Once Upon the Ink

Taken from John 20:24-29

It’s late. Outside the stars are out, the night is cold… quiet. But inside this room, the air is thick and smothering. Anxiety wiggles uncomfortably in the space between words – “what will come next?” It keeps asking, “What happens now?” Just like every other night, we’re hiding, smuggled in from one room to the next through shadows and cloaks, like criminals on the run.

We’ve been reduced to relying on others – avoiding the marketplaces in case we’re recognized, secretly funnelled from one family’s home to the next by those who fell in love with Jesus.

And after the shock of what Judas did, none of us trusts easily. We’re just waiting for the next betrayal. For the moment when the army will break in and find us. Time hangs suspended and yet jerks forward from one moment to the next in the disorienting way of trauma.

Right now, Thomas and I are standing in the back of the room, keeping to the edges of the group. Neither of us feels like joining the others as they eat and pray together. There’s been a shift over the past week, a loosening of shoulders. Hope is back, lessening the heaviness of uncertainty. There’ve been reports of him: first from Mary, then Peter, and then more.

Reports that he’s not dead.

Even though Thomas knows that such a thing is possible – he saw what happened with Lazarus at the same time as all the others – he’s not placated by the news.

Thomas folds his arms and leans back against the wall next to me. The stubborn, defiant tilt to his chin mirrors my own. Both of us feel mulish. Rebellious. Resentful even. There’s a small rift forming between us and the others. And it’s making everyone uncomfortable.

Thomas just got through an argument with Peter over it. And he’s still glowering.

Peter, as usual, being so overly eager to share what he knows, totally missed the social cues Thomas and I were radiating when he started talking about what he saw. He was so caught up in his story, glowing with excitement over being with Jesus. He couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t just believe him. Why our faces wouldn’t grin back at his tale. He was flabbergasted at our reception. And then angry at Thomas’ outright denial. It got awkward. For everyone.

“I won’t believe it.” Thomas whispers – as if I argued with him – when I didn’t say a single word. When I am standing here beside him, mirroring his posture and his thoughts as if they were my own. His whole body is tense – wired, “Not til I’ve put my own fingers in the holes in his hands, touched the wound in his side.” There’s an edge to his voice, a desperation, and it scrapes at me, makes me swallow back the answering knot in my own throat.

I don’t speak, I just nod my head. Perfectly in accord with him. He doesn’t know I’m here anyway, or notice that I’m standing with him rather than with the others.

What neither of us is willing to admit out-loud is the reason for our stubborn disbelief. But the accusation is there, hovering at the back of our thoughts. Why did Jesus appear to them and not us? Thomas is inwardly cursing himself for leaving the group when he did, but underneath it, there’s a childish, bewildered yearning. Why didn’t Jesus wait until we were all here? Why didn’t we get to see him, too?

Does it mean something? That we’re the last? That we were left out while the others all got their time with him?

My heart squeezes tighter. There’s a growing resentment in the man beside me. He’s supposed to just live off of what others testify? Be the only one who didn’t get to see Jesus’ resurrection, or hear his voice again?

Maybe we should be more mature than this. Maybe we should be patient. Jesus’ words about how the last shall be first flicker through my mind. But I hate that sentence right now.

It doesn’t help to chastise myself, anyway, try to beat some patience into my skin. I tried that for years. To be the mature one in the group. Force myself to deny anything and everything that smacked of selfishness. Right now I don’t want to be mature. Or patient. I don’t want to let others be first. Not when it comes to him.

I want to see him.

The ache sits on my chest. Squeezes my lungs. I need him just as much as any other. My inner self is stomping my foot like a kid. Thomas doesn’t say it, but I heard the same need in his voice. I can feel the desperation in his shoulders as if it’s my own.

He’s worrying, asking himself what if he’s the only one who never gets to see Jesus again? Feel his hand clamp onto his shoulder? What if his last sight of Jesus was that of one thrown over his shoulder as he ran away from that night like a coward? As a person who would abandon his brother to torture and death?

I feel sudden, deep affection for Thomas as I look at his rebellious stance. This one moment is going to be his most famous. And not in a good way.

Sermon after sermon will be composed on how not to be like him. How to try harder or to be better. How not to need proof – to strive for that supernatural faith that doesn’t require sight.

I look around at the rest of the group. I think about all the screw ups these men have been recorded doing. All their hasty words that get used as props in sermons. All their mis-steps, judgement, jealousy and bickering that gets picked apart and dissected and used. Oh how much we love to scold each other. As if we can reach perfection through that scolding. Why do we insist on following that prescription for holiness when it doesn’t work? I think about how these 12 could never keep up with Jesus, were always clueless about what he was trying to show them.

Thank goodness.

Thank goodness they’re like me.

Not super heroes in a fantasy novel. Instead they’re people with flaws and good hearts that are sometimes hard, minds that are sometimes careful, sometimes reactive, souls that are sometimes caught up in helping others, sometimes stuck and ego-centered. People that struggle and keep going anyway. Followers that can’t preach a sermon without admitting they’re in the bog of unknowing just like the rest of us. They can’t pretend on paper – on the accounts that got handed down. They get caught by Jesus every time they do.

It surprises me, the spike of gratitude. I think it’s the first time I’ve been thankful for their mess ups. Thought of their imperfections as a gift. Instead of rolling my eyes at them and being annoyed, I’m so thankful they’re like me. That being with Jesus didn’t make them suddenly perfect.

Thomas stiffens and slowly straightens from the wall, something in his manner making me look up from my toes.

I jolt.

Jesus is standing right in front of us. Grinning. His expression is mischievous, as if he’s saying, “gotcha!”

My heart turns over, squeezes, at the feel of him just there, right in front of me. So close. So familiar. Why do I always forget him so quickly?

He reaches out a hand. “Put your finger here.” He says to Thomas, holding his gaze, waiting for Thomas to feel the hole the nails left in his wrist. He lets Thomas trace it, that ridge of scar tissue, the both of them suddenly sober, as if inside a sacred ritual. The one where Jesus is being stamped into Thomas’ mind and heart. The one where all that he did starts sinking in. Jesus shifts direction, reaches to his side, his voice quieter, but still full of comfort, “put your hand in the wound on my side.”

Thomas is weeping, silently. Tears spilling down his cheeks into his beard. His eyes are repentant, and full of relief. Here he is. The man he missed like a brother. I feel the wave of his emotions like they’re my own. All fears and doubts are banished instantly in Jesus’ eyes. Those monsters that haunt us can never can survive inside his gaze. The eyes that love us so much. The ones that tease and know us to our cores.

Thomas feels sheepish maybe (if he’s like me). Unsure what to say. It’s clear Jesus heard his challenge. He knows how stubborn he was being. How unreasonable.

Thomas wanted proof – but more he just wanted Jesus’ presence. The truth is, someone else’s testimony can’t carry our hearts. Not fully. Maybe sometimes with Holy Spirit’s help we can feel the truth through someone else. But, more often we need to feel Jesus for ourselves. He knew it, too. He didn’t hesitate to take that responsibility on himself. It’s why he did what he did.

Jesus chuckles and pulls Thomas into a bear hug, slapping his back. “Do you believe me now?” He teases. But really what he’s saying to both of us is “I’m here.” They squeeze tighter, Thomas clutching him as close as he can. “I’m always with you.”

They step back, Thomas awkward like we can get after emotional displays. There’s tears all over the room, though. Each one of those here is relieved to see Jesus another time. None of them wants to break the moment, in case he disappears again.

Jesus looks at me, his eyes glimmering with tears too, seeing my longing, my wishing, my yearning to be with him. Knowing I’m only an invisible presence in the room. That many others like me will do the same imagining I am doing.

“Blessed are those who haven’t seen but trust in me anyway.” He says quietly, in comfort, his voice settling over my heart. Like a blanket, like a hug relayed by Holy Spirit straight into my soul. Speaking directly to me and those of us who didn’t get to live back then.

And though I know I’m not in that room with the disciples, I can feel him gathering up close, right inside my mind and heart and soul. Imprinting the feel of his heart and his love into the deepest parts of me. And the mischief in his eyes says he doesn’t mind that I get childishly tactile in my need for him sometimes. He doesn’t mind at all being wanted.