Sermon Second Sunday of Easter

Text John 20:19-31

I read a true story this week. It involved a six-year-old Scottish girl named Lulu. She wrote a letter to God: “To God, How did you get invented?” Lulu's father sent her letter to various church leaders: the Scottish Episcopal Church (no reply), the Presbyterians (no reply), and the Scottish Catholics (who sent a theologically complex reply). He also sent it to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent the following letter in reply:

Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected. Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like. But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off. I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love from me too.

+Archbishop Rowan

This little girl asks a question, one many people ask, but often gets labeled then as doubting. This week we read of doubting Thomas. It is a cruel thing that has happened to Thomas, whom the bible calls the Twin, yet we call doubting. We have labeled Thomas in this way, in some peoples minds vilifying him. I think it's wrong to think that. For one thing, the word we have as doubt works better as “be unbelieving.” Not unbelieving in Jesus as Messiah, but unbelieving about what the other disciples are telling him, that they have seen the Lord. This label is contrary to what we know of Thomas. In John's Gospel besides Peter and Judas, Thomas gets the most coverage. So who is Thomas?

Thomas is a realist. He saw Jesus heal the sick, forgive the sins of the guilty, eat with those of questionable reputation. He knew him well and he knew his teachings. Yet, he also wonders what the resurrection means.

Thomas was the one with the courage to tell the truth when Jesus wanted to go back to an area where people had threatened to stone him so that he could visit his friend Lazarus’s tomb. Thomas said, “Well, let’s go and die with him.”

And at the last supper, as Jesus told his closest friends not to be afraid because they knew the way to where he was going, Thomas said, “Actually Jesus, we don’t. How can we know the way to where you are going?”

Thomas seems to be the one who understands the best, and asks the questions that need to be asked. You don't see Jesus telling Thomas to get behind me Satan like we do with Peter, but it is Thomas that is Doubting Thomas, not Peter who is bad-idea Peter, or denying Peter.

Thomas' not truly believing what the disciples are saying is not really that out of the ordinary. In fact it is essentially the same thing that all the disciples have already asked. Our lesson from last week ended with Mary Magdalene running to the disciples after Jesus appeared to her in the Garden. She meets them and says what they later say to Thomas, “I have seen the Lord!” In our text, what is their response to this? They hide away. Jesus then appears to them, even though the doors were locked. He shows them his hands and his side, just as he shows Thomas later. “John 20:20 Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”

Thomas is not asking for anything unusual, but for the same thing that the other disciples saw. But, Jesus gives even more, he has Thomas touch his wounds, those of his hands, and the one in his side. “John 20:27 "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not [be unbelieving] but believe.” Thomas answers, My Lord and my God! Jesus responds “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” But, our text does not end there, with what seems to be a slight of Thomas, but it continues. “John 20:30-31 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But 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.”

So we see this text is not about Thomas. It is written for the readers of John's community, and for us who followed. For we cannot see directly the risen Lord, we cannot touch his wounds, his hands, his side. Yet, we are blessed, because we believe. Because we have been given this book, through it we see and touch our living Lord, and our living God. Thomas here is not berated, but blessed because he was able to see and touch Jesus, and we are blessed because we have heard these stories, and through them the Spirit has given us belief, and given us life.

Ok. We have talked about Thomas, the disciples, and ourselves. What say we talk about Jesus. I think that's the worst thing about the doubting Thomas moniker, it directs us towards Thomas, not Jesus.

Jesus has Thomas touches his wounds. That's amazing. It wraps the incarnation (Christmas), the crucifixion (Good Friday) and the resurrection (Easter) all into one. Jesus is still human, he is the fully God, fully Human who came to us at Christmas, and he is still the crucified one, he still has the wounds he received on the Cross, that was not negated, but overcome, and through those two things we know he is risen completely. In one move Jesus has declared to us all we need to know. He has taken the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection and wrapped them in, with and around each other. For their importance is always interlocked and intertwined.

This text shows us Christ's physical body. A physical body we are part of as the Body of Christ. We are ourselves interlocked and intertwined with one another. We are in, with, and around each other. We cannot be without Christ, and we cannot be without each other. For all we are, individual and together, is rooted in Jesus, our Lord and our God, Christ the crucified and risen one.

And that is what pushes us. In Christ's life he reached out and touched our wounds, healing and giving peace to the whole world. We are sent out seeing the wounds of this world, the places where Jesus touched, and the places where he calls us to touch. It sends us to the places where people have doubt, not to condemn them, but to work with them to answer our own questions. Lulu, the little girl who asks her question to God, through her questioning seeks an answer, we all seek for answers. I don't think that doubt is bad, I think doubt leads to questions, and that leads to growth. Just like Lulu we have awkward questions that should not be put aside, but asked in faithfulness to the God who loves us, came to us, died for us, and was resurrected for us. For through our seeking, through our questioning, we continue to grow, continue to experience the resurrected Jesus. Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Let us go forth sharing the story so that all others in this world who, like us, have not seen, may hear of the God of Beauty which surrounds them, that they may have life through Jesus' name. That they may have their questions answered. That they may experience the God that sends them lots of love.

Amen.