II Easter

April 18, 2004

JESUS HAS A WHEELBARROW

by John Christianson

 

John 20:19-31

Here they are, the remaining eleven disciples, all together again for the first time since the Last Supper, just ten days earlier. In my imagination, I jump from this passage in John, back to the prophecy our Lord made in Luke’s account of that Last Supper.

²⁸ "You are those who have stood by me in my trials; ²⁹ and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, ³⁰ so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And I jump ahead to Revelation, chapters 4, 11 and 20, where John sees those disciples sitting on those promised thrones.

 

I close my eyes, and I imagine the twelve thrones – and I see them identical, except for their legs.  The one with the lion’s feet on the legs – that’s Peter’s.  Impetuous Peter, who gave his memories to Mark – the lion evangelist!  The one with the human feet on the legs – that’s Matthew’s; John’s throne has eagle’s talons on the legs.  But the most fascinating throne of all is the one I imagine Thomas sitting on.  In place of legs, the base of the throne is a wheelbarrow – an ordinary wheelbarrow, with a wheel in front and two legs and two handles in back.  There’s Thomas, for all eternity, sitting confidently on a wheelbarrow.

 

Ask the average Christian what they remember about Thomas, and you might draw a total blank.  If anything, they might recall the nickname, “Doubting Thomas.”  Not much of a legacy!

 

I’m told that when I was born I was named after my Mom and Dad’s oldest brothers.  The only question was, should I be “Thomas John” or “John Thomas.”  My mother won by pointing out that John was the disciple that Jesus loved, but Thomas was “doubting Thomas.”  So John Thomas I became.

 

Maybe my name would have been different if my parents had remembered the end of today’s gospel instead of just the middle of it.  At the end, we don’t have “Doubting Thomas” any more.  We have “Confessing Thomas.” Centuries before the Council of Nicaea, the first Christian, to recognize the divinity of Christ!  What a profound, mind-boggling, blasphemous sounding confession it was, “My Lord, and my God!”  Peter had called Jesus “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”  Thomas carried it a step further.  He called him Lord and  God!  And not just “Lord and God” either – he called him MY Lord and MY God.  Sometimes in our faith we stand shoulder to shoulder with the Church, and we say, “OUR Lord and OUR God.  There’s a special power in that.  But sometimes, Like Thomas, we find ourselves standing all alone in an intensely personal encounter with God, and the personal possessive pronoun becomes singular.  MY Lord and MY God! 

 

Let’s leave Thomas sitting on that peculiar throne for a bit.  I want to share a story I head many years ago.

 

It’s supposed to have taken place in an area much like Lyndale, where 160 acre farms were being divided up into 15 or 20 acre homes.  One resident named Tom watched a fine new house being constructed on the adjacent property.  When it was finished, he watched in disbelief as two steel towers were constructed in the back yard, some three-hundred feet high and maybe four-hundred feet apart – complete with ugly guy wires to steady them.  Then, he watched a steel cable being stretched between the tops of the two towers, like a gigantic clothesline. 

 

The next day, Tom saw his new neighbor, clambering up the ladder steps of one of the towers, pulling along a pole about twenty feet long.  When he got to the top, very hesitantly, the man began inching out on the cable, like a tight rope walker, balancing himself with the pole in his hands.  Time and time again he seemed to be losing his balance, only to steady himself until he made it all the way to the other side.  Then back.  Then back and forth.  Several hours a day he was up there practicing.

 

One day, Tom noticed that the man had a shorter pole in his hands as he walked back and forth. He was getting more and more confidence.  Then, one day, there was no pole at all.  He just held his arms out to balance himself.  He was getting better and better.  After a few more weeks, the fellow was walking the tight-rope with his hands in his pockets.

 

Then, he saw something unbelievable.  The man actually was wheeling a wheelbarrow across the cable, back and forth, from one side to the other, day after day.

 

Then, one day, he thought the wheelbarrow looked different.  He checked with his binoculars, and sure enough, it was full of bricks. 

 

Finally, after watching this exhibition another month or so, he walked out to meet his neighbor.  He shook the man’s hand, and he said, “You have to be the most amazing tight rope walker in the world.  I can’t believe my own eyes how brave and skillful you’ve become.”

 

“Oh,” the neighbor said, “I wish I believed that. Next month I have to walk a tight rope across Devil’s Canyon, pushing a hundred and eighty pounds of bricks in a wheelbarrow. I’m scared to death.  That thing is so deep there’ve been people who fell in and their obituaries were already in the paper before they hit the bottom.”

 

“Well,” Tom said, “let me assure you, you have nothing to worry about.” 

 

“Oh, I just don’t know.”

 

“Hey!  You don’t have a thing to worry about.”  Tom said.  “You’ll do it!  I know.  I’ve been watching you for months.”

 

The neighbor looked at him.  “You really believe that, don’t you.”

 

“I sure do,” Tom declared.  “No question about it!”

 

The neighbor thought a moment.  Then he said, “I have an idea!  You take the place of the bricks.”

 

So, now you can see how, in my imagination, Thomas’s throne got in the wheelbarrow.  That word, “my” that Thomas repeated twice in his confession:  “My Lord, and my God.”  That’s when he climbed into the wheelbarrow isn’t it.  That Jesus is Lord and God? Why, even the devil knows that, according to James.  But it’s that claim of ownership that makes the difference.  “My Lord, and my God.”

 

Finally, we have the closing words in today’s gospel:

³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Can you guess what that means?  It means that not only does Jesus have a wheelbarrow – there’s still room in it.  Climb in, if you haven’t already done it.  You know that you’re already in it?  Well, share the word with your neighbors.  Jesus has a wheelbarrow – a big one. 

 

Amen.

 

(Comments to John at john.christianson@comcast.net )

 

Lyndale Lutheran.