Easter Sunday 4/4/21
Missing easter
Last Easter was very lonely here. I planned and prepared and was all excited and ready to celebrate Easter with the congregation and then everything came to a screeching halt. Last year’s Easter attendance was a total of 4. Me sitting here and my family in the tech booth.
I feel like I missed Easter 2020. Don’t get me wrong… there was Easter… Christ is Risen… but it didn’t feel like it here. (church) or Here (heart). I think you know what I mean. Hopefully, we have grown to appreciate digital worship, but in those days most of us were so inexperienced that I am sure, despite my best efforts, it didn’t feel like Easter to a lot of people.
We aren’t the first people to miss Easter. There was even someone who missed seeing Jesus on that first Easter Sunday, and it followed him for 2100 years by giving him the unpleasant nickname… “doubting Thomas.”
I always like to stick up for Thomas and say, if you insist on calling him doubting, you need to go back and read the rest of the story. In the end, he believed, just like the other disciples. I think “Believing Thomas” would be a better moniker.
So Believing Thomas missed the first Easter. At least he missed Jesus’ appearance to the disciples. The events of that first Day of Resurrection can be a little confusing because we have 4 gospel writers telling the same story from 4 different perspectives.
We see the same thing when reporting a news story, where the reporter’s location and their personal beliefs make a big difference in how they tell the story.
We see it in traffic accidents. The passengers of the cars each have their own memory which is sometimes quite different from the witness on the sidewalk.
Obviously, none of the Gospel writers has ALL the information, each has some.
Therefore, People have tried to make a reasonable timeline using all 4 gospels. I am not so sure about some of the assumptions they make when they do that, but it seems like this appearance when Thomas was not there was the fourth or fifth time Jesus appeared after the resurrection.
To Mary in the garden
To the Women who are sent with a message to the apostles Mtt 28:9
appearance on Emmaus road Lk 24:13-30
Appearance to Peter Lk 24:34
Appearance to the disciples without Thomas.
I don’t know what Thomas was doing. He may have just stepped out for a short time. There is no way to know.
What we do know is what he missed.
He missed an encounter with the risen Lord. This is no normal neighborly Sunday afternoon visit. Verses 19-23 describe what happened the Sunday evening of the resurrection. His disciples (except for Thomas??)were scared and confused. They locked themselves in a room out of fear that those who had murdered Jesus would soon be looking for them.
Suddenly, Jesus appears to His disciples. The Bible says that ”Jesus came and stood in their midst…” Notice this,
Jesus was dead, yet he but he came to them.
They were scared and hiding, but Jesus came to them.
The doors were locked, but Jesus came to them. That is a home run as far as miracles go!
But the miracle doesn’t stop there. The disciples go to see proof of the resurrection standing in front of them, nail holes and all.
If Thomas had just missed seeing Jesus, it might have been ok. But he missed that opportunity to experience the living Christ. And he missed the gifts Jesus brought. They are gifts that feed faith.
The gift of peace. Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
Oh for a dose of peace in our lives, right?
The signs read, “No Justice, No Peace.”
The people cry, “No equality no peace”
People on the southern border cry, “No entry, no peace.”
The politicians cry, “Do it my way, or no peace”
Our community needs peace, our homes need peace, and our hearts need peace. And Thomas missed Jesus’ gift of peace.
Second, Thomas missed the proof. The disciples did not pull faith out of the thin air.
Jesus showed them his hands and side. He held up his hand and they could see his face through the hole.
When they hugged, they could still the dusty musty cave in his hair.
Who upon seeing that, could NOT believe?
The wound in his side was big enough to fit your whole hand.
Who upon seeing that could NOT believe?
Thomas missed the peace, he missed the proof, he also missed the purpose.
Jesus gave the disciples a purpose for the rest of their lives, and the purpose of the church. He said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Now, that is a whole sermon in itself for another time,
but it reminds me of the passage about 6 chapters earlier, “whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” Jesus asks the disciples to continue the work he has started. And that is why we are here.
Salvation is won, but the work of feeding, clothing, justice, and peace are still here for us to do. As Matthew West sings “We gotta do somethi’
Finally, Thomas missed Jesus’ sharing holy power with the disciples. Jesus gave peace, proof, purpose, and finally power to the disciples. He “breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
One of the most remarkable things here is he breathed. Really? Remember this guy was dead as a doornail Friday afternoon. And now he breathes. His body was lifeless and now he talks, bears scars, and his heart beats. This is no ghost. This is no illusion. Frankly, that is no way for a polite dead person to act. But Jesus is not a zombie, or the undead or anything like that.
Jesus is the power of God over death,
Jesus is the power of God over sin,
Jesus is the power of God over hate and fear.
And Thomas missed all of that. He missed the presence, the proof, the purpose, and the power. Thomas missed all of that. How can we call him “doubting Thomas” and blame him for wanting the same opportunity as the other disciples? In a way, Believing Thomas” missed Easter.
You may be in that same place.
There are more ways to miss Easter than not being present that first night
There are more ways to miss Easter than being kept from the church during a pandemic.
In fact, one can sit right here in your pew and still miss Easter. You can sing the songs, pray the prayers, be moved by the music, and still miss the presence, the peace, the proof, and the power of Easter.
Might you be missing Easter? Look around you!
We’ll start easy… look at the church coming alive by the power of the resurrection. Last year’s attendance at Easter was “4.” Just 4. And look around you today.
But look a little deeper.
It helps to look at the big picture. Look at how we have spent much of the last year locked in our homes afraid of each other. Rightly so, but is that any different from the disciples in that upper room? And today here we are! There is a Hymn that as far as I know might only be sung at Annual Conference. It is a Charles Wesley Hymn The first verse is “And are we yet alive, and see each other’s face? Glory and thanks to Jesus give for his almighty grace.” That is a resurrection. Look around WE ARE yet alive… WE ARE the body of Christ, It has been a long year, and even though we mourn the loss of friends and family we come here alive in Christ and ready to be the church like never before.
Look for the truth behind the mask, and you will likely find death and brokenness in the lives of people around you and your own life.
Matthew West has a song that is currently popular, called “Truth Be Told.” It starts
the chorus is Truth be told
The truth is rarely told, nowI say I'm fine, yeah I'm fine oh I'm fine, hey I'm fine but I'm not
I'm broken
And when it's out of control I say it's under control but it's not
And you know it
I don't know why it's so hard to admit it
When being honest is the only way to fix it
There's no failure, no fall
There's no sin you don't already know
So let the truth be told
Let the truth be told …right behind the masks that we all wear. There are broken hearts, broken relationships, broken promises, broken families, broken dreams, broken spirits, broken bodies. Just behind the masks we wear, people are feeling of control, out of sorts, like they are outsiders, out of energy, out of options, out of ideas, out of luck, and out of hope.
Probably every one of us is in some way broken and out of options. But look… we are here because CHRIST IS RISEN
Inside we have died of shame a thousand times, but we still live because CHRIST IS RISEN
We ran out of hope in ourselves a long time ago…Jesus is hope …our hope incarnate. Because out of the hopelessness of the grave came the hope of Easter because CHRIST IS RISEN
We may be sick in body, or mind, or sick with sin but by his stripes, we were healed. He can make us whole because CHRIST IS RISEN.
We may feel like our lives are spinning out of control, but God proved on
Easter morning once and for all who is really in control. Let me give you a hint it isn’t you, because CHRIST IS RISEN.You may be teetering on the edge of disaster because of your addiction… but you can trust Jesus to take your hand because CHRIST IS RISEN.
You may think you have wrecked your relationship with your child or sibling or friend so bad that there is no going back. But Jesus specializes in forgiveness and the hope for reconciliation because CHRIST IS RISEN.
You may be carrying an unbearable weight of guilt and shame for things long past. But there is forgiveness and grace because CHRIST IS RISEN.
You may be living with dark secrets that no one else knows. What a terrible weight to bear. But there is help to bear the awful burden. Because CHRIST IS RISEN.
I beg you to open your eyes so you don’t miss the glory of the empty tomb that says CHRIST IS RISEN.
Please open your ears to hear the shouts of Hallelujah because CHRIST IS RISEN.
Open your hearts so you don’t miss the hope of Easter. Because as we have said, again and again, CHRIST IS RISEN.
Open your lives to the power of the living and loving Christ because the power of sin and the grave could not hold him, and we shout with all creation CHRIST IS RISEN
CHRIST IS RISEN INDEED, HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH, AMEN
