Intro:
          I have had major baby time this past Holy Week. My grand nieces were at the farm for a whole week and it was wonderful. But it was not wonderful every minute of every day. You see Sophie Allen had a cold and her mom and dad went back to Wisconsin early. So Sophie was missing these two most important people in her life. She needed comfort. What did we do for comfort? We brought out the binkys, binkys and blankets and hugs and holding. There are times in all of our lives when we need comfort. We do everything we can to comfort ourselves. Comfort is our answer to fear and grief and doubt. Fear, grief and doubt are all related and intertwined.
         
          Grief and Comfort
          The disciples behind the locked doors aren’t so different from Sophie or you or me. The difference is one of scale and intensity, but it is the same in essence. We find the disciples hunkered down, keeping a low profile, in fear. They are in that deep grief time. Those of you who have suffered a loss, you know how it is. You know the shock, almost numbness and pain.  After a death what would we do? How do we piece together enough comfort to go on? Well, we send in some casseroles, make sure there was plenty of comfort food. That is not a small thing. A casserole says, “We care about you. We are with you. We want to sustain you.” We wrap up in blankets and keep our friends and family close. We hang together just talking and being present for each other for support. We can’t even think of what to do next but we reach for comfort. Little Sophie was reaching for comfort. We reach for comfort. The disciples needed comfort.
          Trauma and Threat
          Peter and James and John and the others were right where we are after a death, only worse. Because they have the added trauma of a violent death, horrible images replaying in their minds and worse a real and present threat to their own safety. Now we all can imagine their grief based on our own grief. But we have a to stretch to imagining the threat level. What if there was a real and credible threat right now to us? Imagine that. What if we needed to lock the doors right now?  Let’s think of a plan. Let’s think defensively. Better turn off the lights. Maybe we need to move the bigger men to block the doors; we need some scrappy women who are willing to mix it up. We should move the small children farther into the Friendship Room. Set someone to watch from the window. Keep the talk low. There we have a plan, we are doing something that makes us slightly more comfortable. Jesus friends were working on their own comfort. They were answering doubt and fear by locking the doors, sticking together.
          Christ Comes
          Yet into this dark grief stricken, fearful place Christ comes and says, “Peace be to you” and he shows them his wounds and they are overjoyed. It really was Jesus. Jesus tells them he is sending them out. Jesus gives them the Holy Spirit. The place of fear and darkness where the disciples were is transformed. They had a religious experience, a transformation of what they thought they knew. New possibilities opened up. They look at the world differently. This is they way us too. Many of us have had times of great tragedy and yet felt the presence of God with us. We have been comforted, and empowered. Death despite the sadness of separation is not the end for ourselves or those we love. The ability to fight terrible prognoses comes to us. Or we see that the end of a relationship or divorce is not the end of God’s love for us. God has come to many of us and brought the message of “Peace be to You.”
          “Show Me” Thomas
          But even if we have experienced the Peace of Christ, that is not everyone’s experience.  Look at Thomas. Thomas did not get to have this transforming experience that the others did. The disciples could tell Thomas how it was, but that doesn’t mean he believed them. Thomas wants the comfort of Jesus presence as much as anyone. But, Thomas wants proof. Thomas has a different kind of comfort. Don’t give him hope that is too painful. Thomas wants the comfort of certainty. When things get tough he gets rational. He seeks the comfort of facts. We can understand this. We are a “prove it to me” society, an entire age of Hoosiers demanding “show me.” Thomas had his own way of dealing with grief and fear. He tried to reason it out. There are always those people in a grieving family, the ones who rush to make things as right as they can, who take on the odd jobs, who deal with the gritty details. Who get  rational and functional and withdraw from emotion. Maybe Thomas was that kind of guy. Thomas doubted. He was just being reasonable. Someone has to keep a level head. I have a great deal of sympathy for Thomas. As a charter member of agnostics anonymous I really understand his doubt. Thomas is called Dydymus, the twin, and I think he has a twin in most of us. We all struggle with doubt. We are Thomas’s twins.
          Two Ways to Deal with Doubt
          How do we deal with uncertainty, uncertainty within ourselves or in others? If you don’t know something that everyone around you seems to know you have two choices. You can pretend you know what everyone else know. You can fake it. Think back to when you were a kid. You are in a group of kids and it doesn’t matter what they are talking about. It could be baseball or sex or nuclear fission. Anyway, you don’t know about that stuff. Well you could just nod your head and make neutral sounds and pretend you understand everything. I do this anytime anyone talks about football. Or you could really be courageous and go out on a limb. You could ask a question. This is much more risky, honest but risky. This is Thomas. We should call him honest Thomas or courageous Thomas. Thomas knows what he needs. He needs to see and touch for himself.
          Thomas’s Example
          Thomas does several things right that we need to pay attention to. We need to follow Thomas’s example. He says what he needs. He is honest with his friends. Too often we aren’t honest with each other or with God. We are lukewarm because we have settled for someone else’s experience. Thomas knows he wants his own experience. He wants his own encounter with Christ. So should we. Stick with the spiritual journey until you get your own experience. There is a saying, that in heaven there are no grandchildren. Not because God doesn’t like kids, but because every person must struggle and come to an authentic faith for themselves. It is a fact of growing up that children have the faith that their parents have. But sometime usually in the 20’s that that beloved child of God must forge and be open to a relationship apart from parents, a faith of their own. God has children, not grandchildren. The fact is that if you are struggling with an authentic faith, then you won’t be satisfied with a fake one, nor with an inherited one. Brave Thomas, courageous Thomas knew he needed his own faith, his own encounter with Christ.
          You know what else Thomas does? Thomas stays in the room. He sticks with his friends. He stays close to people who have experienced the Risen Christ.   Thomas doesn’t go away because he didn’t share in the disciple’s experience. He doesn’t run away. He stays with his uncertainty. The temptation is always to run away from uncertainty, to throw in the towel and move to more certainty. When some people have doubts in the church, they leave. They move toward the comfort of being certain, even it that certainty makes them miserable, certain that they don’t believe. But sitting with doubts is powerful spiritual medicine. The Russian writer, Dostoyevsky was a great Christian and a great doubter. He had always thought of his doubts as a devil sent to torment him. But as he matured, he came to understand doubt not as a devil, but as an angel. He wrote, “All my hosannas have been forged in the crucible of doubt,” “All my hosannas have been forged in the crucible of doubt.”  Faith lives hand in hand with doubt by continuing to worship God, by continuing to pray for what you need despite doubt. When Jesus healed the demon-possessed child in Mark 9:24 the overjoyed father cried out, “I believe, help my unbelief.” There it is faith and doubt and yearning mixed up together.          
          The Pattern of Doubt to Faith
          Most people of strong faith have struggled with doubt. Abraham and Sarah laughed at the thought that God would really send them a child in their old age. Moses didn’t think God could really use him.  He thought God’s HR people had gotten the wrong guy. These people stay the course with their doubts, then revelation and a great and true comfort came to them. Just as Jesus came to Thomas and gave him what he needed. So also will God give you what you need. This is a pattern that repeats over and over in the Christian life. Dorothy Day was a woman with doubts. Dorothy Day, not Doris Day. Graham tells me she is the patron saint of social workers. Dorothy Day was very much a modern woman. She came from an agnostic background, much too smart for God. She lived with her boyfriend. She had a child out of wedlock. She dumped her boyfriend. But then as a struggling single mother, she found herself in such need of comfort.  Dorothy started to explore Christian Spirituality. But she struggled with doubt. She tried to pray, but she found herself asking, “ Is there anyone out there? Do I really believe?” But then one day as she was walking in to the post office, she sensed a deep thankfulness and she prayed with that. She sensed that she was to pray with what she had, whatever mustard seed of faith she had. Dorothy Day stayed the course, she prayed this way everyday as she walked to the post office. Slowly, a consciousness of faith grew inside her. Bit by bit she sensed God’s presence more and more. And she was able to drop her doubts. Just like a child drops their old comfortable blanket or their binky when the time is ripe. The doubt or the little comforts had served their purpose, but her faith out grew them and she let them go. Doubt is a resting place but it is not a place to stay. Dorothy Day went on to found the Catholic Worker, an organization for the poor and homeless and there is now a movement to canonize her as a saint. 
          God is always moving us from little to big, little comforts to big comforts, little faith to big faith, little love to great love. But the lesson of Thomas is to stay the course, be open to completely new experience, be honest, stay with and beside believers that will honor your doubts and support you in your struggle. If you do this you can pray with Thomas, that great break-through prayer, “My Lord and My God” Peace be to you.