HOMILY FOR THE 2ND SUNDAY IN EASTER
There is a saying that goes, “He is as nervous as a cat in a thunderstorm.” Cats feel an enormous amount of anxiety in thunderstorms. It is an anxiety fueled by paralyzing fear, helplessness, and a lack of power to stop the storm raging outside. The same amount of anxiety, paralyzing fear, and helplessness fills the upper room in which the apostles cower, following the death of Jesus.
They have all right to fear. The Romans had just brutally and publicly executed their leader. In the Gospel of John, they have been very well known associates of Jesus for over three years. They fear that at any moment, they will hear the heavy trod of soldiers’ feet outside the flimsy door behind which they are hiding, and they will be brutally arrested, whipped mercilessly, and crucified just like their leader, their bodies left hanging on crosses to be picked clean by the birds.
We all know the anxiety the apostles are feeling. Anxiety and fear can fill our lives to the point of being paralyzed by it. Just like the apostles, we cower and we hide in our own upper rooms, behind barriers as flimsy as the door that separates the apostles from the world outside.
The anxiety and fear that permeates the entire world today is so thick one can reach out and touch it. I remember the fear during the Cuban Missile crisis of the early sixties when paranoia drove people to create fallout shelters in their own backyards. I remember the same fear following 911 when some people were literally driven insane because they feared terrorists hiding behind every rock and every tree. Today, we turn our homes into armed fortresses in vain hope that we can fend off all threats to ourselves. Ironically, the more we arm ourselves, our fear and anxiety does not decrease, it only increases.
We want peace as much do the apostles! But the peace we seek is fleeting. Everything we try to do on our own initiative to create peace fails. We cannot find peace outside of ourselves. Peace is something that comes only from within. Today’s gospel shows us that there is only way we will find peace in this very violent, anxiety-ridden world, and that is in Jesus Christ.
The apostles learned this lesson in today’s gospel. Into the apostles’ fear-filled upper room, Jesus appears. What is the first thing he says to the apostles? He says, “Peace be with you.” In an instance, the paralyzing fear that has gripped the apostles falls away. It is as when Jesus uttered the word, peace, they breathed it into their whole being. Amidst the violence and chaos that rages outside the door of that upper room, they suddenly not only feel peace, but they become the peace of which Jesus speaks.
Then Jesus breathes upon them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” In receiving the Holy Spirit, they suddenly know in their minds and their hearts, the peace of which Jesus speaks. From that moment on, they become fearless. They will go forth from that upper room to fearlessly proclaim the risen Lord to all people. They no longer fear the violence that the world can throw at them, for they know that the peace of Christ has forever conquered all fear, all anxiety, and eventually will overthrow all violence and hate.
Into our fear-filled upper rooms, Jesus appears and says to us, “Peace be with you.” To experience and to know the peace of Christ, we must first believe. Jesus says to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen but believed” We must believe that once we believe in the Risen Christ and the peace he offers us, nothing will separate us from that peace. St. Paul expresses this in his letter to the Romans. “What can separate us from the love of Christ?” St. Paul writes. “Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?” St. Paul concludes, “No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.”
When the peace of Christ fills our hearts and our minds, then, like the apostles, we will no longer be conquered by fear. We will become as fearless as the apostles, which leads us to one more task to accomplish. We must share that peace of Christ with all people. There is a beautiful prayer written by Jon Vandelier, a pastor from South Africa, a pastor who has known and experienced the horror and violence of apartheid. His prayer expresses wonderfully how we go about sharing Christ’s peace as we leave this church today.
Around the well of your grace, O God,
Are those who thirst for friendship and love;
Help us to offer them the living water of community and connectedness.
Around the well of your life, O God,
Are those who thirst for joy and safety;
Help us to offer them the water of playfulness and protection.
Around the well of your mercy, O God,
Are those who thirst for wholeness and peace;
Help us to offer them the living water of comfort, healing and welcome.
Around the well of your presence, O God,
Are those who thirst for meaning and connection;
Help us to offer them the living water of service and worship.
May the life we have found in you,
Be the gift we share with all who hunger and thirst,
With all who are outcast and rejected,
With all who have too little or too much,
with all who are wounded or ashamed.
And, through us, may this corner of the world
Overflow with you, living water.”
We pray this through Christ, our Risen Lord. “Amen.”
