i'll shake this world off my shoulders

come on, baby, the laugh's on me

A sermon on that time Jesus showed up after that Easter morn

Glad Easter tidings to all you, you stalwarts! You who are here today, on this Sunday after Easter. This infamously low Sunday. While the rest of the world has gone back to business as usual, you’ve turned up here all over again. Blessings.

Only, over the years, I’ve learned that the Sunday after Easter (and Christmas, for that matter) are just as, if not more important than the big festival day. Last week, the music, the crowds, the finery, and the feast all created a momentum of their own. There was no time to worry if all this isn’t just a bunch of whistling in the dark during.

This week, though, all that is gone. And that absence begs the question, What happened? What was that all about? What now? Where’d everyone go? And was last week just an anomaly?

This always happens after a significant event, by the way. A loved one dies, and suddenly it feels like your world has stopped dead in its tracks. Yet, everyone else goes on with life as usual. As if nothing has happened. 

I remember, after the explosion, waking up in the middle of the night. As the terrible events of that day raced back to my foggy brain, my first thought was that it must have been a dream. I couldn’t fathom that it was real! But, when I looked out the kitchen window and saw all the debris, I broke into a cold sweat. It had happened. My world may have jerked to a halt, but the world kept right on spinning as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all. 

And it occurs with good things, too. For example, when Luther was asked what it was like to be married after all those years of being a celibate monk. He said everything was pretty much the same. Except he woke up to a pair of pigtails on the pillow next to him every morning! 

On days like today, the question is always the same; what do you do when everything changes, but nothing is different? 

It’s a question the disciples had to ask themselves, too. Today’s Scripture comes right on the heels of last week’s. That means Mary has already reported to the disciples that “Christ is risen!” (He is risen indeed!) She’s told them, in effect, that reality itself has been fundamentally altered once and for all! 

Yet, for all that, when the disciples look out the window, nothing seems any different! So to play it safe, they decide to hole themselves up. Lock the doors. Hide away until everything makes more sense. 

It’s a reasonable plan, too, all things considering. Except for one thing, Christ wasn’t keen on it! He burst in on the disciples from the other side of that locked door. And he came with marching orders, to boot! As the Father sent him, so he’s sending them. And he’s empowering them with his holy Spirit and equipping them with the tools of his trade, the forgiveness of sins.

…If this were a movie, this would be the part where the credits would roll. Maybe with a montage of everyone’s subsequent achievements. Only that’s not what happens! Instead, we’re told, rather abruptly, that one of the inner circle, Thomas, wasn’t even there. What’s more, we also learn that Thomas has flatly refused to believe the news of Christ’s stunning resurrection appearance.

It’s not just the world that refuses to change. Is it? We also resist change.

And it’s not just Thomas, either! After reporting Thomas’ obstinacy, John tells us about the following week. And we learn that in all that time, the disciples haven’t gone out to a single person! Except, maybe, Thomas. Because this time he’s there. 

All that recalcitrance, though, doesn’t bother Christ one whit! No, he turns up to the disciples all over again. And what does he do when he witnesses all this recidivism? 

Does he tell the disciples, “strike two”? Does he read them the riot act? Does he sigh heavily and ask them when they’re going to get it together? No! He shows Thomas his wounds all over again! 

And with that, Thomas makes one of the most profound confessions in the entire Bible! “My Lord and my God,” he exclaims. 

Jesus, though, for his part, just looks past Thomas. He looks past everyone in that room! Instead of capitalizing on the momentum of that moment, Christ looks out that moment. Out that moment to us.

Us, who are here today. Us, who are stuck in this rough and tumble world that hasn’t changed all that much over the years. Us, who haven’t had the good fortune to witness that remarkable event ourselves. And then, Jesus pronounces a blessing upon us! Us of all people! 

Jesus forever fixes his sights on this world. This world, as it actually is! This world, with all its reluctance to change!

…To ask what to do when everything changes but nothing is different is to ask a fundamentally flawed question! It’s to ask why is there gravity or why does time only run in one direction. It’s not a question! It’s just a description of reality! 

And it’s this doggone world, this doggone world as it really is, that Christ has really gone ahead and died for! It’s nothing but this world, this world with all its resistance to change, that Christ chooses to show up to again and again, and again!

We can’t resolve this tension that lies at the heart of existence! That push and pull between what Christ has wrought and all our stubborn resistance to it. If we could, we would have gotten ourselves out of this bind long ago! Instead, Christ has fixed his cross in the fulcrum of all this pressure! Why it’s for this very predicament that Christ has died!

Christ didn’t come to fix the fixable. He didn’t come to improve the improvable. And he didn’t come to put a mere patch job on this old world of ours, either. No! He came to redeem it! 

To wear this world’s wounds for all eternity! To suffer our fate himself! To take our death upon his cross! To go down with this sinking ship of history. And in so doing, save it for once and for all!

The question that hangs in the air this morning is not a new one. It arose that first Easter. And it’s been repeated every day since. What do you do when everything changes but nothing is different?

And the answer is so mind-numbing straightforward we miss it every time! You do what Chris said! You get out there. And you do something new. Something different in this old world of ours! 

You forgive sins! You live as if you were good as dead to that old game of holding the sins of the world against another fellow creature out there. Because, on account of Christ, you are! And in that, and that alone, everything changes. 

With any luck and a lot of blessing, you’ll taste a little of that holy Spiritedness of Christ while you’re out there, too. And with some providence and a heart full of mercy, God’ll give you more than your fair share of that forgiveness while you’re at it, as well! Because Lord knows, if you’re going to take Christ at his word and go out there doing something as reckless as refusing to count others’ trespasses against them, you’re going to need as much forgiveness as you can get. We all will.

Good thing Christ is not a one-and-done kind of savior in that regard!