By Pastor Jeff Jacobs
Unity Lutheran Parish –
St. Paul, Saetersdal and
St. Matthew’s, Granger
For churches using the Common Lectionary (the Bible readings chosen for all Sundays and Holy Days in the Christian year) the story of Doubting Thomas, John 20:24-31, is recounted the Sunday after Easter – every year … for decades … maybe for centuries!
Every year we hear again how the disciples saw the risen Jesus, Thomas states, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands … I will not believe,” Jesus appears next time and Thomas declares faith, then Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
I confess the story does seem to contain a little catch. The disciples got to see Jesus, to touch him and talk with him. Thomas, after initial doubts, got to see Jesus. Others in those earliest years, such as Paul, got to see Jesus. Centuries later we Christians “have come to believe” but, as Jesus himself said, we “have not seen.”
Or haven’t we? One major image for the Church is that it is the Body of Christ. As members of the Church, as members of that Body, we are the hands, the feet, the eyes, the ears of Christ in the world. When we see and touch, support and serve one another, we are Christ visible to one another.
And we are Christ visible to the world. If the world is to SEE Jesus today, they will see him first in the Church that is his body, or they won’t see him at all. In this Easter season that celebrates the presence of the living Lord among us, may our neighbors, communities and world see Jesus, hear his voice and touch his hands in our words and deeds, in our compassion and graciousness, in our reconciliation and peacemaking, in our selflessness, service and love.
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