Touching the Holy

Thomas missed it. Jesus had already appeared to his followers the week before, both to Mary at the tomb and to the disciples who were hiding fearfully behind locked doors. But Thomas wasn’t there. When Thomas hears about the appearance of the risen Jesus, he says, “Unless I put my finger in the marks in Jesus’ hands, put my hand in the wound in his side, I will never believe.” We may be tempted to shake our heads. That Thomas. Tch… Tch… doubting Thomas… Sigh…

But… it seems that the rest of the disciples didn’t fully believe the good news of Jesus’ resurrection either. For even after Mary’s report and even after Jesus himself appears to them, they are again in that room behind locked doors, one week later, talking to Thomas. In Matthew’s gospel it is said that “when [the disciples] saw [the risen Jesus] they worshiped him… and doubted…” The difference between the other disciples and Thomas is that Thomas is brave enough to give voice to his skepticism.

Thomas had most likely given up everything, left his work and his home to follow Jesus. He had everything riding on Jesus and he just lost it all. His friend, his teacher, his Messiah, his hope for his future and the future of his people, was just mocked, beaten, and hung on a cross to die. Thomas is in the midst of grief, fear, and despair. This is not a time for false hope. This is not a time for false comfort. Could Jesus be alive? Thomas wants to know for sure.

Now Thomas is not asking for anything more than Jesus offered to his other disciples. They have already seen Jesus risen, have seen his wounds. Thomas wants to see him, to touch him, to know he is real. Are you real, Jesus? Is it really you?

You and I have the same desire to experience the reality of God, something we can see, something we can touch. A God that is just a spiritual being in some other spiritual world, or an abstract concept of our imagination, is ultimately not meaningful. If God cannot intervene in this world then we, who must live, love, rejoice, and suffer in this world, must turn to something or somene else for our hope and strength. A God that does not care about such things as violence and war, pain and death has ceased to be relevant.

We are told over and over again in the scriptures that God cares for the world. In Christianity the material and the spiritual are joined. “For God so loved the world…” “And God called it good…” “The whole creation groans waiting for redemption…” This is at the heart of the incarnation, the Word made flesh; that God cares enough about the world and about us to come into the world and bring about its renewal and redemption.

When my daughter, Nora, was a year old, I left her overnight for the first time. I remember missing her terribly and looking forward to seeing her the next day. As I entered the room and picked her up, she looked at me, both surprised and pleased. I’ll never forget the joy on her little face, and the touch of her small hand patting me on the face as she affectionately repeated my name, “Mama… Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama….” Thomas longs like that… fully… viscerally… like a baby waits for her absent mother… for the face of his beloved Messiah. Now if you are a child missing your mother, you don’t want somebody who just looks like you mother but isn’t. Perhaps some of you may recall being very small and being lost in a department store or some other public place. Searching for your mother, you spot her blue coat, or her plaid skirt, or her dark hair. Relieved, you rush up to her, and she turns, and you shrink back with dismay as you realize that the woman you ran to is not your mother.

Thomas doesn’t want an apparition that just looks like Jesus and isn’t. Thomas wants to be sure. He wants to touch him, to feel him, to know this is his Jesus who suffered and died. And Jesus, in his compassion, does not deny Thomas this embodied grace. He appears to Thomas and offers his hands and his side for inspection. He knows that this is what Thomas needs in order to believe and he offers it willingly. Thomas responds to Jesus’ offering of himself with gratitude and awe, and a confession of faith, “My Lord and my God!” And after this third resurrection appearance, the disciples are no longer hiding behind closed doors. Thomas’ bold demand and Jesus’ generous response have liberated them and they are out fishing again.

We long for the liberating presence of God to be real to us in the same way. We pray for God’s holy and transforming presence in our lives right here and right now. Our text this morning says that Jesus did many other signs besides the ones that are recorded. I wonder what the signs are that God is manifest in the world today. Every Sunday we gather in worship and share our concerns, the longing we have for God’s healing and intervention; and our joys, the ways in which our prayers have been answered. At Love Feast, we share the bread and cup, we wash each others’ feet. When anointing, we line up in these aisles and come forward in the hope of God’s real healing touch on our foreheads, on our bodies, on our lives. In large and small ways every day, signs of God’s working in the world are given. Prayers are answered in manifest ways. Bodies are healed, the homeless are sheltered, the hungry are fed, relationships are mended, fighting ceases, justice triumphs.

In the recent Historic Peace Church conference in Africa, Nora Musundi from Kenya talks about the work of her national women’s prayer group, bringing God’s peace and healing in her country. They have cared for families displaced due to violent land disputes. They are feeding children who have been orphaned because of AIDS. They are educating youth who missed the opportunity to go to school as children because they were being used as cooks by tribal armies. The women sing a praise song that says, “Our God is a God of miracles…” With God’s help, Nora Musundi and her sisters in Christ are helping to make miracles happen in Kenya. If we believe that God can work miracles then it strengthens us and gives us hope to participagte in God’s healing, contribute to God’s work.

Many of you may have heard the story of Brian Nichols and Ashley Smith. It’s an amazing story of resurrection power that actually compelled me to buy a copy of People magazine last week. Brian was a fugitive, and had already killed four people, when he held Ashley hostage at gunpoint in her new apartment. Ashley begged him not to hurt her and told hiim she had a five-year-old daughter. Then the beginning of something miraculous happened. Brian confessed, “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.” And Ashley saw that he was tired. As the day progressed, Ashley shared her story with him, told him of her family, her husband’s death, her daughter, her struggles, and her faith. At one point he asked her what she thought he should do. She told him he ought to turn himself in so that he didn’t hurt anyone else and so that he didn’t end up dead. He said, “Look at me. Look in my eyes. I’m already dead.” Ashley said, “You’re not dead. You’re standing right here in front of me.” She says that she saw that Brian needed hope. Ashley told him that the fact he was still alive was a miracle, and that God still had a purpose for him. They talked through the night.

The next morning, Sunday morning, Ashley cooked him breakfast. Brian was astonished. “Real butter, pancakes?” he asked wonderingly. As God’s missionary, Ashley cared for this murderer not only by sharing her faith and compassion, but with love made manifest in pancakes with real butter. Brian said she could leave to go meet her daughter at church. He asked her if he could hang the curtains for her while she was gone. She left and called the police and says she thinks he knew that she would. When the police came, Brian gave up peacefully, waving a white towel in surrender. Ashley believes God brought Brian to her door. Brian said she was “an angel sent from God.” God was able to recall Brian Nichols to life because Ashley Smith recognized him as a walking miracle.

Do we see the possibility of miracles like Ashley Smith? Do we sing of God’s miracles like Nora Musundi’s prayer group? Do we respond to God’s miracles in reverent awe, like Thomas? It is said there are no atheists in foxholes. What about when prayers are answered? Do we give thanks and glory to God? Or do we find another reasonable explanation? We can help each other walk in faith by celebrating answered prayer… by openly rejoicing in unexpected grace. The TV news doesn’t often tell this gospel story, this great news of hope. We need to share the good news that God is at work in the world. The reign of God is at hand and is to come even more fully in the future. This witness helps us move from unbelief to belief. Jesus says to Thomas and to us, “Do not doubt, but believe.”

And if everything good comes from God, then we can rejoice and give thanks every morning when the sun rises once again, when we have food to eat, when we have hot, clean water running from our showers, when our children go to school, when we have useful work to do, when we have eyes that see, or ears that hear, or legs that walk, hearts that break or tears that fall.

Alexander Schmemann, an Orthodox priest and theologian wrote, “God blesses everything [God] creates and, in biblical language, this mean that [God] makes all creation the sign and the means of [God’s] presence and wisdom, love and revelation. ‘O taste and see how good the Lord is’…. The only natural reaction of man [and woman] is to bless God in return, to thank [God], and to see the world as God sees it.”

But what if we have not seen this evidence? What if we do not get a sign? What if our child will never go to school? What if we live in a place devastated by war? What if we have no clean water? What about our most heartfelt prayers that seem to go unanswered? In this text, Jesus gives a special blessing to us, knowing how difficult it can be to persevere in faith when our hearts are in darkness, knowing how hard it can be to believe, in the face of loss, grief and disappointment. Jesus doesn’t begrudge Thomas his need to touch and see, but he says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” We may not see the answer to many of our deepest prayers before we die. But the good news is that in Jesus Christ, God has overcome even death and for us, death is not the end. There is eternal life beyond the grave and there is a promise of a renewed world, one in which all our prayers for healing, justice and peace are answered. We live in the joy of that world, which is present even now, a world in which we are invited to touch the Holy. Amen.