Second Sunday of Easter – A
April 19, 2020

O God of grace, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Today’s Gospel reading is a little like watching episodes of a tv show where the story leaves off at the end of one episode and picks up a moment later the following week. This passage begins, “later on the same day” – the same day that the tomb was found empty, the same day that Mary had mistaken the risen Lord for the gardener. The same day Jesus made Mary Magdalene the apostles to the apostles. And the Gospel says that she did go and tell the others that Jesus had said these things to her. That didn’t seem to do anything to assuage their fears because later on the same day, the disciples were hiding behind locked doors because they were afraid. 

The Gospel text says that they were afraid of the Jews – but of course, they were the Jews, so nothing good can (or has ever) come from translating the Greek word “Judaioi” that way. I don’t much like the alternative translation of Judeans here because most modern listeners don’t register when they hear “Judean,” that Jesus’ followers were from the Galilee rather than the territory around Jerusalem in Judea. Besides, the Gospel of John makes a point of saying that they had homes in Jerusalem. They sealed the doors to their meeting place because of fear of their neighbors.

Our first reading from Acts, written a decade before the Gospel of John, betrays the development of the split in the Jewish community when Peter is quoted as saying that the Israelites (of which Peter was one) crucified and killed Jesus by proxy, using the hands of those outside the law – that is, the Roman soldiers, as if the Roman government was just following orders from the occupied people. We know better, and we also know something about our own sense of impotency when it comes to governments that sin on our behalf.

This is the Luke-Acts Pentecost sermon delivered by Peter on the 50th day after Passover, when Jesus was raised from the dead – the followers of Jesus were suddenly filled with a burning rush of inspiration and wanted to communicate their Good News in languages that people from everywhere could understand. (Our Church calendar won’t get there until May 31 this year.) In the verses that are skipped from Peter’s oration, he says, “Indeed these people are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the morning!” (as if that is proof) He proclaims that what the prophet Joel imagined has come true, that the Holy One has poured out inspiration on all people – young and old, slave and free, “even women will prophesy,” says Joel! And Peter says, “look! It’s true!” Then in the verses we just heard, Peter quotes the end of Psalm 16, celebrating the promise that even when things seem most bleak, the Holy One does not abandon us to the trash heap, but rather, makes known the ways of life and fills us with gladness with the divine Presence” (in other words, Love).

The scriptural teaching named First Peter, written at about the same time as the Gospel of John, is about how to get through a time of persecution and great suffering, assuring the people that they are not alone in the struggle, and encouraging them to persevere in mutual love and service. Fidelity to mutual love and service is the way forward during times of extreme distress and will provide salvation (which means healing) for your troubled souls. There are less edifying parts of the First Peter sermon, but the instruction to put away all malice, all guile and imposture, and envies and all slanders, and to do what is right and good, is worthy of our consideration.

As a Church, we hear this portion of the Gospel of John every year on the Sunday after Easter Day. We often concentrate our attention in this story on Thomas – the twin, the doubter. And I always want to preach in his defense. There’s a punctuation and translation problem with our story when Jesus responds to Thomas’ confession of “My Lord and my God,” with a question: “Have you believed because you have seen me?” This makes it sound like Jesus was disparaging Thomas’ desire to see the Risen Lord for himself. The idea that Jesus asks a question is an interpretive translation not indicated by the text, and the word “because” is not there at all. The words literally say, “Jesus said to him [that][1] ‘You have seen me. You have believed. Blessed (are) those who have not seen and who have believed.’” Jesus’ response is not a criticism. He’s given Thomas what Thomas desired, after all. He’s not chiding Thomas. He’s saying that there is more than one authentic way of embracing fidelity to the Holy One through Jesus. This is a message written for those who are becoming believing or beloving, who never physically met Jesus, and that includes us.

I want to point out some things about Jesus and the other disciples that we can miss if we rush to the points of Thomas’ insistence that he see for himself and Jesus’ blessing on those who have not seen and still believe and belove. The first is that Jesus entered the place where the disciples were gathered and said, “Peace to you.” Then they rejoice. And again, Jesus says, “Peace.” Peace to you. And a week later, when he re-appears, Jesus says, “Peace to you.” It appears three times in this reading. That means that Jesus really meant it! Peace. Think of “Peace to you” as an instruction and not just as another way to say hello. One of the things about scripture that we know is that if an instruction is written down, it’s because it needs to happen – and it’s probably not happening. If Jesus is saying Peace to you – over and over, there probably isn’t much peace happening with them. Come to think of it, that’s how it often is with us. Jesus is saying Peace to all who are hunkered down, behind closed doors, perhaps afraid, perhaps lonely, perhaps impatient, perhaps anxious. Think of that when we get to the part of our service today when we (virtually) pass the peace. Think of “Peace be with you” as an instruction from Jesus speaking through you to another. And when anyone replies, “and also with you,” that is an instruction from Jesus too. Peace. Peace be within you, peace be around you, peace be in the world. Within you be peace. Within you all, be peace. Peace.

The next thing to think about: Jesus showed them his hands and his side. The resurrected Jesus still had holes in his hands and in his side. The holes in his hands and in his side were a part of how he was known to the disciples. The resurrection had not taken them back to the good old days before the crucifixion. The peace that Jesus was offering was not the nostalgia of before the crucifixion. The resurrection is compelling them forward to a new kind of peace with evidence of the wounds still extremely visible. This is important: Jesus’ woundedness identified him to them. Come to think of it, it is often our woundedness that identifies us to others, whether we realize it or not. Many of us think we can hide our wounds (especially the ones on the inside) – because we are too proud or too ashamed or too hurt or too afraid – and I’m here to tell you, it is no way to live. The resurrected Lord appears with wounds and shows them, rather than trying to hide them. Love had made something of the horror of the crucifixion and Love was making something of the wounds – the wounds become the way that the disciples recognized Jesus. If Love can do that with a crucifixion, Love can make something of our wounds too.

Third, the Gospel says that he breathed, or he blew on them. That is the ongoing creation story, according to Genesis, according to the Gospel of John’s prologue. The spirit of holiness over the deep, the breath, the wind. “Receive a spirit of holiness,” Jesus said (no capital letters for Holy Spirit here, just a spirit of holiness.) I’m sending you out equipped with a spirit of holiness, just as the Holy One sent me. Then Jesus said this curious thing: “if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” The word for forgive has the primary meaning of loosing or letting go, and the word for sins covers everything from involuntary mistakes or errors to serious offenses, but as a whole, means departures or breaks from right-relationship with the Holy One and with others accidentally or intentionally. Jesus is saying, “if you let brokenness go, it’s gone; if you hold on to brokenness, it’s retained.” He’s not saying one is better than the other, he’s just telling them that they have the power to let go or hold onto the separations or brokenness, to put down or to carry around the burden of mistakes, errors, serious offenses, and complete departures from uprightness and fidelity to Love.

I thought of that when I read the recent essay by novelist Arundhati Roy called, “The pandemic as a portal.” Roy points out that, “historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, [our polluted rivers and skies] behind us, or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world.”

I notice that not once does our text indicate that Jesus’ disciples were no longer afraid. Jesus was teaching that no matter what makes us lock up in fear – the remedy is more love – out there. We are in a situation in which we have to be much more creative about how we communicate love “out there,” without being physically present. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what Jesus was teaching about going forward without his physical presence, so that all might have fullness of life. It’s about becoming believing, which means becoming beloving. Maybe this is a story about continuing to show up, becoming beloving even when one doubs that any good will come of it. Let’s go through this portal with little luggage, ready to imagine another world, ready to Love our way into a better world.

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