John 20:19-31; Easter 2 B (Doubting Thomas)

In our gospel lesson today Thomas, one of the disciples, was away when Jesus first appeared to the others after the resurrection. And when they tell Thomas all about it he says something rather odd. Unless I see the marks of the nails, unless I get to touch the wounds I won't believe it.

This is odd and out of character for Thomas. In other stories Thomas is a real go-getter, anything that Jesus says, asks for or directs Thomas is ready to do and first in line. So this famous moment of doubt of his is always a bit of a surprise.

But maybe not, the more we think about it, because there is never necessarily any indication that Thomas doesn't believe that the others saw Jesus. It is more of a question about what Jesus coming back really meant. Thomas might have believed that Jesus was God but what he needed to be shown was that God had really been the man that they had all walked around with for years and that he had really suffered and died and overcome that. He needed Jesus to sit down next to him and show him exactly what he had been through.

It is one thing to just come back again, if you're God I guess you can do that, but Thomas needed to know that Jesus had been wounded, had died alone, had gone into the tomb had really experienced what real people do when they suffer and die and had overcome that. And so after listening for a while, we assume, about a week later Jesus appeared in a crowded room with the disciples behind a locked door again and went right up to Thomas and gently said, the peace of the Lord be with you Thomas, here, touch my wounds, see what has happened to me, see what I've been through. And Thomas believed and went right back to being a go-getter disciple, spreading the word throughout the world: that God gives new life.

I don't tell stories from tv shows very often but I want to tell you
one from Grey's Anatomy. In a recent episode there was a little boy who
was very sick and absolutely refusing to be treated by the doctors. In
fact he kept running out of rooms and dodging the very doctors who were
trying to help him. Everyone thought that he was just kind of not a
nice kid. And they were all so frustrated with him, especially his
parents. But one of the doctors kept watching him and listening to what
he would say or do before he ran out of the room or threw some kind of
fit. When they wanted to X-ray him he would squeal, when they wanted to
look down his throat he would cry, when they wanted to put an IV in his
arm he hid under a table.

After watching this for a while the
doctor who was listening and watching all of a sudden started doing
things, kind of pushed his way into the crowded room, up to the little boy and started doing things. First, before they gave the kid an x-ray the doctor had them x-ray him
with the little boy watching in the booth. Before they examined the
little boy, the doctor let another doctor examine him, tongue
depressor, stethoscope and all. They even took him to see a surgery in
progress so that he would have a
better idea of what they were going to do to him and why they were
going to need to make him sleep through it.

To the dismay of everyone
else this doctor took this little boy on a field trip around the
hospital, explaining here, demonstrating there. And the effect was like
magic. The little boy calmed right down. In fact he even got excited
about some of the things that they were doing, but then it came time
for the real test. Time to put in the IV and get ready for surgery and
the little boy went right back to his old ways screaming and refusing
to let anyone touch him. So his doctor sat right down on the edge of
the hospital bed, put out his arm and had the other doctor put an IV into
his arm instead and he talked the little boy through each and every
pain and feeling. Not claiming it was painless but showing that it was
livable.

At the end the little boy
could even touch it to see just what it had done to the doctor and what
it would do to him. The little boy sat right down and said I'm ready
and tears of relief and disbelief streamed down the faces of his
parents. The doctor just explained that the little boy was scared, he
needed to see what it was like before he was ready to believe that all
of the medical stuff could heal him instead of just hurt him. He had to
go through all of that or at least see that another person had, in
order to believe that what the doctors were doing for him was giving
him the gift of life.

I get Thomas, I think Thomas is like the little boy in the hospital. I think I am sometimes too. I often think how terrible it is that God had to die in order for us to know without a doubt that we are never alone in our suffering. Sometimes I can't even really explain why it had to happen, but other times, other times I wish that God had been a kid with liver failure, or a mother with AIDS, or a man with cancer or a soldier in the dessert or a young person in a car accident. Or even just someone living in a broken family or someone who had lost his job or is struggling to support his family or someone with depression or addiction or whatever kind of illness someone that I am talking to is struggling with so that I can say: It will be okay, I know God is with you through the whole thing. Just look at his wounds.

That is why we get the cross and why we get Thomas. It is God's way of watching us be terrified, watching us try to run out of the room or slam the door or hide and cry and showing us, piece by piece that we are given new life through Christ. Showing us how Christ was alone, Showing us how Christ suffered physical and emotional pain, showing us how he died a shameful, lonely, painful death, showing us how he doubted and was angry at God, showing us how no one was even there for his burial and showing us that God loved him so completely all through that, even despite that, that he gave him new life. It isn't an exact mirror for everything that we will ever go through but it is an exact mirror of how we will come through it. So loved by God that we are given new and abundant life to share with those around us. Christ is Risen, Alleluia. Amen.