I Am the Alpha & Omega = the Promise of Easter (preached April 24, 2022, the Second Sunday of Easter)
(Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31)
Last Sunday, we heard that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women went to Jesus’ tomb with the spices they had prepared, found the stone to the tomb rolled away, and found the tomb empty. Angels appeared and told them that Jesus had risen, and they believed. When they ran and told the men, though, the men did not believe, and they accused the women of telling an idle tale. Today, it is the men’s turn to believe.
As was said last Sunday, the men remained wrapped in their fear and grief due to their disbelief. But in today’s gospel reading, the resurrection frees them, and they rejoice. The story begins with them gathered behind locked doors in fear. The locked doors, though, cannot keep the resurrected Christ away. Jesus appears among them, gives them peace, and breathes on them the Holy Spirit. They rejoice. Thomas, however, is missing from the gathering. He continues to doubt and states, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” (Jn 20:25). Jesus obliges, giving Thomas what he needs in order to believe. A week later, the men are gathered again behind locked doors. Jesus appears, gives them peace, and invites Thomas to put his finger into Jesus’ wounds so that he can believe. Finally, Thomas believes. At this point, all of the central disciples, both female and male, believe. The resurrection has freed them from their grief and fear, and they rejoice. Resurrection life is theirs.
The central disciples now understand that God in Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, as is stated in Revelation 1:8. God in Jesus Christ is the one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty (8). This is the promise of Easter. A quote in the lectionary commentary I use states this beautifully: “The God who had the first word, the word by which creation came into being, will also have the last word, the word by which new creation will come into being. That is the promise of Easter.”[1] The central disciples now go out into the world with this understanding to live resurrection lives.
We see the disciples living resurrection lives in the Acts of the Apostles, from which we have a reading today. Today’s Acts reading covers six verses in Chapter Five, but I am going to put those verses into the larger context of Chapters Four and Five. As the disciples go about living resurrection lives, they begin to get pushback from the religious and political authorities, just as Jesus did. For example, in Acts 4:1-21, Peter and John are arrested and jailed because they are proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead and healing people. More and more people are coming to believe, and this disturbs the authorities. When asked by what power or what name they are able to heal, Peter replies, “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone’.”
Let’s consider just how challenging it was to the authorities that Jesus didn’t stay dead and buried. The human motivations behind the arrest, trial, conviction, and crucifixion of Jesus were political in the sense that they had to do with the power and position of the religious and political authorities. Jesus’ teachings and actions challenged that power and position, so both religious and political authorities were motivated to get rid of him in order to retain the status quo. They figured that once he was dead and buried, any challenge to their power and position from him would be dead and buried as well. Well, guess who had the last laugh? Yep, God did, because Jesus didn’t remain dead and buried, and neither did his message of the victory of good over sin and evil, love over hate, and life over death. Good, love, and life rose from the dead to vex the religious and political authorities forever. Up from the dead good, love, and life arose with Jesus, and the disciples took them out into the world, where they continued to challenge the status quo. We can just imagine the consternation of the authorities as they were confronted again and again by the words and actions of the apostles that illustrated that good would triumph over sin and evil, love would triumph over hate, and life would triumph over death.
Did those religious and political authorities surrender to good, love, and life at that point, realizing that they had lost the battle? No, they did not! They kept trying to figure out how to triumph by retaining their position and power: “Hmmm. Crucifying Jesus didn’t work. Let’s try arresting, jailing, and questioning the apostles. Okay, we have them locked away, but we still have a problem.” The Acts of the Apostles states the problem with these words from the authorities: “’What are we going to do with these men?’. . . Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name” (4:16-17). Their brilliant solution was to order the apostles to stop speaking in Jesus’ name. How did the apostles respond? Did they do as the authorities commanded? No, they did not! In today’s Acts reading, the apostles are brought before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest, who states, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name . . . Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood” (4:28). The apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men” (29)! The apostles were steadfast in their faithfulness and were not deterred by the commands of human authorities. They answered to a higher authority – God – and would not be deterred. They would keep speaking and acting in Jesus’ name to bring good, love, and life into the world. Praise be to God!
The thing is, when we live resurrection lives, we get pushback from those indoctrinated by or invested in the status quo. Change is challenging, and resurrected lives are changed lives that continue to be made new by God – and thus changed – on a regular basis. Resurrected lives also change what is around them. The status quo is familiar and is thus comfortable, even if it doesn’t support God’s will and God’s way, so resurrected lives and the change those lives create aren’t always welcomed by the status quo.
I listen to Snap Judgment, a radio show and podcast that describes itself in this way: “Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap’s musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling . . . with a BEAT!”[2] This past week, I listened to an episode titled, “Bates & Stokes.” Damaria Bates and Jimia Stokes were licensed professional counselors at Pontiac Correctional Center outside Chicago in the 1990s. They were the only African Americans on the staff. This is important because most of the inmates were African American men. Bates was hired first. She wondered if she was the right person for the job, but thought to herself, “’Hey, God is sending me here. I'm going to help these guys and I'm going to really make a change in somebody's life.’ Giving them proper coping skills, trying to keep them from coming back into the system, because I figured most inmates probably never talked to a therapist a day in their life.”[3]
Bates was paired with a white, male mental health worker who had been at the facility for a while so that she could shadow him while she learned the job. She was surprised when he made derogatory comments about the inmates on suicide watch for whom he was the mental health counselor. He was the person who was supposed to be caring about these inmates’ mental health and he was calling them names that I cannot say in a sermon. At first, Bates thought maybe it was just part of the banter between the mental health worker and the inmates, but she realized it was more than that and finally said something to her colleague. She told him she was offended by the way he talked about the inmates, but he just laughed it off. Pontiac is a small town and the people who worked in the prison had known each other a long time. Bates realized she was an outsider in more ways than one so she decided to leave the issue alone. She was relieved, however, when another female, African American counselor was hired to join the mental health staff. This was Stokes.
Both women enjoyed good relationships with the inmates they worked with. However, they became increasingly uncomfortable with the way the inmates were treated by other prison employees, including other mental health workers. For example, if they didn’t like an inmate, they wouldn’t give them their psych meds. Or they would deny that the inmates had a psychiatric illness like schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, or major depression. Instead, they would say they had behavior problems, so they wouldn’t treat them for the illness for which they had received a diagnosis. Of course, the patients who did not receive the treatment required by their diagnosis would suffer and get worse, showing more symptoms and more “behavior problems.”
Bates and Stokes were disturbed by all of this and would challenge the abusive behavior and attitudes they witnessed. They would challenge it verbally and they would file reports. Eventually, a supervisor called a meeting and gathered the whole mental health team together. The supervisor said, “You should keep reporting incidents with correctional officers. That’s your ethical obligation. . . . But at the same time, you want to be really cautious about how often and what you’re saying because these are the same people that we’re asking to protect us when we go into these cell houses.” The supervisor was saying one thing out of one side of his mouth, and another thing out of the other side of his mouth. Essentially, he was saying, “Yes, we’re supposed to report incidents of abuse by prison employees, but those employees – prison guards – are also the people who protect us from the inmates so don’t make them angry with your reports of their abuse or you won’t get protected.” Even though the meeting was for the whole mental health team, Bates and Stokes knew it was really for them because they were the only ones speaking up against the injustices they witnessed against the inmates.
Bates and Stokes were living resurrection lives in a facility in which those indoctrinated by or invested in the status quo pushed back. The injustices didn’t stop, and nothing changed, except that Bates and Stokes began being treated badly by other employees at the facility. They began to fear for their wellbeing. Eventually, Bates was fired for not remaining silent and Stokes left because her soul was being crushed. She spoke of how she felt, holding back sobs: [L]ike I said, it's just . . . not feeling, like there's anything that I could do. And then, of course, I just felt help[less] – almost just so conflicted, and I think that's really why I really want[ed] to get out of there because either you were going to go along, or you were just going to get mistreated, picked on, bullied. I was just tired of that.”
Bates and Stokes were not successful in changing the institution in which they worked, just as the apostles were not successful in changing the political system of the Roman Empire in which they lived. But Bates and Stokes, and the apostles, touched individual lives as they went about living their resurrection lives. The prisoners with whom Bates and Stokes worked felt seen, heard, and cared for, and the people the apostles healed and brought into community felt the same. As we go about living resurrection lives, we may not be successful in changing the unjust systems in which we live and work, but we will be successful in changing lives for the better.
As I said earlier in this sermon, when we live resurrection lives, we will get pushback from those indoctrinated by or invested in the status quo. Change is challenging, and resurrected lives are changed lives that continue to be made new by God – and thus changed – on a regular basis. Resurrected lives also change what is around them. The status quo is familiar and is thus comfortable, even if it doesn’t support God’s will and God’s way, so resurrected lives and the change those lives create aren’t always welcomed by the status quo. This was true for Jesus, this was true for the apostles, this was true for Bates and Stokes, and this is true for us. When those indoctrinated by or invested in the status quo push back and question us, like the apostles we can reply, “We must obey God rather than men!” As we do so, we can take heart in the belief that God in Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who is, who was, and is to come, the Almighty. “The God who had the first word, the word by which creation came into being, will also have the last word, the word by which new creation will come into being. That is the promise of Easter” [4] that we carry with us as we go out into the world to live resurrection lives. Amen.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Amy Johnson, Canton Community Baptist Church, Canton, CT, April 24, 2022, the Second Sunday of Easter.
*Image by Stefano Ferrario from Pixabay
[1] Cousar, Charles B., Beverly R. Gaventa, J. Clinton, McCann, James D. Newsome. Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV – Year C. Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, 282.
[2] https://snapjudgment.org/about/
[3] https://snapjudgment.org/episode/bates-stokes/
[4] Cousar, Charles B., Beverly R. Gaventa, J. Clinton, McCann, James D. Newsome. Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV – Year C. Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, 282.
(Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31)
Last Sunday, we heard that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women went to Jesus’ tomb with the spices they had prepared, found the stone to the tomb rolled away, and found the tomb empty. Angels appeared and told them that Jesus had risen, and they believed. When they ran and told the men, though, the men did not believe, and they accused the women of telling an idle tale. Today, it is the men’s turn to believe.
As was said last Sunday, the men remained wrapped in their fear and grief due to their disbelief. But in today’s gospel reading, the resurrection frees them, and they rejoice. The story begins with them gathered behind locked doors in fear. The locked doors, though, cannot keep the resurrected Christ away. Jesus appears among them, gives them peace, and breathes on them the Holy Spirit. They rejoice. Thomas, however, is missing from the gathering. He continues to doubt and states, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” (Jn 20:25). Jesus obliges, giving Thomas what he needs in order to believe. A week later, the men are gathered again behind locked doors. Jesus appears, gives them peace, and invites Thomas to put his finger into Jesus’ wounds so that he can believe. Finally, Thomas believes. At this point, all of the central disciples, both female and male, believe. The resurrection has freed them from their grief and fear, and they rejoice. Resurrection life is theirs.
The central disciples now understand that God in Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, as is stated in Revelation 1:8. God in Jesus Christ is the one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty (8). This is the promise of Easter. A quote in the lectionary commentary I use states this beautifully: “The God who had the first word, the word by which creation came into being, will also have the last word, the word by which new creation will come into being. That is the promise of Easter.”[1] The central disciples now go out into the world with this understanding to live resurrection lives.
We see the disciples living resurrection lives in the Acts of the Apostles, from which we have a reading today. Today’s Acts reading covers six verses in Chapter Five, but I am going to put those verses into the larger context of Chapters Four and Five. As the disciples go about living resurrection lives, they begin to get pushback from the religious and political authorities, just as Jesus did. For example, in Acts 4:1-21, Peter and John are arrested and jailed because they are proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead and healing people. More and more people are coming to believe, and this disturbs the authorities. When asked by what power or what name they are able to heal, Peter replies, “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone’.”
Let’s consider just how challenging it was to the authorities that Jesus didn’t stay dead and buried. The human motivations behind the arrest, trial, conviction, and crucifixion of Jesus were political in the sense that they had to do with the power and position of the religious and political authorities. Jesus’ teachings and actions challenged that power and position, so both religious and political authorities were motivated to get rid of him in order to retain the status quo. They figured that once he was dead and buried, any challenge to their power and position from him would be dead and buried as well. Well, guess who had the last laugh? Yep, God did, because Jesus didn’t remain dead and buried, and neither did his message of the victory of good over sin and evil, love over hate, and life over death. Good, love, and life rose from the dead to vex the religious and political authorities forever. Up from the dead good, love, and life arose with Jesus, and the disciples took them out into the world, where they continued to challenge the status quo. We can just imagine the consternation of the authorities as they were confronted again and again by the words and actions of the apostles that illustrated that good would triumph over sin and evil, love would triumph over hate, and life would triumph over death.
Did those religious and political authorities surrender to good, love, and life at that point, realizing that they had lost the battle? No, they did not! They kept trying to figure out how to triumph by retaining their position and power: “Hmmm. Crucifying Jesus didn’t work. Let’s try arresting, jailing, and questioning the apostles. Okay, we have them locked away, but we still have a problem.” The Acts of the Apostles states the problem with these words from the authorities: “’What are we going to do with these men?’. . . Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name” (4:16-17). Their brilliant solution was to order the apostles to stop speaking in Jesus’ name. How did the apostles respond? Did they do as the authorities commanded? No, they did not! In today’s Acts reading, the apostles are brought before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest, who states, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name . . . Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood” (4:28). The apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men” (29)! The apostles were steadfast in their faithfulness and were not deterred by the commands of human authorities. They answered to a higher authority – God – and would not be deterred. They would keep speaking and acting in Jesus’ name to bring good, love, and life into the world. Praise be to God!
The thing is, when we live resurrection lives, we get pushback from those indoctrinated by or invested in the status quo. Change is challenging, and resurrected lives are changed lives that continue to be made new by God – and thus changed – on a regular basis. Resurrected lives also change what is around them. The status quo is familiar and is thus comfortable, even if it doesn’t support God’s will and God’s way, so resurrected lives and the change those lives create aren’t always welcomed by the status quo.
I listen to Snap Judgment, a radio show and podcast that describes itself in this way: “Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap’s musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling . . . with a BEAT!”[2] This past week, I listened to an episode titled, “Bates & Stokes.” Damaria Bates and Jimia Stokes were licensed professional counselors at Pontiac Correctional Center outside Chicago in the 1990s. They were the only African Americans on the staff. This is important because most of the inmates were African American men. Bates was hired first. She wondered if she was the right person for the job, but thought to herself, “’Hey, God is sending me here. I'm going to help these guys and I'm going to really make a change in somebody's life.’ Giving them proper coping skills, trying to keep them from coming back into the system, because I figured most inmates probably never talked to a therapist a day in their life.”[3]
Bates was paired with a white, male mental health worker who had been at the facility for a while so that she could shadow him while she learned the job. She was surprised when he made derogatory comments about the inmates on suicide watch for whom he was the mental health counselor. He was the person who was supposed to be caring about these inmates’ mental health and he was calling them names that I cannot say in a sermon. At first, Bates thought maybe it was just part of the banter between the mental health worker and the inmates, but she realized it was more than that and finally said something to her colleague. She told him she was offended by the way he talked about the inmates, but he just laughed it off. Pontiac is a small town and the people who worked in the prison had known each other a long time. Bates realized she was an outsider in more ways than one so she decided to leave the issue alone. She was relieved, however, when another female, African American counselor was hired to join the mental health staff. This was Stokes.
Both women enjoyed good relationships with the inmates they worked with. However, they became increasingly uncomfortable with the way the inmates were treated by other prison employees, including other mental health workers. For example, if they didn’t like an inmate, they wouldn’t give them their psych meds. Or they would deny that the inmates had a psychiatric illness like schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, or major depression. Instead, they would say they had behavior problems, so they wouldn’t treat them for the illness for which they had received a diagnosis. Of course, the patients who did not receive the treatment required by their diagnosis would suffer and get worse, showing more symptoms and more “behavior problems.”
Bates and Stokes were disturbed by all of this and would challenge the abusive behavior and attitudes they witnessed. They would challenge it verbally and they would file reports. Eventually, a supervisor called a meeting and gathered the whole mental health team together. The supervisor said, “You should keep reporting incidents with correctional officers. That’s your ethical obligation. . . . But at the same time, you want to be really cautious about how often and what you’re saying because these are the same people that we’re asking to protect us when we go into these cell houses.” The supervisor was saying one thing out of one side of his mouth, and another thing out of the other side of his mouth. Essentially, he was saying, “Yes, we’re supposed to report incidents of abuse by prison employees, but those employees – prison guards – are also the people who protect us from the inmates so don’t make them angry with your reports of their abuse or you won’t get protected.” Even though the meeting was for the whole mental health team, Bates and Stokes knew it was really for them because they were the only ones speaking up against the injustices they witnessed against the inmates.
Bates and Stokes were living resurrection lives in a facility in which those indoctrinated by or invested in the status quo pushed back. The injustices didn’t stop, and nothing changed, except that Bates and Stokes began being treated badly by other employees at the facility. They began to fear for their wellbeing. Eventually, Bates was fired for not remaining silent and Stokes left because her soul was being crushed. She spoke of how she felt, holding back sobs: [L]ike I said, it's just . . . not feeling, like there's anything that I could do. And then, of course, I just felt help[less] – almost just so conflicted, and I think that's really why I really want[ed] to get out of there because either you were going to go along, or you were just going to get mistreated, picked on, bullied. I was just tired of that.”
Bates and Stokes were not successful in changing the institution in which they worked, just as the apostles were not successful in changing the political system of the Roman Empire in which they lived. But Bates and Stokes, and the apostles, touched individual lives as they went about living their resurrection lives. The prisoners with whom Bates and Stokes worked felt seen, heard, and cared for, and the people the apostles healed and brought into community felt the same. As we go about living resurrection lives, we may not be successful in changing the unjust systems in which we live and work, but we will be successful in changing lives for the better.
As I said earlier in this sermon, when we live resurrection lives, we will get pushback from those indoctrinated by or invested in the status quo. Change is challenging, and resurrected lives are changed lives that continue to be made new by God – and thus changed – on a regular basis. Resurrected lives also change what is around them. The status quo is familiar and is thus comfortable, even if it doesn’t support God’s will and God’s way, so resurrected lives and the change those lives create aren’t always welcomed by the status quo. This was true for Jesus, this was true for the apostles, this was true for Bates and Stokes, and this is true for us. When those indoctrinated by or invested in the status quo push back and question us, like the apostles we can reply, “We must obey God rather than men!” As we do so, we can take heart in the belief that God in Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who is, who was, and is to come, the Almighty. “The God who had the first word, the word by which creation came into being, will also have the last word, the word by which new creation will come into being. That is the promise of Easter” [4] that we carry with us as we go out into the world to live resurrection lives. Amen.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Amy Johnson, Canton Community Baptist Church, Canton, CT, April 24, 2022, the Second Sunday of Easter.
*Image by Stefano Ferrario from Pixabay
[1] Cousar, Charles B., Beverly R. Gaventa, J. Clinton, McCann, James D. Newsome. Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV – Year C. Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, 282.
[2] https://snapjudgment.org/about/
[3] https://snapjudgment.org/episode/bates-stokes/
[4] Cousar, Charles B., Beverly R. Gaventa, J. Clinton, McCann, James D. Newsome. Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV – Year C. Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, 282.
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