Sermons & Meditations

Luke 24:36-48; Acts 3:12-21
Presented April 30th, 2006, by J.D. Kline
The Third Sunday of Easter

As I was speaking this week with a friend who has known his own times of grief in life, it struck me that my own experiences of grief in recent months have been difficult, not only because I’ve lost Janice, but also because there is a sense in which I’ve lost myself. I find myself responding to life in unfamiliar ways. Things that might have irritated me or raised my level of anger in the days before Janice’s death, I now shrug off. Things that I used to shrug off now raise my level of irritation. In the past, my introverted side was frequently delighted to be able to carve out some time alone, but in the days since Janice’s death, I often find my level of anxiety increasing when I am alone. There is a sense in which the experience of grieving involves a process of reinventing myself, of establishing a new identity, and that kind of change and growth seldom comes easily.

I found myself wondering this week, as I pondered the experiences of the first Christians, the extent to which they, too, found themselves struggling with the challenge of putting on a new identity. Indeed, the death of Jesus and the subsequent resurrection appearances of Jesus were so confounding that it was as if everything in the lives of those first disciples must have been up for grabs. Imagine the conflicting emotions those early disciples experienced, from the fear that followed the time of Jesus’ arrest to the horror of witnessing the crucifixion, from the dismay and uncertainty in the aftermath of Jesus’ death, as the dreams of the disciples were shattered, to the peculiar mix of confusion, disbelief, and wonder as the disciples encountered the Risen Christ. How were those first followers of Jesus to make sense of such an astounding array of events, experiencing within the span of a few short days grief and amazement, fear and hope, anxiety and joy, doubt and faith?

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John 20:19-31; Acts 4:32-35
Presented April 23rd, 2006, by J.D. Kline
The Second Sunday of Easter

Early on in my time in the ministry I heard a far more seasoned pastor say that the most compelling sermons preached to the faith community generally are those that preachers preach to themselves, while inviting the congregation to listen in to their internal conversation. I make no guarantees that you will find this morning’s sermon compelling, or even that it will touch you at all, but this much I can affirm. Today’s sermon is one of those I’m preaching largely to myself; perhaps you could say that it is a sermon I have to preach.

In the aftermath of Janice’s accident and death, I’ve been meeting regularly with a counselor, trying to come to terms with such a life-changing, faith-confounding loss. The therapist pushed me to examine whether my returning to the pulpit this morning was a result of the congregation’s expectations and needs, or whether my decision to preach today was a step in my own healing. It’s a significant question, because as a caregiver, I frequently find myself placing the needs of others ahead of my own. In times of emotional and spiritual health, that can be a mature decision, but when grief is raw and life is fragile, it is critical that I consider my own needs.

Most of us can readily deceive ourselves, of course, but my sense is, as I stated a few moments ago, that this is a sermon I need to preach. I need to preach it precisely because my life has been turned upside down and my heart broken. My faith has been impacted in ways that I’m not yet sure I can describe. I’m tempted to say that my faith has been shaken—certainly it has been challenged—but at the same time, it has also been stretched and, I suspect that it has been deepened, though time may tell more accurately if that is the case. In preparing this sermon, I have been exploring my own heart and soul, wondering how to put into words something of the struggle, grief, and pain that have followed that moment when time seemed to stand still for me, that moment on the morning of February 21 when I received word that Janice had been killed in an automobile accident the previous night. The challenge is how to capture that experience in words that, at their best, always remain inadequate expressions of our deepest yearnings and our most intimate thoughts and feelings.

In the aftermath of Janice’s death someone assured me—several times—that “God has a plan.” Now I can affirm that God does indeed have a plan for humankind, and even more, for all creation; it’s a plan that centers on movement toward new healing, new life, new possibilities, new creation. As the apostle Paul affirms so eloquently, there is “a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10). But if by suggesting that God has a plan, the individual meant that God is in the business of engineering accidents and illnesses and wars and all manner of human brokenness and pain, I would suggest that he knows precious little of the heart of God.

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