Ah, Thomas, the one who has gotten the bad rap all these
years. What if we understood Thomas as a believer, rather than a doubter? What
if we regard Thomas as one who must have his own experience of the risen Jesus?
Thomas, who says he must touch the wounds of Jesus, he must see all the gory
details resulting from Jesus’ death, and in the end, he doesn’t, in the end,
Thomas hears Jesus’ voice and proclaims, “My Lord and my God.” Thomas is for
all of us, who will not see Jesus but are invited to believe or encouraged to
continue to believe. Thomas must have his own experience of the risen Jesus; Thomas
must encounter Jesus on his own terms, so that we, who will not see Jesus, may
encounter Jesus ourselves, and believe.
This story that we read today, about Thomas and other
followers of Jesus, is the third in a series of encounters with Jesus. The
first we read on Easter morning, when Mary came to the tomb and saw that the
stone had been rolled away. Mary saw what is reported as angels, she explained
to them her distress, heard her name, and proclaimed, “I have seen the Lord”.
The second and third are these stories today, Jesus appears to his followers
and says, “Peace be with you.” Thomas misses all this excitement, so Jesus
shows up the next time with the same words, “Peace be with you.” Three
encounters with Jesus, three proclamations of belief, all so that we may
believe as well.
You see, that’s what the gospel writer wants for us. John
tells these stories so that we may hear Jesus call us, encounter Jesus, and
believe and follow.
Mary hears Jesus call her name, Jesus calls to Thomas.
Earlier in John’s story Jesus calls to the blind man and to Lazarus. Jesus even
calls all the sheep by name. I know something about what that’s like. On hot
summer nights, when every kid in the entire neighborhood was out playing kick
the can, my mom would yell out the back door, Kathy! and I’d come running. I
heard my mother’s voice, and recognized that I wanted to come running into her
wide and wonderful and protective embrace. Jesus is like that in this passage
we have from John. Jesus calls our names, and we come a runnin.
Hear what John is saying to us? Throughout the fourth gospel
we hear Jesus call our name, we hear Jesus call to the blind man, we hear Jesus
call Lazarus out of the tomb, we hear Jesus call the sheep, we hear Jesus call
Mary, and Thomas, and you, and me. We hear Jesus call us into this amazing and
abundant love. We hear Jesus call us into an encounter that changes our lives.
My mom held the door open wide for me to come running in. Jesus
is not just holding the door open
for us, but Jesus is the door through which we find love and life. Listen to
these words, “the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked,
Jesus came and stood among them. Jesus don’t need no door, Jesus is the door,
Jesus is the gate through which the sheep move, Jesus wants to have this
relationship, wants us to walk through this door, so that we may believe and
follow.
Because that’s it, right? This whole experience we have just
had, this Holy Week, this suffering and death and resurrection, is all about
this relationship, this encounter with Jesus, so that we may believe and follow.
So that we may believe, not in some sort of magic, or some sort of rules and
regulations, but so that we may believe in the love that wins, the love that
knows no bounds, the love that gives itself for us, the love that makes us
whole.
And this relationship stirs in us the response of following.
We are followers of Jesus, we are part of the Jesus movement. This is what the
gospel writer John wants for us, to encounter Jesus, to hear Jesus call our
names, and to be in relationship with Jesus. And then, follow. In doing so we
help to change the world from our nightmare to God’s dream.
In these stories the disciples are beginning to comprehend
the Incarnation, God who walks this way with us, and they are ready to change
the world, even though they don’t know it yet. The energy of God, the Holy
Spirit, has been breathed into them.
How do you hear Jesus call your name? How does Jesus open
the door of your heart and heal it? Because that’s what this is about. It’s not
about being a perfect disciple. None of Jesus followers were perfect disciples.
Peter, the one who denied Jesus, Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, Thomas, the
one who wants to feel and touch Jesus, Mary, the one who anoints Jesus with the
very costly perfume. All of the people who populate these stories are people
just like us, people who have at times turned our backs on those who love us,
people who at times have succumbed to our addictions and the things that
control us. We are people who have been broken by the world’s will and ways. We
are the people who are not perfect, and who are loved perfectly by the one who
is the door to wholeness and healing.
We hear Jesus call our name when we remember who we are. We
hear Jesus call our name in the voice of one who says, I know who you are, I
know you have been pulled apart, and I love you anyway. We hear the breath of
God blow into our hearts and souls, Peace be with you.
It is in being put back together again that belief grows.
Not in perfection, or having it all together, or even in having it all. Jesus
takes on our imperfection, the fragments of our lives, and puts us back together
again, rearranges our dust so that we may be whole and healed. And it is
possible for us to love again. It is possible for us to love our neighbor.
And, like the followers in our story today, the followers
who were afraid, confused, disoriented, and sad at loosing their friend, we
followers gather together in the confidence that the breath of God inspires us,
that in the prayers, and the song, in the bread and the wine, Jesus is in our
midst. And like those first followers, we too have to leave that room, we must
leave this room, and help change the world from this nightmare to God’s dream.
Love God, love one another, show it! Amen.
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