Meditation on John 20:19–31
First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY
Pastor Karen Crawford
Second Sunday of Easter
April 7, 2024
Where were you on Friday when Long Island experienced an earthquake? Did you know it was an earthquake, right away?
The earthquake we felt this past Friday, April 5, was a magnitude 4.8 at its epicenter in New Jersey. Nassau and Suffolk County emergency response received more than 200 9-1-1 calls from those who were curious about it.
Catherine Jennings, a 9th grade earth science teacher at Half Hollow Hills High School in Dix Hills, just happened to be doing a lesson on earthquakes when the floor and desks started shaking. Her students looked at her, thinking that she must be staging it. “How could we be so lucky to have this happen at the exact moment that I am teaching about it?” she said. [1]
While the earthquake caught us all by surprise, tomorrow, on April 8, we are expecting another natural wonder here on Long Island. Is everybody ready with your special solar eclipse glasses?
All 50 states, except Alaska, will experience at least a partial solar eclipse. Those within a roughly 115-mile path from Texas through Maine through parts of Eastern Canada will experience a total solar eclipse. The total or near total eclipse is expected to visit and exit New York tomorrow afternoon, between 2 and 3:30 p.m. [2] An estimated 31.6 million people live in the path of totality this year, compared to 12 million who saw the eclipse in 2017.[3]
One of the interesting effects of the total eclipse, Nasa says, is that some of the nocturnal animals may wake up, thinking it’s nighttime, while other non-nocturnal animals may think it’s time to go to sleep. [4]
This natural event has stirred excitement and the planning of eclipse watch parties. If we miss seeing the eclipse tomorrow, North Americans will have to wait till 2044 to see another solar eclipse, but only if we are living in or willing to travel to Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, or parts of Canada and Greenland. The next total solar eclipse to cross the continental U.S., from coast to coast, will occur in 2045. [5] However, if we don’t mind traveling to a remote part of northwestern Alaska, we would be able to see one as early as March 30, 2033.
I have mixed feelings about all this. I want to see it and hear about it. I am eager to marvel at the amazing photos. But also, I can’t help but wonder …. is seeing the eclipse going to make any lasting difference in my life?
Basically, we are getting excited about not being able to see the light of the sun for as long as 4 minutes in the middle of the afternoon. We WILL get to see something that isn’t usually visible—and that’s the “sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, which is usually obscured by the bright face of the sun.” [6]
But all the hype being generated is big business for tourism. Airlines are offering specialized experiences for eclipse travel. Hotels in the path of the total eclipse are raising their rates as about 12 million Americans plan on traveling to get a better view of the eclipse. [7]
It just shows the hunger that is inside of us to see something awe-inspiring and the lengths that people are willing to go—not to mention the money some are willing to pay—to see and experience a natural wonder for ourselves, and with it, be, somehow, forever changed.
We step into the room with Christ’s disciples today in the 20th chapter of John, hiding behind locked doors for fear of the religious authorities. The group, at this point, includes many more than the original 11 men (12 minus Judas Iscariot.) All the women who have followed and served Jesus and provided for him during his ministry are there, including Mary Magdalene, who was the first to meet the risen Savior that morning in the garden of the empty tomb. She runs to the other disciples saying, “I have seen the Lord!”
The fact that they are still hiding in fear reveals that they have dismissed her astounding news. All of them have failed to believe what they didn’t see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears, let alone touch with their hands.
This is an illustration of what the church looks like without the risen Christ. “It is locked off from the world, crouching in fear.” [8] And yet, there is no place our Lord would rather be than with his followers, gathered in his name, as he promises all of us. Into this room filled with terror, sadness, and disbelief, the risen Christ, who knows us better than we know ourselves, appears to bring hope and strength for his followers to carry on.
How do they recognize him? He is known by his scars, scars that could have been fully healed by God the Father in his raising but were left so that his followers could identify him. He still bears the marks on his hands from the nails and a wound in his side where a spear pierced him. They rejoice when they see him.
“John reminds us that the risen Christ is not stopped by the church’s locked doors…The risen Christ invades the church, pushing through the locked doors and bringing peace, his own presence, forgiveness, the Spirit, and life abundant.” [9]
The first person with whom they share the message of the risen Christ is Thomas, or Didymus, Greek for “Twin.” I find myself wondering where Didymus has been, when the rest of the disciples were locked in the room. Maybe he is the most courageous of the group. Maybe he left to find food for the others and to find out what is happening in the world. Maybe he just chose to be alone with his grief. But then, he comes back to the others, and they say, “We have seen the Lord.” Why would he believe them? After all, they didn’t believe Mary.
This is what Thomas needs to believe: he needs to see and touch the scars.
Jesus hears his request, and, a week later, he appears to Thomas and says, “Touch and see. Do not doubt but believe.”
This word translated “doubt” is not the best word for apistos (without faith or no faith). Doubt has more modern connotations of questions that arise amidst a faith journey. This is the beginning of Thomas’s faith or trust, which is the same word, and his calling as an apostle—one who is sent out to carry the message. He will go from having no faith to having all the faith that he needs for his calling– apistos alla pistos.
Thomas is rewarded by his honesty with the revelation that Christ is, indeed, fully divine. He is the only one to fall down and worship him, saying, “My Lord and my God!”
This isn’t the end of the lesson for Thomas or for us and Christ’s followers who will come after us—because there will be many more whose lives we will touch with our resilient faith.
Jesus offers a greater blessing for those who didn’t see him when he was risen or know him as a human being—and yet we still believe, we still trust in him. This chapter closes with John saying that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, 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.”
So I ask you now. Thomas needed to touch and see the Savior’s scars in order to believe and through believing, have life in his name. What do you need to believe and through believing, have life in his name? What do YOU need to go from apistos alla pistos—from no faith to faith?
Today, we had the joy of baptizing baby Elizabeth. Today is the beginning of her faith journey. The Spirit has claimed her and has given her gifts to use for God’s glory. Today, is the first day of our work to help her come to understand her gifts and grow to spiritual maturity, as well as support her family as they seek to raise Lizzie in the nurture of the Lord.
Dear friends, how will you do it? How will you encourage Lizzie and her parents to be faithful to their calling? How will you be a witness to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, joyfully dwelling within you and flowing out to bless all humankind?
May we never be like the first church without the Risen Christ, cowering in fear and despair behind locked doors. May we, like Thomas, come to realize that meeting the Risen Savior is more than just an awe-inspiring sight, but rather an invitation to enter in to a deep and abiding relationship with him.
May we, like Thomas and the other disciples, be forever changed.
Christ is sending us out, this very moment, with the message of hope that never grows old, spoken on the eve of the empty tomb, “We have seen the Lord!”
Let us pray.
Holy One, thank you for sending your own Son, your Only Son, to suffer and give his life to save us from our sins. Thank you for your love and for knowing us better than we know ourselves—even knowing just what it is that we need in order to believe and through believing, have life in his name. Thank you for the invitation, right now, to all of us from our Risen Savior to enter into a deep and abiding relationship with him. Help us, Lord, to be faithful, to witness to the joy-filled, abundant life for all who seek to draw nearer to Christ and become more like him. Stir us to share the message of hope that never grows old, spoken on the eve of the empty tomb, “We have seen the Lord!” Amen.
[1] https://pix11.com/news/local-news/long-island/long-island-teacher-was-teaching-lesson-on-earthquakes-when-4-8-magnitude-quake-struck/
[2] https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/weather/2024/03/28/ny1-weather-blog
[3] https://dailyjournal.net/2024/04/05/faq-total-solar-eclipse-reminders-tips/#:~:text=An%20estimated%2031.6%20million%20people,than%20it%20did%20in%202017.
[4] https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/future-eclipses/eclipse-2024/
[5] https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/solar-eclipse-2024-everything-know-glasses-time-totality-explained-rcna146382
[6] https://dailyjournal.net/2024/04/05/faq-total-solar-eclipse-reminders-tips/#:~:text=An%20estimated%2031.6%20million%20people,than%20it%20did%20in%202017.
[7] https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/eclipse-tourism-expected-bring-big-bucks-areas-path-totality
[8] Thomas Long, “Second Sunday of Easter” in Connections, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020), 216.
[9] Thomas Long, 217.
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