Sunday 16th April
Reflection/Teaching “Resurrection Witness”
“Seeing and believing” is an ongoing theme in the book of John, and it is a key part of the Thomas and Jesus encounter.
At the opening of this gospel, Jesus asks Nathaniel, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?” When two of John’s disciples begin to follow Jesus he says, “Come and see.” And the story of the man born blind in John 9 is also filled with nuances about sight and belief.
In this passage, the only blessing spoken by Jesus and recorded in John falls on those who have not seen but believe. That blessing reflects the life situation of the original community addressed by this gospel. Most, if not all, of John’s first readers would not have seen Jesus. And yet they believed. And Jesus’ blessing of them is Jesus’ blessing of us as well.
This story about Thomas is often used to berate doubt, based on verse 27, where Thomas wants to touch and see. But the word translated as “doubt” is not one of the common Greek words for doubt. It is ‘apistos’, whose literal meaning would be closer to “without faith” or “unbelief.” So what Jesus is actually doing is graciously providing Thomas with what he needs to move from unbelief to belief.
As we know now people learn in many different ways. Thomas, like many of us, needed to see, to touch in order to move from his previous thinking to knowing that Jesus was alive.
Touch,” writes well-known author Margaret Atwood, “comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last and it always tells the truth.”
Again, recent research has proven the importance of touch. During the many Covid lockdowns physical isolation was one of concerns of mental health professions. We could use on-line or distant interactions to feed our need for sight and sound interactions but we couldn’t touch. People found it physically painful when couldn’t hug the grieving friend or hold the hand of the dying relative.
Thomas needing to touch Jesus was part of his letting go of grieving and truly believing in the living. And it worked. Thomas become one of the most well-travelled apostle. His story didn’t get into our bible and so like many I thought his journey to India and the subsequent Christian community there a myth. But I now have a neighbour who comes from that tradition. And it the evidence is compelling that there has been a Christian presence in India for over 2000 years.
One wonders if the stories about ‘doubting Thomas’ are more about one-upmanship from later church traditions feeling insecure about the weight of his contribution than real scholarship.
And yet acknowledging we can have doubts is important too. Like Thomas we want to understand this Easter story. We want to understand it so that it becomes real. We want to touch and hold it so that every question finds its answer and our witness feels real. But the reality is, often our questions get answered in strange ways, ways we are not expecting.
Most of us can acknowledge that faith does not remove all doubts and questions. It doesn’t push away all the dust and filth of the crucifixion but invites trust and witness in the risen Christ.
And did you notice, it is Thomas’ confession that ends this chapter Yes, the man often vilified as not having enough faith for expressing doubt that leaves us with a statement of faith that the church has including in much of its liturgy – “My Lord and my God!”.
In this story Jesus also the bestows Spirit upon the community gathered – by breathing on them another aspect of touch. Here Jesus’ “breathing” upon the disciples empowers them to recall Genesis 2:7, where God breathes life into the one formed of dust. The same word in Greek (pneuma) and Hebrew (ruach) means “breath” and “spirit.” And Jesus emphasises that ambiguity by the act of breathing. It must have been a powerful moment for all concerned.
We in Aotearoa New Zealand have a localised reminder of this moment whenever we take part in a hongi. As I press noses with the other, we share our breath, and our spirit, one with another. We are part of God and part of each other. It can, and should be, a deeply spiritual moment.
This gesture of Jesus, of breathing the love and power of God into the frightened disciples, is so simple and it so profound, as is much of these two meetings with Jesus.
Despite their fear, that has them huddled behind locked doors, nothing keeps Jesus from coming to the disciples. Isn’t that the most comforting thing to be able to hold close to our hearts – that no matter how scared we are, no matter how many barriers we put up between ourselves and the Christ – he will hunt us down.
And what is John trying to tell us about Jesus with him simply coming in, rather nonchalantly, saying, “Peace be with you”? Do we make things more difficult than they should be to believe or to receive the Holy Spirit, or to live as a Jesus follower? I have feeling some of those locked doors are our expectations that we have to be good enough, work hard enough, give enough, say the right words, etc, etc. And John is trying to show us it is as simple as “Come and see”, “touch my wounds”, “hear my voice”.
John has always been seen as the more mystical of eth four gospels, the one that doesn’t really fit with the other three. His book is filled with memorable images and phrases that have inspired multitudes and yet that seeming simplicity is wrapped around complexity.
To ‘simply’ see we have to open our eyes to all the possibilities God may have. To see we must remove our blinkers and see what we do not want to see. To hear God voice we must open our ears to messages we do not want to hear and accept such holy listening may cause us to change our minds and force us into actions and places we do not want to go to.
To touch the wounds of Christ means leaving our comfortable lives and going where there is hurt and filth, pain and injustice. To get up close and personal with our inhumanity to others.
Such simple moves towards a risen Jesus can cause us to fall to our knees crying “My Lord and my God”. Can send our entire world into freefall and fracture the certainties we hold dear.
For the mystery of the risen Christ and the unknown trajectory that send us on can be scary, especially in a world that clings to certainty and empirical truth.
We all come with different questions and our own doubts. When we gather as the church, be it for worship or other aspects of life as a church, our differing lives and experiences come with us and influence how we do and do not trust each other. And so we are tempted to lock up parts of ourselves from each other – our questions, doubts, and histories of hurt and shame. And we lock out of our lives, communally and individually, people as well, because we are scared or have been hurt by people like them. It is worth asking who is missing, and why from our church communities and personal lives? And also how might we look and touch the world and each other with more grace and love, because Jesus did.
According to the gospel of John, the risen Christ gives the disciples only one commandment in this passage: forgive. Now many teachers have declared this commandment in verse 23 means that God will only forgive you if you forgive others. And it has been used to bully people into forgiving their oppressors and letting them get away with their crimes. Because “surely you, the victim, don’t want to be unforgiven by God?” And so abusers have been let off to continue abusing because “I have to forgive!” But surely this is a misunderstanding of forgiveness.
Jesus told us that through loving each other, people would know we are his disciples. As we spend time with others, we learn more and more about God’s love. And we learn more about what has shaped a person’s life and what drives them to do awful things. And only then can you forgive a person – when you understand that “there, but for the grace of God,” might you also have done that terrible thing.
This I believe is our call to true resurrection witness; to live joy-filled lives, open to the leading of Spirit, comfortable with doubt and change, free to see and touch and hear God in the world around us, and to share that revelation in all we say and do. Simple? (to quote the billboard – yeah,right!)
Let us pray as the music plays
Music plays as we reflect
Rev Stephanie Wells