Weekly Meditations

Meditation Of The Week

 

WHAT THOMAS WANTS

(John 20: 19-31)

 

Thomas knows all about crucifixion.

Knows the nails driven into the victim

really tear the flesh,

damage the bones.

 

And he knows that this

is a crucifying world,

with all its violence,

greed and oppression

 

still hammering nails into the hands of justice,

still thrusting spears through the ribs of love,

still hanging mercy and kindness to die

and sealing up the tomb.

 

Thomas knows all about it.

So he knows that any real resurrection

will have to come out of ruin,

will have to come out of suffering,

 

will have to come out still bearing the scars

inflicted by the unjust world.

 

Ask him not

if he believes in

merely a God

who is greater than suffering or death;

any God worth the name

would surely prove immortal,

who may be able to pretend our pain

but could never share it in truth.

 

No, what Thomas wants to see

is the Lord who rises from

death by crucifixion,

 

who rises

from the worst that our world can do:

who rises

from hells of corruption and cruelty,

who rises

from violence and terror and hate,

who rises

from rape and torture and war,

who rises

from hunger and disease and squalor,

who rises

torn and terribly scarred

yet walking among us still,

 

who will touch us in

our woundedness,

who will hold us in

our brokenness,

who sees in us

the prints left by the nails,

 

who will put his own hurt hand upon

our heartache, fear and despair

and breathe his healing peace

into our souls.

 

This is who Thomas wants to see – the only

Lord he wants to believe in.

 

Thomas just wants to see Jesus.