Sermon for the Octave Day of Easter
“Jesus came and stood in the midst”
It is like one continuous story from the same book, chapter after chapter. The same book is John’s Gospel. In the spirituality of the older eucharistic lectionary tradition found in the Book of Common Prayer, John’s Gospel contributes greatly to the essential theological understanding of the Christian Faith, especially, it seems, in Eastertide. We see, as it were, through the eyes of John.
“The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early,” we heard last Sunday. “The same day at evening, being the first day of the week,” we hear today. As if time were magically stopped and we are mystically present at that day, that day that never, never ends. The Day of Resurrection is just like that. And so, too, for the meaning of every Sunday.
The Resurrection is not something which we celebrate in a moment, for a day or for a season. It runs through the whole of the year and through the whole of our lives in Faith. The Octave Day places us in that endless day, the day of Easter, to show us the Resurrection in motion. It shows us something of the meaning of the Resurrection for us and in us. The symbolism of being “on the same day,” the day of Easter, becomes the meaning of our Sunday worship. It is always a celebration of the Resurrection. We are always in the presence of the Risen Christ and never more so than in the Easter Season when the Resurrection itself is our principal consideration. The only question is whether we are alive to his presence or dead in ourselves.
“Jesus came and stood in the midst.” They were behind closed doors. They were in fear and great anxiety. The world of their hopes and expectations had been shattered, perhaps like ours in contemporary culture. Then “Jesus came and stood in the midst.” Suddenly all that was shattered begins to come together into something new; a new understanding. His presence changes everything. The nature of that change is the Resurrection in us.
What is the significance of the closed doors? The closed doors are the closed doors of our minds. Our minds are like tombs. We are dead to the idea of the Resurrection, to its power and truth, until it presents itself to our understanding. We couldn’t invent it. It breaks through only so as to break out in us. The Risen Lord comes into our midst to break us out into a new and radical understanding of himself and what he is for us. Out of the chaos of fear and confusion comes peace and forgiveness.
