Not Without Scars

Easter 2A, John 20:19-31; St. Paul’s, Smithfield, NC 4/19/2020

Jim Melnyk: “Not Without Scars”

For centuries Christians have taken today’s lesson from John’s gospel and named it the story of Doubting Thomas. Maybe it’s because if we name Thomas the “Official Doubter of the Resurrection” we don’t have to wrestle so hard with, or be troubled by, or fear, our own doubts – sort of the way Judas becomes the “Official Betrayer” – saving us from having to examine our own ability to betray one another and God. Or perhaps our focus on Thomas as “doubting” is meant to assuage our own struggle and allow our doubt to exist. After all, if someone who had supposedly lived and talked with Jesus – experienced the troubles and heard the promises – saw the signs and wonders – if he could still doubt and yet remain faithful, then maybe so can we.

           

Ask most of the Disciples on that first Easter morning what they believed and you’d get a mixed bag of responses: “Well, the women are telling some idle tales about...Peter and John reported...You see there were these angels – we think...the stone was rolled away, but...the body wasn’t there, however...” To be honest, based on the four gospel accounts about that first Sunday morning, I doubt we would get even one solid “He is risen” from anyone save Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph. Look where we find the group later that evening – a fairly newly formed faith community comprised of scared people hiding behind locked doors. They pretty much all had their doubts – can we blame them? They weren’t yet ready to live what their hearts longed to believe – because they were still having trouble believing it themselves – even later in the evening with Jesus standing among them!

           

And there are times, wrestling with my own doubts, when I can make Thomas in the Upper Room look like a bastion of faith! Just watching the struggles of people over how to best manage life during a pandemic – the anger, lack of respect and politics as usual in another presidential election cycle – the challenges to meet the needs of frontline medical workers and hungry children unable to receive school lunches – religious leaders who, in the name of religious freedom, risk the lives of their congregations and anyone else whose lives they each touch – well, it tries my faith and my heart as much as it tries my patience. Where are you, Risen Christ? Certainly not alive in many of your self-proclaimed followers!

           

But then again, we see story after story of people reaching out to serve those in need – random as well as carefully planned acts of kindness and care – and it strengthens me to continue the fight. I see our congregation helping fund our local Front Line Appreciation Group, buying meals from local restaurants to help sustain their businesses – and then giving those meals to front line healthcare workers so they don’t have to live off fast food – and I am strengthened in my faith.

           

But Thomas and his doubt aren’t meant to be front and center in today’s gospel lesson – at least not the way we usually portray it all. The story is not meant to separate Thomas from the other disciples as someone whose faith is somehow less true – just as it isn’t meant to chide us when we struggle with our own doubts. “At the heart of the story is Jesus’ generous offer of himself to Thomas.”[1]

The story we call “Doubting Thomas” in John’s Gospel is about a Jesus who comes to us where we are and how we are – not demanding acceptance, but inviting belief. It’s a story about someone who says there will be a time when we have to move beyond our senses to make sense of what God does for us in the mystery of Easter. This story is about a Jesus who honors Thomas’ needs – a Jesus who meets Thomas where he must meet him – so that Thomas, along with his companions, will be able to proclaim the wonder and power of Easter.

           

This story from John’s gospel reminds us that “resurrection doesn’t mean you wake up without scars.”[2] The whole purpose of Jesus showing his followers his nail-scarred hands and feet is meant to drive home that reality – that the Jesus they meet on this first evening of the Resurrection shares a very real continuity with the Lord they had come to know and love. Throughout our lives there will be more Good Fridays than we would ever want – and each new Easter in our lives – each experience of resurrection life we have, will carry with it the scars of each and every battle we face. The current pandemic will most certainly leave its own scars – both figuratively and literally. And yet every time we will come through finding ourselves a new creation – alive and empowered by the life-giving Spirit of the resurrected Jesus in our lives.

The wonder and power of Easter is in Christ’s risen presence in our hearts, in our lives, in our actions – in the way we live and move and have our being in the world around us. The Risen Christ comes among us offering the gift of peace – of wholeness and life – and even in the midst of my most serious doubts that wholeness and life sustains me. The Risen Christ comes among us and offers a wholeness that calls upon us to be a transformed people called to transform the world.

Jesus breathes on his disciples and we are reminded of the Spirit of God (Ruach, meaning spirit, breath, or wind) moving over the waters of creation, of God’s breath breathed into the nostrils of the first human, and of the wind or breath of God filling the once dried out, dusty, cracked and broken bones of Israel stretched out before the prophet Ezekiel – “Mortal, can these bones live?” Yes! Yes they can! The breath of Jesus is the continuing, transforming, and empowering breath of God – it is the breath of life. It is Easter!

And so Easter is about finding one’s breath when the world around us feels like the deep vacuum of outer space. It’s about finding wholeness after a great loss; about finding truth in face of the world’s lies; courage in the midst of fear; hope in the midst of despair; justice where there has been only oppression – it’s about finding life where there has only been death.

In the end, it’s not our doubt or our skepticism that matters most – it’s the willingness of God in Christ to be present with us, and for us, in the midst of those doubts, that matters most – in the touch of a friend, a helping hand, taking a stand for justice, welcoming the stranger, or something as simple as offering an encouraging word. When I see someone choose a path of compassion and grace instead of the easier, and often more alluring path of self-service, lack of care, greed or hatred – I sense the presence of the Risen Christ.

For you see, Easter is about more than the ongoing presence of Jesus in this world – though it is that. Easter is also about God’s vindication of Jesus and his Gospel that proclaims God’s passion for this world. Easter is God’s “yes” to Jesus, and God’s “no” to the powers that killed him. And Easter is unbreakably tied to the gift of God’s Holy Spirit in the life of those who follow the risen Christ – God’s commission to each and every one of us baptized into Christ to continue the work of Jesus in the world. As God sent Jesus into the world to proclaim Good News, Jesus now sends out each of us, scars and all, to do the same.

“Peace be with you,” prays the Risen Christ. “The Shalom of God – the wholeness – the fullness of God – the transforming power of God – be with you and shape you – the fullness of God make you alive again,” prays the Risen Christ. “Now go, and be witnesses to my love.”

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[1] Gail R. O’Day, The New Interpreter’s Bible

[2] Taken from my Twitter feed

 

Be Not Afraid

Easter Day Year A; Matthew 28:1-10; St. Paul’s, Smithfield 4/12/2020

Jim Melnyk “Be Not Afraid”

Matthew’s account of the resurrection is only ten verses long; and like all the other gospel accounts, the actual resurrection takes place off stage. None of the four evangelists try to explain to us the mystery that is resurrection – after all, how does one explain events for which we have no experience or language. We only experience the after-effects of this glorious event.

There are ten verses in Matthew’s account in which we’re met with earthquakes and angels, soldiers and women, an empty tomb and a risen Jesus. Twice in those few brief verses we’re told about experiences of fear – the soldiers outside the tomb are so terrified by both the earthquake and the angel who appears that they are shaken to the core and become like dead men. Also in this version of the story we’re told that it’s Mary Magdalene, and another Mary, probably the mother of James and Joseph we heard about in the Passion Narrative, who go to the tomb to keep vigil; and that their encounter with the angel elicits both fear – or perhaps incredible awe – and great joy. And ten verses into Matthew’s account of the resurrection and twice we hear the blessed words spoken so many times throughout the gospels, “Do not be afraid.” These words are spoken first by the angel, and then by the resurrected Jesus. And I find myself in awe that two grief-stricken women seem to have more courage, and more hope, than Roman Centurions and the other guards.

And so it seems to me that fear and great joy are the hallmarks of resurrection. How can we not fear, on some real and visceral level, the mysterious power of God to raise someone from the dead? Should we not quake at such power, and wonder at the ramifications for each of us in light of such power? Should we not have some healthy sense of fear about a God who can so easily bring life out of death – some sense of fearful awe of a God who can unleash such power in the world around us? How can our hearts not leap for joy at even the slightest possibility that what God does for Jesus, God also does for us? For we who through our baptisms have been buried with Christ in his death, have also been raised with Christ to new life. And that is a thing of great joy.

We come to this most holy day having lived a Lenten fast that we never expected to live – I cannot recall a time when Lent has been so real for me. And in some ways that fast continues while we live out even this most glorious day still under Stay-at-Home orders from both Church and State. I am sure that most of you long, as do I, to find ourselves together at the altar receiving the sacrament of Holy Eucharist and greeting one another in the peace of the risen Christ.

But regardless of our current reality, the power of Easter will not be reined in or easily dismissed. As writer and preacher Jim Wallis reminds us, "Through Lent and Good Friday, and the long vigil of Easter, we have wept over death. But on Easter Sunday morning, by the power of the resurrection and the grace of God, we [are] enabled to laugh at it."[1]

Now, I’ll be among the first to admit that I’m not laughing at much these days – though I am deeply thankful for many of you who send funny and uplifting comments and cartoons through social media. But as we said on Palm Sunday and many other days as well, this Lenten fast we’ve experienced by way of the Coronavirus and our physical separation from one another will not have the final say. In the end God’s power to redeem and renew will always win the day.

We need only look once again at that first Easter Day to find affirmation that God is with us even in the hardest of times. Matthew reminds us that the risen Jesus doesn’t appear first and foremost to the comfortable and powerful of Jerusalem. He doesn’t show up on Pilate’s doorstep or in Herod’s court. He appears first to two women – Mary Magdalene and the other Mary – who are followers of Jesus lost in their grief and possibly fearful for their lives. And yet they are the first witnesses to the empty tomb – the first followers of Jesus to be commissioned as evangelists – and the first two people to actually see the risen Christ. This incredible tale is a reminder that God comes first and foremost to those who feel broken and lost – perhaps because those who are broken and lost stand most in need of the risen Christ’s promise of resurrection life.

And not only does Jesus appear first to the women, but the meaning of the original Greek implies that Jesus joins them – that Jesus accompanies them for at least a part of their journey to proclaim Good News to the other disciples still in hiding – those who had either fled at the moment of the arrest, had betrayed Jesus, or denied him while he was on trial. And yet what is the message the women are to carry to those who had deserted Jesus? “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”[2] The disciples who had abandoned Jesus in his most dire moment of need are now called brothers – “an indication that their alienation [from Jesus] has been healed from the divine side” – and that these two women have become “not only missionaries of the resurrection message, but also agents of reconciliation.”[3]

The first Easter Day came in the midst of uncertainty, anxiety, and fear. The first Easter Day came in the midst of betrayal, denial, and alienation. And it brought with it new life, new hope, and the joy of reconciliation. Easter Day comes to us this morning with many of the same challenges and fears as that first Easter. And that’s okay. Easter isn’t about the reanimation of a corpse that will one day die again – that’s what makes Jesus different from Jairus’ daughter, the widow of Nain’s son, or Lazarus – all of whom would eventually die again. The resurrection of Jesus is about the transforming power of God to make all things new even in the midst of the challenging realities of life. Death will never again have the final say.

My former professor of Church History, Don Armentrout – blessed be his name – has this to say about Easter: “To say that Jesus has risen from the dead means that he is not where we left him.

Jesus has not been left back in Bible times. He is still with his followers to teach [us] and help [us]. Jesus is not the Jesus of our childhood anymore. He has new tasks and new challenges for us as adults. Jesus is not even the [same] Jesus we knew yesterday; he will reveal more of his nature and his power every day of our lives.

The women who came to the tomb on Easter morning discovered that Jesus was no longer there, and that has been the testimony of Christians ever since. As he promised, he is always ahead of us, always bringing us new possibilities and new hopes.”[4]

This is the Jesus who comes to us this morning – and who will be with us always – even to the end of the ages. This is the Jesus who has been to the cross and beyond, and who will be with us in the challenging days still ahead of us. This is the Jesus of Easter – the Jesus who shakes heaven and earth – the Jesus whom death could not contain – the Jesus who lives to heal us and make us new. Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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[1] Jim Wallis, The Power of God and the Power of the World. Quoted in Sojourners Online

[2] Mt. 28:10

[3] M. Eugene Boring, The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes; Vol VIII

[4] Donald S. Armentrout, quoted in Synthesis, 4/12/2020