Lucky Thomas

Happy Easter!

Does that sound odd to you?  I know it would have sounded odd to me not so long ago.  Easter was last Sunday, so why is this crazy person wishing me a happy Easter one week too late?

The calendar tells us that this is the first Sunday after Easter, but our missals insist that it is the second Sunday of Easter.  This infers that Easter is not a single day, but a season.  In fact, it is a season that lasts seven weeks, until Pentecost.  Moreover, our readings during these next seven weeks tell us that Easter is even more than a season – it is a way of life.  Those people who truly believe in the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ are forever changed – they are an Easter people.

During the Easter season, our first reading is not from the Old Testament, as it is during every other time of the year.  During Easter, we read from the Acts of the Apostles, the story of how the Resurrection transformed the first disciples into Easter people.  In today’s passage, we hear that Peter and some of the other disciples were acting much as Jesus did during his ministry.  Allowing the grace of God to work through them, they were curing and healing many people, so many that people clamored to just be near them so that they could be healed – much as a woman in Mark’s gospel simply thought that touching Jesus’ garment would heal her.

In today’s Gospel story, we gain another insight into being Easter people.  Now poor Thomas has really taken a bum rap.  He not’s just “Thomas” to us, he is “doubting Thomas.”  However, Thomas was really quite a fortunate fellow.  Of course, he was fortunate because Christ eventually revealed himself to Thomas and assuaged his doubts.  However, even before this revelation, Thomas was one lucky guy.

Think of the situation at the beginning of today's Gospel reading.  The disciples are a bit wired; nobody knows what is going to happen next, everyone sort of scared to stick their heads out the door.  Perhaps food is running low, so Thomas draws the short straw and heads to the market.  On coming back, after he gives the presumably secret knock and gains re-admittance, he hears an incredible story.  Jesus, who just a couple days earlier was dead and buried, had appeared in that very room!

If we were Thomas, what would we think?  I know what I’d be thinking: “Boy, these guys are nuts!  The pressure finally got to them!  I'm outta here.”

If we were the other disciples, what would our reaction be to Thomas' disbelief?  Again, my initial reaction to Thomas’ doubts could easily have been anger and indignation – “Are you calling us liars?  We have seen the Lord!  You are the fool!  There’s the door, don’t let it hit you on the way out!”

Yet, one week later, where do we find Thomas – still in the company of his friends.  When Jesus breathed his peace on the disciples, when they received the Holy Spirit, they became Easter people, they were able to live with Thomas’ doubts, and perhaps their change, their sense of peace impressed Thomas enough that he was willing to cut them some slack, too.  Easter people filled that upper room.

Today, Easter people fill this church of St. Rose of Lima and all of Newtown.  It’s as clear to me as it was in that upper room.  Faced with the darkness of death, we choose to dwell of the light of the resurrection.  Faced with horrific evil, we choose to pray to the one who is all good.  Faced with hatred, we choose love.

And as others flocked to the early disciples that they might witness and perhaps benefit from the grace and mercy so obviously present in those first Easter people, we’ve seen many come to Newtown to witness the faith, grace and mercy that they may have simply seen or read about.

And yet…is it enough?  It’s nice that people care, but can’t we get on with our lives?  And none of this will ever bring back what we’ve lost, will it?  If God is so good and we are his disciples, why did this even happen to us?  Can’t someone just wake us from this nightmare?  Doubts and more doubts.  Perhaps we are much like Thomas who doubted that first Easter night.  But while we may share Thomas’ doubts, we also share his good fortune.

The same cross and the same death that redeemed Thomas, that redeemed the apostles, and that redeems all humankind for all time, redeems each of us.

The same resurrection that filled Thomas and the earliest apostles with hope and joy fills us with that same hope and joy.

The same Spirit and grace that flowed over the apostles in the upper room, the same Spirit that energized the earliest disciples in their zeal to live and love as Jesus did, flows over each one of us, gives us energy, unites our hearts and our minds in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, and empowers us to be Easter people.

Christ has risen.  Alleluia!  Lucky Thomas; lucky us.

Happy Easter!