FROM THE SHADOWS TO THE LIGHT: John 20:1-18

 

 

It was still dark when Mary went to the tomb. She has no idea that the world through which she moves is a very different place that morning. It is the first morning after the resurrection, but no one knows what has happened. The world slept right through it.

Mary goes to the tomb in darkness. Maybe it was less painful that way. Perhaps the shadows numb her disappointment. Maybe she is embarrassed that she still cares about the body of Jesus after all that happened on Friday.

Mary moves in a world of shadows, and shadows have a way of disguising the truth.  They distort what is before our eyes. Mary can still see among the shadows, but she sees wrongly.

 Mary believes the Light of the World has gone out. Perhaps she feels foolish. Maybe she asks herself: "Was I fool for following him? Did I misunderstand what he was saying?” She saw in Jesus unrivaled grace and beauty, unmeasurable love and mercy. She had believed he was God’s Son. Yet it all ended in the ugliness of crucifixion.

The darkness distorts Mary’s vision. She gets it all so wrong.

 When I was a child, we moved to a house with second-story bedrooms and big trees around it. The wind would blow at night and make shadows dance on the wall, and I was frightened. I would long for the light of morning to come. Have you ever felt the morning would never come? Mary believed morning would never come dispelling her grief.

Mary sees so wrongly it is almost funny. She finds the tomb is empty. This is the best news ever. Jesus is not there; he is alive. But Mary assumes the worst news, that someone has taken his body, adding insult to injury.

Even when Mary sees the angels, she still believes the worst has happened. Mary still believes that Jesus can be taken from her, that she can be separated from the love of God.

The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:

³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?...³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Mary does not yet know what Paul knows. She believes things in this world can separate us from the love and grace of God. She believes we can find ourselves alone and lost in the world.

When she turns from the angels, Jesus himself stands before her. She does not recognize him because she is not looking for a living presence of God. She tells her sad story again about the body being taken and asks if Jesus knows where it is.

She is still looking for a dead body among the shadows. She sees through eyes of defeat and despair. So, she mourns in the presence of the living Lord.

She still believes this world is a place where all human caring and love are finally meaningless. The death of Jesus has convinced her that life goes nowhere. In the end it has no lasting meaning. The death of Jesus meant to Mary that the most sacred things of life can be taken from her by cruelty and hate.

Sometimes we can feel cruelty, hate, greed, racism, and fear of others can threaten all we hold dear. When we find wealth and power being used to injure and impoverish others and serve selfish ambition, we wonder if those things in which we have so long believed can survive the onslaught.

We wonder how long Mary’s obliviousness will go on. We want to shout at her, but Mary cannot hear us. It is like shouting at the TV that the villain is in the basement, don’t go down the steps; but they never listen to us.

Mary finally recognizes Jesus when he speaks her name, “Mary.”

In John chapter 10, Jesus says “the Good Shepherd calls his sheep by name. They know his voice and follow him because they know his voice.” Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and Mary recognizes his voice when he calls her by name. In that moment the darkness is overcome; the shadows melt away. No one can separate us from the Good Shepherd who loves us and cares for us. Mary now knows that.

Morning dawns on Mary. The light of what has happened floods her soul. She knows the power of God’s love is again loose in the world.

What was true for Mary is also true for us. The same light that flooded back into Mary’s life also floods our lives every day. The shadows and lies that mislead us are driven back. We now know anew: loved dashed to the ground always rises again; goodness when attached and wounded always emerges stronger; and God always has the last word in creation.

In chapter one of the Gospel John told us “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome the light.” Nothing on this earth or in the heavens above can separate us from the love and grace of God…Nothing.

The Jesus who called Mary by name knows our names and says to us: “You are mine; all is never lost. The night is not forever.” He calls us from the shadows of discouragement into the light of faith. His spirit washes over us with hope. He warms our hearts with forgiveness. He opens our eyes to joy.

The resurrection of Jesus means the light of God’s love is winning against all the darkness. Jesus meets us in the shadows of this world and invites us into the light and warmth of God’s love. So hope lives in us.

Jim Kelsey—Executive Minister of American Baptist Churches of New York State

Easter 2025

A God Who Grieves Us

 

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it—Luke 19:41

As Jesus summits the Mount of Olives and looks down upon the city, the tumult of the parade breaks off raggedly in Luke’s telling of the story. The scene grows quiet, and we are pulled in close as Jesus pauses there.

Jesus is weeping. The ground beneath his donkey is damp with the tears of God. Here we stand on holy ground. From the beginning of time God has looked at the choices we make and grieves us. God grieves the damage we do to ourselves, to those around us, and to the creation itself.

The residential population of Jerusalem will quadruple with Passover pilgrims during the coming week. These visitors must be fed; sacrificial animals must be bought. Three hundred barrels of wine will be brought in so everyone can drink the prescribed 4 cups of wine mixed with crushed fruit, fresh fruit that will be sold in the market that week. The pilgrims’ money must be converted to Tyrian shekels, the official Temple currency. Profits will be made at the currency exchange tables.

Lacking water and other resources, stone was the only resource in the region of Jerusalem. The Jewish Temple and its festivals were the principal source of revenue for the region.

Jesus looks down on the city, the gold on the façade of the Temple glistening in the sunlight and the streets crowded with pilgrims and merchants. It all appears so wonderous, so prosperous, so hopeful, so lucrative.  As Jesus takes in the bustling city, his eyes are full. His cheeks are damp. We can almost hear his broken sobs. 

We might want to turn away from this private moment, but we should not. If we remain, we can learn something about God, about ourselves, and about the choices we make.

Jesus weeps at the brokenness of the city—the greed, the arrogance, and the violence that lies just beneath the surface. He knows the tendency of the city to destroy any voice that questions its legitimacy and supremacy, any voice that threatens the security of its income stream (Luke 13:34-35).

It should be noted that immediately upon entering the city, Jesus goes to the Temple and drives out the merchants. The people, before the week is out, will cast their vote for a strong economy rather than for peace when they turn on Jesus before Pilate.

Why does the city make such poor choices? Because the city has no idea what makes for its own peace: “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (19:42), laments our Lord.

The city took the promise of prosperity, the illusion of security, the reassurance of its invincibility, and its self-congratulatory arrogance as peace. None of these things make for peace, as they will soon learn. In the winter of 70 AD, the Roman General Titus will lay siege to the city. Within three years it will all be destroyed and its wealth carried off to Rome. Their city’s leaders played the people for chumps.

In that feel-good moment of Passover, the people of the city saw a fiction. Jesus saw the truth. And he grieves their poor choices, the losses they will endure.

God still grieves the choices we make, the things in which we seek passing security, the inebriation of self-interest that drives us, and the pride that blinds us to what makes for our own wellbeing and the healing of our communities. We go on making, to this very day, poor choices. And we break the heart of God.

So, what shall we do? 

Miguel de Unamuno wrote: “The chief sanctity of a Temple is that it is place where people weep in common.” We begin by mourning together our world and the choices we have made. We are all guilty; we are grieving ourselves. In that moment we share in the rhythms of God’s heart.

Then we turn to love; we give that a try.

We live in a day when words of kindness and mercy and reconciliation are drowned out, even mocked, by the voices of the people shouting the loudest, ugliest, meanest, most self-serving messages. We idolize people who amass obscene wealth to glorify themselves at the expense of those who struggle to get by and go without.  Love seems like a quaint memory from a bygone day, ineffectual and naïve.

None of this is an excuse to give up. It is reason, even more, to embrace the arduous and risky work of love and peace and reconciliation.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in his speech at the 10^th anniversary of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, “Where Do We Go from Here?” said:

Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.

And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to humankind’s problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about it in some circles today. And I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love; I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate. [...] and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we aren’t moving wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.

Love is our task. It is one we must grow into. It does not come to any of us naturally; it is a capacity given to us by God.

Buried within the tears of Jesus is the key that unlocks the meaning of ultimate reality. Despite it all, God still loves us—all of us—and grieves us in all our brokenness. God still wants us.

To model this love is our greatest challenge. To embody it will be our greatest glory.

Jim Kelsey—Executive Minister ABC of New York State

Everything Happens for the Last Time

 

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For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted; (Eccl. 3:1-2)

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THE LAST TIME

Our lives have wonderful recurring moments; they provide the rhythm of our days.

Kissing your life partner good morning and good night are beautiful markers in our daily routine. Having all your children home for Christmas is an annual treat. Sharing the anticipation of a cruise with your travel companion is much of the fun of the repeated holidays. Sharing a regular meal with your friends is a ritual that gives a sense of belonging.

There will, of course, be a last kiss. Your children may someday have families of their own, and there will come a year when they do not return to you for the holidays. There will be a final bon voyage celebration. Friends move away, and the meals will cease.

All these good things will happen for the last time. To realize these beautiful moments will someday come to an end is bittersweet. They orchestrate life with joy; their cessation will come as a loss.

Our lives are also punctuated by difficult, demanding, and tedious experiences that come around time after time.

The drive to work each day in rush hour traffic is nerve wracking. The treatments are uncomfortable and leave us exhausted. The monthly report we must produce is tedious to complete.

The day will come when we drive to work for the last time, have the last treatment, and do that final monthly report. The end of these things will be welcomed with relief.

RETIREMENT

I began vocational ministry in the Spring of 1992. I served as a local church pastor for ten years, then as an ABC overseas missionary for the next ten years, and as Executive Minister of ABCNYS for the final thirteen years. On May 30^th this thirty-three-year vocational journey will end.

These days, I am experiencing some “last times.”

We finished our quarterly ABCNYS Board of Mission meeting several weeks ago. As I packed up after the meeting, I realized this was my last board meeting. I am visiting churches these last few months, each one for the last time. I am having conversations with people, many of them for the last time. Sometimes I say, “I’ll see you” or “talk with you later;” then I realized I may well not. 

I have become aware that things are happening for the last time; most of them are good things I will miss.

I will not miss all these things: installing the window air conditioners at the office; sorting the wheat from the chaff in endless waves of email; and heading out early on dark snowy mornings on my way to another church. I am sensing that even the tiresome parts of ministry have been a part of the reliable rhythm of my life and have given meaning and purpose to my days. I will notice their absence even if I do not long for them.

It is because everything happens for the last time, that life is precious.

LIIFE IS PASSING BUT NOT FUTILE

The writer of Ecclesiastes knows that life is like water under a bridge.  The writer finishes chapter 3 with:

 I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it; God has done this so that all should stand in awe before him (15).

Although everything happens for the last time, none of it is futile. What God does through us is not passing. In the rhythms of our lives God is building lasting things.

 

One season of my life is passing. Things are happening for the last time. What will the next chapter hold? I don’t really know. I will see what comes up and treasure it, for I know it too will pass one day.

Jim Kelsey

Executive Minister (for now)—American Baptist Churches of New York State

NOTHING WAS SAID THAT SUNDAY

 

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer

good for anything but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:13-16)

WHAT HAPPENED

One of my earliest memories of church dates to Sunday, September 4^th, 1966. Three days earlier Lester Mitchell, a 39-year-old African American man, was shot in a drive by shooting as he swept his porch on the West Side of Dayton .  After Mitchell was shot, a crowd formed. That crowd morphed into a community uprising with violence and widespread property destruction. Ohio Governor Rhodes sent in the National Guard to quell the uprising.

A member of the Klu Klux Klan had shot Mitchell. Three days later Mitchell died.

In the mid 60’s, Dayton was the third most segregated city in the nation. The residents living in Mitchell’s community, the West Side, suffered from a lack of policing and what policing did take place often involved violence and the abrogation of citizens’ rights. There was a lack of city services, rampant poverty, no community development by city government, segregated neglected schools, and no enforcement of housing regulations against landlords. One 13-unit apartment building reportedly had only 4 toilets and not a single functioning shower or bathtub. Redlining in Dayton was widespread, preventing families from building wealth that could pay for college or be passed on to children—perpetuating intergenerational poverty and unemployment. (For a more in-depth analysis, go to http://daytonarenahistory.org/project/1966-race-riot/.) 

MY MEMORY

I was nine years old at the time, living in a suburb south of Dayton, and had no understanding of the tragic brew of deprivation that had boiled over that hot summer weekend. I remember seeing news films on our 19-inch Zenith black & white television. I was, quite frankly, scared. I thought the world was coming apart, that life would never be the same. One newscaster said it was rumored that any white person crossing the bridge into West Dayton would be shot. I had no idea why they were so angry at people like me. I could make no sense of any of this.

 

CHURCH

Church was the place where I learned what was loving and what was unloving. They taught me how be a follower of Jesus. It was a place where one could find guidance. I was sure when I went to our Baptist church on Sunday morning, the last day of the uprising, everyone would be talking about this. We would pray for the safety and wellbeing of the people in Dayton. I remember waiting to get there so a way could be found to fix this. I had, as a nine-year-old, no understanding of the history and complexity of the situation; I thought there was a “fix.”

There was nothing but silence at church that Sunday. No one mentioned it, and I was listening. It was as if it were not happening. It was just another Sunday morning at church.

THE LESSON I TOOK HOME THAT SUNDAY

So, what was communicated to me that Sunday? It seemed church was mostly irrelevant to the lives we live, to what is happening in the world around us. Church was a place where you go to see your friends, feel welcome, and pretend the suffering of others did not exist, at least those around us; suffering on other continents certainly deserved the attention of our missionaries. This was the message I got that Sunday morning.

 

THESE DAYS

These days, I am thinking about the place of local churches in our lives. I am finishing up 33 years of ministry invested in local congregations, thirteen of those years walking with churches in upstate New York as they cope with declining membership and resources and with being marginalized by the broader culture. Our churches are caught up in the tide of broad societal shifts over which they have no control. These are churches of faithful people who are doing all they can to sustain the ministries of the congregations they love.

 

But I am, nonetheless, haunted by something Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail in April of 1963. Dr. King was in Birmingham to participate in nonviolent demonstrations against segregation. In his letter he challenges the white clergy of the city to support this campaign for justice, and King laments their inaction.

King writes about the power of the early church. He observes: “In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.” He goes on to say if the church in his day does not become sacrificially engaged in the cause of justice

it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.”

That church in Ohio did not engage the world around them in 1966 in any sacrificial or even caring way. They took no notice of the people in the broader community. A lot happened in Dayton that weekend in September. They acted as if nothing important was happening.

A lot is happening around us right now. Would we know it if we walked into our church on a Sunday morning?  Are we salt seasoning our world? Is our light shining in the lives of others as we do good work in difficult times? Is there an active connection between the lives of our churches and what is happening in the world around us? Our future may depend on this sort of thing.

Blessings,

Jim Kelsey

Executive Minister—American Baptist Churches of New York State