Whose Resurrection?

2 Easter A
John 20:19-31
Back of the Bulletin

It is not just Jesus who gets his life back on Easter.

On Easter evening, the frightened, grief-stricken, locked away disciples get Jesus back, and through his presence and his words to them, they get their own lives back as well. "Peace be with you," he says.

Thomas misses all this. The others say to him, "We have seen the Lord." Yet Thomas can only visualize something else: all those puncture wounds.

The horrible has a way of pushing everything else out of our consciousness. When we are going through something dreadful, it is nearly always the only thing we can think about. It is all we can picture.

Thomas knows what happened to Jesus on Good Friday. It is easy to imagine that when Thomas closes his eyes, he sees Jesus as he last saw him. Thomas sees the cross, the nails, the body writhing there for hours and then horribly still. Thomas sees this, knows it, believes it in his bones. Whether he wants to believe something else is beside the point. He knows what he saw.

Yet, in spite of what Thomas has seen and regardless of what Thomas believes, Jesus is alive. He is alive, which means he is able to get to Thomas—and to us—no matter what horrors of the past rise up behind our eyelids. Just as Jesus found a way through those locked doors on Easter evening, so one week later, he finds a way to pry open the grip that Good Friday has on his friend, Thomas.

What's more, when Jesus says, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe," he is promising that Thomas is not the last to get his life back as a result of Jesus' resurrection. Jesus is still alive, and still finding ways to welcome his own into a future that our past had given us no reason to expect.

Comments

[Michael Stadtmueller (Luther 2000)]

Interesting your last statement read "a future that our past had given us no reason to expect." Those are close to the same words one could use for the Prodigal Son text. I'd never put those two stories together until now, but it works. "Come home Thomas!"

As a young pastor I have of course preached on this text 5 times already. (associates always get the week after easter, and also internship, and one at my contextual ed site.) This year I want to focus more on the question of "the church" in the text, and less on the individuals in this text. Why doesn't Thomas feel welcome to be with the group in his current thoughts? Were the other disciples upset that Thomas wasn't with them?

In our church are the skeptics welcome? What of those who have a different perspective on the life of Christ? Is the church more about having a unified view of Christ, or a place to come together and seek to understand?

[ariel]

looks great!!! i'm in mr.stadtmueller's 6 grade class!!! your brother!!!!!!