Sunday, April 15, 2012

Never Too Late (sermon preached on April 15, 2012)




Sermon preached at St. David's Episcopal Church, Washingtin DC on Sunday, 15th April

Acts 4:32-35, 1 John 1:1-2:2, John 20:19-31 



One of the ways I learned the names we attribute to the authors of the four gospels was through a traditional English bedtime prayer:
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on.
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head;
One to watch and one to pray
And two to keep all harm away
What I find interesting about this prayer is how Holy Scripture, as represented by the four evangelists, is invoked for blessing and protection. It is as if the gospel books had some sort of power over us! Which they should do, even today, not protecting us while we sleep, but instead, when we use them correctly, and as they were intended, having power over how we live and worship. I also like the image of the four gospels as four corners: The bed cannot stand without all four and we need all four books as a stable foundation for our Christian faith and practice.   
For the four gospels are not in any way identical, even if we don’t always hear and notice the differences as we read from them successively over our three year lectionary period. Three of the books, the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark and Luke, are very similar in content and style and share a lot of their narrative - we call them the “Synoptic Gospels” from the Greek for “seen together”. Yet even they, written between 10 and 20 years apart from each other, have different emphases and focus. The fourth Gospel, the Gospel according to John, which we read from today, is even more different in style, has many different stories (for example the wedding at Cana), no parables, but instead lots of long discourses. I have even seen it compared to a sermon, not that you would be very happy with a sermon of some 35 closely typed pages! Yet however different the gospel books may be on the surface, they also all have much in common. They are a record of what their authors considered to be the important events in Jesus’ earthly life and ministry, especially Jesus’ death and resurrection. But they do not just recount these events out of some historical or biographical interest, just so we know what happened then. Instead the gospel authors interpret the events for their audience; they re-form the stories to function as signs, they address concerns and questions that had arisen in the early Christian communities, they contain a message for all  times, both for the author’s contemporaries, in ‘John’s’ case somewhere between sixty-five and seventy-five years after the crucifixion, and for us today.
The two meetings we heard about in today’s Gospel reading both take place on the first day of the week, on Sunday. The first was on the Sunday immediately following Jesus’ death, the second on the Sunday one week later, which is today, one week after Easter Day! So our service today is just one in a long succession of meetings, Sunday after Sunday that connects us directly to Jesus and the disciples, a succession of meetings bringing their message with them.
Just before today’s gospel narrative starts, Peter and John had been to the tomb and seen that it was empty, Jesus had appeared to Mary Magdalene and told her to go the disciples. She was to tell them that she had seen the Lord and that he was now ascending to God, his Father (John 20:17-18). But judging by the disciples’ reaction, they had either not heard or not understood what Mary had to tell them. They were afraid, which is why they were meeting behind locked doors, and in much doubt. They did not rejoice when Jesus first appeared, when he “came and stood among them,” but only after “he showed them his hands and his side” (John 20:19-20). The second meeting one week later included Thomas. This is not going to be another sermon picking on so-called ‘doubting Thomas’ for not believing until he saw Jesus. That would be unfair. It may well have taken a personal appearance to convince Thomas of Jesus’ resurrection, but that applies to all the other disciples too. Their encounter with Jesus was just a week earlier. It is never too late to encounter the risen Lord - that is one message for us today too.
In this encounter with the disciples Jesus fulfills the promises he had made before his cruel death on the cross, that death that the wounds in his hands and side remind the disciples, and us, of. Jesus had promised to turn the pain of loss into joy, he had promised to give them his peace, and he had promised that they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
As I mentioned earlier, the four gospels are not identical. You know Luke’s story of how the disciples receive the Holy Spirit, the basis for the feast of Pentecost that  we won’t be celebrating for another six weeks. But this is John’s equivalent of that event, his story of how the disciples are commissioned and sent out. Here they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit much more personally and intimately, directly from the risen Lord, just as Jesus had promised before his death. What is common to both versions is that the disciples are re-created by the Holy Spirit. Before this the disciples were sorrowful and afraid, now they are ready to go into the world, even though it will mean persecution and a cruel death for many of them.
Instead of the great crowd in the Pentecost event in Acts here we are the only witnesses. But we are not just witnesses: We share in all that occurs, both through reading this book in our worship, and through our worship. Like the disciples we suffered just over a week ago on Good Friday below the cross. Like the disciples we are often afraid and uncertain. Like the disciples we share in their joy when they see Jesus again, as we celebrated on Easter Day and as we celebrate every Sunday in the Eucharist. Like the disciples we receive the gifts of God’s Peace and of the Holy Spirit. Like the disciples we are sent out into the world with a commission and a mission when the meeting, when the church service is over.
One famous Anglican scholar, C. H. Dodd, said that one purpose of John’s Gospel was to describe “the new life into which the disciples and all Christians are brought through Christ’s death and resurrection.” It isn’t an easy life, and we know that not even the disciples always managed to live up to the ideals described in today’s reading from Acts. They were certainly not always of ‘one heart and soul’ and argued over the mission to the Gentiles. But they did continue to testify to the good news of the’ resurrection with great power,’ and while they did not continue to hold all goods in common for long, care for those in need, based on need and not merit, was and is central to the Christian faith. 
The power and the strength for this new life did not come from within the disciples, but from Christ. It was through Christ’s appearance that all the disciples come to believe, he was the source of the power of the Holy Spirit, and of the knowledge and strength given to the disciples to witness to him: to the risen Lord, the Messiah, the Son of God.  
This knowledge, strength and assurance are ours too. Thomas was not a second-hand disciple, and nor are we. Every reader and hearer of the gospel is included in Christ’s final blessing on “those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (John 20:29)
In the Gospel reading we heard today the other disciples were not able to convince Thomas that they had seen the risen Lord on that first Sunday. Are we able to give our testimony to the resurrection with such great power that all those who have not seen will come to believe? Today is the second Sunday of Easter, the day when the second meeting John narrates, the meeting Thomas joins, takes place. If, someone like Thomas were to join our meeting, our service today, would they experience Christ’s presence here in our worship, in our lives, in the way we interact so powerfully, that they come to believe? Because that is what our worship is called to do and to be. It is to emulate those first Sunday meetings that were filled with the presence, the word, the forgiveness, the sending, and Spirit of the risen Christ.
Amen