Time with the children
The Paschal Candle—also known as the Christ Candle—is lit during the season of Easter. This year it is placed in front of the tomb to show us that the risen Jesus is with us here to bless us and bring us peace.
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear that one of the disciples, Thomas, had trouble believing the other disciples that they had seen Jesus alive after he had died. Even though Thomas trusted his friends, he still found it really hard to believe they had seen Jesus because it was something he didn’t see with his own eyes.
If I put a blindfold on what would I be able to see? nothing! That is what it is like for people not being able to see Jesus. We can’t see Jesus with normal eyesight. People who can see when they are born can’t see Jesus as the risen Saviour they need. So how do we believe in Jesus without seeing him? Jesus said “Blessed are those who have not seen yet believe.”
To be able to see Jesus, we need God to first bless us to give us spiritual eyes. A special time this happens in our life is in baptism. To show you how, I have a blindfold with me today. On one side there is nothing. On the other, there is a picture of the risen Jesus.
God the Father sends the Holy Spirit to us so that we are able to believe in Jesus. It is as though he takes off this blindfold. But he doesn’t just open our eyes—he fixes our eyes on Jesus. Like putting the blindfold back on so our eyes are fixed on the risen Christ.
When someone is baptised, a baptism candle is lit from the Paschal candle and given to them, to show that the risen Jesus has now come into their life and joined them with himself.
Usually the family is invited to light the baptism candle at home on the anniversary of their baptism. But could I encourage you all to look for your baptism candle at home, and light it all through the Easter season as well, to remind you the Holy Spirit has helped you see the risen Jesus who we cannot see with normal eyesight.
Prayer: Taking faith home bulletin insert
SERMON
Well, just in case you missed it, for this week the centre of the sporting universe is not Melbourne but Adelaide as all roads lead to South Australia for ‘Gather round’. The 18 AFL teams and their supporters arrived in town and the CBD was a hive of activity as workers frantically prepared infrastructure, venues and entertainment for a weekend of celebrating! The eyes of the nation descended upon us here, and there is anticipation, excitement and enthusiasm about what this means for our tourism industry.
There is a similar context to today’s Gospel Reading—the events of the first Holy week. Crowds of people had gathered round in Jerusalem. There was a hive of activity as people made preparations to celebrate the Passover. There was excitement and enthusiasm, especially as people lined the streets to welcome Jesus with the shouts of ‘Hosanna’! waving palm branches like cheer squad flags as they pinned their hopes on Jesus being the next big thing for Israel.
But Jesus ended up being crucified, was dead and buried. Then when Mary had gone to the tomb early on Sunday morning, it seemed that the body of Jesus had gone missing. Mary saw that the stone had been removed, and thought that someone had taken the body of Jesus away. She ran to Simon Peter and John, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” Peter and John raced to the tomb, and when John reached the tomb, he went inside, and saw, and believed. We are told that even at that stage the disciples still didn’t understand from Scripture that Jesus would rise from the dead. Then Peter and John went back to where they were staying, to leave Mary standing by the tomb. While she is weeping, a man asks her why she is crying. Mary thinks it is the gardener, but when he addresses her by name, she knows it is the risen Christ speaking with her! He tells her: “Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” So Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” and told them about the things Jesus had said to her.
Now it is evening on the first day of the week, and dark again. Luke’s account tells us that the disciples even thought what Mary said to them to be nonsense. And so the disciples who had scattered when the Shepherd was struck have gathered together again…but not in excitement, anticipation, enthusiasm, and celebration. They have simply bunkered down in fear of meeting the same end as Jesus. Ironically, the tomb where Jesus was laid is empty, but now it is the disciples who are entombed—locked in a room of darkness, grief, disappointment, and fear.
Suddenly, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side—he is not a ghost, a vision, or their minds playing tricks on them. They are not seeing things. They see Jesus—the risen Jesus, in bone and flesh, standing before them. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Now there is something for them to be excited about, as they gathered around him!
“Peace be with you! How appropriate that Jesus should utter these words as the first thing he says to his disciples. They are needing peace, in the midst of all the grief, confusion and emotional upheaval of the past few days. On top of that, they were fearful of the Jewish religious authorities who would persecute anyone whose allegiance was to Jesus. They were anxious about their lives.
And then there is the fact that the disciples had not trusted in what Jesus had taught them, abandoned him, and denied him. They had even denied him again that morning when Mary came to them. They continued in disbelief. So this greeting of peace is needed—but completely unexpected. It is unexpected because it is not consistent with what the disciples deserved.
Yet Jesus says twice: “Peace be with you.” By saying this, he gives them peace. What Jesus says does what it says. His word of peace stills their fearful and anxious hearts. He gives them peace by greeting them with peace.
“Peace be with you.” Jesus greets them with these words twice so that there is no mistaking his intention towards them of divine grace. Did you notice the sequence? He gives his greetings of peace to his disciples either side of showing them his wounds, for it is his by his shed blood, his slain body, that peace from God is theirs. The wrath of God was not on them but on Jesus, that they might have peace from God.
Then Jesus says to them: As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Now they are sent ones; apostles—commissioned by Jesus, anointed with the Holy Spirit: he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
His sending of them is on the basis of his peace and reception of the Holy Spirit. They are not to worry. He will guide them to where they need to be. If he can walk through walls he can be trusted to open up the right doors for them! They go in the Spirit’s power, not their own. They are not to go off by their own authority, but under Jesus, the great Shepherd of his sheep; the Great Pastor of his church, by unlocking the doors of heaven to sinners by forgiving them their sins. Again, it is simply by a word, not by any human strategy or resource, for as the apostles speak the risen Christ speaks, and does, bringing forgiveness to those who repent, and leaving the sins of those who refuse to repent unforgiven.
This text is such wonderful passage. It is such good news, and it is so good that through John, God preserved it for his church in today’s world—a world that is just as fierce towards Jesus and his followers as it was back then. A world that is just as opposed to God’s word as Adam and Eve in the Garden, and the crowd who shouted ‘Crucify him!’ A world in which governments and religious zealots persecute Christians even to the point of death.
Let’s not risk trivialising the situation. It wasn’t wrong for the disciples to gather together, bunkered down with the doors locked in that vulnerable situation. I would have sought refuge and locked the doors too!
But they trusted in those locked doors. They trusted in bolts and bars while the report from the women that they had seen Jesus seemed nonsensical to them. They trusted in what they had with them, all the while living as though Jesus were far away—far away in a tomb, dead and buried…and that was all. They knew about Jesus, and what he had done…but they weren’t living as though Jesus is alive; Lord and God who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, present with grace and help for his church.
Let us not live the same way! Faith is more than believing Jesus existed. Faith is more than making a creedal confession in what Jesus once did. Creeds are for the present life of faith, and faith is more than living by Jesus’ example. Easter faith doesn’t only know about Jesus—Easter faith knows Jesus. Easter faith is the faith that knows Jesus who talks with us and we with him. Easter faith follows the unseen Jesus as if we could see him. It is to follow him by listening to him. We walk by faith, not by sight–not just believing there is life in heaven for us at the end of our life, or when Jesus comes again—which ever comes first. It is to believe in Jesus’ leading each day of this life, receiving peace from him, as he goes before us out of the locked room into the world.
The church has never been as vulnerable as it was back then. Let us not trust in ourselves; what bolts and locks and doors we can fasten down, all the while with our backs to the risen Lord who is with us. That is to trust in ourselves, and to trust in ourselves will always lead to fear, because the world is greater than us.
But let us gather round Jesus, for he has overcome the world. John tells us that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in his Gospel. But these are written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, so that believing you may have life in his name.
Jesus continues to work in the presence of his disciples today. The Kingdom of God is at work in the world. The Kingdom of God is at work here, working forgiveness, grace, and faith; growing us to be more like Jesus. We are testimony to that. The fact that you and I are here, the fact that someone like me could even be a pastor is testimony to that. Behind the backdrop of all we think the situation of life in the world and church to be, despite all we think we know and fail to know, despite our meagre human resources in the face of hostility and uncertainty, God is at work through the person of the slain, risen Christ in our midst, to bring repentance and the forgiveness of sins and peace to undeserving people…just like us.
Blessed are you who have not seen, but believe. The unseen Lord of his church—Jesus, our Lord and our God—stands before you again today and says: “Peace be with you.” Then he shows you his hands and side, and we touch, and see, when we gather round and receive from him his precious body and blood at his holy table.
As we gather round him may he take away our fear and replace it with peace from heaven. For a locked door cannot prevent Jesus from being with you. A sealed tomb cannot. Death cannot. Sin cannot. Time and space cannot. Jesus is with you and promises to be with all his baptised people to the very end of the age. Blessed are you who have not seen yet believe. Peace be with you! Amen!
