Second Sunday of Easter
John 20:19-31
March 30, 2008Discerning the Body
Over the years I have come to realize that if people remember sermons at all, they tend to remember the stories within them, rather than the sermons themselves. Forget points one, two, and three. Forget the attention-getting introduction and the snappy conclusion. What people remember are the stories.
My Dad used to tell a story in his sermons about a little girl who woke up in the middle of the night. Perhaps she had a bad dream. Perhaps she was worried about something. (This was long before FCATS, so it must have been something else that worried her.) She called out for her mother, who came to her, sat on her bed, and tried to comfort her. As the little girl began to settle, her Mom suggested that the next time she felt anxious or worried, she could pray. God is everywhere, she told her, and God would come to her aid.
"Yes," the little girl replied. "God is OK, but when I feel like this, I need somebody with skin on."
I love that story because it gives voice to my own longing, and, I suspect, to the longing each of us feels. There’s something about living in a body, with sinews and flesh, with skin to touch and hands to embrace, that finds abstractions unsatisfactory. When push comes to shove, when it really counts, we need somebody with skin on.
That’s why it’s not fair to call Thomas names. "Doubting Thomas" he is often called, the skeptic amongst the believers, as if he’s asking for something unworthy of a true disciple of Jesus. Why, I wonder, don’t we call him "Honest Thomas" or "Forthright Thomas," or even "Human Thomas" – because that’s who he is.
Thomas has seen what Roman nails and spears can do. He knows what death looks like and he knows what its like to wake up in the middle of the night longing to touch someone. And so he says what you or I would have said in similar circumstances. "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the marks of the nails, and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
Is that a skeptic speaking? Or is it little girl waking from a bad dream? A little boy longing for an absent father? I hear a grown man who has seen his best friend dragged off to die a terrible death, and has no patience for tall tales and wishful thinking.
For all its allusions to things of the Spirit, the Gospel of John is a surprisingly fleshly Gospel. Jesus turns water into wine – not sticky, syrupy grape juice, but real wine – the kind that burns your throat and prompts you to hand your car keys to a designated driver. He gets thirsty and asks the Samaritan woman for a drink. He strips down to his skivvies, wraps a towel around his waist, and pours water on his disciples’ feet – calluses, bunions, and all. And, in John’s first appearance story after Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus calls Mary by her name. There’s something about the way he says her name – the timbre of his voice, the inflection that was his alone – that draws her out of her grief and makes her want to throw her arms around him.
So I don’t blame Thomas for wanting what Mary had. And neither, I imagine, do you. You know very well how Tomas felt. Perhaps you’re feeling something like that right now.
My own mother died thirty-two years ago, but there are still occasions when I wake up in the night and long for her touch, the sound of her voice, the smell of her perfume and face powder. God made us a union of flesh and spirit, and God came to us in the same way. That’s what "incarnation" means.
I don’t read Jesus’ words to Thomas so much as a reprimand, as an invitation. Jesus appears a second time, says "Peace be with you" a second time, and then seeks out Thomas not for a special curse, but for a special blessing. "Here", he says, " Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Instead of scolding Thomas for his sinfulness, Jesus blesses him for his "skinfulness."
Thomas wants a Savior with skin on and so do we all. A strictly "spiritual" Savior will not do. A skinless metaphor is no help in the middle of the night, and a risen Christ who bears no scars is not the Word made flesh.
Debbie Blue, a pastor in St. Paul, Minnesota, writes, "There’s something incredibly vulnerable about this story from both sides: what Thomas needs and what Jesus is willing to give to be known." It’s yet another wonder of the gospel that Jesus, who has already given his life, is willing to give even more to help Thomas in his need.
As it turns out, Thomas does not reach out his finger, does not put his finger in the mark of the nails, does not touch Jesus’ side or those ruined hands. Seeing and hearing is enough. "My Lord and my God," he says – a confession that goes way beyond anything anyone else has said to the risen Jesus.
Having blessed Thomas with his invitation, Jesus then blesses us. "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe," he says. I’d like to think that I could count myself in that category – of people who believe without seeing. But, to tell the absolute truth, I’m not in that category.
My faith is all about seeing and touching – about tasting and feeling, about throwing my hands around the people I love and who love me. It’s about water cascading into a font, wet and warm and cleansing. It’s about hands laid on in prayer and oil smeared in the shape of a cross. It’s about bread broken and wine poured out. Some people call these things "symbols," but the church calls them "sacraments," which is something else altogether. Sacraments embody a reality that we can touch and taste and feel, the reality of God incarnate: "My Lord and my God."
I do believe, but it’s not because I haven’t seen. It’s because I have seen, and have been touched, and do know what it’s like to be gathered up into the arms of God.
After this service I plan to jump in the car and join the twenty-one brothers and sisters who have already gathered in North Carolina for the Spring Break Mission Trip. Next week we’ll be trimming trees and building facilities for the Black Mountain Children’s Home. We’ll also put on a party for the children – play some games, flip some burgers, toss some softballs (if it’s not snowing!).
Christian do this kind of thing because it’s not enough to serve a Lord risen in our heads and hearts. We have to serve a Lord risen in the flesh. We have to use hands that could have touched his side and fingers that could have traced those dreadful marks to carry on the work that he began, building a kingdom that he inaugurated. This, too, is sacramental. It’s a way of pointing to his presence among us which is, in fact, tangible, taste-able, real.
"I need somebody with skin on." Everybody does. Every body does. That’s why the church is called "the body of Christ."
Brother Thomas is not an embarrassment to the gospel. He’s a witness to the gospel. Blessed is Thomas, and blessed are those who see and believe because they have been touched by the body of Christ.
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