Behind Closed Doors A dramatic monologue sermon preached by James F. McIntire Copyright 2012 James F. McIntire All rights reserved. Text: John 20:19-31 April 15, 2012 Pascha 2 Hope United Methodist Church Eagle & Steel Roads, Havertown, PA Phone: 610-446-3351 Web: www.havhopeumc.org Office: HopeUMCHavertown@verizon.net Pastor: HopeUMCPastor@verizon.net 2
John 20:19-31 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As [God] has sent me, so I send you. 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. 24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told 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 in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe. 26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. 27 Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe. 28 Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God! 29 Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. 3 For me, it s the hands. Have you ever looked closely at your own hands? Are they smooth or rough, bent or steady, big and plump or small and delicate? I remember my father s hands. His job caused lots of tiny little nicks in his hands. And they would dry out quickly. He rarely complained because he worked hard to keep food on our table and clothes on our backs. They would bleed sometimes a vein close to the skin on the back of his hand nicked by a bump to a rough surface and blood would appear. A bother more than an injury. His fingers were nearly smooth at the tips, as if his fingerprints were fading. And remember his palms. Deep lines running across the middle like paths tracing the arc of his life s journey. I remember clearly the feel of his hand when I was little his large grip swallowing mine as the three of us walked together my twin, myself, and our abba. I remember the pointing of a finger communicating a stern warning without a word from his mouth. I remember the sometimes rough touch of dried and cracked fingers helping me when my hands needed to be guided or the gentle touch of a hand dusting off a skinned knee and drying a tear. It s all in the hands. My friends hands as well the brothers John & James, Simon & Andrew. They worked hard too boats and nets and ropes and fish scales. They rarely complained either. They worked hard; their families ate; they shared all they had with those who had need. When the Teacher needed strength and force, he d turn to those friends. They could pull us out of just about any physical jam we were in, our ragtag band of sometimes dim-witted students. When crowds surrounded us or cornered the Teacher and there seemed to be no way out, rough, bold, solid hands of the fishermen could 4
push through the crowd like Moses parting the marshy reeds so our forefathers and mothers could find God s promise here in this land. The brothers the Teacher sometimes they got on each other s nerves. Well, sometimes we each got on each other s nerves what can you expect when all of us are together so much? We got tired of all the disruptions and hardships. But you know, there were gentle hands with us as well. And so often those softer hands calmed our souls when the tension got brutal. Mary and the Teacher Judas complaining all the time she is simply trying to give him a moment of comfort and peace. The smell of her oil in Teacher s hair filled the room and gave us all a little better sense of purpose. Their hands Mary and the other women their hands were opposite those of the fishermen. Smooth, soft, gentle, passionate. It takes both kinds of hands to make a body like our tribe work efficiently. It s the hands. I saw his hands that horrific day. They whipped him and beat him before I even got to see him. By the time I saw him blood was rolling down his arms and hands. It was all pretty gruesome and I had to turn away as he passed by with the timber crossbar tied to his shoulders. I cried. I walked away. I stayed clear of the soldiers. It wouldn t help if the rest of us were hung up there too, would it? His hands. They really intrigued me. He touched lepers like he really cared about them no, like he loved them he didn t care about the impurity. He touched children scolded us in fact because we tried to protect him from the little pests. Who cares about children? But his hands his rough, gentle, smooth, compassionate hands he picked them up and tousled their hair and wiped the dirt from their noses. I saw him with the blind man. Who touches a blind man? You might become blind. That s what my father always taught me cross to the other side of the road when one comes toward you don t look at them God has punished them or maybe his parents sinned and that s why he s blind. You just can t know. And always remember, my parents said, You re not blind, there s nothing wrong with you, so I guess God is blessing us better than those poor pathetic creatures. The blind, the deaf, the lame, the slow of speech. But my parents were wrong about all that. That s what the Teacher taught us. While we were with that blind man, the Teacher mixed his saliva with the dirt at his feet and with that mud on his hands he touched the man touched him, physically put his fingers on the man s eyes and the man was suddenly accepted back into his community, he went about his life once again a part of the people he lived with. Could he see again? I guess that really doesn t matter, does it? He was whole again, that s for sure, that s the healing he was accepted again, loved again, touched again. The Teacher didn t lose his sight, he didn t suffer any curse by God, the ground didn t open and swallow the Teacher. Those hands it s all about the hands all I could do as we walked away from that scene was stare at those hands with crusted, caked mud dirty with the richness of God s earth, pure with the power of God s presence. Remarkable hands. Hands that unrolled Torah scrolls when he read to us. Hands that touched God s word like no other before them and hands that rolled those scroll like one with authority that came not from the Pharisees rules but from elsewhere. 5 6
He touched the dead. How can he get away with that? Lazarus, his friend. Mary and Martha come sobbing about their brother being dead because the Teacher didn t get there in time. Lazarus was dead and in the tomb. I saw the teacher cry, tears rolling down his cheeks. His hands wiped the tears from Mary and Martha s cheeks and then he mingled their tears with his as the heel of his hands rubbed the tears from his eyes and cheeks as he cried like an old woman mourner. That s their job, that s what they get paid for, to sob and groan so we don t have to. Why did the teacher sob? Dead is dead that can t be changed, can it? In the tomb is in the tomb that can t be changed. Why cry about it? It s a part of life. We die because of the sins of Adam and Eve. That s life or that s death, I guess. But then there s Lazarus. And Teacher s hands at the end of outstretched harms. And his moaning prayer that called Lazarus from the tomb. From the tomb. The smell was sickening. But the Teacher s hands were open and outstretched so that Lazarus could fall into them. Their embrace I will never forget. His hands that day looked bigger than life, like they held in them the mysteries of life and death which, I guess, they did. His arms were wrapped around the dead-now-alive man and his hands patted Lazarus back as dust clouded up from the shroud. I don t understand what happened that day. But the Teacher s hands did it. Well, not quite true, he told us. God did whatever happened that day not the Teacher but the one he knew as his loving parent Abba, he called God, Abba. Teacher knew his Abba s hands just as clearly as I knew my daddy s hands. The hands. They touched lepers, they brought wholeness to unseeing eyes and soundless ears, they reached out to women and children, fingers that pointed out injustice all around us, they were in the dirt, they dried tears, they spoke as clearly as any words that Teacher offered. Those are the hands of my friend that tore bread and dipped it in the bowls with us on Thursday night. Thursday night. Those very same hands that contain authority and compassion in equal measure, the hands that cradle children and sick people; that direct but also lead. Those hands on that night took simple unleavened bread and tore it in half and passed it around into our hands with a blessing that reminded us that what we do we do together acting like one body. And those hands wrapped themselves around a cup from which we all drank, each of our sets of hands wrapped around that very same cup as he passed it among us the scarred and rough hands of James and John, Andrew and Simon, the soft gentle hands of Mary and Salome each of us received and passed on what he gave us that night. But then it fell apart. In the garden, Judas and a kiss, the Temple police, the torches, the confusion. I didn t understand what was happening. Peter whipped out his sword before I knew it and cut off a man s ear a scream of pain and anger, cursing and shouting blood dripped down the man s cheek and chin and the Teacher s hands reached out still. With one he gently pushed away Peter s knife which dropped to the ground, with the other he touched the guard s ear and the blood streamed down the back of his hand for a moment but then it stopped. They tied his hands and dragged him away. Why did they do that? Why treat him like he has done something wrong? Why bind those hands that only wanted to heal and love? It was a sight that I didn t want to see but if I hadn t seen it I wouldn t have believed the telling of it. This gentle man whose hands are etched in my memory led away like some common criminal. I saw it with my own two eyes yet it s still hard for me to believe it happened. They dragged him away, tired and convicted him in just a few hours. They beat him and spat on him and made a public example of what Rome will do what even our own learned religious leaders will do if we use our hands to lead people in a new direction toward God. 7 8
Those are the hands of the man I loved beyond the telling of it. Is it any wonder then that once behind closed doors that Sunday after he died a criminal s death that I wanted to see his hands? I am not the doubter they labeled me to be. I needed to know it was him. The others said so but I needed to see it for myself. I m not a doubter, I just needed his hands one more time. Can you blame me? Behind closed doors. We were scared or let me say I was scared, that I know for sure. I think the others were as well. Except for Mary who seemed to have a glowing smile that lifted her off the ground. If any of us knew for sure that the Teacher was with us still, it was Mary. She saw his hands, she saw him, she heard him, he called her name. She wanted to touch those hands one more time but he said, No, not yet. I had to see those hands before I believed. It was the only way I would know for sure it was Teacher. I saw what they did to his hands when they tied and nailed him to the beam of that cross on The Skull on Friday. I had to turn my head as they threw him to the ground and stretched out his arms. My God, why? Those are the hands of a loving human being, not the paws of some animal to be sacrificed, the blood-stained hands of some tyrant, the harsh hands of some hardened criminal. Those hands were Teacher s hands, hands that did the work of God, those hands were God s hands. I vomited when they drove spikes through those hands. He let out a chilling scream when the cold metal touched his skin, when the sound of the hammer rang against the nail head, when the bunt point pushed its way through skin and then bone. I couldn t stand to watch. Bang a scream; bang a moan; bang blood oozed from the newly forced wounds in his hands. My God, he was about to die and no one seemed to care. They laughed at him, those cruel soldiers in all their protective gear. How easy it was for them to inflict pain on another human. Don t they have friends? Don t they have children? Aren t there hands that caressed them when they were children? Aren t there gentle hands that hold them at night even now? Do they not know love? What is wrong with them? They drive nails through human hands! Do they not see the love in the Teacher s hands? He died that day. I saw and I believed. He died that day with his hands tied to a wooden beam, blood dripping from his hands. He died that Friday and we rushed to take him down and care for him before Sabbath started. I helped lift him down and while doing so his hand landed on my head. Like a blessing. But from a dead man what kind of blessing could it be? His body was limp, his arms dangling, those hands that once healed and comforted now were cold and useless. I could not bear the thought of life without this man who I loved, but we wrapped him, carried him, gently laid him in Joseph s tomb so he might sleep for eternity. And then the stories started. Mary, the women, Peter, another of we disciples, they began rambling about Teacher being alive again. I saw the nails. I saw the blood. I saw him die. I felt the weight of his lifeless body. He was dead on Friday. But they insisted, He is alive! Whoever dared travel the streets gathered in that room on Sunday and locked the doors behind them. Some of our group ran off, headed home to the Galilee, to Emmaus, to wherever they thought they would be safe. Some of us just couldn t imagine leaving Jerusalem this is where we must continue the Teacher s work, where we must use our hands in place of his hands now, this is where Teacher brought us to challenge the injustices of our world. Some of us stayed but we hid. Behind closed doors we hid. 9 10
They saw his hands, they said. Teacher came to them and showed his hands and side, they said, and they believed. But I wasn t there that first time. I was so distraught, so drained of life s energy, that I had be elsewhere in the garden, walking the streets, at the healing pools, with the troubled and sick of our world anywhere that would remind me of him and might let me forget the trauma in favor of the good moments with him. But I couldn t forget. There was no way to wipe away the last three years or erase the image of his hands from my memory. If only I could see those hands one more time I would know that it was him, I would know that he was being held now by his Abba s hands, I would know if I saw his hands one more time I would know that all would be well with my soul and I could move forward toward whatever was next in my journey. I had to see his hands again. Little did I know that the others had to see to believe as well. His hands and his side that s what he showed them when suddenly he appeared behind those doors. No one heard the doors open, no one heard them close, but there he was. See my hands, he said to them, See my hands. Why hasn t that become our shared greeting among the followers? See my hands. With that phrase we would know that each other was alive and was a believer. Maybe I ll use that from here on. See my hands. I am alive in the Teacher and he is alive in me. did. He gave us that power and authority. The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than mine because I am going to my Abba. I don t know how that could be true but that s what Teacher thought of us so I must honor that promise. His hands are now my hands just as my hands have always been his hands; my hands must continue the work Teacher started; my hands must do greater works than Teacher ever accomplished. Hands. It s all about the hands. Will you join me? Will you let your hands do the work of the Teacher s hands? Will you show others your hands with his greeting, See, my hands.? Will you use your hands as God has given them to you? It s all about the hands. Amen. I believed as soon as I was in his presence. Just like they did, I m no different. They didn t believe until he showed them his hands. It s understandable, right? Those hands were our light in the darkness for three years. Those hands pointed us toward a God who we never knew before. Those hands opened to us our scriptures that we thought we knew we didn t. We saw his hands behind closed doors that day and we believed. I am no doubter. So I go now with the image of his hands in my memory forever and I go with the need to use my own hands in the same way he 11 12