Homily for April 28, 2019

Homily for Sunday, April 28, 2019.    Graves Chapel

In one gospel account of the first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene believes she is speaking with a gardener when she encounters the risen Lord near his tomb. As much as life in biblical times can seem tremendously different from our world today, it is comforting to think of how, back then as well as today, burial grounds have been maintained with care by gardeners.  That first Easter morning Mary and the other women went there to tend to the body of their Lord, who had been entombed in haste on Friday evening. In spite of their grief, surely it was a comfort to the women to enter that lovely, peaceful place. How astounding for Mary Magdalene to meet a gardener and discover he was in fact her Lord!
Aren’t we fortunate to live in a place where spring and the season of Easter provide us with an abundant display of the grace of resurrection, as new leaves fill the trees and flowers burst into bloom?  All the things that seemed dead and deeply quiet during winter have come to life again, accompanied by the songs of nesting birds. We observe the seasons in the life of Jesus as they coincide with seasons in our own lives. The drama of Holy Week, culminating in the crucifixion and the quietness of the tomb, has given way to a startling flurry of activity, as the Risen Lord appears to his disciples. How do they respond? With stunned disbelief that only gradually gives way to acceptance and renewed faith…
You may have heard it said, as I have, that faith is the opposite of fear.  In our gospel lesson for today with the story of “doubting Thomas,” we hear again about an incident that suggests another truism: faith is the opposite of doubt. But doubt and fear are not exactly the same things, are they?  I think it must be that fear and doubt coexist along a continuum that ultimately, happily, ends in the triumph of faith. We may recognize that continuum from fear and doubt to faith in the reactions of the disciples as they encounter the Risen Lord.
If you wish to construct a timeline for the events of Easter Week, beginning with the discovery of the empty tomb, you will find that Jesus was on the move! Not long after he instructs Mary to let the disciples know that he has risen from the grave, Jesus begins to walk down a road toward the village of Emmaus. On the road, he encounters one of his followers named Cleopas discussing recent events with another follower, and he engages them in conversation as they walk along. Since these followers are filled with emotion over the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, they do not recognize him as he walks beside them. They tell him about the great prophet and their hopes for him, and they even have heard the women’s story about the empty tomb, but they remain so sunk in despair that they cannot see Jesus. They cannot believe he is alive again and right there with them.
Do we have such moments ourselves? When we are in despair or filled with fear, do we fail to see evidence of the Lord’s presence in our lives? Later on that same day, Jesus appears to the remaining disciples, saying to them, “Peace be with you.” In their own fear of the authorities, they have gathered together behind locked doors. As the Gospel of Luke tells us, upon seeing the risen Lord, “They were startled and terrified, and thought they were seeing a ghost.” But in his words to them, Jesus directly addresses that continuum of fear and doubt and moves the disciples toward faith: “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.”  The words of Our Lord, meant to reassure the terrified disciples, remind us that we believe with our hearts. Reason and knowledge may reside in our heads, but faith finds a steadfast home in the very center of our being, in our hearts.
In today’s gospel lesson from John, we are told that the disciple Thomas was not present when Jesus had appeared. When he hears the story of Jesus’s appearance from the others, Thomas exclaims that he must see the Lord with his own eyes, that he must see the wounds in his hands and in his side before he will believe. We can hear in Thomas’s words a clear statement of the fears and doubts the others had experienced, but left unexpressed, when Jesus first appeared to them. Can this really be our Lord? How is that possible? When Jesus does appear to Thomas, he begins once more with words of assurance: “Peace be with you.” I hear no anger in the Lord’s direct response to Thomas, only a voice of assurance: “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe.” Given the concrete evidence his reasoning mind needs to believe in the resurrection, the faithful heart of Thomas responds, and he exclaims, “My Lord and my God!”
During the three years of Jesus’s ministry, the disciples had experienced wonder, amazement and joy as they witnessed the power of a living God. Since they had been chosen by the Lord to be his closest companions, they felt nothing but secure in their faith in him. Even though he warned them about what was to come, they simply could not believe that Jesus would be executed. On the night he was arrested, Peter  followed the Lord into the courtyard where he was being questioned by the authorities, but out of fear for his own life, Peter denied knowing Jesus three times. His denials seem quite cowardly, and we know Peter regretted what he had done, but fear for one’s own life is a powerful force.  Peter and the other disciples thought they would never see the Lord again. They thought they too might be executed for their association with Jesus.
Now we fast-forward to a time not so very far removed from the Resurrection, when the disciples have been restored to their full faith in the Lord. In today’s story from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the very same temple police who had arrested Jesus have now called the apostles before them. These authorities are quite concerned about the threat the cult of this man Jesus still poses. They fear the apostles, who have been preaching, teaching, and healing in the name of Jesus, will cause the people to rise up against them since they had ordered and carried out his crucifixion. They say, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.” Directly confronted by hostile authorities who have the power to execute him, how does Peter respond now? He proclaims, “We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand…And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”  Peter attests to the Spirit in his words to the temple police, and it is that very Spirit in Peter’s heart that has removed all of his fear and doubt and filled him with faith and courage. No longer broken-hearted by what had seemed to be the finality of a slamming door, Peter and the other disciples are now fully open to the Lord’s presence and filled with the faithful conviction they will need to carry his message to the world.
The Lord’s final words to Thomas can be heard as a blessing for us, His followers now some 2000 years hence: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Thanks to the faithful efforts of so many, many Christians down through the intervening years, we are able to believe in our hearts that the Lord is ever present with us. Today’s collect reminds us that faith indeed resides in our hearts and that our task is to keep that faith alive for coming generations of believers. “Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith.” AMEN.