On the first Easter evening Jesus’ disciples gather and lock the doors. The gospel says they fear “the Jews.” In John’s gospel “the Jews” refers to the religious officials who want Jesus put to death and also to those who oppose his followers at the time of the writing of the gospel, some 60 years after Jesus’ death.
Jesus’ earliest disciples have good reason for fear. Their leader Jesus has been executed. Perhaps his cruel death still seems unbelievable to some of his closest friends. How can they believe Jesus is risen?
The community that gathers in Jesus’ name 60 years later at the time the gospel is written also has good reason for fear. Their faith that Jesus is the messiah has led them into conflict with their neighbors—conflicts such as the man born blind experiences.
The risen Jesus takes the initiative in Sunday’s gospel. Locked doors cannot keep him out. He stands among his disciples and shows them the wounds in his hands, feet, and side. The one who was crucified, God has raised up. His presence transforms his disciples’ fear into rejoicing. He wishes peace to these disciples who deserted and denied him in his suffering.
- When have events in your life left you too numb to believe?
- When have love or forgiveness come unexpectedly?
Jesus leads his fearful followers not only to joy but into action. Jesus sends them as his Father sent him. The Greek word for send is apostlein, from which we get the word apostle or its Latin version missionary.
Jesus does not send this fearful community forth alone but breathes the Spirit upon them. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he says. Jesus breathes on them as God breathed life into the first human and as the Spirit stirred the watery chaos at creation in the stories of Genesis.
The word ruah in Hebrew means wind, breath, and spirit. God’s Spirit brings all creation to life; Jesus breathes forth his Spirit to bring forth a new creation in the community of his disciples.
Easter is about transformation and action. Jesus hands over to the community the work that God sent him to do. They go forth to bring God’s love, forgiveness, and healing to the world and their divided community.
In John’s gospel, to believe is not only to share in the life Jesus receives from God but to be sent from God as Jesus was, to live in the world in the power of the same Spirit. The gift of love and forgiveness which Jesus gives his followers becomes their mission to others.
- How can you continue the first disciples’ mission to love and forgive?
- What new life and mission is the Spirit breathing into you?
Thomas belongs to the community that journeys through fear to joy, faith, and mission, but he is not with them to experience Jesus’ risen presence. Skeptical Thomas must make his own journey through doubt to faith.
The scene seven days later also takes place in the evening of the first day of the week—our Sunday. Again his disciples find Jesus standing among them. This repeated Sunday setting suggests that we recognize the risen Jesus is with us when the community gathers at the Eucharistic meal, “the breaking of the bread and the prayers” as Acts calls it.
The risen Easter Jesus breaks through Thomas’s doubt as easily as through the community’s fear. He comes, invites Thomas to put his fingers in his wounds, and challenges him to believe. Thomas touches Jesus for himself and completes his faith journey.
Jesus prays for all of us who must take the word of others as the basis of our faith. Yet, the word of believers, Jesus insists, can lead others to a personal relationship with him. Life in Jesus’ name is as available to us as to the first believers.
This experience of Thomas can remind us that Jesus often comes today as mysteriously as he did then to Thomas, through unlikely and unbelievable circumstances in daily living.
- What do you need to touch and see for yourself in order to believe?
- What wounds in people have you touched that helped you see whom you love and believe in?