ACTS 3:12a,13-15,17-26

PSALM 111

1 JOHN 5:1-6

JOHN 20:19-31

Sermon – April 27, 2003

A couple of summers ago, Elda was up in Kennebunkport, Maine visiting family one weekend. That Sunday morning, she went to the nearest Episcopal Church – St. Anne’s, Kennebunkport. There were 200 people at the early service...because the rumor around town was that President Bush, who was in town visiting his parents, would be coming to the service.

The rumor was wrong. The (to say the least) unusually large early service crowd didn’t get to experience the presence of the President. Instead, the people had to settle for Jesus.

In our celebrity-obsessed culture, people may have gotten blasé about being able to experience the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist every time they take communion, to be able to read Christ’s own words whenever they want to by opening the Bible, to be able to experience the Holy Spirit whenever they follow God’s guidance for their lives as individuals or as part of a community.

Maybe if communion was only available once a year, or if anyone who wanted to read Christ’s words had to learn Greek, or if the Holy Spirit only offered guidance and strength to those who were ordained or were monks or nuns, then those who think something’s importance is measured in inverse proportion to its accessibility might be more impressed. But that’s not the way it is.

We do have Christ’s gift of himself in the consecrated bread and wine at every Eucharist – and for those unable to be physically present in church, we take church to them with communion in home, nursing home or hospital. We do have the guidance of the Holy Spirit available for all who sincerely turn to God. (People don’t always follow God’s guidance, but they are offered it.) And we do have Christ’s words, available in careful, faithful translation. Including those words in today’s Gospel, words spoken to men who never expected to hear Christ speak again, to men who were frightened and depressed, to men whose lives were transformed when they simply showed up to be with each other. Not only were they not expecting a celebrity, not only were they not expecting the risen Christ, they weren’t expecting anything except perhaps to share their fears and depression with each other.

They knew Jesus had died on Good Friday. They knew one of their members (Judas) had betrayed him, another (Peter) had denied him, and nine more had wimped out and disappeared when Jesus was arrested. And the Beloved Disciple himself was not “rubbing it in” that he alone of the men had had the guts to stay with Jesus at the cross. Gutsy or gutless, the end result was the same: their Lord was dead. And now some wild report from Mary Magdalene that she had seen him that morning. Didn’t that just make it worse, didn’t her saying he was alive just remind them how dead Jesus was – and remind them of their conviction that perhaps she was not quite right in the head.

Christ had to come to them, personally, too, for the reality to sink in. And Christ’s first words to them were not reproach or condemnation, but “Peace be with you.” SHALOM: the fullness of God’s serenity, wellness, well being, wholeness and completeness of relationship. And then, even more startling, Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Both of these are Christ’s words to us, too. Christ is alive – now, not just on that Easter morning long ago. He offers us first of all his presence, the evidence of his conquest of sin and death, and the sign that thanks to him, we also are not fated to be conquered by sin and death (unless we choose to be). So his first gift to us is hope: hope, whatever our past lives have been like, that we can be made new by God by turning to him in faith and have hope to share in Christ’s victory over sin and over death.

And Christ’s second gift to us is peace: Shalom for ourselves and more to share. Serenity, well being, healing, community.

And the third gift just from this morning’s Gospel is purpose: no matter how young or old, whatever our talents or abilities, we too are commissioned: sent by Christ into the world in witness to his life, his love, his truth, his wisdom, to share them all with a broken and clueless world.

And finally, if we receive these first three gifts in faith, we have a special blessing from the Lord: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

So, if any of you came this morning expecting to see someone famous in the pews, I’m afraid you’re going to leave disappointed. And I suspect next week will be the same, and the week after. But if you’re looking for the Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament, for his words of Life for your life, and for the Holy Spirit present among the humble faithful prayerfully gathered together, then I think you came to one of the many right places. And having come, may we all “through believing have life in Christ’s name.”

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church