Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 27 April 2025.
• First Reading: Acts 5: 27-32 (Peter and other apostles before the Sanhedrin: were ordered not to speak of Jesus)
• Epistle: Revelation 1: 4-8 (To the seven churches …)
• Gospel: John 20: 19-31 (‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’)
The spectacle of the funeral of the late Pope Francis was magnificent. Tens of thousands in the public spaces by the Vatican and very many more along the route to his place of interment at St Mary Major.
Expertly managed, with enough informality not to be suffocating. Perhaps Anglicans might have been a little more starched.
And the pictures covered the movement of the coffin to the low dais where the Requiem mass was said, the crowds of cardinals, bishops, clergy, officiating deacons, and the rest, not to mention those attending as congregation: both visiting dignitaries and layfolk.
But then the spectacle was far more than that. The management of the event was the visual impact: the buildings, crowds, music, and the management of the movement or containment of the whole assemblage.
But compare it with the appearance of Jesus in the Upper Room that first Easter Day. The disciples huddled together in confusion and yet in a strange hope. Stories of Jesus’ appearance, His words of greeting and instruction to Mary Magdalene: very low key and yet tinged with an excitement that these things might really be true. Too good to be true? Wishful thinking? Is it all a dream from which they would wake up to the grim reality of having to find food and work and shelter and protection?
Would it all pass like a dream?
This was the scene into which Jesus injected Himself. He would show Himself to the disciples and then calm them down from their astonishment. This was where His first words ‘Peace be with you’ are so critical. His peace was and is a completely new dimension.
It was a new peace for a new era. His peace, not the resentful peace of a treaty imposed by victors on the vanquished, or by those with resources and interests on those still trying to stop being shot or bombed.
A real peace: peace with truth and justice, leading to reconciliation in the heart. Peace in the conscience, and in the most troubled of memories.
But now there was work to do. This was the first day of the week and He started commissioning the disciples straight away.
There was now an urgency, and the joy of the moment must not be allowed to dissipate. It must be channelled into purpose and action. It must have an intent and a direction.
And so Jesus’ next words were to commission the disciples: ‘As the Father has sent Me, so I send you.’
He was sending them out with the same authority that He had received from God the Father, and nothing less. Not the same mission, for the work of atonement was complete and did not need to be done again.
This task was to proclaim what Jesus had done and what it meant. People might hear of the miracles and parables but still not really understand them.
They might still look to institutions and great buildings to save their consciences when an honest, simple prayer would do. No mighty works. Certainly nothing to match the labours of Hercules or of Mother Theresa or Albert Schweizer. The work of salvation was already done: it only had to proclaimed and accepted.
And they would not even be alone for the Holy Spirit would be with them: to inspire, inform, encourage, stimulate and correct them.
And yes, the disciples were indeed overjoyed to see Him.
Soon enough they would have the opportunity to speak out. Peter would do it on the Day of Pentecost, but others would carry the message forth it as well.
Yet for people in the business of daily life it would be there in normal conversation and encounters. Not all were or are called to preach. But it is there in the people we meet, at the family table and everyday encounters at work or going to and fro.
This is the faith that comes through in small things – coping with that difficult neighbour or colleague or relation. It is in showing where we are, trusting God in the matters of everyday life, and letting them be seen and spoken of. Not hiding in polite silence.
Maybe the due application of a sense of humour in seeing the absurdity in life without ridiculing or abusing the other person.
Maybe allowing forgiveness and reconciliation to change the colour of a dispute. Maybe in showing that there is another power of loving and giving which seeks to build up another because the love of God is leading us into it. We do not have to compete to win what is already won for us.
When Jesus commissioned the disciples to spread the word, He included us as well. Yet even this hesitations of Thomas could be overcome, as he went along to the Upper Room a week later to see what had been going on.
Do we hesitate? Maybe it is also time for us to let the Lord meet us in our own hesitations, as we receive His commission as well.
