Second Sunday of Easter – April 12, 2026

John 20:19-31

Listen…to this verse in our gospel I just read:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.
Oh really? Would just a couple more stories have been too much for John…who wrote this Gospel?
What I mean is this: If you are a Gospel writer and Jesus did a bunch of other wonderful things…
That you did not bother to write down because your quill broke or your hand cramped up…why even mention it?
Why didn’t John just keep it to himself?
And all week…my mind has wandered back to this verse wondering what John left out.
But then I considered this: When it comes to scripture…the blank spaces are just as important as the ones that are filled with words.
The blank spaces are waiting for us to step inside with our own stories…our own questions…our own imaginations.
The Lord be with you…..

So…this morning let’s…together…imagine and wonder about the blank spaces of today’s Gospel reading.

What we know is that on the same day that Mary found the tomb empty…
The disciples locked themselves in a room.
It’s not a stretch to imagine them stewing in their fear and their shame.
When suddenly…without even knocking…or bothering to use the door…Jesus is there.
OK…when I even vaguely suspect someone is mad at me…if I find myself in the same room as that person…
I tense up and get this awful feeling in my stomach.
So…when the disciples saw Jesus standing right there…
I wonder if their shoulders tightened up waiting to get what they deserved.

But what we know is this…to those who were closest to Jesus…

And who abandoned him in his greatest hour of need…
Jesus says to them…peace be with you.
Then he breathes holiness into them and says…go tell people that forgiveness is real.
A tender moment indeed.

But…as John tells us…Thomas was not there.

It is entirely possible Thomas had not abandoned Jesus when other disciples did.

What I think is this: That Thomas saw what happened to Jesus’ body with his own eyes.
In the spaces left blank in his story I imagine that Thomas had an unusually deep sensitivity…
And was so traumatized by the brutality of what he saw happen to Jesus that he just was not ready to be around other people.
Every time Thomas closed his eyes…he saw the crown of thorns digging into Jesus’ brow…
And he could not get the sound of the hammer and nails out of his head…
The violence having been etched into his memory with the image lingering in his eyes and mind and heart.

Good Friday happened and it was real and Thomas was not willing to pretend otherwise.

What we know is that the other disciples came back and said…we have seen the Lord.
And Thomas said: Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side…I will not believe.
But that wasn’t doubt.
Instead…it was that Thomas refused to believe in anything that papered over the pain.

And then…a week later…what we know is that Jesus shows up again.

But this time Thomas is there…and Jesus offers Thomas exactly what he needs…proof of the pain.
Jesus offers himself for the touching…as if to say…the violence was real Thomas.
Violence had no victory that day.
And Jesus knows how hard it is to believe that violence has no victory…
If the pain is not at least acknowledged.

So…I need the living word of God.

I need a story that is bigger than my pain but does not ignore my pain.
I need a story that is bigger than what I can see…
I need a story that is bigger than what I fear…
I need a story that is bigger than what the Internet and social media and the algorithms are trying to convince me of every day of my life.

In fact…he whom I have now renamed Thomas The Brave and Deeply Sensitive Disciple…

Was so very much called into this story of Jesus that he ended up proclaiming it everywhere he went.
All the way to Kerala India where…for 80 generations St Thomas Christians have also not stopped proclaiming it.
Which means the story is still unfolding all around us and nothing can stop it.

Nothing will stop the story of Jesus and us…his faltering friends.

The story of how the God of Easter keeps reaching into the graves we dig ourselves…
And loving us back to life.
The story that Love will always conquer hate…
And that death has no sting and forgiveness is more powerful than violence…
And that despite it all…it is always…always…worth it to love God and love one another.

This is more than a story we intellectually assent to.

And it has sustained 80 generations.