EASTER 2-C -- April 18, 2004

One of my favorite writers, Dr. Martin Marty, tells the story of a summer day long ago when he was a child when one of those grand miracles of childhood occurred. A watermelon truck overturned right in front of his home. The uninjured driver jumped out and watched hopelessly as all the kids in the neighborhood came out of the woodwork, it seemed, and had a sticky picnic of watermelon right in front of Marty's house.

That was the good news. The bad news was that Marty was out of town that day visiting his grandmother. Life is like that sometimes. We are where the action isn't. While all our friends are eating free watermelon, we are miles away. Such is the story of Thomas.

The watermelon truck of Easter had overturned in Thomas' neighborhood and all the children of God were feasting on the resurrection of Jesus and Thomas was out of town. Or at least he was not where the action was. And when he got back in town, his friends were quick to tell him about their good luck and his bad luck.

When Martin Marty's buddies told him the story of the watermelon truck after he arrived back home from his grandmother's, Marty didn't believe them. "No way," he said. "Yessiree," they said. "I don't believe you guys," said Marty. "I'm going to ask my mother. She'll tell me the truth."

"Jesus is alive. We saw him with our own two eyes," Thomas's friends said. "No way," said Thomas. "Why should I believe you anyway? Unless I see Jesus for myself, touch him, hold him, I won't believe.” Just like Marty who was skeptical of a providentially overturned watermelon truck -- providentially for his friends not for him -- so Thomas was skeptical of a dead man rising.

Who wouldn't be? Dead men, dead and buried men, don't rise. Thomas simply wanted proof. He wanted to be sure, wanted to place his finger in the nail hole, his hand in his side. His attitude was: “Show me the watermelons; don't just tell me about them. Until I see for myself, I will have my doubts.” Just as little kids sometimes dream of overturned watermelon trucks, so the apostles wanted to believe that Jesus’ death was all a dream, a nightmare. They, Thomas included, had too many hopes and dreams pinned to Jesus’ coattails. Maybe they were seeing things. Maybe.

Thomas was merely reacting as anyone would under those circumstances. And if we read the Gospel closely, Jesus does not take Thomas to task because of his doubts. Jesus says very simply, "Take a good look, Thomas; and don't doubt anymore." Jesus then pointed out that in the future, when He was no longer among them, proof positive of His resurrection would not be forthcoming. In the future those who would come to believe in Jesus would have to do so without the benefit of seeing Him, without being able to stick a finger in his side. In the future, belief in the resurrection would have to come from some other source. In the future one would have to simply believe that there was an overturned watermelon truck.

Maybe that is one of the reasons why today is sometimes called Low Sunday. The euphoria of Easter, of the resurrection, of seeing Jesus face to face, is contrasted with the stark reality that in the future, faith in Jesus would not be all that easy. What Jesus was doing, in a way, was letting the Apostles down easy. Watermelon trucks are overturned right in front of our house only once in a lifetime, if we're lucky. If we are unlucky, we are away when it happens and we have to hear about it from others.

But if the Apostles, Thomas included, were down in the mouth, they certainly did not show it after Jesus’ ascension, after he departed from them for good. If anything, they were just the opposite of low: they were as high as kites. Read the Acts of the Apostles, part of which we heard this morning. After Pentecost the church grew by leaps and bounds.

The church grew because those who came to believe in Jesus came to do so not because they had seen Jesus face to face. They had not. They had not seen the watermelon truck overturned in front of them. They came to believe because they saw Jesus raised up. They saw the resurrected Jesus in the faces and lives of his followers, in the face and life of Thomas, in the faces and lives of those who had seen the watermelon truck.

A popular question that found its way into church newsletters and church bulletins thirty years ago asked: "If you were charged with being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" That's a real stopper, all right. And perhaps it did jolt a few of us into examining our faith and our lives a little more deeply. We might ask that same question with a slightly different twist: "If you were considering becoming a Christian, is there enough evidence to convince you?"

On the face of it, nonbelievers, skeptics and atheists can make a pretty good case for their points of view. There are no mountains of evidence to support the claims that we make as Christians for our faith. Paul doesn't make any big deal about supporting the fact of the resurrection. There is not a whole lot of documentation, certainly not the quality or quantity that an unbeliever would demand.

In fact, the Bible almost requires that belief should not be dependent upon a lot of evidence. Today's Gospel is a case in point. We don't need to see, Jesus says. We simply need to believe and act on that belief -- as is evident, again, in today's first lesson. In it we see the apostles acting on the basis of their faith in Jesus’ resurrection.

People throughout history have been looking for the overturned watermelon truck. They want to see it, touch the watermelons, eat them. They don't want to be told about them. They do not want to hear about the good news. They want to see it, touch it, feel it, be part of it. They don't want to be told, "Boy, you should have seen what we saw." They want to see it. Like Thomas they want to taste, touch, feel. And who could blame them?

Thomas, the Thomas who wants to see with his own eyes, touch with his own hands, taste with his own mouth so that he can know and not simply believe; that Thomas is everywhere.                          

Thomas is the person sitting in church today who is struggling to find God for the first or the umpteenth time in his life. Thomas is the teenager who looks around at her parents and other adults and sees people who seem to believe; yet their lifestyle in and out of church doesn't fit what they say they believe. And so she begins to believe that the church is simply like the rest of society: a bunch of hypocrites.

Thomas is the church visitor who looks at the person next to him in the pew and searches to find the print of the nails in the hands as signs of the wounds he has suffered and the sacrifices he's made in following the Risen Christ. And seeing none, he remains skeptical.

And Thomas is the son or daughter who grew up in the church and now never darkens the door. Thomas is the spouse who is on the fringe of faith, but at best is only lukewarm to it all. Thomas is the parent who has lost all the faith he once had.

Thomas is all these people and Thomas is we, you and I. We want to see the watermelon truck for ourselves. We don't want to be told about it. But, as Jesus tells us in the Gospel, from now on we will have to rely on the words and actions of others. We will have to see the watermelon truck in the lives of others and others will have to see it in us for belief to become a reality.

Today’s Gospel in particular and our theme of “Matthew 25…and all that jazz” in general remind us of something we cannot but take seriously. We can be convicted of being a Christian and can only convince others about Christianity only if they see the reality of the watermelon truck, the reality of the resurrection lived out in our lives. It is not enough to say that Jesus Christ is risen or to say that we believe He has. We have to live it. That was Jesus’ message to Thomas. It is his message to us as well.