John 20:19-31
There’s one bad thing I’ve found out about computers. Well, actually, there are a lot of bad things, but here is one of them. The programs and the hardware is set up so that we who own computers and operate them are never satisfied.
I’m an Apple computer person. I just think they’re better and easier to use. But that’s personal opinion. Anyway, I keep getting these notifications that my apps need upgrading. Now they are even better than before. Now they will do fifty more things than they did before. Or there are fewer bugs in the program than before. The problem is, I hardly used a fourth of all the things on those apps that are already there to use. What am I going to do with 50 more options?
There are a bazillion controls in each app, most of which I have no idea what they do. I’m afraid if I toggle the wrong command, I’ll get hopelessly messed up, and I’ll lose whatever it is I’m working on at the time. It’s kind of intimidating. So when I get one of those update messages, I get even more intimidated about the fact they’ve added new stuff that I won’t understand, but think I should have.
And then, there’s new gadgets. I have a MacBook Pro, an iPhone, an iPad Air, and two different versions of the Kindle eReader.
Everything gets ramped up with computers, tablets and eReaders. Processors get faster. Monitors get thinner and crisper. Hard drives get bigger. I’ve got a back up hard drive that has an astronomical amount of gigabytes of storage space on it. I think I could store several libraries of information on there.
So, just when I’m getting comfortable with this beast--because that’s what computers are: cunning animals with a mind of their own, that act up for the fun of it whenever they feel like it, just to let us know that nothing goes 100% smoothly in this life (as if we didn’t already know that).
After having my MacBook Pro laptop computer for six months or so, I get on the Apple site, and what do I see? Upgrades! Oh, my gosh! I could have more! My programs aren’t doing all they can. For just a little bit more money, my programs could be doing more, faster, or with a greater level of safety and security. To think that I’m missing out on more, better, faster, safer, I get all anxious that I’m not up to date. I get upgrades and feel satisfied again. Until 6 months later and the next upgrade comes out.
Why don’t they just put everything in it the first time? Why can’t they get it right the first time? Why can’t they make it just like it’s supposed to be, with all the possibilities taken care of, and then just leave it alone? There are so many products that become “new and improved.” Does that mean that what we were using before was inferior? If so, then I’m mad that I had been using an inferior product all along!
At some point, I think I’ll stop running out and buying the newest upgrade every time it comes along. It’s really hard because the iPad Pro, 9 inch version just was introduced—the one you can use the cool Apple Pencil with ($100 extra) and the new and improved Apple attachable Smart Keyboard ($149 extra). At some point I’ll have to be satisfied with what I’ve got and just come to the realization that each progression of improvements may not be necessary for what I’m doing with my computer. But then if you have an older version of that hardware, they stop supporting it, and you have to upgrade. But it would be nice to just stop upgrading at some point.
II
That may be good advice for computer upgrades. For life upgrades, it is most likely bad advice. Like the computer advertisements, there are also a multitude of come-on’s that make all kinds of promises to upgrade your life. Diets, exercise techniques and equipment, personality changes, yoga, career shifts, education, etc. etc. A lot of those kinds of upgrades are good and healthy. Some of you may be doing some of those things now. They may have been New Year’s resolutions. How are you doing on those, by the way?
The one upgrade that people seem most to resist are the spiritual upgrades. You know; the upgrades that would bolster your faith journey and the depth of meaning you feel in your lives. Seldom do people ask themselves questions like: What kind of follower of God am I? What kind of believer am I? What is the level of my relationship and activity with God?
If those kinds of questions are asked at all, the follow-up questions may never be asked: What do I need to do to upgrade my level of relationship or involvement with God?
Every once in a while God may give us a glimpse that we are sitting on a plateau. We’ve been sitting there for a long time. We, hopefully, haven’t sunk any lower than where we might be. But neither have we risen any higher. Stretched ourselves any further. Ventured out into any uncharted ground. Taken any risks. We’ve become too content to just be where we are.
III
I’ve been thinking a lot about things that are broke. Like systems. Like denominations. And presbyteries. And governments. And courts. And educational systems. And elections. It seems like it’s been a main theme of life--how different human systems have broken down, and individuals get run over by these broken systems. How do we change? How do we move out of the awful ruts we get ourselves in, and travel a new path?
As I’ve been thinking about the brokenness of our world, and how we need to change, I remembered a bit of folk wisdom that I ran across several years ago. It’s horse sense, basically. It comes from old cowboy wisdom. Simply stated, it is this: “If the horse you're riding dies, get off.” Like I said, it seems simple enough.
Yet, when you’re dealing with a broken system, for some reason people think they can keep riding the dead horse. The same is true for your individual life. If what you’re doing in your life with God isn’t working, why are you still trying to ride a dead horse? We don’t want to follow that good, simple advice. Instead, we often choose from a long list of other alternatives in dealing with the reality of the dead horses we’re still trying to ride. Here are some of them:
Using a stronger whip.
Trying a new saddle.
Switching riders.
Moving the dead horse to a new location.
Saying things like, “This is the way we’ve always ridden this dead horse.”
Appointing a committee to study the dead horse.
Visiting other places where they ride dead horses more efficiently.
Changing the rules for riding a dead horse.
Comparing how we’re riding now with how we rode 10 or 20 years ago.
Coming up with new styles of riding dead horses.
Blaming the parentage of the dead horse.
Switching one dead horse for another dead horse.
You get the idea. You could probably come up with other ways we try to stay on the dead horses we were riding in our lives.
IV
Living the Christian life is a constant process of making changes, or upgrades. We think we are comfortable where we’re at, on a certain plateau. Or sitting on a certain dead horse. But God will not let us lay there, or sit there for very long. The Risen Lord will come to us and give us the opportunity to do more, to be more.
The disciples after the Crucifixion, after the Resurrection even, were still hiding out. They were content to just sit in their locked room and have their nice little Bible study, their closed prayer group, and sing their hymns together. There was nothing wrong with that. But then the Risen Christ appears and says, “Guess what? It’s time to upgrade!”
So to the disciples he gives them his peace. He breathes on them and they receive the Holy Spirit. The upgrade was in the form of breath. Like the breath that was breathed into Adam when he was still just a human shaped pile of mud. Like the breath that was blown across a valley of dry bones. That breath made the mud mound into a living being. That breath made the valley of dry bones into a reanimated army of living, breathing, human beings.
We think we’re going to be able to stay the same our whole lives, or at least like we are at the present moment. And then the Lord comes and faces us when we least expect it and with his breath, blows all that away. All the old self. The same old church. All the old ways of doing things. All the comfortable plateaus. All the dead horses we were sitting on suddenly became totally different animals--live broncin’ broncos and we’re holding on for dear life.
Thomas discovers he can’t angrily set himself apart from the rest of the disciples any more. He can’t let his disbelief or laziness form the future of his life anymore. He won’t be allowed to let “Doubting Thomas” become his permanent nickname. Now he is being challenged to get off his dead horse of skepticism and ride the live horse of faith and trust.
It’s no easy thing Jesus is asking Thomas to do. Thomas had fashioned a whole life out of cynicism. He had been a person whose hope was defined by a marked lack of expectation. Could Thomas become the new person Jesus was challenging him to be? Would Thomas upgrade his life by the power of the resurrected Christ?
And then there are the rest of the disciples. They are dead. Dead, differently than Jesus was dead. They lacked animation. They are locked into a marked lack of vitality. They are bodies walking around with no spirit. No fight. No ambition. No vision. With Jesus’ death, it is as if the life was at the same time sucked out of their bodies. All the possibilities they once saw, the exciting future that lay ahead of them, the creative and healing powers that lay on their finger tips, had all faded into the black hole of grief. They were like an athlete who trained for the big race, the championship game, and then sat in the locker room, refusing to budge, convinced that she will lose, or have nothing to gain. So she doesn’t even try.
To those disciples, the Risen Jesus appears and breathes his Spirit upon them. The giving of the Spirit is always a new creation. The Spirit is given to those who need to be awakened to life in all its newness. The disciples are given an upgrade in the breathing, life-giving Spirit. Jesus knows they need to quit sitting on their dead horses, and put their feet in the stirrups, riding a living, breathing, snorting faith for the race ahead. They need to get themselves in a position to be players, not sideline huggers, or recliner believers.
It wasn’t an easy thing that Jesus was asking the disciples to do. “Just as the Father sent me, I send you,” Jesus said to them as he breathed on them all. They weren’t being breathed on so they could sit in their pews and feel more spiritual as they sung their hymns.
Jesus reanimated them so they could move out. Be sent. To rub shoulders with the world. To be flavoring for a flavorless culture. To be light in places where the dark seems to overpower all illumination. To be a voice for God where there was only the shouting of hucksters and the gossip of busybodies. To speak to people who have no ears to really listen. To touch people with healing who would rather remain sin-sick—because remaining sin-sick means not having to take any responsibility in life.
“Get out of here; get out there; there’s a world that needs you to be out there, not in here,” Jesus is telling his timid disciples. He’s upgrading their level of risk and discipleship to an entirely new level.
V
I have noticed that upgrades for computers and computer programs fall into two categories. Some upgrades only add a few new bells and whistles. They allow you to do a handful of things that you weren’t able to do before. Other upgrades change the whole internal operation of the system. They allow you to operate the whole computer or program more efficiently or more easily than it was operated before.
The kinds of upgrades that Jesus made on Thomas and on the other disciples were system kinds of upgrades. He wasn’t just giving Thomas and the others a few new tricks to astound the people with. Jesus was refashioning their whole ways of being. He was transforming them, individually and collectively, from the inside out.
You are followers of Jesus. How long has it been since you have enhanced your Christian living? How long has it been since you have been upgraded so that your system of living and being in Christ are entirely made over? How long has it been since God breathed on you and reawakened you from your sleep, kicked you off the plateau you have laid down on for too long? How long has the horse you’ve been riding been dead, and you hoped no one noticed you were sitting on a steed that wasn’t going to take you anywhere?
Watch out. Jesus can get in locked doors. You can’t keep him out. You can’t avoid facing the Risen Lord, and seeing by that look in his eyes, you are long overdue for an upgrade.
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