“After Easter?  Courage!”

II Timothy 1:3-14

May 6, 2007

First Presbyterian Church Carson City

Pastor Bruce Kochsmeier

Purpose: For people to realize the power of Easter to give them courage to actually change the way they live!

     A friend asked me recently, “Doesn’t it make you crazy when all those people show up on Easter?”  I knew what she meant and I said, “No, I’m glad they are here.  What disappoints me” I said, “is that they don’t come back.”  What difference does Easter make if it doesn’t make a difference in our lives?

     This is the point Paul is making to Timothy and you and me and those who come, (and who don’t) on Easter.  It is the point we need to consider today, four weeks after Easter.  Is there a difference in our lives because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ?  Paul’s point is that for there to be a difference in our lives we need to guard the treasure in the midst of a broken world, that God’s Holy Spirit has ushered into our lives with the mystery and reality of Jesus’ rising from the dead.

     Four weeks after Easter what do we need in order to experience this treasure; the difference God offers to make in our lives?  Paul says God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power (dynamite) and love (agape) and of self-discipline.

     Truly being a Christian means there will BE a difference in our lives.  In every season there will be changes taking place that God knows we need in order to know him and serve him.  And to be a Christian is to be ever listening as we discussed last week; and ever learning that the only thing that really matters in this short life is being courageous enough to let knowing and serving Jesus Christ be what our lives are for.  And this will meaning growing up spiritually.

     Four weeks after Easter, let alone four hours, it would be so easy to lose sight of this and go back to our business as usual lives unless, unless we are willing to live in the spirit of courage Paul calls us to.  And the only way for this to happen will be for us to do three things: first to live in the power of God’s Holy Spirit, second, to love with the selfless love that this power provides, and third, to have the self-discipline to let God change in us whatever needs to be changed so that we would let our whole lives belong to him.

     As an invitation to this table and an opportunity to let the resurrection power of Easter penetrate us I want to brief touch on these three things as they relate to our every day living.

     First, living in the power, the dynamite of God’s Holy Spirit.  What does this mean?  It means that what God has given us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ has explosive power in our lives.  It means it blows the lid off the status quo.  It means that we can live boldly in the face of all that comes our way and that nothing that used to make us afraid, (KJV) “timid” has any power over us anymore.  The power that God’s Holy Spirit brings out of the empty tomb of Jesus Christ is a power that enables us to live exclusively in and for Jesus Christ because this power reveals to us that anything less, especially fear of anything, is just that, less.  Living in this power is very practical.  It is a power of a supercharged engine that has wind blown into it making it far more powerful that it would be without.  When an engine is super-charged it is able to do things that would have never happened before. 

     In WWII when this nation was on the verge of being destroyed by Japanese forces in the Pacific the Japanese planes were more powerful and maneuverable.  The planes of the US Navy would try to catch them only to be pulled into a climb they could not sustain.  The Japanese planes could then turn and be right on the tail of the US planes for a quick kill.  Supercharging changed all this.  When essentially the same US planes were equipped with a supercharging unit that forced more air into the engines they were able to sustain the climb and overcome their enemies, (much to the surprise of the enemies!)

     Far beyond this example is where God wants to take us with the super-charging power of the resurrection through his Holy Spirit.  But we need to let him super-charge us and begin to live into this reality.  If the pilots of the US planes had acted like they were still in their same old planes they would have continued to be shot down.  If we face life’s challenges thinking that things are just too hard and that we don’t have what it takes we will be shot down before we get off the ground too.  But this is not what God has given us.  God has given us a power that goes beyond worldly visions of power.  It is a power to be still when we are anxious.  It is a power to forgive when we have been wronged.  It is a power to be healed when we have been deeply hurt by anyone or anything such that no one or no thing can overcome or own or define us in this life.  It is a power to step aside from the threats of this world and simply trust Christ to define the hope of our lives.

     Where does this power come from?  It comes from love; God’s love for us and in turn our love for God.  It comes from living into the reality of how God has put himself beneath us to lift us up in any and all circumstances and it comes as we submit ourselves to loving God by turning all circumstances over to God.  It is a love that is selfless in its devotion.  It is single-minded.  It focuses on one thing.  For God that one thing is loving us into right relationship with himself regardless of the cost.  For us this love is getting over ourselves so that with courage we can love what God loves in the same way.  The power of this love comes from the courage, literally from the heart God has given us to makes bringing his love the center of everything that we do.

      This is what Easter is about.  It is having the heart, the courage to let God’s love change the ways we live.  It is accepting that in very literal ways the power of God’s love is here to remove anger, addiction, bitterness, fear, greed, anxiety, indifference, and anything else that tries to keep us from being the people Jesus died to make us.

      And this leads us to self-discipline.  Because of Easter we are offered the power of self-discipline.  It takes a lot of power to be truly self-disciplined.  It takes a lot of love to be self-disciplined; love for God and love for the person Jesus Christ died to make me, forgiven, whole, complete IN HIM.   And to know the power and love of Easter I will need to live into the self-discipline Jesus has shown me.  I will have to let the gift of denying my compulsions point me in an entirely new direction.  I will need to let God’s Holy Spirit take me prisoner so that my thoughts and actions become his; so that my timidity and cowardice marked by my living for me are changed into acts of grace that reflect his character and courage, even if no one around me does the same, even if my friends do not understand.

      To know this courage and character I will need to look inside myself and really want to let Jesus change me.  I’ve just been in Birmingham, Alabama, so maybe this example sticks with me, but it speaks of how God’s Holy Spirit wants to truly give us the courage to be the people Jesus died to make us.  In The Long Walk Home, a movie starring Sissy Spacek and Whoopi Goldberg, tells of the relationship between a white housewife, Miriam Thompson, and her black housekeeper, Odessa Cotter, during the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. Miriam begins to sympathize with Odessa and her long, 9-mile walk to and from work. Defying her racist husband and the White Citizen's Council, she decides to drive Odessa twice a week and looks to help Odessa and her cause in other ways.

     In this scene, Miriam has picked up Odessa and is returning back home. She asks, "Odessa, how does that car pooling system work?"

     "Well I don't use it often, Mrs. Thompson, but I believe that drivers come at the end of the day to places like Cloverdale, and they pick up the women that need the rides."

     "It's a little more organized than that, isn't it?"

     "Yes. Yes it is," Odessa answers.

     They come to a car pool lot and stop across the street from two police officers standing by their motorcycles. Referring to the officers, Odessa says: "They look for the ring leaders of the boycott. They pull them over and give them tickets. If they see too many coloreds in the car, they pull them over, too."

     "I bet I'll get lots of tickets," Miriam muses.

     "Well, Mrs. Thompson," Odessa warns, "it ain't just tickets. Once you step over there, I don't know if you can ever step back."

     "But the boycott needs the help."

     "Mrs. Thompson, this boycott is going to survive without your driving."

     "Odessa, I want to do this. I want to help."

     "There's a lot of ways you can help, Mrs. Thompson," Odessa counters. "You could just write a check."

     "If I write you a check, it would be Norman's money. This is something I can do.

     This whole mess is just about riding the buses, anyway."

     "That's what it is now. But we're going to win this thing, Mrs. Thompson. When it's all said and done, people are going to look at you, Mrs. Thompson, and they're going to say that you were part of this."

     "Well," Miriam answers, "let people say what they're going to say."

     "And what about when it isn't just the buses?" Odessa asks. "When it's the parks and the restaurants? When it's colored teachers in white schools? How about when we start voting, Mrs. Thompson, because we are? And when we do, we're going to put Negroes in office. What about when the first colored family moves into your neighborhood? You know, Mrs. Thompson, ain't nobody going to think any less of you if we just turn around and go back to the house."

     The camera focuses on Miriam's face, which looks slightly worried as she contemplates all that Odessa said.

     Jesus didn’t write a check.  He gave his life up to give us new life.  He signed it in blood right here.  And he invites us to this table to receive the courage to truly be the people we can be because of Easter.  May we say yes to this invitation and have the courage of changed people to invite those who were here a few weeks ago or who have never come, to do the same.  Amen.