As a community we journeyed through Lent and Holy Week and
entered more and more deeply in to the confusion, despair
and pain of Christ’s crucifixion. Of course because of the
Scriptures we all knew what was going to happen next but
just imagine the trauma and the devastation that the
disciples must have experienced. They were a community of
people who believed that they would never again see their
beloved Lord and Master but then last week we heard about
the empty tomb and Jesus’ appearance to Mary
Magdalene. So on Easter Day we celebrated Jesus’
glorious resurrection, the fulfilment and triumph of our
Christian beliefs. With great gusto we were able to
proclaim: Alleluia the Lord is risen.
Alleluia the Lord is risen. ……… He is risen indeed
Alleluia
Yet as we move on today's Gospel highlights the traumatised
disciples having difficulties and doubts about the
Resurrection. It’s so easy to be sceptical or doubtful about
something that sounds so very unlikely.
This stuck a chord with me last week when my 4 year old
grandson told me that he had seen a weasel attack a rabbit,
kill it and then drag it slowly and with great difficulty
into some dense bushes, unfortunately the rabbit feast was
too big for the gap but after patient determination the
weasel won. This all sounded like a wonderful bit of
imagination but later in the day I was assured by others who
had watched the scene unfold that it really was true and I
felt very guilty.
From our own faith perspectives I don’t believe any one of
us could say that we have never questioned our own beliefs,
I know have said before that questioning is healthy and
enables growth. Questions such as, are we
misinterpreting the evidence, did it really happen, is it an
illusion of some sort?
When life hurts and we are totally confused few of us can
claim to have unshakeable faith. George Carey, when he was
Archbishop of Canterbury wrote that ‘doubt stirred him to
greater faith’ and a Polish proverb states even more
strongly that ‘To believe with certainty we must begin with
doubting.’
Thomas can help us to understand that an open and enquiring
mind can lead to a deeper knowledge of the truth. As we know
Thomas was loyal but pessimistic and sceptical, but he went
on to spend the rest of his life as an apostle, a missionary
in India and a martyr, so it hardly seems fair that he is
mostly remembered for his doubting. If we go back to last
week’s Easter Gospel, Mary Magdalene found the tomb empty
and when Jesus talked to her she assumed he was the
gardener. Yet Mary has never been recorded as a doubter, she
was the first to see the risen Jesus knowing her sins had
been forgiven. But it wasn’t until Jesus entered that locked
room, offered the frightened group his peace and showed them
his wounds that they too believed. The peace they received
was a peace that flowed through Jesus’ presence. A peace
that the world isn’t able to offer.
There are times when we too hide behind the locked doors of
our hearts, unable to reach out to others; yet Jesus will
still reach out to each one of us at a level that is a
million times deeper than all that is wounded and fearful in
us.
Jesus provides an abiding and everlasting presence in our
broken world. He does not stop the chaos and injustice,
which is so often caused by our own hands but he is always
present calming troubling hearts and offering us peace.
And when Christ does reveal himself we, like the disciples
are transformed and filled with joy. But divine love isn’t a
private possession, it is to share and Jesus’ command to the
disciples was threefold; to be sent out as Jesus was sent,
to receive the Holy Spirit and to forgive sins. The chain
was established; from the Father to Jesus, from Jesus to the
disciples and from the disciples to whoever they commission
and the key to this mission is the capacity to receive the
Holy Spirit.
It was a week later when Jesus appeared to them all again
and this time Thomas was with them. Jesus invites him to
touch his wounds, He encourages Thomas to reach for the
divine life that flows through him. The Gospel doesn’t tell
us whether he actually did touch Jesus but his cry, ‘My Lord
and my God’ signals both the reception of divine life and
the recognition that Jesus and the Father are one.
Thomas had now come to know Jesus at a level that eluded him
when he knew Jesus in the flesh and his profession of faith
was the most profound and explicit voiced by any of the
witnesses of the resurrection. Thomas can give all of us
such hope, we can confront our fears, move from darkness
into light and let Christ take root in our hearts. We are
all wounded by the burdens of life, our secret pains, our
own sins and suffering but we are here in the presence of
Christ, Jesus who showed his scars and who brings life from
death and salvation from sorrow. Christ has the power to
enter those locked doors of our hearts just as he entered
into the upper room on that first Easter Day. I pray that we
all come to know the joy, the love and the forgiveness that
Christ shares with us is something inward and involves being
at peace with ourselves and in harmony with the community;
these gifts are much deeper than any superficial or
surface emotion.
Jesus loves us just as he did Thomas, he won’t criticise or
judge us because of our fears or shortcomings. He won’t make
us feel guilty because of our doubts. We are all God’s
children and each one of us is precious and loved.
Jesus called Thomas from his doubt to belief and from his
belief to missionary ministry to the poor, the lonely and
the hurting.
The experience of the risen Christ is to be found in the
community that shares his love and in a world of selfishness
and greed it is up to us to reach out to the disadvantaged
and marginalised. The risen Christ is evident in the way we
visit our sick and housebound, support the aged and less
able and how we comfort the bereaved. It is our
responsibility to show God’s love to those who hold back
their faith because they still need proof. As Jesus taught,
those that believe the apostolic testimony without seeing
will be ‘more blessed.’ The lives and preaching of those
first early believers changed the course of human history
and brought home to us that faith is not some cosy agreement
with a set of intellectual truths but an absolute belief in
the resurrection and that the good news needs to be shared.
Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God and that through
believing you may have life in his name.
Jesus’ wounds become his glory and through his wounds we are
healed.
Today and every time we celebrate the Eucharist we meet the
risen Lord, every breaking and sharing of bread is an
invitation to give ourselves as completely as possible to
God and surrender ourselves to the power of his love,
forgiveness and healing. With willing and believing hearts
and minds we can be touched and transformed into his
likeness and into the Easter mode of being.
I pray that this Easter season we take time to reflect and
allow our minds to open up and trust the presence of the
risen Christ in our daily lives; may we reach out to those
in need and show them the risen Christ walking among us. By
virtue of our baptism we too add to the community of
believers and so become part of the Easter mystery, sharing
in Christ’s dying and his rising to new life.
‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to
believe’
Alleluia Christ is risen. …. He is risen indeed Alleluia