Acts 11:1-18
\nPsalm 150<\/p>\n
Revelation 21:1-7 John 16:12-22 Homily<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many of us, as we get older, can’t see as well as we once did. I have worn glasses for many years, and for most of those years, I wore the same prescription. A few years ago I went to the eye doctor for a check-up and as I left, he said, „As you go out the door, make an appointment to come back next year. You don’t need new glasses right now, but you’ll certainly need them next year. I’ll see you in about 12 months.“<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Folks, do you guess Mary Magdalene couldn’t see well in that famous story from St. John\u2019s gospel, chapter 20, when she went to the garden where Jesus was buried, saw that the tomb was empty, and then, Jesus shows up to greet her, but she didn\u2019t recognize him? She mistook him to be \u2013 who? Do you remember? She mistook him to be the gardener<\/em>! And, while crying, she said to him, \u201cSir, if you have taken [my Lord] away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wonder why Mary Magdalene didn\u2019t recognize that it was Jesus<\/em> standing there talking to her?\u201d We may offer speculations. Here are a few… 1) Well, after all, she was<\/em> in a GARDEN! It makes sense that there would be a gardener there! A second possible explanation: She was crying; her eyes were full of tears, so she couldn\u2019t see clearly. Ok, that may be; but rarely, if ever, have I seen someone with eyes that full of tears. But this third explanation could be more likely: Mary was there expecting to see Jesus dead<\/em>. In her heart and mind, she was not prepared to see him alive; she could not recognize him.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Here is why I think the third explanation more likely. Even now, these many generations and hundreds of years later, after centuries of the Church\u2019s proclamation of the resurrection, unfortunately, many Christians, and even many congregations, go about their lives and their daily, weekly affairs, their worship and their ministries, like Mary in the garden, not really realizing \u201che is alive!,\u201d not really expecting to see the Lord „show up,“\u00a0 and thus are unable <\/em>to see the Risen Lord Jesus and his works around them.<\/p>\n Indeed, it is not easy to live our busy lives, to carry-on our daily routines, to engage in all our activities and affairs, remembering, believing, proceeding with our lives, thinking, \u201cHe lives! The Risen, death-conquering Lord, is here<\/em> among us! Oh! Wonder what he\u2019s going to do next?\u201d But indeed, he is alive, and moving among us; and we, like Mary, sometimes do not recognize him \u2013 or, as Jesus emphasizes in St. John\u2019s gospel, do not recognize his works<\/em>: we sometimes don\u2019t recognize what are his <\/em>works among us!<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But the message of his presence is before us in some way every Sunday. For example, again, from the apostle John \u2013 who wrote of Mary Magdalene in the garden \u2013 we have today from our second reading from the book of Revelation, chapter 21, verse 3: \u201cBehold!, the home of God is among mortals<\/em>! He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them!\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some of you have heard the story of the man in the town where the flood waters were moving into town and all the villagers were told to evacuate. The man decided to stay in his house, not leaving, saying he would trust God to take care of him. When the flood waters came, a rescue boat came by and asked the man to get in. \u201cOh no!,\u201d said the man, \u201cI\u2019m staying here; God promised to take care of me.\u201d The flood waters rose and another boat came by, extending the same invitation, and again, the man refused to leave, saying, \u201cOh no! God promised to take care of me!\u201d The waters continued to rise and the man was sitting on his roof<\/em>!, and a helicopter came by. \u201cGet in, Mister, you\u2019re going to drown!,\u201d and the man refused; \u201cOh no! God\u2019s going take care of me!\u201d So, the man drowned! And he went to heaven, and stood before the Lord, and he questioned the Lord: \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you, as the flood waters got so bad, take care of me?\u201d To which the Lord replied: \u201cI sent you two boats and a helicopter; what more did you want me to do!?!\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Have you ever been sick \u2026 and got well? Has your car ever been broken down \u2026 and somebody came to help you? Students: Have you ever dropped all your books and papers, and somebody came along and helped you pick them up? Have you ever been sad, and crying, and a friendly hand touched you kindly on the shoulder, and offered a kind word to help? Have you ever felt overwhelmed by a tragedy (or maybe, tragedy after tragedy!), and people came to your aid, encouraged and supported you, and maybe even offered you food and sustenance? \u201cBehold: God lives<\/em> among mortals; he makes his home among human beings; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Have you ever heard about people living far-far away, in a distant land, and they are in school, training for important work; and lo and behold, suddenly a flash-flood develops, and much of their school is washed away; and then people from far-far away hear about it — people who have never met these folks that got\u00a0 flooded out! — and they send them resources to help build back their school? Have you ever heard of such? Why would any folks do something like that? \u201cBehold! God lives among human beings\u2026God himself will be with them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Have you ever heard of — can you imagine? — complete strangers that you nor anybody among your family or friends know, and their house catches on fire and there’s nothing left. And then a Christian congregation hears of it, and within a week, packs two<\/em> 14-foot trailers with furniture and clothes and utensils and nearly everything a family would need in a home, and delivers it all to them. What in the world would possess a crowd of people to do such?\u00a0 \u201cBehold: God lives among human beings,“ touching their hearts\u00a0 to give of themselves to help others.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jesus, who was crucified, who died, was raised from the tomb; he now lives. He is alive among us, today and all our days, touching and changing hearts, and anything that is good, He is the one<\/em> who is doing it among us. He shows up, sometimes unexpectedly, not clearly seen or known. And those who have lived before us have claimed that he even shows up veiled — in water, or bread and wine. \u00a0\u00a0 Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Pastor Andrew F. Weisner, Ph.D. The Fifth Sunday of Easter | 5.19.2025 | Andrew F. Weisner | Revelation 21:1-7 | Acts 11:1-18 Psalm 150 Revelation 21:1-7 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2And I saw the holy city, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1,845,157,108,110,565,3,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-24137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-offenbarung","category-aktuelle","category-andrew-f-weisner","category-beitragende","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-21-chapter-21-offenbarung","category-nt","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24138,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24137\/revisions\/24138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24137"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=24137"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=24137"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=24137"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=24137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThen I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2<\/sup>And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3<\/sup>And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, \u201cSee, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4<\/sup>he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.\u201d 5<\/sup>And the one who was seated on the throne said, \u201cSee, I am making all things new.\u201d Also he said, \u201cWrite this, for these words are trustworthy and true.\u201d 6<\/sup>Then he said to me, \u201cIt is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 7\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>The one who conquers will have this heritage, and\u00a0I will be his God and\u00a0he will be my son.<\/p>\n
\n12\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cI still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.\u00a013\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>When\u00a0the Spirit of truth comes,\u00a0he will\u00a0guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but\u00a0whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.\u00a014\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>He will\u00a0glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.\u00a015\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>All that the Father has is mine;\u00a0therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 16\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cA little while, and you will see me no longer; and\u00a0again a little while, and you will see me.\u201d\u00a017\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>So\u00a0some of his disciples said to one another, \u201cWhat is this that he says to us,\u00a0\u2018A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me\u2019;\u00a0and,\u00a0\u2018because I am going to the Father\u2019?\u201d\u00a018\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>So they were saying, \u201cWhat does he mean by\u00a0\u2018a little while\u2019?\u00a0We do not know what he is talking about.\u201d\u00a019\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them,\u00a0\u201cIs this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, \u2018A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me\u2019?\u00a020\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Truly, truly, I say to you,\u00a0you will weep and lament, but\u00a0the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but\u00a0your sorrow will turn into joy.\u00a021\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.\u00a022\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>So also you have sorrow now, but\u00a0I will see you again, and\u00a0your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.<\/p>\n
\npastorweisner@gmail.com
\nPastor, New Covenant Lutheran Church
\nMorganton, North Carolina, USA
\nFaculty, North American Lutheran Seminary, Ambridge, PA, USA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"