1 John 20:19-31 Second Sunday in Easter The first Easter is ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

$Math 566 WI 2011 Midterm 1 Review and Practice Problems ...$

Jesus tells them, “Peace be with you. Just as God sent me, it is time for me to send you.”He gets close enough for them to feel his breath, to know that he is really alive, and notsome ghost, and he says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”And then, as quickly as he appeared, he is gone. But the disciples have seen enough to knowthat everything has changed. They have seen first hand the resurrection of their hope, thetransformation of death into life, and so they go into all the world and tell everyone andeverybody believes what they say and lives happily ever after.Well, not exactly. You see, they weren’t all there. Of the 12 disciples, 2 were not there. Thefirst, Judas, well, they knew what had happened to him. But the other one, Thomas, calledthe “Twin,” no one knew where he was.Maybe he is out wandering the streets. Maybe he is hiding in a different place, unable to bearound the people who remind him most of Jesus. Maybe he is searching the empty tombfor the body of his friend.We can only guess, but what we know is that when Jesus came to that locked room, whenJesus showed his wounds to his followers, when his disciples rejoiced and embraced andcelebrated the first Easter, Thomas was not there.Imagine as Thomas returns to the room where the other disciples are. Imagine that feelingof anger and resentment as your friends dance around as if nothing has happened, as if henever died, as if everything is okay.Imagine your bitter disappointment in them, as they tell you some nonsense about Jesusbeing alive again and showing up there right in front of their eyes.When Eric Ottens, one of UE’s beloved basketball players died a few years ago, I traveledwith the basketball team to his little hometown in Iowa for the funeral.As the congregation of mourners packed into that small chapel around the casket of theyoung man who had died tragically before his time, the church chose to blast praise musicthrough its speakers.One of the Eric’s teammates turned to me with an incredulous look: “What are they doing?”It felt as if they were trying to drown out the death in the room, and it didn’t work, just likeit never does. It felt as if they were denying any of us permission to grieve.Have you ever lost a loved one, and then tried to return to class or work or a relationshipwith people who don’t know what you’ve lost? Have you ever tried to go to thesupermarket the day after the funeral? With people who are going about their daily lives,when that seems like the hardest thing for you to do?2
If you can imagine that, then maybe you will be a little more gentle with Thomas thanhistory has been. When we all met Thomas, we were introduced to the king of all doubters,the faithless disciple who just couldn’t believe what he couldn’t see.But there is more to Thomas than this one story. It is told that Thomas is the one who tookChristianity to India for the first time, and many Indian Christians still have Thomassomewhere in their name, as a tribute to the disciple who first traveled there with the goodnews.When Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” a verse that we Christians love totake out of context, Jesus is talking to Thomas, who just moments before had asked hisfriend, “How can we know the way?”No, what we remember Thomas for is what he says to his friends back in that locked room.We remember Thomas for what he says, because they are some of the most honest andpainful lines in the entire Bible.“Unless I see with my own eyes where the nails went in, unless I can put my finger into thehole in his side, I don’t want to hear any of this nonsense!”Can you imagine if someone in a church said something like that? Can you imagine if, in themiddle of the Apostle’s Creed, or during one of these resurrection hymns, or during thesermon, someone just stood up and said, “I’m fed up with all of this ridiculous celebration.He’s dead, I tell you, he’s dead. That I can believe. And until he shows me different, that’sall I’m willing to believe.”Thomas rejects the story he hears not because he is faithless, but because he saw it with hisown eyes. He saw them carry him away from the garden. He knows what happened toJesus, his teacher and friend, and you can’t just make that pain go away with a nice storyabout being raised from the dead.“Unless I see with my own eyes where the nails went in, unless I can put my finger into thehole in his side, I don’t want to hear it.”A few years ago, after Mother Teresa had died, they began to translate her personal diary.This woman who had spent half a century tending to the poorest of the poor, giving up allher possessions and calling the world to service and justice, evidently was not so rock solidin her faith.“[Those in] Hell suffer eternal punishment because they experiment with the loss ofGod. In my own soul, I feel the terrible pain of this loss. I feel that God does notwant me, that God is not God and that he does not really exist. My smile is a greatcloak that hides a multitude of pains…“[People think] my faith, my hope and my love are overflowing and that my intimacywith God and union with his will fill my heart. If only they knew . . ."What is most amazing is that these writings coincide with the same period in her life whenshe left the school at which she taught and went to go live among the poor in Calcutta. Inthe midst of her greatest doubt, she made the most radical decision of faith possible.3
Page 4 and 5: I would love a perfect faith, I thi

1 John 20:19-31 Second Sunday in Easter The first Easter is ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?