During Holy Week this year, several 5th and 6th graders took time from Monday to Thursday to work at several different outreach ministries here in Greensboro. One of the ones we worked at was KidsPath, the subset of Hospice that focuses on helping children who are either themselves terminally ill or who are dealing with the loss of a loved one, parent perhaps, sibling, or grandparent, aunt or uncle, friend. Before our youth began work in the labyrinth garden where we were clearing weeds, we got a brief tour of KidsPath. One of the things that struck me was a mural on one of the walls. It showed a path, traveling from left to right across the wall. The left hand side of the path was shadowed, and the trees there had ominous looking eyes in them. There was someone sitting down weeping. Eventually, though, the path crossed a river, and, the picture gradually became sunnier. There was not an abrupt shift, but over the length of the wall, the mural gradually got brighter and smiles began to join the tears. And I thought about the children, children, who walk that path, and how long it takes them, how long it takes all of us, and how, and this is perhaps the genius of KidsPath and Hospice, the journey is not one that we can easily take alone. No one else can walk our path for us, but at the same time, we do not have to walk the path alone.
Thomas was very far down in his own darkness. He was angry at the Romans for killing his beloved leader, and also angry at Jesus for dying. I suspect he wanted to strike out, and at the same time, to hide away in a hole so nothing would ever hurt him again.
Thomas was not there. We don’t know where he was, but he was not there. All of them were in shock, all of them were in pain. But people react to pain differently. Some seek companionship, some withdraw, some try their best to ignore the pain some deny it, some are utterly overwhelmed. However he was reacting, Thomas was not there. And perhaps, in light of that pain, it makes sense that he would doubt the other disciples’ words, just as they apparently doubted the word of the women who were the first witnesses of the Resurrection. Perhaps his pain was so great, so deeply embedded in his heart that his heart had hardened around it, refusing any possibility of new life, because with new life also comes openness to new pain.
I wonder if we tend to believe things that make us feel safe. To believe whatever gives us answers, provides minimum possibility of upset. It’s natural to seek safety, security, stability. But safety and security are not what Thomas experienced. In the arrest and crucifixion, everything he thought was safe, everything he thought provided answers in his life, everything that kept his world stable, let him down, failed. And in the face of overwhelming pain, it’s easy to retreat. To harden our hearts. And in the middle of that hard heart is a stone of fear, saying to us, over and over again, don’t open up. Don’t take any more risks. Don’t climb any higher, don’t reach for anything more than what you have left, because you could lose even that little remnant.
I think that’s what our pain and perhaps even more our fear of pain do to us. Pain and fear darken our senses, dull our ideas, makes us unwilling or unable to step out in faith and live the way God invites us to live. They keep us from remembering the truth that we are God’s beloved, all of us, no matter what. And they keep us from living that truth out. Sometimes our pain, our fear of pain, are so ingrained in us that they will not let us move toward the light, or accept the word of light, the word of hope, the arrival of radical new life. Sometimes we just cannot receive the Holy Spirit, even at Jesus’ own invitation, because we are in the grip of our own fear and pain, of our own power of darkness.
Thomas was so far down that when word came of a new thing, of an inconceivable miracle, one that invited him out into the light, he simply could not accept it. Not yet. He was not there in that moment. I will not believe. But I don’t think it was a “I will not believe because it seems so rationally unlikely” kind of statement. I think Thomas’s rejection was “I can’t believe because it hurts too much.” It just hurts, and I can’t come out of the tomb yet.
But notice something here. Thomas’ initial refusal to accept the word offered to him, that refusal was allowed, even accepted. Thomas was not thrown out of the group. There was no divine wrath from on high that smote Thomas into tiny smithereens. Often the beliefs that we think are the easiest are also the ones that are the least tolerant of any deviation. But even as he was being invited into something much harder, something much deeper, something that would indeed open him up to rejection, Thomas was given a gift, the gift of time, to work through his grief and pain. Admittedly, it was a week, but still, the time was offered to him.
Even more, Thomas, wherever he was during the first appearance, is still part of the community. Thomas, whose heart is tightly clenched around a knot of pain, Thomas has not walked away from his friends, from his fellow disciples. He made the choice to uproot his life to follow this Jesus, he joined a community that the rest of the world looked at with suspicion and ridicule, and he does not turn away from that commitment, even in the face of pain. He still follows the path, even if he cannot accept the new light, the new life that is on the other side.
And Thomas does not have to walk the path alone. I don’t know what Thomas did during that week. Maybe he simply moved through a numbing grayness to his days. Maybe there were glimpses of spark and light somewhere along the line. Maybe he spent a lot of time talking to people. Maybe he went off into a quiet corner to rest, to reflect, or just to nurse his wounds. Maybe he just tried not to think about it. But whatever he did, no matter how he felt, Thomas was still around a week later. Still part of the community, no matter the darkness he was in. And I believe, that even if he had chosen to walk away, or even if the community had rejected him, that God would have walked away with him, would have been by his side on whatever road he chose to walk.
As the story goes, when the week is over, Thomas is still there, and the offer of new life is made again, but so gently. Jesus does not reprimand Thomas for his unbelief. In fact, he offers Thomas precisely what he has asked for. Touch the nail holes, put your hand in my side. Feel the marks that have been left by evil, the marks that have become signs of how much I love you. And see, see and hold me, hold the truth that that evil is not the end, not the center, no matter how far down it may sink. That there is light and truth and beauty and love, the essence of God, at the center of creation and of every living creature.
In that moment, Thomas sees in a new way. Or perhaps his heart, which had been stone, melts, or expands, or whatever. Perhaps the grace of God kindled the spark within him, and led him to throw his arms around Jesus and make one of the greatest cries of faith the world has ever heard “My Lord and my God.” Not just a Lord or a God, but my Lord, my God. You are mine, says Thomas, I belong to you. And the explosion of joy is, perhaps, even greater and deeper for the darkness Thomas has come through and survived.
We all have darkness in our lives. Sometimes light returns swiftly, because of a friend, or a good moment. But sometimes the darkness is harder and deeper than that. Sometimes someone tries to offer us a word of good news, and we are so locked in our own fear and darkness, that we simply cannot yet receive it. Sometimes we are hurt, or betrayed. Sometimes something we thought about the way the world works turns out not to be true. Sometimes people fail us, abandon us, leave us alone and grieving. But even then, we are not truly left alone. We are never abandoned, even if, like Thomas, we feel like we are the only ones still in pain. We are all given the gift of that week, even if that week takes us years and years, by clock and calendar time. The Spirit is still offered to us, the breath of God is still part of us, and even as we struggle, God stands with us, even when we cannot yet recognize God. In the kind stranger. In the one who reaches out to us and offers us a task that we can do. In the experience of undemanding community, acceptance as we are. In the moment alone in nature, when we sense our connection the world. In a friend reaching out, calling out to us, telling us that we matter to them, even if we’re not sure we matter to ourselves. In the work or play that so absorbs us that we lose all sense of time and space. In the help we need from professionals. In rest. In laughter. And if none of these are accessible to us, then perhaps in the knowledge that Thomas has gone before us, and has come out, on the far side of the mural.
I believe that God walks with each one of us, through our pain, sharing our sorrows. And I believe that to be true even when we are in such pain that we cannot yet receive the message of Easter. Jesus gave Thomas the week he needed before coming back. God waited for Thomas to be ready. And I think that God would have kept on coming back to Thomas, if Thomas had not been ready the second time, either in the person of Jesus or in the persons of the other disciples, or in some other way. God would not have given up, just because Thomas was locked down in his own fear and darkness.
God does not give up on us either. All of us have our own darkness in our lives, some more severe than others. And the truth that we see this morning is that God will not, will never give up on us, even if we reject God in the first place. Not even death can triumph over the love of God. God will keep coming back to us, keep loving us, keep inviting us home. And we will be given all the time we need to say yes.
Amen.