The Choir sang “Were you there” …when they crucified our Lord? yesterday. As always I sat behind the pulpit and listened to the sermon which was proceeded by the reading of a portion of John 20 which was the text upon which the Sermon was based.
I paid particular attention as this was about the Apostle Thomas who is the one I most identify with.
I’ve always put myself in Thomas’s sandals. Until he could place his fingers in the wounds of Jesus he could not believe in the resurrection. As I was not there to do the same I lack the faith to become a member of any traditional church although that hasn’t stopped me from singing in our Presbyterian choir and attending Adult Bible classes for two decades.
Our pastor noted that John says that Thomas wasn’t with the rest of the disciples when Jesus first appeared to them. He was with them a week later when Jesus returned and persuaded the doubting disciple of his “rebirth” (shades of the Gettysburg Address).
Until I find a way to time travel to that room with Jesus and Thomas I will remain a pre-finger poking Thomas.
What I found interesting about this chapter of John was the assertion by our Pastor, which seems borne out by the NIV version of John 20, that when Jesus returned a week later he found the disciples “locked” in the same room he had first appeared to them a week earlier. Her contention was that despite his first appearance they spent a week holed up, “locked” in the room too paralyzed to follow his command to go out and preach.
Since the other disciples were in hiding it doesn’t surprise me that Thomas had a hard time believing that they had seen Jesus. Their’s was a pathetic display of conviction. That didn’t change until a week later when Jesus reappeared and let Thomas put his fingers in his wounds. Apparently the other disciples, who had spent a week in hiding, needed Thomas’s poking around because they didn’t follow the command to go out and preach until after the doubt of Thomas had been laid aside.
Since we have a Republican Party today that has become a quasi-religious organization and whose politicians shamelessly appeal to “conservative” Christians for votes it sort of impels the rest of us to read through the scriptures to see if those appeals really measure up to the scriptures. Does God really command small government?
I think that’s heresy although a simpler description would be “crap.” Today’s NPR story on this subject is worth considering.
I’m only an agnostic, a “Doubting Thomas” if you will, but it seems to me that Republican Christians have preformed cosmetic surgery on Jesus to patch up those ugly crucifiction wounds that Thomas had to examine. Jesus didn’t die for our sins so much as to give them free reign unencumbered by government regulation.
