Christ Jesus offers us abundant life, which is found following him into the world and opening our hearts to his transforming, both of which can be frightening; but we are in the care of our Good Shepherd, always.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, year A; texts:  John 10:1-10; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

There seems to be a difference of opinion in our readings today and it’s troubling.

Jesus says that he came that we might have life, and have it abundantly.  So why does Peter tell us that the actual example Jesus gave us to follow as disciples was suffering for doing what is right?  How is that abundant life?  And the Lord our Good Shepherd leads us on right paths for his name’s sake, paths which go to still waters and green pastures, but paths which also lead through the valley of the shadow of death?  If we are following God our Shepherd, and our Shepherd is Good, what on earth are we doing walking in the presence of our enemies and in valleys of shadows and death?  Shouldn’t a Good Shepherd guide us on safer paths than these?

Do you see the problem?  We are told we are safe and yet we are told we will suffer.  We are told we are guided and yet we are told we will go through dangerous places.  We do not fear, we say, because we are in the care of the Good Shepherd.  But it sounds like our Good Shepherd may need us to go places that aren’t always in the safe confines of a sheepfold.

So our question is: is it truly safe to follow this Shepherd after all?

It’s a question we need to answer since in at least three of our readings the call we hear is to know and listen to the voice of our Good Shepherd, and follow.

The first of Jesus’ images today is that of a group of flocks sheltered together near a village.  All are gathered into a common fold, with a gate and gatekeeper shared by all.  So when the shepherd is ready to go out in the morning, he or she calls to the sheep, and only the sheep belonging to that particular shepherd perk up and follow.

Jesus’ implication is pretty clear: do you know who your shepherd is, and if so, will you listen for his voice?  And if so, will you follow?  Or whose voice are you following in your life?  Peter’s letter says that discipleship is all about returning to our shepherd and guardian, and the psalm implies that we hear our Good Shepherd’s voice and follow always.

This may seem obvious, but is it?  We can seek comfort and hope from God, and find it in Christ Jesus, who reveals the love of the Triune God for us and for the world.  We can come here and confess and hear that we are forgiven.  We can come here and hope to hear that we are always in the love and care of God.

What we seem to find difficult is knowing what to do when our God calls us to follow.  As long as we can do what we want and live how we live, we’d like relationship with God.  But a call to follow implies change in us of any number of kinds: change of heart, change of behavior, change of lifestyle, change of mind.

It is impossible to encounter Christ Jesus and not hear this call.  Sometimes it’s a call to repentance: to turn around from where we’re going and go a different direction.  Sometimes it’s a call to love: to set aside our feelings and inclinations and offer love to those whom we find it hard to love.  Sometimes it’s a call to lose: to let go of what we cling to so we can be open to new life.

And none of these are easy.  This is part of the suffering for doing what is right Peter speaks of.  It’s not torture, as happens to many who follow Jesus in this world, it’s only a change of heart.  But it will be painful, and somehow we seem afraid of that.  I realize we seem to be talking about this a lot lately, but it’s hard to avoid that this is where the Scriptures are taking us, and always have been.

So when and how do we take it from our head and our knowledge and let it change our hearts and lives?  When and how do teach each other to we lift up our heads, in other words, when we hear our Shepherd’s voice, and start to follow?  Instead of following all the other voices we’ve been following.

This image of a protected sheepfold sounds an awful lot like the locked upper room in which the disciples placed themselves Easter week.  You can stay locked in the sheep pen and think you’re safe, locked behind closed doors.  But we’re not.

The disciples were met by the risen Christ inside their locked room, and he led them out into new life.  As a shepherd leads sheep out to pasture.  They couldn’t stay locked away, and not just because they were needed out there to reach others with the Good News.  The locks they really needed opened were the locks of their hearts behind which they were hiding in fear.

The real Easter transformation of the disciples wasn’t as much their going out and preaching.  It was their inner change that led to that.  The Spirit of God made them new people, changed people.  From the inside.  It wasn’t just the room that got unlocked.

And where they found life, so will we.  But not locked away in the sheepfold.

Abundant life from Christ Jesus is only found when the locks are off and the doors opened.

This just makes sense: how can we find real life if we’re always locked away?

And it’s really important that we see this as a first step toward discipleship, the beginning.  It’s easy to get distracted by the serving, by “what we should do.”  But it’s no good running a food shelf if our hearts are still locked away and our lives unchanged.

So we really want to begin with our hearts and with how we are with those closest to us.  If we have locked away any possibility of Christ Jesus calling us to a new way of being with those who are closest to us, how can we begin to think about loving our neighbors in the community or in the world?

If it is off limits, locked away, for God to ask us to give up being self-centered in our daily lives, how can we become like Jesus, how can we follow?  If it is off limits, locked away, for God to ask us to change how we react to people in our families, how we treat others in our congregation, how can we become like Jesus, how can we follow?

If it is off limits, locked away, for God to ask us to give up getting our own way, to ask us to let it go when others seem to disregard us, how can we become like Jesus, how can we follow?  If it is off limits, locked away, for God to ask us to adjust to others and make allowances for them instead of resenting that they don’t adjust to us and make allowances for us, how can we become like Jesus, how can we follow?

And if none of this happens, what would the point be for us as a community to talk about bearing the love of Christ into this neighborhood?  Diapers and meals are important and good.  But what if our Savior, our Shepherd actually wants us to change inside as well?

It seems that’s what his voice keeps calling to us.  Abundant life is when we unlock our hearts and are changed by the Holy Spirit.  When we are made new, then we really don’t have a lot of difficulty seeing where to serve, starting with those closest to us whom we love.

When we unlock the doors and let the Spirit change our inmost ways, then how we will live in the world – in our families, in our congregation, in our neighborhood, in our country and world – will become obvious.  Because we will be living in the joy of a new, abundant life.  Or at least on our way to it.  And we will want to share it.

There are two things that we absolutely need to remember about all of this.

First, Jesus comes in through our locked doors.  As much as we think we’ve locked away all our problems and the things we don’t want to change, Jesus is already there.  He’s good at coming through locked doors, is our Shepherd.  So he’s already inside us, wanting to give us peace.  Wanting to fill us with the Spirit.  We can no more keep him out than not breathe.

But second, we cannot go out through locked doors.  And out is the way to life.  That’s why our Shepherd calls to us.  He can and does come to us.  He can and does give us the key to open the doors.  To leave the sheep fold.

But our Shepherd will not force us out.  He won’t force us to be different.  He will not force us to follow.  Our Lord and Shepherd would have us hear his voice and come, willingly.

And maybe that’s the whole point of the Bible’s insistent witness that our Shepherd is Good.  Because there’s a lot that doesn’t seem safe in all of this, and could be frightening.  But if we know ahead of time, as we do, that the risen Christ, our Lord, is a Good Shepherd to us, then, then there’s no reason we wouldn’t want to learn to hear his voice.  And no reason we wouldn’t want to follow.

So do not be afraid.

You are loved by the God who made all things and who cares for you as a shepherd cares for her sheep, and who is known to us in our Good Shepherd, our risen Lord and Savior.

He is calling to you, to me, and asking us to follow.  But we do not fear, because even though this path will lead to loss and change and through frightening places, even in our own hearts, we are walking with and behind our Shepherd, who faced all such pain and suffering already and is risen.  He will keep us safe: from our enemies – both those inside us and outside of us – and safe even in valleys of shadow and death.

We have to leave what we thought were safe places because they actually aren’t safe, and we cannot live in them.  We can only live where our Shepherd shows us, and we can only have abundant life when he transforms us.

But let us not be afraid.  Because this is our Good Shepherd we are talking about.  Even death cannot stop his love for us, for you.  All will most certainly be well when we follow his voice.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Together in our journey we meet Jesus – in worship and in each other and everywhere we journey in our lives in the world – and our eyes are opened to God’s way in the Scriptures and to God’s presence among us.  And we are changed.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, the Third Sunday of Easter, year A; texts:  Luke 24:13-35; Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Two disciples are walking the seven or eight miles from Jerusalem to their Emmaus home, talking about the incredibly strange events of this day, following a deeply painful week.  A walking journey of that distance with that burden to bear is lightened by such companionship.

They had left the main group of disciples in Jerusalem, in the upper room, struggling to comprehend what some of the group – some of the women disciples – had claimed, that their master Jesus was raised from the dead.  A spiritual journey of faith and doubt of such import is lightened by such companionship.

When Jesus was talking to his disciples about life in the community, he said, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matt. 18:20)  In a little house in Emmaus that was literally true, though the couple didn’t see it until he broke the bread.  In the upper room in Jerusalem that was also literally true.

We can easily see how this story of Emmaus is a story that encapsulates our worship life.  We gather together to worship and our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, comes to us.  He opens our eyes to God’s Word, we have fellowship with him and each other, we speak to him in prayer, and in his Meal he opens our eyes to the grace and presence of the Triune God in our midst.  We see him, literally, in the breaking of the bread.  We embody his promise that where two or three, or two or three hundred, are gathered in his name, he is there.  Each Eucharist here is our Emmaus story, every week.

What I wonder is this: are we neglecting the rest of our lives when we consider this hope, this promise, and limit it to this nave, this chancel, this holy ground?  We come here expecting that our Lord will be with us in this gathering, hoping to be enlightened by the Holy Spirit, our hearts’ eyes opened, trusting that we will be fed by the Bread of Life.

But we have much of our life’s journey, our faith journey, that happens away from this sacred space, these holy things.  It turns out we are more like the Emmaus couple than we might know, then.  They weren’t at worship or going to worship.  They were walking a familiar road to get to their home.  They were talking with each other, and then with this stranger on the road.  As evening fell they invited him in, and so learned it was their Lord.  But essentially, they were living their lives.

And that’s where Jesus met them.  Into the midst of their life came the Son of God.  What might our lives be like if we were looking for this beyond what happens here every Sunday morning?  What might it do for our lives if we took seriously the promise that wherever we are with even one other believer, our Lord meets us there?

We are all on a journey in faith and life, and we need each other.

This has been a mark of the Church since the beginning, and it’s essential.

It’s no accident that the disciples gathered together in the upper room.  And look what happened.  They gathered for mutual support and comfort.  But then Jesus came to them.  And Thomas missed it because he was by himself.  He wasn’t with the others.  Until the next week.

And then they kept coming together, and one day, fifty days after Jesus rose, the Holy Spirit was poured out on all of them, together.  Then, when they went out as witnesses, they went together.  And our Emmaus friends, they took this long walk together.

In our journey of faith, as we seek to be disciples, companionship is absolutely essential.  We need sisters and brothers on our faith journey to support and encourage us.

We need them to speak the truth to us so we can grow and confess and become new people.  We need them to help us listen to God and look at our paths so we can choose paths of life and not death.

If we are ever going to grow and deepen as disciples, we will do it with each other.  And that’s because when we gather together with others, Jesus comes to us.  This promise of “two or three” is a profoundly important promise.

Jesus is not saying God will not fill our hearts when we are alone, of course not.  Certainly the Spirit moves in us always and in all places.

But what Jesus has said is this promise: that if we have even one companion to help us in our faith and life, he will guarantee that he will be with us.  We will meet Jesus on our journey when we journey together.  That’s a promise.  And it’s not just a promise of when we come together here for worship.

So when we meet Jesus together, what happens?  He opens our eyes, feeds us, is with us.

It was with the two on the road that Jesus opened the Scriptures to them so they could understand why this cross and resurrection was God’s path all along.  And it was with the whole group of disciples in the forty days after Easter that Jesus continued his teaching and eye-opening.

So it is today.  When we gather together, we listen to God’s Word better.  And our Lord opens our eyes and hearts.

But not just in this room.  When we are with each other on our roads, the same thing happens.  Together we can correct and guide each other in God’s Word in ways we can’t do by ourselves.  Together we can help understand and explain.  At any given time any one of us can be confused, and having another sister or brother to help is immeasurably important.  And because our Lord comes to us when we gather, we have the added blessing of the presence of Christ in our midst, guiding, teaching, leading.  Wherever we are.

And it was also when the disciples were together that Jesus fed them with love and life.  At Emmaus he broke the bread, and they saw him.  In the upper room he ate with them and they knew he was truly alive again.  On the shore of the Sea of Galilee he made breakfast for them and showed them his love and grace for them.

And so it is with us, that when we are together we are fed by the grace and love of God.  Certainly as we gather for the Eucharistic meal each week.

But on our ordinary roads, too, we are fed when we meet together.  As we meet each other’s needs, we feed each other.  As we embody the love of the Triune God for each other, we feed each other.  It’s much harder to sense the nourishing love of God without another person there to embody it, and together that gift is given us.  Wherever we are with each other.

But remember what also happens after meeting the risen Christ: everything changes.

The Emmaus couple are getting ready for the end of the day.  After Jesus, they run eight miles to tell others.  The same thing happens to all of the disciples.

Mary Magdalene’s weeping at a tomb.  She meets the risen Christ with her sisters and they all run to tell others.  The disciples are locked in a room.  They meet the risen Christ and go out to proclaim the Good News.  Again and again, after meeting the Lord, disciples leap up and go out to change the world.

But notice that these are all changed, too, not just sent out.  Their experience of meeting Christ together changes them.  They are no longer fearful, but bold and joyful witnesses.  They lose their old habits of distrust and caution and live lives trusting God’s grace in all circumstances.  They change how they live with each other, how they act in the world, how their community is formed, how they go out into the world to bring God’s grace and love.

Look at the Acts story today: people are convicted by Peter’s sermon and ask what they should do.  Repent and be baptized, Peter says, be changed.  And 3,000 do just that.  And the Church explodes into existence.  They are, Paul will say twenty years later, new creations.

And so it will be for us as well, if we take this seriously.

What we have been longing for for so long is a connection between our Sunday worship and our daily lives.  The connection has always been there: that as we gather together, journey together, we meet our Lord and are changed.

And the whole world becomes God’s house, where we constantly expect to meet our Lord.  As we walk our faith journey together, looking to be met by our Lord, we begin to see everything as holy, all ground as sacred, all things as vessels of God’s grace.

Was not that ordinary road to Emmaus holy ground, as Jesus opened their hearts and minds?  Their hearts were burning within them as he spoke.  And they weren’t even in a church!  And wasn’t their little kitchen sacred space as he broke bread and blessed them?  Their eyes were opened to the presence of God in their midst.

And in their companionship, and the companionship of the disciples in the upper room, they met the Lord together on the road, found sacred ground together, and were changed.

Because Christ is risen, we are always on holy ground, in sacred space, with holy things.  When we listen to each other and speak truth to each other in our journeying, we open each other’s eyes to God’s Word and God’s way, and our hearts burn with the light of the Spirit.  Everything is holy now, now that Christ is risen and has sent the Spirit into the world.  And we, together, live in that holy space where our Lord always comes to us, wherever we are together.

And we are changed on this journey for the better, for the good, for life.

We find the keys to our locked rooms together so we, too, can burst out and live these new lives, unafraid, filled with the joy of life in God.  We find the strength and energy together to get up and go out of our homes and run the road so we can tell others “we have seen the Lord,” we can witness to God’s love that has changed us.

Everything we need to become we find together as we journey together, because we meet our Lord together.  This is how what we know in our worship here each week becomes what we live and believe in our daily lives in the nave that is the world.

This is the grace of our Emmaus journey, that we walk this together and with the Spirit’s grace help each other’s eyes open and hearts burn.

But it would be worth a word of warning here: if you don’t want to be changed, if you don’t want to see the world differently, if you don’t want to be called to make God’s kingdom and justice happen in the world, if you don’t want to become someone new, stay away from the risen Christ, and for goodness’ sake stay away from his friends.  Don’t invite him or them into your home for supper, or you might find yourself transformed and going out into the world with life and grace.  Don’t ever let him or them into the locked rooms of your heart because you might be blessed not only with the peace of God but also the Spirit of God and you’ll find yourself turning into an actual disciple and witness in the world to God’s love.

If, however, that’s your dearest and deepest hope and desire, as frightening as such a thing might be, then this is very good news indeed.  For Christ is risen, and he’s here for certain.  But he’s also walking out on the roads of your life, looking to meet you, meet me, and change us, together.

Let us go from here in joy.  Because everything’s holy now.  And wherever we go together, we will meet our Lord, that’s a promise.  And together we will be led into new life.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The risen Christ bared his wounds so that Thomas could believe. As the body of Christ, we are now sent to witness by bearing our wounds so that we and the world may see how the Triune God is at work, bringing all to faith by Christ’s wounded body.

Vicar Emily Beckering; Second Sunday of Easter, year A; texts:  John 20:19-31; 2 Corinthians 4:7, 10-11 

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Poor Thomas; he gets such a bad reputation. His very nickname labels him according to his weakness: Doubting Thomas. No one remembers Thomas as the one who, when Jesus told them that he was returning to Judea, proclaimed to the other disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Instead, we remember Thomas only as the one who doubted: the one who needed to see and to touch his Lord for himself.

Yet, what Thomas offers us in this is a great gift. He openly admits that he is hurt: the loss of his Lord to crucifixion has wounded Thomas deeply. He finds it difficult to trust; he cannot believe unless he touches his Lord’s wounds. Because Thomas shows his wounds by telling his friends that he could not believe unless he encountered Jesus, those first disciples—together with the whole church—get to hear what Jesus does for Thomas, and for us all.

Despite our common characterization of this story, its emphasis ought not to be on Thomas’ doubt, but on Jesus’ consistent appearance to those who are in need of him. 

Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” which he says for our sakes. Yet, as he did for Thomas, Jesus does find ways for us to see him. He does this most often through wounds: by encountering us in our pain.

Throughout the entire gospel of John, Jesus reveals himself to those who are hurting, to the wounded, and the way in which he encounters them is in direct response to that woundedness. He meets them in their brokenness and offers them what they most need.

We see this in each of the gospel stories that we heard during this past Lent.

Jesus first reveals himself as the Messiah, the Son of God, to the Samaritan woman at the well: he knows the depths of her wounds, the history of relationships, her disappointments and weariness. All of those things about herself that she might rather hide, Jesus brings to the forefront, so that he may show her that he is offering what she most needs: a relationship with her savior.

Jesus does the same for the man born blind. Jesus returns to the man a second time when he discovers that the man has been driven out from the community. In the midst of his pain of being rejected and his witness not being taken seriously, Jesus goes to him and confirms the man’s witness by revealing that he is the Son of Man, the one promised to this man and to all of Israel.

Then we heard of Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus. Jesus meets Martha in the midst of her pain of losing her brother to death and reveals himself as the resurrection and the life; he weeps with Mary, and he raises Lazarus from the dead.

In each of these cases, and every single time that Jesus uses an “I am” statement in the Gospel of John in order to reveal himself as God—“I am the bread of life,” “I am the good shepherd,” “I am the vine”—each of these revelations are directly related to what the witness most needs. One who is thirsty needs everlasting water. One who cannot see needs light: the light of the world. One who is dead needs resurrection and life. By their wounds, Jesus encounters them. By their wounds, they know who he is for them.

The same pattern continues even after Jesus’ resurrection. Each of the witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection gets their own intimate encounter with their risen Lord based on what they most need, and he comes to them precisely when they are hurting.

As Mary weeps over the loss of her Lord, Jesus comes to her, calls her by name so that she can recognize him, and gives her what she is most longing for: to be with him again.

Jesus comes to the disciples while they are locked away in fear and doubt. These followers, who had begun to fear that everything that they had believed in, hoped for, and trusted in was now false, need peace, peace that only comes from being in their Lord’s presence again. Jesus knows this, and this is what he offers.

When Peter is hurting out of guilt for having betrayed Jesus, Jesus cooks him breakfast, welcomes him back in, and offers him the forgiveness that Peter most needs.

So it makes sense then that when Thomas is the one who needs Jesus, Jesus comes back just for him so that he may encounter his risen Lord as well.

Jesus knows each of these witnesses: their brokenness and their deepest needs.

What they and we all most need is Christ himself, which he has given wholly and completely to all on the cross. 

It is no insignificant detail that the resurrected body of Jesus still bears wounds; we can only know him as the crucified and risen Lord. The healer became the wounded, and by his wounds, we are all healed.

The cross is where we know who God is for us: our God is this Jesus, who on that cross, set us free from sin and death, offers forgiveness and life in a never-ending relationship with the Triune God, and now reveals himself to Thomas and to us all in the midst of our woundedness, bearing his own wounds so that we might be healed and believe.

It is by these wounds that we and the disciples recognize him, by these wounds that God is revealed, and by these wounds that all will come to believe.

It was by these wounds that Kiana came to believe.

In the summer of 2007, I had a camper named Kiana. Nine-year-old Kiana wasn’t really sure what she “believed” about God. She went to Sunday school, and she came to Bible camp because her mom said that she should, but she had a really hard time believing what she heard there. During the week, it became clear that Kiana did not really want to talk about God. She wanted to talk about her dad. She had never met him, she missed him, and she was jealous of her friends who had dads. “Do you think he maybe still loves me?” she asked me.

That Thursday evening at worship, Jesus gave Kiana what she most needed, and he came to her through the wounds of the preacher, Samuel. Samuel shared his own pain of growing up without his father: the wounds of feeling unwanted, unloved, and cast aside, how he longed for his father, hoping that he would return. Then he witnessed how through Jesus, he met his heavenly Father, the God who loved him, wanted to be with him, and came to earth as Jesus Christ so that he could know this God and died so that Samuel might never be separated from or doubt that love again.

After hearing this, Kiana looked up at me through a teary smile and said: “I never knew that Jesus came for me. Me!  I never knew that God wanted to be that close to me, as close as a dad. I want that too. Jesus is real, Emily! It was like that man spoke just for me because Jesus knew I needed him.”

Because Samuel was willing to share his pain, how Jesus had been wounded for him, and how Jesus met Samuel in his own wounds, Kiana was able to see how Jesus was at work for her.

That night in worship, Jesus came to her through Samuel’s wounds, and through her own to meet her deepest needs saying, “Kiana, come. Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

When Jesus became real for her, when she knew that God wanted this relationship with her, she shared it with me. And because she shared her wounds with me and how Jesus met her in them—because of her witness—I could say, “Ah, that’s where God is at work. There you are my Lord and my God.”

Kiana, Samuel, Thomas, and Jesus himself all witness to us today that God can take our most painful wounds and use them as some of our most fruitful places of witness. 

We are called to face death, to share our pain, to show our wounds, expecting that the risen and wounded Lord will meet us there because we know from the cross that the Triune God is with us in our suffering and encounters us in death, in despair, in wounds. God is made known in the brokenness of the body of Jesus.

Now we are that body, the body of Christ, and through our brokenness, Christ will make himself known, for he tells us, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

There are daily deaths, daily losses in our own lives: we still sin, we have weaknesses. As Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us…[we are] always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.”

We are the clay jars, broken and fragmented, worn by time, and weathered by storms. We are Christ’s body, wounded, yet carrying this good news of the resurrected Christ who sets all people free and offers life to all.

As long as we pretend that we have it all together, and hide our wounds, we keep ourselves and the good news locked away behind closed doors. We deny that the crucified and risen Lord has power to bring healing out of brokenness, hope out of suffering, and life out of death.

Even the resurrected body of Christ had wounds: this tells us that we can finally stop pretending to be invincible and instead be vulnerable like our Lord, who, though equal with his Father, emptied himself, came as a baby and ultimately poured himself out for us on the cross.

Rather than hide our wounds in embarrassment, thinking that they make us less-than, we may share them openly and honestly, trusting that the Triune God will transform our wounds, us, and all of our relationships as we encounter Christ together in our brokenness.

That is how we bear Christ’s death as his body. If we will dare to share our deepest wounds with one another, if we will be willing to face deaths by giving of ourselves in order to freely care for and love those in our lives, then we will have our eyes opened and discover that our Lord has been there all along, working in the midst of those wounds, working for healing, working to be revealed. God is bringing life out of these deaths so that more may believe and have life in Christ’s name.

When we dare to admit how we have been wounded and how we have wounded one another, the Triune God opens doors for people to see Jesus at work in our wounds and in their own.

Doubting Thomas witnesses to how Jesus brought him to faith. When our Lord sends us to give ourselves away in love by showing our wounds, we witness to just what God can do with a broken, wounded body. Then together, all may say, “Ah, there you are, my Lord and my God.”

Amen.