The Body of Christ

Every single person struggles. Every single person experiences loss, sickness, fear, pain, grief, disappointment, regret, sin…our world is broken, and every single person is wounded by the shards of its brokenness. And in those moments when we are struggling, a lot of the time, we wrestle with faith, much like Thomas.

Each of the Gospels lists Thomas as one of the disciples, but only John tells us more about him. Thomas desperately wanted to follow Jesus. He wanted to be faithful.

When Lazarus falls ill, his sisters Mary and Martha send word to Jesus that he is sick, hoping for Jesus to come and heal him. But, Jesus doesn’t go. He stays where he is for 2 more days, and then says, “Let’s go back.”

To which the disciples respond, “But Rabbi, surely you haven’t forgotten, the dust hasn’t even settled yet – the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”

There’s a bit of an exchange between Jesus and the disciples in which Jesus reveals that Lazarus is dead and that Jesus is going to wake him that ends in Jesus saying, “Let us go to him.”

And Thomas chimes in, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Thomas’s desire to follow Jesus is recorded by John again on the night of Jesus’s arrest as they ate, Jesus is preparing the disciples for his departure and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and he tells them that he is going to prepare a place for them and will come back and take them to be with him, that they may also be where he is. When Jesus says, “You know the way to the place where I am going,” Thomas responds, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Thomas wants a map. And Jesus says he is the map.

Later than night, he was arrested. Thomas and the others quickly found a safe place to hide behind locked doors, so we don’t know why Thomas was not there when Jesus appeared to the others the night of his resurrection. I wonder if he was trying to figure out what the next step in the rebellion should be, trying to save Jesus’s mission, to follow his way. Maybe he was hiding in shadows, listening to the crowds’ conversations as they made their way out of Jerusalem and back home now that the Passover was over. What was the mood of the people? Would there be an opportunity to revolt after all? We just don’t know where Thomas was or what he was doing, or what he was thinking. One preacher suggested that he had gone out to get groceries, which seemed possible to me until I thought about the roles of men and women at that time and I feel sure that the women were ensuring that everyone locked together in the house was fed. Whatever he was doing, he missed Jesus’s first post-resurrection appearance to the disciples.

And when he returns, he just cannot believe what they are saying. Thomas is a trust but verify kind of person. I can just imagine his head nodding as they all tried to talk at once eager to share their witness, “He wasn’t here, the doors were locked, and all of a sudden he was!” “I heard his voice and spun around and there he was!” “It was him, you could definitely tell, flesh, but different, too.” And Thomas says, “I hear you, but I am going to have to see it for myself.”

A week goes by. I imagine each of the disciples has shared privately with Thomas from their account, where they were standing, how he looked, what he said. Surely it was all they could talk about. What did it mean? What was next? The tension in the city had subsided, the crowds gone home, Pilate had probably gone back to Caesarea Maritima. We can assume that the disciples were out and about some during that week because John tells us that that evening they were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. The doors were locked, and Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”

“Ehrayna humin” in Greek, the corollary to the Hebrew concept of shalom; peace of wholeness, welfare, harmony… The Greek derives from a verb that means “to tie together into a whole.” Before they went out after the supper on the night of his arrest, Jesus had anointed them with the same blessing saying, “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

For the last week and a half, Thomas has lived in liminal space. Unclear of the path, afraid of the present, grieving… the others were making plans, hope renewed, looking for direction…he just couldn’t believe them. They were together in the house, but not together in their hearts. Now Jesus, resurrected, is standing here with them and blesses them, “Peace be with you!” Be tied together into a whole.

And he steps toward Thomas, who has made it clear, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe,” and holds out his hands, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Then Thomas not only recognizes Jesus, but he realizes who Jesus is, “My Lord and my God!” The Greek translation of the Hebrew words, “Adonai Elohim,” one of the ways God is referenced throughout the Old Testament.

Jesus responds, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” From the beginning of his ministry, the day after he was baptized by John, when people asked Jesus who he was, his response was “Come and see.”

So how do people come to believe now? In much the same way. Research on the church and the unchurched in the United States conducted in 2021 concluded that 82% of people who are unchurched would go to church if invited by a friend, “Come and see,” and that 2% of churched people invite someone to church in a given year. Think about it. Do you go places uninvited?

If you know you need to go to the gym, you are more likely to go to one with a friend that invites you to come with them, or where a friend shares how everyone there is friendly and supportive, and that they love going and how it is changing their lives? If you want to get in shape, but you’ve never been to a gym before and you aren’t sure about how the equipment works, or what clothes to wear, or what the “unwritten rules” are…you aren’t likely to just show up, and if you do, you are going to be nervous and ready to retreat and never return if anything goes awry or even is slightly awkward.

But what about the Thomases? The ones who came and saw, and then something went wrong and they just couldn’t grasp that God was able to resurrect? Church, we are the Body of Christ. For those who have experienced loss and grief and are not able to hope or believe, those of us who have experienced resurrection have to hold out our hands, to be honest about our wounds and witness to the ways that God has used them for good. That’s what Paul is saying in the passage that Elizabeth read this morning in Romans, “We know that in all things God works together with those who love him to bring about what is good.”

Over and over again, in life and in ministry, I have seen the Body of Christ offer witness to resurrection. It comes in the form of a cancer survivor reaching out to a newly diagnosed fighter and offering their experience, hope, and care. It comes as a family faces the decision to bring in hospice care and someone who has walked that journey comes to visit. It comes as a parent struggles with a situation with their child and another parent who has been there listens with empathy. Wounds and hope shared, the Body of Christ witnesses to God’s power to bring resurrection even in our lives. Notice that Jesus didn’t come to Thomas alone. Episcopal priest The Rev. Danáe Ashley points out that “We cannot heal alone. We must have a circle of witness to our wounds, in order to transform our pain instead of transmitting it. Jesus is our example of this.” For those wrestling with faith, sometimes, you just have to see to believe. Friends, we all have wounds. It is up to us whether or not we will let them be resurrected in community and let God use them for good. It is vulnerable to hold out your hands, to let your wounds be touched; and it is holy and Christ-like. Amen.