the Body of Christ.
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of the Risen One, Jesus the Messiah, whose resurrection reminds us that all things can be redeemed and renewed and reborn!
He is risen!
He is risen indeed!
It is that call and response that energized the church in the first century as it does for us today. The question right after each Easter Sunday is the same: what do we do now?
Like many pastors around the world, I focused on the Thomas story for the Sunday after Easter—it’s often the text for that particular Sunday. Usually it gives us some room to admit our confusion and doubt about what the resurrection means—how it happened, how we’re supposed to understand it, and what we’re supposed to do about it. This year I tried to do something different, and I want to give us one more chance to think about it.
We often see ourselves in the passages we read in the Bible. Usually, if we’re honest, we see ourselves as the good guys in the story—the faithful, the repentant, or the called. One of the ironies about that, as I said on Sunday, is that in the Exodus story we count ourselves as God’s people, released from bondage and on our way to the Promised Land. We never think of ourselves as the Egyptians, even though there might be some value in acknowledging our troubled history and the lasting impact of slavery here.
Who are we in the Doubting Thomas story? Usually we see ourselves in his role, as the ones who struggle to believe and need some evidence—God, show me a sign!—before we believe.
I think we learn something deeper in this story when we take on the role of Jesus.
Now before you string me up, here’s what I mean. The church is known as the Body of Christ—we refer to ourselves that way—it’s one of the historical names for the church. What if we took that seriously? What if that’s how we introduced ourselves to the world?
When Thomas saw Jesus for the first time after the resurrection, he showed Thomas his wounds. He invited Thomas to look close and see exactly what had happened to him—what the world had done to him.
I think we’re at our best when we do the same.
People aren’t looking for simple answers. People aren’t looking for lukewarm gatherings and popular causes. People aren’t looking to join in with groups that pretend to have it all figured out (as if!). People aren’t looking for perfection.
People are looking for resurrection.
I think we can help with that. How?
We are Christ’s body in the world—his resurrection body.
We’re something different than we were before we knew him.
We don’t invite people to come see our perfection.
We don’t invite people to see how cool we are.
We are the body of the crucified Christ in the world.
We invite them to come and see our redeemed brokenness.
We invite them to see what the world has done to us, and also how God has made us whole again.
We invite them to come and see how God has made something beautiful and useful out of the broken materials we brought to him.
But if we’re Jesus in the story, and I believe we are, then who’s Thomas?
The people who aren’t here yet.
The people who are looking at our lives to see if there is anything different about them because of this Jesus person we follow.
The people we invite to come and see.
Over this next year we have a lot of work to do together, and some big decisions to make together. No matter what happens, we’ll be a better, healthier, more loving church if we take this lesson from the story of Doubting Thomas:
We are the Body of Jesus Christ when we welcome people to see how our wounds and broken places have been transformed by God’s power into something new and living and powerful.
We are the Body of Christ.
It’s time to show the world what God is doing with us.
Blessings to you and yours,
Pastor John