Easter 2, Year C April 11, 2007

Easter 2, Year C
April 11, 2007

We’re just past Easter and the glow of Easter remains but it’s so easy for it to fade away. Easter alleluias get swamped by the noise of the world outside the church walls or the clamor inside our own heads.
I’ve been told that people who have experienced being “born again” or being “baptized in the spirit” sometimes have this experience. After moments or days or months of ecstatic experience of God, the “stuff” of life wears them down and they wonder, was that experience true? Questions and doubts creep in: Wasn’t it supposed to last forever?
For those of us afflicted with moments—or more than moments—of questioning and doubt, today’s Gospel gives us a patron saint, Thomas.

Thomas’ story this morning actually begins before the text of this Gospel. He and other disciples—men and women who had followed Christ and were still reeling from the crucifixion two days before—were hiding out for fear of both Jewish and Roman authorities who may be planning a mop up operation to get rid of Jesus’ followers as well as their teacher, their master, their friend.
On Easter morning, Mary Magdalene came knocking on the door. See them—Thomas with the others, squinting through the peep hole, unbolting the door, sliding it open just a crack and finally just wide enough to let her slip through.
“I have seen the Lord,” she cried. “Oh sure,” they say, and make sure the bolts are shot fast when she leaves.
Thomas can’t stand it, and takes off. It’s just too much pressure. Better run the risk with the crowds outside than stay in the emotional pressure cooker of that locked room.
His friend is dead—brutally executed in the most degrading death possible—leaving them stranded in Jerusalem far away from their homes in the small towns of Galilee.
What is he feeling? He can’t sort it out. Sorrow and fury that Jesus had let himself get in such a position—why couldn’t he save himself? Mad at himself and everyone else—except the women—for running away, envy of the women for staying, disgust at Peter for denying Jesus—and Judas, Judas with whom he’d walked along every day of the past three years, how could he have betrayed their friend, their master, to the enemy? And now Mary Magdalene walzing in and tries to raise their hopes with this incredible story, “I have seen the Lord!”
Who wouldn’t be furious, who wouldn’t be cynical, who wouldn’t lock up his heart against being hurt again, and slam out of that room?!

Poor Thomas.
For the past three years he’s been faithful, even when he couldn’t understand what Jesus was talking about, because something in him had so longed for what Jesus gave him. Food for his spirit. A sense of wonder at God’s love active, here and now. Hope.
Jesus’ presence and teaching have answered his longings for meaning in his life. Given him a purpose beyond himself. Swept him up in the pure joy of seeing people healed. For the time he walked with Jesus, he felt himself to be a true child of God, a coworker with Jesus to bring in the kingdom of God on earth.
As he walks the streets on Jerusalem he laments in his heart, What now? What now?

Reluctantly he goes back to the room to be greeted by his friends—“We have seen the Lord!” He explodes, “No! I’ll NEVER let myself believe again. Unless I see the marks 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.” NO more second hand reports for me, thanks. No more gullible Thomas.
A week later (he’s not making it easy) Jesus comes back. He graciously offers to Thomas just what he has demanded.
Does Thomas actually touch the wounds? The Gospel doesn’t say. But whether he physically touches them or not, in that moment of encounter Thomas experiences the risen Christ, and all the bonds of fear and anger and cynicism and doubt break loose and he utters a cry of faith so powerful it could shatter the windows: “My Lord and my God!”

The extraordinary thing about this moment is that it is Thomas, the doubter, who blurts out this exclamation of faith, recognizes Jesus as God.
Could it be that it was just because he was honest with his doubt that Thomas saw the risen Christ so clearly?
This story assures us that we don’t need to feel guilty about our moments (or more than moments) of doubt. This story assures us that we can still approach the risen Christ, following confidently in the footsteps of our patron saint Thomas.
This story assures us that we can approach Christ as ourselves in all our wondering, doubting, and questioning.. We don’t have to leave our doubts outside the door when we come into this place.
Thomas didn’t pretend to believe when he couldn’t. He cried out “what is the point of believing?” in a crazy, violent world.
Christ came and met him precisely in that emotional woundedness. Christ reached out his wounded hands and raised him up.

Thomas’ story then is a story of hope for most of us. It promises that, doubters though we be, Christ will encounter us where we are.
Where do those encounters occur? Here, perhaps, I hope, in church during common worship. And certainly beyond the walls of the church, in love, friendship, acts of justice and love, and all the unnamable, unpredictable graces of daily living.
Thomas’ story promises that even if we are weak, if we doubt, if we grieve, Resurrection love, ultimately stronger than death, will go on and on and on.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!