From Cross to Community: The Amazing Transformation

4-3-16 (Easter 2C)

Acts 5:27-32; John 20:19-31

From Cross to Community: The Amazing Transformation

As we move through the next six weeks between now and Pentecost, or the time known as “Easter-tide,” the lectionary shifts gears a little bit - the readings move away from the Old Testament as we focus instead on the early beginnings of the church.  The Gospel readings share some of the initial “first encounters” that the apostles have with the risen Christ, while the readings from Acts take us along with those same apostles, particularly Peter and Paul, as the evangelize to the world, planting churches wherever they go and building up the body of Christ.  The readings for these next several weeks show an interesting theme that we will be exploring in a series together as we journey “From Cross to Community” together.

In a way, it’s sort of unfortunate that we spend a week at a time in between each new passage, particularly as we hear today’s reading from John.  We’ve had a whole week to soak in the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection, to reflect on Mary’s encounter with the risen Lord, and to absorb the announcement that “He is Risen.”

It’s kind of like watching your favorite serial or drama - the disciples are gathered together somewhere, lost and beaten down because they don’t know what to do without Jesus.  Peter is crushed with his own guilt and failure.  Judas has disappeared from the scene, but they haven’t even thought about picking another to replace him yet.  And then suddenly the door flies open and Mary rushes in, breathless.  “I have seen the Lord,” she gushes.  And then “To be continued…”  the credits start to roll and we all let out the breath we didn’t even know we were holding.  We go about our business the rest of the week and then we come back to the same bat-time, same bat-channel to wait with excitement for the announcer to begin the recap... “Previously on the Gospel...”

The thing is, the disciples didn’t have a week to soak it all in.  They didn’t even have a whole day - Mary tells them what’s happened and then John cuts to later in the evening.  The disciples are still hiding behind locked doors for fear of the crowds that arrested Jesus.  We never hear what their reaction to Mary’s announcement is, but it seems from the situation that John drops us into, they didn’t leap to believe her.  And I don’t really blame them - after all, an announcement like Mary’s pushes every boundary of belief, even for the people who have seen the empty tomb.  For some, it probably sounded like nothing but wishful thinking and some kind of hallucination brought about by grief.  Maybe it really was the gardener and she managed to convince herself after the fact that it had been Jesus.  For others, they wanted it to be true, but they just didn’t know how it was possible.

But for the disciples gathered in that place at that particular moment, the question is about to be answered definitively.  Jesus suddenly appears among them.  He shows them his hands and his side.  He charges them with a purpose and a mission the same as he’d charged Mary, then he breathes on them and gives them the Holy Spirit, telling them that they have the power to forgive sins (or not, if that’s what they decide).  He doesn’t leave any doubts, any questions - he is, in fact, Risen, and now everybody knows it.

Well... everybody, it seems, but one.  Poor Thomas.  You know, he’s gotten a really bad rap over the years, if you ask me.  We use his name like a derogatory term - we call people “Doubting Thomases” when they ask for proof of something, when they find anything less than believable.  But face it - Thomas wasn’t the only one who doubted!  In John’s gospel, everyone has trouble believing what they hear at first.  Mary thinks Jesus is the gardener.  Peter and the other disciple walk away from the empty tomb not knowing what it means.  And people have simply failed to get it through the entirety of John’s Gospel.  So we really have no reason to feel surprised at Thomas’ reaction here when the disciples tell him the same thing that Mary told them: “We have seen the Lord!”  Just as Mary and the disciples before him responded with doubt to the resurrection of Christ and the proclamation of its reality to others, so too does Thomas.

But this sermon isn’t another “doubting Thomas” sermon - his doubts are set aside definitively just a week later, and we do Thomas a disservice to dwell on the nature of doubt and whether it’s good or bad.  What’s far more interesting to me this week is the process that seems to transpire after Thomas and the other disciples gathered in that upper room are faced with the undeniable certainty that Christ is, indeed, risen.  As Jesus appears to the disciples, he breathes his Spirit upon them and tells them that he is giving them great power - and for John’s Gospel, that’s it.  The ball is now in their court to go out into the world and do with that power what they will.  There’s no great commission as we find in Matthew, no second act like Luke gives us in the book of Acts, not even the fear and trembling that Mark’s Gospel leaves the disciples in.  And yet in the midst of all the disciples’ uncertainty and fear, they are transformed - and we’ll continue to see that transformation in the weeks to come as they move from grief and confusion to celebration, worship, and proclamation that forms a strongly bonded community of faith: Peter is a wreck after the crucifixion and yet becomes one of the most stalwart builders of the church.  Paul is an enemy of the Christians, hunting them down and persecuting them, and yet he becomes one of the first pastors of the church.  Thomas struggles with his doubt in this passage, but from the point he encounters the risen Christ on, he never again wavers, even when his life is on the line.  And it’s this transformation from fear and doubt to fearless proclamation that we see in this passage from Acts.

Peter and several other apostles have been preaching at the temple in a place called Solomon’s Portico.  When we come into this scene, they’ve already been preaching there for a while - they’ve preached the good news, healed the sick, and caused many more people to believe in Christ, which has infuriated the High Priest to no end.  The High Priest has already had them arrested and jailed, but angels come and stage a celestial jailbreak, telling them to go back into the temple and keep preaching.  When the High Priest finds out that they’ve been busted loose, he hauls Peter and the apostles before the council for a hearing.  He admonishes these apostles, telling them “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.”  And Peter and the apostles stand before the council and proclaim their obedience to God above and beyond anybody else.  They proclaim the Gospel to the council.  And if you go and read the rest of this passage for yourselves, you’ll see that the council actually refuses to punish them further because they’re afraid that they might actually be trying to thwart a plan that was of God.

Think about what a complete transformation that really is - that this group of disciples too afraid to even think about leaving the upper room, this group of disciples that aren’t even sure what to think about whether Jesus is alive, dead, or otherwise… after just one encounter with the risen Christ have suddenly become a force for the Gospel so powerful that the leaders of the temple hesitate in fear of them.  And because of the boldness of their message, the amazing proclamation that it contains… they are the ones that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, are growing a movement, building a body, becoming the Church… and all in the name of that risen Lord.

This is the power of the resurrection for us, the amazing transformation we all are invited to, and which we are called to invite others to as well.  Christ is risen, and that news has truly changed the world.  To God be the glory.  Amen.