Pascha II

The Second Sunday of Easter

Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 118; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

Jesus initiates three encounters on that “first day of the week…”

 

Early in the morning, Jesus is present to Mary Magdalene.

She is still at the tomb.

Mourning. Weeping. Questioning.

 

Late in the afternoon, Jesus saddles up to two disciples, Cleopas and his wife.

Their walking home to Emmaus.

They’re arguing. What now? Hope is draining through them like a sieve.

 

In the evening, Jesus appears to the gathered disciples.

They’ve locked themselves in the upper room.

They are afraid, wondering what will happen to them.

 

Thomas is nowhere to be found. When he appears, in his frustration he demands proofs.

Friendship’s bond is not able to withstand death.

 

Everyone is turned in on themselves. Fear does that to us despite how often Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” We disciples have never learned the lesson well. Jesus always turned out from himself to engage others. He told us stories. Stories about a Samaritan and a victim of a violent robbery, about a woman searching for a lost coin, a father running out toward a son suffering from bad life decisions and self-inflicted emotional wounds, about a shepherd seeking a lost sheep.

 

He lived out these stories by indiscriminately eating with anyone.  He reached out beyond his Jewish community to Greeks, Syrophoenicians, Canaanites, and Romans. As family members pleaded, he went to the homes of the sick, the dying and the dead.

 

Walking in a broken world, Jesus told stories of broken people and shared meals with wounded people. It was a world like ours.

A world where there are great movements of peoples seeking security, freedom, a welcome and a start fresh. A world at war.

 

We sit before the gapping mouth of death.

Steeped in fear, we have locked up our hearts. Our voices are silent. Where is our compassion?

We argue without the need to listen driving deeper divides ourselves.

 

In the face of such woundedness and evil, how do we proclaim the resurrection?

 

Yet it is into this world that Jesus makes himself present. Do we recognize his presence?

Mary, Cleopas and his wife, the gathered disciples didn’t. No one ever does.

I have always wondered why?

 

We are a world at war.

Leaders threatening the absolute destruction of civilizations.

Students spoken of as collateral damage, when a school is accidentally bombed.

Parents fleeing to protect their children

when bombs explode in the residential areas of Beirut, Gaza City, Tehran, and Kyiv.

Seniors, patriarchs and matriarchs of families, wrapped in blankets their eyes looking out over their

worlds crumbling around them.

 

We anesthetize ourselves marking the Resurrection with trumpets and music, singing and festivities, flowers, food and family gatherings. But the initial response to the resurrection has always been fear, questions and disbelief. And why would it not?

 

The Resurrection is God’s definitive act to destroy death which means destroying a part of ourselves.

 

We have experienced the deep sadness of Mary Magadelene at the various doors of death in our lives where hope seems to be absent. We at times have locked people, possibilities and even God out of our lives like the fear-filled disciples. Like Cleopas and his wife, we argue, divide and doubt. And like Thomas, we too often demand proofs from God and others before we believe. These strong feelings control us. They are fed by constant news cycles, lies and an impoverished world leadership that drain us of hope.

 

Many of us, including world leaders and governments have chosen death. This choice is the cause of our fear, helplessness, and questions that fill the hearts of so many of us. Like paralyzed, lost sheep sitting in the high grass, we need to wait for someone to seek us out and embrace us.

 

 

12 April 2026