Pastor Dan Mangler's Sunday Sermon

Transcendence Breaks In

John20: 19-31

April 23, 2006

Transcendence Breaks In

A year or so ago, a friend of mine died. One morning in his sixty-eighth year he simply didn’t wake up. It was about as easy a way as he could possibly have done it, but it was not easy for the people he left behind because it gave us no chance to start getting used to the idea... or to say goodbye...He died in March, and in May my wife and I were staying with his widow overnight when I had a short dream about him. I dreamed he was standing there in the dark guest room where we were asleep, looking very much himself in the navy blue jersey and white slacks he often wore. I told him how much we had missed him and how glad I was to see him again. He acknowledged that somehow. Then I said, "Are you really there, Dudley?" I meant was he there in fact, in truth, or was I merely dreaming he was. His answer was that he was really there. "Can you prove it?" I asked him. "Of course," he said. Then he plucked a strand of wool out of his jersey and tossed it to me. I caught it between my thumb and forefinger and the feel of it was so palpably real that it woke me up. That's all there was to it...I told the dream at breakfast the next morning and I'd hardly finished when my wife spoke. She said that she'd seen the strand on the carpet as she was getting dressed. She was sure it hadn’t been there the night before. I rushed upstairs to see for myself and there it was - a little tangle of navy blue wool.

No, that didn’t happen to me. But had it happened to me I would guess that I would get lots of questions after church this morning. For some the idea that the world beyond can break into this world is exciting. For others it is scary. For still others the idea is absurd. There would have been differences of opinion, but I don’t think there would have been disinterest.

No, Dudley's visit from the world beyond did not happen to me, but neither is it just fiction. Frederick Buechner tells this as a personal experience in his book The Clown in the Belfry. Dudley was friend and it was Buechner who had the dream, had the encounter, and, yes, held the single strand of wool thread. And Buechner admits that he doesn’t know what to think of it. "Coincidence?” he asks. Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

The odds against such occurrences, at first blush, would appear to be astronomical. And yet, if we had the courage to talk about them, I expect that we would find that they happen all the time for which we have gobs of anecdotal evidence. It's not interesting that such moments occur, (for they certainly do) but what's interesting is what we make out of them. Or refuse to make out of them.

William Willimon, former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, suggests that there are only two ways to look at such a story. The first is to discard these events as meaningless, pure coincidence. Buechner was, after all, sleeping in his friend's house, visiting with his friend's wife. The strand of blue wool was there the night before, just unnoticed by his wife, but unconsciously noted by him, reminding him of a jersey his friend Dudley used to wear. All of these elements came together in his mind during sleep and presented themselves in a dream. It was a fluke, a quirk, no more than certain glitches in the electrical throbs of the brain. What should we make of it? Nothing.

Or, maybe everything. As Buechner writes, "Maybe my friend really did come to me in my dream and the thread was his sign to me that he had. Maybe it was true that by God's grace the dead are given back their lives again and that the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is not just a doctrine,"

“Maybe,” says Willimon, “these moments are important...playful intrusions into our so common-sensical patterns of thought - a blue thread on the carpet, a face and a voice plucked from the past - sent by heaven to disrupt us. A peek beyond the curtain of exterior reality. A whisper of providence. A hint of transcendence from the godly realm. A suggestion that there is more to death than mere death. Could this strange experience and others like it, connect us with a reality too deep, too real and wonderful that, if we were to look at it face-to-face we would be incinerated by its glory?”

No, I have not had such an experience. I have never had a deceased loved one come and stand at my bedroom door or sit at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night. But there are members of churches I have served who have had those experiences and have told me about them. I wonder if they are more common than we think and that many shy from telling of them for fear of being labeled a kook. This I do know. Those who have told me of their encounters have no doubt about their validity. Not one said, "Oh, I was probably just dreaming." Nor do I recall anyone being particularly disturbed by these events. These weren't experienced as ghosts haunting the attic. These were brief visits by loved ones that were comforting and reassuring. It would interest me some time to bring together those who have had such experiences and just listen to the stories.

If I had to choose between the two, if you asked me which I preferred, that these experiences with the world beyond meant nothing or everything, I think I would choose everything. I could use a little transcendent break-in now and then to remind me that there is more in God's plans than I now see. Even the ministry can become earth-bound and mundane...sort through the mail, prepare a lesson plan, write the newsletter, put together a council agenda, fix the photocopier, fill out reports, answer correspondence. It would do my spirit good to peek beyond the curtain of exterior reality, to hear the whisper of providence, to have a hint of transcendence. The ordinariness of this world takes on an added dimension when seen as part of a greater whole, a grander scheme. It has been my experience that people who have had an in-breaking of the eternal world into this temporal world, however that occurs, and recognize it as such, are changed, and for the better. To be so invaded by eternity is to be given a radically different perspective on this life that helps a person live this life better. In the 1960s Peggy Lee sang a plaintive song called “Is that all there is?” The breaking in of the eternal into the temporal, this transcendent experience, says that this is not all that there is.

It happened to the disciples. They were just standing around that Sunday evening talking when all of a sudden the resurrected Jesus appeared in their midst saying, "Peace be with you." God's eternity broke into their lives. They were eventually convinced that this was, indeed, the resurrected Jesus in their midst, and from that time on they became different people. Fear gave way to courage. Misunderstanding gave way to complete knowledge. Pettiness gave way to generosity of spirit. When the disciples felt the touch of the resurrected Jesus, their lives added a dimension and took on new purpose. It was as if they could, for a brief moment, see their lives as God saw them. And that changed them. It happened a week later to Thomas. It happened to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. It happened to Peter and the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee where the resurrected Jesus prepared breakfast over a charcoal fire. It happened to Paul on the road to Damascus. Always with the same result. The breaking of the eternal into the temporal, this transcendent experience, changes those touched for the better and lead their lives in new directions.

I am hopeful that these invasions of eternity and experiences with the transcendent are not limited to brief visits of deceased loved ones. I am selfishly hopeful, because I haven’t had that kind of an encounter. I have a sense, a growing conviction that God has a number ways he can invade our temporal experience with the eternal that can remind us that we are part of something larger than we can now see. I hesitate to list mine for fear of limiting how you experience yours. They may range from an experience in nature, the warmth and kindness of a friend, inspiration through music or other arts, or a sense of connection in some more formal devotional activity. But you will recognize them when they come. I need these moments, these divine encounters, to give my life meaning, and I think you do, too. My hope is that you stop in those moments and delight in them, that you gain a new perspective on life through them, that, by them, the purpose of your life in God's eyes might be better known. Amen.

May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.