Christ Episcopal Church
April 12, 2015
2 Easter B
The day after Christmas, the day after a birthday, the day after Easter....when I was a child, these days were supposed to be different, somehow. How can it be that something so wonderful as Christmas, a birthday, or Easter can happen, with all the waiting, all the festivities, all the presents...and then everything goes back to normal the next day? The day after never seemed to live up to my grand expectations as life returned to normal and nothing seemed to have changed, even if I was now 10 years old instead of just 9. There were still too many chores to do, too much homework to finish, and the same annoying siblings to content with, just as if the special day had never happened.
The Sunday after Easter, or more appropriately, the second Sunday of Easter, feels much the same. The flowers are still here, but they will be delivered to our homebound parishioners this afternoon. The balloons and trumpets are gone, and our worship has returned to our more or less normal state. Christian Education resumes, which is a great thing, but another sign that life is back to normal, almost as if Easter had never happened. After all the glory of last Sunday, shouldn't things be different somehow?
On the surface, our readings from scripture this morning do not appear to be helpful as we adjust to life as normal. In the reading from Acts, we hear about the utopian community that was formed by the very earliest Christians. Life seems quite perfect after the resurrection. The first Christians apparently agreed on everything, shared everything, and no one lived in any kind of need. The apostles preached with great power, and when we read on into the book of Acts, we hear that thousands of people believed in Jesus because of the testimony of the disciples. There was no going back to normal life for these early Christians! And in the gospel reading, we find the disciples locked behind closed doors on Easter evening, fearing for their lives, when Jesus appears to them and says "As the father sends me, so I send you." Thomas, of course, was not with them and refuses to believe until he gets to see Jesus' wounds with his very own eyes. So, one week later, which would be today, the Sunday after Easter, Jesus shows up again so that Thomas can also see and feel Jesus' wounds and be brought to belief in the resurrection. Where do we fit into these extraordinary stories of post-Easter Christian experience?
If we dig a little deeper into the stories from Acts and John, we find that post-Easter life was a little more messy for those first Christians that we might think. While in our reading from Acts today the early Christians seemed to get along perfectly and always think of others before themselves, just little two chapters later, the Greek speaking Christians complain that their widows are being neglected in the daily food distribution. Not everyone was sharing all that they had and not everyone's needs were being met after all! The community was called together and 7 people were set apart to make sure that food and other goods were distributed evenly. That way the apostles could be about the work of proclaiming the gospel while the original deacons could make sure everyone was cared for. Easter people, it turns out, are not perfect. Life is still messy after the resurrection. Resurrection is about new life, not perfect life, and being Easter people is about finding new life in an imperfect world among imperfect people.
In the gospel reading, the disciples are hiding in fear behind locked doors when Jesus shows up. We tend to focus on Jesus' appearance and Thomas' doubt when we hear this story. But listen to what Jesus says to the disciples. "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." Then Jesus gives the disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit. A week later, when Jesus appears to the disciples again so that Thomas can have the same experience as the other 10, where do we find the disciples? Out in the world being the sent disciples Jesus commissioned? No. They were in the same place behind the same closed doors. Thomas may get the criticism for doubting, but the other 10 were really no better. They apparently had not gone anywhere, despite Jesus' instruction and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yet Jesus will use them anyway. Once again, being Easter people is not about never doubting or always being faithful to (or even understanding) Jesus' call. Being Easter people is about finding new life in an imperfect world among imperfect people. Jesus will use these disciples, not because of their perfection, but despite their failures.
This is good news for us on the Sunday after Easter as we think about what it means to be Easter people. We don't have to be perfect for Jesus to use us. Jesus will use us in spite of our imperfections as a church or as individuals. In a moment, we will baptize baby Henry. Henry will be sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ's own forever. Most likely, he will still not sleep through the night. He will annoy his sister as he gets older which is the vocation of all little brothers, and will no doubt test his parents' patience. Baptism will not turn him into the perfect person, just like baptism did not turn the rest of us into perfect people. But in baptism, Jesus will claim Henry as his own. And just as Jesus managed to use the disciples despite their unfaithfulness to make the Kingdom of God more present in the world, and just as Jesus uses us, despite our imperfections, to the same end, in baptism Jesus promises to use Henry so that God's love may be more fully known in the world.
On the Sunday after Easter, Scripture reminds us that Easter people are people who believe in new life. We believe that God will use imperfect people who live in the messiness of ordinary life to do extraordinary things. Ordinary, messed up, broken people just like the disciples and the early Christians, are the people who make God's extraordinary love known in this ordinary, messed up, broken world.
Amen.
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