November 10, 2024
Clothe Yourselves with Courage
John 20:14-18
In October and November our sermon series has been about Christian virtues. We have drawn on the language of Paul to the church in Colossae: “clothe yourselves with…”.
Put on wisdom, humility, gentleness, forbearance, the way you would put on a shirt, or a coat, or gloves. These virtues are how Christians should show up in the world. This is how your faith becomes visible to others. This is the evidence that God’s Spirit is at work in you.
Today we turn our attention to courage. Clothe yourselves with courage.
Very often we think of courage in terms of heroic acts: The one who rides to the rescue, who runs into a burning building, who stands in the line of fire, or stares down the attacker. Or, as our local first responders have shown, the one who goes into the rising river to save the one who is about to be swept away.
These heroic and dramatic gestures are courageous. Yet, there is another kind of courage, a quieter and more everyday kind of courage, that is more common to all of us.
- It takes courage to grow up; courage to change as you grow.
- It takes courage to admit you don’t know the answer; courage to seek help.
- It takes courage to launch a new chapter; courage to start again, when failure had stripped you of naïve confidence.
- It takes courage to discover your own values; even more courage to stand up for them and refuse to compromise in the face of consequences.
- It takes courage to tell the truth; and courage to hear the truth.
- It takes courage to bring children into the world, and courage to set them free to live their lives.
- It takes courage to be young, and courage to get old.
- It takes courage to seize the day of life; it takes courage to let go of life when day is done.
Ultimately, as Thomas Aquinas wrote, courage is always about the fear and danger of death.
So, in this morning’s text, I reached for an example of more quiet courage. Before you think I’ve lost my mind in reading the Easter story in the middle of November, let me assure you I am not confused about what month or season it is.
John Calvin was one who taught us that every Sunday is meant to be a “little Easter.” Every Sunday is a day to declare the power and promise of the resurrection of Jesus. The Easter story is always in season – and perhaps we will even hear it more clarity when the leaves are falling, and winter is on its way. I can think of no better place to explore the virtue of quiet courage than in the garden with Mary on Easter morning.
Mary of Magdala was a student of Jesus who clearly had innate courage. She does not wear the virtue of courage as a badge of honor, but as a habit of life. She would not call herself heroic; she was just being herself. Where did her courage come from?
We don’t know for sure, but we do know Mary had already been through hell. The gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus drove seven demons from her before she followed him. In other words, she had started into the abyss. She was no stranger to facing the fear and danger of death.
Thus, at the crucifixion, when Jesus hung on the cross dying, she was unafraid to stand at the side and watch. She was not being heroic; she was doing what love required.
Three days later, early in the morning she got up and went to the tomb, while the men hid in fear. This was not heroic, it was what love required. She found the tomb empty, for reasons that were then unknown to her, and she ran back to tell the others. At her news they came and inspected the empty tomb, but left again – more fearful than when they arrived.
Mary stayed at the tomb and wept. It was not heroic. She was doing what loved required.
Quiet courage.
Mary’s courage was accompanied by an ocean of tears. If you think courage means putting on a brave face, meet Mary. Four times in the span of four verses we are told she is weeping.
She bends down, weeping, to look into the tomb. Two angels are there and they ask why she is weeping. She tells them that Jesus, the object of her love and hope, is gone and she does not know where he is. She turned around and Jesus himself was standing there, but she did not recognize him, and he asked, “Why are you weeping?”
Courage is often accompanied by tears. Sometimes, in fact, crying is courageous.
Sometimes – in the face of disappointment, or loss, or anticipated pain – it takes courage to cry, especially for adults who do our best to hold it together.
About a year ago at my annual physical, as always, they needed to draw blood to complete the exam. When it comes to giving blood, I.V. needles, I’m a big coward. I have to look away. I go inside to a quiet and happy place, usually a beach in the sun.
That day there was a little boy in the seat beside me, and he didn’t like this needle-business any more than I did. His fear was coming out in tears, streaming down his face. He looked the way I felt. The nurse, who meant well, he said, “It’s going to be okay. Don’t cry. You can be brave.”
The little boy said back, through tears, “I am being brave.”
Mary was weeping and she was being brave, staring the forces of death in the face. She had every reason to be fearful in that garden. She lived as a woman in a patriarchal society; a Jew in Empire-occupied territory; a disciple of a person who had just been executed by the authorities; a person of faith whose hopes had just been buried in the ground; a human being alive at a time when the government was authoritarian and violence was the order of the day.
She had every reason to be anxious and fearful visiting the grave of a convicted and executed political figure that she called her Teacher and Lord.
Yet she loved him, and she did what love required. She was courageous. Stanley Hauerwas, a former ethicist at Duke Divinity School, wrote that, “The courageous have fears the coward will never know… but they have found a way to live without fear controlling their lives.”
Mary is standing at the tomb, weeping. Jesus came behind her, and when he asked who she was looking for, she answered with naive and almost ridiculous courage.
“If you have taken him, tell me where, and I will take him away.” How was she going to do that? Carry a body out of the garden? I bet you she had no idea. She hadn’t gotten that far. Love was pushing on her, bringing out her courage, and she was following the thread. Just then, Jesus revealed himself. He called her by name, and she recognized him. “Rabbouni!” she shouted. “Teacher!”
Her head was spinning, full of energy, excitement and bewilderment. She was entirely unsure what to do next – but she did not need to wait for long. Jesus gave her clear instructions. Do not hold on to me, he said, but go and tell my brothers I am ascending.
This clear instruction brought direction to Mary’s unbridled energy and brought focus to her mind. She went running from the garden cemetery to announce to the others.
You know, having listened often to me preach here, that I am fascinated by the nuances of the words we find in scripture, and this word “announce” contains a gem. Jesus told her to “tell” his brothers, and that’s a very ordinary Greek word that means something as ordinary as the words “tell” and “say” mean to us. Jesus told her to tell, but she did more. When she got to her friends, she announced.
The Greek word is “apangelousein.” If you detect the word “angel” in there, you heard it right. To “announce” is to be a messenger, and in scripture those who “announce” do the work of angels and prophets: announcing brings a divine message to the world.
Mary ran from the garden, an angel on foot, with her courageous energy directed into the channel of her divine commission, to bring God’s good news to frightened friends. And in just that way, Mary is the first Christian preacher. In just that way Mary is a model of courageous action for the Church.
The Church, you see, is called and commissioned to be courageous in the way Mary was.
Like Mary, we too are called to do with courage what love requires: to rise early in the face of injustice, and to weep in the shadow of death. Like Mary, we too are sent from the shadow of death to announce the good news of Christ’s resurrection and God’s coming kingdom. Like Mary, we too run to the world with the confidence that the danger and fear of death is overcome by the Good and Living God.
Like angels, we too are sent as joyful messengers with a divine commission. Into situations of anxiety and distress, we are sent with the sure knowledge that we are in the hands of the One who has overcome the world.
While there are many occasions in each of our lives for courage, it will come as no surprise to you that in the background of this sermon… is the national election last week.
(Full disclosure, our sermon series was planned, and this text and theme were chosen for today, long before we knew the results.)
But the election is now in the background, and today, in the foreground of this sermon, for me, are deep questions about what comes next in the life of our nation.
Whether you voted for Harris or for Trump, all of us should recognize this was perhaps the most consequential national election in living memory. I would venture to say that not since Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 have we seen such a critique of the present political order; or the potential for such sweeping change in government.
Clearly, as a nation, we have work to do to understand one another as citizens and neighbors. Clearly, we have tremendous challenges ahead of us to work together as “one people out of many.”
And we also have dangers we must work hard to avoid: especially the dangers unleashed by the rhetoric of us vs them, othering and division, and violence that was part of winning the vote. Words are not just words. Words matter because they pave the way for action.
Whichever party is in power, the Living God always stands on the side of the vulnerable, and the Church must be there too.
Jesus’ service to human beings calls us to work for the well-being of all human persons.
Jesus’ suffering must make us sensitive to the suffering of others. We should see his face in the face of any person in need.
Jesus’ crucifixion reveals God’s judgment on our inhumanity toward one another; and the consequences of our complicity in injustice.
Jesus’ resurrection shows us the promise of God’s renewal of our life in society.
Jesus’ victory over death is God’s cosmic and everlasting victory over all that is wrong.
This is our story. Clothe yourselves with courage.
That is not a call to heroic action.
It is a summons to ultimate faith in Christ.
It is a call to live in the light of his resurrection.
To speak up for the truth he has shown.
To practice the forgiveness he has accomplished.
To work for the reconciliation he has won.
To strive for the peace he has given.
To live in the story of God’s redeeming work,
and – just so – to be set free to live dangerously for Christ’s sake.
Clothe yourselves with wisdom, humility, gentleness, forbearance…
and courage to announce good news.
Rev. Patrick W. T. Johnson, Ph.D.
First Presbyterian Church
Asheville, North Carolina