The Second Sunday of Easter - John 20:19-31 - The Rev. Lauren Byrd

 

Blessed Thomas

Blessed are those who believe and have not seen. (John 20:29)

Happy Easter!

[And] how wonderful it is to meet up with all of you on a day when your patron saint, shows up in the gospel reading. On the Second Sunday of Easter, he’s always right there to meet us in the Gospel according to John. I confess, though, as the day approaches, I always start thinking about wet paint, and how I ought not to touch it.

And from there I start remembering an old story a friend told me: about how she was at the Louvre Museum and was standing before a beautiful painting.  She loved the painting so much, she couldn’t help but reach out and touch it, whereupon a guard showed up at her side to give a blistering lecture in French about not touching the paintings. When he walked away, she was so flustered, she reached in her purse for a cigarette and lit up in the Louvre.

And naturally, this landed her outside the museum.

We are evidence-hungry creatures, always a threat to want to leave our mark on things. And here, St. Thomas has something to teach us this morning.

You see, he’s missed out on what all the other disciples experienced: how Jesus appeared to them in the flesh, his wounds still marking his body. And in the hope of going them one better, Thomas cries, "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."

He is not to be persuaded with anything less than that.

Thomas wants to see the Risen Lord Jesus face-to-face and to come so close to him, he can touch his wounded body with his own two hands. I’m guessing, in this moment he feels left out or forgotten and not sure he really matters all that much. But I’m also guessing, underneath all that anxiety, oh how he longs to matter to Jesus.

Fortunately, eight days later Jesus shows up among them all, and says, “Peace be with you.” And then, turning to Thomas, he says, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

And immediately, Thomas answers him, “My Lord and my God.” 

I hear confession in his answer, the deeply personal confession of one man before God. And this marks an abiding grace in this story. It marks that Jesus shows up not only in our communal lives (as he did when he visited the disciples), but also in our personal lives (as he does when he returns to visit Thomas). And this is a saving awareness for us because lately we seem to pay more attention to our communal identities and neglect our own interiority: our own personal longings.

This moment occurs in the midst of community and yet it credits what’s going on in the life of the life of one man. To my mind, when Thomas cried, “My Lord and my God,” he is making both an audible and outward confession of who Jesus and an inward confession of humbling and helpless adoration, acknowledging how small he is in the scheme of things and yet how dear Jesus is to him personally.

And Jesus? Jesus goes out of his way to meet Thomas right where he is.

I hear grief becoming joy, and joy becoming belief. It’s how Christian Conversion often begins, in tears and wonder, moving us from resistance to surrender, a personal surrender to God that lands us home at last in the fellowship of his body.

What’s easy to miss in this story is this: Thomas never once put his finger to the marks of the nails nor his hands in the side of his Lord. We are free to imagine he did, but never once does the Gospel name that he did.

Though we often say “seeing is believing,” I don’t think the mere sight of the Risen Lord is the only thing that persuades Thomas to confess Jesus as his Lord and his God. I think it’s something deeper, something full of truth and love.

You see, I think Thomas is persuaded to that confession because, again, Jesus meets Thomas right where he is and invites him to receive his broken body with his own two hands.

I think Thomas is persuaded to believe because he recognizes his Lord when Jesus offers his wounded body as evidence of his love, as evidence that Thomas and all the others matter to him. And what Jesus reveals in that moment is the truth of his life and body: the Gospel of Christ Crufied, Died, and Risen.

In this story, belief is not made of proof, nor dependent on seeing Jesus face to face. In this story, belief is made of Jesus holding his life open to us and meeting us in our own temptations and limitations.

The gospel of our Lord’s sacrificial love is what we have and what we need. So, when we hear the Risen Lord say to the disciples face to face, “blessed are those who believe and have not seen,” we’re to know, all these thousands of years later, we are those who believe and have not seen, and also to know we are the blessed, who in the fulness of time will come to see him face to face; and in the meantime, will open our hands to receive the broken Body of Christ this day. Not because we’re on the right side of everything or the right side of anything, but merely because we need him and long for him, like Thomas did, and Jesus will meet us where we are and as we are.

Jesus is the fullest glimpse we have of God’s glory, and through him, we are not given an ultimate guide as to who is good and who is bad or who is found and who is lost. No, the gifts we are given in Christ are these:

1.    We are given the love of Jesus, meeting us right where we are and as we are.

2.    We are given the sweeping commandment to love others as Jesus loved us and gave himself for us on the Cross.

3.    And in all of that, we are reminded that the fullness of God will always surpass our understanding here and now. Or as another apostle put it, “For now I see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Rev. Lauren Flowers Byrd