The Church of St. Paul & Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
April 11, 2021
Year B: The Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 4:32-35
Psalm 133
1 John 1:1-2:2
John 20:19-31
The Scarred Risen Christ
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Well, by now, the world has moved on from Easter.
Stores have deeply discounted all that candy – the chocolate bunnies and the Peeps are all priced to sell.
The contents of Easter baskets have been mostly consumed, with maybe just a few stray jellybeans stuck at the bottom.
And, even here in church, after last week’s big – though virtual – celebration – even we might think that Easter is now in the rearview mirror.
But, of course, that is not so.
Yes, it is still Easter!
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
It is still Easter for us, and in today’s gospel lesson it is still Easter for Jesus’ disciples. In fact, for them it is the evening of the first Easter, though they’re not celebrating just yet. No, the disciples are frightened and confused.
John writes that the disciples are frightened of “the Jews,” so, once again we need to remember that all of these people were Jews.
The truth is that the disciples are not afraid of “the Jews” but they are understandably worried that the authorities who had arrested and executed Jesus are coming for them next, so they’re hiding out in a room behind locked doors.
Plus, by now reports had gotten back to the disciples about the empty tomb – which must have been disturbing, for sure.
And then, on top of all that, there was Mary Magdalene’s account of a seemingly impossible conversation with Jesus.
Was that just the wishful thinking or the overactive imagination of someone brokenhearted by grief?
Or, could Jesus’ promise of rising on the third day really have been fulfilled?
I imagine the disciples would greet that possibility with a mix of emotions – shock, hope, joy, and maybe also fear and even guilt and shame – the fear we feel when the usual order of things has been turned upside-down – dead people don’t come back to life, after all, right?
And the disciples might have also been feeling guilty and ashamed because they remembered only too well that they had abandoned Jesus in his greatest moment of need.
The disciples all bore the invisible scars of their cowardice and betrayal.
And then, suddenly, Jesus appears – mysteriously transformed – a locked door is no obstacle for the Risen Lord – but he’s also the same – he shows his friends his wounded hands and side – he shows them the scars of his suffering.
And, Jesus heals their fear and confusion and maybe even their guilt and shame with the simple words:
“Peace be with you.”
“Peace be with you.”
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Of course, not everyone was there that first Easter night.
The absent Apostle Thomas missed out on Easter – and it looks like he missed a kind of Pentecost, too – since, at least the way John tells the story, Jesus breathes the Spirit on his disciples right then and there.
Each year on this Second Sunday of Easter we hear the story of the missing Apostle Thomas, and I always wonder why he wasn’t there with the others. Maybe he was off running an errand or tending to his family or handling some other responsibility. Maybe he was too frightened even to gather with the others, though that doesn’t really match the little we know of his character. Maybe – and this is what I always imagine – maybe it’s that he was so angry and ashamed – angry at God for allowing Jesus to suffer and die – and ashamed that he, like the others, had abandoned the Lord.
Of course, the others tell Thomas their amazing news, the best news of all time: “We have seen the Lord.”
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
And then, Thomas gets his big moment. He famously doubts his fellow disciples, saying that he won’t believe until he can see and touch the mark of the nails, until he can put his hand in Jesus’ wounded side.
And it’s here that I want to stop – the wounds, the scars.
Isn’t it amazing that the Risen Christ still has his scars?
Now, I realize that the scars provide a quick and easy way to convince the disciples, and a week later Thomas, that this is the same Jesus who died on the cross. But, I have to believe that there were lots of other ways that Jesus could have convinced his friends that he was who he said he was.
Isn’t it amazing that the Risen Christ still has his scars?
I mean, if we were writing this story, wouldn’t we have erased those wounds? Wouldn’t we have the Risen Christ appear radiant and unblemished, the horrors of Good Friday erased from his body and, as best we could, banished from our memory?
You know, church types like me always try to get people to attend the Holy Week services, especially Good Friday. And, I still stand by the fact that Easter is even sweeter if we’ve walked the way of the cross with Jesus.
But, then, on Easter, and in the days and weeks that follow, we do our best to put the suffering of Good Friday behind us, understandably eager to move as fast as we can from shadow to light, from sadness to joy.
But, that doesn’t seem to be how God operates.
Jesus keeps his scars.
And those scars serve as a reminder of his very real suffering at the hands of people not so different from us – those scars serve as a reminder that love comes at a great cost – those scars serve as a reminder that God is willing to suffer along with us, that, in a sense, God is scarred – just like us.
Because we are surely scarred, aren’t we?
We bear physical scars from accidents and surgeries.
Some women bear scars from the stretching required to carry new life into the world – another reminder that love always comes at a cost.
And, even if our physical bodies are somehow unmarked, our hearts have all been scarred - maybe by rejection and disappointment, maybe by cruelty and abuse, by betrayal and abandonment, by anxiety and fear, by loss and grief.
Maybe our hearts have been scarred by our own misdeeds and guilt.
Our hearts have certainly all been scarred by the events of the past year – the loss of people we love - a relentless pandemic, economic insecurity, political instability, devastating reminders of prejudice and hate – seeing and hearing poor George Floyd gasping for breath and calling for “Mama” – seeing those videos of Asian-American people verbally abused and even physically attacked - our hearts have been scarred by all of it.
So, maybe here in church – maybe - we can just turn the page from shadow to light, but not so much in a world that often seems so very stuck at Good Friday.
And yet, over and over, and often when we least expect it, the scarred Risen Christ enters the locked rooms of our lives – walks right into the locked rooms of our scarred hearts.
I know I talk about it all the time, but when I think of scars and new life, I can’t help but think about our community center at Triangle Park.
The scars remain on that long-neglected and violence-stained neighborhood, and yet, and yet, new life is taking root as more and more people find food and diapers and hygiene products, all sorts of help – and, most of all, a warm welcome - at our center.
Yes, the scars remain on that long-neglected neighborhood, but, as we speak, the old ugly paved-over park is quickly being transformed into a beautiful garden.
Yes, it’s looking a whole lot like Easter at Triangle Park.
And, here in our own church community, I keep hearing about how much people already love the small faith groups that are just a few weeks old.
In a time when we are still so separated from each other and perhaps feeling anxious about the future – thanks to Carol Harrison-Arnold and the facilitators – and thanks all of you who have taken a chance and are participating – the scarred Risen Christ has entered or lives in a new way, through mutual sharing and support, offering healing and comfort.
So, the Risen Christ shows us his scars – assuring us that God knows, really remembers, all that we endure.
And, while Jesus’ scars and our scars are surely reminders of pain, they are also reminders that God has given us the strength to survive that pain.
Jesus’ scars and our scars are reminders of both suffering and of healing.
Jesus’ scars and our scars are reminders that God is all about transforming death into new life.
That’s what our friend the Apostle Thomas learned a week after the first Easter when, with his own eyes, he saw the scarred Risen Christ.
For Thomas, it was finally Easter.
It is still Easter for us all.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
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