Readings
Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
Whether looking at the fraying of our social fabric, the extreme polarization in our politics, the rise of Christian nationalism (which by the way is not Christian), or the proliferation of conflict across the globe, it is hard not to find ourselves gripped by fear and anxiety. Who among us isn’t desirous, if not desperate, for some sense of security and comfort? Who among us has not felt the temptation to hide away from the woes of the world behind either literal or metaphorical locked doors?
In today’s Gospel the disciples and others gathered in Jerusalem are immersed in chaos and confusion. They find themselves confronted with fear, frustration, guilt, grief, doubt, anxiety, suspicion, distrust, restlessness, despondency, and terror. And who can blame them? In a very short period of time they had lost their leader to a gross act of injustice and state sponsored terror. Not only that but now his bloody and wounded body was missing. And what of themselves? Were they to be next? Nothing seemed safe and the heady days of the past seemed gone for good.
No wonder they are locked away. Who among us wouldn’t choose likewise? And yet, in the midst of this community Jesus appears. Jesus, almost anticipating their response, says to them “Peace be with you.” Even so, they’re terrified thinking him to be a ghost. And why not? Who among us wouldn’t be terrified to see someone you were sure was dead standing in your midst?
But Jesus assures them that there is nothing to be afraid of. By having them touch him and eat with them he calms their fears and normalizes the experience. Even as their fear turns to joy they still find themselves wondering and disbelieving. How can this be?
This is important to be attentive to. The resurrection, even for those who experienced it first hand, didn’t make sense any more than it makes sense to us today. The reality of what God did isn’t something that we can simply wrap our heads around and then believe. No, it is something to be experienced. And what is that experience? Namely that death is not the end of the story, even in this material embodied reality we live in. Through the resurrection, God in Jesus, is claiming the sacred nature of our existence. Our salvation is not simply spiritual. The world, and by extension all of us, are being claimed by God. This is not something that can be claimed by right thinking. No, it must be a lived reality.
That’s the point that Jesus makes with his disciples as he opens the scriptures to them. He is calling them to get out of their preconceived notions of reality and to move beyond their fear. He is offering a point of hope in the midst of a broken and weary world. But that hope is in him and in what has been made manifest in him. It is the recognition that our present reality is the place where transformations of ultimate significance can and do occur. It is the recognition that just as God raised Jesus from the dead he too can affect change even in the face of what appears to be a hopeless and intractable situation.
The truth is that we can’t escape our fears either. Beyond the ones I listed at the beginning of my homily, what other fears do we harbor? Our fears may be very personal, such as the fear of disease, unemployment, loneliness, or loss. But they can also be larger, even as they have a sense of personal peril, like terrorism, war, or disease. Finally, there is the fear that all of us have to come to grips with—the fear of death, our own or that of someone we love.
Like the disciples, our fears have the power to hold us captive. They have the ability to sap us of any sense of life, hope, or peace. The temptation in such circumstances is to seek control, safety, security. To either lock ourselves or those we fear away. The difficulty is that the locked doors we would choose don’t address the fears and mistrust we have. If you want to know what is at the heart of our brokenness today it is fear. We live in an age of fear. Regardless of the rhetoric, most of our conflict and fragmentation has fear at its heart.
The power of the resurrection, however, is the power to plant seeds of transformation. The disciples’ experience of the resurrected Jesus moved them out of their fear into a bold and courageous way of living marked by the understanding that nothing, not even death, could rob them of the peace and life which God promises in Christ. They no longer needed to neurotically defend their lives because they knew that in God their life was assured. It freed them to become agents of God’s transforming love in the world around them. In short, they became agents of change even in the face of risk. Jesus did not bring them security, he brought them life and hope. And they, in turn, became life, hope, and peace for the world. They became the embodiment of the resurrected Christ for those around them.
The challenge for us today is whether or not we will seek the risen Lord and when we find him choose the hope he offers. Can we set aside our fears and our need to make reality fit our preconceived notions? Are we able to let go of our desire to be secure, whatever that may look like?
We are being called to be something very different from what is predominant in our culture today. Rather than polarize and be estranged, we are being called to be a people who take the risk associated with embodying Christ for others.
Imagine with me what the world might be like if we met fear with compassion. If we met conflict with understanding. If we met hate with love. Imagine if we lived with so much life that death no longer had dominion. If we lived with so much love that peace abounded always.