Sermon April 15, 2012

Acts 4:32-35
Psalm 133
1 John 1:1 - 2:2John 20:19-31

 
“Experience Resurrection”

“There lives more faith in honest doubt,

Believe me, than in half the creeds.” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

When I was looking for some thoughts on Thomas and his encounter with Jesus in today's gospel text I found this short verse. So I spent some time looking for the source of this quote—making sure that it was written by Tennyson, for one, but to read its context. I wanted to see what he was talking about when he wrote it. What doubt? What faith? What creed?

And as I read the full poem, one of many called In Memoriam, I realized that he wrote of someone who struggled with a task. In the struggle, the person didn't have much faith in ever being perfect. But because the person kept with the struggle, because he or she knew perfection was always beyond their goal, they always had an ideal to pursue. This person always improved and never stopped in their struggle. In their faith that there was always more, in their doubt that they would ever be perfect, there was faith in the abundance of what perfection had to offer.

This morning's scripture texts offer us two views of the church in the first century and neither present the perfect way of being church, but both are perspectives about being faithful to the resurrection of Jesus Christ amid need and doubt.

The gospel story begins by describing the first evening of that first resurrection Sunday. This is an infant church, at best. The disciples, though I guess not all of them, were gathered together in fear of being arrested in collusion with Jesus. The gospel of John uses the phrase, “in fear of the Jews,” though the men in that locked house were also Jewish people. But the fear was that they would be suffer as Jesus' had. And at this point in their life as disciples of Jesus, it was difficult to be terribly brave. A lot was left for them to learn what discipleship meant. So they hid.

In comparison, the word picture from the book of Acts describes the life of the church awhile later. All who believed were unified in their love for one another and their belief in Jesus Christ as risen Lord. They had such trust in one another that they decided to hold their property in common. According to this description, this particular early community had such trust in God and in one another that they didn't hold personal property, but shared according to what each one needed. These believers in Christ were no longer hiding their faith, but putting it and their worldly goods on the line. In what seems like just a few months, the followers of Jesus have become a community. And though this description

That first night when the disciples were first learning that Jesus had been raised was still one of incredible mystery and confusion. So Jesus' first words to them in that moment were words of reassurance. Be peaceful, calm down, rest assured—in John's poetry, “Peace be with you.” It had been a traumatic week. Even the exciting and enjoyable parts were full of tension. Then the whole thing ended in defeat, so they had thought. And then the surprise of resurrection was a little more than most could handle without fear and trepidation. So they sat in the dark and the isolation until Jesus broke the silence and fear—with peace. He didn't shout or sternly chastise them for their fear, it seems, but quietly became present among them and assured them of his life, resurrected and real.

And then they had to learn how to live with this news as a community. They had to learn to hold this wonderful knowledge within a diverse group of people—and right away they had to deal with Thomas and his honest, concerned doubt. He demanded with sincerity, it seems, to touch Jesus' hands and to see the wound in his side. All of those things, he imagined had to be clearly apparent on Jesus' physical body. It had been such a short time since he received them.

And so he saw, Jesus offered his hands, his side, and Thomas made the most profound declaration about Jesus in this gospel, “My Lord and My God!” and knelt. In the profound depth of his struggle, one might see the strength of his conviction. It was the experience of Jesus that convinced him—it seems he didn't actually have to touch Jesus' hands and side, but Jesus' presence bowled him over.

As the church began to live the life of a community, they had to struggle and work within the doubt that comes from life's questions, problems, obstacles and all the natural, normal things that happened. They figured out, in their need to live and work together, that they had to take care of one another, to love one another as Jesus had taught them. They began to learn and were inspired by the Holy Spirit, on the wind, in the fire and here in John's gospel in the very breath of Jesus—that part of their care for one another in that time and that place that love and care meant sharing their possessions in common.

They weren't far, just a few months perhaps, from Thomas' discovery—that the physical presence of Jesus Christ, in his actual body or in the body of Christ, the church, meant that Jesus' ministry continues in a very real and physical way.

Even though these two experiences of the love of Jesus Christ were told by two very different gospel writers—the author of Luke's gospel also wrote the book of Acts—there was a very real awareness in both narratives that love and compassion meant physical action. And in the gospel text for today, experiencing the resurrection meant that Thomas saw the compassion and love in Jesus' eyes—for him, certainly and for all the believers who would believe and continue Jesus' ministry of life and caring compassion for those who were in need.

As human beings one of the clearest ways we know that we are loved is when we are shown love—when we cry as infants, we know we are loved when arms hold us or change our diapers or when we are fed what we need to grow. We know love in a visceral way. I've done many funerals and when I talk to people about their loved ones, families almost always tell me about the loved one in terms of how that person showed their love. He worked hard for his family; she always had plenty to eat on the table; he always had time for my children; she made all of our clothes when we were kids; they were always together, even when they didn't talk much to each other. We know love in experience; and so we know life, even resurrected life, from experience.

The love of Jesus cast away all doubt from Thomas—but his doubt exposed how sincerely he wanted to love the living Jesus, so much that he had to experience that love to know that life. And we do, too, we have to know that we are loved by Jesus Christ. We have to know that God loves us. We must be aware of the power of the Holy Spirit in us. We don't know any those things perfectly, but we must know it in some flawed, human and wonderfully imperfect way.

We can't know the living Christ by just believing it in abstraction—when we have come to believe we have had some experience that has made us understand that we, too, have the love of God in Jesus Christ. We have come to know that experience—in the darkness of a prison cell, in the warm light of a church service, in the cold hands of those in need of a warm meal, or in our own fear and need for the love Jesus and his followers have to give. However it is that we know it, if we believe that Jesus is risen—we have experienced Jesus' life in our own in some way.

Thomas didn't doubt because he didn't believe that God could do what seemed impossible—Thomas doubted because he felt alone, abandoned, left out of the love, the peace and community where Jesus' came to stand. In community, Jesus appeared and revealed that in him, they could live in peace together—to remind them of what they had had and what they were to have as a community who were bonded by their love and their lives.

In Jerusalem, they chose to bond and love one another by sharing their resources in common. In many of the communities where Paul preached and taught the gospel, they also share their resources with each other and with the church of Jerusalem and others in need—and when they weren't just with one another, their leaders called them on it. In today's scripture, including the epistle reading, we are reminded to face ourselves with the sincerity of Thomas, to have faith honestly—to face our doubts, confess our sins and be true to the experiences we have of love, of community and of the presence of Jesus Christ—within ourselves and within the people who surround us.

To the glory of God—who loves us in our doubt and in our faith—in our honest experience of the life that we are to live in Jesus Christ. Amen.