I find it curious that the lectionary gives us the so-called "Doubting Thomas" story on the second Sunday of Easter every year. Perhaps doubt is such an essential part of the Christian character that we doubters need someone in the inner circle of Jesus' friends with whom to identify. Perhaps it assures us that belief is not a finished product. Perhaps it reminds us that one may be included in the faith community, even if one does not see the resurrected Christ. As if the story anticipates later Christians who, like the baby of the family cry, "Me too! What about me?" offering the grace of inclusion, even if we're not in on what the others got to begin with.

Thomas, in the gospel of John, is not a guy of squishy faith. He is a pragmatist who asks direct, incisive questions, revealing a deep commitment to discipleship of Jesus. Imagine how Thomas must have felt as he returned Easter evening. Someone had to run out for milk and Sunday papers. He alone of all the disciples had the courage to venture beyond the locked doors. Then Jesus shows up, blowing in everyone's face, bestowing the Holy Spirit and giving them all the charge to "be the Church" by forgiving and nurturing and supporting. He had just run a couple errands. Rather than sticking with, "How come I wasn't there?" Thomas' concern was to learn the truth. Who could blame him? By this time, Thomas was used to Peter's exaggerating. "Let's build three booths! I'll never abandon you, Jesus! Don't wash my feet-wash all of me! I'll never deny you, never deny you, never deny you." Once bit, twice shy, three times real stupid. Thomas didn't just fall off the turnip truck. Was he supposed to believe the word of this hyperbolist? His caution and concern to get things right, makes him a far more credible witness than Peter. No wonder we hear this story every year the Sunday after Easter.

The first time Jesus comes to the room, what he forms has all the earmarks of church: the presence of the crucified and risen Christ, believers who are sent out with the message of forgiveness, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Nothing is missing! Notice I've used the present-tense. These continue as the requisites for church today: people who believe, the radical notion that Jesus is present, believers who are commissioned to go out telling others the good news of love and forgiveness, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

But, maybe like Thomas, we aren't quite sure we've got it all straight. Some of us know with our heads (this is a Presbyterian church, after all), some of us know with our guts, and some of us come to knowing in the process of acting as if we know. Jesus not only comes looking for the disciples (even though they are locked up in secret out of fear), Jesus gives them what they need for belief. For most of them, it's his breath in their faces. For Thomas it's an offer of tangible proof.

But there's that door, locked "for fear." Fear is the opposite of love, and we are fearful of so much-people who are not like us, threats to our possessions, that we won't be loved. But fear comes in many flavors-resentment, lack of forgiveness, clinging to the safe and familiar. These fears constrict us, rob us of the resurrection's freedom. This week's news, in which dying has been made so public, we remember bodily death is not our greatest fear. We are fearful of bodily death. The appeal of assisted suicide is death on our terms. But more than a body can die. Our souls die when we can't give ourselves away in love. When we cling to the way things have always been. When we withhold forgiveness. When we avoid commitment. When we treasure our hurts and nurture our pains. It isn't just the door to the room that is locked because of fear.

The challenge of Thomas' story might raise some fears, implying as it does the need of change in believers. Jesus transformed his disciples and formed the Church by blowing in their faces. He charged them with repeated declarations of forgiveness, requiring them to nurture and support each other where they are at. For what purpose? Springwater will be asking itself that question as we engage in a mission study and as we support and assist the Mission Outreach Committee in discerning where and how God calls us to serve in our community. What is our purpose? That is what underlies Eastertide preaching. What is the purpose of the Church? Today we learn that it is to help each other love and believe in the risen Christ.

Big deal, right? Every year when I get to the goofy conclusion of this reading I think, "This is so anti-climactic, I'm not reading it this year," and every year I've got a new reason for including it. "I've told you these stories," the writer says, "(and this isn't all of them), I've told you them so that you have what you need to believe and sustain your faith in the crucified and risen Savior. The point is transformed lives, just like Thomas." If it was hard for people who could see Jesus in the flesh, who could ask him questions and hear his answers, if they literally walked in the dust he raised on the literal road-if these people had trouble being the Church and needed the help of the Holy Spirit literally blown in their faces-what about us? Do we tell each other the stories of Jesus to nurture in each other love and belief in the Christ? Not just the stories we read in the Bible-those are good stories, and we need to tell them to each other in Sunday School and Bible study groups and conversations. But not just the Bible stories. We need to tell each other the stories of Jesus from our own lives. That's why we are offering an adult Sunday School class on telling our own sacred story-to help each other read the signs and wonders and deeds of power God is doing in our lives even today.

I used to have a recording of a song about faith. "You've got all you get, you just exercise it," the singer would tell me all the way to work and back. I'm not sure this is good news or discouraging news. We all know creative people who can use $5 more effectively and imaginatively than other people can use a fortune. The fitness trainers at the gym where I exercise use the same principle. God gave you a set of muscles, they say, work and train them, and you will increase your strength.

What's holding us back? What are we waiting for? Maybe our doors are locked out of fear. Here's the rest of the quotation you have printed on your announcements page as the "Meditation before Worship." It's by Frederick Buechner, from the book Listening to Your Life. "Anxiety and fear are what we know best in this fantastic century of ours. Wars and rumors of wars. From civilization itself to what seemed the most unalterable values of the past, everything is threatened or already in ruins. We have heard so much tragic news that when the news is good we cannot hear it.

"But the proclamation of Easter Day is that all is well. And as a Christian, I say this not with the easy optimism of one who has never known a time when all was not well but as one who has faced the Cross in all its obscenity as well as in all its glory, who has known one way or another what it is like to live separated from God. In the end, his will, not ours, is done. Love is the victor. Death is not the end. The end is life. His life and our lives through him, in him. Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, & benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream. Christ our Lord has risen."

Friends, I don't know what kind of proof you need to understand in your deepest gut that Christ is not only risen, he is risen for you and offers you life. For some people, like Peter, all it takes is an empty tomb. For others, like Mary Magdalene, it takes Jesus calling their name. Others will need the fresh, living breath of hope blowing in their faces while they sit in the presence of their friends before they figure out this is from God. Others, like Thomas, need to put hands and feet to their belief. These people may need to act like forgiveness and hope and the new life of love. Whatever it takes, I can promise you that Jesus is looking for you, offering you what you need for love and belief. Receive the good news of the gospel. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed.