ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Sermon preached by the Fr. Gerald Beauchamp at High Mass on the Second Sunday of Easter, 30th March 2008

Readings: Acts 2. 14a & 22-32; 1 Peter 1. 3-9; John 20. 19-end

One of the things that can blight all our lives is doubt. We get attacks of nerves; we find it hard to make commitments; we draw back and shut ourselves in. And as I once again looked at today's gospel, the story of Doubting Thomas, I could hear myself beginning to deliver the stock message that a) the resurrection is hard to believe; b) the resurrection has always been hard to believe; and c) if Thomas believed then so can we. 'Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.'

But on reflection this all began to look a bit too easy. When things are pat glib we've probably lost the bigger picture. Faith is reduced to piety. So I went back to John's Gospel and looked again at what John says about Thomas. Something struck me. Thomas is mentioned as being present at the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11.

So if Thomas was there when Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb why couldn't he believe that Jesus had been raised? Lazarus died. Jesus died. Lazarus was raised. So why couldn't have Jesus been raised?

Perhaps it was to do with the nature of Jesus' death. We know hardly anything about Lazarus. He and his two sisters lived in Bethany, a couple of miles outside Jerusalem and they are portrayed as offering Jesus a second home. We don't know exactly what Lazarus died of but Jesus got word that Lazarus was ill. Then he died.

This is in contrast to Jesus. We know exactly how Jesus died. But he didn't just die he was killed. He was sentenced by Pontius Pilate at the behest of the Jewish authorities and the incitement of the mob. He was at best executed and at worst judicially murdered.

But there's more and the 'more' is something to which we perhaps pay too little attention. For Jews in the first century the cross was about shame.

Deuteronomy 21.22 declares

When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for possession.

It's a terrible thing to be cursed by God.

But there was another reason why crucifixion was abhorrent. The Romans weren't just interested in getting rid of people they regarded as troublesome. The Romans were empire-builders and to build their empire they needed subject peoples; populations that were pliant. That meant that execution was very public and very horrible. The Romans used crucifixion not just for the purposes of killing but also to spread fear. And part of the fear was about shame.

The gospels are short on the physical details of the crucifixion. There is little description beyond Jesus being nailed to the cross. But we've all seen images of the crucifixion. Since earliest times artists have portrayed the crucifixion in painting and sculpture.

A detail that is almost certainly wrong in these images is that Jesus wears a loincloth. Historically, that's unlikely. The Romans usually crucified people completely naked; women as well as men. For men the physical stresses on their bodies could excite arousal.

For Jews especially this created a further twist in the cycle of shame. Not only were they accursed if they died on a tree but nakedness was also condemned in their scriptures. Both Noah and King David disgraced themselves. The Book of Leviticus prohibits nakedness a number of times. The Prophets often linked nakedness and shame together; they compared Israel's faithlessness to prostitution.

Thomas's doubt is not about the resurrection per se but about the possibility of Jesus being raised after being crucified. That a good man like Lazarus could be resurrected was not a problem; he'd seen it with his own eyes. And Thomas knew that Jesus was heading for death. When Jesus made for the tomb of Lazarus at Bethany near Jerusalem Thomas smelt defeat in the air: 'Let us go with him' he says 'that we may die with him.' Perhaps like Judas Thomas was expecting some final confrontation in which Jesus would die like a hero.

The shame of the cross was not what he had in mind. That was not a place from which new life could come. Resurrection could come from the tomb but it couldn't come from taboo. God, however, would reveal otherwise.

Shame is a part of all our lives. We may not have had it dinned into us by a heavy-handed use of the Bible but as we grew up we were taught right from wrong. Right was reinforced by praise and rewards. Wrong was reinforced by shame and punishment. Who can forget the immortal words of Joyce Grenfell: 'George, don't do that!' Through shame we learn disgust; we learn to fear what is 'dirty'.

The Roman Church largely took over where the Roman Empire left off and as part of the Western tradition we have inherited a fair amount of its culture not least of all its ideas of what is clean and what is dirty. As Anglo-Catholics we are particularly prone to getting ourselves caught up in this area.

I once met a devout old lady who had stopped going to Mass because she had been taught to fast before communion and this included not brushing her teeth. 'Nothing should enter her body prior to receiving the sacrament' she was told. As she had developed halitosis in later life she had a problem with the smell of her breath. But she couldn't bring herself to swab her mouth before church so she stopped going to mass instead.

It's an extreme case and we may smile but it's symptomatic of a wider picture. In a few months Anglican bishops from all over the world will be meeting at the Lambeth Conference. Sexuality will be part of the debate and once again we're likely to have more heat than light on the subject because behind what is said are unresolved issues around shame and disgust.

But what of Christ? Did he shun the body? No. Did he run from the cross? No. Did he avoid the place of ultimate shame and disgrace? No. Why? Because love is like water: it always flows to the lowest point. The naked Christ upon the cross is the supreme moment of the incarnation. Human life doesn't get any lower than that. And its the place where God is no stranger.

And where does the risen Christ go? He goes to the place of fear and shame: to the disciples behind locked doors; afraid of the Jews and ashamed of having run away.

In what spirit does Christ go? Does he go as a voyeur; to laugh at them? No. Does he go to berate them for their faithlessness? No. Does he go to judge them? No.

Christ comes in peace. He shows them his body; his wounds. What was polluted is glorified. What else can Thomas say but 'My Lord, and my God!'

No wonder the disciples were glad. May their Easter joy be ours. Amen.