Easter 2C John 20:19-31

Last week we celebrated the amazing news of the Resurrection. It is fitting that this week we turn to look at what it means for our lives? We do this by turning, as we do each year, to John 20:19-31. Do you hear the crescendo from the orchestra because this chapter was originally intended, according to many scholars, as the end of the gospel. (Chapter 21 was added later as an addendum explaining what happened to some of the disciples). John begins his gospel with the statement “in the beginning the word was with God and the word was God” and ends with the great statement of Thomas of “My Lord and My God”, the gospel, the story has been completed. The new creation has broken into the world as God promised.

John’s gospel provides us with some detailed encounters of people with Christ, showing us what it means to know Him. Thomas is someone we can relate to in 2020. Try putting yourself in his place as you read the story: how well can you relate to his feelings?

What do we know about Thomas? The mentions of him elsewhere in John’s gospel suggest he was a dour, dogged disciple who suggested they might as well go with Jesus, if only to die with him (11.6), who complained that Jesus hadn’t made things anything like clear enough (14.5), just  happened to be the one who was somewhere else on the first Easter day. We can speculate why? Perhaps he was trying to process what had happened over the Passion week, perhaps he was still scared of the authorities, perhaps he saw no point in them getting together to share their sorrows. He had been with Jesus who had promised so much, but now he had been abandoned! 

 Doesn’t that cause us to reflect on how well we see our faith travelling at the moment: are we playing a losing hand amid falling attendances and strong opposition from the secular world? Are things not living up to what you expected? Are you asking where is Jesus?

Thomas wasn’t there on that first Sunday so he had to rely on the eyewitness accounts of his fellow disciples. He had heard the amazing accounts from the overjoyed disciples, but he couldn’t bring himself to accept them. When you think about it he was in the same position as us today - we have those eyewitness accounts readily at hand in the bible. Do we believe them?

Afterall isn’t Thomas typical of sceptical people today. If you were rating him on the Myers Briggs scale he would be classified a Sensing person. Someone wanting to focus on the physical, the facts, the hard reality needing the hard evidence. You don’t want to be fooled by flights of fancy! I’ll believe it when I see it!

There was much to be sceptical about for a good Jew, which Thomas undoubtedly was. Resurrections didn’t happen. At least not before the end of time, certainly not in the middle of time like this. It was just as contrary to his worldview as it is of most people today. So Thomas sets a couple of performance measures, designed to prove in his mind that Jesus had died and was now alive again. Interestingly these tests answer many of the theories advanced today to question the resurrection. 

Why see the wounds on his hands? It proved that this body had indeed been crucified. Why reach into the wound in his side? This is what the Romans did before they took bodies down from the cross. If blood didn’t flow from the wound, but just fluid, it proved the person was dead. These were proof that Jesus hadn’t just swooned on the cross and recovered later, or that the body was a substitute. It also proved he wasn’t a ghost. Even more, the presence of an actual body proved that Jesus’ resurrection was  real, not some wish fulfilment on the part of the disciples. Thomas asked the same questions that many raise today. True to himself he wanted hard, physical evidence not philosophical discussions. He wanted to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground.

So what happens when he is suddenly confronted by the risen Saviour? It pays to look at the details of their interaction. Jesus invites Thomas to come and meet his performance measures. Thomas hasn’t directly asked Jesus to do this, so how does he know? Thomas realises that Jesus could only know this if he had been with him as he was hiding away in the darkness. Jesus was always walking unseen, right next to Thomas. He saw Thomas’ refusal to believe his friends. He saw the fear and cynicism in Thomas’s heart and yet he came to him as requested. Jesus was saying to Thomas I know who you are, your faults, your weaknesses but I still love you and I am still here for you.

Thomas was humbled by Jesus’s grace and suddenly the wounds took on a new meaning. He had wanted to see them as evidence of Jesus’ power. Now he saw them for what they were- evidence of Jesus' sacrificial love for him. Jesus was in effect saying “ The wounds are not simply evidence that I am alive. They are proof that I died for you, that your debt was fully paid, and that the power of death over  you is broken.”

It’s not clear if Thomas felt his wounds, his encounter with Jesus was enough to blow away his scepticism and proclaim Jesus as “My Lord and My God’. This is the first time in John’s gospel that someone uses the word “God” to address Jesus. John is bringing us back to where he started his gospel, with the Word who was and is God. Now he is saying, all is revealed. The world has changed, all has been revealed. As TS Elliot famously put it, we have arrived at the place where we started, to discover that we know it for the first time.

If the Word who was God has now made the invisible God visible, so, as in the Prologue, Chapter 20 describes how he has brought Life and light into the world. The resurrection is what happens when the creator himself comes to heal and restore his world, and bring it to its appointed goal. The resurrection is the new creation.

John’s conclusion, the conclusion of his story, in verses 30 and 31, tells us that these signs, of the great mass of material he has, are provided so we may believe that the Messiah, the son of God, is none other than Jesus; and that with this faith, you may have life in his name.