Our gospel writer known as John has a plethora of stories, and can’t be bothered to tell them to us there are so many, but THIS is the story the lectionary writers choose EVERY SINGLE Year for the 2nd Sunday in Easter?
And this one has more questions in it than answers, which of course is not surprising, but still. I am wondering if, like me, you may have heard this reading 50 times, but you have some questions.
For instance: where did Jesus go between Easter morning when Mary Magdalene thinks he is the gardener, and Easter evening, when he proves to the disciples that when he says “I am the door,” he means “No door can hold me out?”
And why was Thomas not there in the room? We’ve heard him speak only two other times in John’s telling of the gospel of Jesus. The first was in chapter 11, when Jesus decides to go to resurrect Lazarus, just two miles from Jerusalem, where the leaders there are trying to find any opportunity to kill Jesus, and Thomas moans morosely to the other disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with him.”
The second time is during Jesus’s Farewell Discourse, at the beginning of chapter 14, when Jesus urges his friends not to let their hearts be troubled even though he has just told Peter that he will deny even knowing Jesus three times that very night. As he announces he is leaving, he tells them they know the way to where he is going. Only Thomas is brave enough to pipe up: “No, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” And Jesus then makes another of him vital “I am” statements, playing off the name for God. Jesus responds, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
Remembering the first time Thomas is recorded as speaking sheds some light on why perhaps the disciples are hiding behind locked doors with all the rumors rattling around Jerusalem that Jesus may be dead or he may be alive despite what everybody saw with their own eyes. The disciples can’t bring themselves to leave, and yet they know that staying puts them at risk of joining Jesus on a cross or some other method of execution, perhaps death by stoning, which was the punishment for blasphemy at that time—the very death that the first martyr among the disciples, Stephen, will undergo for testifying about Jesus.
So to the first question. I imagine that Jesus, after letting Mary Magdalene know who he is, goes straight to his mother.
I personally, as a mother, hope that one of the stories omitted was Jesus returning to see his mother, calling her “Imma,” which means “Mama” rather than “Attha” which means “woman,” as we heard from the cross in John’s gospel. I believe this because I believe Jesus loved his mother, despite what some of the gospel writer depict. Read the Magnificat, and you know where Jesus got the courage to overturn those tables in the Temple. Consider a 14- or 15-year old girl embedded in a culture that made her a pawn having the audacity to consider and say yes to God despite what it could potentially cost her, and you see where Jesus gets the courage and resolution and passion for his earthly ministry.
I think of the Pieta, and I think that Jesus would have gone to his mother and given her a personal chance for that heartbreaking, traumatic image to not be the last image she had of her beloved first born. I think Jesus would have wanted to bring his mother’s broken heart to healing, because healing was the core of who he was. He would have wanted to show her his scars too, as a sign of his ongoing, resurrected life-- rather than leaving her with the image of his death.
I picture the risen Christ appearing before his mother in her house full of mourners just as he appears to these disciples in their locked room. Because if he did, he would hear her call him not “Jesus,” which is the Greek form of his name. No, Mary would breathlessly cry out his true name of “Yeshua,” which means “Salvation” in Aramaic.
Unlike Thomas, Mary would not ask to see the scars on his wrists and ankles and side. She would have been intimately familiar with those wounds as she held the body of her son sprawled across her lap. The marks she would want to see was the light of love in Jesus’s eyes as he embraced his mother. Even as those mourners sitting with her scatter in their confusion, Jesus and his mother embrace.
Then as to my second question of where was Thomas? Since I am not persuaded that Thomas has been treated fairly throughout the centuries with getting the adjective “doubting” permanently conjoined with his name, I imagine that Thomas wasn’t behind those locked doors because he was out on the streets looking for Jesus, as I wrote on Thursday for Episcopal Journal in my poem, “Thomas Speaks:”
What would you have done?
We all had heard Magdalene’s crazy tale,
but even after all the Master’s assurances,
it was fear that seized us.
My brothers and sisters shivering behind locked doors,
while I was out in the streets and the garden
looking for our risen Lord, hoping
to see him kneeling in some thicket,
speaking to God like a child speaks to his mother.
Why they should be more afraid of a missing corpse
than of the horrors of Golgotha I cannot say.
I was out looking for him,
looking, and scattering the resurrection news like seed.
I was the only one looking, hoping,
and yet the only one to not be found by him that night.
And so I missed his murmured “peace,”
his outpouring of Spirit and commission:
“Your forgiveness of sins forgives them;
your holding fast to someone holds them fast.”
But God knows we clung to each other in our grief,
and the whole town was muttering--
you could feel the rising fear lapping
at the foundations of our house.
An octave of days passed,
and this time I heard the melody of his voice
offering us peace once more.
I was like a man parched with thirst
offered sweet, cool spring water.
My mind whirled.
And so I confessed:
“Lord, I cannot be sure that it is you
Unless I myself see the wounds you bear.”
And touching them, I was able
to find my place on the map of the good news.
Our scars are proof of life and proof of God’s love.
The healing power of overcoming those wounds
make us who we truly are:
bearers of the image of Jesus,
the One who does wonders in our lives
by loving us, scars and all.
And with that promised peace,
holding each other fast in mercy and grace,
the world is changed.
And so I believe.
How might the world be changed if we were all out on the streets looking for the resurrected Jesus and proclaiming the good news of Christ to those we meet? What marks does the world need to see from us? What marks proclaim the good news of God’s amazing grace and abundant love, rather than reinforcing the worst impulses human beings have and are called to overcome by God?
You know, those of us in the church business as a profession traditionally refer to today as what is known as a “low Sunday.” That means “low attendance.” “Low Sundays” come after the cataclysmic celebrations of Christmas and Easter in particular. Those two celebrations are known for being times when there are lots of visitors, and lots of people who only attend worship on those two occasions each year. Some people make jokes about this. Some of these jokes are kindly meant, but many of them are not. Some of the jokes about those who come to church only on Christmas Day or Easter Sunday assume a sense of smug superiority over those new faces. And friends, that is certainly not kind, not is it welcoming.
Here's the thing: Easter can be extremely hard for some people. Easter talks about things that are unbelievable, for one. But going deeper, even if most of what you see is goofy Easter bunnies and Honeybaked Ham on a groaning dinner table covered in millions of calories, church is often at the center of Easter. Easter is notoriously one of two times every year when a lot of people who never go to church during the year drag out a pastel colored shirt and some slacks and a sport jacket, or a gauzy dress and if you are a lady from certain parts of the country a jaunty hat, and go to church. Some can’t bring themselves to do even this. A lot of people, in fact.
And for too many of these people, there is a reason why feeling that pull to cross the threshhold of a church is painful. The Big C, institutional Church, fallible and made up of fallible human beings as it is, has hurt them. It has told them that Christianity is about judging others and demanding sacrifices of their essential natures that those same judgmental ones would never even consider in their own lives. It’s a Christianity that looks for scapegoats while completely missing the irony that Jesus himself served exactly as that in the politics between the common people and the power of empire.
It’s a Christianity that decides that the people different than you are different than you due to sin, and that they need repentance. And then the next step is that it is a “Christianity” that tries to justify hating or marginalizing already marginalized people into repentance and thinking that that ever works, like we see in a plethora of bills in states across the country that target the poor, or minorities, or immigrants, or our LGBTQ kindred.
And all this is done in the name of the same Jesus we see today inviting people to see his wounds as signs of his realness. Or there are people who have been shamed for questioning, for doubting, like that’s a bad thing—just like poor old Thomas there, who gets that damning “Doubting” adjective permanently glued in front of his name forever, even though what he experiences is SO common and relatable, unlike all the apostles except for Judas.
Going back to church for those who have been hurt and marginalized by this kind of Christianity is more like returning to the scene of a crime than getting your spiritual batteries recharged. And those of us who identify ourselves as actively Christian thus are presented with our first chance to ourselves take part in the salvation of Jesus which bring healing and reconciliation. And we don’t even have to do it by glomming onto every stranger that walks through our doors, especially at Easter.
The good news of the time in which we live is that the world is our mission field, much like it was for those early disciples. The good news is that we, by our testimony, by just showing up and showing the marks of Jesus’s self-giving love, have it within our power to counter the narrative of exclusion and division and condemnation that passes for Christian belief in too much of the world outside our doors. We can and must be better than that, and do so visibly, embracing the vulnerability of Jesus in showing our marks, our scars, our empathy and common cause with those who are hurting.
The Church calls itself the Body of Christ for a reason. We call ourselves the Body of Christ because we ARE the living representation of who Jesus is to the world. Each and every one of us, and all of us collectively. And I am convinced that the marks the world needs to see are not the marks of a bully in the culture wars, othering people because we can get away with it. No, that is EXACTLY what put Jesus on the cross to begin with, and drives people away from a life of faith because they associate it with a life of exclusion, rejection, and casting people out rather than gathering them within the embrace of the outstretched arms of Jesus. By way of us.
What marks does the world need to see? The marks of love. The marks of compassion, like Mary holding the broken body of her baby boy on her lap. The wounds that tell the world that we are here to heal and reconcile no matter what it costs us, because that is exactly who Jesus was and IS. Present tense.
As I insisted last Sunday, we are an Easter people. We are a people who proclaim resurrection and eternal life in the name of a living God, a living Messiah, a living Holy Spirit. We can do it by showing the marks of Christ to a doubting world—a world that needs those marks now more than ever.
Amen.
I picture the risen Christ appearing before his mother in her house full of mourners just as he appears to these disciples in their locked room. Because if he did, he would hear her call him not “Jesus,” which is the Greek form of his name. No, Mary would breathlessly cry out his true name of “Yeshua,” which means “Salvation” in Aramaic.
Unlike Thomas, Mary would not ask to see the scars on his wrists and ankles and side. She would have been intimately familiar with those wounds as she held the body of her son sprawled across her lap. The marks she would want to see was the light of love in Jesus’s eyes as he embraced his mother. Even as those mourners sitting with her scatter in their confusion, Jesus and his mother embrace.
What would you have done?
We all had heard Magdalene’s crazy tale,
but even after all the Master’s assurances,
it was fear that seized us.
My brothers and sisters shivering behind locked doors,
while I was out in the streets and the garden
looking for our risen Lord, hoping
to see him kneeling in some thicket,
speaking to God like a child speaks to his mother.
Why they should be more afraid of a missing corpse
than of the horrors of Golgotha I cannot say.
I was out looking for him,
looking, and scattering the resurrection news like seed.
I was the only one looking, hoping,
and yet the only one to not be found by him that night.
And so I missed his murmured “peace,”
his outpouring of Spirit and commission:
“Your forgiveness of sins forgives them;
your holding fast to someone holds them fast.”
But God knows we clung to each other in our grief,
and the whole town was muttering--
you could feel the rising fear lapping
at the foundations of our house.
An octave of days passed,
and this time I heard the melody of his voice
offering us peace once more.
I was like a man parched with thirst
offered sweet, cool spring water.
My mind whirled.
And so I confessed:
“Lord, I cannot be sure that it is you
Unless I myself see the wounds you bear.”
And touching them, I was able
to find my place on the map of the good news.
Our scars are proof of life and proof of God’s love.
The healing power of overcoming those wounds
make us who we truly are:
bearers of the image of Jesus,
the One who does wonders in our lives
by loving us, scars and all.
And with that promised peace,
holding each other fast in mercy and grace,
the world is changed.
And so I believe.
How might the world be changed if we were all out on the streets looking for the resurrected Jesus and proclaiming the good news of Christ to those we meet? What marks does the world need to see from us? What marks proclaim the good news of God’s amazing grace and abundant love, rather than reinforcing the worst impulses human beings have and are called to overcome by God?
You know, those of us in the church business as a profession traditionally refer to today as what is known as a “low Sunday.” That means “low attendance.” “Low Sundays” come after the cataclysmic celebrations of Christmas and Easter in particular. Those two celebrations are known for being times when there are lots of visitors, and lots of people who only attend worship on those two occasions each year. Some people make jokes about this. Some of these jokes are kindly meant, but many of them are not. Some of the jokes about those who come to church only on Christmas Day or Easter Sunday assume a sense of smug superiority over those new faces. And friends, that is certainly not kind, not is it welcoming.
Here's the thing: Easter can be extremely hard for some people. Easter talks about things that are unbelievable, for one. But going deeper, even if most of what you see is goofy Easter bunnies and Honeybaked Ham on a groaning dinner table covered in millions of calories, church is often at the center of Easter. Easter is notoriously one of two times every year when a lot of people who never go to church during the year drag out a pastel colored shirt and some slacks and a sport jacket, or a gauzy dress and if you are a lady from certain parts of the country a jaunty hat, and go to church. Some can’t bring themselves to do even this. A lot of people, in fact.
It’s a Christianity that decides that the people different than you are different than you due to sin, and that they need repentance. And then the next step is that it is a “Christianity” that tries to justify hating or marginalizing already marginalized people into repentance and thinking that that ever works, like we see in a plethora of bills in states across the country that target the poor, or minorities, or immigrants, or our LGBTQ kindred.
And all this is done in the name of the same Jesus we see today inviting people to see his wounds as signs of his realness. Or there are people who have been shamed for questioning, for doubting, like that’s a bad thing—just like poor old Thomas there, who gets that damning “Doubting” adjective permanently glued in front of his name forever, even though what he experiences is SO common and relatable, unlike all the apostles except for Judas.
Going back to church for those who have been hurt and marginalized by this kind of Christianity is more like returning to the scene of a crime than getting your spiritual batteries recharged. And those of us who identify ourselves as actively Christian thus are presented with our first chance to ourselves take part in the salvation of Jesus which bring healing and reconciliation. And we don’t even have to do it by glomming onto every stranger that walks through our doors, especially at Easter.
The good news of the time in which we live is that the world is our mission field, much like it was for those early disciples. The good news is that we, by our testimony, by just showing up and showing the marks of Jesus’s self-giving love, have it within our power to counter the narrative of exclusion and division and condemnation that passes for Christian belief in too much of the world outside our doors. We can and must be better than that, and do so visibly, embracing the vulnerability of Jesus in showing our marks, our scars, our empathy and common cause with those who are hurting.
The Church calls itself the Body of Christ for a reason. We call ourselves the Body of Christ because we ARE the living representation of who Jesus is to the world. Each and every one of us, and all of us collectively. And I am convinced that the marks the world needs to see are not the marks of a bully in the culture wars, othering people because we can get away with it. No, that is EXACTLY what put Jesus on the cross to begin with, and drives people away from a life of faith because they associate it with a life of exclusion, rejection, and casting people out rather than gathering them within the embrace of the outstretched arms of Jesus. By way of us.
What marks does the world need to see? The marks of love. The marks of compassion, like Mary holding the broken body of her baby boy on her lap. The wounds that tell the world that we are here to heal and reconcile no matter what it costs us, because that is exactly who Jesus was and IS. Present tense.
As I insisted last Sunday, we are an Easter people. We are a people who proclaim resurrection and eternal life in the name of a living God, a living Messiah, a living Holy Spirit. We can do it by showing the marks of Christ to a doubting world—a world that needs those marks now more than ever.
Amen.
Readings:
This was preached at the 505 on April 15 and the 10:30 Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.
Citations:
The poem, "Thomas Speaks," was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on April 13, 2023. Copyright Leslie Barnes Scoopmire. All rights reserved.
Amen.
