Monday, April 17, 2023

Dear Thomas

Second Sunday of Easter - Year A
John 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

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