Have you eaten all the jelly beans? By now, you’ve probably made all the hardboiled Easter eggs into egg salad sandwiches or casseroles. Have you eaten all the Cadbury crème eggs, the Peeps, and the chocolate bunnies and put away the Easter baskets and the plastic grass? Easter is over, right? So, what’s wrong with us church people? Our festal paraments are still up, I’m still wearing my white and gold vestments, and the Paschal candle is still burning. My friends, we do all this, because it’s still Easter! Actually, it’s still Easter in two ways. This week we have been observing the Octave of Easter, the eight days following Easter, culminating in today. Why eight? In ancient Jewish tradition, the number eight symbolized completion, wholeness, and re-creation. After Easter for many new Christians, the eighth day, i.e., every Sunday, became a day to meet again the risen Christ and experience re-creation again. So during this week especially, the church invited us to reflect on how we meet Jesus in our own lives, and how God continues to make all things new.
But there’s another way in which it is still Easter. We are now in Easter tide, or Easter season, fifty days in which we celebrate the joy of the resurrection, fifty days in which we can shout “Alleluia, Christ is risen!” Why a whole season? Because, it takes us much more than a single day to have some inkling of what the resurrection, God’s victory over death, really means. It takes us more than one day to understand the transformation that God offers us in the risen Christ. It takes us more than one day to offer adequate praise and thanksgiving for what God has done for us. Presbyterian pastor L.P. Jones reminds us that, “Celebrating the season of Easter allows us to declare the appearance of the risen Lord too profound and life changing to limit our responses to a single day or week. We need a week of weeks for news this good and hope this profound!”1
We need a week of weeks for news this good and hope this profound! No doubt those who first experienced the risen Lord needed much more than a week of weeks. Even those who had been closest to Jesus in his earthly life had trouble at first recognizing the risen Jesus. Perhaps like us, they had trouble getting their minds to accept the possibility that he had fulfilled his promises to them, and that he was actually alive again.
Just look at the various Gospel stories. Last week, we heard how the three women were terrified and amazed at the angel’s declaration that, “He has been raised; he is not here.” Indeed, they were so terrified that, in the original ending to Mark’s Gospel, they just ran away. In Matthew’s Gospel we are told that “some doubted.” This week at our Wednesday Eucharist we heard Luke’s account of the conversation on the road to Emmaus. The disciples walked perhaps several miles with Jesus but didn’t recognize him until he broke bread with them. Just before today’s reading from the Gospel of John, we hear the story of Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Lord. Having seen the stone rolled back from the tomb, she ran to tell Peter and the other disciple. They came, looked at the tomb and ran back. Mary remained at the tomb, and Jesus came to her. Did she recognize him? Not until he called her by name. But then she followed Jesus’ command and promptly told the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” And did they believe her? Clearly not, since later that evening they were still huddled together in fear behind locked doors! Then, after the disciples had seen Jesus and said to Thomas, “We have seen the Lord,” did he believe them? Not at all!
Yes, they all had a hard time believing that Jesus had done what he had said he would do! And what was Jesus’ reaction to their doubts? He was a little sharp with the guys on the road to Emmaus. “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared,” he said. But did he chastise Mary for thinking he was the gardener? No, he just said, gently, I’m sure, “Don’t grab on to me.” Jesus knew how difficult it was to grasp what had happened that day – it still is! And so, when he came to the frightened disciples that evening, he didn’t say, “What’s the matter with you guys, didn’t you believe me?” And he certainly didn’t say, “Where were you all while I was up there dying on that cross? How come you all ran away?” No, he said to them, “Peace be with you.” And this was more than a casual greeting. In effect, at that moment Jesus extended forgiveness to all his friends and disciples for having abandoned him at the cross. And more, he then gave them the signs that they needed to understand that he was really there with them. He showed them his hands and his side. At last they got it! They “rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”
Apparently, Thomas needed something more than the disciples’ report of their encounter. When Jesus returned the following week, did he say to Thomas, “What’s the matter with you? Why didn’t you believe them?” No, he offered the concrete proof of his risen reality that Thomas thought he needed. “Put your finger here and see my hands,” he said. “Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” Then Thomas too got it! He didn’t even need to touch Jesus, he understood at last that he was truly seeing and hearing the risen Lord.
Do you notice any thread running through all these encounters with the risen Lord? In no case does Jesus reject or condemn people for not believing God’s promises or for finding it hard to come to grips with the resurrection. And in every case, Jesus takes the initiative. He comes to his friends and disciples and gives them what they need to believe that he has indeed overcome death and is alive again to them. This is the good news! Jesus does what he has to do to recall his friends to life. Their doubts and unbelief will not keep him from calling and caring for his friends. Their response? To joyfully go out and tell others – as he has commissioned them to do!
And so it is for us. For, today’s Gospel is not ultimately about the disciples and Thomas. It is about who Jesus is, and, more importantly, how Jesus comes to us, wherever we might be. We too may wonder. We too may have trouble getting our heads around the resurrection – or any other aspect of church life and belief. When we say the Nicene Creed, or even the simpler Apostles Creed, we may not be absolutely certain of everything that the church is proclaiming in those creeds. In the sorrows and losses of our lives, doubt may overcome hope, and Easter joy may disappear into thin air. Grief and tragedy shake the foundations of our faith. Serene Jones reminds us that it is in those very moments that God comes to us. “God comes seeking us, stepping through the walls that hardship builds around us, offering love at the very moment that grace seems nothing but a farcical ghost story told by not-to-be-believed friends.”2
Sometimes God may come to us when we grieve alone – as Jesus came to Mary weeping outside the tomb. Perhaps we will sense Jesus’ presence when his peace descends on us in prayer. Perhaps we will understand, despite the violence around us, despite our losses and our pain, despite the death of loved ones, that we are not alone, that, indeed Jesus has been coming to us, supporting us, and caring for us all along. More often, though, God comes to us in community. Even though the disciples to whom Mary delivered her report did not believe her, they remained together as a community. Thomas did not believe his friends, but he stayed with them the following week. And, as the writer of John’s Gospel reminds us, we are now part of that community, and Jesus comes to us as well. We may not have seen what they saw, but because we believed through their testimony, Jesus can be present with us.
Ultimately, it is the community of the church that holds the good news for us, and in that community, there is room for all our questions and doubts. For, rest assured, the church exists not just for those who are absolutely certain of what and who they are. Beware of the danger of pride and arrogance in that absolute certainty! The church exists for those who seek God, most especially a deeper knowledge of God. And we need each other’s support on this difficult journey of faith. We need each other’s support in recognizing God’s presence among us, and we need each other’s help in fulfilling the commission that Jesus gives us when we do recognize him. Thanks be to God that Jesus comes to us again and again and continues to strengthen our faith and our commitment to him. Thanks be to God that our brothers and sisters in the faith – and that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us – uphold us in our journey. “We may not touch his hands and side, nor follow where he trod; but in his promise we rejoice; and cry, “My Lord and God!”
1. “Easter,” in New Proclamation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012, 1).
2. In Feasting on the Word (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 402.
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