Scripture Reading
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Judeans, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “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.”
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. ~John 20:19-31
Sermon
This week I listened as friend shared his experience of Easter this year. He and his wife had welcomed their children and grandchildren for an unusually full house. Their usually quiet life was all but upended by the energy of the grandchildren. The grandchildren rose early, disrupted their carefully-made plans for every day of their visit, and gave them an infusion of energy unlike any they’d had in a while. It was a wonderful Easter. [i]
The grandchildren have gone home, the tulips that graced our chancel and the flowers that adorned our old, rugged cross have faded, but don’t be deceived. It is still Easter! We will be celebrating this most joyous season for the next six weeks. And to be clear: Easter forms the shape of our worship all year long. We worship on the first day of the week, the day we call “The Lord’s Day.” We worship on Sunday because it is the Resurrection Day.
Every year this season begins with stories of the appearances of Jesus that first Easter week and following. Last week our story took place early in the morning, in the garden where the tomb of Jesus could be found. There we found three of Jesus’ closest friends and disciples—Peter, Mary Magdalene, and the unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved.” This week we meet the whole group of Jesus’ friends and disciples, only they are closeted away behind locked doors. They are afraid.
This, honestly, is not how we expect to find the disciples. In last week’s reading, Mary met Jesus in the garden, greeted him with joy and astonishment and love, and was sent to bring the good news to this exact group. Here’s how that passage ended:
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her. ~John 20:18
Why on earth do we find them, later that very same day, hiding?
Well, for one thing, Mary Magdalene’s new from Jesus is a little hard to swallow. No one expects the resurrection. We walk through the journey of Holy Week knowing the outcome. That’s not the case for Jesus’ friends. Even though Jesus tells them in advance what to expect, they cannot conceive that the man they saw suffer and die on Friday might be walking among them completely alive on Sunday, even if Mary Magdalene comes running to tell them so.
They are afraid. They are confused. It makes sense. They are afraid of some factions of the crowds that called for Jesus’ death in no uncertain terms, and of course, with the rumors swirling around—that maybe Jesus’ body has been stolen—they’re probably even more afraid of the Romans who put Jesus to death in the first place.
So there they are. Hiding. And into the room—through the locked doors—comes Jesus. He says, “Peace be with you.” And he shows them the wounds on his hands, where the Roman soldiers had driven the spikes. He shows them the wound in his side, where a soldier had pierced him with a sword. Jesus comes breathing peace, breathing forgiveness, and breathing the Holy Spirit upon them. And just like Mary, they rejoice. They see, and they believe.
One problem: Thomas isn’t there. We don’t know where he is; the passage doesn’t say. But he isn’t holed up with the others. It may be that he’s not as afraid as the others. It may be that, even though he is afraid, someone needs to get food and other supplies. But when he gets back, and they tell him “We have seen the Lord!” he doesn’t automatically assume they are telling the truth, probably a similar reaction to the original bulletin from Mary Magdalene.
I think it’s hard for us to truly understand: Nobody expected a resurrection. People don’t just come back to life once they’re dead. And yet.
We know what happens next. A week later Thomas is there, when Jesus once again appears, despite a closed door. Again, Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” Finally, Thomas sees Jesus, who shows him his wounds, and Thomas’s response is a full-throated affirmation of Jesus’ identity: “My Lord and my God.”
The friends, the disciples of Jesus know Jesus—they know the one who walked the roads of Galilee and Judea and Samaria. Now they are getting to know the Risen Christ. Their experience of him is different. He is glorified, he has a resurrection body. In certain respects, he is changed. Sometimes, people don’t recognize him.
As for us, the only Jesus we know is the Risen Christ.
For the last few years, I’ve been thinking about the difference between Gospel of John and the other three gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all look at Jesus through, essentially, the same lens. Sure, they have their differences, but their structure follows basically the same pattern. John’s gospel is a entirely different story. It’s occurred to me that the Jesus we meet in John’s gospel is a Jesus who, unquestionably, knows the ending. He is the Risen Christ, right from the first chapter.
Then, this week, I read this paragraph, in a daily meditation from Richard Rohr:
Many people don’t realize that the apostle Paul never met the historical Jesus and hardly ever quotes Jesus directly. In almost all of Paul’s preaching and writing, he refers to the Eternal Christ Mystery or the Risen Christ rather than Jesus of Nazareth before his death and resurrection. The Risen Christ is the only Jesus that Paul ever knew! This makes Paul a fitting mediator for the rest of us, since the Omnipresent Risen Christ is the only Jesus we will ever know as well.[ii]
In Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthians, we read:
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! ~2 Corinthians 5:16-17
Because of who and where and when we are, just like Paul, the only Jesus we know is the resurrected Christ. And the resurrection is the heart of the matter. Resurrection is the game-changer.
For one thing, the resurrection is not simply a one-off event, merely something that happened to Jesus that we’re happy about and like to celebrate. The resurrection affects us. It makes a difference to our understanding of creation. Elsewhere, Father Rohr writes,
I want to enlarge your view of resurrection from a one-time miracle in the life of Jesus… to a pattern of creation that has always been true, and that invites us to much more than belief in a miracle. It must be more than the private victory of one man to prove that he is God.
Resurrection and renewal are, in fact, the universal and observable pattern of everything. We might just as well use non-religious terms like “springtime,” “regeneration,” “healing,” “forgiveness,” “life cycles,” “darkness,” and “light.” If incarnation is real, and Spirit has inhabited matter from the beginning, then resurrection in multitudinous forms is to be fully expected.[iii]
It all goes back to Christ as the Word, as John tells us in the poetic opening of his gospel. If Christ is the Word, and Jesus is the Word made flesh, the Risen Christ is the Word victorious, not just for Jesus, not just for Christians, not just for all the world, but for all of creation. Back to Paul’s words to the Corinthians: …if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! In the words of the song, everything old is new again.
UPC has lived its own resurrection stories, time and again. This sanctuary burst from the tomb just nine months after a fire destroyed everything but the Pew in our Liberty Avenue entrance. We are living the resurrection story of working our way back from Covid dominating everything about our lives. We are living the resurrection story of opening our hearts to our neighbors, near and far.
I could point to any number of things in my own life that were resurrection events, but probably the most powerful one—the one for which I’m most grateful—was my experience of coming out to this congregation in 2009. Jesus let me know on Ash Wednesday that the time was right. I was fully aware that taking that step could cost me, not only this pastorate, but also my ordination, for which I’d worked so hard, and which has given me so much joy. But that’s not what happened. Jesus walked through the locked door into the closet I was living in, and said, it’s time for new life. Now. In the middle of Easter season that year, UPC opened its individual and collective hearts to me, re-affirmed its confidence in me as pastor, and loved me right out of that closet into new and abundant life.
Resurrection is the pattern of everything in creation.
It happens over and over again, it happens day after day, it happens countless times in our lives, if we can see it. It happens when we forgive one another. It happens when we show love to one another. It happens when we share what we have so that others will be ok. It happens when we live authentically as the people God created us to be. It happens when we break bread together, whether at this table or the tables in our homes.
Jesus comes among us, passing through our locked doors, breathing peace, breathing forgiveness, and breathing the Spirit. The Risen Christ rises early, disrupts our carefully-laid plans, and gives us an infusion of energy—the Holy Spirit—unlike anything we’ve seen before, or are likely to see again.[iv]
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Thanks to the Rev. Doug Horne, pastor of Otego Presbyterian Church.
[ii] Richard Rohr, “The Resurrected Christ: Christ is Risen,” Daily Meditations, April 9, 2023, Center for Action and Contemplation, https://cac.org/daily-meditations/christ-is-risen-2023-04-09/.
[iii] Richard Rohr, “The Resurrected Christ: The Resurrection of All Things,” Daily Meditations, April 10, 2023, Center for Action and Contemplation, https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-resurrection-of-all-things-2023-04-10/.
[iv] Again, many thanks to Rev. Doug Horne.