Happy Easter!
Did you know that the Risen Christ appeared in the dark, at night?
A few nights ago, JD heard that a man had tried to kill a police officer and was now on the loose in Jacksonville. We locked all the doors to our house and let our black lab loose because she is great at barking when strangers come to the door. I wasnt really scared but I was a bit nervous.
That's what we do at night. We shut our doors, lock them and then turn on inside lights. We try to shove away the darkness or sleep through it.
The disciples locked the doors of the house where they were staying in Jerusalem because they were afraid that the Jews might just come by and arrest them. They were truly scared. Jesus had been arrested at night and look what had happened to him. Doors locked, check.
Then the Risen Christ appeared. He couldn't be kept out. Christ does not let shut doors stop him. Nothing that we say or do can stop the Risen Christ from coming to us if he wants to. I think that he comes to us all the time.
When the Risen Christ appears, the first thing he does is say, "Peace be with you." Another way of saying this is "Don't be afraid," for peace is the opposite of fear. He wanted us to be at peace the way we were once in Eden, at peace and not afraid. He wanted us to not need to hide any longer.
And then, to help us not be afraid, Jesus did something so intimate and so odd. He showed the disciples his hands and his side. These were the places where he had been hurt. Nails had been hammered through his hands. His side had been pierced with a sword. And the first thing he did was to show the disciples his wounds.
As many of you know, I grew up in an old New England family where the common practice was to recount your accomplishments every year at the family reunion. My grandmother would ask, without flinching, "What have you done this year, dearies?" We were expected to recount degrees, awards, jobs, travel and other impressive activities. It was like a competition. The one who gets into the most prestigious college wins. The one with the most money wins. The one with the most accolades wins. It was a boasting fest, but underneath it all was this terrible insecurity that comes from not really knowing if you are truly loved.
When I was thirteen, I was invited to a Christian retreat for all ages. It took place at a boarding school in New England. People came from all over the country and met in small groups called families. And something happened in those family groups that I had never experienced before. Instead of telling each other how great we were, we talked about our pain. And this was with grown ups. A man in his twenties (who seemed old at the time to me) cried because he was afraid to go back to graduate school and all he wanted to do was to become a teacher. A woman was struggling with depression and could not stop crying.
In the course of one week, I felt that I knew these people in ways that I had never known another human being before. They opened their hearts to each other and to me. I found them beautiful and complex and full of wonder. And, best of all, I began to understand that my own struggles and insecurities were not crazy at all, they were what made me who I am.
There is a scene in the movie About Time when a mother meets her son's new love. Instead of trying to impress each other, the mother asks the young woman, "What are your worst faults?" At first, the young lady looks started, but she answers with candor. She says, "I can be incredibly insecure...." The mother smiles and says, "Yes, cant we all?"
She says, "I have a terrible temper at times."
The mother says, "Well, how else can we get them to do what we want?"
The young woman says, "I have a weakness for your son."
And the mother says, "So do I, but lets not tell him..." And she smiles.
In just five minutes, these two women not only met but began to love each other. Because they shared their wounds.
We all want so badly to be happy and to have it all together, but it is our pain that marks us. It is our struggles that shape us into the people we are. When Christ came back, he wanted us to no longer be afraid. He wanted us to trust him and so he showed us his wounds.
And the most incredible thing to me is that Jesus brought his wounds with him into the resurrection life. The scars, which can be so ugly, were not covered over or erased in heaven. They were marks of his own identity. He brought himself to resurrection. That is how Thomas knows him, by his wounds.
Don't shut your doors to one another. Don't pretend that you have it all together, that you are happy all the time and never struggle. We scare one another when we pretend like that. Instead, open the doors to your heart and share with others who you truly are, your struggles as well as your joy. Tell them about your grief, your loneliness, your wish that things could have turned out differently. We cannot see Christ in one another if we are always pretending to be perfect. The Risen Christ did not return perfect. He returned scarred. And he was so beautiful.
