H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
23 April 2006
VITAL SIGNS
John 20:19-31
I was reading some research on ants. It seems that dead ants give off a particular smell. That’s
how they clean them out of the anthill. When living ants come upon a dead ant, they give it a sniff, then
carry him out to the ant cemetery. So this researcher sprayed a living ant with the dead ant smell and
then turned him loose. We’ll call this ant Alphonse.
So Alphonse heads into the anthill and goes to work, but as soon he encounters some other ants,
they get a whiff and they grab Alphonse and carry him off. Alphonse is kicking and waving his
antennae and however ants communicate, he’s shouting, “I’m alive,” but the ants sniff him again and
say, “No, you’re dead.” So they carry him off and dump him in the ant graveyard.
Alphonse gets up, dusts himself off, and heads back into the hill, but as soon as he gets there,
some workers come along and drag him out to the cemetery again. This continues until the death
scent wears off Alphonse. Then when he smells like all the other ants, they let him come back to work.
Don’t you think it must have been like that for the first Christians? Here they are so full of life,
abundant life, resurrection life. The risen Lord has breathed his life into them and they are bursting
with life. But when they try to live abundantly, the authorities bring them in and say, “What’s wrong with
you? You don’t smell right.”
The Christians say, “That’s because we’re so alive!”
The authorities say, “No, that’s not life. We know life. Life is trudging through the day with your
head down. But you Christian are shouting about joy and singing hymns and preaching about
resurrection. Life is going to work to earn a few bucks and then locking it away so nobody can seal it
from you. But you Christians give your money to the poor. You sell your possessions and share all
your goods with anybody in need. Life is being just nervous enough to keep out of trouble. Life is
being scared enough to follow the rules and to do what you’re told, but you Christians are living on the
edge, preaching in the streets, and holding assemblies without a permit. No, you definitely don’t smell
right.”
So they read them the riot act and turn them loose. But immediately the Christians are out there
living large, so the authorities bring them in again and rough them up and throw them into jail. But as
soon as they get out, they’re off there rejoicing and shouting and healing in the name of Jesus. So the
authorities arrest a Christian named Stephen, and Stephen has the gall to come to life right there in
the courtroom. They take one whiff of this guy and the mob drags him out and stones him to death.
When this happens, many Christians leave town, but they take their risen Lord with them to the ends
of the Roman Empire. They take their risen faith, their abundant life, and pretty soon the whole thing
becomes an epidemic.
Those first Christians were trouble and in trouble because they refused to play dead, because
they insisted on living abundantly no matter what anyone said to them or did to them.
There is shocking freedom in the life of those first disciples. The whole world is driven by
ambition. Make more money. Pile up more possessions. Fence your yard, lock your doors, install
motion detectors in your house. Hang on to what you’ve got for dear life. And these 1st Century
Christians just say No to all of that.
The first Christians had to live in the world, just as we do. When Paul heard that some Christians
in Thessalonica were quitting their jobs to wait for the Lord’s return, he sent word to the church, “Tell
those people to get back to work. If they don’t work, they don’t eat, either. Don’t let them mooch off of
you!” Fair enough! Most of us learned the work ethic at an early age.
But the Bible also warns about the dangers of rising up early and going late to rest, eating the
bread of anxious toil, and tossing and turning on a pillow of worries, as if we must put all our trust in
our own efforts. Maybe that’s what it comes down to—whether we’re going to live by fear or trust.
This is my Sunday for animal stories. Anybody ever heard of the Hog-Nosed snake? The Hog Nose
isn’t one of the fierce snakes with poison or rattlers. The Hog-Nose is actually a sissy snake.
Whenever he is threatened or frightened, he plays dead. He flops on his back, stiffens up, his mouth
gapes open, his tongue hangs out, he even bleeds a little at the mouth. If you find a Hog-Nose playing
dead, you can pick him up, lay him on his stomach, and he will immediately flop onto his back again,
as if to say, “See? I’m really dead!”
Turn him again, and he flops right back over.
“See? Totally, definitely dead!”
The more you try to revive him, the more scared he becomes and the more determined to stay
dead. That’s what fear does. Fear encourages us to play dead. Maybe those first Christians were so
free because they had learned something about trusting God. After all, if God were able to bring Jesus
back from death, then surely God would be able to take care of their needs in life.
When it comes to trusting God, most of us are caught in the what-if game. What if I get disabled
and can’t work anymore? What if my company gets gobbled up by some conglomerate? What if social
security dies before I do?
Well, it could be. Bad things can happen. Bad things do happen. But is there anything so bad
lurking out there, that we cannot rely on God to see us through? If God could take the horror and
humiliation and utter defeat of the cross and transform it into the joy and victory of Easter, then what
are you ever going to face that God can’t handle? Having made reasonable preparations for tomorrow,
can we not put away our fears and our obsessive efforts and live today with grace and trust?
Sometimes we are like the elderly man who took his first ride in an airplane. This was back in
the days when airplanes were still a novelty. As a treat on his seventy-fifth birthday the man was
coaxed into riding in a barnstormer at the county fair. When the flight was over and the plane was back
on the ground, someone said, “Uncle Joe, were you scared up there?” And Uncle Joe said, “No, not
really. But I never did put my full weight down.”
That’s one way to get through life, holding our breath, white-knuckling the edge of the seat, afraid
to put our full weight down. Or we can soar into the wind, trusting that the everlasting arms are always
just beneath us.
I’ll share a bit of biblical trivia with you. Do you know the middle verse of the Bible? It’s in the
book of Psalms. Psalm 118, verse 8. “It is better to place your trust in the Lord, than to trust in
mortals.” In other words, it is better to trust God than to count on human efforts, even your own efforts
and your own resources. Is it merely coincidence that this idea of trusting God should take the central
spot in the Scriptures?
Freedom from the addictions and the dead-end games of our culture, that is one of the life-
signs of those who follow Jesus. Trusting God to provide for our daily needs is another sign of
Christian life. We can buy and sell, says Paul, but let us do so as if we have no possessions. We can
live in the world--the world of mortgages, property taxes, and insurance premiums--but let us do so as
if we have no dealings with the world.
In other words, in our priorities, let us live as if we possess nothing but Christ. In our values, let
us live as if we belong to no one but Christ. In the habits of our heart, let us live as if we trust in God
alone. As the first Christians discovered, it is that kind of free and trustful living that invites God to pour
out great grace upon us.
Soli Deo Gloria!