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Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter, 2:00pm Service of Atlantic Ministry of the Deaf

“Peace be unto you”

Peace and forgiveness flow out from the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. They are the first-fruits of his resurrection in us. Jesus appears behind closed doors where the disciples are huddled in fear. He proclaims peace and forgiveness. He institutes the means by which his peace and his forgiveness continue with us – through the Holy Spirit breathed out upon the disciples who will be the apostles of his church. They are sent forth to bestow the peace and the forgiveness of God to a fearful and an uncertain world. “Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained”.

What an awesome charge! And, yet, how little understood. Sometimes known as “the power of the keys,” the proclamation of God’s forgiveness through the ordained ministry to his penitent people effects what it signifies. If we truly confess our sins and truly seek God’s forgiveness, then we receive the grace of forgiveness objectively proclaimed in the words of absolution pronounced by the priest and signified in the sign of the cross. We are forgiven. That is the grace which extends from the Upper Room “the same day at evening,” the day of the resurrection of Christ to us even today. It is as if we are there, in an arrested moment of time and space, the eternal now. Something happens in the liturgy. At every service, Christ appears, as it were, behind closed doors to speak peace and forgiveness to us all.

For “this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith”. We participate in what Christ has done for us. His death and resurrection makes us right with God, with ourselves and with one another. What Christ has done is extended to us. We have only to live it. The Father looks down upon our sinful and sorry humanity and sees in us his Son, Jesus Christ. His victory over our sins means our victory over the world that stands opposed to God. This is our faith. But it means our acceptance of what has been accomplished for us; only then does the grace of his life live in us.

The closed doors of our minds have to be opened to the presence of Christ through what is proclaimed and made visible in the liturgy of the Church. That opening of our minds is the life of Christ’s resurrection in us, banishing our fears and bestowing his peace, vanquishing our sins and bestowing his forgiveness.

This gospel stands between the story of Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb in her early morning grief and the story of Christ appearing in the same room proclaiming the peace of his resurrection to Thomas who was not present “that same day at evening.” Both stories bear eloquent testimony to the resurrection and its meaning for us in our lives. Both Mary and Thomas undergo a change, a resurrection of their understanding, if you will; the griefs of the one and the doubts of the other are transformed into cries of faith and witness. They are raised up out of their sorrow and uncertainty.

The testimony of the resurrection is no story of human fancy and invention. The resurrection is the great re-creative work of God. We can only enter into the mystery which God has made known to us by his appearing among us proclaiming peace and forgiveness. In so doing we are raised up out of the tombs of our souls; the closed doors of our minds are opened by the presence of Christ within. Such is his victory for us and in us, if only we will live it. Then is his resurrection alive in us. Then shall we have real peace in our souls, the peace that comes from forgiveness. Alleluia!

“Peace be unto you”

Fr. David Curry
AMD Service of the Deaf
April 26th, 2015