Easter 3 (Seventh Sunday in Corona Time)

Readings: Acts 2:14, 22-33; 1 Peter 1:17-21; Luke 24:13-35

I am not sure whether it is really right
to have a “favorite” resurrection story,
but if such things are allowed
then I’m pretty sure
that the story of Emmaus is mine.
In part it is because of how
the experience of the two unnamed disciples
connects so closely with our own:
they come to recognize the risen one
in the breaking of the bread.
For them, as for us,
it is the moment of sacramental encounter
in which the hidden presence of Jesus
is made manifest to the eyes of faith
through his gift of himself to us.

Of course, for many of us it has been weeks
since we have been able to receive that gift sacramentally.
And while we believe that this does not deprive us
of the presence of the risen Christ,
it has for many been difficult
to live without the bread of life.
If nothing else, we have come to feel more deeply
how important that sacramental gift is to us,
how crucial it is to our living with the risen Christ.
And even though we know that one day
we will sit once again at the Lord’s table,
we don’t know when that day will be.

Of course, this is just one of the many things
that we do not know these days.
We don’t know when a vaccine will be developed,
or if we’ll find toilet paper at the store,
or how long we will be working from home
or out of work entirely,
or when we or our kids will return to school
or whether plans we have made for next fall
will have to be scrapped.
But though the current pandemic
might make the uncertainty of our lives
more undeniable,
that uncertainty is a part of every life,
every day, pandemic or not.
It is maybe only in retrospect
that we have any idea at all
of what is really going on around us,
and even then we understand our own lives
only partially, in the dark mirror of memory.

And this is the other part of the Emmaus story
that I can identify with.
The two disciples fleeing Jerusalem,
who meet the risen Jesus on the road,
know that momentous events are occurring around them
but they really have no idea of what those events mean,
how they fit into a larger picture,
what they stem from or where they will lead,
which rumors should be believed
and which should be dismissed.
And, of course, the main thing
that they do not understand
is that the stranger who walks beside them
is the central figure in these events,
and the key to unlocking their mysterious significance:
the living one who has conquered death and the grave.
So they are like us in this regard as well:
they are clueless.
Like us, they have no idea
what their past means
or what the future holds.
Like us, they are caught up in events
too momentous for them to grasp,
and too overwhelming for them to ignore.
They, like us, can make their own
St. Augustine’s confession of perplexity:
“I am scattered in times
whose order I do not understand.
The storms of incoherent events
tear to pieces my thoughts,
the inmost entrails of my soul” (Confessions bk. 11).

So they flee, trying to leave behind
all the fear and confusion and grief of Jerusalem,
the fear and confusion and grief of Jesus’ cross,
the fear and confusion and grief of rumored resurrection.
And we flee as well.
Perhaps not physically,
but all of us to some degree
try to flee the messiness and danger of reality,
seeking refuge in fantasy or ignorance,
seeking a safe and easily graspable vision of life
offered by the various ideologies of the world.
But even as we flee, he comes to walk beside us,
unrecognized,
and yet causing our hearts
to burn within us.
He meets us in our fear
to light in us the fire of his truth,
a truth we can grasp only partially,
a truth we cannot ignore.
He comes to show us how his word
can help us find the pattern of love
amidst the seeming chaos of events.
He comes to turn us back
from denial and ignorance and simplistic ideologies,
sending us back to Jerusalem,
that place of fear and confusion and grief.
But he sends us back now filled with his fire
to shed light in darkness
and kindle hope in those grown hopeless.
He sends us back fortified with the bread of life,
our eyes opened to his presence with us,
even in the place of fear and confusion,
especially in the place of fear and confusion:
the place of the cross,
but also the place of the empty, defeated grave.

The story of Emmaus is the story
of hope reborn in the midst of chaos and confusion,
of doubt and disappointment.
The story of Emmaus is our story,
for we too have broken bread with the risen one
and felt our hearts burn within us.
May Christ hasten the day of our deliverance
and may God have mercy on us all.

Easter 2 (Sixth Sunday in Corona Time)

Readings: Acts 2:42-47; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

I am by nature a skeptical person,
so I’ve always felt a certain sympathy
for Thomas the doubter.
I generally think that if something
sounds too good to be true
then it probably is,
and certainly the news that Jesus
has been raised up by God from death,
trampling down death by death,
sounds too good to be true.

These past few weeks have provided
ample opportunity to be skeptical,
since the news we receive,
whether good or bad,
seems to be constantly shifting:
just wash your hands and don’t touch your face
and you will be fine;
stay at home, see no one, shelter in place;
masks are useless, don’t bother;
masks are a way to “flatten the curve,”
wear them whenever you go out;
the virus is only dangerous for the elderly;
the virus has killed many young people,
no one is safe;
we should be ready to “open up” in a few weeks;
we should be ready to endure this for many months.

Sometimes conflicting information is spread
because of malice or self-interest or wishful thinking,
but often it is simply the case
that we are dealing with something new
and our best, most-informed guesses
just turn out to be wrong.
And so, in the absence of knowledge, we doubt.
A general skepticism might seem like the wisest course,
and while I think that those
who are publicly violating stay-at-home orders
are mistaken, and dangerously so,
I can understand why they might be skeptical:
we have more time and means than ever
to consume what passes for news
but the messages we receive
are confusing and conflicting;
people we think we should trust
are telling us different and often opposing things.

Thomas is at least receiving a consistent message:
“We have seen the Lord.”
But perhaps he has heard alternative explanations—
that someone stole the body—
and doesn’t know which report to trust.
Perhaps, because he knows how much he himself
would like to believe that Jesus is alive,
he suspects that his friends have suffered
a collective hallucination brought on by grief,
and though they are sincere,
they are mistaken, and dangerously so;
they should remain behind locked doors,
sheltering in place,
safe from those who had killed their master.
Thomas’s response is one that speaks to the heart
of a skeptic like me:
“Unless I see…I will not believe.”
And not just see,
but “put my finger into the nailmarks
and put my hand into his side.”

When Jesus appears again, a week later,
he greets his followers with the words
“Peace be with you”
and he invites Thomas to believe:
“Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
But Thomas now doesn’t need to touch;
he immediately utters
one of the boldest confessions of faith
in the entire New Testament:
“My Lord and my God!”

What convinces him?
Is it simply seeing the risen form of Jesus?
I don’t think so.
We have in the Gospels numerous stories of people—
Mary Magdalene, the disciples going to Emmaus—
who see Jesus without recognizing him as the risen one.
Perhaps what convinces Thomas
that the one who stands before him
is not imposter or illusion
but truly Jesus risen from death
is the fact that on this night
Jesus has appeared just for him,
to lift from him the burden of doubt,
to open his eyes so that he can embrace
news too good to be true.
Jesus could have simply left Thomas in his doubts.
He could have left Thomas to struggle
with the dubious testimony of the other disciples.
But he makes a special encore appearance in the upper room
just for the sake of Thomas the skeptic.
It’s just such a typically Jesus-like thing to do.
It’s just what the good-but-impractical shepherd
who abandons the ninety-nine sheep
in search of the one who is lost
would do.
It’s just what the holy man
who squandered his reputation
by healing the suffering on the Sabbath
and eating with tax collectors and sinners
and speaking with the Samaritan woman
would do.
It’s just what the one
who loved his own in the world
and who loved them to the end
would do.
Thomas knows that it is truly Jesus
because Jesus has come back just for him,
so that he might have faith,
so that he might believe,
so that he might confess,
“my Lord and my God.”

The Gospel writer tells us
that he has written this story
so that we might believe in Jesus
and have life in his name.
He tells us this story
so that Christ might walk
through the locked door of our doubts
and we might believe
that Jesus is our Lord and God,
the risen one who comes back just for us,
who never abandons the lost sheep,
who finds us while we are yet doubting,
who loves us to the end.

We are living through an extraordinarily confusing time,
and we are struggling to know who and what to believe.
We must try to exercise prudence and wisdom
in discerning the truth during this time of crisis and fear.
But this is something each one of us can and should believe:
Jesus has died and been raised for me,
the powers of death have been put to death for me,
Jesus has return searching for me.
Let us cling to this faith in the midst of doubt and confusion
and may God have mercy on us all.

Easter (Fifth Sunday in Corona Time)

Readings: Acts 10:34a, 37-43; 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8; John 20:1-9

Yesterday brought the sobering news
that the United States had surpassed
every other nation in the world
in the number of deaths
from Covid-19.
Even taking into account
the large size of our population,
the number of deaths
in hotspots like New York has been staggering.
And for someone who has lost a loved one
it doesn’t really matter much
what the per capita death rates are;
it is that one death that devastates.
But even as we continue
the seemingly endless journey to peak mortality,
people have begun discussing what it will mean
to “reopen” the country:
to restart our economy,
for people to return to work,
for students to return to school,
for churches and other places of public gathering
to resume ordinary activities.
But one thing is clear:
there will be no sudden return
to so-called normal life.
It may be months still
before public Masses can be celebrated,
before children can go to school,
before we can dine in restaurants.

The idea was floated a few weeks
that Easter would be a nice time
for life to return to normal.
The symbolism, it might seem,
would be lovely.
But, apart from the obvious error involved
in calculating the progress of the pandemic,
and differing opinions on how long
before social distancing measures
can begin to ease up,
I think the idea of Easter as a moment
when everything returns to normal
is a theologically dubious one,
and this for two reasons.

First, it is a mistake to think of Easter
as a moment, as an instant.
Of course, there is a moment
when he who was dead rises from the tomb,
but Easter is not simply
about Jesus’ return to life.
Or, rather, it is about that,
because if it is not about that
it is not about anything.
But it is not only about that.
Easter is the ongoing activity of resurrection
brought about in us by Jesus through the Spirit.
In today’s Gospel,
Mary Magdalen, Peter, and John
all see the empty tomb
but, we are told,
“they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.”
The reality of resurrection
that Jesus lived
was not yet fully real in them.
It seems that resurrection takes time,
and because it takes time
it involves patience,
and patience is our suffering time’s passage.
The raising of Jesus from the dead
is the decisive moment:
a corner is turned,
a new reality does begin,
a new world is opened up,
but all this begins as a tiny seed
planted in the earth of humanity,
and we are still living
through the time of its growth.
Resurrection unfolds slowly
and in often hidden ways;
the new life rises in us
not on our timetable
but on God’s.

Second, it is a mistake to think of Easter
as a return to normal.
As Paul tells us, we do not celebrate this feast
“with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
Jesus is not simply resuscitated,
but transformed,
the reign of God is fulfilled in him.
As they come to share in this transformation,
the lives of Jesus’ friends
do not return to normal:
Peter did not return to his nets;
Matthew did not return to his tax collecting.
As the reality of resurrection grows
the world should become for us
stranger and stranger
until the life we live
is taken up completely
into the risen life of Christ.
As resurrection grows within us
moments of unexpected grace
should become the new normal;
acts of extraordinary charity
should become the ordinary stuff of living;
lives lived against death and for God
should become our daily lives.

If Christians truly are an Easter people,
then we who bear the name Christian
can perhaps bear witness to the watching world
about what it truly means to have hope for new life.
In the days and weeks and months ahead
we can let our resurrection faith
inform our daily living.
We can show what it means
not to look for quick fixes
but rather to willingly suffer time’s passage.
We can show what it means
not to hope simply
for a restoration of the status quo,
but to think of how our world
might go forward in ways
that are more just
and more compassionate.
Whatever lies on the other side of Corona Time
is not, to be sure, the reign of God.
But perhaps it can be a world
that is just little kinder, just a little fairer,
just a little more aligned with the truth
that Christ is risen and death is defeated.
May Christ make this new life true in us
and may God have mercy on us all.

Good Friday

Readings: Isaiah 52:13—53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42

Perhaps it is a sign of our fallen state
that we seem to treat suffering as a zero-sum game:
we act as if the validation of one kind of suffering
somehow requires the negation of other sorts of suffering.
This has particularly struck me during these days of Corona Time.
A single person, suffering from isolation,
is told by those struggling to homeschool their children
that they don’t know how easy they have it.
Those who speak of the tedium of staying at home
are rebuked by others in the name of those essential workers
who must put their health at risk by leaving home
to provide for our food or medical care.
The pain of priests who cannot minister
the sacraments to their people
is pitted against the pain
of those deprived of the sacraments.
It is almost as if there is not enough suffering to go around;
as if the recognition of one person’s suffering
could somehow deprive another person of their right to suffer.
It sounds foolish, of course, if you put it that way.
But nonetheless we do persist in feeling
that our particular form of suffering
might be invalidated if we recognize
someone suffering from different circumstances.
We treat suffering as if it were a measurable commodity
and not a mystery.

In some ways this is a failure of imagination on our part.
If I am suffering from prolonged confinement with my family,
I can’t imagine how someone could suffer from living alone;
I suspect they must simply be complaining.
If I am putting my health at risk to provide essential services,
I cannot imagine how not leaving the house for days on end
could count as real deprivation.
If I am hungering to receive Christ in the sacraments
I can’t imagine that my priest is livestreaming his private Masses
for any reason other than to taunt me.
And this failure of imagination is understandable,
because while suffering sometimes has material causes
and unmistakable outward manifestations,
at its heart it is something hidden and inward;
it is a spiritual affliction,
whatever its outward cause or sign.
It may be true, as a philosopher once said,
that the human body is the best picture of the human soul,
but the depths of the soul’s suffering
are not unfailingly depicted on the surface;
it seems still to be the case that we often fail
to grasp fully, or grasp at all, the suffering of others;
we fail in our knowing of how it is
in their particular situation.

Today, the letter to the Hebrews reminds us
that in Jesus, “we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but one who has similarly been tested in every way,
yet without sin.”
In Jesus, God knows how it is
to be in our particular situation.
We believe that, on the cross,
Jesus took on the whole of the world’s suffering,
not in order to satisfy in God a divine lust for vengeance,
but so that our suffering might be know from within
by the God who loves us and desires our good.
The cross is the event of divine compassion:
God suffers in the flesh in order to inhabit our suffering,
so that we may “confidently approach the throne of grace
to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.”

Jesus knows your suffering, and knows it is real.
Jesus, the one without sin,
does not see your suffering as in competition with his;
indeed, your suffering is his suffering.
And he calls us who have been known by him
to see the suffering of others as he sees it:
to press beyond the limitations of our imaginations
and inhabit their suffering
as Jesus has inhabited ours.
He calls us to listen for their suffering
and to hear it without needing to judge it
or to rank it against other suffering.
He calls us to know as he knows
that the forms of suffering
are as varied as those who suffer,
but the remedy for our suffering
is the one love of God.
He calls us on this Friday we call good
to a deeper compassion
rooted in the compassion of the cross.
During the days and weeks ahead,
let us pray to grow in compassion.
And may God have mercy on us all.

Palm Sunday (Fourth Sunday in Corona Time)

Readings: Matthew 21:1-11; Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Matthew 27:11-45

It is surely a function
of the extraordinary times in which we find ourselves
that the word that leaps out to me,
in both the Palm Gospel and the Passion narrative,
is the word “crowd.”
The scene of residents of Jerusalem
jostling together with Passover pilgrims
to hail Jesus as the one who has come
in the name of the Lord
fills me with a not-so-vague sense of unease.
As I picture the scene I feel an irrational impulse to yell
“social distancing!” and “stay at home!”
and to try to make the crowd disperse.
Of course, the fact that it is also a crowd
that cries out for Jesus’ crucifixion a few days later
suggest that this is not simply an irrational fear.

Even apart from epidemiological concerns,
we are all familiar with the dangerous mob mentality
that can overtake groups of people,
whether this happens in a physical crowd,
like the mob in the Praetorium calling for the death of Jesus,
or, as is equally likely today, a virtual crowd,
like Twitter mobs that “cancel”
those guilty of various transgressions.
There is a kind of anonymity in a crowd
that seems to give license to people
to give free rein to the worst impulses
of fallen human nature.
A mob mentality can lead me to do or say things
that would otherwise be unimaginable,
because I can lose myself in the crowd
and convince myself
that somehow it is not really me
who is doing or saying these things.
Surely the mob that calls for Jesus’ death
was not composed of uniquely evil people.
And the mob can make us think
that we are somehow immune
from the consequences of our actions.
There is something deeply chilling
when those calling for Jesus’ death
cry out, “His blood be upon us
and upon our children”
because it shows a scoffing disregard
that seems to think that the mob absolves us
from any real moral responsibility.
It is almost as if the crowd is responding
to the idea that they could be held accountable
for murdering an innocent man
with a collective “whatever.”

But not all crowds are murderous mobs.
The deadly and demonic crowd
is only one possible form
that groups of people can take.
Even as we might currently feel unease
at the very thought of large groups of people
congregating in one place,
there is in us still a healthy longing to gather,
a desire to be a part of something larger than ourselves,
to find our place among a multitude.
Mobs may become murderous,
but there are also life-giving assemblies of people,
the crowds of humanity that we miss terribly in these days.
This includes the crowds who assemble
for sporting events or concerts or lectures.
For Christians it above all includes
that supernatural assembly that we call “church.”
Indeed, in these coming holy days
we are not simply recalling and celebrating
Jesus shedding his blood for each of us as individuals,
but also how, through his death and resurrection
and the giving of his Spirit,
he has called to himself,
as John sees in his apocalyptic vision,
“a great multitude that no one could count,
from every nation,
from all tribes and peoples and languages,
standing before the throne and before the Lamb,
robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.”

This crowd is no mob,
but rather those gathered
by an unimaginable divine goodness
that inspires us to act in faith, hope, and love.
This is the crowd for which we long.
The Christian doctrine of the communion of the saints
says that neither time nor distance
can break the bonds
that the Spirit has forged between us.
Jesus has died and risen
and given us his Spirit
so that we can remain united with him
and with each other
even when we are physically separated.
So let us celebrate the holy days of this week
with hearts renewed in hope,
even as we long for that day
when we see each other,
no longer dimly as in a mirror,
but face to face.
And may God have mercy on us all.