SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER – YEAR C

IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE, EVEN FOR THOSE WHO HAVE SEEN

 

Introduction

“Fortunate are you to see what you see!” Jesus once said (Lk 10:23). Luke called the disciples who accompanied the Master during his public life witnesses of the events that have taken place among us (Lk 1:1-2). It is undeniable; they are blessed because they have seen. Among them, there is also Thomas. Yet, this experience was just the first stage of a demanding journey, one that had to bring them to faith.

Many, who like them, have seen, have not come to believe. It’s enough to think of the “woes” pronounced by Jesus against the cities of the lake that witnessed the signs he performed, yet they did not convert (Lk 10:13-15). Seeing is the cause of bliss, but it is not enough.

After Easter, the Lord—who material eyes can no longer see—proclaims another beatitude: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (Jn 20:29). They are blessed if, by listening, they come to the same goal, faith. To them, Peter explains the resultant joy: “You have not yet seen him and yet you love him; even without seeing him, you believe in him and experience a heavenly joy beyond all words” (1 P 1:8).

It is the joy assured to those who trust the Word, not of people, but of Christ, contained in the scriptures and given to the Church by the apostles, as John reminds us in the conclusion of his Gospel.

 

• To internalize the message, we repeat:

“Blessed are we who believe, though not have seen.”

First Reading: Acts 5:12-16

Many signs and wonders were done among the people at the hands of the apostles. They were all together in Solomon’s portico. None of the others dared to join them, but the people esteemed them. Yet more than ever, believers in the Lord, great numbers of men and women, were added to them. Thus they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them. A large number of people from the towns in the vicinity of Jerusalem also gathered, bringing the sick and those disturbed by unclean spirits, and they were all cured. —The Word of the Lord.

 

The reading describes the life of the first Christian community of Jerusalem. Let us look at the characteristics of that community because they should be reproduced in our communities today. It was, first, a united community: “The believers were of one accord” (v. 12). The Christian faith cannot be lived alone, in isolation from the others. A Christian does not live in isolation and communicates directly and solely with God. The Church is not merely where every individual believer receives what they need to save their soul. Christians are a family in solidarity with each other, and in some way, they feel responsible for everything that happens to their brothers and sisters.

Today, we also gather to pray, like the first Christians in Jerusalem. During the celebration, we shake hands, smile at each other, and join our voices to praise the Lord, and we pray for each other. It is a sign of what we should always be, inside the church and outside.

The second characteristic of the early Christians is: they were esteemed people. “The people held them in high esteem” (v. 13). The lives of those who had embraced the faith aroused interest and admiration because it was radically different from that of other people. They did not act to flaunt their integrity and moral superiority. Those who watched them were not irritated, disturbed by this singular life, but were encouraged to imitate.

The third characteristic is the strong attraction that the primitive community exercised over all: “So an ever-increasing number of men and women believed in the Lord” (v. 14).

What drove many people to become disciples of Christ? The second part of the reading clarifies it (vv. 15-16): “… The crowd … carried the sick and those who were troubled by unclean spirits and all of them were healed.” Note that it is not about curious and strange miracles. They are very different from those attributed to witches, sorcerers, and magicians today. The gestures of the apostles are like those of Jesus. They favor people: the healing of the sick, the salvation of those who are oppressed by evil or live in a state of unhappiness. This is proof that Jesus is alive and communicates to the disciples his healing power.

 

Second Reading: Revelation 1:9-11a.12-13.17-19

I, John, your brother, who share with you the distress, the kingdom, and the endurance we have in Jesus, found myself on the island called Patmos because I proclaimed God’s word and gave testimony to Jesus. I was caught up in spirit on the Lord’s day and heard behind me a voice as loud as a trumpet, which said, “Write on a scroll what you see.” Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and when I turned, I saw seven gold lampstands and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, wearing an ankle-length robe, with a gold sash around his chest.

When I caught sight of him, I fell down at his feet as though dead. He touched me with his right hand and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, the one who lives. Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever. I hold the keys to death and the netherworld. Write down, therefore, what you have seen, and what is happening, and what will happen afterwards.” —The Word of the Lord.

 

The reading presents us with the vision with which the book of Revelation opens. The author—who identifies himself as John—says that he was in Patmos, an island in the Aegean Sea. He was deported there because of his faith in Christ, probably because he refused to worship the emperor.

Times are tough. We are in the years when Domitian reigns in Rome. He is a megalomaniac who has filled the empire with his statues. Following the example of Julius Caesar and Augustus, he named October, the month in which he was born, Domitius. He erected temples everywhere in his honor and established that each circular issued in his name begins with the words: ‘Domitian, our Lord, and our God orders that ….’

This claim of the emperor to be worshiped as a god raises conflicts of conscience among the Christians of Asia Minor. Many of them refuse and therefore undergo harassment and persecutions. To encourage them to remain firm in the faith, the author of Revelation writes his vision and uses images that need explanation.

John sees the son of man amid the seven candlesticks. He has a white robe that reaches down to his feet and is girded with a gold band (vv. 12-13). The son of man is the risen Lord. The long vestment—which was the attire of the temple priests—now indicates that Jesus is the only priest. The gold band at the hips was the symbol of royalty. Jesus, therefore, is referred to as the only king. The seven candlesticks represent the whole of the Christian communities (the number seven indicates totality). During the ceremonies in honor of the emperor in the East, it was customary to bow down to an image placed amid candlesticks.

The sense of this great scene is as follows: the risen Lord, not the emperor, is the center of worship of all Christian communities. He is the king who guides and governs them by his word; he is the priest who, by his life, offers the only acceptable sacrifice to God. The author of Revelation invites all Christian communities to examine whom they place at the center of their meetings on the day of the Lord: is it the Risen One and His Word or anyone else? Who do they obey: Christ or worldly powers?

 

Gospel: John 20:19-31

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 nailmarks 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. —The Gospel of the Lord.

 

Today’s passage is divided into two parts corresponding to two appearances of the Risen One. In the first (vv. 19-23), Jesus communicates his Spirit to his disciples. With that, he gives them the power to overcome the forces of evil. It is the same passage that we will comment on at Pentecost. In the second (vv. 24-31), the famous episode of Thomas is told.

The doubt of this apostle became proverbial. It is often said of one who shows some distrust, ‘You’re an unbelieving Thomas.’ Yet, he seems to have done nothing wrong in hindsight: he only asked to see what the others had seen. Why demand only from Thomas a faith based solely on the words of the others? But was Thomas the only one to have doubts, while the other disciples appear to have quickly and immediately believed in the Risen One? It does not seem that things went that way.

The Gospel of Mark says that Jesus appeared to the eleven “and reproached them for their unbelief and stubbornness in refusing to believe those who had seen him after he had risen” (Mk 16:14). In Luke’s Gospel,the risen Christ addresses the amazed and frightened apostles and asks: “Why are you upset, and how does such an idea cross your minds?” (Lk 24:38). In the last page of the Matthew’s Gospel, it even says that when Jesus appeared to the disciples on a mountain in Galilee (therefore long after the apparitions in Jerusalem), some still doubted (Mt 28:17).

All, therefore, doubted, not only poor Thomas. How is it then that the evangelist John seems to want to highlight in him the doubts that also had gripped the others? Let us try to understand.

When John writes (about the year A.D. 95), Thomas was already dead for some time. The episode, therefore, is undoubtedly reported not to put this apostle in a bad light. If his problems of faith were highlighted, the reason lies elsewhere. The evangelist is responding to the questions and objections that Christians of his communities were insistently raising.  They are third-generation Christians, people who have not seen the Lord Jesus. Many of them do not even know any of the apostles. They find it hard to believe; they struggle amid many doubts; they want to see, touch, and verify if the Lord has indeed risen. They wonder: what are the reasons that may lead one to believe? Is it still possible for us to have the experience of the Risen Lord? Is there evidence that he is alive? How is it that he no longer appears? These are the questions that we ask today.

To them, Mark, Luke, and Matthew responded by saying that all the apostles had doubted. They had not got it right away, nor with ease, the grace to believe in the Risen One. The path of faith was long and tiring also for them, even though Jesus had given many signs that he was alive and entered the glory of the Father.

The answer of John is different: he takes Thomas as a symbol of the difficulty that every disciple meets to come to believe. It is hard to know why he chose this apostle, perhaps because he had more difficulty or took more time than others to have faith.

John wants to teach the Christians of his communities (and us) that the Risen One has a life that evades our senses, which cannot be touched with bare hands or seen with the eyes. It can only be achieved through faith. This also applied to the apostles, who also had a unique experience of the Risen Lord. One cannot have faith in what is seen. You cannot have demonstrations, scientific evidence of the resurrection; it is a spiritual reality. If anyone wants to see, observe, touch, one is renouncing the grace of faith.

We say, ‘Blessed are those who have seen.’ For Jesus, however, “blessed are those who have not seen” (Jn 20:29), not because it costs them more to believe and thus have greater merit; they are blessed because their faith is more genuine and purer. Indeed, it is the only pure faith. On the other hand, one who sees with his eyes has the certainty of the evidence, has irrefutable proof of a tangible fact.

Thomas appears two other times in John’s Gospel and never cuts—we would say—a good figure. He has difficulty in understanding, equivocating, misinterpreting the words and choices of the Master.

He spoke for the first time when he heard the news of Lazarus’ death. Jesus decides to go to Judea. Thomas thinks that following the Master means losing one’s life. He does not understand that Jesus is the Lord of life. Dejected and disappointed, he exclaims: “Let us also go that we may die with him” (Jn 11:16).

During the Last Supper, Jesus talks about the path he is treading, a path that passes through death to be introduced into life. Thomas intervenes again: “Lord, we do not know where you’re going and how can we know the way?” (Jn 14:5). He is full of perplexity, hesitation, and doubt, unable to accept what he does not understand. This is demonstrated a third time in the episode narrated in today’s passage.

It seems that John enjoys outlining the figure of Thomas in this way. In the end, he does him justice. He puts on his lips the highest, the most sublime profession of faith, His words reflecting the conclusion of every disciple’s itinerary of faith.

At the beginning of the Gospel, the first two apostles come to Jesus, calling him Rabbi (Jn 1:38). It is the first step towards understanding the Master’s identity. After a short time, Andrew, who has already figured out a lot more, says to his brother Simon: “We have found the Messiah” (Jn 1:41). Nathaniel intuits immediately with whom he deals and says to Jesus: “You are the Son of God” (Jn 1:49). The Samaritans recognize him as the Savior of the world (Jn 4:43), the people acknowledge him as the Prophet (Jn 6:14), the man born blind proclaims him the Lord (Jn 9:38), and for Pilate, he is the King of the Jews (Jn 19:19). But it is Thomas who has the ultimate word about the identity of Jesus. He calls him: “My Lord and my God.” It is the sacred expression that the Bible refers to as YHWH (Ps 35:23). Thomas is, therefore, the first to recognize the divinity of Christ, the first who comes to understand what Jesus meant when he said: “The Father and I are one” (Jn 10:30).

The end of the passage (vv. 30-31) presents why John wrote his book. He told of the ‘signs’—not all, but sufficient—for two reasons: to arouse or confirm faith in Christ and why, through this faith, one comes to life.

The fourth evangelist calls miracles ‘signs.’ Jesus did not perform them to impress whoever was there. He even had words of condemnation against anyone who did not believe unless he saw miracles (Jn 4:48). John does not recount them to impress his readers, to ‘show’ the divine power of Jesus.

The signs are not presented as evidence but revelations about the person, nature, and mission of Jesus. One comes to believe in a robust and long-lasting way from a fact and begins to perceive the reality that it indicates. At first, the believer does not understand the sign in the distribution of the loaves because it does not ‘prove’ that Jesus is the bread of life; or understand the healing of the man born blind; because it does not clearly establish that Jesus is the light of the world; or understand the raising of Lazarus, because one still does not see Jesus as the Lord of life.

In the epilogue of the Gospel, John uses the word ‘signs’ in a broad sense: it means everything that reveals the person of Jesus, his acts of mercy (the healing, the multiplication of the loaves), and his words (Jn 12:37). The one who reads his book and understands these signs confronts the person of Jesus and is invited to choose. Those who recognize in him the Lord will opt for life and adhere to him.

Here is the only evidence offered to one who looks for reasons to believe: this very same Gospel. There the word of Christ resounds, and his person shines. There are no other proofs outside this same Word.

To understand, it is worthwhile to recall what Jesus said in the parable of the Good Shepherd: “My sheep know my voice” (Jn 10:4-5,27). Apparitions are not necessary. In the Gospel, the voice of the shepherd resounds. His unmistakable voice is enough for the sheep that belong to him to recognize and draw them to himself.

But where can one listen to this voice? Where does this word echo? Is it possible to repeat today the apostles’ experience on Easter day and ‘eight days later’? How? We have noticed that both apparitions take place on Sunday. We also have seen that those who have the experience of the Risen One are the same (…one more, one less), to whom the Lord presents himself with the exact words: ‘Peace be with you’ and that, in both encounters, Jesus shows the marks of his passion. There would be other details, but these four are enough to help us answer the questions we posed.

The disciples are gathered in the house. The meeting to which John alludes is clearly that which happens on the day of the Lord. It is the one on which every day following the Sabbath, the whole community is called for the celebration of the Eucharist. When all believers are gathered, there appears the Risen One. He, by the mouth of the celebrant, greets the disciples and wishes, as on the evening of Easter, and eight days later: “Peace be with you.”

It is the time when Jesus manifests himself alive to the disciples. Those who, like Thomas, desert the meetings of the community cannot have the experience of the Risen Lord (vv. 24-25). They cannot hear his greeting and his Word; they cannot accept his forgiveness and his peace (vv. 19.26.23), nor experience his joy (v. 20) and receive his Spirit (v. 22). On the day of the Lord, those who stay home, maybe to pray alone, can experience God, but not the Risen One, because he makes himself present where the community is gathered.

What does one, who does not meet the Risen One, do? Like Thomas, he will need further evidence to believe, but he will never obtain such evidence. Contrary to what one sees depicted in the artists’ paintings, not even Thomas has put his hands into the wounds of the Lord. From the text, it does not appear that he has touched the Risen One. He also gets to pronounce his profession of faith after hearing the voice of the Risen One, along with his brothers and sisters of the community. And the capacity to have this experience is offered to Christians of every age… every Sunday.