2nd Sunday of Easter- Sunday April 24th, 2022
Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Today marks the second Sunday of Easter, which is referred to in the lectionary as ‘Low Sunday’. It’s affectionately known as the Sunday where the rector assigns the sermon to the seminarian so they can actually have a bit of a break after all the the effort and preparation that went into Holy Week.
There’s also a belief that it’s called ‘Low Sunday’ because we are coming down from the ‘high feast day’ of Easter, where we celebrated the resurrection of our Lord.
The Gospel reading from last week captured this feeling of joy and excitement, when Mary Magdalene witnessed the resurrected Christ outside the empty tomb. She reached out to him and cried out with joy, and went back to the disciples to tell them what she had just seen and heard.
The Psalm appointed for today also captures the joy that we should be feeling after the good news of the resurrection has been proclaimed. It reads; ‘Hallelujah! Praise God in his holy temple’, ‘Praise him with timbrel and dance; praise him with strings and pipe.’
You would think that this excitement and joy would have followed Mary Magdalene back to the rest of the disciples, right?
You would think that the disciples would have started shouting and jumping with joy at the news Mary Magdalene brought to them, that she had “seen the Lord’?
But that’s not where we find the disciples in today’s Gospel.
Instead, we find them, on a Sunday evening, locked away inside their house out of fear.
Fear of the crowds outside their door, fear of persecution by the council, and fear of facing the same death as their beloved teacher.
When I first studied this Gospel reading in preparation for today, I couldn’t understand why the disciples didn’t believe Mary Magdalene. I’ll admit, I was frustrated with this, because it highlights this common theme of women not being believed by men that seems to be a constant both in the church and in society.
Why didn’t the male disciples believe Mary Magdalene when she proclaimed the good news of the resurrection?
The longer I thought about this, and re-read the Gospel, the answer came to me.
The disciples were traumatized.
They were likely suffering from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of witnessing their best friend, their teacher, and their Lord, be tortured for days to the point of death upon the cross.
If you have experienced trauma, or know someone who has been traumatized, then you know that it can make you want to lock yourself away, mentally and physically, in an effort to protect yourself from further harm. So, when examining the disciple’s collective trauma response to Jesus’ crucifixion and death, it makes sense that we find them locked away, despite the fact that Mary Magdalene proclaimed the resurrection.
Maybe they thought she was delusional with grief, or in denial over His death, or that it was another case of female hysteria, and just assumed that, by proclaiming the resurrection, she was trying to process her grief and trauma in her own way. Maybe they still were in shock, and couldn’t even begin to process what she was saying. Unfortunately, we don’t know.
Then, we have this juxtaposition of the readings from the Gospel of John and from Acts.
In Acts, we are told this story of Peter and the apostles standing before the council, where they are being reprimanded for proclaiming Jesus as their saviour and teaching in His name.
This, to me, seems to be a very different group than the one that locked themselves away in fear of prosecution from the same council in the Gospel reading.
So what changed in that time?
Jesus came back.
He came back to the disciples. He showed up in that locked room to His traumatized friends and brought them some much-needed peace.
By showing them His wounds, it confirmed Mary Magdalene’s story, that their Lord conquered the grave.
It was through this collective experience that the disciples were able to convince themselves that their minds weren’t playing tricks on them because of grief. By seeing His wounds, the proof of His death, and seeing Him, the proof of His resurrection, the doubt was erased from their minds.
And this is where we get that beautiful celebration! With the disciples rejoicing and the Lord blessing His friends with the Holy Spirit, creating a mini-Pentecost in that locked room.
I really wish that this was where this Sunday ended, on another high with the disciples and Jesus celebrating the Good News together. But it isn’t.
Enter Thomas, the one disciple who wasn’t in that room to witness the resurrection.
Often nicknamed ‘doubting Thomas’, because he refused to believe the other disciples when they told him that they saw Jesus.
Thomas even goes as far to say that he won’t believe that Jesus has risen unless he touches His wounds himself.
So, a week later, Thomas is with the rest of the disciples in that locked room, and again, Jesus comes back. While He’s here, Thomas finally witnesses the wounds of the crucifixion, and feels them with his own hands. It’s through this experience that Thomas is finally able to believe in Jesus’ resurrection.
A lot of people would say that this interaction between Thomas and Jesus is beautiful, that it reminds us as Christians that doubt can be a part of our discipleship. It’s used to give hope to those whose faith is waning in a God we haven’t been able to meet or touch.
I want to look at it from another angle.
I want to question whether this type of re-traumatizing of Jesus is necessary.
Why do the disciples have to see His wounds with their own eyes to believe that He has been resurrected? Why can’t they simply trust what Mary Magdalene said?
Or worse, why did Thomas have to put his hands into the fresh wounds of Jesus to believe in the resurrection? Why couldn’t he trust the other eleven disciples who, just a week earlier, were witness to it?
When Jesus looks at the disciples and says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”, He is telling us that we don’t need to witness the proof of someone’s trauma in order to validate their experience, including His own.
Through this blessing, Jesus encouraging us to believe victims, even if we cannot see their wounds, and is discouraging us from re-traumatizing them for our own selfish needs.
There have been several stories lately that have challenged our faith in the church as an institution, leaving many of us hurt, shocked, and in disbelief.
These stories may have even brought up some of our own trauma, and can have us feeling like we, too, want to lock ourselves away until we witness the proof of the victims’ wounds with our own eyes. But that isn’t the message for today.
Victims do not owe us anything. They should not have to be re-traumatized by showing us their wounds as proof of their suffering.
Jesus calls us to believe victims, and to believe their stories. It is through these actions that we are blessed. And it through this belief that we find faith in our own resurrection and in the Resurrected Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.