Kindling Our Faith

There are particular skills in this world that I just do not possess: I am not a good speller, I struggle with geographical awareness, and I can rarely put a USB port in the right way on the first try. But one of these skills that evades me that never ceases to baffle me is just how terrible I am at getting a match to light. It seems like such a simple process of strike and light, but even though I fully understand how it should work and I believe that others can strike a match with ease, I know that it’s just one of those things that evades me. And this week, as I read and prayed and talked with our college students through the gospel text for today, I began to wonder if maybe I might have something in common with Thomas.

According to John’s account, most of the disciples are a week out from the resurrection just like we are today, and the resurrected Christ appears to them, breathes the Spirit upon them, and sends them out to do God’s work in the world. When Thomas shows up, the disciples exclaim with the same words that Mary breathlessly said last week at the empty tomb, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas, who missed out on seeing the resurrected Christ, can’t believe it, at least not till he sees Christ with his eyes and touches Christ’s wounds with his hands. He understands how Christ can make an appearance, but he struggles to believe in this same way his fellow disciples do; it’s like he’s struggling to light the match even though they are telling him that they have seen it lit and exactly how to light it himself.

Another week passes, and Christ comes again and immediately knows what Thomas needs in order to believe like the other disciples. Christ invites Thomas not only to see but to touch his scarred hands and sides. Christ tenderly welcomes Thomas as a full and whole believer, as one who doubts, who needs to experience to believe, as one who needs not just to hear the stories of the resurrection, but to let the hope of the resurrection stare down his grief and fear. And when he reaches out his hand, Thomas’s faith is affirmed; it is a beautiful moment of Christ standing in the space between what the world might expect from us and what we need.

Thomas’ derogatory nickname “Doubting Thomas” is used without even referring to Jesus’ disciple. But even those this phrase has become so ubiquitous, Christ is not interested in centering Thomas’ doubt, rather, he is interested and invested in standing with him on that spectrum of faith and doubt. Christ knows that Thomas is a disciple of deep, deep faith, and he is also a person who wrestles and questions as well. The thing I love about this passage that we always hear on the Sunday after Easter is that Christ shows up for the disciples and Thomas, and even Mary last week, in the way that they needed him to. Christ shows up in all these different ways because God cares not just about whether or not we believe, but what we might need to have a vibrant and flourishing faith.

Maybe you’ve heard Thomas’ story told as an object lesson from Christ about how we ought to believe without any needs or extra requests, but I don’t think this is a faithful reading of how Jesus shows up for either the disciples or for Thomas in this passage from John’s gospel. And more importantly, I think it misses the mark on what faith is or can be. Faith is complex and beautiful, and it is not served by becoming streamlined; I do not think that God desires any sort of cookie-cutter faith, nor do I think that God has disdain for doubt. And to center our understanding on today’s texts on Thomas’ doubt or faith misses what stands out to me as the most important part of this story: that Christ shows up for his disciples, even though we all need different things. And at this hinge point in the liturgical year, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we focused our energy of these seven weeks of Easter into cultivating who God has created us to be.

What if we spent dedicated time and prayer cultivating the gifts that God has instilled in us during Eastertide? What if we held with an open hand the version of ourselves that we longed for and nourished who we are in this current moment? What if we allowed Christ to show up for us in the ways we needed rather than rushing to get discipleship right? Now, as someone who is competitive to a fault, and who wants to “win” at everything, including Christianity, this feels wrong, but I think it could lead us to a great place over these Great Fifty Days of Easter.

Of course, we know how the stories of Holy Week and Easter end, but when it comes to the story we hear today? “Receive the Holy Spirit,” Christ said to the disciples; this is how it all begins. It’s the spark – it’s the match that Thomas struggles to light, and yet it is the spark that the disciples will carry over these next several weeks of Eastertide until Pentecost. And on that festival day, we will hear how this small, doubt-and-faith filled story sparks something that grows into a wild and holy fire at Pentecost as the church is born. This Eastertide, we have a gift, we have a gift of an opportunity to nourish our faith, no matter how we carry it. We have the opportunity to kindle this Holy Spirit spark right alongside the disciples. And we have the opportunity pay attention to how and when Christ shows up for us, because Christ showed up for Thomas and Christ will show up for us. Amen.