Sometimes called “low Sunday,” after the heights of the Easter festival, the second Sunday of Easter often means lower participation in worship and maybe lower energy too. But it’s only the beginning of the Easter season of 50 days! And there is nothing “low” about all that the readings hold on this Sunday.
The earliest worship patterns of Christian communities are potentially established and described in the gospel today. “On the first day of the week,” the disciples of Jesus gather. Jesus appears among them and blesses them, saying, “Peace be with you.” And the followers of Jesus witness the crucified and risen Christ, with wounds and breath, in body and Spirit. Jesus breathes on them the Holy Spirit and empowers them with and for forgiveness. These are essential practises of our worship. Gathering each Sunday, the first day of the week, sharing Jesus’ words and peace, witnessing the crucified and risen Christ, touching and receiving Jesus’ body in our own often wounded hands and bodies, and receiving the Holy Spirit, to share God’s forgiveness in Jesus for all. Doesn’t this give the greatest significance to our worship every Sunday, with Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit among us and with all Jesus’ disciples.
And that’s only the first part of the gospel reading! Thomas’ story has forever honoured human doubt as part of faith. And Jesus’ desire to meet Thomas and all of us where we are, to show us Jesus’ very self, alive, that Thomas and we might believe. Again, isn’t this also a pattern for our worship? To return a week later, on the next first day of the week as Thomas does, doubting and needing confirmation, to have our faith restored in the risen Christ, and share in the blessing of “those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
And in an astonishing final paragraph, and likely the first ending of John’s gospel, a postscript or commentary from the author or editor for us as readers, centuries and millennia later, about the content of the gospel not containing many other signs that Jesus did in the presence of his disciples, but these that we read and hear each time we gather on the first day of the week, “are written so that you might come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Beloved of God, and that through believing you may have life in Jesus’ name.” An amazing connection to the first writers and hearers of this gospel and the Christian communities who gathered on the first day of the week, as we do here and now, to have life in Jesus’ name.
In our study of the book, Holy Envy, by Barbara Brown Taylor, the chapter this week considered Judaism and its focus on what we do in living our faith more than what we believe. And the challenge and gift this can be for us as Christians, and Lutherans, concerned about any hint of “works righteousness.” But striving to hear and understand and maybe experience a kind of holy envy for a way of living the covenant relationship with God in faithfulness to God’s laws for the sake of my relationship to God and the wellbeing of my neighbour.
Is this the way these words, “life in Jesus’ name,” are enacted in the reading from Acts? An early account, from around the year 80, of the followers of Jesus, being “of one heart and soul” with no one claiming private ownership of anything, and everything held in common, with the Apostles giving testimony to the resurrection of Jesus, “and great grace was upon them all.” “And their was not a needy person among them, because they lived a redistribution of wealth that Jesus talked about and lived, with what was needed distributed to each as any had need.” Isn’t this incredible? Is some expression of this possible?
It is interesting that some scholars commenting on this reading use terms like, an “idyllic” representation of the early Christian community, or “there is no evidence to suggest that such financial arrangements characterized early Christianity.” Is this resistance to Jesus’ claim on us and our wealth and our devotion to capitalism? Is it possible that this was the risen life in Jesus’ name that people witnessed and found so compelling, and what they saw as great grace being upon these followers of Jesus? Another person commented that with the changing patterns of our worship offerings and so much of it given automatically or by e-transfer or online, what would it mean to gather a simple offering in worship each Sunday solely for the purpose of distributing it to those in need? This is not disconnected to what our regular offerings are for, along with the needs of the church to function, locally and in our Synod and National church, offerings also support the Kitchen, CLWR, refugee sponsorship, and so on. But I wonder what an offering for just the purpose of distributing the funds to those in need would mean for our stewardship together?
And what social and political structural changes do we need to advocate and stand up for that would enact a redistribution of wealth, as the gap between rich and poor grows wider and wider, and the number of those in desperate need grows greater around us and across the world? Could there be any higher purpose on this low Sunday or on any first day of the week, than a more equitable risen life together in Jesus’ name?
The introduction to the letter of first John speaks of what has been heard and seen and touched in the word of eternal life of God in Christ Jesus, “that our joy may be complete.” A light and life that calls us to confession, “that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Again, these words form part of our worship when we join in confession and forgiveness together. A practise and pattern for living forgiveness for others and for the whole world in Jesus’ name.
Low Sunday may have another meaning as well. Low as in how life can bring us there, in personal challenges and suffering and struggle, and for so many in this world that it overwhelms us, and the need for changes in our lives and world confront us daily. Isn’t this exactly the place where we meet the first disciples of Jesus on the first day of the week, including Thomas and his doubts, in fear and overwhelmed with grief? And isn’t this exactly where the risen Jesus meets them and us, and says, “Peace be with you. Peace be with you. Peace be with you.” And that word of great grace, and the breath of Jesus’ Holy Spirit upon us, gives new life for us and for this world; on this first day of the week, and on any and every day after that our joy, and the joy of others may be complete.
My cousin and her family tragically lost a young grandchild two years ago. For her and her spouse, the parents and family, the friends and community, it has been a journey of
terrible grief and sadness. There has been great support from their community of friends and family, from their church and pastor, and their faith and courage and I trust the presence of the Holy Spirit that has carried them up to today. And yesterday, my cousin posted that she has written a children’s book, titled, My Friend Died and I Feel So Sad, a resource for children and families who are grieving, the book arising out of her own grief and the grief of young friends of her grandchild shared together. I can only believe this is the result of great grace within and upon her, and by that grace a courageous enacting of the risen life in Jesus’ name for the wellbeing of little children.
Isn’t the Psalmist right to say, “how good and pleasant it is to live together in unity.” And isn’t this why we gather on the first day of the week, again and again, on high and low Sundays, to hear and share Jesus’ words, “Peace be with you,” to see and touch Jesus and his wounded body, alive, in holy words and bread and wine and water, in fear and doubt and belief, in confession and forgiveness, to be renewed and restored, to arise to new life in love of God and our neighbour, in Jesus’ name, that our and the world’s joy might be complete. Let it be so, this Sunday and everyday to life everlasting, in all our relations. Amen.
