Collect
Almighty Father, you have given your only Son to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification: grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth; through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
or
Risen Christ, for whom no door is locked, no entrance barred: open the doors of our hearts, that we may seek the good of others and walk the joyful road of sacrifice and peace, to the praise of God the Father.
Post Communion
Lord God our Father, through our Saviour Jesus Christ you have assured your children of eternal life and in baptism have made us one with him: deliver us from the death of sin and raise us to new life in your love, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Readings
First reading – Acts 4.32–35
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
Psalm
1 Behold how good and pleasant it is ♦
to dwell together in unity.
2 It is like the precious oil upon the head, ♦
running down upon the beard,
3 Even on Aaron’s beard, ♦
running down upon the collar of his clothing.
4 It is like the dew of Hermon ♦
running down upon the hills of Zion.
5 For there the Lord has promised his blessing: ♦
even life for evermore.
Epistle – John 1.1 – 2.2
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us – we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Gospel – John 20.19–31
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.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’
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.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
Sermon on Low Sunday, Easter ii
Today we are gathered on what is often called “Low Sunday” – when congregations are reduced dramatically and there seems to be a dearth of priests. I think it is because all the celebrations of Easter have exhausted the people of God, both worshippers and their leaders. So many want to have “a day off” – the congregations want to take some time away from church and many of our priests have taken this Sunday off to have their holiday.
Where do they all go? Have they all hidden themselves behind locked doors like the disciples? But our reading from John tells us we can’t hide ourselves away – Jesus will appear when we least expect it, even when all the doors are locked and we have a sense of security against all our fears. However, it turns out this self-assurance is false. We are assailed by our own fears, those of our very own selves and the crowd. I would say that behind those closed doors, we are meet our conscience at the very least, an encounter we seem to fear the most.
Even though the doors are locked, we know about the fear of the crowd, don’t we? Well, we should because it is all around us. We have heard of this fear through the media, our conversations with so many who are frightened by everything going on around us – stories range from war and famine to the bullying of the schoolyard. I am sure many of us start out of a deep sleep on account of some night terror. The disciples have this grand fear as well, don’t they? We just read, “the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews.”
That is a rather odd statement, don’t you think? Weren’t they all Jews? Could we say they feared their very own selves – locking themselves away, hiding in dark places. – This behaviour didn’t rid them of their fear. It could have exacerbated it. In the dark, behind a locked door, the disciples would cower and hear every sound as a threat. Don’t we do this when we lie in the dark having woken up in the early hours? Don’t we tremble in the dark before the sun rises to cheer us? We certainly are ill at ease when a nightmare wakes us and we try to calm ourselves in order to regain that stillness sleep requires.
The doors are locked and yet we still quake in our boots because of the crowd which assails our very selves, that crowd which tries to tell us what to think and do, submerging us in that tsunami of lethargy and loss of self which its dominion creates. We are fundamentally a very real part of that crowd at the same time as feeling oppressed by its very real force on our lives.
No wonder we read that the disciples were frightened – no wonder they locked the doors so they might not be assaulted again by that crowd which took away their Lord and Master. Now that the disciples had seen the empty tomb, everything has been disrupted. All their expectations were overturned and they were confronted by doubt, just like Thomas.
Within their own ranks there was an unbelief – a doubt around Christ on the cross. Unless Thomas placed his hand on the wounds of the crucified Lord, he could not believe. This doubt must be the basis of the same fear all the disciples were experiencing. They tried to lock the doors to keep it away, but it was not just an external threat, it was an internal anxiety as well.
Internally and externally, the disciples were assailed. Terrors of the night and a fear of the crowd combined to drive the disciples into an upper room, into a space of perceived safety. It was certainly a place of solitude, but does it provide safety? This upper room does isolate, but does it provide a real security?
If we listen to the news and read the newspapers, don’t we realise that such isolation does not work? Separation from our fellows, whether collectively as a nation or individually as a single person, does not provide that certainty we all crave. Each one of us is thrown alone into the world, but each one of us lives amongst the crowd with one another.
In the isolation of the locked room, in the darkness of our fear, we are thrown back on ourselves. We are disciples. We must confront our doubts about life, the universe and everything. We must see the Lord standing there in front of us demanding that we put our hands in his wounds to make everything about life very real. Jesus asks us to experience life in all its fullness. In fact, I would ask you to consider that Jesus commands us to do so with his one injunction – to love one another.
To fulfill this command, means that we have to unlock all the doors. These doors are not just the barriers between us, but these doors are within ourselves as well. Didn’t Aldous Huxley ask us to open “the doors of perception”? I think Jesus is asking us to do the same thing. When we love one another, we are seeing ourselves and others anew. Our perception grasps new aspects – no longer is each one of us Marcuse’s “one-dimensional man”, but everyone is open to the other and so we round out our character. You might say the three dimensions of what Paul experienced of the love of Christ become our own. We become ourselves by embracing the other, not by isolating ourselves because of our terror of the crowd. We also become ourselves by getting a hold of ourselves by embracing all of our experience.
We have moved out of the isolation of the locked upper room into the wide open spaces of friendship and companionship. We have shed the fear of others and put on that armour of Christ which will protect us from any assault. We have become confident in our very selves because we have entered into the passion and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour. There can be no terror to life when we have seen the breadth, heights and depths which the love of God opens up to us as Paul did. The fear and pain of life does not isolate us, but it unites us one with another. More importantly, we are not in fear of our own selves, afraid of the isolation of individuality. No, in our experience of the whole of Easter we have been transformed from individuals afraid of everything to people who care for each and every person we encounter just as each one of them loves us. We boldly go forth.
We are disciples, just like those who hid in that locked room, wondering about the whole of Easter. We keep reciting the passion story which ends abruptly at the empty tomb. And then someone enters our very own locked room, totally unexpected because of our recital of the story and opens our eyes – we no longer need the proof Thomas required. We see right through our own terror. Fear dissipates, and we have a new confidence. We have a strength of character which allows us to encounter and overcome that mortal, existential anxiety in order to live life in its fullness, to find life without fear in the fullness of loving one another.
One Reply to “Low Sunday, Easter ii”
Comments are closed.