But why do the lectionary planners continue to feed us stories of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus on that first Easter for now three weeks in a row?  Don’t they think we get it by now?  Well, I guess if the first witnesses had a hard time believing – which all four Gospels agree was the case – then I suppose it stands to reason that we might have to be told again and again before we are convinced of the truth of Easter.  Jesus himself understood that, didn’t he, when he told our friend Thomas who had doubted without physical proof of Jesus’ resurrection, “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  All of us, of course, belong to that second group.  We have come to believe without physical proof.  Jesus’ words to Thomas have always been a comfort to me.  Jesus knew that faith might grow haltingly, perhaps even begrudgingly, to all of us who would come along centuries later.

The truth is that the disciples did have trouble believing that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  Some of the women believed, but others didn’t.  First one disciple understood, then another.  Finally all were present when Jesus came among them and tried to calm their fears with his reassuring pronouncement: Peace be with you.  That’s something we continue to say to each other, isn’t it?  We say it without words more often than with words through even small compassionate gestures in our friendships, though it’s that same peace – the peace of Christ – that we exchange in a liturgical act every time we gather for worship.

I love when we – as we say, pass – the peace of Christ to one another.  It’s a dramatically gracious thing to do in the beginning of worship, though in nearly every congregation that practices passing the peace, I suppose, the act met with some initial resistance.  Churches are famous – perhaps infamous – for sharing the secular culture’s reluctance to try something new.  But have you ever wondered who might be at the end of your handshake, extended with a warm greeting and a meeting of the eyes?  Do you suppose you’ve ever offered the peace of Christ to someone who really needed it just then?  Who had come to worship broken and torn by things gone wrong in their personal lives or by an overwhelming feeling of despair over things gone wrong in the world?  Or have you, conversely, ever felt warmed by the hand and smile that have offered you Christ’s peace following those words of assurance that God forgives you even the secret you’ve carried in here that particular morning, a secret that’s tearing at your sense of wholeness and threatening your relationship with God?

If so, then you and I have some idea of what the disciples must have felt when Jesus stood among them the evening of that first Easter and offered them his peace to overwhelm the fear that gripped them.  Up to then, Luke’s Gospel – and we’ll stick with it this morning – has given us two other scenes of that Resurrection Day filled with confusion, anxiety, and disbelief.  The first is the story of the discovery of the empty tomb by a group of women, including Mary Magdalene and Joanna, the mother of James.  Two men in dazzling white clothes tell them that the tomb is empty because Jesus has been raised from the dead.  The women tell this to the other disciples, but Luke says sadly, “ . . . these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.”

The second scene is the well-known encounter by two disciples, Cleopas and an unnamed companion, who are joined by the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus.  But Cleopas and his friend, both followers of Jesus, don’t recognize him among them.  They go on to speak of their sadness and grief, recounting to Jesus the events of the past few days.  Then Jesus, still unknown to them, reminds them of all the Scriptures have said about the Messiah suffering and dying and rising again.  Even then they don’t come to faith.  It’s only when they sit down to eat together that their eyes are opened and they recognize him.

And that’s what Luke tells us happens in this third resurrection scene, the story for this morning, the scene where all the disciples are gathered and Jesus comes among them.  Through most of the encounter, however, they still don’t believe what their eyes tell them.  They see Jesus’ wounds, they give him fish when he asks for something to eat, but still they don’t embrace resurrection faith.  It’s not until Luke reports that Jesus “opened their minds to understand the scriptures” that they were willing to accept their role as witnesses.  And, remember, “witnesses” doesn’t just mean people who have seen something happen.  Witnesses means people who then tell what they have seen and heard. 

It’s not often that I would quote a self-acknowledged atheist in a sermon to affirm our faith, but I recently came upon an article written by Matthew Parris in The London Times of December 27, 2008.  He writes about the Christian missionary movement as he has seen it at its best in Africa and asserts its positive effect on people it touches.  “As an atheist,” Parris writes, “I truly believe Africa needs God.  Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa’s biggest problem – the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset.  Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland.  Today it’s Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there.  Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean.  I went to see this work.  It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities.

“But traveling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood.  In confounds my ideological beliefs. . . . Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular [aid] efforts.  These alone will not do.  Education and training alone will not do.  In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts.  It brings a spiritual transformation.  The rebirth is real.  The change is good.”

Are we listening?  An atheist proclaims that “the rebirth is real.  The change is good.”  That’s Easter talk.  We use the word “resurrection.”  We say that we base our faith on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  But ultimately resurrection does not prove faith.  Faith proves resurrection.

Even now we continue to go to such places as Malawi, don’t we?  Lovely coincidence, isn’t it, that the atheist Matthew Parris talks about the good work of missionaries today in his homeland of Malawi and we have sent our friend Sue Makin there to work for us.  And the kind of activity that happens so joyfully in Fellowship Hall the weeks of Advent’s Alternative Christmas Shop supports such things as he refers to, projects like Pump Aid.  We are witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, my friends, and that’s why we do what we do.  It’s all because of the faith we proclaim.

Parris provides another observation from his childhood to support the wonder of what he has observed among people of faith.  “We had friends who were missionaries,” he recalls, “and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village.  In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers.  The Christians were always different.  Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them.  There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world – a directness in their dealings with others – that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. . . .”

Luke tells us this about the evening of Resurrection Day:  . . . Jesus himself stood among [the disciples] and said to them, “Peace be with you.” . . . And he also said: You are witnesses of these things [that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem]. . . .  And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised . . .

Finally, then, the disciples got it.  Finally, after all the other emotions noted in the room – being startled and terrified, frightened, doubting, disbelieving, wondering – finally, there was joy!  And the rest is history and future, because the story that began so long ago continues on in new and unexpected ways.  New life continues to break through death.  The Day of Resurrection simply happens again and again.

I asked Dorrie to sing for me the children’s song she has had her primary choir sing after Easter from time to time.  I wanted to get the words right.  You remember it.  I’ll not sing it, but the words will bring back the melody so you can sing it in your heart: Every morning is Easter morning from now on/Every day’s Resurrection Day, the past is over and done. 

When Amy-Jill Levine was with us a few weeks ago, helping us to understand Jesus as a Jew, seeking reconciliation between Christians and Jews, her comments were often quite helpful and at the same time provocative.  She helped us understand why most Jews did not accept Jesus as Messiah.  The Judaic tradition had long held – it still does – the promise of the coming of God’s anointed one, the Messiah, who would make all things new.  The world would be voided of disease and despair, warfare and violence.  Everywhere would be the world of Eden before the Fall.  And all who had died would be raised.

So when some Jews who had followed Jesus began professing him to be the long-awaited Messiah, understandably many others rejected that claim for the simple fact that they knew how things would be changed when the Messiah came.  Since, clearly, with Jesus all the dead had not been raised and the world had not been instantly transformed in the ways they had defined – the pre-conditions they had established – then Jesus was not the Messiah.  And along these lines Judaism split between those who held to the past and those who ventured forth in a dramatic new way.  Those who followed in The Way would eventually become known as Christians.

Understanding and accepting how all this could be, I’m yet glad that I stand here today among the rest of you as a person who has received the legacy of those early disciples who were able to go a new way after being convinced in their minds and hearts that God was doing something new that might not have been held by their pre-conceived boundaries and conditions.  In the Resurrection of Jesus Christ God breaks through all that we might hold tightly as if permanent and impenetrable.  But God breaks through all our schemes for our own good.

Jesus continues to commission us to declare the presence and power of God in the midst of despair, tragedy, and death.  These things are not ultimate – God is!  And God aims to redeem all creation.  The risen Christ makes himself known to us in ways large and small.  As people of faith, we are to be witnesses to Christ’s presence among us, in our words and in our deeds.  Our faith demands nothing less.

And remember that ultimate emotion among the disciples on the eve of Resurrection Day – JOY!  That little children’s Easter song ends that way, too: Yesterday I was bored and lonely,/but today, look and see./I am one of the Easter people,/life’s exciting to me!