Marked as Christ’s own forever

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Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter (April 16, 2023)

View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: The Second Sunday of Easter (Year A)

Preached at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of our whole 10 am service for the day is available here.

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Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." John 20:26-27

Edited Transcript

May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.

We're about to have a baptism! We're welcoming baby Andrew into the family of God, with his whole family here to witness it and all of us here to witness it. And we're also celebrating Easter—for fifty days we celebrate the Resurrection and we hear stories from scripture about what was life like in the immediate aftermath of Jesus' rising from the dead.

Do you remember what proof Thomas asks for when he hears that Jesus is not dead, but alive? He says, "Unless I see the wound in his side and the marks where the nails have been," I won't believe that this is Jesus. The other disciples have seen Jesus, in his body, in a room with them. So though we give Thomas a bit of a load about his "doubting," he's only asking for what the other disciples have already gotten—a chance to see the Risen Jesus.

And he wants to touch the marks on Jesus' body. That's how he recognizes Jesus: by the marks of what happened to Jesus while he was alive. They're the marks of what he underwent to show us what love really looks like.

In the three appearances of the Risen Jesus that are retold in the Gospel of John, it's clear that Jesus doesn't look exactly the same as he did before his death. Remember on Easter Sunday we heard the story of Mary's encounter with him. He's in the garden; she thinks he's the gardener. She says to the gardener, "If you know where my Lord is, tell me!" It's only when Jesus says her name that she recognizes him. For her, her name is the mark of their relationship, of who they were during his life.

In the same way, when the disciples, including Thomas, see the marks on his body in that room, that's how they recognize him. Again: those marks are the marks of how he lived his life, and how he was willing to take love all the way, and to do that for the sake of the ones he calls friend.

Most of us, including our smallest ones, can probably talk about some mark they have on their body. Who has a scar or a booboo or something on their body that has happened to them? [Hands go up.] So even if we've had just a year or two of life, but certainly by the time we get to adulthood, life starts to mark us up, right?

And it's not just our bodies that get marked, but also our souls, our hearts. And when we are like Jesus and we follow a path of love, when we give ourselves to what it means to love somebody, then our marks may show up not just as marks on our bodies but marks of love in our hearts and souls. As they did for Jesus.

Jesus has places in his hands where there's an absence, and there's absences that happen for us, too. The longer we live and the more we love, the more likely we are to lose something we love, right? We're going to lose the people that we love.

And that leaves a hole, an absence. And so over the course of our lives, not only are our bodies marked, but also our hearts get marked by these absences and these losses. This is what happens when we do what Jesus called us to do, which is to love one another.

So I want you to think about those marks that are on your body, those marks that are on your soul and your heart. And I want you to recognize them—even the ones that are marks of grief and suffering—and think about how these might also be marks of love and of the power of love in our lives. Even the griefs and the absences that mark us, those are marks of God's love that has been poured into our hearts so it can be poured out for others.

Now, the person we're gonna baptize today, how he's eight months old, right? Okay, seven months old.

My grandfather, may he rest in peace, when there was a new baby in the family he'd say, "We got a fresh one!" [laughter] So today we're welcoming a fresh one into God's family.

Baby Andrew may have very few marks as he comes into our family. But when we bring a child into this world and raise them up and prepare to send them out into the wider world, we're dealing with a reality that this child, too, is going to be marked by the world, just as we've been. They're going to grieve and suffer. They're going to love, and experience loss.

Things may happen to them that we wish we could protect them from. Nobody gets out of life without being marked, right

But I also want to remind you: When we bring someone into this body, into this family of God in baptism, what is it that we do after we baptize the baby?

The priest puts their hand on the baby's head and marks the sign of the cross on their forehead and says, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ's own forever. You are marked as belonging to God's family forever.

There are going to be a lot of marks that you accumulate in this life, as we well know. But all of us who have been marked in the name of Christ, that's the first mark we carry. That marking and sealing by the Holy Spirit, that eternal belonging—that can't be taken away from you,. It transforms all those other marks of body and spirit and mind and soul into places where love can flow and into signs of God's love.

So today, as we renew our baptismal vows, hold on to that memory of your own marking: as Christ's own forever. Amen.