Sunday Morning Mystery

The sea is too deep

The heaven's too high

I cannot swim

I cannot fly;

I must stay here. 

I must stay here

Here where I know

How I can know

Here where I know

What I can know. 

Jesus then reappears and invites Thomas to see and touch. Suddenly the new, giddying possibility appears before him: 

The sea has parted. Pharaoh's hosts –

Despair, and doubt, and fear, and pride -

No longer frighten us. We must

Cross over to the other side. 

The heaven bows down. With wounded hands

Our exiled God, our Lord of shame

Before us, living, breathing, stands;

The Word is near, and calls our name.

New knowing for the doubting mind,

New seeing out of blindness grows;

New trusting may the skeptic find

New hope through that which faith now knows. 

And with that, Thomas takes a deep breath, and brings history and faith together in a rush. ‘My Lord', he says,' and my God'.

Clip: On the meaning of Easter by Tom Wright

Tom Wright's parabolic story (from the Easter Oratorio) of how the apostle Thomas transcends from the type of knowing he had intended to use, and passes into a higher and richer one.

Tom Wright, Surpised by Hope. London, Society for promoting Christian knowledge, 2007, 81-2

Picture: Alleged burial tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem (Jan den Ouden)