Each day when I leave the house I engage in the ritual I call the preflight check, and the routine goes something like this. Right hand to right pocket: keys - check; left hand to back pocket: wallet - check; and finally, right hand to shirt pocket: cell phone - check. I feel less like a pilot preparing for flight as I go through my pat down ... and more like a security guard at the boarding gate. But, if I don't go through the mental checklist, I often forget something.

This past Wednesday is a case in point; I neglected my routine and left my cell phone at home. I had Bible Study in White Plains and then a farewell luncheon for a colleague. By the time I returned to my office there were three messages on the church machine - each one more insistent: "Pastor, my father was just rushed to Northern Westchester Hospital. Please come over." "Pastor Kennedy, when you get this message, please call me. It's urgent." "Pastor Kennedy, I've been trying to reach you; my father isn't expected to live." The calls came from a member of St. Andrew's and I'm covering for their vacationing pastor. I didn't know the daughter; in a way that made me feel more guilty for being out of touch.

The PS to the story is I am so glad I finally got the message and got to the hospital for conversation and prayer. Since I did not know Tom, nor his family, it was not Tim Kennedy who made any difference to a grieving family huddled in a hospital upper room. Not me, but whom I at the moment represented. I represented Jesus. A scarred Jesus and a wounded Jesus. As scarred and as wounded as Tom's family, as they grieved, cried, and shared their wounds with one another, and with the tardy stranger who happened to be me. In that tiny upper room ... we prayed, "Thy will be done," hoping against hope that the doctors were wrong and that God's will and ours overlapped.

Instant communication - as long as we remember the preflight check. I wonder how our grandchildren thirty years from now will read an account of the Resurrection like the one from John 20. "What do you mean Thomas wasn't with the others when Jesus appeared? Couldn't they text him? 'Hey Thomas. Get back to the house as quick as you can. You're not going to believe it. Jesus is alive! LOL.'" You know what LOL means, don't you?

About three years ago my daughter sent me an e-mail and ended LOL. I found it so moving that I gave her a call. "Hi Sara. It meant a lot to me when you ended your e-mail, 'Lots of Love.'" "What are you talking about Dad"? I said, "You wrote LOL." Dad," she said, as she laughed out loud, "LOL means 'laugh out loud.'" Ah - instant communication. It can also mean instant miscommunication. Nevertheless, although it might offend our spiritual sensibilities, when Jesus showed up to verify the rumors that, "Yes, I am alive," I see nothing wrong with suggesting that in the upper room, behind locked doors, there might have been a bit of relieved, LOL, laughing out loud.

In the midst of all the wonderful things that happened that first Easter Day, the communication is a bit spotty. Twenty-first century technology is unavailable to first century citizenry. In our Gospel, Jesus appears to the ten disciples sometime in the evening of that first Easter Day. Evidently Thomas is not on the distribution list. Among other things, that means the community is incomplete. By the community, I mean the twelve disciples - and Jesus himself. For three years they are a community - almost a family - as they travel from village-to-village, hither and yon. A tight knit community and the disciples must be reeling as, not only their leader, Jesus, has been crucified, died, and buried, but one of their number, Judas has hanged himself and another, Thomas, is not with them as they gather to digest the news that the tomb is empty! And now, suddenly, Jesus stands among them. No one - not ADT, not Slomin's Shield, not Brink's Home Security - no one has found a way to dead-bolt out a recently resurrected Redeemer! "Peace," he says to them, and of course they are so dazed he has to repeat himself. "Peace be with you." And he shows them his hands and his side. To wounded disciples he reveals his wounds. Except, of course, Thomas is out of touch.

Here's a word for the church: No matter how large the community grows - or how small it remains - when one member of the community is missing, the community suffers. Thomas is missing. Thomas is like a lottery winner who has yet to check the ticket. He is unaware of the priceless fortune that has come his way. But in a day or two following, the word gets out. "We have seen the Lord," to which the underwhelmed Thomas responds, "Unless. Unless I see, unless I touch." Laugh out loud. Out-of-touch-Thomas desires to be in touch! Perhaps he is too wounded himself to put much stock in a wounded risen Lord. But a few days later in the upper room, it is déjà vu and this time the timing of Thomas is impeccable. "Peace be with you," Jesus greets them all. Wouldn't it be grand to share the peace of the Lord with the Lord? Jesus says "Peace," and then immediately shows Thomas his wounds. And of course, Thomas believes. The sharing of peace, the showing of wounds ... and Thomas believes.

Maybe as we share the peace and show our wounds in the community called church, maybe this is the closest we'll get to the Risen Lord this side of eternity. Who knows? Surely Jesus is present in the bread and wine. Surely Jesus is present as two or three gather in his name. But when we are willing in the upper room community of the church, willing to share the Lord's peace even as we share our own wounded selves - all pretenses dropped - just maybe, we experience Jesus in a deeper way than we ever might have anticipated.

We, you and I, are a wounded people. Sometimes we pretend, even with those we know fairly well, that nothing's wrong. When asked we often say, "Fine, everything's fine," lying through our teeth. But on this first Easter evening, Jesus refuses to pretend. He refuses to pretend that nothing has happened. "Peace be with you," says he, as he proceeds to hike his shirt and show his side, and then his wounded hands. "Peace be with you." He invites Thomas to touch and feel. Right hand, left hand, left side. Check. Check. Check. "My Lord and my God."

Tonight at St. Andrews, I am presiding at Tom's funeral. I plan to include in the liturgy that ancient practice we call "the sharing of the peace." I've never done that at a funeral, nor have I seen it done. But how appropriate in a community of the wounded, how appropriate for healing to begin by sharing the Lord's peace as we share the pain of the wounded? "The peace of the Lord be with you, O wounded one." "And also with you."

People of Grace, proud Marys and doubting Thomases - Jesus is among us. And perhaps true faith springs more naturally in the midst of this community of the wounded. That's who we are - those of us who make up the Body of Christ - a Community of the Wounded. The church. It is here we can share peace with one another, even as we share our wounds. It is here that we can double our joy and divide our sorrows - recognizing we find acceptance and comfort from one another. It is here that we can share our tears and also, LOL. We can laugh out loud in the midst even of our deepest wounds because we know it is here that we receive from our God, LOL - lots of love.