The Days Are Getting Longer
SAINT THOMAS THE APOSTLE
Habakkuk 2:1-4 • Psalm 126 • Hebrews 10:35-11:1 • John 20:24-29
St. Thomas feels like an odd choice for a congregation that is looking for comfort and reassurance at Christmas time. This Blue Christmas service is for those who are hurting during the holidays—those for whom the bright lights of the season obscure the loss and grief we carry underneath the surface. We’re used to hearing this gospel passage about Doubting Thomas on the Second Sunday of Easter, when associate rectors are called upon to preach about the one who was not with the other disciples when Jesus came.
But we also hear from St. Thomas at funerals. When families meet to plan the funeral of their loved one, we offer them a list of gospel lessons to choose from, but, more often than not, families choose the reading from John 14. “Lord, we do not know where you are going,” Thomas said to Jesus. “How can we know the way?” This was Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. He had told his closest friends that he would be leaving them. And, although Jesus promised to come back and take them to himself, Thomas—of course, it was Thomas—put into words the confusion and doubt that others must have been feeling, too.
In a very real and practical way, St. Thomas’ association with our Blue Christmas service isn’t really a choice at all. We commemorate St. Thomas this night—the longest night of the year—because, back in the 9th century, when the calendar of saints’ days was being compiled, this was the day when legend held that Thomas had died. In the Christian tradition, we typically remember the saints of God on the anniversaries of their deaths. But not every denomination celebrates Thomas on December 21. Centuries after the calendar of saints was established, a competing tradition was found—a legend that suggested Thomas died on July 3. And some churches, in an attempt to make the days leading up to Christmas a little less busy, moved Thomas’ feast day to that summer date.
I don’t know when Thomas actually died. And I don’t think it matters whether we remember him in the depths of December or the brightness of July. But I don’t think it’s an accident that Thomas’ feast was originally set for the longest night of the year. I can think of no better saint to commemorate in our moment of deepest darkness because doubt is just another word for grief.
Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?
Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.
Those are not the words of a skeptic but the confessions of a man whose grief is insurmountable. Faced with the loss of Jesus, Thomas no longer knew how to make sense of the world, and his words reflect an inability to hang onto the tenets of the faith he had been taking for granted. How could someone so sure of who Jesus was and what he had promised—sure enough to give up his life in order to follow him—now be left with nothing but doubt?
Grief robs us of what we need most in our moment of loss. When we experience a loss that touches our souls and wounds us that deeply, we, too, find ourselves confused, disoriented, unsure of things we had always known to be true. That is the moment when we need God’s help most of all, but that is also precisely the moment when God feels furthest away. Sometimes without even realizing it, our language of grief comes out as words of doubt.
I don’t know if I can keep going.
I don’t know what do to without him.
I don’t know how to pray anymore. I can’t find the words. I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know whom to pray to.
I don’t know if I believe in God anymore. I’m not sure I want to believe.
Grief has the power to turn everything upside down. Like a child caught by surprise under a pounding wave, we swim back toward the surface only to come up with a handful of sand instead lungs full of air. We no longer know which way is up, what day it is, or who we are. We can’t figure out how to take a single step. We’re not sure of anything anymore.
We remember Thomas on the longest night of the year because tonight is the night when we need to remember that God’s response to our disorienting grief is always to come and find us. “A week later, Jesus’ disciples were again in the house, and [this time] Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’” Do not be overwhelmed by your grief. I am here. I am with you. Come and see.
When we have lost the will to believe, God comes and finds us. When we have forgotten what it means to have hope, God comes and find us. When we aren’t sure whether things could ever get better, God comes and finds us.
In the moments of our lives when that message is hardest to receive, God does not hide it away from us, testing to see if we have the strength to go and find it. Instead, God brings it to us by coming and accompanying us in our grief. God declares to the prophet, “Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets so that anyone can read it. Make it big enough that even someone running by could make it out.” God wants you to know that it doesn’t matter whether you are sure of anything because God’s love for you is sure. Your grief—your doubt—is not an obstacle to God’s love but the very channel through which that love comes and finds you. God asks nothing more of you than to sit in your grief until you recognize that God is there with you—until that is enough for you to see that the days are getting longer.
© 2023 The Rev. Evan D. Garner
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas