The 20th chapter of John happens to be my very favorite chapter in all of the Gospels. I mean—Mary Magdalene, empty tombs, angels, the risen Christ, and Thomas the tactile learner all packed into one chapter. It’s such a banger. So yeah, the 20th chapter of John is my favorite.
Which makes it weird that John 20 also happens to contain my least favorite verse in the Gospels.
Which is this one:
"Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book."
Oh really? Would just, like, a couple more stories have killed you?
Also, if you’re a Gospel writer and Jesus did a bunch of other cool stuff that you didn’t bother to write down because your quill broke or you got a cramp in your hand... why even mention it? I’m thinking: just keep that to yourself, man.
And all week, as I prepared to preach, my mind would wander back to this verse and I get all frustrated wanting to know what was left out.
But what did John write down in its place, this: Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. And the next verse says: But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
And then I kind of got over myself and realized that yeah, us having just one more parable sounds amazing, but maybe when it comes to scripture, the blank spaces are just as important as the ones that are filled with words.
Because Scripture isn’t a reference manual or a faith dictionary. It’s more like a painting—the blank spaces of which are waiting for us to step inside with our own stories, questions and imaginations.
So this morning I want to share with you some things I imagined and wondered about in the blank spaces of today’s Gospel reading.
What we know is that on same day that Mary found the tomb empty, the disciples locked themselves into a room. It’s not a stretch to imagine them stewing in their fear and their flimsy justifications and in what I suspect was more than a little shame.
When suddenly without even knocking or bothering to use the door, Jesus is there.
All I know is that when I even vaguely suspect someone is mad at me, if I unexpectedly find myself in the same room as them, I tense up and get this awful feeling in my stomach.
So when they realized Jesus was standing right there, I wonder if their shoulders tightened up waiting to get what they deserved.
But what we know is that our Lord says to those who were closest to him and who abandoned him in his greatest hour of need, “peace be with you”. Then he breathes holiness into them and says to go tell people that forgiveness is real.
Which feels so…tender.
But, as John tells us, Thomas was not there.
Thomas missed the whole thing. Not sure why – where there might be an explanation there is only a blank space.
The church in the West has nicknamed him “Doubting Thomas,” but this week in that space that was left blank, I wondered if maybe it wasn’t doubt at all.
It’s entirely possible that the reason Thomas wasn't hanging out with the other disciples that night is because he was just sick of those guys, but what if the reason was because Thomas hadn’t abandoned Jesus when other disciples did – what if Thomas saw what happened to Jesus’ body with his own eyes? In the spaces left blank in his story I like to imagine that maybe Thomas had an unusually deep sensitivity, and that maybe he recoiled from violence more than other men, and was so traumatized by the brutality of what he saw happen to Jesus that he just was not ready to be around other people.
Maybe every time he closed his eyes he saw the crown of thorns digging into Jesus brow, maybe he couldn’t get the sound of the hammer and nails out of his head.
Maybe the violence etched into his memory like a flash of lightning burns into your retinas, the afterimage lingering even when you close your eyes.
Good Friday happened and it was real. So maybe Thomas was not willing to pretend otherwise.
What we know is that the other guys come back and say “we have seen the Lord” And Thomas said Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.
But maybe that wasn’t doubt.
Maybe it was that Thomas refused to believe in anything that papered over the pain.
And then, a week later, what we know is that Jesus shows up again but this time Thomas is there, and that he offers Thomas exactly what he needs— proof of the pain.
Jesus offers himself for the touching, as if to say, the violence was real Thomas.
AND violence had no victory that day. Maybe Jesus knows how hard it is to believe that violence has no victory if the pain isn’t at least acknowledged.
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
Or put another way, this story of a wounded and risen God re-narrates our lives back to us.
And I don’t know about you, but I could use a better story than the ones I tell myself.
I do not need a religious reference manual, I need the living word of God
I need a story that is bigger than my pain but does not ignore my pain. I need a story that is bigger than the crushing values of late stage capitalism and is at the same time a critique of those values.
I need a story that is bigger than what I can see, bigger that what I fear, bigger than what the Internet and the algorithms are trying to convince me of every day of my life.
In fact, he whom I have (for the purpose of this short homily) now renamed Thomas The Brave and Deeply Sensitive Disciple, was so conscripted into this story of Jesus that he ended up blabbing about it everywhere he went. All the way to Kerala India where, for 80 generations St Thomas Christians have also not stopped blabbing about it.
Which means the story is still unfolding all around us and in fact, nothing can stop it.
Nothing will stop the story of Jesus and us his faltering friends. The story of how the God of Easter keeps reaching into the graves we dig ourselves and loving us back to life. The story that Love will always conquer hate and that death has no sting and forgiveness is more powerful than violence and that despite it all it is always, always worth it to love God and love people.
This is more than a story you intellectually assent to, more than a story you believe in, this is a story you belong to. This is the sacred story you belong to. It has room for you in every blank space.
And it has sustained 80 generations. And we are not that special… it can sustain us too. Thanks be to God. Amen
I inner wept all day yesterday. And again this morning reading this. After the tragedy that unfolded in Vancouver BC on the weekend, these words you wrote, Nadia ….”The story that Love will always conquer hate and that death has no sting and forgiveness is more powerful than violence and that despite it all it is always, always worth it to love God and love people.” Those words give my soul balm this morning.
Just WOW. I really needed this. As you say, 80 generations separate me from this story, and all my life I have listened to pastors tell it. But they tell it like a typical pastor tells it, with flowery language, like every other pastor tells it. Somehow you, a unique, modern pastor with your direct, blunt, everyday, 21st Century voice, make it real for me. I struggle so to believe it all, and that is why I needed this.