“Tears, Doubts, Peace” (John 20:19-31)

Our passage this morning is the familiar “Doubting Thomas story”.  Thomas is one of the lesser-known disciples with the exception of being singled out and remembered as “the one who doubted.”  At this point, the disciples have drawn together and are in hiding after the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus.  They have been spending their time behind locked doors, and are waiting for whatever may happen next.  They too, had been filled with fear and doubt after the crucifixion, until Jesus appeared to them.  At this point, they have seen Jesus and are elated.  But Thomas hadn’t been there.  

How many times have we heard someone say “Don’t be such a doubting Thomas” and doesn’t it always seem to come with a stern look that means stop asking questions and just take my word for it.  To be a doubting Thomas in today’s world is not a good thing.  It means one is unduly skeptical, a kind of killjoy, or even a royal sourpuss. 

Poor Thomas has been much maligned over the years, and how often do we fail to see the courage he had to speak his doubts, the honesty he had to state what he needed, and the amazing declaration that he makes as he says “My Lord and My God.”

I’d like to look at his transformation again see in what ways our lives are like Thomas’s, how we can learn from his actions and how Jesus responds to us all. 

My main point will be this; Jesus seeks to encounter us no matter where we are in our lives, no matter where we are in our journey of faith, in spite of all our questions and doubts.  He longs for us to find our own faith and discover him as our Lord and God.  Honest questions of faith and even open doubts are not always indications of faithlessness, but can be open doors for Christ to meet us. 

Turning to the first part of our passage we read, “But Thomas was not with them” It is not said where Thomas was or why he was not with the others when Jesus appeared.  It may have been that Thomas was out doing errands or doing reconnaissance in the city.  Any number of things may have distracted him and kept him from being in the community of faith. 

(I think about all the Sunday Church services I have missed only to have friends tell me how great it was and how I should have been there the pastor gave the best sermon of his life and the choir finally sang in tune and why wasn’t I THERE? Well sometimes there are times that we chose to be away and it can be for any number of reasons.  Some perhaps better than others. )

I think from what we know of Thomas from elsewhere in the Gospels that perhaps his absence was something more than bad timing.  I think Thomas was a much more inward disciple.  Separating himself from the others may have been his way of dealing with Jesus’ death.  There is no doubt that Thomas loved Jesus.  He was prepared to die with Jesus in Jerusalem. The others wanted to flee but he was ready to set his face on Jerusalem and travel with Jesus.

He was most likely out grieving on his own, choosing to turn inward to find answers for himself as to what had happened.  There are most certainly times in life where solitude can be refreshing and a way to restore ourselves.  But there is a difference between being at one with God and ourselves, and being alone.  

He may have left the others and said “I just want to be left alone for a while-I can take care of myself” Withdrawing and hiding with his pain. In this way, Thomas reminds me of many of the Stoic Scandanavians  I knew in Midwest. I think there still is a philosophy of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps and not troubling anyone else with your problems as a way of life. 

Many people do not want to be vulnerable with their troubles or think that it can do any good to share their problems; it will just bring somebody else down.   It does take a kind of courage to say I can’t come up with all the answers myself, and be open and vulnerable with others. 

And imagine feeling as Thomas did, feeling so low, and then to hear the news that Jesus is alive would sound like a cruel hoax, certainly too good to be true.  They say, “We have seen him” and he says “I haven’t”  Thomas thought he knew how the story of Jesus ended, but now Easter brings another ending. Easter changes everything.  The others are moving to an Easter faith and Thomas still has “pre-Easter eyes”.  Thomas says honestly, “Until I see I can not believe.” 

“Seeing is believing.., or I’ll believe it when I see it” are at many times good policy.  But sometimes one must believe in order to see.  I think that something, some thread of belief or memory, or hope brought Thomas back to the life of faith.   Whatever the reason, he came back to join the others. 

He came back and yet he is painfully honest.  The others tell him, don’t grieve, and be glad we have seen him!  He could have trend to accept their word and attach his hopes to their experience and their story but he cannot do so and still be true to his faith.  “I can not believe” He could have joined the celebration, withholding his lingering doubts and banishing them to silence, but what would have become of him?  And his faith? Surrounded by others telling him what sounded too good to be true he makes a bold statement of what he needed for him to believe. 

In Luke we see that the others doubted Mary as she reported to them what she had seen.  “Idle gossip” they said.  It was not until he appeared to them that they believed.   At first Thomas is asking for no more than what the others experienced seeing Jesus.   But then does go further and ask to put his hand in the side that was wounded. 

Thomas says what he means and means what he says.  He is not going to express a belief that he does not truly feel.  I think each of us also needs to have our own personal experiences that we hold as part of our faith.  What kinds of experiences do we hold to supply evidence for our faith?  We speak with the greatest conviction, and are most convincing to others when we speak of our own experience.  When we speak what we truly believe, or what we truly question or even fear.  In sharing this with others we are the most honest and I think the most whole.  It is not a complete faith to hold oneself to the faith of our parents and grandparents, we need to make faith our own in some way.

Someone else most certainly can help us by sharing their faith and saying here is how I experience my faith and my doubts.  It truly is in community that we will find answers, each of us have our own individual relationship to God and yet we are all members of the family of God and it is truly blessed to live together in peace, sharing the peace of Christ.  We can remind and reassure each other of truths we know, but sometimes lose sight of when we are alone.

If we question –  it is then – that Jesus has a door to respond.   Isn’t it often the darkest moments of doubts and pain that brought out the most immediate times of joy. 

What times in life are we so aware of God’s Presence that we would cry “My Lord and My God!”  Thomas’s faith is very real to him and it is something alive that he thinks about, wrestles with. This makes it subject to honest questions.  

Look what happens.  It is within a community of faith that he finds his answer.  Jesus does say come put your hand here!  The text does not say that he did, he certainly could have.  But he did not have to, now his doubt was washed away, he was back in the fellowship of those following Christ and he was in the honest place of crying out My Lord and My God.  He goes from the depths of doubt to the celebration of certainty. 

Jesus responds to Thomas’s pain and aloneness with a word of Peace. “Peace be with you” Shalom.  Jesus does not scold him but gives him a chance to have his questions answered.  Go ahead put your hand in my side, do not doubt.  I don’t think he did.  I do think he needed to. 

And the rest of Jesus words are a blessing to us and to the church that has come after.  We have not seen the resurrected Christ and yet we believe. This belief is a blessing.  Yet there will be doubts, there will be times of uncertainty, and the message is clear.  Stay within the circle of faith. Seek answers to your questions.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God.   If our hearts are seeking God, no question will distance God from us. God will responds saying “Peace be with you”  “Believe” 

Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29

This psalm alternates between the first person singular and first person plural.  Given that the psalm is celebrating a military victory and deliverance from the surrounding nations, it seems most likely that the first person section involves the king, or another representative person, speaking on behalf of the people, making this arguably one of the royal psalms in Israel.^[1] The psalm belongs to the feast of Tabernacles with verses 1-4 being a thanksgiving of the people while 5-21 are an individual thanksgiving and 22-29 contain a mixture of motives.^[2]  The psalm is performed at the temple gate so Jesus may just be joining the procession that was going to the temple for a festival.

Mark 11: 1-11

This is a very well know story where differences in the different Gospels are not always noticed.  Morna Hooker appears sympathetic to the idea that the people crying Hosanna were part of the procession that Jesus was joining, but also points out that it was normal to walk into the city, so in riding any sort of animal makes some claim of authority.^[3]

Myers on the other hand focuses on the gospel writer’s motives and notes that Mark would know that the image of a march on the city amid Davidic acclaim would have connected his first readers with a military procession.  Myers in fact says that the procession recalls the military entry of the triumphant rebel leader Simon Maccabaeus into Jerusalem, ‘with praise and palm branches.’

But the story is expressly anti-military and comes close to a satire on military liberators.  There is also an anti-urban bias in Mark.

Garments are thrown on the animal and on the road, along with straw cut from the fields.  Myers sees this as a contrast to the urban elite as the rural crowd bring straw as their only gift and weapons.^[4]

Sermon

Today’s gospel reading is one of the well-known stories and as such has been dissected, analysed and enacted year after year.  It makes a telling contrast between the crowds that shout hosanna and then those who shout crucify him. 

It is not hard to find a contemporary example of such reversal of mood.  Dame Jacinda Ardern was re-elected prime minister of the first single party majority government since MMP began.  However, when some of the efforts to control covid were inconvenient for some people folk not only marched on parliament but camped in the grounds, set fire to the children’s play equipment and wanted to execute the prime minister.

They were of course a different group to those who voted the government into office and, as Dominique Crossan points out, those who waved the branches for Jesus and those who called for Barabbas may not have been same crowd either. 

Another scholar Ched Myers suggests that this Palm Sunday procession, quoted in all four canonical gospels, recalls the military parade of the triumphant rebel leader Simon Maccabaeus entering Jerusalem, ‘with praise and palm branches.’

The Maccabean Revolt defeated the Greeks and briefly restored Israel as an independent state under the short lived Herodian dynasty.  Herod the great began the restoration of the temple which went on for more than 60 years, some of which was after his death. 

Therefore we should watch the construction of the new stadium and the rebuild of the Anglican Cathedral with interest.

But just like the Ardern Government the Herodian dynasty did not meet everyone’s expectations.  Some of the lack of stability was attributed to the fact that Herod was not a descendant of David.  Therefore several groups expected God to call out someone with the appropriate genealogy and send heavenly warriors to support him. 

Some of those groups started terrorist action to remind God of the divine responsibility.  As a result Herod asked for military aid from the Romans. 

Roman aid was enthusiastically supplied at the usual price. Complete loss of sovereignty, taxation and unrestricted trade access for the Roman Empire.

According to some historians the Jewish peasants were worse off.  But collaborators and the Jewish ruling class got good roads, running water, a sewage system and sports stadiums.  Whether they wanted it or not everyone got better security. 

Just as Simon Maccabaeus had led a parade into Jerusalem to show they were now free of foreign domination, Roman officials paraded into Jerusalem to show everyone that they were now under the protection of the greatest military power the world had ever known.  Many people would have felt secure in that knowledge.

In our time there is about to be a presidential election in Russian.  Apart from the reality that opposition candidates seem to have limited life expectancy most of the poorest of the poor in Russia will vote for Putin because he delivers security.  Poverty stricken people often feel that if there is any change it could make their life worse. 

That yearning for stability is reinforced by massive military parades.  In Russia, as in North Korea and China, military parades, not only tell the world not to mess with them, but also reinforce the feeling of security among the least secure of their own people.

Banning gang patches and getting tough on crime have a similar aim.

Protest marches are very similar to parades but, rather than support the government of the day, they tend to demand change.  One of my regrets is that I didn’t take part in the anti-apartheid marches.  In fact, I didn’t take part in any protests until I moved to Hamilton and the Rev Alan Leadley told me to.  But I can’t remember what it was about. 

Since coming back to Christchurch I have been, at the encouragement of my MP, to a couple of protests about affordable housing. 

Apart from celebrating sporting achievement I think New Zealanders are better at protest marches than parades that affirm the status quo.

One of the most famous was on the 13^th of October 1975 the land march led by Whina Cooper arrived at Parliament and presented a petition signed by 60,000 people to Prime Minister Bill Rowling.  That hikoi, which marched from the far north of the North Island, was to protest ongoing M?ori land alienation.  It moved through the North Island, staying with people and sharing meals in various maraes along the way giving hope and gathering supporters.  Media interest grew and the h?koi arrived in Wellington in the full glare of the national media.  After a memorial of rights was presented to Rowling, about 60 protesters set up a M?ori embassy in Parliament grounds.  A final bit of public place theatre to hammer home the message.

But it caused less destruction and inconvenience than the more recent anti everything encampment.

The gospels focus on the final march of Jesus into Jerusalem but Mark, Matthew and Luke all structure their gospel narrative as a relentless march from Galilee to Jerusalem.  A healing h?koi from the province of the most marginalised to the centre of power, staying with people in various villages, sharing meals in people’s homes, offering hope and gathering supporters.

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethpage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘go into the village ahead of you and immediately as you enter it, you will find there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it’. (Mark 11:1,2)    

In that action Jesus was setting up his final bit of street theatre, similar to the Maori Embassy on parliament grounds.  As he lead the parade into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey Jesus staged an acted parable, the non military messiah on a beast of burden rather than a horse of war.  His script comes from their scriptural tradition, first from Zachariah:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!

Lo your king comes to you;

triumphant and victorious is he,

humble and riding on a donkey

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

(Zachariah 9:9)

When Matthew tells the story he misses the parallelism which is such a feature of Hebrew poetry and tries to get Jesus riding two donkeys.

Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. (Matthew 21:2)

But the passage from Zachariah is poetry and the parallel structure repeats a line with slightly different words.  So the king is riding a donkey in one line and the following line makes the point that it is a young donkey by calling it the colt of a donkey. 

Mark does not make that mistake and has the crowd chant from our Old Testament reading, Psalm 118.  This is a hymn of approach sung or chanted by pilgrims approaching Jerusalem so Jesus may just have been part of the crowd going to the Passover. 

Equally Psalm 118 was an appropriate song to sing as part of Jesus’ acted parable just as there would have been songs and haka as Whina Cooper’s H?koi arrived at Parliament. 

There are any number of meanings we can draw from this Palm Sunday story but seeing it as a piece of public theatre designed to bring Jesus’ message to a wider public certainly does justice to the way Mark, Mathew and Luke construct their gospels.  A march of healing and hope from Galilee to Jerusalem.

Along the way there were sermons preached, demons cast out, people were healed, and outcast brought back into the community.  Jesus and his disciples shared meals and hospitality with people on the journey.  When the crowds followed him into a deserted place Jesus somehow managed to stage a great open-air picnic where, not only did everyone get fed but there was a symbolic twelve baskets left over.

Once the march reaches Jerusalem in Mark’s Gospel Jesus and the disciples go into the temple.

I can just picture Jesus and his disciples checking out the venue of an even greater event in much the same way as a sports team or a music group might check out the stadium as soon as they arrive.  I don’t know how many times I have arrived at a conference the evening before the event and gone and had a bit of a look at the venue before going to dinner. 

In verse eleven Mark is telling his readers ‘That procession into Jerusalem was pretty special but just you wait till tomorrow’s episode for some real public theatre that challenges the way the temple exploits the poor’ 

Jesus checks out the venue at the end of today’s reading then in verse fifteen to seventeen he attacks the merchants and the money changers and brings home the whole focus of the long protest march.

Jesus comes to Jerusalem, not as a military king riding a white stallion but as the servant leader riding a peasant’s borrowed donkey.  Nevertheless, Jesus assumes the authority we all have, which is to challenge injustice where we find it.

This is the week before Easter and we are all aware that Jesus will suffer the consequences that so many people suffer for opposing unjust systems and regimes. 

But next Sunday, Easter Day we remember that the Jesus march moved beyond his death and can still affect our world today.

In an unexpected twist, that is the hallmark of all good short stories, when the authorities of the time reacted to oppose the Jesus protest, they guaranteed an ongoing march of change that delivered healing and hope at donkey pace for centuries to come.

The gospel journey is more a protest march than a parade.  A h?koi of hope that not only demanded and demonstrated change for Jesus’ time but has inspired change for all time.

Each and every Palm Sunday, we are called to make our life journey as part of Christ’s transforming parade.  

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[1] http://hwallace.unitingchurch.org.au/

WebOTcomments/LentA/PalmSunday.html

[2] A.A Anderson Psalms 73-150 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Erdmans, London: Morgan & Scott, 1972) p.118

[3] Morna Hooker The Gospel according to St Mark (London: A&C Black, 1991)pp.255-257.

[4] Ched Myers Binding the Strong Man (New York: Maryknoll, 1988) pp. 294-297.