Acts 2: 14a, 22-32 Psalm 16
1 Peter 1: 3-9 John 20: 19-31
Grace and peace to you from God the Creator, and Jesus Christ, who is risen from the dead. Amen.
I have been glued to the television for the past few days. Oh, the bride…she was beautiful, wasn’t she? And I loved the liturgy that surrounded the wedding of William and Kate, a wedding that they tell us 2 billion people watched, either on television or online. The dress! The kiss! The second kiss! The carriage ride! But I’m having a very difficult time juxtaposing those images with the images coming out of my sweet home Alabama. Images of a state, like others surrounding it, ravaged by yet another natural disaster. Homes reduced to piles of unrecognizable rubble. Beloved possessions tossed not just a few miles away, but up to 150 miles away. Dazed, confused people digging through what is left to see what of their lives they can salvage.
Once again, we are left to wonder what in the world is going on in our world. One newscaster said that it seemed that all they ever have to report these days is the terrible news of yet another natural disaster. Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Indonesia, earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, flooding in the Midwest, tornadoes in the southeast. What in the world is going on? Of course, some who call themselves Christian have suggested that Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti were somehow a part of God’s judgment, but when the Bible belt is hit those voices are oddly quiet. What I believe and know is that God did not and does not cause such terror and tragedy, but is present in the midst of the storm. That God weeps with those who weep.
So I want to return to those folks in Alabama for a moment. In almost every single television news report I’ve seen, there has been testimony shared, because that is how it is done in the south. People there don’t really understand what it means to speak with an ear to political correctness so they say things like: “I just jumped in the closet and began to call on the LORD. I called on the Lord and I called on the Lord and I spoke in tongues. When I came out, all that was left was me and that closet”. or “My wife got up at 5am, because that’s when she does her prayin’. Then we heard the sirens and we prayed harder”. Or the elderly woman who raised her hands to the skies right there on national television and said “Praise the Lord. God is so good”.
In a very similar fashion, our reading from 1 Peter today is a testimony. If I could choose a reading for Victor and Agnes’s baptism today, this would be the one I would choose. It is a confident declaration of the Gospel. By great mercy we have been given a new birth into a living hope…and an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Yes! This is the yes for Agnes and Victor and for each and every one of us. This is the Easter message again. We have a new birth into a living hope, even if, the writer notes, we have had to suffer various trials. Oh, those various trials.
Some trials are absolutely worthwhile in the end….the trial of labor pains or even extended bed rest during pregnancy. But other trials, like losing all that you have in an earthquake or tornado or hurricane, those things seem bigger than the author of 1 Peter describes as “various trials”. The truth is that all of our lives are filled with those various trials, and Agnes and Victor will have their own trials as well. But more than that, overcoming those trials, and what is promised here today is, quite simply, the salvation of your souls. That saving action, that salvation, is present this day in water. But in the Lutheran tradition, it is water joined with the Word of God, that makes it baptismal water. And, if you remember your own days in catechism instruction, a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward grace. In other words, it is a sign for all of us, an outward sign, of something that God has already done, inwardly, at the very heart of God, in the lives of Victor and Agnes. God has already claimed them and called them children of God. But in these waters, and in the Word, and in this community of faith, we stand with them, and their parents and their sponsors and make promises. Promises about their faith development, promises about the ways we will form in community around both them and their parents to be the Body of Christ for them and with them.
Oh, indeed, we would join our words in testimony to the words of 1 Peter “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
Oh, and then there’s Thomas. Thomas, whose story we always hear on this Sunday after Easter. Thomas who is forever remembered as the one who doubted the resurrection and upon whom we have hung the moniker “Doubting Thomas”. Of course, what we have forgotten is that just a few weeks ago, it was Thomas who said that he was ready to go with Jesus and to even die if necessary.
Thomas certainly represents all of us who doubt or struggle or ask for a sign. I would imagine that there are more than a few Thomases in Alabama today or in Haiti or Japan or New Orleans. People who doubt that Jesus could really be alive in the midst of such horrible tragedies. People who think that they must have missed seeing the risen Christ when he appeared to everyone else. People who know that they desperately need something concrete to touch and hold onto.
Because Thomas didn’t just ask to touch Jesus, Thomas threw down an ultimatum. Thomas demanded to put his finger in the mark of the nails and to put his hands in Jesus’ side. Not on them, not touching Jesus on the shoulder, but putting his fingers inside the wounds. Thomas was getting personal with Jesus. And that is what will happen here today in these waters, just as it happened for each of us at our baptisms. We join ourselves to the hope of the resurrection. We are no longer the people who live without hope, but we are the people who love Jesus even when we cannot see him, even when we missed his appearing.
Martin Luther found the water of baptism to be the water of regeneration. It’s the water where our lives are renewed, regenerated. But in that word regeneration, we are aware that in the waters of baptism, those who have gone before us there, who have waded in those waters, form community with us. It is that community of saints, that we recognize in our creed. Victor and Agnes come here clothed in baptismal garments that are from generations before them in their families of origin. But they are clothed with a new garment, they are clothed with new life in Jesus Christ, just as we were.
Our task then, is to share our faith, our testimonies, to share what it is that gives us hope, to share it in extraordinary times, but to share it also at times other than momentous occasions. It is our call to share that faith, that story, with those who are doubting and hurting. We invite them, just as we ourselves hope to be invited, to not only touch Jesus, but to join with him in his woundedness. To go to those sacred scars and feel them. Our task is to acknowledge our doubts and to declare with confidence that we live in hope despite doubt and despite the various trials in our lives.
Sisters and brothers, Christ is present with us. Christ is with us in trials, in tragedies, in tribulation. And Christ is with us in water and wine and Word. Christ has been with us from our birth and is with us for all eternity. This is the good news that we have to share, boldly, with the world. This is the good news that brings us to these waters and gathers us together as the Body of Christ. And for that we are thankful, this day and always. Amen.
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