Who’s Your Author?
Who’s Your Author?
The most important verse in today's 2nd Sunday of Easter Gospel isn't specifically about Thomas: “But these things are written so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, God's Son, and that believing, you will have life in his name.” (Jn 20:31)
Here is the purpose, the central thesis of the Beloved Disciple’s Gospel, that those who, in the words of 1 Peter, believe even though they haven't seen the risen Jesus face to face, will have life in Jesus' name. The corollary is, “I came so that they may have life, and may have it beyond measure.” (Jn 10:10b). However many years the first Act of this life lasts in this physical world, so long as it is lived in trust of the risen Christ, it is a life beyond measure, beyond our accounting standards.
To live this immeasureable life is to recognize and accept that none of us is the author of our life-story. Jesus is, in the words of one of our Eucharistic prayers, “the author of our salvation.” If Christ Jesus is our author, then none of us has any authority over each other or even ourselves. All authority belongs to our Messiah, our Chosen King, Christ Jesus, because He is the author, and we are characters in the story that He and the Father and the Holy Spirit have authored/created.
Do we really recognize and accept that authority? Perhaps when we're young, we see decades of a blank slate on which we alone get to write. Perhaps when we're older, we fear that too much of that story has been written or miswritten, (we are prone to go off-script), for our Author to make it right.
Perhaps in both cases, we're unsure if we can really trust anyone else to be our author. And certainly there are many out there who would love to be our author and have authority over me — Life is bigger than you and you are not me. (R.E.M.) — But life is also bigger than me.
Could Thomas have ever predicted that his story would take him to India where he is buried today? There are always scenes in this first act of our story that we cannot predict. And that is especially true as we approach the end of that first act, and the lights of this world going down before the white lights come up on a second act that we cannot begin to imagine.
But as David rejoiced, and trusted that he would rest in hope 3,000 years ago, and as Thomas cried before the Author of his story — My Lord and my God! — let us recognize and accept the authority of that same Author whom David trusted enough to rest in hope, and to whom Thomas testified all the way to India and say — My Lord and my God!
April 12th, 2026
The Second Sunday of Easter
The Rev. David Kendrick