I Peter 1:3-9
John 20:26-31
In my sermon on Easter, I gave a passing nod to the beautiful daffodils that were in full, yellow bloom over on the Pentecrest. It wasn’t an attempt to ingratiate myself to the University administration—they really were beautiful. But by the time I walked down Clinton St. on Thursday morning, those blooms had faded.
We all knew that would happen. And the poet warned of this when he wrote:
…leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Or as George Harrison later put it: “All things must pass.”
Which, of course, is one reason why, as I also said last Sunday, on Easter we announce not the beauty of spring, but resurrection.
Even so, we know the letdown after Easter. And everyone seems to know what to expect at church on the Sunday after Easter—not much.
Attendance is, well, slightly lower than last Sunday. Maybe that’s not all bad—we can stretch out in the pews and enjoy a little more elbow room. Like those daffodils, we’re not quite as splendid looking as last week—although none of you seem to be fading. The choir has the morning off, and while we miss their support of our congregational singing, it was a delight to hear Kristin’s offering of that sublime work by Bach.
On the Sunday after Easter, wise ministers are often on vacation. While that’s not the case, I do have to acknowledge that I enjoyed a little comp time on Monday. And no one ever asks me: “How did you make it through the Sunday after Easter?”
This morning’s lesson from John seems especially appropriate for those who weren’t here last week but who showed up this morning, wondering what they might find a week after all the hoopla and halleluiahs. So, if you weren’t here on Easter, I’m glad that you are here today. I’m glad that you’re all here because the Gospel story we heard this morning has significance for everyone as we seek to live out the meaning of the Easter—especially among the fading flowers. It’s the Easter story for latecomers.
You remember what happened: On Easter day Mary of Magdala tells the other disciples the impossibly good news that the crucified Jesus was alive once more and that, indeed, she had seen the Lord. Then in the evening of that day, the risen Jesus appears to disciples locked away out of fear. So that they can be certain it is Jesus, he shows them his hands and his side—the wounds of his crucifixion.
Jesus stands among his followers. I don’t know how—perhaps modern particle physics could give us an answer. I’ve always liked the suggestion of C. S. Lewis that the risen Jesus could walk through walls because he is more real than them—in the same way that an airplane can move through the clouds that look so solid. But I don’t know.
I do know that Christians have always understood Jesus as both resurrected and wounded; both risen from death and still bearing the marks of crucifixion.
He comes to those who are afraid, he comes to those who sorrow and suffer; that is to say, he comes to us even today. But he does not come as one who says, “Don’t worry. Look, it will all go away.”
No. He comes and shows his wounds. The risen Christ speaks to us in our suffering from out of his own. Only when this happens do the disciples recognize Jesus and rejoice. Only when we hear the crucified and risen Christ do we ourselves find reason to rejoice even in the midst of all that wears us down and threatens us.
Thomas, who wasn’t there when this happened, arrives on the scene. He is a latecomer to Easter. With excitement, the other disciples tell him—as Mary Magdalene had told them: “We have seen the Lord!” They try to tell him about being locked away, their surprise when Jesus stood among them. They sputter out words about hands and sides.
Thomas stares back at them. It’s not doubt, I think, as much as it is incomprehension.
That was how Easter ended—not with trumpets and joy and shouts of “Christ is risen,” but with disagreement, with dissent, and with those final words of incredulity: “I will not believe.”
Things were not off to a good start.
Maybe you just had to be there. Maybe to appreciate the resurrection, you had to see the risen Jesus. Maybe the power of the resurrection was available only to a few in the now distant past.
That’s our concern isn’t it? Because we’re all like Thomas—not so much doubters as latecomers.
A week later a similar event takes place.
Once again, Jesus appears. This time Jesus offers Thomas his hands and his side, encouraging him to believe. Rather than attempting to shame Thomas, the risen Jesus with grace and compassion seeks to give him what he needs, what he has asked for.
Thomas responds to the invitation of Jesus with what has been called “the most powerful confession in the Gospel of John”: “My Lord and my God.”[i]
A classmate of mine at the Divinity School, the late Gail O’Day, wrote an insightful commentary on the Gospel of John that I have turned to again and again over the years. She tells us “Although the word ‘doubt’ is indelibly linked with Thomas in the popular interpretation of this story, the word occurs nowhere in these verses…. A literal translation reads, ‘Do no be unbelieving but believing.’” She adds: “This is the only occurrence of this pair of adjectives in the Fourth Gospel, and their contrast is important. Jesus exhorts Thomas to move from a position of unbelief to belief. This story does not focus on doubt and skepticism, but on the grounds of faith.”[ii]
“Blessed are those,” the risen Christ responds to Thomas and speaking even of us today, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
You didn’t have to be there. Since that Sunday a week after Easter, Christians have proclaimed, “Christ is risen—but, you didn’t have to be there.” The power of the resurrection is not limited to a small group of people who were in one place on one day; it is not limited to ancient people in ancient times.
The power of the resurrection comes to us—stragglers, latecomers.
The author of the Gospel of John, writing near the end of the first century, would conclude this first section of resurrection stories by writing: “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
These resurrection appearances are “signs.” When John calls an event a “sign” he is talking about an event that is important more for what it points to than for what it is. These signs point to God overcoming death and vindicating the way of love that Jesus showed. These signs point to God making all who follow in the way of Jesus Christ part of a new creation, part of something that God is doing through us and among us as we, too, receive the Spirit of God in our lives.
These particular signs remind us that
The risen Christ does not know the barricades of locked doors or locked hearts.
The risen Christ is not limited by closed windows or closed minds.
The risen Christ will not be constrained by our fears.
What we might call the “miraculous” is not for its own sake. The resurrected Jesus does not appear in order to dazzle, surprise, or delight. Jesus comes to give God’s Spirit and God’s tasks to those who will follow.
These signs are given so that we who weren’t there, we who didn’t see, might believe and in believing have life in Christ’s name.
Let me be clear: believing is never a matter of agreeing to a certain set of propositions about Jesus. Believing isn’t affirming that Jesus was both human and divine.
Believing isn’t finding some way to accept a specific explanation as to why Jesus was crucified or how he was raised from that death.
Believing is commitment. Believing is following in the way of Jesus Christ.
Congregationalist have grasped this well. In the Congregational UCC tradition it is covenant, not creed that is important. How we act in the world, how we live with each other, that we love one another as Christ has loved us—we would call these our commitments.
Believing is commitment.
And commitment leads to life.
I Peter, also most likely written near the end of the first century, gives voice to this as well. As was the case with John’s Gospel, this letter was written to people who weren’t there when Jesus appeared to his disciples, to people who didn’t see his resurrected yet wounded hands and side. They are told that’s all right: “Although you have not seen the resurrected Christ, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
I know. Please, bear with me, because we don’t usually talk about the salvation of souls in the United Church of Christ. But the word “salvation” speaks of wholeness of life, of health, of well-being in body and spirit. It’s a good, conventionally religious word, but we don’t use it much—and probably won’t use it much, because we’re not really a conventionally religious people, are we?
Unfortunately, talk of salvation has come to mean drawing a line between those who are in and those who are out, those who are “saved” and those who aren’t. It’s not the line that Jesus drew and it’s not the line we chose to draw in this congregation and we reject any attempts to do so.
One theologian asks: “What does it mean to be saved?” and answering his own question says that “In considering the matter some people focus on life after death, but it seems to me salvation is closer to daily life itself. Salvation means being saved from greed, hatred, and confusion; and being saved for kindness and creativity, wisdom and compassion. If someone asks us if we are saved, we should say: ‘Sometimes.’ In our more loving moments we are saved from hatred, even if only for fifteen seconds…”[iii]
The phrase, “salvation of your souls,” and John’s assurance that those who believe will have “life in Christ’s name,” are ways of expressing what we hope to experience—a change in life, a change in ourselves. Indeed, in various ways and at various times we have experienced such changes, such life.
Transformation happens, not in the past, not to the few who were there then, but to us here and now.
Do you begin to see how our sight is always directed forward? The scripture lessons that we heard this morning don’t look back. They look ahead to a new time. What is important is neither the experience of the disciples a few hours before Thomas arrives, nor the experience of Thomas a week later, nor of the faithful of the past. What is important is our commitment, our believing in these days.
We go from “You had to be there” to “We need to be here.”
We are latecomers, yes. But Easter is for us.
[i] O’Day, Interpreter’s Bible, John, pg. 850.
[ii] O’Day, Interpreter’s Bible, John, pg. 849 f.
[iii] Jay McDaniel http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/the-religion-of-daily-life.html