St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
April 7, 2024
Year B: The Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 4:32-25
Psalm 133
1 John 1:1-2:2
John 20:19-31
Peace and Joy, with Wounds
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
I want to begin today with gratitude – deep gratitude for the many people who worked so hard to give us a richly meaningful Holy Week and an Easter Day that was just overflowing with joy.
I’m especially grateful to our Altar Guild and Flower Guild and to Wanda and the Choir and all of our worship leaders and to our dedicated and talented church staff – and to the many of you who walked the Way of the Cross and then squeezed into church last Sunday, even if that meant you were displaced from your usual seat!
All of us had one goal for last Sunday: joy.
We used our gifts to create joy in this place – the joy of hope, the joy of new life.
You won’t be surprised to learn that, for me, the most joyful Easter moment came during the 10:00 service when I had the great privilege of baptizing Charlotte Enoch and her baby daughter Rose.
Every baptism is joyful – we all agreed about that long ago – but there is something extra joyful when an adult stands up in front of a packed church and says, yes, I want to be part of this – yes, with God’s help, I aim to follow Jesus as faithfully as I can.
There is something supremely joyful when over 300 people – some who hadn’t been here for a while – some who had never been here – together renew the baptismal promises to love our neighbor as ourselves, to seek and serve Christ in every person.
I mean, come on, what could be better than that?
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
As we do every year, on Easter Morning we looked back at the first Easter Morning when Mary Magdalene discovered the empty tomb.
And, after a lot of confusion and running around, when Mary finally hears the voice of Jesus call her by name, she’s the first to know the best news of all time.
The God who is always full of life and love has replenished what was empty.
The God who is always full of life and love has turned despair into joy.
Eternal death has been defeated.
At the end of last Sunday’s gospel lesson, we heard that Mary Magdalene obeyed Jesus’ instruction and went to the others, telling them that she had seen the Lord.
We’re not told how the other disciples responded to this startling piece of news but we get a pretty good idea from the start of today’s gospel lesson, which picks up right where we left off last week.
It’s now the evening of the first Easter and the disciples have had hours to absorb, to reflect on, the news from Mary Magdalene.
Yet, it’s not a joyful or peaceful scene, is it?
Not at all.
The disciples are hiding out, as afraid, and probably as confused, as ever.
No doubt they’ve been traumatized by the events of the past couple of days, a trauma that isn’t magically erased by Mary Magdalene’s news.
The disciples are understandably worried that the authorities are coming for them next – that they’ll be the next to face wood and nails, humiliation and death.
And maybe the disciples are unsettled by the news of resurrection.
After all, most of them had abandoned Jesus in his time of suffering – and one, Peter, the so called Rock, denied even knowing him, denied him three times.
So maybe Jesus’ return doesn’t totally sound like good news to people with guilty consciences.
But then Jesus appears.
Somehow, a locked door is no obstacle for the Risen Lord.
And what are the first words he says to his traumatized and frightened and guilty friends?
“Peace be with you.”
And then Jesus shows them his wounds – this Risen Lord who overcomes locked doors is still the same Jesus who endured wood and nails, humiliation and death.
On the first Easter, there was peace and joy, with wounds.
Of course, not everybody was in the locked room with the Risen Jesus that night.
Thomas was elsewhere.
And I always wonder why he wasn’t with the others.
I always wonder where he was and what he was doing.
We know very little about Thomas but there’s a hint elsewhere that he was a courageous man. So maybe he was willing to take the risk of going out into the city and gathering provisions for the disciples.
Maybe.
But I always imagine him out in the wilderness somewhere, brokenhearted about what had happened to Jesus – angered and disgusted by how he and the others had behaved so cowardly – and maybe dreading what was yet to come.
And so when the others tell him that they had seen the Lord, his heart is just too hardened to believe – maybe it sounded like wishful thinking – maybe it seemed like a desperate and pathetic attempt to tack on “happily ever after” to tragedy and trauma.
If I see the wounds, if I touch his wounds, Thomas says, then I’ll believe.
But to Thomas’ credit, a week later he was there in the room with the others. He showed up. His hope wasn’t fully extinguished.
And, well, you know the rest.
Jesus shows his wounds and invites Thomas to touch them.
And an overjoyed Thomas says more than he probably understood, “My Lord and my God!”
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Peace and joy, with wounds.
In the midst of our overflowing Easter joy last week, I was mindful of the fact that some of our parishioners – many of us, maybe – are suffering.
Some are mourning loved ones who have died since last Easter.
Some are grieving broken relationships and lost work.
Some might be feeling guilty - guilty of things done or said, things not done or left unsaid.
Others are feeling fragile – worried about our own health or the wellbeing of people we love - and the shocking fall of the Key Bridge has reminded us that things – even seemingly solid and permanent things - can change in an instant.
And many of us are frightened of the future – our uncertain future in an angry and violent and depleted world.
Yet, despite our traumas – or maybe because of our traumas – we showed up, didn’t we?
We were here, with our wounds.
Like Thomas.
Like the Risen Christ.
Peace and joy, with wounds.
Now, if I had written the Easter story, Jesus’ wounds would have been miraculously erased.
After all, there were other ways that a woundless Jesus could have confirmed his identity to his friends.
But the wounds remain.
The wounds remain to remind us of all that Jesus endured for us.
The wounds remain to remind us that Jesus our brother suffered, just as all of us suffer.
The wounds remain to remind us that, through Jesus, God really knows what it’s like to suffer and die.
The wounds remain to remind us that suffering and death certainly do real damage but suffering and death do not get the last word.
And though, like the first disciples, we may be traumatized, frightened, and confused, all of us wounded people will keep gathering here – hoping and trusting that Jesus will keep showing up, bringing peace and joy – peace and joy, with wounds.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
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