Taste and See (and Touch and Smell and Hear) the Glory of God
On Easter Day, last week, we spoke about the unbelievableness of the resurrection. Not a suggestion that it isn't real, but that the story of Jesus being raised from the dead after everyone saw him crucified is one that is incredibly difficult to get our heads around.
The women who went to the tomb had to see it empty and be reminded of Jesus' own words about his suffering, death, and rising from the dead before they could believe what they were seeing. When they told the other disciples, disbelief was the first response. Even Peter, first to confess Jesus as the Messiah, (Matthew 16:13-16; Mark 8:29; Luke 9:20) goes to see the empty tomb for himself before he begins to understand and accept what has happened there.
The disciples all come to understand what has happened and how it changes their lives, each in their own way. We do not have details into how each of them thought, prayed, discussed, reflected, and came to understand what the resurrection of Jesus meant for them, but even in the records we do have, we see different approaches and responses.
Similarly, for each of us who come to be part of the Body of Christ today, there is a shared experience and individuated components to it. At some point we come to know something of God and God's presence in our lives. We encounter the living Jesus. We are baptized into this great mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. We share these things, but the ways in which they change us and the ways in which we find ourselves called to live as Christians are different for each of us.
A moment ago I mentioned encountering the living Christ. Since the resurrection of Jesus and the giving of the Holy Spirit to his disciples, we Christians live with the knowledge that our God is alive, in our midst, is approachable and accessible to us. Indeed, Thomas can demand to touch the body of the risen Christ and the risen Christ will invite him to do so. Christ gives his own body and blood to us for heavenly food in communion. This intimate, personal relationship with Jesus is a cornerstone of our faith and our traditions. But this was not always a common assumption about our God.
After the incident with the golden calf, God commands the Israelites to leave Sinai and make for another land, the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. God is deeply upset with the people for their return to idol worship and Moses intercedes on their behalf. When God assures Moses that all shall be well, Moses asks for a token of assurance that he is still favoured in God's sight: Moses wishes to see God's unfiltered glory with his own eyes.
God explains that no mortal may see the face of God. The glory of God's face is too great for mortals and to look upon it would kill Moses. Instead, God allows Moses to catch a glimpse of God's back. This is as much of God's person as is safe for a mortal to see, never mind to touch or to eat and drink. (Exodus 33:12-23) Even the high priest of the temple in Jerusalem enters the holy of holies, the place where the Ark of the Covenant is kept, only one day each year. To be too close to God is dangerous business.
Thomas has been maligned with the nickname "doubter" for generations. Thomas does not doubt any more greatly than the other disciples. When he demands to see and touch the wounds of the risen Christ, he is only asking for the same opportunity to know the resurrected Jesus in the same way that the others have been given. Thomas may have doubts, but so did everyone else in the story until they encountered the living Christ for themselves.
When Jesus appears and invites Thomas to do exactly as he has requested, Thomas is overcome. Interestingly, John does not tell us that Thomas ever did touch the wounds of the risen Jesus. Rather, as soon as he is invited to do so, Thomas declares "My Lord and my God!" Far from his depiction as a stubborn, holdout doubter, Thomas is the first person after the resurrection to declare Jesus "Lord and God."
Not only is Jesus Lord and God, but a God who is present, standing in the midst of the disciples, who offers himself to be seen, heard, smelled, touched, and even tasted. The glory of God is on display to every human sense, for those who wish to experience it, even as the answer to questions and the remedy to doubt.
Whether we were baptized yesterday or a hundred years ago, each of us is working out what it means to live as a Christian, what it means to know the living Jesus, and what it means to respond to God's continuing call to us. Just like any process of discernment, there will be questions and we will find ourselves in situations that lead us to doubt, to ask "Is this really where God has called me to be, or have I lost track? This seems unbelievable."
As Thomas and all of the other disciples have demonstrated in our Gospel passages these last two Sundays, doubt and questions are not a problem if they lead us to search for God. If we are willing to go and look for the empty tomb, to be still and feel the Holy Spirit being breathed upon us, to reach out and touch the body of the risen Christ, to search for the glory of God in our midst, all is well. If doubt and questions become excuses to avoid our faith, to pretend that we do not hear God's voice, to ignore what God is doing in our midst, then we have wandered away into dangerous territory indeed.
Jesus, raised from the dead and glorified, waits for our questions and our doubts. He invites us to bring them to him and to wait, and watch, and listen. Jesus moves in our midst and offers his wounded body, in all its glory, that we might begin to understand what has been done for us and in us. God's grace, mercy, and love are enough to destroy the power of sin and death; they are surely also enough to hold our questions and our doubts. And this is very good news indeed.
