Some events are so big, so extraordinarily momentous that you never ever forget. You can remember exactly where you are even years after:
Can you remember where you where you were when:
JFK got shot?
Man walked on the moon?
9/11?
When Australia won the America’s cup?
The dismissal?
I remember some of those – but I was but a twinkle for others – they’re not part of my own living memory, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology I have seen the TV footage.
If we were connected to the internet here I’d be able to Google them and we could watch them again now, right here on the big screen as if they were happening live. We’ve become so used to being able to ‘see’ what happened at an important event that we rely on our sight for proof: if we didn’t see it, then it just didn’t happen.
The situation was sort of similar for the people in John’s community. At the time when John’s gospel was being written down the last few eye witnesses to Jesus’ death and resurrection were dying out. The community John was writing for was the second generation of disciples who hadn’t seen the event.
How could they believe what they hadn’t seen for themselves?
The writer of John’s gospel writes down what happened, what the eye witnesses saw – not just merely so that the second (and subsequent) generations could see the events that happened – but so that they might believe. John tells us this in what is sometimes described as John’s statement of intention for the writing of the gospel- he is writing: “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
The events of the life of Christ, and most specifically the event of Easter, is the biggest of all world changing events. It’s bigger than the dismissal, bigger than JFK, bigger even than Collingwood winning a grand final. We need a record of these events not merely so we can see them happening – but so that we can believe – and through them have life in Jesus’ name.
And we see this point illustrated in today’s Gospel reading. This story is one of my favorite parts of John’s gospel. It is a story filled with suspense:
• the disciples are hiding in an upper room behind locked doors.
• Earlier that very morning Mary Magdalene had been to the tomb and seen that the stone had been rolled away.
• She had called the male disciples and they had raced to the tomb. The other disciple -‘whom Jesus loved’ had seen the grave clothes rolled up and had believed.
• The men had returned to their homes and Mary had been left crying at the tomb.
• Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene and in one of the most beautiful and touching moments in any written text he speaks her name: “Mary.”
• She recognizes him as her teacher and rushes back to the disciples in the locked room and in the verse before our story today begins she declares to them: “ I have seen the Lord.”
The first sighting and the announcement of the Risen Jesus is placed in the mouth of a woman in John’s gospel. One can only imagine the conversation that ensued. Peter and the other disciple had seen the empty tomb, but not Jesus himself.
The disciples in the upper room were afraid. Their beloved teacher been crucified at the hands of the Roman authorities at the request of the Jewish officials. The disciples were hiding from the Jews behind locked doors.
The time setting is just as important as the place: it holds a clue to the significance of the story. The writer of John’s gospel doesn’t want us to miss it so he reminds us saying that it is the “evening of the first day of the week.”
This reminds us of the story of creation In the genesis story on the first day God created the heavens and the earth. This very gospel begins not with the story of baby Jesus being born to Mary but with another reminder of creation: in the beginning was the word – and the word was with God, and the word was God.”
So at the end of his gospel, John is reminding us that this story is happening on the ‘first day of the week’ so that we make the connection to the processes of creation. It is a story with earthly and heavenly significance just like the genesis story. The events in the upper room that night, along with the events of the previous few days are like a “new creation.”
Jesus as God made man enters into human time to build a bridge between the disciples and God.
So on the evening of the first day, the risen Jesus enters into the locked room. Into that fear filled room Jesus speaks these words: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And then he breathes on them and says: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ In the first statement Jesus gives peace to the gathered community of disciples. It is the peace that he promised them on the night before he was betrayed. It is a peace not of this world – but peace which comes from God.
But this peace is not for them and them alone. It is not a gift which can be kept – but one which needs to be passed on.
So Jesus immediately breathes the Holy Spirit on them and sends them out. Just as the Father has commissioned Jesus, so he commissions them to go out and share the good news with the people. The disciples are able to act to forgive sins not in their own power, but because they have received the Holy Spirit. Just as God breathed life into the clay of the earth and created Adam in the genesis story, so the risen Jesus breathes new life into his disciples so that they may go out and join in the work of the spirit, reuniting people with God.
Unfortunately though one of the disciples was not present in the upper room that night and missed seeing the risen Jesus. Thomas was not there.
Poor old Thomas gets rather bad press doesn’t he? Doubting Thomas. He’s been saddled with the title for 2000 years – it’s so common an expression that people who have no idea of the Christian story use it. A bit unfair I think!
If you or I had missed out on what had happened in that upper room I think we’d probably have reacted the same way.
The morning after 9/11 I remember going to the library at recess and standing silently watching the television. More and more students and staff came in and watched. We all needed to see it. The images were unbelievable weren’t they? Even at our school in Melbourne there were kids who had family members who had worked in those towers, and others knew people that were in New York or Washington and were anxiously awaiting phone calls.
We needed to ‘see’ in order to believe. Just like Thomas.
Thomas provides a bridge – a way into the story for the generations who follow – those who, like Thomas want to say – well unless I see it – unless I touch those wounds I cannot believe.
Notice what happens in the story:
Jesus comes again, a week later, into the locked upper room. He doesn’t berate Thomas and tell him off – he invites him to touch his wounds – “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”
Now here’s the interesting part – not what does happen, but what does not.
We are not told what Thomas does – but what he says. We don’t know if he does touch and see – but we do know that he reaches out in belief – because his very next statement is “My Lord and My God!” Thomas has reached out in faith and come to belief in Jesus – not as a mere human being but as the divine Son of God.
And this is our point of invitation into the text. We as readers of the gospels, beyond the original disciples - who are human just like him – who want to see and touch in order to believe are invited to see and know Jesus on a deeper level to “reach out – to not doubt and believe.”
Seeing and but far more importantly believing in the Risen Christ had a profound effect on Jesus’ disciples.
And we see that effect in our second reading from Acts, in which Peter stands up to the High Priest in the council. The disciples had been given strict instructions not to preach in Jesus’ name, and yet they did. Peter stands up to them and tells them that he speaks under God’s authority and with the help of the Holy Spirit that had been given to them by God. When the High priests heard Peter we are told that they were so enraged that they wanted to kill them straight away.
Isn’t this an extraordinary turn around! This is the same Peter who, when questioned by a young girl by a fire on the night that Jesus was taken into custody denied knowing him three times! Now in a potentially much more dangerous situation, Peter is able to stand up and claim his faith. Not only had he seen, far more importantly he had believed: the spirit of God was able to work within him to continue to spread the Good News of Christ.
We know too from later historical sources that Thomas had quite an extraordinary career as an evangelist spreading the gospel. Sources from the 3rd century tell us that he made it as far as India, in fact the Thomist Church in India, one of the very earliest Christian churches claims their descent from the teachings of St Thomas. Thomas who had to see to believe, who came to faith in that moment in the upper room was changed forever. God was able to use him to further his mission.
All of this must have been enormous comfort to the early followers of Christ, caught between the death and resurrection of Jesus and the second coming that they were waiting for with eager expectation.
So it is for us too – for we, like Jesus’ earliest disciples are ordinary folks - we bumble and make mistakes – lack faith and ask questions. We mightn’t have video footage of the events in the upper room that night, but we do have the recollections of the events as they have come down to us in John’s gospel.
Caught between the alpha and the omega – the beginning and the end times we, along with John’s community are the receivers of what happened in the upper room that day.
Just like in that early catacombs painting– between the beginning and the end there is Jesus.
Jesus saying to us as to the disciples in the locked room: “My peace I leave for you” there is nothing left for us to fear.
The Holy Spirit breathed onto the first disciples is also breathed into our lives to empower us and send us out into the world.
May we, like Peter and Thomas be empowered by the Holy Spirit to not fear and to go forth into the world to continue the mission of God.
