John 10:22-30
After the resurrection, Matthew’s Gospel records: When [the disciples] saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted (Matthew 28:17. On the road to Emmaus in Luke’s Gospel, the story reads: While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him (Luke 24:15-16). John’s Gospel tells us that when Mary Magdalene saw Jesus at the tomb, she thought he was the gardener. A little later on, John writes: Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus (John 21:4). And when Paul was literally knocked off his feet by the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, what was the first thing he said? Who are you, Lord? (Acts 9:5) What’s going on here? How is it, why is it, that Jesus can rise from the dead and encounter so many people who are unable or unwilling to see him alive?
Now, maybe we can write all this off as the inevitable reaction to resurrection. After all, seeing people die and come back to life is not an everyday occurrence. The problem is that the failure to see Jesus as he is predates the resurrection. We hear it in the Gospel today: a group of people gather around Jesus and say, How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly. To which he simply replies, I have told you, and you do not believe. And really, what more can Jesus do? How many sermons does he have to preach, how many sick people does he have to heal, how many hungry people does he have to feed, how many dead people does he have to revive, how many miracles does he have to perform, how many lives does he have to bless before people say, “Hey, maybe there is something to this guy. Maybe he is from God.”? In other words, there is some kind of strong resistance at work here that starts long before Jesus is raised from the dead. In fact, it’s there from the beginning.
And let’s be clear about what people are resisting. It’s not like Jesus is saying that everyone has to go live as hermits, subsisting on three beans a day. He does not teach that people have to spend years studying ancient texts and esoteric secrets. He does not insist that people spend six hours a day in church. His message, his Gospel, is that God is love and love wins. God’s love is greater than our sins: God freely forgives us. God’s love is stronger than our human divisions: it can help us stop hating each other and hurting each other. God’s love is more powerful than death: we will live forever in that love. It’s all good news, it’s available to everyone, and yet over and over again, people dig their heels in and say, “Nope: not gonna see it, not gonna believe it.” And, of course, such resistance was not just a first century phenomenon. It is very much with us today. In fact, I’m pretty certain that all of us here have felt it within ourselves.
I have prayed this week trying to discern what the Spirit might be leading me to say about this, and I keep coming back to our basic need for control. So often, we limit our notions of what is real to what we can see, measure, and quantify. We want to keep our world manageable and will sometimes put blinders on to keep out anything which might threaten that. But reality itself pushes us beyond such narrow-mindedness. That’s certainly true in the realm of science. We keep finding out that the subatomic world, for example, is far stranger than we ever thought possible; on the macro level, current string theory holds that there are not three dimensions but ten dimensions of reality at least, possibly more; many physicists believe that there are an infinite number of universes. Every time we think we have things figured out and settled, we discover something new, and the words of Hamlet ring true: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”
And how much more is that true when it comes to God. Because people also try to limit God — even religious people try to limit God. Some Pharisees and scribes used religious laws not only to control others but to try to control God. And they’re not alone. How many people through the ages have argued that God only loves those who follow certain rules or who belong to a certain church or who have a certain kind of religious experience. But God is so much greater than that. Thomas Keating once wrote, “Think of God in a very big way. And if you do, that’s too small! You can’t think of anything more wonderful than this God . . . God is so marvelously good, there is no word for it. So gentle. So considerate. So kind, so tender — so everything marvelous. That is God. And whatever you say is far less than it is.” As Paul says, “It hasn’t crossed the imagination of any human being what God has prepared for those who love him.” But the fact that we can’t imagine it doesn’t mean it’s not real.
Just as Jesus did during his earthly ministry, so even now during this season of resurrection he invites us to expand our horizons, to move beyond a narrow and limited notion of reality. There is so much more to God than a cartoonish picture of an old man with a beard, so much more to God’s love than a transactional “I’ll be nice to you if you behave” dynamic. There is so much more to our universe than what we can comprehend or control, so much more to us than what we can physically see or grasp. The resurrection of Jesus Christ points us to the larger picture, the greater truth: we are embodied souls destined for eternal life. God is the source of infinite, unconditional love which we are a part of every moment. And death doesn’t end any of that. Christ is alive and his Spirit is moving within us even now. If that stretches us intellectually or challenges our assumptions, so be it. If it blows our minds, so be it. We don’t want to settle for anything less than the full and life-giving truth.
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