Third Sunday of Easter B
my 5-year
old niece, Abigail,
heard
the deacon start to read the gospel
and
said in a “whisper”
(loud
enough for half the church to hear),
“I
know what’s going to happen next!
Jesus
is going to rise from the tomb!”
She’d
done what in most other cases
would
have been an unforgivable sin:
she
gave away the ending!
The
Resurrection of Jesus is, of course,
the
central mystery of the Christian faith—
the
very heart and soul of everything we do and are and stand for.
Yet
if you look closely, stories of the risen Jesus
make
up a very small part of the New Testament.
Out
of the four gospels combined,
there
are only five chapters devoted
to
what happened after that first Easter morning.
Why
should that be so?
Why
should something so crucial be so little written about?
Two
reasons come to mind….
The
first: to keep the Resurrection real for
you and me.
You
and I will never walk the roads of first century Palestine.
What
Mary and Joseph, what the twelve Apostles,
what
the people of that land experienced—
the
miracles and teachings of Jesus—
will
never be experienced in the same way again.
Therefore
they recorded them all carefully,
to
preserve them for future generations.
But
starting that first Easter Sunday ,
things
would be radically different than they were before.
Jesus
may have died on a certain day,
at
a certain time, in a certain place…
…but
Jesus now lives on forever and ever.
The
Christian faith isn’t so much that Jesus was
raised
(though
that’s a matter of history,
just
as how he once taught and cured the sick),
but
that Jesus is risen.
From
Easter onward, Jesus will remain with his disciples
always
and everywhere in a completely new way—
not
a figure stuck in the past,
but
a Savior who is eternally present.
The
Apostles have a tough time
getting
their heads and hearts around this new reality.
In
this Sunday’s gospel reading,
we
hear again about Easter Sunday.
This
is the evening gathering from which “doubting Thomas”
was
unlucky enough to be absent.
To
be fair: the other Apostles come off
looking
just as uncertain as he does.
They’re
“startled,” we’re told,
"amazed" and
“incredulous for joy.”
They
want to believe…but how can they?
This
man they’re seeing
appears
to be the same Jesus they’ve known—
right
down to the wounds of the crucifixion.
But
he comes and goes—literally!—out of nowhere.
Since
he can walk right through walls and locked doors,
they
think he’s a ghost, a mirage.
But
then he joins them in eating a bite of fish for supper,
proving
he’s not a figment of their imaginations,
but
a living man of flesh and bone.
He’s
real!
It’s
just that he’ll be with them now in a whole new way.
We’re
in the same boat as those apostles, aren’t we?
We
want to believe that Jesus is alive…but how can we?
We
need to let Jesus amaze us…just as he did them.
We
need to allow Jesus to be real for us—
to
play a real and active part in our everyday lives.
We
say that Jesus still speaks to us
through
the Scriptures and the teaching of the Church…
…but
we have to listen as if he’s really saying something that matters.
We
say that Jesus still touches us through the Sacraments…
…but we have to give him the space to work
We say that Jesus still moves within us in moments of prayer…
…but we have to be open as if something’s really going to happen in us.
Jesus
may no longer be bound by space and time,
but
he’s very, very real.
This
is something that all comes together for us in the Holy Eucharist.
Jesus
continues to make himself known in the breaking of the bread.
No,
we cannot touch the wounds in his hands and feet…
…but
Jesus touches us very personally
when
he places his Body, his Blood, into our
hands.
That
the real-life experience
of
the presence and action of the risen Jesus
might
be just as immediate and true for you and me
as
it was for Peter, James, John, Thomas, and all the rest—
that
may be one reason why the gospels all end so abruptly.
The
second reason:
so that you and I will make
the Resurrection real for others.
We
live in a world where people
are
just as likely to believe in ghosts
as
they are to believe in Jesus—maybe even more so.
Now,
you can’t force faith on anybody;
not
even Jesus could do that to the men and women of his time.
But
you can speak and act in a way
that
makes it clear to people around you
that
Jesus is, in fact, a real part of your ordinary life.
Just
look at Peter in the Acts of the Apostles.
He
who had been locked away for fear with the others
is
now out and about speaking rather boldly:
“Here’s
what I know about Jesus…
Here’s
what Jesus has done for me…
Here’s
what I think Jesus can do for you…”
The
world needs us to be witnesses for Jesus like that:
those
who speak firsthand—
sharing
not just what we’ve heard from somebody else,
but
what we know for ourselves.
Yet
also consider what John says in his first letter.
It’s
not enough for us to say, “I know him.”
We
must also keep his commandments,
must
avoid sin, must keep his word—
living
the way that Jesus lived,
living
the way of life Jesus taught.
To
do otherwise would be to give false testimony:
to
be a hypocrite, a liar.
How
could anyone come to believe that Jesus is real
if
his followers are living a lie?
Why is the New Testament so short on post-Resurrection accounts?
Maybe
it’s because the book isn’t finished.
My
niece may have given away the ending…
…but
the story is still unfolding.
Jesus
is real, and he’s still risen from the dead:
still
helping others—helping us!—to rise with him
to
new and everlasting life.
May
the Lord’s face shine brightly upon us,
that
we might experience his real and living presence
in each
of our lives.
May
the light of the Lord’s Resurrection
also
shine brightly through your face and mine,
that
all the nations might come to believe
that
Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.
He
is risen, indeed!
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