Sermon for April 12

Sermon for April 12th

So now we get to part two of last week's story. Last week, we heard of Mary, who, in her grief, returned to the tomb, only to find that the tomb had been emptied and the body of her dear friend was gone. Into that grief, Jesus enters the story and speaks her name, and sorrow is restored to joy. Mary is given back her very self and sets out to tell everyone what she has experienced.

Now we have the second part to that story. The disciples had left the scene of the resurrection in a state of confusion. They didn’t know where to go next, and so they went to the one place that they still knew, the room where they had their final meal with Jesus and where he had washed their feet. It was the last place they had been before the world shattered around them. So now, they huddled in fear, uncertain what to do next.

It was into that space, while they were paralyzed by fear, that Jesus made himself known. He shows them the nail marks in his hands and feet and then gives them his peace. They are then granted the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus didn’t just offer his peace to them; he gave them that peace in the form of the Spirit.

Thomas is missing from the encounter and when he is faced with the truth the others want to share with him, he doesn’t believe. Their hearts and minds are open, and they have hope again, but Thomas was absent and thus did not receive that same grace from Jesus.

Fast forward a week, and nothing has really changed. They are still together in their home. They haven’t gone out and started their great ministry journeys. Jesus washed them clean on the night of the last supper and now has gifted them the Holy Spirit, so what is stopping them?

What is stopping them is that they are not whole yet. Their community is incomplete. Thomas has yet to join their ranks again. Unlike Mary and the other disciples, joy has not been restored to him. He still rests in the dark night of his sorrow and despite what the others are telling him, he cannot pull himself free. It takes an encounter with the risen Christ to set his soul free again, and in this passage, he has that experience.

Their story begins and ends with the Christ. It begins with Christ calling their name. They are then called into a ministry. They are taught what God’s way is all about and then they are washed clean. And after experiencing the horrors of the cross, they are set free by Christ and gifted the spirit. Nothing they do is done without Christ.

We profess the same. I don’t stand in front of the congregation and preach every Sunday without the Spirit with me. You don’t do all that you are called to do unless the Spirit is with you. We know this and we profess this. Like the disciples, our story begins and ends in Christ. Like the disciples, there is no story without Christ in our life and when the darkness of the world threatens to pull us under, then it takes the coming of the Risen Christ into the dark recesses of our fears to once more set us free. It takes Christ to break the shackles of this world and set our hands to the upbuilding of the kingdom of God.

But there is a second element of this story. It is not just that Jesus returns to them and sets them free, it is that Jesus returns them to each other. At no point in the story are they told to go out and stand alone. They were always sent out together, or at least in pairs. The work of the Kingdom was not meant to be something that was done in solidarity, rather, they needed each other, for support and for accountability. A Kingdom built on the idea of community could not exist unless it lived into its own principles, and so the disciples always worked within the context of community. They needed each other and their mission was best accomplished when they had each other’s back.

Thus, even though most of the disciples had encountered the Risen Christ, not all of them had. Thomas still was lost to the sorrow and without him, their number was not complete. Only when Thomas truly joined their ranks again could they go out and do what they had been called to do.

Nothing has changed. Following Jesus has never been a solitary experience. It was meant to be shared. Sometimes the community we share it with looks a little different than what we would expect, but that is the joy of the Kingdom. All people are made welcome. All people have a place, and everyone is needed.

Paul understood this. In 1 Corinthians, he used the image of the body to express this idea. We cannot be the body of Christ if we all think we need to be the same or try to work on our own. A hand is not the whole body, and the body is not whole without the hand. Paul was honoring both the individual within the community of believers, as well as what the community of believers means for the individual. One cannot exist without the other and vice versa.

All of us here have been inspired by the risen Christ. And in the same breath, every one of us here are uniquely positioned to work with the wider community to share the Grace of God and serve the wider world. All are called and all are needed and like the disciples, we are not truly complete until our community comes together.

In the Risen Christ, we are called forth, out of darkness and into the light. In the risen Christ, community forms and together, we can go forward with common purpose. With Christ as our head, as Paul states, then we can be guided forward, offering our service and love to the world, just as the disciples and so many others have done before us.

Amen