Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 117. We do so in the spirit of Thomas, who now offers his unquestioning faith to our patient and forgiving Jesus.
Praise the LORD, all you nations; glorify him, all you peoples! For steadfast is his kindness for us, and the fidelity of the LORD endures forever
Psalm 117: 1-2
Faith is not a commodity or an achievement. Faith is relationship and a journey.
It is a gift and an exercise of grace. Never stretched, it withers like a brittle ligament.
It ebbs and flows with our personal and communal dramas. It deepens with prayer, silent reaching, and a listening obedience to our lives. It shallows with our demands, like Thomas’s, only to see and to touch.
It is fed by the Lavish Mercy of God Who never cuts its flow to our souls if we but take down the seawall around our heart.
On this day when we celebrate the power of tested and proven faith, may we bring our needs into the circle gathered in that Upper Room.
Standing beside Thomas today in our prayer, may we place our trust in the glorified wounds of Christ.
A video today for our prayer: Blessed Are They That Have Not Seen
Music: Healing Touch – Deuter
As we reach out in faith with Thomas to touch Christ’s wounds, let us open our hearts to receive the returning touch of God’s Lavish Mercy.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we read about the “Golden Years” of Christianity, those early days when Resurrection glory still lay fresh and warm over the nascent Church:
Awe came upon everyone, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes. They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart, praising God and enjoying favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Acts 2: 43-47
Have you had times like that in your life where circumstances merged to make life a little piece of heaven? The right time, the right people, the right work to share? Perhaps the effort was taxing, but the merged joy and enthusiasm carried you through.
Some of my wonderful friends sharing a joyful project together
We cherish such times when we have them. And we remember their stories with tenderness, laughter and gratitude. This kind of remembering is what Luke, Peter, and John offer in our readings. They invite to experience the “indescribable joy” of our “new birth in Christ“ just as they experienced it.
Of course, we weren’t with the disciples in that first post-Easter glow. We might struggle a little, like absent Thomas did, to enthusiastically believe. He demanded to SEE before he would give his heart over:
Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
John 20:24-25
Jesus was so kind to Thomas, wasn’t he – allowing Thomas not only to see, but to touch his sacred wounds.
Jesus is kind to us too. Through our Baptism, we are invited to see and touch Christ’s wounds in our own time and, like the gloriously joyous disciples, to be healers in God’s name.
In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith … may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1:6-8
Poetry: from “Sounding of the Seasons” by Malcolm Guite
“We do not know… how can we know the way?” Courageous master of the awkward question, You spoke the words the others dared not say And cut through their evasion and abstraction.
Oh doubting Thomas, father of my faith, You put your finger on the nub of things We cannot love some disembodied wraith, But flesh and blood must be our king of kings.
Your teaching is to touch, embrace, anoint, Feel after Him and find Him in the flesh. Because He loved your awkward counter-point The Word has heard and granted you your wish.
Oh place my hands with yours, help me divine The wounded God whose wounds are healing mine.
Lavish Mercy 