So here we are, already eight days into the Great Fifty Days of Easter, and the crowd has thinned considerably.  I don’t know if you know this already, but of all the Gospel lessons that get read in church on Sundays, the only one that gets read every year without fail in the 3 year lectionary cycle, is this one that we just heard.  I wonder if that’s because the lectionary planners, in their wisdom, were trying to account for how rarely people are in church on the Sunday after Easter!  There are five written accounts of Jesus’ resurrection that made it into our canon of scripture, accounts that have significant “factual” discrepancies -- and within those narratives, about a dozen appearance stories, but it’s this story that gets read every year on the Sunday after Easter, no matter what. And then it gets listed as the first choice for a reading on Pentecost – only a month and a half from now!   The effect is that this appearance story becomes THE appearance story – and too often, the heavy-handed moral of the story is that a faithful (that is, a “good”) Christian does not have doubts. 
               If I asked you to tell me what you know about Thomas in the Bible, you’d likely say “doubting Thomas” – because that’s what we’ve been taught to call this story – the story of doubting Thomas.  And “doubting Thomas” is usually meant as an indictment rather than a compliment.  It’s certainly not flattering to be called a “doubting Thomas.” 
               But I think that doubt is not the opposite of faith, rather, I think that doubt is essential to faith.  In his book, Dynamics of Faith, Paul Tillich wrote that “Doubt is implicit in every act of faith … it is always present as an element of faith … serious doubt is [in fact] confirmation of faith.”  It’s a sign of real engagement – of commitment. 
Perhaps, more importantly, the New Revised Standard Version translation of this passage (which is the translation you have in front of you) uses the word “doubt,” which is not a very good rendering of the Greek word apistos.  Apistos is the opposite of pistos (like asymmetry and symmetry).  Pistos is trust or belief.  Apistos is without trust or absent belief.  And the verb in the sentence is become.  The command that Jesus gives here is not about skepticism or doubt; rather it is about becoming untrusting vs. trusting.   Jesus said, “Do not become untrusting, but trusting” or “Do not become unbelieving but believing.”  Become trusting.  Become believing. 
            I have a dear friend who, about fifteen years ago, was searching for a faith community.  She had searched in a variety of places – the Orthodox Judaism of her upbringing, Unitarian Universalist, various Christian denominations.  I invited her to come to church with me.  She did – and over time, began to get involved in the Episcopal parish where I was a member.  She liked the liturgy.  There was great music.  She felt that there was plenty of theological elbow room – that she was welcome to attend services and participate in the life of the community even though she wasn’t a Christian.  She even began to teach Church School.  I was the Church School Coordinator and for me, having a desire to explore Christian faith with kids, as a prerequisite for teaching, was far more important than being a Christian.  The Church School teachers met about once a month with the coordinators and clergy to grapple with the material that was going to be presented to the children and youth.
               I’ll never forget the meeting that we had right after Easter one year.  As part of the introduction to the material, I asked each person in the room to tell what they thought the resurrection of Jesus meant.  One by one, each person told what they believed about the resurrection – and what they thought “really happened” after Jesus’ crucifixion.  After the meeting, my friend pulled me aside and said, incredulously, “No-one in there believes in the resurrection!  I thought to be a Christian, you had to believe in the resurrection” 
               “What?” I said.  “Everyone in there believes in the resurrection!” 
               She said, “no-one in that room said that they believed that the physical body of Jesus was alive after it had been dead.” 
               “That’s resuscitation,” I said, “not resurrection!”  Belief in resurrection is not about belief in resuscitation of a corpse.  It’s about something completely different.  Belief in resurrection is belief that God vindicated Jesus after his humiliating crucifixion.  Belief in resurrection is belief that the Love and Life of God are bigger than death, even the most brutal and shameful government execution.  That’s the message that all the resurrection accounts have in common. 
               In the Gospel of John’s resurrection narrative, Jesus says, “Do not become untrusting, but trusting” or “do not become unbelieving but believing.”  Become trusting.  Become believing.  And in response, Thomas utters the most complete and powerful confession in the whole Gospel:  “My Lord and my God.”  Thomas confesses to seeing God revealed in Jesus, not because he had touched Jesus, but because Jesus had graciously offered himself.  Jesus had given Thomas what he needed for faith, as he had done so many times in the Gospel of John.  This is a story about accepting grace – accepting what God freely bestows and what we sorely need.
               We can probably all imagine ourselves as being like Thomas – long on demands and short on trust – especially in difficult situations.   That’s not hard.  But if we focus on Thomas, we risk losing track of the center of this story.  The center of this story is Jesus, not Thomas.    And it’s a story of hopefulness and promise – not of judgment or reprimand.  This is a story about the experience the grace of God in Jesus – without limit and without measure. This is a story about Jesus breathing new life into a community of faith in the midst of grief and fear.  This is a story, it seems to me, that is particularly important for Emmanuel Church and Emmanuel Music right now. 
               This is a story of reassurance about Jesus repeatedly making himself (as the Love and Life of God) available to his followers, those who saw him and those who did not see him.  What do we have to let go of to become trusting of the Love and Life of God?  Well, probably a lot of things.  One that immediately comes to mind is that we have to give up all hope of a better past.(1) Become believing that the Love and Life of God are bigger than fear and death and we will be open to a whole new world of possibility.  Become trusting.  Become believing.
So to shift our focus onto Jesus, here’s what I’d like to invite you to think about:  Jesus entered the place where the disciples were gathered and said, “Peace be with you.”  Then they rejoiced.  And again Jesus said, “Peace.”  Peace be with you.  And a week later, when he re-appeared, Jesus said, “Peace be with you.” It appears three times in this reading.  That means that Jesus really meant it!  Peace. 
               Think of “Peace be with you” as an invitation and not just as another way to say hello.  One of the things about scripture is that if something is written down, it’s because it needs to be known – meaning, it’s probably not known.  If Jesus is saying, “Peace be with you” – over and over, there probably isn’t much peace happening with them.  Come to think of it, that’s how it often is with us.  Think of that the next time you pass the peace – think of “Peace be with you” as an invitation from Jesus being extended through you to a friend or acquaintance or a stranger – and when that person replies, “and also with you.”  That is an invitation from Jesus too.  Peace.  Peace be within you, peace be around you, peace be in the world.  Peace.
               A classmate of mine from seminary says it this way whenever she invites people to share the peace:  “When Jesus appeared to his disciples, they were hiding upstairs in a locked room—the friends who knew him best, who had betrayed him, who had pretended they didn’t know him, who had run away when he was dying, who hid when he was arrested, who were frightened and ashamed. He appeared among them and greeted them. He didn’t say, ‘What happened?’ ‘Where were you?’ ‘You screwed up.’ He greeted them saying, ‘Peace.’
“No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done or think you’ve done, whoever you have betrayed or let down, no matter how far you have gone from God, from Jesus, Jesus doesn’t say to you, ‘Where were you? You screwed up.’ Jesus greets you saying, ‘Peace.’ You are not accused, you are invited.”(2)
Jesus said, “As I have been sent, so I send you.”  Breathe in the Holy Spirit – in other words – get inspired -- and get moving. They had come to this room for protection – for a break from the struggle – and now Jesus was sending them back out.  This invitation of peace is not an invitation to safety or “the absence of struggle, but the presence of love,” as Frederick Buechner says.(3)  Jesus told them to get out from behind the closed doors and sent them out even though they were afraid.  Not once does our text indicate that they were no longer afraid, or no longer in any danger.  Come to think of it, Jesus was demonstrating that no matter what makes us lock up and hide in fear – we have work to do.  The Peace of God is not passive and it’s not about staying safe or quiet.  The Peace of God is about being sent out from our hiding places with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
               As I said before, believing in resurrection is not about believing in resuscitation of a corpse.  It’s about something completely different.  Believing in resurrection is about seeing a new way to peace –peace in our hearts, peace in our lives, peace in our world.  Believing in resurrection is about seeing that God can make something of the wounds that we have sustained and the deaths we have experienced.  Believing in the resurrection is about seeing that we can’t stay locked up -- we are sent out to do the work that Jesus was sent out to do – of feeding and healing and freeing and forgiving and serving.  Become trusting.  Become believing because believing is seeing.