"My Lord and my God!" Thomas gasps.

I imagine him dropping to his knees in stunned reverence at the realization: "My Lord and my God!"

It is a realization – deep, profound, breath-taking, commanding one’s entire being – that can come about only through experience.

I read recently of the carvings of the Last Judgment by Giselbertus in the 12^th century cathedral of St. Lazarus in Autun, France. The author was powerfully impacted by how compassionately the artist has portrayed Christ in this carving, and the visual "sermon" in which Christ seems to be saying "Welcome, you blessed of my father, into the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world" to the saved – and at the same time appears saddened by the damned, who seem unaware of him and his desire to embrace them as well. The author’s description of the scene was so intriguing that I had to see for myself – but none of the Google images I was able to find could give me the experience of the art work.

By the same token, I can tell you that my favorite piano sonata is Beethoven’s Opus 111 in C Minor. I can tell you that it is a late work and that it has only two movements. A musician could, I am sure, tell you more about the piece, while I can share with you only my visceral responses on hearing that work – how it feels to me like the human striving for the divine – but no matter how facile I am with words, or how thoroughly a musicologist might describe the piece, hearing about it will not give you the experience of it.

So, too, with Thomas.

His response is reminiscent of Al-Ghazali, the 11^th century master of rational theology, who found himself standing speechless one day in front of his students. He had suddenly realized that, although he knew about Allah, he did not know Allah. Distraught at the impotence of his reason in the face of Mystery, he took to the road to find God.

Thomas has been a faithful follower of Jesus.

He knows a lot about him, about his earthly life and ministry. He has followed Jesus; he has heard his teachings; he has been loyal, willing even to go to Jerusalem with Jesus to die; he has undoubtedly been grieving Jesus’ death; and, when we first meet him in this morning’s Gospel lesson, he has not experienced the resurrection.

The eleven tell him they have seen the Risen Lord.

They must do more that tell him – there must be something about them which reflects the power of that experience.

And Thomas wants to have it, also.

He wants to see the mark of the nails in Jesus’ hands, and put his finger in the mark of the nails and his hand in his side.

He doesn’t ask for more than what the other disciples have already received: when Jesus came to them that first time in the Upper Room, he showed them his hands and his side.

It’s an experience Thomas wants!

Not simply to hear about – but to engage in!

This morning we hear Jesus does come once again into the closed room where the disciples are gathered, and he does offer himself, his hands and his side, to Thomas.

As Jesus offers himself, so Thomas receives, so Thomas experiences.

Thomas may well be the model for St. Augustine’s observation: "When you begin to experience God, you realize that what you are experiencing cannot be put into words."

Thus, Thomas’ response: "My Lord and my God."

My Lord and my God.

He can say no more; he can simply acknowledge his experience.

But what about you and me?

How can we experience our Risen Lord? We, who cannot see, who struggle to believe what we cannot see?

Jesus’ life and death happened in a specific time and place: two thousand years ago, in and about Jerusalem.

But his resurrection liberated him, not just from death, but from the confines of time and space.

Fortunately for us, Jesus does not reside in that hut Peter wanted to build for him on the mountain at the Transfiguration.

And his body is not in a tomb in Jerusalem.

The resurrection makes the experience of the Risen Christ available to each one of us, to you and to me.

Of course we can’t invoke experiences of the sacred: they don’t come on demand.

Thomas asked for what he wanted; but he did more than ask: he also opened himself to receive.

So, too, with us:

We can pray.

We can open ourselves to receive.

We can move through our daily lives alert to possibility.

A rabbi taught that experiences of God can never be planned or achieved. "They are spontaneous moments of grace, almost accidental." His student asked, "Rabbi, if God-realization is just accidental, why do we work so hard doing all these spiritual practices?" The rabbi replied, "To be as accident-prone as possible."

So, what about you and me?

How can we be "accident-prone"?

How can we experience our Risen Lord?

We can’t put our fingers in the marks of the nails and our hands in his side…

Or can we?

For I believe that:

then we are touching the wounds in the hands and the side of Christ.

Do we recognize him?

Peter said, "This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses."

Not just the disciples.

You and I, also, are witnesses.

Witnesses who have seen, and who know – who have touched his wounds and been transformed.

Witnesses whose lives have been changed in such a way that others may see, also.

Henry David Thoreau once asked, "With all your science, can you tell me how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?"

Not with knowledge, but with experience.

Knowledge tells us about.

Experience makes it ours.

May we each reach out to touch the wounds of Christ in this creation, and find the experience which renders speech inadequate even as it lights our soul, so that our witness, like that of Thomas, is a reverent: My Lord and my God.

Amen.