When we feel like we’ve missed Easter, are still confused, afraid, doubting, Easter comes to us: Christ calls us by name, gives us peace, loves us out of doubt. And sends us out to do the same.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Second Sunday of Easter, year A
   Texts: John 20:19-31 (also added 1-18 from Easter, for obvious reasons to the sermon; also referred to John 21 a bit)

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Mary Magdalene missed Easter. The tomb was open when she got there.

Her confusion and despair at Jesus’ death led her to the tomb. When you don’t understand, when your overwhelming feelings shut you down, you can act automatically. Someone she loved died, so she went to the tomb. She brought spices and hoped someone could open it.

Her confusion and despair only deepened at the ominous emptiness she found: an open tomb, Jesus gone. She reported this to the others, came back, and then just stood there confused, alone, sad. She had no idea what to do next.

Then she heard her name. The voice of her beloved friend and teacher said, “Mary.” Jesus came to her. And then she knew Easter. Then she knew resurrection life.

The other disciples missed Easter, too. Some didn’t come. Others came, and left.

Apart from the women, the rest of the disciples were locked away in fear. Fear that, since Jesus was dead, they had nothing to live for. Fear they might be next. Fear of facing a world without hope. Peter and John heard Mary’s frightening news about the open tomb, ran to it, looked in. Then they went back and locked the door again.

But Jesus didn’t forget them. Jesus came to them where they were, locked away, and breathed peace on all of them, men and women. Then they all knew Easter. Then they knew resurrection life.

Thomas really missed Easter.

He wasn’t at the tomb Sunday morning or the Upper Room Sunday night. He missed it all. When he came, his doubts were legitimate. He wasn’t going to raise his hopes just because the others thought they saw Jesus. He couldn’t base his belief on them. His hopes in Jesus had been so crushed, he really couldn’t risk hoping again without proof. Something he could touch and see and know himself.

So Jesus came for Thomas, too. Jesus knew Thomas had missed Easter, and came to him. He didn’t judge; he knew some need to see for themselves to believe. He took Thomas’ hand and drew it to his side saying, “touch me, Thomas. Know for yourself.” And then Thomas knew Easter, too. Then he knew resurrection life.

What do you do if you miss Easter and you’re confused beyond your ability to sort it out?

You’ve heard about Christ’s death and resurrection your whole life, but what if it doesn’t help you understand your loneliness, your pain, your sadness? What if you live day by day, just going through the motions, doing life but not living life?

Listen. Can you hear what Mary heard? In your confusion and sadness, Jesus comes to you and says your name. Your name. In your baptism your name was imprinted on God’s heart. You are known, beloved, God’s dear child, wet with the font’s water, and Christ calls your name.

This is what resurrection life means in your life. You don’t have to understand everything, just that you are known to God by name, and loved by the Risen One.

This is what Easter means to you today and tomorrow.

What do you do if you miss Easter and you are so afraid you’re locking yourself away?

You fear being hurt, so you lock your heart away from others. You fear threats that fill this world, so you hide behind your garage doors and your locked front door, and don’t engage. You fear the sacrifices it might take to follow Christ, so you lock away your mind and imagination so you can’t think about it. You have no idea what can Easter do to change this.

Look. Do you see? Jesus comes through all your locks and breathes God’s Spirit of peace into you. You are filled with God’s love and forgiveness, and that takes away your fear. There is no place you can lock yourself away that Christ can’t come in and say, “Peace be with you.”

This is what resurrection life means in your life. The Spirit is breathed into you, and you don’t need to be afraid, or lock yourself away again. You can risk love, risk witness, risk reaching out. Risk life.

This is what Easter means to you today and tomorrow.

What do you do if you miss Easter and your doubts feel so strong, you can’t get around them?

There is so much evidence of death and destruction, it’s hard to believe what happened on that Sunday morning long ago really matters, changes anything.

Doubt is part of faith. But what if it seems like all you have is doubts? Is there really life in Christ for the world? Life for you? If only you could touch Jesus and know for sure.

Reach out then, and touch. Take this bread and wine, and know that Jesus has come to you. Hear him say, “This is me. In here is my love and forgiveness. In here is my life.” Look around at this community who eat and drink alongside you. Hear the risen Christ say, “These ones, they are me, too. For you. In them, you can touch my wounded hands and feet and side, and believe.”

This is what resurrection life means in your life. In this touch, Jesus comes to you and eases your doubt, helps you believe. And find hope.

This is what Easter means to you today and tomorrow.

It’s so hard to grasp that Christ’s death and resurrection mean so much more to us than life in heaven.

We know Easter means we will have life with God after we die. That is truth, and that is joy, and that is grace beyond belief.

But it’s also only a fraction of the Good News the risen Christ offers, that the first believers and the Scriptures say has happened in this death and resurrection. Remember: Martha, filled with grief at the death and burial of her brother, had no doubts that he would rise at the end time. Jesus needed her to experience resurrection and life in him as a reality for her now, in this life.

Christ has given us a model of love that loses, dies, is vulnerable, because it’s the only path we can walk that will lead us to this resurrection life that that ends our confusion, gives peace to our fears, and calms our doubts. That fills us with Easter life in this life, too. And ultimately heals the whole world.

But don’t worry if you sometimes feel you’ve missed the point. As if you’ve missed Easter.

Jesus will always come to where you are and call you by name, breathe peace into you, take you by the hand. And then, send you to bear this to others.

This is why we have been called. So we can know Easter life in us. And then take it into the world. Mary was sent to be an apostle, to tell the others the good news. All the disciples in the Upper Room, men and women (even Thomas), Spirit-breathed, were sent to forgive, to love, to feed Christ’s sheep.

This is our call now. Now that we know Easter life, we are sent as Easter to others who’ve missed it, even as others have Eastered us. To tell others they are loved and known by name to the Triune God. To offer peace and hope to those who’ve locked themselves away. To reach out and embrace those who struggle in doubt. To bear this life as Christ did, for the healing of the world.

This is what Easter means to us today and tomorrow. And we will never be the same.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We come to the tomb expecting death and find Christ is alive, and fills us with resurrection life. With Christ’s life in us, we can now see in the dark, even in a world of darkness and death.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Resurrection of Our Lord, year A
   Texts: Matthew 28:1-10; Colossians 3:1-4

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

They expected he would be cold. His body would be heavy, too.

It hadn’t been 40 hours since he was buried, so they didn’t expect too much of a smell. And some spices and ointments were put on at his burial.

But they dreaded facing how cold and heavy he would be. They feared not recognizing his face, because everyone looks so different after death. They knew this well. They dreaded seeing his body as a body, a thing, not the beloved, warm, friend and master they’d known and loved.

We know what they knew, too. Many of us have experienced how surprisingly quickly our loved one becomes cold when they die, how heavy their limbs become. How they look so different without their breath in them. We know that when someone dies, they look dead. Not asleep. That’s what these women faced that Sunday morning.

They didn’t expect to find life. But an angel told them Jesus was raised. Then they met Jesus himself. Alive. Warm. Beautiful. Unexpected.

No wonder they fell on their faces and grabbed onto his feet, not wanting to let go.

We know what they felt as they walked that stony path at dawn.

We expect, we know, that death is permanent. No one comes back from the dead in this world. Not that we see, anyway.

And we know for certain this is true of pain and evil in this world. Systems are corrupt and crush people, but how do you change systems? Illness comes without warning, and science constantly seeks answers, but people still die, or suffer chronically, and that’s not going to change. Governments all become entrenched, self-serving, unwieldy, and don’t serve the people, and how do you change that? People die of hunger by the thousands every day, and that won’t really change; how do you get the whole world to redistribute resources, wealth, food? Relationships break apart, people are unkind, people feel lonely and afraid, people do evil without thinking, and how do you change people? We can’t even change ourselves sometimes, when we do things wrong.

We know this. This is what we expect, things will always be the same. The world is the way the world is.

We don’t expect life. That life, and healing, and wholeness for all people is possible. That this is God’s dream and plan.

If we could believe this were true, we’d be grabbing on to this life and not letting go ourselves.

And the angel says, “Don’t be afraid. Death isn’t as strong as you think.”

But if that’s true, if death isn’t permanent, what else isn’t?

Christ’s resurrection powerfully changes everything we thought we knew. Not because God could reverse death. God made the universe, invented life. God can do anything with death God wants. Including end its power over mortal things.

But we say Christ destroyed death’s power in rising, and part of that is death’s power to frighten us. Death’s power to make us certain nothing can be changed. Death’s power to make us believe things are the way things are, and always will be.

Death has no power over us, we say in the light of Easter. What if we really lived that?

What if we finally understood today that the Triune God actually is moving, acting, bringing life into a world where we’re walking afraid in the dark woods? Where so many things threaten so much? Where we feel there is little we can do to change anything?

If death isn’t strong enough to be final, can anything resist God’s resurrection life?

Listen, the hard part, what keeps us from really getting this, is the world still looks like death is in charge.

We open our newspapers, turn on our TVs, look at our lives, and see daily evidence of death’s power. We have good reason to believe so many evil, hurtful, oppressive things can’t be changed.

But these women saw the same world. They left that empty tomb just as threatened by existence, by the authorities, by death, as when they came. All the disciples, as they came to believe in Christ’s resurrection, faced the same world we do. Where it seems death is in control.

But this is what they knew, and it couldn’t be taken from them: Christ is alive, and God’s life is flowing through the world, and death and evil and hatred and violence and war and oppression and abuse have no ultimate power.

They walked in a dark, frightening world, too. But they could see in the dark. They saw God’s life and light and love shining everywhere, and they knew they couldn’t be stopped.

Here’s our good news: we can see in the dark, too.

Paul tells us we have been raised with Christ. In our baptism we became part of Christ’s risen body in the world that spans 2,000 years and embraces the world in love. But Paul says our risen life in Christ is hidden with Christ in God. The life and light and love of God that is changing the world, the life and light and love of God that were planted in us at baptism, all this is hidden with Christ in the life of the Triune God.

So we don’t always see it. We sometimes fear it might be gone. But Christ is risen, and our own risen life is always with Christ in God. If we’re in the dark, afraid, alone, struggling with our evil, overwhelmed by some power, and think “no life will break this,” we can remember our risen life is always there, hidden with Christ in God. Always moving, always working. Not always visible.

And then we start to see in the dark. We find the path ahead, step by step. We find hope when we only saw despair. We find love growing out of the ground of hatred. Lives change and are healed. People change and are healed. Systems even change and are healed. Light shines in the darkness, and life arises out of death.

Reality still looks like it did. But our resurrection life is hidden in Christ, and nothing can stop it. Not even death. Not at the end of our lives. And not now, either. Death has no more power over us.

This is why the women left the tomb in fear and joy.

Fear, because the world still looked threatening, death looked to be in charge. But joy came with them, too, because Christ destroyed death’s power to terrify them, lead them to despair. Christ’s life was in them, no matter what they saw.

We walk with them today with Christ eyes that see in the dark. Eyes that see light in the dark. Eyes that see love in the dark. Eyes that see life in the dark. The more we see Christ’s life and light and love change even small things, the more we see Christ. And the more we see our own resurrection life, too. And though the darkness remains, our eyes get stronger and stronger.

It’s not what we expected to find, but it’s wondrous good news. And now we are sent to bear this light into the darkness, this love, this life, so that others, too, can learn to see, and believe.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen