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The 2nd Sunday of Easter THOMAS A Monologue by John W. Carter Who am I? My real name is Judas. But Judas is such a common name, I have always needed some additional identification. And, since I am a twin, I am usually called Judas, the twin. The word for twin in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, is Thomas. The name for twin in Greek is Didymus. So I am really Judas, called Thomas, or Judas, called Didymus, or sometimes Thomas, called Didymus. My home was in Capernaum, up on the north side of the Sea of Galilee. I made my living as a carpenter. I first met Jesus when he stopped in my little shop one day to ask if he could borrow one of my tools for a moment. I had no idea who he was at the time. I didn’t really like the idea of lending my tools to anyone (people who don’t know tools are sometimes so careless with them), but he said he only wanted it for a moment, and there was something about the way he asked for it, as though he knew tools and how to use them, that gave me confidence. I followed him outside to where a man had a team of oxen hooked up to a cart. One of the oxen was making a lot of noise and constantly twisting his neck around as though the yoke was irritating him. Jesus went up to the ox – and I thought to myself, “You’d better be careful or you are going to get hurt” – and he took the yoke off (he seemed to have a way with animals), and then with my tool he had borrowed, he reshaped the yoke a bit. It was obvious that he was skilled with the use of such tools. Then he put the yoke back on the ox, and I would almost swear that ox sort of nuzzled up to him. And I said to myself, “Here is a man who is a master at his work. It’s good to see a man who knows what he’s doing.” And I told him so. And he said, “The yoke has to be easy.” I had a feeling of someone who could feel for others, whether men or animals. He couldn’t let anyone suffer without getting involved. After he left, I inquired who he was. They told me he was a carpenter from up Nazareth way. I wondered if he were going to start a shop in Capernaum. He would be tough competition if he did. But I also found myself thinking that he would be someone good to have around. I had a feeling I could go to him if I needed help and that he would help. But I found out he was spending most of his time just visiting and talking with people. He had ideas about God being someone who loved all of us. Apparently, he also talked about the fact that we ought to love each other the same way. That was quite an idea. I thought I’d like to listen to him sometime. But it was a busy season, and I didn’t have time to pay any attention to him. But then one day, someone who was in my shop mentioned the fact that Levi, or Matthew, had given up his job as a tax collector and had joined a little group of men who were going around with this Jesus. And I thought to myself, “If anyone could make that old traitor and skinflint give up the lucrative business he had, that was worth looking into.” So the next time I delivered a bench I had repaired and saw a group of people around this Jesus down by the lakeshore, I stopped for a while to listen. Sure enough, he was talking about the need for people to love each other more. And not just friends, but enemies, too. He said, “That’s what God does.” He didn’t make any effort to quote some rabbi. He just said it. But it made sense. The things he said just seemed to say to me, “This is true.” And then I glanced up, and sure enough, there was Matthew with him. I scarcely recognized him at first. He seemed like a different man. And I said to myself, “If this Jesus loves that old skinflint, he must really mean what he is saying.” Before long, I found myself not only stopping if I ran into Jesus, but even making excuses to go out of my way to find him. And it seemed like whenever I did stop, he noticed me. He’d ask how the carpenter business was. One day I was trying to figure out how I was going to fix an old chest a woman had brought in, and on an impulse, I asked him for an idea. And he surprised me by saying, “Let’s go look at it.” And so we visited quite a little while together. He told me he wanted to let people know God loved them as a father loves his children, and he wanted to teach people to love each other the same way – and to help each other. And he went on to say that he was gathering a little group of men to go with him around Galilee to do this. Suddenly, he stopped and looked at me and said, “Maybe you would like to go with us?” Something inside of me said that might be a wonderful idea. But I am slow about making up my mind, and I said I’d think about it when I had time. But I found after he had gone that I couldn’t think of anything else. There was something about the kind of life he lived, the spirit of his life, his real concern for all people no matter how lowly, his willingness to help anyone, his understanding, his insights into God’s love and God’s desire that we should love each other. It all gave me a feeling that he had something that made life really worthy living. I found myself checking on myself as I dealt with people and saying, “That isn’t the way he would do it.” And I asked myself if anything in life was better than growing in that kind of living. And I couldn’t think of anything that was. And I said to myself one day, “If he asks me again, I’m going to be ready to go.” And I began to plan on it. A few days later, he stopped in my shop again and said, “We’re going to start out now in a few days and try a little trip into some of the nearby villages. Do you want to go along?” And I said, “That will just give me time to finish up these few little jobs, and I’ll be ready.” The next few weeks and months went by fast. We went so many places together. Sometimes Jesus just talked to us. But whenever we entered a new village, people had heard about him and gathered to hear what he had to say. But more and more, I seemed that there was always someone in the crowd who seemed to be sort of spying. No one had to spy. Everything was out in the open. But there were some who didn’t like his ideas and some of the things he did. And they always seemed so critical – were always finding fault with something. They were always complaining about some detail of the ceremonial law he wasn’t observing closely enough. Jesus wasn’t purposely trying to ignore those laws. It was just that with him, so many other things seemed so much more important, such as people who were sick or hungry or lonely. But I watched those critics and made inquiries about them, and almost always, they were from Jerusalem. And I was glad we weren’t there, because I knew that if we were, with the influence and the power they had there, Jesus wouldn’t last long. And then there came that day when Jesus told us quietly that he was going up to Jerusalem. I think that down inside all of us, there had been a fear that he might decide to do a crazy thing like that. We were afraid of it, but never talked to each other about it. And so it didn’t really surprise us. But we knew we had to stop him some way. We argued from every angle we could think of. He was kind as he answered us, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to change his mind. And his arguments for doing it made sense. He had to teach all people. God loved the people in Jerusalem as well as the people in Galilee. And when we pointed out the danger involved, his answer was, “There are times when a man simply has to know that what he is doing is right and then leave the rest in God’s hands.” And then he went on and said another thing. He said, “I’m satisfied now that if anything happens to me, you men will be ready and able to carry on proclaiming the truths I have tried to share with you and all people.” Well, that kind of hit all of us. Because at that moment, many of us were seriously wondering if this was where we ought to part company. We weren’t sure we were ready to put our lives on the line with his. But as I thought about that possibility for the first time, something became clear to me that I hadn’t realized up to that time. I had been taking life as I had found it with Jesus for granted. Suddenly, I faced what life would be like without him. And I heard myself saying, “Let’s go up to Jerusalem and die with him. As far as I am concerned, that will be better than staying here without him.” And I wasn’t being heroic. I’m not that sort of person. I was being very realistic. I was just expressing something I honestly felt down inside, even though up to that time, I hadn’t realized I felt that way. Living with him every day and feeling the influence of his life on mine, even at some considerable risk, was better by far than living without him. Well, it turned out our fears were justified. That first day was wonderful when he rode into the city and everyone cheered and shouted. And in some ways, the second day was even better when he cleaned out that stinking mess in the temple. It was good to see all those people who were desecrating that place of worship running to get out of there as Jesus challenged them. But I knew after that, they would get him by fair means or foul. From then on, every time we turned around, there were some of those leaders trying to trap him, get him in trouble by ones means or another. The way Jesus handled them, though, was not less than magnificent. Time after time, he sprang the traps they set, and they got caught in them themselves. I don’t think they would ever have gotten the best of him, even there in Jerusalem, if it hadn’t been for Judas. Every day, we would leave Jerusalem before dark. While it was light, Jesus’ enemies didn’t dare to try to lay hold of him. The crowds would have torn them to pieces. But Judas – and I don’t know yet what really led him to it – led the officers of the high priest to the place where Jesus always stopped to pray on his way to Bethany where we stayed at night. Jesus was feeling the need for strength and courage to go on proclaiming God’s truth even though the net was slowly closing around him. I found myself wishing that some night he might say, “Fellows, I’ve had enough of this. I can’t take it any longer. Tonight, we’ll just take off over the other side of the Mount of Olives and make our way back to Galilee.” And yet I know that if he had said anything of that sort, I would have been let down, disappointed in him. But Judas led the officers of the high priest to that place where Jesus was praying – where the rest of us had all fallen asleep. It was all over almost before we realized what was happening. Peter and James and John were up the hill further with Jesus where Judas led the officers. The rest of us were down nearer the gate to the garden, and by the time we got up there to see what was going on, they were leading Jesus away. And we just all sort of fell apart. We heard they had sentenced him to be crucified. Most of us were too afraid to show our faces anywhere. I finally did make my way out to the place of the crucifixion, but by that time, he was dead. I helped take him down off the cross and knew he was dead. And then we carried his body to a nearby tomb Joseph of Arimathea had offered, and we hurried home to John Mark’s house so we wouldn’t be picked up for violating the Sabbath. Mark’s house was where we had eaten the Passover together. And that became a gathering place for us – or should I say a hiding place? We talked about the past and what a wonderful person he had been and how he had been able to make life good for so many people. But then we’d face the present, and we knew that was all over, and then we’d be quiet and no one would say anything. We would just sit in our deep despair. And then someone would say, “Oh, I wish it hadn’t happened. I wise he’d just walk in that door again.” Every so often, I just couldn’t take it any more. I’d get up and leave. I’d go for a walk in the dark, or with my head covered up so no one would recognize me. I don’t know why we didn’t leave there and go back home. It would have been much safer. I guess we just wanted to stay awhile in the last place we had been together. Maybe we were half-trying to convince ourselves that he might come back. I came back after one of those walks and when I knocked our secret knock, the door flew open, and all at once, everyone was saying, “Thomas, Jesus is alive! He was here!” And I said, “Sure, sure. He probably talked to you and told you all sorts of things.” And they said, “Yes, he did.” And I said, “You all really need to get out and take a walk. Your despair is making you crazy. We’d probably all better head back for Galilee while we still have our sanity.” But they kept insisting it was true. And suddenly I felt sorry for them. They had wanted so much to have Jesus back. Now they had persuaded themselves he was back. I tried to get them to be reasonable and calm down, but they wouldn’t. They insisted that he was alive and that they had seen him. And I finally got kind of irritated. “Listen to me,” I said. “You show him to me if you are so sure. When I can put my finger into the nail hole in his hands and into that hold in his side while he stands here, then I’ll believe.” They argued with me for over a week. But by that time, I had had it. I opened my mouth one day to tell them off. And suddenly they all became very quiet. They were looking at something behind me. I turned to see what it was, and there he stood. I don’t know how he got there. I don’t know where he came from. But there he was. And he smiled and held out his hands to me, and I saw the nail holes. And I fell on my face and cried out, “My Lord and my God.” A while later, he was gone again. But he appeared to us again that same way a week or two later, early one morning when we all went fishing up on the Sea of Galilee. By that time, it didn’t matter that I couldn’t see him or touch him when I wanted to. I knew he was there with me. I knew he would be close to me forever. And along with the others, I began to plan how we would go out with him, and do all those things we had talked of and planned together. Thank you, Jesus. I love you Jesus – my Lord and my God! Amen! -------------------- George R. Karres, Pella Lutheran Church 418 W. Main Street Sidney, MT 59270
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