John 20.19-31
“We are Easter people and Alleluia is our song.” That quote describing Christian life is so old that no one quite knows the source. “We are Easter people and Alleluia is our song.” That phrase sums up Christian identity and calling. Christians are people of forgiveness, courage, and hope—people of life sent by the Risen Christ into a world that so desperately needs forgiveness, courage, and hope. We see that in today’s gospel. Into fear, Jesus brings peace; into sin, forgiveness; into death, life. And to make that life come alive in all of Jesus’ followers, us included, he gives the Holy Spirit. The same breath that God breathed into Adam at the beginning of creation now gives life to us, empowers us to carry out Jesus’ work in the world. “’As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When Jesus had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” We are Easter people and Alleluia is our song.
Yet Easter is a difficult season to keep alive. It is officially fifty days long, ten days longer than Lent. Mostly it seems like it’s over in a day. We will do our best to keep this 50 Day season in worship. The refrain “Alleluia, Christ is Risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia” will be repeated into June. June! If it feels odd to wish someone “Merry Christmas,” on January 1 (still within the 12 Days of Christmas, so perfectly appropriate), imagine the looks you will get when you wish someone “Happy Easter” on Memorial Day. The bigger challenge, however, goes beyond the season of Easter to live each day as the Easter people we are.
Today’s gospel shows how the challenge to believe and trust the news of Jesus’ resurrection and to live as Easter people is built into the gospel story itself. Thomas isn’t alone. Now he is, as far as I can tell, the only biblical character with an adjective attached to his name: Doubting Thomas. No one else, Genesis to Revelation, earns that distinction. We never talk about Murdering Cain or Womanizing David in the Old Testament or Betraying Judas and Denying Peter in the New, accurate as each of those titles would be. Yet an adjective seems to be the defining word in Thomas’s life. And that strikes me as unfair. After all, skepticism and doubt are written into all the resurrection stories: Mark tells of women at the tomb so paralyzed by fear they said nothing to anyone; Luke says when the disciples first heard the news of Jesus’ resurrection they thought it was utter nonsense; Matthew tells of the disciples face-to-face with the Risen Christ, yet even then, he says, some doubted—not just one—some doubted, not only Thomas.
Today’s gospel comes in two scenes. The first, the night of Jesus’ resurrection, our Lord appears to most of the disciples, but without Thomas. He’s off somewhere; no explanation given. Jesus shows those disciples his hands and side. Later, they tell Thomas. And that’s when he voices his doubt. In many ways, he sounds contemporary. You could paraphrase what he says, ‘I’m not naïve; I’m not gullible. I’m not going to believe something because you said it. I’ve had enough Fake News. If this is Good News, I need to see evidence for myself.’ Thomas isn’t asking for anything the other disciples haven’t received. In this first scene, they see Jesus’ hands and side. I don’t believe, then, that means that the purpose of today’s gospel is for us look down on Thomas, his doubts, or his request. Jesus doesn’t. And he doesn’t refuse Thomas’ request. Questions that probe the truth, and the evidence of the senses are wonderful things. That’s what Thomas wants.
Then a week later, in the second scene, the disciples are back in the same place. Thomas is with them. Jesus comes to them again. And when he does, he shows Thomas his hands and side. That’s when Thomas’ doubt gives way to the fullest declaration of faith anywhere in the gospels. “My Lord and my God.” If Thomas earns any adjective with his name, maybe it should be Bold Thomas or Believing Thomas.
Take note, though, of Thomas’ request and where the turn from questioning to trusting happens, where he encounters Jesus’ resurrection and finds life in it. Thomas doesn’t ask Jesus to repeat a favorite miracle: no water into wine, no healing of a man born blind, no ‘aha moment’ parable retold—anything that could be captioned, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ Instead, Thomas asks for, and Jesus reveals himself in, what strikes me as a most unusual place: evidence where sin and evil did their worst, Jesus’ wounded hands and side, the marks of our Lord’s passion. How could wounds possibly reveal Jesus as Lord and God?
You may know that late-night TV talk show host Stephen Colbert is a person of deep Christian faith, a Sunday School teacher in his Catholic parish, and often ready to talk about what faith means to him—including the link between love and sacrifice and how, in Jesus, death is not defeat and that no matter what happens, you are never defeated. Now this faith hasn’t come easily for him. He lost his father and two brothers in a plane crash when he was ten. With those deaths, he said he fell off a cliff emotionally, psychically, and spiritually. “It is a gift to exist,” he said in one interview, “and with existence comes suffering.” Yet in another interview, speaking of Christian faith and his own faith, he said, “In my tradition, that’s the great gift of the sacrifice of Christ—that God [suffers] too. You’re really not alone. God does it too.”
In pain, doubt, and suffering, all the places where it seems like God is most absent, Jesus comes to us with his wounds to be with us, to meet you there and give you his life. The great gift of the sacrifice of Christ is that the Son of God has been to the depths for the life of the world. In the mark of the nails in Jesus’ hands and side, Thomas sees Jesus’ sacrificial love. Thomas’ seeking gives way to the fullest declaration of faith anywhere in the gospels. Jesus is both Lord and God.
St Gregory the Great said, “The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of any of the other disciple combined. For when Thomas touched the wounds in the flesh of his master, Jesus healed in us the wounds of our unbelief.” Gregory echoes what St John says today about the purpose of his entire gospel. “All these things are written that you may believe and have life in his name.”
So many stories from the Gospel of John are about seekers and skeptics coming to faith: Nicodemus questioning what it means to be born again; the woman at the well puzzling over the meaning of living water; crowds doubting that Jesus can give himself to us as bread (as he does again today). In each case, and more, Jesus meets his questioners where they are, as they are, and reveals the truth of his life for their life. This is what happens with Thomas, too. And that makes today’s gospel an invitation for you to bring your questions about God, about the life and meaning of Jesus to this church, to this altar. The Risen Christ will not refuse you but comes with the truth of his life for you.
Today in two scenes, and in a quick series of events, the Risen Jesus gives his disciples his presence, his peace, his body in evidence, then the task carrying his life into the world with the gift of the Holy Spirit to accomplish it. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you…Receive the Holy Spirit.” Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on disciples—disciples then and now—to give the energy needed to be in small measure who and what Jesus has been in the world and for the world: peace beyond understanding in places of violence, hope in the face of fear, assurance in doubt, forgiveness in places of bitterness and revenge, life in places of death. The Spirit breathed out by the Risen Christ empowers people in Spirit’s way of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness.
This is our life as Easter people—to carry within us the life of Jesus who was sent to save the world and give deep, abiding life. We practice this life intentionally in Easter’s 50 Days so that it becomes the habit of our life in all our days. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you…Receive the Holy Spirit.” We are Easter people and Alleluia is our song.
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