Easter 2(A) – Acts 2:14a, 22-32; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
A few weeks ago, I got to attend a funeral for a relative of one of our members over in West Boylston. I don’t get to just attend very often, always stuck up front. So I got to just look around and notice some things. The welcoming décor of the funeral home. The wonderful photos of the deceased. And the many people who turned out – so many that they poured over into another room. May I never say I *like* going to funerals, but I am always glad when they are packed. I feel like it’s a sign that the person’s life was meaningful.
So many people, though! It surprised me, that day, that they all were able to take the morning off from work or family or their other responsibilities. Nothing has the power to disrupt out lives like death does, to stop us in our tracks and change our direction. The power of grief is like a devastating depression. It can affect our mood as well as our ability to accomplish anything. It’s almost as if death has the power to spread itself.
It has the power, too, to spread into places where life should dwell. I once knew a man who had really died long before his death. His life somehow had arranged itself to have no life in it. This man – Mark was his name – was sort of a friend of my father. At least my father always called him that, but I think he did so because Mark didn’t really have friends. My dad was actually a business associate; they were insurance salesmen. Mark was always nice to us, but there didn’t seem to be much in his life to grasp on to. He was divorced unhappily and estranged from his only son. He tried to fill his emptiness with alcohol, to no avail, of course. Mark ostensibly died from cancer, but really he’d been dead long before.
Mark was an extreme example of it, but the truth is that death reaches deeply into our lives in small ways like that for all of us. There are parts of ourselves that get cut off, wither, and die, an there is no life in them. A broken friendship that we regret. An illness that won’t go away. A dream or aspiration that remains unreachable. These things carry with them the power of death. And this power is large, and destructive.
Death is so powerful that in the ancient world, it was pictured as a giant deity, a vast creature with massive teeth. Its jaw dragged along the ground and its tongue reached up to the heavens, and it went rampaging around, swallowing up everything in its path. Nothing could escape.
In fact, for all our technology, death still is the only thing we can’t manage to get power over. We can stave it off with beauty products and “anti-aging” treatments. We can cure life-threatening illnesses and mange others that will not heal. We can prolong and enrich our lives in many ways. But eventually it happens to everyone. Death will swallow up every one of us. We cannot stop its coming. Death is more powerful than we can ever be.
Which is why the Easter story of Jesus’ resurrection is so exciting. Jesus is God, and God comes with real power. The tomb is there; Jesus really did die. But the tomb is empty. Jesus did not cheat or forestall death. He defeated it. God’s power is greater than death’s.
This is the core truth contained in all of our readings today. In Acts, we hear Peter preaching the good news on the first Pentecost. On that Pentecost Day, the Holy Spirit comes and causes Peter to speak with POWER, as my friend Irma Hess points out. There are tongues of flame and words that can transcend language barriers. These words speak of Jesus’ “deeds of power, wonders, and signs.” They tell us that it was “impossible” for death to hold him in its power. God’s power is greater, so much greater, than death.
Today we welcome new members into our congregation as we together affirm our Baptism. Baptism sometimes seems so innocuous a rite; we wash usually a precious little baby with water, say some nice words, smear some oil, and the thing is done. But this Baptism we proclaim today is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the very power of God! This power dispels evil, defeats death, and protects us in salvation now and forever. It is no small, innocuous thing we affirming today. It is dangerous, and wonderful, and world-changing.
Just as it has been ever since Jesus walked through the door into that upper room and gave the disciples his peace. Jesus appeared among them and shared with them his power. He breathed out the Holy Spirit and gave them the power to forgive sin. To free people from the death that keeps them trapped. Jesus gave them – gave us! – the power to defeat death too!
Just like he did to the apostles, just as Jesus showed himself to Thomas, Jesus shows himself to us here too today. He reveals his power in the Word and the bread and the wine. And this sacrament enters into us and like Thomas touching Jesus’ hands and feet, we discover God’s power too. And then as the Father sent him, Jesus sends us with the power to defeat death, and we go out into world and it is changed!
Like Mark, Mercedes once was living a life that was dead, swallowing up her sorrows and broken relationships in alcohol, feeling empty and meaningless. But she could not stay dead. She’d say she found Jesus, or better, I say Jesus found her, like he found the disciples hiding away, and He breathed life into her. Life hasn’t been perfect since then. Finding meaningful work has been hard, though plugging in to her church has helped bring meaning to her time. Staying sober has been harder, but both times she’s been drawn back into drinking, her faith has drawn her back to sobriety. Reconciling with her children has been hardest, but she swore not to give up on them, as God has not given up on her. No, life hasn’t been easy, but is has been life.
Nor was it death that brought all those people out for the funeral. People who didn’t have to come, but chose to do so to attest to a life well-lived, to life that fostered love and faith in so many others, to life that is promised to still continue, caught up in everlasting life with Jesus Christ.
No, God’s power is stronger than death’s. Death which swallows up everything in its path – death has been swallowed up in victory by our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus comes with power. And that power has taken our dying parts and given them a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Jesus called this the power to retain and forgive sin on earth and in heaven. And He has chosen to share it with us! We have been handed the power of salvation that can forgive and heal the world.
What will you do with it?
Amen.