EASTER 2 APRIL 19TH 2020
PREPARATION:
# You might like to have an appropriate candle ready to light,
# your Bible with the places of the Readings book marked…
# and your usual offering in its planned giving envelope
or another envelope…
# Easter within the Church’s calendar, is not merely one Sunday,
it is a season, its Sundays being those from Easter Day (Easter 1) until Easter 7,
the Sunday before the Day of Pentecost, which this year falls on May 31st.
Within this season there is also Ascension Day, May 21st this year.
# Being aware that God, though present with us,
is also beyond time and space,
let us gather as a worshipping community mindful of each other
regardless of the day and time when we have chosen to do this…
So even though we may be a solitary person at worship,
we can say the responses within the liturgy,
imagining the others also at worship speaking them.
WELCOME
Welcome to this service. Hopefully we are all discovering the work of the Spirit within and beyond us as we engage with worship offered in this manner.
FEEDBACK
It is encouraging to receive the feedback offered by a fair number of you. Opportunity exists now, of course, to share any observations or insights you gained through engaging with the service material. Varying, even different perspectives and understandings, additional applications… all are welcome. It may well be that at times sufficient interest is generated to have a Zoom discussion on a topic!
I would remind you that I am not an accomplished typist! It takes me about 30 minutes to type an A4 page like this… so whilst I am always willing to engage in conversation, long email exchanges would be problematic.
KEEPING IN TOUCH
I have decided to avoid stipulating a preferred time for telephone conversations. Just phone when you want to, if I am not attending right then, leave a message and I will get back to you. You can ask me to phone back if you are worried about your cost in phoning a mobile!
FRIDAYS ARE NOW MY DAY OFF. This is a shift from Thursday, due to the necessity to deliver the printed service on Thursdays for collection on your usual Friday letterbox check. Louis van Laar 16/04/2020
EASTER 2 APRIL 19TH 2020
WE GATHER IN GOD’S PRESENCE
Lighting the Candle
Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness
but will have the light of life.’
Greeting:
the Lord is risen HE IS RISEN INDEED
this risen Lord be with you AND ALSO WITH YOU
We Focus on God Psalm 16
Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2 I SAY TO THE LORD, ‘YOU ARE MY LORD;
I HAVE NO GOOD APART FROM YOU.’
8 I keep the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
9 THEREFORE MY HEART IS GLAD, AND MY SOUL REJOICES;
MY BODY ALSO RESTS SECURE.
10 For you do not give me up to Sheol,
or let your faithful one see the Pit.
11 YOU SHOW ME THE PATH OF LIFE.
IN YOUR PRESENCE THERE IS FULLNESS OF JOY;
IN YOUR RIGHT HAND ARE PLEASURES FOR EVERMORE.
We Sing: TIS 375 COME, LET US WITH OUR LORD ARISE
Prayer
Blessed are you, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
for by your mercy you have given us new birth
into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead;
God of new life,
as we continue to reflect on the happenings of Easter
renew our joy and trust in you!
encourage our faith,
so that although we do not see you,
yet we are able to trust and rejoice in you
even as we find ourselves behind closed doors
to keep us safe from an invisible scourge…
Through your Spirit unite us with each other
so that we are one, though absent one from the other,
in our worship of you,
to whom be all glory and wonder
AMEN
Followed by the Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom,
the power,
and the glory are yours
now and forever. Amen
WE LISTEN FOR A WORD FROM GOD
Prayer for Illumination
GRACIOUS GOD,
Your love reaches us through doors bolted by fear and doubt.
Your life reaches us through wounds ands scars.
Help us to hear your words of peace and healing.
Fill our hearts with joy
so that we too may confess you as our God, AMEN
Scripture
ACTS 2:14a, 22-32
1 PETER 1:3-9
Reader: this is the Word of the Lord
Response: WE HEED AND REJOICE, O GOD!
JOHN 20: 19-31
Reader: this is the gospel of our Lord
Response: PRAISE BE TO YOU, LORD JESUS CHRIST!
Spirit of peace, move among us.
Breathe trust that relies on your presence
both when we see and when we don’t see.
Breathe honesty that acknowledges our doubts and questions.
Breathe hope and forgiveness
for the sake of community with you and others. AMEN
We Sing: TIS 407 BREATHE ON ME BREATH OF GOD
Contemporary Word
Today’s message is based on notes I made on this text over the last couple of years… notes I made carelessly, not distinguishing between my own thoughts and the comments of others… and without noting where I sourced the information,
e.g. re the Caravaggio painting…
when preaching, mentioning sources is often an intrusion,
in written form, sources may be attributed as footnotes to avoid such intrusions. As I discover where some of the thoughts came from, I will add appropriate footnotes…
What do we make of the story of Thomas?
If we look carefully at the Gospel reading,
we will find that through this encounter with Thomas
we may need to adjust our thinking concerning Jesus somewhat.
Thomas here is the one at the centre of things with Jesus.
He is traditionally called Doubting Thomas,
which I think is unfair.
We don’t call Peter doubting Peter,
or John doubting John,
or Matthew doubting Matthew..
yet the Gospels tell us they all doubted the women
when these told those male disciples initially
about the resurrection of Jesus.
Also, according to Luke 24, all received from Christ
evidence of the reality of his resurrection
through the sign of Jesus’ wounds!
Unlike Thomas, who then believed, these still disbelieved!?
After the Emmaus Rd encounter, (next week’s text)
two disciples reported to the rest, and we read:
While they were talking about this,
Jesus himself stood among them and said to them,
‘Peace be with you.’
37 They were startled and terrified,
and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
38 He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened,
and why do doubts arise in your hearts?
39 Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.
Touch me and see;
for a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you see that I have.’
40 And when he had said this,
he showed them his hands and his feet.
41 While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering,
he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’
Matthew has the disciples doubting even later,
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee,
to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
17 When they saw him, they worshipped him;
but some doubted…
It was not just Thomas who doubted,
who questioned the reality of all this…
It seems those early disciples
moved back and forth
between joyful acceptance and wonder,
and joyful wonder and doubt
of the reality of Jesus being raised from the dead!
Not unlike many modern disciples, I suspect.
the Thomas incident is specifically preserved for us
because I understand the story of Thomas to include this truth,
amongst others… :
I will not trust a Christ without wounds.
That’s what I think Thomas is saying,
and I think John’s Gospel is saying
through preserving this encounter,
“Be like Thomas.
Don’t trust the people who paint a life,
and a Jesus, without wounds.
Trust the risen wounded Jesus.
Follow him.”
Looking at the text carefully,
we will find three things in the reading.
Firstly, Jesus appears twice…
on the first day of the week vv19
and a week later v.26.
This is a symbol of being at worship.
Jesus appears to us in worship,
just as, in Luke, Jesus is seen in the breaking of bread,
the Eucharist.
To be blunt, in John, Thomas is not at worship,
so Thomas does not see Jesus.
He does not see the risen Lord
until he too is at worship.
Worship of course,
has us focus beyond ourselves,
on God…
however brief or prolonged
these God focussed moments may be
within the time span we give to worship…
The text is saying with the symbolic,
first day of the week, that it is in worship
that we will most likely sense Jesus and know him.
Secondly, in John’s resurrection story,
Jesus says three times: “Peace be with you.”
This is not to say, “Have a nice day,”
or, “Good evening.”
Peace be with you means something like,
“May all the fullness of the Kingdom of God
be upon you, and be yours.”
It is a fundamental act of forgiveness
for our failings.
It is a promise of love for us
despite all that we may have been
and still are.
This meaning we echo when we share the peace
especially after having heard
the words of assurance of forgiveness
after our prayer of confession…
And then we come to the central drama of Thomas.
Three times… Jesus is depicted as wounded.
He bears the scars of the cross.
And there is a strong hint that these scars are… unhealed.
They are open wounds.
I have a twelve inch scar down my right Femur.
It’s easy enough to run my hand along that scar
“What does it mean, then, for Thomas
to put his hand in Jesus’ side?”
“It means the wounds are still open!”
We read: Thomas said, “I will not believe,
I will not trust, unless I can place my hand
in the open wounds!”
Caravaggio, who was an Italian painter (1571-1610)
who became famous for the intense and unsettling realism
of his large-scale religious works…
painted the encounter between Thomas and Jesus;
Thomas places his finger — he points to —
in the wound,
as Jesus guides his hand towards it…
to Caravaggio this is something so terrible
that Jesus has to guide Thomas’s hand!
Caravaggio understood that Jesus will guide us
into the places that we cannot bear even to look.
We really deep down do not want a wounded Messiah,
for a wounded Messiah speaks of a wounded God!
A wounded God suggest a weak God,
a God who somehow fails our tests
of requiring God to be omnipotent, i.e. all powerful…
and perhaps falling short
of the other ‘omnies’ we require of God.
Even the great Reformer theologian Calvin imagined
that the “wounds [were only] temporary,
until the Apostles were fully convinced
that he was risen from the dead“
and that they were then removed.
He chose to ignore for example, Revelation 5.5f,
where the visionary John,
expecting to see a lion,
having been given a spoken clue
See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David,
has conquered,
so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’
tells us that instead
Then I saw … a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered,
It is in the wounds
that there is the greatest hope for us.
For as the scholar James Alison says,
Jesus lives with his wounds,
but unbound from their power.
He says “the resurrection life has emptied death of its power,
by showing the form of death (the marks of crucifixion)
without its content.”
(James Alison The Joy of Being Wrong pp76)
The resurrection life is what Jesus gives us;
This Paul affirmed last week,
it is what we are doing, how we are living.
This Peter affirms in the epistle text of this morning,
we are granted,
a new birth into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead..
It is beginning to live in the fullness of the Kingdom of God.
It means expressing in our living
the Peace of Christ offered by him to us,
and shared by us with each other.
It is not just Jesus in the Kingdom of God—
he is there— but also us… you and me,
beginning to enter, tasting the first fruits.
Most people, if not all,
have been wounded in different ways,
some more visibly than others…
Many still bear those wounds
but manage to live now unbound from their power…
Think of the woman extricating herself and her children
from an abusive and violent relationship;
the physical and mental wounds,
wounds of spirit and soul
still accompany her,
but she has begun the journey to unbind their power over her;
think of the now adult,
bearing the wounds of sexual abuse as a child, young person;
wounds still borne,
but who, through the Royal Commission’s truth telling
now has begun the dissolving of their power
over him or her…
and now can contemplate seeking justice,
after decades perhaps…
In resurrection life, even for us,
who bear wounds of a huge diversity,
wounds which never go away,
these are nonetheless beginning to lose their power.
We are all wounded.
We carry the wounds of life…
many here carry the physical wounds of aging;
these are more or less visible to others;
inner wounds of mind and heart and soul even,
we may carry in isolation,
carefully keeping them hidden from others…
Mind you, we know how easily
we can be brought undone by a memory
which suddenly bursts into our presence
almost as fresh as the day it occurred—
still bleeding, as it were, still an open wound.
Jesus’ resurrection is a promise that we are loved,
that the fullness of the kingdom of God
is blessed upon us
by one who knows all about wounds
and who still bears them.
I have seen this resurrection life in congregational life…
where sometimes
the folk who seem to be the most grievously wounded among us,
have been the folk
who bring the greatest witness of the Christ
in their sensitivity and love.
The visible wounds of Christ
bring comfort to us, reassurance
and challenge…
They challenge us to be aware
of the woundedness of each person,
not to hide, keep at a distance,
avoid and segregate
persons with obvious woundedness…
to guard against assuming the community of Christ
consists only of whole, perfect individuals
totally healed of their wounds…
to avoid thinking the wounds others carry
somehow diminishes them from being fully human,
their wounds negate the image of God in them…
Our meeting for worship
even in isolation,
opens up within time and space
the chance to meet
the One who bears his wounds,
of torture, humiliation and death,
But who is also bearing the wounds
without their power.
The appearance of Jesus to Thomas
and the other disciples,
is a promise that our wounds
will be drained of the power of death,
healed of their humiliation and pain…
Our wounds will stand as witness to us
of Jesus being in our lives,
and as a promise to others (and us)
of his healing for all people.
And this brings me to an important truth.
I have spoken of ‘seeing‘ Jesus,
‘knowing’ Jesus
‘sensing’ Jesus…
This affirms the experience of many who tell me and others
that within themselves they have had moments
of an awareness of the presence of the risen Christ…
Yet I also know that many believers
go through life without such grace gifted experiences…
I remind us all of a key pastoral message of Peter:
8 Although you have not seenhim, you love him;
and even though you do not see him now,
you trust in him
and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,
9 for you are receiving the outcome of your faith,
the salvation of your souls.
His words focus on trust
(believe is a more common translation)
not on seeing, experiencing, sensing…
As well we have the words of Jesus spoken to Thomas,
as preserved by John:
29 Jesus said to him,
‘Have you trusted because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have come to trust.’
The blessings of the kingdom:
that affirmation by God through Christ,
that well being which deprives our wounds of their power,
these convictions grow through trust!
trust that it is indeed so!
Christ is risen HE IS RISEN INDEED!
WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD
Prayer of Confession:
Generous God
as we isolate ourselves physically behind closed doors,
according to Government mandate,
guard us against succumbing to total isolationism,
thinking only of self-survival Lord have mercy
Hospitable Christ,
as we attempt to empathise with those
who have lost jobs and fear loosing much more,
guard us against grabbing what we can
to secure our wants for an uncertain future Christ have mercy
Companionable Spirit,
as we maintain contact with family and friends,
establish contact with others in isolation,
guard us against avoiding those whose pain and woundedness
reminds us of our own fragility Spirit have mercy
The Promise of Reconciliation
The Apostle Peter informs us that we are receiving the outcome of our trust,
the salvation of our souls; through the wounds of Christ all is forgiven us,
so we say with grateful hearts THANKS BE TO GOD
Passing The Peace (stretching out our hands towards those not present)
The peace of the Risen Lord be with you all
(and hear their response) AND ALSO WITH YOU.
We Sing: TIS 387 CHRIST IS ALIVE, LET CHRISTIANS SING 5VV
We Bring Our offering to God
Prayer of Dedication
Gracious God, who we are and what we have are your gifts to us.
Bless us and what we bring within this worship time;
continue to use us as the Bald Hills Uniting Church both in this community,
and beyond it… Amen
We Share Our Community Life
Much focus this week will be on ANZAC day, Saturday 25th April
Our prayers echo this national day when we remember the horrific cost of war
and pray for the absence of conflict everywhere…
Prayers of the People
God,
our help in the past
and our hope for the future,
we remember all those
who have given their lives in war.
We remember their families
and friends who still grieve their loss.
We remember those who still live
following their experience of conflict,
and struggle for health and peace.
We remember especially
those who still bear the scars of war
in their bodies and minds.
God of the living and the dead,
console and encourage those
who grieve any loss because of war.
.
God of the nations,
Your sovereign rule brings justice and peace,
have mercy on our broken and divided world.
Shed abroad your peace
in the hearts of all
and banish from them and us
the spirit that makes for war,
that all races and peoples may learn to live
as members of one family
and in obedience to the example set by Christ Jesus …
Lord God, we pray simply for peace on earth.
May we see the peace of the risen Christ
reign within our world.
Come and touch our lives now,
so that we may be instruments of that peace.
Lead us from death to life,
from falsehood to truth.
Lead us from despair to hope,
from fear to trust.
Lead us from hate to love,
from war to peace.
Let peace fill our hearts,
our world, our universe.
Let us dream together,
pray together,
work together,
to build one world of peace and justice for all.
May it be so.
In the name of the Prince of Peace,
the God who lives with us in Jesus Christ,
and who died that we might have life
in all its fullness and joy. AMEN..
WE GO OUT TO SERVE GOD
We Sing TIS 261 ALL MY HOPE ON GOD IS FOUNDED
Sending Out
You are a people of God,
Go into the days ahead
as a joyous people, though wounded;
as a hopeful people, though suffering;
as a trusting people, though doubting…
Blessing
Christ Jesus breathe on us the Holy Spirit
that we may receive the peace
which transforms us into agents of God’s peace
blessing all with whom we interact!
AMEN, AMEN, AMEN…
Service for Sunday 29th March (Prepared by Geoffrey Webber) 
Service for Sunday 17th September which was conducted by Mr Ian Kerr. 
Service for Sunday 26th November which was conducted by Mr Geoffrey Webber 