Messages of action in a time of fear
Easter 2A, John 20:19-31
Mary Magedalene visited the tomb where they laid Jesus to rest only to find it empty. She brought this strange news to the disciples, two of whom raced each other to see for themselves this odd sight, this strange occurrence. And the two leave her there, perplexed and perhaps frightened.
It is after they leave that she investigates, that she seeks to find what has happened to the body. A sort of murder mystery where the murderer is known — Roman execution — but the remains have gone missing. And she wants to get to the bottom of it. Not because she is curious, but because she loves him.
What she finds there are angels and Jesus; who tell her the body is alive and standing in front of her. Jesus isn’t dead — God has raised him from the dead. Go tell my brothers he tells her. And she does.
This is the Easter story. And it continues. We move from the empty tomb to the upper room. And what we find there is a different kind of stunning.
The Fear is Justified
The evangelist doesn’t set the scene so much as throw us into it. We don’t receive a narrative of Mary telling them what she has experienced, how the twelve respond, or even what they are doing at the time — how they spend the days after Jesus’s crucifixion. The days they ran away and Mary and other devoted women stood with him, at the cross and tomb. How secret disciples took the body and placed it in a tomb. None of this loving and supportive work of caring for a man as he is dying was done by the twelve. They ran. And hid.
And after the news comes to them, they hide some more. The evangelist put some ridiculous line in there about fearing “the Jews”. They are Jewish. No, it’s the Romans who they fear. And now they are perhaps even more afraid because the body is missing and the Roman authorities had trusted some Hebrews to take care of the body when they specifically left them up on the cross to die and decay as a sign of their cruelty, reflecting a sadistic view of crime and punishment.
The disciples’ fear is founded in the world they live in.
Missing From the Upper Room
When Jesus appears to them in the upper room, passing through a locked door, which was probably freaky to witness, how many of the twelve were there? It’s a real question. We assume Judas is still gone. Thomas isn’t there. So ten.
Where is Thomas? Why isn’t he with them? Again, the text doesn’t say. It doesn’t deal with Judas and it doesn’t share where Thomas has gone, what he is doing.
Some people don’t like it when we speculate. When we try to figure out where these others are or what they are up to — seeking meaning in Thomas’ absence as much as in his return later. And I find that when we don’t speculate, we’re often just as likely to make assumptions about a lack of meaning or to assume it is some stray moment, like it’s no big deal that they are all so very afraid that they lock themselves away and yet, for an unexplained reason, one of them is missing!
When we met Thomas earlier in the story, he was zealous to go and die for Jesus. He was also the one who responded to Jesus when he said the disciples already know the way to the Father. He was the one trying to figure this out. What we know about Thomas is that he is very interested in doing what Jesus wants them to do.
How can we not consider that he alone wills himself into the city while the others hide behind a locked door? Even if he is the one to do the grocery run or get the take out. But I think it’s more than that. I think he was doing things. He missed the Jesus sighting because he was out being Christ to the world.
Hurt
I am convinced that is why Thomas is so hurt when he finds out that he missed seeing Jesus. Because he wasn’t just out there in the world — he was the only one of them doing that. The rest were afraid. They don’t deserve to see Jesus, he was probably thinking. If anyone should get the chance, it’s me — I’m doing the work!
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
These words don’t chill the heart — they focus the mind away from petty comparisons and competitive impulses.
Did they trust Mary? It doesn’t sound like it. But when they got to see, well, then now they do. Did Thomas trust them? Maybe. But when he got to see, well, then now he does. Few more will get this chance. Just them. The ones closest to Jesus.
Beyond Belief
We know this is a story of trust and belief. And yet I think we still get some of it a bit twisted as we wrestle with these matters. We treat it like it is all-or-nothing. As if we either believe or we don’t. That any presence of doubt is an abandonment of faith.
This misconception relies on the complete avoidance here of Jesus’s most famous teaching on faith. That faith as small as a mustard seed is enough to compel a mountain to throw itself into the sea. If doubt can be 99% of what is happening in one’s mind, but there’s that 1% possibility of faith, then that is enough for greatness.
So many of us have it completely backward! I meet so many people who think they have to agree with 100% of the doctrine or else it doesn’t matter. And many more are leaving their faith behind, not because they doubt, but because our traditions have been so breathtakingly bad at understanding that the nature of belief requires doubt, that we can only believe when we doubt. We need to recognize that those who have brains full of doubt, and make room for belief, become the most faithful of people.
The Message
Underneath it all, I keep going back to what Jesus taught them. That they were letting their fear get in the way of doing the things Jesus had taught them to do, commanded them to do.
The message Jesus offers when he first appears to them gets lost in the narrative, I think: “Peace be with you.” He says. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He invites them into Shalom — reconciled wholeness and health. It is as much fix your hearts as it is you’re good, dude!
For they are being sent! That is what he tells them and instead we focus on Thomas and belief and whether Jesus is throwing shade and the faithful always miss the first words out of his mouth are about peace and getting back to work.
And what is the work? Shalom. Proclaiming the Good News, reconciling the world, bringing healing and hope and justice to their neighbors. Wholeness and love.
We see in the book, Acts of the Apostles, that the disciples will get there. They will overcome their fear, find peace, and act in love to the world. And during the Easter season, we read Acts for that very reason. To hear how they went out into the world after the resurrection (and ascension, which we’ll celebrate in a few weeks).
How, then, do we remember?
Peace Be With You
I think it happens the same way. By stilling each other’s hearts. By offering peace to each other.
And can there be a more necessary act than that today? At a time when the news cycle never stops, our attachment to the goings on around us never stops, when the pressure upon us to stand up and be the light of Christ never stops?
How many times do we have to write our members of Congress? Our governor, state representatives, our county commissioners, and on and on? This weekly, daily need to communicate with our leaders, asking them to not be total jerks(!) — is this how we are supposed to spend our time? Is this who we are all supposed to be? I don’t know, but it seems like we just don’t know what else to do!
We all have financial, social, health, and procedural pressures to make things work with family, friends, and neighbors. There is so much to deal with.
It is in the midst of all of this that we receive the message of peace.
“Peace be with you,” he says. Twice. Peace and “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
That is the message for us, stuck and fearful and confused and sad and torn up about all the things going on. Peace and Go! These are messages of love and support in these days. We are sent as Jesus was sent. Love and be.
I get that this is a strangely hard message to receive and do. But it is at the heart of Easter, isn’t it? We can see the transformative love of God at work in the world, even here and now. Let it in and listen. Because, as we just read, locking the door doesn’t do much, does it?
And we have a message of peace to offer a tired and bewildered and frightened world. A message as much for us as it is for everyone around us.