Delivered Sunday, April 22, 2018, at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Arlington, Virginia.

Texts: John 10:11-18, 1 John 3:14-24, Acts 4:5-12

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Today, the fourth Sunday of Easter, we have read three texts which reference Jesus death.

Much attention has been paid to the parables (including Trinity’s coming Summer Sermon Series), to the Sermon on the Mount and the other Moral Teachings of Jesus, but I feel comfortable asserting that most of the words written over the centuries about Christian Theology have had to do with the Easter Story.

Almost all of it agrees on one thing: sometime between Jesus’ arrest and Ascension, something about God’s relationship to humanity changed in our favor. There is, however, significant debate about exactly when or how that happened.

Several of the most common theories place this moment in Jesus suffering on the Cross. Some of those who support these theories focus on texts like today’s text from John’s Gospel: “’I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I lay down my life to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’” which emphasizes Jesus willingness to die. These interpretations also are the reason that, over the centuries, so much art, from ancient paintings to a relatively recent movie produced by Mel Gibson, focus on the gory details of the crucifixion.

This is also why I chose to repeat an image on the bulletin today. The crucifixion painting printed today, and also the last time I preached, is a painting by Salvador Dali which depicts a rather more serene Jesus on the cross. As much as I love the painting, it is worth noting that is controversial to some—including one person who attacked it with a rock and tore the canvas. I, at least, am glad it was subsequently restored.

I love the painting because of everything that is absent. There is no blood, there are no nails, just Jesus, on a cross, in the sky over a fishing village in Spain or Portugal. This is not a depiction of the Crucified, or even the Resurrected Jesus, who still bears the scars of the crucifixion, but of the Ascended Jesus, reminding us of the cross, but also of the promise of a greater life to come.

But now I’m going too big picture.

Life inside the Beltway can lead to a sort of myopia, so I will assume that, unlike me, many of you have read Comey’s book, and that even more of you have, like me, seen Comey’s interview with Colbert from last Tuesday.

Now, before I go further, I promise you, this is not a sermon about politics, and we’ll move on very soon, but while I have your indulgence, Comey said he entered law enforcement because he wanted to help find ways for good to follow bad.

I really appreciate the way he phrased that—good following bad. Not bad becoming good, not bringing good out of bad, just good following bad.

This is how I often think of the Easter Story, in a way that echo’s Peter’s language from Acts, though with one change. We crucified Jesus, but God raised him. Good followed bad. Our redemption came not through Jesus’ suffering, but through what came after: The Resurrection, an eternal offer of divine help.

From today’s reading from First John: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

About 10 days ago, the Washington Post published a story about two young people preparing for college last summer, Jamahri Sydnor and Chris French. The story opens with Chris French walking into Washington Hospital Center while wearing a hat from FAMU, Florida A&M University. As he was walking in, a woman stopped him.

This woman’s niece, Jamahri Sydnor, was going to be starting at FAMU the next week, but earlier that day had been shot, a victim of a stray bullet meant for someone else. Her family was at the hospital waiting for news.

Chris did not know Jamahri, but he was part of a group text with other incoming students and had heard about what had happened to her, and so, he prayed with them in the hospital waiting area before continuing to see his mother, who was recovering from surgery, and then home, where he once again prayed for Jamahri and her family.

The next morning, he went back to the hospital, where he learned Jamahri had died. He didn’t want to intrude on the family, so he planned to give them space, but Jamahri’s mother, a D.C. Police Sargent stopped him to ask if he was ready for school. He told them he was eager, but because his mother was in the hospital, he hadn’t yet gone shopping for dorm supplies. Jamahri’s mother replied by asking him what he needed. Chris assured them it wasn’t a problem, that he would go soon, but they insisted, saying “We have so much stuff we bought for our daughter. Please come by.”

So, the next day, he visited them at home, where they put a trunk full of school supplies in his car, told him to take care, and come back tomorrow.

He did, and they gave him more, including a pillow, broom, dining set, and more dorm furnishings.

Jamahri’s mother said she felt bad the dorm sheets were too “girly,” so she gave him cash to buy sheets. Then, they all prayed together, and other family members pressed cash into Chris’s hands to help him with the move to school and told him to stay in touch.

He has.

This is a powerful story, and I urge those of you who haven’t read it to go read the full story. It’s a beautiful story of good following bad, but it is not at all a story about turning something bad into something good. The help that Jamahri’s family gave Chris in no way erases their grief at the loss of their daughter. It absolutely does not balance anything out.

The family’s ongoing relationship with Chris does not replace the relationship they had with Jamahri.

Their story is, though, of those who saw a need and acted not just in word and speech, but in truth in action, Jamahri’s parents by providing help to Chris, and Chris by building a new relationship with them.

Too often, in the Church, we can become so focused on finding meaning in suffering that we try to make claims that subsequent good justifies that suffering. We do this with good intentions. We do this to try to bring meaning out of our and other’s pain, but too often we do this because we are uncomfortable with that pain, so we try to erase it.

In our reading from Acts, even after the Resurrection, Peter and others were still confronted with the suffering of the crucifixion reflected in their ongoing confrontations with their authorities, who have just brought them in for questioning, but .“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,* whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead.”

Note those words, “filled with the Holy Spirit.”

90 years ago, Thomas Dorsey, a jazz and blues musician converted to Christianity and began fusing jazz and blues music with hymns. The pairing of secular, worldly music with hymns was controversial to some, but it was the beginning of what we now call Gospel Music. In August 1932, Dorsey, who lived with his wife, Nettie, in Chicago, was scheduled to perform at a revival in St. Louis. Nettie was pregnant, and near her due date, but he didn’t want to disappoint the people at the revival, so, reluctantly, he went. The revival crowd loved him, calling for multiple encores. When he finally sat down, a messenger approached him with a Western Union Telegraph which told him that Nettie had just died.

When he got back to Chicago, he learned that she had died giving birth to their son. Dorsey recalled swinging between grief and joy, until that night, when the child also died. He buried both Nettie and the child in the same casket. Dorsey closeted himself and later said “I felt that God had done me an injustice. I didn’t want to serve Him anymore or write gospel songs. I just wanted to go back to that jazz world I knew so well…”

The following Saturday, one of Dorsey’s friends, Professor Frye took him to the campus of Malone’s Poro College, a neighborhood music school, where Dorsey sat down at a piano and started to play.

As he was playing, the tune Maitland, written nearly a century earlier came to him, and he began to rearrange it and added his own words. We sang the first two stanzas, which appear in the Presbyterian Hymnal, but that isn’t the full hymn. In full, the lyrics are:

Precious Lord, take my hand;
lead me on, help me stand;
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.
Through the storm, through the night,
lead me on to the light;
take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.

When my way grows drear,
precious Lord, linger near;
when my life is almost gone,
hear my cry, hear my call,
hold my hand lest I fall,
take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.

When the darkness appears
And the night draws near,
And the day is past and gone,
At the river I stand,
Guide my feet, hold my hand:
take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.

The hymn has subsequently been translated into at least 40 languages and recorded and performed by many, including Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, and Beyoncé, but I think the definitive performance belongs to Mahalia Jackson, who first recorded a version in 1956.

I cite Mahalia Jackson’s recording as the most significant because the first performance of this song was 8 days after it was written when it was sung at Ebenezer Baptist Church, in Atlanta Georgia, where Martin Luther King Senior was the pastor. It subsequently became a favorite of Martin Luther King, Jr. who frequently invited Mahalia Jackson to perform it at his rallies, including the rally the day before his assassination, and his funeral.

This hymn has an amazing history, beginning with Dorsey trying to process his grief after echoing the words of Jesus on the Cross, “My God, why have you forsaken me,” after feeling like he could never write sacred music again, he, like Peter, was filled with the Holy Spirit and wrote a hymn that continued to be an anthem of the Civil Rights movement, performed not only at King’s funeral but also at the funeral of Lyndon Johnson.

This hymn has this power precisely because it does not try to erase grief.

This hymn has power because at one point or another, every one of us will know loss, pain, or suffering, and because it reminds us of those people who, like Professor Frye, can come alongside us.

This hymn has power because, thanks to the Easter story, we know that even when we are in that pain and suffering, God can come alongside us. That our suffering does not need to be redemptive to be sacred. This hymn has power because it reminds us that even when we want to turn our back on God, even when we feel like God’s back has been turned on us, it hasn’t.

And it’s ok that sometimes we need that reminder.

Amen.