"Release, and Receive"

A sermon by The Rev. Keenan Kelsey
Noe Valley Ministry, Presbyterian Church (USA)
Sunday, April 3, 2005

John 20:19-31 19

¹⁹ When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ ²² When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ ²⁴ But Thomas (who was called the Twin*), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵ So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ ²⁶ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ ²⁸ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ ²⁹ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ ³⁰ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹ But these are written so that you may come to believe* that Jesus is the Messiah,* the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

My grandson came into my house yesterday and declared, ”Why are the bunnies still here Nana? Easter is over.” At 4 he is a little young for a theological explanation, so I simply said, “Well I am still celebrating Jesus being alive. I like Easter.”

I hope you aren’t making the mistake of thinking that Easter has passed and will not return again for another year. Easter is more than just one day. Between now and Pentecost we will be in the Easter season of the liturgical year. During this season, we will be looking at how the disciples responded to the life shattering event of resurrection: how they coped with their fears, how they sought to understand what their minds could not explain, how they gradually opened themselves to hope and belief. Easter took more than one day to become lived reality for them, as it does for us. Over the season of Easter, the joyous Easter resurrection increasingly became real to the early Christian community. Resurrection can become increasingly real in our daily lives as well.

But the realization, the acceptance comes gradually. Our second post-resurrection story begins huddled behind locked doors. An empty tomb! A risen Christ! No wonder the disciples are afraid and are trying to hide. Everything they thought they knew about the world, all their well-wrought beliefs, have been shattered. It is no easier to cope with resurrection reality today. While it might seem at first glance that news of hope and new life should fill us with joy, in reality, it is painful to hope such rumors could be true. Better to lock ourselves away as the disciples did and protect our hearts from the bitter pain of further disappointment.

But locked and barricaded doors are not enough to stop the Risen Lord then or now. Locking the doors on our lives and our hearts does not bar us from the presence of the Risen Lord. Jesus comes bringing Peace, bringing the wholeness of shalom through the locked doors of our lives. Jesus comes and breathes for us when, in our fear, we have ceased to breathe for ourselves. He breathes away our fear and breathes through us with a Holy breath. He tells us to go offer forgiveness in a world of doubt and fear and sends us on our way. Can we believe that?!

Some years before I was in seminary, Doubting Thomas became my soul mate. Jesus kept "appearing " to various friends and family within the rich stories of the Christian tradition. But like Thomas, I never seemed to be there when Jesus arrived.

Why? Because the absurdity of the resurrection rumor had sent me away. I could not see the mark on Jesus' hands or touch the wound in his side. So I moved down the street to the Unitarians. Their faith made sense, with its distant and daring God, its passionate witness for justice, its bold support for inclusive ministry. Yes, theirs was a doing faith, a touchable faith, an energetic faith. And I didn't have to sit around waiting for a dead God to reappear.

But then a strange thing happened. I found myself restless and filled with sadness. I missed Jesus – a Jesus I wasn’t even sure I knew! In the Gospel of John, the first appearance of the resurrected Jesus to the disciples is both intense and focused. The scene is set with realistic detail. It is the evening of the first day of the week, and the doors are locked. The anxious disciples are shut tightly inside. The suspicious world is shut tightly outside. The whole of creation is missing Jesus. Then, all of a sudden, he appears. Defying locked doors and locked hearts and locked vision, Jesus simply appears. A dead God is resurrected. A dead faith is re-created. A dead hope is born again.

I remember once seeing such locked-up hope. It was coffee hour at my home church. A friend from Presbyterian Women was fussing with the food table, hunched over and preoccupied despite the hubbub of voices swirling around her. It had been six months since her husband had died, and we had yet to touch base in an unhurried way. As I approached, I could see how the ragged edges of grief had ravaged her face. Yet she clutched at me eagerly. Looking around to see if anyone was nearby and she began to whisper. "I had a terrifying experience last week. You'll probably think I'm nuts, I but I have to tell someone. You know," she went on, "the nights are the worst. I hear noises in the house, and I can't get used to sleeping in bed alone. It must have been three o'clock in the morning and I was staring at the ceiling, willing myself back to sleep, when all of a sudden it happened. Bob came back. He came back and crawled into bed with me. He didn't say a word. He just appeared— After a while, he faded away. I know it was him. I smelled him, I touched him. I felt immediate peace and warmth and hope, and now I don't feel so alone." Then, glancing up in pink but eager embarrassment, she asked, "You don't think I'm crazy, do you?"

No. I don't think she was or is crazy. Instead, she is blessed with a God who just appears--in dreams, in visions, in people, in words, in institutions. The truth of Easter is that all of humanity is blessed with a God who defies the locks of logic and grief and prejudice and fear, a God who blesses us and then sends us, fresh and filled with hope, back into a hopeless world. This story is John’s Pentecost: Jesus appears, breathes, sends and commissions -- all in one burst of holy energy. God's warm and palpable presence startles and unsettles and stirs up the disciples. And they are never the same. There is almost a sense that God is of control, spilling over with an emphatic affirmation of life, filling the world with both urgency and joy. Over in Luke's version of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter captures the moment perfectly: He asserts, This is Jesus whom God raised up, "having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power" (Acts 2:24).

The Christian faith is the only world religion that takes as its logo an emphatic symbol of death. And yet the central affirmation of Christianity is hopeful life. Jesus just keeps appearing -- again and again -- to unlock the barriers between faith and doubt, between life and death, between past and future, between fear and joy. Jesus keeps appearing, a dependable reminder of our dependable God.

It is a Jesus kind of joy that fuels the faith of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and shaped the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in its efforts to heal post-apartheid South Africa. It is a Jesus kind of justice speaking truth in Jasper, Texas, resurrecting community out of the ashes of racial hatred, 6 years after James Byrd was knifed and dragged to death. It is a Jesus kind of faith keeping the hearts strong of the 3000 members who keep alive five Presbyterian churches in Iraq, or the growing number of Christian churches in Palestine, attempting to pour prophetic patience onto the troubled waters of the Middle East peace process. It is a Jesus kind of hope that fills Marshal Cousins with peace as he awaits the death of his sister. It is Jesus kind of peace that fills the faithful who mourn the death of Pope John Paul. Wherever it seems as if death has demolished life, Jesus just appears, and fresh hope abounds.

I still admire the Unitarians. But I cannot escape the mark of my baptism. I love that the absolutely understandable, even predictable, doubts and fears of the disciples finally propelled these struggling, suffering faithful out into the world, finally able to declare a Risen Christ. In his letter called First Peter, we find baptismal instruction for newly baptized Christians. A hymn which clearly indicates that baptism is a rebirth into the life of the risen Christ, committing us to share in his death by the trials we endure but to do so joyfully because of the promise of salvation. Jesus is indeed our "imperishable, undefiled and unfading" inheritance a living hope that keeps appearing in the locked corners of this defiled world.

Again and again Jesus comes to where we are, startling us and breathing on us and sending us to be embodied hope for others. Like Thomas, we can miss the moment if we are so intent on proving God or playing God or pushing God that we don't actually ponder the presence of God. We can gather in community, joined by our common fear and our common vulnerability. And we can stay stuck in our fears, locked behind the doors of our doubts. Or we can release them. Because it is only in releasing our resistance that we can receive the Holy Spirit, the Breath and the peace of our God. In John’s Gospel there is no record of a departure or ascension. John wished to emphasize that it is the same risen Christ who continues to live and work in his Church throughout all time. Jesus died, Jesus rose, Jesus lives as a people. As the resurrected body of Christ in the world we can experience God, and then become together what we can never be alone.

The Good News of the gospel is clear. When we least expect him, and when we most need him, Jesus just appears. May it be so.