John 20:19-31
A state trooper is parked on the side of the highway, clocking cars with radar … when a slow-moving car approaches, 22 miles per hour.
The state trooper turns on his lights and pulls the car over.
As he approaches the vehicle, the officer notices there are five elderly ladies inside—two in the front seat and three in the back—wide-eyed and white as ghosts.
The driver, obviously confused, says, "Officer, I don't understand. I was going the exact speed limit. What seems to be the problem?"
The trooper, trying to contain a chuckle, explained to her that 22 was the route number—not the speed limit.
A bit embarrassed, the woman grins and thanks the officer for pointing out her error.
"Before you go," the officer says, "I have to ask: Is everyone in this car okay? These women seem awfully shaken."
"Oh," she answered, "they'll be all right. We just got off of Route 127."
Good morning and welcome to Covenant Presbyterian Church …
Let’s begin with a question: What does want God from us?
Today’s text gives us a hint!
Basic and simple:
Be in a place where we can see God!
“Is that all?” you ask.
That’s all … to be in a place where we can see God.
Seeing important things changes our life … when I first saw Donna, life changed for me … oh boy, did it … and when I saw my saw children born, life changed for me … the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower, I wept, and I’ll never forget … I remember seeing Rachel on the dock on the Greek island of Mykonos, waiting for us … I remember seeing Josh in my rearview mirror as we pulled away from the dormitory his first year …
To be in a place where we can see God!
The last place where Satan wants us to be.
The point is simple: We have an adversary!
Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).
The snake in the grass promised Eve that she and Adam could go their own way, have their own knowledge, make their own decisions, chart their own course.
“And you won’t even need God for any of it … in fact, God is your adversary,” says the snake … “God denied you the fruit of this tree … God can’t be trusted … you’re on your own for this, and you’d better get to it.”
We have an adversary whose purpose is but one thing: separate us from God.
Turn us inward, like a pretzel twisted in upon itself …
The adversary has a simple strategy – keep us outta those places where we could see God … and the heart of Satan’s strategy, separate us from one another … isolate us and keep us alone!
Paul Tillich said: the chief evidence of Satan’s work – the “splintering effect” – the bond of friendship shattered … alone and isolated.
When the foot says to the hand, I have no need of you, and the ear says to the eye, I have no need of you (see 1 Corinthians 12:14-26) …
Several years ago, a book … entitled, Bowling Alone … the author, Robert Putnam, gathered an enormous amount of social data … to reveal what we all know to be true: we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors and our social structures. We are bowling alone!
Bowling alone, we miss the heart of life.
But has a strategy, too … to knit us together … bind us together … love one another as I have loved you.
If Satan’s desire is to splinter us … God’s desire is to build common cause …
God sends the Holy Spirit for this purpose (John 14) to bind our hearts to Christ and connect us to one another …
In the company of others, that’s where we see God!
Gathering places … appointed places … time and date … where we see God.
When I tell Donna that I’ll meet her on the northwest corner of Camden and Wilshire, I’ll be there, and she’ll be there, too.
We make appointments with one another; we keep them … if something delays or prevents us, we make every effort to contact the person, and failing that, we apologize afterward. Appointments are important!
God makes appointments with us … a promise to meet us in certain places.
“Here is where you will see me,” says God!
Yes, there are such places …
Appointed places …
Specific places …
When Israel enters the Promised Land after 40 years of wilderness wandering, Moses says to the people:
Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place you happen to see. But only at the place that the LORD will choose (Deuteronomy 12:13-14).
An appointed place … not a place of convenience … but a place designated …
The appointed place … where we see God - in the company of other believers … it’s that simple, and that basic …
Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I’m there, says Jesus (Matthew 18:20).
It doesn’t take a crowd to create a holy place, but it takes at least two …
Where two or three are gathered …
And that’s the last thing our Adversary wants …
That’s the story of Thomas … Jesus came to the disciples, not one-by-one … He came to their gathering.
But Thomas was missing …
Where was he?
Did he have other things to do?
Family matters?
Business?
Personal issues?
Was he kayaking on the Jordan?
Did he go hiking in the hills of Jericho?
For whatever reason, Thomas was missing.
When told by the disciples, Thomas gets his back up … unless I see Him with my own eyes, unless I can touch the wounds, I’ll not believe.
Instead of saying, “Sorry guys, I should have been there.” He gets testy, defensive.
I wonder where Thomas was that first night?
What we know for sure is where he wasn’t.
Thomas was missing!
I have no doubt that God comes to us when we’re alone and isolated – Ben Wier held hostage in Lebanon; Martin Luther sequestered in Wartburg castle; the Apostle Paul in Roman chains … the unique isolation of a hermit monk in the jungles of New Guinea, Albert Schweitzer in his African hospital, or a Presbyterian pastor in Cuba.
They’re all alone, but they’re alone in Christ.
But there’s another kind of aloneness … self-imposed by the ego … did Thomas think he was too good to hang with the other disciples? Did he think his grief was so unique that no one would understand?
When the ego isolates us, we’re really alone!
God comes to us in our self-imposed isolation to drive it home.
When we’re isolated by the ego, God’s presence is felt as God’s absence … God creates a vacuum, an emptiness; God doesn’t allow anyone or anything to fill it.
God intensifies our loneliness …
God never abandons us; God is with us always, but when we’re self-absorbed in pride or pity, God intensifies our loneliness until we’re sick of it.
Like the Prodigal Son who goes to the far land … it all seems good at first … on his own, away from the old man … “Yippee, I can do what I want, when I please” … but it all turns to pig slop.
God magnifies the boy’s sorrow … until he’s sick of it.
And comes to his senses.
All I have to do is return home … rejoin the family … get back to the appointed place.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Les Payne, writes of his long journey back home: “After wandering decades as a nomad adrift from his own spiritual tribe,” he finally settles on a church in New York City, and finds what was missing from his life all those years: … a place of “collective support and sharing.”
He describes it as “coming in from the cold” and finding a “spiritual mooring” (AARP Magazine, March/April, 2008, p.79).
These days, folks say, “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.”
Folks are opting out of “religion as usual” …
Folks aren’t interested in labels - Presbyterian, Methodist, Roman Catholic; liberal, conservative, evangelical or Pentecostal … they want God.
Folks aren’t interested in keeping institutions alive … they want God.
Folks couldn’t care less about organized religion … they want God.
Church organization doesn’t excite them … God excites them.
Folks want God, and they want to serve God … soup kitchens and mission projects – they want to make the world a better place, and joining a church and filling a pew doesn’t measure up.
Thomas Merton said it well: “I have no time for anything but the essentials. The only essential is … is God Himself” (Silent Lamp: the Thomas Merton Story, by William H. Shannon, p.142)
The church needs to pay attention.
We’re here to love God and lift up the name of Jesus.
Make God the essential!
That’s the point of being the church: God and God alone.
A place where Thomas can touch Jesus and come to faith … My LORD and my God!
Thomas found Jesus, and Jesus found Thomas in the company of the frightened! They were all frightened and distressed, but they stood together, arm-in-arm.
That’s why they were together … that’s why we’re together.
Not because we’re so faithful, but because life is so frightening …
All week long, we’re hammered by the adversary; our reserves are drained … we do good things and bad things … we serve high causes, and we serve ourselves … we give, and we take; we’re charitable, and we’re stingy; we love, and we hate; we’re kind, and we’re crude … a little of this and a little of that … all rolled into one big lump called life.
We gather together to find the greater strength …
We gather together because in our gathering is where will likely see God … here on a Sunday morning, in a prayer meeting, a Bible study or breakfast with a Christian friend.
I heard a sad story last week … a pastor refused to call upon a dying child because Mom and Dad weren’t members of the church. They attended for years; faithful in all regards, but never signed on the dotted line. Only when begged by another staff member did the pastor call, and then only for five minutes.
That’s why the church has to be careful.
We forget the essential!
We have beautiful buildings, and sometimes our buildings overshadow the gospel.
We have membership rolls, and sometimes those rolls mean more to us than Christ!
We have robes and stained glass, and sometimes robes and stained glass are more important than grace and love.
We have organs and liturgy, and sometimes the forms overwhelm the faith …
We forget to be real … we forget to be humble … we forget who we are … the company of the frightened … not the high and mighty … just beggars telling each other where we can find good bread!
Jesus came to the company of the frightened!
They saw God!
Could it be a downtown cathedral with vaulted ceiling and grand organ? Folks dressed and coiffed expensively?
Could it be a storefront on Vermont – 18 people singing their heart out in Spanish? Raising their hands in Pentecostal fashion.
Could it be someone’s dining room table on a Monday night with corn beef and cabbage?
Could it be salad and soup with a friend at the Coffee Company?
Could it be two Christians reading the Bible together in the company lunchroom?
A week later, it says, they were together again … and this time, Thomas was there. Amen!
