Blanks and Dashes

I want to talk to you about blanks and dashes, the spaces in between and the uncertainties and how the stories of Jesus, Thomas, and the other disciples after the resurrection can help fill in those spaces.

[blanks]

Have you ever done a Mad Lib? One of those stories where a couple of words every sentence are replaced with blanks and (without knowing context) you ask your friends to fill in the blanks with the correct part of speech?

[prop from Asher’s Madlibs book]

The time we are living in is unprecedented. That’s something I hear a lot from every corner of society.

But how it is unprecedented has almost become like a fill-in-the-blank Mad Lib. How would you finish the sentence “We live in a time of unprecedented _________.”

Jesus appeared to his disciples at what was certainly also an unprecedented time. After all, people didn’t generally get up and start making appearances after being executed. How would they have filled in the blank?

[dashes]

Think about that, but in the meantime, I have a song I’d like to sing part of for you. It’s called “- [DASH]” and it was released just this year by Crowder with Toby Mac.

Sunday mornin' Preacher said Life's a mist it's just a breath We're only here for a little while He talked about His daddy's grave It read 1910 to '98 But the years between were just a little line

Got me wondering what I'm chasing Don't want another minute wasted

There's a day we're born Day we pass In between there's just a dash What on earth am I doing What on earth am I doing Yeah I got time But time goes fast Yeah that line is all I have What on earth am I doing What on earth am I doing

I could take this life And live it well Or I could keep on living it for myself What's He gonna say when He calls me up? Was I just words Or was I love Did I love great or just good enough I just hope He says well done

I keep on wondering what I'm chasing Don't want another minute wasted

There's a day we're born Day we pass In between there's just a dash What on earth am I doing What on earth am I doing Yeah I got time But time goes fast Yeah that line is all I have What on earth am I doing What on earth am I doing

Songwriters: Ben Glover / Jeff Sojka / Louie Giglio / Toby McKeehan

— [DASH] lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Life is just the span of that dash and I do worry about what I leave behind.

Now, as we delve into what our Gospel tells us, keep thinking about that blank from before and add to it how to fill in the dash.

[Jesus]

But before we get to us (or Thomas, or the disciples) and how to *do* the right thing, we need some context from Jesus.

Because at its heart, the story isn’t about Thomas or any of the disciples. Like the gospel it’s embedded in (really the whole Bible) it’s about Jesus. John’s not exactly shy about that.

Among the four gospels, what is John most famous for?

the gospel in a nutshell, John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

The I am statements: I am the light, I am the bread of life, I am the way, the truth and the life.

Jesus washing the disciples feet

The Word that was with God and was God.

The great commission to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

John, that is, makes everything about Jesus, from the act of creation itself to events that happen well after Jesus has ascended back into heaven in our time and place.

We, by contrast, are prone to make everything about ourselves. We’re like a partner in a broken relationship, continuing to struggle because we fail to see from someone else’s perspective. To paraphrase the famous. Carly Simon song, “We’re so vain. I bet we think this song is about us.”

Jesus knew in our story today that his time left on earth, his “dash” if you will, was very short.

So what was most important to Jesus to do with what little time he had?

Offer peace. Anticipate and meet people at their point of need. Inspire hope.

[offer peace]

Jesus comes into the disciples’ midst and immediately says “Peace be with you.” Again, after showing them his wounds, “Peace be with you.” Later when Thomas is there he starts “Peace be with you.”

In times of chaos and uncertainty, Jesus offers peace early and often.

[anticipate needs]

Both times he meets disciples (first without Thomas and later with Thomas), Jesus follows the same pattern. After offering peace, he shows them his hands and his side. He doesn’t wait for them to ask. He doesn’t say anything to Thomas about doubting. He just says come and see, just like he said to Philip and Nathanael at the beginning of his ministry.

[Inspire hope]

John 20:27 NRSV

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.”

When Jesus says “do not doubt but believe” here, I don’t think it’s meant to be in the sense of the street corner preacher with the sign that says repent and believe so you can be saved from hell. Jesus called for peace in the first place, but called for belief only after giving Thomas the evidence of his victory over the grave. It’s not a word of guilt or demand but a word of hope. And it accomplishes its goal. For what does Thomas do next but cry out “My Lord and my God”? Thomas’ pain and disappointment in the midst of the collapse of his world have turned into astonished hope.

[Jesus in our dashes]

Now back to those things I told you to hold onto.

Why did I pick that song if Jesus, not Thomas or the Disciples or us, is at the center of the lesson? Admittedly, it’s catchy, I love Crowder’s music, and it’s been on my mind lately. But it seems to be about us worrying about doing the right things, right?

No, Jesus is at the center of the song too. We as Lutherans traditionally excel at recognizing the rhythm of law and gospel - the law convicts us for our sins and the gospel frees us. But our faith, bolstered by the assurance of gospel, is still meant to DO something. And that’s where we get at the close of today’s lesson, when we reach the WHY of this story being told.

The last verse of today’s passage reads:

John 20:31 NRSV

But these are written so that you [too] may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Like Thomas’ confession in response to Jesus showing him the evidence of resurrection, we too can, through believing, have life in his name. Earlier in John, Jesus said “I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” And lest you think, he only meant eternal life in the sweet by and by, remember that Jesus’ first miracle recorded in John was turning water into high-quality wine at a wedding party. Like Jesus, we only have a brief “dash” on this earth for now, and we, reading of Jesus’ miracles and seeing the fruits of the Spirit in our neighbors, through believing have life in his name. Just like Thomas, our hope and life and very lives are rekindled.

[Jesus in our blanks]

So with that, we return full-circle to that blank.

“We live in a time of unprecedented _________.”

We live in a time of unprecedented power to organize on behalf of refugees and students facing uncertaintly about their futures in this country.

We live in a time of unprecedented science that can be used to provide medicine that would have been considered literal magic in any previous time.

And we live, I believe, in a time where Jesus offers even more than that.

We live in a time where, yes, faith is sometimes used as a cudgel to demand others conform to our vision of morality, and where faith, yes, is also used as a foil and dismissed by many as outdated or irrelevant.

But that means it is also a time where authentic lives of faith centered in love stand out as something distinctive and remarkable.

The bridge I left out of the song (because I do not rap nearly as well as Toby Mac) fits in here:

Cause real life's in the trenches, not from the stands

In our lofty benches with manicured hands

I want a dash that's dirty, a life fully spent

Weathered and scarred from all the life that I lived

The times that we go out of our way

To paint beautiful blue over somebody's grey

When we stopped and defended injustice

Or sanded the heart of a friend that got rusted

I don't know my number or year that I'll pass

From this cold world to the kingdom that lasts

But carpe diem it's worth it ...to live it not blur it

Or years could fly by and you still ain't met purpose

We live in a time when we must look to Jesus to fill in those blanks and that uncertainty with peace, with solidarity with those in need, and with the kind of bold hope in the face of adversity that seems foolish, but for the knowledge that sin and death no longer have power over us, because Jesus, the Jesus who appeared to Thomas and the others, conquered them in rising from the grave for our sake.

And that peace, that solidarity, that hope… that becomes our dash.

Thanks be to God.