resurrection – Holy Adventures

Breakfast is Ready…

Acts 9:1–20 Ps 30 Revelation 5:.6–14 John 21:.1–19

Today is Domestic Violence Awareness Sunday.

It’s interesting that it falls during the season of Resurrection— when we are leaning into the hope we have in Jesus. So what might these scriptures say to those living with or recovering from domestic abuse? What might they say to those who perpetrate it? And what might the Holy Spirit want us to hear this morning?

A short time has passed since the first Easter, and the disciples are in a real spin.

They’ve walked with Jesus. They’ve witnessed healing. Fed multitudes. Had their feet washed. They fled Gethsemane. And they failed him. They watched him die. And just when grief and guilt had swallowed them whole— Jesus returned. Not once, but again and again. “Peace be with you,” he said. “Breathe in the Spirit.”

But today, we find Peter saying: “I’m going fishing.” And the others go too.

We often miss the despair in those words.

“I’m going fishing” isn’t recreational. It’s resignation.

It’s Peter saying, “I don’t know who I am anymore. I give up. I just want things to go back to how they were.” When grief or trauma knocks us down, we reach for what’s familiar, for survival. Even if it’s not what gives life.

They fish all night. And catch nothing. But—yet again—Jesus appears and everything changes. The net overflows. A fire is already burning. There’s fish, and bread, and grace already waiting. They have breakfast with the Risen One— awkward, intimate.

And then… Jesus turns to Peter and says: “Simon, son of John.”

He takes him back to the beginning— to the name before the bravado. To the one he called. “Do you love me?” Three times. And three times, Peter—wounded by the memory—answers: “Yes.” And each time, Jesus replies: “Feed my sheep.”

This is not just Peter’s restoration. It’s his recommissioning.

“Follow me,” Jesus says again. Just like at the start. But now Peter knows the cost. And still—he’s invited. Still—he’s sent. This is another resurrection story. Peter’s. And what was possible then, is promised for now.

In this country, one woman dies every week from domestic and family violence.

One in four women, and one in eight men, experience abuse from a partner.

First Nations people are 33 times more likely to be harmed.

And our children are not spared.

It is those who can no longer walk into church because they were told: “Pray more.” “Marriage is for life.” “God hates divorce more than violence.” It is those with deep wounds who haven’t told a soul. And it is people who cause harm.

And it is not just “somewhere out there.” It is people in the pews. People leading worship, because research shows experiences of domestic abuse are statistically as likely in Anglican Churches in Australia, if not more likely than wider society.

To survivors: we see you. We are you. You deserve safety. You deserve healing.

The risen Christ does not abandon you. And nor do we.

Now let me say something clearly, and without apology:

If you are someone who harms your partner or children— this Gospel is for you too.

Jesus says to Peter: “Do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

That love is protection, not power. It is honour, not control. It is repentance— deep, painful, necessary change. Resurrection starts here. You are not beyond grace. None of us are. But grace is not soft. She is fierce. She calls us to account. She burns away excuses. Reveals truth. And waits to rebuild us into someone new. She still brings resurrection.

Resurrection is not a metaphor. It is God’s unflinching commitment to life when death and despair think they have the last word. The risen Christ does not say to Peter, “Forget it happened.” He says, “Bring your pain. Bring your shame. Let’s start again.”

Not by erasing the past— but by transforming it. Resurrection means the body of Jesus is still wounded… yet fully alive. It means love is stronger than death. Even the slow deaths people suffer behind closed doors.

So what does resurrection look like, in a world where family violence still persists?

It looks like churches becoming places of safety. A refuge that says, clearly and without hesitation: “We believe you. We support you. You are not alone.”

It looks like learning what to do: How to listen. When to act. It means realising Jesus’ call to “tend my sheep” includes those whose homes are warzones. It means checking our liturgies and language— because Scripture is sometimes weaponised. And we are called to speak differently. It means showing up. Staying present. Having compassionate courage. And it means being a space where all are safe, valued, and free.

As those who have chosen to follow Christ, we are resurrection people. That call is real. And it is costly. It is the call to tend bruised sheep, protect the lambs, follow Jesus to the shoreline and into the awkward spaces, and say: “Breakfast is ready. You are loved. There is a place for you here.” This call is confronting. It asks something of us. It means putting down the nets of indifference. Letting go of the safety of silence.

It means walking with survivors. Listening as they speak. And staying when it’s uncomfortable. It means action over feelings. “Feed my sheep” is a commission to justice. To care. To protection. It’s a call to every community that dares to bear Christ’s name.

The resurrection becomes a second calling. A deeper one. The first time, we followed without knowing. The second time, we follow with full knowledge of the risk, the discomfort, the cost— and the hope. Because resurrection hope is not naive.

It says: Even when you’ve given up. Even when you’ve denied Love and gone back to your old life—there is still a place for you. Hope comes to find you. A fire burns on the beach. Bread is being broken. The call is still being spoken: “Follow me.”

Resurrection is not for the clean and pristine. It is for the ones who fled. Who failed. The ones who are dead. And the ones who’ve endured more than anyone should, who’ve hidden bruises, silenced cries, and carry scars.

Christ says: “Do you love me? Feed my sheep. Tend my lambs. Follow me.”

So hear the invitation again. And follow with eyes wide open— knowing what it costs and knowing what it’s worth. Hope is here. Breakfast is ready. Feed my sheep.

Amen.

Leading with Vulnerability

Acts 3:12-20 Psalm 4 1 John 2:15-17; 3:1-6 Luke 24:36b-48

I went to an AA meeting once. I had only ever seen AA meetings on TV before, so I wasn’t sure what was usual practice and what was poetic license, but they really do begin by going around the circle saying ‘my name is x and I am an alcoholic’. And then, this amazing thing happens; everyone else says ‘hello x’.

Each person goes in, leading with the most vulnerable thing about themselves, laying it right on the line, and they receive the welcome and acceptance that they really need. Regardless of it? In spite of it? Maybe because of it! They aren’t greeted as the alcoholic they just acknowledged themselves to be; they are greeted as the named person they really are.

And something in this morning’s gospel reading made me think about that, in the example Jesus sets.

Luke Chapter 24, where our reading came from today, is super eventful.

It begins early in the morning on the first day of the week when the women arrive at the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus. He isn’t there – why do you look for the living among the dead. He is not here. He has risen, just as he told you he would – and they go and tell the disciples. Then two other disciples walk the 12k to Emmaus, accompanied by a stranger on the road. They chat with him but don’t know who he is until he breaks the bread at their meal …and then he disappears from their sight. They get up and run the 12k’s back to the others and they each tell each other ‘it’s true! He has risen!’ and then we get to verse 36 where we began today… ‘While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’

They were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. And that seems weird – Mary and the other women have seen him. Simon Peter and another disciple have seen him. The two disciples on the Emmaus Road have seen him. They have all seen him TODAY. He has spoken to them, eaten with them, walked with them, and yet now, at this evening’s appearance, they are startled and terrified and think it is a ghost. And this is when Jesus does his introduction:

Why are you frightened? Why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet. See that it is I, myself. Touch me and see.

And that is what reminded me of that AA meeting. And the power of vulnerability and how easy it is to try and hide away and only project the best versions of ourselves.

Jesus’ hands and feet have been pierced and mutilated. And he doesn’t hide his wounds. He uses them to show people who he is. And he uses his hands and feet to show people what God has done.

You see these hands, with these holes where the nails held me to the cross?

You see these feet, that were pinned there too?

They broke me and killed me, but God raised me from the dead and you can see it is me, because these wounds are still here.

And because Christ leads with his wounds, because Christ is willing to be identified as the wounded healer – the one who died – the one who has all those experiences in his very recent past and is standing here now because of them, not despite them. Because Christ leads in that way, so we can do the same.

It’s like we are being invited, encouraged, welcomed to share all that we are – all our good bits, our damaged bits, our healed bits, and our yet-to-be-healed bits – and that we will be accepted as we are. Just like in that opening round at AA.

So, why we are so inclined to shove our proverbial nail marked hands into our pockets and bundle our scarred feet into our boots and pretend all the time we are ok? Why do we try to keep our mask straight, and paint on a smile? Maybe our lesson from this newly risen Christ is there is power in vulnerability and hope for others in our stories of healing. And there is overwhelming strength in the journey towards that place of wholeness. We don’t need to be fully healed to be a witness to what God is doing for us. We can still be on the way. There is truth and beauty in our becoming.

They were startled and terrified, the gospel writer says.

Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts.

Yes, they’re standing in front of a man who was dead yesterday, and here he is asking for fish. That’s pretty frightening. That might make you doubt your sanity. But perhaps it’s more startling, more frightening, being face-to-face with someone who wears his wounds boldly, as testament to God’s conquering of death and darkness and despair, and that he might be encouraging them – us – to do the same; to wear our wounds and our vulnerability out loud. Not hide away until it is a story we can tell about ‘that time back then’, when it’s cleaner, more sanitised.

Sharing our suffering, our experiences and our pain while it is still present has power. It shows others there is hope. It shows that acceptance is still possible.

It is what I noticed at AA – ‘my name is x and I am an alcoholic’………‘hello x’.

And sadly it is not always what we have come to experience in the church. But it is the example of the Risen Christ.

Why else would his wounds still have been visible after his resurrection?

God could have chosen to resurrect Jesus with perfect, healed flesh. But, in some celestial plan, the scars remain. And perhaps they remain as witness to the healing and transforming work of God.

And if that can be true for Jesus, it can be true for you too. So don’t hide, friends. Don’t be terrified. Don’t be frightened. Take your hands out of your pockets and your feet out of your boots. You are welcome here despite your wounds. You are welcome here because of them. Amen.

Peace be with you…

Acts 4:32-37 Psalm 133 1 John 1:1–2:2 John 20:19-31

I don’t know about you, but I feel like Thomas has had a bit of a resurgence in the last few years. In my childhood years, and even into adulthood, Thomas was always known by that moniker Doubting Thomas, and he was always used as an example of how not to behave. Do not doubt but believe, was the message. Until recently. And recently I have noticed this rising tide of people defending Thomas, even sticking up for him. Even just last week, someone said to me, ‘Thomas made the first profound acclamation – My Lord and My God – the biggest claim in all the gospels’. Its only taken 2000+ years, but Thomas’ reputation seems to finally be shaking off its tarnish. So, it wasn’t Thomas who grabbed my attention in this morning’s reading. Instead, I am struck by Jesus’ arrival and the kind of greeting he gives to his disciples…

This morning, we meet them, huddled in the upper room, for fear of the Jews, and I suspect that having denied, betrayed, and abandoned Jesus the disciples were really wallowing in their shortcomings. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think they were passing around blame for the death of Jesus, trying to make the other’s faults greater than their own; like, ‘if Judas hadn’t betrayed him, it would’ve been ok’ and ‘Peter, if you hadn’t denied him first, I was going to say I knew him’. They all screwed up. There would be enough blame to go around.

And then, even while they’re locked away, it is here, amid doubt, fear, heartbreak, and blame, that Jesus came and stood among them. Jesus: no respecter of locked doors, or self-pity, or hiding, comes and stands among them. It is here he appears to his disciples and says, ‘Peace be with you’. Peace. They’ve denied and betrayed and deserted and made fatal mistakes in their following of him…and Jesus’ first words to them are, Peace be with you.

His final word, if they had been there to hear it, was ‘finished’. That was it, the end of how things had been, how they once were. It Is Finished. And now is the dawning of the new world; all that was is gone and the new beginning is one of peace. Absolute, all consuming, fear swamping, peace.

And as I thought about this earlier on this week, I reflected once more on how much we need that same greeting, same promise, same hope, right now, at least as much as those first disciples did. Maybe more.

Yesterday, I scanned the front page of the BBC news website where I read:

Ukraine has carried out a drone attack against targets in southern Russia and claims to have destroyed six Russian planes at an airbase in the Rostov region.Eight more aircraft were badly damaged, while 20 service personnel could have been killed.
7 Aid workers have been killed in Gaza, adding to the at least 33,000 Palestinians in this current conflict. And those who remain are being purposefully starved
New York and Taiwan have both been hit by earthquakes in the past week
A French student has been murdered by his fellow classmates,
And the world’s biggest iceberg – nearly 4000sqkm – is drifting to who knows where…

Closer to home, I have a friend who was unable to deal with life any longer and chose death instead, along with loved ones waiting for test results or surgery, and you can insert your own scenarios here too, and the list goes on. And the only thing that might make any of this better is that elusive peace.

So is it any wonder that, when Christ conquered death, when life became everlasting and darkness lost all power to the source of light, is it any wonder that his first words were PEACE. Peace be with you. It’s going to be ok. That is the promise.

Peace in place of war

Peace not conflict

Peace among world leaders and countries

Peace between classmates

Peace as universal language and currency

Peace for our planet as it struggles to breathe without choking

And peace for our friends and relatives and ourselves, as we wait for that diagnosis, or treatment or relief.

Peace be with you, Jesus said. Peace be with you.

Peace is often portrayed as a gentle breeze, lapping waves, or a silent bird drifting by but is not peace – that is calm. Peace is other, it is countercultural, it says fear doesn’t get to win, despair doesn’t get to win, doubt, blame, anxiety, war, violence, discrimination, or darkness – none of these get to win. Peace trumps them all.

Peace is a gift – a fruit of the spirit – it is given to us and grows in us and is dependent on Jesus – the prince of peace. Peace, apart from that is merely an absence of the things we want to avoid. But we don’t follow a God of absence, we follow a God of deep and real presence. And that presence is peace.

Tonight we gather again to pray for peace; to say ‘we recognise we are in trouble and we don’t know how to make it better but we believe that you do Lord, and we are pleading for it’. We will gather in our own ‘upper room’, as the disciples did, and wait for Jesus to come and rescue us from the mess we have made, universally.

Our waiting is not passive or in vain. It is active waiting, with a faith that we know the One who can make change. We know the one who brings peace, who is peace.

We gather for our friends and relatives and fellow humans in Gaza or Ukraine or in hospitals or prisons, for those who look ahead and can only see a bleak future, and we plead for peace. When we don’t know how to help, gathering and praying to the one who is peace, brings peace, promises peace, is something we can do.

And whenever we share the peace with one another or take the prince of peace into our hands at every mass, may we pause for a moment and commit to pray for peace for the world, that the living Christ may come and stand among us, among them, and say ‘peace be with you’.

Amen.

A sermon for Easter Sunday

Isaiah 25:6-9 Acts 10:34-43 John 20:1-18

What a Holy Week we have had! And here we are, at service 29 of 30, and Christ is risen – the foundation of our faith, the hope for the world, light in the place of darkness and life in the place of death. And what is there left to say? Well, let me make 4 observations from the story, and 4 challenges for us.

The gospel passage begins pretty frantically. Mary comes to the tomb and saw the stone was removed. She runs to tell someone, meets two disciples on the road and the three of them run back to the tomb. One runs faster, gets there first, finds it empty, ‘believes’ (although the gospel writer doesn’t say what they believe, because they don’t understand that Jesus has risen so…??) and then they go home.

And then everything becomes calmer, more tender, and it becomes Mary’s story with her Lord, and it is beautiful. She sees Jesus. She doesn’t know it is him. She mistakes him for the gardener and then she hears her name, and she knows. And she falls at his feet and worships. Jesus tells her – don’t hold onto me, go to my brothers, give them this message and Mary announces to the rest – I have seen the Lord. The resurrection is proclaimed, and the world is changed.

And as I reflected on these words, these extraordinary events, here is what I noticed – 4 things Mary did, 4 actions for us to imitate.

Mary went

Mary wept

Mary worshipped

Mary witnessed

Mary went while it was still dark. She went to tend and care for the one she loved. She went to the place of darkness and death. She went where others were too fearful to go. She went, even though going had potentially dangerous consequences. She went, and nothing could keep her away. And because she went, she was there when the light of the world really dawned.

She went and she wept – she wept at all that was lost and all that needed to be found. She wept for all she had hoped for and for all she thought would never be fulfilled. She wept for her loss and at the imagining of what life would be like without Jesus.

And Mary worshipped – She heard her name, safely from his mouth, just as she did when he first set her free. She knew he was back, that death hadn’t won, and she worshipped at his nail-scarred feet. But she didn’t stay there. She knew that his rising, that this new, free, world of life and light meant that she had work to do and she got up and set to work right away.

She heard his command, and she went and witnessed to all she had seen and heard. She took her gold-prize message of life forever, her message of salvation that stuck two fingers up at sin and death and suffering; she didn’t tuck it away, securely in her heart; she ensured she witnessed to it everywhere she went. Let it burst out of her lips, that the world might be changed.

Mary went – to the garden

She wept – at the tomb

She worshipped – the risen Christ

And she witnessed – to everyone she met

And this is our example, as we try to follow the risen Christ.

‘Early, on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went…’ to the place of true darkness and death. Where are the dark places we might need to go? Will we go? And are we confident we will find Jesus there?

When Mary got there, she wept. Of course she wept. Her hope was well and truly gone; not only was he dead but they had also taken him away. There was nothing left, no body left. And she wept. Sometimes, weeping is the right and appropriate response.

What makes us weep? What situations feel so desperate, so impossible to solve, that all we can do is weep? When we weep, can we consciously take that despair and heartbreak to Jesus? Can we find the hope that our weeping will be received, comforted, even resolved in him?

And then she heard her name, spoken so familiarly, and she knew it was her Jesus and she worshipped; rabbouni, teacher, let me hold on to you; my refuge; my place of safety. Her despair was gone, her hope was restored, and her response was worship. Do we take our despair and tears to Jesus and, as they are lifted from us, do we respond in worship? And have we ever heard him speak our name as we do?

As Mary’s weeping turned to worship, so she heard her Lord’s voice, and she heard the specific instructions that were hers to fulfil.

‘Do not hold onto me…go to my brothers and give them this message…’

And she witnessed to her brothers, and to the rest of the world, the truth that she knew to be true. She witnessed to those who were languishing in grief and darkness. She witnessed to those in locked rooms and with fearful hearts. She witnessed to those who were defeated by death. She witnessed with words that change everything ‘I have seen the Lord’.

Have we each seen the Lord? Have we seen Him, in the bread and wine, in the faces of each other, in the readings and the hymns; have we seen him, and will we witness to others that we have seen the Lord?

Mary went, she wept, she worshipped, and she witnessed.

And may she be our example, that we too may go in search of Jesus, weep at darkness and despair, wherever we find it. May we worship when we see Christ’s transforming power and bear witness to others.

And if none of this makes sense to you, if you have no idea what it means to go or weep or worship or witness, talk to me or someone else you trust. Because, like Mary, many of us have seen the Lord too, and long to witness to this message of light-over-darkness and life-over-death.

Alleluia Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed, alleluia!

A road to Emmaus

Acts 2:14a, 36-41 Ps 116:1-4, 12-19 1 Peter 1:13-25 Luke 24:13-35

I have spent so much time with these disciples on this road this week! I have walked with them and listened to them and wondered about them. They have been with me as I’ve worked and as I swam. They’ve been with me when I laid awake in the night and when I slept. And, as is sometimes the case, the more time I spent with them, the less I understand their story. I began the week going ‘oh the road to Emmaus! I love this one!’ and have reached Sunday going ‘I don’t think I get it!’

So, we join them on the first Easter Sunday, and these two disciples are going to Emmaus, a village seven miles from Jerusalem, and they’re talking about all the things that have happened. And as they are walking, Jesus himself came near and went with them. They don’t know it is him, because ‘their eyes were kept from recognising him’ and he asks them what they are talking about. They stood still, looking sad, and can’t understand how this man doesn’t know what’s been happening these past few days.

And then they say the saddest three words of the human heart – ‘we had hoped’, they say. We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel. We had hoped that what he taught us was true. We had hoped this was the new way and the beginning of life. We had hoped for so much but now he’s dead and we are disappointed and sad. We had hope, but now it is gone.

And the women have told us he is alive, but we went to see, and saw nothing. And the unknown traveller calls them foolish and slow of heart and takes them on a guided tour of scripture. From the exodus, through the prophets, he interprets what had happened, to them. And they feel something, but they don’t know what. And still they don’t understand.

And I have more questions than answers.

I wonder, why were their eyes kept from recognising him?! And what did the risen Jesus look like?

Mary didn’t recognise him – she thought he was the gardener. But then he spoke her name, and she knew him, so his voice must have been familiar. Thomas knew it was him as soon as he saw him – he said he needed to put his finger in the holes and his hands in his side, but as soon as he saw him, he knew.

But these disciples don’t recognise him even though he walked with them – with holes in his hands and feet – and spoke with them. They didn’t recognise what he looked like, nor what he sounded like. Why couldn’t they tell it was him?!

And then they reach Emmaus and Jesus goes to walk on ahead, but they ask him to stay, so he went into the house. And I imagine they are still chatting and still looking at him – do they not notice the marks in his hands? Do they really not know who this stranger is? But they feel something in their hearts; something other than the deep weight of grief that has been theirs all week. There’s something else there; what is it?

And they prepare the dinner.

They bake bread – that takes time – the flour and the water and the kneading and the baking of it and all this time they still don’t know who he is. Really?!

And then, they sit down to eat, and their scripture-teaching visitor takes this freshly baked bread in his scar-marked hands, and he blesses it and breaks it and gives it to them. And suddenly it is as if their eyes are opened, and they recognise him… and THEN HE VANISHES!! He was there and then he isn’t, and their response is to say to each other ‘I thought something was up’, or rather, ‘I thought my heart was burning while he was talking to us’. Well, I’ll say!!

And they get up and run the 7 miles back to where their other friends are and tell them they met this man on the road who turned out to be Jesus and they know it because of the breaking of the bread.

And again, I have more questions than answers.

How did they not know who he was? How did they not hear his voice and recognise him, or see his hands and feet and not ask? What did he look like? What did he sound like? Did grief really blind them to that extent? Wasn’t it obvious before the breaking of the bread?

And then I realised how foolish I am and how slow of heart – just like those disciples.

How often is it that we encounter the risen Lord and have no idea either? How often are we given a glorious gift from the creator…but fail to notice? Isn’t it a foundational belief of our faith that God is with us always, until the end of time, and yet we might walk with God for days or weeks at a time and never even realise it?

And isn’t that why we gather here together, around this holy meal, around the breaking of the bread, so that we remember? Because how foolish we all are, how slow of heart humanity is! We need all of our senses to be engaged in order that we might have a fighting chance of hearing or seeing or receiving the message of love that God is communicating to us over and over, all of the time.

Sometimes, like Mary on that first dawn, we might hear our Lord’s voice and know it.

Sometimes, we might be sat in our room and be aware of the presence of God with us. But those times are rare, really. And that is why we have the gift of this bread and wine, which becomes for us the very presence of the risen Lord, because sometimes we need to see and touch and smell and hold and eat. It is real and tangible and present, so that we can recognise the one we are trying to follow, trying to know and love, but are often blind and deaf to.

So, as pilgrims on the road, we don’t always know or notice that Christ is right beside us. As fellow travellers who meet together here, we don’t always believe the testimony of others. Sometimes we need our own encounter, something that makes our hearts burn within us, something more than explanation of scripture, something more than words. So God gave us the mass.

Take and eat, God said, this is my body – drink this, it is my blood.

Every time that we do this, may we pause long enough to feel our hearts burn within us. May we know we have encountered the risen Christ – that this gospel message is true – and, every time, like these Emmaus pilgirms, may we get up from here and go and tell others: Jesus is Risen and he has been made known to me in the breaking of the bread. Come and see. Alleluia.

Amen.

I have seen the Lord!

I have several favourite preachers that I turn to, often, to see what they say on a bible passage. One of my all-time favourites is Nadia Bolz-Weber – a Lutheran priest with an outrageous number of tattoos and a potty mouth, with a passionate love of Jesus and a healthy disrespect for the confines of Church. I don’t know why it’s a match really 😉

What she has to say on this week’s gospel passage is so beautiful that I’ve taken chunks of it and my voice is intertwined with hers to such an extent that I need to give that acknowledgement to her, from the off.

So, this morning we meet the disciples, huddled in the upper room, for fear of the Jews, and unlike last time, Thomas is now with them too. And I suspect that having denied, betrayed, and abandoned Jesus the disciples were really wallowing in their shortcomings. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think they were passing around blame and justifications for the death of Jesus, trying to make the others faults greater than their own; ‘if Judas hadn’t betrayed him it would’ve been ok’ and ‘there was no space to stay at the foot of the cross anyways, with all those women around’ and ‘Peter, if you hadn’t denied him first, I was going to say I knew him’ …I mean, they’ve all screwed up.

And then, even while they’re locked away, it is here, amidst doubt and fear, amid blame and justifications that Jesus came and stood among them. Jesus; clearly no respecter of locked doors, or self-pity, or hiding, comes and stands among them. It is here he chooses to appear to his beloved Christ deniers – those he loves who abandoned him and he says ‘Peace be with you’. Peace? They’ve denied and betrayed and deserted and made fatal mistakes in their discipleship…and Jesus’ first words to them are, Peace be with you.

His final words, if they had been there to hear them, was ‘it is finished’. That was it, the end. The end of the old world order. And now is the dawning of the new world; all that was is gone and the new beginning is one of peace. Absolute, all consuming, fear swamping, peace. The old is forgiven. The new is freedom.

And notice the text doesn’t say “when they had repented of what complete asses they had been; and when they had perfected their faith and the purity of their doctrine; and when they had achieved the right condition of personal morality THEN they were worthy of receiving Jesus.” No. There they sat. Fear, doubt, betrayal and more than a little shame.

But it takes more than shame and locked doors to keep Jesus out. In fact; it’s just like God to barge in uninvited through our fear and locked doors to remind us, like it or not, that we are the recipients of peace, grace, forgiveness, and God’s spirit. Jesus just has this way of coming along and saying an insistent ‘yes’ to our polite “no thank yous”. And that’s exactly what he does for Thomas.

Thomas wasn’t there for Jesus’ first visit. He didn’t hear those first soothing words of peace. He only gets to hear about it second hand. And he doesn’t believe the disciples. And I don’t blame him! Their track record hasn’t been great so far, has it? Peter told Jesus he would die for him, just a few days ago, and that turned out to not be true, so he has said his own polite “no thank you” to the news that Jesus has risen from the dead. He doubts. And it’s not surprising is it, because even though Jesus has cryptically said he will be back, and the disciples have said they have seen him, it’s just not something that dead people do, is it? So, yes, he has doubts.

But doubting isn’t the opposite of having faith…it’s a component of having faith. Doubting can mean we haven’t forgotten the story. Doubting means that we don’t have it figured out all on our own. But the best thing about doubting is it’s honest.

And now, when Jesus appears again, Thomas meets him, honestly, with his doubts in his hands and mouth, and then he trades it all in as he comes face-to-face with Life and makes the boldest statement of faith that we hear in the whole bible: “My Lord and My God” he says. Jesus’ presence is the perfect antidote to doubt. We might still feel it, but it can have no power – it isn’t true – because Jesus conquered doubt at the same time He defeated death. When Jesus kicked death into touch, He also told guilt and shame and fear and blame exactly where to go. None of those things can function under Jesus’ peace.

So what about us, huddled here today in our 21^st century equivalent of that same room. How are we feeling? What are we believing?

Here we are, along with those first disciples, tentatively trying to get things right, more often getting things wrong – doubting, denying, wandering off, forgetting. But, I have seen the Lord, friends. I have. I have seen him here in the mass and in the faces of each of you. I have seen him over coffee and broken bread. I have seen him in the gardens and the chapel. I have seen him in the ocean and the sunsets. I have seen the lord. And we will each reach out and touch his resurrected body at this altar in a few minutes. We have seen the lord. Do you believe? Will you, like Thomas, reach out your hands and touch our Risen Lord? Will you receive his peace and God’s spirit and be changed? Will you kneel in wonder and worship and echo that great and abiding statement of faith; my lord and my God, and will you pass it on to others that they too may have life in Christ’s name?

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed, Alleluia. Amen.

Easter Sunday 2022

What a holy week we have had, haven’t we?

If ever I needed cast iron proof that I’ve truly found my tribe with you lot, this holy week has confirmed it. A few of us have yawned through Morning Prayer or whispered our way through Compline. Beauty and creativity have sprung up in the labyrinth and the graffiti wall and most abundantly in those stations of the cross. We have held silence and sacred spaces and banquets and night watches. We lamented and waited at the foot of the cross. We have tried to, faithfully and tentatively, walk the Way of the Cross and we have done it together and we made it to resurrection. And didn’t we just!

And then, we hear the most stunning account of the resurrection narrative, as recorded in St John’s Gospel. We see faithful Mary Magdalene – last to leave Golgotha, first to arrive at the grave. We witness her fear at the moved – removed – stone, and we watch as these anxious, grief-ridden, competitive disciples – barely even able to cling to that title – race to the tomb, summoned by Mary’s fear rather than their own devotion.

They look in, they don’t go in, they go in, they see the linen wrappings, they believe, they don’t understand and then they go home. The account of them is frantic, chaotic, and kind of exhausting. But. Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.

They are too-ing and fro-ing, running and racing, and Mary just stood weeping. Sometimes it is good to just stop, pause, and have a good weep. Be like Mary!

And then, the tempo changes into this beautiful tender kind-of distanced embrace.

She sees two angels – just sitting there in the tomb – and they ask her ‘why are you weeping’ and she says, ‘they have taken away my lord and I do not know where they have laid him’, heart-wrenching, and then she turns, in her grief, and she sees Jesus. He’s right there and she sees him, but she thinks he is the gardener.

Through history, art has given us gorgeous glowing images of the resurrected Christ. He is always wearing billowing white robes because he must always be standing in front of some kind of holy wind machine. And he is glorious and radiant and…really clean. But Mary mistakes him for the gardener, and if you’ve been around these grounds on a Wednesday morning, you will know what gardener’s look like. They don’t wear their best clothes and they have mud under their nails and leaves in their hair. And I think maybe that says something more important about resurrection – something that is stolen from us if we cling to these images of a golden angel, minus the wings.

Jesus was dead. He was beaten and broken and dead. Murdered, brutally.

On Friday I told you that I still deeply wonder why Jesus had to die, or if he even did have. And I said I will always continue in that wondering, and I will. But the bottom line is, he died. We know that to be true. God died and was placed in that tomb. And in my questioning and my wondering I have spent some time thinking about what happened next.

In our creeds, and in the pages of scripture, we hear about how Christ descended to the dead. On Good Friday God died, but by Holy Saturday, God was up to God’s amazing, transformative, redemptive work of salvation, for all people and all situations, for all time and all eternity. First stop; the gates of hell, and with the keys of life Christ smashed them open – I swear, from the inside, and then declared, ‘everyone out – you first Judas’.

On Holy Saturday Christ was BUSY!

There was work to be done. He didn’t just rest there in that tomb, healing. He got straight to work in the divine plan of all salvation. There was more to do. Death needed to be shown it didn’t win. Pain and suffering didn’t win. Destruction and human failings didn’t win. Abuse didn’t win. Hatred, oppression, injustice, poverty, racism, war; all these things didn’t win. Love won. Love wins. Love goes down to the dead and restores life. Love smashes the gates of hell and sets captives free. And Love beats darkness; it takes it and redeems it, into something good and pure and holy and beautiful. It’s no wonder Mary mistook Jesus for the gardener. That’s exactly what he was – the pruner, the re-creator, the One to plant the new heaven and the new earth.

You see, the resurrection isn’t about making everything shiny and clean. It is about total transformation – destruction of the old and creation of the new. The work of the holy gardener, sowing and seeding and cultivating new life. Sowing seeds of light and hope in the places of all darkness so that it might overcome.

I love the thought that the risen Christ looks more like a slightly scruffy gardener with dirt under his nails because it means he’s at work and it also means I can more likely imagine becoming more like him. I’ll never be a wingless angel, but I might get messy in the work of telling darkness and death to pack its bags and leave. I will gladly get messy in the work of telling oppression and injustice that its days are numbered, and it has to go. That’s the work of the gardener and that’s the work of us because we are the gardening team.

So, this easter, this year, listen out for the voice of that holy gardener as he calls your name – like he did with Mary – and then look up, see this gardener handing you a spade, because there is work to be done and our Risen Christ needs a hand.

Amen