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Scar Tissue                        John 20: 19-31                   April 11, 2010

In Letters to a Young Doubter, William Sloane Coffin, the legendary preacher and activist, carries on an imaginary correspondence with an imaginary student.

The young man, Tom, is a college freshman. The exchange of letters lasts over the nine months of the academic year.

Coffin's first letter begins with a good piece of advice: "Don't be anxious about your newfound doubts," he writes. "Doubts move you forward, not backward, just as long as you doubt out of love of the truth."

"As Emily Dickinson wrote," he goes on to tell his young friend, "'the unknown is the mind's greatest need, and for it no one thinks to thank God.'"

Well, today our Gospel lesson leads us to reflect on a familiar story about the man who was perhaps the most famous doubter of all time. And when we consider that man, the Disciple Thomas, I think we'll find that we will want to thank God for him - and for his doubts.

None of the authors of the first three Gospels - the ones we usually refer to as "Synoptic" because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes with the exact same wording - neither Matthew, Mark nor Luke make any mention of the disciple named Thomas.

The author of the Gospel according to John, however, makes him a significant player in today's post-resurrection drama, and he also writes about him on two previous occasions.

Earlier in John's Gospel, Thomas is the one who insists that the disciples accompany Jesus when he goes to Bethany, a place he previously had to leave under threat of being stoned. Thomas is the one who supports Jesus' apparently suicidal plan with the words, "Let us also go that we may die with him."

Later, in the midst of Jesus' long farewell speech, Thomas speaks up, once again. Jesus famously tells his listeners "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. . . I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also; and you know the way to the place where I am going."

And when Jesus says those things, Thomas is the one who replies, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

So Thomas, it appears, is both a practical and a gutsy guy. He's a man who wants to understand what's going on - one who is willing to face the situation at hand, but only when his eyes are open.

Our passage today begins with Jesus' second post-resurrection appearance in the gospel of John. It happens on Easter night.

We find the disciples, even after they heard Mary's account of the risen Lord, locked in an upper room. They were hiding out of fear - fear of persecution by the religious leaders who collaborated with the Romans to have Jesus Crucified.

They already know that Jesus is alive. They already know that Jesus has been raised. Yet, despite this reality, the disciples, minus Thomas, are hiding and afraid, locked behind closed doors.

And where, we might wonder, is Thomas that first Easter evening when the other disciples are hiding in the upper room? Is he faithless, choosing to separate himself from the community? Perhaps.

Remember, Mary Magdalene has told the group that she has seen Jesus. Perhaps Thomas can't imagine hiding when someone has just reported seeing Jesus alive. Perhaps he is out trying to find out the truth.

Or maybe he is the only disciple with enough sense to recognize that this hiding thing could take a long time, and that he'd better go out and get milk and bread and cheese for the group.

Either way, the disciples are paralyzed by fear; they either don't understand what Mary has told them or don't believe it. So Jesus comes to his disciples and says "peace be with you."

The disciples are paralyzed with fear, but Jesus comes to them in the midst of their fear and offers them peace. And just like that, they are hit with the reality of the resurrection - and their fear is transformed into the peace that Jesus brings.

But Thomas misses the whole transformative event.

A week later, we find the disciples again behind closed doors. And this time Thomas is with them.

The other disciples tell Thomas what they saw a week earlier, but he doesn't believe them. Thomas finds himself, for the present at least, in the unfortunate position of being the only one of the twelve disciples not to have seen the risen Lord. And despite what the other disciples have told him, Thomas is pretty certain that Jesus is dead.

He tells them that for him to believe that Jesus is alive - something he believes to be a ridiculous and impossible reality - he would have to see and touch the wounds of the resurrected Christ.

We can only imagine the look on Thomas' face as he gives them this requirement for his belief. He is basically telling them that, barring what seems like an absolute impossibility, he will not believe.

According to John's Gospel, in his Easter night appearance, Jesus showed his hands and sides to the gathered disciples. Thomas now asks for the same assurance that the others have had. But he goes a step beyond, he demands to touch Jesus' wounds. He insists upon verifying that this is the crucified Jesus and not an illusion or a ghost.

Thomas wants proof. And he wants Jesus to give him that proof.

And interestingly enough, Jesus, when he appears again, does not scold Thomas for his unbelief. On the contrary, he offers him exactly the evidence that Thomas said he needed. The same Jesus who, eight days earlier, told Mary not to touch him says, "Put your finger here and see my hands, reach out your hand and put it in my side."

"Do not doubt any longer," Jesus says to Thomas, "but instead, touch and believe."

And the result? The result is that Thomas' doubt quickly turns into the strongest and most powerful confession found anywhere in the gospel. "My Lord and My God," he says to Jesus. "My Lord and My God."

No one else, so far, has offered such devotion or named Jesus as God. When Thomas gets it, he gets it.

Thomas holds out for an experience of Jesus on his own terms - and he finds his terms fulfilled by the reality of seeing Jesus. Only then does he make his statement of faith.

And when he does that, Thomas demonstrates that the faith of a doubter, once those doubts are resolved, is the strongest faith of all.

It is important to note, I think, that the thing that turned Thomas around was the scar tissue on Jesus' hands and side.

One scholar raises a particularly profound question: "I come to this part of the story," she writes, "longing to ask questions children dare to ask before they know any better. If God raised Jesus from the dead, why didn't God fix him up? Why does Jesus still have scars so deep that Thomas could feel the print of the nails?ⁱ"

The answer she proposes is equally profound: "We won't see Jesus unless we see his wounds. The resurrected Christ is forever the wounded Christ."

And that is precisely why we can relate to him.

When I hear about Jesus walking on water or calming angry seas or passing through closed doors, the doubts ringing in my ears sometimes threaten to drown out the meaning of the stories.

But the image of Jesus standing there, scars and all, drives out the doubts and helps me understand - along with Thomas - that I too am loved by God - scars and all.

Because all of us are wounded. We all have scar tissue. And the scars will never completely go away.

Perhaps it's a grudge that can't be released, or a slight from someone that cut us deeply, or the memory of being left behind, all alone. Whatever it is, our scar tissue need not be covered up. We don't have to pretend that we are all right.

Doubts and all, Jesus comes to us, as we are, saying, "Peace be with you."

I recently learned the "sign" for "Jesus" in American Sign Language, the dominant means of communication for hearing-impaired folks on this side of the Atlantic.

Thomas would agree with whomever it was that devised it.

To sign the name of Jesus, you touch the palm of one hand with the middle finger of the other hand and then do the same on the opposite hand.

It feels a lot like praying.

Like Thomas, you and I are invited to name the name of Jesus - to touch the scar tissue - the places where the wounds are on Jesus' hands. Again, and again and again. And when we touch those wounds we are invited to exclaim, along with him, "My Lord and My God!"

                                                                             AMEN

ⁱ  Barbara Lundblad, in a sermon entitled "Touching the Wounds."

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