The theme of our Easter trip together was challenge. On Palm Sunday, we were challenged to recognize the darkness within as we became the crowd and cried out to crucify Jesus. On Maundy Thursday we were challenged, with Peter, to allow Christ to wash our feet in order to allow Christ to love us so that we can love others. On Good Friday, we were challenged to understand the power and authority that emanates from the cross, and how God chose to rule creation with the cross as God's throne. And then finally, on Easter Day, we were challenged to “go” and proclaim the resurrection as the beginning of our story, not the end. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Today we are challenged by Thomas, often referred to as the Skeptical Thomas. As I've said in the past, Thomas has had a bad reputation. If one of the other apostles had not been in the upper room when Jesus appeared to them on Easter night, they too would have reacted the same way as Thomas. I doubt there was anyone at the time who would or could have believed the story the disciples told about Thomas. I ask myself the same question for us today. How many of us, deep down, really trust in the resurrection? How many of us expect to experience the resurrected Christ on the path to Providence in the same way that the two disciples did on the road to Emmaus. Or, like Paul did on the road to Damascus? This is what we are asked to believe, even to hope! I suspect that believing in the resurrection is the first of many obstacles placed throughout our journey with Christ. It is the first article of faith that challenges us to abandon the rational and open ourselves to what many consider irrational and impossible, because we are asked to believe in something possible and impossible. This is where faith begins. To have faith in something or to believe in something is to trust in something with the heart and not with the head. Because faith is not about knowing with the head, but about trusting with the heart. In this morning's Gospel, Thomas did not trust what his fellow apostles told him. His brain wouldn't let him go. Like you and me, he needed to see and touch the resurrected Christ to understand, to know and believe in what God could do. For us today, the greatest challenge we face in trusting in the Resurrection is to believe in the next step, that with God all things are possible, that God has provided abundantly for our needs, that all creation continues on the path to God's promised reign. Can we even believe that through the resurrection the chains of evil that once held us from God have been destroyed? Do we believe that we are now free to conquer all evil and darkness on earth, without seeing, touching or feeling it? I ask these questions today, not to make us feel inadequate in our faith, but to help us better understand what Thomas thought and felt and recognize the part of Thomas that resides in each of us. I also ask these questions to demonstrate how our lack of confidence hinders the reign of God for which we so long. Thomas' story is not just about you and me and our relationship with God. It's about how the doubt we have within ourselves also affects the way we perceive the world. Because doubt ends up fueling our fears and preventing us from trusting what God can do and perhaps even what we.