Second Easter
John 20:19-31; I Peter 1:3-9; Acts 2:14a, 22-32
This has been a week of death and dying. Two names have dominated the headlines, One was that of an ordinary woman, Terri Schiavo, who spent 15 years in a brain damaged vegetative condition following a cardiac arrest, not unlike thousands of similar medical conditions except that this case found a legal and political forum that raised end of life issues to the headlines of the newspapers and into our work and dinner conversations. The other impending death we could not ignore this week is that of Pope John Paul II. After almost 27 year, the Roman church and much of the world began to assess the legacy of this pope with the third longest tenure of any pope in history. There were other deaths reported in the papers this week that were probably missed by most of us, like 21 year old Army Specialist Eric Toth of Edmonton, Kentucky and 32 year old Marine Warrant Officer Charles Wells of Montgomery, Alabama whose names were added yesterday by the Department of Defense to the list of 1,525 American service members who have died in Iraq. Not all the dead had names. Our Lutheran church's website on world hunger reminds us that 34,000 children die every day from hunger related causes. Death is too much a part of our world, the lists can go on and on, deaths from accidents, crime, abuse, neglect, natural disasters, suicide, overdose, and then there are deaths from what are called natural causes that cover everything from cancer, heart disease, pneumonia and the familiar hospital list to the exotic plague outbreak in Africa. Most of us are troubled by the litany of death that fills our world but we also recognize it as a very real part of life, a part that we have long since admitted to ourselves that we can do very little about, So we change the channel, turn to the sports page, flip the radio to a music station. We feel the sadness, we mourn the loss, we extend our sympathy and share the memories, tell a few stories and then we pause and feel the sunlight, hear a bird begin to sing, and think about having lunch or getting gas in the car or finishing that project you started yesterday. In the midst of death, there is life that must go on. Such is the story of our Gospel lesson for today, the traditional story for the first Sunday after Easter often called the story of Doubting Thomas. Most of us have at least a passing familiarity with the story of the disciple who was missing when the resurrected Jesus first appears to the other 10 disciples. There are all kinds of explanations that have been offered as to why Thomas was missing, Some have suggested his grief was so great he needed to be alone, Others take a more pragmatic view that there were commitments that had to be honored even in the midst of his grief, Ultimately the only thing that can be said for sure is that Thomas was missing when in the midst of their grief over the death of Jesus there comes a resurrection appearance. Thomas' response to the declaration by the other disciples that they have seen the Lord is filled with doubts and demands for empirical evidence. Thomas may have trusted his colleagues but he also clearly had a healthy skepticism about him that demanded verification. We live in a world that has taught us that any trust must be based on verifiability. So Thomas made his declaration, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." Thomas knew what we all know, there are two certainties in the world, death and taxes. While you may be able at times to avoid paying some taxes, and we may even attempt to redefine exactly when death occurs, the reality of death is that no one escapes, This is a truth that Thomas knew as well as we do. But the things we know and the things we believe are seldom as sure as we would like them to be. There was a time when the world was thought to be flat and not round, It was believed that to sail beyond the sight of land risked falling off the edge. There was a time when it was thought that the sun moved around the earth giving us night and day, That the earth was the center of God's created universe and humanity the center of all life, To doubt such geo-centric thinking was to threaten the universal faith that preserved the church and the world. There was a time when people wished that there was more to life then death. This morning is about the something more that Thomas and the other disciples found, or maybe, more correctly that found them.. There is never a good time to die. The headline stories this past week have reminded us of how intensely we desire to embrace life and resist death. The Terri Schiavo case provided a number of perspectives on end of life questions, raising questions of who controls, or should have control, over matters of life and death., How does one measure a life, its quality and purpose. The Pope's final days have taken us to the other extreme focusing on the meaning and fullness of life, and the manner in which facing death gives meaning to a life.. The ancient world used to have a curious saying. "May your death be long and slow." To many this sounds like it might have been a curse, an ill wish, but the actual fact is that a long slow death was seen as a blessing because it allowed the family time to gather even from afar and let each loved one have a final time with the one who was dying, to allow time for reminiscence, confessions and reconciliations, final wishes and words. To be able to say final farewells is valued to this day. Scripture preserves for us an extended farewell by Jesus to his disciples before his arrest and death, Clearly his appearances to them after his death challenged the disciples to new life missions. There seems to be in most people's expectations an anticipated order to life and death. The purpose of aging is to bring each of us ultimately to our time of death, the elderly are expected to die before the younger, The tragic is found in the breaking of this assumed order, when an accident or natural disaster takes someone unexpectedly, when a child precedes their parent in death, the grief is greatest. Our expectations of order in the universe require that death be chronological. My grandmother lived to be 104, that is impressive but equally amazing is that none of her children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren preceded her in death. I once made this observation to my mother, How no one died while Hilda was alive, She replied, "I guess we all felt it wasn't allowed." We would like to believe that we have such control over life and death. Thomas declares that he will not believe unless he sees and touches, People make a "deal with the devil" when they say they would give anything if they could just..., It sounds benign enough but we hope God is listening and controlling, I'll give half my winnings to the church if ..., I promise I'll be more helpful and caring if only ... We try to tie our conditions and strings to events in the world, to control the course of events the way we want them to go, sometimes promising more than we meant because we never believed God would really take us up on it, A young Martin Luther caught in a terrible lightening storm cries out that if spared from death he will leave law school and enter the monastery, The storm passes, Luther lives, and a priest and theologian was born. About four years ago a group of people from this congregation put down on paper what they would have this church building look like if there was a way to build it, Four years later our ministry resources have doubled in size and a new building fund appeal is saying once again, "If..." The doubts and skepticism of our world make us so comfortable with Thomas, We live our lives with the conditions and limitations of the modern world, There is no trust without verification, At a recent long range planning meeting for the local school district the participants were asked to identify the most important things they felt students would have to learn in the next decade. The number one item repeated over and over was to teach children discernment, the ability to take the limitless amount of information available through the internet and media and know how to find what was really true and meaningful and valuable. The disciples told Thomas that they had seen the Lord. The world is no longer flat, the sun does not move around the earth, and death is not the end. Two statements of fact and one hope, or three absolute truths. Thomas said, "Unless I see and touch I will not believe." "The resurrection?" she said. "Of course I believe in the resurrection. I have seen it." "Seen it," I said. "Yes, I know it well," she continued. "Several years ago I was married to the greatest guy in the world. We were so in love, He was my whole life. But then something went wrong. I got divorced, It killed love and life, it almost killed me. I was dead to the world. And then I met Tom, everything that was lost was found again, all the things that had died in me came back to life. I believe in the resurrection." "I'm cancer free," he said. He just stood there smiling. Two years earlier he had been told that he had one year to live, two at the most. He had begun a rigorous treatment procedure but the doctors gave little hope. At first it had been really rough but then one day he went in and the medical reports changed. He was declared cancer free. Where death had once been, there was now only life. He said he really didn't know what he was going to do, he really hadn't expected to live this long. He just stood there smiling. Resurrection takes many forms, Sometimes it is not the miracle but the hope, The faith to believe a promise of what is to come In the moment of death there is no despair for those who know what lies ahead, I look around the garden and see nothing but dead plants and dirt, then the sun rises, the day warms -and from the ground I see the promise of life. That is the world I now know that God created, centered not on the earth but on faith. That is what Thomas suddenly realized was standing right in front of him when Jesus appeared a second time with Thomas present, Thomas put out his hand, touching the promise of life to come. We live in a world with resurrection every day. In the midst of the certainty of death there is one who comes and stands in our midst and says "Peace, be with you." We can demand to see the marks of pain and suffering, they are visible all around us, We can demand to be allowed to touch the wounds, the hurts and injuries abound in our world, more than enough to meet any need we have to measure the reality of such marks. The miracle is in seeing the resurrection moment, the risen Christ who stands once more among us. The one who takes our doubts and fears and says "Peace". This has been a week of death and dying, In truth, a week like every other week. But this has also been the week after Easter. In the midst of loss and doubt there has appeared the promise of life beyond death, Some have believed even without seeing it, Others have waited for the touch, A taste of bread and wine, A greeting of peace, A promise that life does not end in silence but with the joyous proclamation of all the saints. Christ is Risen, Come and see. To encounter the resurrection as a real part of our lives, that is at the heart of Doubting Thomas Sunday.
Amen