Easter 2C
April 3, 2016
John 20:19-31
Grace to you and peace from the one who is and who was and who is to come. Amen.
This week,
on Easter Monday, we bought a couch. We didn’t really mean to, or at least I
didn’t. I thought we were going to check it out, consider, then maybe go back
later and buy it. But we talked about how we would rearrange the living room to
accommodate the new seating, how the new set-up would create a little space for
Grace to play, and possibly even make room for a piano, and then I even started
envisioning Grace making a fort out of the cushions of this couch, like I used
to growing up… and I got all swept up in the excitement, and we bought the
couch.
But soon
enough, doubt overcame my excitement. As we started putting the order in, I
said, “Wait, we’re not actually buying this now, are we? What if it doesn’t
work in the space after all? What it is too big? What if it’s uncomfortable?
What if we hate the way it changes the flow of how we move around our living
space? You realize we’ll have to change our patterns, right? Our habits are
going to have to change. Do we really want to do this?” Well, we did end up
buying it – but not
until I had made sure that if we think it is terrible when
it arrives, we have the option of sending it back. Better safe than sorry, when
you’re making such a big investment that is going to really change your daily
habits.
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| The couch we ordered, in roughly the same color! (Different living room, though.) |
I’ve always
been this way. I’m a visionary, a dreamer, a wannabe risk-taker… but as soon as
it looks like something might actually become of my dreams, I come up with all
the reasons it probably won’t really work. I think to some extent, this is
human nature: we are resistant to change, even as we may long for it – because
we don’t want to change our daily routine, we are afraid of the unknown, we
prefer to understand how things will work, and we definitely do not want to
regret anything.
I imagine
that this is how the disciples felt at their post-resurrection gathering in the
upper room. We often call this text “doubting Thomas,” but truthfully I think
they were all experiencing some doubt here. It’s not that they didn’t believe Mary, that Jesus had really
risen from the dead (though maybe that as well), but rather, they didn’t know
what this would mean for their lives. They were without their beloved teacher,
the one they had left everything to follow. And now they likely feared that,
because they were his disciples, their lives were also in danger. They didn’t
know what to do. Surely, they wished Jesus had not died, and maybe, that they
had been bold enough to do something to prevent it – I imagine their
conversations between Friday and Sunday were full of “if onlys” and “what ifs.”
Now, according to Mary Magdelene, they have gotten what they wanted – Jesus was
alive! – but instead of joy they are filled with fear, such fear that they have
locked themselves away in the upper room.
When Jesus
then appears to them in that place of hiding and fear, everything changes! But
even as they rejoiced that Jesus was, indeed, alive, I suspect there was still
some fear there. After all, one week later, they are still in that locked upper
room! But now, the cause of their fear has changed.
Before Jesus appeared to
them, they feared death. They feared what had happened to Jesus and they feared
that something similar might happen to them. But then Jesus comes to them, and
tells them, “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” And now? Now their fear is
not of death, but of this new life that they are being sent into by the
Resurrected Christ.
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| Jesus appears to disciples in the upper room |
We talked a
lot about new life last week. That’s what Easter is about, after all – all the
ways that God takes the old, dead things in our lives and turns them into new
opportunities, new beginnings, new perspectives. It seems like pretty good news
– new things often are. New clothing, new house, new baby, new relationship –
all have positive connotations.
But not all
new things are good. In fact, new things can often be frustrating or even scary,
because they are unfamiliar. I mean, Michael and I really needed a new couch,
but even though the prospect of a new couch excited me, it didn’t take long
before the fear of the new way of using our living room put a damper on my
excitement. We’ve already rearranged the room so we can get used to it before
the couch comes, and I admit, the first time I came home and couldn’t put
Grace’s car seat where I normally do, I thought, “Ugh, I don’t like this new
set-up. It’s different. It’s not the way I’m used to living.”
If I can be
that uppity and resistant about living room furniture, just imagine how the
disciples felt, hearing their once-dead-now-living teacher tell them, “Hey
guys. Peace. I’m alive. And I’m here to tell you that I’m sending you out to carry
on my mission in the world – you know, the mission that got me hung on a cross this
weekend. Peace out.” Uh, yeah, I imagine if I were among the disciples, I would
have stayed locked safely in that upper room a little longer, too. Forget
Thomas’s doubt – I would definitely be doubting right about now! I would be
doubting my own abilities, not to mention my own courage, to carry out this
mission Jesus was giving us, doubting whether Jesus really meant to put us in
such danger, doubting whether I really wanted to keep doing this, or just get
back to my safe, familiar life.
But that’s
the catch about Easter, you see – after the resurrection, there is no going
back to your safe, familiar life. With the resurrection, everything changes.
Life can no longer be the same. Death and fear are defeated, and life becomes
new.
What does that new life look like? Jesus
says to the disciples gathered there, “As the Father sent me, so I send you.”
In other words, that new life looks like living the way Jesus commanded and
demonstrated – in fact, the way he commanded and demonstrated most powerfully
just 10 days before, on Maundy Thursday, when he knelt down and washed their
feet, saying to them, “I give you a new commandment, to love one another as I
have loved you.” That is, love each other in a humbling, self-sacrificing way,
in a way that shows that we are called to serve one another rather than one-up
each other. Love one another – even those who deny they know you, or betray
you, or desert you in your hour of need. Love one another. As the Father sent Jesus
to love and serve the world, so does Jesus send us to love and serve the world
in humility.
It’s a tall order, even an impossible
one – were in not for the other gifts Jesus offers to the disciples locked in
the upper room. First of all, he offers peace. Three times in this passage we
hear this from Jesus: “peace be with you.” What comforting words for those of
us who find the prospect of new life – especially a self-sacrificing, humble
life of service – to be terrifying. Perhaps as the disciples consider what this
new life will mean, they are thinking, like I did about my new couch, “Wait,
we’re not actually doing this now, are we? What if it doesn’t work? What it is
too big a task for us? What if it’s uncomfortable? What if we hate the way it
changes the flow of how we live our lives? You realize we’ll have to change our
patterns, right? Our habits are going to have to change. Do we really want to
do this?” And to this fear of change and regret, Jesus offers, three times,
“Peace
And secondly, he offers them the gift
of the Holy Spirit. “He breathed on them,” John tells us, “and said to them,
‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” With this gift, Jesus offers to his disciples the
very same gift that God offered humanity when he breathed into Adam’s nostrils
and made life come about. God’s breath has this kind of power: the power to
bring to life, to comfort, to support, to sustain, to encourage, to empower. Christ
breathes on his disciples – and on us – and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit,”
and suddenly we have the power to fulfill his mission, to do his work in the
world, despite what fears and hesitations we may have.
Peace be with you, sisters and
brothers. As God the Father sent Christ into our world and our lives to show us
what love and service look like, to show us that life will always overcome
death, so Christ now sends us to continue giving this message to the world,
offering us peace in the midst of our fear and doubt, sustaining us with his
breath, and empowering us, always, with the Holy Spirit.
Let us pray… Resurrected
Christ, breathe your empowering breath on us as we continue to walk into
resurrected life. Come to us in our fears and our doubts and offer us your
peace, and show us how to live out your gospel in all that we do. In the name
of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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