Mending Belief and Doubt

  

John20:19–31

We have walked slowly in John’s gospel these past seven weeks.

 

We resisted the urge to rush toward Easter morning, choosing instead to linger – with grief, with fear, with truth, with love poured out, with death itself, with the space in between.

 

And in walking slowly, it is my deep hope that we have learned something important:

Mending is not the same as a quick fix.

 

Quick fixes try to return things to “normal.” They try to make things look the way they did before – to smooth over what has been disrupted. Perhaps even to mask the rips and tears.

 

But mending works differently.

Mending works with what is torn.
It works with what remains.
And it creates something new that includes what has been broken.

Mending changes things.

 

Over these weeks, we have watched Jesus remain with what is broken and painful.

Jesus remains with those who grieve.
Jesus remains with friends who resist help.
Jesus remains with disciples who deny and doubt.
Jesus remains under the weight of empire.
Jesus remains in the presence of suffering and death.

And in that remaining, in that staying, God has been doing something holy.

 

And now – today – we find the disciples doing what people do when the world has shifted too much, too fast.

 

They gather.
They close the door.
They stay together.

It is still Sunday. Mary’s news about the risen Lord is barely hours old.

And yet whatever hope she carried into the room has not yet taken hold of the gathered.

 

Because fear is still closer than hope.

 

John doesn’t tell us exactly what they’re afraid of.

But we can read between the lines.

The one they followed has been executed – publicly, violently – by an occupying force. And if empire could do that to him, what might it do to them?

 

So they stay inside.

Together.

Talking, maybe.
Replaying everything.
Trying to make sense of what cannot yet be made sense of.

 

Maybe eating.
Probably eating.
That feels right to me.

 

And then suddenly, Jesus is among them.

No door opens.
No warning is given.

He is just… there.

 

“Peace be with you,” he says.

 

And then – he shows them his hands and his side.

His wounds.

He shows them his wounds.

 

The resurrected Christ is not without his wounds.

The torn places are still visible.

He is not fixed.

He is mended.

 

And those wounds, the ones that are visible still, are not just personal.

They are political.

 

They are the marks of a body that has been subjected to violence by the powers of the world.

 

They are the marks of what empire does to bodies that refuse to comply.

And in carrying those wounds forward, Jesus does something extraordinary.

He refuses to let suffering be hidden.

He refuses to let violence be erased.

He refuses to separate resurrection from what it cost his body.

 

And more than that – these wounds become a point of connection.

A sign of solidarity.

With every body that has been harmed.
With every life that has ever been diminished.
With every person who has known what it is to be wounded by systems of per, by relationships, by the world as it is.

 

And then Jesus says it again:

“Peace be with you.”

And more –

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Then he breathes.

“Receive the Holy Spirit.”

 

This is not just comfort.

This is commissioning.

 

But notice how it comes.

Not after they’ve figured everything out.
Not after their fear has disappeared.
Not after their faith has solidified.

It comes while they are still behind closed doors.

Still unsure.

Still afraid.

 

And the Spirit is given not to perfect them, but to send them.

To send them into a world that still wounds.

To send them into a world that still needs mending.

To send them into a world while they still carry fear.

 

And then there is Thomas.

Who was not there in those moments of Jesus’ appearance.

Who missed that peace, that commissioning.

And when the others tell him, “We have seen the Lord” he does not say to them, “I don’t believe you.”

 

He says something much more honest.

Unless I see.
Unless I touch.

Thomas is not asking for some sort of certainty.

He is asking for connection.

He is asking for a faith that can meet him in the same places of rupture where Jesus himself has been marked.

 

So a week later, back in the same room, together again, Jesus returns.

“Peace be with you.”

This time, Thomas is present.

Jesus turns to Thomas.

And he offers Thomas the very thing that he asked for.

The wounds.

 

Go ahead. Touch them.

 

Throughout our season of mending, we have seen that mending leaves its mark. Today, the risen Christ still bears wounds.

Hope does not erase memory.
Faith does not eliminate questions.

But what has been mended is this: We are no longer alone in what is broken.

 

Because the Christ who stands among them, the Christ who stands among us today, is not untouched by suffering.

He is marked by it.

And still present.

 

And the Spirit breathed into that space continues this work among us –

Breathing inspiration where fear once ruled.
Breathing truth where lies have shaped us.
Breathing dignity where bodies have been harmed.
Breathing hope where despair once settled in.

 

So as we move beyond this season –
as we step out from behind whatever doors we have closed –

may we carry with us the wisdom of slow faith.

Faith that sees and somehow finds that we know.

May we honor the seams, the scars, the patched up places.

 

May we trust that God is still mending –

each of us,
not by returning us to what was,
but by creating something new
from what remains.

 

And not only in us individually –
but in the world God loves.

 

Peace be with you.

Receive the Holy Spirit.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

Into a wounded world where mending will make a difference.

 

May it be so.

Amen.