We gather here as Christians, and as such aspire to follow One who came from God two thousand years ago.
Read through the Gospels and you'll find only one scene in which someone addresses Jesus directly as God: "My Lord and my God!"
It was doubting Thomas, the disciple stuck in sadness, the last holdout against believing the incredible news of resurrection.
Jesus appeared to Thomas in His newly transformed body, obliterating Thomas' doubts.
What prompted that outburst of belief, however--"My Lord and my God" -- was the presence of scars. Feel my hands, Jesus told him. Touch my side. Finger my scars.
In a flash of revelation Thomas saw the wonder of Almighty God, the Lord of the universe, stooping to take on our pain, to complete the union with humanity.
Not even God remained exempt from pain. God joined us and fully shared our human condition, including its distress. Thomas recognized in that pattern the most foundational truth of the universe, that God is love. To love means to hurt, to grieve. Pain manifests life.
--- From What Good Is God? by Philip Yancey. From a message given at Virginia Tech, April, 2007, at the memorial service.
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