Second Sunday in Easter
Sermon by The Reverend Loree Reed

John 20: 19–31
Acts 4: 32–35
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

There’s nothing easy about the idea of death and resurrection.  Clearly, Jesus struggled with it as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that awful night before his trial and death.  And his disciples couldn’t wrap their minds around it even after they’d encountered him, risen from the dead on Easter morning.  But they’re not the only ones who have had trouble accepting the mystery.  Over the years, even the most gifted artists have had difficulty imagining how a resurrected Jesus might have looked.  Nor can poets find words to describe what happened that first Easter morning.  None of them knows.  So no wonder, then, that we hesitate as we approach this mystery.
But in our Gospel reading today Saint John does something clever.  (John is always doing something clever.)  He fashions the story of Jesus’ Resurrection appearance to his disciples that first evening to resemble the account of the creation of Adam in the second chapter of the Book of Genesis.  He wants everyone to understand that by the power of the Holy Spirit these weary disciples, scared nearly to death, were being recreated, reborn, given fresh new life.  Oh, they were still not sure whether to believe what their eyes and ears were telling them – but by the words Jesus spoke to them and the breath he sent their way they were being transformed by the Holy Spirit of God into a newborn body of believers.  It’s an amazing story of redemption and re–creation, an Easter story if ever there was one.
That morning, that Day of Resurrection, the Risen Christ had appeared to Mary Magdalene when she came to the tomb to finish cleaning up his body.  That’s the story we heard last week.  After she’d finally recognized him, finally realized who was standing right in front of her, Mary ran back to tell the other disciples her astonishing news.  Only no one – except a few of the other women – believed her.  Luke says the disciples thought the women were making the whole thing up.
What they did believe was that the Jewish elders wouldn’t stop at executing Jesus.  If they could lay their hands on his disciples they would crucify every last one of them.  So that night, sick with fear, the disciples hid out in a house in Jerusalem, locking the doors securely and closing the shutters tight around them.
But Jesus won’t be stopped by a locked door, much less hearts filled with fear.  Suddenly, he’s right there in their midst, saying, “Peace be with you.”  Now in Hebrew that blessing is Shalom Aleichem – and it bestows wholeness, harmony, wellbeing on everyone who receives it.  But that was only the beginning of his blessing.
For then, he says to them again, “Peace be with you.”  And this time he adds, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  So along with the blessing of wholeness, wellbeing, Jesus is assigning them new roles.  No longer will they be simple disciples, learners.  Now they are being commissioned as apostles, as people Jesus is sending out into the world with his Gospel message.
And then he equips them for the new role he has just called them to.  “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he says.  And with that, he breathes on them his own breath – just as God, in the second chapter of Genesis breathed his own breath into Adam’s nostrils as he gave new life to the creature he’d just made from the dust of the earth.  Is this a second creation?  John doesn’t say.  But he’s hinting strongly that some form of new life – a holy life – is being passed along to the disciples.  It’s as if the disciples’ fear was the elemental mud, the handful of dirt into which the Lord now blows the breath of life.
What’s being brought to life here?  It’s not an individual or even a collection of individuals so much as it is a corporate body, a resurrection community.  In fact, it’s the Church, the Body of Christ.  So yes, John is hinting – strongly – that this is a second creation story.  Only this time, instead of creating out of chaos and darkness, John says the Lord is using fear and unbelief as raw materials.  It is a new birth.  It is new life, coming out of death – which seems to be the way a holy God does things.
And it’s a wonder to me that we don’t make more of this story every year, that we don’t stop and marvel at it.  But all too often, when we read this passage on the first Sunday after Easter, we don’t talk about the new life Jesus came to give – so much as the doubt of the one disciple who missed the main event.  I guess ‘doubt’ is easier for us to understand than ‘resurrection.’
But thanks be to God!  Right in front of us this morning there is another story, a second story, this one from the Book of Acts by Luke.  It’s a kind of snapshot of the growing Church, taken just a few weeks after its birth.  And here we can already discern what it is becoming, the destiny it is growing into after Jesus endowed it with his own risen life.  I realize you have already heard this description this morning, but since it’s only three verses long, I hope you won’t mind if I read it again.
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.  With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.  There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.  They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed as any had need. 
[Acts 4: 32–35]
What has happened to that group of terrified disciples John just described?  They’re nowhere to be seen.  They’ve been transformed.
Touched by the Holy Spirit, they are no longer afraid of their neighbors, no longer defensive.  Instead they are living together in peace, in shalom, in harmonious community, ready to accept former enemies as friends.
No longer believing their possessions will make them safe, they are generous with each other and with anyone in need.
No longer wrapped up in themselves, they now see other peoples’ pain, and respond with mercy, compassion and power.
It’s nothing less than the power that turned the world upside down back in those early centuries . . . or maybe right side up.
It’s nothing less than Resurrection, God’s fresh new creation working in them, through them, day by day.
It’s nothing less than love, God’s own character, made manifest.
Thanks be to God! The Lord is Risen! Alleluia, Amen!
 
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