The Way of the Wounded

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors on the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my fingers in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in his book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

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This day when the story of Thomas comes up for us – a week after The Big Day of Easter’s celebration – is always so timely. I don’t want to rain on what is still supposed to be our Easter parade, but just look at what has happened since we last gathered – or what has not happened, as the case may be – death and its grief are still around. Loved ones are still sick. That war still rages. It snowed on Easter Monday and Netflix is probably going to start adding commercials, for crying out loud!

It’s no wonder so many still struggle to believe what we celebrated so beautifully and with so much joy, just a week ago.

If our faith is only – or mostly – or too precariously – wrapped up in the happy, happy, joy, joy stuff of Easter lilies, chocolate bunnies, and easy Alleluias, faith and belief can be a hard sell to anyone who’s paying attention to the world around them.

It’s why I love that Thomas wanted to see scars, wounds, clotted blood and bruises to know the story of Jesus was true.

I’m sure it drove the other disciples crazy that he wouldn’t take their word for it; that he demanded his own proof; that he wanted to see for himself; that he doubted. We know people like this, don’t we? Maybe we are – or have been – like those disciples … the ones who just want someone in our life to have the kind of faith we have, on our good days, anyway. Or maybe we are – or have been – like Thomas, who just doesn’t buy it, who asks hard questions no one can answer, who needs more proof or more evidence or more whatever.

And why would Thomas, why should he have believed the disciples, anyway? We all know they were a bunch of knuckleheads, really. Deserters … Deniers … Doubters just as seriously as Thomas was, himself. They’d fallen asleep on Jesus in the garden, remember. Peter had pretended not to know him. Time and time again, right along with Thomas, the other disciples mistook his teaching or misunderstood the prophets or missed the point altogether.

At the very moment we read about in this Gospel story, it seems like they were still hiding in that room for some reason. Why are you still locked up and hidden away a week after the Son of God has been raised from the dead and then showed up to tell you about it? What in the world were they still afraid of? I wouldn’t have believed them, either.

So I wondered this time around if Thomas’ doubts were about more than just the facts of the resurrection. Like I said, I like that Thomas wanted to see scars, wounds, clotted blood and bruises to know that the story of Jesus was true.

I wonder if his need for that particular kind of proof was more than just about forensic evidence. I mean, I kind of doubt that Thomas was counting the stripes or measuring the holes to see if they matched the size of the spikes they used on Friday, or that he was looking for specific type of splinter in the brow of Jesus.

What if he really wanted to know that the suffering was as real as the resurrection? What if he really wanted to confirm that this was the kind of God they were dealing with? What if he needed to see and touch and feel for himself – not just that Jesus had come back to life – but that the God of the universe had really gone to such lengths … had really suffered so mightily … had actually sacrificed and bled and died, as he said he would, for the sake of these people; and for the sake of the world; for Thomas, himself?

“Unless I put my fingers in the marks of the nails… and my hands in his sides, I won’t believe.” What I mean is, Thomas didn’t want to hear Jesus’ voice or ask him some questions. He wanted evidence of the suffering he’d endured. And that seems meaningful to me.

That, to me, is as hard to believe as any of this, honestly. That the God of the universe would suffer like that… that power is made perfect in weakness… that mercy is mighty, somehow… that sacrifice is the way, in this selfish world… that humility matters in a world of egos… that the last will be first and the first will be last in a world that convinces us to win at all costs.

“This is not how gods behave,” Thomas might have thought. This is not how the world works, we all know. This goes against the grain and against the way we’ve been trained to be in every other realm of our lives. So, I need to see it, to touch it, to feel the Truth of it before I’ll stake my life – let alone my intellectual assent – on it for one more moment.

“Unless I touch the wounds …” “Unless I see the marks …” “Unless I feel the fullness of what I’ve been told to believe… How can I buy it? How would I follow it? Why would I dare to live that way?” It makes no sense.

It makes me think of anyone we admire who has chosen to live selflessly and sacrificially for the sake of the world and others in it – and who has the wounds to prove it. Mahatma Gandhi who was assassinated for living a life of non-violent protest and resistance to colonialism and civil rights abuses in India. Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was martyred opposing the Nazis during World War II. Martin Luther King, Jr., who gave his life for the sake of civil rights in our own country. Mother Teresa who gave it all up to love orphans, care for lepers, feed the hungry, comfort the dying.

These are the extremes of course … the martyrs and the saints … but there are others, we know, closer to home.

Someone who is generous “to a fault” as they say, but who is also content in ways that are enviable;

Someone who has more than enough, not because they’re rich, but because they’ve decided for themselves what “enough” means for them;

Someone who is happy with themselves and their life in the world, even if they have some wounds to show for their faithfulness.

Don’t you know people like that? Don’t you know someone who has given up something for somebody else in a way that has changed their own life – or that someone else’s life – for the better, because they wanted to, not because they had to? Even when it was hard? Even if it hurt? Even if it left a wound or two behind?

I think of the foster parents… the missionaries… the kidney donors; I think of the single moms and dads… the grandparents who do more than their share… every volunteer who puts in more time than it seems they could possibly have… the tithers.

This is the good news and the holy challenge of an Easter faith. And it can be so hard to believe sometimes that, like Thomas, we have to see it, touch it, feel it to believe that God’s ways are different; that God’s love is counter-cultural; that God’s grace is unlimited; that sacrifice and generosity are, actually, the way; that death leads to life; that giving and loving, that living and dying – like Jesus did – and like we’re called to do – really can change the world.

Amen

The Coffin Confessor

Luke 24:1-12

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb taking the spices they prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the entrance to the tomb, but they didn’t find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.

The women were terrified and they bowed their faces to the ground. The men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He’s not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, crucified, and on the third day, rise again. Then they remembered these words and, returning to Jerusalem, told all of this to the eleven and all the rest.

Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles but these words seemed to them an idle tale and they didn’t believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping and looking inside, he saw the linen cloths and went away, amazed at what had happened.

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I heard an interesting story on the This American Life podcast recently about a guy from Queensland, Australia, who calls himself “The Coffin Confessor.” His name is Bill, and he was actually a private investigator by trade, before he picked up a side-gig some time ago that led to this new, much more interesting job title. What’s cooler than being a private investigator, you wonder?

Well, this guy was investigating some financial matters for a client who, unbeknownst to Bill, was dying of a terminal disease. As they became friendlier and talked more, his client made an off-hand comment about how he had some things he’d wish he could say at his funeral – for everyone to hear. He explained that he had thought about making a video of himself saying everything he wanted to say to whoever showed up at his funeral, but that he suspected his family wouldn’t actually play it. Bill, just trying to be funny, suggested that he could crash his client’s funeral and say whatever it was he wanted to be said – and “The Coffin Confessor” was born.

So, when his client – now friend – died, Bill showed up at the funeral, not knowing a soul in the church. When the dead guy’s best friend got up to give the eulogy, Bill stood up from his pew to interrupt him – as he was instructed, contracted, and paid to do.

And, because he’s from Australia, it’s more interesting and fun to hear Bill tell it…

“It was a blur to start with. I mean, I was sweating, profusely. And I've got to say, it was -- you've got your time on your phone. And I'm looking at the clock, and I'm thinking, OK, his mate's about to do the eulogy. And I knew I had to get up within one minute, two minutes at most, to interrupt the eulogy.

“And his best mate stands up, and he starts blubbering and telling everybody how much he loves his best mate and starts talking about a certain particular time that they shared. And it was that moment, I looked at my clock, and I went, oh, it's nearly two minutes in.

“And in that church, there were long pews. And they were timber. So when you stood up or you even moved, they made a sound. And yeah, when I stood up, it made a sound. And obviously, everyone just looked straight at you, you know? I froze, to say honestly. I stood up, and I just stood there and went, OK.”

Well, since we’re in church I have to stop it there, because what Bill had to say, and the words he had to use to say it, are a little much for some people on Easter Sunday. The short of the long is that the man Bill interrupted – the dead man’s best friend? – had tried to sleep with his friend’s wife, while his friend was dying. And Bill’s job – the Coffin Confessor – was to call him out for it, in front of God and everyone. Bill was also asked tell the dead man’s brother to “take a hike” that day, in much more colorful language, for not being around or available to him and to his family for the previous thirty years.

So “The Coffin Confessor” did his job, said his peace on behalf of the deceased, folded up the letter from which he’d been reading, laid it on the casket at the front of the church, and walked out.

The dead man’s wife and daughter appreciated what he’d done and thanked him for it later. A relative of the dead man, who was also terminally ill, found it so meaningful, she hired him to do something similar at her own funeral when the time came. And so did others. And so, a star – or at least a new career – was born.

See, Bill has found himself crashing funerals ever since, for anywhere between $2 to $10,000, and for all kinds of reasons – some big, some small – some petty and some profound – “some good, some bad, some funny, some sad,” as Bill tells it.

At another funeral Bill was hired to air some dirty laundry about an affair between neighbors. Another time, an atheist asked Bill to let everyone know that the religious funeral they were participating in – that he just knew his parents would concoct on his behalf – was nothing he ever would have wanted. Another time, Bill helped a dead, muscled, tattooed biker come out of the closet as bi-sexual to a room full of other muscled, tattooed – very surprised – bikers just like him. Once, a dying man asked Bill to apologize to his ex-wife and let her know how much she meant to him. More than once, Bill has surprised a dead person’s family with a surprise windfall of money they never knew was coming.

So, “the Coffin Confessor” made me think about Easter and what brings us here today, not because of what this Good News might inspire us to have said on our behalf at our respective funerals … after we’re dead and gone. But because of how our faith in what brings us here today – even if that’s small – might inspire all that we say and do on this side of the grave differently … so that it matters for us and for the world, here and now, right where we’re still living.

What I mean is, God doesn’t want us to wait to start telling the truth – TO START LIVING OUR TRUTH – to start living into the fullness of who we are. Yes, the Good News of Easter is about life after death and resurrection on the other side of eternity – whatever in the world that means for you, for me, for all of us as believers.

But, precisely because of that promised eternity, this Good News, this Gospel of new life, matters just as much here and now, if we really let the truth of it have its way with us.

Because of God’s overwhelming grace, I mean, we don’t have to wait until after we die to be generous with our time or our talents or our treasures …

Because of God’s abundant mercy, I mean, we don’t have to wait until we’re dead to seek justice – for ourselves or others in this world …

Because of God’s promised love, you don’t wait to come out of the coffin as it were. Come out of the closet now, for crying out loud, and live and love as God created you to live and love…

Because of Easter’s good news we are called to apologize now… offer forgiveness now… extend mercy now…. share grace now…. on this side of the grave…with the people for whom it can still matter and make a difference in this world.

Bill Edgar, “The Coffin Confessor,” provides a valuable service, it seems, for which there is a growing market apparently – he’s written a book; he’s in conversation about a movie; there’s talk of a reality TV show, as you might imagine. And the appeal for it, as he describes is, is that “mic drop” moment he gets to deliver on behalf of the deceased: when the dead have their say, when the deceased get the last word, when he walks out of a funeral, leaving all sorts of emotions – “good, bad, happy or sad” – in his wake.

But Easter reminds us that God always gets the last word when it comes to life and death in this world and the next. And because God’s last word is always something about grace, mercy, forgiveness, peace, new life and second chances …

Because God’s last word proclaims victory over death, forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting …

Because our “Coffin Confessor” is Jesus of Nazareth – crucified and risen for the sake of the world – our lives on this side of it all – right here and now – can be more honest and truthful, more fulfilled and life-giving, more holy and hopeful, and much more like the paradise we long for, the eternity that belongs to those who’ve gone before us, and the heaven that will be ours whenever the time comes.

Amen. Alleluia. Happy Easter.