This Present Resurrection

The Resurrection (detail), by Peter Adams

Lections: The Second Sunday of Easter, AD 2026 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

One of the more remarkable transformations in the New Testament narrative is that of Simon Peter from impulsive bumbler to bold bishop. We first meet Simon as a fisherman, part of a successful family business, judging by their multiple boats, out there on the waters of the Galilean lake. John identifies Simon as a disciple of John the Baptist, the cousin and Forerunner of the Lord, who points out Jesus to his students as the Christ.

We get the impression of Simon as someone who leaps before he looks. His passion proves commendable, but his follow-through leaves something to be desired. It is Simon who first confesses Jesus as the Christ, earning the sobriquet of Cephas or Peter, both of which mean, “Rock.” This insight seems to cement him as the Prince of the Apostles. But then he immediately follows this up by rebuking Jesus, insisting that good messiahs oughtn’t go about proclaiming their own deaths—to which Jesus replies with the stinging rebuke, “Get behind me, Satan!” They don’t put that on the Vatican rotunda.

In another famous episode, the boat-bound Apostles encounter Jesus walking on the surface of a stormy sea, a sight certain to engender both shock and awe. Here again we see Peter’s overeagerness, rushing to join his Master upon the waves. Yet as soon as he gets out there, the only one both brave enough and foolish enough to try, the winds overwhelm him and he cries out as he begins to sink. Jesus instantly reaches out to rescue him, gently chiding, “O ye of little faith.”

Then of course we have Peter’s performance during Holy Week, insisting at the Last Supper that even though it might cost him his life, Peter would never abandon his Lord. Indeed, in the garden of Gethsemane, Peter draws his sword and starts to fight, defending Jesus—until Jesus again rebukes him, telling him to put the blade away, lest it cause his untimely demise. Peter flees, as all of them do, yet returns to follow at a distance.

Here during Christ’s interrogation, Peter finds himself confronted, in the courtyard of the High Priest, by women and slaves who recognize his accent and his face. Here he famously denies Jesus, cursing and swearing, no less than three times before the cock crows—at which point he realizes what he’s done, and goes out weeping bitterly. I’m certainly not saying that I would’ve done any better. I’m merely pointing out Peter’s mixed character in the Gospel accounts that we have.

When Mary Magdalene and the other women tell the Apostles of Jesus’ Resurrection, Peter and John run to the tomb, and Peter’s the first to go in. Wonder and fear abound. Additional reports begin to filter in: sightings of Jesus arisen from the dead. Yet on that Easter evening, still the doors are locked for fear: fear that Jesus’ followers might face a fate like His; fear, perhaps, of Jesus Himself, come back to reap revenge. All had abandoned Him, after all. All had proven faithless at the last. Once you kill a God, you don’t want Him coming back.

Suddenly, the Christ appears among them, in the midst of them, despite the barring of the doors. And before anyone can let out so much as a scream of surprise, He proclaims: “Peace be with you.” Peace. Imagine, seeing a man you’d betrayed, risen from the dead. Imagine the terror, the guilt, the utter panic. And the first words out of the mouth of this most recent corpse are: “Peace be with you.” Not anger, not vengeance, not wrath, but peace. Only peace.

And He shows you the wounds in His ankles, wrists, and side. He still bore the scars, all the way to Hell and back. There is no denying what happened, what we had done to Him. Yet He bears these as His trophies, as the proof and price of love. And the only response that John reports is that the Apostles rejoice. Jesus brings them beyond relief, beyond terror, beyond stunned shock. In Him, together, they rejoice.

Yet one of the Eleven is not with the rest, not on that first Easter night. Thomas is out and about in the city, gathering supplies or information. He alone braves the dark beyond the bolted doors. He alone risks his life out there in the streets. Thomas, like Peter, has a history of courage. Earlier, when the disciples had failed to dissuade Jesus from returning to Jerusalem, it was Thomas who announced resolutely, “Let us also go and die with Him”—though Thomas, like Peter, would later flee the garden.

Thomas gets a bad rap as “Doubting Thomas,” but the truth is that he demands no more than what the others had: a personal encounter with the Christ. Mary, recall, had not believed the angels until she had seen her Jesus for herself. Peter, likewise, did not believe Mary, until he’d experienced his own unspoken visitation. Now Thomas, courageous Thomas—who had witnessed Jesus’ body, mutilated on the Cross and sealed in the Tomb—must touch the wounds with his own hands.

One week later, the same situation: the Apostles gathered together in their upper room, when Christ appears among them, this time with Thomas included in the throng. And Jesus says to Thomas, “Place your fingers in the holes left by the nails, your hand within the spear-wound in my side. Do not doubt, but believe.” Thus Thomas becomes the first to confess the Christ as, “My Lord and my God!”

Everything changes after that. We see no more vacillating among the Apostles, no more cowardice, no more fear. Out they go, bold as brass, empowered by the Spirit, proclaiming the risen Christ to all the world. And yes, they end up arrested, beaten, thrown in prison. None of it makes a single lick of difference. They rejoice to suffer in the name of the Christ who suffered more for them, possessing no more fear of death, for Christ has conquered Hell. For if we have been united in a death like his, we shall certainly be united in His Resurrection.

Peter will never flee again. Thomas will never doubt. They too have been resurrected. They have found themselves in the wounds of Christ, and breathed in His own Holy Spirit: the Spirit, who is the Life and Breath of God, alive both among us and within us. Christ lives inside of them now, in the ἐκκλησία, the called-out community of the Church. Christ lives in us! And the grave can have no power over those who rise in Jesus, those whose life is hidden in Christ beyond the broken tomb. Rome herself will soon be shocked by the brashness of this faith: the selfless, fearless love of Jesus Christ.

“The Resurrection is not an event in the past. It is the power that changes the present.” The risen Christ frees us, now, today, from the shackles of this world, the fetters of fear and doubt and selfishness, the burdens of our acquisitiveness, the moral rot of cruelty. The message of Easter is not simply that one Man rose from the dead, long ago and far away. It’s that in Him all of us inherit eternal life, a life beyond the ravages of time and limitation, spreading like a fire to encompass all the world.

Christ isn’t real for us, the Resurrection isn’t real, until we encounter Him for ourselves. We find Him in Word and in Sacrament. We find Him in liturgy and the Scriptures. We find Him in this community, and in our neighbor in her need. Most of all we find Him in His Cross, in His wounds, in those scars that He suffered at our hands and for our sake, because we bear similar scars as well. To know the God who suffers with us, in us, through us, for us, is to know the love that conquers death and Hell.

Easter still continues, every hour, every day, as Christ arises every day in you. We are the Resurrection now. We are the Body of Christ. We are the temples of His Spirit. And if we want the world to know Him, they must find Him now in you. We have seen Him, heard Him, tasted Him, placed our hands within His wounds. And so we go forth—not in anger, not in trembling, not in fear—but rejoicing in the love of Jesus Christ.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout

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St Peter’s Lutheran

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Nidaros Lutheran

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