This One Time, Jenn Watched an Episode of "The Big Bang Theory"

The Multiverse, Quarks, and All the Nesting Dolls Between

Ephesians 1:1-14

 The scholarly world isn’t in agreement about who wrote this letter to the Ephesians. It could have been Paul, but there are reasons to doubt that. And the scholarly world isn’t in agreement about to whom this letter was written. It could have been the Ephesians, but early manuscripts leave out any particular community name, suggesting the possibility that this was a form letter to be sent to all of the Christian churches in the Roman Empire. In other words, this letter could have been written by one very specific person to one very specific congregation. Or, this letter could have been written by anyone, for…everyone. That feels like, to me, the very heart of this whole passage. God’s grace is completely individual and intimate and particular. And God’s grace is completely universal and ubiquitous and comprehensive.

What is the biggest, farthest, most expansive thing you can think of? What’s the tiniest? All of reality is a series of nesting dolls, one inside the other, one encompassing the other. From the biggest that holds all the dolls within, even the smallest, to the tiniest doll, which occupies every doll, even to the biggest. You know, those Russian nesting dolls, the ones you can pop open and, surprise, there’s another inside it. And then you open that one, and there’s another, smaller, inside of it. And then you open that one, and the next, and on and on until you find the tiniest doll hidden amidst them all. The biggest doll holds them all. The tiniest is held within them all. The biggest doll encompasses them all. The tiniest doll is the very heart of them all. 

Scientists, at least so far, would venture to say that the biggest thing that we can conceive of is the multiverse, although its existence is yet to be proven. But, at least in theory, the multiverse holds all the universes, which hold all the galaxies, which hold all the solar systems, which hold all the planets and stars which hold all the building blocks of matter.

And scientists, at least so far, claim that the tiniest thing that exists is the quark. They call these quarks “elementary particles” - “the have no apparent structure and cannot be resolved into something smaller.” So far, quarks are indivisible. Leptons, too. But let’s stick with quarks for now. The quark makes up protons and neutrons, which are parts of atoms, which make up molecules, which can form into DNA and RNA, which occupy a fibrillar center, found inside a nucleolus, tucked in a nucleus, surrounded by a Golgi complex, endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, which are all surrounded by a cell membrane, which make up a cell, the very building block of all of life. Nesting “dolls”. 

From the hypothetical multiverse, to the elementary particles “the quarks,” and everything in between, all of our reality is experienced in this nesting doll, one inside the other inside the other inside the other, until we can’t hold anymore, and until we can’t get any smaller. In the nesting doll version of reality, everything belongs, everything is a part of something bigger, and everything is connected. You open one doll and surprise! There’s another. You look for another doll bigger than your own and surprise, there’s another. And infused through it all, the dolls holding all of these realities within realities together, is God’s grace. God’s grace is the doll that holds it all together. And God’s grace is the doll that is the elementary particle that makes all the rest possible in the first place. And God’s grace is all the dolls in between. 

God’s grace. Completely individual and intimate and particular. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. 

God’s grace. Completely universal and ubiquitous and comprehensive. Anyone’s letter to everybody. 

God’s grace. The building block of all of reality.

God’s grace. The ultimate reality that holds every other.

God’s grace. The creator of the universe.

God’s grace. Present in fullness in one particular person, in one particular space and time - Jesus Christ. 

God’s grace. In and through and among everything.

God’s grace. That which you do to the very least person, you do to me.

God’s grace. Present before the foundation of the world or atoms or reality itself.

God’s grace. Made known to us through the intimate, particular, actual presence of juice and bread transformed into the intimate, particular, actual presence of Jesus Christ. 

God’s grace. The quarks themselves.

God’s grace. The space between those quarks.

God’s grace. All the good we do in this world.

God’s grace. The redemption of all the bad.

God’s grace. We are God’s beloved creation.

God’s grace. We are God’s adopted children.

This letter to the Ephesians, this letter to all, is “an affirmation that God…is gracious beyond the wildest reaches of [our] imaginations.” The wildest reaches of our imaginations. The biggest big. The smallest small. 

This is amazing. And we should take a moment and just breathe it in. Breathe in God’s grace. Breathe out God’s love. 

But this is also unfathomable. This is beyond comprehension. I mean, can we really, truly understand or have any kind of notion of the multiverse? Of what it might be?  Can we really, truly understand or have any notion of a quark? Of what it might be? Even the mind of Einstein could not comprehend such things. 

So God gave us dolls of all sorts of shapes and sizes to help us. Dolls of every size. Dolls that hold bodies, families, communities. Dolls that hold insects and birds and forests and oceans. Dolls that hold just one breath, in a pair of lungs, in the atmosphere that protects us all. Dolls that connect to other dolls. Dolls inside of other dolls. Dolls that hold more and more dolls. 

If the multiverse is too big, and the quark is too small, then what, dear Goldilocksrs, is just the right size for you? Is it the way your hand fits around your favorite mug? Is it the toothless smile of your grandchild? Is it the feel of the soil under your nails, or the feel of the brush as it scrubs it away? Is it this place? Is it the fact that the place isn’t what it is called to be without you? All of these are containers of God’s grace. And they are God’s grace. Our only task, our one and only task in this world, is to see it, to recognize it, to name it, to protect it. 

These containers are our sign and seal of God’s grace for us. And we each have one - at the very least. This is our task as “little Christs” - To find our containers, the ones made precisely for us, to name them, to protect them and care for them, and then, to see, finally, how they are all connected to everything else. 

And when we find ours, that’s when the work begins. 

Because when we find our “doll” - our container of God’s grace - we want to know it, to really know it, to see how it works, what it’s made of, how it’s connected to everything else. And I promise you, if you start with your doll, and you look to find other dolls within it, and you seek to find the dolls that are holding it, you will, eventually, find yourself connected to the multiverse itself. You’ll find yourself, eventually, connected to the tiniest of quarks, and the spaces between the quarks. You’ll find yourself surrounded by and consisting of God’s grace. All around. In and through and above and beyond. 

And this is when we come back down to earth, back down to our country, our town, our church, the pews we are sitting in and the bodies we inhabit. Because sometimes we won’t believe it. Sometimes, we won’t see it. We won’t find the grace in ourselves. We won’t see the grace in each other. Some of the containers in this world have been so beat up and tarnished and abused that they won’t look like they hold much of anything worthwhile, let alone grace. But Jesus came to tell is that it is there. And we are called to find it, to call it out, to bring this grace into the light, to share it with others. Even when it feels as far away as a Biden and a Trump supporter. Even when it feels as far away as a Ukrainian from a Russian Soldier. Even when it feels as distant as a Palestinian and an Israeli. We must, we have to, we are called to see the dolls in each of us, in each other, no matter how broken or tarnished we may seem to be.

I don’t know exactly how to do it, but I think it starts with something I can hold, or feel, or hear, or understand. It starts with that unique seal that God has given you, and it works itself out from there. And it works itself in from there.

May we find our dolls. May we discover what is inside them. May we realize what is holding them. May we share them with the world, and the quarks, and the multiverse, and everything in between.

Thanks be to God. 

Treespinning

Acts 10:44-48 (but really, just read the whole chapter...)

It was just a retention pond. But we called it “the swamp.” My little brother would go over there and catch crayfish and turtles and frogs and bring them home in buckets to show our mom. One hot summer day, long before my brother’s catch and keep system, my sister, some neighborhood kids, and I rode our bikes the few city blocks to the end of the dead end street. We dumped our bikes on their sides, and raced forward toward the swampy wild. We were on an adventure.

I don’t remember the exact narrative that we had constructed. Were we knights in shining armor, coming to rescue the princess? Were we pioneers, discovering an untouched wilderness? Maybe we were wild horses, galloping along the sandy beach. I do remember, though, that I had just started to learn to read with some element of independence. I’d been learning letters and sounding out words for awhile, but now I was recognizing words more quickly, deciphering the more challenging ones a little more readily.

Well, we were traipsing through the boggy shoreline, mud seeping through our canvas Keds, when I came upon a strange sign. It was orange and black and nailed to a tree. I said, “Wait, guys, stop. Doesn’t that say, ‘No Trespassing’?” And my sister’s friend, being older and wiser, cocked her head to the side, laughed, and without skipping a beat said, “No silly. It says ‘No Treespinning.’ Duh. Come on. Let’s keep going.”

“Treespinning?” I wondered. What the heck was treespinning?

I guessed that if I didn’t know what it was, then I couldn’t exactly be arrested for doing it, right? But as we were vanquishing the evil queen or hunting down buffalo or feeling the salt spray against our shaggy manes, I looked up to my right, and at the top of the hill of a perfectly manicured, weedless and pristine lawn, was a tall, skinny old man. He was looking down at us, hands on his hips, ready, I’m sure, to shout “Git offa my lawn!” And then, in my little kid mind, he would call the police, and there the cops would be waiting for us when we returned to our bikes, handcuffs ready to take us to jail on four counts of criminal treespinning.

Although there were no cops, no sirens blaring, waiting to take us to the slammer that humid day, the memory of that tall old man, hands on his hips, glowering at us, was enough to keep me from ever going back to that magical place we called “the swamp” ever again.

To get to our passage today, we need a little background.

Cornelius is a walking, talking contradiction. He is an anomaly. An oxymoron. A Roman Centurion who owns slaves, owns property, and has power, and also gives alms to the poor, and prays constantly. He and his whole household. He is a “devout Gentile” who is the most Jewish non-Jew in all the land. He is constantly going where he’s not “supposed” to. And one day, as he is praying, he gets a vision. “Go, send a few of your men to Joppa. Find a man named Peter, whose real name is Simon, staying at some other Simon guy’s house.” (And try not to get the Simons confused – I can only imagine that there were a couple of Marys there, too.) So Cornelius does what he’s told. He sends his Gentile servants across boundary lines to the city of Joppa, to find a Jew, whom they will then bring back to Caesarea, a land full of Gentiles. Cornelius sends his men trespassing in search of Peter – to go where they are not allowed, where they are not welcome.

“Cornelius,” God says, “Send your servants to the dead end road, cut through the neighbor’s side yard, go to the swamp, and bring back what you find.” Use your imaginations, discover new things, expand your horizons.

“Cornelius,” the vision seems to say, “It’s time to go treespinning.”

Meanwhile, Peter is on a roof, praying, and he gets this crazy, radical vision of dramatic openness and radical inclusion. I mean, like, the knights who are supposed to save the princesses are riding the wild horses to join the pioneers in making friends with the buffalo -- that kind of crazy.

And as he’s having this vision, Cornelius’s guys show up, and Peter hears from the Spirit that they have been sent to him from God. These Gentiles. To a Jewish man’s house. Sent, not by tax collectors, or soldiers or the emperor himself, but rather instructed to cross dividing and boundaried lines by the Holy Spirit, God’s very self.

This is hard for us to imagine, but this is sitting at the front of the bus, protesting at the diner counter, crossing the battlelines to put a flower in the rifle kind of stuff. This is open borders, open drinking fountains, political aisle crossing stuff. The Gentiles invite the Jews to come with them to Cornelius’s house so that they can hear their story. And the Jews respond by inviting the Gentiles to cross the threshold, to enter their home, to sit, eat, and stay with them.

This is the equivalent of Muslims and Jews worshipping together. This is the same as de-segregating the schools. This is a crossing of boundaries, this is a tearing down of walls, this is God transgressing all the human rules of exclusion and division and segregation.

This is wild, radical, trespassing. Or, perhaps, rather, treespinning. 

And then they go further. Peter joins these Gentiles on a journey to Cornelius’s house. It takes two days. Two days of time together, eating, talking, walking the same road, drinking from the same canteen, sharing their Cornnuts, passing through the same gates into Caesarea. And when Peter gets there, Cornelius, who has been waiting for him, kneels before him, and begins to worship. And Peter essentially says, “Knock it off. I am only mortal, just like you.”

He says, “You know the rules, none of this is allowed! You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.”

Those divisions have dissolved. This is a crazy act of trespassing that they're all committing here. And so, Peter goes on to tell the impossible transgressing, trespassing, treespinning story of God come to earth to teach us that there is no trespassing, there is no division between the holy and the unholy, the clean or the unclean. Through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, all that is gone. There is no trespassing. There’s only treespinning.

Theologian and biblical scholar Willie James Jennings says that this is God’s divine transgression, that “God has pushed [Peter] over the line that separated Jewish bodies from Gentile bodies, holy bodies from unholy ones, and pressed Peter to change his speech acts by never again calling anyone holy or unclean.” Peter is learning to treespin.

And finally, as we get to our reading today, we see the result of this treespinning. Absolute, total, radical inclusion. And the circumcised believers are shocked.  It isn’t even Peter who witnesses to the Gentiles, but the reverse. The Gentiles begin to teach Peter about who God is.

Peter stops talking. And the Gentiles start praising. Things are turned topsy turvy in a radical act of spiritual vertigo. 

And then Peter takes the next step to radical inclusion. He takes a sledgehammer to the walls dividing east from west, north from south, wealthy from poor, Jew from Palestinian, Ukrainian from Russian, migrant from citizen, protesting college student from college administration. Like the Ethiopian eunuch, he asks, what’s to keep these people from being baptized? He says, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

Peter is treespinning.

He asks, rhetorically, who owns baptism? Who gets to say who is in and who is out? Who hangs these No Trespassing signs on God’s trees? Who owns the water? Who owns the faith?

No one. No one can withhold or own or say anything anymore. Only God, the owner of the swamp and the trees and the stories and perfectly manicured lawn, can withhold any of it. And God doesn’t. God says that we – all of us – belong to God. God says that we – all of us – belong here.

God isn’t the old man with his hands on his hips, staring at us with a threatening glare. 

All these lines and divisions are fabrications that we have put up against each other. God, instead, invites us treespinning. Jesus is God’s transgressing, Jesus is God’s trespassing, Jesus is God’s treespinning. And Jesus calls us to follow him into the swamp, to vanquish the evil queen, to explore the uncharted land, to gallop through the waves with the Holy Spirit wind whipping through our manes. 

This is a God who steps into our lives, the One who reaches for us, who crosses the picket lines and climbs the border walls and destroys militarized zones and flies through enemy airspace to get to us.

We like to say that entering in to someone else’s space is trespassing, but for God, when God does it, it’s treespinning. 

We are invited to treespin with God. To go where we “shouldn’t.” To have hard conversations, to invite others into our space, to be invited into their space, to ask uncomfortable questions and feed undeserving people. We are invited to follow where God leads. To see the face of God in the places and the people we think God has no business being. Even in the face of that grumpy old man as we went treespinning that warm summer afternoon. 

Let’s go treespinning. God knows what adventures await.

Thanks be to God.

Stones, Rocks, Nominative Determinism

 

Acts: 4:1-22

A long time ago, back and back and back, it used to be that you got your name from your father, of course, but, more specifically, from the trade in which your father worked, and thus, the trade in which you would also eventually work. Your last name was a reflection of where you were from or what you would do for the rest of your life. You didn’t just “have” a name; you lived it. Thus, all the Bakers, Hunters, Masons, Taylors, Carpenters, Smiths, and Archers that we know of today. Your vocation and purpose in life was tied to your name, and it was passed down to you by your father. You did what your name said. 

These days, of course, we’ve left that behind, at least, for the most part. Just because your last name is Haymaker doesn’t mean you have to spend your life around hay. Just because your last name happens to be Cleaver doesn’t mean you are destined to be a butcher. There’s freedom now. More opportunity. At least for those of us living in the developed world. We get to choose. And thank goodness. Millers don’t have to work at the flour mill. Cooks don’t have to be stuck in the kitchen. Brewers can make something other than beer, if they so choose, (but why would they?) and Farmers can run insurance companies instead of plowing fields, if that is what their hearts desire. 

Except. Except there’s this strange thing happening. Folks are starting to notice that there are strange coincidences between people’s names and how they tend to show up in the world. Joe Smileys tend to be pretty optimistic. People with the name “Dennis” are more likely, statistically speaking, to become dentists. And maybe it’s not such a coincidence that Mrs. Sternson was your fourth grade teacher. Or that David Counsell grew up to be a lawyer. 

There’s this hypothesis roaming around out there that people tend to gravitate toward areas of work and ways of showing up in the world which reflect their names. It may be that people, maybe subconsciously, live their lives in a way that reflects their names. They call this “nominative determination.” Their names, maybe, just might determine who they will become.  Rather than just being told that because your father is a Baker, so you, too, will be a baker, there are actually an awful lot of Bakers who are choosing to become…bakers. A classic example is Usain Bolt. Now that’s a perfect name for the fastest man on earth if ever I’ve heard one. Did he, somehow, subconsciously, live in to his name? Was he influenced by his name to work hard and thus bolt out of the starting blocks to become the world’s fastest sprinter? Maybe? Or what about William Wordsworth, who would, indeed, write many words of great worth? Or my favorite is a musician that Dan and I love named Andrew Bird. He’s a brilliant violinist, a talented singer-songwriter, and, fascinatingly, and expert whistler. He really does sound like a bird. Other examples are Daniel Snowman, a leading researcher of the Arctic and Antarctic poles. Sue Yoo is an actual, real life lawyer. One of my colleagues in ministry who is a Lutheran pastor and Spiritual Director has the last name of “Devine.” In fact, researchers even found that if your name started with the letter A or B, you were more likely to get better grades in school than those with other names. It’s almost as if your name determines who you become. It’s almost as if, even though the cultural tradition of living the life your father lived has long ago died off, it still, to a curious frequency, has some influence on who we become. Nominative Determinism - your name, however subconsciously, just might determine how you live, what you choose, how you act, what you do. 

This could absolutely just be coincidence. A load of hogwash. Something for Redditors to argue over at 3 am in internet chatrooms. But then, I was reminded that “Frayer” is a form of “friar” - a devout religious leader who works among the people…

Perhaps what we’re named has some influence on who we become. Maybe we really do, to some extent, consciously or subconsciously live in to what we’re named. Seems safe to say that Jesus thought so. Jesus gives Simon the name “Peter” which means rock. Jesus calls Peter “rock.”  When Jesus called Peter “The Rock,” it wasn’t because he was such a solid stand up guy at the time. It wasn’t because Jesus was picking the most stable person upon which to build his church. But, as we read through the Acts of the Apostles, Peter does, eventually, become “Peter” - The Rock.

And in our reading today, names become vitally important. One’s name and one’s power went hand in hand. A bunch of uneducated peasant nobodies are performing miraculous healings, and Mr. Judge and Reverend Powerful and Doctor Moneybags demand to know under whose name, under what power, they’ve been doing these things. Who gave you the power to do this? Under what name does your power come from? 

And Peter could have responded, “well, I did it. The power came from me.” But he doesn’t. He says it’s Jesus; the power is in Jesus’s name. But he says it in a strange sort of way, a way that not only refers back to scripture, but also, however tangentially, refers back to the name given to Peter by Jesus, the name that he would one day, live in to. And I don’t know what to do with this, or if it means anything at all, but Peter says it’s the stone that the builders rejected - Jesus - that has given him this power. It’s all about Jesus here, absolutely, 100%, but strangely, there is a connection to Peter as well. If Jesus is the stone, and Peter is the rock, then is there all that much difference between the two? I mean, how much difference is there between a stone and a rock? Could Peter be saying something to the effect of, “Well, it was me, but it was absolutely not me.” It’s in the name of Jesus that I have found in myself, that I have somehow determined myself to be, that any of these good things are done.

Was Peter yet another example of Nominative Determinism? Did Peter become who Jesus named him to be?

It’s very possible that I’m seeing connections where there are none. But it’s also possible that Peter, in this passage, is becoming who Jesus named him to be - the rock who heals by the power of the stone that the builders rejected. Jesus tells Peter that upon him - upon this rock, Jesus will build his church. And Peter tells these religious elites that the stone that they have rejected - Jesus - is the chief cornerstone. Peter is called by Jesus to be a cornerstone. And Peter tells these religious leaders that Jesus is the cornerstone. Jesus gave him a new name, a new name to live in to, and well, that name also so happens to be Jesus’s, too. And maybe, just maybe, it’s our nominally determined name as well. What is the difference between a rock and a stone? Not much. So what is the difference between Jesus and Peter? Well, everything, but also, if the power of Jesus is working through Peter, if Peter is living in to the name that Jesus gave him, then, well, not much. The two merge. Jesus is present in and among Peter. Present in and among us.

I think that when we are being our truest, realest, holiest selves, Jesus is present in and among us. Stones and rocks become so similar, that in many practical ways, they’re the same thing. And that’s just a crazy, wild thing to think about.

Peter tells these religious elite that Jesus is the name that determines his actions. And Jesus is the name that will determine his actions from now on. Nominative Determinism. This name, the name of Jesus, will determine who we become. There’s no other name than the one we’ve been given that will determine what will save us. Only the name that Jesus gives. And Jesus gives his very name, his very self. 

Jesus, Yeshua, literally means, “God saves.” And Jesus, Yeshua, is one of the most common names used in the region at the time. Just a common name. And the one name under heaven whereby we must be saved.

C.S. Lewis said that we are to become “little Christs.” 

Saint Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no body but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks with compassion on the world.”

Are we little Christs? Are we the hands and feet of Christ? Do we all carry the very common name of Jesus inside us all?

Has God determined us to be the way through which God saves the world? 

Have we been nominally determined to be rocks and stones and Christs to this world? 

The religious elites see that these guys are just plain, ordinary men. But they couldn’t deny that this “aged” forty year old man had been healed. What would happen if this power from God were to spread to all of the plain, ordinary people throughout the land? What would happen if you, too, were given the name of Jesus under which to perform amazing, God-saving deeds? Sounds like the kingdom of God might come.

Peter and the gang are warned, while still prisoners, to stop using this name. They’re told to cut it out. It’s too wild. Too powerful. The world would be turned upside down if they kept living in to this nominative determinism. They command them to stop preaching and teaching in the name of Jesus. And Peter and John respond, “we can’t help but speak about what we have seen and heard.” Jesus is in us now. In us and through us and among us. Our identities are in Jesus now. There is no other way through which to look at the world. I am the rock. Jesus is the stone. There is no longer any difference.

Are we living our lives in such a way that the Powers that Be must ask us, “Under whose name do you do these deeds?” Are we living our lives in such a way as to respond, “Jesus of Nazareth. And he has given his name to us all”? Are we, too, rocks and stones? I guess that’s for us to choose.

Will we accept the nominative determinism that is ours? Maybe it's influencing us and we don't even realize it.

It’s our namesake. It’s our future. It’s our right now. As inheritors of the name of Christ, as Christians, may it determine who we are, and who we become. Let us live in to the name that has been given to us, the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thanks be to God. 

Toxic Positivity or Tragic Optimism? Doubting Thomas and My Favorite Lectionary Passage

John 20:19-31

  It might be true that “everything happens for a reason.” It might even be true that I need to just “look on the bright side,” “think positive,” and that “it could always be worse.” But when I’m struggling, like really struggling, these are the last words I want to hear. When something has gone wrong, when I’m experiencing anxiety, or having intrusive thoughts, if somebody comes up to me and says, “Well, it could be worse,” I just want to punch them in the nose. I don’t of course. I say, “thank you.” I say, “you’re so right.” And then I remember not to call that person the next time I’m going through something. 

They call this type of language “toxic positivity,” and most of the time, when it’s used, people mean well. This language usually comes out of the best of intentions. Maybe folks don’t know what to say to someone when they’re grieving, so they just say the first so-called “upbeat” thing that comes to their minds. Maybe folks even really, truly believe that we should do as they say, we should just “think happy thoughts,” or that we’re “too blessed to be stressed,” or that we should be grateful to know another angel in heaven, and so they share their wisdom with us. And hey, if these words are comforting to you, by all means, hold on to them. 

But for many of us, in the midst of the break-up or the death, the foreclosure or the lost job, these words only remind us of what we’ve lost, of how we’ve failed, of how others have let us down. Worse than, you know, bopping someone on the nose, when we take in this toxic positivity, we bypass our real feelings, we stuff them down or away, and then our grief or anger or sadness comes bubbling up days or even years later, stronger, and able to do much more damage on our psyches, our relationships, and our lives. 

Even when we say things like “God is in control,” or that I just need to “rise above,” it can be a form of spiritual bypassing. We’re trying to avoid the hurt rather than deal with it, because we are desperate to end the pain we’re experiencing as quickly as possible. And again, it very well may be true that God really does have a plan, and that God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good, but when I’m really in the thick of it, when I’ve really been put through the wringer, at best, it simply goes in one ear and out the other, and at worst, somebody ends up with a bloody nose.

I wonder if that’s what Thomas thought, after he knocked the secret knock, shook the secret handshake, and the disciples let him in to the dark house. Thomas’s arms are full of the necessities that only he was brave enough to go out and fetch - the toilet paper, the canned Vienna sausages, the bread and milk - and he’s about to complain to the rest of the disciples for being their errand boy and how they’re all a bunch of cowards, when they take all these things out of his hands, set him down at the table, and say, “We have seen the Lord!” Yeah. Right. Sure. You’ve “seen him in your hearts.” You’re “feeling a little better now.” We can “keep our chins up.” “Everything happens for a reason.” 

I wonder if Thomas receives this good news as simply another well-meaning attempt to make him feel better after the devastating events of the last week. Does Thomas hear these words and want to punch them all in the nose? Is this just another case of toxic positivity?  

His refusal to believe them is so adamant that he finally has to tell them what it would take for him to believe — to see the wounds, to see the hands and the feet where the nails went in, to see the evidence of the trauma that Jesus went through, that they all went through. 

Thomas needs to be believed, to be reminded that what he went through this past week was real, that all this horrible stuff really truly did happen. He refuses to give in to the gaslighting that it seems like these disciples are trying to do to him. “We have seen the Lord!” - as if the betrayal, the denials, the flogging and the crucifixion didn’t even happen. As if everything could go back to the way it was before. As if they could all just pick up where they left off as if nothing ever happened. All better now! Jesus is back! I don’t know why we were so upset in the first place! We’re too blessed to be stressed! God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle! 

No. Thomas can’t take that kind of whitewashing over the events of these past few days. He is forever changed by the heartbreak he’s experienced, and no amount of idealism or positivity is going to get him to deny the reality of what has happened. “No. Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my hand in his side, I will not believe.” No. I’ve got to see evidence that something impossibly awful happened, before I can believe that something impossibly amazing has occurred. Without the cross, there is no resurrection. Resurrection without the cross is meaningless.

Victor Frankl says that the antidote to this kind of toxic positivity is what he calls “tragic optimism.” Frankl was a Holocaust survivor and a renowned psychologist, so he has both scholarly expertise and what the kids call “street cred.” Tragic optimism isn’t the whitewashing of events, or the ignoring of the trauma, or taking a short cut around the hard feelings; rather it is a “search for meaning in the midst of the inevitable tragedies of our lives.” 

The search for meaning in the midst of the inevitable tragedies of our lives. 

Now, listen carefully to what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” but rather, “when life gives you these hard, impossible, tragical experiences, it’s not the experience itself that is of value, no not at all, but there can be growth in the aftermath of the event, if we take the time to fully process what has happened. If we take the time to go through the pain, the hard thing, and not try to find a short cut around it, we will come out the other side new, changed, and, dare I say resurrected, people. So it’s not that we’re grateful for the tragic event. No. Not at all. But as we try to sort through the rubble of our lives afterward, we can find that something new is being built, something different is being reborn, something is coming from the ashes. 

In order for us to find the meaning in the resurrection, we have to find the meaning in the cross. In order to find meaning in the cross, we have to go to the cross. We have to stick our fingers in it. We have to feel the gash in his side. And then we have to sit in how utterly horrible it was. We have to mourn. We have to get angry. We have to feel all the feelings. The only way out is through. 

And, I think Thomas gets this. Unless he finds meaning in the cross, he will not believe the resurrection. And I don’t mean a utilitarian kind of meaning, a kind of meaning that says, “Well, you gotta crack a few eggs if you want to make an omelet,” but a kind of growth, a strength, a new perspective, a better understanding, that only comes from walking through the fire and coming out the other side. 

Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t expect any of them to “just have faith” to just “let go and let God.” The disciples just don’t happen to mention it to Thomas, at least not in our text. But the disciples really did get the full truth of it. Jesus didn’t come to them all bright and new and full of toxic positivity. He didn’t jump through the window with bunny ears and a tale and say, “Surprise! April Fools!” He showed them his hands. He showed them his side. He showed them both the tragedy and the meaning of the tragedy. And then they believed. They didn’t believe because of some kind of toxic optimism, some pipe dream, or crazy delusion. They believed because what they saw was honest and real and hard. Jesus gave them tragic optimism.

And he gives Thomas the same. Look and my wounds. Touch the hurt. Get close to the pain. Be real about it. This is the only way you’ll be changed. The only way you’ll be transformed. The only way that you’ll be resurrected. If you find some kind of truthful, honest, real meaning in the scars. 

I am here with you. Right here. Right now. Right in the midst of what you’re feeling. 

When we are present with one who is suffering, we are in the presence of the holy.

Platitudes and quick solutions are not going to fix this. Only Christ’s presence.

I used to think that this was a horrible berating of Thomas at the end of the story, when Jesus says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” As if Thomas is this anti-hero or antagonist to show us why we all should do better, believe harder, and trust more than he did. “Don’t be a doubting Thomas!” folks say whenever there’s struggle or a so called “lack” of faith. I see it differently now. 

I think we need to remember the first words that Jesus says to the disciples - “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” As the Father has sent me to show you my scars and that yet I still live, so does God send you to show your scars, and that you, too, still live. 

Blessed are those see Christ’s crucifixion everywhere there is suffering and still refuse to believe that that is the end of it. Blessed are those who carry their scars, who witness the scars of others, and stubbornly wait for a resurrection. Blessed are those who are not content with toxic positivity, but who hold out a little longer to get to the tragic optimism. There is no resurrection without the cross.

Thanks be to God.