It is in community that we can share our doubts, strengthen each other, and be fed and healed by Word and Sacrament for our life.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday of Easter, year A
Text: Luke 24:13-35

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

Do you realize Thomas is one of the bravest disciples in the Gospels?

When Jesus decides to go to Jerusalem to deal with his dead friend, Lazarus, the disciples tell him not to go, that the leaders want to kill him. Jesus persists, and it’s Thomas who bravely says, “then let’s go die with him.”

On the night of his betrayal, when Jesus says “don’t be afraid, I’m going to prepare a place for you in my Father’s house,” and adds, “and you know the way to where I am going,” only Thomas has the courage to say what everyone else was thinking: “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going.”

And when Thomas misses Easter evening, he shares his doubts and fears to his friends. They may have seen Jesus alive, but he says, “I need to see myself.” That takes courage to admit.

And Thomas finds his bravery in his community.

There’s a serious discussion among Christians today about the future of Christian community.

Since the pandemic separation, when congregations responded by finding ways to connect on the Internet, from streaming worship to online meetings, many are now asking if virtual connections are the church’s future.

Many of these are younger leaders who are used to connections, community, online, via social media and messaging. Some argue we need to recognize that community is more than being in person. In fact, some are saying that’s the past, that the way people experience community today is virtual, online. That’s our future.

That hasn’t been our experience here. As important as it was that we connected online during our COVID separation, we had, as a community, a deep desire to be with each other again, in the same space, able to see and talk to each other. Coming together for worship and fellowship again was a tremendous blessing and continues to be. It’s wonderful that we now reach people through livestreaming that we never did before. People join us for worship from far distances, and our own folks who can’t come on a Sunday are able to join in. This is miraculous. But it’s hard to imagine this congregation not continuing to cherish and seek being together in person.

Just like all these Easter stories. They all happen in community.

This couple from Emmaus go to their home together, and then return to be with the others that same night. The women go to the tomb together, not alone. Mary Magdalene runs to the other disciples twice, once to tell them Jesus’ body is gone, the other to say she’s seen the Lord. Peter and John go to the tomb together. Thomas misses the first Sunday night, but rejoins his friends the next. Peter and six others go fishing in Galilee and meet Jesus on the beach.

These people needed each other. They sought each other out. They didn’t face Jesus’ death alone, they gathered in the Upper Room. And no one stayed apart when news of Jesus’ resurrection started to spread.

They found their faith together, in doubt and fear, and in joy and hope.

The Emmaus couple shared their pain together: “We had hoped,” they sadly said, “that he was the one to save Israel.” Thomas opened his heart and told his friends he was struggling to trust what they said. Mary Magdalene poured out her fear to the others: “they’ve taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they’ve laid him.”

They shared their griefs, their doubts, their fears with each other, not pretending to have it all together.

And they shared their joy and faith. The Emmaus couple ran back eight miles after dark, just to tell the others what they’d seen. Mary witnessed that she’d seen Jesus. The other disciples told Thomas what they’d experienced. They all realized they weren’t complete without each other, in their doubts or in their joys.

Because the risen Christ brought healing and hope within their community.

Apart from Sunday morning’s appearances, every time they met the risen Christ they were fed with word and with food. That gave them peace, eased their fears, settled their doubts. They were encouraged, and loved, and sent.

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus opened the Scriptures to this couple, and when they invited him into their home, he broke bread with them, revealing himself as God’s risen life. In the Upper Room, Jesus breathed peace on them, sent them as God’s forgivers in the world, and ate with them. At that beach in Galilee, Jesus fed them with breakfast, and invited them to remember their love for him and their call to feed his lambs, to be his love. This is Word and Sacrament, every time! It is the Easter life.

What we do here in community each week is no accident.

So be bold. Be brave. You can trust this gift Christ gives.

Here you are fed by Word and Sacrament, and strengthened, and healed. Look around you at these people who share that healing with you. You can trust them and speak openly, like the Emmaus couple, like Thomas, like Mary, and say, “I have my doubts. I struggle with my faith. I need to see more. It feels like Jesus has been taken from me.” Here we hold each other in our fears. Here you’re not alone, even in those times you struggle to believe. Here we don’t pretend to have it together.

And here you can also be the other one, who will hold another and give them the hope of faith when theirs is struggling. Like Thomas on the way to Jerusalem, or Mary Magdalene after meeting Jesus, or this couple from Emmaus after they knew him in the breaking of the bread. We here for each other in our doubt and in our faith. And for those who can’t be with us in person for whatever reason, it is our duty, our joy, as a community, to go be with them, bringing Word and Meal and the gifts of community.

This community of faith is the gift of the risen Christ for you and for all. Trust it, and be brave: we’re all in this together. And we’re all in this with Christ.

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

Trust God in Christ, even if you don’t understand, and find life.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday of Easter, year A
Text: John 20:19-31 (with reference to 20:8-9 and ch. 9)

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

There’s a strange moment in last Sunday’s Gospel, John’s Easter story.

The evangelist says after Mary Magdalene told the other disciples the tomb was open and Jesus’ body gone, two disciples ran to see for themselves: Peter and the so-called “beloved” disciple, whom we assume to be John.

John got to the tomb first, but waited for Peter. Then John went in after Peter and saw the linen wrappings, but no Jesus. Then the evangelist says: “he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that Jesus must rise from the dead.” (vv. 8-9) Wait. John doesn’t see Jesus, and believes – but didn’t understand Jesus was to rise? What exactly did he believe?

A week later, we see Thomas in the Upper Room, having missed the first Sunday night visit. He sees Jesus and calls him “my Lord and my God.” And Jesus wonders if Thomas only believes because he has seen.

Believing without seeing Jesus. Believing because of seeing Jesus. There’s something here we need to grasp.

First, we need to tweak our words a bit.

The word the NRSV translates “believe” also carries the meaning “trust.” I substituted “trust” for “believe” when I read today because as we hear it in our modern day, “to believe” mostly suggests to us “to accept a teaching as true.” But how we use “trust” is closer to what the word really means.  Believe feels more in the head; trust feels more in the heart.“I trust Jesus” is very different to our ears than “I believe in Jesus.”

So, both John and Thomas end up trusting in these encounters, not just believing.

But the evangelist also says John trusts, but doesn’t see Jesus, while Thomas trusts after he sees Jesus. Now, “to see” in Greek acts the same as in English. It can mean physical sight, or it can mean understanding. Jesus plays with this in John 9 when he heals a blind man but says it’s the Pharisees who can’t see.

So it’s legitimate to say John trusts without understanding, and Thomas trusts while understanding. I don’t think this is an accident. The whole Gospel of John is meant to invite trust in God’s coming in Christ, without necessarily understanding everything about God, or the world, or life.

That’s great news, because there’s so much we don’t understand about those things.

We trust Christ is risen, that God’s love brought God-with-us to the cross, through death, and into resurrection life. We trust there’s a new life available for us here in Christ, and also after we die.

But it’s extremely hard to see, understand, how God’s resurrection life is working in the world. We don’t understand why God doesn’t just fix all that’s wrong. We don’t understand why suffering and pain persist in a world where Christ supposedly broke death. Or why there is systemic evil, why it’s so hard to change what’s wrong in the world. We don’t understand why it’s so hard for us to follow Christ, love as Christ, be Christ.

We sometimes don’t even understand the cross. We get Jesus wasn’t the military leader some hoped for, that he was killed and that surprised his followers. But now that Christ is risen, we struggle to understand that the cross is still the way of Christ, we don’t get the “lose your life to find it” truth of God, or how death is even now being defeated by God’s life when it looks just the opposite in the world.

But if we look at the words differently, listen to what Jesus says to Thomas: “blessed are those who do not understand and yet come to trust.”

And this is exactly where those first believers found themselves.

None of them fully understood what was happening in those days, or as the years passed. Do you think Mary Magdalene was done with her questions after Easter morning? The couple from Emmaus, whom we’ll meet again next week, still had lots of questions when Jesus disappeared from among them. All of the disciples had much they didn’t understand, had things they doubted. Even after Pentecost.

But the invitation is to trust anyway. Martha, before Jesus even raises her brother, is asked if she trusts that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. She had no idea what that might mean. But she said, “Yes, Lord, I do trust.” We sometimes wish we could be like Thomas: actually see Jesus risen from the dead, see his hands, his side, his feet. But Jesus kindly asks Thomas if he can learn to trust without seeing, without understanding everything. And asks you, too.

Actually, today John says that’s the whole point of his writing this Gospel.

Notice what he includes and what he doesn’t. John says, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to trust that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through trusting you may have life in his name.” (vv. 30-31)

John says nothing about understanding. He hopes that from this witness you can come to trust – like Martha, like John, like Mary Magdalene, like Thomas, like Peter –that Jesus is God’s Anointed Son, and so have life in Jesus’ name. Life now, filled with God’s hope, and with purpose and direction and grace. And the promise of life to come.

So, Jesus says, “you are blessed if you don’t doubt, but just trust.”

Now, doubts are real, normal. Because we often don’t understand much. Everyone who’s ever trusted in God in Christ has doubts. You and I will doubt, will fear, will struggle, like honest Thomas. We don’t see the whole plan, often don’t understand.

So, honor your doubts, your lack of understanding. Speak them aloud, like Thomas, if you want. But be ready: at some point your God and Lord, Christ Jesus, will look into your eyes and say, “do you trust me and my life anyway?” When you do, you’ll find life like you never knew possible.

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