Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter, April 11, 2010
Said Mass
By the Reverend Stephen Gerth
Year C: Acts 5:12a,17-22, 25-29; Psalm 111; Revelation 1:9-19; John 20:19-31

In John’s gospel, on the morning of the resurrection, the disciple Jesus loved came to faith when he saw the cloths that had wrapped Jesus’ body in the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene comes to faith not when Jesus appears to her, but when he calls her by her own name. All of the other disciples, save Thomas, see and believe in Jesus when he appears to them on the evening of the day of resurrection. A week later, Thomas believes when Jesus appears and speaks to him.[1] Jesus’ final words in today’s lesson are addressed to the wider world, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”[2] There are many ways those who are first to believe come to faith. My hunch is that here in this church tonight there are as many individual stories of faith and stories of struggle with faith as there are people.

Today is the Second Sunday, the eighth day, of Easter. There’s a certain quiet and restraint – and freshness – to the Church’s worship after the celebrations of Holy Week, that invites us from whatever point we are in our journey in faith to be open to the larger life Christ has opened for us. We Christians live to die so that we may live and rejoice with him for ever.

I’ve remarked in sermons over the past week how surprised I have been this year by how very little we really know about the resurrection and how little we know about what the disciples actually thought about Jesus. But the final verse of today’s lesson gives us one reason. John wrote, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”[3] In John’s gospel, some form of the word "believe" occurs ninety-five times. Jesus asks over and over again, in one way or another, “Do you believe?”

It is customary for most Christians to use vocabulary about the faith that implies that Jesus himself organized a Church, with a Bible, Sacraments, rites, ordained ministers and much of what we think of as Christianity. More careful speakers would describe all of these gifts, these structures, if you will, as the work of the Holy Spirit in and through the emerging Christian community.

Jesus didn’t direct the writing of the New Testament and the development of those described in it as “ekklesia” – the word we translate as “church” which means “called out.”  The Christian community was made up of disciples who were called out of whatever lives they had led into a new way of living in relationship to God and to one another.

It is not until the third century that the new Christian community begins to think of its pastors and teachers as priests and worship as something someone offered on its behalf.[4] It is centuries before it is legal to be a Christian. It took centuries for the Church to understand the right way to speak about the God who had revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I think it matters that we are careful about the way we describe the development of the Church. When we are careful and honest about the past, I think it is easier to understand and see God’s work in our lives and in the lives of the wider Church today.

Now, back to the heart of today’s gospel, “Do you believe?” It’s the question at the heart of the Jesus of John’s gospel. How can you and I honestly believe in what we have not seen? Why do you and I believe?

For myself, my answer would have to begin with a grandmother and a mother who were people of an active, practicing Christian faith. For children, the existence and love of God is usually a very natural thing. And even as adolescence begins and our brains develop the capacity for abstract thought, the words we hear as young children can find a natural place in our lives, and in mine they did.

This gift of life has made intellectual and emotional sense. In my early 20s, when I wasn’t sure of much in the middle of parents divorcing, the economic uncertainties of the early 70s, the real confusion and real heartache of relationships, love, I could never escape the basic message of God’s love.

Especially when I am afraid, when I stand at the graves of people I have known all life, when I am embarrassed by what I have said or done, I can’t escape that I believe in God, in Jesus, in eternal life. Sometimes when I am not afraid, when things seem so right in life, I am very occasionally, very, very thankful for the mystery of life and love the God beyond all has shown us by giving us life and giving us the Word to help us know it.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Copyright © 2010 The Society of the Free Church of St. Mary the Virgin, New York, New York.

All rights reserved.