Easter 2
Vivian Lewin, Spiritual Director in the Diocese of Montreal
On Easter morning, just one week ago, I rose early not to pray, or to visit any tomb, but to peel ten pounds of potatoes and slice them. Alice Njoki who had been sharing my flat for a year and a half rose early too… it was the day of her sending forth from here to Shelburne Nova Scotia… and while I know she spends her first hour kneeling beside her bed with her Bible and her morning devotions, on Easter she came straight into the kitchen with a lovely generosity of spirit and worked alongside me with the potatoes. I took up the mandoline veggie slicer, which I had nearly given to last year’s church rummage sale because the first time I used it, I’d cut my hand. This time, I was feeling more confident because I’d found the safety glove designed to prevent such damage. The slices were supposed to be one eighth of an inch thick. I cut eight slices. The stack was a bit less than an inch high. I adjusted the mandoline. Perfect. Then gaining momentum, added slice after slice quickly into a huge bowl. Also as the potato grew smaller and smaller, closer and closer to the sharp blade, slicing into my thumb. Because I wasn’t wearing the glove.
“There’s a sermon right here,” I said, as I stanched the blood with my right hand and fumbled with the left to unwrap the bandaid. ” We are given exactly what we need to not hurt ourselves, and even when we know it is close at hand we don’t always use it.”
“You show me the path of life.”
Today, the path of life is really this Resurrection Gospel, and our liturgy, and our sharing together. I believe that Bertrand mentioned at the start of the Tridium (the three days up to and including Easter) that one way to grasp the direction of this path of life is simply to follow the liturgy. To let it carry you along. The way we pray, is actually the way we believe. And we can learn our beliefs by praying them.
I want to pay a little attention this morning about the Psalms. We know that Jesus knew the Psalms, and he and his disciples often quoted them. They are given to us for daily prayer for many reasons, but I think one of the reasons is to assure us that our relationship with God is personal. That exactly when it seems that “it’s all about me,” and “I’m alone with all this,” God is most certainly with us …whether we are in joy or sorrow or anger or fear or even doubt. We are never alone, and God always cares to attend to us exactly where we are.
As in today’s Gospel from John (Chapter 20:19-31), speaking of “where we are.” This Gospel is read absolutely every year, on this Sunday, the Sunday right after Easter. It describes two of the four Resurrection appearances in this Gospel. And in each of them, Jesus shows up for his followers just where they are.
Now, the disciples weren’t all in the same place after the Resurrection. None of the guys was there when Jesus appeared to Mary. Ten of them are here, this morning, in a locked room, afraid of the religious authorities. As one commentator pointed out, we don’t know where Thomas was. Maybe he was out getting groceries, living his life outside the locked room. At any rate, when they tell him “We have seen the Lord” we might be putting too much emphasis on his doubts. Is he “doubting Thomas?” Maybe he is courageous Thomas. Out there in the dangerous world. And then demanding Thomas. Daring to ask for what they have received.
Whenever I sit down with the readings chosen for a Sunday, I love seeing how they connect. The Bible (really the Bible anthology) holds an astounding amount of comment on itself. It holds sermons. Like the reading we have this morning from Acts is from a sermon Peter preached on Pentecost, one in a series of prequels we are going to hear during the 50 days of Easter. And in it, he quotes the latter portion of Psalm 16–the same Psalm we also have this morning, including the verse he quotes in Acts 2:28 ” You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.” Or as we have it in our Psalter, “You will show me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy.”
“You will show me the path of life.” We’re talking here about how to live in the Resurrection. How to be Easter people. If you or I don’t do anything else during the course of a day, if we ask ourselves at the end of the day “what gave me life?” and “what didn’t give me life?” and then track this over the weeks and even years, we will discover God’s plan for our fullest life.
Somehow, as I was thinking about this, I remembered Deuteronomy 30 (vv 11 and 14)
“Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. … No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. ”
“You will show me the path of life”
This living word, whom we are coming to know as Jesus will, indeed, seek us out. Here’s an example:
I really needed to see the path of life on Tuesday morning. Remember Tuesday, when everybody in the world woke up and nobody knew what horrors the US military might unleash on Iran? It was my job to come here and say Morning Prayer and I was honestly not sure I was up to it. But it wasn’t really up to me: The Psalm appointed for the day was 103. It starts off like this (vv 1-6):
Bless the Lord, O my soul/ and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul/ and forget not all his benefits
He forgives all your sins/ and heals all your infirmities
He redeems your life from the grave/ and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness
He satisfies you with good things/ and your youth is renewed like an eagle’s
The Lord executes righteousness/ and judgment for all who are oppressed.
Somehow those words were to my soul like the glove I needed on Easter Morning to protect my hand. They kept me from hurting myself by bumping up against my own hate and fear, and yes, dangerous mindset. (Some wise teacher said that “hating your enemy is like trying to kill a rat by drinking the poison yourself.”) God was going take on the execution of righteousness and judgment. I didn’t need to worry about that. No, Tuesday morning I was protected from my own helpless and angry state of mind, not permanently,… it doesn’t work like that…. but for a few hours of grace.
“You show me the path of life.” That’s how it works. Jesus showed himself to Thomas. The Psalms showed me once more the strength of millennia of faithful ones, Jews and Christians, who had said exactly those words and who I am convinced accompany us, accompanied me in a tricky moment when I needed to not be alone.
The path of resurrection life isn’t something that gets turned on like a light switch. It’s a path we walk, step by step, Godwilling, together. In our liturgy. In the Daily Office. On the subway. Wherever we are.
Here’s another example:
In a few moments we will begin our celebration of Holy Communion by saying exactly the words that Jesus speaks three different times in our Gospel this morning: “Peace Be With You.” Consider the power of that. Sometimes we say it like we mean “Hi.” It’s a lot more than that. We are containers of that peace by virtue of our baptism, and it will be our privilege and our joy to share it … first with each other, and then onwards, with our whole world. Thanks be to God.
Amen
The readings for today, the first Sunday of Easter 2026, are: Acts 2:14a, 22-32, Psalm 16, 1 Peter 1:3-9, and John 20:19-31.
The illustration is a portion of a mosaic in the National Cathedral (Episcopal Church) in Washington DC.
Sources consulted included the weekly podcast of “Working Preacher” and the notes and translations of Psalm 16 in The Jewish Study Bible (JPS Tanach; Oxford); and “Psalms: a new translation with commentary anthologized from Talmudic, Midrashic, and Rabbinic sources,” (Artscroll Tanach Series, Brooklyn).