There was very little movement in that small room. It was hard to even think. The stillness was born of shock, it did not offer peace. Death had collided with the disciples' dreams and left them lying in shadow, stunned. No one knew what to do next.

But Jesus entered the locked room as naturally as air coming into a body that has finally remembered how to breathe. Jesus' presence filled the room, and enlivened the disciples. Then he breathed the spirit over them in the darkness as though he was God creating the world out of chaos.

And that is exactly what Jesus was doing. The Greek word used in John's Gospel is the same one that appears in the first chapter of Genesis. Jesus was breathing the disciples into being, a new kind of life that was only possible after the Resurrection.

Pinchas Lapide is a Jewish New Testament scholar, but he believes that God raised Jesus from the dead. Lapide states that the proof of the physical resurrection of Christ lies in the changed lives of the disciples. In his book, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective, Lapide writes:

When this scared, frightened band of the apostles which was just about to throw away everything in order to flee in despair to Galilee; when these peasants, shepherds, and fishermen, who betrayed and denied their master and then failed him miserably, suddenly could be changed overnight into a confident mission society, convinced of salvation and able to work with much more success after Easter than before Easter, then no vision or hallucination is sufficient to explain such a revolutionary transformation. [p. 125]

When Jesus breathed spirit over the disciples he was refilling the sails of becalmed fishermen. He was empowering them to travel and equipping them to fish. The same spirit that was in Jesus when he healed the sick and forgave the sins of many, now filled the disciples. And Jesus sent them out to continue the works that he had done. "As the Father sent me so I send you."

But Thomas was not in the room. He was becalmed in his own unnamed inlet. Off by himself, Thomas had not felt this new breeze on his face. He still could not catch his breath. He remained afraid to inhale and more full of pain than air.

The words of the other disciples were simply words to Thomas. There had not yet been the powerful preaching in the marketplace about which we heard in the lessons from Acts, nor mass conversions, that would all come later. It was just words in a little room. For now, all Thomas could see was thin air.

What would it take for Thomas to believe? What sign did he need? The wounds were real, Thomas remembered them. If he could touch the wounds he would know. Pain reaching out to pain would connect where words were insufficient. So the living, breathing Christ came again, wounds and all, to Thomas.

As Christ approached, Thomas began to open. Christ came to a room that was simply shut, but no longer locked. Thomas could see the wounds, but the invitation was enough. There is no indication in the Gospel account that Thomas ever laid a hand on Jesus. Thomas heard the voice, saw the body. Thomas took a deep breath, like the first breath a newborn child draws in. Thomas fell to his knees, but his spirit must have leapt for joy. "My Lord and my God!" he exclaimed. Now the breath was in the whole body - the gathered disciples, the body of Thomas - the body of Christ.

Soon the room would open fully like cupped hands parting to release hummingbirds - disciples vibrant with the spirit would dart out fearlessly into the world to proclaim what they had seen. What was the proof? …Not the wounds of Christ, but the lives of his followers. They were changed by their encounter with the Risen Christ.

And that is the ongoing proof of the power of the spirit and the reality of the Resurrection in our own day. Words are not enough. Even the Gospel is just a story if no change takes place in the lives of those who hear it. The Gospel stands up and walks when we let the breath of Christ enter our body. Resurrection is real when our lives reflect the work of Christ.

Robert Fulghum wrote a book called, It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It. In the book Fulghum tells the story of Alexander Papaderos who grew up in a tiny Greek village on the island of Crete. Crete was invaded by the Nazis when Papaderos was a young boy. Hundreds of his fellow villagers were executed for daring to resist. The people of Crete held a special hatred of the Germans in their hearts. But, following the war, Papaderos had a vision of building an institute where the people of Crete and the people of Germany could come together in peace. When it was time to choose a place to build Papaderos chose the site where the massacre had taken place. Could new life rise in a place of death? Papaderos believed it was possible. The dream became a reality and Papaderos became a living legend.

Robert Fulghum went to the institute to attend a two-week seminar on Greek culture. He wrote:

"At the last session on the last morning, Papaderos rose from his chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out. We followed his gaze across the bay to the iron cross marking the German cemetery. He turned. And made the ritual gesture, asking: "Are there any questions?"

Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence. "No questions?" Papaderos swept the room with his eyes. So I asked: "Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?" The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go. But Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was. "I will answer your question."

Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into the leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter. And what he said went like this: "When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place. I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece…This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine--in deep holes and crevices and dark closets."

"It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game, but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light -- truth, understanding, knowledge, -- Light is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it."

"I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world -- into the black places in the hearts of people -- and change some things in some of them. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life."

And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk, Fulghum concluded.

Papaderos allowed himself to be changed by the spirit. Then his life reflected light that illumined the way to new life for others. Papaderos had been inspired. The breath of the spirit of God was in him. His hands and his heart moved to build not just buildings but peace, not just an institute but a new way of being. Rooms that had been locked became open. Hearts that had been shuttered saw the light of day. The wind of the spirit blew over the face of the island of Crete and changed the hearts of many across the world.

We do not have to put our hands into the side of Christ to know that the Resurrection is real. We simply need to let the breath of Christ be in us. We may not be called to build an institute on the island of Crete but the light of Christ will show up in our lives if we are open and willing. Let us breath deeply, get up off our knees then go into the world to do the work we are called by Christ to do.