Keeping The Main Thing, The Main Thing: A Sermon for 3 Easter

Stephen Covey, the author of the best-selling Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, once said that “The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.” I think that celebrating the Great Fifty Days of Easter is one of the Church’s means for keeping the main thing, the main thing. After all, the main thing of the Christian faith is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Without the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead, we have no Christianity. We’d have a story of a remarkable Jewish man who attempted to lead a religious movement, and died a tragic, horrific, unjust death in the process. There’d be some wonderful sermons, healings, and parables. But that is it. There’d be no Christianity had Jesus not risen from the dead. 

So during the Great Fifty Days of Easter, we are invited to keep our sights on the main thing - the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The resurrection encounters and narratives don’t stop on Easter Sunday. Last week, we heard about Jesus’ two appearances to his disciples in the Upper Room as told by John. This week, Luke tells us about a snack and conversation Jesus had with his disciples. 

These varied narratives of Jesus’ appearances to his disciples told by the different evangelists remind us, in our moments of doubt, that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead wasn’t just some sort of spiritual, warm feeling that his followers experienced in the days and weeks following his death. Today’s text tells us that at first his disciples were startled and terrified. After that, they became committed evangelists and martyrs for Christ. That to me is a far cry from having their hearts strangely warmed by Christ’s spiritual presence.  I don’t know anybody who would die a martyr's death over having their heart warmed. 

Many folks might say that they come to church for the community, the music, or the programs. But can’t we experience community from our neighborhoods, book groups, Bridge groups, 12-step groups, sports, and any other number of sources? Can’t we hear and support excellent music at The Panama City Symphony Orchestra, the Northwest Florida Ballet, or the Mattie Kelly Arts Center? Can’t our children be nurtured and entertained through countless extracurricular activities? Can’t we volunteer and help those in need at Caring and Sharing, the Point Washington Medical Clinic, and many other places?  In this growing area of ours, the possibilities are endless for community, fellowship, entertainment, and community service. And these are all good things in which we can participate and support.

But none of these things, places, or organizations offer what the Church uniquely offers - the Good News that Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection brought and continues to bring about reconciliation, healing, and forgiveness of sins for the whole world. The Church is Christ’s Body in the world, through which we are offered reconciliation between God and humankind. And when we as Christ’s Body fail to keep the main thing the main thing - when we fail to first and foremost proclaim the Good News of the forgiveness of sins through Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, we have grievously missed the mark.

This past Thursday morning, this Good News of Christ’s resurrection struck me in an unexpected, surprising, and deeply profound way when I was praying Morning Prayer. In this service, during the Great Fifty Days of Easter, we say the Christ our Passover - the Pascha Nostrum - immediately before we read the assigned psalms for the day. On this particular day, I was in the church by myself, and when I recited the Pascha Nostrum, I was overcome with emotion. I have said those words countless times, but for whatever reason, at this moment, I heard and experienced this Good News differently.  Listen here to the lines that nearly swept me off my feet that morning:

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; *

    death no longer has dominion over him.

The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all; *

    but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So also consider yourselves dead to sin, *

    and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Alleluia.

It’s not that I didn’t believe these words prior to last Thursday morning. But I am not sure if I have ever believed them as intensely as I did at this moment. To use Stephen Covey’s terminology, these words taken from Paul’s letters to his churches in Corinth and Rome are “the main thing.” And they sum up the message that we as Christians are called to proclaim. We can have the best worship, music, children’s and adult programs, outreach ministries, and facilities in the world, but if we aren’t keeping the main thing the main thing - that we are “dead to sin, and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord” - we are indeed off course. 

When I have read and studied today’s gospel story in the past, I have tended to focus on two things - the actual appearance of Jesus to his disciples - no small detail - as well as Jesus’ rather humorous and pragmatic request for a snack. 

But a closer look shows that this encounter also included a profound teaching moment for the disciples. It comes when “[Jesus] said to them, ‘...everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled,’ after which “he opened their minds to understand the scriptures…”.  

During this encounter, not only did Jesus reassure his disciples that he indeed had risen from the dead, he helped them connect this truth with the scriptures that they had grown up hearing. Jesus was pointing out to them that his resurrection from the dead wasn’t some sort of random surprise in the story or twist in the plot. It had been foretold in the scriptures and in his three years of ministry with them. At this moment it was important for Jesus to help his disciples make that connection - to place Jesus’ resurrection within the arc of salvation history. He wanted to make sure that they understood that the main thing had been the main thing all along.

And here’s the thing - once Jesus had “opened their mind to understand the scriptures,” he didn’t command them to go be kind, inclusive, affirming, or welcoming. He didn’t even command them to feed the hungry or heal the sick or build a new building or start a new program. Not that those are bad things. And not that we shouldn’t do those types of things. But what follows instead was simply Jesus’ command “that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.” Repentance and forgiveness was the primary mission that Jesus assigned to his disciples, and as such, it should be our primary mission. Proclaiming, in Jesus’ name, repentance and forgiveness of sins to all people was and still is the main thing. And it is out of this “main thing” that all Christian ministries should flow. 

The bottom line is, if we, like so many other churches, choose to proclaim an “I’m ok, you’re ok, we’re all ok” gospel, or a “come as you are and don’t seek to be transformed because you are just fine the way you are” gospel, we might as well remove the cross that is hanging on this back wall, change our name, and quit being a church. We will have become disciples of the Moral Therapeutic Deism movement that is so prevalent in so many liberal mainline Protestant churches today. Jesus didn’t die a horrific death on the cross to affirm how good we are.

One of my favorite ways I have heard this articulated was by the Rev’d Frank Limehouse from the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham. One Sunday a lady approached him in the handshake line and thanked him for his message. She said something along the lines of her being a bad person for a long time and was ready to come back to church and turn her life around. He said to her, “Well, I have some bad news and some good news for you. The bad news is that as bad of a person as you think you are, you are actually worse. I know this because all of us are in desperate need of God’s grace. The Good News is that Christ’s grace,  mercy, forgiveness, and love are available to us all - each and every one of us - not because of who we are or what “good deeds” we do but because of who Jesus is and what he did and continues to do for us. The goal here isn’t to become “good people.” The goal is much more profound than that. The goal is to be reconciled to the God who created, redeemed, and sustains us, and in that reconciliation, we get a foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Great Fifty Days of Easter help remind us of the “main thing,” and invite us to keep the main thing, the main thing. And that is why we are here today, and why we keep coming back. We don’t come because of how good or bad we are. We are here to see, hear, taste, smell, and experience the Good News of Christ’s redemptive mercy, forgiveness, love, and grace for all people. And then we are called to go out into the world and proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in Christ’s name to all nations. Or in the words of the Apostle Paul, “ consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Alleluia!