Preached on Sunday, April 12, 2026, the Second Sunday of Easter, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Little Rock.

“Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” (John 20:27)

It has been a week since we were last together, since the celebration of our Lord’s resurrection—and, in true Trinity fashion, it was a glorious celebration, wasn’t it? The flowers were everywhere, even pouring forth from the fountain. The music was exquisite. We pulled out those special vestments we use only once a year. We had not one, but two real live bishops. And it was the first Easter Sunday of our new Dean and Rector, Andrea. It was the kind of day that makes this whole Christian thing feel almost effortless. It was the kind of day that makes faith feel easy.

And some of you are here this morning or tuning in online because of that day. You came last Sunday—perhaps out of habit, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps because someone invited you—and something in it was beautiful enough, or compelling enough, that you decided to come back. And if that is you, whether you are a newcomer or a long-timer, I am very glad you are here. 

But I also want to say, as plainly as I can, that what you have walked into today is something a bit different. Because a week later, everything has shifted. The flowers and music are beautiful, but not quite as grand. Those special vestments are put away for another year. The bishops have come and gone. We find ourselves back in the typical rhythm of life—which is precisely where Easter becomes far more difficult and much more serious.

It’s one thing to stand in a room filled with music and flowers and say that Christ is risen. It’s another thing entirely to say it when the room is quieter and the week is ordinary. It’s one thing to put on your seersucker and shout your “Alleluia.” It’s another thing entirely to return to work and the worries that await you on Monday morning. It’s one thing to feel a heart full of faith on Easter Day. It’s another thing entirely to ask whether Easter can be trusted not just for a day but for a whole life.

That question exposes something important, because belief in Easter, belief in the risen Christ, is not, finally, a matter of having the right thoughts in your head or the right feelings in your heart. Belief in Easter is not a one time deal. Belief in Easter is a way of living. It’s an ongoing choice. It’s a way of moving through the world. Belief is something that we do.

That’s where the apostle Thomas stands in today’s Gospel. He is not present when the risen Christ first appears. He hears the testimony of the others, but he cannot accept it. He says that, unless he sees and unless he touches, he will not believe. He is not being difficult for the sake of it—which is why we often give him that awful title, “doubting Thomas.” (One wonders what I really think of that title, “doubting Thomas.”) No, the apostle is naming with clarity the gap between what he has been told and what he can actually trust. And can any of us blame him?

When the risen Jesus does appear to him, He does not avoid Thomas, and He does not correct him from a distance. He comes directly to him, directly into that space of hesitation, and He speaks to him in terms that are unmistakably concrete. “Put your finger here. Reach out your hand here.” Not simply, “Look,” but “Reach.”

In this moment, belief is not about achieving a certain state of mind. It’s about a willingness to act. It’s about a willingness to move toward Christ, even when everything is not yet resolved. “Reach out your hand,” He says to Thomas—and He says to you and to me.

And that is what Easter looks like most of the time. It does not look like a single triumphant moment. It looks like a pattern of life, a life of reaching an outstretched hand. It looks like showing up again and again. It looks like being here again this morning, even if you are not entirely sure what you believe yet. It looks like returning next week, and the week after that, waiting for clarity to come. It looks like prayer that is sometimes clear but also sometimes stumbling—but you keep at it. It looks like forgiveness that is offered imperfectly but offered nonetheless. It looks like generosity that pushes just a little beyond what feels comfortable. It looks like hope that refuses to disappear, even when the evidence feels thin.

Each of those is a form of reaching. Each of those is what belief actually looks like when it takes shape in a human life.

We often imagine that belief will come first, and that a way of life will follow. But in the Gospel, it so often works the other way around. We begin by reaching. We begin by showing up. We begin by taking a step that we cannot fully justify or explain. And somewhere along the way, we discover the risen Christ Himself.

That is the quiet surprise at the heart of this story. Thomas reaches out, and he does not find emptiness. He reaches out and touches Jesus. He finds Christ already present, already offering Himself. The risk of that reaching is real, but it is met by something even more real. It is met by the faithfulness of our Lord.

So if you are here this morning and you are not entirely sure what you believe, you are in exactly the right kind of place doing exactly the right kind of thing, because belief, in the end, is not a test you have to pass before you can belong. It is a life you begin to live. And it may begin as simply as this: by showing up again and again, by staying, by reaching out your hand, even a little, even now. Amen.