We know a great deal about the humanity of Jesus in large part because of the incident we have recorded this morning in Luke’s gospel. We knew about his humanity before the crucifixion and the resurrection. We saw a Jesus who suffered many of the same, if not all of the same, human experiences we do, hunger, exhaustion, feeling abandoned and lonely and even, from what the scripture tells us, "tempted in all ways like as we are." It’s important to place this morning’s incident in its context. This is after the resurrection. Jesus has appeared to his disciples. In this particular experience, we find another side of his humanity revealed to us that is equally as important as any of those that come before.

The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus was "the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being" (Hebrews 1:3). Now, when we see Jesus holding out his hands, inviting the disciples to explore their doubts and their faith and their misgivings, what we see is an exact representation of the way God is when we face the same in our own lives. This picture of God through Christ is absolutely indispensable for our faith experience. God is not a God who abandons those who disappoint him.

What good news! The disciples had been the ones who abandoned Jesus. Yet, just after his resurrection, we find Jesus himself, the exact representation of the character of God, standing among the disciples and saying, "Peace be with you." "They," the scripture reports of the disciples, "were startled and terrified, and thought they were seeing a ghost." Jesus asked, "Why are you frightened?"

Why do doubts arise in your heart? We don’t have an answer for that question, by the way, from the disciples. I’m not sure we need one. We can fill in some of the blanks for ourselves.

If there is a greater fear in all of human experience than the fear of abandonment, I don’t know what that might be. Do you? Though the disciples had abandoned Jesus, God has proven yet again not to be one who abandons those who abandon him. That is the gospel.

Isn’t that really the message of Easter? God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, he sent his only begotten Son to live among us and to die for us. Now, God in Christ is demonstrating his love for us yet again. The Son who was sent and was crucified, God has sent back again, from the grave. Whatever the outcome of your life or mine, when it is all said and done, that outcome will not be determined in any way, shape, or fashion, by the fact that God abandoned you.

A real tragedy has been playing itself out in the last couple of weeks in our community. We’ve all heard about it, the elderly gentleman who was the primary caregiver for his elderly, invalid wife. Apparently having discovered that he was terminally ill, he took her life and then tried unsuccessfully to take his own. There are lots of unanswered questions about this story. But, one question that came to my mind immediately upon hearing this story and seeing the footage on television, as this elderly gentleman came out of his very normal-looking suburban home, was about how many other people are just like that this morning. Maybe the miracle is that this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often.

Certainly, one of our greatest responsibilities as a church is to be aware of those who silently slip away because of age and illness and who are no longer to be physically present among us. It appears that this man who had loved his wife and cared for her all these years feared, more than anything else, abandoning her when his terminal illness took him. There is no greater fear in the human experience, perhaps even greater than the fear of hunger, than the fear of abandonment.

Into the midst of these disciples who thought the Jesus they had betrayed had in fact abandoned them, comes the living presence of God to reassure them that his mercy trumps their misery. Then, the most interesting words crop up. The last time the disciples had seen Jesus, he was dead, being laid in a tomb, prepared for burial. Now, he has shown them his hands and his side, the places where the rage of man’s sin had pierced the flesh of God himself. Luke reports not just the visual imagery of that experience, but the emotional record as well, of what the disciples were experiencing. "In their joy [in their joy] they were disbelieving and still wondering."

Joy of Easter resurrection, mixed with the disbelief of it all. That’s kind of how life is after Easter, isn’t it? Joy mixed with doubt, and faith mixed with uncertainty. It must have been very comforting to the disciples when Jesus stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Jesus knew the minute he walked into the room what was waiting on him. Fearful, doubting people. Just like every Sunday in every church. Yet, again, he came and still comes to announce his peace by becoming among them and us the presence of the living God.

Bluegrass artist Iris Dement sings, "An arm’s just an arm ‘til it’s wrapped ‘round a shoulder." An arm’s just an arm until it’s used for what it’s made for. Jesus, in this moment, has become to these disciples the arm of God wrapped around their shoulders after Easter, and after life has gone on. I wonder if he could become that for you and me this morning. When our joy is mixed with doubt and misgiving, because that’s the way faith is.

A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated Easter. I hope you were here. As in probably every other church in the world, the pastor could probably say the same thing I’m going to say now. It was a fabulous day. There were people here that day who come but one Sunday a year. Some belittle that. I think it’s great that they were here, even if just for one Sunday. The music was fabulous, the flowers, the weather, the fellowship, it was just the best, as it tends to be on Easter Sunday.

Then, do you know what happened the very next day after Easter? Do you remember? It changed from Easter Sunday to just another Monday. Suddenly, all of these things that make up real life were back on our plates again. It was Easter Sunday and all that that means, and then it was Monday. These are the stories I have heard from our people since Easter Sunday, just thirteen days ago. Couples whose marriages are in crisis. People who are sick and cannot get well. Someone who moved from home to the hospital, but then, instead of going back home, went to the nursing home to stay. A much-beloved father and grandfather died. Young people with problems so enormous I cannot fathom how they take the next breath. A young father whose job is not paying enough for his family to survive, the stress of it just about to pull them apart at the seams with no hope of relief in sight.

In two Sundays, we are going to have one of the greatest privileges! Tony Campolo is coming to speak to us on Sunday, May 14. You will not want to miss that Sunday,! Tony Campolo is famous for a sermon he preaches called, "It’s Friday, but Sunday’s Coming." In the sermon, he talks about the darkness of Friday and the crucifixion, of all the death and destruction that sin has brought, but then celebrates the brightness coming with Easter resurrection Sunday morning. It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming. He repeats this theme over and over again. It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.

As I have looked at this text of scripture this morning in Luke’s gospel, if I were going to title this scripture similar to Tony Campolo’s sermon, it would be something like this. "It’s Friday, but Sunday’s Coming, and So Is Monday." Easter joy is soon mixed with Monday disbelief, uncertainty. That’s the way faith is.

That’s what it means to be a Christian. People in their joy sometimes still disbelieving. Still wondering how life is going to work. And what this risen Christ really means to them in this moment in time. And mostly because when they thought life was as dark as it could ever get, the Jesus they thought didn’t even exist came into their midst, became the presence of God, to become the arm of God wrapped around them and reassure them that, whatever happens, God is absolutely committed to them, even when they don’t know anymore how to be committed.

If you have ever been driving in the Panhandle during a windstorm, you have had this experience. On the roads that run north and south through the Panhandle, if you pass a grain elevator some fifteen or twenty stories high that temporarily blocks the wind, you have a hair-raising experience. As soon as the elevator blocks the wind, it’s as if your car, traveling at seventy miles per hour, has entered a vacuum. The wind pressure is gone and you glide along as though skating on ice. Then, when you pass from behind the elevator and the wind is no longer blocked, it is as if your car is a feather in a hurricane. People have been known to be blown off of the road, have wrecks, from the power of the wind catching them on the back side of the grain elevator, once there is nothing there to block the gale any longer.

I think sometimes Easter Sunday’s cross is a lot like those grain elevators. It comes to stand and block the winds of adversity and the winds of doubt and fear for a while, but in time, we drive past Easter into the Monday morning of repentance and forgiveness, the hard work of Easter that God calls us to.

This is the promise of our post-Easter, Monday morning Jesus. Even in our doubts and our misgivings, even there, Jesus has come to break bread with us and to prove to us once and for all that our hope is not based on our commitment to God, but his commitment to us. That’s why, when he walked into a room where he found the disciples in joy, disbelieving, he was able to say, "Peace be with you."

Amen.