Meditation on John 20:19-31
Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford
First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown
April 12, 2026 (Second Sunday of Easter)
Have you been following Artemis II? NASA’s first crewed lunar mission in more than 50 years returned safely to Earth on Friday after completing its historic trip around the moon.
The four-member crew successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 8:07 p.m. Eastern Time. The four astronauts flew within roughly 4,000 miles of the lunar surface and became the first humans to travel to the moon and return to Earth since the Apollo 17 mission of December 1972. They also set a record during Monday’s seven-hour lunar flyby for the farthest distance from Earth traveled by humans — 252,756 miles, surpassing Apollo 13’s mark of 248,655 miles in 1970. The 10-day mission, launched on April 1, was the first in the new deep space capsule Orion. Although Orion offers about 60 percent more space than the Apollo command module, it’s still only roughly the size of two minivans. The mission didn’t include a lunar landing, but it tested space hardware and life support systems that will be crucial to NASA’s plans for the next lunar landing in 2028 and its future quest to build a moon base by the end of the decade.
When I heard about Artemis II, I wanted to know more about the astronauts. You see, I remember when astronauts visited our elementary school in the 1970s and how we were in awe of them. I am still in awe of those who have what it takes to handle the many stressors of space travel.
All the astronauts have numerous advanced degrees. Victor Glover, a Naval aviator and test pilot from California, served as the pilot of Artemis II after serving as the pilot of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station. He is now the first person of color to journey around the moon. Christina Koch set a record for the longest single space flight by a woman with a total of 328 days in space and participated in the first all-female space walks. She was featured on Time’s list of the 100 most influential people of 2020 and is now the first woman to journey around the moon and travel beyond low earth orbit. Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen from Ontario, a fighter pilot and test pilot, is now the first Canadian to ever venture to the moon. He worked at Mission Control Center as a capcom- the voice between the ground and the International Space Station and was a crewmember of NEEMO 19, where he lived and worked on the ocean floor in the Aquarius habitat off Key Largo, Florida, for seven days simulating deep-space exploration.
But the story of the commander, Reid Wiseman, is the one that captured my heart. For Reid was willing to reveal his emotional wounds for a global audience and share his story of finding strength in his time of greatest weakness and challenge.
At 50, he is the oldest man to travel beyond low earth orbit and to the moon, beating Alan Shepherd by 3 years. He is a 27-year Navy veteran, a pilot, father, engineer, and Baltimore native. He was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2009 and served as Flight Engineer aboard the International Space Station for a 165-day mission. His list of degrees and professional accolades is long, like the others, but he says the biggest challenge by far in his life was losing his wife to cancer in 2020, and then he had the challenge of caring for their two daughters on his own while they were all grieving. “It is not easy being an only parent, trying to work a full-time job, and raising two kids. It is something that I think about every single day.”
Carroll had dedicated her life to helping others as a pediatric nurse practitioner working in a newborn intensive care unit. Reid stepped back from active flight duty while she was sick. He was ready to give up his dream of becoming an astronaut when she was diagnosed with cancer. But she refused to let him. She was just 46 when she died. And now, Reid says, though he has just made history through the Artemis II mission, “My girls are my whole life.”
How did Thomas the Twin end up being called Doubting Thomas? Most of the stories about this passage in John have focused on Thomas’ lack of faith, when, in fact, I don’t think that is the point. And he may have been the most faithful of them all, declaring the divine nature of Jesus when Christ appears to him and invites him to touch and see his wounds. Thomas falls down to worship him, saying, “My Lord and my God!”
One of the difficulties with this passage is that some people don’t accept that doubt can exist alongside faith. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Fear is the opposite of faith. Fear is what gets in the way of our living faithfully. Consider the desperate father of the demon-possessed boy in Mark 9 who begs Jesus, after his disciples have failed to heal him, “If you are able to do anything, help us! Have compassion on us.” Jesus says to him, “If you are able! All things can be done for the one who believes.”Immediately the father of the child cries out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23-24)
Thomas’ problem is simply that he isn’t there when Jesus appears to the other disciples and invites them to see the wounds on his hands and side. He isn’t there when the group is being commissioned and empowered not with a great rush of mighty wind but when Jesus breathes on this small group of followers and tells them to go and tell the world that they are forgiven.
The story of Thomas’ doubt until seeing and touching the risen Christ is the last sign that John will share before he closes his book with his purpose; he has written all these signs for the generations who follow the first disciples, the ones who never met him in the flesh or seen and touched him when he has risen—people like you and me. John says, “these are written so that you may continueto believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
Let’s move from Thomas’ doubt and look at the emphasis on Christ’s wounds in this passage. Two times, the risen Christ invites his followers to see and/or touch them, and when they do, they rejoice at what God has done. But there is another reason for scars—and not just to prove he is risen from the dead. For God could have chosen to heal Christ’s human body without leaving any scars. The flesh remained scarred for our sake—so that we would see and remember what the prophet said about the power of his wounds to heal us. Isaiah 53:5 says, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises (or stripes) we are healed.”
Our Lord, Jesus Christ, has become a wounded healer for humanity. As his followers, we are invited to enter into his sufferings, be healed by him, and then, by the power of the Spirit, become wounded healers, too. In other words, our wounds can become the source of healing for others.
There’s a wounded healer in an old legend in the Talmud. “In the legend, a Rabbi asks the prophet Elijah when the Messiah will come and how he can recognize him. Elijah says that he will be found at the city gates and describes him this way: “He is sitting among the poor covered with wounds. The others unbind all their wounds at the same time and bind them up again. But he unbinds one at a time and binds it up again, saying to himself, “Perhaps I shall be needed: if so I must always be ready so as not to delay for a moment.”’
Dutch priest, theologian, and scholar Henri Nouwen writes in his book, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society, “Messiah, the story tells us, is sitting among the poor, binding his wounds one at a time, waiting for the moment when he will be needed. So it is too with the minister. Since it is his task to make visible the first vestiges of liberation for others, he must bind his own wounds carefully in anticipation of the moment when he will be needed. He is called to be the wounded healer, the one who must look after his own wounds but at the same time be prepared to heal the wounds of others. We are both wounded ministers and healing ministers.”
“Jesus has given this story a new fullness by making his own broken body the way to health, liberation, and new life. Thus, like Jesus, those who proclaim liberation are called not only to care for their own wounds and the wounds of others but also to make their wounds into a major source of healing power.” (Nouwen, 158).
Although many other words may be used to describe the wounded condition of human beings, Nouwen uses these words: alienation, separation, isolation, and loneliness. (Nouwen, 158). And he says that although many words have been used for the healing tasks of the Christian, words such as care and compassion, understanding and forgiveness, fellowship and community, the word he likes best is “hospitality,” which is “the ability to pay attention to the guest” and not be preoccupied with one’s own needs, worries, and tensions. …When our souls are restless … how can we possibly create the space where someone else can enter freely without feeling like an unlawful intruder?” (Nouwen, 162-163).
I like the word hospitality for the ministry of care and compassion that brings about the healing of wounded humanity, but the word I would use would be storytelling. And if the storytelling comes about when we are showing hospitality, then it is a powerful thing, indeed. Key is the intimate, welcoming environment and time to have these kinds of conversations. And the sharers and the hearers must be able to trust one another enough to be willing to share from the heart.
Thinking about the four people on the Artemis II mission, living for 10 days with the stress of space travel, watched by a global audience in a capsule about the size of 2 minivans, we can imagine that they had time to share not just their professional experiences, but their personal stories. That must have been how Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian astronaut, was stirred to call down to Mission Control in Houston on April 6 to request that a newly discovered lunar crater be named for Reid’s late wife, Carroll. “The crater straddles the boundary between the moon’s near and far sides and can at times be seen from Earth. It’s a bright spot on the moon,” Jeremy said, his voice breaking up, “and we would like to call it Carroll.” The astronauts wiped their eyes and shared a hug. The flight controllers on Earth, with Mr. Wiseman’s family nearby, observed a moment of silence.” (Katrina Miller, New York Times, April 6, 2026).
Let us pray. Holy One, thank you for Thomas coming to the faith in such a dramatic way and for your Risen Son, who commissions us now to go and tell others that they are forgiven. Thank you that Christ revealed himself by inviting his disciples to look at and even touch his scars and for the power of those wounds to heal humanity. Help us, dear Lord, to have more faith than doubt, and be wounded healers, so that many more generations may continueto believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we have life in his name. In the name of the Risen One, Amen.
Sharing God's Love and Grace 