Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our
crucified and risen Lord and savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
I still remember the April fool’s joke I played on my
poor Mom one year, while I was on internship in Minnesota. I called her up and
left her a message that one of my cats had surprised us all by having a litter
of adorable calico kittens, that looked just like her. And my mom totally bought
it.
 |
| "Not funny, 'Mom'." |
And that isn’t even the funniest part. My Mom had
completely forgotten that I had called her about taking Patches to the vet… to
be fixed… earlier that week. I told her all about how funny
the cat looked after being shaved, and about how I had to watch her for a few
hours after while she was still a bit loopy from the anesthetic. All just the
week before. How soon my Mom forgot!
But, to be fair, she hasn’t forgotten that story since
then. When I asked her permission to share it, my mom told me she still has the
voicemail I left her about it. This was back in 2010.
I can’t rub it in TOO much, because we’ve all been there,
though, including me. How soon we can all forget what we have just seen and
heard.
It is one week after Easter. It’s only been one week since we heard the account from Luke of the women finding an
empty tomb where they expected to find the body of Jesus. It’s only been one week since we stood around in the memorial garden, rubbing our
hands together in the early light of dawn, busting out the first “He is risens”
and “alleluias.” It’s only been one week
since the kids waved the Alleluia sheets in this place newly adorned in
white and lilies, while Mike cranked the Easter hymns on organ up to 11. That
was only one week ago, people. But how soon we forget what we’ve seen and heard.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like it’s been an
entire month since Easter. Probably because
after Easter, I still had to go grocery shopping, pay the rent, figure out
life, and deal with a world that seems to get scarier by the day.
But the world out there is perhaps is not as scary as we
might think it is. Trying to figure out what to do with this whole resurrection
thing – now THAT is actually a whole lot scarier. Because that means I actually
have to leave the tomb. And I for one kind of like it here. It’s darkness is
familiar to me, and I don’t really like change. And I’m SURE I’m the only one
here that applies to. In some ways, Lent may feel more natural to us, or at
least closer to our real-life experiences – wandering around in the wilderness,
waiting in the in-between, longing for a life that has been promised, but
perhaps hasn’t yet arrived.
But what has been promised to us HAS ALREADY COME. One
week ago. Lent is OVER, and Easter is HERE. All seven weeks of it. That’s right
folks. We have six more weeks of the Easter season left to go, six more weeks
until the Holy Spirit arrives at Pentecost, six more weeks to figure out what
in the world does it mean for us to be called out of our tombs by our
resurrected Lord who bears the scars of death on his body. And THAT, my
friends, scares me to death.
But perhaps if I had actually been there. Perhaps if I
had actually seen what had happened,
this resurrection business might be a little easier to wrap my head around.
Don’t you think that might be true for you as well?
It seems that it might have been the case for Thomas.
Poor, poor, Thomas, forever to be saddled with the nickname “doubting.” He gets
such a bad reputation. We can’t really blame him for his reaction to the other
10 disciples. If I were him, I might think that the rest of them were playing
some cruel version of an April Fool’s joke concocted while I was out.
But I want to make the case that Thomas is not actually the most egregious doubter in
this resurrection account. The true
doubters are the other 10 disciples.
Earlier that day, according to the gospel of John, Mary
Magdalene had gone to the tomb of Jesus, only to find the stone rolled away.
And later, after Peter and the other disciple had corroborated her story and
went home, Mary encountered the risen Jesus while she was still weeping outside
the tomb. Their Lord was alive! He had risen from the dead! And what do you
think happened next? Did they start running around, telling people the good
news? NOPE. On Easter evening, they locked themselves in a room. How soon they had forgotten what they had
seen and heard.
And so that is where Jesus found them, when they were all
together, except for Thomas, locked in a room out of fear. That is where Jesus
found them, when he burst INTO their locked room, just has he had burst OUT of
the tomb.
But that in itself does not make them into doubters “worse”
than Thomas. It is instead what they do
next. After other ten disciples saw Jesus for themselves, a week later - one week after Easter – where did Jesus find
them? Take a look in verse 26. Again they were in the house. And again THE
DOORS WHERE SHUT. Yet again, they were sealed up in their old
familiar tombs out of fear. And so Jesus had to bust in YET AGAIN.
How soon they had forgotten what they had seen and heard…
only one week before.
So really, this day would more accurately be called
“Doubting Disciples” Sunday. And the accusing finger is also pointed right at
us. Because really, WE would be right there along with them, barring the door
and bolting the locks, just one week after Easter.
Not just to keep the scary
world OUT. But perhaps to keep Jesus
out as well.
Because our locked rooms and our dark tombs are
comfortable and familiar. Resurrection and new life means that change is
a-comin’, which is super scary.
But we have seen and heard what Jesus does with sealed
tombs and locked doors. We have seen and heard what Jesus does with the bonds
of sin, with the sting of death, and the captivity of the grave. So let’s not
forget so soon what we have seen and heard.
The Good News of Easter, which is just as true today as
it was a week ago, is that Jesus has busted open the stone of your tomb like it
as if it were nothing; he has ploughed through the doors of your locked rooms as
if they were butter. He stands in the doorway, reaching out to take your hand,
showing you the marks of the crucifixion that still remain his body. And he
calls you, as he did to Lazarus, while standing outside of that dead man’s tomb, calling to him, “Lazarus, come out!”
And Lazarus came out of his tomb.
Jesus says, “Peace be with you,” and then calls us forth
like Lazarus. Come out of the tomb. Come out of the locked room. Now, it’s time
to leave.
It’s time to leave, because we do not belong in dark
tombs and locked rooms. It’s time to leave, because we are being drawn out to
the new life that is not IN HERE, but OUT THERE. It’s time to leave, because
the one who calls us out has also
been marked by the scars of death, as we
all have in our various ways.
Fortunately Peter, our favorite open-mouth-insert-foot
disciple, and the rest of the apostles DO eventually get out of the locked room.
In Acts, Peter testifies before the high priest about Jesus, saying “We are
witnesses to these things.” Because it was time to leave the locked room. It
was time to get out, and be sent out.
As God has sent Jesus, so Jesus sent Peter, Thomas, Mary,
the other women, and the rest of the apostles to live in light of the
resurrection, to leave the locked room, and to remember what they had seen and
heard. And as God sent Jesus, so Jesus sends all of US to do the same. To share
what WE’VE seen and heard. To, in the words of Farmer-Poet Wendell Barry, to
“practice resurrection.” To be like Jesus and call others out from THEIR dark tombs and locked rooms.
Walking through walls optional.
Amen.
