Sermon for Easter 2, 27th Apr 2025

Welcome friends and peace be with you. MAY the words of my mouth and the meditations in our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. <Amen>

Well, it's been one week since Easter, one week since the chaos and excitement. One week since the empty tomb. One week since our first “Alleluia Christ is risen” and “He is risen indeed Alleluia.”

It's one week after the resurrection and the disciples are in the same place, exactly where they were on Easter night. They're in the same room behind the same locked doors.

If the resurrection is such a big deal, such a life changing event, why are they still stuck in the same place? What difference has the empty tomb made to them? How has it changed them? Has it led them see themselves and their world differently? Has it done anything for them?

It actually doesn't look as though it hasn’t made much difference at all. They're in the same house, behind the same locked doors as they were a week ago. What's changed?

I wonder, one week after Easter, what has Christ's resurrection done for us? Are our lives different? Do we see and engage the world in new ways? What difference has the empty tomb made in our lives over the last week?

When I look at my life, it looks a lot like it did last Sunday. When I look at the world, it looks pretty much the same as before.

You know, I used to read today's gospel and have a tendency to be critical of the disciples. How can they be stuck in the same place? They really should have been better than that. After all, death has been defeated. Christ is risen - Alleluia.

Why aren't their lives different?

Then I realise I should REALLY be asking about my own life. Why isn't my life different after Easter? Am I still stuck in the same place? Should I be doing better? Am I living the resurrection better, more powerfully, more fully, more authentically, than I was a week ago? After all, the Lord is risen in deed. Alleluia.

So I have come to look at this gospel somewhat differently from how I used to. Here's what I think today's gospel is telling us.

Christ's resurrection is a big game.

The empty tomb is a life-changing event.

The resurrection does make a difference in our lives.

And it also takes time.

Yes. The resurrection in our lives takes time. It's actually not a one-time event. It's something that we grow into. It's a process. It's a way of being a life to be lived.By the grace of God, we evolve into resurrected people through our relationships and through the circumstances of our lives. God wastes nothing. Every day we are stepping into our new resurrected life.

Let me tell you that here and now in my life, it's not always easy to step into a new resurrected life, and some days we're just playing down right hard.

Yes, resurrection in our lives takes time. Think about St Thomas, often known by no more than the doubter. However, that doubt was just the starting point for Thomas's resurrection life. And it isn't by far the whole story.

Thomas walked from the Holy Land to India. Thomas walked all over India preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. Thomas brought the Gospel of Christ to India. Thomas died a martyr after he was speared by five soldiers.

That doesn't sound much like a doubter to me. Does it to you?

It sounds like someone who grew and changed. Someone for whom the resurrection of Christ was real. Someone for whom the empty tomb really did make a difference. It just took a little time … as it does for most, maybe all of us.

So all that stuff about doubting Thomas, the fact of his initial disbelief, it's just Thomas's starting place. Nothing more, nothing less. It's neither good, nor bad. It's just a starting place … and we all have our starting places!

It's not where we start our personal resurrection journey that is important. It's how we walk the path of the risen Christ and where that journey leads us to. That's what's important.

So I say to myself, you know, David, your earlier harshness towards the disciples was sorely misguided.

The great tragedy is not that the disciples are in the same house behind the same locked
doors. That's just their starting place. The great tragedy would have been if the disciples had refused to unlock those doors and open them and refused to get outside.

BUT, thanks be to God, they didn’t and they'll be more on what they did in the weeks to come.

So, what are the doors that are locked in our lives? What are the things that have kept us stuck in the same place?

I'll say it again. That's just the starting point. Don't look at it as good or bad, right or wrong. It's just where you are at this point in time when Christ shows up.

Locked doors and walls cannot keep Christ out. Christ will come and stand with us.

He will breathe peace and new life into us, taking us away from all of the evil that wants to change us into people that we do not want to become and that God does not want us to become.

Christ breathes peace and hope into us.


Christ breathes peace and courage into us.


Christ breathes peace and strength into us.


Christ is the key that unlocks the door.

So take a deep breath. Take it all in.

Let it fill and enliven you.

Let it give you the hope, the courage, the strength to unlock and open the doors of your life as it is now and throw open those doors to the new life.

Let's get out of our old houses to live our new resurrection lives, walking with the risen Lord Christ

… and to God will be the glory.

I runga e te Ingoa o te Atua, te Matua, te Tama me te Wairua Tapu. AMINE