A Vase Of Resurrection Opportunities

John 20:19-31

There is in my possession a dark green vase with brown leaves sealed within its shiny surface.

One day I must have said to my Grandma that I especially liked it.

But I can’t honestly recall the time or the place.

I’m not the sort of person that’s normally bothered about vases.

It was enough for her however and when she died she made a point of leaving it to me in her will.

“To my Grandson – the dark green vase with the leaves, because he always said how much he loved it”.

It’s stayed with us every since, most of the time at the back of a cupboard.

But sometimes brought out and filled with spring flowers.

The times when we remember that the vase on it’s own is not enough.

It’s a gift given in love. Full of possibilities. Waiting to be filled with something beautiful.

Our Gospel reading this morning is the one that changes everything.

Until now, we thought that Easter was all about a wonderful thing that happened to Jesus.

Today the attention turns towards those who might be ready to receive it as a gift.

A gift given in love to be filled with something beautiful.

A strange gift that we were not expecting.

Like an empty vase to a grandson who’d forgotten that he’d ever noticed it.

In this Gospel reading we discover with what beauty the vase is meant to be filled.

Jesus puts it starkly.

To share his peace and to proclaim his forgiveness.

Not as an airy fairy ideal – but in real ways amidst our daily living.

Amidst people whose lives are restless and anxious.

Who would prefer to get their own back on someone rather than let bygones be bygones.

And because we know, and he knows, that we can be like that sometimes.

 He breathes upon us his Holy Spirit to give us the strength to do it.

That’s why we find Peter, tongue tied fisherman, hopeless denier of Christ.

The man who speaks first and thinks later.

That’s why we’re presented with him standing up in front of the whole of Jerusalem

(or so it must have seemed to Him)

And telling it how it is.

Like a gift given to him in love and starting to be filled with something beautiful.

We’re not all called to do and say the same thing in the same place at the same time.

But we do each have a gift.

 Open and empty, like a vase.

Or a place that once was a tomb but is now a place of life.

That we might take it and fill it  to his glory.                               RH  30.3.08