An Easter People

If you were a card maker and worked for Hallmark, what kind of card would you make for “after Easter people?”

This was the question posed to me as part of our regular Wednesday night service at church.

My first response was, “well I AM an Easter people. “So why should I worry about “after Easter”. If I don’t live in the hope of the resurrection, then why bother with it all? I know what the group leader meant. Our group came up with the card tag line of “It is after Easter…do you know where YOUR disciples are?” This was a direct reference to the “hidden people” of the Upper Room. How big was the upper room anyway?! But truly…our lectionary reading this week is from John 20 and tells of doubting Thomas. I love Thomas and can’t say that I wouldn’t also want to touch hands, feet, side, and anything else of a friend and teacher with whom I was close and loved. But then again I tend to stand up for underdogs.

Jesus lets him touch. Lets Thomas gouge his hands into the holes (I would assume they are still there?). Remember earlier, Jesus didn’t let Mary touch him as he had yet to ascend to heaven. He tells her to go and tell of his presence. At least I think this is the story. So why Thomas? I wonder if it is not that Thomas doubted but that Thomas’ experience of Jesus needed to be different than Mary’s. Thomas was not there when Jesus appeared earlier to the disciples in the upper room. Maybe he went for more wine? After all it had been a frightful few days.

But if we are an Easter people, we live in the hope and that hope looks and feels (literally) different for each of us. I don’t doubt Mary’s experience of the risen Christ. I also don’t doubt Thomas’. After all he made the declaration we recite in creeds and criteria...”my Lord and my God”.

In class today I admitted to being a closet conservative. Well sorta conservative. Much more to the right of some of my classmates at any rate on some issues. I can claim that and live with it. For me, the resurrection is what makes Jesus who he is, what makes Jesus’ life so radically alive. Yes he was subversive and up ended the systems of the day, but the resurrection tells me (literally or figuratively) that he was God’s all the way.

As I said in class, with the words, “who is it that you say I am”, Jesus allows us to declare who he is. And by that, we declare ourselves to be an Easter People.