Thomas and The Eucharist
How the small details connect us to the greater story.
On Friday night I sit with my friend in our sunroom as the neighborhood slinks toward twilight. The last vestiges of the sun are glinting off the disco ball still hanging from our fan from my last birthday. Small stars reflect from it onto the ceiling, foretelling the night to come.
We talk of babies and showers, of community and sparkling wine, of what ails us and what shows we are watching. The life we’ve lived over the last several months unfolds between us in sweeping events and mundane moments. It is good to see her.
By the time she leaves, the sun has gone completely, and we talk under the light of a singular lamp. I think of the upper room the disciples stayed in, the place where they enjoyed their last supper with their friend, Jesus. The warmth of that evening as they shared the passover meal. How they enjoyed the richness of the wine in their cups and the warm flavor of the bread, not fully understanding the sacrament for what it was, even as Jesus explained it. It would be returned to their memories later, sliding into place like the last piece of a puzzle, but for now they wondered at the mystery.
They would wander the warm light into the dark in the Garden of Gesthemane, not knowing that they were entering into the dark of Good Friday. They would have been surrounded by the olive trees, the smell of earth and leaves and perhaps budding olives on the breeze as Jesus went away from them to pray. Their limbs would be heavy, their eyelids heavier, from the wine and the hour, as Jesus begged them to stay up and pray with him. They could not know the agony he was facing, or the loss they were about to.
The following day would set on the Place of The Skull, as their friend and teacher breathed his last. The mocking and laughter of the Roman guards mingled with the bloodthirsty cries of the Jews who turned on him in dissonant harmony with his cries of pain and the wailing of the women below him. This is the chorus that would be burned in their memories. I imagine none wanted to look into the eyes of his mother, who sat weeping in the arms of John. The indignation, anger, and despair roiling in their guts as they watched the Messiah be crucified between two thieves, and then the fear that would quicken their pulse as they wondered if they were next.
They would lay him in a tomb and they would hide in that upper room, weeping and lost.
I have a confession. I think part of the reason it doesn’t feel like Easter to me is that I see myself more in the angry Jews than the mourning disciples. There is complacency and distraction that I have yielded to far more days than not. There is cynicism and defeat in the face of all the turmoil in the world right now. There is hate in my heart, and it wants to grow like mold, blackening everything it touches, eating away at it while promising strength.
Sin grows from a wound or a sense of injustice. It grows when we forget the enemy is not a person or group or people but a very real spiritual being. It grows when we think we know better how our life should go. It grows when we don’t surrender it to the Holy Spirit. And I have not done enough to fight it.
So as I sit in my living room reading John’s account of Holy Week, I wonder: can I participate in it this year? I feel unworthy and there’s not time enough to fix the presenting problem of what is broken before Sunday comes. I’ll try again next year, when I am more cleaned up.
I am in the dark days between the death and the resurrection, except I think that is where I am supposed to stay. When Jesus shows up to me in the garden, I will see only the gardener until I have made things right.
But the resurrection is coming anyway. The stone is being rolled away. Death is being defeated.
And then I remember Thomas, and how tender Jesus was toward him. Thomas, who was away when Jesus first appeared to his disciples again. How he must have thought that grief caused a collective hallucination in his friends. How hope must have been too painful to hold on to.
I picture Jesus, appearing to his friend and presenting his wounds. How in that dark room, the only light may have come from Jesus himself. How he offered his flesh and blood a second time to Thomas, who had partaken of it at the last supper, but needed to feel it with his own hands again to grasp what felt too good to be true. He needed to have an embodied experience of the new hope before him, and Jesus gave that to Him without an ounce of disappointment or shaming. I remember how generous Jesus is with his grace. He is not stingy when we need help believing Him.
It helps me to connect to those moments so I can connect to the gospel. This year, Palm Sunday was just another day, and this weekend is just another weekend. Spending time with the details helps me remember that this isn’t just a story, it’s sacred history, and it helps orient my spirit to the reality of Easter.
Jesus really came, and he really died, and he really rose again. It’s easy to forget, especially when a snake in the garden whispers that you’re disqualified, and the world itself seems to be falling apart, but that’s the very reason we should participate in Easter. It is a reminder that no matter our sins and the weight they put on us, the resurrection is stronger. It’s the thing we cling to when the world feels lost, (and it does feel lost), because a second resurrection is coming.
Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good and good people better. He came to make broken people whole and dead people alive. He offers the wounds on his hands and his side for us to place our own hand into, to remember the visceral cost of our redemption and the perfect fullness of it. If you struggle with Easter this year, take the bread, which is his body, and take the cup, which is his blood, and like Thomas, thrust your hand into his side, and remember his grace is sufficient for you.
”In this world you will have trouble,” he told them, “But take heart, I have overcome the world".”
Beautifully written friend and just what I needed to read this Easter!