Second Sunday of Easter, Year A

Then he said to Thomas…, “Do not doubt but believe.”
~John 24:27b

Why do you doubt?
 
Check that. There is no word for doubt in this story of Thomas and the other disciples. The word is faith (pistis), actually no faith (apistis) in Jesus’ charge.
 
Better: why do you not believe?
 
It is an important question in many forms and certainly why Thomas shows up every year on the second Sunday of Eastertide.
 
Say it this way: Don’t friends believe their friends? Don’t we believe the story of those we know and trust, even when it may be distant from our own experiences? Shouldn’t we?
 
But there is tension to be held here. Shouldn’t we also be honest, vulnerable, and courageous with where we are in our own stories? Doubt, after all, is not the opposite of faith(apistis). Certainty is a closer counterpart. Here’s a cognate: Bonhoeffer said, “There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture, and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security.”
 
Daring and courage, the strength that comes from being a part of something larger than yourself. Here is blessing that endures, new life in this Eastertide. Or as Jesus says it in John, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Acts 2:14a, 22-32 † Psalm 16 † 1 Peter 1:3-9 † John 20:19-31
 
About the Art:: LeCompte, Rowan and Irene LeCompte. Christ shows himself to Thomas, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54879 [retrieved April 9, 2023]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maryannsolari/5119341372/.

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