Sermon 4/3/05
Next - John 20:19-31
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Last week, I boldly claimed in my sermon that preaching on Easter was the hardest week of all for a pastor. This week, I want to take it back and claim differently, and instead insist that preaching the week after Easter is perhaps harder. Hm – I better watch it, or I’ll start to lose my credibility! But in truth, it is hard to figure out to do with ourselves on this week after Easter Sunday. We’re still in the Season of Easter, the Fifty Great Days of Easter, but we’re not fooled – we see that there are not scores of flowers today. There’s no trumpets playing. And we aren’t packed quite as closely in our pews as we were last week. We know that even though we are still in the midst of the Easter season, the joy and jubilation, the pomp and circumstance of Easter Sunday itself is not sustained in the same way throughout the whole season.
So, we are left wondering what to do now. Do we wait tell the next big thing? Pour our attention into preparing for the End of School Year events that will be upon us in the blink of an eye? Take a break? Kick back and relax? Rest assured that we’re not alone in our confusion about what comes next. Today, we find the disciples in this same state of stalled-out confusion. Last week, I suggested that perhaps it is not what we do and how we react on Easter Day itself that is most essential, but what we do the next day, when we’ve had a chance to catch our breath and gain some perspective, that is the most telling. Well, the next day has come. What’s next?
Our gospel lesson opens late on the first Easter day. The disciples are locked together in a room, for fear of what the authorities and religious leaders might do to those who proved to be associated with Jesus. Apparently, the events of earlier in the day – Mary and Peter and the other disciple’s visit to the tomb – have not sunk in. The scene is one of fear and hiding, not rejoicing. But suddenly Jesus is standing among them, offering the words, “peace be with you.” Finally, there is rejoicing, the disciples seeing for themselves for the first time the risen Jesus. He again gives them words of peace, and breathes on them, telling them to receive the Holy Spirit, and speaks to them about forgiveness. And we find out about Thomas, who is not with them, and hear that he won’t believe until he sees Jesus for himself. Jesus appears again to the disciples a week later, again bringing words of peace. He has Thomas touch his wounds, and finally Thomas believes. “Have you believed because you have seen me?” Jesus asks. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
It is difficult to know where to begin with this story. We’ve heard about Thomas before, haven’t we? We can perhaps relate to his wanting to see and touch and feel for himself that Jesus had risen. We are reminded of our own doubts and fears, and we seek to do better, to find faith yet unknown within ourselves. Do we need to hear it all again? Actually, I think this time when Jesus comes to the disciples represents a pivotal and key time for what the faith will become, what the church will be. Here, things hang in the balance. Here is the moment when the disciples will either stay locked in their room, huddled in fear, and plagued with their doubts, not sure if they can believe all that is going on, or the moment when they will pull together, get outside of their own small and self-contained group, and start trying to share with others some of what Jesus had given them in his years of teaching them and leading them by example. I am sure it was a frightening time. They were not sure if people were still seeking to kill them, to associate them with Jesus who’d been so violently murdered. And they were probably not sure they could carry on the mission – could they be like Jesus? Teach what he taught? Live like he lived? No wonder Thomas wanted sure proof before he was willing to put himself out there, after all the events of the week that had just passed.
Jesus seeks to give to the disciples what will enable them to get to work. He seeks to help them move beyond this room, beyond the house they are locked inside. First, he brings them peace. Three times in this passage Jesus speaks the words “Peace be with you.” Three times, which leads me to think these words must be significant. Today we treat the word ‘peace’ in two ways. We either take it very lightly, flashing the peace sign, wearing peace symbols more as decoration than as statement, using catchy phrases left over from the sixties. Or we treat the word ‘peace’ as a controversial and dangerous word. If you say you’re for peace today, are you for against the war? If you say peace, are you saying you do or don’t support troops fighting abroad? Seeking peace can get you into trouble! But Jesus says three times, “peace be with you.” The word peace occurs 80 times, just in the New Testament. And this peace is a gift to us from Christ. I desperately hope for peace on this turbulent earth, as soon as we can make it a reality. But I think and believe that Jesus meant to show that peace must start within our own hearts. For the disciples at that day, I imagine they felt very little peace inside them, very little peace in their lives. So Jesus brings them that gift that they so need. Peace be with you. It is this same peace of Christ that we share during communion. We say to our brothers and sisters, experience the peace that Jesus shares – experience the calm and the stillness in your soul that enables you to bring peace into a world that so needs it.
Second, Jesus gives them breath and spirit. We read, “he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ The word for ‘breath’ and the word for ‘spirit’ are the same in Greek. ‘Breath’ is ‘spirit’ is ‘breath’. In other words, our life, what gives us life – our breath, our breathing in and breathing out – that is one and the same as our spirit, our core. When we read of the Holy Spirit in the scriptures, we could as easily say that it is the “Holy Breath” that Jesus gives – the Holy Movement that gives us life – not just physical life, but spiritual life as well. Jesus gives his breath, his spirit to the disciples. He breathes his life into them. He tell them to receive this Holy Spirit, this Holy Breath, which means that they have God dwelling right in them. Their life is God’s breath in them. We, too, have this promise of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, of God’s breath being our life. When we celebrate together a baptism, we declare that we, God’s children, are born of water and the Holy Spirit. With Jesus’ life inside of us, we are empowered to emulate Jesus’ life for those around us.
And third, Jesus gives the disciples authority. Calmed by God’s peace, equipped with God’s breath, the disciples are sent to do God’s work. Our work has to become the work of Christ. That Jesus tells his disciples, and so tells us, “if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained,” – this always troubles me. I don’t think we should be trusted with the power to hold or forgive sins against others. Humans have a long history of abusing the power that’s given them, even within the walls of the church. But if we model ourselves, and our forgiveness, after Christ’s, we’ll soon see how Jesus wants us to behave. Never in the gospels do we read of Jesus retaining the sins of anyone, no matter what they had done, no matter how they had lived. Often we read of Jesus’ incredible gift of forgiveness, but nowhere does he seem to withhold forgiveness. Isn’t that to be our own model then? Jesus gives the power to retain or forgive sins. We’re given power. We’re given authority, because, as we are reminded in communion, we have become the body of Christ in the world. We are called to represent Jesus to others, and we need authority to do that. Taking authority can be intimidating, and it calls us to exercise with it responsibility, that we might never lose sight of the source of our authority. But it is with authority that we can share with others the peace of Christ, share with others the Spirit that gives life, share with others the forgiveness and graces that marks our God of love.
We face the same decisions as the disciples – we’re at the same pivotal moment. We, like Thomas, always want another show of proof before we’re ready to get moving. But we have some choices to make about what it is we will do next. Jesus will give you the peace that will help you center your soul. We are equipped with the holy breath that will course new life through our spirits. We’re given the power to do things we never dreamed possible. So what will you choose to do – next?
Amen.