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Easter Readings

The Scripture readings around the Easter season are filled with great challenges. Yes, Scripture is always filled with challenges, but I really like the ones we find in the readings around Easter.

We have the women running to the tomb. We have Peter reconciling with Jesus. We have the apostles walking to nowhere and meeting Jesus on the way. We have Thomas the doubter – who we must remember is recognized as a saint (that always give me hope).

Eventually, we have the apostles looking at the sky, waiting for what’s next.

But the people who have been on my mind of late are the disciples in the upper room. We hear that they were in the upper room and the doors were locked. Jesus arrives. Thomas isn’t there. You remember the story.

Then, a week later, Jesus arrives again and shows Thomas his hands and feet.

The doors were still locked.

Think about that for a minute. We focus on Thomas because he doubts and his name means twin and we, doubters and sinners, are his twin. We think about Thomas because we get Thomas. We struggle and wonder and question and doubt.

But don’t let the other ten off the hook. They experienced the Risen Christ. They welcomed him. They interacted with him. This guy with whom they had interacted and lived and shared their lives with had been brutally put to death. They buried him. Now, he had been raised and was standing, breathing and talking in their midst.

But after he left, they locked the door.

I am not sure what the lesson is for you, but for me it raises the question about my own openness to the resurrection experience. When I experience Christ in the flesh all around me do I welcome it and share it or does the fear overwhelm me?

Do I lock the doors to feel safe or to avoid responsibility?

Maybe that’s why we celebrate Easter for so long. The dead are raised. What has happened for one is suddenly possible for all. After a lifetime of saying, “yes” to God – even unto death – God validates his life choices and says, “yes” right back to Jesus.

God resurrects that which we crucify. Isn’t that nice?

Why then, if we believe, are so many doors still locked?

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Twins

Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows that I have an affinity for good old Thomas. I get Thomas. I knew we would hear about him this week, just like we do every year around Easter. So I was prepared.

I even talked to a friend at work about Thomas on Friday afternoon. He’s a deacon and was preparing his Sunday homily. Lucky for me, we get to talk about such things at work and so Thomas came up in the conversation. As you know, Thomas was not present when Jesus first appears to the disciples. They were locked in the upper room for fear of the Jews. Thomas simply was not there.

Did you ever stop to think why? Where was he? Doing laundry? Catching up on some sleep (Easter can be exhausting)? Visiting his family?

The truth is, we do not know. What we do know is that in John 11:16, it is Thomas who says to the others, Let us also go, that we may die with him,” as Jesus works to convince his followers that they must return to Judea. He does not hesitate, this Thomas. If suffering is what Jesus has to endure, then let us go and endure it with him. They are, the story says, on their way back because Lazarus has died. So Thomas, presumably, knows what Jesus is capable of doing.

So where is he on that “evening of the first day of the week,” while the others were locked in a room, trembling with fear.

Could it be that he was not afraid?

Could it be that, even after all that he had seen and experienced, he trusted Jesus and knew the work must continue?

Assuming I am correct and Thomas was out and about telling the Jesus-story. Why does he doubt when the others tell him that Jesus had visited?

Perhaps the answer is in his name.

Thomas is called Didymus. It’s the Greek word for Twin. But whose twin?

Could it be – is it possible – that you and I are the twins of Thomas? Could it be that the name is given to those who struggle and wonder and doubt, even though the answer is right in front of them?

Could it be that, even after all the goodness and holiness and wonder and awe we experience, we still question if Jesus is present.

“My Lord and my God.” My everything. My master. My teacher. My witness. My ruler, leader, superior, monarch, sovereign, and king.

It is the cry of one who is – and was – faithful, but just forgets now and then to really see.

~pjd

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My Lord and My God

I get Thomas. I get why he needed to see the wounds. Like you, I struggle. I doubt. I wonder. I’ve put all my eggs in this basket, after all, and there are moments I look up and think, “This better be true.”

I think we all do. All honest people anyway.

We pray for the sick and they die anyway.

We pray for patience and the virtue still eludes us.

We pray for strength and courage and wisdom and still find ourselves weak and scared and dumb.

We pray for clarity of thought and still get lost in the minutia.

I get Thomas. And I take comfort in the fact that our church canonized the doubter and let the guy who denied be its first leader. Talk about human frailty.

But one of the things that has always fascinated me is that Thomas, for all his whining that he wouldn’t believe, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side…’ the Gospel writer never actually says Thomas touches Jesus.

It is the mere presence of the Risen Lord in front of Thomas that makes this honest disciple cry out.

And so it is with us. We don’t have to touch. We just have to be in the presence of Jesus.

And so, because of faith, we look at the sick and the lonely and the dying and we see the resurrection and good health that awaits us all.

Because of faith, we recognize the opportunities to be patient that are put before us by a Savior who invites us to be better than we are.

Because of faith, we find our strength and courage and wisdom in those sent to carry us, support us, and teach us (and maybe even challenge us).

Because of faith, we see the big picture. We know the end of the story. We cry on Friday and rejoice on Sunday and know that the winners write the history books.

Because of faith, we know that “the relationship is changed, not ended” and that those we love and lose remain with us and in us and all around us.

I get Thomas. And with him, I cry out: longingly, adamantly, fervently.

“My Lord and My God.”

And He cries right back, “Here I am.”

Thank God for Easter. Alleluia. Alleluia.