Deacon Pete's sermon Easter 2 Yr A April 27, 2014

Nicknames are a funny thing.  And, in my family, we are experts on nicknames, all of my father’s siblings were called by names they were not given at birth.   Our history abounds with nicknames:  Wrong Way Corrigan, “Babe” Ruth,  “Wild Bill” Hickock,  Al “Scarface” Capone, “Ike” Eisenhower, “Red” Skelton…Sometimes nicknames are given fondly, sometimes with gentle sarcasm and sometimes as a description of the person’s true nature.
That leads us to today’s Gospel, the gospel of “Doubting” Thomas.  We know little of Thomas other than this episode.  His name comes from the Aramaic “Toma”, meaning twin.  And indeed, Thomas could be said to be our twin.  For in his doubts, his questions, and his concerns Thomas mirrors us,  here,  today.
“When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week” some 2000 years ago the disciples were locked into a house, frightened and unsure of what had happened and of what would happen to them.  They didn’t know what Mother Cathy reminded us of last week, that Easter is not the end, Easter is the beginning.  For the disciples, it certainly looked like everything was over; they had given up friends, families and homes to follow Jesus and now, all that they had hoped for was in ruin.  Not only was their future in question, they must also have been feeling pretty discouraged about their behavior these past few days.  After all, they had failed Jesus in some very large ways.  Peter had denied Him three times and all except “the disciple Jesus loved” had deserted Him while He hung on the cross.
They know that the tomb is empty, but “where is He”?  They had forgotten the things that Jesus said to them earlier, before He went to Gethsemane. “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me” (John 16:16-18) and “You will have pain but your pain will turn into joy.  So you have pain now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (J 20-22).
Thanks be to God, Jesus doesn’t stop for locked doors.  And, He doesn’t come in anger or judgment.  He immediately offers them peace.  At this point, the disciples fall into the “believers” category, they believe that the man they have followed cured the sick, raised the dead, made the blind see and the paralyzed walk, but they don’t “know” Jesus.  They don’t “know” that Jesus has defeated death once and for all, they don’t know that they are about to experience His risen body, they don’t know that they are going to be given the grace, the strength and the power to do what Jesus has appointed them to do: “go and bear fruit, fruit that will last”.
Jesus breathes on the disciples and they are given the gift of the Holy Spirit.  It is then that they move from “believers” to “knowers”.  And they make this leap in the midst of their fear, pain, doubt and confusion.
When Jesus tells the disciples that the sins they will forgive will be forgiven he is talking about unbelief, the refusal to “know” God.  He is not giving them some special power to decide whose sins will be forgiven and whose will not, He is really laying out for them what it means to be sent, to make known the love of God that Jesus Himself has made known.  People who come to know Jesus will be released from their sin.  If the disciples fail to go and tell, fail to witness, then the people will remain stuck in unknowing.
Thomas isn’t really any different than the other disciples.  Like them, he too has been a ‘believer’ but not a ‘knower.  He wasn’t in the garden with Mary Magdalene and for some reason Thomas is not with the disciples at the beginning of this story, and so Easter comes a week later for him, when Jesus again appears in the house.  Thomas gets his Easter in the way that many of us get it.  He begins to ‘know’ when he brings his questions, his doubts and his concerns to God.  He wants to see for himself, he wants to touch.  He needs his own encounter with the risen Lord before the story will be real to him, before he can trust the story.
Thomas doesn’t take ‘knowing’ lightly.  If this resurrection story is true, everything changes. No one gets to go home, to go back to their boats or their farms or their shops.  No one gets to go back to their hatred or prejudice or fear.  No one gets to hate their neighbor or even to ignore their neighbor.  No one gets to look out for himself or herself at the expense of others.  No one’s dignity is secure if everyone’s dignity is not seen and honored.   If Jesus is indeed resurrected, then the disciples will have to get to leave the house, stop hiding and get to work.  They will have to get busy doing the work of being Jesus in the world, and so will we.   And, that’s what Mother Cathy meant when she said Easter is only the beginning.
Thomas turns down the Lord’s offer to put his finger in his wounds, to reach out his hand and touch the Lord’s side.  Thomas turns Jesus down because right then and there Thomas knows, and he responds “My Lord and My God”!  Knowing is like that:  unpredictable and passionate, a gift from an unpredictable and passionate God.
The Gospel ends oddly:  “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book”.  Aren’t you curious?  Doesn’t it mean that there is more to Jesus than we can ever find written, even in the pages of Holy Scripture?    Christ is alive! And Christ’s work can never be confined or limited to pages and creeds.  As Jesus said to Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (J3:8). God’s spirit set the disciples free, and it sets us free; it gives us the grace, the courage and the energy we will need for the adventures ahead. It turns us from mere ‘believers’ into ‘knowers’.   It empowers us to fulfill those Baptismal promises we made just last week and it enables us to be Christ for the world.  Amen.