Second Sunday in Easter
Have you ever believed in something that didn’t make sense—something maybe even a little bit ridiculous? One night around bedtime when I was in preschool, I happened to look out my bedroom window. This window faced the back alleyway behind my house, and I was shocked at what I saw! It was dark outside, but I swore that I saw a large gorilla in the alley! If my mother is watching the livestream right now, she is already laughing at me. But I swear—the gorilla in my alleyway must have been King Kong! It was the size of a garbage truck and had bright glowing eyes. It boomed like it was pounding on its chest. In amazement I ran to get my mom, but by the time she got to the window with me, the gorilla was gone.
My mom laughed and told me that it was probably a garbage truck, but I was not convinced. For days and weeks afterward I looked everyday, and I talked and talked about the gorilla. I simply could not be reasoned with. Even years later my family will still tease me when the topic comes up. It doesn’t make any sense, and I know that, but a part of me still believes it.
Of course for my family, they could not believe what I thought I had seen because they had not experienced it for themselves, and it simply didn’t make any sense. Why would a gorilla be in the alley behind my house in the middle of a busy city? To my family, it simply wasn’t possible.
In our gospel today, we hear the well known story of Doubting Thomas, the disciple who refused to believe the resurrection unless he saw it with his own eyes. Thomas often gets a bad wrap—I’ve heard many a sermon chiding Thomas for his perceived lack of faith. But Thomas deserves a break. Thomas is a realist, and like many of us, he looks for things that make sense, and for Thomas, the idea that Jesus had risen from the grave was a gorilla in the alley—that is, not likely.
I don’t think any of the disciples really understood what Jesus was talking about when he said things like “rising again.” When Jesus died on the cross, I think most of them assumed that was the end of the story. I can imagine the disciples gathered together in that room, hiding themselves away from the outside world and trying to figure out what was next. Mary Magdalene had told them about the empty tomb and her encounter with Jesus, but they had not yet seen it for themselves, so they were understandably skeptical. It was more likely that his body had been taken rather than resurrected. So imagine the shock and amazement when Jesus appeared to them and they could see him with their own eyes. Seeing and experiencing this even—even though it didn’t make sense—was believing.
But Thomas was not there that day. We don’t know where he was, but he did not see the resurrected Jesus with the rest of the disciples. I wonder how Thomas reacted when he returned to the group and heard their wild story. If I was Thomas, I probably would have assumed that they were trying to play a prank on me, or maybe they had all been driven to some crazy collective make believe story out of their grief. Who knows, but someone dead now alive? That doesn’t make sense.
I can understand why Thomas doesn’t believe it. Be honest, would you believe it if you were standing in his shoes? Looking back knowing the whole story, we might be tempted to say we would believe, but in reality, Thomas’s response is a human response, and one that most of us would likely have.
The truth is, we all are like Thomas at some point. We all have doubts and questions in faith when things don’t make sense. A couple of weeks ago we had a movie night here at church and we watch the movie Life of Pi. At one point in the movie, the main character, Pi, is walking with a friend and talking about his faith journey. He tells how he grew up in India in the Hindu tradition, and later also adopted Christianity and parts of Islam. Pi described faith as “a house with many rooms.” His friend asks him if there is room for doubt, and Pi responds saying, “There is plenty of room for doubt. Doubt is useful, it keeps faith a living thing.” I think this is true, doubt makes us think and reflect, it makes us ask questions, wrestle and grow. Because we will never fully understand the ways of God, doubt is a part of the human experience, and I believe that God is present and working even in our doubt.
Returning to Thomas’s story, we hear him tell the disciples that he will have to see Jesus for himself before he believes it. What strikes me is that Jesus gave Thomas a full week to sit with his doubt and questions before he finally appeared. We might wonder why it took Jesus a full week to appear again, but I think God knows that sometimes we need time to sit with our doubt in order to grow in faith. But finally, Jesus does appear to Thomas, and when he does he offers Thomas a word of peace and invites him to experience the evidence he needs to affirm his faith once again. In other words, Jesus heard Thomas’s need, and once Thomas was ready, he met Thomas in his doubt and offered reassurance. What an experience that must have been for Thomas.
In his time of doubt Thomas needed to see Jesus with his own eyes and touch the wounds to affirm his faith, and we must also ask ourselves what it is that we need to trust. What are we supposed to do when we experience those moments of question or doubt? I think we can all agree that there are parts of the Christian story that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense why the God of the universe would become human, die on a cross and raise from the dead. It’s a strange story, and perhaps, like me, you have been asked before why you believe in something that doesn’t seem possible. In our world today people are looking for science and evidence, and the resurrection story is far from scientific.
So how might we respond when someone asks us why we believe this story? After all, I don’t know if any of us have physically seen the resurrected Christ. I know I haven’t. But if we think about it, I think most of us would say that we have personally encountered God in other ways, even if we couldn’t physically see, touch or explain. Perhaps you have encountered God in nature, through the kind actions of someone else, or during a difficult time in your life. I have heard stories of people encountering God in a dream, through an answered prayer, or even through a miracle. Whatever it may be in your case, I think most of us would likely say we believe in this story because we have encountered it in one way or another in our own lives. We have seen or experienced the work of the Resurrected Christ in our world here and now, and so we believe in the story and in the hope of the Resurrection Promises. We have experienced the story to be true.
But, like Thomas, we will all have doubt and questions at times along the faith journey, and it is okay to wonder and not know the answers. Faith does not necessarily have to make perfect sense for it to be true. After all, faith is a house with many rooms, and we experience and are affirmed in faith in different ways.
God blessed Thomas in his doubting, and likewise God is faithful and meets us in our doubts and questions too. So today may God bless the uncertain, the doubters and the questioners. May God bless those who wrestle in faith, and may God bless our personal encounters with the Risen Christ, our personal stories and witnesses to faith. May God bless the journey. Amen.