The Twin and the Wounded One

Alleluia! Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Today, we heard the story of “Doubting Thomas,” and I suspect that many of us, and many in our day and age, are likely to have some empathy for “a doubter.” But I think the doubt of our current moment is a little different from the type we encounter in today’s Gospel. Today, I think we doubt whether bodily resurrection is even possible; many Christians would even want to reframe the resurrection of Christ as a purely spiritual event, interpreting the events of the first Easter as a spiritual awakening and imagining that Jesus appeared to his disciples again like a phantom in a dreamlike haze. Yet the Gospel of John doesn’t fit neatly with this view: the resurrected Christ stands up, neatly folds his grave clothes, walks in the garden, and embraces Mary Magdalene. Later, he makes fish and eats breakfast while speaking on the shore with his disciples; Jesus’s rising from the dead seems to be a very physical endeavor.   

I suspect Thomas would have no problem with this kind of bodily resurrection. He had followed Jesus for at least 3 years, learning about the kingdom of God and the new resurrected life it promised. He was steeped in the promises about the Messiah from the Hebrew Scriptures and, like all the disciples, had hoped that Jesus would be the one to usher in the coming kingdom. But his hopes were dashed on Good Friday, because, even as a 1st-century person, he knew, as we do, that dead folks tend to stay dead. 

Back in his day, Thomas wasn’t known as “Doubting” Thomas. (That would be a pretty rough nickname for a disciple.) No, his fellow disciples called him Didymus, which means “twin,” though it’s unclear how he got that name. He could have been the twin brother of one of the other disciples, or maybe he just looked a lot like one of them. Some speculate that he looked a lot like Jesus, and so when Jesus one day referred to him as “Twin!”, the nickname stuck. But in any case, “Twin” seems especially aware that people can look alike. It could be that this “resurrected Jesus” was just someone who happened to look a lot like Jesus—maybe someone just like Thomas. And so, as a believer in the possibility of resurrection, Thomas is determined to get to the bottom of this and make sure this isn’t just a case of mistaken identity.

What Thomas doubted probably wasn’t that the dead can be raised. Remember, he had seen Lazarus walk out of the tomb. Nor was it that the Messiah had the power to raise the dead, because his faith and the Scriptures promised it. I think Thomas doubted that it could be Jesus, the crucified Lord, whom God intends to raise on the Last Day. Surely the Messiah would have a more glorious path, a more triumphal entry, riding in like a warrior to take hold of God’s city, Jerusalem, rather than dying on a dung heap outside the city walls. Is it possible that Jesus—the one who was cursed by hanging on a tree, lynched to the shouts of an angry mob—could be God’s representative here on earth? If that were true, it would require a complete reorganization of all the facts Thomas knew about God. What could it mean that the Messiah was discarded, scorned, spit on, trampled, beaten, mocked, and died? What kind of God would do that? What kind of God would suffer that? If Jesus is the Messiah, then everything he thought he knew about God would have to change.

This, I think, is the question on Thomas’ mind: can it be that a crucified Lord—crowned with thorns, with nails in his hands and feet, pierced in his side—could this bloody mess be God’s beloved Son? But Thomas discovered that the unthinkable was true that afternoon. He saw the wounds Jesus endured and exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”

And it’s Thomas question that prompts Jesus to speak this blessing: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

That’s a blessing Jesus speaks over you and over me—we who have not seen but have come to believe; who believe and await the culmination of our faith, a face-to-face encounter with the risen Christ, so that we might touch him, eat with him, and sit at his feet, just as Thomas did. 

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 

I am truly thankful for Thomas’s doubt—whatever kind it was—because it brings this blessing. In fact, Thomas has a way of doing this. He asks an honest question, and Jesus blesses everyone with the answers. It was Thomas who piped up earlier about not knowing the way to the room Jesus was preparing in heaven for his disciples, and Jesus responded, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Somehow, Thomas’s doubts and questions seem to produce miraculous results, which might serve as a lesson for each of us: to bring our tough questions to Jesus. I know many of us would second Thomas when he asks, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

As I sat with our gospel for today, I tried to be like Thomas. The text before us today could prompt many questions. Questions like, “If Jesus is resurrected, why are his wounds still there?” You likely have your own questions. But I spent time with the text this week, asking it questions, hoping they might prompt something useful to bring today, and I found myself wrestling with a different part of our reading. As fascinating as Jesus’ offer to touch his wounds is, I think Jesus says something even more controversial in our reading, and it almost flies by. The controversial part I’m speaking of is where Jesus breathes on the disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

It’s controversial because Jesus went around teaching and healing, calling corrupt religious and political leaders to account—and he might have gotten away with it if he had stopped there. But the really dangerous part of Jesus' message was that he claimed the authority to forgive sins. Yes, he healed and often broke societal rules to do so, but with these healings, he also claimed the power to get at the root cause of sickness and to deal head-on with sin, death, and the Devil. I suspect this claim made people angry for a few reasons. In the first place, most people don’t like being told they have done anything wrong that needs forgiveness. But more shocking, anyone who claims to forgive sins is claiming equality with God. Jesus was crucified for being a blasphemer, claiming to be the Son of God. Anyone claiming that power has got to be either a con man or plain nuts. Well, or God. 

And yet, here at The Church of the Intercession, week after week, a priest stands up there and pronounces, “Almighty God, have mercy on you and forgive you all your sins.” Who gives them the right? Well, Jesus. They are able to do that because Jesus extends this ministry of forgiveness to the church. Jesus hands over his most potent power with a breath of the Spirit. What Thomas and all the disciples are brought into is Jesus’s ministry of mercy and forgiveness. Which is a very dangerous thing; it’s literally what got Jesus killed. Forgiveness might sound like a gentle and harmless thing, but in truth, it is the hardest thing we are called to do. I could stand here and rail against all the absolutely unforgivable things going on in the world around us, here in our neighborhood, and in the whole world; there are too many shocking things to name. But to tell you that God waits eagerly to forgive all those who are making an absolute wreck of the world is truly scandalous. Jesus gives each of us an impossible mission: to forgive because of what we have been forgiven. And this isn’t a light thing; in seeing the wounds of Christ, we see the type of ministry we are called toward; it’s a ministry that could cost us absolutely everything.

That, for me, helped me understand how to answer the question I wrestled with this week, “If Jesus is resurrected, why are his wounds still there?” Those wounds are our wounds, and as we stand across from Jesus like a twin, we see that he continues to take upon himself all the wounds we inflict on others and those inflicted upon us, the deep wounds that are too deep and refuse to heal. He still bears them in his body. Every year, the surprise of Easter morning stands in stark relief against the awfulness of Good Friday. But, as St. Paul reminds us, “it was and is impossible for Jesus to be held by the power of death.” Even more incredible is that Jesus won’t let us be held down by death either. 

Jesus forgives all your sins—even the ones you still wrestle with, even the ones you cannot seem to let go. Easter promises that there is life on the other side of all this—even on the other side of death, there is real, genuine life. Yes, we will eat and drink with all those who have gone before us; we will stroll in gardens, embrace each other, and even enjoy breakfast on the beach. As our collect reminds us, “Jesus, in the Paschal mystery, established the new covenant of reconciliation.” In other words, Jesus forgives. Jesus promises new life. Jesus gives each of you the Holy Spirit as a seal upon his promise and offers this blessing…

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

May you carry all Jesus’s blessings with you until your faith becomes sight.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!