Today’s readings: Acts 5, 12-16; Apocalypse 1, 9-13.17-19; John 20, 19-31.
On these first two Sundays of Easter, the gospel of John puts the two sides of faith in the risen Jesus within the framework of that first day of the week, which stands for the new beginning. Last Sunday we read what happened on that first day when “it was very early”, with Mary of Magdala coming to the tomb of Jesus. On this Sunday it is already “in the evening of that same day”.
The ‘evening’ of that first day stands for the ‘evening’ of faith, when the sun is setting down and things start to be shadowy, not that clear for everyone. Thomas in this text stands for the shadowy and shaky aspect of our faith, when doubt looms over it and we go through bad patches in life, and when, as in his case, those around us fail to be convincing enough.
Thomas seems confused between the Jesus he followed and believed in and the Jesus whom other disciples claim is alive and has been seen. Yet Jesus’ humanity in this gospel scene is a real icon or epiphany of the inner life of God. Thomas’ wanting to touch Jesus is his wanting to connect with the Jesus he knew.
Only that now there is something radically new about the Jesus Thomas knew. There is nothing negative in Thomas’ refusal to believe. His attitude was the realistic, down-to-earth attitude that at times leads us, rather than hinders us, to make the leap, to receive the gift of true faith.
From an anthropological standpoint it is natural today, as it has always been, to ask about our capacity as humans to know God, to enquire about the possibility of believing without seeing. Grace performs in us this healing function. We are all humans in need of healing where faith is concerned, in need of that leap or passage that makes us go beyond our innate difficulty or even refusal to believe.
The three Synoptic gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke account for Jesus’ ordinary humanity, depicting him as growing in his understanding of who he was. John, in contrast, goes immediately into the mystery, starting from the Word that was from the beginning and that became flesh. Jesus’ own humanity, as much as it can block us, can trigger us into the mystery.
In today’s second reading from the Apocalypse, John writes precisely from this new standpoint, no longer from the streets of Palestine where Jesus went around doing good deeds, but from Patmos, where he was exiled “for having preached God’s Word and witnessed for Jesus”. For John, Patmos is the land of revelation and his experience of Jesus is now ‘liturgical’. In fact, he writes that “it was the Lord’s day and the Spirit possessed me, and I heard a voice behind me”.
The standpoint from where we see and judge things makes all the difference. Throughout the centuries, Jesus has been depicted and understood from various standpoints as a liberator, saviour, rebel, guru, miracle worker, as the poorest among the poor. All these can be different facets of who Jesus Christ really was and what he actually did. But the most comprehensive standpoint that reveals Jesus in his fullness remains the Patmos standpoint, the liturgical perspective that can make us truly reconnect with his mystery.
The more we are challenged today to explore the credentials of Christianity in a radical culture that questions everything, the greater the need for the Church to recover the centrality of an authentic liturgy that is not pageantry, ritual or merely exterior religiosity and piety. Thomas’ “My Lord and my God” is not an intellectual assent to who Jesus was but an interiorisation of something mysterious and unexplainable that we can at times feel inside and which God’s grace enables us to acknowledge.
The wounds in the hands and on his side that Jesus manifested to Thomas when he invited him to touch him, stand for the vulnerability of our faith in the face of this mystery. We are all wounded from a faith standpoint, but through this woundedness we can reach out to Jesus risen and victorious.
In this sense, Jesus’ resurrection is transformative corporeally not simply spiritually. Wounds can still mark our bodies but they do not necessarily block our being redeemed.