Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 7 April 2024.
The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio, c. 1602 (Source)
• First Reading: Acts 4: 32-35 (The life of the church)
• Epistle: 1 John 1: 1 – 2: 2 (The apostles’ proclamation of what they had witnessed personally)
• Gospel: John 20: 19-31 (First day of the week – disciples assembled behind locked doors)
The cynical and rather jaded politician asked, ‘What is truth?’ and probably did not really expect an answer. He was used to rumours, excuses, sales pitches, and presentations of the most persuasive kind.
He had heard his share of conspiracy theories, not to mention plain propaganda, but now was faced with the unflinching regard of a man who, he knew, was Truth itself. But rather than face the anger of an accusation to Caesar of acquiescing in One who was making Himself king, Pilate ordered His execution anyway.
And so Pontius Pilate passed into history. And then the rumours were starting in earnest. Scarcely a day gone and it was all blowing up in his face.
Frightened and confused women were telling the cowering disciples stories of having seen Jesus, then there was the empty tomb, its stone rolled away and the grave clothes mysteriously left behind, the face cloth neatly rolled up and put aside.
And come evening, their fears of an angry mob, waiting to deal with His friends. The barred door, conversations in whispers, the occasional thud in the street, a few scraps of bread being shared out. A little rather stale wine, a few scraps of fish and that overpowering sense of fear.
And then it all changed. In a flash – HE WAS THERE. The disciples could not quite believe it – was this an overwrought imagination playing tricks on them? But no, He was speaking, plainly.
Here I am – come and look. Here are My hands and feet. By the way, have you got anything to eat? That fish should be OK.
Slowly, their senses became accustomed to the new light, like someone waking up after a particularly sound sleep. This light was different – it shone not only at them but within them. Now there was a new certainty, a different kind of reality.
Yes, He really was there among them, speaking, reassuring, comforting, giving new instruction. Knowing each of them better than they knew themselves.
It was not that He was in any obvious hurry, but the situation was still urgent. The whole course of history was changing before their eyes.
And yes, they would have their share in telling a new kind of story. It would be the story of their time with Jesus, how they had met Him, how He had called them into that closer fellowship of the disciples.
How He had met them in their deepest fears and even resentments, and brought clarity to both. They would tell of how their deepest sins were forgiven – those of which they would never wish to speak but which they knew now no longer had that same kind of hold over them. Sins cancelled, burdens lifted, hopes renewed and redirected.
And yet our lessons all point to the story that the disciples were sharing. In Acts, it was the life of the community of believers, in which they shared what they had – but it was a sharing firmly founded on the gospel message of the disciples. There is no suggestion that this kind of shared life, independent of the gospel or separated from it.
In the gospel, John is very clear about why he had bothered to write it up at all: it was so that those who read it might also believe and in believing have everlasting life in His name and so be joined with Him and joined together with the other apostles. This was no memoir for those who like biography.
He develops this theme more fully in his letter.
Jesus was utterly and totally real – He was seen, heard, touched and known in the deepest part of the human spirit. He was life itself and life in its fullest sense possible.
It was life which had shared itself with the disciples and who in turn were also telling others of what they knew.
More than that, it was a message of a new kind of dispensation. One in which light was prevailing over darkness, truth over falsehood, joy over misery and condemnation.
It was something dynamic – with an ongoing power in the lives of believers, drawing them into a new kind of rightness of life. A lifetime of discovery, not just of self but of the very things of God.
There would be many questions. Is the forgiveness of sins once and for all or is it also an ongoing reality?
What is the way? Here is the way, walk ye in it. Here is joy – let it live in you. Here is forgiveness – receive it but also forgive others.
Here is love – and it starts with God and His total self-giving.
Here is truth – let it set you free.
And be absolutely sure that Jesus who is risen is also with His disciples in all corners of the globe and to the end of time itself.
And that is the story that is really worth telling, again and again.
