Green Blades Preaching Roundtable

These days, we are learning more about trauma-informed care. Many life experiences qualify as traumatic, as we define it as any enduring emotional response that results from living through a distressing event. Trauma unsettles a person’s sense of safety, self, and ability to regulate emotions and figure out one’s relationships. It affects how one thinks about the future, the possibilities that lie ahead. As a hospital chaplain and pastor, it’s hard not to read Thomas through the lens of trauma. And there isn’t much to read, as Thomas is mentioned hardly at all in the Fourth Gospel.

There are at least two notable instances that show us a little of Thomas’ nature before the trauma of the crucifixion. Thomas was willing to go with Jesus into dangerous territory so that he may die with him (John 11:6) while other disciples wanted to run in the other direction. Before the happening of Jesus’ death, I like to imagine Thomas as one with courage, hopefulness, loyalty, commitment to Jesus. Later in John 14, Jesus speaks of preparing a place for his followers. Thomas responds in verse five, saying: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Thomas shows curiosity, confidence in Jesus and his strange words, and a desire to know the path to follow him. Why would this man suddenly need to see and touch his friend in order to believe? Not even the testimony of his close friends, those who experienced the happening of Jesus’ death, was enough to persuade him. "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," says Thomas (20:25). This reads to me like a trauma response. Jesus grants his wish—but not without a word about belief: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." (v. 29)

What are we to believe about Christ? We are not given the opportunity to see and touch Jesus in the same way Thomas and the other disciples did. We may have access to Christ, but the fact remains that belief in God is not without vulnerability and risk. We can still have confidence in Christ’s promise of resurrection and seek to know him, but it requires us to let go of something we think we know about God. Belief isn’t about head-knowledge, it is also about heart-spirit-body knowledge, too. Our unique lives that often include a dimension of trauma changes the way we approach and believe in Christ. Each of us long for safety and fullness of life, but we often settle for something less. Often because we do not know what lies beyond. We only know the life that we have, the life we see others have. Thomas provides an example for what happens for us when we experience the risen Christ. When we follow Christ to that place beyond our knowing. When we get to know Jesus for ourselves, and allow ourselves to be taken into the hope beyond imagining: resurrected life. Thomas couldn’t make his way out of his own personal shadow-lands without help from Jesus. Death had stumped him. Trauma caused him to withdraw and alter his functioning.  The only thing that brought him to belief in the resurrection was Jesus himself. Jesus met him and changed him, right where he was at. In the midst of his trauma and grief did hope spring. Unexpectedly so! We can expect the same in our own unique time and place.

            As believers in the resurrection and advocates for creation care, we have moments of heartache and hardship. We often encounter stories of trauma or experience it ourselves. We may wonder at times: will Jesus come and meet us in our struggle? May Thomas remind us that hope is ours, too. It is even within our grasp. How are you resting and connecting with the Risen One in order to find healing and solace? How might dwelling in God’s creation remind you of resurrection? What stories of resilience and perseverance are you witnessing in the land, water, and air around you? No matter where you are at this day, you would do well to follow Mary Oliver’s advice and “keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable[1].” 

[1] A line from Mary Oliver’s collection of poems titled “Evidence.”