"A GLIMPSE OF THE SPIRIT"

The disciples were locked in a room, hidden from the religious authorities, because they feared for their lives. We have a hard time imagining the fear of having our teacher, leader, and friend killed brutally by the political authorities and, yet, the disciples gathered under just these circumstances. While they sit behind locked doors, protected from the authorities, Jesus enters the room. There is no way to block the healing power of Christ out of our lives. Not even fear can keep Jesus away. Christ goes exactly where healing is needed whether it makes sense to us or not.

I learned this basic spiritual axiom years ago. My friend, Jody, was thirty one when he died of AIDS. He had toxioplasmosis, lesions on his brain, that made him confused and out of touch with reality. For example, I went to Honolulu that summer with my father and sent Jody a postcard of a handsome guy on the beach. When I returned home to New Jersey I visited Jody. He had fallen and bruised his tailbone in his parents’ bathroom.

Jody told me a story about Peter, his great looking new boyfriend, and he had a picture ‑ my postcard from Hawaii. Jody had created a fantasy scenario that was far more interesting than slipping in his parents’ bathroom. He and Peter were going for a romantic walk in the woods when he slipped on the rocky path and bruised his tailbone. Jody told me how tenderly Peter had scooped him up and carried him to his car. He pointed to flowers and said that Peter had brought them to him.

Even though, technically, Jody was out of his head and the entire story was fabricated I felt as though I had seen a glimpse of his spirit. Jody was a lover, one who believed in the transformative power of love. He believed that he had been picked up from his fall by strong and compassionate arms. I believe that also ‑ the arms of Jesus reached out across the confusion and fog in his brain and provided him a sense of peace and security. His peace was not dependent on his mind but rather on his spirit.

I have lived every day since that meeting with Jody knowing that our minds are not the only way of knowing. We know in our spirits, too. We are more than our thoughts, more than our perception of reality and more than our grasp on reality. We have these amazing spirits that show themselves in the most remarkable ways, in the most unlikely of circumstances. And so it was when Jesus came to the disciples through the locked door.

Thomas' mind told him that it could not be the Christ,who he knew to be dead, standing there among them. The mind limits the spirit but the spirit has no limits. I am not trying to say that we throw out logic or embrace our faith without examining it, but rather, that our intellectual understanding is only a part of our faith. Hebrews 11: 1 ‑ 3 says., "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible." Doubt is an essential component of faith. We cannot prove X but we choose to believe it anyhow. If we could prove X there would be no need of faith.

I am often like Thomas. I overlook the miraculous presence of Christ, he comes right through a locked door to me, but I want evidence‑proof that it is really him. I, like Thomas., want to see the scars. Scars are evidence of healing. We all have scars. Some large, some small, some visible and some invisible, but marks that the world has left on us that testify to God’s healing power in our lives. I rely on taking stock of the ways in which I have been wounded and the ways in which God has worked as a force for healing in my life to recognize Christ among us.

When I was a social worker I had a client who had a large scar across his face from an accident. Michael was fifteen and a handsome kid. He had been at his girlfriend‑'s house when a storm started. The window in the living room was loose and rattled as the wind picked up. His girlfriend's three‑year‑old brother climbed up on a ledge in front of the window just as it crashed to the bottom of its frame. Michael lunged between the window and the little boy. If he had not been there chances are the toddler would have been seriously injured.

After I learned the story of Michael's disfiguring facial scar ... he was all the more handsome. I no longer thought "what a shame such a good looking kid scarred for life." His appearance did not change but the way I looked at him surely did. I learned a valuable lesson about looking beyond the first impression to a deeper place from Michael.Sometimes our scars are the result of our hearts being in the right place.

Jesus simply says, "Peace be with you." Christ is our source of peace now and forever more. We must simply quiet ourselves and focus on his power at work in our lives to know what Thomas felt when he put his hands to Jesus' side. The evidence of Christ's everlasting peace is all around us. I would venture to say that not a single soul in this place is without a testimony of healing ‑ a scar that will always remind them of the awesome power of God.

Peace is not dependent on outer circumstances and, in fact, ironically, it is often in the midst of turmoil that we experience the grace of God filling us with a peace that only comes from the one "who is, who was, and who is to come." Peace is a gift that only God can give to a heart that has chosen to believe. We can literally think away peace if we fail to pray and stay in touch with God. Peace is a spiritual state. Peace starts with a choice to believe in God.

Nobody can push back an ocean,
It’s gonna rise back up in waves.
And nobody can stop the wind from blowin’
Stop a mind from growin’.
Somebody may stop my voice from singin’
But the song will live on and on.

You can’t kill the spirit, It’s like a mountain,
Old and strong, it lives on and on.
Nobody can stop someone from feelin’
that they have to rise up like the sun.
Somebody may change the words we’re sayin’
But the truth will live on and on.
You can’t kill the spirit,
It’s like a mountain,
Old and strong, it lives on and on.

Believe even though you have not felt the scars of Jesus - you have your own as reminders that pain is not the final word. Healing and wholeness is the final word. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who is, who was and is to come. Christ is that spirit that lives on and on. Walk in the sure faith that you are in the presence of our divine Savior now and forevermore. Amen!

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