Jesus

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
April 24, 2022

2 Easter  

          For Easter, Don and I got our granddaughter Collins a little slide.  Because I don’t know if the ground will ever be dry enough to play outside, this is a collapsible slide made of heavy duty cardboard for indoor use.  The day before Easter, I set it up and brought Collins down after her nap.  She is a very active and physical little girl, so I thought she would climb right up the steps to the slide and slide down.  That’s what one does with a slide, right?  But no.  When you are not quite 2 and see something new, you see all sorts of possibilities.  Sure, sliding is one.  But so is climbing up the slide, hiding under the slide, pretending to catch the bugs painted on the slide, sending a vast number of dolls and stuffed animals down the slide, and rolling the balls up the slide.  All seem to be equally fine uses for a slide according to Collins.  With no preconceived ideas about what a slide is for, the possibilities are endless. 

          This morning, we hear a story about the resurrected Jesus that we hear each and every year on the Sunday after Easter.  We know the story and what the story is about.  We love the story because many of us can identify with Doubting Thomas.  We wish Jesus would come to us and let us touch his wounds so that we can believe, really believe, in the resurrection.  But this is looking at the story like I was looking at that little slide-something so familiar that there seems to be one basic way to understand the story and we know what that is.  Just as there are apparently many ways to play with a slide, there are many ways to look at our story this morning. 

          First, there is the question of who the main character is in the story.  We call this the story of Doubting Thomas.  But is this really a story about the disciple who demanded a sighting of Jesus in order to believe and got one?  Is the message that if we whine long enough, Jesus will do what we ask?  Is this really the story of Thomas the spoiled brat disciple?  And the other disciples are not exactly paragons of faith.  They did believe when they saw the resurrected Jesus in their midst, but their faith was not so great that they left the room in which they were hiding.

Secondly, this passage is problematic because we are told that the disciples are hiding for fear of the Jews.  Those words are not to be taken lightly.  Passages such as this one and the reading from Acts have been wrongly used over the centuries to blame the Jewish people of Jesus’ time and the Jewish people as a whole through out the centuries for the death of Jesus.  The tensions between the early Christians and the Jewish people are certainly at play in this gospel, but John’s gospel is also clear that no one took Jesus’ life from him.  Jesus, a Jew himself, gave up his life for the life of the world as an act of love.  Any use of violence or hatred in the name of the God of love is simply wrong.

The real problem this morning is not who the disciples are afraid of.  The real problem is that the disciples, minus Thomas, are hiding because they are afraid.  The problem is with the disciples, not those they fear.  The tomb is empty, and Mary has seen the risen Christ, but the disciples are hiding behind a locked door.  But a locked door does not stop Jesus.  Jesus enters and says “Peace be with you.”  Then Jesus says “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” and he breathes the Holy Spirit on them making his very own breath part of the disciples.

          One week later, having seen the risen Jesus, having been sent as Jesus was sent, and having received the Holy Spirit, where are the disciples?  Still in that same room.  Easter has still not changed their lives, either externally and gotten them out of that room or internally and transformed them into witnesses to the resurrection.  And yet, Jesus shows up in that room again, to offer proof to Thomas that Jesus is, indeed, alive. 

          The main character in this story is not Thomas, nor are the disciples the main characters.  The main character in this story is Jesus, Jesus who meets us where we are, even when we are too afraid to come out, or when doubt overwhelms us, or when we fail to see what Jesus is asking of us.  Jesus meets us where we are, gives us his breath to empower us, and sends us out despite our fears, doubts, and failures.  We know from the Acts reading, and from the whole book of Acts, that, ultimately, the disciples overcame their fear, believed in the resurrection, and went out into the world to become powerful witnesses to the resurrected Christ.  When we hear this story with Jesus as the main character rather than Thomas, perhaps we can hear more clearly the call to welcome Jesus as the main character in our own lives and hear the many ways Jesus calls us to live as people sent into the world, empowered by the Holy Spirit, with the good news of God’s resurrection love.

                                                                             Amen.