Second Sunday of Easter - Year AJohn 20:19-31
Today’s is a very familiar Gospel
In fact we read this gospel passage every year on the 2nd Sunday of Easter
We are reading from the solemn ending of John’s Gospel
Endings are important
“When it was evening on that day”
That is how it began
It is still Easter Day…and what has happened?
Earlier on that day…
When it was still dark
Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb and finds that the stone has been rolled away
And she encounters the Risen Christ
he sends her to announce what she experienced to the others
She runs back, finds Simon Peter
and the one called “the beloved disciple”
They find the burial cloths
And They believed Mary Magdalene’s testimony
But they still don’t know what to make of it…
and they return to join the bewildered gang of disciples.
And now begins today’s passage
On the evening of that day…the first day of the week”
The disciples then are locked behind closed doors
What happened to Jesus might very well happen to them
Their fear is understandable
Jesus makes his presence felt in a real and deep way
A way that was impossible for them to deny
It is not just the absence Mary and Peter found at the empty tomb
And what does he do?
In one grand gesture
He proclaims PEACE
He SENDS them
And HE breathes on them… the animating power of the Hoy Spirit
-----Now let’s step back
It is Easter…the season of resurrection
But our Gospel can’t quite let go of Friday’s trauma
All four gospels mention Jesus’ wounds or scars in the stories of his
post-resurrection appearances.
The wounds…Jesus’ wounds are important
Very early
Even before all the Gospels were written there was a heresy floating around
Docetism
The Docetists just couldn’t imagine…couldn’t allow…God to be humiliated
So they claimed that Jesus didn’t really suffer and die, tortured on a cross.
It only APPEARED to have happened.
But the wounds of Christ
Are much more than a matter of proof
The wounds keep the story real…keep us real
Friday really happened
Which shouldn’t be hard for us to believe
Such things are still happening in our world today
Just recall the number of Mass Shooting we have awoken to in the last 6 months
Good Friday happened
It is still happening
We are at the close of John’s Gospel
John’s Gospel…full of magnificent signs and wonders
And some incredibly memorable characters
The wedding
Healings
Calming storms
The raising of Lazarus
And at the end…as a parting gift
This Gospel gives us Thomas
The academic study of the Bible’s ancient texts
Is on-going…Translating the 1st century texts of the scriptures is a bumpy ride
And scholars are always getting better at it
But every time scholars improve the translation of a few lines
Bibles don’t just go into immediate reprint
There is a problem with our current translation that is widely accepted in the scholarly community…
And for me…it makes big difference in how we hear and understand this final scene in John’s Gospel.
We read:
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;
If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
the second use of ‘sins’ is not in the Greek
and the word translated retain is, according to many scholars,
better translated as “held fast or embraced.”
So:
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven
And anyone you embrace…anyone you HOLD FAST…is HELD FAST
What is so compelling to scholars about this updated translation is that it fits John’s sense of things…Sin in John’s Gospel is equated with unbelief.
If you forgive someone who struggles to believe
They are forgiven
My guess is everyone here has struggled to believe
So that’s good news
AND THOMAS struggled to believe
AND now we can see the gift that is THOMAS
He isn’t satisfied
He announces his pre-requisites for belief!
I want to See the wounds!
Touch the holes!
Put my hand in the gash!
And what do his fellow disciples do?
They hold him fast
They don’t let him go
He didn’t end up needing those prerequisites
He never did touch or probe Jesus’ wounds
Despite what Caravaggio painted in the 17th century!
Thomas experiences the overwhelming presence of Jesus
in the small gathering of what we might stretch to call a first “church”
And John says to us today
It isn’t necessary to have been in that first group who experienced the risen Christ
In fact, it isn’t even a privilege
What is always available
Is Jesus’ presence in the church as she gathers
Two or more “gathered in His name” that is key
“When it was evening on that day…”
Today, NOW…is that Day
Every Sunday when we gather is that day
And what John the Evangelist sets before us
is his vision of what kind of church…what kind of community we can be.
We are sometimes Faithful-sometimes struggling disciples
We aren’t immune to doubting
There is MUCH that can shake our faith
And John the Evangelist
In today’s Gospel is,
I think
answering a question we all have from time to time:
“Why do we gather?”
-NOT to make God happy (but I hope God is;)
-NOT to learn how to be a good person (though that is certainly helpful)
-NOT to absorb the essential tenets of the Church’s teaching (but a good thing)
We gather
Like those early disciples
Like Thomas
To encounter…or better…to be encountered by…the Presence of the Risen Christ in our midst
The very same Christ
who continually wants to breathe life and peace and Shalom into our nostrils!
Into our bodies
Into the body that is the church
Why? So that we are well equipped to met the world
Overflowing with Christ’s (not ours) life and light and shalom
Thanks be to God
