Lectionary reading from the Revised Common Lectionary
John 20:19-31
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
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.
*******
Pastor’s note
There are two key things I notice in this passage for the second Sunday of Easter.
First, there is an expression of peace in the midst of the worst of it all. At this juncture in our story, Jesus was executed by torture, at the hands of the imperial Roman army. And this was done with the consent and even collaboration of the religious leaders of the people. And one of the very friends of Jesus betrayed him to the authorities. So now Jesus’ friends gather, but it is behind locked doors, because they fear their own leaders.
Grief, uncertainty, and raw fear of menacing power threaten to overcome them. Into the middle of this debilitating maelstrom, the resurrected Jesus shows up and says “Peace be with you.”
Second, it is physical. Not ordinary physical, for sure. Jesus just shows up in a locked house. And his closest friends don’t recognize him immediately. First he must show them the scars to demonstrate who he is. Then they rejoice. Except Thomas takes a bit more time to get to the rejoicing. It’s all a bit much, all a bit sudden. He needs to touch, have a moment to process confirmation.
I think I might be with Thomas here. For a dead teacher/rabbi to show up in a locked room, even if I recognized him, might not immediately move me to rejoicing.
But there it is. Peace. And peace in a way that’s physically real. Not imaginary peace, or peace where you just squint your eyes together and try to make it seem real.
I am currently reading a wonderful book by Cynthia Bourgeault called Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God.” Her key point is that this “mystical hope” is not the same as hope that is focused on outcomes. She quotes the small prophetic book Habakkuk which says:
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights. (Habakkuk 3:17-19)
She notes that in this passage, hope is not based on a good outcome. There is no good outcome in the text. There is only a rejoicing that is discovered even in the midst of the worst hard time.
She notes that this is brought home even more acutely in the book of Job, where Job’s life is comprehensively dumped over and scattered. And it is in the midst of this that he says the words which have now been immortalized in Handel’s Messiah, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” (Job 19)
And it is the root of what Jesus talks about with the woman at the well, when he says:
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
It is hope that wells up from within, not dependent on success, approval, or survival. Rather it is hope that is an expression of the foundational “mercy” which is at the heart of all creation. She speaks of this mercy as the connective tissue or the “luminous web” (quoting Barbara Brown Taylor) of all reality. The purpose of Bourgeault’s book is to help understand how to let this mercy flow through us so that our hope is grounded in the heart of the divine.
In her book, she makes the same two observations as I made with our story of Jesus:
First, this hope is for us even when times are the hardest (Even as Jesus wishes his friends “peace” in their locked home.)
Second, this hope is not something we must imagine, but that flows into us with real psychological impact. We feel it filling our bodies. It is physical. (Even as Jesus appears in his mysterious body which is both recognizable and not recognizable.”)
This book feels extraordinarily relevant to me right now. I feel fear, for self and others. I want to hide behind a locked door. Times seem unimaginably strange. And I need whatever the goodness is to come to me physically. I don’t want just an idea. I want to be filled by existential warmth. I want confirmation, like Thomas. I want it to be real.
Much more needs to be said. What exactly are we talking about? How does this happen? I will probably share more insights from Bourgeault’s book as I go along. But this is what she talks about. She’s not just winging an idea out into the universe. She’s describing a reality she has experienced, lived, and witnessed in others. She calls it not the idea of hope but “the body of hope.”
I wish this reality for each one of us. May we be those who find the “living water” within, and the peace of Christ, in the locked rooms of our fears.
Much love to you,
—Pastor Vern
Leave a comment