Easter 2A + Joy, joy, joy! + 4.23.17

(From: "The Odyssey Online": "Choose Joy")

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Acts 2:14a, 22–32; Ps. 16; 1 Peter 1:3–9; John 20:19–31)

“Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:8-9).”

It is possible that this past Holy Week, Easter Vigil and Easter Day celebrations were not the best attended of all those in the years I have been at All Santos. But it is true that there was such a sweet sense of the Spirit during these services that I truly felt buoyed up. At the Easter Vigil, between chanting and candles and chimes, I felt God’s presence so near as we celebrated the first service of the resurrection. And then Sunday morning was filled with joy, bursting with flowers on a cross, no longer an instrument of death but a symbol of rebirth, and glorious music. We saw the children, some for the first time, participating in the egg hunt. Pure joy. And it continues!
But sometimes there are moments in life when we don’t feel that joy so easily. Moments when we need Thomas to ask Jesus for proof, to allay our doubts. Moments when we need Thomas to touch Jesus’ wounds, and in a way to touch ours, too. So that we can know that Jesus is truly with us. Because we can tend to mistreat Thomas at times, saying he lacked faith. But he is important because he asks what we all need to hear.

And it is understandable-the other disciples received a visit from Jesus, albeit a kind of spooky one. He showed them his hands and his side. He breathed on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Here we remember this is the same word that is used in Genesis for the Spirit that gives life to all of creation.[1] And so the other disciples not only heard and saw Jesus, but they received his Spirit. This is what Thomas missed out on. Hope that donut was worth it! No, just kidding. But seriously, Thomas had not received the Spirit, or the personal visit from Jesus, and sometimes we feel just like him. Left out. Distant. Maybe with some doubts. Maybe we have had a shock that knocks us off of our spiritual feet for a moment. We need help. And that is where Thomas helps us out.

This week, we received some very sad news. Deborah Dunn, clergy colleague and friend who served at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Santa Maria died of a sudden illness. No one expected this. One day I was reading a bit about her amazing ministry in Santa Maria in the Episcopal news, hearing about yoga classes and remembering her sharing a ministry with migrant workers’ children in her parish, and the next day, she is dead. The joy of Deborah, snuffed out like a light. On Easter Week. But we know that her light is not really extinguished. We know that she is in God’s hands. At God’s side, in God’s peace. We know that she now begins to live the promised life eternal which is our hope and God’s pledge to us. We know that we are the ones who need God’s peace. Who are mourning.

It is on days like these that we depend on Thomas. The disciple who asked to see proof that Jesus really was who he said he was. That he had in fact risen. We need to see someone touching the wounds. In order to touch and heal our wounds. Of loss. Of lack of faith. We need Thomas to touch the wounds. Jesus comes and Thomas touches his wounds and we know it is OK to live the questions.

The poet Rilke speaks to us of living the questions in his Letters to a Young Poet:

“…Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”[2]

And what is the answer we seek? Maybe we will not know it until the day we come face to face with God. But I believe it has something to do with joy.

In the NRSV version of this first letter of Peter to a people in exile, he says: “you… rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” But my translation from the Greek yields more excess. “You are exceedingly overjoyed with joy which cannot be expressed and with a joy filled with glory [as] you are receiving the end result of belief, the salvation of souls.” Of course the first is much prettier sounding, but notice- how much joy is in this passage. Bursting out of the seams of the language. So much joy, it makes me think of the somewhat obnoxious show “Ren and Stimpy” of my youth and its phrase “Happy, Happy, Joy Joy!” It sounds all a bit redundant but it is meant to express pure joy. A joy that transcends human language or expression. Peter is filled with joy, explaining how God fills us with joy.

We are filled with joy because in his resurrection, Christ has broken every chain of death and sin. Although we live in a world filled with pain and sorrow at times, there is a joy set aside for us forever in Christ. It is our inheritance. And some days we get to see that, and feel it. Our salvation is secure. Because of the promise of our faith. We have joy because in Jesus we are saved!
Thomas touches Jesus’ wounds to touch our wounds, too and so that we could feel that joy again. So that we could say, “My Lord and My God!”

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[1] Rolf Jacobson, Karoline Lewis, Matt Skinner, “Sermon Brainwave #537 – Second Sunday of Easter” https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx.

[2] http://www.elise.com/q/quotes/rilke.htm.