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“Power, Wonders and Signs”
Acts 2:14, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
Rev. Sandy Nuernberg
Oakland-Cambridge Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, WI
2nd Sunday of Easter - The
Multicultural Church
March 30, 2008
Please pray with me,
Lord, as we continue to celebrate your Son’s resurrection and our triumph
from sin in this Eastertide, we ask your Holy Spirit to come and instill in
us the presence of your victory in our lives today, not something that
happened so long ago. Help us to see and notice all the power, wonder, and
signs of your Holy presence again and again in our lives. AMEN.
One of the truly ongoing joys of
mine, and perhaps a ‘tough cookie to swallow’ in today’s terms for many as well,
is in trying to understand Jesus’ resurrection, that glorious and profound
moment and event just celebrated at Easter, where God’s presence is more clearly
revealed perhaps than at any other time for Christians. It is that time when,
even though God was active in Jesus’ earthly life all the while, God was
especially revealed in all of God’s glory and majesty at the tomb; with Mary,
and the disciples afterwards, and in Jesus’ ascension to the Father. In all of
their fear and eventual sight and belief in the risen Lord, our Lord Jesus
Christ, God was present. Christ’ dazzling appearance, yes, white as snow,
standing among them, saying, “Peace be with you! Blessed are thou who have not
seen and yet have come to believe.”
What of this Jesus of Nazareth,
that even a doubting Peter (and later Thomas) tells the eleven of a man attested
to us by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him;
this Jesus the person, the Messiah, Jesus as Lord, and all according to the
Lord’s plan? Simply, our texts today are about faith and community. Our Gospel
text in time hasn’t changed since Easter; it is still on that same first day of
the week, but it’s evening, the doors are locked and the disciples now realize
Jesus is with them (Jesus’ resurrection) and Jesus is with God (His being
ascended with God). John’s Gospel includes the crucifixion, the resurrection,
and Jesus’ ascension as connected (together) at Easter.
Now if you are like me, you wonder
of the power of God, and the presence of Jesus Christ....right here and
now in our resurrection story. Because we know that in our understanding in
life, in all the ‘laws of nature’ it ‘just ain’t possible’ to be in two places
at once. If we can’t, how can anybody else, much less the incarnate Christ?
But what we find and are witnesses
to is that Jesus appears after-Easter somewhat differently than Jesus appears
before-Easter to his disciples. Jesus Christ was, in his earthly life, a kind of
mediator, a connection (like a bridge), with the disciples to and with God. It’s
kinda like our teaching the confirmands that the book of Acts is a ‘bridge’ from
Jesus’ life and ministry and death to the letters of Paul in our N.T. The early
church is that bridge from Jesus’ followers to the Apostle Paul and his ministry
to so many. Upon Jesus’ resurrection, He is still the connection, the mediator
between the human and the divine. Jesus can be both human and divine, because
Jesus’ is God’s Son.
So, our text clarifies the ‘locked
doors of the house’ in that the disciples finally realize it was in the
spiritual presence of Jesus within their inner beings; not in the physical
‘seeing’ presence of Christ before their very eyes, previous to Jesus’
resurrection. Jesus says to them, more than once, “Peace be with you!” in
calming their fears and panic and wonder in his physical absence. Jesus’ peace
to them is in his powerful promise in this same Gospel, ‘...the Holy Spirit whom
the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything...peace I leave with
you; my peace I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let
them be afraid (John 14:26-28).’
More than ever before, your pastor
now 21 months and even before that as pulpit supply, more than ever before have
I experienced God’s resurrection at work in the life of this church and in our
community. One experience is with death, the other new life; they are recent and
present experiences of mine and perhaps for many of you as well. I feel that we
are experiencing the power, wonders, and signs in God’s resurrection and
promised presence in our lives. They have to do with death and life, the same as
God’s Son experienced last Holy Week and upon his crucifixion, death, and
resurrection to new life in our lives today.
Our Cambridge community is aware
of the sudden murder last Tuesday in Holy Week
(March 18th) of Ann Nelson, mother, grandmother, wife, friend
to so many, in a very tragic death at her work on Lake Ripley. Personally, I
have never seen for myself, nor heard from so many of our church members and
friends, in the tremendous care and concern, prayers and support by words, phone
calls, letters, and yes, our presence for Ann’s family and friends. We
recognize, we wonder at the tremendous dedication of this community in her
visitation, scheduled from 4-8pm Monday evening, but that really went, Fr.
Vernon told us, from 3:30-midnight that very night! It is the power of God’s
presence, it is in the power of our presence that we grieve and mourn with these
families. We recognize the signs of all that Ann lived for; her family, our
schools, her participation in God’s work in her church and our community.
Father Vernon told us he
recognized her virtues as preparing her for heaven. He said last Tuesday,
ironically the day when the church celebrates Christ’ ascension, “I have an
image of God embracing Ann in my prayers constantly. Let us continue to pray for
God’s peace, love, and goodness to her family. Her love goes on forever–it is
the joy of Jesus you carry with you (Fr. Wm.
Vernon, St. Pius Catholic Church, Ann’s Mass of Christian Burial, March 25th,
11:00 a.m., 2008).” Ann Nelson’s legacy to her children, grandchildren,
to us, is that she touched us all in very profound, beautiful, lasting ways;
these are God’s power, wonder, and signs in her life.
The experience in new life for us
is before our very eyes; our beautiful and wonderful Steinway piano to see and
hear today. Many of you haven’t received your ‘Good News’ April issue
yet, as it went out Thursday, but we have been communicating to you these last
weeks and months, even on Easter, of the piano. Session member Melanie Rumpf
wrote to us on the front page from the piano and music committee, “Do miracles
or ‘signs’ really exist? It seems perhaps they do!” We have a completely rebuilt
piano, perfect in size for our church, including a warm and beautiful sound. The
wonder of it all is that it is expensive and we have a certain time period to
gather funds to purchase our piano. With our present music fund begun last fall,
we have a logo, “S.O.S.-Sharing Our Steinway” for fund-raising by the piano
committee, and ask everyone to join us in this effort.
The Session approved the piano
being here for our enjoyment and purchase; previously we had one week to gather
funds, and one day after Easter, through discussion, an offer came we thought
our congregation can attain; by August, 2008 we can dedicate this piano as an
investment for us and in it becoming our own. As we imagined, there is much
excitement; in a church family and their willingness to engage with each
other to each other, in outreach for our community to have music in our
sanctuary for concerts and recitals, and for our music program to flourish in
worship Sundays in praise and song to our Almighty God, to name a few. Melanie
ends her article with, “May we continue to allow the Holy Spirit to move us,
creating beautiful music together.” For me, this is the power of God’s presence,
and the signs and wonder of it all!
There are reminders in scripture,
in life, of the power of the presence of God in Christ; in the wonders of the
chaos in the world in which we live, in the signs of seeing changed lives, yes,
and in ultimate new life in Christ. Yes, there are signs and symbols of the
disciples seeing the open wounds of Jesus in his hands and side. Yes, Thomas,
the doubter, needed, like many of us, ‘proof of it all’ for he couldn’t believe
the news from others. He wanted visible signs; he didn’t get that it was not a
resurrection to a new physical earthly life after death. The good news for us is
in the wonder of Thomas, and us, in knowing that Jesus was the same before and
after death. Thomas, like us, needed to understand spiritual knowledge to get
the idea of something not ‘seeing and touching’ but ‘feeling and believing’
within himself. It is the good news and real wonder in believing of Christ’
human (physical) and spiritual (divine) life, in our lives!
Just as Peter tells us, Jesus was
“freed from death,” in God’s powerful presence Ann’s death and resurrection has
created a new community of mutual support in a time of trial for all of us. As
many have related, our ‘faith has been shaken’, and this we recognize clearly.
Yet our faith and belief and love as Christians has arisen without the
experience of physical contact with Jesus Christ, and instead in our witness to
each other, and out of the Holy Spirit in nature and support of the very
community of faith that Jesus’ resurrection created. In our undertaking a new
piano in our midst, we are in wonder and see signs of possibilities for us and
our community in shared music opportunities. The gospel’s good news is that God
is the power, the operative force in what Jesus did for others and in what we
can do for ourselves and our community. God is the power behind the resurrection
of Jesus Christ, and indeed the power through the Holy Spirit that is behind our
resurrection to new life.
Thanks be to God.
AMEN.
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