Second Sunday of Easter (or Sunday of Divine Mercy)
April 19, 2020
They devoted themselves
to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life,
to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.
Awe came upon everyone,
and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.
All who believed were together and had all things in common;
they would sell their property and possessions
and divide them among all according to each one’s need.
Every day they devoted themselves
to meeting together in the temple area
and to breaking bread in their homes.
They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart,
praising God and enjoying favor with all the people.
And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,
kept in heaven for you
who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith,
to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time.
In this you rejoice, although now for a little while
you may have to suffer through various trials,
so that the genuineness of your faith,
more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire,
may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor
at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Although you have not seen him you love him;
even though you do not see him now yet believe in him,
you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,
as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
But he said to them,
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands
and put my finger into the nail-marks
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
Now a week later his disciples were again inside
and Thomas was with them.
Jesus came, although the doors were locked,
and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples
that are not written in this book.
But these are written that you may come to believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that through this belief you may have life in his name.
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail-marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
I too need to touch if I'm going to believe.
There has to be an experience of some kind that will anchor my believing in reality. To believe in something that is only and entirely in my mind is to run the risk of believing in a dream, a mere fantasy.
It is all too common that people dream up their own version of spirituality, whether it is religious in the traditional sense or mythical/magical in some arcane way, or naturist. Possibly no harm comes for the most part, but neither is there any real benefit. The greatest danger will be in the waste of time and effort and even of a whole life spent in unreality.
* * * * *
Thomas if often thought of as the model of doubters. Today I see him as the one with the healthy, questioning, scientific mind for he is the one who needed and demanded something tangible, real evidence to guarantee they were not dreaming.
This story of Thomas' challenge to Jeshua to show himself again is found only in John's gospel. It may be significant that John would be the one to insist on the need for personal experience if we are to believe rationally - i.e. without abandoning our reasoning self.
As a late first century overview of how the community was beginning to see the mystery they'd been involved in, John's gospel starts and ends with an affirmation that people really did experience these things. His is not the detachment of a journalist reporting on events or of an historian setting down the record for future generations. John is the witness giving testimony and explaining his own faith.
To paraphrase the opening declaration in chapter one: The Word lived among us and we have seen [something about this man that you could easily think of as] 'the glory as it were of the Son of God'.
In this last chapter, possibly an addition to the gospel, we have an account of the enquiring mind that had faced its doubts and gained an experience that could not be denied.
The first Letter of John opens with the writer insisting that their message is based on what they had experienced. From the very start it is what they have heard, what they'd seen with their own eyes, looked at and handled in their own hands... They report on what they've seen and heard. (See 1 John 1:1-3)
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have gazed upon and touched with our own hands—this is the Word of life. And this is the life that was revealed; we have seen it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And this fellowship of ours is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.… (NIV)
What about us? Where is the experience that allows us to be sure our faith is not a dream or an empty myth fabricated over ages in response to the human need to make a "god"? In the old days it was the Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic, but today the institution is not enough for many of us.
Meeting in a community of believers is still the authentic validating experience for us that it was the first century Christians. You become a Christian by joining a group where you experience people who are responding to a call they've heard or felt, who are learning to live with hope (in short supply these days) and working together for each other's well-being, as they look out for those in need wherever they find them.
These people have their own lives in the town, no different from others. Their life together is not group delusion. They have their practices, times of prayer and times of care, and their own ways of making real their purpose. They have their own ways of expressing what it means to be meeting and working together in the name of Jesus.
Mostly these are tough people. Realistic people. Some of them spend endless effort to make the God of love a reality for people crushed by the wheels of fate. When you meet a real community of christians you'll be struck by their no-nonsense attitude to the problems of the people around them. We've seen it in remote missions, in crowded cities, in those who walk among the homeless and derelicts of our cities ready to help anyone they can. Not everyone wants help. Many can't use it. No one can resolve all the problems. But to be there among the desperately poor, the sick, the homeless, the human wrecks is recognised by all as a sign of hope, and of love.
When we touch this community of believers we know our Lord is risen and lives on.
To deny, as is today quite the fashion, that the Lord is risen is only possible if you find some other explanation for these threads of love running through our world.
* * * * *
The experience of meeting a group like this is very different from joining the church and just attending Sunday mass. Certainly there is a tangible faith in a church full of worshipers, but active love needs to be seen in the flesh. Rituals are not enough.
Over centuries the sacraments and rituals of the institution have taken on a life of their own. For us today it is not enough. Ritual is no substitute for personal experience. The commitment of baptism has to be more than a once in a lifetime thing they do to infants. It requires a decision we make anew every day. Communion in the breaking of bread becomes a real experience when we work together in providing the meal and then share in eating together, and go out to share this grace beyond our small circle.
It was surprising how many commentators on the televised Easter ceremonies spoke of the Eucharist as a thing that people should not be deprived of. I see in this a trace of ritualism that has sacraments as things done to provide grace: the performance is the essence of it. This is an excessively mechanistic understanding that was commonly taught in our childhood.
When the Eucharist - the Thanksgiving - is expressed in our actually sharing food together we will experience Jeshua alive among us, our believing will be real as we touch the living Christ and are anointed with his Godness. That's where the energy comes from to go out and tell the world he is the One who is our Fixer and we can trust him.
This silent Easter has been a kind of retreat for the church and the world. Now suggestions are appearing that, rather than taking up where we left off and getting quickly back to business as usual, we should take it as an opportunity for a new start in many areas. Now is the time to talk about this. I will be disappointed if redesigning forms of management and government takes the priority. Grass roots involvement is the greatest need. This will require new forms of gathering and new arrangements for cooperation on the larger scale. New channels of communication. Then in time the role of the governing body will become evident.
We need to experience life if we are to believe in it. We need our earthy experience of community, too often lacking in a Sunday assembly, to be the foundation of our involvement and the confirmation of our believing. Liturgical celebrations can only be fully authentic when they express life experienced in real communities. They say that 'the Eucharist makes the Church' but they forget that only a real community can celebrate a Eucharist. It is remarkable that the televised performances over Easter were offered as if they were the equivalent to being assembled together. If the performing of the ritual, viewed live or as a repeat or downloaded for future use, were to become the norm it would set us back sixty years.
Now is the time to formulate our own priorities. Where would you start? It's not enough to simply nominate some urgent need; we have to show how our starting point will be the way to infuse life throughout the whole.
Why don't we try and work together on a plan that might fit many situations?