The Second Sunday of Easter | April 12th, 2026 | The Rev. Irene Tanabe

When I was a little girl, I would often run and hide when I knew I was in trouble. I have vivid memories of my dark and enclosed hiding places. I was barely three years old, but I remember the smell of dust and mildew as I hid in the shed in the back of our house in Tokyo.

When I was five years old, my siblings and I lived for a while with my aunt and uncle here in Seattle. There, I figured out a way to climb up into the garage rafters to hide, the smell of freshly mown grass clinging to the push mower in the corner. Looking back, I recall that while I had hidden myself away, I desperately needed to be found! Usually, it was my father who would come looking for me and it didn’t take much to coax me out. But there were times when it didn’t seem like anyone was looking for me. I suppose that’s what I feared the most.

That was my upper room. And so, I relate to the disciples in that locked upper room. Yes, they were afraid of the authorities who had executed their leader, would they be coming for his followers too? But I imagine it was their guilt that weighed heavily on their minds. The room must have been heavy with silence of their own failure. They had abandoned Jesus, even denied that they followed him, and became complicit in his execution.

Imagine their relief and joy when Jesus came and found them, saying, “Peace be with you.” They knew he was real, and not a ghost when they saw the wounds on his hands and side. It was their Lord and Master, Jesus, resurrected from the dead, bearing a blessing of forgiveness. “Peace be with you,” Jesus said. But here, it is not a greeting, like the peace we offer one another in church. Rather it was a peace of reconciliation, like the kind of peace that says whatever separated us in the past no longer separates us. It’s that kind of peace, and more, that Jesus brought to them.

Then we learn that Jesus came to the upper room again. This time the disciple Thomas, who was not with them earlier, is with them. But there is a hidden linguistic treasure here. Most translations say, “[Thomas] was not with them when Jesus came,” but the Greek implies something more intentional. The more accurate translation is that “[Thomas] was no longer with them when Jesus came.” That’s quite different, isn’t it? It wasn’t that he wasn’t with them on that night, he was no longer with them. That is to say, Thomas had not simply missed a meeting, he had left the community of followers. But when Jesus came among them again and said, “Peace be with you,” we are told that Thomas was with them. Thomas had returned to the community.

Do you wonder why Thomas left in the first place? We moderns assume that Thomas left because he doubted that someone could be raised from the dead; that he didn’t believe in physical resurrection. But remember, it was only days earlier (in John verse 11) that Thomas witnessed Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Thomas knew that Jesus had power over the grave. Thomas didn’t leave because he doubted the possibility of resurrection, he left because he doubted Jesus’s identity as the Messiah.

For you see, the news that Jesus raised someone from the dead kindled the hope of the Maccabees, who had long awaited a day of resurrection when the Messiah had conquered its enemies. No one doubted the idea of resurrection. The Messiah is the one who is supposed to harness violence to destroy the enemies; the Messiah is not the one to be vanquished by such violence. Thomas left the community because he doubted that Jesus was the Messiah, for how could a Messiah be crucified. Thomas left the community because his heart was broken and his expectations were shattered.

But look at what happens next. Jesus commissions the disciples: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  And what is their first mission? They go and find Thomas. They don’t excommunicate him for leaving; they seek him out in his hiding place and say, “We have seen the Lord.” It was this invitation that brought Thomas back into the fold. When Jesus appears a week later and says, “Put your finger here,” he is meeting Thomas exactly in his trauma. He shows Thomas that the “New Messiah” doesn’t drive out darkness with more darkness or violence with more violence. He drives out hate through the power of love and non-violent suffering.

Jesus lives today, not because he walked through locked doors some 2000 year ago. Jesus lives because he breathed new life into the community of disciples. Jesus lives because he turned a group of “hiders” into a group of seekers.

Now that I am grown, when I find myself in some kind of “trouble,” I resist the urge to climb into the rafters. I’ve learned that isolation is the enemy of grace. I know that I need not fear that no one will come looking for me, for I know that God in Jesus is always with me in my struggles. And I know that my work is not to judge whether someone should be forgiven or not. Or, for that matter, whether they should forgive me or not.

And you know what else? I know no that it’s not about me! As a child, I ran and hid and nursed my wounds. But now, no longer a child, I know that Jesus sends me out to connect with those who are or have been wounded, just like me.

Each of you knows someone who, like Thomas, is “no longer with us.” Maybe they left the community because they were hurt; maybe they left because God didn’t act the way they thought a Messiah should; maybe they are just waiting in a dark shed, wondering if anyone will bother to look for them.

Who is the Thomas in your life? Who is the one sitting in the silence, fearing they’ve been forgotten? Jesus sends us out of our locked rooms with a wound and a blessing of peace. Go and find them.

Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.