Pilgrim Uniting Church, Adelaide SA SUN 11-APR-2021 - 11.00 AM Sermon Rev Dr Greg Elsdon Easter 2 – John's account of what happened on the day of Jesus' resurrection tells of people struggling to make sense of things that didn't make sense. Mary and the two disciples found the tomb inexplicably empty; and then the riddle of the missing corpse turned into the riddle of the risen Jesus. After a long and confusing weekend the disciples had taken refuge behind locked doors, when they sensed someone else with them in the room. The stranger identified himself unmistakably as Jesus, the wounded one. At the apex of his resurrection victory, he was sporting his open wounds without shame or apology. Maybe we don't need to worry quite so much about having a glossy presentation; Christianity has the power to embrace real bodies afflicted with real scars, real pain and real suffering. In his resurrection Jesus honoured the human body, be it bruised, broken, wounded or disabled – the real live body in which we live. We all carry wounds of one type or another. We are invited to a journey for the healing of the experiences that have wounded us, to acknowledge our woundedness, and to have our woundedness acknowledged by others. We are invited to form communities of trust and compassion where our stories of woundedness and pain are listened to, and where we feel honoured and cared for in our telling of them. May it be so. John 20: 19-31 Playing Time   –   13:06