Sermon - March 30, 2008: Second Sunday of Easter

Pastor Heisley

They were some of Jesus’ followers. 

Probably not the twelve disciples, but followers, nonetheless. And they didn’t know how to live. They didn’t know how to deal with what had happened. Their leader, murdered by the government, his body disappeared. They were not afraid of Jewish people. They were afraid of anyone who wasn’t one of them. They were afraid of everyone in that Judean society. And they locked themselves in for protection. 

But Jesus got to them anyway. Jesus got in and stood among them and said “Peace be with you.” But he didn’t mean, “Don’t fight.” He didn’t mean, “Be calm and have a sense of peace in your hearts.” He meant “Let peace fill your soul.” He meant that the disciples, whoever they were, were to accept his gift of life and to be buoyed by it so that they could live in their world in a new way. 

A sage once said, “The human being thrives on his needs.” But Jesus disciples are no longer to live that way. They are to live in peace. Needs met by God’s overpowering care. Peace. Needs become insignificant and open our eyes to a new way of living. 

When Jesus came into that locked room it was later on the day that the empty tomb had been discovered. Mary Magdalene ran to the disciples and announced, “I have seen the Lord.” And she told them the whole story. So they locked themselves up. They didn’t know how to live. They hadn’t had the experience of seeing Jesus and they didn’t know what else to do. So they abandoned the new living to those who had seen. They lived just as they had before. Unenlightened. Afraid. Longing for peace. 

But there is another way. Lutheran theologian Joseph Sittler was frank about his lack of experience. He didn’t see Jesus rise from the dead. He didn’t have earth-shaking, body wrenching, faith-inspiring experiences. He was one who heard Jesus say simply and eloquently, “’Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”’ Pastor Sittler wrote these words in a sermon he called, “The view from Mt. Nebo.” It is only honest to say that I have never known fully that kind of life within the full warm power of experience. I have not seen any burning bushes…John Wesley’s ‘strangely warmed’ heart at Aldersgate Street – that is not my street. I have not the possibility to say of the Christian faith what many honest persons have said about it. But I have come to see that to declare as a gift of God that which I do not fully possess is, nevertheless, a duty of obedience. Is the opulence of the grace of God to be measured by my inventory? Is the great catholic faith of nineteen centuries to be reduced to my interior dimensions? …No. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 

So there Jesus was in the locked room with the unidentified disciples and he gave them a mission “’As the father has sent me, so I send you.’” Sent in mission. These people-fearers were sent in mission just as Jesus had been sent. “’Receive the Holy Spirit.’” And they were given all the power they needed to be missional people. Jesus had breathed on them and they received. He breathed very human breath, breath smelling of the sickness of the grave and the sweetness of life. He breathed and they inhaled and they were sent. 

But that wasn’t good enough for Thomas. He was no Joe Sittler. He wasn’t with the others and he couldn’t believe. He didn’t doubt. He just didn’t believe. So it was fully a week later. The scene is the same except Thomas is there. The doors are shut, but not tightly enough to keep Jesus out. He appeared and said, “’Peace be with you.’” Peace. Fullness of life. Life in the depth of one’s body and in the depth of one’s soul. Thomas: “’Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’” Touch me. Smell me like the others had done. Touch my wounds, now scars. Touch my scars and know that I am human and smell the power of the Holy Spirit and know that I am God. “Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” 

Scars mark us as human. My sister fell and cut her leg on a warm Sunday evening back in the 1950’s and she still has the scar on her leg to prove it. Surgeries leave scars that are signs of our bodies having been invaded, scars that become us, who we are. Touch my scars. Know that I am human. 

Yesterday I talked with someone who told me that he hardly ever comes to church because of the scars left by the rigid church of his childhood. Church is a scarred place for him, not a place of life, not a place of peace. Touch my scars and know full humanity. Touch what the world has done to my very fleshly body and know about God. 

To live in a post-resurrection world in a new way, in a way that is obedient to the faith of the last nineteen centuries while being open to the presence of God in the world today in ever new ways, to live in a post-resurrection world is to touch the world’s scars and to allow our scars to be touched. And in the touching to know that we are touched, we are blessed by the new life, the life lived after death, of Jesus, our brother, Jesus our God. In the touching we are renewed in mission. 

Today we welcome new people to our number. They have not attested to the perfection of their faith. They rather join us in wanting to touch the scars of Jesus, to believe, to know. Here’s how that happens: we touch the scars of the world, touch the scars that we all have, and we live in the peace of the One who lives forever, forever marked by the scars of love. 

In addition, today we commission people to be workers in our capital campaign, “In Christ is our calling. In Christ may we grow.” We commission people as missioners. People who have shortcomings and longings and people who want to touch the scars of Jesus. And by them, people like us, we are led into a brave new venture. 

This is post-resurrection living: that we gather around the sings that the crucified One is present in our midst: water, bread, wine, the word spoken and sung. We gather and we pray and we depart energized by peace, invigorated by love, doors unlocked, willing to touch the scars of the world. Knowing that in touching there is healing, in touching there is belief, in overcoming the scars, we recognize God. Amen.

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