Year C

John 20:19-31

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Living Into Easter

Last Sunday, Easter Sunday, was a glorious day.  Now today, one week later, it seems expectations are to return to something like business as usual. But nothing could be farther from the truth. The death and resurrection of Christ, the paschal mystery, is the very centerpiece of our faith of which the whole year revolves around. We are now in the 50 days of the Easter season which will culminate on Pentecost Sunday, June 9th, with the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church. For fifty days, the church lives into the reality of the resurrection, of what it means to be a community shaped by the dying and rising of Christ, and by the shattering reality of life victorious over death.

The reading from John today shows us that it is not easy to live into the reality of Easter. The very reality of our world makes it difficult for us to fully comprehend and embrace the good news of the risen Christ. Mary has just told the disciples that very morning that she has seen the risen Lord and where do we find the disciples, huddled behind closed doors, afraid of those who have power over them. They live like cowards instead of being empowered by this new reality that Jesus is alive. To this cowering, doubting group of disciples, Jesus comes and reveals himself. Gives them his peace, commissions them to share in his ministry and empowers them with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

On the now defunct TV show Nothing Sacred, Father Leo, a crotchety Old Catholic priest on the show has a serious problem. He is having doubts about Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. For a long time Father Leo’s doubts keep him from sharing how he feels. But finally, he stands before the congregation and tells them of his struggle. “I just can’t understand why he says, if God were going to raise his son from the dead, why would God have left those five gaping wounds?” “If God were going to make Jesus alive again, why not heal him? If he were my son, I would heal him.” Why would God overcome death, but leave the scars that caused this death so plainly visible, he asked? Why must Jesus enter everlasting life bearing the wounds of life on earth—the nail marks in his hands and feet, the scar from the spear that pierced his side?

Thomas, who was not with them, understandably also has a hard time believing that Christ has risen: he says, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe. A week later, Jesus appears again, and he invites Thomas to do just that: to touch his wounded hands and side. The Risen Christ says to him, “Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas touches the wounds and proclaims, “My Lord and my God. It is not until he sees and touches the plainly visible scars that he knows the Lord is alive. He has risen! 

But, where do we find the disciples just one week after they were visited by the risen Jesus, received his peace and the Holy Spirit, they have once again locked themselves away behind closed doors. They have seen and received but still do not live into the reality of Easter. With no questions asked, Jesus offers himself again and gives the gift of his presence and his peace. This is the key and good news here, Jesus offers himself over and over again, to those who long to see him and know him but have trouble believing and living as Easter people. Who by the Third Sunday of Easter are back behind locked doors.

Neither, Thomas or the disciples are unusual for being afraid, wanting more, needing more and demanding more because the reality of Easter turns the worlds understanding of death up-side-down. Easter is not simply the trumpet celebration of last Sunday it takes time for it to unfold in the lives and stories of disciples who are often tempted by fear and despair. Easter unfolds as we live out its reality and experience the wonder of God’s love, of God’s abundant Grace, that increases in the face of our fears and unbelief.

Jesus didn’t lecture or scold them he invited them to touch his wounds and receive his love. His wounds tell us that the resurrection did not erase Jesus’ suffering and death as if the crucifixion never happened. The risen Jesus is different from the one who died but his wounds prove to the disciples that he is indeed the same person they knew. The wounds of the risen Christ are signs of what the resurrection means for us. It does not keep bad things from happening nor does it explain why bad things happen. In the face of violence, death, sickness, despair, and grief, the resurrection of Jesus offers not an answer but a promise. The promise is this: our sufferings will not be erased but they will be profoundly transformed. Pain and death, though real are not the end for us and they cannot define us. New life and joy await us for we are a redeemed people.

It is through the risen Christ’s wounds that God knows our pain, and it is through his wounds that he reaches out to us in love. Touch my wounds, by my wounds you are healed, not always in the literal sense of a miracle as Father Leo would have expected but in the profound understanding that God knows and cares, and has a plan that transforms the pain of this world into joy; a profound understanding that God’s love increases in the face of our fears, unbelief and closed doors.

Jesus invites Thomas to touch his hands and side and after he says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. “Blessed” here can be translated as “fortunate” or “happy.” Jesus does not mean that the faithful will necessarily receive a special blessing from God, but that they already are blessed by virtue of their faith. Faith is a blessing, and so happy and fortunate are those who do not need to see, who believe without the visible proof, as hard as that can be in difficult times. Happy and fortunate are those who trust in God and in God’s work of resurrection.

We have to work at having trust and faith in God. It is easy for us to go behind closed doors like the disciples. It is not easy to believe in a risen Christ but what Jesus shows us is that he never gives up and this is when God’s love increases. It is good news indeed to know that in the different seasons of our life, we may not always know Jesus by his appearance especially when hardships give us a reason to doubt. But whatever his appearance may be, he is always with us and we will find a grace filled proclamation of peace, and a touching that is stronger than the bonds of death itself. My friends, in the wonder of his wounds, God finds and redeems us. Let us be empowered by this new reality that Jesus is alive and that he invites us to live into this new reality. Thanks be to God.