“Believing Without Seeing”
Please pray with me…..
This is the second Sunday IN Easter as we say….not the 2nd Sunday AFTER Easter…These Sundays are all connected to Pentecost as we will see.
The gospel of John as we heard this morning describes the risen Jesus in the midst of the disciples. But John, unlike the other Easter gospels immediately brings the risen Jesus together with the blessing of the Holy Spirit. Here John brings Easter and Pentecost together, earlier than the other gospel writers.. John makes it clear that there is a deep connection between the Resurrection and the gift of Holy Spirit. In fact, John intends to teach that the Gift and empowerment of the Holy Spirit and the articulation of the community’s mission are intimately and inseparably tied to the resurrection and ultimate ascension of Jesus. When we celebrate Easter, we also celebrate the beginning of our call to be the body of Christ…to fulfill the mission of Jesus. For John, the churches ongoing life as a community of faith, as the people who continue Jesus’ work in the world….all comes from Jesus’ Easter promises and gifts.
A famous and beloved theologian and preacher Fredrick Buechner said that “one can’t really hear the stories of the Bible well, unless we hear them and see them as stories about ourselves.” We have to use our personal imagination to get into them. So right now…what story in the bible are you seeing yourself in…The prodigal son or daughter…timidly returning to home, fearful…stunned as the father or mother rush to you to embrace you, breathless in their loving welcome home. Or maybe your experience was different.. Fear on the lake in a storm. Would you ever have believed the miracle of the loaves and fishes? Might you have spotted Jesus on the road to Emmaus? There are so many.
This story in John’s gospel is one of those you can see yourself in…let’s give it a try. This is a perfect story for us to do our sight-seeing journey. Here we are NOW, trying to believe in Jesus in a world that is full of shadows and confusion, and longings and doubts. And…There is also some glimmer of holiness in our world, just as in the room where the story takes place…and maybe that’s what’s inside us, a glimmer of hope…even after the trumpets of the Easter celebration are silent.
Ok, close your eyes and see yourself in the story….here we go…
It is the evening after the resurrection…all the disciples are in the room. Hiding is a better description of their position. The door is bolted…they are afraid of the powers that killed Jesus. The silence brings out every sound…dog barking, wind on the house, floors creaking. Then you hear footsteps on the stairs. Dead silence… the room is hot and smelly…its fear that reeks. Mary Magdalene told them she saw Jesus. But they needed to see him for themselves, they still couldn’t believe. Would Jesus protect them from the powers that crucified Him? John says “he came and stood among them…..shalom…peace be with you. Then to be sure,,,..Jesus showed them his hands and feet. He said “as the father has sent me, so I send you. And then he breathed on them.”
Ok right here, can you imagine yourself…can you see yourself here? Jesus breathed His very life into theirs…and ours. We are often closer to this experience than we might imagine…or see, if you will. Jesus lives in all of us…believers and u-believers. And again and again, whether we realize it or not….he brings us healing and hope. I believe there have been times when the hand we reached out to another’s need was not our hand, but Jesus hand. I feel certain that the tears we shed in times of joy and sadness are not simply the emptying of human mechanics of our eyes, but the tears of Jesus. When Jesus says…receive the Holy Spirit…he is breathing on us in the shadows of our despair and doubt. We receive more of the Spirit of Christ than we can ever imagine.
And then, of course we see Thomas in the room and the story. Might we see ourselves more as Thomas than as the women who were frightened and amazed? We all know Thomas’s lines…unless I see Him for myself…his hands and the mark of the nails in his hands and feet…the hole in His side…I will not believe. Buechner reminds us that Thomas is called the twin…but we never learn who the other twin is. Buechner says we are the twin to Thomas. Can you see yourself in that role?
What do we have to see to believe?
How can we believe in the risen Jesus if we haven’t seen him with our own sparkling eyes? We believe the sun rose this morning right…we can see it in the sky. We believe we are alive because we can see each other. But, when it comes to the most central proclamation, the holiest mystery of our Christian faith….that after his death, Jesus returned to life and is alive to this day…how can we believe that?
`We can believe that no one else we have ever known or heard about more embodied the love of God so completely and endlessly as Jesus. So even when Thomas says he must see the risen Christ to believe in His new life…we can see where Thomas is in the scripture…can’t we? Thomas and the others barely knew Jesus…but their hearts knew Him.
We have to remember that our eyes are not the only way for us to see. Maybe they are not the best tool we have to see anyway. Our eyes see material green grass and massive mountains, but our eyes cannot discern all truth. It is not with the eyes of the head that we see, but with the eyes of our hearts.
Recently I sat with a member of our church family who is 102 years old. We shared Communion as well. I told Vera Dewar I was going to put her in the sermon. Completely blind, Vera has remarkable vision. I asked her how she had such a wonderful presence while her physical body had begun to fail her. Vera said simply…oh I have faith John….I don’t see any reason to make everyone around me miserable. She trusts God, she said. She asked me where she was headed next…..I sat with Vera and she couldn’t see the tears in my eyes, fortunately. She has an image of heaven, God and how she will be with her beloved husband. Don’t you get the sense that Vera, unlike Thomas…or some of us….doesn’t need to see Jesus first, to believe in Him. Soon enough Vera will see the face of God for herself…her lovely, yet failed human eyes will not be her proof of the truth.…she already knows the truth. There is a wonderfully worded gospel song about what Heaven will be like…it goes..”The lame will dance, the hungry will feast at the table,” and finally, what I think describes Vera and many others anticipation of Heaven…”the blind will see…frozen by colors in their view.”
Thomas responded to Jesus, saying “My Lord and My God.” Like Vera, Thomas sees God with the eyes of his heart. Now, can you imagine yourself in this part of the story? Have you ever come this close to seeing the truth of Jesus the way Thomas did then….or maybe the way Vera does now?
Remember, Jesus says in the scripture, “As the father has sent me…so I send you.” What does that mean for you and me? I believe that many of us come to church, to worship each Sunday, because we have glimpses of Jesus and the Presence of God in each other, in Habitat Builds and Social Concerns nights of hospitality. I know that our Caring Visitors and others who reach beyond themselves, moving past our uncomfortable feelings, see the face of Jesus in others. And yes, they may see Jesus in OUR simple smiles and hands of support. When we do these things, the pages of the bible stories come alive, and we are right in the middle of them. Jesus empowered us with the presence of the Holy Spirit. Yes, God is still speaking to us and with us, just as Jesus spoke with the disciples. This is our call to be the body of Christ on earth.
I am certain you feel the energy, the wind of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus’ presence in the ministry of song and music we offer each day we worship together. I also like the idea that Jesus is present in our communion service particularly when we look one another in the eye and say…as Jesus said “This is my body broken for you, the cup of my Blessing poured out for you.” When our kids are here in worship, for any period of time, they are seeing love and kindness in folk’s faces, and they respond with the love of Jesus in their tiny hearts…not their intellect or defined sense of reasoning.
So Thomas saw Jesus more with his heart than with his eyes. With his eyes he saw a man, with his heart he knew that this was the son of God, who Thomas would love with all his heart. Wherever Thomas went he would search for Jesus and find Jesus in his heart. We are called to see Jesus in our hearts, in the presence of others, as Jesus is no longer physically present for us to visually confirm.
What we know from our lives is that from time to time, through sheer Grace we have seen Jesus with our hearts in different ways. May we be comforted by the hope that we have seen him in our endless longing for Him even when we don’t know who it is we are longing for? All we have to do is keep our hearts open to His Presence.
Think back to the scripture for a moment. Neither Thomas nor the disciples are unusual for being fearful. The Easter gospel, the Resurrection of Jesus, really turns the world upside-down. We, for the most part, live in a right-side up world. This Easter story of the disciples does very little to honor their merits as Jesus’ followers and disciples. They live in fear, even in the face of the Resurrection of Jesus. In spite of their actions or inactions….Jesus comes to them anyway, and comes repeatedly. The gospel of John names the disciples fears, and in the face of those fears, Jesus’ Grace increases. We are encouraged to allow these stories to speak for themselves…the disciples do not need to become object lessons, because Jesus did not make them into object lessons. There does not appear to be any evidence that Jesus lectured the disciples for hiding in fear behind closed doors, even after the gift of the Holy Spirit. This Easter story is a story of Grace, without the need for perfection. Jesus welcomes us as His disciples on both sides of the door. As we have determined, It will be easier to do God’s work out there, in the world.
Jesus last words in this scripture are; “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” I think it is safe to believe that Jesus meant, and still means, you and me.
AMEN
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, we would not be here, as this church, as your disciples, if you had not come here, among us, with us, calling us and lived among us. Though we deserve little credit for having sought and found you, in so many ways you sought and found us. Your resurrected Presence, present to us, enables us to choose to be present for you. Sometimes Lord, we fell we can touch you, just like Thomas needed to do.
We gather today in the light of your resurrection, joyful in the reality of your continued, never-failing presence in our lives.
Amen
