It was a wonderful day last Sunday, wasn't it? I know that my family and I had a good time. Last Sunday, we experienced the joy of celebrating Easter, the Resurrection of our Lord. There was lots of wonderful music with organ and brass and tympani. There was a multitude of lilies decorating the chancel and these bright banners remain on the walls. And there was a great sermon from our Senior Pastor, Patricia Farris. As you may remember, Patricia focused on Mary Magdalene's encounter with the risen Jesus at the empty tomb. In the tradition of the early church, Mary Magdalene was often called the "Apostle to the Apostles." Mary was the first person who understood the miracle of the resurrection that occurred on that first Easter morning. It was Mary who informed the remaining eleven disciples of what she had seen and heard and understood.

I have more good news for you this morning: Easter is not over. Notice in your order of worship that today is the Second Sunday of Easter, not the Second Sunday after Easter. The church celebrates Easter for 50 days until we reach Pentecost on June 3rd. We are called to celebrate Christ's resurrection and the promise of life during this 50-day period.

Just as the Easter season continues, so does the story of Easter in today's gospel lesson. I consider the story of the empty tomb and Mary Magdalene part one of the Easter story. Today we heard in the reading from John part two of the story. We ended part one last week with Mary Magdalene running back to the disciples to tell them about her encounter with the risen Jesus. The disciples are locked in a room together, fearing for their own lives, and probably for good reason. Their leader had just been tried and brutally executed for blasphemy and treason. Now they may be the next targets for the authorities. They probably didn't believe Mary's story when she told them about seeing Jesus alive again. In the Gospel of Luke, a group of women including Mary Magdalene tell the disciple about their discovery, but they are dismissed for spreading "an idle tale" (Luke 24:11). So my guess is that the disciples were pretty shocked when Jesus appeared to them through a locked door and says "Peace be with you." And when Jesus shows them the wounds in his hands and side, they are reported to believe.  They needed proof and they receive it.

But the story continues. You see, Thomas was away somewhere when Jesus appeared to the disciples in that locked room. Thomas doesn't buy this story that his closest friends are now telling him, how Jesus appeared to them and commissioned them to do ministry in his name. Thomas 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). Thomas needs physical proof to accept the resurrection event. Forget these supposed eyewitness accounts from Mary Magdalene and the others; Thomas needs to see and touch Jesus in order to have faith.

So a week later, Jesus obliges. He returns to the room where the disciples are gathered and confronts Thomas. "Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side," Jesus says. "Do not doubt but believe" (John 20:27). And with this proof, Thomas finally does believe, and cries out, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28).

A happy ending, right? Not so fast. Jesus is always teaching, and this story is no exception. "Have you believed me because now you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe" (John 20:30). Jesus is criticizing Thomas, even though Thomas now believes and proclaims Jesus "My Lord and my God!" The issue is how Thomas came to this faith. For Thomas and the disciples, physical evidence was required before they believed. But the Gospel of John was written for a Jewish Christian community at least two generations after Jesus' death. They and all of the generations of Christians that have followed and are to come do not have physical proof. We are required to believe without seeing the wounds of Christ, and are blessed for believing that which we do not see.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, defined faith as "evidence of the unseen." But what is that evidence? We can point to Paul's letters and the gospel accounts of Jesus in scripture, but someone could object and say that it's fictional. We could point to the 2,000-year-old tradition of the Christian church, but what if you don't accept the church as the authority on this matter? And it certainly seems to be beyond our intellectual reason.

Where then is the evidence of the unseen? It comes from the experiences in our own lives. When we realize that we are children of God, that we are loved and forgiven and accepted by Jesus Christ, it is only then that we have proof of our own faith. Faith goes beyond simply hearing the story of Christ; faith is realized when we experience Christ in our lives. It was this very point that set John Wesley apart from his peers in the 18th century, and it is one of the things that makes us unique as Methodists. We feel the presence of Christ within us and then share that experience with one another as a community of faith. John Wesley's brother, Charles Wesley, expressed this very sentiment when he wrote the hymn entitled "Spirit of Faith, Come Down" in 1746. Take a moment and look at verse 2 of this hymn; it is number 332 in your hymnal.

No one can truly say that Jesus is the Lord, Unless thou take the veil away and breathe the living Word. Then, only then, we feel our interest in his blood, And cry with joy unspeakable, "Thou art my Lord, my God!"

"Thou art my Lord, my God!" Of course, those are the words that Thomas cried out when he believed. We, too, are asked to say those words when we understand and accept the Easter message. We are called to believe in both the person of Jesus Christ and the message preached by him and his followers. We are asked to move beyond the seen to the unseen, from the tangible to the intangible, from the physical to the spiritual. The great paradox is that we experience the unseen, the intangible and the spiritual in the lives we are living here and now in this very real world.

If the Gospel of John doesn't convince you and if John and Charles Wesley don't convince you, then let me offer one more piece of evidence for your consideration. This takes place in July 1944 in Berlin, Germany. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a thirty-eight year old Lutheran pastor and theologian, has been arrested for conspiring to assassinate Adolf Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime. He is a very unlikely hero in this situation; he is a quiet, reserved academic from a prominent Berlin family, prone to wearing little round eyeglasses and three-piece suits. But he has reached the theological and ethical decision that the evil perpetuated by Hitler's government must be stopped, even at the cost of taking another human life. There was still some hope even as Bonhoeffer, his brother Klaus, and his brother-in-law waited in prison. A final attempt to assassinate Hitler was being carried out by colleagues who had not been discovered yet. The attempt is scheduled for July 20, 1944. But things go wrong: Hitler survives the bombing attempt and Bonhoeffer's conspirators on the outside are shot on the spot. Now Bonhoeffer knows that all hope is lost; he will not get out of prison alive.

Here is what Bonhoeffer writes the next day, July 21st, in this letter from prison to his closest friend, Eberhard Bethge:

I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world-watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith.

Bonhoeffer was later transferred to the concentration camp in Flossenburg and executed by hanging on April 9, 1945 for his role in the conspiracy. Only one month later, the Third Reich surrendered to the allies and the concentration camps were liberated.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew he was facing death in prison when he wrote that letter on July 21st in 1944. Yet, as you heard, he wrote that faith could only be experienced in this world, in the messy, untidy lives that we all lead. We can proclaim "My Lord and my God" only when we learn to embrace this life with all of its ups and downs. In some mysterious way, we experience the presence of the risen Christ, even without seeing and touching the wounds of his passion. When we proclaim Jesus Christ to be our Lord, we receive the power to face both sin and death. It is a resurrection power that is both beyond us and within us, the power to bring the dead back to new life.    

I want to return to the gospel of John for the last word this morning. The final verses from our gospel lesson today were probably the original conclusion to the gospel (chapter 21 was added later). Here is what is written in verses 30-31: "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through believing you may have life in his name" (John 20:30-31). The gospel writer is being very open now. He is telling his listeners what the gospel story of Jesus means. The reason for sharing these stories about Jesus is for us to believe that he is the anointed one, the Messiah, the Son of God.  And what is at stake is life and death.

Life in the name of Christ is there to be claimed. If we can take that step and believe, without seeing the wounds in Jesus' hands and side, then new life awaits each of us. The problems that we face in our daily existence-sin, evil, illness, death . . . do not magically disappear. But believing in the risen Christ gives us hope and security beyond our human capacity. We are given the power to conquer death because Christ has conquered death in the resurrection.

I don't know how else I can say it. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the great mysteries of faith. Each time we partake in the Sacrament of Holy Communion we recite together this mystery of faith:

"Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again."

Let us say that together:

"Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again."

"Blessed are those who have not seen but yet believe." Go and share the good news of Christ's resurrection, brothers and sisters. We are still celebrating Easter.