Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Back in the stone ages when I was a kid in college, I remember Christians having a healthy presence on campus. There were several Christian groups and each had a unique theology, perspective, and set of practices. I had a few friends and acquaintances in these groups and I remember clearly that one of the groups was pushing a little book at the time called Evidence that Demands a Verdict. The book was being used as an evangelism tool. It was like a master course in reason, laying out all of the historical evidence of Jesus’ actually living, dying, and rising again. The author made a good case. As it was explained to me, the hope was that after reading the book people would come to faith in God.
I admired the author’s reason and his hard work in making a credible case for the resurrection of Jesus, but I felt that, for me, the book did little to awaken or reawaken faith. Reason is certainly a tool and a good and necessary one we use in life and in our lives of faith but when reason is equated with faith then we find ourselves on a slippery slope.
Trying to prove things is certainly something we all like to do. It is one means of exercising control. The mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection however is a different kind of mystery than one finds in murder mysteries. Great detectives like Hercules Poirot or Lt. Columbo prove who committed the crime and the mystery is solved. The mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ isn’t a mystery to solve or reason away. It is, above all, a mystery revealed and one in which we live and as long as we remain rooted in the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection, God continues to reveal himself to us but not in terms of making intellectual connections. No, the revelation comes as surprises about God working in our lives and the revelation is received in faith. It is not a mystery that is ascertained through proof or certainty. Faith is a much used word that means a lot of different things but faith is no route to certainty. Faith is living life trusting God and if usually involves a good deal of struggle and a lot of messiness.
Today, the Apostle Thomas shows up as a central character in the Gospel. He has often been described as “doubting Thomas.” Since he wasn’t around when the Risen Jesus first appeared, he wanted to see Jesus for himself and touch the wounds of the Risen Lord. Thomas has been perceived and even maligned as someone who needed proof of Jesus’ resurrection and therefore someone with little faith. Thomas, the doubter, wanted good and solid evidence that demanded a verdict.
But, I don’t think that’s the case. I think, rather, than Thomas is already acting from a place of faith and trust that is expressed not in rational categories but in relationships with the living Christ. He wants to see Jesus and touch his wounds.
Does he demand verification and a good look at the evidence or does Thomas want to encounter the living Lord because he wants to continue to trust him?
Thomas was not present that Easter evening when the Risen Jesus walked through the locked door where the other apostles were huddling in fear. He wasn’t there when Jesus greeted them with a word of peace. Thomas want there when Jesus showed them his nail scarred hand and side and when he breathed the Holy Spirit upon them.
So, Thomas wants to see and touch the wounds of the Risen Christ. It’s important to see what it is exactly that Thomas is requesting. His request is very specific. What does he want to see and touch? Thomas wants to see and touch the nail marks, the scars, the wounds of the Risen Jesus because this is who Jesus is. Without the wounds, Jesus would be a different kind of Lord but with the wounds he is the Lord that Thomas and the others know to be Jesus the Christ. These nail marks and wounds reveal that Jesus suffered a cruel death and they are identity markers that affirm Jesus’ identity as the person who lived and died for others. These wounds are the wounds of the vulnerable Messiah who experienced our death and they reveal the nature of the reign of God’s kingdom as a kingdom of mercy.
Thomas wants to reunite with the Jesus he knew and is now risen from the dead. The wounds reveal that Jesus suffered just as we humans suffer. The mystery is that Jesus was both divine and human. When Thomas demands that he see and touch the wounds of the cross he desires nothing less than a chance to know again that the Jesus he followed and placed his trust in was and is the very word of God made flesh, no stranger to our human journey.
Thomas doesn’t want a cross-less Christ. He wants to see for himself his Lord and his wounds to follow him again and trust him again.
I vividly recall a conversation with someone, an acquaintance who identified himself a Christian. He said, “I cannot trust a God who doesn’t know suffering.” I’ll never forget his words. We cannot trust a God who doesn’t know suffering. Say it this way – we can trust a God who knows suffering because such a God knows us intimately and loves us not from a distance but where we live.
As we heard in the Passion story just a couple of weeks ago, Jesus himself knew the sting of rejection by crowds who shouted “Crucify him.” He experienced denial by Peter and betrayal from Judas. If you’ve been betrayed or denied you know that it really hurts to be let down by people you thought you could trust and count on. Jesus was mocked, ridiculed, beaten up, and falsely accused. Such things are legion in the human family. Yes, Jesus suffered these maladies and he knew the depths of the human experience, being in solidarity with our suffering and even our death.
Thomas doesn’t desire a safe and sanitized Jesus or one who, by his resurrection, was transformed into someone else with the wounds disappearing. Thomas here is expressing the faith and hope of a disciple who will know when it is really Jesus when he encounters Jesus with his wounds.
The Risen Jesus is at the very same time the crucified Jesus who unabashedly shares our scars of suffering, and whose power is made known in vulnerable love. This isn’t superficial love but the kind of love that comes straight from the heart of God. It is the love that saw Jesus give his life away for us.
Thomas helps us see how important it is to have a cross-shaped Messiah and Lord. Too often we want a Christ without the cross. We often want a pretty Jesus who is somehow removed from the messiness of life. We want a Jesus without the wounds. We want a Jesus who represents our ambitions, ideologies, and desire.
Friends in Christ, this sort of triumphalism is what Luther called a “Theology of Glory.” None of us are immune from it and sometimes it makes itself known in big and public ways. Didn’t we see this on display early last week when the President talked about bombing Iran until its civilization disappeared or when the Secretary of Defense had the audacity to call this war a “holy war” ordained by God? This sort of talk points to a Christ without the cross. It is not the inclusive love of Christ and it promotes only a kingdom of domination and violence and fear. We are better off to turn to the public voice of Pope Leo who is pleading that we stop this madness and be instruments of peace. The sort of triumphalism voiced by our very own leaders signals Christian Nationalism, a movement that ordains violence and means justifying ends to promote their own selfish causes. We must see it for what it is: an example of taking God’s name in vain, using the name of God to endorse one’s own agenda. Theologians of glory do not want a cross- shaped Messiah.
Britt and I have recently read through a collection of sermons by the preacher, the Reverend Fleming Rutledge who wrote these wise words from a sermon on this very Gospel reading: “We can choose a god who suits us in every particular because he is a projection of ourselves, whose voice is essentially our own voice magnified. This god will have no nail prints in his hands. This goddess will have no wounds in her side. Our God is a God who permits us to doubt, to complain, to shake our fist, to shout at him, to ask repeatedly the question ‘why?’ Ultimately [God’s answer] does not come in the form of a why. It comes in the form of a “who?” … we can hold on to the promise that God has entered our pain and been wounded by it, even killed by it, yet has raised triumphant.”
Throughout this Easter season we will sing of the “Lamb who was slain” that “has begun his reign.” The slain lamb is Jesus who reigns over the Kingdom of God and within the Kingdom of God, love has the last word. It is the definitive word and we hold onto the hope and promise that this love will one day be all-in-all. Today we behold the Risen Christ with his wounds and like Thomas we get to see them, touch them, and taste them at this very altar. The body and blood of the Crucified and Risen Lord given for you. Take and believe and with Thomas proclaim “My Lord and my God!”
Amen.