410 Trust This Shepherd

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Trust This Shepherd”, originally shared on April 22, 2026. It was the 410^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

    There are lots of voices competing for our trust, telling us that they are the only ones who are worthy. Today, we’re going to find out who is trustworthy.

   I ran across an old meme the other day that said, “Every time you paint a room it gets a little smaller.”

   Let’s just think about that for a minute. 😊

   It’s true, but does it matter?

   The room is smaller (dried paint is about .0016” thick), but does it matter enough to make us not want to freshen up the room, or to change its mood, or to match its décor? Or, to make it better?

   Could making our world a little bit smaller be a good thing?

   I thought of that when I was considering the Gospel text that will be read in the vast majority of churches this coming Sunday, John 10:1-10.

   It’s about a gate for protecting “sheep”. That is, who’s in and who’s out.

   Not too many of us have any firsthand experience of caring for sheep. And few of us want to.

   Little lambs are cute, but little lambs grow up into big oafish sheep that need everything.

   So, what do we make of it when Jesus refers to himself as “the shepherd of the sheep”? And, when his disciples don’t understand what he’s talking about, he says that he is “the gate for the sheep”?

   Most of us certainly don’t know. Could it have something to do with our experience of shepherds and sheep, or the lack of it?

   Being a shepherd was somewhat romanticized at the time of Jesus because few people then did it anymore.

   Like some of us romanticize the days when we or our families were farmers. We only remember the good things. We forget about the hard, almost endless, work it takes, the isolation, and the almost total dependance upon things beyond our control.

   Even in Jesus’ day, being a shepherd was not really desirable work. Shepherds were nomadic. They moved their flocks to wherever they could find food and water, so they had no fixed address most of the time.

   They were strangers. They were viewed with suspicion.

   When you heard that shepherds were coming, you hid your daughters and locked up your valuables. Shepherds were not allowed within city limits. Their testimony was not acceptable in a court of law. They smelled bad.

   The word pastor comes from the word “shepherd” in many languages. 😊

   Pastors guide their “flocks”, though we don’t use the term “flocks” for “congregations” much anymore. It seems kind of old-fashioned, and almost none of us accept being called “sheep” as a compliment.

   Most people think of sheep as being passive, as needing someone to take care of them, and as only doing what they are told, none of which are thought of as admirable qualities in our culture.

   So is our message, “Come and be a sheep”? No.

   The Gospel reading for this coming Sunday, John 10:1-10, tells us what the message is in its first five verses. Speaking to the Pharisees about who He is, Jesus says in John 10:1-5,

10 “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. ² The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³ The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴ When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵ They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

   Shepherds spoke to their sheep all day long.

   Many flocks were kept in the same sheepfold with other flocks in Jesus’ day on earth. Shepherds would go to the fold, call their sheep, and only the shepherd’s sheep would follow him, because they knew his voice.

   The message is that all people need a shepherd, this shepherd: Jesus. When you hear him, you know that you can trust him.

   How do we know who our shepherd is? We hear his voice and we know it is him. The Holy Spirit opens our ears and; we resonate with him.

   RCA was a pioneer in audio recording and home entertainment. They manufactured the gramophone, which had a thick, surface destroying needle connected to a large trumpet shaped speaker like an easter lily flower coming out of it. Its shape is what the Grammy award trophy is modeled after. You would crank it up manually and it would spin, first around cylinders and then around flat records, and sound would come out of it. RCA’s logo was a dog staring quizzically into the speaker, and its slogan was “His master’s voice.”

   We hear God speak, but in a different way.

   Remember when Jesus taught, he didn’t always expect everybody to understand. What did he say, in Mark 4:9?

⁹ And he said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”   

   We who are being saved hear in a different way.

   We know the voice of Jesus because we know Jesus. God has made it so.

   I read a story a while ago about a Native American man who was visiting his long-time city dwelling friend in New York. They were walking along the streets of Manhattan when he suddenly stopped and stood still.

   “What’s wrong?” said the friend.

   “Nothing,” said the Native American. “Listen.”

   “I don’t hear anything,” said the friend.

   The Native American walked over to a tree planted in a ceramic pot and motioned for his friend to come closer. He lifted a branch and there, they both heard the sound of the cricket.

   Once he could see it, the friend heard it clearly.

   “How did you hear that?” the friend asked.

   “Watch,” the Native American said, and he reached into his pocket and threw a few coins on the sidewalk.

   People all around them stopped and looked for the money.

   The Native American said, “We hear the things for which we listen.”

   What do we look for? Do we look for God?

   What do we hear? Do we listen for God?

   Seeing is not only believing. Believing gives us the eyes to see.

   We know that we need a Savior and that we have one in Jesus Christ. We have been given the ears to hear! God has made us His own! This is the Good News!

   This is the message of Easter!

   Jesus gave His life for us. No one took it away from Him. Jesus gave His life and then He took it back again, He rose from the dead! He died as a one-time sacrifice to restore the living relationship with God for which we were created at the beginning of time. He is Risen from the dead! He is who he said he was. He is our Savior, the good shepherd!

   An abundant, real life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come awaits all who repent of their old lives, believe, and are baptised! That’s too good to keep to ourselves.

   I once heard a story about a tourist who was riding a tour bus in Israel, looking at the geography. Suddenly, he saw a flock of sheep and a shepherd behind it. The shepherd was shouting at the sheep and hitting them with his staff to keep them moving forward.

   The tourist went to the guide and said, “I’ve always pictured shepherds walking in front of their sheep and the sheep following the shepherd. “Why is that shepherd pushing and driving them from behind?”

   The guide replied, “That’s not the shepherd. That’s the butcher.”

   But the Pharisees, the religious influencers of Jesus time on earth, don’t get it, as our Gospel reading for this Sunday continues, in John 10:6,

⁶ Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

   How can people come to faith if they are separated from God by their sin?

   How can we know that God cares about we sinners, much less loves us?

   By the cross. This is what Paul says in Romans 5:6-8,

⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. ⁸ But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

   Almost all of my ancestors came from the country of Norway. My family there can trace our relatives back to the Viking Era in the 1,100’s. Some of our ancestors were farmers who worshiped many gods. Some may have been marauders. Some may have been slaves.

   But they came to Christ. They were saved by Jesus. They repented and received new life by the grace of God through the ministry of missionaries, Christians who shared their faith, just like us, as Christians have done for 2,000 years.

   But, as with their faith, my family didn’t always know what they had.

   My grandmother on my father’s side remembered the time when her family burned most of the cherry wood furniture they brought with them from Norway, because nobody wanted that old stuff. They wanted the modern American plastic kind.

   How do we know what is real at any given time, what endures? How can we know who God is, and what God has given to us? Trust this shepherd, Jesus, care for others, and show others how to do the same.

   When we share the gospel, we share Jesus, not our culture. The meaning of things is more important than human traditions. Quality is more important than size. Making Christians is more important than making church members.

   And we are helped by the fact that Christianity is able to adapt to cultures, not like some other religions that are locked into one culture and one language at one time in their history.

   We believe that what defines us is at the core of our faith, revealed to us through the Bible, and expressed primarily in two ancient creeds: The Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. They represent the faith that was handed down from Jesus to the apostles, and now to us.

   And, as Church reformer Martin Luther said, as long as the Gospel is rightly preached and the Sacraments are rightly administered, everything else is secondary. It may be important, but it is not something that cannot be adapted. It is not based on a law, or on a saying, but on a person, Jesus Christ. That gives us a great deal of freedom, and it is given so that we can receive and promote life!

   We see this in the final four verses of this coming Sunday’s Gospel reading, in John 10:7-10,

⁷ So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸ All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹ I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

   So, when the Pharisees couldn’t understand what Jesus was saying when he said that he is the shepherded that rightly brings the sheep into the fold, Jesus told them that he was the gate to the fold.

   Did that make it any clearer for them? Or us?

   What was he talking about?

   I think that he’s making a reference to a verse from the Psalms that we often read at funerals. It’s a verse about death and salvation and about the meaning of life and the cross. It’s Psalm 118:20,

²⁰       This is the gate of the Lord;

the righteous shall enter through it.

   Jesus is the gate.

   We can only be made righteous before God by faith in Jesus Christ.

   That is a very exclusive statement.

   It connects to a news article that I read this week about a priest in India, and to a Bible verse that was read all over the world this past Sunday.

   Father Vincent Pereira was charged with a crime for saying, during a worship service, that Christianity is the only true religion, because it could hurt the religious sentiments of other people.

   Father Pereira, a Roman Catholic priest, appealed to the Supreme Court of India, where the case awaits trial.

   The president of an international Christian human rights group has asked the court to reject the charge against Father Pereira, and to reject the claim that no faith can claim exclusive truth, because it would criminalize “a key doctrinal belief of many religions.”

   Isn’t that true? All religions have a wisdom tradition, but not all religions are true. If we believed something else was true, wouldn’t we believe that?

   There are many, many different religions in the world. But, just because there are many, does that mean that one of them can’t be true?

   Jesus says, in today’s Gospel reading, ^9 “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

   He says it even more plainly in another passage from the gospel of John, in John 14:6-7,

⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

   Nations and cultures rise and fall while Jesus, the Good Shepherd, will be present forever because Jesus is God, the second person of the Trinity, fully God and fully human being.

   How do people find Jesus? Jesus finds them, often through missionaries, through people who teach people how to recognize what is already inside of them by knowing how to hear the shepherd’s voice. Jesus is already present in every culture, and He calls people of every nation to follow Him.

   Lives that have been changed are lived in love for God and in the service of others, with our whole selves.

   And we bring our whole selves to worship God.

   We respond to his voice by worshiping Him in a way that is not directed toward ourselves, but toward the one true living God.

   That’s why, as the Danish Lutheran philosopher and theologian Soren Kirkegaard said, when worship is finished, the question we ask is not, “What did I get out of that?” but “How did I do?”

   There are many church related groups in the world, but there is only one Church. The Body of Christ.

   It is composed of all the baptized believing Christians who know the voice of the Good Shepherd, Jesus, and follow Him in daily life. And worship Him with the other members of the Body of Christ.

   That one flock is composed of people of every race and place and language and culture. People of every nation. Even of people of every time! A community of people who love God, love others, and hear the voice of Jesus, the one shepherd.

   Every time you paint a room, you do make it a little smaller. But in the room that is the Christian church, the inside is always larger than the outside. 😊

   The voice of Jesus the shepherd is calling all people to hear his voice and to follow Him now.

   That voice doesn’t come from any one culture because Christianity doesn’t come from the North or from the South or from the East or from the West.

   It comes from above. And it proclaims the one way to salvation through Jesus Christ, our shepherd!

   When I was in the Marine Corps, I saw a t-shirt that said, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for I am the meanest #*&^%$@$& in the valley.”

   We don’t do that. And we don’t have to. We have a Good Shepherd. When it comes to what is needed for life and salvation, the Good Shepherd has done it all. For us.

   You can hear Jesus in your heart today, and you can trust that shepherd.

   Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia! 

409 Three Life Lessons

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “From “Three Life Lessons”, originally shared on April 16, 2026. It was the 409^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   What can we learn about building a life on the road with Jesus? Three things. Tomorrow, we’re going to find out what they are.

   I served a congregation in Compton, California for 9 years and then a congregation in San Dimas, California for almost 32 years. Yes, I travelled “Straight Outta Compton” to the home of “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”.

   It wasn’t a long trip, but it was a momentous one.

   In addition to regular church and community ministry, I was involved in property improvements inside and outside the church in Compton, and we built a new parish hall and a new, larger, worship and administration building in San Dimas.

   I learned a few things in the process of those projects.

   Three of those lessons stand out, and they all are reflected in Gospel reading that will be shared all over the world this coming Sunday, Luke 24:13-35.

  First life lesson: anyone can hand you a bill. That doesn’t mean that you have to pay it.

   We frequently had bills handed to us during construction that we disputed. Things happened that were not our fault. Work was done that was not contracted. Plans we designed were not followed.

   Jesus had died on the cross. It was God’s plan. Three days later, two of his discouraged followers were leaving Jerusalem, headed for a village about 7 miles away called Emmaus.

   It wasn’t a long trip, but it was momentous.

   On the way, Jesus caught up with them, but they didn’t recognize him. They thought he was dead.

   Who wouldn’t? His disciple John and many others had seen him dead.

   They were heartbroken as they walked, and Jesus asked them what had happened.

   We hear the answer in Luke 24:18-21,

¹⁸ Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” ¹⁹ He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰ and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹ But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.

   They thought that they were living in a nightmare. They thought that their redeemer was dead. They thought that they had run up a debt for their sins before God, and that they were going to have to pay that bill themselves.

   Did they have to pay that bill? Do we?

   Nope!

   They were on the edge of figuring this out. Women said that they had gone to Jesus’ tomb early that morning and found it empty. Angels had told the women that Jesus had taken his life back again and risen from the dead! The disciples had seen the empty tomb!

   Jesus is astounded that they haven’t figured out what was going on. Jesus opened their eyes to see that everything that had been prophesied in the Bible about the human debt for sin had just been fulfilled in Jesus!

   Their debt of sin had been stamped, “Paid in Full” by Jesus’ death on the cross!

   We learn the same life lesson when we come to live the Christian life.

   When a person becomes a Christian, or goes through a renewed faith and begins experiencing a life transformed by God, friends, and family, and co-workers will notice.

   We are made a new creation. We are born again. When that happens, and people find out, some of them will begin doing things to irritate you just to see if they can get a rise out of you.

   They will try to get you to do things that are contrary to your new life. They will throw the “gotcha” questions at you, give you a demeaning nickname, distance themselves from you, accuse you of being “holier than thou”, or of thinking that you’re better than them. They will say they miss the old you and will try to pull you back to your old self.

   The thing is that you don’t owe them anything, neither beliefs nor behaviors.

   Sometimes, in fact, it takes the hand of God for you to recognize who your friends and family truly are, and who really wants the best for you, and who wants to build you up, to point you to a better future, and to guide you forward.

   You have been made a new Creation by God. The bill for your debt of sin has been paid.

   Second life lesson: you can have it done well, you can have it done fast, and you can have it done cheap. Pick any two.

   If it’s done fast and well, it won’t be cheap. If it’s done well and cheap, it won’t be done fast. If it’s done fast and cheap, it won’t be done well.

   Deitrich Bonhoffer, the German Lutheran pastor murdered by the Nazi’s for his active opposition to the fascists in World War II, spoke to Christians about “cheap grace”. God’s selfless love for us, God’s grace, is free. But it was never cheap. It came only through the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross, giving his life and then taking it back again in his Resurrection.

   This expensive grace is what Jesus reveals when he agrees to stay with the disciples in Emmaus. They still don’t realise that they are with the risen Jesus. But then this happens when they sit down for dinner, in Luke 24:30-31,

³⁰ When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

   That’s right, they recognized him in the breaking of bread. They realized that they were communing with Jesus. And in that moment, he vanished from their sight, because he was now within them.

   They would no longer see Jesus. They would know him in Holy Communion.

   The 16th century Church reformer Martin Luther described Holy Communion in his Small Catechism, beginning with a question and an answer:

“What is Holy Communion?

   Holy Communion is the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ given with bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself for us to eat and to drink.”

   The forms of bread and wine don’t physically change, but Jesus becomes present in those forms when the words of institution are said by someone trained and ordained for the good order of the sacrament. Those words begin, “In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread...”

   Jesus instituted Holy Communion in the context of his betrayal unto death on the cross.

   The road to the cross wasn’t long, but it was momentous.

   Sally and I take short drives on Historic Route 66 when we are out running errands. It goes right through the area where Sally and I and, for a while, our son James have lived for almost 40 years.

   Route 66 was one of the first American highways and was synonymous with the romance of the road and new starts for those migrating west. It was popular as a vacation adventure highway when the road was dotted with oddities and local treasures, stretching from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California.

   Its impact on popular culture included the song, “Get Your Kicks On Route 66” and the “Route 66” TV series.

   It was eventually replaced by the United States Interstate system in1985, but it retains its status for many as a highway of possibilities, a road of the imagination, as Historic Route 66.

   Roads are places where change takes form, where work becomes possible, where missionary journeys happen, where lives are transformed.

   In fact, the early Christian movement was known as “The Way” long before it was known as Christianity.

   And how does Jesus describe himself? He says, in John 14:6,

⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

   The life of a disciple is built on the work of Jesus on the cross. We are sinners and therefore separated by Sin from the holy God. Jesus is God in flesh and fully human at the same time. He paid the penalty for our Sin himself. The canyon between us and God is bridged by the cross.

   To be a disciple and live a Christian life isn’t cheap or fast. It took the cross of Jesus Christ done well for us to live well in response to it, and we come into his presence in the forms of bread and wine in Holy Communion.

   God builds the foundation of our lives as Christians on the Word, embodied now through the Bible, and on the Sacraments, which are Baptism and Holy Communion.

   The early Christians spent 3-years in instruction before they were welcomed as full members of a local church. If our desire to serve involves no cross-bearing and does not bring meaningful life transformation, it is simply a superficial nod to Jesus. It is fast and it is cheap grace. It will not be a life lived well.

   Third life lesson: everything takes longer and costs more.

   A building contractor, a member of our church who was advising our building committee during our worship-and-administration building construction, sent me a picture of a giant yacht with a small motorboat tied behind it.

   The name on the motorboat was, “Original Contract”. The name on the yacht was, “Change Orders”.

   Change orders are the changes to the original contract that are made once work has begun. They can drive up the cost of the project astronomically. But, sometimes, the client doesn’t know what they want until the project has begun, and sometimes they just get a new idea.

   We see this in our Gospel reading for this coming Sunday. The two disciples who had been on the road to Emmaus with Jesus are stunned, they are excited, they don’t know how to process the feelings they had when Jesus opened up the scripture to them.

   Their eyes were opened to who Jesus was when he broke bread with them.

   They left Emmaus immediately and walked the 7 miles back to Jerusalem. They found the 11 remain disciples that had been the closest to Jesus, and the disciples speak first and then he two who were on the road respond, in Luke 24:34-35,

³⁴ They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” ³⁵ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

   Literature and all the arts are full of stories that take place a road.

   What road are you on, and is it taking you closer to God or farther away?

   As with “change orders” on a building project, sometimes, people who become disciples of Jesus don’t know what they are getting into until God comes alongside them on their life’s road, opens their eyes, enters their true selves, and their life transformation project begins.

   Maybe the word “sometimes” should be changed to pretty much “always”. God always accepts us as we are. Repentant sinners. But God never leaves us as we are. God makes our hearts, by God’s grace, a place that is fitting for the one true holy God to dwell in. That involves basic transformation. We are imperfect sinful human beings.

   The Christian life doesn’t end in perfection until Jesus returns to bring in a new heaven and a new earth. We don’t need perfection to be accepted by God. We need only to acknowledge our need for a Savior, and that we have one in Jesus Christ.

   Our behavior changes and improves not from fear but from faith, from our relationship with God. We are God’s people, and what we do flows out from who we now are.

   We don’t live to get something from God. We live in response to all that God has already done for us at the cross.

   I was standing between the two buildings that we built at the church I served in San Dimas after the new worship and administration building had been dedicated. People were moving from the new building to the reception in the parish hall, and a member of the congregation approached me and said, “Isn’t this wonderful! This is your legacy!”

   I said, “This isn’t my legacy. These are buildings. My legacy is the lives of those who come to receive the gift of faith in Jesus Christ through the ministry that happens in these buildings.”

   That is the same legacy for all of us.

   What is your road to Emmaus? Is it your coming Baptism? Is it a time of renewal in the Holy Spirit? Is it your daily walk of faith in a living, acting, loving, relationship with the one true living God?

   What is your Historic Route 66? Where has Jesus called you to go? And to whom have you been sent to share your story?

   Who will you encounter today, or tomorrow, or any day, who has never heard the story of salvation, or has never allowed it to sink in, or seen at it work in an actual Christian life?

   Pray that God would fill you with the Holy Spirit and then hit the road.

   Share your story with your friends and relatives and whoever you encounter on your life’s road.

   Communicate the new life that exists in Jesus Christ in you in your own words and deeds for others. Jesus, who is the Way, the way, and the truth, and the life.

   Our lives are not long but, by the grace of God, they are momentous.

   We are made a new Creation in Baptism, we are fed for our life’s road with Jesus in Holy Communion, and we are entrusted with the good news of Jesus Christ, the great lessons of life over death forever!

   These are the lessons that lead to life!

   Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!

408 From "Rise!" to Risen!

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “From “Rise!” to Risen!”, originally shared on April 8, 2026. It was the 408^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Do you like stories? How about stories about yourself? Today, we’re going to hear one.

   The Artemis II rocket lifted off a week ago last Wednesday on a 10-day manned trip around the moon, taking human beings to the deepest spot in space that we have ever been. It will return this coming Friday.

   It’s pretty exciting to see the pictures and hear the reports. It was our first trip back to the moon’s neighborhood in over 53 years!

   And, the pilot of the mission, Victor Glover, was born right here in Pomona and graduated from high school right here in Ontario.

   They took photos of the back side of the moon, which no human beings have ever seen from the earth. Someone posted a photo of a flower tortilla against a black background online and claimed it was a picture of the back side of the moon, but I wasn’t fooled! 😊

   An unmanned Soviet probe took blurry, low-resolution photos in 1959, but the back side (it’s not “dark”, BTW) has only been seen live and in person in part by the 24 American astronauts in the Apollo missions.

   Now the Artemis II crew has seen it in full, and transmitted photos. Before that, it had been a mystery to humanity. What could we believe about something we hadn’t seen?

   What they also saw was the vastness of space. One of the first photos NASA released was a photo of the earth in that vast black background. They had seen photos of the earth in space taken by others during previous missions, but I read that the Artemis II mission crew members were all stunned when they were far enough away to see it for themselves.  

   You might remember that the actor William Schatner, probably known best for his role as Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek TV series, rode on one of those brief flights into space for paying civilians sponsored by billionaires. When he came back to earth, he said that he was deeply shaken.

   He said that he wept at how small and fragile our planet looked in the midst of that vast, mostly empty, space.

   For all but a very of few of us, space beyond the earth has been a mystery. And it isn’t much more than that even now.

   That’s not what we mean by mystery in the Christian faith, though. A mystery in the Christian faith is not like a mystery that we can figure out, like in a novel or a TV series.

   It’s a mystery in the sense that we can’t understand it unless it is revealed to us from outside of ourselves. Like the mystery of salvation. The gift of God that we celebrated on Easter Sunday.

   The first Easter weekend began with Jesus’ death and ended with his resurrection. He had given his life, and he had taken it back again.

   This coming Sunday will be the Second Sunday of the Easter season. Christians have celebrated it since the Resurrection.

   The Second Sunday of our Easter season is the time by which Easter Eggs have been turned into egg salad sandwiches, the candy has been wolfed down, the decorations have been put away, and the kids have gone back to school. “Spring” break is over.

   And, the Second Sunday of Easter is also known by some as the First Sunday in the Coachella Music Festival. 😊

   In churches, the Second Sunday of Easter is sometimes called “Low Sunday”, or what could be called the Sunday of Disappointment! It’s the Sunday when we all look around and ask, “Where is everybody?”

   In Western Christianity, however, the Second Sunday of the Easter season is also known as Divine Mercy Sunday, the Octave Day of Easter, White Sunday, and even Quasimodo Sunday.

   Yes, that’s right, “Quasimodo” Sunday, the name of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, so named after that Sunday in the Church calendar because he was found at the cathedral as a hunchbacked infant on “Quasimodo Sunday”. It was named after the first words of the antiphon of the Latin introit in the Mass for that day, found in 1 Peter 2:2, “quasi modo geniti infantes…” or “Like newborn infants…”. It’s also the name of a surfing position. But I digress. 😊

   Last Sunday, The Sunday of the Resurrection of Our Lord, aka Easter Sunday, our churches were as full as they get. “Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed!” We celebrated that then, and this coming Sunday, it will be almost like it never happened.

   There are some people who don’t keep the sabbath holy every Sunday. But if there is one when they do, it will be Easter Sunday. Others are dragged or guilted-in by insistent friends and relatives. Some are bribed with the promise of candy and colored Easter eggs and, for adults, food afterwards. Some come just because it’s what they and/or their family have always done, and it has become part of their identity. They, as the Steely Dan song said, “suit up for a game they no longer play”.

   Our churches will have put out their best of everything in the hope that some will be impressed and come back. And maybe some will but, if you had never been to a church and you were there last Sunday, Easter Sunday, and you come back to that church this coming Sunday, you will probably be just as flummoxed as everybody else.

   The Gospel reading that will be read this coming Sunday in the vast majority of churches throughout the world, John 20:19-31, is even more disappointing!

   How do you see the resurrected body of Jesus, after he had told you he was going to rise from the dead, and not know what to do next?

   That happens, when the disciples are gathered on the evening of the Resurrection.

   They are still processing what had happened in the morning. They had heard from some women that Jesus had risen, but they knew that he was dead. John had seen him die. Then this happens in John 20:19-23,

¹⁹ When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²² When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

   The disciples were afraid of the Jewish leaders. The Jewish leaders. Remember that all of the disciples, and Jesus, were Jewish. They were afraid that what had happened to Jesus could happen to them. Yet, it’s been said that the Bible says “fear not” or “don’t be afraid” or something like that 366 times, one for every day of the year plus one for a leap year! Jesus said these or similar words many times, including in today’s Gospel reading when he suddenly appears inside a locked room.

   The first words out of his mouth are “Peace be with you”, sholom aleichem, a common, even casual greeting.

   Was it weird to them that he was dead and now he appeared among them in a locked room? Was that why his first words were to calm them down? Did they know that they were out of debt? That he had paid their debt of sin on the cross?

   H.L. Menken, the journalist, essayist, and cultural critic, once said, "Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong."

   I thought of that when I heard that Warren Buffet, the wildly successful investor, philanthropist, and former CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, made a, I think, serious proposal for stopping our increasing national debt. His solution ws to pass a law making all sitting members of Congress ineligible for reelection if the federal deficit exceeds 3% of annual GDP (Gross Domestic Product). He said that this would take care of it in "five minutes". 

   Well, it is simple. Jesus had a more difficult solution to get us out of our sin debt.

   He gave his life, he took it back again, and then he appeared to his disciples in a locked room.

   Then things get even weirder.

   He shows them his wounds on his hands and on his side. He commissions them with a mini-Pentecost, just for them. The words “ruach” in Hebrew, the primary language of the Old Testament and “pneuma” in Greek, the primary language of the New Testament, both have the same three meanings: wind, breath, and spirit. They can all mean the same thing.

   Breath. He breathes on them. They receive the Holy Spirit. Does that seem strange?

   What else began with a breath?

   Genesis 2:7,

⁷ then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

  This is revealed to us in the Bible, which is filled with the power of God in the Holy Spirit.  

   Where does the authority of the Bible come from?

   2 Timothy 3:16-17,

¹⁶ All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

    Other translations replace “inspired” with “God-breathed”. The word “respiration” has the same root. The Bible’s authority comes from God. It is the primary  means by which God comes alive for us.

   But one disciple, who had ventured out, was not present when Jesus breathed life and power on the disciples. We see it in John 20:24-29,

²⁴ But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵ So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “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.”

²⁶ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸ Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

   So, there’s a doubter? Jesus moves forward to send the disciples out anyway.

   We live in an increasingly secular age. We live in a time when people  are hungry for the real community that God gives.

   But more importantly, people need churches whose community is not built on human traditions but is built on a living relationship with Jesus Christ. Christ: crucified, risen, and coming again. How do we convey that to this generation?

   I was stationed in the Marine Corps Barracks at the Norfolk Naval Base for a time when I was in the Marine Corps.

   At some point, we got a new sergeant. He had been a drill instructor at the Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Depot, but he had been convicted on around 27 counts of maltreatment of recruits.

   That’s right, he was too mean to be a Marine Corps drill instructor, so they sent him to us.

   He was a drinker and would sometime come in after having been out all night. It was time to get up when he turned the lights on, normally at 5:30 or 6:30 a.m., and he would go around to each of the cots. If anybody didn’t have their feet on the floor by the time he got to their cot, he would stand at the end of it, extend one palm out, facing up, and say in a deep voice, “Rise!”

   There was something about the way he said it that cut through the deepest sleep.

   But if anyone was still asleep the next time he came around, he would say “Rise!” a second time.

   And if they still hadn’t woken up, he flipped the cot, and you, upside down. Which usually got a person’s attention.

   How many people would catch that reference to Jesus’ power over death shown in the raising of Lazarus, and in his ability to take his life back again after he was crucified, today?

   Thomas didn’t, and he was one of Jesus’ closest disciples!

   Thomas came to belief because he saw the risen Christ and put his hand in his wounds. That’s not something that happens to us. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” Jesus said.

   Our identity as the people of the Christian Church comes from all those faithful people who have passed their faith from generation to generation, and on to us.

   I was looking for a cologne that I could put in my gym bag, once, when I worked out at a fitness center in Clairmont. I wanted something that smelled good, was not expensive, and didn’t come in a glass bottle that could break in my gym bag.

   Old Spice cologne checked all the boxes, but what really sold me was the marketing slogan on the box: “If your grandfather hadn’t worn it, you wouldn’t exist.” 😊 That’s how legacies are passed on.

   Will we pass on the living existence of the Christian faith to those who come after us? That is the purpose of the gospel of St. John from which we are reading today.

   This week’s passage ends by describing the purpose of the whole Gospel of John with what I think are two of the most important verses in the Bible, in John 20:30-31,

³⁰ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹ But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

   Some of those who were at worship in Christian churches on Easter Sunday were not doubters. They weren’t even interested. They were (is it too harsh to say it?) spiritual tourists.

   But, at least they were there. You may have noticed that the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, part of what is also known as March Madness, has just wrapped-up. You may also have noticed that the two games between the women’s final four teams, one of which was the UCLA Women’s Basketball team, were played on Good Friday. The championship game, the end of the madness, was played on Easter Sunday! This says everything you need to know about the status of Christianity in the United States today.

   The news has been reporting an increase in religiosity among Gen Z youth, though, those born between 1997 and 2012, who would be between about 14 and 29 today. But it is a self-defined, more private form of religion.

   We offer something else. Something true. Something that endures.

   It is neither religion nor self-affirmation. We proclaim Jesus, crucified, risen, and coming again. We proclaim that belief is a gift from God and leads people to life that truly is life in the living relationship with the one true living God for which we were created. It is assured to us by the cross of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection that validates it.

   There are many good reasons to believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ:

1.    The evidence of death.

2.    The sixteen Roman guards stationed to prevent any trickery.

3.    The seal of the punitive authority of the Roman Empire set upon the stone.

4.    The disciples were in shock.

5.    There was no body and no benefit to steal the body.

6.    The witness of women at the center of events in a time of Patriarchy.

7.    The martyrdom of the eyewitness.

8.    The martyrdom of the early Christians.

9.    The experience of Christians of the risen Christ to this day.

10. The change in the sabbath from the seventh day to the day of the Resurrection as the day of worship for the Church now begun, a radical change.

11. The lack of details

12. The testimony of hostile witnesses who became Christians, i.e., St. Paul.

   And yet, over the years, people have not come to believe because of reasons. It is because they have experienced the gift of a living relationship with the one true living God in Jesus Christ.

   Sally and I didn’t know what retirement would look like. I just knew that I was 70 and it was time. And as it happened, I began having a number of health challenges right after my retirement, so it was the right time to retire from regular parish ministry.

   Shortly before I retired, however, I had a dream.

   Small, local, craft breweries were getting really popular, and I dreamt that I was pitching an idea for investors. A small group had gathered to listen, and I was explaining that craft breweries were popular right then, but that those drinkers would get older, and their tastes would change, and they would be able to afford more, but that they would still want something that seemed exclusive, known only to a few. More people were coming over to listen.

   I proposed that whisky would be the next big thing. More people came, and they were getting excited.

   I said that the next big thing would be small batch, local, craft whisky distilleries. And by now there was a huge crown in front of me and they were shouting, “Take-my-money!”

   Suddenly, I woke up and I woke Sally up and I said, “Sally, I know what we’re going to do in retirement!”

   “What?”, she said, half-awake.

   “We’re going to be bootleggers!”

   Well, that didn’t happen. 😊

   Our lives are centered instead in true joy that endures.

   Those are the difference between “Rise!” and “He is Risen!”

   How do we convey the most important news in history to our generation when it has no felt need? A start would be to tell the world that it needs Jesus more than it needs whiskey, or anything else that the world tries to put in the place of God.

   What Jesus has done for us in his death and resurrection is not mystery. It is revealed in our Gospel reading for today, in John 20. We have been reconciled to God. We have been given life in Jesus’ name, his true self. Life that really is life.

   Jesus gave his life for us when we were still sinners, separated from God, to reconcile us to God. He proved that his death could do that, because he is God; he validated his work on the cross, when he took his life back again at his resurrection.

   That is our story, too. Our story, the one we have to tell, is a story about God’s love for us.

   Blessed are those who know their need of a savior.

   And blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

   They will rise, as Jesus is risen!

   The vast emptiness of space is filled with the glory of God!

   Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!