NRS John 20
19 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 the Father 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.

About eight years ago I was involved in a project to design and install a stained glass window at the front of our church above the altar. We'd talked about doing this for years, but only after a very generous family came forward with a very generous gift did we finally have the means to start the work in earnest.

Now, I don't know if you're aware of this, but people can be a little touchy when it comes to making changes in their worship space. So, even though we had been talking about this for years, we still tried to proceed very cautiously and, we hoped, sensitively. We formed a design team, and contracted with a well-known art glass studio to work with us. We also got an architect and an engineering firm to address the technical issues and specifications for replacing a large chunk of our front wall with an equally large window. Since there was already a wooden cross hanging where the window was planned, we had people immediately waving red flags that the cross should not be discarded, but relocated in the church. We also agreed that the new window should incorporate a cross into it. The donors requested that the window should represent the Risen Christ, that it should be done in stained, not faceted glass, and that the design should be more realistic than abstract. And that, of course, got us into the really hard question of how the Risen Christ was to be represented, something about which we all had an opinion or two.

Several people strongly objected to any representation of Christ at all, as that would, in their minds, constitute a graven image and therefore a violation of the First Commandment. Addressing that concern had me going back to my church history texts and researching the 8th century controversy on images in churches. To further assure people that this was really okay, we also brought in some outside theological expertise. We also had a long debate over what color stained glass we should use for Jesus' face, hands, and feet. At least two committee members argued forcefully that Jesus should not be represented as a white European. They urged, instead, that we strive for a more historically accurate depiction of a 1st century Palestinian. That led us to holding up lots and lots (and lots!) of pieces of stained glass to the sun, until we finally settled on olive. And then the pastor had to put his two cents in.

Up to this point I had tried very hard just to be a kind of referee. I saw my job as keeping the discussion civil and the process moving, which was no small task. We were picking our way through several very large minefields, so I tried to limit my comments to the topics at hand. But there was one issue about which I felt very passionate. A couple of weeks into our discussion I requested time on our meeting agenda, and I argued that if we were going to depict the Risen Christ, we should at least make sure that the wounds in his hands, feet, and side are visible. I explained that we don't know how long Jesus' hair was, nobody can say for sure what exactly his skin tone was, but we do know -- from today's gospel, we do know -- that when he appeared to his disciples, he showed them the wounds from the nails and the spear in his hands and in his side. When I finished, the committee sat there for a couple of moments in silence, until the chairman looked around the table, and finally said, "Okay." We then moved on to the next order of business, which was a complaint from a member that the artist had made Jesus' Adam's apple over large, and it should be less noticeable. (And you want to know why my hair is gray and I have so little of it?)

In the end we achieved a very striking, very beautiful window with the Risen Christ set against the background of a Celtic cross with the wounds in his hands and feet clearly visible. I like to think that my little contribution to the work was more than just personal preference. For the Gospel of John, Jesus' showing his hands and sides is part of a larger theological argument. Since Jesus is able suddenly to appear to his disciples even as they huddle behind closed doors, it's obvious that the Lord's risen body is not exactly like yours and mine. To get into a closed room, we'd have to knock on the door or find some other way to let ourselves in. In his risen state, though, Jesus is not bound to the same rules of time and space as we are. Which is to say, that Jesus was not raised a resuscitated corpse. In words that Paul used in First Corinthians 15, Jesus was raised a spiritual body, having put off the perishable and the mortal in exchange for the imperishable and the immortal. Jesus is raised, in other words, never to die again.

Jesus' risen body is spiritual, but it is still a body. Jesus does not appear to his disciples as a ghost or disembodied spirit. You can see the marks of the nails in his hands; you can touch them with your finger and put your hand in his side. It's not just the spirit of Jesus that lives on. It's not just the memory of his love and compassion that continue beyond his death. Jesus is not raised only in our heads and hearts, but in the world we inhabit, in the history we make. The Risen Christ may not be bound to the same rules of time and space as we are, but he lives nonetheless in our time and space, real, powerful, and personal. The Gospel of Luke makes the same point when the Risen Lord appeared to his disciples in Jerusalem. Even after showing them his hands and feet, the disciples still thought they were seeing a ghost, and that's when Jesus asked them if they had anything to eat. They gave him a piece of broiled fish, he ate, and then proceeded to open their minds to the Scriptures (Luke 24: 37-45).

Because Jesus still bears in his risen body the marks of his crucifixion, we know that even as Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, he knows our pain and suffering. Though his risen body will never again know the insults and injuries of mortal flesh, Jesus carries in his spiritual body the signs of his solidarity with us. Jesus is raised, but he has not left us. When Jesus holds up his wounded hands to his disciples and to us, it's as though he's saying, "While I may be speaking to you from the other side of the resurrection, I carry you with me. I am with you; I am for you; I am yours."

This last Wednesday I was presenting a lesson on the resurrection in our discipleship training class, and as I was explaining how Jesus appeared to his disciples, one of the students commented, "This is confusing." How true! Whether depicting the resurrection of Jesus in words or stained glass, we quickly run to the end of our tether. Even the gospel writers seem to struggle with communicating the reality they encountered in the Risen Lord. On the other hand, I keep coming back to that image of Jesus standing before his disciples, showing his hands and side, and saying, "Peace be with you." You can't get much clearer than that!

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.