The Gospel for today is always the same for the 2nd Sunday of Easter,
but it is so rich a story that we can always hear again with new ears.
There are two parts to this gospel reading,
and the theme of the first part is summed up in the collect.
Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery
established the new covenant of reconciliation…
Jesus appears to the disciples (all except Thomas) and says to them:
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
“Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus breathes into them Holy Spirit,
and then he commissions them into the ministry of reconciliation
"If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;
if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
Well, we may want to back away from this statement, sounds too much like:
"I forgive you, but I don't forgive you."
So let me help unpack this.
The Greek for "retain" means hold, to hold back, like a retaining wall.
bind. restrain. What is being restrained?
“If you restrain the sins of any, they are restrained.”
not the person, but the sin.
We can have a restraining effect on sin!
So notice: there is a two-fold aspect to the ministry of reconciliation.
Forgive or take away sins – responding to the occasion of sin, reactive reconciliation.
And retain or hold back sins - proactive reconciliation.
Think about the implications of this for us in daily life:
What we say,
what we do,
the attitudes we have,
the opinions we express,
how we live out relationships
– all can be proactive reconciliation.
We who are called by his Name,
have been sent, and
have been given an awesome power and force in the world for good,
a force that is desperately needed now in any number of countries
rife with war and civil unrest,
and in any number of homes among family members.
We are called to ministry of reconciliation through our baptisms;
Book of Common Prayer, page 855, from a section in the Catechism, Outline of the Faith:
Q. What is the ministry of the laity?
A. The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church;
to bear witness to him wherever they may be
and, according to the gifts given them,
to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world;
and to take their place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church.
There is much more to say about the ministry of reconciliation
but we also have the other half of this gospel reading.
Someone forgot to tell Thomas about the meeting.
Despite all the other disciples corroborating their story of seeing the Risen Christ
Thomas says he must not only see, but also touch.
He would not trust just his eyes.
Maybe all the others were deceived by their eyes – hysterical hallucinations.
He wants to see the wounds; he wants to see that which killed Jesus.
Maybe he wants to make sure
that it is absolutely apparent that Jesus is risen from the dead,
not just a survivor of the ordeal of crucifixion.
So Jesus shows up,
and apparently unseen the Risen Lord had overheard Thomas’ conversation.
Jesus shows great compassion to Thomas
and he give a special invitation to Thomas to touch the wounds.
Doesn't say if Thomas then did touch.
But what Thomas said is very significant: "My Lord and my God!"
Thomas was not just looking at Jesus as his rabbi, or teacher, or master,
but as GOD. This is bold declaration of faith.
Thomas goes from doubt to calling Jesus God.
This even goes beyond what the others told Thomas.
Thomas' declaration, "My Lord and my God!" is both a creed
and an act of devotion or worship, a response to the Holy.
Then in verse 29 from the Gospel reading Jesus says:
Blessed are those who have not seen,
and yet believe.
Now here is another place where how the Greek gets translated into English
is tricky.
There are nuances of meaning around any Greek word
that may overlap with the many nuances of meaning
around a corresponding English word,
and the Greek verb pistew is one of them.
It gets translated believe and have faith in.
In English for us here in a church setting
believe has a creedal sense to it
– such as in a tenet of belief or a doctrine.
It can have a sense that having gathered so much evidence
one can now reliably believe something.
Have faith in is more relational.
We say we have faith in someone
because our experience of that person shows us
that he or she is trustworthy.
It’s a matter of trust level.
Being willing to trust what is not in my control.
Trusting what I cannot prove, what I cannot dictate as verifiable,
only what has been revealed to me,
what I have experienced so subjectively.
Faith, in this sense then, is a participation in relationship
with the God of the resurrected Lord in us.
Now listen carefully to what I am going to say.
We are not saved on the basis of what we believe.
We are not saved on the basis of what we believe.
If that were the case, then purity of theology, the content of belief
would be of primal importance,
and only those who believed rightly would be saved, reconciled to God.
That makes for a pretty scary situation,
since with all the different denominations and all their different belief systems,
knowing what is right belief is problematic.
If someone didn’t know the right formula of doctrine, then too bad.
This would leave out most children,
those of low mental capacity and the ageing mind that is forgetful.
But that is not the case.
It is a matter of trust, that kind of faith, rather than belief.
So can you see that it is not what you believe, but what Jesus did.
God doesn’t leave anything as important as salvation,
to us and our response alone.
Even our faith is a gift.
If we really comprehended the reality of our baptism
as being in Christ in his death and resurrection
then we could say with Paul: Gal. 2:20
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,
and the life I now live in the flesh
I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Now back to what Thomas said and its connection with the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is a concrete and specific Resurrection appearance of Jesus.
In the Eucharist we say that we have before us the Body of Christ.
These are the words as the bread is placed in your hands, right?
So do you realize what you take into your hands every Sunday?
The very presence of the Resurrected Lord,
tangible, touchable.
That is why we make such a point of the moment of silence
at the breaking of the Bread.
This represents the very wounds of the crucifixion,
the very thing Thomas wanted to see and to touch.
And we get to touch and see and taste and eat.
When the altar party lifts us the patens and chalices, and the Presider says “The Gifts of God for the People of God” these are words of invitation:
come forward to see and touch and taste
that our faith, our trusting may be nurtured
and our spirits and whole being nourished
and strengthened for the ministry of reconciliation.
The very thing Thomas wanted to see and to touch,
we get to touch and see and taste and eat.
All you need to do is trust the process of the Resurrection Spirit of Jesus,
the Holy Spirit breathed into us and at work within us,
and take the Mystery into your own hands.
