Do not doubt, but believe.
The verse in this morning’s Gospel reading that resonates with me most – perhaps my favorite verse in it – is probably not what you might think.
My favorite verse is not the moment Jesus appears among his frightened disciples, having walked through locked doors, and says, “Peace be with you.” Though that moment of recognition, joyous, astounding – Jesus, alive again and in their midst – is enough to make one weep to imagine it.
It is not the moment Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on his friends that is my favorite verse in this passage, though it is a moment that changes everything – it is a sort of early Pentecost, a moment that sets them back on their feet again, and re-inspires them – literally – to take up their ministry again.
And the verse that stands out to me the most from this passage is not the moment when Thomas sees Jesus for the first time, and Jesus shows him his hands and his side and Thomas believes – not the moment when Thomas lets go of all his doubts and bursts out, “My Lord and my God!” which is an amazing, amazing moment.
But the verse that stands out to me the most in this reading is verse 30:
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.”
It’s a postscript – nothing very dramatic, an almost sort of awkward author’s note. If this were a play, it would be spoken by the narrator, or maybe it would be an aside – one of those lines that a character steps away from the action to deliver straight to the audience, as if the other characters can’t hear. It’s almost an afterthought.
But oh, how much that afterthought holds!
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.”
First and foremost, it tells us, the story isn’t over. In fact, the Gospel of John isn’t over – there’s still one more chapter to go, in which Jesus meets some of his disciples, who again don’t recognize him, down by the lakeside and makes breakfast for them, a wonderful, wonderful story, and at the end of that chapter, John repeats the postscript, this aside, again, saying, a little bit more eloquently. saying: “…there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
“Jesus did many other signs… which are not written in this book.”
After the grief and fear of Holy Week, of Jesus’s arrest, trial and crucifixion, after he was buried and the disciples went into hiding, after three long days when it seemed like the entire world had fallen apart, Resurrection happened. Jesus, it turns out, was right all along. He raised the Temple again in three days. He overcame death. And then he came back to the world, to his friends – this beautiful miracle, this gift.
And when he came back, he stayed a while. He appeared in a locked room, in the midst of his grieving friends, and he breathed the Holy Spirit over them and said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He came back for a reason. But at that moment, I can only imagine the celebration, the laughing, the weeping that happened that evening as they broke bread together once again – sharing this meal together in celebration, not in the dread and uncertainty of Maundy Thursday, the Last Supper. And then, Jesus and his friends, in-spired by the Holy Spirit, breathed on and in, they went back out into the world, preaching, teaching, healing, connecting, traveling, breaking bread, talking, enjoying their time together – but with new hope, with the actuality of the Resurrection, God’s promise to the world, shown to them, in physical flesh, incarnate, face to face. Just as the cross and the tomb were not the end of the story, neither was the Resurrection.
The band was together again, Doubting Thomas and all.
But two thousand years later, after our celebration of Alleluias, trumpets, the Easter egg hunt and the flowering of the cross, where are we? Are we the disciples, ready to jump back into the hard work of ministry in a world that doesn’t quite trust us, carrying with us the joy and grace of knowing Christ lives? Or are we Thomas, uncertain, unable to believe what we’ve heard but not seen, needing evidence, proof to convince us that we have put our faith in something, and someone, that is real? After the miracles, the walking on the water, the feeding of the five thousand, the angel’s appearance outside an empty tomb, what can we believe in?
Thomas’s cynicism was understandable. Sure, Jesus said he would raise up the Temple in three days, he would return again, he said that his death – that our death – would not be final. It sounded good when he was preaching it to the crowds, but it was harder to believe when he was arrested and said nothing. It was harder to believe when he was on the cross, when he was sealed in a tomb by Roman soldiers, when the disciples had to hide so they wouldn’t be arrested too. Cynthia Briggs Kittredge writes that “a better name for Thomas,” Doubting Thomas, “might be Demanding Thomas, Defiant Thomas, Spiritually Ambitious Thomas. What Thomas wants,” she says, “is firsthand experience of Jesus’ presence.” We can certainly understand and empathize with that. And now, when the world seems short on miracles, and sometimes our lives seem short on miracles, don’t we want that too, to see Jesus face to face?
““The human mind,” writes theologian Clayton Schmidt, “searches for order: to make sense of things, to understand the world, to organize all the data that comes to our senses. Faith,” says Schmidt, “is a mystery of the heart that the mind wants to solve.”
Back to that verse in the Gospel:
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
The story does not end with the Resurrection. We are still celebrating Easter – in truth, we are always celebrating Easter. And while we do not have the physical, firsthand experience that Mary and the disciples, including Thomas, had 2,000 years ago, we are still seeing, constantly, every day, the signs that Jesus is working in the world. We see them in our sacraments – every Sunday when we reconcile ourselves to God and one another through the confession and the passing of the peace, and then come together at the Eucharist. Every time we break bread together here at the table or at every table, on Tuesday evenings in McCracken Hall, with our neighbors at summer cookouts and our neighbors in Trinity’s noon lunch. We see the signs of Jesus’ presence every time we renew our baptismal covenant, promising once again to see and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves, striving for justice and peace and respecting the dignity of every human being. We see the signs of Jesus every time we pray for one another, every time we reach out to a stranger, and every time a stranger reaches out to us. We see the signs every spring when the dogwoods start to bloom again. We see the signs every time we are reminded that God is present with us, through our griefs and our fears, through our pain and through our thanksgivings. We see the signs every time we cannot see what lies ahead, the times when we must be strong for others, and every times when we need their strength in return.
Jesus’s story, and the story of his disciples, and our story, does not end – it did not end with the tomb, and it did not end with the Resurrection. For them, and for us, Resurrection is just the beginning – of new life, of new joy, of re-inspiration, of continuing the work of God in a world that is hungry for grace, for love, and for joy.
Alleluia, the Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Sermon by the Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett for Easter II, 2023.
Artwork: Rubens, the Rockox Altarpiece
