Easter 2 Sermon 19-04-2020

Easter 2, Year A, April 19th, 2020

Hymn suggestions:

Be still for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here

pastedGraphic.pnghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZugvUQ4m90U

398: Come down, O love divine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLQu6_Tjk9M

355: Man more than man

263: May daughters and my sons hear tell-

392: At the dawning of salvation

407: Breathe on me, breath of God

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5keJHZdWYM

649: These things did Thomas count as real

691: Faith will not grow from words alone,

Bible Readings:

Acts 2: 14a, 22-32

Psalm 16

1 Peter 1: 3-9

John 20: 19-31

Prayer

Loving, Easter God,

We must stay behind shut doors, but our doors are always open to you, our Divine guest.

There are no barriers for you…unless we erect them.

Come into our hearts…come into our homes.

May you be the key that unlocks the strength we crave, the soothing words we need to hear, to dissolve our fears.

Amen

Sermon: Break out or lock down?

[John 20:19-31]

When lock down becomes break out.

When low mood becomes enthusiasm

‘Then she said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “MY Lord and my God.”

In 1909, Paul Engle wrote these words:

‘You say you buried God (weeping you say it)

And split the flesh to its essential parts.

But you have left us bodies bright with flame,

And buried God no deeper than our hearts.’

The Sunday after Easter Sunday.

We are still in the Easter season, which concludes with the celebration of Pentecost, near the end of May.

So…Easter…yet today is known in the church as ‘Low Sunday.’

-the Sunday after the outburst of Easter joy.

Similar to the first Sunday after Christmas Day.  We feels a little flat.

Some of the excitement has gone-in a way we have reached our goal

-our Lenten journey has ended from darkness to the light of the empty tomb, seen at dawn.

Now we are back-on the other side of the mountain-back in the valley.

We have finished our Hot Cross buns

We have consumed our chocolate quota for the year

We have grieved and moved through to rejoicing.

And now

-we are left coping with the Easter victory, in our ordinary lives.

Our Bible reading depicts a confused, dispirited group huddled behind locked doors on Easter morning.

Yes, the women had said “We have seen the Lord” -but they were not believed.

That’s typical isn’t it-women are sometimes blamed, or labelled as being too emotional, even hysterical, in times of grief.

It is worth noting that in Jesus’ time (and this is still the case in some countries in the world today), women’s testimony did not count as reliable, or even legal witness.

In western society, in our main-line churches, we could say we have known nothing but crucifixion, or death

– slow decay

-empty churches

-decline in numbers

-ageing congregations

-absence of children and youth.  Think back to Sunday School numbers when you were young.  Sunday School picnics were wonderful occasions.  Church socials/events were often the places where young people met, fell in love…another wedding in the church.

But now?

Decline.

Even Easter, the most important event in the Christian calendar, which makes it on to the secular calendar but: 

if you only listened to secular society you’d think it was a 4 day holiday invented by confectionary manufacturers to honour something to do with bunnies!

Sometimes we, the church, feel small, powerless, without the numbers.

-seen as irrelevant in society.

Even some politicians say that.

The church may feel that it is dying

-numbers are down-how can we become excited about the resurrection, when we see decay in our midst?

Shouldn’t our numbers be larger as people of the resurrection?

In the reading from John, it’s Sunday evening, 2 days after Jesus was crucified.  Ten disciples are hiding in an upper room.  Judas has taken his life, Thomas is somewhere else.

That morning they had been told by the women that Jesus’ tomb was empty.

They are scared.

Would they be blamed for the theft of the body-an act that warranted capital punishment by the Romans?

Huddled together, frightened.

Then suddenly Jesus stood among them and greeted them with

“Peace be with you.”

He showed them the holes in his hands and side.

And he gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit-a very different account from the one from Acts.  Here Jesus is depicted as breathing the Holy Spirit into the disciples in the same way that God breathed life and Spirit into the first human beings.

Nothing more than a breath…but it blew open a securely locked door.

The huddled, fearful disciples-behind locked, bolted doors

-were broken into

-breathed on

-given the gift of the Spirit.

Remember Aslan, the Christ figure, in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?  After Aslan has risen from the dead, Aslan brings the stone statues of the creatures of Narnia back to life by breathing on them.  He bounds up to a stone lion:

‘I expect you’ve seen someone put a lighted match to a bit of newspaper which is propped up in a grate against an unlit fire. And for a second nothing seems to have happened; and then you notice a tiny streak of flame creeping along the edge of the newspaper. It was like that now. For a second after Aslan had breathed upon him the stone lion looked just the same. Then a tiny streak of gold began to run along his white marble back—then it spread—then the color seemed to lick all over him as the flame licks all over a bit of paper—then, while his hindquarters were still obviously stone, the lion shook his mane and all the heavy, stone folds rippled into living hair. Then he opened a great red mouth, warm and living, and gave a prodigious yawn. And now his hind legs had come to life. He lifted one of them and scratched himself. Then, having caught sight of Aslan, he went bounding after him and frisking round him whimpering with delight and jumping up to lick his face.’(from Chapter 16, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)

“Peace be with you.”

BUT-who was missing?

Thomas!

When he returns, they urge Thomas to take their word for it-and one week later the scene is repeated.

When we read this passage, we usually focus on Thomas’s doubt or his disbelief

BUT let’s look at the other disciples.

What happens?

Have they changed?

They have been confined, as Jesus found them the first time.

IF they have continued for another week, shut in the house where Jesus first found them

They BELIEVE BUT have they shown any evidence of that new faith in the way they behave?

Where is the “peace be with you”?

Where is the decrease of fear?

The moving out to proclaim what they had seen and how they had received the Spirit?

Perhaps we can be a little more tolerant of Thomas.

MAYBE Thomas remained sceptical-because he couldn’t see any evidence in their behaviour that their new commitment to the risen Christ had made them persons of courage and action!

Jesus again said “Peace be with you.”

Their lives are transformed.

-transformed-becoming living witnesses to the meaning of the resurrection and the reality of the risen Christ.

The disciples each come to experience and believe in the risen Christ in their own way

-for Mary Magdalene it is in hearing her name lovingly spoken by Jesus, in the garden

-for John-it was seeing the linen cloths lying in the empty tomb-and seeing the truth for himself

-for Thomas-it was through questioning and being able to see and touch.

For some-it was discovering Christ’s presence in their midst despite their fear.

-even if it meant a push out of a locked, secure room.

We experience faith differently-and seeing the variety of responses from the disciples, remind us of this. We also live out our faith differently-some stand on street corners and proclaim their faith, others move through their community quietly, helping those in need.

What about us?

We, as the church, are meant to be excited, ecstatic with Easter joy,

Yet at times, we are locked behind our doors of fear, our closed doors of despair.

We worry-and are concerned, consumed by our own self-defeating doubts.

Perhaps society is right-we are irrelevant

Yes, we could stay behind locked doors

WE lock ourselves IN

BUT

There is a knock at the door

-a breath upon us.

It is the Risen Christ

-who breathes upon us

-who gives us some of that same power which empowered him.

Gerald Manley Hopkins wrote in one of his poems:

‘Our king back…

Let him easter in us…’

‘Let him easter in us’-here Easter is a verb, a ‘doing word’-a word of action.

As Easter people we are empowered to ‘do’ something

-to proclaim the Good News

-to move out from behind shut doors

-to be less fearful.

Our faith is demonstrated in our actions, our deeds.

We could call this ‘Low Sunday’ if we wish to remain fearful, inactive, shut-in

OR

We could move from this place of worship with freshness, with the Spirit, as Easter people.

‘Let him easter in us.

I invite you to move from lock down…to break out!  In spirit only, you still have to stay behind your front door!! The challenge is how to be resurrection people, Easter people, how to ‘easter’ behind shut doors, during lock down.

By praying, by phoning people, by the writing of letters, sending of texts, zoom meetings, by tending God’s creation by gardening, really, by keeping in touch with Christ, and with each other. BY LOVING.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.”

And…as the stone lion bounded up to Aslan…may we bound up to our Christ, and let him easter in us.

Amen

Blessing

May the coming week be grace filled, decorated with love.

May the jewels of silence, of stillness, creep into your very being, and refresh you with peace, and with courage.

Go and easter, as resurrection people.

In the name of God, who created you,

in the name of Christ, who loves you

and in the name of the Holy Spirit who continues to inspire and comfort you.

Amen.

‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ (Psalm 46: 10)

19.4.20 Leighmoor UC: Rev Barbara Allen