Easter 2 Text: John 20: 19-29
We’re given this picture of Jesus’ disciples in a room. The doors are locked for fear-- fear of what’s next, what’s going to happen to them. As fear can do, it has made their world very small - reduced it to one room -- tomb-like, in a sense.
It is then, in that place, the story goes, that Jesus came and stood among them. That was the beginning … that was how it all began -- again. To begin is surely it’s own wonder. But to begin again after the worst has happened, is maybe even more miraculous yet.
Do you know that experience of beginning again? … when life has closed in, shut down through fear or failure, grief or illness, or what have you … and to your utter surprise, there arrives peace, maybe a word, a presence, strength, life … not of your own doing, but unmistakably for you, right where you are in your tight little world. And along with it, the impetus to take the next step, to step out, to go beyond where you’ve been.
Do you know that experience of “breakthrough” … of being somehow visited … that if you were pressed to account for it, you find yourself kind of stammering maybe, and depending on who you’re talking to, you might even name it as one of those “God moments,” a God-send, divine intervention.
One of the gifts of the great story we belong to is they way it offers us insight and perspective and language to be able to speak of some of the mystery of our lives.
This story from John’s Gospel goes on to bring us alongside Thomas … Thomas who wasn’t there, Thomas who missed out. Bless Thomas … bless the writer of John’s Gospel for including this story, for this too can be such a part of our experience -- the missing out -- finding ourselves in a roomful of people who’ve been visited in some way, experienced some sense of divine encounter that’s undeniably real …but we missed it …it didn’t happen to us. And all we have to go on is someone else’s word. But why them and not me? Thomas wants his own experience. Don’t we all want our own experience?
Funny how sometimes, in our longing for our own experience, what we really have in mind is someone else’s-- what they described to us. How else can we imagine the possibilities except by what we hear from others? I wonder if that’s what’s going on for Thomas … how would he even imagine the risen Christ would show up with wounds if they hadn’t told him what they saw?
It’s odd, when you think about it … that it’s his insistence on an experience of Jesus that gains Thomas the reputation of Doubter … that he wanted more, more than their words …wanted a living experience, wanting to know for himself … even though to know would turn his life inside out. Yet surely the life of faith is nurtured by encounter, by finding ourselves called in some way, or met, delivered or blessed, accompanied, healed, turned around. Surely the life of faith consists in more than affirming or assenting to someone else’s words ... or even our own words that have grown stale or static. Far from indicating some deficiency, it seems to me the desire of Thomas’ heart reveals that he’s onto something true about the life of faith.
The next we hear, it’s a week later. “Jesus’ disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them,” we’re told. A week later, Thomas was with them. There he is, still hanging in with them -- sticking around, waiting. I wonder how long that week was for him, not knowing if anything would ever happen, waiting in the darkness of his own yearning, questioning, dis-belief. Maybe that’s the very definition of faithfulness: to have the patience and the courage to wait --even in a roomful of believers-- when that’s not where you’re at.
Some people wait years … and some wait all their lives. That’s the thing about faith … we can’t control or contrive it. It happens to us! It’s a gift … and all we can do is be open to it and receive … and let it come in its own God-given way.
What if we dropped the categories of belief and doubt that carry such power to separate us or define us in ways that mislead. What if instead we adopted words like “the surprisingly visited” and “the still bravely waiting.” Imagine that on our sign outside in an attempt to describe ourselves … a community of the astonished and the still bravely waiting!
You may recall after Mother Theresa died, portions of her journal were made public, even though it was her wish they be destroyed … perhaps for fear she would be called a fraud. Maybe she imagined a truly faithful life wouldn’t bear the marks of the struggle with which she struggled. Here she was, in the eyes of the world, this woman of God. Meanwhile her sense of God’s presence had completely eluded her. Her writings reveal her torment in the face of the Great Silence. Who of us would have known, the way she poured out her life right to the end.
Maybe that’s the very definition of faithfulness … to have the patience and courage wait, to hang in in the face of missing out … while giving your life to the way of love even when there’s no telling if Love will ever come around again … maybe that’s the very definition of faithfulness.
Thomas stuck around. I wonder what made him stay?
What makes you stay?
I wonder if he stuck around because of what he sensed among the others.
Was he picking up on something that happened to them when Jesus breathed peace on them?
I wonder if he stuck around because their stories held him … held out hope for him.
I suppose that’s the other thing about faith -- we can see it in another, we can sense it. It’s not something that can be handed over, but maybe it’s something that is kindled between us.
I know there are stories right here in this room …stories of being met, found, of Love coming back around for us. Stories of how we have come to trust -- maybe even by way of grave misgiving -- stories of how we have come to trust that we are so not alone, but upheld, attended, empowered by a Love that will not let us go.
This Easter season, I’m picturing a time for us to hear some of these stories. Dear knows where that will lead, what it will set off among us for the witness of our life is a very powerful thing … perhaps the most powerful thing we have. It’s something that no one can take from us … and there’s no telling what hope it might engender, what trust and what risk it might make possible … all for the sake of life! Our own, our neighbour’s, the world’s.
May we know the unimagined blessings of the Spirit these weeks.
