Thomas
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
Now 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 believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:19-31)
Growing up, I loved reading Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Believe It or Not began in 1918 when artist Robert Ripley produced cartoons that were most definitely entertaining and slightly off-center. The cartoons presented scenarios that could be true, but were mostly difficult to believe. Today, the Ripley’s brand name has expanded into multiple publications and a host of themed attractions that are just a tad bit more high-end than what you would encounter at Coney Island during its heyday.
How many conversations in your life have begun with the phrase, “I’m going to tell you something, but you are not going to believe it?” Often, a family member or a friend has shared a story or told an incredible tale that is just too hard to believe. The facts don’t seem to add up. It seems as if the impossible is being passed off as possible, normal even. Sometimes, it is hard to believe because the circumstances are totally ridiculous or absurd. Other times, I don’t want to believe it because what is shared is too horrific, too unbearable, and the level of grief and suffering is way too much to stomach.
Thomas said, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
“I will not believe.”
This morning’s Gospel passage from John is often called the “Doubting Thomas” passage. But I don’t think Thomas doubted at all. I think Thomas was standing, hurting, full of sadness, full of loss, trying to get used to living in grief.
His best friend, his rabbi, his teacher, the person who taught him how to live life and to love others to the fullest, had died. While the disciples were frightened, afraid, locked up in the upper room, Thomas was out there, wandering the streets, sitting in the garden, looking for life, searching for meaning, searching through tears, hoping to discover how to fill a big void in his heart and in his spirit. He was full of grief.
Grief brings up uncertainty. Grief demands we change. Grief brings up hundreds of thousands of questions. What will happen to my life? What is next? Will I ever feel normal again? How will I continue living? Or should I just die?
We have all experienced grief. The loss of a loved one, a parent, a lover, a friend. Everything shifts within and without. Everything we think we know about God, and everything we think we know about how the way the world works, significantly changes. It is a pretty scary place to be in. There is no map. Not one prescribed path. Where am I going? What possibilities are left for me in this world?
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, in her book On Grief and Grieving, says this, “The stages (of grief) have been very misunderstood over the past decades. They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages… Our grief is as individual as our lives. The five stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance - are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live without the one we lost… They are not stops on some linear timeline in grief. Not everyone goes through all of them or goes in a prescribed order.” (p. 7).
We are fearfully and wonderfully made. For me, that means we are such unique creatures of God. That uniqueness means we see and experience life very differently. We gather to worship God to learn a common language. We put words to experience. Some words we relate to. Others we do not. A healthy community of faith is not about answers. It is about accompaniment.
After any death, our relationship with God shifts. And our own grief may become overwhelming and unbearable. We cannot stand to be with ourselves. We cannot stand to be with others. In the midst of grief, it often becomes difficult to remember another reality, a different way of being.
David Kessler, in his book Finding Meaning, the Sixth State of Grief, shares this, “You (may not want) to experience grief but you can only avoid it by avoiding love. Love and grief are inextricably intertwined.”
Thomas experiences an unbearable level of grief because of his love for his friend Jesus.
Thomas says, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." There is no doubt here. Just grief.
Since 2016, Brene Brown has held an Endowed Chair at the University of Houston's Graduate College of Social Work. She shares, “We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach toward grief because the broken parts want to mend. Sometimes we think, “there is something wrong with me since I cannot get a handle on this sadness.”
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Sometimes shame accompanies grief. We may feel as if we have no faith. We become ashamed of being human. But God as Jesus takes on this body, takes on this heart, takes on all the mess that is body and blood and spirit, this incarnational reality is why God through Jesus walks with us, accompanies us, loves us, calls on us, in all that was and is and is to come.
David Kessler, in his book Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, shares this, “Each person’s grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed. This doesn’t mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them. The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining.”
Jesus appears to Thomas, and the others, behind locked doors, in an upper room, with scabs on his hands and scars in his side. Then he invites Thomas to touch and see. Suffering is real. Sadness is real. Grief is so, so very real. In the midst of grief, Jesus finds us, invites us to come closer, promising healing and promising new life.
We grieve because we live. We grieve because we love. We grieve because God wants to know us in our totality. Do I trust God that much to make myself that vulnerable?
In the Eagles classic “The Best of My Love,” Don Henley sings about grief, lamenting, “I'm goin' back in time. And it's a sweet dream. It was a quiet night, and I would be all right if I could go on sleeping. But every morning, I wake up and worry, ‘What's going to happen today?’ You see it your way, and I see it mine, but we both see it slipping away.”
Grief.
What I think I know is always shifting and fading away. But, by the power of God through the Holy Spirit, something new is manifesting itself within me, within us. This is how grief works.
Thomas is full of life. Thomas is full of desire. Thomas is full of love for his friend. He doesn’t want to imagine life without his friend. He doesn’t want to believe that his friend died the way he did. Thomas said, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
He is grieving. Life has changed. What will it change into? Grief never leaves us. It shifts and changes and travels within us, always, constantly transforming us into something new.
***
Every time we remember someone we love who has died, we are grieving. Some of us have lost loved ones. We are grieving. Some of us know people who are sick. We are grieving. Some of us know people who are working all the time, so much so, we don’t ever see them. We are grieving. Whenever our expectations aren’t met, we experience grief in some way. Whatever we may be feeling, we cannot go back. Life only goes in one direction, right? No Back to the Future right?
I am in grief.
"Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
I want to go back to the way things were. When can we get back to normal?
Brene Brown shares this insight about grief on the other side of COVID, “We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-COVID existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate, and lack. We should not long to return. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.”
When Thomas touches the wounds of Jesus, he falls on his knees, exhausted and overwhelmed, proclaiming, “My Lord and my God.”
“My Lord and my God.”
Such an expression of grief.
I wonder how you are experiencing grief. Who are you missing? What is changing within you? Perhaps you will discover that not all grief is bad, that it may be pointing to something new. And as we journey onward, accompanied by grief, walking with each other, Jesus blesses us with the Holy Spirit, saying, “Peace be with you.” Blessed are those who cannot see what is ahead and yet still believe.
Robert Ripley once said, “Some of the most wonderful things in the world will seem dull and drab unless viewed in the proper light.”
Believe it or not.