SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 JOHN 20:19-35It goes by the clumsy name of reputation rehabilitation, and it is one of the fastest growing sectors of the communications industry. A reputation rehabilitation manager is where you turn when your good name has been besmirched on the Internet. So, say you are researching your family tree and you discover that your great-great-great-uncle Billy had been executed for murder in the electric chair at Sing-Sing Prison. You would hire a reputation rehabilitation manager, who would make Acid Bath Billy look like a choirboy. And then, when you go to your family reunions you could mention dear old sweet, harmless Billy, and make the whole clan feel proud to be descended from such a fine and upstanding pillar of the community. "Uncle Billy”, you would say, “occupied the chair of applied electronics at one of our nation's leading institutions. He was attached to his position by the strongest of ties, and his death came as a great shock.” Just imagine how different history would be if they had had reputation rehabilitation managers in earlier times. William the Conqueror would now be known as William the Negotiator, Vlad the Impaler would be Vlad the Heart Surgeon, and Ivan the Terrible might be Ivan the Greatly Misunderstood.

And this morning we read about a man who could certainly use his reputation being rehabilitated. A man who has received the bummest of bum raps. Thomas. AKA ‘Doubting Thomas’. So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if I could speak in defense of the accused, let me suggest some other nicknames for the man who begins today’s Gospel lesson by being somewhere else when the Risen Jesus shows up. Ten of the Eleven are together inside a locked room. They are cowering in fear. Now, let’s just make sure we have grasped that. Ten of the apostles are hiding, like men who have lost hope and lost courage, and Thomas isn’t one of them. We don’t know where he is, but it isn’t trembling in a locked room, terrified of being arrested for consorting with Jesus. For all we know, Thomas is courageously striding around Jerusalem, visiting the market, going to the Temple, flouting the conventional wisdom that advises him to keephis head down. This isn’t Doubting Thomas, it’s Flouting Thomas. Ignoring the smart advice, the safe option, the easy road of hiding.

My next piece of evidence.... (Read the full Sermon here: Sprouting Thomas )