"Wish you were here!"

At every resort and vacation spot, twirling postcard displays always have some colorful cards with this expression splashed across a front photo. Alternately, people can choose to write this wish on that miniscule blank section on the back side of a post card.

Does the post-card sender really wish we were there? Or are they just trying to make us jealous?

Across time and space, the authors of today's readings from Acts of the Apostles, Revelation, and the Gospel of John have sent us three "wish you were here" postcards. And, I admit, I am jealous.

Just imagine being there that day at Solomon's portico when "Many signs and wonders were done among the people at the hands of the apostles"! (Acts 5:12) In reading this report from the early church, I feel the excitement in the air. In my mind's eye, as if from the high vantage of a camera drone flying above, I can see people streaming into Jerusalem from every direction. They carry their sick. They guide their disturbed loved ones. They walk in hope, resolute and determined. They have heard stories of cures by Jesus of Nazareth and by his apostles. This is their chance! The crowds of women and men trust that even Peter's shadow can heal.

Imagine if your beloved or you had been among the cured that day. You might have found today's psalm verses rise up in your heart:

Let the house of Israel say,

"His mercy endures forever." ...

I was hard pressed and was falling,

but the LORD helped me.

My strength and my courage is the LORD,

and he has been my savior. (Ps. 118: 2, 13-14)

In our second reading from Revelation, John writes us his "wish you were here" post card from the island of Patmos. We hear proclaimed his apocalyptic vision of when he was "caught up in spirit on the Lord's day" (1:10a) and the one who "was the first and the last, the one who lives" (1:17-18a) spoke to him the words so often recalled in both the Old and New Testaments, "Do not be afraid"(17b). Oh, who of us would not wish to hear the Holy One speak these words to us in our own times of distress, turmoil, exile, and loneliness? The Alpha and Omega commands John: "Write down, therefore, what you have seen, and what is happening, and what will happen afterwards" (1:19). He does. The Book of Revelation becomes a fantastic "postcard" sent out to the Christian diaspora, one that reverberates even to this day.

And finally in our gospel passage from John we hear the astonishing post-Crucifixion/Resurrection story of the disciples who have locked themselves in a room. They are terribly afraid. "What's next? Will they come after us, too?" they must have wondered. The evangelist John tells us that despite the locks, "Jesus came and stood in their midst," wounds and all, and said, "Peace be with you" (20:19b). But he gives them more than peace. He charges them to go forth as witnesses and agents of God's mercy: "Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them..." (22-23a).

The apostle Thomas must have gotten his own version of a "Wish you were here" postcard from the other disciples, because he showed up in that locked room a week later. Because he had not been present when Jesus first appeared, Thomas had doubted the disciples' report. Can you blame him? That story sounded like a whopper! But on that day, Thomas himself experiences the presence of the crucified Risen One. At Jesus' invitation, he touches Jesus' wounds. Convinced now that he has not lost his wits and that what is happening is real, Thomas believes. He exclaims, "My Lord and my God" (20:28).

Thomas will eventually go forth to the ends of the earth -- all the way to India, according to the St. Thomas Christians -- to give witness to what he has seen and heard and to make that same extraordinary statement of faith wherever he travels. "I wish you had been there that day," he might have said as he began to tell the story of that amazing day, and of all his graced days since.

On the days when I find myself doubting like Thomas, I need a community to tell me these stories again and to make them come alive, so that I can hear them afresh and perhaps once again come to proclaim, "My Lord and my God." Liturgy gives me that gift.

Each time we gather to retell these stories and to enact our communal rituals of remembrance, we are there. We are in the crowd hoping for healing. We hear the Holy One say, "Be not afraid." We suddenly discover Jesus standing in our midst saying, "Peace be with you." We are called to be agents of God's forgiveness and mercy.

Through the gift of our imaginations and the grace of the Holy Spirit, we are present to those past events and those past events are present to us. We experience what Jews call zikkaron and we Christians call by the Greek word anamnesis. We are connected. Space and time collapse. Physicists who ponder the mysteries of time and space might some day offer new insights into this experience. In the meantime, I shall simply give thanks. I am there...and so are you.