Seeking Jesus, Easter Life
THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT
Exodus 20:1-17 • Psalm 19 • 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 • John 2:13-22
Just eight nights ago, we gathered in the nave in darkness, in great anticipation, sharing stories of our tradition, fueling our hope in the growing light until we spring forth with the newly baptized, ringing our alleluias to the rafters. We are Easter people, after all. This is our time. We are dead to sin and alive in Christ, thanks to Jesus Christ rising victorious over the grave. Alleluia! If we had a social media account for “Easter People,” I can imagine it being full of all the beautiful pictures I saw last weekend of everyone in their pastel finery, kids scurrying for brightly colored eggs, flowers upon flowers, and churches nearly bursting at the seams to hold the happy and hopeful.
With the fragrance of the lilies still filling the air, we come to the Second Sunday of Easter, hopefully still glowing with the Paschal light, but already being reminded, as Gail O’Day says in her commentary on John, “that it is not easy to live into the reality of Easter”[1]—the reality of Easter being that Christ was not defeated by death. Even as we’re tempted to draw the attention to Thomas this Sunday, emphasizing his doubt, his hesitancy to believe, O’Day calls us to keep perspective on all the disciples. Mary has already told the disciples she’s seen the Lord, and yet the disciples are cloistered in a room, locked in fear. Thankfully, Jesus appears to them and bids them peace not once but twice and even breathes the Holy Spirit upon them. Surely now they’re out in their Easter finery, proclaiming the Resurrected Christ, right? Not exactly.
They do tell Thomas that, like Mary Magdalene, they’ve seen the Lord. But what has changed for them? A week later they are all back in the house, the doors shut. Are they still locked in fear? Are they still trying to figure out what to do? Jesus reappears, and we might wonder if his appearance is just for Thomas. Again, Jesus bids them peace and offers Thomas the opportunity to touch his wounds. We don’t know if Thomas actually touches them, though we’re all influenced by our own imaginations and artistic renditions, perhaps most poignantly the Carvaggio with Thomas’s finger visibly in Jesus’ pierced side, Jesus holding his wrist as if to guide him or hold the hand steady. Such a graphic image holds our attention but can distract us from an even more far-reaching point as O’Day names: “The point is Jesus’ offer of himself, over and over again, to people who long to see him. With no questions asked, Jesus offers himself and gives the repeated gift of his presence and his peace.”[2]
Might we conclude, then, that Easter people, people who live in the reality of Easter, see Jesus because they seek him, because they believe the truth of his victory over death? And Jesus repeatedly shows up and offers peace unconditionally? Well then, what’s so hard about living into that?
I’m going to guess that it has something to do with the fact that, giving you a two-hour credit for Sunday morning, the other 166 hours of the week are carried out in a world that isn’t seeking Jesus Christ, at least not the Jesus Christ who sought and still seeks to do the will of the One who sent him.
No one—or at least not many—are actively seeking to recreate Christian communes where everything is held in common. However lovely it may seem for a community to be of one heart and soul, to give testimony with great power and to be bestowed with great grace, I shake my head, wondering how and where it can actually work. So doubting Sara searched for the farm mentioned in a sermon this past week in Sewanee. My Old Testament professor was the preacher, and Dr. Becky Wright has a keen sense of humor and a no-nonsense approach to reverence and love of God in all Creation.
Preaching on resurrection, Dr. Wright highlighted a quote from Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farms. Essentially, Jordan says that the good news is that Jesus has risen and comes home with us, bringing all the needy with him. We don’t need to wait until we die to see Jesus. Jesus being with us here and now strengthens us in this life. God tried to strengthen us by the Incarnation, but we rejected Jesus. The resurrection, then, “was simply God’s unwillingness to take our ‘no’ for an answer.”[3] And we have plenty of good work to do together.
Jordan had his roots in the Baptist Church, and he took the Book of Acts to heart. In 1942, Clarence and his wife Florence and another couple founded Koinonia Farms as “an intentional community of believers sharing their lives and resources, following the example of the first Christian communities as described in the Acts of the Apostles.”[4] Other families joined them. Their “commitment to racial equality, pacifism, and economic sharing brought bullets, bomb, and a boycott in the 1950s as the KKK and others attempted to force (them) out. (They) responded with prayer, nonviolent resistance, and a renewed commitment to live the Gospel. (They) created a mail-order business, which continues to sustain (the) community today.”[5] Dr. Wright promoted their pecans as a perfect Christmas gift. Jordan also translated the New Testament’s original Greek into a Georgian’s vernacular in the Cotton Patch Version and was a speaker and preacher until his death in 1969. The community’s housing ministry led to the founding of Habitat for Humanity International. For those who seek Jesus, I imagine we don’t have to look far for a testimony of great power and to see evidence of great grace.
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” Jesus said to Thomas and the others who were gathered in the house again on that night a week later. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” says the living Word to us this day, a week after our Easter Day. Blessed are we who believe and seek to see Jesus, who work to make visible and tangible the nearness of Christ. Even if we can’t yet pour our possessions into a collective farm, we start by sharing generously. We strive to see Jesus not only in those we know and love but also in those who are our neighbor, even a stranger.
When Philip said during our lesson in Lent that he wanted to see Jesus, how earnest he was, how young the disciples seemed as they passed the request along to Jesus who had not yet made his triumphal entrance to Jerusalem nor his triumph over the grave. How different Thomas’s words are that are easy to imagine as angry as they are grief-stricken: “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.” Yet again how different our faithful seeking of the risen Christ in one another. We who have not seen Jesus in the flesh, not as the first disciples had, walk in faith, working daily to keep alive our hope, the reality of Easter, the Light of Christ, in the face of ridiculous odds.
But any time we fear or doubt, we need only seek Jesus, and wherever we are, he finds us. We may have to work at it. We may have to name explicitly what it is that we need. That unconditional love and merciful, patient grace will see us to the Easter light, reconciling us in the abiding love of God and unity with one another. How good and pleasant it is, indeed.
[1] Gail R. O’Day, “Homiletical Perspective,” “Second Sunday of Easter: John 20:19-31,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol. 2 Lent through Eastertide, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY. 2013. p. 403.
[2] O’Day. Feasting on the Word, p. 403.
[3] https://www.azquotes.com/quote/750187
[4] https://www.koinoniafarm.org/brief-history/
[5] Ibid.
© 2024 The Rev. Sara Milford
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas