Jesus is Risen! - Now What? Tell Imus

If you’re tired of hearing about Don Imus, you came to the wrong place. Mind you, I hadn’t intended to talk about him. In last week’s Easter message I said the evangelists don’t intend to address either “how” or “why” questions about Jesus’ resurrection. Their focus, ours too, is on the “so what” question. The title of that sermon was, “Jesus is Risen! – So What?”

I said, answering that “so what” question, “Easter is God’s new way of saying, ‘I meant what I said and did in my Son, Jesus. I’ve come down to deliver you from bondage to sin and death. I’ve come down to save the world, not to condemn the world.’”

Every year, on the week after Easter, we hear about Thomas. My first thoughts about this week’s message focused on what it means to believe, or how we might distinguish our beliefs from our believing. That seemed like a reasonable follow-up to the “so-what” message. But in the wake of the Don Imus debacle, “Show-Me” Thomas and his poking fingers will have to wait until next year.

Throughout the week that doomed Don, what played out was another example of our culture’s doing a poor imitation of church. Many of the right words were in play: confession, contrition, penance, forgiveness, and forgetfulness, but too few Christian attitudes, principles and behaviors were on display.

Despite the abundance of “reverends” on so many talk shows, Jesus was under-represented. Most talking-head clergy sounded like graduates of the schools of Annas and Caiaphas, rather than alumnae of the Sermon on the Mount.

It’s verse 19 – 23 from the 20th chapter of John’s Gospel that’s on point here. See, the focus here is, “Jesus is Risen! – Now What?” That was missing from our “Christian nation’s” response to the peculiar pain Imus inflicted on the women from Rutgers as well as the sadness and outrage we felt.

Look at what happens in this upper room on Easter evening, before Thomas’ goings and comings redirect our focus. First, Jesus shows up. Amidst the disciples’ worst fears, Jesus hasn’t abandoned them.

Next, before they can react or respond, he offers Peace, Shalom. This isn’t wishful thinking on Jesus’ part. Neither is it some high-fivin’ homeboy’s way of saying, “Whazzup!” Nor is Jesus suggesting that they get caught up in some inner tranquility.

What Jesus is bringing and giving is the belonging and wholeness that comes from the dawn of God’s Kingdom Rule. It’s God’s new gift, through this risen Christ, from the future, here and now! Look at the third verse of Herbert F. Brokering’s hymn, Alleluia! Jesus is Risen!: Jesus the vine, we are the branches; life in the Spirit the fruit of the tree; heaven to earth, Christ to the people, gift of the future now flowing to me.

Then Jesus shows them his hands and feet. Though fresh from the future, in some sort of different body that’s able to move through locked doors, this risen Jesus has continuity with the Jesus they knew, loved, and watched get buried. They’re ecstatic.

Lest they miss the true source of their joy, he tells them again, “Peace be with you.” Rejoice in this life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making Shalom. Under this holy rule, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Don’t miss this. This verb, “has sent,” is the past perfect form of the verb, “to send.” That means it’s an action begun in the past, which continues in the present and goes into the future! Isn’t that cool? And you thought those Language Arts teachers were wasting our time!

Breathing on them, Jesus says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This breathing-thing is crucial. We should hear, here, the same activity that occurred in Genesis where the Spirit-wind blew over the chaos and tamed it. We should hear, here, the same Genesis-action by which God breathed God’s own self into a mound of clay.

With this new-creation action, Jesus declares, Have on you, in you and with you that Advocate I promised you. Be empowered and become emboldened to do as I have done. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

This is huge. This is not merely Jesus inventing some ritual action we call confession and forgiveness. Jesus is doing more than establishing what we call the Office of the Keys so pastors can comfort the anguish of morally afflicted members.

You see where this is goin’? What the disciples hear Jesus say – by the way, he’s speaking to us as well – are words from the same guy who washed their feet. This same Jesus said, “If, I, your Master and Lord, have washed your feet, you should do likewise. I have given you an example.”

The One who’s sending them is the One who told them to love others as he loved them. That same One said, “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The last paragraph of Easter Sunday’s message was, “So what will you remember? Will you remember, tomorrow, and the day after, that because we are an Easter people, we not only remember differently, we live differently, and God’s world is alive, anew – for the love of God – Alleluia!”

Where were all the Easter people on Easter Monday when Don Imus needed them most? The only one who came close was, C. Vivian Springer, the women’s basketball coach at Rutgers, and even she, in her own woundedness couldn’t get all the way there.

Don Imus is a public sinner. We’re not talking politically incorrect, intellectually challenged, morally bankrupt, ethical lapse, or slip-of-the-tongue. We’re talking, the guy doesn’t get it. But the only difference between Don Imus, public sinner, and you and me, is the word, public.

We’re also talking about someone who, like us, is never going to make it on his own. Look at Acts 5:31, from a testimony Peter made, after he, like us, had been breathed on and sent, “God exalted him (Jesus) at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”

Who, in the name of God, is going to give repentance, i.e., change of mind and change of heart, to Don Imus? It seems to me, if the man has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of the pit, it will only be because someone like you or me, an Easter person, washes his sinful, undeserving feet – even before he confesses adequately or apologizes appropriately.

That’s how it was, and is, for us isn’t it? While we still were in our sin, God so loved the world that he sent the Son to save the world not to condemn the world. Jesus is risen – now what?

Look, Don Imus is both responsible and, in this case, blameworthy for his actions. We have a right to expect there to be consequences. He may even suffer through these. What we don’t have a right to expect are consequences intended to inflict pain, cause shame, or spring from revenge. That’s not what forgiving or retaining sin means under God’s Shalom.

I’m not imagining y’all rushin' outa here to go phone Imus. But I can imagine, in fact I pray for, and will do whatever I can to help your leaving here and finding someone you know, close to home, maybe in school, perhaps in the next pew, at work, or where you volunteer who is responsible, blameworthy and stuck in a Pit they can’t get out of on there own.

The public of their sin may even have been directed at you. If you, an Easter person, don’t tell them the Good News, that Jesus is risen – now what, means Jesus has opened his crossed up arms wide enough to include them in his new Shalom loving and belonging, how will they ever trust that message enough to believe the risen Jesus just might give them repentance, too? If you don’t embrace them with God’s otherwise, how can they ever know risen Jesus now has a place for them at this table?

The new creation power Jesus gives us by the presence of the Spirit is the mighty dose of grace we need to carry on, to put into real people and real places the Shalom Jesus went ahead to bring back for us. It’s a huge task. It can often be very nearly unbearably unpleasant. Look at verses 30-31: But these (signs) are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through that believing you may have life in his name.

Jesus is risen – now what? It's time to wash feet, even of the nastiest, not nice at all, down-right ugly and undeserving. That’s what believing and living in Jesus looks like.