Tag Archives: Thomas

Never Too Late

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A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2026

Second Sunday in Easter/Year A • April 12, 2026

John 20:19-32

When I was in college, and later seminary, a lot of my life was dominated by deadlines to write papers. I had a bad habit of putting off doing these until right before the deadline, so they were often late. My favorite professor was Dennis Duling, a New Testament scholar who taught my last class in seminary. I turned the final paper in a day late as usual; when I got it back, there was a big ‘A’ on the front and a note: “I’m not taking the usual points off for your usual lateness. You are about to learn there is no way to hand a sermon in late.” He was right and for most of my life, I’ve lived with the fact that on Sunday morning there is an absolute deadline. These days it’s 10:30 AM on Sunday. That’s it, no matter what else is going on, I have to be ready to walk in here, look out at all of you and say with conviction, “The peace of the Lord be with you.” There’s no excuse, no matter what else is going on, for being late. It’s not just me, either. Jacquelyn’s work as a flight attendant demands absolute timeliness. If she isn’t ready for a flight, the flight can’t leave. So it’s a very serious matter. She deals with it by being an hour early at the airport; I deal with it by going off to my office about five minutes early. How do you deal with staying on time? I ask because today’s gospel is the story of a man who was late for the most important moment in his life. Today we’re listening to the story of Thomas and the disciples and how Easter came to them.

There’s so much to hear before we get to Thomas. Just imagine the disciples’ situation. For perhaps three years or so, they’ve left their lives and followed Jesus, cared for him, accepted his care for them. He lifted them up in hope of a coming kingdom. Even when they were worried about the journey to Jerusalem, they followed along. They must have been amazed at the crowds entering the city. They must have wondered seeing him in the Temple, trashing the money changers. And they must have been scared when suddenly the soldiers appeared at Gethsemene and arrested Jesus, took him away roughly. They saw he’d been beaten, they saw the blood from the crown of thorns and they saw him gasping out his last breaths on the cross. They saw the death of Jesus; they felt the death of hope. 

Now they’re together and they’ve locked the door, the text says “in fear of the Jews”. This has nothing to do with Jews as a people; they’re afraid of the same authorities who arrested Jesus and sent him to the Romans, the only ones with the authority to execute him. They’re gathered for the funeral luncheon. The woman have told them a crazy story about seeing the Lord and an empty tomb, but they didn’t believe them. They believe in common sense: dead people stay dead. All you can do is grieve and get back to normal.

So there they are: you know how these things go, quiet conversations, food, no one eating much, people hovering around the family. Here there is the locked door; here is certainly the memory of their last supper a few days ago, perhaps a happy seder. Suddenly, Jesus appears. He walks through the door. I always wonder: does that make any noise? Does the door creak when he passes through it? There he is: alive. Wow. Did they all go silent? Did they drop plates they were holding? Imagine if you’d just taken a big bite of something, do you swallow? “Peace be with you,” he says. Shalom aleicham: the common every Friday greeting of shabby, what someone says at the beginning of the service. Yet so much more here.

He shows them his wounds. Isn’t that how we all connect? A long time ago, Jacquelyn gave me the most important advice I’ve ever gotten about sermons; “Don’t be the hero of your own story.” When I want to illustrate something for you, I deliberately show the times I failed, times I got it wrong. I want you to see my wounds because we are all wounded and when we see each other’s wounds, we know each other. They see his wounds: they know it’s him.

Don’t miss this part of the story running on to hear about Thomas, we’ll get to Thomas but stay here and see this. Jesus walks through a door, Jesus is alive, and he comes and the first thing he says is, “”Peace be with you.” I think today a lot of us are locked up in rooms for fear. We are careful talking about our politics, our religion, because it’s easy to give offense. So we lock up the doors but listen here: Jesus walks through doors. Jesus goes where everyone is excluded. Jesus comes even when we’re hopeless and sad and this is what he as to say first: “Peace be with you.”

That’s not all, though. He goes on to say that he’s sending them; he’s sending us. And he’s sending us just like the Father sent him. This is what it means to be the Body of Christ, that we are sent just like him, and our job is to forgive sins. In other words, to give peace to others, just as he gives it to us. You know, the church picked up on the last part, “…if you don’t forgive sins they are retained,” and used it as a fund raising tool. The only way to get forgiven is to come to us! But that’s not the gospel, that’s not the command; the command is to go out and forgive sins. The command is to go out and be Jesus to others.

We’ll talk more about this another time but I want to get on to Thomas. Remember Thomas? This is a story about Thomas. So the story is the whole group gathers a week after the crucifixion. Maybe they’re celebrating shabbat, maybe they’re just grieving. They’re scared of the authorities; they lock the door. But Jesus walks right in, says Peace be to you and then gives them a mission. But Thomas was late; Thomas wasn’t there. So a week later when he does show up, they all tell him, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas pouts. Maybe he looks around, sees this group he’s spent so much time with, sees that nothing has changed. They’re still the same folks, the door is still locked. Thomas doesn’t believe them about seeing the Lord. Why would he? They aren’t out forgiving, they aren’t out being Jesus. They’re still in a locked room.

So once again Jesus walks through the door, once again Jesus says, “Shalom alchem—peace be unto you”. Once again he shows his wounds. Thomas touches them. And finally, Thomas says, what we all say finally: “My Lord and my God.” Thomas believes; Thomas receives the Spirit. 

We had a fine service last Sunday celebrating Jesus’ resurrection. Caleb and Joe and Carmen provided wonderful music. We got to sing those old familiar hymns, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”, and a newer one, “Pass It On”. We heard the story, we listened to God’s Word. Now, what’s different? What did we do this week to show someone we know the love of God in Jesus Christ? Think for a minute: what did you do to show someone Jesus?

It’s a hard question, isn’t it? The simple humility of Jesus doesn’t match the angry moment in which we’re living. Many of you know we have a boat down in Baltimore. A few days ago, I was down there, staying overnight. There’s wifi in the lounge, I had a sermon to write, so I was there in the lounge, working away, alone and a guy came in and sat down, turned on the TV. 

Now all of us at the marina have boats in common, so there’s always something to talk about. But that night President Trump was speaking about the war he had started in Iran and he put that on. There was this long uncomfortable time while we watched silently, both of us afraid to say anything, to comment; we all know how angry conversations about politics can get. Finally, he said something not too off base, I replied, and we both relaxed and realized we were on the same side and then the conversation flowed. But we had to make sure we were ok first. 

That’s common today, I think. I didn’t show off Jesus that night. I just found a comfortable conversation. How do we move beyond those? We start with compassion. I have a favorite flight attendant story that doesn’t involve Jacquelyn, my personal flight attendant. It’s about a plane that lands late in Salt Lake City one night. You can imagine the situation: everyone’s tired, everyone just wants off the plane, arrangements have been disrupted, people are anxious. As the plane was rolling toward the gate, one of the flight attendants got on the PA. 

The flight attendant asked passengers to raise their hand if they were ending their journey in Salt Lake City, the flight’s destination. After most of the hands in the cabin went up, he continued.“Now, everyone who has their hands up: Imagine the anxiety you’d feel if you had to catch another flight tonight and weren’t sure you’d make it. Put your hands down. And now, those connecting to Palm Springs, and Denver, raise yours!” “Everyone, look around,” the flight attendant requested. “These are the people who’ll be sprinting off the plane tonight as soon as we land. Look at them, and imagine this was you.”

The flight attendant then implored everyone in the cabin who didn’t have a connecting flight to stay seated and give the other passengers space to get out as quickly as possible.

“If we all play our part, they can make it,” the flight attendant said. “Thank you so much for your consideration and help. Every one of those guys appreciates you for it.”The energy in the cabin completely shifted.

Everyone suddenly shared the same mission,” “We all knew who the people were that needed to hustle now. And we were all in it with them, feeling their adrenaline in our veins.”

When the plane landed only connecting passengers stood up. Others helped them with their bags. Afterwards, the remaining passengers patiently got up, grabbed their things, and exited calmly.

“The whole plane was rooting for them,” one passenger said.

It’s not much, is it? One plane, one group of people. But think how that compassion changed the moment for everyone there. Everyone landing on that plane wanted off as soon as possible; that flight attendant took their wants and transformed them into compassion.

That’s our job every day: to be the people who turn desire into compassion, who take pride and turn it into humility, who take guilt and forgive it and turn it into a new life. Last week, and the week before, I asked you to imagine asking Jesus, “What now?” Today we have the answer: go out and be Jesus, go out and forgive, go out and show the love of God every day. People are angry because they’re wounded; it’s our job to be the healers, the hopers, the helpers. At the very end of that reading in John, when he’s closing out the story, there’s one more thing we shouldn’t miss: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” That’s us.

The women go to the tomb, find it empty, tell the disciples the Lord has risen. The disciples don’t believe them. So Jesus comes to them in person to show them he’s alive. Thomas doesn’t believe it when they tell him, so Jesus again, says the same things, does the same thing. It’s the same for us: it’s never too late, Jesus just keeps coming, Jesus just keeps hoping that we will be his body, carry his Spirit, live the new life he means to give. 

Amen.

Easter 2B – The Owie Report

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The Owie Report

A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor • © 2018

Second Sunday in Easter/B • April 8, 2018

Acts 4:32-35 • John 20:19-31

Click below to hear the sermon preached

My family was never close and I moved away when I went to college. So my two younger brothers and I never really knew each other as adults. When my dad died and we gathered, it was a strange experience. But what I remember most about that time is that we were all so wounded that it overcame our midwestern male refusal to admit we were in pain. In our grief, we had a night of sharing ourselves, connecting to each other.

Now when we listen to the stories of the disciples after the Easter, we hear how those around Jesus connected, were changed and began to share their lives in the way we now call the church. They connected in a new way to Jesus; they connected to each other. These stories are meant to teach us how to do it.

I want to skip the story about the first meeting encounter between the resurrected Lord and the disciples; we’ll come back to that in a few weeks, so here’s your chance to feel you’re a little ahead on things. I want to get to Thomas. It’s an odd story, isn’t it? Thomas is a twin; he’s often referred to this way, “Thomas the twin”. And this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of him. When the word comes to Jesus that his friend Lazarus is dying and Jesus tells his disciples he’s going back to see him, the disciples are scared; they just got out of there ahead of arrest. Thomas says, “Let’s go back and die with him.” It feels like an ironic comment. Next, when Jesus is speaking about his death and resurrection and he says, “You know where I’m going,” Thomas interrupts and says, “No, we don’t: we don’t know where you are going.” He is one of the few disciples quoted and his comments are a strange mix of irony and doubt.

Now we have this story near the end of the gospel. Sometimes we collapse the story of Easter into a day but the record of the early church is that instead, it was a progressive unfolding of revelation, understanding, and vision. We can see that in this story. John tells the story of the resurrection in three stages. First, Mary encounters Jesus in the garden. We’ll come back to that story next week. Next, Jesus appears to his disciples in a locked room and literally inspires them; we read that this morning and we’ll come back to it in a few weeks. Finally, a week later, the Lord appears again, seemingly specifically for Thomas, who was absent the first time.

Where was Thomas? We don’t know. I suppose we all miss meetings sometimes; we forget the date or something comes up. We get sick, we get late. Things happen. Surely the disciples are reeling in grief after the death of Jesus. The text says they met behind a locked door in fear. Their grief is overlaid with fear for their own lives. The Romans had a habit of sweeping up the followers of a movement and killing them all. Maybe Thomas was scared to be seen with this group. After all, Peter himself—we’ll get to him in a couple weeks—was so scared even while Jesus was on trial that he denied knowing him.

Still, Thomas has missed what might seem to be the most important meeting of his life. Think of how you would feel, a week later coming and finding out that at the meeting you missed, the risen Lord made an appearance. You were busy, you were hiding, you were grieving, you were crying, you were raging at the Romans and when the time for the meeting came, you just didn’t go, you stayed home, you hid out. Later, your friends tell you what happened; they’re positively glowing, transformed. It’s enough to make your whole day sour, isn’t it? That’s how I hear his first comment. His friends tell him how the Lord appeared; he says, “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.” [John 20:25]

Doesn’t Thomas stand for us? We read these stories of an empty tomb, a Risen Lord who wafts through locked doors and I wonder how we receive them? I wonder how we believe in this Risen Lord? Throughout the Easter stories, we hear hints of this problem. No one recognizes Jesus as the Risen Lord; no one makes the connection immediately. Mary of Magdala—we’ll talk about her next week—meets the Risen Lord in a garden near the empty tomb. Now if there is one part of the whole story about which the church seems to have been consistent, it is about Mary going to the tomb. Mark says so, as we read last week; Matthew also reports Mary discovering the empty tomb. Luke says, “…on the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the woman who had come with him from Galilee] came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.” That includes Mary.” John says, “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.”

But the stories of encounters with the Risen Lord are much less consistent. Mary meets him in a garden; the disciples in an upper room in Jerusalem, other stories speak of a meeting in Galilee. Paul says Jesus appeared first to Peter, then to the rest of the disciples, then to more than 500 others, finally to Paul himself. That last encounter with Paul would have been three or four years after the first Easter. The church remembers that they didn’t recognize or understand or believe Jesus as the Resurrected Lord immediately.

Now that may come as a stunning admission from a Christian pulpit: the first Christians didn’t immediately acclaim and believe Jesus was resurrected. Maybe you’ve had a hard time believing it as well; maybe you didn’t want to admit it. But right here in the Gospel of John Thomas admits it, Thomas proclaims it: “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.” [John 20:25] The church remembers there was this problem at the start, at the core: not everyone believed.

What changed Thomas? In the story, Jesus shows him his wounds. Think of that for a moment, imagine it. The Son of God could certainly produce a miracle, he could awe and inspire in a thousand ways. But he doesn’t. He could show Thomas heavenly beauty, he could appear in shining white as he did at the transfiguration, but instead, he shows him his wounds. He shows him the ugliest thing imaginable: the wounds of the cross, the holes in his hands and feet, the place where his side was pierced by a spear, the places where he was hurt, the wounds that made him cry out from the cross. Jesus tells him to touch these ugly, terrible wounds. He doesn’t; “My Lord and my God,” he proclaims. Seeing the wounds changes him; seeing the wounds makes him a follower.

We don’t often talk about wounds. I attended a Baptist church for a couple of years; it seemed like half the hymns there had the word “blood” somewhere in the lyrics. I grew up in a culture that said about our wounds, “Never complain, never explain.” Crying was a failure. I wasn’t prepared to talk about wounds and as a young pastor, I was often uncomfortable when others did. So often I wish I could go back to some of those folks and apologize; I know I didn’t offer them the solace of safely sharing their wounds.

For sharing our wounds does indeed transform us. The pattern Jesus offers works in our lives as well. Connection is what gives meaning to life and allows us to fully become the persons God hoped. Remember that in the story of our creation, right from the beginning, we were made to hold God’s hand with one hand and someone else with the other. But that kind of connection comes out of vulnerability. In a sense, we’re like a hamster on a wheel, caught in a circular problem: we need connection to make us feel safe to be vulnerable but connection comes from being vulnerable. One writer said,

The longing for connection to another soul is within us all already. It is waiting for our nurturing and our willingness to embrace vulnerability. It is through this knowledge that we can move closer towards our universal goal of love.


[Melissa Wilder Joyce, Huffington Post]

In this moment with Thomas, Jesus shows, the church remembers, how to transcend the problem of vulnerability and connection, how to get off the hamster wheel. It happens when he shares his wounds.

Many of you know that I’m a step-parent. The thing about being a step-parent is—you have to earn it. You aren’t automatically mom or dad; you’re Jim. You’re an awkward pause when someone asks the child with you who that man is. When I became the step-parent of my older kids, I had no idea how to earn them. So I tried various things; some worked some didn’t.

The one I remember most we called the owie report. My daughter Amy was a runner and a jumper and she constantly got scratches and little injuries. These were bandaged with great seriousness. And then every night, when I went to kiss her good night we would examine each one. We’d start with the oldest wounds. We’d discuss whether something was still an owie and then move on to more recent ones. Sometimes we’d replace old band-aids. All this was done with great solemnity. Each wound was offered; each was kissed. I did this for years. By the end, I was her parent. I still am.

Thomas saw Jesus’ wounds; he called out, “My God and my Lord.” It wasn’t a miracle that changed him, it wasn’t the fact of the resurrection, it was the wounds. His connection to Jesus was transformed and it transformed his life. He may have written down the sayings of Jesus that he remembered; he himself was remembered as a great apostle. When we trust God with our wounds, we discover a connection we cannot find any other way. For then we begin to understand indeed, as scripture says, that Jesus’ wounds are for us: he was wounded for us. And when we know this, when we believe it, we also understand him as our Lord.

Amen.