“BLESSED ARE YOU”
Saint John 20. 19-31
Quasimodogeniti: 23 April Anno Domini 2006
Fr Watson
“As newborn babes: desire the sincere milk of the Word.” Babes trust they don’t seek to quantify, qualify, objectify, analyze, or argue. They know the hands and the “sides” if you will of their beloved parents. The Lord Himself used “little children” as the best example for right reception of the gifts of the Kingdom. Repent! Repent of your sophistication and worldliness and become like little children to receive Jesus’ gifts of forgiveness, family and finality in heaven.
You are not like the “ten” Disciples who were gathered together on Easter eve. In that sense, you are just like Saint Thomas; i.e. you were not there physically with the others. You have an excuse, of sorts, you weren’t born yet; you didn’t have an opportunity for your “old Adam” sinful selves to panic, give up, desert, be about your own business, and be a.w.o.l . from your brethren.
I guess your behavior would only be similar to Thomas’ “no-show” antics if you were to “miss” the Holy Mass for some “so-called” excuse. And then, in reality, your mistake would be far more egregious than Thomas’ for He didn’t know ahead of time that the Risen Christ would be present. If you say that you “believe, teach, and confess” that the Lord is here for you every Sunday do you really believe it? Believe It!
Thomas represents all of you who were not there when the Savior walked through the locked doors into the midst of His friends. Thomas was not there for some reason, and because of it he failed to hear the Master say: “Peace be with you.” The Lord can hardly say more liberating, encouraging and joyous words to His friends. By His use of the word “eirene” [ Jn. 20.19b] in the Greek, (“peace” in English) He does not mean “chill out guys,” or “I hope you don’t ever have to fight a military engagement against Rome, the Sanhedrin, or Jewish separatist zealots.” No, when Jesus says “Peace with you” He is referring to Himself. Jesus is the “Prince of Peace;” Jesus is Peace enfleshed. The Peace is love, communion and oneness with the Father and the Spirit. The Peace is the blessed assurance that one’s sins have been done away with and that Jesus’ perfect keeping of the Commandments is now credited to oneself. The Peace is to be restored back into the family, the sheepfold, and to know that Jesus loves and doesn’t hate you.
But you weren’t there were you? So how do you get that Peace that Jesus speaks? Do you suppose you can get it by “thinking” really, really, hard about Good Friday? What happens if you’re not very good at “thinking hard” and “imaging” 2,000 year old events? What do you do if you’re retarded, six days old, suffering from Alzheimer’s or in a coma and can’t think, meditate and remember? Do you go to the Cross? Good luck, because the cross isn’t there. You can no more go to Calvary than you can go to Carthage or Pompeii.
The “ten” Disciples loved Thomas the same way you are to love those who are now absent from our gatherings (whether they’ve been here in the past, or whether you haven’t even met them yet). The “ten” shared with Thomas the Words of the Christ. They spoke to Him Jesus’ words and they demonstrated with the joy that was in them, that the Gospel was true. I don’t think we are justified in saying that Thomas completely rebuffed them and flat-out disbelieved everything that they said. After all, he was with them one week later; he was back in the fold to which he had hitherto belonged.
The job of Peter, James and John was not to “make” Thomas believe but to sow the seeds, to share the Gospel, to tell their friend, as Philip had once told Bartholomew, “come and see.” You do the same with those that you know should be here in this upper room of Grace.
Thomas didn’t do anything for the Lord; rather the Risen Redeemer came back for Thomas. None would be lost.
Now to be sure, you don’t get to “see” Jesus with your eyes the way the “ten” did on Easter eve. You are not exactly like Thomas who was given the same joy the following Sunday night. No, you won’t behold your Lord face to face until He wakes you on Resurrection Day with a smile so bright it will make His Transfiguration pale.
In the meantime while you don’t have Jesus’ actual bodily “image” burning a receptor-print on your own retinas, you do have His Word. You hear the same glorious, hallelujah-filled Gospel from the lips of His modern Disciples as Thomas heard from his peers. The Word is “The Word.” The Gospel message of Christ Crucified for forgiveness and raised for Justification is Christ Himself; His real, actual, bodily, (albeit invisible) Presence. Where His word is there He really is.
How did the Lord come to Thomas? How did Jesus make His risen presence known? Yes, it’s true that Jesus spoke the same good news: “Peace to you.” But He also did for Thomas what He had done a week earlier for the others; He gave Thomas Himself---which is the whole point of the Holy Sacraments. The two Disciples on the road to Emmaus may have had their hearts stirred with a “burning” when the hidden Christ gave them the greatest Bible Class ever; His Holy Word saturating the entire Old Testament with Himself; but, it was in the “breaking of the bread,” Christ’s presence in their own holy Liturgy, if you will, that He was fully revealed.
First Jesus speaks the Word of forgiveness “Peace be with you,” and then to substantiate that fact He lets them all touch, handle, and probe that very Peace: His Body; the Body of God. So too did Thomas with his own fallible and sinful fingers touch Jesus. The Lord which the Blessed Virgin carried in her womb, the Babe that Simeon held high, the same Body of Christ did Thomas place his finger tips into, and his hand into….O holy mystery of mysteries, this Incarnate and loving God-Man. O how he wants you all to believe as well.
“Blessed are you (that literally means all of you post-Apostolic New Testament Christians) who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Easter was last Sunday; but the Lord’s love for you is not periodic, episodic, or only on major Feast Days. “And after eight days His disciples of Augsburg Lutheran Church were again inside (Faith Chapel)…Peace to You.” And now you know why the Pastor, when He turns during the “Pax Domini” of the Liturgy of the Sacrament, elevates the Holy Chalice and Host and says, nay, proclaims the reality: “The Peace of the Lord be with you alway!”
“Reach your fingers here, at the Table, cup your hands or open your mouths, and look at His hands, His very Body, and ‘Take eat.’”
“Reach your hand here, and put it into His side (the very side which from the Holy Cross gushed out water and blood) and grasp the Holy Cup and ‘take drink’ His life-giving blood. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost