When Jesus joins the disciples in John 20:19-31, we shouldn’t put Thomas on trial. It is their fear that reveals a greater doubt.
The reconciling hope after the resurrection
Easter 2C | John 20:19-31
“Peace be with you.”
Remember how we all gathered last week to celebrate the risen Christ! We came to see the lilies and sing Alleluia and ring our bells. We came with great festive hearts in hope of hearing the good news proclaimed that He is not here, but has risen!
And we were greeted by a gospel of some confusion.
A group of women who follow Jesus, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, went to the tomb. And let’s take a moment to acknowledge these women and elevate them above the disciples. Elevate their faith in Jesus. And acknowledge how much better at discipleship these women are than the men in the story.
The men ran away while the women didn’t. These women came to the tomb with spices and what they found was that their beloved Jesus was gone. Then two angels appear and ask them
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?
“He is not here, but has risen.”
That line we long to hear is preceded by another, more confounding. Why do you look for the living among the dead?
This was our first Easter message. The one Mary took to men who didn’t believe her. The one Jesus had given them before he was killed.
He told them that he would be crucified, but on the third day, God would raise him from the dead to the living.
So this group of women were looking in the wrong place.
But they were looking.
Why aren’t they looking?
This week begins inside. {why aren’t they looking?} A house where they’ve gathered. {why aren’t they looking for him?}
Mary had stayed behind at the tomb. When the rest had gone away. She stayed and Jesus appeared to her like the gardener. He calls her by name. Don’t hold on to me he says to her. Tell the others that I’m going away. {why aren’t they looking for him?}
They are inside. They’ve locked the door. {they aren’t looking}
Why? Out of fear.
Fear
The author of John says that they’re afraid of the Jews. Historical nonsense (they are all Jews!) drawn out later to condemn.
There’s no evidence of persecutions of the followers of Jesus. Not then. And not when John was writing. Not from Jewish leadership and not from Rome. So rather than consider this as some historical truth, we must consider it to be something else.
This isn’t an honest fear. It isn’t historical or justified. There is no rational reason for their fear in our history or story.
They were afraid of their neighbors. Of their own people.
They had no reason to be afraid. And Jesus and all the angels remind us that fear is not an expression of trust.
Irrational
I moved to London, Ontario in the fall of 2004 to attend seminary at Huron University College. The year before, the country had been rocked by fear of SARS, a highly contagious disease. Canada was one of the countries directly affected; far more than the United States.
Because it was contagious and that it affected the respiratory system, the people were afraid to go into common spaces and share in common experiences. For the church, this meant sharing the common cup.
The Anglican Church of Canada followed the scientific evidence. It declared that the people didn’t have to share the common cup, but if they did, they must drink from it. The wine would kill the virus, one’s lips spent far less time around the cup than hands when dipping, and the act of wiping removes the few that remained.
The church found that SARS didn’t spread through the common cup when we drink from it.
But for many, the evidence doesn’t destroy the fear. Because the fear isn’t founded in logic and it, therefore, can’t be removed with logic. No matter what the science actually finds, the idea of drinking out of the same cup is still icky to many.
This is one of the reasons the philosopher Martha Nussbaum calls it “the monarchy of fear.” Because fear isn’t democratically elected. Fear is an autocrat.
Jesus walks in anyway.
The disciples were irrationally afraid, suffering under the unjustified monarchy of fear.
They locked themselves up, imprisoned within the walls of fear. There wasn’t anyone coming to get them.
Jesus told them to go out into the world and they found a safe room and locked the door. {why aren’t they looking for him?}
But Jesus doesn’t need to pick the lock, he’ll come right in. We can’t keep Jesus out of our prison hideout, our safe rooms, and triple-locked homes. That’s not how love works or how grace works.
{why aren’t they looking for him?}
They are afraid.
{why are they afraid?}
Something will get them!
{What will get them?}
Something! Or Someone?
{Who? Nobody but Jesus is looking for them!}
[ silence ]
{Where’s Thomas?}
He isn’t here.
{Where is he?}
We don’t know.
{Could he be out there?}
He must be.
{Could he be looking for Jesus?}
Maybe.
{Could he be doing what Jesus called them to do?}
Perhaps.
Thomas
When Mary and Martha came to Jesus to tell them that their brother Lazarus had died, Jesus turns to his disciples and says
“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.”
And their response was like Oh, thank God! He’s just asleep.
But this was another allusion to what was coming. He would soon be put to sleep. And God would awaken him.
It seems a bit too much for an allusion. Who could understand that’s what Jesus was really saying? Thomas did.
“Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’”
Why would Thomas be in that room, locked behind a door? He’s the one who heard the message.
While the rest are ruled by fear, Thomas has come to trust.
Trapped
They’ve locked their doors, their minds, and their hearts. The fear locks them up tight so nothing can get in but really, so that nothing can get out.
It’s why I never danced in school or sang after 4th grade. I wanted to be cool.
But the thing about cool is that it doesn’t love. It’s a straitjacket of prevention. Cool is the absence of freedom and serves as fear’s fool.
We don’t lock our doors only because something might happen, but so nothing will happen.
Jesus doesn’t even mess with any of that when he shows up. He comes right in. Offers himself; the wounds he endured, the flesh our neighbors cut, the eyes who watched our cowardice. He shows it all to us and says
“Peace.”
Not peace, really. Shalom. He said Shalom.
Shalom is not only the absence of war but the presence of peace or the absence of violence but the presence of compassion.
Shalom is generous, communal; expressions of love and affirmation of hope. It is restoration and healing. We wish each other Shalom because we hope not only for the absence of strife but the presence of wholeness.
When we say Shalom to one another, we declare to each I want you to be healthy and whole. This is what we hope for everyone. The very thing we offer each other.
Wholeness. Health. Love.
What is the antidote to fear’s delusional control? Shalom.
The Power of Love
This is the true meaning of the resurrection. The very thing God would come into the world to reveal.
Not order or control or proof of God’s might.
The power of love.
And what is the vehicle of God’s love? The manifestation of love itself? And the very life of Jesus’s ministry?
Shalom. It’s like love in everything.
Love for ourselves. Love for our neighbors. Giving our love in the form of peace. Offering the sacrificial love of feeding the hungry and healing the sick. Standing with the powerless and investing in those people, animals, and all of God’s creation our systems of the world would throw away.
Waging reconciliation is love.
Forgiving in the midst of conflict is love.
Sharing our common spaces with all people is love.
Washing the feet of our neighbors is love.
Opening our doors to anyone who would seek help is love.
This is Shalom.
And maybe, if we walk with Jesus, bring Shalom like Jesus, and offer Shalom into our common space, the lock which imprisons our hearts will click. We’ll look down just in time to see it as it begins to fall away.
And when we look up, we’ll see Jesus there in the face of someone we love.
But we aren’t in the upper room. All the walls and doors we thought protected us fell down. Nothing between us. No barriers. No locks. Nothing to protect our hearts.
Yet we aren’t afraid. Our hearts are strangely warmed. This is some kind of beauty; a feeling we’ve longed for, but never trusted in. An idea taught weekly, but so rarely considered. A different way of being that feels even more alive.
Free. Full of love. Open to all possibilities. Full of Christian hope, not only for the resurrection that was but for our own. The one we realize is already here.