That Was Yesterday

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
April 10, 2005

That Was Yesterday
Acts 2:36-47
John 21:15-19


Peter’s stomach ached.
His face was flushed, hot to the touch.
Every little noise caused him to jump.
He had watched the soldiers nail Jesus to the cross.
He had heard the ringing of the hammer as it came down on the nails.
He had watched them lift Jesus as they set the cross
in the rocky dirt on that hill called Golgotha,
“the place of the Skull”.
He’d stood off at what he thought was a safe distance,
yet he was close enough to see,
to see the sign that Pilate ordered, “The King of the Jews”;
close enough to hear:
to hear his master breathing,
each breath slower, more shallow,
more labored.
And then came that last breath
that last awful, final breath;
his master’s eyes closed and his head dropped,
his body went limp,
and Peter knew he was gone…..gone forever.

Even as he watched that awful scene
he couldn’t silence the voices in his mind.
He kept hearing them over and over:
His own voice, strong, blustery:
“I will never desert you…..will never desert you.”
And his master’s response, so flat, so matter-of-fact:
“Truly I tell you, before the cock crows,
you will deny me three times.”
(Matthew 26:31ff)

Darkness covered the world on that Friday afternoon
and Peter knew that he would live in darkness all the rest of his days.
The only voices he would ever hear in his mind again
would be his own and his master’s,
“I will never deny you;
You will deny me.
I will never deny you;
You will deny me.”

The others had made the same promise,
made the same oath,
but Jesus had singled out Peter for his prediction.
And only he had denied his master, his teacher.
Only he had showed so much cowardice.

He hid behind locked doors with the others all day Saturday,
but he didn’t say a word to any one.
He couldn’t bear to look any of them in the eye,
he felt so ashamed.
Then came that Sunday morning when Mary Magdalene
told him that the tomb was empty.
He ran to the tomb as fast as his legs could go,
but he was built for strength, not speed,
and he struggled to keep up with John.
He was filled with a sense of hope.
Hadn’t his master said something about rising again?
If only he could remember what he had said.

But then when he got to the tomb
he found nothing, just emptiness,
more darkness, more misery,
more shame.
Now he couldn’t even assure his master of a proper burial.

He would never be able to forgive himself…Never.
The only thing he could do now was return to the north,
and resume his work as a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee
He would try his best to live the rest of his life in the shadows,
he would try his best to forget,
not forget Jesus,
but forget his own shame.

He skulked back to the room where the disciples
were hiding behind locked doors.
He would try to get some sleep that night and then leave
for Galilee early in the morning, hopefully before anyone else was awake.
He didn’t want to face anyone, not even his brother Andrew.
But then that evening, as they were about to share supper
there he was, their master, their Lord Jesus.
It was not a ghost, it was Jesus himself.
He showed them his hands and his side
so that they could see the scars.
And they all knew it was him.

Peter clung to the wall in the back of the room.
The last thing he wanted to do was face his master.
The last thing he wanted to hear was his master’s voice
saying, “I certainly was right about you, wasn’t I?”

Jesus didn’t single out any one person,
nor did his eyes focus on anyone in particular.
He spoke to them all:
“Peace be with you….
Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you……
Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;
if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
(John 20:19ff)
And with that, Jesus was gone.

In that stuffy, dark room Peter knew something was different.
He felt refreshed, as though he had just jumped
into the cool waters of the Sea after a day of hard labor
under the blazing sun hauling nets loaded with fish into his boat.
He felt energized, but he felt more than that:
he felt washed clean, forgiven,
as though Jesus had singled him out,
looked him right in the eye and said to him,
“Why are you carrying such a heavy burden?
Why do you still feel so much shame?
That was yesterday and this is today.
Of course I forgive you.
I will always forgive you.”

A few weeks later he and the others were back at the Sea of Galilee.
He and the others felt it was too dangerous to remain in Jerusalem,
and they didn’t know what else to do, or where else to go.
And then one morning there he was, standing on the beach,
his master, Jesus, the Messiah.
This time Peter was eager to face him,
eager to look him in the eyes,
and tell him how sorry he was
sorry he had denied him, abandoned him, forsaken him.
But Jesus didn’t give Peter the chance to talk about the past.
He just looked on Peter with those eyes that were always
so filled with love and said,
“Feed my lambs,
tend my sheep,
feed my sheep.
If you love me, follow me…”

For the second time in his life Peter dropped his nets,
dropped his nets and walked away from his vocation as a fisherman,
This time, though, Peter knew that he had a new vocation,
a vocation as a fisher of men and women,
a shepherd for all God’s children
Peter finally understood what Jesus had meant
when Jesus had first called him and his brother.
As he dropped his nets, he also dropped his worries, his anxieties,
his fears, his concerns for the world.
He felt stronger than ever, filled with love, filled with peace.

He knew exactly what he needed to do,
exactly what Jesus wanted him to do.
He went back to Jerusalem, into the lion’s den,
Nothing could stop him.
He told anyone who listen,
everyone who would listen,
“repent and be baptized so that your sins may be forgiven
and then you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit.”

And people responded: they repented and they were baptized
and they received the power of the Holy Spirit
and they were changed, forever.
The old ways had passed;
a new life had begun, for Peter,
for all the apostles,
and for all those who followed.

Our Lord’s Resurrection changed everything.
Everything.
Before the resurrection, the disciples, all those who followed Jesus
stumbled and bumbled their way along.
Peter’s greatest success seemed to have been
in trying Jesus’ patience.
But everything changed following the Resurrection.
Donald Smith, a Presbyterian minister, has written,
“After the disciples received the power of the Holy Spirit,
they were able to do what they could not do before.
They crucifixion left them defeated and depressed.
They were hopeless and helpless.
After the resurrection they were dynamic.
They were empowered to turn the world upside down.” (Smith, 9)

Peter did not become stronger, faster, or smarter.
He did not become better looking, more popular, or wealthier.
No, what Peter became for the first time in his life was himself:
he became what God intended him to be.
He became all that God intended him to be,
all that God created him to be.

He no longer lived for the eyes of the people of this world,
for public approval,
He lived instead for God, for Christ;
he lived for his faith,
he lived for righteousness, mercy, love.
The old ways had passed,
and a new life,
a new life in Christ had begun, finally begun, for Peter.

You and I have the same opportunity through the Resurrection of our Lord.
What we were yesterday,
what we did yesterday,
what we said yesterday
what we should have said, should have done:
none of that matters today.
Each day is a new day in Jesus Christ.
The old ways have passed.
Through the resurrection, a new life has begun.

Every one of us is like Peter:
we’ve all got something churning inside us,
something we try to bury in the deepest recesses of our minds
something that we did, that we said,
that causes us to feel shame,
causes us to be unhappy with ourselves.
But in our struggle to bury our shame, our unhappiness,
we overlook the fact that we can not hide anything from God.
Not a thing.
God knows.
And through Jesus’ resurrection God tells each of us
that whatever we did, that was yesterday and this is today.
And that we are forgiven, forgiven and washed clean.
In the same way Jesus forgave Peter,
forgave him for denying him, abandoning him,
leaving him to hang on the cross,
God through Jesus Christ forgives us our every sin.
That’s not to say that our sins don’t matter.
No, they do matter!
But we are forgiven so we can move on, learn,
grow in faith, washed clean and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Our dilemma is that while God may forgive us,
we are so reluctant to forgive ourselves.
Peter would never have forgiven himself.
But Jesus came to assure Peter of his forgiveness
so that he could move from yesterday to today
and on to tomorrow as Jesus’ faithful disciple.
God wants us to forgive ourselves as he forgives us so we can move on
and be what God wants us to be
and do those things that God wants us to do,
needs us to do,
and God wants us, needs us, you and me,
to nothing less than transform the world.

Think about what Peter did:
he went to Jerusalem, the most dangerous place possible
for a follower of Jesus Christ,
and he spoke out publicly, strongly, frequently.
He went to Jerusalem to fish,
to tend, to feed Christ’s sheep.
The other disciples did the same thing:
took the gospel out into the world
Paul traveled through the Mediterranean
Apocryphal stories tell us that Thomas,
the poor disciple branded as the Doubter,
traveled into India and the very edge of China,
preaching the gospel of Christ.

We haven’t been forgiven, haven’t been given the Holy Spirit
so we can live soft, comfortable lives.
We’ve been empowered by the Holy Spirit to turn the world upside down.
To take Christ’s gospel out into the world
To take peace, mercy, justice, compassion,
forgiveness and love out into the world.
Our lesson from Acts shows us how we are to work together,
pray together, share what we have.

You and I are forgiven, washed clean
of even those secret sins that lurk in the deepest recesses
of our psyches.
We have been washed clean so that we can fish,
so that we can tend,
so that we can feed
all God’s children
Through the resurrection you and I have been given new life,
life to be all that God has created each of us to be
all that Jesus calls us to be.
all that the Holy Spirit empowers us to be:
children of God,
disciples of Christ,
fishers of men and women,
shepherds each of us.
Through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the old ways have past, and a new life has begun.
Glory to God in the highest!
Amen

What It's All About

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
April 3, 2005

What It’s All About
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-23

Drive through the imposing stone and iron gates
and it is as though you’ve left the city
and entered another world.
Blaring car horns, motorcycles on steroids,
people shouting into cellphones,
children laughing, singing, even crying and wailing:
the symphony of noise that is the city disappears.
The quiet washes over you and whispers,
“peace be with you.”

You shift into low gear, both your car and your pace,
there is too much to see, too much to take in,
and there is something about the place that says, “slow down”.
You follow a yellow stripe that goes down the middle of the road.
It isn’t there to keep cars on one side of the road or the other;
it is there to guide you, to pull you into the heart of the
pastoral beauty, the small lake that is right in the center.
It is called Mirror Lake,
but it really is not much more than a small pond.
Still it is lovely, tranquil,
with ducks skimming across the surface
as they land on the water like Top Gun pilots.
As geese rest on the banks, birds of every kind
flit from tree to tree, town criers announcing,
“spring is coming, spring is coming!”

There are two lovely sculptures in the lake itself,
each appearing to float on the surface of the water.
One is called the “Three Graces”,
a classic pose from Greek mythology,
daughters of Zeus, goddesses of joy, charm, and beauty.
The other is a small child, innocent, wide-eyed,
looking with wonder at the beauty and the liveliness
all around her.
There is steady traffic on the road that rings that lake,
but it is pedestrian traffic: Mothers wheeling babies
in high-tech strollers,
office workers on lunch breaks,
joggers who for a few moments seem able to forget about
time and distance as they take it all in.

With all the vibrancy, all the beauty,
all the life that is all around you,
it is hard to believe that you are in cemetery.
But that is where you are:
Forest Lawn Cemetery in the middle of Buffalo New York.
This enormous burial ground has been the final resting place
for the famous, the infamous, and folks like you and me
since before the Civil War.
The website for the cemetery will tell you that they currently
have more than 150,000 “residents”.

Every time I go to Buffalo,
I invariably take a drive through the cemetery,
partly to visit ancestors who are buried there,
and partly just to enjoy the beauty and the tranquility
of an oasis in the middle of a busy city.

I drive through the gates, downshift my car and my mind,
and then follow the yellow line for about a half-mile,
but where it veers off to the right to the lake
I take a different road, one that goes to the left,
that leads me to one of the oldest sections of the cemetery.
There the heavy granite stones that mark the graves
are more black than gray
with years of accumulated soot and grime,
a reminder of the days when we heated with coal.

It is in this section where my ancestors
on my mother’s side of the family are buried,
the Meech family: my mother’s mother, my great grandparents,
and my great-great grandparents.
There in the midst of the blackened stones
the Meech family stone is bright pinkish red,
gleaming polished granite.
It enlivens the area; it’s a beacon,
an adjective in a field of nouns.

Turn back the other way and follow
the yellow stripe past Mirror Lake.
Large mausoleums ring the lake:
This is where the wealthy of Buffalo built
miniature Greek temples to house their mortal remains.
The limestone, marble, and granite
all stand in silent tribute to money and power.
But they also provide a compelling, humbling reminder
that death comes to all,
regardless of wealth, status, or power.

Just past the lake is Section 27,
an area where most of the stones date from after World War II
and so don’t wear a coat of coal dust.
In the 1970s my grandfather Ferguson bought a plot there.
a large plot, big enough for at least 15 “residents”.
My grandfather bought the site very reluctantly.
Even though he was well into his 70s,
he did not want to think about the end of his life.
He remained strong and vibrant for another half dozen years
and died in 1983.
My grandmother joined him in 1995 at the age of 93.

Off at the right edge of the plot is a grave
that belongs to my cousin Richard,
who died two years ago at the age of 41,
following a long, brave fight with cancer.

Over to the left is the newest grave:
It is my father’s.
He died quite unexpectedly at the end of February,
while vacationing with his wife down on Florida.
He’s next to my grandfather:
Whitworth Junior next to Whitworth Senior.
You have not heard me talk about my father;
He and I were not particularly close.
My parents separated in 1968 and divorced two years later,
when I was in middle school.
He wasn’t around much after that.
He and I didn’t have a bad relationship,
we didn’t have a good relationship,
we just didn’t have much of a relationship.
My father was a good man – well respected in the community,
an honest and hardworking businessman;
he was genuinely liked and respected by those who knew him.
His blemishes and faults were no worse than most.
Throughout his 75 years, he tried to live faithfully and well,
and by all accounts I’d say he was successful.

I had taken a lily from our service last Sunday
and I put it in the mud by his grave.
As I stood there I found myself filled with a wonderful image,
an image of my father together with his parents
all bathed in light and love, peace and forgiveness.

And with that image in mind I thought,
that is what Easter is all about;
That is what the message of the Resurrection is all about:
that through God’s love given to us in the risen Christ,
reconciliation is ours,
peace is ours,
life is ours,
eternal life in God’s heavenly kingdom
with our Lord Jesus Christ.
As Peter tells us, through Jesus Christ God has given us
“a new birth into a living hope, into an inheritance
that is imperishable,
undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for [each of us]…
In this we rejoice.” (1 Peter 1:3ff)

Our lives here on earth are not even the blink of God’s eye.
We are made of dust and ashes,
and we will return to dust and ashes.
Nothing can prevent that: not money, not power, not fame,
not even being the Pope.
And yet we can look with confidence and hope to the future:
to eternal life in God’s heavenly Kingdom
through the promise given to us in the Resurrection of our Savior.

In his letter to the Christians in Rome Paul wrote,
“We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.
If we live, we live to the Lord,
and if we die, we die to the Lord;
so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.
For to this end Christ died and lived again,
so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”
(Romans 14:7-9)

My father was the Lord’s in this life,
and he is still the Lord’s.
You and I are the Lord’s in this life
and we will be the Lord’s in the life to come.
This is the promise given to us in the Resurrection of our Lord.
This is the promise given to us by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Who would have thought a cemetery
could write such an eloquent Easter sermon?
Who would have thought a cemetery
could be such a joyful place?
He is risen!
Risen to give us life!
Amen