Toenails and Thomas

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, 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 finger 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 that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Sermon

Have you ever been talking to someone when they bring up a really gross, disgusting injury?

One moment you’re talking about the weather, and the next moment, they’re telling you about the time their toenail ripped out and blood was gushing everywhere.

Or maybe you’re talking about a new restaurant when your friend talks about tripping on the stairs? They tell you about their knee bending backwards, and then discovering the color that bones are in real life.

We’re in luck for one of those stories, except this time, it’s Jesus. The crucified Christ is stretching out his hand and showing us some truly gory stuff today.

There’s a famous painting of Thomas by the Renaissance painter Caravaggio. In the painting, he depicted Thomas’s finger just rooting around inside Jesus’ pierced side.

Yech.

This isn’t a pretty story. We don’t like talking about wounds. That applies to physical wounds—broken bones and bloody toes—and it applies to spiritual wounds, too. Wounds like anger, or resentment, or infidelity, or grief.

Unfortunately, the resurrection of Jesus Christ isn’t recognizable on its own. The resurrection bears no significance and no meaning apart from what precedes it: woundedness. This is why you’ve probably heard your pastors gripe about Maundy Thursday or Good Friday attendance — if we gloss over the Last Supper and crucifixion, and if we just stick to the tidy, joyful parts of the gospels, we’ve lost the entire plot.

The wounds that Thomas sees today are wounds that bore an intense set of connotations. They testified to the domination of the Roman Empire, and the ways in which it shrunk the voice and bodies of those under its thumb. These were wounds of supposed “law and order,” — wounds inflicted with violence in the name of peace. This torture also carried with it the wounds of humiliation. Jesus had no consent to what was done to him. Jesus’ wounds also conjured up the image of his mother and disciples helplessly watching his torture.

These were wounds of human cruelty and hate. They were ugly wounds. Probably wounds that his disciples wanted to forget about and leave behind.

And yet, these wounds become the condition for resurrected love. Deeper love. Greater love.

Jesus entrusts his wounds to Thomas — that weird Thomas who’s rooting around with his finger in Jesus’ side. Jesus once again practices the greatest of vulnerabilities: allowing this disciple to touch his tender wounds. This is an intensely intimate moment; a moment that finally reunites Thomas not only with the risen Jesus, but also resurrects a faith that had died with Christ. It is this pain, and this suffering, and this crucible, which has awakened Thomas.

We might think that these wounds would be a barrier to Thomas’ and Jesus’ relationship. But I think we would be missing out on the tenderness of this story if we assumed that.

Because here, in this story, we find at least two acts that are profoundly concerned with living as a community.

The first is that Thomas expresses his need to see Jesus’ wounds. Yes, despite these traumas that Jesus and his disciples endured, and despite the ugliness of Jesus’ wounds, Thomas has a need to see them. To recover his faith, he doesn’t avert his eyes from the pain of others, but instead peers more deeply into it.

The second profoundly communal act is Jesus’ own willingness to show his wounds. It’s this intimacy we discussed a moment ago. Jesus is the one who approaches Thomas, and though he did not have to show his wounds, he chooses to vulnerably disclose himself.

In opening oneself to someone else’s pain, and in self-disclosing, we see one overarching rhythm of grace.

We are often better at the first part, though — our willingness to look at someone else’s wounds is oftentimes an easier impulse. When someone needs a casserole or an extra hand, we are eager to show up. But the second part—the practice of being vulnerable—that’s the hard part. No one likes to be vulnerable.

But community takes both parts to truly flourish.

Let’s use a hospital as an example of what it means to live in community. During hospitalizations, nurses assist patients when they use the bathroom, or nurses clean them up after using the bathroom. That is a unique, and sometimes uncomfortable, intimacy. But that woundedness is the way in which God can heal that patient, and the way in which that nurse can fulfill their Christian vocation.

But believe it or not, nurses get sick, too. And from what I hear, nurses can be the absolutely worst patients. Why? Because they are really, really great at loving people who are extremely vulnerable or sick, but it is really tough being on the other side of the equation. Human beings do really well when we feel like we have control and can fix things. Human beings really struggle when we don’t have those abilities.

But unlike a hospital, a true community doesn’t have clear boundaries between care givers and care receivers. In revealing his wounds, and disclosing his pain, Jesus is counterintuitively caring for Thomas’ faith and vocation as a disciple. Jesus awakens Thomas by revealing his wounds. And Thomas? He was the only fella who seemed interested in knowing the depths of what happened to Jesus. He asked when no one else did. Thomas loved Jesus so much that he was willing to ask “what really happened to you?” And so, counterintuitively, Thomas is also caring for Jesus.

So for us, in revealing the broken bones and bloody toes we experience, we are drawn into a great circle of healing and being healed. There is this constant dialogue—constant dance—of us caring for one another and being cared for. In engaging in this great circle of caring and being cared for, we find our wounds transformed. We find ourselves awakened by the same movement that awakened Thomas.

There’s another part to this story that might also draw us closer to God and one another. During this encounter, we also discover that doubt isn’t chased out of us. We can’t strongarm doubt out of our hearts and souls, nor can we reason our way out of it, or just believe harder.

No. Doubt isn’t actually an enemy to chase away at all. It is something that is loved into faith. It is transformed by love, molded by love, held by love, until we realize that it is the fuel of maturation. Doubt is what brings us into a richer understanding of God and God’s world. It is what drives us to examine ourselves, and root around in our hearts, until one day we realize the Spirit used it to sanctify us in love.

When it feels like we can’t push doubt away, or we can’t chase it out of our minds, that’s okay. Because like Jesus did with Thomas, Jesus is the one who comes closer to us. Jesus is the one who moves toward us, in our doubt, rather than expecting us to go on a wild goose chase for God. God is the one who is always chasing after us.

This, too, is the rhythm of grace and the rhythm of community.

As your pastor, I will never be able to give you a shortcut out of suffering. I won’t be able to fix it or tell you a magic formula to get out of pain. Your Deacons won’t do much better. And this sounds weird, but I am in part here to get you to feel your pain and sit with it.

Because when we are suffering, and when our wounds have broken open, we are doing the hard work of vulnerability. And our wounds and our vulnerability is precisely where we can meet this grace and community that God extends to us. Sitting with our pain, and heartache—rather than ignoring it or trying to numb it away—sitting with our pain is where we are brought into an intimacy with God and one another that cannot be surpassed. It is what binds us together as one community, united in hope—even when hope feels impossible—and what binds us together in love.

So let yourself be wounded. Let others be wounded. Most importantly, let yourself doubt.

Because it is here—in our wounds, and doubt, and heartache—that we can find a way out of the wilderness, and into the intimate, unfailing love of the risen Christ and one another. Amen.