The Rev'd Joanne Wetherall – 30^th March 2008

The vastness and complexity of the universe with its planets, galaxies and stars, while it can fill me with wonder, is almost a complete mystery to me.

My understanding of the night sky is limited to being able to identify the plough on a clear night or taking a child like delight in spotting a shooting star.

I discovered this week that 90% of the universe is made of “stuff” we can't even see; astrophysicists call this “stuff” dark matter.

The only reason that they know it's there at all is because it has a gravitational effect on other objects.

You can't see dark matter, you can't feel it, but you can watch something being pulled in its direction.

There are times when I feel that way about God, that there is just so much mystery, so much unseen and unknown about God that the only way I can know of his existence is because I see people around me being drawn to him.

This week has been one of those times.

As we have celebrated together Christ's resurrection. We have also experienced the shock, disbelief and deep sadness of Helen's death.

It has felt to me much as though I have been squinting down the lens of a telescope trying to catch sight of something amazing, but very far away.

I wonder, as I acknowledge these feelings, if I am sharing something of the experience of the disciples as they struggled to come to terms with the events of Easter.

In my own sadness and disbelief I have heard my voice join with Thomas as he places conditions on his ability to believe in Jesus resurrection.

I have longed to be able to see him in person to touch him and know he is really there.

And in many ways, while the mystery and lack of understanding remains, my longings have been answered.

I feel I really have placed my hand on Jesus wounds.

And I feel this because the gravitational pull, the need created in me to draw closer to God, tells me that our sorrow and pain, the wounds which we bear, are God's wounds too.

I know too that I have seen Jesus physical presence, experienced his love in the many expressions of love of family and friends which have surrounded Matthew and his children.

It is the same love which has drawn us together here today, which we express in our declaration of faith and the sharing of bread and wine.

Henri Nouwen, the popular priest and spiritual writer, described this as the “yearning for love, unity, and communion that doesn’t go away”.

So I come together with you in recognition that you belong to the same heart I belong to; that you too are drawn to God, not always because of your certainties, but in spite of your doubts.

God may be bigger and more complex than our human minds can comprehend, but through a human being, one who loved life, who experienced love and loss, pain, loneliness and death, through Jesus, God comes to us and draws us to himself.

And it's because of this and because we are surrounded and supported by each other , we can raise our voices, however feeble they may feel, and say to Jesus, “My Lord and my God”.