“It was still the first day of the week.”
This is still the same day that the women discovered the empty tomb. The same day that Mary Magdalene encountered the risen Christ in the garden and then came to tell the others that she had seen Jesus.
Even after receiving this message, even after Peter confirmed that the tomb was empty, even after Mary returns excited to share the news of her encounter with Jesus, the disciples are in hiding. They were behind closed doors. They were still afraid of what was going to happen to them.
Jesus was arrested, tortured, and killed. What are they going to do to us?
They had obviously seen the change in Mary. She was as close to Jesus as any of them. As a woman, she could approach the tomb without fear of being arrested herself. She was overwhelmed in her grief when she came to them first thing in the morning. But when she came back later, she said Jesus was alive, that she had seen him, talked to him. She was overjoyed. How can that be?
And so they still did not know that same joy that Mary had. They had not yet had their own encounter with the risen body. They probably figured in her grief that Mary was just hallucinating. The additional stress of the body being removed from the tomb had caused her to crack. That is the easiest explanation.
And so they were hiding behind closed doors trying to figure out what happens next.
“Peace be with you.”
Jesus appears in the room with the disciples. I am trying to imagine the chaos that would have ensued at that moment. They are hiding in a closed room because they are afraid of the authorities. They have heard the story from Mary Magdalene that they apparently have not fully believed. And then Jesus is there with them.
No doubt his greeting to them works on many levels. It is likely a familiar greeting, one they have heard from him often. It reflects well his promise to give them peace. And it is something of a command for the present moment.
Be at peace; it’s just me.
As we consider what is going on here, as we read this story today, it is interesting that Thomas is the one that gets the bad rap for “doubting” because he wasn’t there. Because if you think about it, all of the disciples are doubting at this point. They have already heard Mary’s testimony, which was not enough for them. So Jesus appears to them and shows them his wounds to prove he is in fact the same one that they saw executed a few days before and to show that he is in fact alive and there with them. He gives them the same evidence that Thomas has traditionally been belittled for expecting.
And yet none of their doubts are really the point of our text today. Their doubts have a place in the story, but their doubts are not by themselves the point. Rather it is Jesus’ response to their doubts that is key here. As he did with Mary, Jesus makes himself known, removing any doubts they may have had. He also shows them “that their betrayal and abandonment of him do not have the last word on their relationship with him” (Pauw, 214). His presence with them is a renewal of their relationship, a relationship we are still called to participate in today. Thanks be to God that “human weakness and failure do not keep Christ from being present in power and grace” (Pauw, 213).
This is the important point here. In the midst of our doubts, our imperfections, even our denials, Jesus still shows up offering us a continuing relationship. That is the joy of Easter. That is the joy of newness of life. That is the joy of the bodily encounter with Jesus.
Of course, as we mentioned, Thomas was not there that first time Jesus appeared to them. It is not really clear why this might be. As one of the Twelve, why would he not be with the others still on that first Easter day? Whatever the case, just as Mary told the rest of the disciples that she had seen the Lord, the other disciples now tell Thomas. So now he will have heard both Mary’s story as well as all the other disciples.
“We have seen the Lord!”
Still he refuses to believe. At least that is how we traditionally read this text. He wants his own physical encounter. He needs his own encounter with the body, and he won’t believe without it. But I wonder if maybe he wasn’t simply feeling left out.
How come Jesus appeared to Mary and all the others, but he hasn’t yet appeared to me?
Whatever the case, a week later Jesus appears again and this time Thomas is there. After offering the same greeting of peace, Jesus approaches Thomas and offers his wounds to him. The text doesn’t tell us if Thomas does actually reach out and place his fingers in the marks or his hand in Jesus’ side as he said he would, as Jesus offered. The text simply says he responded, “My Lord and my God!”
Thomas' response goes one step further than the others. Mary recognized the same Jesus that was their teacher and friend and responded in kind. We don’t even hear how the other disciples responded. I can imagine them simply staring wide-eyed still uncertain what was going on as Jesus addressed them again as if nothing has changed. But Thomas expresses his immediate belief not only in who Jesus had been to them all of this time, but also in who he now recognizes Jesus to be in their midst. Jesus is the Word of God made flesh.
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
This is how the Gospel of John begins. And now here, as it draws to a close, Thomas echoes this claim that Jesus is God.
As I consider this encounter with Jesus and all that comes after, I couldn’t help but think of Luke Skywalker’s encounter with Yoda in the movie, Return of the Jedi. Luke had been training with Yoda before, but, just as the disciples had their time with Jesus cut short, Luke cut his training with Yoda short. However, Luke returns to Yoda later to complete his training. Instead, Yoda tells him that he is the last of the Jedi and that he needs to pass on what he has learned. Rather than offering him additional knowledge or wisdom, Yoda gives Luke the command to pass on what he has already learned, to share what he already knows.
In the same way, rather than offering them additional knowledge, Jesus calls on the disciples to pass on what they have learned. Like Mary before them, the disciples are called to spread the news not only of all Jesus had taught them but also the call to believe. Jesus sends them forth just as he had been sent by God to call the world back into loving relationship with God and with each other. And after their encounter with the risen body of Jesus, the disciples did just that. They were empowered to do great things. The Bible and other church traditions tell us how they spread the teaching of Jesus, the love he taught, and their experience of God’s love highlighted in their encounter with the risen body of Jesus.
Looking solely at the Twelve apostles, those closest to Jesus, we find that they travel throughout the Mediterranean region and beyond, starting churches in Africa, Europe, and even into southeast Asia. Most were eventually executed themselves, though at least one is said to have lived into his 80s.
Considering only those most frequently mentioned in the Gospels, we find that James, one of the sons of Zebedee, remained in Jerusalem as a leader of the growing church there. He was executed in Jerusalem approximately ten years after Jesus, though some traditions identify him with modern day Spain as well.
His brother, John, is said to have traveled into eastern Turkey and to have lived out a long life in the region of Ephesus near the Aegean Sea. He was hugely influential in the region there and taught several others that would go on to become well known in their own right, including Polycarp and Ignatius.
Peter traveled to Turkey and Greece and perhaps as far as Rome. Some traditions claim he became the first bishop of Rome, making him the first Pope.
Tradition has other disciples traveling into Armenia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, and western Europe.
And Thomas, Thomas whose response is pretty central to today’s text, is credited with traveling throughout Mesopotamia and into modern day India where the Mar Thoma Church still bares his name. Some traditions have him continuing east into Indonesia and there was reportedly even an oral tradition among a South American tribe that Thomas had lived among them for a time, as hard as that may be for us to believe.
Like Mary before them, the rest of the disciples were commissioned to a ministry of spreading the teaching and good news of Jesus. They are called to live such transparent lives that Jesus would become visible through their actions. And as we hear these stories today, we can see the results of their encounter with the body of Christ. Their experience of the body of Christ, a living body rather than a dead one, led the church to expand beyond Jerusalem, throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia and eventually right here to us today. Isn’t it amazing to consider what that bodily encounter with Christ can accomplish in our lives?
In the midst of our doubts and imperfections, Jesus makes himself known to us still today. We still have a chance to encounter the living body of Christ today, a body that offers us peace and calls us into loving relationship. So where do we encounter the body of the living Christ? When have you been aware of the bodily presence of Jesus in your own life?
Was it at the table?
Was it out there in the garden of God’s creation?
Perhaps it was during a particularly meaningful worship service?
Or perhaps you recognize the body of Jesus whenever you are gathered with others in the church?
As Paul makes clear, we are the body of Christ still here in the world. This means that for those that do not yet know Jesus, their encounter with us is their encounter with the body of Jesus. Is our witness to the teaching and ministry of Jesus so transparent that Jesus is visible through our actions? Or, to put it another way, what do our lives tell other people about Jesus? If we are the body of Christ here on earth, as Paul and our tradition teaches, how do others understand Jesus through their encounter with us?
In the more recent Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker has another encounter with Yoda. Yoda had died some 20 or 30 years earlier, and yet he appears again to Luke in a moment of crisis for the younger Jedi. On the one hand, we are led to believe this is a ghostly presence. Yoda is glowing as he talks with Luke. And yet, he interacts with Luke in the real world. Yoda pokes him with his walking stick and whacks him on the head. This is not a ghostly apparition; this is something else. During their conversation, Yoda points back to what he had taught Luke years ago. He seeks to reorient Luke’s assumptions which ultimately leads Luke in a new direction of service.
This is precisely what Jesus is doing in his appearance with the disciples. He is reorienting their assumptions about all that has happened, about all that he has taught them. What they were looking for and expecting in the Messiah is not the point. The point is the ongoing relationship with God, the love being offered even in the midst of their failures and denials -- God’s love proved in the resurrection.
And then he points them in a new direction of service. Death is not the end of God’s love for us. Even though we nailed God to a cross to die, God still returns to us in love. Even though Jesus chose to lay down his life rather than use his divine power to solve problems, he returns to prove that God’s love has no limits.
And then he calls us to share that same love out with others, to serve as living proof of God’s love for the world.
When we encounter the body of Jesus, whether it be at the table, in the community gathered, in the compassionate actions of those around us, or in the needs of a world still broken and in pain, we are transformed and given a new calling, a calling to go forth and to be the body of Christ for others.
Jesus comes to us still.
He offers us peace.
He calls us to receive God’s love.
And then he sends us out to share that love with others.
May we recognize the body of Christ when we encounter it, and may we remember our role as the body when we go forth.
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Amy Plantinga Pauw, “Second Sunday of Easter John 20:19-31 - Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World,” in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship: Year C, Volume 2, ed. Joel Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, and Cynthia Rigby, 213-215 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018). https://wjkbooks.com/Pages/Default.aspx?ContentID=59349&Title=Connections