When He is Revealed Psalm 4, 1 John 3:1-3, 4:7-12

Back before Christmas, Linda Lowe of Inman, S. C. was hungry
so her boyfriend put a slice of cheese on a piece of bread and stuck it in the oven.
When he took it out, the cheese had melted and parts of it had browned
leaving a pattern in the cheese.
What Linda Lowe saw when she looked at the pattern in that cheese toast
was nothing less than the image of of Jesus.
Now, months later, Linda keeps the cheese toast in a Tupperware container by her bed
to remind her that Jesus is always with her.

In fact, Jesus’ face appears fairly frequently -
in food, in geological formations, even in water stains on concrete walls.
It seems there’s nowhere our Lord won’t go.
And that’s just the image of Jesus.
When we talk about the image of God, the possibilities grow even bigger.

In the account of God’s creation of the universe that we find in Genesis,
we read that God created human beings in God’s own image.
There were some knock-down, drag-out fights early on in the church
about what it really means to say human beings are made in God’s image,
and, to this day, we can’t say we’ve figured it ALL out.
But one thing we can be sure the biblical writer was trying to convey to us is this:
when we look at any one of our fellow human beings
there is something of God in each person.

In preparing to go to Ukraine, I decided that I wanted it to be more than just a vacation.
Since Ukraine had for so long been a part of the Soviet Union,
a nation I grew up viewing as “The Evil Empire”
and because I knew I would be seeing some of the darker elements of life in Odessa
through my friend Bob Gamble’s work with homeless children,
I decided to intentionally reflect upon how God became visible in the people I met.
I’d like to share with you some of my reflections.

The first person I met on my trip was my seatmate on the plane from Dulles to Paris.
His name was Poi and he was retired from the Corcoran Art Gallery in D.C.
Poi and I were instantly bonded together in our shared suffering
seated in a row next to an interior door that required our seats be narrower than the rest.
As we talked, however, I found out Poi was acquainted with a pain I couldn’t share.
He had come to the U.S. from Laos in the early 70’s, barely escaping with his life.
He still had family in Laos, he said, though he had not seen them in thirty years.
In Poi I perceived the image of a steadfast and enduring God
emanating through his resilience;
through his ability to go through loss and to thrive without apparent bitterness.

When I arrived at the airport in Kiev after many long hours of travel,
I saw the image of a self-giving God in the smiling face of my friend Bob Gamble
who had taken the overnight train eight hours from Odessa just to meet me there.
But it wasn’t just in Bob’s friendly welcome that I saw God’s image,
not just in his willingness to sacrifice his own schedule for my comfort.
I also saw God’s image in Bob in the way he reflected to me who I used to be.
My young, eager, hopeful self – the self I was when we first met thirty years ago.
We have a shared history together, Bob and I.
This reminded me of how God has chosen to have a shared history with us
stretching all the way back to Abraham and Sarah.
Any time you travel in a strange place where you don’t speak the language
and you don’t know your way around,
there are times when you are going to feel awkward, lost, disoriented
and maybe even afraid.
I stuck close to Bob while I was in Ukraine,
but he couldn’t watch over me every minute.
One instance stands out when I saw the clear image of my protector God
in the most unlikely person.

It was at the end of my first day in Ukraine.
Bob had met my plane that morning in Kiev
and that night we were scheduled to board the overnight train to Odessa.
At the appointed time we walked down the stairs to the dark platform
where the train waited to take us away.
We had trouble locating our train car, but finally found the one we wanted.
We noticed the nice smile of the attractive young blonde woman taking tickets,
we boarded the car, and put our bags in our berth.

I decided I needed to make another pit stop before we left Kiev,
so I left Bob, ran up the stairs into the station, and found the restroom.
I had some trouble then recognizing which stairs led back to our train,
but I found the stairs,
found the car, saw that the young blonde had been replaced by an older woman,
climbed aboard, went to my berth, and Bob wasn’t there.
I looked for my bags and my bags weren’t there.
I panicked.

I left the train car. I Checked the number which I thought I remembered,
noticed its location right by the steps, and then climbed back on board.
I went to our berth thinking maybe Harry Potter had played a wizard’s trick on me
and that by getting off the car and then getting back on I could break the spell.
But there were still strange Russian-speaking people in my place.
I’d been awake about thirty hours at this point. My heart was in my throat.
I left the train car again, and this time decided to walk down the platform.
Two cars down I saw God’s powerful, calming image.
What I saw was the attractive blonde woman, still smiling, still taking tickets.
It turns out I had taken the wrong stairs down from the station after all.
I climbed on the train car, went to our berth, and nearly collapsed in relief.

It was not hard to see God’s image in the people Bob works with
at an organization called The Way Home,
those who care for homeless children and do it with little pay.
There was Sergei, the founder, who’s always chasing grants.
Vitaly, the paralegal who helps children obtain identification papers,
Alla, the psychologist who is constantly in motion,
and Ann, Bob’s assistant, translator, and good friend.

I will say it was a little harder to see God’s image in the older women of Odessa
most all of whom it seemed had broad shoulders and perpetual frowns
and who would shove me aside as they got on or off the little busses.
It was harder to see God’s image in the many young men who wore all black,
with a fashionable day’s growth of black stubble on their chins
and black hair slicked straight back
striking a pose as they smoked their cigarettes in cafes and on street corners.

Oddly enough, I also found it difficult to see God’s image
in the black robed Orthodox priests -
those who stood outside the ancient churches in Kiev,
who wore black hats and had bushy black beards
and who strode about outside the ancient churches looking oh so somber.

But just because God’s image isn’t always clear in some people,
doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Take for example the boy sitting on the broken concrete wall in a vacant lot
who looked at first like he was blowing up a plastic grocery sack.
What he was doing was sniffing glue.
We saw him my first day out on what they call “Social Patrol”
which is when Bob and a couple of the Way Home staff
plus whatever visitors happen to want to ride along
pile in a van with a pot of soup, some bread and a first aid kit
and go out looking for children on the street.
There was Roma, all by himself, all filthy faced and lice infested, sniffing his glue.
Where do you find the image of God in that kind of scenario?

Bob called to him by name. He turned and looked with dull eyes,
suspicious, I’m sure, wondering what adult authority was going to hassle him this time.
But then he saw it was the Way Home crew and he broke into a big grin.
Bob asked if anyone else was around and Roma took us to the place he spends his days – a small stone structure that offers a roof and a bit of privacy.
Sitting in the structure was an older boy, Sasha.
When Sasha stood up he did it with an old pair of broken crutches.
It was then that we saw Sasha was missing a leg.

Sasha’s face is the face you see on your bulletin.
It’s a dirty face. There are lice in his hair as well.
His is a face that has been on the street for the four years since his mother died.
He’s about sixteen years old now. Never did know his father.
Three years ago he was pushed under one of the electric trams and lost his leg.
Do you see God’s image in Sahsa’s face?
If so, is it pity that makes you see God there?
Or is it something else?

In the first letter of John the author writes,
“Beloved, we are God’s children NOW.”
It’s as though, despite being created in the image of God, there was some doubt.
But then, as the gospel of John says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
Jesus came on the scene and through his teaching, his example,
his death, and his resurrection fully revealed what before we could only guess at.
“God is love.”
Or, in language Sasha could understand, “Bog loobov.”
In any language, we see the image of God in Sasha’s dirt streaked face
when we understand this simple thing, “God is love,”
and in Jesus that love has been fully and completely expressed.
God’s image is already there in every person,
every stern faced, give-no-quarter older Ukrainian woman
every mask-wearing, image-conscious young Ukrainian man
every dirt-streaked, lice infested, glue sniffing child on the street.
God’s image is already there, but it is only revealed to us
when we look upon that person with love,
not our own love, which is so transient and fickle,
but with the love that Jesus has already shown to each of us.

Linda Lowe found out that Jesus can show up anyplace.
In a slice of cheese toast or even in a homeless teenager.
And I think Linda has it about right when she says
that the key is to remember Jesus is always near.
With her cheese toast on her bedside table and Jesus in her heart
I imagine Linda echoes the words of the psalmist every night,
“I will both lie down and sleep in peace.
For you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety.”
My only problem still is this.
How can we lie down in peace,
while some of God’s children are still homeless or hungry or in danger?
How can we rest until they, too, can lie down in safety?

The Easter Question Mark 16:1-8, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

I went to worship in a Mormon church once as a class requirement in seminary.
In worship I heard a point of doctrine that sounded pretty strange.
I won’t go into detail here, but let’s just say I’d never heard it mentioned
on one of their family-oriented television commercials.

As we were leaving the service I saw a man with a nametag
that let me know he was a leader in that church.
I went up to him, said, “Hello,” shook his hand, and told him why I was there.
I then asked him to explain the odd doctrine further.
He suddenly looked like his shirt collar had shrunk two sizes too small.
He hemmed and hawed, cleared his throat and said,
“Uh, we usually don’t go into that with people who are new to the faith.”
In other words, I was only certified for the bunny slope,
but there I was asking to ski down a double black diamond.
He acted like it was for my own good that he was holding back.

I sometimes wonder if WE shouldn’t watch who we let into worship on Easter morning.
We’re talking about some pretty odd things here:
I mean, really…Jesus being raised from the dead? BODILY resurrected?
Somebody who doesn’t know better,
might find talk of a bodily resurrection strange, or deeply disturbing,
or at least mildly odd.

If we want people who are new to Christianity to come back,
if we want them to LIKE us
we probably should put a gate on Easter worship,
ask them to come another time
when we can talk about how Jesus loves little children
or how God wants us to be happy.
But resurrection?!?!?!

Yet, alas, we have no entrance requirements for Easter, no secret password,
to weed out skeptics or cynics or the theologically naïve –
to keep out those who are not yet ready to hear the astounding news
“He has been raised! He is not here!”
But seriously, who among us is really able to consume the news
of Jesus resurrection from the grave
consume it and digest it so that we can say with all certainty,
“I KNOW what it means,
I KNOW and I BELIEVE without the shadow of a doubt!!!’
Even those of us who have been around church for a long time have doubts,
we’ve just learned to hide our questions behind this mask of serenity,

If it’s Easter there’s a 100% chance we’ll be talking about resurrection –
not the kind of thing that often comes up in conversation!
Yet that doesn’t stop us from turning out on Easter morning in droves.
We come today like we come on no other day.
We come – the theologically sophisticated and the theologically naïve,
the gray-headed, life-long believer, and the fuzz-faced, wide-eyed seeker.

We come with our skepticism and our innocence,
our jaded, world-weariness, and our irrational hope –
we come because we sense that there is truth in this story – POWER in this story
like in no other especially in the way Mark tells it with no frills, no embellishments,
not even a post-resurrection appearance by the risen Lord
to offer proof that he’s alive.
Just three women, shocked and amazed;
three women, who, last we heard, had buttoned their lips
and were hunkering down in amazement and fear.

We read Paul’s letter to the Corinthians
where he tries to give a reasoned argument in favor of the resurrection.
It’s his usual approach, meeting the Corinthians on their own terms,
coming to them within the framework of the rational Greek philosophy
that was all the rage in their time.
But Paul’s approach leaves me cold
and he himself seems to know he’s fighting a losing battle,
because, here’s the thing: you can’t argue the resurrection rationally.
You can’t prove the resurrection anymore than you can prove the feeling of love.
In the end all poor old Paul can do is affirm its truth and say,
“Listen, I’ve told you everything that I was told, passed it along word for word.
That’s all I’ve got.”

We shouldn’t worry that in the end we can’t construct a rational proof
for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Even if we had an autographed picture of our Risen Lord
SOMEBODY would dispute it – say we doctored it up with Photoshop.
There’s no power in proof anyway.
There’s no truth in time lines, or word studies, or archeological data –
at least not the kind of truth we really need –
not the kind that can make your heart race
or make you rise to a challenge or pursue a calling.
The truth of the resurrection is found in the story itself,
especially, I think, in the way Mark tells it.

In Mark, Jesus is crucified, he’s taken down in a hurry,
shoved in a tomb without the proper care for the body called for by Jewish custom,
and a large stone is rolled across the mouth of the tomb sealing it shut.
That’s it. Case closed. It is finished.
Let all who were caught up in the folly of this fake Messiah
recognize the power of Rome and the resolve of the temple authorities.
All you hosanna-shouters, you palm wavers,
go back to your sad, pitiful little lives. There’s nothing more to see here.

Everything has come to a grinding halt and it looks like Jesus’ story is at an end
except that, as Mark tells it, these three women, Jesus’ mother and two friends,
just can’t let it go.
All the men who followed Jesus have scattered, are in hiding,
but these three women are quietly defiant. They will not take “No” for an answer.
They are not willing to accept the inevitability of might over right.
They will not relinquish their dignity or their loyalty to anyone, no matter who it is.
When the Sabbath is over, the three women pool their money
and go purchase expensive burial spices to care for Jesus’ body.
The next morning, a Sunday, the first day of the week,
they rise early and go to the tomb,
stepping out entirely on faith that somehow when they get there
they will be able to move the heavy stone from the mouth of Jesus’ tomb .
When they get to the tomb, sure enough, the stone has been rolled away.

To this point there is nothing in Mark’s story out of the ordinary.
Nothing that requires us to suspend our rational understanding of reality.
The women are strong, loyal friends who, though sad, are able to carry on
with courage and integrity.
Of all Jesus’ disciples, they prove our most solid role models.
But then Mark shifts.
His story transitions to an entirely different level of truth.
The women see the tomb open
and in the tomb sits a young man.
The man is wearing a white robe – the robe of martyrs,
and he sits on the right – in the place of glory.
Despite the fact that he’s sitting in a tomb, the young man’s manner is very matter-of-fact.
He recognizes the shock in the women’s faces
so he speaks in simple sentences as to a child.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he tells them.
“You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.
He has been raised; he is not here.
Look. See? This is where they laid him. But he is not here.”

If you were Mark, writing this story, presenting the Good News of Jesus Christ
to a fledgling faith community where would you go with it next?
I would do the same thing Matthew and Luke and John did.
I would hurry on to talk about how the women rushed back to tell the others
and how the Risen Christ met the disciples on the road to Emmaus
or suddenly appeared to them behind a locked door
or commissioned them to go into all the world to make disciples.

But in Mark we don’t see the Risen Jesus at all.
In Mark all we have is the promise that if those who wish to follow Jesus
will go back to Galilee, back to the beginning, he will meet them there.
Even those who abandoned him in his hour of need,
Even Peter who denied knowing him,
if they are willing to go that far, the one who called them to servanthood,
the one who called them to sacrifice,
the one who called them to take up their cross will meet them in Galilee
and lead them from there.

Do you see the difference? All the other gospel writers give us answers.
“Did Jesus rise from the dead? Yes! Of course! Here’s the testimony. Here’s the proof!”
and we can sit back with wise, knowing looks on our faces and say,
“Oh, uh huh, hmmm, yes, well, I see….”
But Mark leaves us not with an answer, but with a question.
He writes, “Jesus is going to Galilee. Will you meet him there?”

We can’t read Mark and just sit here with a knowing look.
Mark puts the question out there, demanding a response,
not because we KNOW for a fact that Jesus was raised from the dead,
not because we have a Sunday school picture that we can point too,
but because we have caught a glimpse of the kingdom of God
in the love of a friend, in the kindness of a neighbor,
because we have been blown away by the beauty of creation
and feel the urge to tell somebody
because we have read the words of Scripture
and found that even though they were written centuries ago
they speak in intimate and profound ways to our lives today.

It’s a hard question and it’s not one you can answer easily.
It’s a hard question and you can’t just come to church on Easter
and hope to get it all sorted out in one sitting.
But we’ve got nothing to hide here.
And none of us, no matter how wise or how steeped in church tradition
can answer Mark’s question casually.
Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee.
Can you trust in that promise, even without proof?
Will you continue to be paralyzed by indecision, by skepticism, by world-weariness,
or will you commit yourself to get up and go without hard evidence,
to step forward in faith and live into the promise,
trusting that once you’ve made that decision, he will meet you there?

Birdy Blue and Her Fiddle
Zechariah13:7-9
Mark 14:31-52

Zipporah Blue was born on September 1, 1841,
the day before her parents boarded ship in Oban, Scotland
to sail with thirty of their neighbors from the island of Jura
to the Cape Fear region of North Carolina.
Her father Angus Blue, the rare Presbyterian minister with a sense of humor,
told his bride Effie that he wanted to name their daughter Abishag
after the young woman in 2 Samuel
who was assigned to keep old King David warm in his old age.
“We can call her ‘Shaggy’,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up
as he fought hard to look serious.
They settled on “Zipporah,” after the wife of Moses,
but Effie put her foot down at the notion of calling her “Zippy.”
They called her “Birdy” instead,
Angus remembering from his studies that Zipporah means “little bird.”

It’s not that it wasn’t hard leaving their home,
but the fertile farmland of the sand hills of North Carolina
and the prosperous settlement of Scots already there eased the transition.
Birdy was a happy child, despite going a round with polio at age seven
that left one leg weakened.
She learned to play piano, a genteel instrument for a daughter of the manse,
but it was the fiddle that stirred her blood.
“The Devil’s instrument” was what some called it, “Not fit for Christian ears!”

But Birdy Blue was not one to listen much to the admonitions of gossipy women.
“Old magpies!” she called them,
and she cajoled “One-eye” Pete, the ancient caretaker of her father’s church
to give her secret lessons on his “squalk-box”
which is what he called his honey-colored fiddle.

Birdy Blue was not a classic beauty.
She had the angular features and deeply set eyes of her Scottish kin.
Taking after the Fergusons, her mother’s side,
streaks of gray began showing up in her hair before she was twelve
and she was fully gray by twenty.
But the spark in her eyes was a lightening flash and the music of her laugh
tickled the ears of young boys and old men and every eligible bachelor in between. On Saturdays, when the work was done,
she’d go with her father to the large tobacco shed at the railroad siding
where weary farmers and their families would gather at the end of a hard week.
“Birdy Blue has come to play,” they would cry
and they would pull over a crate for her to stand on.
When she tucked her fiddle up under her chin and her toe began to tap out the rhythm
to “Roslin Castle” or “Annie is My Darling”, even the grimmest soul couldn’t help smiling.

Independent in spirit and not shy in expressing her own opinions,
Birdy was her father’s “dear lass,”
the one who could light up his countenance like no other.
But her independence and strong will, not to mention her fiddle playing,
also proved a continuing source of consternation among the matriarchs
of the Cypress Creek Presbyterian Church congregation.
The men of the church governing council, the Session,
were completely charmed by Birdy and would have overlooked
what they called her “high spirits,” but their wives were of a different mind.
Under domestic pressure, the Session called Birdy before them
and forbade her to play the fiddle any more.
It broke her father’s heart to see her standing there,
knowing what it meant to her to play her music.
But he was proud of the way she resisted the temptation of defiance.
With humility she submitted to the Session’s authority and promised to play no more.

It wasn’t long after she received the Session’s instruction
that Angus Blue brought an ecclesiastical colleague around to meet his daughter. The Reverend Mr. McKeithan was twenty years Birdy’s senior,
a widower whose wife had died leaving five young children.
He needed a good, God-fearing woman to keep his home and raise his children.
Angus Blue couldn’t look his daughter in the eye
when he introduced the reed-thin Reverend McKeithan,
because he knew it was the end of a phase that both he and she would sorely miss,
but it was time she became a wife and took on wifely duties.

The spark left Birdy’s eyes in the ensuing years as she cared for her husband’s brood
and took on the burden of respectability befitting a minister’s wife.
She was without peer in showing hospitality, hosting the ladies of the church in her home,
and she never missed the chance to champion the needs of the poor.
As an anniversary gift, she sat for a photograph in the lace collar
her husband had given her for Christmas.
The photographer admonished her not to smile. He needn’t have worried.

Reverend McKeithan died of consumption on Christmas Day, 1882,
his children, now grown, all gathered around his bed.

Birdy kept up the house,
continuing her charity work at the Old Soldiers’ Home where she would often go
and play the beat up piano in the dining room
after the old men who lived there had their supper.
She found herself there on New Year’s Eve, 1899 – the eve of a new century.
Someone had brought in a bottle of Scotch whisky for the toasting,
and though it was not lady-like, and certainly not in accordance with church policy,
she joined the men at their urging in their toast to the New Year.

A new resident had moved in the week before,
a grizzled old gent with a flowing white beard.
He excused himself and went to his room.
When he returned he was carrying a fiddle and a horsehair bow.
He said, “I used to play this here box pretty fine
until the arthritis gripped me something fierce.
But I’d love to hear ‘Annie is My Darling’ one more time if anyone here can play it.”

Birdy looked at that old fiddle. She took it from the man and caressed the neck.
She smelled the resin and the horsehair
and she gingerly turned the tuning knobs as she carefully plucked the strings.
The old man’s face took on a hopeful cast
and others in the room who had been talking went silent.
As they looked at this gentle woman - nearly sixty, steel gray hair,
a woman they didn’t know well because she had always been timid around them –
they saw her begin to transform before their eyes.
Her back straightened, her shoulders squared, her pale face took on color.
She pulled the bow once across the strings, listened,
twisted a knob and then pulled again.

She looked at the men in the room and her eyes sparked.
Her toe began to tap.
She tucked the fiddle under her chin and said to herself
but loud enough for everyone to hear,
“Session be damned! Birdy Blue has come to play!”

When we read Mark’s account of the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion –
the drowsy indolence of Peter, James and John
Juda’s kiss of betrayal,
the final desertion by all of Jesus’ friends –
it’s hard to imagine a more complete and compact literary collection
of human failure and institutional blindness.
Mark is relentless in pointing out how no one,
not Jesus’ closest friends nor the most educated religious leaders of the day,
begins to understand Jesus or his mission.
In the final analysis, every single one of them
is either sleepy, back-stabbing, or running away.

It is small comfort to know that for 2000 years
even Jesus’ most passionate followers have been getting it wrong.
Birdy Blue is a character out of my imagination
but the Session of Cypress Presbyterian Church, the church of my ancestors,
really did issue an injunction at one time
against fiddle playing…and dancing…and games using cards or dice.

We who imagine ourselves the gatekeepers and guardians of orthodoxy
often do a great damage to the body of Christ
in our arrogance and fear and misguided faith,
but so do others of us on the opposite end of the spectrum
who are too lazy to stand for anything,
and are happy enough as long as their own private boat doesn’t get rocked.
No wonder fewer and fewer people want to bear the label of “Christian” these days.

But isn’t that the heart of the salvation story?
Isn’t that the core of Jesus’ work on our behalf?
We are bigots and boors, and gossips and goof-offs,
and hate-mongers and hypocrites, and shysters and stuffed-shirts,
and if left to ourselves we more often than not make a big mess of things,

But…BUT…there is grace in the world still.
And for all our failings, we hang to that grace by our fingernails,
remembering how, though Jesus predicted his disciples’ betrayal and abandonment,
he STILL sat at the table with them and broke bread as his body
and shared with them the cup as his blood.
And as dark as it was that night in the garden when they couldn’t keep their eyes open
and the authorities arrested him
and his friends fled.
As dark as it was, that wasn’t the end.

As dark as it is, there’s still music and laughter and good fellowship around the table.
As dark as it is, and as long as it takes,
because God is on our side there will come a time
when all of God’s children will start tapping out the rhythm.
We’ll tuck the fiddle under our chin and shout “We've come to play!”
Birdie Blue and all the rest who have endured what Zechariah calls the refiners fire,
all will be called by name by the Lord himself.
He will say, “They are my people!”
and we will say, “The LORD is our God!”