John 20:19-31

I was out visiting in a home a few years ago where they’d adopted one of those dogs that had been a racer. It was a big old greyhound lying there in the den. One of the kids in the family – just a toddler – was pulling on it’s tail, and a little older kid had his head on the dog’s stomach, sort of using it like a pillow. The dog seemed to have a smile on his face, and looked real happy. So I said to the dog, “Are you still racing at all?”

“No, no I don’t race anymore,” he replied in a voice a lot lower than you might think would come from a greyhound.

I said, “Well, do you miss it – all the glitter and excitement of the track?”

He said, “No. No, I don’t miss it at all.”

“Well, what’s the matter? Did you get too old to race?”

“No. No, I still had some race left in me.”

 “Well, did you not win?” I asked.

He sort of snickered and said, “I won over a million dollars for my owner.”

“Then what was it? Bad treatment?”

 “Oh no,” the greyhound answered, “They treated us royally when we were racing.”

“Well, what WAS it then? Did you get crippled?”

He said, “No. No. No.”

“Then WHAT?”  I asked.

“I quit,” he said. “I just plain quit.”

I said, “Well why did you quit?”

Then he said, “I discovered that what I was chasing was not really a rabbit!

He paused for a long moment as if remembering. Then he sadly whispered:

“So I quit.” 

He looked at me with such sorrowful eyes.

“All that running, running, running, and what I was chasing wasn’t even real!”

_______

What rabbits are you chasing? What are you running after in life? And most importantly – is whatever it is that you are chasing after REAL?”

You know, a lot of people end up like that greyhound. They exhaust themselves chasing after all sorts of rabbits that, in the end, turn out to not be real. You know the ones I’m talking about – the chase after wealth that turns out to be unreal when your health goes bad and there’s no amount of money that can make you better – or the chase after a relationship like the kind you see in the movies where the husband and wife don’t ever wake up in the morning with bad breath, let alone with a bad attitude, and one day you realize that your husband or wife is nowhere near your image of what he or she should be – or the chase after some dream that turns out to not be all that great once you achieve it. Oh, we can all identify phony rabbits we’ve chased after in life. And over on the spiritual side, there’s a virtual bunny hutch of phony rabbits that people get caught up running all over the place after.

Like the rabbits the disciples were chasing.

There they are in today’s Gospel reading. It’s Easter evening. And they’re jammed into that little upper room in Jerusalem where they had the last supper. The doors are locked, and they’re scared to death.

That’s what happens when you chase phony rabbits, and you finally catch up to them, and find out they’re not real. You end up going inside yourself and hiding. You give up, and seek the shadows.

So there’s Peter who thought he could be a follower of Jesus out of the strength of his own intellect, his own heart, his own faith. Phony rabbit that turned out to be! Even though he personally promised Jesus he would follow him all the way, it turned out he couldn’t do it. There are some things human beings can’t do for themselves, and now he knows. Lots of people feel that way, you know – that their own strength is what will get them through life. But sooner or later something comes along that’s too big, too powerful, too irresistible. And we fall flat on our faces. Sometimes, we don’t even know when it’s time to cry out to God for help! And if we did, we wouldn’t. And we chase that rabbit with everything we’ve got.

And there’s John, over there in the corner, trying to figure out how in the world he can go on. His best friend is dead. He has lost what he loved the most. His future is gone. The pain is so great he cannot even imagine a future! That’s his reality. That’s reality for many of us. The pain of life has sucked the wind out of our sails. The death of a spouse, the loss of mobility, the lay-off from work, the violence in the world all around us, the rejection of a friend, the problem of our child fills us with such despair that we don’t even dare dream of a better day coming. Our whole lives become defined by our sadness. And we chase that rabbit with all our might.

And then there’s Thomas who’s decided that the only things in life worth believing are the things you can see and feel for yourself. And that includes God.  Thomas is the quintessential atheist. Unable to put his hands around something concrete, he chooses to accept a life without God. “Unless I see for myself….!” Thomas gruffly proclaims. I know a lot of people like that. They build their life on a view of reality in which everything is starkly visible, and requires no faith, no trust, no risk. Just the facts, ma’am is what they build their lives on. And they chase that rabbit in circles all around the track.

So can you imagine this scene? There they are, these disciples of Jesus. Each one chasing their own reality – Peter, lost in his failure – John, lost in grief and sorrow without a future – Thomas, lost in doubt.

And do you know what? I’ll bet there are lots of Peters, and Johns and Thomas’ right here in the sanctuary today!

So pay attention!

Do you know what happens next?

Suddenly the risen Jesus is among them!

And one by one, those phony rabbits begin to crumble away…

…AND A NEW REALITY DAWNS!

Peter – so lost in guilt and shame – receives the gift of forgiveness, and the promise that God will give him the strength he doesn’t have himself!

John – so overwhelmed by the pain of his losses – receives the gift of a hopeful future, for he sees in the risen Jesus that losses are not always permanent, and that God has the power to turn our sadness into joy!

And Thomas – so disillusioned and full of uncertainty – well Thomas receives a faith – a faith in a living Lord who welcomes questions and doubts, but also requires trust and risk!

One by one, the phony rabbits are revealed for what they are! What seemed to be reality turns out not to be. Human reality is reversed and God’s new reality starts to emerge – an Easter reality to which each and every one of us is invited to come!

And this Easter reality – the only rabbit worth chasing on the track of life – is simply what we see demonstrated in the resurrection of Jesus Christ:

The magnificent and limitless love of God at work!

If you are a person who has failed, sinned, made mistakes, let God and others down, and now the dark cloud of your failure hovers over your life, I hope you’ll welcome Jesus into your life today  because the love of God will forgive you, and wipe the slate clean, and give you a fresh start, and set you free.

If you are a person who has suffered a loss, or a disappointment, or a terrible tragedy, and you live with the sort of pain in which the problem with tomorrow is that you have to wake up and live it, may I invite you to hold onto the risen Jesus every day, for in Christ is found the promise that the love of God will lead you through the dark valley to that moment when your sadness will turn to joy, and even what you’ve lost will be found!

And if you are a doubter, and live under the criticism of others because you can’t help but ask questions, and your own self-judgment tells you that God, if there is one, would not want anything to do with a doubter like you, I challenge you to engage in a relationship with the living  Christ, for only the love of God can give you the kind of faith where your questions are valued, your skepticism is understood, and you can learn to exercise trust at your own pace.

There is no greater truth, no higher reality than the truth and reality of God’s love for the world as demonstrated in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead

So go and chase that rabbit!

Put the redemptive love of God in your sights. Pursue it with all you’ve got!

God’s love will not lead you around and around in circles.

It will lead you to eternal life!

For Christ is risen!

Love wins!

(Thanks to Fred Craddock for the story about the Greyhound)