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Easter 2B
Acts 5:27-41
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20: 19-31
The Rev Dcn Bill Mosier
This is supposed to be a low Sunday.
Low Sundays happen in church after Big Sundays. Last week was a really big Sunday. Today is the Sunday after.
The Sunday after Easter- Last week when we celebrated the most important feast day of the Christian Calendar. Last week we celebrated new birth and new beginning. Children brought up the Oblations and yesterday the last day for the first week after Easter we celebrated the consecration of our new bishop. Micheal Joseph Hanley
It was a blessed and multicultural event. There were at least four languages happening at various times through out the event.
The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Rhond played a dynamic and meaningful part in this celebration.
I came away convinced that
The work of faith is believers!
The work of believers is Love
The work of love is the Holy Spirit.
The work of the Holy Spirit is believers
I am convinced
That in all of this, reconciliation is truly the work of Christ
Believers don’t just happen. This morning I want to look at this thing we call believing.
The core element in our reading this morning is the joy that springs from believing.
They proclaim a Christ reality.
In Acts the disciples who are questioned by the high priestly council after being arrested and brought
before them by temple police.
The council accuses them that they teach Christ When they were ordered not to do that.
They teach Jesus as the redeemer and reconciler of Israel to God
and that the chief priests
killed him!
Yet a feeling of joy underlies this message. It is a beginning -- not an end.
There is a story about what happened behind the scenes here. A wise rabbi of the law took the others aside and advised them.
He pointed out that other movements whose leaders had been eliminated had simply died out without any intervention from the temple.
These men -- these disciples --should not be put to death.
If the beliefs died out on their own then surely God is not at work in this.
Let them go with a flogging
and it was done and the disciples left rejoicing that they suffered and lived for the Lord.
Our Psalm proclaims Hallelujas of praise
I wonder if it was raining
on that evening the first day of the week the doors being shut for fear of the Jews.
I wonder if it was raining
When Jesus appeared.
Jesus breaths the holy spirit on them and then gives his disciples
their sending --- their commission.
I wonder if it was raining
because God so ordered His creation that it seems to work independently of our
spiritual experiences. Like a back drop of music to the actions of a play.
I suspect the reality of Gods Creation Is a counter point to the Reality of the Holy Spirit.
Thomas called the twin says unless I put my finger in his wounds and see his hands for myself
I will not believe
Thomas is blessed by being shown these things and he does believe.
Now we need to look at this thing we call belief.
Belief doesn’t just happen. Belief is supported by something. For Thomas- the support had to be actual experience. He had to put his hand in Jesus side and to touch his pierced, wounded hands to be convinced and then he became a believer.
hum --
A person very influential in my life once told me “never believe what you hear and only half of what you see.” The reason is that people never say
what they are really thinking
and you will not hear
what they are really saying.
You should know this about yourself “
Thomas must be following this rule. But I want us to note something here. Thomas says “I will not believe.” He does not say “I can not believe”
I think in our time we are stuck. We are stuck in our scientific data based existence that demands proofs in order to believe. It forgets the holy spirit which is ineffable and can not be demonstrated scientifically. This modern phenomenon tends to destroy faith in those things that can not be measured or demonstrated in some physical way
Like everyone else of my time I need to support my belief system in things I am confident can be true.
I know that Jesus was born and lived a human life. I know that Jesus was a teacher and was called rabbi by his followers. Jesus was arrested - tried - scrouged -crucified and died. I know that Jesus was experienced alive after his death. I know that Jesus gave his disciples a job to do and for this they became believers.
There is something in me that supports belief that is a counter point to the reality of
the story of Jesus that I have heard and seen in the church
and scripture.
There is something at work beyond the relating.
It is now that we can transcend the music of the real world
to the holy spirit of the world unknowable.
Unknowable yet capable of being experienced.
It was in the drum beats of the confederated tribes.
It conveys the reconciliation story of hurts we do to each other.
We can do it as believers that Jesus bar Joseph who became the Christ
lived and died that we may know God more fully.
The work of faith is believers!
The work of believers is Love
The work of love is the Holy Spirit.
The work of the Holy Spirit is believers
Amen