Sermon: "Uprising!"

A Meditation on John 3:11-18

Sunday, March 11, 2018

The Fourth Sunday in Lent

1.

What you’re looking at—the byzantine fresco in your bulletin—is titled “ANASTASIS.”  You can make out the Greek letters at the very top of the picture, above Jesus and the circle of light around him.  “ANASTASIS.”  It’s Greek for “resurrection.”  And in this 14^th century fresco, the Resurrected Jesus reaches out, boldly, purposefully, for Adam on his right and Eve on his left.  And the energy of all this, it’s even better in color, in person, the energy of the great eastern fresco suggests that he’s coming for us too, that he’s reaching out for us too.  “ANASTASIS.”  

"Anastasis" (Chora Church)

Down below, beneath the two graves, we see a chaotic assortment of chains and locks, bolts and weapons.  See where I’m looking?  Jesus is stomping all this stuff.  In the 14^th century, this stuff was the detritus of misery and oppression.  Chains and locks and weapons.  If artists were reproducing this tableau in 2018, they’d most certainly include AK15s and AK47s, and ballistic missiles and syringes bubbling with opiates.   The idea seems to be that Jesus rises from his own grave to free Adam and Eve (and our whole human family) from fear and cruelty, from slavery and exploitation, from all the systems, all the habits that entangle human spirit and warp human community.  This resurrection—in the old fresco, at least—is an uprising.  “ANASTASIS.”  And indeed, “uprising” is another meaning for the Greek word.  “ANASTASIS.”  This is a particularly eastern—as opposed to western, Roman, Protestant—vision of resurrection.  Jesus rises from the grave to lift us from all that shackles us, from systems and ideas that bind us to anxiety and suspicion.  This eastern Jesus is in no hurry to rise out of the world and settle into his heavenly throne.   This eastern Jesus is movement and energy.  This eastern Jesus is connected and relational.  Easter is his uprising.  And ours.  Adam and Eve are essential to the project.

Now I hadn’t seen an “ANASTASIS” like this, in all my life, until I stood with a museum guide in Istanbul four years ago, and listened, in rapt attention, as she pointed to this very fresco in the Kariye Museum.  And I imagine you’ve not seen one like this either, unless you’re an art history buff, or you’re spent time in Greece or Turkey or the Middle East.  You and I are more likely to be acquainted with the other “resurrection” icon of the middle ages: the icon that prevailed in the west, and across Roman Catholicism and into the Protestant traditions.  I didn’t print that picture; but it’s probably familiar to you.  Jesus is freed from death, freed from his grave; and he rises (in this western version) or really floats above that garden tomb, and above the stunned soldiers and angels and disciples below.   He’s on his way to heaven.  He’s on his way to that special seat (a cushy one) beside God, to live and rule in paradise, for ever and ever amen.

And in a sense, that’s the image that’s shaped western imagination for centuries, the image of a singular Christ, freed from death, rising to heaven for his reunion with God.  Transcending the gritty details of life below.  Rising above the earthly realm, the soldiers in the garden, the puzzled disciples, even the baffled angels of Easter morning.  And if that was Jesus’ resurrection, maybe we could come to expect something like it.  Life after death, a better world than this one, transcending the gritty details of life below.  But you set that western icon alongside this eastern one, and you begin to see a more complicated theology of resurrection, a more complicated experience of resurrection in early Christian communities.

There were clearly some—and especially in the east—there were some who experienced resurrection relationally, intimately, corporately.  The Risen Jesus wasn’t a singular judge on a heavenly throne.  The Risen Jesus wasn’t a distant God, triumphant and transcendent.  In this eastern vision, the Risen Jesus was a friend reaching out to the church; he was a companion in service and worship and fellowship; he was an advocate stomping instruments of oppression; he was physically present lifting folks like you and me from gloom and despair.  Lifting us into communion.  Lifting us into community.  Lifting us into God’s presence.

2.

Now here’s where the Gospel of John—which we’re reading this morning—gets really interesting.  In the Gospel of John, resurrection isn’t just a biographical detail at the end of Jesus’ life.  This Gospel doesn’t carve up Jesus’ life in that way: life here, death here, resurrection and we’re done.  In John’s community, resurrection is something like the nature of Jesus’ ministry on earth, and the character of his being, and the dynamic at play in his relationships with all kinds of folks.  And when the Gospel says “we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen,” the Gospel means we touch this Jesus in our daily lives; we receive encouragement from his hand in worship and prayer; we are lifted by Jesus from hopelessness and despair.  He’s with us now.  “We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen.”  Resurrection is Christian practice.  Resurrection is life in the here and now.  Life with Jesus.

And this is the vision, I think, of the eastern icon in Istanbul, “ANASTASIS.”  “God does not send the Son into the cosmos to condemn it, but in order that the cosmos might be healed, might be redeemed, might by blessed by him.”  Jesus rises from the grave not to get out of town, not to rise above all the rest of us, and certainly not to leave us all behind.  Jesus rises from the grave to reach for us, to connect with us, to join us in the sinew and muscle of our lives, in the joys and challenges of the church.  This is the incarnational vision of John’s Gospel.  God in us.  Jesus in us.

I was reminded of this incarnation vision, this incarnational experience, all over again on Friday, as I met with our extraordinary Caregivers’ Circle in the library downstairs.  This is a circle of brave and loving souls, who devote their lives to others, and come together for support and encouragement every month.  We talk about the daily challenges of loving and living in the midst of frailty and illness.  We talk about the walls you hit from time to time, the hopelessness that shows up sometimes, unannounced.  These are honest souls, and their tears flow freely, and their laughter is honest and well-earned. 

Now you might say the Caregivers’ Circle is a fairly traditional, and maybe even secular, support group; but I want to say it’s something more than that.  When a woman shares her pain there, her frustration there, her fear there, and when another reaches out to take her hand, that kind of sisterhood is resurrection.  At least in this place, we can call it that.  We can experience it that way.  When a friend wonders there, if she can carry on another day, if she can summon the energy, the hope, to do it another day, and when two or three others weep with her, that kind of relationality is resurrection.  Recall again the easter icon, the “ANASTASIS”:  Jesus rises from the grave, Jesus rises from his tomb, to reach for us, to take us by the hand, to walk us out of misery and chaos and crippling fear. 

On Friday morning, I found myself looking around that Circle, at the faces of friends I’ve come to know well and love well, and I found myself thinking Jesus is here.  Risen in our hands.  Risen in our tears.  Risen in our broken hearts.  We are not alone.  We are not abandoned.  We are resurrected with him.  Resurrected for compassion.  Resurrected for communion.  Resurrected together.  And the icon danced in my mind, as we prayed, as we sang.  As we went our separate ways.

3.

Now the most notable verse in John’s Gospel and in our reading this morning is almost certainly John 3, verse 16: “For God so loved the cosmos that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  There’s so much to say about this verse, and so much to say about its mis-use through the history of Christian practice and evangelism.  And maybe we can get into that another time. 

But this morning, I want to note the importance, the critical importance, of just one word.  And it’s this word: “COSMOS.”  God so loved the cosmos.  Most of the time we hear this text, we hear the old King James translation: God so loved the world…God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…

But the Greek word is ‘cosmos’—and it seems terribly important for you and me that we get this right.  ‘Cosmos’—you see—includes the entirety of creation, the entirety of all that ever was and all that is now and all that ever will be.  ‘Cosmos’ is beyond big, and it’s beyond me, and it’s beyond you, and it’s beyond us.  ‘Cosmos’ includes all the places and peoples and worlds we know and love, and all the places and peoples and worlds we can’t possibly know and probably will never love.  Do you see how this makes a difference?  The point of John’s Gospel—and the point of Jesus himself—is that God loves the ‘cosmos,’ God loves inclusively, God loves extravagantly, God loves graciously.  Worlds we can touch, and worlds we can’t.  People we can love, and people we can’t.  Jesus doesn’t come to limit God’s love.  Jesus comes to reveal God’s love.  Jesus doesn’t come to condemn the ‘cosmos.’  Jesus comes to bless and heal and redeem it.  All of it.  All of us.  More than we can ever fully know or understand or even imagine.

So it’s a little funky to be talking resurrection three weeks before Easter; but maybe that’s just the point.  It’s a little funky to be a disciple of this strangely extravagant, oddly resurrected Lord.  It’s a little funky to be a Christian at all.  You see, resurrection isn’t just a biographical detail with Jesus.  It’s not just a wild, unexpected, ‘get-out-of-jail-free-card,’ either.  Resurrection is the love that knows no boundaries.  Resurrection is the grace that forgives and blesses beyond measure.  And resurrection is the hand that reaches out for yours this morning.  To lift you up.  To pull you forward.  To lead you to love. 

Amen.