Today’s readings: Acts 5, 12-16; Apocalypse 1, 9-13.17-19; John 20, 19-31

For seven long weeks now the Church will continue to celebrate the good news of Christ risen. Yet this will continue to be dampened with so much bad news coming from all over the world. The entire globe still has its big share of bad news that impacts hard on the history of humanity and on the way the good news of the resurrection can be accepted or refused.

There is too much pain in Sri Lanka these days, in Libya and in Sudan, in the numberless conflicts and unending wars that continue to make millions of people flee from their homeland. Most significantly, today we read from Acts how from its early stages the proclamation of the good news of the risen Christ translated mainly in healing the sick and alleviating pain.

Thomas, in the gospel text, reaches out to touch the wounds of Jesus as a condition for him to believe. Unlike Thomas, beholding and touching the wounds and pain of humanity for us may so easily turn us into staunch sceptics especially when the cries of the suffering, of victims and of those abused seems to outweigh the singing of our Hallelujah.

We need to put our ears to the ground, otherwise we risk rendering our celebrations simply a show that must go on without touching in any way the pain of humanity. Today’s readings highlight mostly the signs that gave content and consistency to the proclamation of Easter. John speaks of the signs that Jesus worked and that the disciples saw. He says that they have been recorded so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ.

These signs at such an early stage of Christianity were the credentials for people to believe that Jesus was truly alive and that his presence was so powerful as to be a sign of true hope particularly for those who suffer. This same story continued unending to our days. Signs kept being given at all times and in all ages. But the good news of the gospel remained always a paradox, a sign of contradiction, for some believable for others not. This for the very reason that with the signs even countersigns continued to be given by those proclaiming the gospel. Countersigns may at times be even more powerful than the signs themselves.

Faith in Jesus has had its history as today’s readings clearly show. The gospel text is positioned just eight days after the happenings in Jerusalem and Acts tells the story of faith as it gave shape to the first Christian communities. But what stands out strongly is the reading from the Apocalypse of John written much later and no longer speaking of signs. John speaks a visionary language, called to put down in writing “all that you see of present happenings and things that are still to come”.

John articulated his vision when in exile on the island of Patmos and when the preaching of the good news of Christ was next to impossible in a situation that by then had turned quite hostile and at a time when the signs and wonders that previously had brought so many to the Christian faith had by now lost their allure. John’s discernment in such a situation brought him to the wise intuition that rather than preaching, it was urgent to preserve the good news for better times when it can be decoded and delivered comprehensibly and credibly.

This text from the Apocalypse is very telling for us today when we also seem to be in exile and in a culture that is alien to the one many of us were educated in. Where the proclamation of the faith is concerned today, we seem to be at an impasse very similar to the one that transpires from John’s Apocalypse. Our times still face the hurdles of hostility and persecution, and our situation in the West, once rooted in a Christian culture, is distancing itself more and more from the way we still proclaim the gospel.

Our churches are experiencing the impossibility of getting through with the message of Christ risen and victorious over death and evil. We continue to perpetuate the story of Jesus Christ more as history and in terms of religiosity and devotion than as proclamation powerful enough to impact on what ultimately is giving shape to our daily living and to instill the hope that keeps us going.