Doing is Believing

Scripture - John 20:19-31

It’s kind of funny to me that, as a general rule, Easter Sunday has one of the highest attendances of the entire Christian year. And there are often many people in the congregation who only show up to church on Easter, and, possibly Christmas. The reason I think this is funny is because if I were going to pick a Sunday to introduce people to Christianity and what it’s all about, I certainly wouldn’t pick Easter. Sure, there are lots of beautiful flowers, and sometimes even a brass quartet, and the mood is certainly festive.

But let’s be honest. This whole story about Jesus rising from the dead is pretty hard to swallow. How often in our ordinary lives do we hear about people rising from the dead after three days in a tomb? And I’m not talking about a ten or fifteen-minute near-death experience. I’m talking about someone who was dead from Friday afternoon to the early morning hours on a Sunday. It just doesn’t happen. Jesus’ death is a once-in-human-history kind of event. It is unique, and seems totally alien to our everyday lives.

I think if I had a choice about when the Easter crowds were to arrive, I’d want to kind of ease people into Christian thinking – start with the Sunday when Jesus welcomes and blesses children, or maybe a nice Sunday on the golden rule – something inoffensive that everybody pretty much already agrees with, at least on an intellectual level.

Well, it’s a thought anyway. The truth is that at some point we’ll have to work around to the scandal of the resurrection, so we might as well stick with Easter Sunday. But the challenge of it is still there, and that’s what our gospel lesson from John is all about this morning.

The disciples are hanging out in somebody’s house, scared to death that the authorities who killed Jesus will come after them next. Hence, the locked door. There’s no reason to expect that they’ll see Jesus again. There’s no reason to be hopeful. There’s no reason to believe. There’s only fear, and so they cling to each other.

Suddenly, here’s Jesus standing among them. At first they’re frightened. He says, “Peace be with you.” But then they get it and they’re excited – full of joy! He says again, “Peace be with you.” And he breathes on them, very literally giving them the Holy Spirit. Next, he commissions them and says, “The people you forgive will be forgiven. The people you don’t forgive won’t be forgiven.”

This is all wonderful, but there’s one little thing: the disciple Thomas wasn’t there that night. He missed it. He missed seeing Jesus, missed receiving the Holy Spirit, missed the commissioning, missed the forgiveness. He missed it. And so, when the disciples tell him what happened, he doesn’t believe them. “I have to see this for myself. I don’t believe you guys. It was probably a mass hallucination or something,” he says.

Now, I have to admit that sometimes I’ve found Thomas’ words here to be very harsh. “I want to put my hand in Jesus’ side,” he says. “I want to touch the holes in his hands.” It just seems so graphic – who would really want to touch a dead person’s wounds? Clearly, Thomas doesn’t expect to be taken up on his offer.

But I hesitate to fault Thomas for wanting some solid proof of Jesus’ resurrection. Because how many of us are so sure of that resurrection ourselves? How many of us would appreciate instead an undeniable, incontrovertible, PERSONAL sign from God? And in contrast, how many of us really live trusting in God’s mercy at all times? How many of us act on our trust in the power of new life that God brings? There’s a little saying you may have heard that illustrates this hesitancy: “Pray like everything depends on God and work like everything depends on you.” What if we worked like everything depended on God, not us?

The next week, though, Thomas gets more than he bargained for. The disciples are together in their locked room and Thomas is with them this time. Jesus appears among them. “Thomas,” he says, “Come over here and touch me. I don’t want you to doubt; I want you to believe.” Thomas is overcome. “My Lord,” he says, “My Lord and my God.” Thomas has met the risen Christ and he believes.

There’s a word of comfort that comes next for the rest of us. Jesus says, “Do you believe now because you’ve seen me? Well, blessed are those who haven’t seen me, but have come to believe.” And suddenly the story is about us. You and me, here and now. And the blessing of that belief is a new life in Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.

So where does this belief come from? Where do we find this new life? How are we going to meet the risen Christ?

I don’t have a perfect answer for that question, but there are some clues in our story today. Thomas missed Jesus the first time he came among the disciples. But the next week, Thomas was there. And that’s when Jesus met him. Encountering Jesus often requires that we put ourselves in places where he is likely to be. We need to figure out a way to get into that upper room, with those disciples. We need to find out where that room is for us, where we can meet the risen Christ, and come to believe.

I think the Lutheran Volunteer Corps is one way of getting into that upper room. The volunteers come to a city to live in intentional community, practice simplified living, and work for social justice. Each of our three tenets is a way of approaching Jesus – of trying to be open to his presence, another doorway into the upper room. In intentional community, volunteers don’t just share a house, but they covenant to build strong relationships with each other. Through those relationships, and through that cooperation and community, volunteers may learn to see the face of Christ in each other. The opportunity is there. No community is perfect, but it is a way of getting into that upper room.

With the tenet of simplified living, volunteers let go of some of their material comforts, and some of their time commitments. They learn to cook from scratch, to make wise buying decisions, and to spend their time wisely. In simplified living, volunteers learn the generosity of God. By paying attention to the difference between a want and a need, the volunteers can learn that they are provided for. The word of God to volunteers through simplified living is indeed, “Peace be with you.” And it is a way into that upper room.

In the work for social justice, volunteers put themselves at the margins of society, where Jesus lived and worked in his earthly life. As such it is another way into that upper room, because belief and action aren’t two separate things that somehow move independently of each other. When we act in opposition to the dehumanizing forces of injustice, it affects what we believe about them. And when we believe that God is greater than injustice, and when we believe that God desires peace and wholeness for all people, it affects how we act. Learning to serve God is a process of learning to take greater and greater risks, and in the process to meet Jesus where he is – among the poor, the oppressed, and those frightened disciples in that upper room. Work for social justice is a doorway into that upper room.

So where does that leave those of us who aren’t volunteers? Or who, for that matter, won’t be volunteers five years from now? These tenets, these approaches to Jesus are not the express copyrighted property of the Lutheran Volunteer Corps. They are gifts of and for the whole church. They are gifts of that Holy Spirit that Jesus breathed on his disciples.

So give them a try for yourselves – make your family and your neighborhood and your church more intentional about its relationships. Try paring down your time commitments, your purchases, your commute. Find a way to meet people at the margins, not out of a sense of your own power, your own ability to help, but with humility and an open heart.

My prayer for you today is that you will find a door into that upper room, and that you will meet the loving Lord, Jesus, who will welcome you to new life in his name. May it be so. Amen.