What a great day we had on Easter Sunday. Lots of people, wonderful singing, kids running inside and out - it seemed as though the excitement would go on and on. It was Easter after all, a day of resurrection and of hope. All the doubts faded, all the questions seemed unimportant, the future seemed so bright ... Didn’t it? It was Easter, for heaven’s sake!
Then why did I spend so much time in the hospital this week? Aren’t we living in the after Easter glow? Why were there still diagnoses that sound so threatening? Why were there still tornadoes ripping through neighborhoods? Why don’t we have stacks of chairs waiting in the hallways to accommodate all the people on this Sunday?
Was it all just a dream? Did the light of Easter fade away with the coming of the clouds of uncertainty? Or were we just fooling ourselves for a little while one morning? Whistling in the dark, pretending to enjoy a confidence and hope that we never really felt, never really held?
All of a sudden, I am glad it is Youth Sunday this week at Aldersgate. I means I don’t have to try to deal with all this post-Easter let down. They get to. Lucky them. The confirmation class, which is bringing the message this week, selected a few verses from the 20th Chapter of John as the text for this Sunday. I decided to expand it a little bit here, just to get the flavor of this familiar story. It follows John’s wonderful depiction of the Easter morning announcement. So, the evening referred to here is Sunday night. The beginning of the let down. Or is it? Take a look:
John 20:19-29 When 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 Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." 24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin1 ), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So 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." 26 A week later his 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." 27 Then 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." 28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
Good old Thomas. We’re sure glad he is there. Saves us having to ask these uncomfortable questions. We don’t have to carry the weight of our doubts all alone. He paved the way for us. He stood there in front of the remaining disciples, who were still glowing from their encounter with the Risen Jesus, and says “No.” He says, “I’m not buying it. I don’t get it. I can’t see what you see.” And in so doing he legitimizes all those questions that race through our own minds from time to time.
I was about to graduate from high school - many years ago - and managed to get put in a leadership position in our church youth group. And one Sunday night after playing some games we were sitting in a dark corner of that old church just talking. And one of the younger ones managed to say something like “I’m not even sure there is a God, you know?” “Yeah,” another piped up, “it is kinda out there.” And before you know it, there was general consensus that this God thing was pretty incredible, and not all that necessary for a good life, as far as they could see anyway.
Needless to say, I was stunned. Remember I was just a kid myself. What are you in high school - 6 or 7, that’s what it felt like, feels like now when I look back on it anyway. I was shaking, not sure how to deal with that, startled by that lack of certainty, lack of belief. I pretty much ran away from the moment.
Remember I was young, and somewhat sheltered from the world. I hadn’t yet had my heart broken so completely that I wondered where God was. I hadn’t stood by helplessly while someone I loved suffered through the end of their life. I hadn’t even paid enough attention to the world around me to see cruelty and inhumanity on a world-wide scale, death and devastation, suffering and isolation.
I hadn’t yet realized that Thomas’ position was the more sensible one. It is the world’s question. Unless I see, unless I touch, I won’t believe. Doesn’t that make so much more sense? Isn’t that what were are taught in our academic endeavors, verify? Aren’t we asked to substantiate our beliefs? Why do we give Thomas such a hard time, when he is the one who makes the most sense, seems the most like us?
Did you notice Thomas’ name in the bible stories? We call him “Doubting Thomas.” But that title never appears in the text anywhere. In the bible he is called Thomas the Twin. Isn’t that interesting? And we know nothing at all about his twin. Such a major character and we know nothing about this twin. It could be anybody. It could even be you.
Or me. We stand with Thomas more often than we would like to admit. We are his twin in our needing of confirmation, of something to touch and something to hold on to. A connection to what it is we believe. That’s what we need and what we want, even when we can’t articulate it. The real tragedy in this story is in verse 24: “Thomas, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.” He was unconnected, he was cast adrift on a sea of doubt and worry and uncertainty.
Maybe that is what Jesus was referring to with those words about seeing and believing. Maybe it isn’t simply about recognizing what we won’t have. As much as we might want to, we won’t get to sit at Jesus’ feet and hear his teaching and see his miracles like the first ones did. And some read those final verses as Jesus saying “it’s OK, never mind, just enjoy what you get.”
But maybe there is more to it than that. Maybe Jesus is helping us realize that seeing isn’t really believing after all. Maybe what he is hinting at is that being is believing. Maybe we come closer to believing when we being acting like Christ, when it is our wounds that we show to the world, when it is our hope that leads the way then it leads us to belief, deeper belief in the one we call Christ.
The glory and celebration of Easter is wonderful, and necessary to our lives of faith. But we can’t put all our eggs in that Easter basket. The world goes on, we’ve slept since then and our perennial question arises: now what?
Then why did I spend so much time in the hospital this week? Aren’t we living in the after Easter glow? Why were there still diagnoses that sound so threatening? Why were there still tornadoes ripping through neighborhoods? Why don’t we have stacks of chairs waiting in the hallways to accommodate all the people on this Sunday?
Was it all just a dream? Did the light of Easter fade away with the coming of the clouds of uncertainty? Or were we just fooling ourselves for a little while one morning? Whistling in the dark, pretending to enjoy a confidence and hope that we never really felt, never really held?
All of a sudden, I am glad it is Youth Sunday this week at Aldersgate. I means I don’t have to try to deal with all this post-Easter let down. They get to. Lucky them. The confirmation class, which is bringing the message this week, selected a few verses from the 20th Chapter of John as the text for this Sunday. I decided to expand it a little bit here, just to get the flavor of this familiar story. It follows John’s wonderful depiction of the Easter morning announcement. So, the evening referred to here is Sunday night. The beginning of the let down. Or is it? Take a look:
John 20:19-29 When 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 Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." 24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin1 ), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So 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." 26 A week later his 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." 27 Then 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." 28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
Good old Thomas. We’re sure glad he is there. Saves us having to ask these uncomfortable questions. We don’t have to carry the weight of our doubts all alone. He paved the way for us. He stood there in front of the remaining disciples, who were still glowing from their encounter with the Risen Jesus, and says “No.” He says, “I’m not buying it. I don’t get it. I can’t see what you see.” And in so doing he legitimizes all those questions that race through our own minds from time to time.
I was about to graduate from high school - many years ago - and managed to get put in a leadership position in our church youth group. And one Sunday night after playing some games we were sitting in a dark corner of that old church just talking. And one of the younger ones managed to say something like “I’m not even sure there is a God, you know?” “Yeah,” another piped up, “it is kinda out there.” And before you know it, there was general consensus that this God thing was pretty incredible, and not all that necessary for a good life, as far as they could see anyway.
Needless to say, I was stunned. Remember I was just a kid myself. What are you in high school - 6 or 7, that’s what it felt like, feels like now when I look back on it anyway. I was shaking, not sure how to deal with that, startled by that lack of certainty, lack of belief. I pretty much ran away from the moment.
Remember I was young, and somewhat sheltered from the world. I hadn’t yet had my heart broken so completely that I wondered where God was. I hadn’t stood by helplessly while someone I loved suffered through the end of their life. I hadn’t even paid enough attention to the world around me to see cruelty and inhumanity on a world-wide scale, death and devastation, suffering and isolation.
I hadn’t yet realized that Thomas’ position was the more sensible one. It is the world’s question. Unless I see, unless I touch, I won’t believe. Doesn’t that make so much more sense? Isn’t that what were are taught in our academic endeavors, verify? Aren’t we asked to substantiate our beliefs? Why do we give Thomas such a hard time, when he is the one who makes the most sense, seems the most like us?
Did you notice Thomas’ name in the bible stories? We call him “Doubting Thomas.” But that title never appears in the text anywhere. In the bible he is called Thomas the Twin. Isn’t that interesting? And we know nothing at all about his twin. Such a major character and we know nothing about this twin. It could be anybody. It could even be you.
Or me. We stand with Thomas more often than we would like to admit. We are his twin in our needing of confirmation, of something to touch and something to hold on to. A connection to what it is we believe. That’s what we need and what we want, even when we can’t articulate it. The real tragedy in this story is in verse 24: “Thomas, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.” He was unconnected, he was cast adrift on a sea of doubt and worry and uncertainty.
Maybe that is what Jesus was referring to with those words about seeing and believing. Maybe it isn’t simply about recognizing what we won’t have. As much as we might want to, we won’t get to sit at Jesus’ feet and hear his teaching and see his miracles like the first ones did. And some read those final verses as Jesus saying “it’s OK, never mind, just enjoy what you get.”
But maybe there is more to it than that. Maybe Jesus is helping us realize that seeing isn’t really believing after all. Maybe what he is hinting at is that being is believing. Maybe we come closer to believing when we being acting like Christ, when it is our wounds that we show to the world, when it is our hope that leads the way then it leads us to belief, deeper belief in the one we call Christ.
The glory and celebration of Easter is wonderful, and necessary to our lives of faith. But we can’t put all our eggs in that Easter basket. The world goes on, we’ve slept since then and our perennial question arises: now what?
Well, now there’s blessing. Blessing in being.
Shalom,
Derek
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