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SERMONS

The Second Sunday of Easter
April 7, 2002

By David Christian

There are some people who have a calming influence on those around them. One such person in my life is Margaret Guenther. Many of you will remember Margaret form her visit here at the Chapel a few years ago. Margaret is an Episcopal priest and until her retirement was a member of the faculty at General Seminary in New York.

As you can imagine with a hundred students, families, and faculty living together in one block in the middle of Manhattan, tensions and anxiety sometimes run pretty high.

So it was always wonderful to see Margaret coming down the walk. You could almost feel waves of calm flowing out in front of her and around her. As long as she was present the tension was a little less, the anxiety was a little less, you could think more clearly. It is a remarkable gift that she has and that she shares with those around her.

If any one group needed a calming influence, it was that group huddled behind locked doors in the evening on that first Easter. Three days before they had scattered in panic as their leader was arrested by the authorities. The following day he had been executed and all the hopes that they had placed in him died with him. Now their fear was that they would be next. So they hid together, terrified of what the future might bring.

Suddenly there he was. Jesus was present with them, standing among them. This was not some spiritual presence, some apparition. This was the same man who had been killed three days before. The same man, down to the nail holes in his hands and the spear hole in his side.

And he gave them a gift. "Peace be with you," he said. Peace. Peace that passes understanding. The deep knowledge, in the core of their beings that, as Julian of Norwich said centuries later, "All will be well and all will be well. And all manner of things shall be well."

Peace that does not deny the reality of pain and suffering. Pain and suffering, loss and death, are a very real part of life. Certainly when we look at what became of those eleven we cannot deny the reality of suffering and death.

James was put to the sword by Herod Agrippa. Tradition says that Peter was crucified in Rome. Andrew was crucified in Achaia. Simon and Jude were killed in Persia. Bartholomew was flayed alive.

Pain and suffering and death are realities, particularly for those who would follow Christ. But the peace of Christ recognizes that pain and suffering and death are not the final word. The final victory over death and the grave have been won. The power of death has been vanquished. Life, ultimately is comedy, not tragedy.

Such is the peace that they experienced in the presence of the Lord. Then he gave them a command, and after the command a second gift. The command: "As the Father sent me, so I send you."

The gift of peace was not given to them so that they could spend the remainder of their lives resting comfortably there in their own peaceable kingdom, unconcerned about the world outside.

The gift of peace was given to them so that they could reenter that world. The same world from which they had been hiding behind locked doors. They were sent into the world to carry the message of God's love and the promise of reconciliation made possible by Jesus.

And they were given the second gift. "Receive the Holy Spirit," Jesus said. The Spirit of God. The Spirit of Christ himself.

As wonderful and calming as it was for us to be around Margaret Guenther, eventually she would walk on. We would be left with the only memory of that calming presence.

In giving his followers the gift of the Spirit, Jesus gave them the gift of his continuing presence; and the peace to be found in that presence. Never again would those followers be cut off from the presence of Jesus. Never again would they lose the peace to be found only in him.

We can see the power of the gifts given by Jesus that day in the reading we heard moments ago from the Acts of the Apostles. Peter had denied and deserted Jesus only a few short weeks before. Peter had huddled there in that locked room for fear of the Jews. Now, a few short weeks later that same Peter stands with the eleven and speaks to the gathered crowd of "that Jesus you crucified and killed." Peter now claims boldly and without fear that that same Jesus has been raised from the dead.

Such is the power of the peace that Jesus gave to those disciples the evening of that first Easter. Such is the power of the peace that he offers to us today. The gifts that he gave to them, he gives to us: peace and joy through his presence with us. And the command that he gave to them he gives to us today.

As the Father sent him, as he sent those first eleven, so he sends us. The world today, perhaps more than ever, needs the peace that Christ offers. The world today, perhaps more than ever, needs to hear the message of promise and joy, of freedom and new life, that is found in Christ.

That is his charge to us today. To preach the Good News, boldly and unafraid. Filled with the peace and presence of the living Christ.

David Christian
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi

Acts 2.14a,22-32
1 Peter 1.3-9
John 20.19-31