When everyone is crazy–everyone is trying to make sense of everything. It’s noisy and confusing. God’s got an answer for that, right?
Finding peace during a pandemic
Easter 2A | Acts 2:14a,22-32, John 20:19-31
Christ is risen! Alleluia!
Easter is not just a day—it is a season full of days—fifty of them. And more than that, every Sunday is Easter. The first day of every week: Easter. Every week, a new opportunity to proclaim the risen Christ.
Of course, by the time we get to summer, we’ve lost track of all that.
And when we go to bury a friend, a loved one, a mother or father, we forget that those gatherings are Easter, too.
In the loneliness and separation of our present lives, Easter has come, proclaiming the true glory of the resurrection. And we might not be ready. We might even want to forget about all of that. We might want to see this as a pre-Easter time. A time of death. Trial. Punishment. We might hope to forget about the love of God. Of mercy and new life.
After the Resurrection
In this Easter season, we get the story of the Acts of the Apostles. It’s like a fifth gospel. Only instead of being about Jesus, it’s about Jesus’s students who carry on the ministry after him.
Acts is kind of like that extra sequel without the big franchise star, but all of the supporting cast is there. A story that could seem weird and totally not what we thought we were going to see.
But it is also way more than the rest of the story. Like the bland history of the also-rans. It is itself a new word of how God is being revealed in the world. And one of the big themes in the first half of the book is the disciples figuring out what to do with themselves after Jesus.
So today we’re getting this story of Peter talking to crowds of people in Jerusalem. People who not that long ago watched Jesus enter the holy city, put on a big, big show in the Temple and get thousands of people cheering for him.
Peter reminds them of that—not just the public, humiliating execution. Remember what he did back then.
Remember also that this was God’s doing.
“Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you”
Don’t just remember the story as if you didn’t have a place in this. Or that this was just some dude. God did wonders among you. Then you killed him. And even that isn’t the end of it. After all of that, God still raised him. This is what we’re here to talk about.
God is doing a new thing. With all of us.
A locked door
This, of course, was some 2000 years ago. Many, many lifetimes ago. Few of us can trace our genealogy back a quarter of that time. None of us can go that far back. These aren’t our blood ancestors, but they are our family anyway.
People who saw miracles, shared in confusing times, and found God in them.
Some of us may find greater kinship with the disciples in the gospel according to John. If for no other reason than their being locked in a room out of fear of running into other people. Sounds familiar, eh? Every time someone knocks at the door, we jump. Look at each other. Wonder: Should I answer it?
This brings a new kind of fear in Jesus walking through the door like it isn’t even there! Jesus shows up to people fearing the outside world and it bringing certain death. Even as they grieve him, would you blame them if they didn’t really want to see him?
Peace be with you
This story isn’t about Jesus literally walking through the door. Or the more exciting matter of Thomas needing to touch him to believe.
Jesus shows up, offering peace in the midst of fear.
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
He comes to them, locked in their apartment, scared to even open the door (because you never know what’s out there). And he offers peace. To send them.
Out. Into the world.
”Receive the Holy Spirit,”
he continues.
“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Jesus shows up in the middle of their grief to offer them the peace God has given him and to send them like he was sent. To offer peace. And forgiveness. To the whole world.
It would be easy to fixate on Thomas, then. To lack the forgiveness needed to honor his request amid his unbelief. [Though we really shouldn’t call it that. Doubt is a prerequisite to faith.] Jesus honors his request, after all. And gives Thomas the thing he wanted most. Not proof, of course. But what the other people had that he missed: peace.
Maybe we’re scared
There’s something to receive these stories now; amid our own fear and confusion. In this sense of dis-ease. How the thing we long for most is peace. To rid us of fear. Still our hearts. Offer us answers when all we have is “keep waiting”.
Both stories deal with trust. The disciples, Jesus, offering the truth about God’s forgiving grace and love. Inviting others to see it, too. To receive the Spirit.
Maybe we’re scared. Or confused. We doubt the truth our neighbors say. People we usually trust. Only our distrust has become chronic. Rampant distrust of doctors, scientists, journalists, and those systems developed to keep us safe.
Or maybe we’re like the crowds in Jerusalem, cringing at the accusation in the invitation. We don’t like hearing that we’re wrong, even with the promise of forgiveness. Refusing to trust that forgiveness comes with confession. Rather hoping we could just condemn the directly guilty and not the complicit.
Forgiveness is a dangerous thing.
Harboring fear is infinitely more so.
Jesus offers them freedom. Not just from the locked room. Not in that literal way we may be thinking. Freedom from the pain of fear and the longing of presence. Freedom from wrong expectations and complicit violence.
This is our Easter.
Our season of hope and forgiveness.
And we should take one more lesson from the gospel story. All the action happens in the Upper Room. Not in a Starbucks or at a synagogue or in the Temple. The transformation happens at home. Where they are.
This Easter season, we’re already there. We’re in the upper room. Doors locked. Waiting in fear.
And yet Jesus has already come. Offering us peace and forgiveness. For us to receive so that we can pass it on. To share in this freedom.
Jesus gives us his peace, because God gave him peace. And he said to forgive. It’s like these gifts of peace and forgiveness are a kind of superpower. That giving forgiveness to others strips our sin from us. Like we can offer up our sin transformed by grace. Transformed into mercy.
Right where we are: a divine magic show, transforming our pain into healing, fear into strength, sin into grace. A prison broken into freedom. Unbound and restored, like a bird regaining flight, the blind man his sight, or Lazarus his life. The sky, the wonders of the world, a family restored: the whole of creation and the light of the world is given to us like its all new.
Hope like we’ve never had hope.
Love like we’ve never had love.
Forgiveness like we’ve never been forgiven.
This is our Easter message, regardless of the time. What we really mean when we proclaim that Christ is risen.
We are free. And alive! Forgiven.