Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter
April 23, 2017
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, IA   52101
Rev. Marion Pruitt-Jefferson

First Reading: Acts 2:14A, 22-32; Psalm 16; Second Reading: 1 Peter 1:3-9; Gospel: John 20:19-31

Beloved of God,

Grace and peace to you from our risen Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today is the second Sunday of Easter, and I would guess that by now most of the goodies in the Easter basket have been eaten, the guests have gone home, the lilies are fading, and nobody is interested in eating any more leftover ham.

But in the church we are not done with Easter. We continue to sing and shout our Alleluias. We praise the Risen Christ in our hymns and in our liturgy. As Pr. Amy encouraged us last Sunday, we keep practicing resurrection. We claim that joy, even though we have considered all the facts.

The mood of the Gospel reading for today is a bit different than last Sunday. The great joy of Jesus resurrection has been told to the disciples, but instead of running into the streets to announce this good news, they are hiding behind locked doors.

They’ve locked themselves in a room, scripture tells us, because they are afraid of the Jews. That makes perfect sense since the authorities may very well have wanted to do away with them in the same way they did away with Jesus.

But I think that the disciples were suffering more than just fear. They were also suffering deep grief. The One to whom they had dedicated their lives – who had loved them so passionately and taught them so wisely, had suddenly been torn away from them. His death had completely knocked them off their feet. And mixed in with their grief, was the guilt and shame of having betrayed him. They had failed Jesus. They had denied him and abandoned him to die alone so that they could save their own skins. As darkness fell on that first Easter day, it was not only the doors to the house that are locked, their own hearts were locked as well.

In spite of those locked doors, and the guilt and shame of their failure, Jesus finds a way to reach them. Suddenly he is there in their midst. I imagine there was a brief moment of terror for the disciples – because one thing we know from all of the accounts of the Risen Jesus is that it’s really difficult to recognize him at first. He appears to be a gardener, a fisherman, a fellow traveler, maybe a ghost. But Jesus chooses to reveal his identity to them by showing them his wounds – his pierced hands and side.

Jesus does not come in power and might and flashes of glory, but in the vulnerability of his broken body. Jesus speaks gently to them and offers them Peace – Peace to melt the fear and shame and guilt that holds them bound. And according to John’s telling of the story, he breathes on them the Holy Spirit, and sends out in his name.

That’s what happens on Easter. The second half of the story takes place a week later – on the “second Sunday of Easter.”

What’s surprising to me here is that nothing seems to have happened during that intervening week. There are no scriptural reports of the disciples leaving that locked room to go out and announce the good news. They’ve seen Jesus, they’ve received the Spirit, they been given a commission, but they are still stuck. The doors to the house remain locked and their hearts remain closed. What that says to me is that the disciple’s realization of what Jesus’ resurrection means for them doesn’t take place in a single moment – but unfolds over time.

So Jesus comes to them again. He doesn’t scold them for their inaction, or reprimand them for their continued fear. His words to them are Peace. And while this time its Thomas’s turn to see the Risen Christ – make no mistake about it – they all need to see Jesus just as much as Thomas does. They all need to be moved out of hiding in the light of the new day. They all need to open the doors to their hearts, so that they can fully receive the love and peace and mercy that Jesus brings.

I am deeply touched by this story because it shows me how very human the disciples were – hiding behind locked doors, stuck in their grief and fear and failure. I know what it feels like to be in that place – living in a kind of physical, spiritual and emotional lock down. I would guess that many of you may know that experience as well.

Five years ago, my 16 years of service as pastor at First Lutheran came to an unexpected end. I was filled with grief at the loss of my faith community, and with guilt and shame in what felt like an irredeemable failure. I retreated into our house so completely that people actually thought I had moved. It felt like the end of ministry for me.

But it wasn’t. And that’s the other reason I love this story, because it reminds me so powerfully that even the most painful endings in our lives are always subject to the power of the resurrection. It proclaims to me that there is nothing that can stand in the way of God’s life-renewing love and mercy in Jesus Christ. Not locked doors, or fearful hearts, or crippling grief, or the guilt and shame of failure. Jesus just keeps showing up. He keeps coming to his disciples, in his brokenness and vulnerability, offering them his body, blessing them, filling them and sending them out.

That is the pattern of resurrection living – a pattern we participate in every week. We gather here in our own brokenness and vulnerabilities, bearing on our hearts the marks of grief and fear and failure. And Jesus comes to us, offering us his broken body. When we open our hearts and hold out our hands – we receive the perfect love that casts our fear….the peace which passes all understanding….the life which never dies – Jesus own body and blood broken and shed for you, for me, for all.

Amen.

Sermon For Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017 – “Practicing Resurrection”

The Resurrection of Our Lord, Easter Day
April 16, 2017
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus, the life of the world.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go to see the tomb. They go to see where their friend is buried, perhaps hoping to come to terms with the reality of it all. Their hope has been killed. Death and fear have prevailed.

At the tomb, more fearful things happen. There’s an earthquake as a terrifying angel rolls the stone of the tomb away. The angel is so frightening that the guards shake and collapse. Fear prevails.

But the angel gives the two women a message: Do not be afraid. Jesus is not here. He has been raised. Go and tell the disciples that he is going ahead of you.

After they receive this message, the women leave the tomb quickly with fear and great joy. The fear is still there but now it is accompanied by joy. Something new arises. They experience joy; they know new life within themselves. Resurrection happens, not only to Jesus, but to them. It happens not only for the one inside the tomb, but also for the women standing outside the tomb.

Which means – resurrection is not only what happens to Jesus, and to us, after we die. Resurrection is not only for those who have died an earthly death. It happens to us, now. It is for us, for the living.

Resurrection is for us who stand at the graves of those we love. It is for us who wonder if fear and death will prevail, for us who are not in the tomb and yet experience death in so many ways even as we live – deaths that come in the form of grief, betrayals, broken relationships, shattered dreams, violated trust, diminished capacities, loss of purpose, terror, despair about the state of the world.

Resurrection is for us who are experiencing death outside the tomb, like the women on that first Easter.

Resurrection happens to them through the message the angel has for them.

Today there is a resurrection message for all of us as well: Do not be afraid. Jesus is raised and goes ahead of you leading you into new life – a life marked, yes, by fear but also by great joy. Resurrection does not mean that pain and fear disappear. It means that hope and joy arise for you and within you, that new life emerges from you for the sake of the world. Resurrection means that even though they seem so strong, death and fear have not won, will not prevail. God cannot be stopped from breathing new life, from responding to death with resurrection.

Resurrection is for you. It is for you to experience, for you to live into, now. You can claim this resurrection for yourself as those women did long ago. You can walk into it, act on it, leave here still afraid but also full of great joy. You can share new life with others as the women did for the disciples. Resurrection happens to you, resurrection is for you.

But how do we experience resurrection? What does it mean to be a people who live into resurrection? People who claim this message for ourselves?

It means we look for resurrection like children scouring the house for Easter eggs. We look for life emerging, joy arising, for God breathing new life into all things. We practice rising up when life has knocked us flat.

We notice, name and nurture signs of the new life God brings. We point out when resurrection happens and practice living into it.

Resurrection happens when something breaks open our hearts and healing tears flow. We claim it when we listen to poet Wendell Berry and choose to, “be joyful though we have considered all the facts.”

We see resurrection as daffodils emerge through the soil, new buds appear on trees and the sun warms our grateful faces. We practice it when we raise our faces up, sun or no, to look around, to smile at one another. We undergo resurrection in baptism and when we remember what happens in those waters – we die to sin, we’re raised to new life and we’re called beloved of God. We live into resurrection when we choose to treat each person as beloved of God.

We experience resurrection when someone speaks gracious words of truth that open up new possibilities in our thinking. We claim resurrection for ourselves when we choose to listen, to soften, to seek understanding.

Resurrection happens when we hear words of forgiveness after every single confession – as we are set free from sin and raised to new life. We taste resurrection when we take the bread and the cup – signs of Jesus’ death – and put them in our bodies, making us into the body of Christ for the sake of God’s world. We practice it when we offer forgiveness and offer ourselves in love for God’s world.

We experience resurrection after we’ve lost patience with a child and the next morning begins with their unconditional love. We practice resurrection when we say “yes” to another attempt at a difficult relationship, when we bring a meal, plant a tree, or fold the laundry of someone experiencing death.

Where have you experienced resurrection recently? What has helped you to claim it for yourself, to practice it? What do you need to be able to live into resurrection? I’d love to hear. This community would love to hear. Together, we practice resurrection. Together we hear a message for us, we are fed, we are assured that Jesus goes before us into life for us and for the world.

Resurrection is not just about what happens when we die.

Resurrection is about how we, as the people of God, live.

Let’s live into resurrection together.

Amen.