Second Sunday of Easter

"My Lord and my God!"

          We single him out as the one who needed proof. He gets that name stuck to him forever and ever: Doubting Thomas. But notice--no one believes that Jesus is Risen until they have seen and touched him for themselves.

          When the angels tell the women who have come to the tomb bearing myrrh and spices that Jesus is risen, they do not really believe them. Only when Jesus himself appears to Mary Magdalene does she realize the power and reality of the Resurrection.

          When the women run to the Apostles, telling them that the Lord is Risen and has appeared to them, the Apostles dismiss this as an idle tale. They are wondering and afraid, but they don't believe. Only when Christ appears to them in the flesh, revealing the scars of those fatal wounds inflicted upon Him, do they know for themselves that truly Christ is Risen.

So Thomas isn’t asking for anything other than what the others got before they believed.

          And belief isn’t about the blind acceptance of others’ assertions. Belief isn’t even about proof, sticking your fingers inside the wounds of Jesus’ Crucifixion. When we talk about those who believe in Jesus, we're not talking about those who can recite the proper facts or creeds of the Church. We're talking about knowing and loving and trusting Jesus.

You don’t believe in Jesus the way that you believe in gravity, or that two and two are four. You believe in Jesus the way that you believe in your husband, or your parents, or your best friend. We believe in those we love. We who believe in Jesus do not simply insist upon blind acceptance of facts and assertions about Jesus. That’s not what we offer. What we offer is Jesus himself.

Don't listen to the story of Christianity as if it were a checklist of proposals to be affirmed. Christianity does not simply offer history. We don't speak of people who once lived but are now long dead. Don’t believe in Jesus just because I say so. Or even because Thomas says so. Believe in Jesus because you know and love and trust him, because you’ve encountered him for yourselves.

          But how does that even happen? Not many of us are graced with miraculous visions or prophetic dreams. We do not have the benefit of the Risen Christ regularly popping up at our worship, as Thomas and Mary and the Apostles had for those astonishing 40 days between the Resurrection and the Ascension. But Christ is still here. He is still Risen, still alive, and still at work in this world! We can still see him and touch him; we can still encounter him for ourselves.

          Where? Well, in all the Resurrection appearances of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, Jesus goes unrecognized even by those who knew and loved him best in life, until he makes himself known to them by calling out their names, by breaking bread with them, by opening the Scriptures to them. You want to know where Jesus is so you can believe in him? He's where he promised to be.

          Jesus calls you by name in your Baptism; He breaks for you the Bread of Life when we gather for Holy Communion; and his own Holy Spirit opens to you the Scriptures, that you might encounter the living Word of God through the written Word of God.

Christ hides you within his holy wounds--wounds that his body still bears--and it is in them, that you find peace. For when you see the depths of suffering God endured for love, and the depths of love revealed in that suffering—how can you help but fall on your knees and confess to His face: “My Lord and my God”?