Have you ever seen a UFO? Have you ever talked with someone who has had an “Encounter of the Third Kind,” someone who has met “Starman”1? If you, yourself, have had such an experience, the chances are you’ve been quiet about it, knowing other people might not believe you. We do live in a skeptical age where “seeing is believing.” On the surface, it would seem this should be the theme of today’s gospel story: “seeing is believing.” However, I think today’s readings ask a deeper question: What sign do I need in order to know that God loves me?
This is not a new question. The disciples of Jesus asked the same question some two-thousand years ago. And Jesus gave them an answer. He said God loves them like a father does. He taught his followers to call God, Abba, Daddy. And for a while, it worked. They accepted his answer. They had found God’s love through Jesus. They had found a purpose in their life by following him.
But now he has left them. They huddle in fear behind locked doors. They feel deserted, even, perhaps, betrayed. Jesus has left them. They think God has left them as well. Even today, when a loved one dies, we feel deserted and betrayed. We feel fearful about our future and being left alone. Being alone is one of our greatest fears. Being totally alone, abandoned.
I can feel that way about God. I need to feel God’s love for me. I need to feel his acceptance, his warmth. I need to know he loves me. And sometimes, just like the disciples, I sit behind the locked door of my heart and huddle in fear that he has left me, he no longer loves me. Yet, the stone rolled in front of a tomb could not imprison Jesus. A mere locked door could not keep him out. Even a locked heart might be open to his coming. And when he appears, what happens?
Twenty centuries ago, he appeared to his closest friends. They heard his voice as he said, “Shalom.” They saw him. They saw his hands and his side. They felt his breath. And what did he give them? He gave them his peace. He gave them the Holy Spirit. And what did he ask of them? To forgive one another their sins. To unbind all those who were trapped in their sins. To set one another free. To share the peace he brought to them. These are the same gifts he brings to us, and the same requests he makes of each one of us.
But what about Thomas? How much are we like Thomas? Thomas wanted the reassurance of touch. For him, it wasn’t enough merely to be told about Jesus. In fact, he implied it wouldn’t be sufficient for him to merely see Jesus. Eyes could be fooled by an apparition, by a ghost. Thomas demanded he be able to touch Jesus before he would believe that Jesus was truly there.
We, too, are like Thomas much of the time. We want to feel the presence of Jesus. We want his hugs and touch. And when they are missing in the way we want to experience them, we ask ourselves a devastating question: why? We fear we do not merit the love of God, the love of Jesus. Could Thomas have been asking himself the same questions when he heard the excited reports of his friends? In his mind, could Thomas have asked, “Why did Jesus not wait until I was present? What have I done to anger him so that he did not come to me? After all, did I not once say I would die for him? Doesn’t Jesus love me?” Perhaps Thomas was making the same mistake we all make: thinking it is through my own merits, through what I have done, that Jesus comes to me and shows God’s love for me.
Thomas did not earn the right to see Jesus. Rather, Jesus came freely, in the way he wanted to come. I do not earn a sign of Jesus’ presence. Nothing I can do can conjure up our Lord. He comes freely when he wants to. He gives me signs of his presence and of his love in unexpected ways.
For most of my life I’ve sought God through my head, through my intellect, without really experiencing him, without really touching him or having him touch me. But about six years ago I had one of my first real encounters with the Lord. It occurred during my first, silent retreat at Grand Coteau. However, the things that happened, the signs I saw, weren’t all that earthshaking when you think about them rationally. In fact they’re downright simple. Like the time I had gone out to the fields to pray.
Grand Coteau covers some five hundred acres north of Lafayette, Louisiana. There are fields and pastures and wooded areas to roam through. This one afternoon I had wandered down an old lane with huge live oaks along it and climbed over several gates until I came to a secluded pasture. I had a blanket and my Bible with me. I spread out the blanket and started to pray one of the scripture passages. But the prayer period didn’t go very well. I found it difficult to pray. All of a sudden, the sky began to cloud over. It looked like a storm was coming up. I knew I had to get back to the Retreat House. I suddenly felt lost. I knew intellectually that the House was in a certain direction, and probably less than a mile away. But I felt absolutely trapped. There was a barbed wire fence and thorn bushes around the pasture. I knew I couldn’t crawl over them.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had a panic attack, but I had one just then, and it was no fun. I didn’t know what to do when I heard a voice in my head ask, “Do you trust me? Do you, really, trust me? Or is this all an intellectual game you’ve been playing?” I finally agreed that I did really trust. And then the voice in my head said, “Follow me.”
I saw a small yellow butterfly and began to follow it. It led me across the field directly to a hole in the fence! Once I was through the hedge, I could see the Retreat Center in the distance. I firmly believe there are many signs in this world, but for me, personally, little yellow butterflies have a special meaning about trust in God and knowing that God loves me.
In order to know something in our world of 1987, we try to measure it. In order to be scientific, we use all sorts of fancy ways to measure things. We are caught up in science and technology as our 20th century way of knowing. In the process, we have eliminated a sense of Mystery. But even more sadly, we have taken respectable words like “belief” or “faith” and made them into second-rate ways of knowing.
To believe means “to know something very deeply.” To know it so well you don’t need to measure it with yardsticks or scales or fancy technology. What do we mean when we say to someone, “I know you love me?” How do we measure that kind of knowing?
Jesus asks each of us the same kinds of questions. Do you know, do you believe, I love you? Do you know, do you believe, God has sent me to bring salvation to you? Do you know, do you believe, you have life in my name?
In response, do I need measurements of his love, or can I say: I know deeply, I believe you love me, without needing to measure that love? You have given me simple signs of your love, of your presence. They are all around me. It’s not a question of what measurements, or even of what signs, do I demand to know God loves me, but, rather, what sign is I to others that God loves all of us?
In the upper room, Jesus gave his beloved followers his peace, his Holy Spirit, and he sent them forth to bring reconciliation to others. To be signs for others of his love. We heard in our first readings how they carried out this commission he gave them.
A few years ago, there was a new book written about the sacraments. You’ll recall how the sacraments are referred to as signs. Well, this book talked about these sacramental signs and other signs as well. The title of the book was Doors to the Sacred.2
Perhaps, today’s Gospel story has two points for our reflection. First: we need not huddle, alone, behind a locked door. Instead, it is through us that others can pass on their way toward God, for we are all “doors to the sacred.” And second: each of us, at times, lacks trust in the Lord. In our lack of trust, we doubt that God loves us. It’s in moments like this when we each need to find and follow our own butterfly, and to say, as did Thomas, “I believe, my Lord and my God.”
Second Sunday of Easter; April 26, 1987
Acts 2:42-47; 1 Pt 1:3-9; Jn 20:19-31
- Encounter of the Third Kind and Starman were 1987 science fiction films of friendly aliens from space visiting the earth.
- Joseph Martos, Doors to the Sacred, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York, 1981