The Second Sunday of Easter

Preached by Dean Robert Neske at Saint Mark’s Pro-Cathedral, Hastings, March 30, 2008

One of the better preachers in the Episcopal Church today is the Reverend Fleming Rutledge of New York. In her book of sermons entitled: Help My Unbelief, she notes: “it is really hard in the mainline churches nowadays to find robust belief in the resurrection.” She goes on to say: “I keep a file of newspaper clippings about Easter preaching…and I am about to give my Easter file a new name: “One Hundred ways to Avoid Saying that Jesus Christ is Risen from the Dead.” But as we learned in this morning Gospel hesitancy on this subject has long been a problem within the Church.

Our Gospel is a continuation of the events of Easter morning. John makes an emphatic reference to the time of day tying the events of the morning to the evening. For example, he notes the details; the doors were closed and locked for fear, making the point that the Jesus has the ability to overcome such things as closed doors and fear, and a sealed tomb. In the same way, the showing of the wounds serve to both identify and verify that this is the Lord, allowing the disciples and the early Church to recognize the “deeply significant fact that the same Jesus who encounters the disciples in the upper room is the one with whom they lived before the passion, thus establishing the reality of Jesus’ resurrection.

Jesus gives them his peace, which is more than a greeting it is something of the Spirit; it is an inner gift which will manifest itself outward as the disciples share in the reality of his resurrection. The peace the risen Lord brings to the disciples from God is meant to go with them as they are sent out to share with the world the good news of his having been raised from death. Which they do, beginning with Thomas when they say to him: “We have seen the Lord” (which is actually a shorthand used by John so as not to have to repeat everything for the reader, since we have already heard the message).

On the actual day of Jesus’ resurrection, in his appearances before Mary, the other, and before the apostles in the upper room were of decisive importance, but from this point on it is the testimony of the witnesses that is to point the way for the faith of later believers. Thomas, quite understandably wants the same experience as the others, he too wants to “see and believe.” Why not? What is so wrong with that;, John the beloved disciple ‘saw and believed’ and this is treated as a virtue; why is it so wrong for Thomas to demand the same experience?

Why indeed? For consider what the others were asking Thomas to accept on faith; they were asking him to accept the idea that someone who has died, and not just died, but had been scourged, crucified, and pierced with a spear, is now alive. Thomas response is all about the cross: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my fingers in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ And there is the problem; Thomas couldn’t get past the reality of the cross of Jesus; nor his own failure of having fled into the night to avoid dying with his Lord, the very thing he said he was willing to do. He was stuck at the cross. However, Jesus had overcome the cross; as he had overcome death, and the grave and so must Thomas if he is to be of service to God.

This is why it was so wrong for Thomas to demand the same experience as John; the difference is context: John saw and believed without having knowledge of the Scripture; it was a spontaneous reception of the truth; while Thomas is receiving witnessed testimony which should be enough; the point being that ‘faith which maintains itself by outward sight remains inadequate…while faith in Jesus word alone is superior.

Whether Thomas realized it or not, the witness of the other disciples was a form of invitation, a way for Thomas to return, to find his way back, though it was, in that moment, beyond the man’s ability to comprehend. For even if it were true, how could he face Jesus, having failed him so badly; how could he face Jesus having run away, how could he face Jesus even if the testimony of the disciples were true?

A question we might well ask ourselves. Those who smugly criticize Thomas, as preachers have for centuries, for failing to accept the reality of the resurrection always fail to se beyond the stubborn defiance to the failure; something we should all know very well. For which of us has not failed to go with Jesus to the cross, has not run from the hard choices, and would be willing to face Jesus with our failure? As it happened Thomas didn’t have to, Jesus came to him.

“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." 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."

Do you see what he had done? John the Evangelist has taken the story of Thomas and made it a parable for all who would follow Christ, about all who because of the difficulties, the trauma, the pain of life and the loss we experience, find it hard to believe or have their faith challenged or perhaps even lost. God would not have it be so, which is why Jesus comes to us again and again through the love, compassion and shared faith of others.

The issue is not that Thomas doubted or was stuck at the cross; the issue is that Jesus would not allow him to remain in a state of faithlessness and unbelief. ‘Do not doubt but believe.’ This is our Lord’s desire for us that we believe, that we have faith, that we put our whole trust in his grace and love for us. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."  The point of the story of Thomas is that as followers of Christ we are to have a ‘robust belief in the resurrection’ and that we are to practice and share this belief as well.

John makes no bones about the purpose of his Gospel: “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

“Life in his name” is life in Christ Jesus; a life given to God for the service of God and the good of one another, a life set free to love and serve in Jesus name in and through the power of the resurrection.