"Figuring it out." - Sermon for 2nd Sunday of Easter 2016

Sermon:

Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who gives resurrection promise.

Glad to see you all here today! If you didn’t know this is one of the lowest attended Sundays of the Church year, often after the Sunday after Christmas. So, thank you for coming back to church this week.

But, especially thank you for going out this week, I pray that you were able to see the risen Christ at work in your life, and you were able to see where God is active in doing new things in this world, making life out of death, of pushing us to go out to share with the world the good news that Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed!

I really hope you were able to do that, because when we look at our Gospel text for today we see that the disciples haven’t done a thing since last week. Now, this text is from John, and takes place directly after the Resurrection Story from John. We read from Luke for Easter last week, but they both pretty much end the same way. Luke’s version has Mary Magdalene and 3 other women come to the tomb with their funeral spices, look in, not see Jesus, and two men in bright clothes show up, tell them he is risen, and the women go back to tell the disciples, who don’t believe them, and so Peter runs to the tomb, looks in and sees the Linen wrappings there, and he returns to the other disciples amazed at what happened!

In John, Mary Magdelene comes to the tomb by herself, and sees the tomb stone rolled away, so she runs to tell Peter, and Peter and the disciple Jesus loved run to the tomb and look in, and see that the linen wrappings are lying there empty, they return home to the other disciples, Mary stays there, and Jesus appears as the gardener and talks to her, and she recognizes him when he calls her name, and she returns to tell the disciples amazed that she has seen Jesus.

What do we do when we’re done worshiping at Easter service? Which is probably around the same time of day, 10-11 in the morning by that point. We go out from here to celebrate with family, we go out for Easter egg hunts, we go out for Easter Brunches. I went with my Parents, Sarah and her parents, and her grandfather to the Easter brunch at Minerva’s in Yankton, it was awesome, and the whole place was full of people all dressed in Easter finest, all showing that Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

What do the disciples do after they hear that Jesus has been resurrected? Do they go put on their finest, go out in the market and share the news? Do they go to the finest place to eat to celebrate? No. They sit around and stay in the upper room. They've heard this grand news and they sit there.

And as they sit there, Jesus appears to them, says “peace be with you”, and he shows them his hands and his side, and they rejoice when they see the Lord, and he tells them this, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you! Now they’re going to get and go celebrate and start telling the good news, right! Nope, they sit around a whole week again. In fact, they don’t really seem to go out that much at all.  Thomas is the only one gone, sort of implying that they just sent him out by himself to get some food or something else while the rest stay put. So, a week goes by, and they’re still sitting in that upper room, the doors are still shut and locked, they’re still scared, they are still not celebrating.

And Jesus shows up again, this time to Thomas too. And just like he did to the other disciples, Jesus shows him his hands, and his side, and Thomas Exclaims, “My Lord and My God!”

Usually when we look at this text, we focus all our thought on Thomas, the doubter, even though I like to point out that one, he’s just asking for what the other disciples got, some physical proof, and two, he’s not doubting Jesus, he’s doubting the other disciples. 

But, since we spent Easter talking about being sent out, I found it really interesting that the disciples don’t do that. They just stay in their room, even after the first appearance when Jesus tells them to go, as the Father has sent me, so I sent you.  They just stay there.

Why? Because they were afraid. They were scared that what happened to Jesus is going to happen to them. And rightly so, at that time often when a leader is killed, the same happens to the followers. And so even with the promise of Christ’s resurrection, they seem to still doubt after that first time, they could be said to be doubters too, just like Thomas, it takes that second time in the room for them to go out. And well, they do figure it out, they do figure out that what matters and what’s more powerful than fear is God’s resurrection promise, and Christ’s victory over death.

In the upper room, they’re scared of human authority, scared of the powers that killed Christ. In our text from Acts, we see that they do figure it out. We must obey God rather than any human authority. They're not scared anymore, they've figured it out.

But, what is it that they figure out?

They figure out that the wounds of this world, the things that kill us in this world, can’t keep the love of God from us.

When Christ shows up in the room, he still has his wounds.

Let that set for a bit. After the resurrection, He still has his wounds. All the disciples see them, Thomas puts his fingers in his hands, and his hand in Jesus’ side. The resurrection does not remove his wounds. 

God’s promised resurrection does not mean that we are free from pain and suffering in this world, authorities in this world may harm us, and kill us, but the love of God found in Christ Jesus our Lord? It can never be taken from us.

The reality of this world is that hardship, distress, grief and pain will occur, wounds will occur. But the reality of God is that none of that can keep us from life found in the love of Christ.

What the disciples figure out is that the love of Christ so overwhelms and overpowers the authority of this world, and so they don’t have to cower in a darkened room, they can instead go out in to the world, not fearful of wounds, but living in the bright love of God.

People of God, may you walk strong this week with the promise of God’s resurrection love flowing through you to the world around.

Amen.