"Gospel of Tenderness"

John 20:19-24

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS 

April 23, 2022

Have you ever spent time watching young dancers learn ballet? Or maybe you even were one yourself and can still remember what that was like. We’re used to seeing the end-product of years of work on a stage. Dancers flying through the air with grace, contorting into forms that are downright impossible for most of us, creating art with nothing but their own bodies, moving our emotions powerfully with each shift of their muscles. 

But in the beginning, it’s not so graceful. What appears easy on a grand stage after thousands of hours of practice is, of course, not simple at all. 

Take, for example, one simple ballet skill: battement tendu. A dancer moves from first position - heels together, toes out - and extends one leg to either the front, the side, or the back. The toe never leaves the ground. The muscles are taught and the leg perfectly extended. Hours may be spent perfecting this one simple extension, which is the foundation for later movements. What appears automatic for a 25 year old dancer probably took a 5 year old hours and hours and hours of practice. 

Battement tendu means a repeated, stretched movement. Battement - beat, a repeated movement, again and again. Tendu - tense, stretched. 

Tendu, of course, is similar to the English tender. When things are stretched, they can become delicate, tenuous.. We have to be gentle with them. 

Tenderness is the word that comes to my mind over and over again when I read the Gospel of John. You know, each Gospel kind of has its own flavor. 

Mark is the oldest Gospel. It’s the shortest and the most bare-bones. We don’t have a birth story at all. And the Easter story is incredibly short and simple. The book ends with the women not telling anyone what they saw at the tomb because they were afraid. 

Luke is known for its love of the underdog. Marginalized folks take center stage in this Gospel, making it easy to remember that Luke’s version of Jesus’s birth is the one with shepherds - everyday, working folks. And Luke’s Easter story, which we heard last week, features the women speaking their truth loudly even though some of the male disciples didn’t want to listen. 

Matthew is both uniquely Jewish and global in scope. This Gospel loves to quote the Hebrew Scriptures over and over AND makes it clear that Jesus has come for the whole world, not just Jews. Matthew’s Jesus is a Messiah with a capital M. A big King on a throne. So in Matthew’s birth narrative we get the Magi from far away coming to worship the baby Jesus. And we get the cosmic clash between an earthly King and God with the horrible story about the massacre of the innocents. And in the Easter story we get more earth-shaking news with an actual earthquake and then the disciples are told to go forth and share the good news of Christ with the whole world. 

John’s Gospel is the newest of the four. There are quite a lot of things in John that are different from the stories in the other three. Things that are unique to John like the story of water into wine at Cana and the raising of Lazarus. There’s no baby in a manger in John. Instead we have a second creation story, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Now, how exactly can something both be WITH God and BE God, too? We’re not told. John’s Gospel is full of beautiful, mystical, poetic language that will tie your head up in knots if you try to look at it rationally. My friends and I spent most of seminary wondering just what exactly the author was smoking when he wrote this beautiful book. 

Jesus in John’s Gospel is frequently enigmatic. He’s not someone you’d necessarily want to have a beer with. Because he says troubling things like, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” The disciples are often flummoxed by him and it’s easy to see why. 

And although Jesus seems very otherworldly in John’s Gospel, I’ve always loved that the other people are very peopley in this Gospel. And the bond between Jesus and all those people like you and me is deep, strong, and so very relatable. This is the Gospel where Jesus insists on washing his friends’ feet.

This is the Gospel where Jesus’s dear friends Mary and Martha chastise him because he didn’t come in time to save their brother Lazarus from dying. And when Jesus sees their distress - sees Mary crying - he, too, begins to cry. And then, from those tender tears shared between friends, comes new life - as Jesus raises Lazarus in love. 

That tenderness between friends extends to the very end of this Gospel. “Tender,” is the word that comes to me again and again when I read the Easter stories in John. Mary Magdalene crying at the tomb because she thinks Jesus’s body has been stolen. And then realizing that Jesus is there with her when he tenderly speaks her name. There’s a gentleness and great care between these two friends as they stretch their hearts towards one another. 

And then Jesus on the beach with his friends. They’re trying to catch fish but having no luck. And in a tender moment of care, Jesus tells them where to cast their nets and cooks up a nutritious breakfast for them over a charcoal fire. Jesus gently pulls Simon Peter aside and asks him three times, “Do you love me?” Three times Peter is given the opportunity for a do-over - affirming his love for Jesus. A chance to make things right after his three earlier denials. The tenderness of a bruised friendship. Two people who love each other stretching towards one another in vulnerability, finding a resurrected relationship after great hurt. 

Vulnerability is on full display in the resurrection story we heard today, too. Thomas, reaching out to touch his friend's wounds. Jesus, the Teacher, showing up in exactly the way his friend needs in this tender moment of intimacy. 

Thomas has, of course, gotten a bad rap over the years for this story. “Doubting Thomas” we’ve called him, as if his desire to more fully understand the impossibility of the resurrection is somehow a liability. Thomas doesn’t really ask for anything more than what the other disciples already got, incidentally. Part one of this story is Jesus appearing to the other disciples. Jesus shows up, says, “peace be with you,” and shows them his wounds. They believe. 

Thomas misses this first appearance, though. We aren’t told why. Some commentators have assumed it’s because he was slacking. That he wasn’t there with the team at this moment. But what the text actually says is that the disciples were behind closed doors because they were afraid of the religious authorities. They were in hiding. So perhaps Thomas wasn’t there because he was brave. Maybe he was out in the world doing what Jesus had told them to do instead of hiding in fear. This seems especially likely because one of the only other stories we have about Thomas is in John 11 when no one wants to go with Jesus to Bethany because they’re afraid they’ll all get killed. But Thomas says, “We should all go with Jesus and die alongside him if need be.” Wow. What courage. How did this poor guy get a reputation for lacking loyalty? 

When Thomas finds out his friends have seen dead-Jesus-somehow-alive-again he scoffs. “I’ll believe that when I see it. And see his wounds. And touch them. Yeah, right.”

Which, honestly, is probably what MOST of us would say if confronted with this news, right? 

The incredible thing about this story, I think, is not so much what Thomas does, but what Jesus does. Again, Jesus shows up to the disciples, but this time Thomas is there, too. Again, Jesus says, “peace be with you.” And then in this beautiful moment of friendship, Jesus anticipates precisely what Thomas needs, without even having to ask. He simply holds out his wounded body and says, “See. Touch. Believe.”

Jesus knows just what Thomas needs. Jesus meets Thomas exactly where he is. It’s a stunning moment of vulnerability for both of them. The story is so tender, so heart-wrenching, it begs to be told and heard with gentleness. Perhaps it should only be told in a whisper: one wounded friend stretches out towards another wounded friend and together they lean into the possibility of hope and new life. 

It’s an intimate, bloody, raw story of friendship and love that is so profound - even death cannot control it. Thomas recognizes Jesus in breathless wonder, “My Lord and my God.” Others in his Gospel call Jesus Lord, but only Thomas calls Christ “God.” 

A God whose love is so relentless that it has to be embodied among us. The Word putting on flesh and moving into the neighborhood. Love walking around with human skin on. Love so tender, so fierce, so intimate that it cannot leave us even when death comes calling. Love that isn’t afraid to be with us in our pain and woundedness. Love that will sit with us when we cry. Love that meets us where we are and gives us just what we need. 

Tender. Fierce. Intimate. 

We are both the recipients and the bearers of this love. Loved into fullness by the one who calls us by name. And called out, beyond ourselves, to see and name and celebrate one another. In the person of Jesus we not only see God-enfleshed but a model of tenderness held out as a gift. An invitation to see each other in all our imperfect glory, enter into one another’s joy and sorrow, and tenderly, gently, compassionately walk through this life together. 

Like young dancers learning from a patient teacher, we stretch our muscles again and again. 

We show up and watch and listen, carefully learning the steps. 

We practice for a whole lifetime until our tenderness becomes muscle memory. Until those tendus begin to look effortless. 

Tenderness, compassion, gentleness with ourselves and with others. 

This is the way of Christ. Thanks be to God.