all of creation to my will takes time and energy! How dare God spring little moments of random joy on me! How dare He thwart my plans for me! What does He expect from me: surrender? Abandonment of my will for His? How do I trust that the fire He has ignited in my heart won’t burn me alive? What can I hold back just for me? Nothing. Nothing at all.

At the Beautiful Gate, Peter said to the man crippled from birth: “…in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.” All who saw him stand up and leap about were amazed and astonished at what had happened to him. Will all those see you today be amazed and astonished at the power of the fire that burns in your heart? Will they see in you a person once lame, walk…and run and leap about? Will they see in you the Risen Christ? Let them hear you and see you preach in word and deed our Easter shout: “The Lord has truly been raised!”

Alleluia! Do you know what is happening?

Easter Sunday 2007: Acts 10.34, 37-42; Col 3.1-4; John 20.1-9
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation, Irving, TX

PODCAST!

This is the day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad!

[Alleluia!]

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, his mercy endure forever!

[Alleluia!]

We shall not die, but live, to preach the Good News of the Lord!

[Alleluia!]

Lift your hands and give God thanks: We thank you, Father! For your Son, Christ Jesus. For his preaching and teaching. For his ministry and mission. For his life and suffering. For his ignoble death and glorious resurrection. For the Cross and the Tomb. Both empty this morning! For his Body and Blood. And for his Church. We celebrate this feast in spirit and in truth: hearts bursting with joy! minds soaring with faith! souls ringing with love! Thank You, Father. Thank You. Today, we witness to your fidelity. You have fulfilled your promise. Our Lord is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

People of the Most High, you know what has happened! Our Lord, given to the crowd three days ago by Pilate; beaten bloody and spat upon; nailed to the cross and killed with a Roman lance; buried by his secret disciples, Joseph and Nicodemus, in an stone-hewn tomb and left to rot…well, you know what has happened! Amen? But do you know what’s happening now? Do you know what the Spirit is working among us?

Luke reports in Acts that Peter reminds the gathered disciples that Jesus charged them all with preaching his gospel of mercy, testifying to the good works and words of Christ, and bearing witness to the promise “that everyone who believe in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.” Amen? Paul writes to the Colossians: “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above […] Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.” Peter reminds us of our Christian duty to witness. Paul teaches us how we are to carry out that duty. And God has given us the gift we need to fulfill our baptismal promises to Him. He has given to us and for us Christ, our paschal sacrifice! So, let us celebrate the feast! Amen?

In this Easter feast, the Spirit moves to collect us, to pull us together, and bind us closer still; to fix us as parts to a Body, to wake us up to the gifts we have been given and to shock our hearts and minds with the wonder of what God is doing among us. If your eyes cannot see the paschal fire and your ears cannot hear the roaring of the Spirit, this feast, this celebration is meant to clear your vision, unstop your ears, and open your soul to receive the graces of Christ’s resurrection. You live with him. You die with him. You rise with him. And now you live with him again in a glory brighter than the sun. Do you know what is happening now? Life touches death and death is now dead. All that remains is life…and that most abundantly! Amen?

Christ took on human flesh and bone, became one of us to move among us as a man, and to die as one of us. He took on flesh and bone so that in his suffering, death, and resurrection, he could heal all flesh, all bone. He suffered b/c we suffer. He was tempted b/c we are tempted. He was persecuted and mocked b/c we are often persecuted and mocked. He took the cup and drank from it knowing what it meant, knowing that he drank the cup of the suffering servant, the one who is wounded for us, and dies horribly for our sins. And for his sacrifice for us we offer him…what? Gratitude? Yes, of course. Regret? Maybe. Denial? Let’s hope not! Rejection? All the time.

But what we must offer him now is the sacrifice most pleasing to God: our hearts and minds turned to Him in heaven; your life—body and soul—changed, converted, turned around into a life lived swallowed in the blessings of Christ and lived to give Him thanks and praise. You died with him. You will rise with him. So now, live with him and do as he charges: preach, testify, witness. Attached as one part to his Body, use your gifts in service to others and His love will be perfected in you, made whole and holy for you. Deny your gifts. Waste them selfishly. And you exercise that which will not be raised: your shadowed desires, your dark longings, your attachments to earth.

You know what has happened? Amen? But do you know what the Spirit is working among us? By the resurrection of Christ from the tomb, our Father lifts us up, brings us along into a newness of life, a fresh beginning to living, and a clarity of vision and task. Whatever despair haunts your days and nights—order it gone in the name of the Risen Lord! Whatever poverty of trust depletes your gratitude—order it gone in the name of the Risen Lord! Whatever grief, despondency, deprivation, illusion, or gluttony; whatever lust for control, greed for attention, jealousy of others’ gifts, or hunger for revenge; whatever is dark, clouded, murky, muddied, or weak in your life with Christ—remember: He is Risen! And you with him! This is your new being, your new life, your new hope for perfect freedom in God’s service.

For forty days we slogged through a Lenten desert, dropping bad habits like snakes along the way. Look behind you. What do you see roasting in the sand? What do you drop? What fell off? What did you pick up again? This trip through death and new life requires that we travel light. Grasping beyond our reach leaves us empty-handed and hungry for more. Contemplating the things of this world clouds your hopeful mind with images and ideas too fleeting to purchase with your everliving soul. If you have died in Christ, you must live in this world still but it must not still live in you. What shines like gold to eyes focused on compromise with the world should burn through your lids and terrify you. Jesus did not suffer and die on the cross as a criminal so that his brothers and sisters might turn again to the culture of death that executed him and party with his betrayers. He did not suffer and die on the cross and empty his tomb so we who profess his faith and preach his Word might prostitute ourselves again in the temples along the idolatrous way—the temples of materialist science, realpolitick, media fantasy, intoxicating violence, consumer power, and the terrorism of false messiahs: megalomaniac politicians and preachers, perverse actors and activists, and perhaps worst of all—a logic of social inclusivity so inclusive that it demands we make love to fascism and give birth to the concentration camp…again.

Think of what is above! And move your resurrected hearts and minds away from the practice of compromising the faith so that you may be included among the compromisers; move away from the practice to “framing” your faith with the fickle demands of culture, politics, identity, desire, novelty, and good manners; move away from the sorry practice of saying sorry for believing in the Word Made Flesh and Resurrected. Think of what is above! And thank God for His goodness in bringing you to Him through Christ.

You know what has happened. Amen? And now you know what is happening? Amen? Run then from the Empty Tomb screaming your head off: He is Risen! The tomb is empty! He is Risen! He was dead but now he lives.

(Stand)

This is the day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad!

[Alleluia!]

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, his mercy endure forever!

[Alleluia!]

We shall not die, but live, to preach the Good News of the Lord!

[Alleluia!]