Second Sunday of Easter
As a book, The Acts of Apostles tells the story of the growth and struggles of the earliest Christian community after Pentecost. In the Sundays of this liturgical season, we get these highlights: today early growth in numbers, and miracles like those of Jesus; next week, reprimand from the Jewish authorities; then the first Gentile converts; on the Fifth Sunday of Easter, travels with Paul; then that great dispute within the church about the obligation to keep the law of Moses; then the first martyrdom of a Christian; then, Pentecost.
That extract from John's gospel is a summary of the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection. The last of the four gospels, this was written in 90AD, or sixty years after the events about which the author is writing. It is two generations ago now since 'all these things' happened. Broadly speaking, John's concerns are that the apostolic faith will rise to the challenges presented by very new circumstances. John is trying to address an outbreak of religious nostalgia in his community: "Would that we had met Jesus, during his life, or more important, after his resurrection." But knowing Christ in the flesh is no guarantee of a secure faith in him. 'Look at Thomas' John is saying to his community. He was a constant companion of Jesus; yet his skepticism survived three of four encounters with the Risen Christ.
The second problem is closely connected: "How, or why, do we believe?" John sets out to address these problems. And he concludes his work by saying: "These are recorded so that your may believe..." The 'signs' he refers to are the post-resurrection appearances. In these weeks following Easter, the scriptures recount the many appearances of Jesus to his disciples after his death and resurrection. The appearances have no consistency. For example, in some instances the disciples recognise Jesus at once. In others, he appears as a ghost. In others Jesus shouts a question to the disciples from the lake shore before reality dawns. In some of the appearances, as in today's gospel, he walks through closed doors, unhindered by the barriers of our material world. Yet another instance, and again we see this in today's gospel, Jesus stresses his physical and human characteristics in his encounter with the doubting Thomas: "Look, here are my hands; give me your hand; put it into my side. Doubt no longer but believe."
The nature of such appearances and their very variety is saying this: Jesus is now accessible to humanity in an infinite variety of ways. He is no longer limited by normal boundaries, such as historical and geographical. He is present to his people at every point of his universe. He is available to them through that universe. He is present with people, as in the case of Thomas in today's gospel, even when the person or the people themselves are unaware of his presence. In short, God is now present forever through the person of Jesus in the heart of our world.
The figure of the doubting Thomas represents mankind in today's world. Thomas is the scientist, demanding physical verification of everything. Unless something is verifiable and observable under laboratory conditions, then it must not be accepted as true. As is the case in our own day, Thomas sets impossible conditions for belief: "Unless I see in his hands the wounds of the nails, and put my finger into the holes they have made, then I refuse to believe." Unless there was a photographer outside the tomb as the stone was rolled back at dawn on Easter Sunday morning....
But the Christian faith rests on a very different foundation. It is about relationships, and about trust - our relationship with God first, and our relationship with one another. Trust is the keystone in all relationships and it is the keystone of Christianity. In our own human experience, the more loving and unselfish a person is, the more trustworthy they are. If we use that criterion, Jesus of Nazareth was eminently trustworthy. If we cannot take his word for it, well then we are in real trouble as human beings and as Christians.
Unless we trust those we love, there is no love there. If we insist on testing their love every day, we will very quickly destroy that love. The Christian is in fact the very opposite of the cynical scientist: they both operate by diametrically opposite rules. The scientist must test everything; he must view the world through a very narrow lens. He must accept nothing on trust. The Christian has to be optimistic and open-minded. "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."
We have to view the world through a very broad lens. We have to trust the world, believing that ultimately everything is in God's hands, that he has already redeemed us and that all will be well. We must be broadminded, not literal-minded, in interpreting our world. We are challenged to see in the wounds of all who suffer as the wounds of Christ. But we view them in hope as the wounds of the rise Christ. Suffering and death is not the end of the story. But, like Thomas, we need someone to highlight those wounds and to reveal the person concealed behind them. It is the function of the Church to reveal to mankind the God who is hidden under so many disguises. 'Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.' John is telling his disciples that those who knew the Lord in the flesh have no advantage over those who came to know him through the Church in subsequent generations. Belief, like much else in life, is a matter of trust.