Hello out there! Sorry we have not posted in forever, we have all be swallowed up in our work lately and so in an effort to get us going again I have posted one of the things that has been keeping me from blogging-- my most recent sermon based on John 20:19-31 aka the "Doubting Thomas" story. I hope you enjoy it. -Caitlin
There is an old Jewish story[1] about the messiah that I think of when I hear this story about Thomas asking to see the wounds on Jesus’ body. It goes something like this: One day a rabbi was out walking and he met the prophet Elijah. He asked him, “Elijah, when will the Messiah come?”
Elijah replied, “Go and ask him yourself.”
“But Where is he?” asked the Rabbi.
“He is sitting at the gates of the city.”
“How shall I know him?”
And Elijah answered, “He is sitting among the poor who are covered with wounds. The others unbind all their wounds at the same times and then bind them up again. But he unbinds one at a time and binds it up again, saying to himself, ‘Perhaps I shall be needed; if so I must always be ready so as not to delay for a moment.’”
A messiah covered with wounds, sitting among the wounded.
There they are on Easter day. They have seen the empty tomb; they have heard Mary’s report that she has seen Jesus. But there they are, huddled behind closed, locked doors, asking each other questions about the messiah. “Surely this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen?” “Where is his body?” “Was he even the messiah at all?”
And then Jesus walks in…not in a blaze of light but covered still in the wounds of his crucifixion. A wounded messiah who appears among the wounded and scared disciples.
Many people have made quite a fuss over the fact that John tells us that the doors were locked tight when somehow Jesus appears among them. Can Jesus’ resurrected body walk through walls, they ask? Is this a “beam me up Scotty” sort of thing where the Jesus can now just appear wherever he pleases? This added to the question of whether Jesus still even looks the same after the resurrection. Mary does mistake him for the gardener after all when she first sees him! These are interesting questions, but they are not the questions that the disciples seem to take any notice of in this story. No, what strikes them about Jesus and what he came to show them is not his new apparition skills, but his wounds. Peace be with you, he says and then he shows them his hands and his side…the places he had been wounded on the cross.
Why would they have wanted or needed to see his wounds? I don’t know about you but I don’t usually imagine my Easter morning Jesus with the wounds still fresh in his hands and in his side. I imagine my Easter morning Jesus bright and shining and glorious. Why would they want to see his wounds? Why would he still have his wounds at all? Isn’t the suffering supposed to be over the moment we take the black cloth off of the cross and bring the Easter lilies to set around the Table? It seems like wounds don’t really belong in an Easter story.
So it surprises me even more when the first thing Thomas says, the proof he needs is to touch the wounds of Jesus’ hands and side! He wants exactly what Jesus knew the other disciples needed to see. Why would they all want to dwell on his wounds? But I heard a story recently that changed my mind about this and I found myself realizing how important it is that Jesus shows Thomas the wounds on his hands and side.
I have a friend who is a champion garage sale shopper, so much so that she has a side job where people pay her to come in and help them price their estate sales at appropriate market rates. She told me a story about going to a house of an old woman whose husband had died recently. As she looked through their things she noticed several old and well-worn bibles on the shelf. She asked the woman if they were hers and if she wanted to keep them but the woman said no. She asked her if she was a Christian, surprisingly the woman looked at her and said, “I used to be, a long time ago. But then I did something bad, and I don’t think Jesus could ever forgive me for it.“ My friend was shocked, and being the kind of person she is she stopped what she was doing and spent the rest of the hour listening as the woman told her story of how many times she had asked for forgiveness but yet still felt that Jesus would never forgive her.
She came back the next day to finish the job and she asked the woman if she could pray with her, and she said this, “Jesus knows what it’s like to have wounds you can’t get rid of, so if anyone can give you peace about your past it is Jesus.” They prayed together one more time, cried together one more time, and when they were done the woman asked her if she could keep those old bibles from the bookshelf instead of selling them. The wounds were still there, but now Jesus and his wounds were there too.
I think this story is an Easter story, wounds and all. It’s a story about the wounds that we carry with us, and how it often feels like we bear them alone, that no one else could understand. But one of amazing things about Easter is that they can seem a little lighter, a little more possible to forgive and heal when we see Jesus resurrected and glorified, wounds and all.
When Thomas sees those wounds on Jesus’ hands and side he knows that this is the same man he gave up everything to follow, the same man who died on Good Friday but now is risen and glorified. Thomas has new hope, he cries out “My Lord and my God!” An Easter proclamation, wounds have been transformed into glory.
And Jesus isn’t a special case. Just like you and me, his wounds don’t disappear just because it is Easter Sunday. Wounds are a part of the human condition. But Jesus turns those wounds into something else; they are now a sign of his glory instead of his defeat, a sign of God’s love instead of the power of death.
Jesus’ wounds don’t glorify suffering; they don’t pretend that suffering is good. Instead they show that glory will not be stopped by suffering, that God’s love is not deterred by wounds. God’s love glorifies us wounds and all.
We have a messiah who we find sitting right along side of us, wounds and all. He showing us his wounds saying to all of his people: I am with you in your suffering, in your darkest hour, I have been there. And there is hope because I will bring you through it, I will lift you up like I have been lifted up, I will bring you new life through my new life, I will bring you healing through my wounds.
God’s glory won’t be stopped by any sin or pain or suffering no matter how deep, it can be forgiven, it can be transformed. Jesus’ wounds are living proof of that. Let the wounded rejoice, Jesus Christ has risen, wounds and all.
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Caitlin, this really spoke to me today. Thank you so much for sharing.
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