Easter 2A - 2026
Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter, Year A
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The doors are locked. The world outside feels uncertain and dangerous. Inside, the disciples are gathered together, not triumphant, not confident, but afraid. And into that very fragile moment, Jesus comes and stands among them.
No knocking. No warning. Just presence.
“Peace be with you.”
Prevenient Grace, the grace that is offered to us before we even know it. Christ is there before they are ready, before they have made sense of anything.
And the fear they’ve been holding loosens its grip, the get a mini-Pentecost reception of the Holy Spirit, marching orders to spread the Good News… and spend the whole weeks hiding in the same room.
But Thomas is not there.
We have been a little hard on Thomas over the years. We’ve reduced him to a nickname, “Doubting”, which ignores his whole story.
Thomas is not asking for more than the others received. He is asking for the same encounter.
They saw the Lord. They heard his voice. They saw his wounds. Thomas is not rejecting Jesus, he is questioning the veracity of the disciples (fair). Thomas is not rejecting faith, he is longing for it to be real.
A week later when Jesus does appear to Thomas, it is not with frustration or disappointment, but invitation. “Put your finger here… see my hands.”
In other words: Come closer.
Bring your questions. Bring your uncertainty. Bring even your doubt. Do not stand at a distance from me because of them.
Come closer.
And Thomas, who began with doubt, ends with one of the best confessions of faith in Scripture: “My Lord and my God.”
It is the one who questioned who speaks most clearly.
So perhaps the question for us is not whether we have doubts. Most of us do, at one time or another. The question is what we believe doubt is doing.
Because there is a kind of doubt that closes us off and settles us into cynicism or indifference.
But there is also a kind of doubt that is restless, searching, unwilling to settle for something shallow.
A holy kind of questioning.
The kind that says, “I want this to be true, not just in words, but in my life. I want to know Christ, not just know about him.”
And the Gospel tells us that Christ is not afraid of that kind of seeking.
He meets it.
Just as he met Mary in the garden. Just as he met the disciples in that locked room. Just as he met Thomas in his questions.
And then the Gospel concludes, turning toward us.
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
That is not a scolding. It is a blessing spoken across generations. It is meant for the Church—for those who will come later, who will hear the witness of Mary, and the disciples, and Thomas, and be invited into that same living faith.
Which means the story is still unfolding. Their past witness becomes our inheritance. And our response becomes our witness.
Discipleship is not a perfect, polished certainty, but a lived faith. A faith that has wrestled. A faith that has asked questions. A faith that has been tested and still encountered the Risen Christ.
Amen.
