Easter 2, 2020

Sermon Notes, Easter 2, 2020 Imagine Noah’s world with me. He’s been sequestered for forty days with just his family. No visitors, no shopping trips, nothing. He’s getting restless. The conditions that drove him into seclusion seem to be easing. Could it be time to risk a step outside his door? He risks a test case. It proves to be inconclusive, but promising. He improves on the test and this time there’s a definite positive result, but still too soon to abandon caution and step outside. He waits through some more impatient days then tests again. This time the test is successful beyond all doubt. Does Noah venture forth? No. He waits until God says, “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.” Why doesn’t Noah go out when he knows it’s safe? When he can see for himself that the land is dry? Because he knows it is God’s world. It is God who commanded him to build and live in the ark in the first place, and God who must tell him when to leave it. Is Noah’s story a myth with no relevance to our situation today? Or is the God who directed Noah still at work in the world today and just as caring for his creation? How we answer that question reveals what we believe about the immutability of God. If we believe that God is unchanging, immutable, the same yesterday today and tomorrow, then our answer is that Noah’s God is our God. We can rejoice that his love for us is constant. Constant love is not self evident. Because God’s constant love is so unlike our shifting uncertain love, we tend to forget it’s there. Our experience of love is that it is often ephemeral, based on our emotions and subject to changing circumstances. We need to test love to see if it survives calamities. The saddest marriages are those that fall apart when tragedy strikes a family. Loss of a job. Forced inactivity. Extended times of isolation from friends and extended family. All these external circumstances attack even solid marriages and some don’t survive. But God’s love is different. We rejoice when we rediscover how much God loves us and what he loves us through.. How much he discounts our doubts, our wavering faith. Prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love, he continues to love us. In today’s Gospel reading we find Thomas having his own moment of wavering faith. Jesus counters Thomas’ doubting faith with his own constant love. In the process, he teaches Thomas three things he needs to know. First, his presence is peaceful. He stills the storm in the room just as he stilled the storm on the sea of Tiberius. Every time he greets the disciples in their troubles Jesus pronounces peace. Finding peace in the middle of chaos is a gift of God to his people, to us. It’s so important, and so needed, that we see Jesus offering it to his disciples twice in the immediate days after his resurrection. First as they are gathered together on Easter evening, and again 8 days later when Thomas is with them. Just because we are separate doesn’t mean we should stop passing on the peace of Jesus to one another. We can do that in our phone conversations, in assuring those around us who express fear and anxiety, and in our prayers for each other. But mostly we need to remember it ourselves. Tell yourself, “Peace be with you,” when the walls are closing in around you. Peace is the first step in the learning process. That’s why Jesus brings peace to the disciples and Thomas before anything else. It prepares them to receive what else he has to teach them. Second, Jesus gives Thomas something to do. He replaces the idleness that is too often a cradle of worry and fear with a purpose. Again Jesus speaks to all his disciples when he says, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” We may be in forced isolation but its our choice to either be idle or purposeful in our isolation. Just as we are still required to pass the peace of Jesus, so are we still to proclaim Christ to the world. The internet gives us an unparalleled opportunity to do just that. Words passed among friends reach many more who do not know us, have never met us, and yet hear us and our proclamation. We need to be careful of what we say, yet bold enough to proclaim the resurrected Jesus to all who may be listening. It’s distressing to me to think about all I should be doing but can’t right now. Visitations, offering the sacraments, face-to-face counseling, and receiving counsel myself. But then I remember all I can do: call someone on the phone. Answer a question on Facebook, pray for someone. Just spiritually reach out. My ideleness disappears and my days have purpose. Finally, Jesus expresses the continuity between the crucified one and the risen one. The real issue for Thomas is recognizing that Jesus is the same before and after the crucifixion. Jesus shows him that he is physically the same by the wounds he bore. Freed to believe, Thomas answers, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus constant love bridges the gap in Thomas’ faith. Thomas learns that his Lord is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. The same lesson Noah found in God’s constant love before and after the flood. And it’s the lesson we need to take with us as we get on with our lives after the corona virus. The world may have changed. Our life experience has certainly changed. And who knows what other changes lie in wait for us. But Our Lord changeth not. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. His love abides. In that assurance there is great hope for us. So, before we step out from the ark of our sequestering, let’s use well the time we have been given. To experience the peace of Christ. To proclaim the resurrected Jesus. And to live in the knowledge that God’s love is our constant assurance and hope. Amen.