Dr. William H. Willimon tells the story of an Easter Sunday Morning way back when he was the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University Chapel. Worship was just concluding with the last blast of the trumpets being heard, the last Alleluia being sung, and the big “ba da” of the Widor Toccata making the rafters ring, when a young man seemed to stumble forth in the late morning Durham sunlight. He took Willimon by the hand, looked him straight in the eye, and said: “Do you know how hard it is to believe?”
It was the most honest thing that was said to me that morning, the Dean observed.
Doubt and its companion fear are a part of the faith experience but I join with one of my favourite preachers, Dr. James D. Howell, also of North Carolina (There must be something in the water down there!) who said, “I’m wary of sermons that get fixated on ‘doubting’ Thomas. It’s a thing; I’m unsure if it helps parishioners if the clergy say, “I have doubts too!” We’ve all heard sermons about ‘doubting Thomas.’ Doubt is hardly praised in this story.”1
Neither is fear. Saint John tells us that on that first Easter evening “the disciples were meeting behind locked doors, in fear of the Jewish leaders...”2
But it wasn’t just the learned religious leaders that the disciples were afraid of it was also the Roman authorities.
Remember, it was their guards who were posted at the tomb with the charge to keep it secure. Now it was empty. What happened to the body? I wonder who had a bigger stake at finding it – the learned religious leaders or a government that had prided itself on its security measures and now had to deal with the blow back of having one of them fail. It appears that somehow, someway, they had not been able to guard something as simple as a tomb with a body it.
Where was the body? Who had the body? That group hidden behind lock doors were the prime suspects.
In the midst of all this they may have been mourning the loss of a friend. Reports from earlier in the day notwithstanding, Jesus was no longer with them. He might be alive but he also still could be dead.
“Following a death,” Dr. Fred Craddock reminds us, “there is much to do and there is nothing to do: nobody goes to work, nobody goes to school, nobody is hungry, nobody has anything to say.” If you live in the south someone may show up at your door with a casserole or, better yet, a peach cobbler, but otherwise, “helpers are helpless.”3
Dr. Peter Marty says:
I think of this passage almost every time I lead a funeral. An exhausted family gathers in shock, weary from days of too little sleep and too much crying. Dressed in ill-fitting black clothes just purchased for the day and fingering little packets of tissue in their hands, these mourners look like the wind of life has been sucked right out of them. The present feels joyless. The future looks foggy.4
So, there they were, facing a future that was at best foggy and perhaps even downright dangerous, when something amazing happened, the risen Christ showed up. To this band of people who, except for the woman and the disciple he loved at the foot of the cross, had betrayed him, and forsook him, and deserted him, he showed up.
Then, Dr. Peter Marty, reminds us “the first thing Jesus did when out of the tomb, once he picked the dirt clods from his eyebrows, was to breathe on his disciples. That's right, he breathed on them. He opened his mouth and let them have it--three days' worth of empty stomach breath.”
Before they had any chance to pull away in revulsion, Jesus said to all of those disciples, ‘Peace be with you’ --words that evidently felt to them like a breath of fresh air.”5
Jesus showed up. And one week later, we are told, he’ll show up again, this time for Thomas. The first time Jesus showed up Thomas was a no show.
Thomas gets “dinged” a lot for his absence on that first Easter evening. Every year, on the Sunday after Easter, not only is this poor guy name mentioned he is the central character in the story. But remember, this story is not about Thomas but about Jesus who showed up.
The only thing Thomas is guilty of is absence on that first Easter evening when Jesus made one of his appearances to the whole group of disciples. They were all gathered together but Thomas is not there.
Maybe he got tired of sitting shiva for someone who may, or may not, have been dead. Perhaps he got tired of the endless speculation about what happened. Perhaps he was as confused - as we can sometimes be - by all the stories of resurrection encounters with Jesus. Perhaps he was just tired of staring at the wallpaper and wondering what to do. Perhaps he needed a breath of fresh air. We don’t know what Thomas was doing. All we know for certain is that he wasn’t in the room where it happened when Jesus made his grand re-entry into the disciples’ lives.
Upon his return all Thomas does is wonder if what his friends are saying is true.
Thomas walks into the upper room, and everyone says, “Oh my gosh, guess who was just here? Jesus! He breathed in our faces, OK that was weird, but then he showed us his wounds! It was really him!”6
Remember, what they are telling him is that his friend Jesus who was stone cold, definitely dead only a few days ago is now running around making guest appearances to everybody Thomas knows. Everybody that is but him.
We’ve been celebrating Easter for all of our lives and while the story has not lost one bit of its power experiencing it for the very first time must have been an entirely different matter. This is not something that is taken in easily and Thomas is not sure he can believe it just based on word of mouth.
It is then. It is exactly then that Jesus shows up.
If you don’t remember anything else I say this morning, remember this: Jesus was faithful too. Jesus never gave up on Thomas! Jesus showed up for him.
Jesus could have responded: “All right then, don’t take your friends word for it. Don’t listen to them for all I care.” He could have even said, “Listen I’m not going to subject myself to your cockamamie tests. Either believe or don’t believe but don’t you go poking me.”
Instead, Jesus shows up and says: “Whatever you need Thomas. Poke, prod, ask, talk, do whatever you want. While your doubts may have rocked your faith a little I have never lost faith in you.”
As Dr. M. Craig Barnes wrote once in The Christian Century. “At the center of the gospel is the proclamation the Jesus Christ has come looking for us.”7
He will show up.
He will show up for Brooklyn Ashley this morning as she is baptized surrounded by members of this church young and old who have discovered that Jesus has come looking for us too and has shown up.
He will show up in the bread and wine of Holy Communion welcoming all who have come looking for him at his table.
No doubt he showed up for that young man who staggered between belief and doubt as he emerged from the Duke Chapel into the sun on that Easter Sunday morning.
He showed up for the women in the garden and the gang that gathered on behind locked doors on that first Easter night.
He showed up for Thomas and he will show up for you and me in good times and bad, in our joys and in our sorrows, at our work and in our play, in our doubts and in our fears because that is just what Jesus does. Jesus shows up.
So, look for him here in Church to be sure but in your life as well and when you experience his presence don’t be too surprised because Jesus always shows up.
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1. James C. Howell, “What Can We Say April 7? Easter 2,” James Howell’s Weekly Preaching Notions, January 1, 2024, https://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/.
2. St. John 20:19a (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishing, 1971.
3. Fred B. Craddock, “Above and beyond: Mark 16:1-8,” The Christian Century, April 5, 2023, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2003-04/above-and-beyond?code=5nUS7FM5VibOLHgataLU&utm_source=Christian%2BCentury%2BNewsletter&utm_campaign=c533d364cb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2024-03-25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-31c915c0b7-%5BLIST_EMIL_ID%5D.
4. Peter Marty, “April 11, Easter 2b (Acts 4:32-35; John 20:19-31), The Christian Century, March 24, 2021, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/living-word/april-11-easter-2b-acts-432-35-john-2019-31code=D0N5YuuSYvYIIuPZijL6&utm_source=Christian%2BCentury%2BNewsletter&utm_campaign=1d5465bf5c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2024-04-01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-31c915c0b7-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D.
5. Peter W. Marty, “Believing Is Seeing” Day 1, accessed April 4, 2024, https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/5d9b820ef71918cdf2003e37/believing_is_seeing.
6. MaryAnn McKibben Dana, “Doubt Your Faith, Have Faith in Your Doubt,” A Sermon for Every Sunday (asermonforeverySunday.com, April 3, 2020), https://asermonforeverysunday.com/sermons/a22-second-sunday-easter-year/.
7. M. Craig Barnes, “Crying Shame,” The Christian Century, April 6, 2004, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2004-04/crying-shame?code=mYkvJDxsgFYKvcdixInn&utm_source=Christian%2BCentury%2BNewsletter&utm_campaign=1d5465bf5c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2024-04-01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-31c915c0b7-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D.
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