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McCoy Sermon

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 2ND. SUNDAY OF EASTER (B); APRIL 30, 2000

Acts 4: 32-35; I John 5: 1-6; John 20: 19-31

I am reminded of the "Risus Paschalis". Apparently it was a medieval custom (and one in the Eastern Church now) that the preaching for Easter Sunday consisted of jokes. The message being that on this day we enjoy the cosmic laugh, we celebrate that God has outwitted the devil and overcome death. God has the final laugh. So, we look to see what there is in today's readings to cause us to laugh, for death has been overcome.

Jesus' promises to his disciples have been fulfilled and today's Gospel reading has the fulfillment spelled out: his presence will stay with them, forgiveness is granted, peace and eternal life are given. We hear Jesus blessing believers, people who look at their lives and the world with new eyes, the eyes of faith. These are people who can do what Thomas did, see wounds and suffering and look at them with believer's eyes. In the suffering places new life is possible. What in our lives needs to be looked at again? And what needs to be acted on, believing that the Risen Lord will work through us? We may even need to defy the "logical" to see the new possibilities. Can we "see" new opportunities in what we once counted as failure?

Can we believe in ourselves and that we can make the difference? Remember that in today's passage, the believers are being sent, the experience they are having is not to be kept to themselves. Thus, Easter is more than a moment in the past. It is a new direction for us to get us out of our stuckness into action. This is the Sunday after Easter. Last week we had all the excitement, this week things are back to "normal". But don't we always need to see with Easter eyes? Don't we need to see that Resurrection permeates everything we look at, and calls us to reappraise what we may have declared "dead and buried", "hopeless", and  "useless"? These stories tell us of a community sent to see things anew.

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