Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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It was on the very evening of the resurrection that Christ first appeared to his friends. It happened in Jerusalem, apparently in that same rented room where, three nights previous, they had eaten the Passover Seder, with Jesus assigning new symbolism to the bread and wine. This time the doors were locked, for the disciples were not only distraught over Jesus' death - they were also afraid lest the same fate should befall them, and they were hiding from the police. (Many in that city are hiding this very day.) According to John's telling of the story, Jesus suddenly appears among the disciples and does three things: Greets them: "Pax vobiscum," "Peace be with you." Commissions them as missionaries, "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you," Empowers them by breathing the Holy Spirit into them (as God had breathed into Adam the breath of life) And authorizes them: "What sins you forgive are forgiven, and so forth." And then vanishes. But poor Thomas missed it. He wasn't there. When he returns, from wherever he was, he finds the others in an uproar. "We have seen the Lord, Thomas! We have seen the Lord!" And Thomas, not really a "doubter" but a sensible, prudent man, refuses to get caught up in the hysteria. "We have to be strong, face facts, not give in to empty hopes and illusions. The Jesus thing is a lost cause. It's time to find some kind of closure and get on with our lives. No. Not I. I'll not so easily be fooled. I'll need to put my fingers in the nail holes, and my hand in his side." O, Thomas. You'll be remembered 'til eternity for saying that!

One week later, same place, doors shut. All present this time. Jesus appears. "Peace be with you." "Come over here, Thomas. Put your finger here. Put your hand here. Don't be faithless. Believe." And the very sensible, prudent Thomas says a very sensible, prudent thing: "My Lord and my God." What else could he have said?

Don't you think Thomas was protecting his feelings? One way not to get hurt is not to expect much, not to believe much. Some people make a life-time strategy of that. It works, in a way. If we don't expect to be treated with respect in our marriage, for instance, we won't have our hearts broken when we're not. If we tell ourselves we'll never find true love, when we don't at least we won't be disappointed. It works, but it leads to such a pitiful, shriveled up life! Thomas had been crushed by the crucifixion. His best hopes and dreams had been stomped upon. He had stuck his neck out, for Jesus, and had his head chopped off! He would not get his hopes up again. It could only lead to more pain. He adopted a bunker mentality, decided he would believe nothing unless he could see it or touch it. "Seeing is believing," he insisted. No, Thomas, you've got it backwards. In God's world believing is seeing.

And I suspect that, at a deeper level (perhaps unconsciously) , Thomas understood the staggering implications of a risen Christ (which is why most of us disobey and give it an intellectual patina by calling it "doubt"). You may remember the cartoon of the man in an optician's office, obviously wearing a new pair of glasses. His hair is standing straight up, his eyes are big as saucers, his legs are trembling. He says, "Doc, I think I would like to see things a little less clearly." That is a normal response to the resurrection. It was surely part of Thomas' problem. If Christ is not dead, nothing is the same. There's a new clarity. Peter can't return to his fishing. And Thomas can't wallow in self-pity. Resurrection, if it is true, will have enormous implications for their lives. What they thought was over was, in fact, only just beginning.

A husband came home to see that his wife had hung a little plaque on the living room wall that read, "Prayer Changes Things." A few days later the wife discovered it missing, and confronted her husband. "What's the matter? Don't you like prayer?"

"I like prayer fine," he said. "It's change I don't like." But change it is, if Christ be raised! And we know that. And that is often, if the truth be told, why we don't believe. If he were just a teacher, we could ignore his teachings. If he were just a miracle worker, we could somehow discredit his bag of tricks. But, if he is God (which the resurrection makes clear), we must listen to what he has to say and apply it to our lives. Every word of his becomes, as they say, "gospel truth." We might like to see it a little less clearly. We might like to think about it. But it's not a choice for us to make. He rose. And a great deal flows from that. Nothing can be "business as usual" after Easter.

And what Jesus, the risen One, taught was unmerited, unconditional love for others, modeled on God's love of the same type for us. Jesus exemplified that love, in life and death, and exhorted us to take the message of love, by word and by deed, to all the world. "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." The most distinctive mark of a Christian is that the focal point of his attention falls no longer on himself but on others. He takes upon himself the burden of the world. Isn't that remarkable! "Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope, where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy." What a remarkable thing, to take such a burden upon oneself. But that's where we come from. And, hopefully, that's where we're going.

The recent words of evangelist, Greg Lauri, should be emblazoned on the wall of every Christian church. He said, "Jesus did not command the whole world to go to church. Jesus commanded his church to go to the whole world." And that's what we're going to re-dedicate ourselves to this morning, at this communion table: to finding the last, the lost and the least among us, and to becoming a servant church for them, as Christ became a servant for us. "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." We are Jesus' students, and students (Jesus reminded his disciples) are not better than their teacher. If he served should we be too good for service? If he gave his life, should we be too good to do the same? Bob made a great point in his Holy Thursday message, which I had never seen before. He spoke of Jesus washing the disciples' feet, and of Peter's objection: "You will never wash my feet!" (In the Bible, the pronouns are emphasized: "You will never wash my feet!" Peter is saying that the levels were wrong.) Jesus responded, "If I do not wash you, you have no part in me." I always assumed, I guess, that that had something to do with baptism, with Jesus power to wash away our sins (and that can still be there), but Bob gave the simplest explanation (and a powerful one): "If you think I'm too good to wash your feet - if you rank people like that, you will surely think yourself too good to wash the feet of others." And, in that sense, "you have no part of me." "You don't have the foggiest idea what I'm about." We must give to get, we must loose to find, we must die to live. It's not hard to understand, this faith of ours, it's just hard to do. The question is never one of understanding. The question is always one of obedience. The old words at the communion table weren't bad: "And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee…."