A Sermon
for the 2nd Sunday of Pascha (RCL B) 4-15-2012
Offered by
Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry
Texts: Acts
4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31
Themes: doubting
Thomas, communal harmony, touch and sight, belief and truth
Title: So
I Send You
My dear sisters and brothers: The
message of the resurrection is a powerful and life-changing truth that has
shaped the course of human history over the last 2000 years.
But it didn’t start out that way. In
fact, the first disciples had no idea what to think about this idea of
resurrection at all!
Join me in imagining what that first day
was like. That day when Jesus was raised from the dead.
We celebrate the day now as the Church’s
most important feast, but the first disciples did not celebrate that day. Not
at all.
Try to picture it in your imagination.
Jerusalem under Roman occupation. The warm springtime air.
A house on a narrow city street which
was a safe meeting place for these Galilean apostles, outsiders who came into
the city only on special occasions.
Perhaps they were meeting in the same
room where they ate the Last Supper together.
Early on that morning, we know that Mary
Magdalene came to the tomb and found it empty. Peter and John then ran to the
tomb and found it empty as well.
But what happened next? What did the 11
apostles do for the rest of that day?
They were afraid, we know that for
certain. “The doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for
fear of the Jews” (John 20:19). Let’s be clear about this: they were not afraid
of the Jews, of course, because everyone in this story was a Jew!
Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Peter and the
apostles – they were all Jews! What they were afraid of was the leaders in
Jerusalem who just might try to arrest these men and try to have them put to
death by the Romans as well.
Later that morning, it is said that Mary
came, after seeing the Lord, and told them about her reunion with him. But of
course, as we know, they had no idea at all of what to make of her story.
Maybe after hearing this news from Mary,
Peter had secretly called the others together to their familiar meeting room in
the city. Or maybe they were all sleeping in that house together anyway. We
don’t know. But there in that room on that day, the disciples did not
celebrate.
I imagine they talked and argued and
debated. Perhaps they prayed. Perhaps they were too stunned to pray.
There were 10 men in the room that first
evening. All of these men had turned their back on the Lord in his hour of
need. All of them had fled and abandoned him.
On this day, we know that all of them
were pummeled by fear and uncertainty.
I imagine Thaddaeus perhaps pacing the
room, his heart twisted with anxiety and guilt and fear.
I imagine Philip and Bartholomew looking
out of the window together over the city scene, lost in confused mental
calculations about what Mary must have seen or not seen.
Thomas, of course, was not there on that
first night. Where was he? And what did he do all of that week until the next Sunday
when the Lord confronted him face-to-face?
I want all of you to know that I admire
Thomas for his insistence on direct experience of something which is beyond
belief in our ordinary lives. Rising from the dead? After such a gruesome
death?
I commend him for his unwillingness to
believe such a story without some evidence.
Not everyone needs this kind of
first-hand knowledge.
There are some who find belief easier
than others. Indeed, there are countless numbers of human beings who will
seemingly believe anything at all!
I know that the Lord said, “Blessed are
those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
But, is that easy kind of belief really
something to be admired?
People believe all kinds of crazy
things, and people make up all kinds of amazing stories in order to create
meaning for their lives.
A new book was published just a few days
ago called “The Woman Who Wasn’t There: The True Story of an Incredible
Deception.” The authors of this book discovered a fascinating secret about a
well-known person. That person was Tania Head, a founder and leader of the World
Trade Center Survivors Network in New York City. Tania is herself a survivor of
the attacks of 9-11.
And Tania has a heart-wrenching story of
fleeing from the offices of Meryl Lynch on the 78th floor of the
South Tower, and waking up days later in a burn unit of a local hospital, while
her husband died in the North Tower. Tania became a spokesperson for the
survivors in New York City, and many of them point to her as one of the primary
influences that allowed them to heal from the horrors of that day. Tania even donated
her own money to create an effective Survivors Network that has been praised by
both Mayor Guiliani and Mayor Bloomberg.
There is one major problem, however.
None of her story is true. Tania is not her real name. It’s Alicia, and on
September 11, 2001, Alicia Head was taking classes at a graduate school in
Barcelona, Spain.
Why did she create this hoax? Who really
knows? She has now conveniently disappeared from pulbic view.
It is likely that she did this for the
attention, or in order to give some much-needed direction and purpose to her
life.
No one was directly harmed by this
woman’s deception. But still, the sheer fact that she lied is disturbing – even
if it was for a good cause.
Many people at that time accused the
disciples of creating a hoax, developing a clever story about their Master’s
missing body and his supposed rising. Even more people since then have thought
the same thing.
Can you blame them?
I, for one, have no interest in easy
belief. And I do not encourage any of you to go down that path either. Before
you believe anything, test it out. Put the belief through a battery of tests,
particularly if the belief is something that demands the commitment of your
time and energy and passion.
To believe that Jesus rose from the dead
was something that would demand much from Thomas.
There was no way for him to know all of
what those demands might be here in these first days after the resurrection.
But I am certain that he knew enough to realize that this reality – if it was
true – would change everything. How could it not?
If Jesus actually rose from the dead,
then this does in fact change everything.
Nothing we understand about life and
death and love and hope and meaning and God – nothing can stay the same! And
what is more: this truth demands much from us as well.
“Jesus came and stood among [the
disciples] and said, ‘Peace be with you’” (John 20:19).
In the midst of their fear and anxiety
and guilt, the Lord came with a message of forgiveness and hope and peace.
“As the Father has sent me, so I send
you.”
What happened next to these men was
nothing short of miraculous, for they soon began to change the course of human
history.
Once we are also touched by the truth of
the Risen Lord, we too are sent out to carry the healing, forgiving love of the
Father to all people. Are you ready to be part of this mission?
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