By The Rev. Canon Joanne Davies, Oblate, SSJD
Thomas needs to be shown that his new sharing of the Way of Love will come from an astonishing, numinous moment – the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Feeling the wounds in Jesus hands and side is a small intimate moment of relationship. But Jesus with him is an awe filled transcendent presence in the immanent and the ordinary. The disciples, including, Thomas share this in humility and love. Jesus calls on their faith to be grounded in forgiving and loving relationships in earthly life.
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
NASA’s recent flight to the moon, the first in over 50 years, share pictures and descriptions of mystery and wonder. Really beyond imagining. It helps me to understand Thomas wondering about Jesus’ resurrection, how was he to imagine this of the man he knew.
For 10 days, from lift off to the return to earth on Friday night, I have followed Artemis 2 and the four astronauts aboard. I have been living through their experience. Finding myself in tears several times as I saw how the awe of a home in the universe’s vastness, with the sharing of love, are what illuminate and strengthen the willingness to learn and discover. It is accepting humility through our insignificant yet beloved place in creation that opens us to share joy and life with each other.
During a call to Mission Control, Canadian Astronaut Jeremy Hansen announced that the crew wanted to name some craters newly discovered on the moon. The first was named Integrity, the telling nickname given to their capsule.
Then, Jeremy announced that they wanted to name another one “Carroll,” to pay homage to Commander Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020.
His voice cracked as he announced the news, while astronaut Christine Koch openly wept. Reid Wiseman tried to comfort Jeremy as he was talking. In the end, the four wept together and had a long embrace.
Jeremy later explained that he, Christine and Victor Glover had talked before they launched about doing this. They then approached Reid and told him. Reid was grateful and deeply touched, but said he couldn’t announce it himself. Jeremy said he would be honoured to do so.
This was not staking a claim on craters.It was carried by relationship in the joys and sorrows of life and the understanding that we are not in control of either.
In our Psalm today we hear of the psalmist’s experience of receiving from God…. “You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore. “The pleasure and joy comes from delighting in and surrendering to God’s Love, in knowing our vulnerability is beloved, and turning to God leads to peace and joy.
In the early ’90s Carl Sagan wrote after seeing a picture of earth taken from Voyager 1: “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, …. ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot…for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
Sally McFague reminds us … “that Christian embodiment of God with us focuses on vulnerable suffering bodies, and those who are in pain due to indifference or greed of the more powerful. This includes all life, non-human and the vulnerability of the earth itself.”
Jesus greeting to his disciples, Peace be with you, is a declaration of how he is to remain with them. In today’s world how can peace be believed when the response to this greeting from everyone in a war seems to be … And power be with us, not you. … In prayer I imagine Jesus at the table negotiating a ceasefire. Everyone’s wounds would need to be exposed to each other. They would need to feel inside each other’s wounds, until the only power is the vulnerable connection of the suffering brought upon each other. God loves us. God despairs when we do not love each other. God always offers us peace.
God’s creation is an infinity. Space and the stars evoke in me a wonder-struck understanding of the Creator’s power. Yet our planet is tiny and Jesus came to earth as part of a small vulnerable family in a backwater town. Jesus understood human love as much as he knew all of creation. We need each other and we need to care for our home, the fragile earth. An understanding of need and vulnerability exposed to God, by God comes to us as it does for Thomas midst things so unimaginable and amazing as the resurrection on earth and all of creation in the skies beyond.
This Gospel tells us it is up to us, followers of Christ in this future present, to share with others, from a faith uplifted in transcendent love, then others will know the immanent love with us and through us.
Sometimes I daydream, okay, secretly hope, earth finally arrives at peace, with love, then other planetary folk beyond earth will believe it is safe and time to arrive for first contact. And they will hear the words from us… Peace be with you.
In this 21st century we live on an earth that is rife with turmoil and there are upheavals globally, nationally, socially, and ecologically. We try to bring order by our own strength. We cannot do so… instead we need to be open with reverence and joy to the resurrected Christ’s peace and live the love. Show our wounds to each other and with neighbours near and far, alike and different. We can live an active faith as we bow to the importance of all life in the light of the magnificence of God and Creation… with our belief. With the peace of Christ in our hearts, we can ease disruptions with faith. By faith in Christ we can share and change with sincerity, again and always, with the words that come directly from the risen Christ: Peace be with you.