Acts 5:12-42 & John 20:19-31 After all, Easter may be, as Gamaliel observes, “of God.”

Some ramblings prepared by Mart the Rev

A few weeks back I mentioned the conflict that for me made Palm Sunday a day to treat with caution rather than with fanfare. For while the crowds were crying ‘Hosanna’, the powers that be were preparing for a fight – a fight, as we know, that landed Jesus on trial with trumped up charges and being flogged and tortured and killed.

But as we also know, the powers that be didn’t have the last word – unbelievably, the stone was rolled away – despite all that the powers could do to shut Jesus down, the stone was rolled away.

And despite the doubts and despair of the disciples, with Thomas giving voice to the doubt more than the rest, Jesus came among them in his risen presence.

Actually it annoys me that Thomas doubting gets to be the gospel reading the week after Easter most years with the Lectionary. It is as if we preachers have to try and convince people that the resurrection really happened as if a few words from the pulpit will put everyone’s doubts to rest. Actually I don’t see the point of trying to put a whole lot of doubts to rest. I don’t see it as my task to make you lay all your doubts to the side. I don’t see the need to have everything certain. In my opinion there are already far too many people running around the world certain of everything. Most of the messes in the world are because people believe that what they think, is true, and they want to force their truths on everyone else. I prefer to see the difference between doubt and certainty as a continuum, and, you don’t have to move all that far from total doubt towards total certainty to actually have enough belief for God to get a look in.

The powers that be almost always operate as if they know everything. The powers that be determined that one person should die for others to go free, so they engineered Jesus’ death [John 18:14]. They were quite willing to deny their very faith in God’s sovereignty just to shut Jesus up [see John 19:12-16 when the chief priest declare to Pilate that ‘we have no king but Caesar]. The powers usually always act as if they know everything. It is a rare thing when the powers that be say, ‘we are not sure if we are totally right here, but we think we need to do this because it looks like the best option in the circumstances.’ Actually I have never heard the powers that be say something like that. The rolling of ECan [the Environment Canterbury elected council was dismissed by the Government with elections not being likely for 2-3 years] in the last few weeks was carried out with the powers claiming certainty about what they thought should be done. But I think that what is the truth about the problems and the motivations in the whole saga is a long way from being crystal clear. Why not say that? Why not say that while we don’t understand everything, we think that this is what we need to do – and we will work to ensure that the people are listened to and served to the best of our ability. People may still not like it but at least the fact that there is an element of doubt is acknowledged. Church authorities also act as if they know everything. They make decrees and binding decisions as if they will fit for every situation – as if God’s will is always crystal clear. And in the media we get certitudes all the time. This is what happened, the media tells us – we are crossing live, see the pictures! Until a few days later when it often turns out that the reporter and camera operator just might have missed the deeper truths. The clear and certain story from a few days back is adjusted, but hardly ever with an apology. That’s the media for you – in the effort to present something as near to the time when it happens, the story turns out to be only a portion of what is true.

And back to the resurrection: I heard that there was a segment about the resurrection on the Close Up programme last week. I like it that the resurrection is still debated publicly – it was always a public event… it was never a private thing. Jesus risen and the church as the life of the risen Lord is never to be tucked away in private… the church is a visible presence in the community – it always has been and it always should be. But the church is not always a comfortable presence. It makes claims that challenge the thinking in the public square – it always has and always should. It makes claims about power and sovereignty and allegiances, the order of things, and the well-being of the weak ones, and it always should. So, if the life and witness of the church gets airtime on Close Up, then it is out in the public as it should be. But of course, every year the powers that be in our media choose to roll out the latest sceptics to pronounce their versions of reality which are, of course, resurrection-denying versions.

Apparently, the chappie that Close Up rolled out made a claim that the gospels were written some 60+ years after the event, and that they were such a mixed bag of reports that they therefore cannot be described as credible. What is so annoying is that the interviewer didn’t interject and say, ‘so, are we then to conclude that your discrediting witness not 60 but over 2000 years after the event is somehow meant to be more credible than theirs?’ How come the modern-day sceptics get all the airtime? Of course we are never going to end up with a clear rational proof of the resurrection of Jesus – it simply doesn’t fit the categories by which we make our enquiry. It is and always has been something beyond the scope of human certitudes. But I have been thinking of late that it is the very lack of a uniform witness in the gospels that makes their experience of the risen Christ all the more credible. If the early church was looking to con their people by putting up a false story that pulled the wool over the eyes of their constituents, then they would settle on the one story and make sure that their message was uniform. They wouldn’t have stories of Jesus appearing through a closed door and then vanishing from their sight. They wouldn’t have stories of two followers walking with Jesus on the road for 20 miles and not recognising him until he broke bread. 60+ years later if they were trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the people they would have come up with a standard story – a clear message – uniform, precise and well-crafted. But no, we get a mixture. A mixture of strange sightings – different versions, different experiences, but one clear unexplainable conclusion nevertheless – resurrection. It is their risk of being discredited because of their variant stories that actually makes their witness all the more authentic.

But the most authentic witness to the resurrection is the ongoing life of the church, especially when it rubs up against the powers that be.

In Acts 5, the conflict that led Jesus to the cross is revived when the apostles have their first scrape with the religious authorities who engineered Jesus’ death. The apostles have been living the resurrection life – the Spirit-fuelled life of Jesus still at work, and people from the surrounding villages have been turning up in the temple portico for healing, and many people have been added to the number of followers. But this has provoked a reaction. Verse 17 begins abruptly: ‘Then the high priest took action…’ Settled institutions have a deep interest in keeping things as they are, they don’t care for disruption and subversion. The high priest has the apostles arrested. But an angel of the Lord opens the prison doors and orders them to stand in the temple and tell the people the message about this life. Of course, all hell breaks lose when the chief priests find the prison empty and the apostles back in the temple. Upon hearing the apostles’ claim about who Jesus was and what God’s Spirit was doing, the powers that be are enraged and want them killed. The powers that be, usually set up with the noble intent of preserving the truth, almost always end up wanting to destroy truth. But Gamaliel, a Pharisee and one of their number, takes the powers that be aside and offers a new word… an appeal to the possibility that their certainties about how bad the apostles are, might not be true. “I tell you,” he appeals, “keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them – in that case you may even be found fighting against God!”

What a startling word offered in the midst of the angry powers – a word that challenges the fury and the lust to kill, and a word that offers the possibility of God. As it turned out, the powers that be still had the apostles flogged and demanded that they stop their teaching, but the apostles didn’t care – they had a sense of God opening a door and every day in the temple and from house to house they did not cease to teach and proclaim Jesus as the Christ.

I guess, on the Sunday after Easter, when Thomas and his doubts are rolled out and the media find a sceptic to announce on television that the resurrection cannot have happened, I want the possibility that Gamaliel offers to get some airtime. I want the benefit of the doubt to be given to the church – let the church alone, I say. If this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, it will not be overthrown. That puts the ball right back in God’s court. Let God speak. Let God act. If the resurrection is a lie then it will fail. If the church is based on an untruth, then it will pass without the help of the modernist rationalists who seem to have a lot to say. But if this is of God – if the church is, through the Spirit, the ongoing body of the risen Jesus, then watch this space!

I’m a watch this space kind of person – are you?