Good News for the traumatized
A sermon from the second Sunday after Easter
I preached this sermon on Thomas touching the wounds of Jesus (as found in John 20:19-31) to the people of St. Luke’s Denver on April 27 — the Second Sunday of Easter.
These words were originally spoken to a Christian audience, and I know that my readership here is much broader and more diverse. And, it is my hope, as always, dear Soulful Revolutionary, that you will find something nourishing for your spirit today as you continue in the collective struggle for a free and flourishing world.
If you do glean something that speaks to you, I would love to hear about it in the comments.
Today’s Gospel is Good News for the Traumatized.
And thanks be to God for that.
Because friends, we are all walking around traumatized.
I had coffee with a young trans woman this last week. She shared with me the question that lays heavy on her heart:
What will we do with all these traumatized people? From immigrants being separated from their families, to trans people having their identities stripped away, to people undergoing genocide, countless people are being traumatized right now.
“How will they find belonging in the church?,” she asked.
And I would add,
How will they find safety in YOUR church?
With apologies to the Beatles:
All the traumatized people… where do they all come from? Where do they all belong?
We meet the disciples in the thick of this question.
They have heard Mary Magdalene’s testimony — “I have seen the Lord!”
And yet, the door is locked. They are traumatized by the events of the last three days. And they are terrified of what the religious leaders might do to them, how state violence might be used against them as it was with Jesus.
It takes Christ looking at all these traumatized people, greeting them, breathing on them, for their hearts to begin to defrost, softening to be able to trust again.
They all need to be healed of their trauma — and while the process begins in this moment of witnessing the Risen Christ, it surely involved a lifetime of revisiting the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, and striving to make sense of it.
The trauma is not instantly erased by this encounter.
There’s no doubt in my mind that while the disciples rejoiced to see the Risen Christ, the trauma of seeing their beloved friend and teacher tortured and executed would nevertheless stay with them always.
How could it not?
And so I appreciate Thomas’s candor.
Thomas gets a bad rap as the “doubter” — but he is just the one who has the courage to name this trauma, and to speak aloud the need for integration.
He insists on touching Jesus. This makes total sense!
Psychology tells us that trauma disrupts healthy attachment.
Trust is ruptured by trauma.
To reach out and touch Jesus is to begin the process of reestablishing relationship. Integrating the person who underwent the horrors of Golgotha, with the person standing before the disciple now
Up to this point, Thomas hasn’t had a chance to do any healing from his trauma at all!
When Jesus invites the disciple to touch his wounds, he is lovingly inviting him to integrate this full, painful, messy, unbelievable story. To find his belief— which can also be translated as trust — through vulnerability.
Jesus demonstrates his trustworthiness to Thomas — and to us — by opening up his body, his wounded body, as a site of sacred encounter.
And it’s Thomas, so frequently disparaged as the doubter, who subsequently confesses, “my Lord and my God” — the first person in John’s gospel to make such a confession.
A healthy attachment is re-established - a relationship is renewed, it too is resurrected. Even though it will never be the same as it was before Christ’s crucifixion, there is a new way forward established.
John puts it this way: “through believing, you may have life in his name.”
We might find it helpful to translate it a bit differently: through trust, you may have life in his name.
Relationship with the Risen Christ empowers us to live in the midst of a traumatizing world, trusting that there is truly no trauma that can separate us from God.
Christ looks at all of us traumatized people with compassion, and in solidarity, invites us to touch his wounds.
As Jesus people, we embody this compassionate solidarity when we are willing to show our wounds also.
We can be a safe place to land for others who have been wounded when we are vulnerable and open.
Soft.
Human.
And unashamed.
It’s ours to receive those who are traumatized, and not minimize their pain or fear, but to embody our faith that Christ dwells here. Especially here — in the places we are most terrified to touch.
The powers of this world will seek to separate, incarcerate, and execute their way to dominion.
Already, they seek to convince us that we must isolate and self-protect in order to survive.
This is a lie straight from the pit of all the human-made hells we create.
I was reminded of this several weeks ago, as I realized that nearly every family at Holy Companion, including my own, has members who are LGBTQ, people of color, neurodivergent, or disabled.
All of us, on some level of our identity, are being targeted right now by policies meant to dehumanize and dispose of us.
And, this community has risen up in embodied hope for other vulnerable people.
When I let Holy Companion know about the Venezuelan families, not far from here, who lost their safety and housing amidst the ICE raids of the Lowry apartments, we came together to care for them, first with a food drive and then putting together postpartum and baby supplies for a first time mother.
Our little community poured itself out abundantly.
Even our smallest member, a one year old girl, brought up a can in her chubby fist during the offertory, her offering a reminder to all of us that in our vulnerability, we can meet others in theirs.
Christ’s call to us is as courageous as it is counterintuitive— to live vulnerably. To not be afraid to show others our wounds and allow them to touch them too.
Because in the wounds the world deals us, we meet Christ, our risen and wounded savior, who tenderly invites us to touch what terrified us.
And to know that what traumatized can never overpower the love of our God.
Christ looks at all us traumatized people,
and says,
I am one of you.
Draw near.
Put your finger in my pierced hands.
Touch the wound in my sides.
And know:
You are mine.
Amen.
So much trauma. Thank you for naming it from the pulpit (and here) and calling us into deeper belonging to one another, the kind that heals <3.
Amen. Thank you for sharing your sermon here, glad I came across it. I also preached on Thomas this summer (using a work of art similar to this one), but my sermon was much longer. Hopefully the sentiment was the same- open and caring - as well as urging us to be willing to show our wounds, if it's helpful (or allowing others to ask their questions, if they need to ask them). Blessings.