Easter, 1989: Follow

 

SERMON PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, RINGWOOD EAST
SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER (April 8^th) 1989

  

READINGS

 

Acts 5:27-32
Psalm 118:14-29
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20:19-31

 

One of the advantages in having pew bibles in a church is that there are occasions when we can turn from the individual text that we are considering on the day to the broader context of that text’s place in the complete gospel, epistle, or whatever it might come from. It is also possible to compare texts with other passages.

I am going to ask you to turn in your pew bibles to the end of John’s account of the gospel (incidentally I won't refer to it as John’s gospel because each gospel account is not the author’s but Christ’s good news). And we will read the verses immediately preceding today’s gospel account – don’t close the bibles after Jan has read the passage!

Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look  into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew,“Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

 

What you have heard there is the original ending of the fourth gospel account. If you glance down the text to John 21: 24-25 you will find a second ending.

Most scholars will tell us that the hand that wrote most of the fourth gospel is not the same as the hand that wrote today’s reading. So we must ask the essential question that we must ask of every scripture reading: why? Why is there a second ending?

Each of our four gospel accounts was written for a different community. With a little bit of educated guesswork, scholars are able to identify the location or make up of each community involved. John’s gospel account, for example, is fairly anti-Jewish, and was almost certainly written for a Gentile Christian community.

It would seem that soon after the original author of John finished writing or narrating his memories of the Jesus event, something changed dramatically within his community. The most likely thing is that he died, and that following his death disputes broke out over his importance. Wether he or Peter was the “right” evangelist to follow. By the end of the third letter of John, for example, we find a writer expressing quite different attitudes to those expressed in the gospel account.

So we find the author concerned to portray Peter and the “beloved disciple” alongside one another. To compare their strengths and weaknesses, and to emphasise that it is not they, but the Christ they preach, who is the focus of attention.

The reading draws the attention – our attention – to Jesus’ central command.

Follow me.

It is this, not the command to Peter to feed lambs and or sheep, or the various questions as to the quality of Peter’s love, that lies at the heart of this reading.

Follow me.

It is this message that lies at the heart of the gospel. If we turn to the opening of John’s gospel account we will find the same command being obeyed.

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

 

In Mark’s gospel account we find this again.

As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

 

So the desired response to the gospel message – to an encounter with the risen Lord – is as Jesus here commands: “follow.” At the end of Mark’s gospel accounts he simply tells the women that he has gone ahead of them, that he will always go ahead of us.

The response that Jesus seeks from us is to follow. To follow him out into the community with the message “Christ is risen.” Squabbles over whether we prefer Peter or John – or Rome or Canterbury – pale into insignificance as we learn to obey the greater command: follow.

Are we following Christ?