It has all gone very quiet after Easter. It's the middle of the school holidays and next week has Anzac day in the middle of it. Holy Week seems far away and strange. How hard it is for Christians to walk the way of Christ in those days. It's hard to imagine the horror of death by crucifixion, the grief of loved ones and the great stone rolled across the tomb to protect the cold and battered body from disturbance. Our minds are stretched to the limit to by the resurrection, that light breaking through in the darkness and the knowledge that Christ who was dead is now more alive than ever before.
So we arrive, with Thomas the Twin, on the first day of the week again. Can it be possible that the events that happened last Sunday really happened? Or are they a dream, an imagined scenario, like lightning that fills the sky with light and then is gone for ever.
Clearly Thomas thought so - he could not be convinced that anything had happened until he saw and touched the marks of the nails and the wound made by the spear in Jesus' body. The bible doesn't say so, but I have an idea that Thomas was wondering whether the whole thing was a dream - triumphal entry to Jerusalem, betrayal, crucifixion and burial - and that if Jesus was really still in Jerusalem, there would be no marks on his body. Perhaps Thomas was expecting life to continue as before.
Thomas was wrong, of course, no single event has so changed the world in the same way, before or since. The first Easter changed the world for ever, and no one, Jew, Greek, Christian, Atheist, Agnostic or what ever, can claim that nothing has happened.
But what about the second Easter, a year later, when the disciples gathered again in Jerusalem to keep the Passover - how did they feel then? Were the events of last year just a stunning memory, or did they still have power to move and change and save the people who experienced it?
And the sixtieth Easter? How was it then, when even the youngest witness was old? Were there Thomases in those days, ready to cry out, "My Lord and my God!" when they saw and felt the wounds of Christ?
And the hundredth Easter and the thousandth, and now today in the year 2000, has the ripple of memory still the power to raise us from our rest and set us bobbing about on the sea of faith?
There are two ways to find answers to all my questions. The first way is to stop and ask ourselves. For each one of us to choose a quiet time and ask, How has this Easter moved and changed and saved me? Let's not ask how the first Easter affected us, none of us was there, but last Sunday, last week - what does that mean? Is it a step forward in faith? Is it another step on the road to salvation, or do I fall back to where I was a month ago?
Of course I cannot answer for you, and there is no right or wrong answer, except the answer of Thomas - "My Lord and my God!" But it is vitally important that the question is asked - because if it is not asked there will be no answer at all, and if we never ask questions and never seek answers, then our faith will fade as quickly as our memories.
The second way to answer all the questions about Easter is to look around the people who make up the church and see what is happening. St Luke reports that "the whole group of those who believed was of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all."
What have we to report about this group of believers? What is the spirit of God moving us to do? Maybe we don't hold our goods in common, but surely there is a change in the way we look at possessions - isn't there? And what is our testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus? How does our community of faith tell the world about the resurrection? With great power and great grace? These are the things we could look for.
Some people are moved by the spirit to prophesy or to tell of their faith with eloquence and inspiring words, others are moved to love their neighbours, others are moved to prayer or to good works or to service of the church. Important as the works may be, it is the power of God and the grace of God which inspires the works which is most important.
Over the past two and a half years you and I have been working together to seek out and encourage this power and grace. All our meetings and reports, surveys and consultations, have been to find where the grace and power of God are moving in this congregation.
We have not stopped yet, and nor will we. Every Easter we are reminded and spurred on to seek again the one who died and who was raised again - and every year Thomas the Twin reminds us that we should not be satisfied with anything less than a faith based on a sincere experience of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. God knows there are many distractions and that none of us can fully understand - but all of us can seek, and all can cry out, "My Lord and my God!"