Black Jelly Beans

Text for my sermon at Winchester Place Nursing Home.
April 3, 2005

Just one week later, that’s all, seven short days. That is all the time that it has taken for the lilies to leave the sanctuary, the chocolate bunnies to be eaten, and that rainbow of jellybeans to be diminished to a small pile of black.

I like those black jellybeans, but they have always seemed a little out of place. Everything else at Easter is so colorful, so sweet, so alive. What are these little black jellybeans doing in the middle of all of that?

The readings for worship this morning are kind of like those black jellybeans. The wounds of Jesus take center stage. They help the disciples to identify the risen Christ, they prove to Thomas that the resurrection is real.

As a people of God, we too have wounds. Some are physical, the aches, the pains, the illnesses that come with this life. Some are emotional: the loss of a loved one, the family member that we don’t talk with anymore, the fear of being alone, of being forgotten.

The Good news of the scriptures today is that Jesus is STILL risen. The lilies may be gone, the chocolate bunnies too, but God, God is still there. It is by those very same wounds which proved Thomas’ faith, that we are healed. The risen Christ stands victorious over all of our wounds. And God is there, and God will be there, even when all we see is black jelly beans.