The perfect mystery.
A dead body found in a locked room that only locks from the inside.
Somehow murder was committed.
Mystery buffs call this a locked door mystery. It is one of the classic scenarios of the murder mystery genre.
A locked room that keeps the living out and the dead inside.
Our Gospel lesson today is a locked door mystery, except that it is turned inside out.
The room is locked and full of the dead who somehow become alive.
Jesus appears to the disciples in their locked room and breaths on them, like God breathing into the man made of dust at creation bringing him to life.
The disciples did not know that they were dead, that their world was full of the walking dead, until they received the breathe of God, then they lived for the first time.
From a locked room full of fear and death, out walk the living. The perfect mystery.
Thomas missed out on the event. He would not believe until he saw the wounds on Jesus body. And Jesus appears again while the doors are closed and shows Thomas the wounds, and Thomas believes. When bringing communion to the sick who cannot eat or drink we hold up the bread and wine to be seen, to be received by seeing. It is called ocular reception. Thomas saw. Thomas feasted with his eyes.
How do we come to believe in Jesus? How do we receive him? How do we feast on him? How do we find life by believing in his name?
We are like locked rooms and shut doors bound by fear and deadened by unbelief until belief in Jesus happens.
Belief is ultimately a miracle, admittedly a bigger miracle for some than others, but still it is a miracle, the mystery of God’s grace touches us somehow and we find life in Jesus name.
It is the opposite of a murder mystery. It is life giving rather than life taking. Gratuitous grace giving.
The power of the resurrection blows through the world when Jesus breaths, bringing life to a world of dust. It is much more than finding comfort in a pleasant afterlife, it is the power to live now, to be forgiven now, to give forgiveness now.
In John’s Gospel belief in Jesus is the mystery that brings life to our locked rooms, that sets us free to live, the gift that we carry forth so that others may live as well. We carry the God germ, we are the disease vector.
Thomas believed in who he saw. John’s Gospel says that we are blessed by believing in what we do not see, a deeper miracle, a deeper mystery, a deeper grace.
Do we dare believe?
Do we dare risk giving up death and risking life?
What room are we locked in?
What doors are shut?
Are we contagious?
Will we carry this feast for all to see?
The perfect mystery waits to be solved.