Sermon for 3rd Sunday after Easter, 2021
Sermon for Easter 3, 2021
Fr. Tony Melton
April 25, 2021 @ Christ the King Anglican
Can you recall a moment in your life when you felt perfect joy and contentment? When it felt like everything you ever wanted was yours right then? […] With Vandi away this week in Dallas for a wedding, I had the privilege of spending the week only with my boys. I remembered when they were born. Those are the moments that come to mind for me. I thought, “What more could I possibly desire than what God has granted me right now? How could I ever be sad again?” As I recall, there is no quieter time than the days after a birth. No one expects anything of you after a birth. In fact, they are there to help. Lots of time is spent quietly enjoying the gift of a new child. As long as that baby is okay, there is hardly anything that could possibly cause anxiety. There is a quiet and imperturbable joy.
Our Gospel for this morning speaks of the Church’s Resurrection Joy and relates it to the joy that comes at the birth of a baby. This is our topic: Resurrection Joy—quiet and unshakeable.
The Enemy loves nothing more than to steal us away from this Joy. We speak often here at Christ the King of habitual recollection, the habit of living in the presence of God. This can be understood as abiding in Resurrection Joy. But just think of all the things that steal you away from that every day.
Our central text is from the Gospel. John 16, “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” We will see how Resurrection Joy answers every Crisis of Faith. But we will also spend some time in the Epistle from 1 Peter 2, seeing how Resurrection Joy enables us to withstand all worldly turmoil.
First, Resurrection Joy answers every Crisis of Faith. John 16 is from Jesus’ last words to his disciples before He was crucified. He says, “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.” This saying obviously disturbs the disciples. They didn’t understand. In questioning what Jesus means, the statement is repeated another three times. “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father? They said therefore, What is this that he saith, A little while? we cannot tell what he saith.” By documenting this frenetic exchange, St. John is giving us a clue into the anxiety that the disciples will feel when Jesus is taken away from them and killed. The time in the grave will be a crisis of faith indeed. In fact, the crisis of faith that the Apostles will experience is the archetype of all crises of faith. All other crises of faith are attached back to theirs because in every crisis there is a choice to believe in Jesus and His Resurrection, or not.
Jesus confirms that they will go through this crisis of faith. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.” Then He likens their crisis of faith to a woman in labor. “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come.”
Birth is a scary thing, especially in ancient times. Infant mortality was at 30% for much of ancient history. Maternal mortality was somewhere around 2-6% depending on the region. In birth, you have the greatest of earthly fears and pain placed directly beside the greatest of earthly joys. “My wife and my child might die today…” “I’m going to be a father…” The fear can blot out the joy. This is why Jesus uses it as a metaphor for the disciples crisis of faith. The disciples were about to lose their Messiah, their Friend. This would be the death of everything for them. The solidity of having their Rabbi. The comfort of walking with the Son of God. All their hopes for the Messianic Kingdom and of salvation. Dead. You can see why Jesus calls it sorrow. But not the sorrow of a death, but the sorrow of labor, which is temporary.
“But as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.” Jesus is speaking of His Resurrection. His Resurrection is the end of their crisis of faith, and so it is the answer to all crises of faith. He says, “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”
Many of us are going through difficult things right now. Caring for aging parents, financial stress, joblessness, wayward children. You might be going through grief, marital strife, conflict with a neighbor, or the fallout from personal sin. In as much as these impinge upon the constancy of Resurrection Joy, they are crises of faith. As we walk through these things, the nagging thought in our mind is the same as the disciples on Holy Saturday. “Are my hopes shattered? Is all lost?” In these moments, it seems like everything that is important to you is dead, or on the verge of death. These are crises of faith. Hear the words of Jesus to his disciples: “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” No matter what you are going through, Jesus has been raised from the dead! Just like the joy of a newborn baby can blot out every anxiety, so can the Resurrection of Jesus Christ answer every crises of faith. Why? Because we have Jesus. And we have the answer. People outside the Church don’t have this answer. To them, every crisis might be the end; it might sully their very existence. Not so for us. We know that on the other side of Death is Resurrection. The worst that this world can throw at us cannot shake the Hope that we have in Jesus and the power of His resurrection. So we go through each Crisis of Faith with Resurrection Joy that no man can take from us.
Second, Resurrection Joy enables us to withstand all worldly turmoil. Peter writes to the Church in the midst of worldly turmoil. He says, “whereas they speak against you as evildoers.” The Romans accused the early Christians of terrible things. Cannibalism and Infanticide because they spoke of eating the Body and Blood of the Infant Christ. Since husbands and wives spoke to each other as “brother” and “sister in Christ”, the Romans accused them of immorality. Due to political distrust, they were often the scapegoat for Roman rulers. This Epistle was written during the reign of Nero, who in addition to having Christians slain by beasts for public spectacle, would use them as human candles to light his Garden. Resurrection Joy enables us to withstand all worldly turmoil and even oppression.
Listen to what Peter says, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.” What? Honor Nero? It is almost as if Christians are to be unaffected by the turmoil and oppression from the government. It is almost as if they are to have an unexplainable solidity that can only come from God. That is Resurrection Joy which no man can take from you. It enables you to withstand all things because you already have the best thing.
This is why Jesus likens Resurrection Joy to the days just after the birth of a baby. What mother or father cares one lick about politics or reputation when their beautiful baby is alive and well? They are quiet, joyful, serene. Beloved, we have this Joy perpetually, for the man that is born into the world is Jesus Christ, the resurrected Son of God. No man can take away the joy of this birth because no man can take away our Jesus. He is always there. As we go through our day, we carry Him with us. Whatever crisis we face is an opportunity to cling closer to Him and to see through the crisis into the promise of Resurrection. If we face oppression or turmoil, what is that to us? We are strangers and pilgrims here. We have Jesus and the promise of the Resurrection. What can steal our Joy? Nothing. Don’t let anything steal your Joy. Abide in Resurrection Joy. Make it a habit. And, if your heart needs reminding of how near Jesus is to you, and it does, then take this Holy Sacrament to your comfort and let it nourish in you a Resurrection Joy that no man taketh from you. Amen.