Sermons from the Pulpit
The Fourth of Certitude
Preached to the Congregational Church in Exeter, U. C. C., on the second Sunday of Easter, April 30, 2000, by the Rev. Jane Geffken Henderson, pastor.
I Corinthians 15:51-58; John 20:19-31
A German scholar by the name of Rudolf Steglich believes that George Frederick Handel organized his oratorio Messiah around what he calls "the fourth of certitude." He's referring to the musical interval, or span, of four notes on a scale. You may think you have no idea what I'm talking about when I speak of a musical "fourth", but you do, you really do. Trust me.
(Sing: "Here comes the bride!")
That's a "fourth." For better or worse, the most famous musical fourth in our American culture, and I thank Joe for reminding me of that. And it's truly a fourth of certitude. (Sing again: "Here comes the bride!") With those notes played at the start of a wedding, there can be no doubt whatsoever about who is coming.
Such is the reasoning the professor appied to Messiah. In Part I, the Incarnation, the opening tenor aria displays a fourth of certitude: (Sing: "Speak ye com-fortably to Jerusalem.") Part II, Christ's Passion, begins with the alto aria: (Sing: "He was despised.") And finally, in Part III, the Resurrection, the soprano aria starts with: (Sing: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand.") You get the idea.
Now whether or not Handel deliberately chose the interval of the fourth to coincide with these key points in the text, it's still clear that the "fourth" is a perfect expression of certitude and directness and clarity. And it has no better example than in "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth." I'm much obliged to Linda Rousseau for singing and to Joe Hammer for playing this aria on such short notice, which means barely no notice at all. It is a joy to work with such gracious, good humored, and intrepid people.
Because this is a very challenging, if not impossible piece, as any singer will tell you. Handel called on several different sopranos over a period of many years to perform it. One such soprano spent her lifetime trying to perfect her singing of "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth." It's said that she gave it one last shot while lying on her deathbed. The effort was so exhausting that after she finished, she promptly died.
In Handel's day, a member of the clergy listened to Part III of Messiah and marveled afterward: "This part is purely theological, yet one's interest does not flag." You could say the same thing about today, the Sunday after Easter - it's "purely theological." No bells and whistles, just the usual task of learning to think theologically. But, alas, interest has clearly flagged! Last week, we all went home to look for Jesus waiting for us there, as Michael so wonderfully encouraged. But a whole lot of us went home and never came back!
Welcome to the life of faith., where a motley assortment of remnant people keeps showing up, week after week, to pray, to sing, and to speak their hope. "I know that my Redeemer liveth" is today's word, along with Thomas's cry, "My Lord and my God." Both words convey certitude, knowing. But what kind of knowing is this?
I'm convinced that our recent lousy weather is a test of faith. We are so inclined to associate Easter with warm sun and bright flowers - with the eternal return of spring - that when the days are raw and the daffodils are all bent over with ice, we can't help feeling that there is something wrong, very wrong. It's almost as if it isn't really Easter.
And that's just the point - a glorious day is a glorious day and a gift, but it's not Resurrection. It is one thing to sing "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" when the sky is clear, when the lab test comes out OK, when the plane lands safely, when the dark cloud turns out to have a silver lining. But in real life, as we well know, there are no such guarantees. The disciples were hiding behind locked doors because, as far as they could see, their hope had died. And nothing in heaven or on earth had given them any reason to believe anything else.
Exactly. You see, what we need is to get back there in that dark room. It's so different, this Biblical witness to resurrection. It's so modest compared to our own witness - our huge American Easter congregations of well-dressed, well-fed, and (compared to the rest of the world) very well off people gathering unafraid and unhindered in the light of day to sing exuberant hymns about how the night has been banished forever!
But in the dark room, there is no such assumption. That's where the profound theology of Resurrection lies. I cannot begin to count the times when people have asked me, on Easter Day, not to include their sorrows in the prayers of the church "because it's Easter." Why do we have such trouble bringing our pain to church on that Day of days? Is it because we think our pain disentitles us? Is it that we've come to think of Easter as such an "expected" thing that we have lost sight of it as an unrelenting struggle to follow where the resurrected Christ is going? Is it because we think that Easter is all light that we're supposed to believe that there is no dark?
But that's where God still is - in the dark. As someone said, "Faith enters, can enter the darkness because it believes the darkness to be inhabited. That's very different from a religion whose God is said to have banished the darkness."
And that's why the story of Thomas is just right for "Low Sunday." Look, you don't have to come here acting as if you believe it all, without a trace of doubt - Thomas had doubts. You don't have to come here looking unhindered and unafraid: Thomas was afraid. If your doors are locked out of fear or grief or anxiety or hopelessness or whatever else , you are in better company than you may think.
This biblical testimony we've been given: we make a big mistake if we think we can put it on like a comfortable old sweater. No: If we have not been in that awful, dark room ourselves, if we have never prayed that God or Jesus "show us" and then have that prayer go unanswered - then I'm afraid we may presume too much. There is no resurrection faith without tears.
Which is why it is important that we pay attention to the 25th anniversary of the end, but not the healing, of the Vietnam War, and also to the upcoming "Day of Remembrance" of Holocaust victims. Because the meaning of Easter simply must be probed at the very heart of intractible darkness such as this. To do any less, I believe, is a betrayal of the Gospel.
Thomas says, "My Lord and My God!" This is not dogmatic arrogance, nor cocksure presumption. It is an encounter with the living God. It doesn't mean that now there will be no more mystery, no more ambiguity, no more existential loneliness, no more pain, cruelty, suffering, failure. It does not mean that everything is settled, fixed, already accomplished. Rather, it is a confession in the dark, uttered afresh every day.
Maybe that doesn't look like much to you, but it sure speaks to me. Because from where I sit, until that day when all tears are wiped away and there is no crying or pain any more, that's as good as it gets. We are able to keep on keeping on not by what we know, but by the One who knows us. God is, and we are God's. To be able to trust that much - that, in itself, is decisive. And it is enough.
Amen.
My Lord and my God! -John 20:28