Acts 5:12a, 17-22, 25-29
Psalm 111
Revelation 1:1-19

When it was evening of Easter, 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.

The cross is bare. The crucified one has been torn away from it. The beloved one, now dead, has been laid in a cave that was not hewn for him. The stone – a heavy door – has closed, sealing his wounded body in that cold and silent tomb. No need to mourn his passing, for God has raised him – resurrected him. Two thousand years later we sing and shout with joy: "The Lord is risen. The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!"

The disciples weren’t singing and shouting back then. The disciples were scared to death. Terrified that they would be searched out and rounded up, crucified like him and closed in silent tombs. So terrified that they gathered and hid behind doors – closed, locked doors. (Not all of them were there, of course. Judas had run away to meet his sad fate, alone and loveless. Thomas was away.)

The disciples were struggling that evening behind locked doors in that upper room in Jerusalem. Their world had been turned upside down that week, starting with the Passover supper and ending at the reports of the empty tomb. Perhaps their return to the place of their last meal with Jesus was an act of fledgling solidarity; yet John tells us that it was also flavored with a big measure of fear. They were confused, those disciples. Grieving, unsure of themselves, needing to recoup, needing to stabilize, needing a safe place to talk and to be. Not knowing what they were to do.

When Jesus appeared to them, suddenly and mysteriously, wishing them peace, he fulfilled his promise to them, made only days earlier: "I will not leave you orphaned, I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live." Jesus cleared it all up for them – all of their confusion and doubt and fear was banished. Jesus, the beloved Lord, the resurrected one, gave his Spirit to them. He gave them the power to forgive sins in his name. He was sending them into the world to proclaim his gospel -- to preach the truth.

Thomas came back. He could not believe what his rejoicing friends were telling him. "This is too much! I leave you guys alone for a couple of days and what happens? You must have been drinking strong wine. . . . What incredible imaginations you have -- or did you all pass out and dream that he was here? . . . . He came through closed doors? Come on! . . . .You talked with Jesus? No way! . . . .I know -- somebody came in here posing as Jesus. . . .You probably gave yourselves away – you’ll get us all killed."

The disciples remembered that Thomas was once the faithful one who had urged them all to go forth with his Lord and die. All that Thomas knew was the discordant notes ringing in his ears, the resistance in his muscles, the disconnect between his beliefs and his love. Thomas had closed the door of his heart on whatever was mysterious, whatever was not concrete, whatever could not be understood by his five senses and his mind. If he could not see it and touch it, it didn’t exist.

Against this literal-mindedness, born of Thomas’ own brokenness, the other disciples were happily insisting that they had seen Jesus. What would it take to make him accept that the Lord was really present? What did he need to believe that they were telling the truth? Out of his grief and fear, his lostness, his aloneness, doubt and disbelief had replaced Thomas’ faith. What would unlock the hidden door that concealed his faith? "To touch him. To feel where the nails were hammered through his hands. To put my hand in his side where he was stabbed with a spear. Only then will I believe."

I don’t know about you, but "Doubting Thomas" is a hard story for me. There’s something in this story that bothers me -- it’s like I’m hearing the first two discordant notes of "Chopsticks" played repeatedly . . . like little red warning flags are popping up in my mind. I feel tense when I read about "Doubting Thomas" – my shoulders and neck get stiff. Mentally, I feel like I’m in a real bad mood – grumpy and antsy all at once. Something in me is resisting.

A mentor of mine once told me that these sorts of feelings are called cognitive dissonance. She explained to me that we experience cognitive dissonance when we perceive discontinuities in our selves, our beliefs, and our institutions. Most of us deny that we experience such discontinuities, which is a way that we have of trying to get off easy, out of our fear of experiencing pain. But then, following where the discontinuities lead us, exercising non-resistance rather than resistance, we often arrive at a firmer footing than before. My mentor tells me that There is no habit more helpful to spiritual growth than this: pay attention to cognitive dissonance. Embrace and nurture doubt. Doubt does not threaten faith – it only threatens whatever stage of faith that we are locked into. Doubt carves space for more faith.*

Have you ever felt cognitive dissonance? I see plenty of heads nodding, "Yes." Let’s explore this some more in the context of "Doubting Thomas." I’ll just speak for myself, but maybe something about it will resonate in you. First, as much as I don’t want to, I can identify with Thomas. I like for things in my life to be solid and concrete. They rarely are. This sometimes upsets me. I want my faith to be concrete, too, but I don’t find that concreteness in the scriptures or in the liturgy, both of which are loaded with metaphors -- those multilevel images that give so much depth and meaning to every part of our relationship with God. Pondering on my faith and praying that I will grow spiritually, I am profoundly aware of how fleeting and insubstantial my faith is – how un-concrete my faith is. Like Thomas, I would like to be able to touch Jesus. Come to think of it, one of my favorite songs is, "Open my eyes, Lord, I want to see Jesus. To reach out and touch him, and tell him I love him."

Another thing. Thomas heard a pretty incredible story from the disciples. I, too, am bothered by mysteries that cannot be solved or understood, such as Jesus entering rooms through locked doors and then having a real body with real wounds there to be touched. When I can’t "figure things out" my belief system shuts down. For me, this is a control issue. Sometimes I work so hard to be in control in my life that I forget about having faith and trusting that God is competent to take care of me. I forget that miracles do happen and that much about our faith is mystery.

Finally, there is this inseparable problem of doubt and faith. Sometimes I have to struggle with my faith and with being faithful. In the New Testament, faith is usually a verb. To me, this means that faith is a growth process, and not a state of being. I hope that you have struggled with your faith, too. Most of the time, for me as for Thomas, the struggle involves doubt. Sometimes my faith level gets low when I’m not getting my way with God, or when I don’t feel like being accountable to God. At such times, I want to cry out to him: "I believe. Help my unbelief!"

There is grace in the Thomas story, too, for God healed Thomas’ dissonance. When Jesus appeared to the disciples in the upper room, he came only for Thomas. Jesus knew what Thomas most needed and wanted. Thomas didn’t have to ask for permission to touch Jesus. Our Lord freely offered that gift. "Peace to you. Touch me." Jesus knows everything we want and need, and everything we think is secret. He comes to us and stays with us, holding us in his love. He keeps his promise to each of us, strengthening us to have the faith to hear and obey his word, as he says to each of us:

I give you my Risen Peace,

I give you my Breath of Life to sustain you

I bind you to myself this day

So that you will become a sent-out people,

To come and stand among others carrying forgiving love,

To open the locked hearts of the world.

 

* Gray Temple, The Molten Soul: Dangers and Opportunities in Religious Conversion (New York: Church Publishing, 2000), p. 81.