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Serving God and Sharing Good News |
Weekly Bible Notes
Easter 2 (Low Sunday)
| Opening Verse |
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| Collect Prayer | |
| First Reading: | |
| Second Reading: | |
| Gospel Reading | |
| Commentary: | |
| Meditation: | |
| Hymns | |
| Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead : | |
| Intercessions from our Sunday worship | |
| Sermon |
Introduction
Hands up anybody who has a rock solid faith with no doubts whatsoever?
The chances are that only the very stupid or the delusional would put their hand up and keep it up for very long. Doubt is an ingredient of faith, it is how we grow as we question and search and seek to know more about God.
We all know about the disciple Thomas, he was the one who doubted Jesus resurrection and we call him 'Doubting Thomas.' What a knickname, it could have been the source of all kinds of ridicule. But actually the story of how Thomas refused to believe that Jesus was risen from the dead is not recorded to make us mock Thomas. Rather it is there to remind us that Jesus works with us in our doubts and through this our faith can grow.
Thomas goes on to call Jesus, 'my master and my God,' the first time that anybody in the Gospel of John does. His was a testimony which recognised more than anybody else who Jesus really was, God in human flesh.
It is typical of us to remember the bad bits, that Thomas had difficulty believing. Thankfully God is not like that he takes our weaknesses and turns them around. The struggling Thomas became the one who truly confessed Jesus.
Opening Verse of Scripture
1 Peter 1:3
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy
he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead.
Collect Prayer for the Day — Before we read we pray
Almighty father, you have given your only Son to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification: grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth; through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Common Worship
Risen Christ, for whom no door is locked, no entrance barred: open the doors of our hearts, that we may seek the good of others and walk the joyful road of sacrifice and peace, to the praise of God the Father Common Worship Shorter Collect
Faithful God, the strength of all who believe, and the hope of those who doubt; may we, who have not seen, have faith and receive the fullness of Christ’s blessing; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen Methodist Worship
God of the prophets, you fulfilled your promise that Christ would suffer
and rise to glory. Open our minds to understand the scriptures that we may
be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. we ask this through Jesus Christ
our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end. Amen. Methodist Worship
First Bible Reading Acts 2: 14a, 22-32
“Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to
you; listen carefully to what I say.
“Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by
God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through
him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's set
purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to
death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing
him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its
hold on him. David said about him: “ ‘I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart
is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope, because you
will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in
your presence.’ “Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch
David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a
prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one
of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the
resurrection of the Christ that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did
his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all
witnesses of the fact. (This is the word of the Lord. All: Thanks be to
God.)
Second Reading 1 Peter 1: 3-9
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great
mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never
perish, spoil or fade–kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded
by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be
revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a
little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These
have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even
though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory
and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you
love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are
filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the
goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
(This is the word of the Lord. All: Thanks be to God.)
Gospel Reading John 20: 19-31 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were
together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood
among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them
his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am
sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy
Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not
forgive them, they are not forgiven.” Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of
the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other
disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I
see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and
put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” A week later his
disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the
doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with
you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out
your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said
to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen
me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have
believed.” Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his
disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that
you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by
believing you may have life in his name. (This is the word of the Lord. All:
Thanks be to God.)
Post Communion Sentence
Lord God our Father, through our Saviour Jesus Christ you have assured
your children of eternal life and in baptism have made us one with him:
deliver us from the death of sin and raise us to new life in your love, in
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen
Commentary
In the Gospel reading this morning we are confronted with the issue of faith. Thomas had a problem believing his fellow disciples when they said that Jesus had appeared to them in a locked room. In fairly forceful terms, Thomas said that unless he could see it for himself he wasn't going to believe a word of it. We have just heard the end of the story, Jesus turned up and seemed to know what had been said. He invited Thomas to inspect the wounds for himself.
Thomas is the forerunner of all good scientists who have to prove things for
themselves in order to believe them. But Thomas did us all a favour because
he asks the questions we might want to ask. Was the Risen Jesus a ghost, or
perhaps a fantasy conjured up by the people that missed Jesus so much that
they imagined they saw him? No, because Thomas proved that Jesus was a
physical person with a wound in his side. He had a nasty squashy hole in
him, which could be touched.
Now we don't know how, but we know from the example of
Lazarus that Jesus could do such things. Jesus could overcome the laws of
the physical universe as we now understand them. Humans, in our arrogance,
assume that the truth as we know it is the only truth and the only answer.
Technologically advanced as we are, we know so little about the things that
matter. Religious belief belongs to a category of knowledge which is
difficult to measure or touch. It isn't susceptible to concrete proofs. The
children will be helping us this morning with experiments. How do you know
that the wind is there, you can't see it, smell it or taste it? You can't
hold it in your hand, but you can feel it on your skin or watch it move
things. We can't see the wind itself, but we can see what it does. Faith is
like that. In the same way as we can infer the presence of the wind by its
action of the wind on a balloon, we can see the impact of faith on the lives
of those who are blessed with it.
Church tradition suggests that Thomas was profoundly
affected by his experience of seeing and touching the Risen Lord. It is
thought that he went off to tell the story of Jesus to the people of ancient
Babylon, near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, where Iraq is today. He
travelled to Persia, present-day Iran, and continued to win disciples to the
Christian faith.
Tradition suggests that he sailed south to Malabar on the
west coast of India in 52 AD. He preached, established churches, and won to
Christ high caste Brahmins, as well as others. When the Portuguese landed in
India in the early 1600s, they founded a group of Christians there -- the
Mar Thoma Church established through Thomas' preaching a millennium and a
half before.
Finally, Thomas travelled to the east coast of India. He was
martyred about 72 AD, near present-day Madras. In Thomas' life we see a
powerful example of the effects of faith, a practical application of Jesus'
commands to evangelise the world. Joan Crossley
Meditation
At Christmas and Easter clergy are greeted with "your busy
time, I expect?" by members of the non church-going population. This is a
bit irritating, suggesting as it does that we twiddle our thumbs in between
the big festivals of Christmas, Easter and Harvest! But the remark, kindly
meant as it often is, reveals a genuine belief that Sunday worship is the
only thing that Christians do. I think that we Christians are probably to
blame for this. Generations of believers have spent more time quarrelling
over quite small matters of liturgy or theology to the exclusion of
attending to the needs of the world. Is it any wonder that some people see
the church's concerns as being irrelevant? Joan Crossley
Hymns
- Let all the world 404
- Be still and know 48 (after confession)
- Come on and Celebrate 99 Praise him on the trumpet 558
- Now the green blade riseth (204 Hymns and Psalms On Partnership News)
- Led like a lamb 402
- At the name of Jesus 41 (Tune Camberwell)
Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead
Lord, make my life a window for Your light to shine through and a
mirror to reflect Your love to all I meet. Amen.
Risen Lord Jesus, you come to us in the most surprising - and the most
ordinary - ways. Just when we begin to forget or doubt you, when we begin
to live our lives as if you don't matter, you come - speaking to us,
feeding us, encouraging us. You never forget us or fail us. Without you we
are weak and fail often but with you we are strong. May we be made deeply
aware of your presence this day.
God of the prophets, you fulfilled your promise that Christ would suffer
and rise to glory. Open our minds to understand the scriptures that we may
be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. We ask this through Jesus
Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity, of the
Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
Risen Christ, whose absence leaves us paralysed, but whose presence is
overwhelming: breathe on us abundant life; that where we cannot see, we
may have courage to believe that we may be raised with you. Amen (Janet
Morley)
Additional Material
Commentary
This day is known in some churches as "Quasimodo Sunday"
from the first two words of the opening Antiphon at Mass that speak
especially to those baptized at Easter:
I Peter 2:2
Quasi modo geniti infantes, rationabile, sine dolo lac concupiscite ut in eo
crescatis in salutem si gustastis quoniam dulcis Dominus.
As newborn babes, alleluia, desire the rational milk without guile,
alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Rejoice to God our helper. Sing aloud to the
God of Jacob.
The name of this Feast is the origin of the name of the
hunchback, Quasimodo, in Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Poor
Quasimodo was a foundling who was discovered at the cathedral on Low Sunday
and so was named for the Feast. He is introduced in Hugo's book like this:
Sixteen years previous to the epoch when this story takes place, one
fine morning, on Quasimodo Sunday, a living creature had been deposited,
after Mass, in the church of Notre- Dame, on the wooden bed securely fixed
in the vestibule on the left, opposite that great image of Saint
Christopher, which the figure of Messire Antoine des Essarts, chevalier,
carved in stone, had been gazing at on his knees since 1413, when they took
it into their heads to overthrow the saint and the faithful follower. Upon
this bed of wood it was customary to expose foundlings for public charity.
Whoever cared to take them did so. In front of the wooden bed was a copper
basin for alms.
The sort of living being which lay upon that plank on the morning of
Quasimodo, in the year of the Lord, 1467, appeared to excite to a high
degree, the curiosity of the numerous group which had congregated about the
wooden bed. The group was formed for the most part of the fair sex. Hardly
any one was there except old women.
In the first row, and among those who were most bent over the bed, four were
noticeable, who, from their gray cagoule, a sort of cassock, were
recognizable as attached to some devout sisterhood. I do not see why history
has not transmitted to posterity the names of these four discreet and
venerable damsels. They were Agnes la Herme, Jehanne de la Tarme, Henriette
la Gaultière, Gauchère la Violette, all four widows, all four dames of the
Chapel Etienne Haudry, who had quitted their house with the permission of
their mistress, and in conformity with the statutes of Pierre d'Ailly, in
order to come and hear the sermon.
However, if these good Haudriettes were, for the moment, complying with the
statutes of Pierre d'Ailly, they certainly violated with joy those of Michel
de Brache, and the Cardinal of Pisa, which so inhumanly enjoined silence
upon them.
"What is this, sister?" said Agnes to Gauchère, gazing at the little
creature exposed, which was screaming and writhing on the wooden bed,
terrified by so many glances.
"What is to become of us," said Jehanne, "if that is the way children are
made now?"
"I'm not learned in the matter of children," resumed Agnes, "but it must be
a sin to look at this one."
Commentary
The passages of the Acts of the Apostles are full of good news about what happened following the preaching and teaching of the Apostles.
If we were to continue the first reading from today we would find the words ‘Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.’ What preacher would not read those words with envy and perhaps be disillusioned that today it is difficult to break through the complacency which is so prevalent. Yet we should take heart, it was not all easy and plain sailing. The disciples themselves found belief hard.
We read in Matthew 28:16 The eleven disciples made their way to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to meet him. When they saw him, they fell prostrate before him, though some were doubtful.’
The passage from John also must have been quite embarrassing for the church to record but they were honest enough to do so. Here was one of the Apostles who failed to accept what had been told to him and Jesus appeared to him personally. So the words of Jesus come to us today "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." We should be encouraged because Jesus knows that belief is not easy. However we do not believe without reward, as we trust in the risen Christ, so we are blessed, - belief has its rewards.
Perhaps one of the lessons which we as a church need to receive concerns how the early Christians treated those who found belief difficult. Struggling with doubt was not a reason to be thrown out.
When Jesus appeared, Thomas was with the disciples behind locked doors. He had not been thrown out of the church because he wavered. The early Christians were confident enough in what they believed that they were not threatened by those whose faith was weak and uncertain.
The church today must equally embrace those who have doubts and difficulties with their faith. There may be many reasons why we find faith hard at different times of life. Sometimes it is personal tragedy, although more often Christians find their faith to be even more assured in times of difficulty. Whatever the cause, a strong church must welcome within it those who seek the presence of the risen Lord.
Of course those who do find themselves searching for truth with a weak faith must recognise that they are not unique or special. The church has always provided shelter from the storm to those who struggled with their belief. No individual has all the answers and that is why we belong to a community of faith, we share in our faith and sometimes we have to accept the testimony of others and assert it for ourselves. It is as we do this that we meet with the risen Christ and find his presence among us. Charles Royden
Hymns
- Crown him with many crowns (109)
- Come on and celebrate (99)
- This is the day (691)
- Low in the grave he lay (453)
- Christ is alive! (in service booklet)
Prayers
Preserve us, O God, in the faith of your saints, a faith both tried and trusted. May we enjoy both now and for ever the eternal love of the Father, the abiding love of the Son and the indwelling of love of the Holy Spirit, one God in glory and majesty, world without end. Amen Hilary of Poitiers, 315-367
Gracious God, shed your light on this day: may the things we touch become your gifts to us, the people we meet brothers and sisters; may work be service and what we suffer turn to offering; and, dear God, may love keep breaking through until your Kingdom comes. Amen Christina Le Moignan, President of the Methodist Church in Britain, 2001/2