Welcome to Nassau Church

You may notice on the front of your order of worship that today is known as the 2nd Sunday of Easter B not the 1st Sunday after Easter; because Easter is not one day; it's not a day at all. Easter is a season; never bound by time or calendar. We celebrate Easter each and every Sunday. God's Easter shapes and reforms us to make us God's own for life, for service, for discipleship.
Hear the Word of God as it comes to us from John’s Gospel, chapter 20, beginning with the 19th verse.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week,
and the doors of the house where the disciples had met
were locked for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood among them and said,
"Peace be with you."
After Jesus said this,
he showed them his hands and his side.
Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again,
"Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
When he had said this,
he breathed on them and said to them,
"Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;
if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

But Thomas
who was called the Twin, one of the twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord."
But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

A week later his disciples were again in the house,
and Thomas was with them.
Although the doors were shut,
Jesus came and stood among them and said,
"Peace be with you."
Then Jesus said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.
Do not doubt but believe."
Thomas answered him,
"My Lord and my God!"
Jesus said to him,
"Have you believed because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet
have come to believe."

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
This is the Word of our Lord. (1)

Some of you may have heard me say that I grew up in a Presbyterian church didn’t go to hell. That is, we didn’t go to "hell" in the Apostles' Creed.
Every week we affirmed our faith with the words of the Apostles' Creed. We said,
"he was crucified, dead and buried.
The third day he rose again from the dead."
So it was a great shock when I first attended a church that said out loud in the middle of the creed "he was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell." To this day I still trip over it every time.

On Sundays when my family is here for worship I can’t help myself, but during the Apostles' Creed I look over to watch them because I know everyone of them will trip over the words, "He descended into hell."
And sure enough, they always do from, "crucified, dead and buried-The third day…" They hit a bump in the road of faith.
I watch as they glance at one another. They stand quite confounded and then I watch it dawn on their faces as their minds are clicking into action " what do you mean Jesus Adescended into hell?"

It all takes on new meaning when we truly understand Jesus’ resurrection was from the Land of the Dead. Before the stone is rolled away there is no resting or sleeping. Before he is raised there is no restless slumber or catatonic dream state. He is not reawakened or revived, not revitalized or rejuvenated. Jesus was not magically preserved or cryogenically maintained B he was dead, dead in the Land of the Dead, dead in hell.
As we meet Jesus in our text he has been brought to life by the God of Life and he comes to stand among his friends on Easter night. He comes through bolted doors to stand among the ones who feel dead themselves; entombed in their own grief; buried in their own hell; interred with their dead dreams.

And just as the stone could not keep him in, so a barricaded door can not keep him out. He comes to them, not out of some resurrection magic, but out of the great love of the resurrection.

"Shalom," Jesus says, showing a familiar face, holding up a wounded hand, waiting for the truth to sink in, for the disciples to let out their breath in one joyful gasp, for them to fall on him weeping, shouting, fainting, cheering.
What a reunion! And Thomas misses the whole thing. "We have seen the Lord." Thomas is not convinced. Easter is too close to April Fool’s Day. He folds his arms across his chest and digs in his heels. (2) Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and his side, I will not believe.”
And of course that statement has landed him the title of Prince of Doubt, Doubting Thomas, Thomas the Doubter. But that’s a misnomer.
One preacher puts it like this; Thomas is first and foremost a pragmatist. We forget when Jesus says “I go to prepare a place for you and you know the way to the place where I am going,” it is Thomas the pragmatist who replies truthfully, “Lord, we don't know where you are going; how can we know then the way?”
And when Jesus speaks of going back to Judea, it is Thomas who knows that for Jesus to return to Jerusalem is to go to his death. Thomas is no fool. He counts the cost before making a decision and boldly urges the others to follow Jesus: “Let us also go,” Thomas says, “that we may die with him.”
Does that sound like a doubter?
So Thomas’ reaction to the news of the risen Christ should not be unexpected. He’s been toughened by his experience of the world. He is, above all else, a realist. And for Thomas reality has never come as close as it has in the cross. (3)
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in his hands and side, I will not believe.” That’s not doubt, that’s anguish, that’s torment, that’s pain.
Frederick Buechner tells the story of being on retreat with a group of church folks in Texas and during his time with them, they asked him to share something of his childhood, something that shaped his faith. So he told them about his childhood in the Depression.
He said this: I remember in the Depression there wasn't much money and there was an awful lot of drinking going on in my family. It was an unsettled and unsettling time for a child of ten, which I was. There was a time when my father had come back from somewhere. He had obviously had too much to drink. My mother did not want him to take the car. She got the keys from him somehow and gave them to me and said, “Don't let you father have these.” I had already gone to bed. I took the car keys and I had them in my fist under the pillow. My father came and somehow knew I had the keys and said, “Give them to me. I’ve got to have them. I’ve got to go some place.”
I didn't know what to say, says Buechner, what to be or how to react. I was frightened, sad and all the rest of it. I lay there and listened to him, pleading really, “Give me the keys.” I pulled the covers over my head to escape the situation and then finally, went to sleep with his voice in my ears.
When he finished sharing his story with the group, a man came up and said to Buechner, “You’ve had a fair amount of pain in your life, like everybody else. But you’ve been a good steward of it. You’ve been a good steward of your pain.”
That phrase caught Buechner off guard -- to be a steward of your pain and he thought a lot about what it could mean. Besides being a steward of it, there are alternatives. The most tempting is to forget pain, to hide it, to cover it over, to pretend it never happened, because it’s too hard to deal with. It is too unsettling to remember.
But Buechner came to believe before anything else, to be a good steward of your pain is to keep in touch with it, to keep in touch with the sad times, the hard times, because that’s when we’re most aware of God’s resurrection power to pull us through it, to be in it with us. It’s the cross of Christ speaks the same word, that out of that greatest pain, endured in love, comes the greatest beauty and our greatest hope. (4)
Thomas knew this. He was a great steward of his pain. Out of the depths of his anguish comes the purest confession of faith: My Lord and my God.

At the center of the Easter gospel is the proclamation that Jesus Christ has come looking for us. With the breath of new life in his lungs, he walks right through the locked doors of our hearts, gets right in the face our living hells, opens his hands, shows us his wounds, and welcomes us with Shalom.
The Good News of the Easter Gospel is clear. When we least expect him, and when we need him most, Jesus appears. That’s the Easter way of life. (5)

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.
But these are written so that you may come to believe
that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God,
and that through believing
you may have life in his name.”

Let us pray.
O Jesus, our carpenter,
who at the last, through wood and nails,
purchased our whole salvation,
wield well your tools,
that we who come to you rough-hewn,
may be fashioned to a truer beauty in heart and deed;
may be fashioned to be your peace and your forgiveness,
always through your life, death and resurrection.
In your name we pray.(6) Amen.

1-Sermon text from the Gospel of John, chapter 20:19-31 NRSV: When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, APeace be with you."After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, APeace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, AReceive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."But Thomas (who was called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” A week later his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. This is the Word of out Lord.

2-James C. Somerville. “Those Who Have Not Seen” (John. 20:19-31). The Christian Century, April 8, 1998, 364. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation, www.christiancentury.org.

3-David Lose. Sermon, “Realities Old and New" John 20:24-31. March 30, 2008, 2nd Sunday of Easter. Day1: A Division of the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, GA.

4-Frederick Buechner. Sermon, “The Stewardship of Pain." 30 Good Minutes ~ The Chicago Sunday Evening Club, Program 3416. January 27, 1990.

5-Susan R. Andrews. “Jesus Appears” (John 20:19-31). The Christian Century, March 24-31, l999. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation, www.christiancentury.org.

6-Adapted from George MacLeod's "A Prayer for Our Own Reshaping," as found in Lent and Easter Readings form Iona. Neil Paynter ed. Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2001, 134.