There’s an old family story about my grandfather who was in the Colonel Mewburn Hospital in Edmonton. He was waiting for surgery on his eye that had become so affected by glaucoma the doctors told him it had to be removed. This was a blow to him as he was a salesman travelling across Alberta to show merchants his advertising samples. He had binders of pens, calendars, mechanical pencils, all labeled “Your business here” that stores could order and hand out to their customers. He ignored the headaches and the blurry vision as long as possible, then when he did see a doctor, it was too late. His three sons were adults so that was a mercy, but the night before the surgery, his heart was troubled and he couldn’t sleep.
Finally, he
dozed off only to have a vision that Jesus was standing at the foot of his bed
and told him that he would be okay, and would still have a good life. He woke up and told his wife and sons of his
dream.
His experience
of Christ was as real to him as he was to his children and grandchildren. That experience didn’t solve all his
problems, it didn’t give him his sight back, it didn’t help him to learn
braille, it didn’t help him keep his temper when blindness frustrated him, but
it gave a sense of comfort that no one could take away. He also committed to going to church, and it
was so important that he went every Sunday.
We view experiences
like this and Thomas’ with more than a grain of salt. The world thinks everything should have a
logical explanation, and that facts are more important than fiction. People angrily attack others on social media
for sharing such stories. They type
things like “Religion is evil, it has caused nothing but suffering and the only
people who benefit are the con men pushing an unbelievable Santa Claus in the
sky.” The anger is as real as surgery or
glaucoma. It’s hard to have faith in a
mysterious God and an even more mysterious resurrection in such a world.
Thomas knew
that anger. The death of his beloved
rabbi Jesus was traumatizing. It went
against everything he had hoped for. The
disciples, along with women like Mary Magdalene, had been together for a long
time, and learned much from Jesus. But
now he treated their words with distain.
How could they, in the space of a single day, go from grief to
enthusiasm? No wonder Thomas rejected
their crazy story. He felt betrayed by
them, and he must have felt lonely and abandoned. He no longer trusted them.
Our whole
society right now is suffering a crisis of trust. Bridges collapse, charity workers get bombed,
civilians and even children are targeted for drone attacks, and there’s
unpredictable and catastrophic weather patterns leading the news on a regular
basis. Some people turn to shopping channels or bibles being sold by a
politician. Some believe that the UN is
trying to sterilize everyone with contrails.
They ignore warnings about measles.
The world is changing, and they want to get back to a time when the
world was predictable and there were never empty shelves in the grocery store.
It's hard to
know who to trust or what to trust.
Thomas trusted his own senses. He
trusted his Rabbi. But his friends? No way would he have trusted them with his
possessions as described in our Acts passage. And yet, he had an experience of
Jesus that changed all that.
This experience
was transformative, just as the vision of Jesus in the Colonel Mewburn Hospital
was transformative for the man who lost his sight. Just as it was for the disciples and
followers of Jesus living in Jerusalem.
They became so inspired and so trustworthy that they were able to live
together in what sounds like perfect harmony.
They came together in hope and trust and vulnerability and joy, because
of the Easter experience of resurrection.
We too are
called together to be in community. This
is not easy, and there will be times when we have angry Thomases demanding
signs and proof. They will demand a high
level of trust from us. What a daunting
task! If we think about trust in the way
that the 1 John passage from our prayer of confession thinks, if we say we are
perfectly trustworthy, we are liars. The
only thing that is perfectly trustworthy is God, and God is both the hardest
and the easiest to trust. Human trust is
fragile and easily damaged. As Brene
Brown describes it, trust is made up with little moments when humans do
thoughtful things for one another. The
more we are trustworthy in the little things, the more we will be trustworthy
in the big things. Trust, according to
Stephen Covey, is made up of integrity and action. Integrity is caring about equality, justice,
and fair play. Without action, it is
useless. When we commit to doing
something that aligns with our values and fail to follow through, we lose
trust. When we follow through, that
builds trust. We need to build a pattern of trust in ourselves and others that
will stand the test of time.
Trust is seen
in acts of bold discipleship and daring justice, but it is fed with deep
spirituality by reflecting on the integrity and purpose Jesus had. When we practice deep spirituality, we find
the energy to be bold disciples who do daring justice. Thomas’ encounter with Jesus was so
transformative that he traveled far and wide to share good news to many
people. The blind man’s encounter gave
him the courage to keep on living despite his many hardships and
struggles. May it also give us the
courage to keep growing, trusting and praying for our own Easter experiences of
the living Christ so we can make a difference in the world!
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