2 Easter
April 11, 2010

Hard to Believe

Light of the world, shine upon us and disperse the clouds of our disbelief, that we may reflect the power of the resurrection in our life together. Amen

When Dave just asked us to read the Psalm in unison with enthusiasm, I think he understood something about how we are all feeling right now…I have to admit, I AM EXHAUSTED… Does anyone else feel this way today?  We have just completed a very intense Holy Week at St Mary’s. We have journeyed from the extreme high of Palm Sunday, with palms and hosannas and even a pony and then within the time of only a week, remembered Maundy Thursday, the abandonment of Jesus in the Garden by the disciples, Peter’s three denials of Jesus, his trial, suffering and death on the cross on Good Friday and then the stunning question of Easter morning, “Why do you look for the living amongst the dead? He is not here!”

And we as a parish have walked along with the disciples, with Jesus as he carried his cross toward Calvary, with the women who arrived that Easter morning to prepare him for his burial and with the men who hid in the upper room. All the hopes and dreams of a people for their new king dashed on Friday and reborn on Sunday..and all of it, if you really think about it, just simply hard to believe! Hard to believe it had all gone so wrong and then hard to believe it was all redeemed so completely.

Have you ever noticed that the phrase ‘hard to believe’ has two very different meanings? In the first instance of course we use this phrase to indicate we aren’t buying it….as in, “I find that hard to believe!”  But then we also use the exact same phrase to indicate something is just too good to be true……I suppose it simply indicates that what our minds can’t grasp, what we can’t get our heads around, somehow can’t possibly be true.

As I tried to think about a time when I had experienced this kind of a feeling…something too good to be true, one came to mind immediately.  With apologies to Hilary Greene, this is exactly the experience I had when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004.  I was working in Chicago at the time and the New England “Diaspora” had gathered in an apartment to watch the playoffs.  We had suffered through almost losing it all to the “team who shall not be named” and then were able to make it to the World Series.  We watched with growing excitement as the Red Sox won game after game and then they won it all and of course we should have been so excited, but actually, we found ourselves in more of a daze…looking around at each other, thinking, “uh, NOW what should we do?” We had no idea how to really believe this had just happened..that they had really won it all….it just didn’t compute AT ALL.

And this is where we meet the disciples today…..they have walked these roads with Jesus, witnessed his miracles, heard his teaching and followed him into Jerusalem with the waving palms and loud Hosannas. It was hard to believe they were moving so quickly toward this new kingdom of which Jesus spoke.  They really didn’t understand some of what he was saying about suffering and him being with them just for a little while, but it was so great to be backing a winner!  Later that week, these same disciples found the trial and torture of their leader hard to believe as well.  All their dreams and hopes were dead with him and the great unspoken question might have been, “Are they coming for us next”?

So there they were…hiding behind a locked door, avoiding the possibilities that were just too hard to believe…and suddenly, Jesus is there.

And you know what has always fascinated me is that when Jesus enters the room through that locked door, he doesn’t chide the disciples for falling asleep in the garden or Peter for denying him three times or leaving the cross to play it safe and hide in the upper room.  Instead he offers them peace and the power of the Holy Spirit.  The gospel of John doesn’t tell us what the reaction was amongst the disciples…if they were excited or scared to see him, if they understood what Jesus said to them about them having the power to forgive others or if they might have thought it was hard to believe.

And, then there is Thomas.  Poor Thomas gets such grief about his response to the news about Jesus’ appearance to the disciples. And before we go down that road, I would offer that Thomas seemed to be the only disciple not scared enough to be hiding in a locked room!  Perhaps Thomas was a braver disciple than the others and perhaps Thomas’ question is in fact a brave one.  Perhaps he was being discerning rather than doubting.  After all they had been through, their fear and devastation, maybe he just didn’t want to be misled by another false prophet. 

Or maybe he understood something hard to believe didn’t have to be the final answer.

And Jesus must have understood Thomas’ struggle, because he returned to them a week later, once again not allowing a locked door to stop him, bid them peace again and immediately answered Thomas’ specific requests to prove it was indeed their Lord.

I wonder what Thomas felt that day.  The shock of seeing Jesus, his offer to allow him to touch his wounds to PROVE it was indeed his Lord.  I wonder if Thomas was thinking ‘this is hard to believe ‘ or “this is too good to be true”?  But you know it seems that this so called ‘doubter’ did not dwell on either! 
In fact, the text suggests he does not even take Jesus up on the offer of proof…he responds, without touching Jesus and says, “My Lord and my God”

Somehow Thomas was able to get past the confusion of Jesus’ resurrection and reappearance, to get past what he might not have been able to grasp in his head and recognize Jesus with his heart. Somehow his “hard to believe” or “too good to believe” became simply

BELIEF.

So where does this gospel story intersect with our lives today?  We know we are Easter people…everything we do here is based on the belief that Jesus, God’s son, lived ministered, suffered, died and was resurrected, but are we beyond the reactions of these disciples who traveled and learned with Jesus day by day? I don’t think we are. 

In the gospel narratives, there is a place for each of us to find ourselves.  Who are you in the Easter narratives? Who are you in this story today? Are you Peter who denied Jesus, as he was led to trial? Are you one of those who slept when all he wanted was someone to stay awake with him? Are you one of the women who stayed with him on the cross or went to the tomb on that early morning to prepare him for his burial? Maybe you are one of the terrified disciples hiding in the locked room.  Are you Thomas, brave enough to be outside of the room and to ask the question they may have all been thinking?
I want to challenge you to consider this during the week…where do you fit into the gospel story and if you had the chance, what would Jesus say to you when you encountered him?

Would he call you by name as he did Mary, when she thought he was the gardener?

Would he offer you forgiveness as he did to Peter?

Would he share his gift of peace and offer you the power of the Holy Spirit?

Would he allow you, like Thomas, to seek the proof you need?

I really encourage each of you , each of us, to hear and to listen to what Jesus might be saying during this Easter season and to really fully understand that this Chrisitan life is neither too hard to believe nor too good to believe, and like Thomas, we have the choice to simply believe.

Amen.