Resurrection:
Can we Believe If We Only Have Secondhand Experience?
A Sermon Based on the Story of Thomas, John 20:19-31
As it turns out, the easiest way to discern the religious persuasion of a person is by whom he does not recognize. For instance:
Jews don’t recognize Jesus.
Protestants don’t recognize the Pope.
Baptists don’t recognize each other in the liquor store.
Our gospel story today is about recognizing Jesus. We are told that after the crucifixion, the disciples were terrified that the authorities would come after them next. So they hid themselves in a house behind locked doors, permitting no one to enter from the outside. But Jesus entered easily and spoke to the disciples, “Peace be with you.” And it seems that in that very simple act, the disciples recognized that Jesus was standing in their midst – not as he was before, but in a new bodily form. This was not merely a vision. Nor was Jesus a ghost. Jesus was very real, but in a bodily form no one had ever experienced before.
However, Thomas was not present at the time. We aren’t told where Thomas was and why he was the only disciple absence when Jesus appeared. But the point is clear. The other disciples had a firsthand experience of Jesus. They could touch him and hear his voice. But Thomas missed out. He did not have the same firsthand experience. He had to hear about Jesus from the other disciples. Thomas’ was a secondhand experience of Jesus. Something he heard about, but did not witness directly.
We often say that Thomas “doubted.” But I don’t think that captures the main point very well. You cannot compare a secondhand experience with a personal experience that occurs in your immediate presence. I have a good friend who just got back from a month-long cruise to Hong Kong. Of course I wanted to hear all the details of this fabulous voyage. In a sense, I experienced the voyage through my friend, but no one would suggest that I had the same experience as he did. Thomas needed his own firsthand experience of the risen Christ. Thomas wanted what the other disciples had – he wanted to touch Jesus and he wanted to hear Jesus speaking directly to him. Can we blame him for that?
Now, as it turns out, Thomas got his opportunity for a firsthand experience one week later. The disciples locked themselves in the house again and this time Thomas was present, when suddenly Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he addressed Thomas personally, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.”. We aren’t told that Thomas actually touched Jesus. He didn’t really have to. He stood in the present of Jesus and that was enough for him to exclaim, “My Lord and my God!”
And with Thomas’ exclamation, the gospel reaches its climax. “My Lord and my God.” This is what Easter is about. Easter does not focus on an empty tomb – that is the build up to the real point. Easter is about our response to a new reality that God has brought through Jesus. Jesus is no longer the man from Galilee. Jesus is now “My Lord and my God.”
Now the words, “My Lord and my God,” are not primarily words of individual devotion. They express a conviction that something just happened to transform the world. Jesus stands at the center of it, but it didn’t just happen to Jesus. Just as Jesus is not the same, so too, the world is not the same.
The word that the early Christians used to describe this new reality is resurrection. But resurrection had a special meaning in first century Palestine that is not easily understood today. Language changes. Culture changes. One’s worldview changes.
Let me illustrate this difficulty with language by telling another story:
Goldfinger is taking an ocean cruise. The first night he is seated for dinner with a man named Fallaux. Now Goldfinger speaks only English. Fallaux speaks only French.
On the first night, Fallaux raises his glass to Goldfinger and says, “Bon appétit!”
Goldfinger raises his glass and replies, “Goldfinger.”
This goes on, meal after meal, for almost the entire voyage, but finally the purser can’t stand it any longer and explains to Goldfinger that “Bon appétit” is French for “Enjoy your meal.”
Goldfinger is embarrassed and can’t wait until the next meal to redeem himself. Then, before Fallaux can say anything, Goldfinger raises his glass and says, “Bon appétit!”
And Fallaux responds, “Goldfinger!”
What this story says is that we can get pretty confused when we don’t speak the same language. And we don’t speak the language of the early Christians.
As a consequence, when we hear the word resurrection, our focus is solely on Jesus being brought back from the dead. For the early Christians, the raising of Jesus from the dead was linked to God writing a new chapter in history. God had done a new thing by giving Jesus a new bodily form, but this only reflected a “new creation” that extended to the world.
When we focus the resurrection entirely on Jesus, we place this event entirely in the past. But the early Christians would never think this way. For them, the resurrection introduced an ongoing event into the world. From henceforth, Christians would think of themselves differently. They would be a people called to join God in making the world new.
Do we believe the world has changed, and resurrection is the sign of that change? Do we believe we are called by God to make the world new? We may struggle with this concept, and rightly so. The gospel writer knew this was a difficult concept to comprehend. Thus, Jesus says to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” These words mean that you and I only get a secondhand experience of resurrection. It is not likely that Jesus will appear to us as he did to the first disciples. Can you live with a secondhand experience? Can you believe in a new reality if you do not witness what the first disciples experienced?
Let me see if I can bring home the idea that our world situation has changed and that this calls for a new way of acting in the world.
Armed robbers burst into a bank, line up customers and staff against the wall, and begin to take their wallets, watches, and jewelry. Two of the bank’s accountants are among those waiting to be robbed. The first accountant suddenly thrusts something in the hand of the other. The second accountant whispers, “What is this?” The first accountant whispers back, “It’s the fifty bucks I owe you.”
The first accountant understood that the situation had changed. He began to act in accordance with the new situation.
I am only using humor here in order to get a point across. Resurrection means that something occurred that changes the situation in such a way that acting according to the old ways no longer makes sense.
Let me give you an example taken from events that have transpired in just the last few months.
In November of last year, the world’s economy crashed. Very few people imagined that such a thing could ever happen. But it did. What drove the economy to crash were a complex set of circumstances fueled by the fact that the economy was artificially bloated. We were living off of credit. We were buying goods and spending money faster than we were making it. But our financial institutions which profited from our profligacy told us not to worry, that this was just the American way of living – living off of credit.
But they were wrong. You can live off of credit for a while, but not forever. Something has to crash, and it did. We are now faced with a new reality. We cannot afford to overlook greed. We cannot afford to spend more than we make. We cannot afford to pay out multi-million dollar bonuses. We cannot dig ourselves deeply into debt thinking that it will somehow work to our advantage. That is not reality. And our old economy is not going to rise from the dead. We had better not go back to the old way of living off credit. That way of life brings death. Instead, we will have to learn a new song. We will have to recognize and adjust to a new reality. We will have to live into a new reality.
To me, resurrection is very real. It is not merely a concept or an idea. It is not a spiritual thing. Resurrection is living into a new reality. It is a very concrete and very real way of turning your life away from what brings death, and living in a way that brings life..
So in this manner, Thomas stands for every one of us. The words spoken to Thomas apply to us. “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
At first, all Thomas got was a secondhand account of the resurrection. And Thomas wasn’t sure he could trust a secondhand experience. It would be nice if we could all have proof that a new way of living will work. But we don’t get that kind of proof. We have to believe in spite of only secondhand evidence. But we do have secondhand evidence. We have seen that when we live unwisely, selfishly, and merely for ourselves, the entire world comes crashing in about us.
The question that this gospel story raises for us is whether or not we are believers in resurrection when all we have is secondhand experience. Are we willing to stake our lives on God’s reality when the only thing we can go on is evidence that our previous reality died. Will we insist on raising that old dead reality from the grave, or will we become believers in resurrection? Will we see that God offers a new way of life, not something that he pulls out of the grave, but something he offers as a new way to live in this world?
This sermon was preached by the Rev. Robert M. Wills, M.Div., M.S.W. on the Second Sunday of Easter, April 19, 2009 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Prescott, AZ
