The other reading I reference is Revelation 1:4-8.
The holy gospel according to John (20:19-31)
19When
it was evening on that day,
the first day of
the week,
and the doors of
the house
where
the disciples had met
were
locked for fear of the Judeans,
Jesus came and
stood among them and said,
“Peace be with you.”
20After
he said this,
he
showed them his hands and his side.
Then
the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
21Jesus
said to them again,
“Peace
be with you.
As
the Father has sent me,
so
I send you.”
22When
he had said this,
he
breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
23If
you forgive the sins of any,
they
are forgiven them;
if
you retain the sins of any,
they
are retained.”
24But
Thomas
(who
was called the Twin),
one
of the twelve,
was
not with them when Jesus came.
25So
the other disciples told him,
“We
have seen the Lord.”
But
he said to them,
“Unless
I see the mark of the nails in his
hands,
and
put my finger in the mark of the nails
and
my hand in his side,
I
will not believe.”
26A
week later Jesus’ disciples were again in the house,
and Thomas was with them.
Although the
doors were shut,
Jesus
came and stood among them and said,
“Peace be with you.”
27Then
he said to Thomas,
“Put
your finger here and see my hands.
Reach
out your hand and put it in my side.
Do
not doubt but believe.”
28Thomas
said to Jesus,
“My Lord and my God!”
29Jesus
said to him,
“Have
you believed because you have seen me?
Blessed
are those who have not seen
and yet have come to believe.”
30Now
Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples,
which
are not written in this book.
31But
these are written so that you may come to believe
that
Jesus is the Messiah,
the
Son of God,
and
that through believing you may have life
in his name.
The gospel of the Lord.
-----
Thomas is one of my favorite disciples. One of the things I love about Thomas
comes from a paper I wrote in seminary.
I was writing a paper using disability theology, which is theology
specifically from the perspective of folks who our dominant culture considers
disabled. I went in looking at
Jesus as disabled, with his wounds from the cross as part of the whole
resurrected Christ and what I found was that Thomas is blind! I think that Thomas was blind and that
this is a bigger deal for us today than it seemed to be for Thomas and the
other disciples back then.
You see, Thomas, who is called the twin—perhaps because he
is usually accompanied by someone to help him navigate busy, bustling
streets—is the disciple who is: a-braver than all the rest, b-more foolhardy
than all the rest, or c-unlucky enough to draw the short stick when the
disciples ran out of their supply of food. Whatever the case, on that first day of the week Thomas was
the one disciple not inside the
doors, which were “locked for fear of the Judeans.”
In this resurrection account in John, Peter and the Beloved
Disciple have already returned from scoping out the tomb that morning
when Mary announced the body was missing, and now they believe… without
understanding. Mary has returned again
since then to announce that she has “seen the Lord.” And yet the disciples remain locked up and fearful.
Except Thomas who, even if he is afraid, goes out into the
world anyway. And while Thomas is
out, Jesus comes into the disciples’ locked room, sneaking through the cracks
and crevices of their fear-filled, locked up “no” to breathe on them “Peace be with you.”
The disciples have locked the doors, shut themselves in
against a scary and dangerous world out there. Yet, through the cracks in the walls, under the door, even
the cracks in the disciples’ clear “no,” Jesus meets them where they’re at. Even in their fear and lack of
understanding Jesus shows them the wounds that make Jesus whole. And then the disciples recognize their Lord.
When Thomas returns, it is finally the disciples’ turn to proclaim the resurrection. “We have seen the Lord” they teasingly announce to the one whose eyes do not see, the one who was not there, the one who faced his own fear outside their safely locked room. Thomas responds with their language. Stating his own, similar need, Thomas says “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Thomas also needs to “see”—which is for him, to touch and feel, in order to believe.
So the next week, with the doors still closed, Jesus comes
again. This time Thomas is with
the other disciples and it would be easy to believe that Jesus comes just for
Thomas. It would be easy to
believe, that is,
if the disciples weren’t still in the same room with the doors shut up against
the fearful outside world. Because the truth is: the disciples probably still need
this just as much or more than Thomas.
And they need Thomas with them to venture out into the world.
And
so Jesus comes again breathing his “Peace
be with you” to them. Jesus
comes to Thomas and gives him the woundedness still present in the resurrected
Christ, saying “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and
put it in my side.” Because for Thomas who is blind, to touch is to see. To touch is to know, that this is “the
Alpha and the Omega”—this is the everything—from Alpha to Omega, from before
the beginning of all time to past the end of it. Jesus is “the Almighty.”
And
from those moments of clarity—of deep, soul-shattering clarity—comes the
ultimate confession as Thomas replies “My
Lord and my God!” Jesus comes
to the disciples again and again.
Jesus meets Thomas and all the others where they are, meeting them in
the struggle for faith, in the struggle with grief.
The resurrection comes with new life and hope, certainly, and it also comes in the midst of grief—over a leader lost and of a leader who is not who they thought—one who leads differently. They grieve the unmet expectations, of a mighty and powerful overthrow, expectations the disciples hadn’t realized existed until those expectations died on the cross.
The
resurrection comes with new life and Jesus breaks in through the cracks and
crevices of our fear and our “no”s to breathe Jesus’ “Peace be with you.”
The one who covers all time: present, past, and future comes with the
slow quiet breath of “Peace be with you.”
Jesus
meets Mary at the tomb, calling her “Mary!” and naming her into the
resurrection.
Jesus
meets the disbelieving disciples, locked in their fear, breathing “Peace be with you” and forgiveness of
sins.
And
Jesus meets them again when nothing seems to have changed except that Thomas is
with them this time. And Jesus
again breathes “Peace be with you”
and reaches out to Thomas, joining Thomas in physical sight, so that Thomas,
feeling Jesus’ broken body—the physical reality of the crucifixion as a part of
this whole Resurrected one, Thomas can then make the great confession “My Lord and my God!”
And
Jesus comes again and again to us today.
Jesus’ broken body feeds us, Jesus’ blood of the new covenant, the cup
of salvation, fills us with joy.
Today Jesus comes to us and we taste and feel the goodness of our Lord
and our God. Again and again Jesus
meets us where we are at, in our hunger and thirst, in our doubts and
disbeliefs. Jesus joins us.
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