5 EASTER GLORIA DEI, ANCHORAGE

May 2, 2007 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER

ACTS 11:1-18; PSALM 148; REV 21:1-6; JOHN 13:31-35

Anyone want to show off their knowledge and tell us which classic novel starts out with that quote? Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

If you were hesitant to answer my question, don’t feel badly. The line: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times is one that we hear all the time: news reports, magazines, news papers, blogs. Just to show you how ingrained those twelve words are in our cultural psyche, I googled them and got 64,700,000 hits!

This quote was even used once in an episode of “Cheers” – the old sit-com that took place in a Boston bar by the same name. Dr. Frazier Crane, a psychiatrist who spends far too much time in the bar, decides one day to intellectually inspire his fellow patrons by reading aloud to them this very novel. He barely opens his mouth before getting into trouble.

Dramatically phrasing those famous words, Dr. Crane reads, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times when he’s suddenly interrupted by Norm who shouts out, Wait! Whoa, whoa! So…which was it? Then, if I remember correctly, Cliff, the postman, says something profound like, Man, that guy really likes to cover his bases…and it all goes downhill from there.

The novel, A Tale of Two Cities, starts out in the year 1775 and is set in the cities of London and Paris. The backdrop of the drama is the French revolution and the tensions that spark between peasants and aristocracy, governments and masses. And, as in other Dickens’ novels, the themes that dominate this moving story have to do with cruelty and kindness, revenge and restoration, a passionate commitment to causes and enduring love.

There is a similar sort of yin-yang tension at work in the movie, City of Angels. It also is a tale of two “cities” or planes of existence anyway. The setting is Los Angeles (which means “the city of angels”) where Meg Ryan plays a doctor with a passionate commitment to her calling.

Into her life steps an angel named Seth, played by Nicholas Cage. Turns out the city is full of these heavenly do-gooders who: comfort the sad, calm the anxious, inspire the stuck, save some who are in danger and usher others through that valley of the shadow of death.

They are invisible to everyone…except: little children, those who are dying and, of course, we, the audience. Seth first sees the doctor in the operating room. She is a talented surgeon and does everything right for her patient, yet still he dies. We know that it was simply his time…but the doctor can’t shake the feeling that she must have done something wrong.

Seth marvels at her struggle with this lost skirmish in the battle between life and death. Finally, unable to keep her emotions in check, the doctor seeks the solace of an empty stairwell, where she sits on a step and starts to cry.

Silently a tear slips down her cheek as she stares off into space, replaying the fatal scene in the operating room over and over again. Seth is moved, and wants to help her, but, according to the movie, angels are not human, do not have bodies, are unable to experience the senses of touch, taste, or smell.

So Seth cannot dry her tears, cannot hold her close, cannot take away her burden of failure, cannot remove the sting of death… The movie then develops into a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque tragedy. The only way for Seth to experience the breadth and depth of human life: its pleasure and pain, its sadness and joy, its hope and fear, is to abandon his calling as a messenger of heaven. So he does…and so he learns to sip from our bitter cup of tears.

Then we have the tale of two cities as presented in our N.T. lesson from the book of Revelation. We are blessed to hear that the day will come when we are no longer sentenced to stumble our way through the streets of this valley of shadows, when we are no longer left to look through our dim and dingy glasses, when are no longer forced to find our way through the darkness of life’s feelings and fears.

Says John, the day is coming when the new Jerusalem will appear and will carry with it good news for us, good news for all. For then we will see clearly, then we will know what is truth, then we will stand face to face with our God who will live among us, remain with us, and walk beside us.

Unlike Seth in the movie, City of Angels, God’s mission will not be to see how we experience life…but to complete it. And unlike the peasants who came to power in A Tale of Two Cities, God’s mission will not be punish the aristocracy..but to find the souls who are lost and embrace us all in love.

So it will be, says this Good Word, for the sake of Jesus Christ, that God will welcome us, and receive from us: our guilt, our sorrow, our pain and our shame, will, in fact, “wipe every tear from our eyes” and fill us with that peace that passes all understanding. Thanks be to God. Amen.