Isaiah 25:6-9

John 20:26-31

After Easter, the vision of the prophet Isaiah is still our hope:

an end to hunger—a great feast provided for all people;

an end to sorrow—the wiping away of tears;

an end to shame—the removing of indignities from the people;

an end even to the end—the destruction of death.

Then with all creation we, too, would say: “This is our God for whom we have waited; let us rejoice and exult in our deliverance.”

We wait. Even after Easter we wait and hope for the deliverance of God.

Through the season of Lent we brought symbols of our broken lives and our broken world with us to church. We put them in a box in Rockwood Hall. There were so many items that the box could no longer hold all of them and they spilled out onto the table:

watches that were only correct twice in twenty-four hours;

cords that didn’t connect;

batteries drained of energy;

shattered mirrors and shattered memories.

This morning we see what has become of all this damage and detritus. Here at the front of the sanctuary is something new:

on wings of dead batteries a dove hovers over technology ancient and modern;

the drab and useless seem alive with new color;

time still stands still—but shows a strange new beauty.

I’m not quite sure what we should call this, what label we should put upon all of this.

It is, yes, a triptych—that three-part form that arose from early Christian art. But is it restoration or renewal or resurrection that we see before us?

The more I look at it, the more I see both life and hope reflected back: the brokenness of life, yes, but also the hope that something new might arise out of the broken places—that we might indeed know something of God’s deliverance.

And the more I look, the more I catch some faint, new understanding of resurrection.

Easter comes and goes. We want to rejoice and exult in our deliverance, but really, everything is pretty much the same.

The suffering of a war-torn world is still with us.

The gaping wound of racism is still there.

Refugees still leave their fractured homelands the fragmentation of exile.

Our own pain is still very much with us.

And scripture shows us the risen Christ still bearing on his resurrected body the marks of suffering and death.

In faith we make very strange, very specific claims. We say that God vindicated Jesus in raising him from the dead. That is, the resurrection is God’s announcement that the way of Jesus Christ—the way of love, the way of peace, the way of healing, the way of confronting the powers of this world—the way of Jesus Christ is indeed the way of the universe.

God vindicated Jesus.

God raised Jesus.

But—and this is significant—God did not restore Jesus to some pre-Good Friday wholeness. The risen Christ speaks to us in our suffering from out of his own suffering. Only when they see his wounds 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.

After Easter, we understand Jesus as both resurrected and wounded. He is known as 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. 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.

Dr. Paul Brand is a hand surgeon, and as such is familiar with the delicate structure of the hand and the damage that can come to it. Reflecting on the resurrection, he writes: “One of the things I find most astonishing is that, though we think of the future life as something perfected, when the risen Christ appeared to his disciples, he showed them his hands.

“Why did he want to keep the wounds of his humanity?” Brand asks. And he muses: “Wasn’t it because he wanted to carry back with him an eternal reminder of the sufferings of those on earth? He carried the marks of his suffering so he could continue to understand the needs of those suffering.

“He wanted to be forever one with us.”

This, I think, is the good news that these panels of brokenness and newness show to us. The damaged, unused, and unusable items that you brought were not repaired. They have not been restored to some previous working condition. But they have been transformed into something new. Some might say this is something beautiful. And even if to you they are something strange and unsightly, still, these panels stir us to wonder; they show something of resurrection.

What is still present in your life that seeks healing?

Maybe it’s a very physical illness or injury.

Maybe it’s a damaged relationship or grief over a loss.

Maybe it’s the reality of abuse long ago—the message and memory that doesn’t go away.

Through the risen and broken Christ even we might find the courage to look at our own brokenness and to look at the wounds of the world as well.

Easter has come and gone.

The risen Christ is still wounded.

We, who live in hope of resurrection are still broken people in a broken world. Look at your own wounds. Their very presence is a sign that you are a participant in the new life of the resurrection.

It is the wounded, risen Christ who sends us back into the world to be wounded agents of healing and reconciliation.

“Blessed are those,” the risen Christ says, speaking down through the ages. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

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.

When we face the most difficult, the most trying, even the most brutal situations that life can throw at us, God is not far away, distant and removed. God is close at hand, knowing our sorrow and our fear, yes, but also sharing our wounds and even showing the same.

This Sunday after Easter, as we bring our own sometimes dispirited, disappointed, and dejected selves to worship, there is good news.

This is the good news of Easter. Not the Easter long ago, but the Easter that continues to occur in our lives, in our congregation, and in our world.

We are sent into the world with the peace that the risen Christ offers.

After Easter, we are still called to live toward the vision of the prophet Isaiah; we are still called to be broken signs of God’s coming realm—working toward an end to hunger, an end to sorrow and shame, an end to all that hurts and destroys so that we may join with all creation in saying: “Let us rejoice and exult in our deliverance.”