vitalwholeness

This meditation was offered at the Bluegrass service of the Rocheport Christian Church on April 11, 2026.

The Patron Saint of Doubt Timothy Carson   John 20:24-29

If ever there was a story for Missourians, this would be it. But let me come back to that.

Because our culture revolves around holidays and the motto that whoever buys the most candy, eggs, cards, toys, flowers, decorations, and dinners wins, we are accustomed to the idea that everything builds to the big event and once accomplished it’s over and done, at least until the next year. It’s the American engine of commerce at work. That is certainly true of Easter. That holiday expectation is utterly disconnected from the Biblical stories about the continuing presence of Jesus in the world. This is not a once and done story. In fact, the reality of the resurrection is almost the exact opposite of that.

After the trauma of Jesus’ trial, torture, execution and burial his followers were shattered. They scattered. They hid. They collapsed. What happened following that disintegration was a slow – moving dawning of the impossible, namely, that the spirit of Christ lives on in unexpected, yet unmistakable ways. But it didn’t happen all at once for them. In fact, it doesn’t happen all at once for us.

Rather, the knowledge, awareness and consciousness that Christ lives on grew one person and group at a time.

At the beginning it was the women and a few disciples at the tomb. Through her tears, Mary Magdalene thought he was someone else. In Mark, the earliest Gospel we have, the women were so terrified and amazed that they ran away speechless, they didn’t tell a soul.

Once day fishermen were out in their boat and they saw a figure on the shore tending a campfire, cooking bread and fish. “Come have breakfast, children,” he said. Could it be him?

Another day disciples walked with heavy feet and hearts toward a little town called Emmaus. A stranger joined them on the road, and they didn’t know who he was. When he joined them for supper, they invited him to share the blessing, and when he broke the bread their eyes were suddenly opened and they knew him.

Dozens of these stories circulated through the early church, including the one before us today from John’s Gospel. The background doesn’t surprise us: The disciples took cover behind locked doors just like you and I would. Right in the middle of their despair the impossible happened, the one they lost was found. There was no explanation.

Somehow the same peace they knew during his lifetime enfolded them again. You can’t kill good, beauty and truth. All of those live on. Beyond all expectations they do. And he did.

It just so happens that one of the disciples, Thomas, was missing in action. When they tried to share what they experienced with him – and who can really describe a spiritual experience with someone else – he doubted everything about their testimony. And this is where Missouri shows up for us. “Show me!” he demanded. It’s only when I see the evidence for myself and put my hands on his wounded body that I will possibly believe.

We understand that need for proof and certainty too. I don’t want to live by wishful thinking or false hopes. I want the receipts. An ethereal ghost alone won’t do. I want to identify the body. Moving forward with clear eyes is important. We know things with our senses, with our bodies. Moving forward according to what we can see and know is important. What do we think evidence-based research is?

But walking by sight, as important as it is, is not enough. If we dare walk by faith it requires a whole different order of trust, perception, and awareness.

This week we have been following the progress of the Artimis crew as they circumnavigated the moon.

Once again, the moon of our earthly observation, the moon that waxes and wanes through the month and disappears behind cloud cover, the moon of poem, story, and fairytale, drew near.

As the astronauts orbited the moon and sent their photos and videos back to us earthlings, we looked upon the mountains, craters, and stark features of earth’s moon. And looking back toward the blue jewel floating against the immensity of infinite space we were reminded just what an enchanted garden we inhabit.

Here we are, daring to trust the report, the photos, the video feed of eyewitnesses. We dare combine their testimony with our wonder and hopes. It is a mighty confirmation of what we knew in part but came to know more completely.

Would Thomas believe it after viewing the reports on Facebook, the News or his Instagram account? Would that be enough for him? Or would he need to be the fifth crew member and view it himself through the window of the space capsule?

Maybe there is an analogy here that can help us, namely,  that boundary between the near side and far side of the moon. The far hemisphere of the moon always faces away from us, out of our direct observation. Only orbitals and landers have mapped it extensively.

Maybe that was the experience of Thomas. He knew the near side of the moon – his years with Jesus, the teaching, healing, praying, and his suffering. He knew the power of God present in this near side of his experience. That was his frame of reference, what he knew. And the source of his doubt.

But when Thomas returned a week later, his whole perception crossed over to the far side of the moon, that unknown territory, and he had an experience of the Risen Christ for himself. Before that moment he had only the reports of others, which seemed as remote as the far side of the moon. It was something others knew, something he may have hoped for, but not yet seen. Maybe this moment was a surprising confirmation of something he previously knew in part.

In the same way that the far side of the moon is remote and yet we know it’s there, so Thomas knew part of the story of how God was working in Jesus’ life. And then came the moment when he was able to trace each crater for himself.  

These experiences of the resurrection unfold over time and almost always manifest in some place between the spaces, at the border between light and shadow, at the edge of what is known and less known, at the boundary between the possible and seemingly impossible, and especially between faith and doubt.

For those of us who are persuaded that the sacred participates deeply in the ordinary and that the love of God suffers for the beloved creation, the wounds of Christ are also the wounds of the beloved world. Whenever we dare touch those wounds, we come to know our deepest humanity and our deepest divinity.

If, like Thomas, we need to see the wounds for ourselves, they are never far off, for Christ continues to be pierced in the body of the world. It is so often there, in those wounds, that we experience the crucified and risen Christ. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. And so He is known through the wounds of this world still.

We may feel like we have no access to that mystery on the far side of the moon, out of view, ensconced as it is in shadows. We are locked down in rooms of fear or helplessness or powerlessness. We doubt realities we cannot perceive beyond our own senses. But the mystery abiding in the far side of our consciousness, out of sight, exists whether we can see it or not.

What is required in this night of doubt, this need for proof, evidence, and certainty, is a leap of faith into something beyond our understanding and control.

As it was for Thomas, the presence of Christ is disclosed to us in the fullness of time. There behind locked doors, at the edge of light and shadow, Christ is disclosed in his body so that can know more than body. Christ is disclosed in material ways so that we will not be forever limited by the material. Like Thomas, the Risen One tells us to let go of doubt and take a risk, to take a leap of faith.

How else can we orbit the mystery of God except by faith? And then by God’s good grace it may become possible to see what has been hiding there all along.