St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church
3800 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
(812) 332-5252
Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter (March 30, 2008)
Liturgical Color: White
Reverend Dr. Lyle E. McKee
Fed by Jesus
Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." (v.19)
We come upon the disciples this morning exactly where we find ourselves—gathered together for worship on the first day of the week—on the Day of Resurrection. This is why we have this gospel reading for today
And what happens? The obvious. As they break bread together, Jesus comes among them offering peace and forgiveness.
Isn't that just the best? The disciples cower in fear that their fate may be the fate of Jesus, yet still they gather together to share their lives, their struggles, prayer, and praise. And then Jesus is found again among them bringing comfort.
It is the living out of the words of Maundy Thursday. "Do this in remembrance of me." That word "remembrance" means literally that in celebrating the Lord's Supper—in the breaking of bread and the pouring of wine—the body of Jesus is brought together again; he is re-membered. He stands among us, in and through us, in this holy meal.
So it was for the first disciples. Jesus comes among them, as they gather, to bring good news. All but one—Thomas; the text doesn't tell us why he missed that first Easter gathering. Still, we read in verse 26:
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." (v.26)
Jesus shows up again on the next Sunday—the day that became the Christian Sabbath, as if to say: "I am always here for you, waiting for you—here to meet your needs, here so that you can touch me, here to answer your questions, here to feed you."
Doubt and questions, writes Frederick Beuchner, are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep faith awake and moving. Whether your faith is that Jesus is the son of God or that he is not, if you don't question it, says Beuchner, you are either kidding yourself or asleep.
Jesus is always here for us, as he was there for the disciples and then for Thomas. Thomas could not, at first, bring himself to believe that Jesus still lived following the resurrection; indeed, he gives voice to the uncertainties that come to all Christians at various times in our lives. Do I truly believe? Is Jesus truly risen in the world and in my heart? Does God really love me that much?
And still, though we can't see Jesus in the flesh, he reveals himself to us in the breaking of bread, giving us a foretaste of the feast to come. Jesus is our cause for feasting and he himself provides the feast. In these Sundays of Easter—these holy fifty days—we feast with Jesus. Jesus gives even modern inquirers a physical sign of his presence among us.
How do we "keep the feast?"
Well, the first clue comes from our text. John is at pains to let us know that Jesus is present with us at worship. Jesus appears to the disciples on the first day of the week, the day that the Church has celebrated the great "feast of victory for our Lord" ever since. This is John's not-so-subtle way of letting us know that Jesus is present with us when we gather together. John is inviting us to experience the risen Christ and to feast with him by participating in worship. John is asking us to come and worship every Sunday, discovering here the risen Christ, the true presence of our Lord with us, and the nourishment that he gives from his own body. It is what this congregation has been doing faithfully now for 48 years.
There is nothing more sacred. There is no moment at which the Church is more fully the Church than at the Table of the Lord. There is no experience of resurrection more palpable, more tangible, or more nurturing to our spirits.
We are fed by Jesus that we may become the Body of Christ in the world. Our holy host offers himself to us so that we, nourished by our Lord, might extend his life even further. This is, I believe, one of the most important aspects of Christian worship.
When discussing this sacrament that we variously name—Holy Communion, Sacrament of the Altar, the Eucharist, or the Table of our Lord—I often speak of this table, this altar, as the center of our lives. Yes, we come here to receive spiritual nourishment. Yes, we come here to offer thanks and praise to God for the gift of grace manifest in the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, we come here to receive forgiveness for our sins as our Lord becomes tangibly present in, with, and under the forms of bread and wine. Yes, we come here to remember what our Lord did for us on the Cross.
But we also come here to re-focus our lives. We come here to be strengthened for service, always remembering that the altar is not only the center of our worship. It is the center of our families, the center of our community, the center of our lives lived out in ministry that is always grounded her and always returns here.
What we do beyond this altar is a reflection of who we are in the presence of this altar. Our behavior beyond these walls gives expression to the presence of our Lord within us; we have been fed by Jesus, and it is Jesus who both gives us life and empowers us to give expression to that life in the world. Our lives are a mirror reflecting the one whose resurrected glory shines upon us. When we move out from the altar, we express the life of Christ's Body to all we meet.
We come, like Thomas, looking for a sign, for reassurance, for deeper faith. When we reach out our hands to take his body, we reach out for these. When we hold his broken body in our own, we begin to see our Lord in new ways.
And the one we see is the one Thomas sees: the resurrected one; the one who overcomes death; the one who heals all who are broken; the one who has known our sorrows and is in our sorrows; the one who walks with us every step of the way to Judea and back again.
This is why we, as a church, take his broken body into ourselves, joining our woundedness with his—brokenness coming together to form unity. If only for that moment, we make the body of Christ, this sacred mystery the church, whole, united, reconciled, and healed. If only for the moment as we hold him in our hands, we can see him and know that he is here. He does not abandon us. He joins us wherever we are. He comes back to show us that he has survived and risen above the grief and sorrow and pain of it all (adapted from Kirk Kubicek, Worship That Works).
Jesus comes as Jesus always does-with a word of forgiveness and peace, with the grace that unbinds the knotted heart, with the love that loosens the bonds of death, with the gentle power that unbars the doors we shut and swings them wide open, revealing God's startling, in-breaking future.
The disciples couldn't stay in that room, safe and familiar though it was. They would suffocate there if they stayed. Jesus knew that and opened the doors. He sent them out into the very world they feared, into the fresh air of the future they could not see, saying: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
This has been the rhythm of the life of St. Thomas for nearly five decades. We are called and gathered. We are fed and enlightened. We are kept in grace and sent into the world as our Lord's new apostles with words and acts of love. Our God sent Jesus, and Jesus sends us.
Just so, Jesus sends you and me today. He breathes into us again the deep peace of the Holy Spirit. He unbinds us from the fear that haunts us, the pain and grief we bear, the shame and guilt that holds us captive, even the questions and disbelief that keep us from entering God's future with hope. Jesus feeds us and frees us in order that we might forgive and free others in his name.
So, hold him today in your hands in a circle that extends back many years here at St. Thomas even as it extends fully into the future. Feel him breathe on you the Spirit breath of God. And then be sent into the world so others might see him at work.
We are all sent to show our hands so that others will see the wounds. So others will know him as St. Thomas knows him. So others may come and be nourished, and sent, and nourished again at this holy center of life. Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord, unto eternal life. Amen.
