The Church of the Ascension
Easter Two:  April 15, 2007
John 20:19-31

In the name of the Risen Lord: AMEN.

Yesterday morning just before seven o’clock as I was boarding the plane in Jackson to come home after a wonderful visit with my grandchildren and their parents, I wondered how I was going to be able to write my sermon on what I expected to be a pretty rough flight given the stormy weather.  Both the bouncing about and the accompanying anxiety were potentially hazardous to any real creativity.

I didn’t need to worry though.  As I stood on line, a former parishioner came running up to the boarding area.  She gave me a big hug and began to fill me in on the life of her family, husband, children, etc.  Before I could say, “well, bless your heart,” she had changed her seat so that we could sit together.  Though pleased, of course, on one level, on another I thought, “Oh, mercy…how I am I going to be able to get my work done now?”

But as we rocked along toward Atlanta, (living in the south means that you always connect through Atlanta – period; on the way to heaven, you stop in Atlanta), she told me the most remarkable story of how her mother, who died just about a month ago, had lived with her the last 19 months of her life during which she suffered from end stage Alzheimer’s Disease.  With no smug self-satisfaction, bitterness, or any sense of judgment about how others should handle their version of this situation, she told of the absolute joy and privilege it had been for her to have her mother there – even though it was also the hardest thing she had ever done.  She shared several stories, but one particularly stood out for me.  She said that every morning she would place a mirror in front of her mother as she combed her hair.  As her condition worsened, her mother began to develop a relationship with the image she saw in the mirror – the image of course of herself.  At first, Linda would tell her that she was just seeing her reflection, but her mother would have nothing of it and continued to talk to and about this friend whom she saw only in the mirror.  On some days, her “conversation” with the reflection was the only conversation she engaged for the entire twenty-four hours.    

Finally, one day – a day of grace she now regards it – Linda said she stopped trying to introduce her version of reality and simply began to believe in what her mother was seeing.  What was not literally real was extremely real for her mother, and no other “seeing” was required.

Seeing and believing are the context for today’s gospel lesson.  Thomas was having difficult squaring the reality of life as he had known it with the hope of his faith.  He wanted desperately to “see” – to see the wounds in Jesus’ hands and feet, to see so that his belief could change his life.  Thomas saw the reflection of Jesus in the life of his friends, but he wanted to see for himself.  That desire resonates with me.

We know so little about Thomas.  Of the canonical gospels, only John does more than list him as one of the twelve.  In addition to the story today, there are two others about Thomas, both of which bear being recalled because each in its own way is about seeing and believing.

In one story, we read of Thomas’ objection when Jesus decided to revisit Bethany so that he could see his old friend Lazarus.  Thomas counseled that Bethany was too close to Jerusalem and that to go there was unnecessarily provocative to those who sought to do harm to Jesus.  In another story, Jesus made the extraordinary claim to his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them and that they were not to let their hearts be troubled for they knew where he was going.  My guess it that a number of them – like 12 of them probably – were wondering what in the world Jesus was talking about, but only Thomas said, “Excuse me, Jesus, I don’t have a clue where you are going.”  Both of these snapshots of his life reflect a man, who had trouble accepting what he could not “see.”

And finally we meet Thomas in the story for today.  On the first day of Easter for some reason he was away from the group – probably off in a twit about something.  Upon his return, he was told with breathless wonder “we have seen the Lord.”  But he said to them with great sorrow, I suspect, a sorrow known to all us doubters, “Sorry, friends, but unless I too can experience him, putting my fingers in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I cannot believe.” 

The story goes that a whole week went by before Thomas would have this opportunity.  Have you ever wondered what that week was like for him?  I have.  In some ways that period of time is the most apt metaphor we have in scripture for what life is like in the post-Ascension world, the world in which we no longer physically see Jesus.  I can almost imagine the intense efforts Thomas made to believe as the others did, of how desperately he must have yearned for the assurance afford by their first hand experience.

His story, of course, ends with a dramatic reversal and proclamation of faith.  Thomas is given the gift of another encounter with the risen Jesus, whose wounds he could touch.  This time like my friend Linda he was able to “see” finally in a way that brought grace and resolution to his life.  “My Lord and my God” rang from his lips with clarion precision and utter conviction.  We never hear from him again.

Our story though cannot end there.  In some ways it simply begins there.  Apparently, we must seek to be among those of whom Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  We cannot touch the nail marks in Jesus’ hands, we cannot run our fingers along the wound of his side, we cannot feel where the crown of thorns sat on his head.

Or can we? Of course, Jesus as an incarnated human being is no longer within our physical grasp.  But what of our touching one another?  Every time we share a broken heart or comfort a weary spirit, every time we wipe a furrowed and anxious brow, every time we rub a tired back, every time we feed a hungry mouth or clothe a naked body, perhaps even when we accept a reflection in a mirror that challenges our view of reality, we experience the presence of Christ in a way that is as a real as touch.

It occurs to me that Thomas’ life is an invitation for us to shift from a faith of our head to one of our heart.  A god that is completely other, a God that is utterly transcendent eludes me, leaving me with a belief system, a faith position, perhaps an opinion – but not much more.

But a God among us and within us, discernible in twisted mirrors and broken bodies, is a God brought close and real, a God not the result of our own intellectual construction but a God bred in our bones.