Second Sunday of Easter

What did they expect me to say?  Did they want me to say I believed 

something I didn’t see?  They knew me better than that.  I didn't 

know what had gotten into my friends.  Seemed they didn't have both 

oars in the water.  I thought they might have gone crazy, as you say 

these days, they seemed to be one pickle short of a Whopper, or were 

maybe filled with just wishful thinking.  After all, we'd all seen 

Jesus die.  We saw him crucified, definitely dead and definitely 

buried, no doubt about that.  Sure, it was awful--and we all thought 

we'd be next.  Scared to death, we were.  No wonder--the man we 

followed for three years, the one we hoped would be the Messiah, 

God's chosen, the One who would teach us what God really wanted us to 

do--brutally killed.  Our lives with him were finished.  I accepted 

that, but the others--it seemed to me they couldn't accept reality.  

They were hoping, praying, imagining things that weren't real.  A 

dead person alive again?  Come on, we're talking reality here.

So when they told me they'd seen Jesus alive again, I had to be firm 

with them.  Clearly they'd lost their minds; we'd all been under a 

lot of stress.  I said to myself, at least I'll keep my head in this 

crisis.  I'll keep my sanity.  So I told them, "I'll believe Jesus is 

alive when I see the scars in his hands, when I can touch his living 

body."  Someone had to keep our group focused on the problems we 

faced.  This was no time to endanger ourselves even more with visions 

and fantasies that couldn't be true.

Looking back on it now, they probably expected me to say what I did.  

They all knew how practical I was in those days.  After all, you 

remember when Jesus was telling us about his father's house having 

many rooms, and he was going there to prepare a place for us.  He 

said we knew the way.  Ha!  It was me, you remember, who spoke up and 

said, "Lord, how can we know the way?"  I was just reminding Jesus 

that we'd never been there--how could we possibly know to get there.  

We had no map, how could we know the right road to take. I didn’t 

want us to get lost.  And--you know what Jesus said, "I am the way, 

the truth, and the life."  Well, doesn't that just show you right 

there how impractical Jesus was. All I wanted was a simple answer out 

of him and he gets philosophical.  They called me 'Doubting Thomas'-- I ask you with answers like that how could you not doubt?

Well--you can imagine my embarrassment, my shame.  I felt like I 

wanted to crawl off in a corner and die when Jesus appeared and I saw 

him with my own eyes.  And wouldn't you know it, he looked me right 

in the eye and he made me come and hold his hands and feel the scars 

there and touch the scar in his side.  And he looked right into me--I 

mean right into me- -where I live, and he said, "Thomas, stop your 

doubting and believe!"

Well, facts are facts, even when you have a hard time believing 

them.  Sometimes you have to accept the implausible as real, even 

when it shakes you down to your sandals.  What could I say to Jesus 

other than, "My Lord, my God."  Ironic isn't it?  In the gospels that 

were later written, do you know I'm the first, me, Thomas the 

Doubter, I'm the first one to acknowledge Jesus' divinity after he 

rose from the grave.  Your biblical scholars always point that out.  

I wish they'd give it a rest.  It embarrasses me no end.  What 

irony!  Me- -the one who always needed proof.

You know, we have a man up above where I live now, who used to be 

President of your country, Harry Truman.  He was known for saying, 

"I'm from Missouri, show me!"  A man after my own heart.  He was also 

known for saying “The buck stops here.” Well, let me tell you up in 

heaven that has a whole different meaning.  But that's another story 

for another time.

Now what I want to tell you, the reason I'm here today, is to try to 

set you straight about this proof business, this need to believe only 

what you can see, touch, feel, measure.  You know, your world has 

become obsessed with empirical, provable facts.  Scientific data, 

measurable phenomena, hard data, megabytes and hard drives, bottom- line analysis, feasibility studies, cost analyses, financial 

projections, probabilities and certainties, and so on and so on.  

Stuff that in the old days I would have loved.  Practicality, that 

was my game.  And I must admit, when I look around at your world it 

is an astonishing place--more advanced and more comfortable than 

mine, but not more astonishing--after all, we did have Jesus coming 

out of the tomb.

Speaking of comfortable, I just got these new sandals you have here 

now. Look at these: crocs I think they’re called.  Like walking on a 

cloud—and I’m a person who knows about walking on clouds.  I wonder 

why God didn’t make these for us back then.  Probably something about 

that continuing creation idea.  That vague theology stuff and I never 

got along—way too confusing.  Anyway, I’m taking a pair of these back 

for Peter, your patron saint here in this parish.  He has bunions, 

you know.  Just between you and me this will be the first time in his 

eternal life he’ll be glad to see me.  But back to what I came here 

to tell you.

I think you need, what I needed back then.  A different way of 

understanding.  A different way of knowing what’s true.  I used to 

think that I needed to be guided by what was provable and 

measurable.  What I could see, feel, touch, taste, hear, smell--that 

was true and real.  You could depend on things like that.  But when 

it comes to understanding God--understanding God's truth and reality, 

understanding what God wants you to do for Him--your senses will fail 

you.  You can't find these things by seeing only with your eyes--you 

need to see with your heart.  You can't understand these things by 

using your mind--you must grasp with your soul.  You can't hear these 

things by using your ears, you must hear with your hopes and dreams.  

You have to use these tools: your faith, your spirituality, and your 

intuition to probe beyond the merely physical, the superficial layer 

of reality, to get deep into the reality of  God.  In this search 

your senses will fail you; you need other tools to get in touch with 

He Who is Beyond All Names.

When I saw with my eyes my friend Jesus alive again, I also saw with 

my heart that death has no sting--death is only the extinguishing of 

a candle because the dawn has arrived.  When I saw my friend Jesus 

alive again, my worrisome practical mind was calmed and I felt myself 

lifted spiritually upwards.  When I saw my friend Jesus alive again, 

I stopped filtering his words thru my need to make practical plans; 

instead his words raised me to where I knew he was 'my Lord and my 

God."  These are your tools: faith, not feasibility studies; 

spirituality, not worries about what will happen to you; and 

intuition to probe and perceive beyond what we often are scared to 

accept.

So, as I leave you, let me remind you of the words a man I have grown 

to know and to love as my Lord and my God once said to me: "Stop your 

doubting and believe!"