This sermon begins the post-Easter sermon series entitled, "Being in Touch." All the stories being preached will involve being touched by God or reaching out to touch God. Included in the series will be a renewal of baptismal vows on the last Sunday in May, a gift related to being touched by God, and the anointing of the confirmands on the first Sunday in May when they profess their faith in Jesus Christ.
I invite you to consider how you have been touched by God, or how the literal touch of someone has carried with it the power of God, or how you have sought to reach out to touch God in your life.
This week's passages tell the stories of touching the resurrected Christ. In the Luke passage, the resurrected Christ appears among the disciples and offers for them to touch his wounds. This will not be the first episode of "Touched by an Angel;" this is the resurrected Christ with the wounds to show for it.
In the familiar John passage, Thomas demands to touch Jesus' wounds. Whenever I read this text, I wonder if Thomas actually touched the wounds. When Jesus offers for him to do so, he immediately bursts into, "My Lord and my God!" Did he have to touch the wounds to believe? Part of me likes the story being open-ended on that point. it makes it easier to be one of those believers who never gets to actually see the Risen Christ.
Still trying to pull this together as the opening sermon of the series. Does it matter if Thomas touched Jesus? Or demanded to touch? What do we make of Jesus' apparent willingness, indeed his sense that the disciples needed to touch him? How do we hear these stories in our context when touching the resurrected Christ is not possible?
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