The Gospel for every Second Sunday of Easter is John's Gospel story of Jesus appearing first to the remaining disciples and subsequently to Thomas, who wasn't in the upper room at that particular appearance.
The scripture describes when Thomas eventually did experience his presence as follows, "Then he (Jesus) 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.'” And 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.”
So, after each Holy Week and Easter, comes this same question, "What are we to make of these words of Jesus?" Is the story of Thomas' doubt a gift to our Christian community about how to acquire faith or do Jesus' words acknowledge and direct attention to some active spiritual resistance to faith that needs to be overcome? In our lifetimes personal beliefs may wax and wane regarding what was truly "seen" and recorded in the Bible, particularly with the supernatural aspects present in many scriptural stories.
Personally I have written in previous blogs about how this Thomas story haunted me in my church life. As a teen I felt both singled out and excluded from the rest of my confirmation class when my pastor responded to a question I posed to him about the importance of Jesus' empty tomb by answering, "Of course the resurrection can only be about the physical body of Jesus. You can't believe or think anything else and be Lutheran". He added, "And the church certainly doesn't need another Doubting Thomas."
The question probably took him off guard. I know he did not mean to but his response broke my heart and, perhaps because he was my pastor, I felt at that time I endured a private and informal kind of excommunication from church that could and would eventually be made more public than it already was.
When I think of this passage now the lyrics from Godspell's Day By Day come to mind as I keep pondering this story's impact:
Oh Dear Lord
Three things I pray
To see thee more clearly
Love thee more dearly
Follow thee more nearly
Day by day
And how can we see the Lord more clearly, love the Lord more dearly and follow the Lord more nearly? After Holy Week this is certainly has become an annual check that I use to mark what changes have happened each year as the years pass.
Sunday Worship Service Setting - African American Liturgy
All that was written to this point was written anticipating today's worship. I must say that what Pastor Emillie preached in her sermon healed an old wound this story opened up for me. Her words acted like a powerfully blessed balm. What a different feeling to what I suffered as I took in what my pastor taught so many years ago.
She highlighted that the label "Doubting Thomas" is not in the Bible. Instead Jesus gives Thomas what he described and needed for faith at that point. Pastor Emillie preached frankly about her own doubts when God was not responding to her prayers by acting to make Emillie's mother well when she was ill. She also observed Thomas was not alone in doubting - all the disciples doubted. I learned years later to use doubt to deepen faith rather than running scared of it but this incident remained a deep and powerful faith memory I have come back to more often than I care to admit.
What Pastor Emillie's sermon did this year was to stress how Jesus invited the disciples, again and again to table fellowship. Jesus gave exactly what his disciples needed to quiet the despair they were feeling. He unlocked the door that they locked and bolted in fear. He entered and said “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." and breathed on them.
I truly felt that the breath that empowers and gives life through the Holy Spirit was present at Creator this morning.
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