30 Apr Sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Easter, Year C

The Community here at Mucknell is, as with any group, made up of diverse individuals with varying opinions on just about everything! As such, sermons posted on our website represent the ideas of the preachers who wrote and delivered them, not necessarily those of the entire Community.

Sunday 27th April, 2025

It was evening on that day, the first day of the week…

Where is resurrection?  Where – when – does it stir into life?

Is it in the void, the cavern, cave, tomb?  Where everything is empty nothingness?

We can pour a lexicon into its dark abyss: Death, despair, bereavement, loss, isolation, confusion.  We long to put it all somewhere – the worst of the human condition.

And some of those things will be here today, in our hearts, as life brings what it brings, and we try to cope with it all.

Where is resurrection when life has done its worst and we cannot go on, but there is nothing else for us to do; when we are utterly spent and empty?  Is it stirring, right there?  In the sealed, lightless darkness? Is it, even there, that the faintest flutter of a movement, barely a breath, slips into the still air?  The same breath that shatters granite, here imperceptible.  The breath that swept over another, different void, the formless void before time was, here quivering, trembling, once again, into life.

Where is resurrection?

Is it in a single syllable?

Our words mean so much, and we can speak volumes with a glance or a touch. We build relationship with our words.  We stab and wound with our words.  We comfort and care with our words.

And some of these thing will be in this place today, in our lives, as we are – all of us are – in relationship; some broken, some mended, some taken for granted, some tentatively held, some just beginning.

Where is resurrection when relationships are stretched and tested, teetering on the brink of the unknown?  Is it stirring in the breeze of a garden, in the place of life, and growth, and fresh dew,

where the first hints of a new dawn are unfurling colours out of the greyness?  Is it here, in the garden of potential, that a whispered syllable is spoken? “Adam!”.  “Mary!”  (Your name or mine.)  Here, the voice that names all that is, speaking to you and me.

Is it dancing already between the frightened disciples in an upper room, in the crumbs of comfort they try to offer to one another there?  The voice that spoke light into existence – the Word – forging a unique relationship with every human soul.

Where is resurrection?

Is it in the doubt; in the questions?

When everything we once held certain is shaken to the core; when belief seems to have fled; when everyone around us seems on a different page?

Just like it was for Thomas then, today, in this place, there will be doubts, fears, uncertainty, questions.

Where is resurrection when the little seed of doubt pulls the plug and trust slips through our fingers like water?  Is it agitating even within those very questions, longing for our truthfulness?  Is it shifting, moving with each doubt, yearning for us to reach out, explore, discover – to risk belief?  As Thomas did.

The heart of Easter begins long before Jesus’ first appearance. 

It is in the silence, emptiness, stillness of an early dawn, before any of us is awake.  The heart of Easter is in the light, spoken into being by God, breaking over the formless void as the Spirit moves at the dawn of time.

Morning.  And Evening.  The first day of the week.

It is the moment between “now” and “not yet”, the moment of potential, pregnant with change.  Resurrection is the moment of every possibility waiting to come to birth.

Do we let the light show us? 

Or hide under the duvet with the curtains drawn for fear?

Do we wait for things to emerge, take shape?

            Or rush in with our own agenda, trying to make it all better?

Do we listen for him moving in the garden?

            Or turn away in shame, wanting to cover our disgrace?

Do we have the courage to face our questions and doubts?

Or fill our days with noise and entertainment to keep them at bay?

When we can let God be God, when we ask, “Where is resurrection?” and dare to look for it – look everywhere for its first silent stirring, God comes, stepping into our midst, and says:

“Here.  I am.  See…”

Sr. Alison

Image: LeCompte, Rowan and Irene LeCompte. Christ shows himself to Thomas, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54879 [retrieved April 30, 2025]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maryannsolari/5119341372/.