Today, Divine Mercy Sunday, is the day we are invited to trust in God’s holy and unconditional love and mercy for us especially when we experience trials and suffering.
But trusting in God has gone out of style it seems.
Fewer and fewer people can let go of their own individualism and need to control everything. Fewer and fewer people are ready to accept the teachings of Christ and his apostles. Few are ready to share possessions with those in need.
To trust in God requires us to be open to the Holy Spirit. To follow his teachings, to share our possessions… to empty ourselves to ensure there is space for the Holy Spirit in our hearts –-even while we suffer and while we are filled with fear. When everything we trusted in, relied upon before, even our health…..seems lost.
That was how it was for the disciples.
Johns Gospel paints the picture with the disciples hidden away, saddened by what they had seen and experienced, afraid of others and having just suffered the loss of Jesus they did not yet feel the joy we heard in Acts or even in the First Letter of Peter. They were in that in between stage, between seeing Jesus die and seeing the resurrection and receiving the Holy Spirit.
They were afraid and in deep sadness and distress. And then it happened.
Jesus unexpectedly appears. He was dead, he was crucified, and now he was there. It was surreal. The disciples went from anguish and sorrow to being surprised and filled with joy.
He HAD been resurrected. He is risen and with his resurrection, a new church begins right here in our Gospel.
Resurrection….from death comes life. And through the resurrection and appearance to the disciples the church we love has its start.
My grandmother once told me of her own resurrection experience.
My grandmother and grandfather lived in East Texas in the town of Gilmer, the county seat of Upshur County. It was where the Yamboree is held every year in the square and it is a place of tall pine trees and rolling hills. And hot links and grits and yams.
It was there that my mother’s family settled when they came to Texas and like many men of my grandfather’s time most of them when not working on the farm worked the oil fields that sprouted up over night with the oil boom. With the drive for more oil, few safety measures were taken and these men were tough and rugged … men who never hesitated to get to work and get it done now. And safety and comfort were the last thing on their mind.
You never heard grandpa complain or be unable to do anything he wanted to do, even with his large, scarred hands where every finger was missing something. A tip here on that one or half a finger on this one.
He worked the oil fields until he was too old to do so and then he and my grandmother, Grandma B we called her, ran a propane company on the outskirts of Gilmer.
Grandma B would mind the store and talk to Grandpa on the radio and coordinate deliveries. Grandpa would drive the propane trucks to people’s houses all day long and into the evening and even when it was cold and icy he would venture out knowing that someone would have been without heat if he didn’t show up.
Yep, grandfather was of the tough, don’t worry about safety mindset and that you don’t spend money on anything until you absolutely have to. To say he was a frugal man was an understatement.
And so it was with how he maintained the trucks he drove filled with propane over the rolling hills, through the thick pine tree forests of East Texas. From home to home.
I remember as a young boy when we would visit, I would get to ride with him and I remember being amazed how he drove. He didn’t always stop at stop signs. When I asked him why he said because, well, the brakes didn’t always work and there were few cars on the road anyway in the country. It was fun for a kid of 10. I also realized that if I wanted to ride with him in the future this wasn’t something to share with my mom.
Well one day while he was driving his route, by himself, the inevitable happened and he came around a hill and needed to brake quickly, … as you might have guessed there were no brakes to be had.
The truck plunged off the road rolling down a steep ravine and crashed. When someone finally came by it was engulfed in flames and because of the heat it was allowed to burn itself out.
The sheriff came by the store to inform Grandma B of the accident and let her know that the worse was to be expected as the flames were too intense and engulfed not only the truck but everything in and around the truck was burned.
She went home from the store and her family sat with her as she waited for any news about grandfathers remains but the volunteer firemen reported that because of the heat of the fire the whole cab contents was completely burned to ashes. Her children and friends gathered with her that day and they talked about a memorial service since there was nothing but ashes left. Slowly people started heading home.
As the day wore on, Grandma B was left to herself in her living room and she sat their staring into space, not believing that her partner for so many years was now gone. As she sat there looking through the sliding glass door that faced the sofa she could see my grandfather’s work shed where he built trailers and fixed anything and everything…she could see her cellar where she canned vegetables and the farm and fields behind their house. She thought about their life together. She prayed and was finding some peace and had closed her eyes, stopped her tears and let out a sigh of calm resignation.
But just then she heard the sliding glass door open. Startled, she opened her eyes, felt her heart stop and could hardly catch her breath…. there walking in the door was Grandpa. A little scratched, bruised, and dirty but alive and well.
She was so surprised / she couldn’t believe it, she was almost angry and joyous at the same time. It was hard for her to even believe it was him and not a dream until he came to her and held her and she was able to touch him. He, of course, wondered what the fuss was about. It seemed he had been thrown out of the truck and disoriented, walked through the wooded forests home in not too straight a line. Not seeing anyone until he saw her.
The shock of seeing someone return from the dead, when we are so certain that they are indeed dead and gone from us is understood in my family.
Grandma B by sharing her own experience of seeing her husband return to her has helped us understand how shocking it is for the human heart to understand something like the resurrection the disciples saw firsthand.
The disciples have helped us understand the truth of the resurrection and the importance of the Holy Spirit in our lives by retelling of this event in their lives.
Like my grandmother, they too did not believe their eyes for a moment, maybe not until he spoke to them, until he touched them, until he reassured them.
But they would now take that belief enabled by the Holy Spirit and tell the world about Jesus Christ. These men who at least for a moment found it hard to believe in his real presence, in the resurrection, would start the church and even suffer and die for what they believed and change the world.
This Divine Mercy Sunday we are invited to remember our God loves us unconditionally but is waiting for us to prepare a place for Him.
Grandma B learned to have faith and trust and be open to things she could not always understand. She taught me that no matter how smart I might think I am or how much I think I am in control, I do not have all the answers and must trust God to have mercy especially at times when nothing else is left.
And isn’t that when we feel his mercy and love the most. When everything else has let us down?
But we don’t have to wait until we have run out of options in our life.
We can start now to trust in him, open ourselves to him.
Today, on this Divine Mercy Sunday I cant think of a better message for us all than to trust more, to have more faith in his love and mercy this Easter and let go of anything that stands in His way to us. Jesus came into the room and made his body, physically present to them and his words to comfort them.
We too are offered his body, real and true and his words in the Gospel to comfort us. He is here with us. Now in this Church. Where are we? Are we ready to believe and trust? To accept his mercy? We do have a choice. We can live in fear, hold onto sorrows of this world, trust only in the temporary things around us and turn away from our brothers and sisters in need,
… or we can believe. We can open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, open our possessions and share with others, we can live by the teachings of Christ and his Church founded in our Gospel today and we can rejoice. Knowing that we are blessed and forgiven for through his death and resurrection our Lord Jesus Christ has shown us God’s great love and unfathomable Mercy. †
Deacon Tony Pynes 