I love the post-Resurrection stories, those mornings and evenings when Jesus starts re-appearing to his disciples in unexpected places, almost as if he’d never left. They are moments of unlooked-for joy, especially after those last, terrible days following Palm Sunday, when it felt like the world had ended – the death of Jesus, the betrayal of Judas, the arrest in the garden, the trial, the execution, the burial –
and then, the disciples lying low, hiding in locked rooms because they’ve become enemies of the empire – they could be arrested next. In that last week, joy was hard to come by.
And then, in the middle of all that uncertainty and anxiety, Jesus just starts showing up in places. Apparently, when he said he would be raised again in three days, he meant it.
On Sunday, he’s mistaken for a gardener outside his own tomb. Not long after that, he’s seen walking along the road to Emmaus, and then he’s having dinner with his fellow travelers once they get there. Another morning he’s out at the boats, giving fishing advice. A couple hours later and he’s cooking breakfast on the beach. And, in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is barging into locked rooms without any warning – and apparently, without any key.
Jesus is indeed back from the dead, raised again in three days, and yet some things haven’t changed, perhaps not surprisingly – true to form, he’s not showing up in the places people expect him to, and I expect he’s not acting in the ways they expected or hoped that he would. No triumphant return in glory, at least not at this point – “look at me, Romans, I was right and you were wrong” – nothing like that going on – just Jesus, showing up in time for dinner.
Kind of like an overgrown kid home from college.
So we can’t blame Thomas for doubting. Sure, he’s heard from the other disciples that Jesus is back, but the stories seem too unlikely, and the news too good to be true. I won’t believe it, he says, until I see it. I must touch the wounds in Jesus’s hands and side. I need proof. Then I’ll believe. Then my faith will be restored.
So a week later, Jesus shows up again, appearing in a closed room. “Peace be with you,” he says to the disciples. This time Thomas is there, and Jesus has presumably heard about his doubt. “Touch my hands, touch my side,” Jesus tells him, but all Thomas needs now is to see him and to call him by name: “My Lord and my God!” Thomas’ need for physical proof has left. His doubt becomes belief, and his belief becomes faith. A transformation has happened.
But until that moment, again, who could blame him for having doubted? We doubt.
In the 21st century, we more often hear voices of skepticism and cynicism than we hear voices of faith. It’s not easy to hold onto faith, after coming through a century that saw two world wars, plus more horrible conflicts and then watching war continue to explode across the globe even today. It’s not easy to hold onto faith after the last four years of a global pandemic and its fallout. It’s not easy to hold onto faith while we listen to politicians and voters demonize each other, and spread fear about groups of people who may be strangers to us for lots of reasons. It’s not easy to hold onto faith when people leave the church because they have been hurt or excluded by it. It’s not easy
to hold onto faith when we cannot see or prove that Jesus was resurrected from the grave, that God is here with us and we have been given the gift of grace and eternal life. It’s not easy to hold onto faith when we are dealing with the everyday challenges of work or school, scary medical diagnoses, family conflicts or grief.
It is not easy to hold onto faith when we are afraid.
And that’s perhaps why Jesus showed up in these ordinary, human, breakfast-on-the-beach kinds of ways. Then, and now, Jesus is not just somewhere up there or out there, out of our reach, divine and untouchable. Jesus, even unseen and divine, is still with us, in those ordinary, human, breakfast-on-the-beach kinds of ways, walking with us, breaking bread with us, showing up in the faces of humanity around us, in the moments of kindness, the everyday miracles of compassion and forgiveness that we give and receive from each other.
And Jesus shows up perhaps most importantly, not just breaking bread and cooking breakfast, but also barging into our locked rooms, the places where we, like the disciples those nights long ago, hide because of fear.
Theologian Robert Hoch suggests that while we celebrate Christ’s breaking out of the tomb at Easter, we may find it more difficult to break out of our own tombs, the traps that we’ve shut ourselves up in. Much as we yearn for it, it is hard to let go of our fears and find joy – the joy of resurrection – not just Christ’s, but our own.
Theologian Karoline Lewis says:
Resurrection is relationship.
And I think this is part of what she means:
Jesus, when he arose from the dead, returned to his friends.
Martin Luther has this beautiful description of Jesus’s reunion in that locked room
– describing Jesus as having come in “through barred doors, going through wood and stone, and still leaving everything whole, breaking nothing, yet getting in among his disciples.”
And, Luther says, the resurrected Jesus is the same way with us, “[coming] into our hearts and [standing] in us.”
Resurrection is relationship.
Jesus, when he rose from the dead, joined his friends traveling on the road. He cooked
breakfast for them. He ate dinner with them. And when Thomas finally saw and recognized Jesus, Thomas didn’t say, “I believe in you” – he said, “My Lord and my God.”
Resurrection is relationship.
And that is true for us as much as it was for the disciples. We experience resurrection in the recognition that we are in relationship with the risen Christ. We are in relationship with a Creator that has known us from before birth and loves us beyond death. We experience resurrection when we realize we are in relationship with an ongoing miracle of grace and joy and life that has been part of the universe since the beginning, and is part of us today, teaching our hearts and shaping our lives in the here and now. We experience resurrection when we are in relationship with each other, walking the road, cooking breakfast, eating dinner, forgiving, peace-building, celebrating transitions, celebrating friendships – setting aside fear, cynicism and prejudice, recognizing the stranger and our selves as forgiven and beloved.
Peace be with you.
Preached by The Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett, on April 7, 2024, the Second Sunday of Easter, at Trinity Episcopal Church, Staunton, Va.
Art is “Christ shows himself to Thomas,” a mosaic by Rowan LeCompte and Irene LeCompte.
