John 20:19-27 Acts 5:27-32
Our
story begins, today, with the much maligned Thomas. Thomas the doubter … Thomas the disciple who
refused to believe in the resurrection without proof … Thomas the man who had
the gall to actually stick his fingers in the wounds on Jesus’ hands… Thomas.
Some
of us (raise hand) have spent a
significant amount of time and energy over the years defending Thomas. Most of us grant him a measure of grace and
understanding just as Jesus did. But, I
think that we also hold him in contempt just a little bit … or at least we pity
him. We are the ones who are blessed to believe without seeing after all. We are the ones who have faith without
needing proof.
And
yet, we are a people of the scientific approach on the whole. We explore the world around us through our
senses, and we demand proof whenever we are faced with something new or
different, especially when it’s something that doesn’t seem to fit with what we
are familiar with. I would even hazard a
guess that faith is the probably the only thing that we take … on faith. Maybe one of a few things, but all the rest
of what we “know” comes to us from our experience or the experience of others
who, we trust, have done the necessary and proper work to prove that it is
true.
That’s
not so different from the way Thomas seems to have seen the world … at least
from the little that we know. He was a
reasonable man … something of a skeptic perhaps, but reasonable … a pragmatist. He believed in the miracles that Jesus had
performed, and he accepted Jesus’ authority … trusted his words. But this was different … something new and
difficult to believe. Sure others had
been raised from the dead (some even in his presence), but if the words of the
disciples were to be believed, Jesus had escaped the tomb by himself – no voice
to call him back, no one to breathe life back into him, no hands to unwind his
shroud or lift to his feet, no crowd of people to roll away the door. He did it all by himself. This was unprecedented, impossible, and
Thomas just wanted something … some proof before he would believe … believe and
hope and risk the agony and despair of being wrong.
But,
while that attitude was a tiny little stumbling block to his experience of the
resurrection and the joy and freedom that it brought to other disciples, it was
also the thing that let him continue to function during those three days that
Jesus was in the tomb.
The
others were afraid. They were devastated
at the loss of their friend – the man who had taught and amazed and inspired
and led them for the past three years.
He was gone, and all the signs pointed toward the authorities coming
after them too. They would be better off
if they finished cleaning up this mess after all. Even if those threats hadn’t been so very
real, they would still have had to face the jeers and judgment of the crowds
who had so recently cheered Jesus. So,
they cowered together behind a locked door and prayed that no soldiers would
show up and take them to face the “justice” that awaited them. What else could they do? Without proof, none of them believed they had
any hope let alone good news to share. Ironically,
locking themselves away did the authorities job just as well as they could have
… at least for awhile.
Only
reasonable, pragmatic, “Doubting Thomas” had the courage to be out and
about. As he put it in the monologue, “It
was good while it lasted, but I knew I had to face facts:” Jesus was gone, the
glory days were over, and the authorities might be after them, but they still
had to eat and they needed to know the lay of the land if they were ever going
to leave that room. And that way of
thinking freed Thomas to go and do what needed to be done despite the danger.
The
other time I was “escorted” to the police station and fingerprinted as a
suspect in the theft of my aunt’s car which had disappeared the night before
when a couple of my friends and I had spent the night. They me go after I agreed to return for a
lie-detector test if they felt the need.
The car was discovered three days later on a side road two miles away
much the worse for the wear.
Both
of those experiences are still so clear in my memory despite the 15 years of a
very full life that have passed since then.
They are still vivid because I was so afraid of what would happen. Afraid and trapped at the questionable mercy
of the authorities who, in the one case, never took their hands off their guns
and, in the other, had me sitting in cell with the door locked.
Even
though I was not really under the threat of death, I can appreciate what drove
the disciples into that room, and I think I have an inkling of the courage it
took for Thomas to leave.
So
what happened to those sad, terrified men?
Something brought about a pretty big change. On the one hand we have a handful of people
cowering in a room with the door locked.
On the other hand we have disciples sharing their message just a few
days later… and not just sharing. They were
speaking boldly, passionately, and with authority without regard for the power
or the penalties the high priests’ court threatened.
Standing
in front of the same people who executed the teacher they now call Lord, they didn’t
offer a defense or an excuse. Instead,
they simply explained about their vibrant and living relationship with God who
they knew with an intimacy and certainty that trumped all other claims to
obedience. In the face of anger and the
threat of violence, they responded as that relationship demanded: by simply proclaiming the irrepressible love
they had come to know so fully in their experience of Christ. In short, they did what needed to be done.
Speaking
of the profound transformation wrought in these men by the blessing of the
risen Christ, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre says:
I am struck not just by their courage in speaking truth to
power but by the simplicity and clarity of their response to accusation. With
such clarity there is little need for defiance. Their point is not to argue in
their own defense but to bear witness to the one they must obey. Must is
a key word: what compels them can’t be argued away because it is not matter for
argument. Bearing witness is not the same as making a case.
I am even more struck by the disciples’ freedom. The high
priests don’t have power over them; the disciples live outside their
jurisdiction: as they are no longer under the law, the agents of the law cannot
bind them. No longer afraid of death, they are free indeed. In a few bold
sentences they tell a story that is more invitation than defense, offering
great good news to the very people who killed their Beloved.[1]
Our
“high priests” are not so deadly. Even
our police, guns and all, are mostly just intimidating. But the opinion and judgment of the society
that surrounds us inspires their own particular brand of fear. None of us want to face embarrassment or
humiliation at the hands of friends and neighbors. None of us want to see people laughing at us
or to find ourselves dismissed – ignored because we are too weird or seem to be
fanatics. And we certainly don’t want to
find ourselves isolated and alone having scared off our friends and perhaps
even our families. (That’s the worst
one.)
And
yet … we are not alone in that room. God
is there with us. The Spirit of Christ
sits there with us offering the same grace and benediction that Christ shared
with the disciples: “Peace be with
you.” Do not be afraid. I am with you always. Comfort … comfort … and then a challenge: Let
my light shine in you. Go. Leave this locked room and share the joy that
lives at the heart of your faith. Share
it so that you can live and be free.
Share it so that others might live and be free.
[1]
McEntyre, Marilyn Chandler. “Living by
the Word,” The Christian Century: Thinking Critically, Living Faithfully,
April 3, 2013. 20.
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