Thomas Missed It!

2nd Sunday of Eastertime

April 7, 2013
John 20:19-31
[Sermon Pattern from Patterns of Preaching by Ronald Allen]

Oops

      Thomas missed it. 

      When Mary Magdalene arrived back into Jerusalem from the tomb the sun was barely above the horizon, her eyes dry, her smile unending with her checks bright red red, everyone knew something had happened.   “I have seen the Lord,” she announced to the gathered crowd.  But Thomas wasn’t there.

Later that night, the followers of Jesus gathered together in a room on of the back streets of Jerusalem.  This was no celebration party like so many of us experienced last Sunday afternoon full of family, bright colors, and laughter.  Instead, the doors were locked in case the Jewish temple authorities came looking for his disciples when they discovered Jesus’ body had disappeared.   Everyone knew something was happening … Peter and John had told of their early morning jog to to find the tomb opened and the linens folded neatly to the side. 

Mary Magdalene continued to press her story of the gardener and how he called her by name.   Could they really trust her story?  She must have imagined the scene.  No, the Jewish leaders were not done with them yet – they must have stolen Jesus’ body and now were out to arrest and crucify the rest of them.  So, they hid – together. And Thomas missed it. 

It happened without noticed.  The group was quietly talking about the events of the day, some were hugging each other crying softly on each other’s shoulders wondering how painful crucifixion would be for them.  Then – Jesus appeared and stood before them.  Alive.  Alive.  Before their eyes.  Just like Mary said.  And again – Thomas missed it. 

“Peace be with you,” Jesus announced.  Then, he pulled back the sleeves of his robes and showed them his hands.  Then, he removed his sandals and show them his feet.  Then, with not embarrassment at all, he pulled open his robe and pulled up undergarment like a preschooler showing you a fake tattoo on Sunday morning – to reveal the sword pierced side.  It was Jesus.  He was different.  He was alive – among them.  And Thomas missed it. 

Then, Jesus gathered them and sent them.  “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And he breathed on them on the Spirit of God.  The resurrected Jesus – so different, so powerful, so wonderful – breathed on his disciples the Holy Spirit to empower them for their mission in the world.  And then he left.  And Thomas missed it all. 

Ugh!

      No one knows the location of Thomas, the Twin, when all this happened in the house in Jerusalem. 

      Frederick Beuchner speculates: 

Maybe Thomas was one of those folks whose personality wasn’t one to break into a panic as the rest of the disciples “for example, and maybe he'd gone out for a cup of coffee or just to sit in the park for a while and watch the pigeons.”

      Or maybe Thomas was still sitting in his own hiding place since the authorities and the solders had come to get Jesus in the Garden.  Perhaps he was like the Japanese Soldier who washed up on Giligan’s Island who still fighting WWII because he had been hiding on a South Pacific island and never heard about the war’s end.  If this were the case, Thomas would have been so focused on hiding that he never heard the word of Mary about the gardener.  He would have missed the story of the empty tomb from Peter and John.  Instead, he would have been alone, hiding, afraid, wondering what else was going to happen. 

      Or it could have been as simple as being sent out to get supplies for the community.  Maybe he went to find food for the coming days because no one knew what was about to happen.  And while he was away, Jesus arrived – breathing his presence, his peace and his mission into their lives.

      All we know is Thomas missed it. 

      And – in missing it, Thomas missed all of it.  Not only did he miss the presence of Jesus, he missed the faith that accompanied the experience. 

      Can you imagine Thomas’ reaction when he finally did make his way back to the other disciples? 

      Peter and John would be jumping up and down.  Eyes which were wet with grief were now flowing with tears of joy.  Faces were flushed red and full from this experience of the Holy.  Hair and beards were disheveled as one’s appearance no longer mattered. 

And the words.  The talk.  It never stopped.  Conversations bled into one another as everyone shared their experience with one another – “Did you see the darkness of his scars on his hands.”  “I couldn’t get over his breathe as he blew through my whole body.”  “Did anyone see how he came into the room?  I was the last one in and I locked the door – I’m sure of it.”  “Did he really just disappear?  I looked over at Peter and then suddenly, I didn’t see him anymore.” 

Then, Thomas walks in the door with his arms full of groceries or an empty coffee cup or his arms crossed in fear.  All of his friends have been changed because of resurrection – and he has remained the same – his life feels the same as it did on Friday and Saturday and this morning. 

Suddenly, everyone begins to tell him the stories.  “Thomas, you won’t believe what happened while you were out?  Jesus was here.  Yes, we know it’s crazy, but Jesus is alive.  Alive, Thomas.  Really alive.” 

Or Peter tells on him, “Thomas, you remember I told you John and I saw the empty this morning.  We didn’t believe Mary, but then Jesus appeared to us tonight.  He really is alive.  He showed us the wounds in his hands and feet and side.  He’s alive, Thomas.  You have to believe us.  We all saw him.  He breathed on us and told us he was sending us in the say way God sent him to be with us.  Thomas – do you believe us?”

But Thomas didn’t.  He didn’t believe.  He had missed it. The stories of the experience couldn’t convince him. 

Beauchner says:  “Imagination was not Thomas's long suit. He called a spade a spade. He was a realist. He didn't believe in fairy tales, and if anything else came up that he didn't believe in or couldn't understand, his questions could be pretty direct.”

Now, every time he asked the disciples a question, they couldn’t answer him adequately. 

Thomas wasn’t the kind to back away from a fight, but he needed to be convinced.  In John 11 when Jesus hears that his dear friend Lazarus has died, the other disciples try to talk him out of returning to Bethany to mourn. The last time they were all there they were threatened with death, run out of town, and made to feel, in no uncertain terms, wholly unwelcome.

The disciples believed that returning to Bethany, even to mourn the dead, would end in the death of them all. So while the other disciples hemed and hawed about not going, Thomas alone spoke up.

Thomas alone stood in solidarity with Jesus.

“Let us go with him,” Thomas says, “so that we may die with him.”

      This was who Thomas was – he followed Jesus.  Yet, now the others had experienced a new Jesus and he hadn’t.  So, he waited.  He didn’t go back to Galilee.  He didn’t abandon this resurrection rejoicing friends.  He simply waited to see if this new experience – this resurrection was true. 

Aha

      Sometimes we miss experiences too.  Have you ever made a decision that placed in you one place at a certain time and that decision kept you from a wonderful experience that others had? 

      Last summer, our family took my mom to visit my sister in Seattle.  When I asked friends the one experience in the area we must try – many people said, “Go on a whale watching tour of the San Juan Islands between Seattle and Vancouver.”  Seeing whales of any kind – but especially Killer whales – was a life time dream for Marcia and me.  We wanted to do this!

Before we left, I researched the best and most affordable whale watching experience and booked a day during the week we would be there.  The website claimed to see whales on 96% of their excursions.  Those were great odds, I thought. 

      On Wednesday of the trip, we walked down to the dock in Seattle to board the Victoria Clipper.  The ship would take us all the way to the Friday Harbour then out to see for the whale watching tour.  It was a beautiful, blue sky day in which the water simply faded into the sky.  We saw bald eagles and harbor seals.  The active volcanoes – Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainer - rose on the horizons to touch the sky.  We could never have asked for a better day to be on the water.

      Dark clouds soon descended on our experience, though, when I asked our environmentalist guide about the opportunity to see the whales.  She said the resident pods of killer whales had gone out to see the Sunday before and no one knew if they had returned yet.  If they had not returned, then, the odds of seeing any whales when down drastically. 

      Soon, we learned that no boats in the San Juans had seen the pods all day.  We still went out searching, but the day was spent looking across beautiful scenery with no sighting of a whale.  Frustration filled our temperament as we rode the final two hours back to Seattle.  There was a 4% chance to not see the whales all summer – and this is the day we chose to go.  Later in the week, we heard from others that the whales had returned and were once again gracing the whale ships with up close sightings of the Ocras.  But – we had missed them. 

      I understand the disappointment Thomas felt when he missed Jesus.  Questions filled his mind:  Why had Jesus not appeared to him?  Why had Jesus not waited until he had returned?  Why did he have to be gone from the room?  Thomas reacts less like a skeptic and more like a spurned lover, a wounded friend, or someone in mourning.  “Why didn’t Jesus wait for me?  I won’t believe it is true until I see his hands, feet and side like the rest of you have!”

      The disappointment gave Thomas plenty of reasons to discount the experience of the other disciples. 

Whee

            Then, Jesus does show up!  Eight days later, Jesus returns.  And Thomas is there! While Thomas did not believe in resurrection yet – he had not lost faith in Jesus.  He waited in the darkness of his own unbelief for Jesus to reappear and breathe on him too.  This kind of faith is more difficult and more courageous than the simple act of believing.  Thomas waits while disbelieving which is the very definition of faithfulness if not faith itself.  Thomas had the courage to wait!

            Once again, the disciples including Thomas are in a closed room inside the gates of Jerusalem – doors locked. No one is coming in or out.  There’s no way Thomas is not going to be in this room.  If anyone needs grocery this week – Thomas will be not the delivery man.  Thomas has worked to prepare himself –to be in the right place at the right time – just in case Jesus would show up. 

            Jesus comes directly for Thomas.  Jesus looks him straight in the eye and offers him the exact proof Thomas claimed he needed to believe – ““Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.”  Then Jesus addressed Thomas unbelief.  “Don’t be unbelieving. Believe.”   He was waiting to believe. 

            When Jesus appears – Thomas doesn’t need anything else – he makes the most radical confession of Jesus as the Son of God found in the Gospel:  My Master! My God!”  This is radical – resurrection faith!

Yeah

When Jesus hears Thomas’ confession he affirms him.  But he does more than affirm – Thomas.  Jesus looks all the way down through history and looks us in the eye and includes us in this story as well:  “thomas, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

            Blessed are all of you gathered in FBC today – who confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord” as Paul tells the Romans.  You have not seen the risen Lord with your eyes – yet, you have found a way to move from unbelieveing to believing – to living resurrection life. 

            Thomas missed out on the first experience with resurrected Jesus and he was bound and determined not to miss it again if and when it happened.  He made faith decisions with his life to place him in the right place to experience it when it did happen. 

            Sometimes, we miss Jesus and his calling in your lives like Thomas.  While others we grew up with or our spouse or other at work or at church were experiencing Jesus we missed it.  Maybe we had checked out and we said we didn’t want an of this religion stuff.  Maybe we were too busy making a living to listen Jesus in our lives.  Maybe a situation or an event was too awful or devastating or painful for us to listen to what Jesus needed us to hear– and we missed it.  Whatever the case – have you missed Jesus, like Thomas?    

            Thomas reminds us that there is still time.  The resurrection is still working miracles in the lives of people like you and me.  Jesus is still transforming lives just like he did for Thomas. 

            We experienced the resurrected Jesus, like Thomas, when we intentionally place our lives in places where we know God shows up.  Maybe that means making worship attendance a priority.  Maybe that means getting involved in a Sunday School class that makes you feel welcomed.  Maybe that means reading the bible more. 

            Jesus wants each and every one of us to make the same confession of faith that Thomas makes.  The Gospel writer john says that is exactly why he wrote the book in the first place;  “these [stories] are written so that you may come to believe[d] that Jesus is the Messiah,[e] the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”  This is what happens when we make space for resurrection in our lives.  We don’t miss it.  We experience Jesus and are sent into the world.  Just like Thomas!  Amen.