| April 7, 2002 Acts 2:42-47 + 1 Peter 1:3-9 + John 20:19-31 |
| One of the greatest scholars on John’s Gospel suggests that the fourth Gospel is a “Gospel of Encounters.” It’s a wonderful idea if you think about it, stories of encounters. the encounter with John the Baptist; with Macy, his mother, at Cana, with Nicodemus; the woman at the well, a Roman official with a sick child, a sick man at Bethesda’s pool, a man born blind, Martha, Macy, and Lazarus, Macy Magdaline; and Thomas in an upper room. All are stories of people encountering Jesus Christ. One after another, they make their way onto the stage of John’s great drama, and through them, we learn more and more about Jesus, and each encounter is a story of faith and a confrontation with obstacles to faith. Those obstacles are what define SIN in John’s theology. |
| In some way or another, unique to each situation, Sin comes a kind of refusal, or blind spot, with regard to the presence and truth of Christ’s identity, and Faith comes from hearing the Word spoken by Jesus with a willingness to act on that word. Light must comes to that blindness, acceptance or understanding must gives way to refusal to change. It all begins with John the Baptist who points out Jesus Christ to the others, who surely must have looked and laughed. It’s a wonder it didn’t cost John his following. He talked of Messiah and pointed to a boy from Nazareth! It was the farthest thing from anyone’s mind. Then it concludes with Thomas whose expectations of a messianic age are crushed by a cross, who looks for a savior and sees nothing but a broken and wounded man recently given up for dead. |
| It leads us to wonder what it must have been like in the other stories of sin and faith that continue to be retold in our tradition? What was it like to face the truth in the age of crusades when Christian people, the Body of Christ were being slaughtered by other believers under the banner of the cross?What it was like in the age of the Inquisition when power and politics ruled moral judgement and the Body of Christ was burned at the stake as easily as books and ideas?What it was like in an age when Popes led armies as Tempera! Rulers and remained silent while the Body of Christ was oppressed for the sake of their security and ease?People of faith in those days had to look at their church, the Body of Christ, their brothers and sisters, and see a broken, wounded It leads us to wonder what it must have been like in the other stories of sin and faith that continue to be retold in our tradition? What was it like to face the truth in the age of crusades when Christian people, the Body of Christ were being slaughtered by other believers under the banner of the cross?What it was like in the age of the Inquisition when power and politics ruled moral judgement and the Body of Christ was burned at the stake as easily as books and ideas?What it was like in an age when Popes led armies as Tempera! Rulers and remained silent while the Body of Christ was oppressed for the sake of their security and ease?People of faith in those days had to look at their church, the Body of Christ, their brothers and sisters, and see a broken, wounded |
| The challenge faced by Thomas in that upper room is much like their challenge and ours today We look at a broken and wounded Christ, broken and wounded by his own, not really by someone else. We see wounds caused by sin, and feel shame and sadness. We look at a church, our church, wounded and shamed as Christ was wounded, abandoned, and shamed, and we feel what Thomas must have felt in that upper room as he was called to risk faith in this one who is so unlike what he expected. What were his choices? Cut and run, or stay in there with the others and find out what God would do with them and this battered Body of Christ. |
| Thomas has been in my thoughts a lot this year as, like you, I look at Christ in His Church and see wounds instead of glory, feel disappointment as much as hope, and ponder what fear and sin have done again. Do we cut and run or stay with others and be transformed by what we see into greater believers who like those apostles break out of a locked up room and are born again by the power of the Spirit. It is a tough time to belong to this church. It was then too, and there have been tough times in the past. For me, it is a tough time to be a priest, and later this month I shall begin my thirty-fourth year in this sacred ministry, in a life I wouldn’t trade for anything, but admitting that this year is the hardest of them all. We see what Thomas saw. We feel what Thomas felt. We can still encounter the Christ he met in that upper room with the others, but we’ll have to be there to do it. |
| That Christ who met John the Baptist, Nicodemus, the Woman at the well, Mary Magdalen, and all the others did look quite the way they expected, but he spoke them all of forgiveness and healing, and called them to look beyond what they could see to what they could believe. They had to let go of a lot of things that kept them believing, and most of all, of fear that kept them hiding behind doors and walls. Listen and watch Thomas as he encounters the Lord and faces his own fears, sadness, shame, disappointment, and doubts.He has something to say to us this year like never before, something he may have said in previous generations who shared his feelings, something to teach us about reaching out in trust when there is no reason, and waiting for the Spirit to transform all of this mess into a reason to rejoice. |
| Christ. They must have been hurt, angry, disappointed, shamed, and disgusted. |
| The challenge faced by Thomas in that upper room is much like their challenge and ours today. We look at a broken and wounded Christ, broken and wounded by his own, not really by someone else. We see wounds caused by sin, and feel shame and sadness. We look at a church, our church, wounded and shamed as Christ was wounded, abandoned, and shamed, and we feel what Thomas must have felt in that upper room as he was called to risk faith in this one who is so unlike what he expected. What were his choices? Cut and run, or stay in there with the others and fmd out what God woulddo with them and this battered Body of Christ. |
| Thomas has been in my thoughts a lot this year as, like you, I look at Christ in His Church and see wounds instead of glory, feel disappointment as much as hope, and ponder what fear and sin have done again. Do we cut and run or stay with others and be transformed by what we see into greater believers who like those apostles break out of a locked up room and are born again by the power of the Spirit. It is a tough time to belong to this church. It was then too, and there have been tough times in the past. For me, it is a tough time to be a priest, and later this month I shall begin my thirty-fourth year in this sacred ministry, in a life I wouldn’t trade for anything, but admitting that this year is the hardest of them all.We see what Thomas saw. We feel what Thomas felt. We can stillencounter the Christ he met in that upper room with the others, but we’ll have to be there to do it. |
| That Christ who met John the Baptist, Nicodemus, the Woman at the well, Mary Magdalen, and all the others did look quite the way they expected, but he spoke them all of forgiveness and healing, and called them to look beyond what they could see to what they could believe. They had to let go of a lot of things that kept them believing, and most of all, of fear that kept them hiding behind doors and walls. Listen and watch Thomas as he encounters the Lord and faces his own fears, sadness, shame, disappointment, and doubts.He has something to say to us this year like never before, something he may have said in previous generations who shared his feelings, something to teach us about reaching out in trust when there is no reason, and waiting for the Spirit to transform all of this mess into a reason to rejoice. |
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