Hi everyone,

Welcome to worship for this 2nd Sunday of Easter, landing on April 12, 2026!

The bulletin for this service can be found here. You can use it to follow along with the service or just use the words that will appear on your screen. The sermon is also included in the bulletin as well as on this page below the video.

If you’d like to enhance your online worship experience, you are invited to have a candle in your space, lit at the beginning of the service and extinguished near the end as the altar candles are extinguished after the sending hymn. You are also welcome to participate in communion if you are comfortable, by having something small to eat and drink ready for the appropriate time in the service. Further instruction will be given then.

May God’s unending love shine light in and through you, this day and always!

God of compassion and grace, in your presence may we be led by your Word, guided by your Spirit, and strengthened by your love, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

This week after Easter always feels a little off for me.  Maybe it’s because I’m recovering from the busyness of Lent and Holy Week.  Maybe it’s because now that it’s all over, I have to relearn how to not be in that high stress mode.  Or maybe it’s because… well… I’m always a bit disappointed in myself with how the Easter service went.  Not just this year, mind you, but like all years.

I know, I know, no one else really cares, as to most, it’s just Easter, basically the same as any other Sunday pretty much.  But for me as a pastor who leads these services?  It’s Easter.  It’s one of highest points of the year, I’d even say even higher than Christmas.  It’s the culmination of everything we do and everything we are as a church.  It’s the foundation of our faith and the reason for our religiosity.  It’s our motivation to be who are to be.

So pair all that with my low-key borderline OCD, and that makes for a lot of pressure around the day.

Because even if you notice it or not, joke about it or not, or maybe even care or not, for me, my goal for these high and holy days like Easter has always been perfection.  All the planning, preparing, and chair straightening was all to perfect the worship experience for everyone in attendance both in person and online.  This past Sunday, along with all the Easter Sundays that I’ve ever had the privilege and honour to lead here and anywhere else, was painstakingly and meticulously put together in the hopes that it would be… perfect.

But of course, that’s not what it actually turns out to be.  Like, ever.

Technical difficulties, unforeseen variables, and just poorly written sermons always seem to creep up at the worst possible times.  Like if you remember from last week, I couldn’t even get the stream to start properly and you’d think I’d be better at it as I’ve been doing it like every week for the past 4 or 5 years.  There were so many of these very avoidable blunders that have dotted the Easter Sundays and otherwise over the years.  Like sometimes I forget to charge the batteries that I so rely on for the different pieces of tech I have up here.  I’ve missed important pieces around the liturgy or said them wrong and ruined the moment.  Or once or twice I’ve even mistakenly put up the wrong hymn lyrics up on the screen (either that or our musician plays the wrong hymn…).

So in spite of my good intentions, my well-laid plans, my best efforts, something always seems to happen and mars the image of perfection that I was working so hard to achieve.   Something unexpected or unplanned for takes place and throws a wrench into the works.  Some unwanted thing comes up and leaves me… well as I said earlier… disappointed in myself.

I mean I told you all last week about my very real fear of failure, and often to me, anything less than perfection is basically failure.  So if I were honest, I fail a whole lot.

I know, this sounds pretty extreme and perhaps unrelatable to many of you more normal people, but I have a feeling you all have felt some kind of disappointment when things didn’t go as planned, be it in yourself or others.  Perhaps you’ve held higher standards than were realistically attainable.  Or maybe your standards were completely reasonable but you were just working with a bunch of dunderheads who couldn’t pour water out of a boot even if the instructions were written on the heel.  Either case, we’ve all know what it’s like to be disappointed, whether it was justified, rational, or called for or not.

And we get some semblance of that disappointment in today’s gospel reading, don’t we?  The disciples also find themselves just a bit after that first Easter and fresh from hearing the wild claims that Jesus is risen.  And even after hearing some eye-witness testimony or having first-hand experience, they still, out of fear and perhaps disappointment around how things ended up going down, hide themselves behind closed and locked doors… all but one.  Best known as Doubting Thomas. 

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I don’t like calling him that, because that isn’t at all what he was.  While we don’t know where the guy was while the rest were cowering in fear, his not being holed up in that upper room tells me that he wasn’t hiding, he wasn’t afraid, he continued to be as he always had been.  Doesn’t sound like a doubter to me.  I mean, Peter was always the de facto leader of the group behind Jesus, but Thomas was actually the more faithful one, the one ready to follow wherever Jesus goes, the one that was most gung-ho to do when the situation was more conducive to just don’t.  So I wonder if the other disciples were disappointed when Thomas was just out being Thomas again, outside of the box, marching to his own beat, bold and confident as ever, and not as cautious and careful as they were being.

Then I imagine Thomas was disappointed after hearing what he missed for just not being there.

But I think the one who should be and would have the most right to be disappointed in this whole story, is Jesus.  I mean, his whole mission was to proclaim good news but his message fell on deaf ears.  He wanted people to know that they’re loved and that they matter, but he was deserted, denied, and discarded by his followers and haters alike.  He came and gave his all, and his all was taken, beaten, and killed.

Disappointing for sure.  Disappointed in those who were trusted.  Disappointed in unmet expectations.  Disappointed when things don’t go perfectly as planned.  This is the kind of disappointment that I have for myself after I feel like I’ve failed.  This is the disappointment that we and likely the disciples feel after our hopes are shattered and our dreams dashed.  This is the disappointment of the world as we are collectively and constantly let down and descend deeper into darkness and brokenness and death. 

But the good news is that in that darkness, God shines a light that cannot be overcome.  God picks up the pieces of our brokenness and heals us back together into wholeness.  God appears in the midst of death, breathes upon us peace, and brings us life.

This doesn’t mean that the darkness is abolished, it is and will be still there.  Brokenness and pain can and will still happen.  We will all still face death.  While God doesn’t cause or instigate these, they also don’t drive God away from us.  Rather, God remains with us through them, in our fears and disappointments, behind our locked doors, in the worst times of our lives, and reminds us that Jesus has scars too.

The wounds that come from being rejected and denied heals but still leaves a mark.  The disappointment that leads to doubt and fear is dispelled by God’s peace breathed onto us.  Christ’s body that was broken is now given to us through the sacraments, through this community, through the very real presence of God in our lives, reminding us of who we are, who we are created to be, and who we are not but forgiven for anyway.  So it’s in the scars, the peace, the bread and cup that we share that Christ can be most seen, most felt, and most present with and among us in our community, our service, and even in our disappointments.

See, life isn’t perfect, but that’s ok because we aren’t called to be perfect.  Life is full of unmet expectations and failures, and that’s ok because we were given an example of the divine healing found in the grace and forgiveness of the Resurrection.  Life doesn’t always go as we would like or prefer, but God’s promise always has been and will always be that we are not alone but lifted up in love, welcomed into the eternal arms of community, and revealed to be God’s people forever.

So while we will still feel disappointed in ourselves, in others, and just at the state of the world, we can have faith that God’s love and grace is big enough to cover whatever is thrown at it.  While we still will feel hurt and broken, we can trust that God brings us back together and heals us with peace and salvation.  While we can still have doubts, we can believe that God’s promises of love and salvation are true, and we will never be abandoned but eternally welcomed into God’s kingdom, God’s community, God’s family with all the saints of all times and places. In this Easter season and beyond, may we always be mindful of the resurrected life that we are invited into in Christ, not one of perfectly planned out plans pulled off to perfection, but one that is messy, fragile, and at times disappointingly painful, but also full of love, healing, and peace, now and forever.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.