In This Very Room

The song “In This Very Room” expresses precisely what I want to say today about the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is alive in the world today. Jesus is present in your life today. Jesus is present in this very room. This is the chief thing that is on my mind today.

It follows three other sermons about Jesus. The birth of Jesus was a demonstration of the power of the spirit of God. The life of Jesus was a beautiful thing. The death of Jesus was, above all things, a promise that “Today, I will be with you in paradise.” And today, the resurrection, Jesus is in this very room.

This is my message today from the gospel. This is the gospel, the good news. Jesus is bringing the rule of God in this room, in your life, and in the world. This strong affirmation about Jesus and God is, as I have said before, the last thing on my mind.

I

We don’t always see the Jesus who is in the room, do we?

Let us take heart by reading again one of the famous resurrection stories. I find it in the gospel of John, chapter 20. Mary knew Jesus well. She was crushed as she watched him arrested, tried, and crucified. She came to the tomb early on that first Easter morning. Who knows what she was expecting. I don’t think she or any of the others were expecting an empty tomb. Yes, I know Jesus spoke about it in some sense; and yes, I think Jesus expected to be vindicated by God his father; but I don’t think Jesus and his disciples understood what was going to happen: the stone rolled away, the angels sitting on the burial bench, Jesus gone!

Mary did not expect this. When she saw the angels, she was crying. Why are you crying, they asked her. “They have taken Jesus and I don’t know where they have put him.” She was referring to the body, of course. Where is that body. We have come to anoint the body with oil and spice. This was an act of kindness and care.

She turned to leave and saw Jesus. But, she did not recognize that it was Jesus!  Mary, who had been with Jesus for at least several years, traveling with him, hosting him, assisting him, learning from him, loving him and loving God….did not recognize Jesus. Mary did not recognize Jesus.

Then he spoke. “Why are you crying,” Jesus asked Mary. “Who is it you are looking for?”

Then the text says this, “Thinking he was the gardener, Mary said, ‘Sire, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.’” She is thinking about the body of her supposedly deceased friend and teacher.

Jesus was looking at her and she was looking at Jesus, and she did not recognize Jesus the Risen Lord.

This is the most instructive part of this story. Mary saw Jesus and but not recognize him. And in that regard, she was the first of many people, including you and me, who have been in the presence of Jesus, have heard his voice, and have drawn strength from him; but we did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus is in this very room, and some of us don’t know it. We do not recognize the helping, healing, directing, and forgiving power and presence of Jesus in this very room.

II.

Sometimes we are too focused on the past and the future to give attention to the presence.

In the early days of the faith, those believers were intent on proving their fundamental confession: He is Risen!

That was hard to believe, just as hard as it is now.  If somebody told you your mother had risen from the dead, would you believe it? Yesterday, was the 16th anniversary of the death of my mother.  There are four of us children and we kept watch by her bed for seven days. She had fallen and injured herself. The doctors told us it was only a matter of time. They moved her into the hospice wing of the hospital, and we sat around the bed for seven days, from Sunday to Sunday. We buried her in the Camp Nelson Military Cemetery just south of Lexington, Kentucky, there to await the burial of her husband and our father.

If you told me later that she had risen from the dead, I would not have believed you. I would have been an unbelieving person. And the contemporaries of Jesus were also unbelieving when told Jesus was alive. Those disciples went around telling people, “God raised Jesus from the dead” and most people considered them crazy.

Which is why the Christian documents, like Matthew, Acts, and the letters of Paul, go to great lengths to give evidence of the empty tomb. Paul wrote this long before the Gospels: “What I received I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sings, that e was buried, that he was raised on the third day, and that he appeared to Simon Peter, to the twelve, and to more than 500 of the faithful, most of whom are still living….” He was saying, if you doubt my word, go talk to some of those folks, people who saw Jesus after the burial.

This is why the gospel stories, especially Matthew, Luke, and John are full of stories of people saying, “We have seen the Lord.” They were intent on demonstrating that Jesus was alive, that God had raised him from the dead.

For centuries, some believers have spent a great deal of time trying to prove the assertion that Jesus is alive. They cite the empty tomb; they name those who had seen Jesus; they point to the transformation of that rag-tag band of disciples into the greatest religious and cultural movement the world has ever seen. What could account for this, they ask, then posit the resurrection as the only possible solution.

God raised Jesus from the dead. That explains all of that, they contend.

While some among us are looking backward to prove the resurrection, others are looking forward in anticipation of the return of Jesus. Jesus promised he would return, and for more than 2,000 years, Christians have looked forward to what the bible calls in one place, “the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

This focus on the future has been on steroids for the last 75 years. First, the state of Israel was established, triggering (as some think) the beginning of the end of the age. Then people began to write books about what they called The Rapture. This is an event that some predict will occur, when Jesus will appear in the sky and snatch away to heaven all of the true believers in Jesus. The rest of the world will descend into chao and confusion.

The book series, Left Behind, turns this novel idea into a narrative. Eighty million copies of these books were sold. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins became fabulously wealthy peddling this peculiar notion called the Rapture. It is not wrong to look to the future for the promises of God, but mostly we must keep our attention around us, here, in this very room, there is quite enough love, and power, and hope because there is quite enough Jesus.

III

Looking back to prove the historicity of the resurrection is not a bad thing; and looking forward to prepare for the coming kingdom of God is not a bad thing…except when either or both of these things distract us from embracing the Risen Lord in this very room, today.

We are called to be his witnesses, to labor with him in the work he described at the beginning of his ministry: The spirit of the lord is upon us, and he has anointed us to proclaim good news to the poor, to declare freedom to the captives, the announce the recovery of sight to the blind, to set free all those who are oppressed. This is what it means to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” These are the words from the gospel of Luke, chapter 4, verses 18 and 19.

Yes, our witness in the wider world is important today. Too many people are held captive; too many people are poor; too many people are suffering blindness and deafness and many other diseases; too many people are oppressed by those in power. We are the agent of Jesus the Risen Lord. That Jesus is in this very room calling us, equipping us, and sending us into the world to rescue the perishing.

That old gospel song has this wonderful verse:

“Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, feelings lie buried that grace can restore. Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness, chords that re broken will vibrate once more. Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save.”

We need Jesus the Risen Lord in this very room, among this very congregation. We need the inspiration and leadership of the Risen Lord. We have been through a hard time. Only a few people remained to carry on the work of Providence Church. Only a few people gathered Sunday by Sunday to worship the Lord and feed the people. Only a few people held hands and prayed for strength and guidance and resources. It was Jesus in this very room that has brought us to this place. It was Jesus in this very room that keep you going, that gave you vision and strength. And we need more of it today. We need the Lord in this very room, to hear our prayers, to empower our preaching, to receive our praise. We need the Lord to be the people we are called to me.

You need the Lord in this very room!

It is not just the world and its many hurts; it is not just this church and its mission; it is you and me and the person sitting next to you on this bench. We need healing in our bones; we need help in our decisions; we need forgiveness for our failures and sins; we need strength to do what we have to do tomorrow; we need grace to forgive others; we need mercy to overlook mistakes and faults and failures. We need Jesus, in this very room.