Our starting place in the Gospel story today is a place of deep grief. You may know something of this place.
It is a place where there is hurt, pain, and trauma from what they have witnessed, what they have taken into their souls. We may know something of this hurt, pain, and trauma from our own lives, especially if we have recently experienced the death of a loved one, or violence inflicted on someone to whom we are deeply connected.
It is a place where there is hush… because words may not work for us anymore.
It is a place where it is dark, because our tear-drained eyes cannot take in even a hint of sunshine.
It is a place where doors may be closed and even locked, because our souls cannot handle anyone else, cannot stand one more intrusion, one more possibility of pain, one more need from others, perhaps even others whose only need to try to console us. We have lost so much; to engage life again risks more loss.
It can be a place of deep loneliness.
Grief does these things. We grieve because we love; and we grieve deeply when we love deeply.
The pain of grief is real. It is deep. It can be searing and sharp or it can be a steady low level ache. Our loss and pain is a wound.
We, too, are a community that is carrying a lot of grief of late. Vi. Enid. Michael. Ann. Others in our other communities of family and friends.
Being in community means truly bearing our own, and each other’s griefs. This is not the cost of community, it is a gift within community, that we might learn to behold the wounds in our midst, and to reach out to them reverently and with deep care in our touching of these wounds.
The disciples are a tightly knit community that has travelled with Jesus for a few years now. On the third day of their deep shock and grief, they reach out to each other and are together – though not all of them. Mary Magdalene had early in the morning run to them to tell them she’d seen Jesus newly alive. We don’t know if or how they received her news! How very strange. How much like what Jesus said it would happen. And how very strange. Add confusion to their grief. And all of this is within a cloud of deep fear. They close the doors and lock them.
This morning we meet up with a community whose collective soul is clasped in the grip of sharp shards of searing pain. There is the loss of their beloved teacher, healer, and friend. And there are deep wounds of the trauma they have taken in to their souls, their hearts, minds, and bodies as they watched or cowered away whilst Jesus was interrogated, mocked, abused, tortured, and hung to die.
Their wounds are real. Their fear had real legitimacy. Are the soldiers and the religious authorities coming for them now, too? And if Jesus is alive now, are they going to come after him again? Are we going to have to go through, all over again, the horrors we witnessed only three days ago?
I wonder if they prayed together. I wonder: did they chant the psalms together? Did they hear, as we did this morning, the line from the psalm that pleads to God: “protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.”
And into this locked room, Jesus simply walks. It’s not that the locked door doesn’t matter to him and poof he just breaks through it. No, I think Jesus’ walking in to that locked room says, I think, rather, that this locked door matters. Jesus seems to see that: this room, closed in upon itself, this locked door, matters. It represents your suffering, your confusion and pain and grief, and that matters. And I am just going to walk through it and into the fullness of your reality of pain. Jesus seems to be saying, before he utters a word, saying just by his presence and his entering through the locked door: this is your wound, and here I am, not just touching it, but entering right into it with you. It is as though Jesus’ touching of the wound represented by the locked door is a healing touch that cauterizes the wound.
Jesus enters into the place of their hardest, most cynical, most upset and emotionally unintelligent and raw and unprocessed pain and touches their wounds. Jesus entering into the room is God putting God’s own hand into the wounds in the souls of the disciples. When Jesus does speak, it is to proclaim peace, and to commission them to get out into the world to spread the love that they have come to know through Jesus.
A week later, the scene repeats.
Christian history has done much to make this story about Thomas. The one who doubted, but through a miraculous appearance now believes. But what if we actually do what the Gospels intend, and make this story about Jesus? Why has Jesus come back again this second Sunday in what we now call Easter?
Is it because the guys still don’t get it and are stuck in that room with the doors closed, and they need more encouragement to get out into living? Or is it because the first time he was there, the community was also wounded because it was incomplete. Thomas had not been with the community when Jesus first reached out to touch their wounds.
One of the things we know about Thomas from the other parts of the Gospels is that he’s something of a mouthpiece, at times saying things, or having things attributed to him as saying, that either we – the reader, we, the church, or perhaps the disciples themselves might have wanted to say. But in this instance, before Thomas’s words, there are his wounds of pain, grief and confusion. We don’t know why Thomas wasn’t in community that first day of the week, the first day of resurrection. He ought to have been. It might even have been his duty to be. But he wasn’t. Was his pain too heavy to carry, his body too paralyzed by grief to get to where his friends were, his personal suffering too much to risk sharing with others, even with others who have been through what he has just experienced?
Our griefs are unique. And God meets us in all of our unique places.
Like the story of the Good Shepherd who goes after the single lonely lost sheep, here we have Jesus coming back to the closed room. Yes, the other disciples probably needed the encouragement; but there’s a lot of this that feels like Jesus is there rather specially for Thomas.
And before Jesus tells Thomas to touch Jesus’ wounds, you see, Jesus has already reached out to touch Thomas’s wounds, just as he reached through the locked door to enter the wounded community the week before. Jesus reaches out and touches Thomas’ heart and soul exactly where Thomas is in this moment, touching the wounds of grief that have been left in isolation; relationship is restored. My Lord and my God!
Jesus meets us in the reality of our lives, including the very messy places like in our times of grief, fear, isolation, and pain. Jesus is already walking through the locked doors of our hearts, minds and souls, ready to touch all of this in us. This is indeed the wounded healer, whom we will encounter over and over again in these great 50 days – with 43 still remaining.
Pain will linger. Confusion will still confound us. We will be blind to a certain extent to lots of things around us. We will fail to recognise Jesus or the signs of promise of new life, of grace, around us.
Centuries ago, the church got this. That we, just like the disciples, don’t wake up on Easter with clarity about how God’s love is going to unfold around us and in us, or suddenly enjoying resurrection joy like it’s never going to be clouded. The great 50 days of Easter are not about sustaining something as simple as the happiness of fresh blooming flowers and Easter bunnies and chocolate. These remaining weeks in Easter – as we follow the Gospel readings – are about Jesus meeting us precisely as we are in our lives in this moment, in the normal stuff, in our joys and delights of course, but also and perhaps especially, in the griefs we carry. Whether we recognise him or not, Jesus has already entered into the rooms in our hearts to touch our wounds; and in showing us his own, we may see the enormity of the compassion of God – God’s compassion is truly a suffering with us that knows, that understands, all that we are going through, because God in Jesus himself, carries both the wounds from the cross, and the wounds of all creation, including us.
And as he enters into our lives, Jesus speaks peace. And in speaking that word, he makes his own presence of God’s love and peace truly real presence amongst us, the same grace and real presence we celebrate here at this table within this gathering today. God’s Peace be with you, friends.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.