Glimpse, Week 2: Second Sunday of Easter - April 12, 2015
We’re spending time in these first few weeks of the Easter season trying to open ourselves to the possibility of believing that the Resurrection is real and that it’s good news for each one of us. If you were here on Easter, you know that we talked a lot about how we’re all in different places with this. Some of us may not fully believe in Christ’s Resurrection yet. Or we may believe it happened, but we can’t yet see how this is good news for us. It’s really OK that we’re all in different places on the journey. The thing that really matters is being open to the possibility of believing. We’re calling this series Glimpse, because it’s all about learning to pay attention to those sometimes-fleeting moments when we experience the Risen Lord. It’s about learning to see these things more clearly. A glimpse is uncertain. Maybe you saw something, maybe you didn’t. Maybe it was real, maybe it wasn’t real. So this series is about moving from just maybe being able to catch a fleeting glimpse of Christ, to really being able to see clearly and celebrate his presence.
The readings for the Easter season are full of stories about how the first disciples began to believe in the Resurrection, and about the impact this had on their lives. But just like the first disciples, many of us probably have a very hard time recognizing the Risen Lord when we encounter him. We have to work to identify experiences in our lives that may have been encounters with the Risen Christ--we have to look for the signs, evidence of where Christ has been. We have to become detectives of grace. Christ is always trying to reveal himself to us, but there are so many things in our culture and in our own minds that can keep us from recognizing him. This week we’re focusing on identifying the things that prevent us from seeing the Risen Lord or from recognizing him.
Today we hear several different witnesses to the power of the Resurrection. Luke invites us to see the impact of the risen Jesus on the lives of the earliest Christians. Because of Jesus, the believers shared all they had. There was such great love in the community that no one was hungry or homeless anymore. This is pretty unbelievable. Think about what this is saying--that because of the Resurrection, there was such amazing unity in the community of believers that they shared absolutely everything with each other. As adults we never really think about sharing on this level, as if it couldn’t seriously be expected. So even though we say we did--we didn’t really learn it in kindergarten. And imitating this kind of sharing today isn’t really what’s being asked of us in this moment. It just shows us how powerfully that community was affected.
For many of us, these accounts of the transformative power of the Resurrection in the lives of Jesus’s earliest followers might not ring true. If we haven’t experienced that kind of transformation ourselves, then this kind of account could sound farfetched. One roadblock to recognizing the Risen Lord might be that I’m not convinced that such an encounter is even possible. A first step in dismantling this barrier could be to ask myself: Is the idea of experiencing that kind of transformation attractive enough to make me want it for myself?
Another barrier could be that I think that just by knowing about Jesus, I already have all that I need to live a good life and be a disciple. I don’t know what I’m missing, so I don’t look for encounters with Christ or try to develop a relationship with him. That may have been a part of Thomas’s experience. All the Gospel tells us is that Thomas wasn’t with the other disciples when the Risen Lord appeared to them. We don’t know where he was, what he was doing, or why he wasn’t with the others. He could have been off doing something really good, doing something that Jesus teaches us to do, like feeding the hungry or comforting the mourning. Thomas may have thought he knew everything he needed to know about how Jesus wanted him to live. It was time to get on with it. He had his marching orders. He was still going to live a good life, the way he thought Jesus wanted him to, even though it hadn't turned out well for Jesus. He was attracted by the good feeling of living for others. But because of that, Thomas missed the encounter with the Risen Jesus.
We may think of Jesus as someone who gives us really good instructions for living. We look to him for our marching orders. And we may think that the really good Christians are the ones who do the most extraordinary things. Christ doesn’t just want us to be doing good work, or just to do anything. He lived and died and rose to bring us into a relationship. He wants us to be following his teaching about living in relationship with God and the world. He wants to give us new life. If instructions are all we’re looking for from Jesus, they might be all we see. This could be a barrier that keeps us from getting a glimpse of what he is really trying to offer us, which is friendship with him.
Think about how Thomas must have felt when he heard that the Risen Jesus had appeared to all the others when he wasn’t there--hurt, left out. At first, Thomas didn’t have the experience of meeting the Risen Jesus for himself, but he wanted it. Like many of us who were born into this faith, he had a foundation for the experience. Sometimes we might feel like we’re in the same place as Thomas--feeling like we missed the encounter, like everyone else has had this experience but us. But if Christ wants to develop a relationship with us, why would we think that he would just give us one shot at it? Christ came back to the locked room because he wanted Thomas to be able to encounter him, to believe. He came back for the sake of the relationship. He came back because he always keeps coming back.
This time Thomas is there, and he has this amazing, transformative experience. Thomas’s response is considered the climax of the whole Gospel: “My Lord and My God.” He doesn’t just get a glimpse of Christ--he sees him with total clarity. He alone seems to understand fully who the Risen Lord is. Christ keeps coming back for us, breathing the power of the Spirit into us, helping us overcome our doubts, fears, and anything else that gets in the way. Christ can do this now because he is Risen. He is alive again, but in a radically different way. His body is still real, though changed. Locked doors can’t keep him out. Only locked or hardened hearts can keep him out.
If we’ve missed the encounter with Christ in the past, that doesn’t need to be a roadblock to seeing him now. It can be an invitation to trust that Christ is going to come back for us, again and again, as often as it takes, just as he did for Thomas. Right now the Risen Lord is reaching out to each of us in a hundred different ways, wildly trying to get our attention. We can spend time this week trying to get a glimpse of the ways Christ is reaching out to each of us, coming to the locked rooms where we are hiding and offering us peace, hope, new possibility. As a next step for this week: try to get a glimpse of how Christ might be offering you new life this week: through a person in your life who is helping you see new possibilities? a new sense of hopefulness? a feeling of peace replacing fear and anxiety?
Rachel's reflection:
For me, one of the things that can keep me from recognizing the Risen Christ is that it can be so hard to see clearly what’s happening in the present, especially when what’s happening is not what I expect. I have spent lots of time asking Christ to help me with things I was worrying about, or how he wanted me to handle some situation. These things all felt really important and urgent, and I wanted Christ to show me what to do in some very definite way. And so often, when this clear answer didn’t come, I have at least initially interpreted that as Christ not being present.
My son is really into graphic novels, and one thing about graphic novels is that it’s really clear when something important happens. The word BAM will appear in huge red letters surrounded by yellow lightning bolts, or something equally obvious. But most of the time being in relationship with Christ isn’t like that. Sure, every once in a while we have an important insight while praying, but usually the way Christ works in my life is much more gentle, subtle, and unexpected than that. I started keeping a prayer journal about three years ago, and reading back through my journals, I can see so clearly how, over time, Christ was working to get me to loosen my grip on the questions I thought I needed answers to. I can see Christ replacing my anxiety with peace by finally getting me to see that I don’t really need an answer to that question, that I don’t need to worry so endlessly about how to solve that problem, that I should let him take it on. It’s really hard for me to see in the moment, but looking back, I can see how consistently Christ offers me new life and new peace by helping me to let go of my anxiety.
Fr. Thom's reflection:
One time I have personally experienced that feeling of peace that comes from knowing the Risen Lord was when I was serving as a chaplain at Mass General. I was asked to meet with a couple facing a difficult diagnosis for the husband. Although it was not my own diagnosis, I knew that the stakes were high for this couple and I wanted so badly to be able to help them. I went to meet with them and just be with them; I listened as they talked about all their fears. They shared the grief of the likelihood of things they had been looking forward to in their life that may no longer be a reality for them--kids, grandkids, and many other great things that they would not witness together. They talked about their faith and expressed some guilt about not being attentive to it in the past, and the fear that this diagnosis was somehow a punishment for that. But our conversation evolved and became this wonderful experience of recognition that they had so many things to be thankful for in the moment as they faced a very scary future, so many things that they could hope for, and that this moment was all they had right then. And in that moment we shared a real feeling of peace.
Learning to recognize Christ can be a gradual process, but it’s also a transformative one. As our eyes are opened more and more, we can see that Resurrection is happening all through our lives.
The readings for the Easter season are full of stories about how the first disciples began to believe in the Resurrection, and about the impact this had on their lives. But just like the first disciples, many of us probably have a very hard time recognizing the Risen Lord when we encounter him. We have to work to identify experiences in our lives that may have been encounters with the Risen Christ--we have to look for the signs, evidence of where Christ has been. We have to become detectives of grace. Christ is always trying to reveal himself to us, but there are so many things in our culture and in our own minds that can keep us from recognizing him. This week we’re focusing on identifying the things that prevent us from seeing the Risen Lord or from recognizing him.
Today we hear several different witnesses to the power of the Resurrection. Luke invites us to see the impact of the risen Jesus on the lives of the earliest Christians. Because of Jesus, the believers shared all they had. There was such great love in the community that no one was hungry or homeless anymore. This is pretty unbelievable. Think about what this is saying--that because of the Resurrection, there was such amazing unity in the community of believers that they shared absolutely everything with each other. As adults we never really think about sharing on this level, as if it couldn’t seriously be expected. So even though we say we did--we didn’t really learn it in kindergarten. And imitating this kind of sharing today isn’t really what’s being asked of us in this moment. It just shows us how powerfully that community was affected.
For many of us, these accounts of the transformative power of the Resurrection in the lives of Jesus’s earliest followers might not ring true. If we haven’t experienced that kind of transformation ourselves, then this kind of account could sound farfetched. One roadblock to recognizing the Risen Lord might be that I’m not convinced that such an encounter is even possible. A first step in dismantling this barrier could be to ask myself: Is the idea of experiencing that kind of transformation attractive enough to make me want it for myself?
Another barrier could be that I think that just by knowing about Jesus, I already have all that I need to live a good life and be a disciple. I don’t know what I’m missing, so I don’t look for encounters with Christ or try to develop a relationship with him. That may have been a part of Thomas’s experience. All the Gospel tells us is that Thomas wasn’t with the other disciples when the Risen Lord appeared to them. We don’t know where he was, what he was doing, or why he wasn’t with the others. He could have been off doing something really good, doing something that Jesus teaches us to do, like feeding the hungry or comforting the mourning. Thomas may have thought he knew everything he needed to know about how Jesus wanted him to live. It was time to get on with it. He had his marching orders. He was still going to live a good life, the way he thought Jesus wanted him to, even though it hadn't turned out well for Jesus. He was attracted by the good feeling of living for others. But because of that, Thomas missed the encounter with the Risen Jesus.
We may think of Jesus as someone who gives us really good instructions for living. We look to him for our marching orders. And we may think that the really good Christians are the ones who do the most extraordinary things. Christ doesn’t just want us to be doing good work, or just to do anything. He lived and died and rose to bring us into a relationship. He wants us to be following his teaching about living in relationship with God and the world. He wants to give us new life. If instructions are all we’re looking for from Jesus, they might be all we see. This could be a barrier that keeps us from getting a glimpse of what he is really trying to offer us, which is friendship with him.
Think about how Thomas must have felt when he heard that the Risen Jesus had appeared to all the others when he wasn’t there--hurt, left out. At first, Thomas didn’t have the experience of meeting the Risen Jesus for himself, but he wanted it. Like many of us who were born into this faith, he had a foundation for the experience. Sometimes we might feel like we’re in the same place as Thomas--feeling like we missed the encounter, like everyone else has had this experience but us. But if Christ wants to develop a relationship with us, why would we think that he would just give us one shot at it? Christ came back to the locked room because he wanted Thomas to be able to encounter him, to believe. He came back for the sake of the relationship. He came back because he always keeps coming back.
This time Thomas is there, and he has this amazing, transformative experience. Thomas’s response is considered the climax of the whole Gospel: “My Lord and My God.” He doesn’t just get a glimpse of Christ--he sees him with total clarity. He alone seems to understand fully who the Risen Lord is. Christ keeps coming back for us, breathing the power of the Spirit into us, helping us overcome our doubts, fears, and anything else that gets in the way. Christ can do this now because he is Risen. He is alive again, but in a radically different way. His body is still real, though changed. Locked doors can’t keep him out. Only locked or hardened hearts can keep him out.
If we’ve missed the encounter with Christ in the past, that doesn’t need to be a roadblock to seeing him now. It can be an invitation to trust that Christ is going to come back for us, again and again, as often as it takes, just as he did for Thomas. Right now the Risen Lord is reaching out to each of us in a hundred different ways, wildly trying to get our attention. We can spend time this week trying to get a glimpse of the ways Christ is reaching out to each of us, coming to the locked rooms where we are hiding and offering us peace, hope, new possibility. As a next step for this week: try to get a glimpse of how Christ might be offering you new life this week: through a person in your life who is helping you see new possibilities? a new sense of hopefulness? a feeling of peace replacing fear and anxiety?
Rachel's reflection:
For me, one of the things that can keep me from recognizing the Risen Christ is that it can be so hard to see clearly what’s happening in the present, especially when what’s happening is not what I expect. I have spent lots of time asking Christ to help me with things I was worrying about, or how he wanted me to handle some situation. These things all felt really important and urgent, and I wanted Christ to show me what to do in some very definite way. And so often, when this clear answer didn’t come, I have at least initially interpreted that as Christ not being present.
My son is really into graphic novels, and one thing about graphic novels is that it’s really clear when something important happens. The word BAM will appear in huge red letters surrounded by yellow lightning bolts, or something equally obvious. But most of the time being in relationship with Christ isn’t like that. Sure, every once in a while we have an important insight while praying, but usually the way Christ works in my life is much more gentle, subtle, and unexpected than that. I started keeping a prayer journal about three years ago, and reading back through my journals, I can see so clearly how, over time, Christ was working to get me to loosen my grip on the questions I thought I needed answers to. I can see Christ replacing my anxiety with peace by finally getting me to see that I don’t really need an answer to that question, that I don’t need to worry so endlessly about how to solve that problem, that I should let him take it on. It’s really hard for me to see in the moment, but looking back, I can see how consistently Christ offers me new life and new peace by helping me to let go of my anxiety.
Fr. Thom's reflection:
One time I have personally experienced that feeling of peace that comes from knowing the Risen Lord was when I was serving as a chaplain at Mass General. I was asked to meet with a couple facing a difficult diagnosis for the husband. Although it was not my own diagnosis, I knew that the stakes were high for this couple and I wanted so badly to be able to help them. I went to meet with them and just be with them; I listened as they talked about all their fears. They shared the grief of the likelihood of things they had been looking forward to in their life that may no longer be a reality for them--kids, grandkids, and many other great things that they would not witness together. They talked about their faith and expressed some guilt about not being attentive to it in the past, and the fear that this diagnosis was somehow a punishment for that. But our conversation evolved and became this wonderful experience of recognition that they had so many things to be thankful for in the moment as they faced a very scary future, so many things that they could hope for, and that this moment was all they had right then. And in that moment we shared a real feeling of peace.
Learning to recognize Christ can be a gradual process, but it’s also a transformative one. As our eyes are opened more and more, we can see that Resurrection is happening all through our lives.
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