Thoughtful Thomas

 

“Thomas, thoughtful though tentative, thinks through terrific tidings – takes time to trust – then, totally transformed, travels teaching truth.”

Thus a clergy friend of mine meditated on a statue of St Thomas in the church of St Thomas and St Andrew, Doxey, Stafford.
I think it is a very good summary of our Gospel reading for today which, as every year, tells Thomas’ story.

The disciples are together, hiding from the authorities, in the evening of that first Easter Day when the Risen Lord appears to them, and reassures them.
And then Luke tells us that Cleopas and his wife come racing back from Emmaus to tell them that they, too, had seen Jesus.

But Thomas wasn’t there.
We don’t know why, but he missed it.
And he isn’t inclined to believe the others,
thinking they must be deceived in some way.
Well, you can understand it, can’t you?
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
If it were true, it would indeed be terrific tidings –
but people don’t just come back from the dead!
Not even the dear Teacher.
Once you’re dead, you’re dead, thinks Thomas.
How can you come back to life again?
Surely this was wishful thinking on the part of the others?
Surely a group hallucination?
Surely they were mistaken, weren’t they?
Weren’t they?

Thomas remembers the last couple of years,
since he started being one of Jesus’ disciples.
How they had travelled together, quite a large band of them,
with a few women who saw to it that everybody had something to eat
and at the very least a blanket at night.
There was the time he had gone off with Matthew, on Jesus’ instructions, to preach the Good News,
and they had had such a great time.
And then it had all gone sour,
and Jesus had been arrested, tortured, and crucified.
But they were saying he was still alive?
Not possible, surely.
It couldn’t really be true, could it?
But then, there had been those miracles, people healed –
the time his friend Lazarus had died,
and Jesus had called him to come out of the tomb, and he had come.
Or when that little girl had died, only Jesus had said she was only sleeping.
Or that time when….
Thomas goes on remembering all the times Jesus had healed the sick or done other miracles.
But then, he couldn’t be alive, could he?
And so on, round and round, on the treadmill of his thoughts.

This goes on for a whole week.
It must have seemed an eternity to poor Thomas,
with the others, although still cautious and hiding from the authorities –
indeed, some of the fishermen were talking of going back to Galilee and getting the boats out;
safer that way –
the others, still cautious, yet fizzing and bubbling that the Teacher was alive!

A whole week.

A week can feel like eternity, sometimes.
I know when the lockdowns first started, over a year ago now,
each week felt like an eternity.
I think it’s as well we didn’t know it would go on for over a year –
and, of course, if things go pear-shaped again, it’s possible that restrictions will either not be eased on schedule or else will be reimposed.
But a year ago we had no way of knowing that,
and a week seemed like forever.
And I don’t know about you, but I certainly wondered where God was in all this!

Many of us had the virus, and some, sadly, have lost loved ones to it.
Some people have barely left their homes for a year,
and even though they’ve now been told it’s safe, as long as they are careful,
they are still reluctant to do so.
I personally am finding it absolutely impossible to make plans of any kind lest they have to be cancelled.
Even though more and more of us have been vaccinated –
and please, do get the vaccination if you’re offered it, it’s well worth it –
still find it hard to believe we’ll be free again one day.

Where is God when you need him?
We want to see God’s face, to hear the reassurance that all will be well and all manner of thing will be well.
We want the reassurance that God is truly there and hasn’t abandoned us.

We have learnt new ways of being Church;
did you notice how many people logged on for the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday Zoom services?
Given how many people were sharing logins, it was well over a hundred people!
Far more than would ever have come to a Circuit service if they had to go out.
While it’s wonderful to be together again, even with restrictions,
I hope that some services, and some meetings, will continue to be held via Zoom.
We’ve also learnt to livestream our services,
and to post the recordings so people who don’t want to come to church,
or who can’t come for any reason,
can still join us in worship.
God has been there, leading us and teaching us over the past year.
But it hasn’t always been easy to see the next step.

But you see, Thomas shows us that this is okay.
He had to wait a whole week until the risen Jesus came to him to reassure him –
and a week can be a very, very long time!
But that’s okay.
We don’t have to get immediate answers;
we don’t have to feel better at once if we are taken ill;
we do, perhaps, have to be very patient and keep remembering hands, face, space and fresh air.

For Thomas, it took a week.
That’s why we remember him on this day each year –
Low Sunday, I was taught to call it –
as it’s the anniversary of the day when Jesus did come to Thomas.
The disciples were still hiding from the Jewish authorities –
they could easily have been picked up, arrested, and crucified in their turn.
And this time, Thomas was with them.
He was still doubtful, still not convinced –
but Jesus came, specially for him.
“Here, touch my scars, touch my side –
it’s true, I’m alive, you can trust me!”
And Thomas’ immediate response was to fall down in awe and worship.

And he was totally transformed.
His doubts all fell away, as if they had never been.
He knew Jesus forgave him for having doubted,
just as he was to forgive Peter for having denied he knew him,
just as he would have forgiven Judas for having betrayed him,
had Judas been in any condition to receive that forgiveness.
Thomas was forgiven and transformed.

As we, too, can be.
You know this and I know this, but sometimes it feels as though that knowledge is only in our heads,
we don’t absolutely know it with all of us.
Except when we do –
and then we wonder how on earth we ever doubted,
why we don’t always believe with our whole being.
We have all had those mountain-top experiences, I expect –
and we have all had our times of doubt and even disbelief.
It seems to be normal and human.
Thomas certainly didn’t believe that Jesus had been raised;
it took a special touch from our Lord himself to convince him,
as it sometimes does to convince us.

And Thomas was totally transformed, from doubter to staunch believer.
And, what’s more, he then travels, teaching truth.

We have nothing in the Bible to tell us what may or many not have happened to Thomas after his encounter with the risen Lord.
But there are various traditions,
most notably that he went to India and founded the church there.
They say he was martyred in Chennai in about AD72, having lived and worked in India for over twenty years, and some sources say his remains were brought back to Edessa, in modern Syria, although others think he was buried in India.

Even today, almost two thousand years later, there are Christians in India who trace their faith history back to Thomas’ ministry.
How much of this is factual, and how much tradition, we don’t know.
But given that so many Christians in India,
Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant,
all trace their faith back to him leads me to suspect there might be something in it.

But whatever the truth, we know that Thomas travelled, teaching the truth about Jesus,
teaching, as did many of the other apostles, proclaiming the Risen Christ,
witnessing that he had actually seen and spoken to him,
being filled with God’s Holy Spirit to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven.
He was totally transformed from the doubtful, worried disciple of that first Easter Day.

Most of us have been following Jesus for many years now.
We too have been transformed,
probably gradually over the years,
to be more like the people we were created to be,
the people God designed us to be.
We, too, proclaim our risen Lord, not only –
probably not even primarily –
in words.
And like Thomas, we sometimes take time to tentatively think through terrific truths, and we take time to trust.

And Thomas shows us that this is okay, as long as we don’t stop there.
As long as we can accept that our first views may be wrong, and allow God to heal and transform us.
And then, my friends, along with Thomas we too will be teaching the truth.

“Thomas, thoughtful though tentative, thinks through terrific tidings – takes time to trust – then, totally transformed, travels teaching truth.”

Journey to Jerusalem.

Sadly, this was not preached, as I was suffering from food poisoning and couldn't go to Church - fortunately, i had been sharing the service with our minister and was able to warn her in time.

So today is Palm Sunday. It’s the start of Holy Week, when we begin that long, sad, strenuous journey to the cross. In other years, we might have all met together last night for a Circuit Passover Supper, to mark the beginning of Holy Week. Obviously, with the current restrictions that couldn’t happen either last year or this year, but maybe next year we will be able to do so. Anyway, then today we remember Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, and, indeed, for many churches today’s service is a journey towards the Cross; there isn’t a sermon but together they read what’s called the “Passion Narrative”, the story from today’s reading right up to Jesus’ death. Or we can, as we are doing this year, make the journey last for the week. On Thursday we will meet together on Zoom to remember how Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, and how he took the traditional Jewish Friday-night ritual blessing of bread and wine and lifted it, transformed it into something quite different that we know today as Holy Communion. On Friday, also on Zoom, we will remember his death on the Cross. And next Sunday, of course, we will be rejoicing and celebrating the Resurrection and being able to meet together once again to do so!

But for today, we are focussing on the journey to Jerusalem. Now, Jesus had often stayed in Bethany before – probably with Martha and Mary, do you think? – and walked into Jerusalem. It wasn’t far – only a couple of miles, probably not much further than from here to Streatham. So why, do you suppose, he suddenly wanted to ride on a donkey? And why this particular donkey, which had never been ridden before?

Well, Mark doesn’t say, but Matthew’s version of the story reminds us of the promise in Zechariah: “Shout and cheer, Daughter Zion!
    Raise your voice, Daughter Jerusalem!
Your king is coming!
    a good king who makes all things right,
    a humble king riding a donkey,
    a mere colt of a donkey.”

That must have been a very odd image to the first hearers. We don’t know exactly what the prophet thought he was referring to – there was very often a local context, as well as one looking forward to Jesus – but obviously now was the time for this prophecy to be fulfilled. Again, we don’t know whether Jesus knew that, and was consciously fulfilling the prophecy, which he would have known from childhood, or whether he was just obeying the inner voice from God that was leading him step by step, inexorably, towards the Cross.

It must have been a very odd image, don’t you think, to those first hearers of Zechariah? I mean, a donkey is what the humble people rode, a beast of burden. Kings rode horses, or in chariots – they didn’t ride donkeys. Our Queen doesn’t drive a white van!

But this was the image. The King, God Almighty, riding on a donkey like any merchant or shopkeeper. Extraordinary, really, when you come to think about it.

But, of course, people didn’t know that this was God Himself in the Person of his Son Jesus Christ. If they recognised him at all, they saw the rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, the teacher. The one who was getting up the noses of the Temple authorities. The one who said that God’s country was quite different from what you’d always thought, but that it was still worth giving up everything you had for. The one who said you should love your enemies. The one who had said some very extraordinary things about himself…. That he was the Light of the World; that he was the Good Shepherd…. And that, if you followed Him, you would be being God’s person even if you didn’t keep the Jewish law absolutely perfectly, even if you were not allowed to go to the Temple for some reason, even if you were a prostitute or a drug addict.

And, suddenly, it all came together and they began to cheer and shout. “Praise God! God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord! God bless the coming kingdom of King David, our father! Praise be to God!” The word “Hosanna”, which the Good News Bible translates as “Praise God” originally meant “God save him!” but it has transmuted into an affirmation of praise!

And they threw down branches on the road, and even their cloaks, which would have been ruined by the dust and the donkey’s feet! And they may well have been new cloaks, bought specially to go to Jerusalem for the festival, for this was the Passover, one of the most holy festivals in the Jewish calendar. You went to Jerusalem to celebrate the major festivals whenever you could, and especially for Passover – we know that Jesus was taken as a boy, all the way from Nazareth, and that he also went to the Temple when it was Hannukah, and possibly on other festivals, too. So there would have been big crowds going to Jerusalem. Those who had never heard of the new Teacher from Nazareth would have been told a bit by their friends and fellow-traveller when they saw him on the donkey and wondered what all the fuss was about.

And so they went to Jerusalem, cheered every step of the way, and, we are told, looked round the Temple for a bit and then went back to Bethany for the night, presumably returning the donkey to its rightful owners en route.

And? I mean, why does it matter? Why do we celebrate each year? Is it just a remembering thing, part of what happened to Jesus that we remember each year? Or is it something more.

It’s both, of course. Yes, part of it is certainly remembering what happened to Jesus. But it’s also about our own journeys towards God. And they are not always straightforward. People don’t shout and wave palm branches at us, which is probably just as well, as we are so prone to mess things up. Remember that lovely hymn we so often sing at this time of year:

“Sometimes they strew his way
and his sweet praises sing,
resounding all the day
hosanna to their king.
Then “Crucify!”
is all their breath
and for his death
they thirst and cry.”

We all waver between singing hosannas and shouting “crucify!” To take a Bible example, look at Peter – one minute he was declaring that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and then the next minute he was being seriously unhelpful by saying he would never let Jesus be killed… which wasn’t what Jesus either wanted or needed to hear just then; Peter could and arguably should have given him a shoulder to cry on and bought him a pint! And later it is Peter who denies Jesus – but later still, he is able to accept forgiveness and be made whole again. Even Jesus wobbled a bit at times, as we saw in last week’s reading when he said he was scared and wished he could ask God to save him from this hour – but he knew he couldn’t. Similarly in the Garden of Gethsemane when he had a major meltdown and a real struggle to say “Not as I will, but as you will!” to God.

This year in particular has been so very difficult for so many people. I have struggled with not being able to see my family – thankfully the restrictions are being eased a bit tomorrow so we can go and visit my mother, out of doors, and take her her Christmas presents! And we did have a few weeks’ respite last summer as, I hope, we will have this summer. And I have had it easy – I did get the virus, and have struggled to recover, but I didn’t have to go to hospital and nobody close to me died from or with it. I’m retired, so the lockdown hasn’t impacted me financially. I live in walking distance of several “essential shops”, and we had plenty of loo paper to see us through the first shortage! But even so, it hasn’t been easy. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has asked God to just let it all be over, and to take this wretched virus away!

But we know, as St Paul reminds us, that God works all things together for good for those who love him. The bad is still bad – but God works it for good. We have been learning new ways of being church when we can’t meet in person. We’ve been learning that church committee meetings are a lot less onerous when you can do them from the comfort of your own chair!

It’s not easy to be God’s person all the time, and we all wobble. But Isaiah tells us that “If you wander off the road to the right or the left, you will hear his voice behind you saying, ‘Here is the road. Follow it.’” God won’t let us get too badly lost, however painful the road ahead may be.

So as we remember Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, let’s commit ourselves anew to travelling along with him, to being part of the crowd shouting “Hosanna”, and not the crowd shouting “Crucify him!” Amen.