New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
(Year B: Second Sunday of Easter, 11h
April 2021)
No doubt = no faith
Without doubt there is no faith. What? Read
that again. To have faith implies that I trust and entrust. That means taking a
step and making something of a leap. Put another way, it means trusting without
full certainty. Doubt has an inevitable place in the act of trusting. We
entrust our doubts to God in the act of trusting and God in whom we trust takes
care of our doubts. Sounds simple? Yes and no.
Life is always a struggle and the edges are not always so clear cut on a
particular question or issue.
If what we believe in were certain,
provable, ‘scientific’ in the usual sense of this term then there would be no
need to trust anyone or anything. It would be a matter of a more or less certain
conclusion. Or, at least, we may say that the evidence allows us to conclude so
much and no further. Because we are human we live in a reality of uncertainty,
questioning, evolution, struggle, victory and growth. This is what makes us
human. Now, my favourite definition of faith is what Paul wrote (using, in this
instance, the King James version of the Bible in English) in Hebrews
11:1:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Bereavement as faith in doubt..
People passing through bereavement (it
happens to all of us at some stage) feel a mixture of emotions. Sometimes,
people of strong faith believe that their loved ones have left clues and signs
– establishing a kind of benevolent and watchful presence as they continue to
care for us. Other times, the bereaved
have such a strong hope and a strong love and a strong faith that they look
forward to being reunited with their loved one after death. These emotions and
insights should not be dismissed as mere psychological coping strategies or
imaginings. Yes, we do need to cope and to find ways of dealing with realities.
However, the seeds of faith – of trusting – are sown deep in the human soul.
And we ought not to resist the natural growth of such seeding. What feeds such
seeding is the rough soil of turmoil and doubt – never being entirely certain
or sure of what it is that is growing in our hearts and minds. Nonetheless,
look for clues, we look for certainties, we look to cling to something or
someone.
Thomas – ‘the twin’ – was a very modern
sort of person in our books. He was just trying to be honest with himself and
others and not taking on board whatever others told him to think or believe. He
looked for hard evidence. Perhaps he was misled more than once before in his
life. Perhaps his companions, the disciples, were not above exaggeration. And
Lazarus notwithstanding, why should he have accepted this story about Jesus
being alive again? God loves us in our doubts, in our questioning, in our
anguish, and in our struggles to be honest with ourselves and others.
When John tells us that Jesus appeared to
the apostles, including Thomas, ‘eight days’ later he shows them his wounds.
However, miraculous his movements and however glorified his body, the risen
body of Christ carries wounds. We should never forget this. Our peace is in his
wounds and John emphasises, both in the story of Calvary and here, the source
of life and renewal in the wounded side of Christ from which ‘blood and water’
flowed. As always, John is never far from the material because his gospel is
steeped in mystery or, to use a Western term, the sacraments of Christ’s
presence and action. Being highly sacramental (to continue with a Western term)
means recognising the ‘fleshiness’ of what it is we believe in. References to
body, eating, wounds, touching, seeing and feeling are not accidental. John –
like the other evangelists – has news for us. Material is good. And we attain
to the spiritual through the physical because the two are closely united. They
are two sides of the one coin.
An early Christian writer, Origen, writing
in the second century understood resurrection as ‘a spiritual transformation
without loss of individual identity’. He rejected a simplistic physical
reconstitution (resuscitation) interpretation. At the same time, he rejected an
interpretation that saw the material as evil and entirely separate from the
resurrected body. The ideas system behind this view of material as evil was
known as ‘gnosticism’ and like all heresies, (i) it had elements of useful insight
and truth, and (ii) it never went away but lurks under other ideas systems in
our own times. For Origen, the
resurrected body shares the same ‘form’ as the physical body. The tension
between the now and the past; between the physical and the spiritual (however
these terms are understood) is handled by an approach that can receive the
mystery of rising as embodying different truths and not rejecting anything
essential through a one-sided emphasis.
Material is good..
So, material is good. Material and spiritual (which is not merely
some non-material substance or reality) are part of an indivisible whole. The notion of the soul being released from
the earthly body which waits to be reunited with the soul on the last day is
surely platonic. The squeamishness about
cremation in former times may testify to such dualist and physicalist notions.
Perhaps the metaphor we need to work with,
nowadays, is one that tells a story about a seed (as outlined in the first
letter to the Corinthians). The seed dies (buried in the ground) but transforms
into new life. There is a continuity and what was perishable in some mysterious
way ‘lives on’ except in an entirely way.
It takes imagination and a leap in faith. The intellectual underpinning is informed by
a critical examination of the evidence – or the lack of it – combined with an
attitude of ‘not knowing’ leading to trust. We hear the word; we do not know
how; we believe.
And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 1 Cor 15:37-38
Our faith is 2,000 years old but our
thinking doesn’t need to be….
After all disputation, after all our striving, after all
our pain and suffering –
and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. (1 Cor 15:14)
A sobering thought indeed!
(words above = 1,102)
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Further reading: notes and questions,
verse by verse
Preliminaries
This passage is unique to the four Gospels.
It is written some 60 years after the resurrection took place. It emphasises a
number of realities that impacted on the early Johannine community which was
probably located in what is today modern-day Turkey.
20:19-20 Jesus
Appears to the Disciples
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
The expression, ‘for fear of the Jews’,
reflects the emerging conflict and agony of the early Christians in the Eastern
Mediterranean as Christianity became a distinct religion separate from Judaism.
The ‘peace be with you’ is a peace that nobody or no other thing can give. It is the eirḗnē (classical
Greek) that means joining together of parts in a whole. In the Hebrew it would have the meaning of
blessing for the welfare of the recipient. This is exactly what Christians
needed in their hour of agony as churches split and reformed and as faithful
Jewish Christians were expelled from the synagogues.
We yearn for peace but we sometimes seek it
in the wrong places and in the wrong ways.
God’s peace bestowed by Jesus is of a different quality to anything ‘this
world’ can give. This peace gives rise
to a joy that must not be confused with any shadow or resemblance of joy that
‘this world’ might promise. In the peace of God given by the Holy Spirit in Jesus
is our heavenly blessing of warmth, light, spaciousness and ease that nothing,
nothing in this beautiful world of ours can compare with. Yet, we can taste of
this blessing in this world especially in the immediate aftermath of trauma –
such as experienced by the apostles in the days and hours leading up to and
following the death of Jesus.
20:21-23 The
gift of the Holy Spirit for the healing of the nations
Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’
In this passage, three times, Jesus will
repeat and give the blessing of peace.
To his apostles and disciples, he gives the Holy Spirit to go out in
order to preach, to heal and to enable the forgiveness of sins to happen. This
is no small undertaking. Without the direct action of the Holy Spirit, the work
of discipleship and evangelism/evangelisation will not succeed. Openness to the
Holy Spirit is essential. But, throughout everything the Peace of God must
reign. It is to this Peace that we have been called and it is through this gift
that others may find healing in what it is that we do and say.
In rising Jesus breathes new life into us
(literally ἐμφυσάω or emphysáō in the Greek in John
20:22 according to Strong’s
Concordance). The word, or breathing, is the only place in the New
Testament where it is used. In the Old Testament it is used in Genesis
2:7 where God created and formed human life and breathed into it new life
so that ‘man’ became a ‘living being’.
20:24-26 Thomas
the doubter
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’
Thomas was a cautious type. He wanted
empirical evidence. He wanted reason. The Lord gave him evidence and reason and
Thomas’ faith which was always there flourished.
20:27-29 The
faith of Thomas is confirmed
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’
The Risen Jesus leads Thomas kindly and
gently by revealing himself as he is. Thomas’s
doubts will dissolve in the light of Christ’s healing presence, love and peace.
It is more than just seeing and hearing. It is also a matter of experiencing in
the depths of the soul the truth, the goodness and the beauty of the Risen
Christ.
‘My Lord and my God’ on the lips of Thomas
is a key moment in his life. He experiences the living Risen Christ and he
accepts him into his heart and mind fully. Have we had such an encounter yet?
Do we need to renew this submission in faith again or even for the first time?
Where am I in my journey as a 21st century thinking and believing
disciple?
We are among those blessed with not having
seen Jesus but having placed our faith in him. Our secret (tell it aloud from
the roof tops with our lives) is that we have found an ‘indescribable and
glorious joy’. That impossible-to-describe joy is our shield and our armour on
the seas of doubt as we set our compass on the safe harbour of Jesus.
Although you have not seen him, you love
him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice
with an indescribable and glorious joy. (1
Peter 1:8)
20:30-31 The
purpose of this Gospel
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
Writing a number of years ago, the late
Brother Roger of Taizé offered us the following insight:
A luminous Gospel insight has come to light
after gathering dust for a long time: “The Risen Christ is united to every
human being without exception, even if they are not aware of it.”
And his community prayed thus:
O Christ, you are united to every human
being without exception, even if they are unaware of it. Still more, risen from
the dead, you come to heal the secret wound of the soul. And for each person,
the gates of a heartfelt compassion are opened.
And the fruit of trusting is joy – overflowing joy and
everlasting joy.
The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord:
The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. (John 20:20)
Christ is risen and with
us right now. Alleluia. Let us rejoice. Amen.
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