St. Paul's Episcopal Church

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
425 Cleveland Ave SW
Canton, Ohio 44702
Phone: 330-455-0286
Fax: 330-455-9818
E-mail: office@stpaulscanton.org

Second Sunday of Easter
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Canton OH
Acts 4:32-35, Psalm 133, John 20: 19-31

April 19, 2009
The Rev. Barbara Bond

Unity and Focus

Easter Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene runs to Jesus’ followers and tells them excitedly, “I have seen the Lord!” Do you think they believed her?

Apparently not. That same night, ten of the disciples are huddled together, behind locked doors, frightened and anxious. Events had moved awfully fast, and they were still trying to process what had happened. Their leader had said good-by to them four days ago, and he had been executed three days ago; they found his grave empty this morning, and that crazy woman said he was back! They couldn’t take it all in. It was a room full of confused men, engulfed in doubt.

And in strides Jesus. He soothes their anxiety, he wishes them peace, and he transforms them into apostles – those who are sent out. The church came into being that very night – the ten became a community of believers with purpose, surrounded with the peace of Christ. They were unified, coalesced, and became a body themselves – the Risen Body of Christ, newly minted as the church.

Except for Thomas. Thomas missed the meeting. Who knows where he was? Perhaps out buying groceries? We don’t know. But when he came back, they all said, “We have seen the Lord!” And Thomas reacted about the same way they did to Mary Magdalene. He just couldn’t take it in. In fact, his response was rather gritty: “I can’t believe what you are saying, unless I actually feel Jesus’ wounds.” For Thomas, seeing, feeling, and touching are believing.

A week passed. Then, the next Sunday night, we find them all huddled again in the same room, only this time Thomas is there. Jesus comes back, for the sake of Thomas, to give him a first-hand experience. It is a very loving gesture. Thomas doesn’t need to touch the wounds – immediately he is on his knees, exclaiming “My Lord and my God!” It is the exclamation for all of us, when we see Christ standing before us, in the wounded members of our society; when we see Christ in action, responding to needs; when we see Christ in glory, in our joyous celebrations. Thomas utters a primary prayer: “My God!” It expresses surprise and adoration, bringing Thomas, and us, into unity with others. All eleven of the followers overcame their doubts and went out into the world, emanating from the unity and fellowship of their group, ready to make a difference on the outside.

And so we see that the early church had a few bumps along the road. In the idyllic scene from the Acts of the Apostles, we see a scene of peace and unity, the early followers gathered and sharing everything in common, providing for those in need. It is a system that is ideal, and probably didn’t last very long, if we are to believe St. Paul’s letters to early communities. The unity is an ideal, and we continue to strive for it, but each community is made up of personalities, and there will always be challenges to such groupings. They didn’t come together because they were all alike – far from it. They came together because they had experienced the Risen Christ – either by seeing, or by feeling his presence in the group, or by wishing to practice his teachings. They knew that Jesus had risen – they had the proof right there, in the group itself. The Risen Body of Christ, meeting together in worship, praise, and service.

The church was born around this event, the Resurrection of Christ . The purest form of the early church is found today among Orthodox Christians, who are celebrating Easter today. They take the Resurrection very seriously: it is the high point of the whole year. The preparations are long, Lent is very serious, the Easter celebration itself goes on for hours. To them, this central event is all that matters.

In the west, our Christianity has lost that focus. Mostly as a result of our history and the Roman center of the western church, other practices crept in, including a severe penitential overcast in medieval times. Then, in more recent times, we became distracted by Christmas – we were celebrating Jesus coming among us, taking on human life, and this became the occasion for a major commercial outcropping. Some of us complain about losing the real reason for Christmas in a flood of commercialism. But hey – we lost the real reason for Christianity long ago! It isn’t about Christmas – it is about Easter! Easter! The Orthodox have something to teach us: Christianity would not exist without Easter. We could drop Christmas with no great loss, except economically. But Easter! It is the whole reason we exist. We – you and me, and every community that calls itself Christian – we are the Risen Body of Christ today. We are sent out to do Christ’s work in the world. We witness Christ among us, we feel that breath of peace blown over us, and we feel that exultation when we too cry, “My Lord and my God!”