Podcast of "Signage and Its Purpose" (MP3)
Acts 4:32-35
Psalm 131
1 John 1:1-2:2
John 20:19-31
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
The District of Columbia was created to serve as our nation’s permanent capital in 1790. Within the District, a new capital city was founded in 1791 to the east of the settlement at Georgetown . The original street layout in the new City of Washington was designed by Pierre Charles L’Enfant.[1]
A planned city, Washington was modeled in the Baroque style and incorporated avenues radiating out from rectangles. The District itself is divided into four quadrants. The axes separating the quadrants radiate from the U.S. Capitol building. In most of the city, the streets are set out in a grid pattern with east-west streets named with letters and north-south streets named with numbers.
One of the oddities to the city’s layout is that there is no J Street in any quadrant. Legend has it that J Street was deliberately omitted by L’Enfant because of a dispute with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay over The Treaty of Enmity, Commerce and Navigation.[2] In truth the probable reason is more mundane. It is far more likely that the reason there is no “J” Street is because in the Gothic writing style popular until the mid-nineteenth century, the letters “I” and “J” were indistinguishable.
One of the better narratives explaining this is found in an episode of NCIS. At the conclusion of the episode Assistant Medical Examiner Jimmy Palmer shared his take on why there is no J Street with Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard. He said it was because the founding fathers did not want anyone to get lost.[3]
One very important purpose of signage is so people do not get lost.
In my opinion, Thomas, or “Doubting Thomas,” gets more abuse than he deserves for being skeptical. I find his tendencies to speak his mind and to ask questions when he doesn’t understand admirable. Thomas was not a man to be persuaded willy-nilly. In John 14[4] when Jesus says “And you know the way to the place where I am going;” Thomas is the one who says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” If we truly believe there is no such thing as a stupid question, then Thomas belongs in the Hall-of-Fame.
I imagine Thomas was a man of home spun wisdom. He had a “Show-Me” mentality that would have been popular here when Marshall was the Confederate capital of Missouri-in-Exile .[5] He was deliberate and he was cautious. He has questions and he wants them answered. He has doubts and he wants them vanquished.
So it was the evening on the first day of the week, the day of Jesus’ resurrection; and the disciples had locked themselves in the house where they met. Not detoured by physical barriers, the Lord entered the room and offered them his peace. He showed them his hands and side and the disciples were overjoyed. In the next moment, they received their vocation, their directions; they were pointed in the direction they were to take so they would not get lost. They were also given the most important thing they could take on their journeys; by the breath of Christ, in the wind of God, they received the presence of the Holy Spirit.
As for Thomas, scripture doesn’t say why he was not with the other disciples; only that he wasn’t. So when the others finally see Thomas, he got an ear full. “We have seen the Lord!” they proclaimed loudly and joyfully. They weren’t rubbing it in his face, I think they were rejoicing and wishing he had been with them to share the glorious gifts they had received.
The Missouri Mule spirit that had served Thomas did not desert him. He knew all about the crucifixion and he knows dead is dead. He seemed willing to believe some sort of apparition, a Holy Spirit, but the physical presence of the Lord in the glory of his resurrection body struck him as unlikely. He had to see the Lord Jesus for himself. He had to touch him. He needed it before he would believe it was true.
Sure enough, a week later they gathered for fellowship. Give Thomas credit, he wasn’t sure about the resurrection, but he still believed and still worshiped Jesus. Then just like the week before, Jesus came into the closed room, stood among them, and said “Peace be with you.”
Quoting John’s gospel, “Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas, answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’”
Then, as a word for the world to come, Jesus blesses the generations that follow the original apostles and disciples. This first generation believed because they saw. The next generations, including those who hear and read this gospel then and now, they believe only because of these words and by the witness of the lives of the disciples that have followed since.
We live in a world where we, like Thomas, did not receive the Holy Spirit along with the disciples on that first Easter Sunday so long ago. Like Thomas at the beginning of our reading, all of humanity longs to see Jesus, behold the glory of his face, and touch his hands and side. Like Thomas, we can find the resurrection difficult because we have not personally seen the person of the resurrection. Like Thomas we all want to stand before the Lord and worship crying, “My Lord and my God.” We want to sing out adoring God in the happy chorus begun by the morning stars.
We’re looking for miracles; we’re looking for signs to point us toward belief. We are looking for signs of assurance.
In one way or another, one of the great questions of life is “What size miracle are you looking for?” In a society where bigger is infinitely better, the land of the super-size, we want big-big miracles with a big-big crunch. We want “burning-bush” and “loaves-and-fishes” sized miracles. Of course, as is usually the case, we should beware what we ask for when we ask for big-big miracles.
One of my favorite miracles is a big-big one. It comes from Numbers 11. The people of Israel are in the desert and they aren’t happy about it. They have been so long with only manna to eat that they have begun to grumble and long for “the good ol’ days” when they were in Egypt eating fish and cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions and garlic and ate them at no cost. No cost except for their freedom, but they were so bored with their food and their journey that they longed for the regular hours of strict manual labor under the whip.
Moses hears the grumbling and fears for his life, not a bad reaction if I say so myself. Moses asks the Lord “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?”
I wonder if this isn’t a big question among all overwhelmed leaders.
Moses even tells the Lord “I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.” He finally says if he can’t get relief he would rather die at the hands of the Lord than the crowd.
So the Lord tells Moses to assemble the leaders of Israel and tell them this,
“Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The LORD heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt
Beware what you ask for, because you just might get it.
People look for miracles. People look for signs and it looks like the people of Israel missed one. It looks like they blew through the “Yield” sign to me. In the parable of the vine and the branches John’s gospel would translate “Yield” as “Abide.” But for our purposes and the purposes of the people in the desert, it appears that Israel blew through a “Yield” sign.
Of course, the witness of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and all human history shows us that on the whole humanity has a tendency to blow through the “Yield” sign. And “Stop” signs for that matter too.
Another very important purpose of signage is to warn people and give them direction.
Everybody looks for signs and in our reading everyone gets the sign they need. The disciples saw the hands and side of Jesus and they believed. Thomas not only wanted what the other disciples got, he wanted to touch Christ’s rich wounds too. In the end though, seeing Jesus was enough. When he saw his Messiah he declared his faithfulness crying “My Lord and my God!”
In this world, people want their own “resurrection appearance” miracle. Everybody wants to see Jesus just like the disciples, but scripture says that’s not for everybody. So what kinds of signs and what kind of miracles should we be looking for?
Last Saturday there were a lot of little miracles wondering around the lawn. To see the smiles of the kids as they were having their pictures taken with the Easter Bunny was joyful. It was a sign of new life and the promise of what can be.
Last weekend there was a little boy who arrived late and was only able to find one egg on the ground. There were also several teenage boys who made pouches out of the front of their t-shirts that they filled with eggs. (Why t-shirts? Take it from a former teenage boy, baskets would not do.) When they saw the sad little boy they dropped eggs where he could get them. This little boy went from dejected to elated because he found eggs, enough eggs to fill his basket. Leaving greed behind in the name of sharing is always a miracle. Just like it was in the time of the early church as we heard from Acts this morning.
As for the disciples, they were asked to share forgiveness with the world. Now that’s a miracle as small as a smile and as big as a burning bush. This was tough because the disciples knew that only God could forgive sins, and they knew that even with the Holy Spirit they were not God. Yet they received the power and responsibility to forgive or not forgive people who had hurt them and others.
Their power was not to limit or empower God. Their power was given so that they might no longer be bound to anger and vengeance. God forgives, but unless we forgive we bind ourselves to the past. We don’t forgive so others can go on with their lives, but so we can get on with ours.
Let me add that if you have ever tried to get over such harm on your own, you’ll know it takes the work of the Holy Spirit to do the job.
Here’s the final sign we need, the green light. We need to be the miracle. We need to live so that others can see that our God lives. We need to live like the disciples of every time and age before us who lived so we could believe. Our lives need to show those who see us that our God lives so they can believe. It is our call and our vocation to live lives worthy of Christ so that they can believe and become Christ’s disciples.
In this case, the purpose of signage is to move people off the mark; going where they are supposed to go.
So, what size miracle are we looking for? Here is the biggest one of all. Here is the miracle we are to share with the world. We were created by the Triune God who loved so much that he created life. The Lord not only created matter to love and care for, our God created a race of people who could choose to love the Lord God back. (Risky move that is.) We are loved by a God who loves us so much that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. This by the grace and peace given freely by God in Christ.
Signs have their purpose. They make sure we don’t get lost, they assure us, they warn us, they give us direction, and they get us going when we are supposed to go. On the whole, this is a worthy vocation Jesus sends us into the world to share.
[1] Much of these first paragraphs are taken and adapted from: “Streets and Highways of Washington DC.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streets_and_highways_of_Washington,_D.C.
[3] “Jimmy Palmer,” The NCIS Database” Wiki. http://ncis.wikia.com/wiki/Jimmy_Palmer. The episode is called “Broken Bird.”
[4] John 14:4-5
[5] Marshall , Texas
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