How does God come to us? As a baby? As a human person. Through the windows and doors we have locked? When we rest? When we are stressed?

Bruce Epperly of Process & Faith suggests that the way of the Spirit is often subtle.  Unpredictable.  Evasive.  “It is less like a hammer on the head than it is a gentle prod”, “a tickle, sometimes as gentle as a feather, touching each moment into being.”  

Former Archbishop of Canterbury and Church historian, Rowan Williams once wrote: “There is no hope of understanding the Resurrection outside the process of renewing humanity in forgiveness. We are all agreed that the empty tomb proves nothing. We need to add that no amount of apparitions, however well authenticated, would mean anything either, apart from the testimony of forgiven lives communicating forgiveness.  The resurrection was an experience of forgiveness. The disciples had all abandoned Jesus, becoming complicit with his murderers. The fact that the resurrection was happening to them was an experience of forgiveness for them.”

That’s a really dense quote: so read it again…

Its’ insight comes in the relationship of lived Forgiveness and experiencing Resurrection.

How do you experience Resurrection? How do you experience Forgiveness?

I worked very intensely with a fellow actor for over a decade.  We worked so intensely together developing training programs, working creatively to make theatre, and in managing a team of creatives … and then in one company meeting he ‘dissed’ me publicly.  When I think back, it was a throw away moment; but it landed a MASSIVE wound: which took years to process and to heal and do the work personally of the illogical the effects.  Now this is an old story: life has moved on: but now I’m back in Melbourne, we’re working together once again, and we had a little moment standing in the noise and chaos of Southern Cross Station a few weeks ago, when he said to me “I was worried about us for a while.” That’s the closest we have been to unpacking it.  I looked at my friend (we were about to go down different escalators to the platforms) and I said “We’re OK, we are going to be alright.”   The forgiveness is still working itself out in blessing, after blessings.  Forgiveness and Resurrection.  We live it out, in addition to how we receive it in this story.

And so, in this story we ask questions: particularly about Forgiveness and Resurrection: What was difficult for Thomas to believe?  With the events of Lazarus still fresh in his experience, what is it that he can’t believe?  That God could raise Jesus from the dead? Or why would God raise someone executed in utter shame?

The Easter story brings us face-to-face with our human capacity for destruction.  How we can be cruel to each other.  We are invited, in the Easter events, to believe precisely that God raised this One whom we executed.   Girardian theologian, Paul Nuechterlein says “Jesus’ execution brings us face to face with the heart of the matter: that our human cure for violence is sacred violence; and that God’s cure for violence is completely different. In the Easter events God submits to our sacred violence in the cross and reveals it as meaningless and powerless compared to God’s power of life. The only way to ultimately stop violence is to completely refrain from doing it, even if it means submitting to it, revealing its meaninglessness.”

In our current world context: that is a huge thing to both consider and say.  But it’s worth the considering…  And, as people who are Salt and Light and Yeast in the leaven, that imperative is important in our cancel culture and where we have lost the ability to listen and hold difference; and if the Gospel is to help the world, then here’s a pathway… 

Val. Webb, in her book, ‘In Defense of Doubt. An Invitation to Adventure’, says “In dealing with people, Jesus did not condemn those who questioned or doubted.  While Jesus was harsh with scribes and Pharisees who claimed
to have all the answers in water-tight belief containers, he was always ready to encourage the genuine doubter.”

I’m no Greek student, but I did read that there is no such work for doubt, as in ‘doubting Thomas’ in Greek.  Thomas’ questions are not raising a white flag of surrender, and evidence of faithlessness.  He’s being real. German/American theologian Paul Tillich in his book, “Dynamics of Faith” says, that authentic faith welcomes doubt, as well as affirmation.  And that ‘questions’ are  not a sign of faithlessness, but a willingness to take faith seriously.  As people of faith, we live into the questions, as much as seek answers.  And it is in the living into the enquiry, that we best live the Christian life.

Jesus appears to the disciples locked away in hiding, with Peace and with a living forgiveness: to the very friends who betrayed him and ran away, comes and brings them back into relationship.

Was Thomas having trouble believing that God’s Messiah would be crucified?  You bet.  Was Thomas confronted with a completely unheard-of plan of salvation from our constant human solution, which is violence? Yes.

If we want to truly be challenged by something in which to believe, try believing that there is ultimately a nonviolent way to stop violence.  And that Jesus came to call us to that non-violent way? 

When I found a wounding in a friendship so unexpected, and like a betrayal, did I live into the things I believe?  Did I say like Thomas, ‘I won’t restore relationship with this Jesus until I touch into the wounding and see myself?’  Well, I tried to… but ultimately I did withdraw away in pain…  And I was given the grace to work it out for myself: but ultimately, there on the concourse of Southern Cross Station was the Forgiveness and Resurrection made real.  

Forgiveness and Resurrection, with all its unknowing. 

Forgiveness and Resurrection, with all its wounding. And healing. 

Forgiveness and Resurrection, with all its’ accidental, and intentional actions and reactions; 

And that is surely hope.  

How does God come to us? As a baby? As a human person? Through the windows and doors we have locked? The way of the Spirit is subtle.  Unpredictable.  Evasive. “Less like a hammer on the head than it is a gentle prod”; “a tickle, sometimes as gentle as a feather, touching each moment into being.”  

I’d suggest to you that Forgiveness and Resurrection came from the possibility that neither of us believe violence solves problems: and that both of us were as wounded as each other… and that for me at least, I might not have navigated that pathway, had it not been for the Spirit between us that restores relationship and life:  We call that God in Christ.  Our very source of Forgiveness and Resurrection.