Easter 2 Year A 2023 Doubt 16 April
Readings: Acts 2.14a, 22-32; 1 Peter 1.3-9; John 20.19-29
Almighty God, may we ever know more and more
the joy of the resurrection of your Son. Amen.
The gospels are written in such a way
that we may become participants in the story ourselves!
We are there at the cross – and we feel its desolation.
We are there with the women as they discover the empty tomb … and run!
We are there with the men
who cannot quite believe what the women are telling them ….
There with them when the risen Christ appears to the men also!
We are there when Thomas having departed, dares to return, come back,
join up again with his friends.
There when Jesus came and stood amongst them once more!
The message of Easter is one of impossible hope – realised!
Those Easter eggs bursting with new life!
The bunnies hopping hither and thither! The joy of spring is here!
And of course, this is the traditional season of the Church for baptism!
Welcome Clementine! We’re so looking forward
to sharing with you in your baptism!
And on the first Sunday after Easter, in every year,
the Church in its wisdom recognises that promise and hope and joy
are not always easy: easy to find, easy to hold on to.
Today, the first Sunday after Easter, we hear the story of doubting Thomas. Our gospel speaks to us that doubt is part of faith!
An important part of faith, and our faith journey.
And as ever, this gospel story leaves us, with myriad questions!
Why did Thomas not stay around with his friends?
Why is he not there when Jesus first appeared to the now Eleven?
And for me personally, why is Thomas called the Twin?
Who is this twin? Many of you know that I myself, have an identical twin!
And entirely unique relationship!
So what is going through this disciple’s troubled mind?
For all that Jesus’ disciples had expected to happen has been shattered.
Life in first century Palestine was tough –
and especially for those day labourers hanging around the market place waiting hopefully for employment to feed their hungry families.
A situation Jesus sharply critiques in his parable of the hired workers,
workers who receive the same payment for their labour
regardless of the hours worked!
Jesus’ disciples had been fully expectant
of a radical change in the power structures of their day.
But despite his attempts to warn them of what is coming, they have not understood that his life will come to such an ignominious end.
Jesus returns to his disciples. He blesses them with peace.
A week later he returns again, and specifically addresses Thomas ….
Thomas who cannot just believe these stories the other disciples,
men and women, are telling him, without evidence of his own!
For surely they all know Jesus’ battered body was broken on that cross!
So how can his friends have seen him powerfully alive again?!
Jesus speaks: Touch and see! Experience this truth for yourself Thomas!
Innocent suffering and the tragedies of life driven by
fear, greed and violence, have always been part of human society.
So is there an answer to the dilemma of the existence of evil
and the goodness of God?
Most of us will probably not find the answer to Job:
Who are you to question God? much of an answer!
In reality, it is a simple truth that a measure of suffering
is how life, all life just is.
The enormous potential of human creatures, our big brains,
our astonishing capacity to adapt to changing circumstances, to survive,
the freedom to choose, all these things come at a price.
And indeed, that price is what enables us to grow up,
to grow into mature adults.
Could we truly appreciate the wonders around us,
the incredible gift of children!
if we have not also experienced something of sorrow and grief ……
The challenges life presents all of us, the choices life puts before us:
how will we respond those who hurt us, to injustice and the evil around us, around our world, to our own personal failures –
to our doubting of God’s goodness?
Last weekend the Sunday Times columnist Matt Rudd,
a choir boy in his youth turned atheist, in his twenties
an occasional church-goer for a bit of after-life insurance –
then just not bothered!
This year approaching fifty, his thinking has moved:
might there just be something more to life?
And strangely he found himself positively wanting
to go to an Easter service!
Experience the wonder of that numinous space!
That space where we bring our gratitude and our sorrows
into the presence of God.
The story of Thomas who came back – and discovered God is there!
We cannot work it out intellectually.
No one has ever solved the problem of evil.
Neither can we ever know the precise historical events
of those days following Jesus’ death.
Each gospel tells its own, somewhat different story!
What we do know is that something extraordinary happened –
which has changed the course of history.
And if we will wait in prayer,
stay a while in that secret garden with the risen Christ,
then little by little we too will experience
increasing light as the dawn does indeeed begin to break upon us.
As resurrection becomes reality in a myriad different ways!
The life, death and resurrection of Jesus,
rooted in historical fact we shall never be able to fully fathom,
yet attested by the historical events which followed,
is both revelation and promise that we belong,
we all belong in the family of God,
we belong to each other!
The resurrection attests that there is nothing,
nothing that can ever separate us from the love of God. Whoever we are.
Baptism is a wonderful gift to make our children.
It is the outward sign by which we may know
that inner reality of our belonging,
the depth of love in which we are always held,
the love which redeems our every failure. Amen.