April 7, 2024
St. Andrew Church
Rev. Jane Grady
Second Sunday of Easter

First Lesson:                                               Isaiah 25: 6-9

6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. 7 And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; 8 he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. 9 It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

Second Lesson:                                        John 20:19-31

19 When it was evening on that day, 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.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 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.” 26 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.” 27 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.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 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.” 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to believed that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

 

In the Minnesota town in which I grew up, diversity meant Catholic or Lutheran.  That was diversity.  Our family was “Other” because we were Congregationalist/Presbyterians and we might as well have been Unitarians.  Anyway, my brother and I were thrilled when a new family moved in next door, providing us a friend close in age with whom to play.  The three of us did everything together, going back and forth between our respective houses.  And so it wasn’t long before our parents were also best friends.  There was a difference between us, however, that we weren’t really supposed to talk about.  The new neighbors were Catholic.  For whatever reason, we weren’t supposed to talk about religion, and my friend Caliste didn’t have permission to come with me to my church, nor did she invite me to hers.  It seemed kind of odd to me we couldn’t share our churches.

The first time I sat in the Catholic Church a block away from my house was when Caliste’s sister, considerably older than her, got married.  In that Catholic church was a large, life size statue of Jesus—Jesus on a cross, his body slumping, his head hanging forward, paint representing blood on his feet, hands and side, the nails obvious.  I found the statue frightening, repelling even, not something I wanted to gaze on too long.  This large crucifix was foreign to my religious experience.  Frankly, I don’t even remember a cross in the church in which I grew up…there must have been one but it probably wasn’t as front and center as the cross is in that Catholic sanctuary and it certainly didn’t have Jesus dying on it. 

I share this story of my experience with my Catholic neighbors for two reasons.  First, because whatever the divide of dogma between our two families, it was easily transcended by deep friendship; dogma was powerless to hinder the comfort our respective mothers were able to offer each other when they each had to grieve a beloved husband’s untimely death or the surprise of  their first-borns’ divorces.   Dogma couldn’t hold a candle to the actual embodiment of Jesus’ kind of compassion and faithfulness. 

 Secondly, if I gazed on that statue of Jesus’ crucifixion today, I believe I would see and experience it in another light, which I’ll get to in a few moments.

Last week we heard the Easter story—and celebrated the mystery and glory of Christ’s resurrection with special music, and beautiful flowers, and joyfully proclaimed, “Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!”

Here we are a week later, and we have John’s story of that Easter night and Jesus’ mysterious appearance to the disciples, somehow entering the house in which they had locked themselves for fear of the authorities.  Jesus shows them his hands and his side; his wounds.  But Thomas isn’t present that night, and insists he will not believe his friends have actually seen the Risen Lord unless he sees and touches for himself the mark of the nails and Jesus pierced side.  A week later, in that same locked up house, Jesus appears again to the disciples, and this time Thomas is present.  And Jesus says, “Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.”  And Thomas, overcome, confesses “My Lord and my God!” as he puts his fingers in the holes in Jesus’ hands and in his side where he had been pierced with a sword.  

In the last chapter of the Gospel of Luke, there is another mysterious appearance of Jesus among the disciples, who are startled and terrified, wondering if they are seeing a ghost.   To emphasize that he is not a ghost, to emphasize his physical reality, he tells the disciples to look at his hands and feet, to see him and touch him.

Why all this focus on the Risen Jesus’ body, his hands and feet?  

Why are Jesus’ wounds an essential part of Jesus’ Resurrection identity according to the Gospel writers of John and Luke?

I believe there are several reasons.  

“Look at my hands and feet,” says Jesus.

See my wounds, the scars I bear from living.

We all have them, don’t we?  

Scars from this or that accident or surgeon’s knife;

wounds visible on the outside but just as many or more hidden within,

including the scars of suffering we have endured on behalf of others.

The wounds and scars Jesus’ carries suggest a God who identifies with those who suffer, those who are hurt, rejected, impaired or wounded in some way.

Debe Thomas, one of my favorite bloggers, remembers the hospitalization of her 11 year old daughter as one of the worst days of her life.  The next day, reeling from grief, not knowing whether her daughter would live or die, she wandered into a Christian bookstore.  She’s not sure why, but assumes she had hoped to find some comfort there.  A soft-spoken salesperson approached her and asked if she needed any assistance.  All Debe could do was cry.  The salesperson patted her back kindly, then walked over to a jewelry case, rummaged around in it, then came back with a crucifix on a slender silver chain.  There was a tiny Jesus hung on his cross, his face drawn in pain.  “Wear this,” she said, pressing the necklace into Debe’s hands.  “Only a suffering God can help.”    (1) 

Sometimes only a suffering God can help.  

Many years later, as I am thinking about that statue of Jesus in my hometown Catholic Church, I don’t think I would be frightened or repelled.  I think rather, I would be grieved for all the ways crucifixion and suffering take form.  I think I could find in that statue the suffering of the people of Gaza, and Israelis who were and have been terrorized by Hamas; the suffering of the families and friends of the World Central kitchen aid workers who were blown up. And though I might not find comfort, for a moment at least, the suffering Jesus might bring me into solidarity with those whose suffering has been breaking my heart.  Luke and John, I believe, draw our attention to the scarred body of a Risen Jesus so we will remember that suffering is a part of our lives with which God is acquainted; that God, in fact, identifies with those who suffer, and bears with them.

Christ’s wounds and scars remain for another purpose.

“Touch me and see,” Jesus says.  Put your finger here, in my wounds.  I am real.  I have history.  

I am not immune to pain, or sorrow, or suffering.  That is part of being human.

What makes us real but the wounds we carry?  The baggage we come with…

With the fresh wounds Jesus bears, still he gives strength to the disciples; he breathes his peace upon them; he empowers  them to be witnesses of his death and resurrection, his teachings and example.

What if we gave more thought to leading with our vulnerability, being more open or honest about our various impairments?  We spend a lot of time and energy seeking success, maintaining an image, hiding our vulnerability, when perhaps we are simply called to be more real.  Perhaps there is freedom in that, empowerment; release to be more fully ourselves.  Consider how an AA meeting often begins.  “My name is so and so, and I am an alcoholic.”  There’s the impairment, the vulnerability, but to acknowledge it is to claim also one’s strength, one’s gift, one’s freedom to grow and learn something new.  

Jesus’ wounds are part of his Resurrection identity for still another reason….

Were the wounds of the nails in his hands and feet not noticed, if Jesus was remembered only as a cleaned up, disembodied spirit, there’s so much we could easily forget….

We could forget his earthly life, his humanness,   

That he lived and walked once upon a real time, and had a meaningful ministry reaching out to people, healing bodies, sharing tenderness, breaking bread, telling stories.

We could forget that religious authorities found his teachings and example threatening; 

we could forget that he was put to death by the state, an innocent man.  Tortured, in fact.

That the crowd helped condemn him; that his best friends failed him.

The wounds to which Luke and John draw our attention mean we can’t just close our eyes and hearts to everything that came before the Resurrection.  We can’t forget how Jesus embodied the presence of the realm of God; nor how it was the Powers That Be put him to death.

“Touch me and see,” says Jesus.  

Don’t overlook who I was or what happened to me.  

In the same way, reach out and touch the wounds of those around you.

As compassion and sympathy flow, wounds are bandaged, our wounds, others’ wounds.

Jesus invites Thomas—all doubters—us—into a tangible religion, one that makes touching human pain and suffering the way to both compassion and understanding. (R.Rohr)  

Note that Thomas is changed, his faith awakened and deepened as he touches Jesus’ wounds.

Spirituality is more than a private mystical experience.  

We are flesh and bones, not just spirit.

The Risen Christ is known among us as we respond to the very real hurts and wounds of those around us.

“Touch,” says Jesus, “care about the wounds of others, the scars they bear, and you will see how my presence is with you.”

What do those words of Jesus, “Touch me, see me,” ask of us?

They ask us to live in our lives the same pattern of embodied faithfulness we saw in Jesus’ life.

In a world that needs to desperately hear good news, see—look  where that pattern of embodied faithfulness is being lived out…in my two dear friends who spent an  hour and a half in the CCUnit at Dominican with a gravely ill sick friend, in your work helping to feed the unhoused in our community, in aid workers bringing food and medicine to Gaza.  But this is just the tip of the iceberg… Some of you care for aging parents or sick grandchildren, help support care-givers or keep watch with the dying, support our mid-county Shower program so the unhoused in our community can enjoy the dignity of being clean.

Bless you.  These are the places of faithful embodiment.  

Places of real holiness, sometimes marked by lament and suffering, sometimes by joy and celebration, but where the presence and love of God can be seen and touched. 

Rev. Jane Grady

 

  1. Journey with Jesus, April 8, 2018, “Scarred and Hungry,” by Debe Thomas.
  2. Journal for Preachers, “Preaching Easter at Old First Gnostic,” by Thomas G. Long, Easter, 2012.