About Calvary

Education

Events

Fellowship

Links 

Music

People

Sermons

Service

Worship

Home

The Rev. Laura Matarazzo
April 15, 2007 -  Second Sunday of Easter

Here, once more, is the classic tale of Thomas, the one who gives us permission to doubt and reminds us of Jesus’ longing for us to know him and to trust him. Today, however, I’d like to focus not on Thomas but on Jesus and, in particular, what it was that made the risen Christ recognizable to his closest friends. 

How do we recognize someone? Before we had caller-ID (and that wasn’t so very long ago—I still don’t have it!), I always had an ear for voices and I used to surprise people on the phone when I recognized them immediately upon hearing their greeting. The timbre and tone of voice, the style of our speech identifies us. We recognize one another by sight, of course. Up close, it’s easy; but even at a great distance, we will know someone by their shape, the curve of their back, the tilt of their head, or the rhythm of their gait. People who are visually impaired develop other senses that provide recognition: the smell of a person, the weight of their step on the stair or in the hall. The ease with which we recognize someone is generally based upon our relationship with them and the frequency with which we share their presence. And we have all kinds of emotion attached to the sound of a voice or of a particular footfall, or the welcome sight of a beloved face. When we recognize someone, however it is we recognize them, we are immediately connected. Our relationship is renewed. 

If I were to ask you how you recognize God in your life, chances are there would be almost as many answers as there are people in this place. Many people see God in the beauty and splendor of our environment—in the majesty of mountains and in the delicate drop of dew on a leaf. Someone will recognize God in the awesome advances in medical research that have reduced disease and lengthened human life over the past 50 years. Others know God in the laughter of children, the cold nose and undying devotion of a dog, in the tender touch of a beloved spouse, or the wonder of birth. Two other ways of recognizing God I heard of this week are from famous men. Kurt Vonnegut, who died on Tuesday, is said to have requested this for his epitaph, “The only proof I need for the existence of God is music.” And Albert Einstein, who is known to have wrestled with his own recognition of divinity, confessed to this: “a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos.” We all have our own ways of recognizing God in many times and in many places. Where do you see God? How do you recognize the presence of your Lord? 

In the upper room, amongst his closest friends, Jesus is recognized by his wounds. He, himself, uses the marks of the nails and the jagged line of the spear to establish his identity. We hear nothing about the beloved face they have watched, the dusty feet whose footsteps they have followed, or the warmly familiar voice they have heard day after day. Jesus shows them his wounds before anyone even questions him. He knows something, or wants us to know something about our recognizing him, our accepting his living reality, by his wounds. 

Well, don’t we define each other—and often ourselves—by our wounds? Think about hearing, in a polite whisper, “Oh, he’s the one whose wife left him for another man;” or, to your friend about a common acquaintance: “Poor thing, she lost her job over a year ago and hasn’t been able to find another; they say she’s just holding on by her fingernails;” or, “I’m the victim here! He took me for all I was worth!” We easily define people by their woundedness because injury and pain are common experiences. I may not have lost a child to a ravaging disease, but I know something about loss. I may be middle-aged and in good physical shape, but walking baby steps with my mother on my arm reminds me of a potential future. We have our human frailty in common; it is through our woundedness and our vulnerability that we are related. 

And Jesus’ wounds connect us to him in powerful ways. First, they testify to God’s sharing in our human suffering. All down through the centuries, Jesus’ wounds are what allow us to see ourselves in him. We do not look like him; we do not live in his time; we haven’t the divine authority with which he spoke, but we do know what it is to be hurt, to be mocked, and to feel pain. Jesus’ showing of his wounds invites us into that circle of humanity to which he came. We all are human beings who are not whole, not always healthy, and susceptible to injury and corruption. We are one with him and him with us in suffering.  

Second, Jesus’ wounds testify to God’s compassion and forgiveness—for we ourselves are the perpetrators. God loves us even though we continue to hurt and offend him, one another, and this blessed creation. Don’t you think our prodigious consumption of fossil fuels, our refusal to conceive of or to consider alternative forms of energy, our lack of concern for future generations—don’t you think this wounds God? Don’t you think our continuing to make war wounds God? Don’t you think our exclusion of others from the privilege and prosperity we enjoy—the way we worry more about property values than about affordable housing, more about the competitive college scene our children face than about the quality of universal education for all children—don’t you think this wounds God?  

And yet, after the apostles recognize our Lord by the marks of the nails and the wound in his side, look what happens. “He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This mortally wounded person contains life-giving breath. “As the Father has sent me,” Jesus declares, “so I send you.”

As the Father sent me into the world to teach his way, so I send you.

As the Father sent me into the world to bring hope to the poor and liberation to the captive, so I send you.

As the Father sent me into the world to bring a new vision of justice and mercy, so I send you.

As the Father sent me into the world to feed the hungry and embrace the outcast, so I send you.

As the Father sent me into the world to love beyond measure, so I send you. 

And so they went, in his name. Our reading from the Acts of the Apostles shows us another way to be recognized: by his name. Peter and the apostles were teaching in the name of Jesus—their identity coupled with the one who sent them, the one whom God exalted. They were compelled by the power of the Holy Spirit and by the word of Christ to obey God rather than any human authority. This morning, as witnesses of both the resurrected Christ and the work of his apostles, we too are called to the same authority. We are to know ourselves forgiven when we confess our sin against God and thus freed to do his will. And we are called to recognize Christ in people who are wounded and to receive those people into our lives, and to help them, and to establish relationship with them, in his name. 

Jesus knew his disciples would recognize him by the wounds that marred his human body. He wants us to know him in his humanness, in all his vulnerability, so that we will recognize ourselves in him and understand that, as weak as we may be, as wounded as we may be, we, too, can breathe life into this world in his name. Amen. 

Back to Sermons