Sermon Title: "Peace and Pain"
Date: April 19, 2009
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  John 20:19-31

I’ve not always been here on this Sunday, as I often took the week after Easter off when Peggy was teaching and on school break.  But I thought I would do Susie a favor and preach myself on this “low Sunday,” and since I’m going away for a few days after worship today, she can preach next week on what quite by coincidence appears to be a “Women’s Sunday.”  The Biola Women’s Chorus will sing, two women are doing Children’s Time, Debbie Gerardi is lay reader, and Susie will preach.

For many years, my former colleague Elaine Schoepf preached on this Sunday, when the traditional reading is the story of Doubting Thomas.  But I’m not going to focus on Thomas this morning; rather on an earlier part of the lesson. 

It’s Easter evening, after dark.  The risen Christ was last seen in the cemetery by Mary Magdalene after his resurrection.  No one knows what he did in the hours between, but John reports that he mysteriously—after all, this was a man who had been raised from the dead—appears in the room where the fearful disciples were cowering behind locked doors.  He says, “Peace be with you,” and then does a rather odd thing after sharing the peace.  “He showed them his hands and his side.”

“Look closely at the story and you’ll notice there is not even a breath separating these comforting words of Jesus and the parading of his scars—his old wounds may be beginning to scab over a bit from the events of the preceding week.  There is something important going on here that connects the peace of Christ with the wounds of Christ.  Jesus stands among them, shows off his palms, hikes up his shirt and lets them take a gander at where the spear went in.  ‘Peace be with you,’ he says, and then his wounds are immediately on display.” 

                                                                                    (Frank G Honeycutt, Christian Century, April 7, 2009, p. 19)

The passing of the peace goes way back to Biblical times, but perhaps nothing in Roman Catholic and Protestant worship over the past four decades has made people either more welcomed or more uncomfortable than passing the peace with those in the pews around them.  We sort of skirt the issue here by giving it a verbal only/no touching nod between you and me just before the pastoral prayer.

Yet, what would happen if we took our cues from Jesus in sharing the peace?  “Peace be with you, Sarah, and did you know my mammogram had some suspicious shadows?”  “Peace be with you, Bob, and did you hear I got laid off last week?”  “Peace be with you, Chris, and I suppose you’ve heard by now my nephew’s been in trouble again.”

Today’s lesson jumps ahead one week.  The disciples are all together again—same house, same shut doors.  Thomas, who wasn’t there the Sunday evening before and thus questioned whether it was really Jesus who appeared, is present this time.  Jesus repeats the same greeting, “Peace be with you,” then invites Thomas to satisfy his doubts by placing his hand into the wounds still visible on Jesus’ hands and side.

Thomas came to believe because the wounds were on display in that first community of believers, just as you gathered here have wounds today.  Maybe you don’t show them, reveal them verbally or physically.  But our wounds—both physical and emotional—are part of who we are.

If we are truly the community of faith Jesus wanted those who believed in him to be, and the fledgling church in its early days seemed to be, then we should want to share what’s going on with us so others may share our joys, our pains, even help us if they are able.

Our daughter Amy attends the United Church of Christ up in Sonoma.  She told me two weeks ago how long the lessons were on Palm Sunday, as that church walked through the Passion Narratives as we did last year.  But that wasn’t all.  Then it was time to pass the microphone around the congregation for prayer concerns. 

First Congregational Church, Sonoma is what’s called a “family-sized” congregation—about 100 in attendance on an average Sunday.  In February when we worshipped with her there, back and forth the mike went as perhaps two dozen people shared their prayer concerns.  But on Palm Sunday, Amy said it seemed like the rounds had been completed when a couple of folks remembered something more and commandeered the mike again.  And knowing my daughter, busy Amy probably had something already scheduled for right after worship!

I’m not advocating we start passing around the mike for prayer concerns.  We have a long-standing if not more civilized/sanitized tradition of writing our concerns on blue prayer cards which are read by the ministers.  But what if we really let people know what was going on with us?  We might gain some peace by sharing our pain.

Early in my ministry here, whenever I heard of a woman going in for a mastectomy, I would let Ruth Reiner know.  Ruth was at least a 20-year breast cancer survivor, and she would contact that person to let them know of her care and concern.  Unfortunately, Ruth’s daughter Nancy came down with the same disease and died several years before Ruth.

In the last week alone, I had two persons e-mail me with information about job leads, and wondered if I knew qualified persons who might like to apply.  Word-of-mouth is the best reference, and since I knew a couple of persons through our church I thought might be eligible for consideration, I contacted them.  Both of them have an interview lined-up for this Wednesday.  What if you let others know if you need work?  You never know who knows whom.

I did not broadcast it from the pulpit at the time, but in the early ‘90s, one of our teenaged daughters went through a difficult time.  She got through it successfully, thanks to helpful persons, a lot of pain, tears, hard work and excellent insurance coverage.  Now, some dozen-and-a-half years later, when I counsel someone with a troubled teen, I am not adverse to sharing our story if I think it will be of benefit to them.

We host three twelve-step programs here at church each weekend.  I am not part of the groups, but I often see the folks come and go and occasionally I direct newcomers to the meeting rooms.  I know they derive great benefit from talking with and supporting one another through difficult times, either dealing with their own addiction or that of a family member.

True peace—and perhaps true belief—are possible only when we deal seriously with the wounds of the body of Christ, the church, this very congregation of struggling-to-be-faithful Christians.  How shall we move beyond the locked doors where we hide so adeptly in fear?

On Easter evening, when the disciples were greeted in that locked room by the risen Christ, and they believed who it was, John writes, “Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”  (20:20)  The disciples’ joy, like the end of Mary’s weeping in the cemetery when Jesus called her by name, is the fulfillment of Jesus’ earlier promise in John 16 that the disciples’ pain will turn to joy when they see him again:

“Very truly," Jesus says, "I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.  When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come.  But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.  So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”  (16:20-22)

“Peace be with you,” Jesus said.  And then he shared his pain by showing them his hands and his side.