by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe
Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.
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." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 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."
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." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" 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."
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
—John 20:19-31 (NRSV)
We are one week after Easter Sunday or Resurrection Sunday. The day we celebrate God’s gift to us of eternal life through the resurrection of God’s son Jesus Christ. It’s the ultimate good news of the gospel. And what do we have today? We have another story of witness to the resurrection. It’s quieter and intimate but startling and it is relate-able. We get to hear the story of Thomas, someone who puts some significant parameters around his acceptance of the resurrection.
This is where our own experience might overlap with Thomas and what makes him so relate-able. As much as we have celebrated the resurrection, we want to accept fully, we want to believe with every bit of our heart and mind, it’s so overwhelming that we too can fall into a place of having doubts. This too is good news. The freedom to doubt and wrestle with ideas about God and our relationship with God are important to our own formation just like it was for Thomas.
We are creatures who crave certainty. We search for order to make sense of things, to understand the world, to organize all the data that comes to our awareness. We want a logical explanation to solve the problems that we encounter.
Faith defies that process. Faith is a mystery of the heart that the mind wants to solve. Still, we want faith to be shored up by certain evidences so that the leap of faith is a manageable one.
In Easter season we celebrate the biggest mystery of faith: that Jesus died for the sins of the world and that he rose from the grave. This last fact is the hardest one for us to grasp even compared with all the other stories we know about Jesus healing miracles, walking on water, evading danger from those out to trap him – the resurrection is the hardest thing for our minds to take in. Nothing in life is more certain than death. Or more permanent. For Jesus to be raised from the dead bogles the mind. It just can’t happen. This is where Thomas is coming from.
History has not treated this disciple kindly. Thomas is routinely thought of as a spiritual ne’er do well because he placed conditions around belief. But that’s not giving him a serious look.
Earlier in the gospel of John, we read of Thomas at his best. In John Chapter 11, Jesus’ desire was to return to Judea to raise Lazarus from the dead. But the apostles were afraid for Him to go back, because that would likely mean His death — and their death. However, it’s not Peter, James or John who rallies the troops. It’s Thomas: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Loyal and courageous Thomas would rather risk death with his Teacher than live without him.
And Thomas is the one we most often hear from in our burial liturgies. When Jesus tells the disciples on their last evening together that he is going to prepare a place for them he says “you know where I am going and you know the way.” How many of us have heard those words and thought “what does he mean? What way?” I wonder if the other disciples that night sat by quietly and wondered the same thing. Thomas had the courage to speak up and say “what do you mean? We don’t know the way.” Jesus answers him. I am the way, Jesus says, and the truth and the life. To know me is to know God.
What we see in Thomas are acts of sacrifice and commitment. Is this is the same Thomas we’ve come to know as “doubting Thomas”? It is. He didn’t always have the answers. He wasn’t afraid to voice his doubt. But Thomas was a great servant. A better moniker for him might be Demanding Thomas, Defiant Thomas or Spiritually Ambitious Thomas. What he wants here is a first-hand experience of Jesus’ presence and he describes that experience as both visual and tactile.
If we think of Thomas as a model for a certain way of believing then he is a follower who craves intimacy with Jesus.
And how did Jesus respond? Jesus’ invitation was to touch, not just look and certainly not to belittle Thomas or deny him that intimacy that Thomas craved. Jesus sets for the disciples and for us the example of generosity by his offer of touch. And Jesus’ offer to come and touch made real for Thomas the resurrection of Jesus and the reality of eternal life. This is the resurrection story that we hear today.
Physical touch is often taken for granted, but scientists are finding it plays a vital role in healing. For some, physical touch is a welcomed gift. Hugs are a great way of offering hope and reassurance. It's a way of connecting without saying a word. Physical touch can communicate, "I feel your pain. I see you. I understand what you're going through."
I love Frederick Beuchner’s description of touch: “I hear your words. I see your face. I smell the rain in your hair, the coffee on your breath. I experience you within myself just as you within yourself experience me. But we don’t entirely meet until something else happens. We shake hands perhaps. We pat each other on the back. At parting or greeting, we may even go so far as to give each other a hug. And now it has happened. We discover each other to be flesh and bone, 3-dimensional, solid creatures of reality. Through simply touching, more directly than in any other way, we can transmit to each other something of the power of the life we have inside us. It is no wonder that just the touch of another human being at a dark time can be enough to save the day.”
There have been many studies performed on the healing power of touch. Doctors have found, through laboratory tests such as MRIs, that there are evident changes in the patterns of brain activity during touch. Certain types of endorphins are released resulting in a sense of relaxation and peace.
It occurs to me as I was reading this in this time when we are together electronically that we are in a position of imagining touch and connection and connectivity with one another in a new way. And that many of us are grieving that lack of ability to physically touch. There’s no doubt that God made some of us huggers and the huggers are especially grieving right now.
Part of grieving is the process of finding a new normal. Those of you who have been through loss understand this. It’s finding what in you is essential and feeding and supporting that essential part of you.
Bishop Jake Owensby had some interesting thoughts on this. He pointed out that each individual life consists of habits. Habits of thinking, feeling, and acting. It’s our normal. And some of that normal—even good and beloved parts of it—must be left behind to allow something more to emerge. An old self must die so that a truer, more loving self can emerge.
Followers of Jesus are resurrection people. We’ve staked our lives on the promise that, as Paul puts it, those who are in Christ are a New Creation. And to be a new creation means that we not only accept but look for a new normal.
The Apostle Thomas understood that Jesus was talking about a new normal. Thomas saw that the new normal meant that he would have to let go of the comforts of the old normal. Thomas, it seems, wanted reassurance from Jesus himself before he let go of the old normal. Reassurance that letting go is the way to the new normal.
I’ve spent some time the last few weeks talking to people at St. Matthias. And almost everyone is staying in contact with at least one or two others. People are attending worship, Bible study, just simply calling their friends who they miss seeing and talking to. Checking to see if they need anything. You’re doing amazing ministry with each other. You are finding a new normal – new ways to touch one another. You are making resurrection. Resurrection is a daily celebration over fear; our most powerful enemy. Fear of tomorrow, fear of what shall become of us in these unprecedented crazy times. Resurrection replaces fear with touching in new ways of love.
This story is a great witness to us and for us. We couldn’t be there in the room when the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples. But someone much like us was. Thomas with all his questions and conditions and needs to touch found resurrection that he could hold onto. My Lord and My God. May fearless, joyous resurrection today be every bit as real and compelling for each of you. Amen.