{"id":9426,"date":"2003-04-07T19:49:49","date_gmt":"2003-04-07T17:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=9426"},"modified":"2025-04-28T11:31:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T09:31:58","slug":"john-20-19-31-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/john-20-19-31-2\/","title":{"rendered":"John 20: 19-31"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quasimodogeniti | 27. April 2003 | John 20: 19-31 | David Zersen |<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

JUST THINK, YOU COULD HAVE MISSED THE ENDING\u2026.. John 20: 19-31<\/p>\n

One of the occupational hazards among fast-paced livers is missed endings. We can only fit so many things in a day and evening. Sometimes, we can only stay so long at a party, a meeting, even perhaps at a church service. And, as we come and go, we catch bits and pieces of conversations and communications, sometimes missing the ending. I don\u2019t know how many TV movies I started and never finished because there was something else that had to be done. Sometimes I really wish I could savor a good ending! John the Evangelist understands such a concern well. And he makes a special effort to provide an ending we won\u2019t forget. Last Sunday our Gospel lesson was the story of the resurrection. Trumpets, kettle drums and descant choirs lifted our faith to its annual zenith as we sang, \u201cChrist the Lord is risen today!\u201d How does one top that? Surely that question was in John\u2019s mind as he put the finishing touches on his Gospel in today\u2019s lesson. What he shares as an ending is quite unexpected, totally surprising. And I\u2019m so glad you\u2019re here to hear it because, this being \u201cLow Sunday,\u201d when Easter Christians may not be present because there still singing \u201cAlleluia,\u201d there was a chance that you might have missed the ending.<\/p>\n

Easter Christians hid behind locked doors<\/strong>
\nThe first surprise that John shares in his conclusion is that after the bombastic news of the resurrection, the disciples were hiding in a house with the doors locked! What a disappointment for us who just finished proclaiming our heart\u2019s Easter confidence! Shouldn\u2019t the story have ended with the disciples running all over the city shouting \u201cHe is Risen!\u201d Perhaps that\u2019s how we would have written the ending. Of course, the disciples had \u201cconsiderations.\u201d Some had said it\u2019s all idle gossip (Matthew suggests this.). Perhaps, some worried, having executed Jesus, the disciples could be next. Discretion is the better part of valor. It\u2019s best to think twice before venturing out on dangerous water. When you think about it, however, was this so surprising a reaction? How bold are we to tangle with the authorities when issues of consequence are at stake? How easy is it for us to take a stand on issues of peace and justice in the national arena or on ethical issues in the office or neighborhood association? What kind of trouble might it cause us? Aren\u2019t these the questions we must also ask? The disciples were afraid, John tells us bluntly, and we have to admit, after having sung our hearts out last Sunday that we might also have been.<\/p>\n

Such a choice, however, John tells us, is unacceptable to Jesus. He tells the disciples to move on out. His Father sent him to take a stand, which he did, Jesus says, and now he\u2019s sending them out to do the same thing. Jesus tells them that living in fear is unacceptable. They are to let faith take charge of their lives. How important for us to hear that! We are afraid of many things in these times. I read with interest the little polls AOL regularly takes of its users. How afraid are you of SARS? How afraid are you of terrorist activity? How afraid are you of the U.S. failing in Iraq or the Middle East? We know that fear is rampant among people in the U.S. because the stores ran out of duct tape when the Office of Homeland Security encouraged people to begin stocking up on it in order to secure their homes from terrorist\u2019s use of chemical warfare! Yet such anxiety is out of place for Easter Christians. Jesus would say that we need to unlock the doors of our anxious minds and ask what it means to believe that \u201cChrist is risen!\u201d I\u2019m so glad that you were to here to catch this piece of John\u2019s ending.<\/p>\n

Easter Christians saw a crucified Jesus<\/strong>
\nThe next surprise that John tells us in his conclusion is that the disciples were confronted not with a majestic, regal presence, but with a body that had nail holes in the hands and side! What an embarrassment! Couldn\u2019t that have been covered up? One might have thought that John would have avoided making reference to this nasty business of crucifixion reserved for the lowliest criminals. It\u2019s like having to raise the question again as to whether this was a mission gone wrong. John wants to make it very clear to us who have just exulted in the resurrection triumph that the vulnerable Jesus is the only one with whom we humans can identify. We who know sorrow and burdens and pain have a Savior who knows all about it. We who are at times deprived of status or possessions or friends have a Savior who has \u201cbeen there, done that.\u201d It is crucial for us to see the cross in Jesus or we have no bond between us. He it is who is our confidante and healer. He is the one who carried our burdens into death, being \u201cpierced for our transgression\u2026 crushed for our iniquities.\u201d (Is. 53: 5) Without a suffering Jesus, through whose \u201cwounds we are healed,\u201d we have no opportunity to claim the Easter victory over death and fear.<\/p>\n

John has to remind us of this in his conclusion or we end up with superficial and trivial faith. Therefore, he even repeats what Jesus says as he greets his dumbfounded disciples. He says Shalom<\/em> in this climactic moment. Shalom<\/em>, of course, can mean a number of things. It can mean simply a kind of psychological \u201cpeace.\u201d It can also have a spiritual sense referring to reconciliation with God. However, here its most basic meaning gives the full sense of Jesus\u2019 intent. It is simply a greeting like \u201cHello\u201d or \u201cGuten Tag,\u201d but in Semitic parlance it expresses a concern for the whole person. It means \u201cBe well.\u201d The German \u201cWie geht es Ihnen?\u201d or the Texan \u201cYou doing all right?\u201d–although in the form of a question– approaches Shalom\u2019s <\/em>meaning more than a narrow definition like \u201cpeace.\u201d As was traditional with this greeting, Jesus expresses his concern for the physical, psychological and spiritual welfare of the disciples. He the wounded Healer affirms them in all of their humanness and vulnerability. We claim this extravagant kindness as we today \u201cshare the peace\u201d with one another in the Communion Service. It is our way of sharing with our neighbor the vulnerable Jesus with nail holes who lives victoriously within us making us bold to reach out to others in their need. I\u2019m so glad that you were here to hear this part of John\u2019s ending.<\/p>\n

Easter Christians question the truth of the resurrection<\/strong>
\nThe third, and to many of us, most stunning surprise John shares in his conclusion is that after the amazing resurrection one of the disciple ridiculed it. At first glance, we might think that this is the story that John should have swept under the carpet. Not only, according to John, had Mary of Magdala, Peter and some other disciples discovered the empty tomb, but Jesus had appeared to the gathered disciples on Sunday! Still Thomas found it incredulous. He wanted to see for himself. John holds back nothing in his ending as he lets us know that even in the earliest church there were doubts about the essentials of the faith. And while we might wonder how Thomas, who had experienced so much with Jesus, could have been so double-minded, we know that\u2019s how it is with us too. Doubts set in at the very moments when we are on top of things, at the pinnacle of faith-filled exuberance. Let\u2019s say we are head over heals in love and believe without doubt that God has brought us together– and then an accident or disease takes the loved one from us and we know for sure there is no God! Let\u2019s say we are at the top of our career and thank God daily for our blessings\u2014and then the economy fails and we lose everything and now are convinced God is dead! Doubt and faith dance together as cousins in the fragile business of life. No sooner do we know that we have \u201ccaught faith like a disease,\u201d as did Sarah Miles in Graham Greene\u2019s End of the Affair<\/em>, when \u201cconsiderations\u201d allow doubt to squelche even the boldest faith of an Easter Christian.<\/p>\n

Yet this is ultimately the challenge that John sets before us throughout his entire Gospel. The challenge is to understand that life\u2019s biggest problem, sin, is not so much individual acts of disobedience or petty immoralities as it is failing to see in the vulnerable, wounded Jesus the very love through which God claims us forever. Jesus mission is ultimately to invite this vision. To see Jesus is to see God at work reconciling estranged people through this complicated and difficult business of dying, rising and living for real– and forever. This is why John lets us hear Thomas\u2019s amazing faith statement, the most profound in all the Scriptures: \u201cMy Lord and my God!\u201d
\nIt was a huge leap of faith from \u201cnot until I see him for myself\u201d to \u201cMy Lord and my God.\u201d Yet this is the potential for all of us, John wants to say, as the offer of faith and unbelief is set before us and we come face to face with Jesus. We simply cannot have missed this moment, this ending.<\/p>\n

Easter Christians see deeper because there are signs along the way<\/strong>
\nJohn\u2019s final thoughts in his surprising conclusion to his Gospel are the most profound. He tells his readers that there are many things which could be told and we\u2019re not going to hear about them, but that enough signs have been strewn on the path to help us come face to face with this Jesus so that \u201cwe can have life in his name.\u201d It\u2019s a lovely thought, considering that John has been quite skeptical about signs in this Gospel (John 4:48) Yet John would tell us that signs can be problematic when you merely stare with bovine simplicity at them, getting caught up in the \u201cwhat\u201d and \u201chow.\u201d Signs, as our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters could tell us, point to something else. If we don\u2019t get to their meaning or reason, we miss the point. If we merely see the giant billboards along life\u2019s highways and remember nothing but their colors, we did not really see. If we learned something about persons and places and contexts from smaller signs, however, we may have understood the reason for our trip.<\/p>\n

An interesting young American film director with an Indian heritage, M. Night Shymalan, has two stunning films to his credit, \u201cThe Sixth Sense\u201d and \u201cSigns.\u201d The latter is the story about a very successful and popular Episcopal priest (played by Mel Gibson) who loses his faith in God because his wife is killed in a terrible car accident. He resigns from the priesthood and with his brother raises his two children in a house in rural Pennsylvania. Huge Signs begin to appear in the form of \u201ccrop circles.\u201d Ultimately people are convinced that these are created by aliens who are invading the earth. Panic claims the world. The little family boards itself up in its house for fear of what may happen. (Sounds an awful lot like the disciples locked away in Jerusalem.) While the science fiction dimension may seem preposterous to some of us, the story has its resolution as Gibson tries to save his asthmatic son remembering little signs which have been shared with him along the way\u2014all of which lead him to believe that things (even his wife\u2019s death) don\u2019t happen without purpose and meaning. In the little signs he finds help and direction and conviction, a personal affirmation which restores his faith and leads him back into the priesthood. It\u2019s an interesting exploration into doubt and faith with a few science fiction themes thrown in to make it contemporary.<\/p>\n

Now, please don\u2019t be angry that I told you the ending if you haven\u2019t seen the movie yet, because I took my cue from the Evangelist. He did the same thing in his Gospel with the story of Jesus. He could have left us on the mountaintop last Sunday with our resurrection confidence wondering what might come next. I suspect he knew, however, that that confidence had to have a context or it might become superficial bravado. So he surprised us with some reversals in giving us his ending:<\/p>\n

He let us know that the first Easter Christians were often cowards– until Jesus lifted their fears and gave them the Spirit needed to fulfill his mission.<\/p>\n

He let us see the tawdry glory of nail holes in a vulnerable Jesus even after the resurrection– without whom we would forever warble \u201cHalleluiahs\u201d without meaning.<\/p>\n

He brought us face to face on Easter Sunday with a first-class Doubter\u2014to let us know that anyone, including ourselves, can come from such a place to the point of exulting \u201cMy Lord and my God.\u201d<\/p>\n

He let us know that we weren\u2019t going to be told everything we\u2019d like to know about life and our future \u2014but there are enough signs left in the Gospel stories and in the lives of faithful Christians to give us all the faith and hope we would need for the journey.<\/p>\n

And such things he told us because he wanted us to see deeper, because he knew we need closure. He knew that life goes on\u2014people can\u2019t sit for long breathlessly celebrating on mountaintops. John\u2019s ending does just that. It takes us into our homes, our family lives, our work week, and our times along with ourselves. He provides an ending which is a real beginning for us. And just think, this being \u201cLow Sunday,\u201d when the Easter Christians often don\u2019t return, you could have missed it\u2026<\/p>\n

\n

Dr. Dr. David Zersen, President Emeritus
\nConcordia University at Austin
\nE-Mail: dzersen@aol.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quasimodogeniti | 27. April 2003 | John 20: 19-31 | David Zersen | JUST THINK, YOU COULD HAVE MISSED THE ENDING\u2026.. John 20: 19-31 One of the occupational hazards among fast-paced livers is missed endings. We can only fit so many things in a day and evening. Sometimes, we can only stay so long at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13050,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,727,157,853,108,222,110,299,349,3,109,718],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-9426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-johannes","category-archiv","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-david-zersen","category-engl","category-kapitel-20-chapter-20-johannes","category-kasus","category-nt","category-predigten","category-quasimodogeniti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9426","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=9426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23523,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9426\/revisions\/23523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9426"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=9426"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=9426"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=9426"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=9426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}