Easter 2

Readings: Acts 5:12-16; Rev 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19; John 20:19-31

Resurrection, if it means anything at all,
means Jesus being raised from his tomb:
not a metaphor, not a symbol, 
not even a timeless truth concerning 
the power of life over death,
but the returning to life of Jesus of Nazareth.
Resurrection, if it means anything at all,
means the eruption of life 
through the hard crust of death
at a particular place and time,
a startling new fact in our world.
Resurrection, if it means anything at all,
involves a body that still bears the wounds
inflicted in a moment of time on the Son of God,
wounds that could be seen and touched
even in his glorified body,
wounds that he shows to us and says,
“do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Resurrection, if it means anything at all, 
means what happened to Jesus.
But that is not all it means.
Resurrection means what happened to Jesus
but it also means what happens to us.
Resurrection is the new life of Jesus 
erupting into our lives,
erupting into our world,
remaking everything we think we know
about life and death 
and how to navigate the world.

And this is why resurrection scares us.
When the seer John, 
living in exile on the Island of Patmos,
beheld the risen Jesus
he fell at his feet “as though dead.”
When Thomas heard of Jesus’ resurrection
he refused to believe without evidence,
not because he had a skeptical cast of mind,
but because he knew that if Jesus were risen
then everything was changed,
and he was not so sure that he wanted
to live in a world where the dead do not stay dead.
He was not so much doubting Thomas 
as he was fearful Thomas:
fearful of what it would mean for life
if the certainty of death’s victory 
were overturned.

We may fear death, 
but this is a fear that has been with us so long
that we have learned how to manage it,
how to cope with death’s finality.
Death sets a limit to our lives
and a limit to our loves,
and so we measure out our attachments,
we ration our compassion,
we hold our mercy in reserve,
doling it out only to the deserving.

But resurrection is beyond 
our capacity to manage,
for it opens to us 
the dizzying abyss of God’s love,
a love that gives us everything
and asks everything in return,
a love that sweeps us up in a torrent
flowing from wellsprings of mercy 
that we could not imagine.
Resurrection calls us to love as Jesus loved,
and, well, we know how he ended up:
hung upon a cross.
Yet resurrection says that the way of Jesus,
the way that passes through the cross,
is the only true way to life.

What does resurrection look like?
If it looks like anything it looks like Jesus,
whose wounded body now pulses with life eternal.
But the light shed by the glory of Christ’s resurrection
also illuminates resurrection all around us.

It looks like Yolanda Tinajero,
whose brother was one of twenty-three people
killed five years ago at a Walmart in El Paso
by a self-proclaimed white nationalist.
This past Tuesday, at the victim impact statements
that are a part of the sentencing process,
she asked if she could approach 
the convicted killer to embrace him, 
“so you could feel my forgiveness, especially my loss.”
The judge, to everyone’s surprise, allowed this,
and as she held her brother’s killer he began,
for the first time in the proceedings, 
to weep tears of remorse.
Mercy was offered not because the killer deserved it,
but because she needed to give it.
She showed him her wounds and said,
“do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
That is what resurrection looks like.

It looks like the six couples
who spent this weekend with Deacon Andrew and me 
preparing for the sacrament of matrimony,
preparing—in a world in which relationships 
seem ever more transactional and disposable—
to offer themselves to each other 
freely and without reservation,
in fruitful and permanent love,
to open themselves to the abyss of God’s love
by opening themselves to each other,
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
showing each other their wounds and saying,
“do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
That is what resurrection looks like.

It looks like Pope Francis,
his bodily strength exhausted,
going out one last time 
to impart a blessing to the city and the world,
to share with us the glad tidings of Easter. 
Too weak himself to speak, 
his message was read out:
“The resurrection of Jesus is indeed 
the basis of our hope. 
For in the light of this event, 
hope is no longer an illusion. 
Thanks to Christ— 
crucified and risen from the dead— 
hope does not disappoint! 
Spes non confundit! (cf. Rom 5:5). 
That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; 
it does not delude, but empowers us.”
In his final hours 
Francis showed to us his wounds, and said,
“do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
That is what resurrection looks like.

The light of the risen Christ reveals
resurrection all around us.
The voice of the risen Christ commands us:
“Do not be afraid.
I am the first and the last, the one who lives.
Once I was dead, 

but now I am alive forever and ever.
I hold the keys to death 

and the netherworld.”
The love of the risen Christ 
raises us with him from the tomb
so that we may love as he loves,
without counting the cost,
without measuring mercy,
without fearing to fall,
for his mercy will bear us up. 
So let our lives be 
what resurrection looks like,
and let us pray that God, 
who is merciful,
will have mercy on us all.

Easter 2

Readings: Acts 5:12-16; Rev 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19; John 20:19-31

Video

When Jesus rises from the dead
he does not rise 
in a body smooth and whole,
but a body wounded, 
a body dehumanized by torture, 
a body that bears the marks of human hatred.
The resurrection, of course, restores that body to life—
indeed, it transforms and glorifies that body,
giving it a life that shares in God’s own eternity—
but it does not erase the marks of outrage.
It does not erase the wounds inflicted
by the religious leaders who rejected him,
by the crowd that cried “crucify him, crucify him,”
by Pontius Pilate whose cowardice condemned him,
by the Roman soldiers who drove the nails into his flesh,
by the disciples who abandoned him and fled in fear.

The resurrection does not erase those marks of betrayal
because it is only by his wounds that we know
that it is truly Jesus who appears before us.
It is by his wounds that we know
that the one who once was dead
is now the one who lives,
that he who was crucified in time
is alive forever, 
the first and the last.

The wounds, however, do not simply attest 
to the fact of the resurrection;
rather they show us 
what the resurrection means for us.
They show that the resurrection is not simply
a miracle that God works 
in order to rescue Jesus from death,
but is the great saving act of God
by which we are rescued;
the wounds show us that the resurrection
is not just good news for Jesus
but for us as well—
we who are flawed and frail,
sinful and sorrowful,
mortal and mournful.

In the resurrection, 
Jesus does not “put the past behind him”
but rather offers up that past 
at the altar of God’s eternal temple.
Jesus does not abandon the sad story of the passion,
but brings with him into risen glory
all that he suffered in his mortal life,
which he live for us and for our salvation:
the wounds not erased, but redeemed;
the betrayals not forgotten, but forgiven;
the malice not ignored, but met with mercy.
The risen Jesus retains his wounds 
for they are the sign of his great love for us:
“No one has greater love than this, 
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

And in doing this,
Jesus sets the pattern for our own risen life.
It is a longstanding Christian belief
that even in God’s kingdom 
the martyrs will retain 
the marks of their martyrdom,
by which they bore witness to Jesus Christ.
St. Augustine writes,
“this will not be a deformity, 
but a badge of honor, 
and the beauty of their virtue—
a beauty which is in the body, 
but not of the body— 
will shine forth in it” (Civ. Dei 22.19). 
The wounds of the martyrs are not erased
but glorified and transformed,
for their scars bear witness to their love.

And so too for all of us:
everything we have suffered 
for the sake of love—
whether physically or spiritually—
will be taken up in glory,
healed but not erased.
Because it is the things we have suffered for love 
that have made us who we are.
The struggles of marriage and parenthood,
the rejections we endure for our commitment to truth,
the sacrifices we make to aid those who have less,
the betrayals and malice that we forgive,
the illnesses we endure trusting in God’s goodness—
all of these, embraced out of love of God,
become the glorious wounds of our witness,
the beauty of the virtue that God pours into us
over the course of a lifetime lived in faith.
The scars borne by our bodies and souls
are the letters with which 
the stories of our lives have been written,
and those stories are not forgotten in eternity
but are remembered and raised up and transformed 
in ways that we can only begin to imagine.

The good news of Easter is not 
that past suffering is simply left behind.
The body that is tortured on the cross
is the same body that emerges from the tomb
still bearing the marks of torment.
We remember in every Eucharist
the suffering Christ endured for love of us
even as we receive the living Christ in communion.
We ourselves, who have been raised with Christ in baptism,
daily experience the pain to which love leaves us vulnerable.
But Easter places the story of our suffering
within the larger story of Jesus’ triumph over death
and the mercy that he shows to all who suffer,
and in doing so the scars we bear 
are transformed, not erased.
It is this hope of transformation that sustains us
even as the story of our lives continue to be written:
sometimes in sorrow,
sometimes in joy,
but at all times enclosed 
in the merciful love
of Jesus Christ, 
wounded and risen.

 

Easter 2

Readings: Acts 5:12-16; Revelation 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19; John 20:19-31

Here we are a week after Easter
and our Scriptures today paint for us
a picture of the post-Easter world.
What do we see?
In the Gospel of John we see
the risen Jesus walking through a locked door,
breathing on the apostles,
and thereby giving them the power
to bind and loose people’s sins.
In the Book of Acts we see
those same apostles beginning to enjoy
such a reputation for “signs and wonders”
that people are dragging the sick out onto the streets
so that Peter’s shadow can fall upon them
and heal them as he passes by.
In the Revelation of John we see the author,
living in exile on an island,
having a vision of the risen Jesus
as a robed divine figure
surrounded by seven golden lamps
and proclaiming that though he was dead
now he lives forever.
Today we also celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday,
a new feast, inaugurated by the Church in the year 2000,
prompted by a vision had in 1931
by a young Polish nun, Faustina Kowalska,
in which Jesus appeared robed in white
with red beams emanating from his heart,
telling her that on this day especially
the depths of his tender mercy are open
to all who would receive it.

In other words,
the post-Easter world is a pretty weird place.
It is as if the resurrection of Jesus from the dead
has seriously unhinged things
and caused people to act in all sorts of strange ways
and experience all sorts of strange things.
Who can blame doubting Thomas
for trying to inject a little sanity into the situation
by asking for some concrete evidence of this resurrection?

But isn’t the point of Easter
that the world has become unhinged by the resurrection.
Or it might be more accurate to say
that the raising of Jesus from the dead
has put the world back on its hinges;
that this is the way things are meant to be,
but many of us don’t realize it.
Karl Marx once responded to his critics
who said that he had taken the philosophy of Hegel
and turned it on its head
by saying that, on the contrary,
he came along and found Hegel standing on his head
and turned him right side up again.
Likewise, we might say that Jesus
found a world standing on its head
and put it back on its feet;
the resurrection of Jesus has restored the world
to how God intended it to be:
a world of life rather than a world of death,
a world of mercy rather than a world of condemnation,
a world in which God once more has drawn near.

In trying to appreciate the way in which
Easter radically transforms things,
some people can get hung up
on the extraordinary and miraculous things,
the “signs and wonders,” that we are presented with today.
Some might think that they are the main point,
while others might think that in their weirdness
they make the message of Easter
somewhat unbelievable.
In both cases we should remind ourselves
that the extraordinary and the miraculous
are not God’s primary way of working in the world,
but rather God’s way of getting our attention.
John’s Gospel and the Book of Acts
both speak of miracles as “signs”—
events that make visible
the normally hidden power of God
that is always at work in the world.
Most of us, in fact, believe without direct experience
of extraordinary signs and wonders.
And as Jesus says to Thomas in our Gospel,
“Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

And yet, even if most of us don’t have Jesus appear to us
as he did to the apostles in the upper room
or John in exile on Patmos,
or Sister Faustina in her convent in Poland,
we no less than they live in that strange post-Easter world.
We no less than they live in the world
that Jesus found standing on its head
and set back on its feet.
Indeed, we no less than they are called to live out our faith
in the extraordinary and miraculous good news of Easter.

Think of what Jesus says to John
when he appears to him on Patmos:
“Do not be afraid….
I hold the keys to death and the netherworld.”
What should our lives look like
if we really believe this is true?
What should our lives look like
if we really believe that we do not need to be afraid?
What should our lives look like
if we really believe that death
is not the worst thing that can happen to us?
What should our lives look like
if we really believe that there is nothing
from which the power of the risen Christ cannot save,
no loss that he cannot redeem,
no sin he cannot heal,
no shame that he cannot turn into glory?
What should our lives look like
if we truly know the truth of Easter,
the truth that the crucified Christ is alive forever
and holds in his hands—
the hands that were pierced by human sin—
the keys to death and the netherworld?

The writer Flannery O’Connor is reputed to have said,
“you will know the truth
and the truth shall make you odd.”
The promise of Easter
is that you too can look pretty weird
if you live our faith in the risen Jesus
in a world that keeps trying to turn itself back onto its head.
This is the world that wonders why you spend so little time
trying to protect yourself
from the loss of your reputation or your security.
This is the world that wonders why you do not treat refugees
as threats to be managed
rather than brothers and sisters to be welcomed.
This is the world that wonders why you forgive—
not just once, or seven times,
but seventy-times-seven times.
This is the world that might wonder
why you willingly lay down your life
in service, in sacrifice,
and perhaps even in death.

The grace of Easter faith can transform us
so that we become the signs and wonders,
the extraordinary and miraculous occurrences,
that bear witness in the world
to the resurrection of Jesus, the one who lives,
to the the message of divine mercy and forgiveness,
to the weird world of Easter
and the truth that makes us odd.

Easter 2

Readings: Acts 5:12-16; Revelation 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19; John 20:19-31

We call him “doubting Thomas.”

Our English word “doubt” is from the Latin word dubio,

which itself is a combination of two Latin words:

duo, meaning two,

and habeo, meaning “I have.”
When I am in doubt, I have two possibilities before me,

between which I cannot yet decide

as I consider first one and then the other.

You find a similar thing in other languages;

for example, in German the word for doubt is zweifel:

literally, the state of being “two-ful.”

Try to imagine the state of mind of this “two-ful Thomas.”

He has heard the story of Mary Magdalene and Peter and John,

who claimed that they found the tomb of Jesus empty.

Then the other disciples tell Thomas

that they have seen and spoke with the risen Lord.

How could such a thing be?

How could two-ful Thomas not 

consider alternative explanations?

Is the tomb really empty – 

or is it a hoax?

Have the others really seen Jesus alive – 

or were they hallucinating?

On the one had, perhaps the tomb was empty, as they said.

On the other hand, perhaps the tomb was not empty;

perhaps the stone was not rolled away.

But if so, why would Mary and Peter and John 

have said that it was?

What would they have to gain from making up this story?

There is no obvious benefit to be had from such a lie.

Indeed, for them to claim that Jesus still lived

would be to put themselves at considerable risk

from those who had crucified him in the first place.

So two-ful Thomas continues to ponder:  

maybe the tomb was empty.

Does this mean that he was in fact raised,

or is it possible that someone stole the body?

But why would someone do that?

A supporter of Jesus would not have much to gain from doing so;

it would be safer simply to head back to Galilee

and try to forget about the hope that seemed to have failed.

An opponent of Jesus would have even less reason to do so,

since they too were anxious to put this whole Jesus thing to rest.

And what about the claim of the other disciples

that Jesus had appeared to them in the upper room?

Did he really appear to them alive,

or was this some sort of dream or hallucination?

How could someone escape the grip of death,

which seems so firm and unbreakable?

At the same time, is it really possible

that ten people would have collectively hallucinated

Jesus’ appearing before them and speaking to them?

So two-ful Thomas considers the alternatives.

Which is more convincing: 

that Jesus has been raised from death

or that there is some sort of hoax or hallucination involved?

Thomas has reason to doubt that Jesus still lives,

but he also doubt his doubts,

because the possibilities they present 

seem implausible as well.

Our Gospel tells us that Thomas only resolves his doubts

when he encounters the risen Jesus himself,

who invites him to touch his wounds 

and to see that it is really he.

Two-ful Thomas, having doubted so long,

lets the risen Jesus open in his heart 

the floodgates of faith,

and makes one of the boldest professions of faith

in the entire New Testament,

saying to the risen Jesus, “My Lord and my God.”

He not only believes that the man Jesus has risen,

but that this man is God in human flesh,

the one who holds the keys to death and the netherworld.

Gregory the Great once said in a sermon,

“Mary Magdalene, who was quick to believe,

has helped me less than Thomas,

who remained so long in doubt” (Homily 29).

Perhaps only one who had doubted so long 

could believe so deeply.

Two-ful Thomas stands as witness to the idea

that doubts are not thoughts to be repressed,

but rather questions to be worked through;

faith is not a matter of ignoring our doubts,

but of committing ourselves in trust

to a possibility that we have deeply considered;

through God’s grace, our doubts become

ways of preparing our hearts for an even deeper faith.

Two-ful Thomas becomes single-minded in his faith

when he encounters the risen Jesus.

Overcoming doubt is not so much 

like finding an answer to a problem

as it is like meeting someone with whom you fall in love,

someone for whom you will forsake all others,

someone who becomes your first and your last.

Let us pray that this Easter season will become a time

for us to meet Jesus anew,

to make him our first and our last,

to fall in love with him

and the new life that he so freely shares with us.