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“Do you
believe in life after death?” a boss asked one of his employees. “Yes, I
do,” the man replied. “Well then you won’t be surprised to learn that just
after you left early yesterday to go to your grandmother’s funeral, she
stopped in to see if you wanted to go out for lunch!”
If you will forgive the illusion, reading the gospel accounts of the
post–resurrection appearances of Jesus often reminds me of watching the old
movies of the Keystone Cops. People are running and rushing
and jumping and
jiving all over the place! The chronology is muddled, the reactions of
various individuals and groups vary greatly as they encounter Jesus. When
Jesus is absent from them, the disciples are highly emotional, anxious,
worried, moving between despair and elation.
They are involved in their own
stuff, their own needs, their own mindless, frenetic activity.
In
comparison, Jesus has a deep and abiding serenity, and brings order out of
chaos.
The resurrection narratives make up a relatively small percentage of the
material in the gospels. But, this small amount of material provides us with a
large amount of truth. The risen Christ appeared to a small group of
fearful, discouraged disciples.
Jesus appeared on the shore of a lake in which some of his followers were
fishing.
Jesus appeared to a man who questioned everything, who doubted reports of
the resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus joins two travelers reeling from shattered dreams to walk and talk
with them, to encourage them, and then to break bread with them.
Jesus appeared to individuals who knew him well enough to avoid the use of
titles and call him by name, “Jesus.”
And Jesus also showed up among people who had never enjoyed a one-to-one
conversation with him.
Jesus appeared among people who spoke boldly of their faith. Jesus also
appeared among individuals struggling with the possibility of faith.
There is
great Good news here.
With Jesus no one was, and no one is, left
out! The risen Christ comes to all people: the confident, the disturbed,
the discouraged, the self-assured, the doubting, the grieving, the
rejoicing, the fearful, the hopeful. The Risen Jesus seeks to encounter the
watching and the wavering, Sleepy, Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, Dopey, Doc and
even Bashful. There is no time, no place, no location, physically or
spiritually, outside the reach of the risen Christ. We can experience the
divine presence when worshiping, working, playing, or struggling, whether we
are in a sanctuary or an office, whether it is a festival day or a miserable
day or midnight. The risen Christ comes to us, and stays with us.
Although it may be hard for us to believe and understand, when we talk about
or write about our personal encounters with Christ, the resurrection story
grows and continues. Each small installment, our connection to the Risen
Jesus is peculiar and particular in the same way as all those we read in the
gospels. Still today our varied encounters with Jesus happen in many and
diverse ways. This diversity also reaches a focus in unity when, using
different voices and different words, we speak of the rock-bottom reality:
Christ comes to us, to me!
That fateful evening, Mary Magdalene had told the disciples that she had
seen Jesus. She didn't say that she had thought about Jesus or recalled
Jesus. She had seen him. Maybe Thomas wasn't there in the room because he
was out looking for Mary Magdalene to find out just what she had seen.
Thomas was a visual, concrete sort of person; Thomas was from Missouri, he
was a show-me kinda guy! "Unless I see the mark of the nails in fact, until
I touch those marks and put my hand in the wound in his side, I'm not going
to believe."
We say Thomas desires proof. Well, yes... and no.
What Thomas really needs is
in fact what all the disciples needed and what we need:
Thomas wants Jesus.
Thankfully, when Jesus appears a second time to his disciples, Thomas is
there. Please, please notice that Jesus doesn't rebuke Thomas for his desire
for visible, tangible, concrete verification. Instead, Jesus lovingly tells
him to, "Put your fingers in my hands, touch my side." Jesus offers Thomas a
personal encounter, a face-to-face, and this is what enables Thomas to be a
believer.
"My Lord and My God!"
We usually grant Thomas the moniker of Doubting Thomas.
But, did you hear
what he said: "My Lord and My God!" There is nobody else, in all of John's
Gospel, who says so much, so clearly, so enthusiastically, and so openly
about Jesus. In this heartfelt declaration, Thomas evidences
more faith than
all the rest of the disciples!
Thomas comes to believe in Jesus in his way, the way of encounter, and
sight, and touch. This way of encountering, meeting and being met by Jesus
is not be condemned. Certainly Jesus did not condemn Thomas nor his
approach. Some of us come to believe through hearing, some through seeing.
Most all of us have, in a sense, come to Jesus through hearing rather than
through seeing. All of us believe on the basis of the reports of the
apostles in writings like the Gospel of John. And yet, all of us have had our
faith restored or renewed or deepened on the basis of encounter, sight, and
touch; with Jesus and with the body of Jesus, the Church, the people around
us who have forgiven us, loved us, prayed for us and helped us.
All of this behavior of Thomas is very consistent with what we know about
him. Back in John 14, we were given a heads up over Thomas’ no-nonsense,
show me, kind of faith. He insists that all the disciples go with Jesus when
he goes to Bethany, a place where he was almost assassinated. Then, in the
middle of Jesus' long farewell speech, Thomas breaks in amidst Jesus'
strange, poetic talk to say in a plain no-nonsense way, "Lord, we do not
know where you are going. How can we know the way?" That's Thomas. He wanted
and needed his faith. He needed his Jesus to be straightforward, concrete,
and specific and he wasn't afraid to ask. The story of Thomas is a hopeful
one. It reveals that are no “stupid” questions, no questions that will ever
be ruled out of bounds by Jesus.
How it is we come to faith is not the issue today. We can come to faith by
hearing, and by seeing. We can come to faith in one blinding moment of
discovering God and discovering ourselves. We can come to faith gradually as
we see and hear and are taught and question, as we exist in relationship to
the Christian community, as we pray, as we are prayed for, as we are served,
as we serve others. You see, the risen Christ has compassion upon all of us;
His believing/disbelieving disciples.
It is our aim as a church to identify and provide ways for all kinds of
people to come close to Jesus Christ; in company with other people and ask
our questions, affirm our faith, share our lack of faith and be open to a
new encounter with the Risen Lord. We aim to do this in our current worship
theme, in our adult Sunday School program, in seeking to encourage small
groups. We are a church that is ready to meet people, all kinds of people,
where they are and to partner with them so together we can discover how we
can assist one another in our journey of faith.
I want to offer and encourage all of you to accept the invitation today to
come close to Jesus and find help in developing your faith. If you have
faith, come close and let that faith flourish and grow. If you wonder if you
have faith, come close and discover that it will spread and grow. If you
have bad experiences of church, let Jesus give you the next chance! If there
are words, ideas, concepts that you can’t get your mind round, come close,
join the club, and let us figure out how we can assist one another in
thinking these things through! If you lack a sense of connection with Jesus,
come close to those who have some and let them push you to the front of the
line!
Helen Keller was the blind and deaf woman who became famous when she learned
to overcome her disabilities. Once she was asked if there was anything worse
than being blind. She replied, “Oh, yes! There is something worse than being
blind. It is being able to see and not having any vision.”
My friends, there is a comfort and a challenge in our vision of Jesus
crucified and Risen from the dead.
This Jesus invites all of us to come close, so
that we can be shown and helped and offered a personal encounter which can
become the vision which will shape our lives. Still Jesus says to us "Put
your fingers in my hands, touch my side." Still Jesus trusts that we will
come to echo the affirmation of Thomas:
"My
Lord and My God!" Amen. |
