Transitions (Second Sunday of Easter)
Sermons on YouTube…
The Easter Season actually begins with the Easter Vigil, which is held on the Saturday evening before Easter Sunday. For the last number of years, we’ve been holding our Easter Vigil at 5 pm, at the same hour as our usual Saturday services.
The primary benefit of doing this is that people actually come to the service! But originally – and still in some places today – Easter Vigils are held beginning after dark, because on the Jewish calendar, the “next day” beings at sundown. And so Sunday begins with sundown on Saturday.
Often, Easter vigils go on for hours! You light the fire which represents the fire that the guards warmed themselves by while watching the tomb. You read up to 12 very long readings from the Old Testament which recall God’s saving acts of old. You re-affirm your baptismal vows and baptize people who haven’t been baptized.
And then, you enter the darkened church where you can’t see anything. And in the dark – with only the Paschal Candle for light – someone proclaims, “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!” And at that moment, all the lights come on! The church is decked out for Easter with the Easter paraments and flowers. And just like that, instantly Lent is over and Easter has begun!
It’s all supposed to be sudden and dramatic, as it was at the moment the first disciples encountered the Risen Jesus. But of course, when you hold Easter Vigil at 5 pm, it’s still plenty light outside, so it does lose some of the dramatic effect!
But even when it’s dark, there’s still a problem. Alleluia, we proclaim! Christ is Risen! Lent is over! Now things can get back to normal! Now we move on to the next predictable stuff on the calendar – after all, we gotta get ready for Yard Sale, VBS, the mission trip to Honduras and the (new this year!) the Farmer’s Market!
Those are all important things. And we DO need to get on them right away.
But this often leaves us with the impression that Easter is a life transition that simply happens on one day or one night and then we move on to the next thing. But that’s not how transitions actually happen in life, and it’s not the way Easter was experienced by the first disciples, either.
Usually, when we experience big and life changing transitions – good or bad – they don’t happen on one day or one night. It may be that we recall a day or a night or a moment when something life-changing happened. That event might be the day someone was born, or the day someone died. It might be the day you began a new job, or the day you retired. It might be the day you moved to a new place, or the day when you were forced to re-locate to a place you hadn’t planned to go.
But the day is not the transition. The transition is what happens in the days and weeks and months that follow, as you learn to live and adapt and reorient yourself to a new reality.
And that’s actually how Easter was experienced by the first disciples. We often like to read these stories and imagine that as soon as the disciples saw the Risen Jesus, they were off and running and good to go for the next thing. But, it wasn’t like that. They were confused. They doubted (not just Thomas). And they were disoriented – they really didn’t know what came next and it took them a while to figure it out.
Yet as we read even the relatively few stories of the post-Resurrection accounts, it becomes clear that Easter wasn’t simply about one day but about a process of the Risen Jesus continuing to guide and help the disciples transition into living a new life because of the Resurrection.
Sometimes, that guidance and help happened through:
- Jesus himself appearing periodically to the disciples … (this is especially the case in John’s Gospel, where Jesus shows up at random times and places…)
- The guidance of the Holy Spirit leading them through what the Risen taught them or the things that Jesus had told them before that they now understood in a new way… (this is condensed at the end of Luke’s narrative where there was apparently a 40 day class…!)
- The conversations and sharing of experiences that the disciples had with one another … (and this is part of the point in today’s Gospel reading – it’s not so much Jesus appearing to Thomas as about the conversations the disciples had with one another about what they had experienced…)
And this kind of living into a transition to a new reality is really the point of the Resurrection. Jesus lives and is alive in our lives, not so that we can get back to the predictable business as usual, but so that we can live more fully into the new life that Jesus promises us through the Resurrection.
And that means that Jesus is guiding and helping us each day through all the transitions that life brings us. And that’s good, because life itself is a transition. Each one of us is always living through at least one transition, whether it’s a good one or a bad one, and whether it’s dramatic or subtle.
And for us, too, Jesus is alive and present to guide us through the transition. And sometimes for us, also, the help and guidance of the Risen Jesus happens through:
- The physical presence of another person – I think there’s a reason that some of the disciples who encounter the Risen Jesus at first think they’re talking to a gardener or just some fellow traveler on the road. Jesus reveals himself to us through other people. And that doesn’t mean those people are actually Jesus in disguise, but that Jesus is working through them to guide us and help us in moments when we need it most…
- The guidance of the Holy Spirit as we think and pray or simply wonder what our next steps should be – often, we expect the Holy Spirit to be the dramatic wind and fire of Pentecost. But sometimes, the Spirit of Jesus is just like a still, small voice that you can’t shake which points you forward…
- The conversations we have with one another, where we share with each other our thoughts and experiences – I know that sometimes when I lead Bible studies, I can achieve the sound of “sheer silence” when I ask people to share their ideas or experiences based on what I’ve just explained about the text! But often, it’s the sharing of those ideas and experiences which most help others to grow and think and relate to the Bible stories in ways that a straight lecture can’t. It’s not because anybody has a necessarily profound insight. It’s simply that through sharing our experiences with each other – just as the first disciples did – we help each other to live forward into the new life that Jesus brings …
And so Easter isn’t just a day or a night. It’s a process of learning to transition into the new life that Jesus brings us into each day. And that’s why Easter is actually a season in the church year of 50 days. It takes time to transition – and to practice growing – into new life.
And so in these 50 days, be open to the ways the Risen Jesus is helping you to transition into ways of new life. Listen for the people through whom Jesus may be speaking to you, and be open to the possibility that you may be that person in someone else’s life. Listen for the voice of Jesus guiding you to new insights and possibilities, even when that voice may simply be a feeling or a what seems like a random thought. And engage with others – even and especially when, like the first disciples, it’s just over a meal or when sharing coffee – because it’s often in those conversations that Jesus is present and helping us to be his Risen body in the life of the world around us.
Amen.