There’s a movie from the early 90s that I saw once and have never been able to bear watching again, although I loved it.

It’s called “The Commitments,” and it’s about a scrappy rock band in Dublin that’s trying to make it and only sort of succeeding, with everyone at each other’s throats as they all chase their dream of being the Next Big Thing – the next U2. 

You don’t have to watch the film to get that “The Commitments” really hits the nail pretty squarely on the head, because what each person is the band is finally committed to, and to what extent, is really the central question of the whole thing. 

So, now let me ruin the movie for you. 

If you’re watching on YouTube and thinking you might want to watch this movie, now is when you should go refresh your cup of coffee. 

If you’re here, maybe you can try putting your fingers in your ears and humming something…maybe something by U2.

O.k., so the band comes together and isn’t bad.

In fact, they’re kind of good. 

They begin to develop a bit of a following, and it’s clear they deserve it.    

But almost as soon as that happens, tensions emerge, and as the movie continues, bit by bit, those tensions start to boil over. 

People take sides. 

Money is very tight. 

Everyone is sort of jockeying to be the break out star if there’s going to be one. 

Of course, there’s a romance between two of the band members that only makes things worse. 

It seems like it’s all unraveling, and they all know it. 

So they decide to take a big gamble. 

They invite a bunch of journalists to a gig, but in order to get them there, one of the band says that he’s inviting his friend, Wilson Pickett, the real life American blues guitarist, to sit in and join them in playing his hit “In the Midnight Hour.”

Word spreads. 

Well…this is why I won’t watch this movie ever again.

Because the journalists show up. 

The fans all come out. 

The band starts playing. 

It’s not bad. 

But as midnight approaches, which is clearly the ideal time to sing a song titled “In The Midnight Hour,” there is no sign of Wilson Pickett. 

The crowd turns on the band. 

The journalists leave, disgusted with this big lie.   

Two of the band get in a huge fistfight.

Another starts to storm off in frustration, saying he’s through. 

Which is when an enormous limousine pulls up, and the driver lowers the window to ask directions to the club. 

It’s Pickett.  He’s there.  He’s arrived.

Unfortunately, it’s too late.   

I think about this as I imagine the story of Doubting Thomas.

Of course, the point is just the opposite, because it’s not too late. 

And yet the question of Thomas’ commitments is very much in play. 

What the others experience as an overwhelmingly joyful moment of encounter, with Jesus appearing among them, just doesn’t rise to the level of believability for a guy like Thomas. 

Even the delight and relief of his friends does not convince him. 

Clearly, his instincts are not to take things “on faith,”and yet, that’s an interesting observation to pause over.

Because it seems like he’s not pausing to think about what the Scriptures had foretold, or about what Jesus had been teaching them about himself – especially in his final weeks as he was moving toward Jerusalem. 

He’s not taking any of that “on faith,” if by that we mean trusting it long enough to wonder about it now. 

Of course, he’s not taking the direct experience of his closest friends as reliable, either.

It’s not as if he says, “Well, clearly something must have happened,” even if he wants to withhold judgment for a while about what it was. 

This is a story that makes a lot of church going scientists sort of bristle because it sounds as if the gospels are saying that empirical research is fundamentally unfaithful, or even actively disrespectful to God. 

We should never think that. 

Scientists are the ones who have the closest seats to the wonder of Creation and to the boundless creativity of God.

They may know more about what it means to “worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” than just about anyone.   

So what’s the problem with Thomas? 

It’s not that he questions or wonders or struggles to believe.

Who doesn’t?

His friends have spent most of the day doing that since they all walked back, lost in thought, from the shock of seeing that empty tomb. 

I think the issue is Thomas’ commitments. 

Because at the end of the day, when we come up against things that we don’t understand, or when exhaustion and grief and worry start to get the better of us, what is it that we have?

What is it that we are supposed to fall back on?

It’s our commitments. 

It’s our trust in what is bigger than the fears and frustrations we may have in the moment. 

In the movie I mentioned, this is precisely what nobody seems to have – a kind of fundamental ability to keep plugging when things go sideways, or a confidence that someone’s not going to promise that Wilson Pickett will be coming when they don’t actually know Wilson Pickett. 

Similarly, part of the reason we need church rather than just a sense of our own personal Jesus is so that we have others to fall back on.

When life gets hard for us, when the fears and frustrations rise like stormy seas, we have each other to remind us of our commitments, to embody God’s presence and guidance and care. 

And we have these promises that God proves over and over again that He is most intent on keeping – that He calls us to keep as a way of keeping us close.

This is what the story is about. 

Because Easter has happened. 

Now it is on us to decide what our commitments are and how we propose to keep them in the times ahead whenever and however life will next prove difficult for us.

But the God who showed up for Thomas is the God who is determined to show up for us. 

We may not get an invitation to put our hands in his side.

Truth be told, even that might not be the answer to the kind of questions we would have.

Yet the love that creates and enfolds us all is eager to find us once again. 

He comes to open the doors of our hearts. 

May we rejoice as we find him once again.

Amen.