“BLESSED ARE YOU”
Saint John 20: 19-32
Quasimodogeniti: 11 April Anno Domini 2021
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
When St. Paul writes to the Corinthians and the Philippians, and by extension to you: “Be ye followers of me” he is not urging you to follow him in his well confessed sins, and sin: “the evil which I would not, that I do.” No! The Apostle wants you to follow him in receiving Christ Crucified for the forgiveness of your sins and the strengthening of your body and soul. This comes as he also makes clear—only through The Word of God. That Word is Christ of course, but now, post Ascension, that Word is located only in Scripture and Sacramental Scripture. It is only located here in His Church. This is where you are supposed to be, where you are commanded to be, and where you really NEED to be! Or as the letter writer to the Hebrews wrote by The Holy Ghost: “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another” [Heb. 10.25]
You cannot be exhorted if you are not here, where The Saints are gathered around The Word, Christ Jesus! You cannot proclaim “He is risen, He is risen indeed, Hallelujah!” if you are not here.
Thomas was not there. That was a problem. Saint John does not tell us WHY Saint Thomas was absent on Easter evening when The Risen Savior revealed Himself to the “11,” or rather the “10.” In our own sinful hearts, we try and either make excuses for Thomas or to castigate Him. “He must have been away securing food or beverages for the Apostles; he had urgent family matters to attend to; he was ‘scouting’ and gather ‘intel’ as to the mood, tenor, and movement of the Sanhedrin.” Scripture doesn’t say that. Or, conversely, “he was cowardly and selfishly looking out for his own interests, and ‘neck,’ and just didn’t want to be with his band of brothers; he was AWOL!” Scripture doesn’t say that.
“But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with then when Jesus came.” The Word of The Lord, full stop.
But he should have been, it would have been better for him, infinitely, to have been so. You need to be here every Lord’s Day. To parse the excuses and rationalize the absences is dangerous.
But the real sin, Thomas’ sin, your sin, the unbelieving world’s sin, is to disbelieve and deny The Gospel Word, the Evangel’s Message, the testimony of the Apostolic Band—whether in person at the mouths of Peter, John, Matthew and the rest, or the inscripturated Message found in The Lord’s Bible, or today, right now, in the self-same words of one of Christ’s under-shepherds: His 2021 Priests, Bishops, Pastors, and Evangelists.
What’s interesting is that no one “gets a pass” here. No one is above sin or weak and faltering faith.
All need to repent of not believing the preached Word—from mouths. Ironically, Thomas when “the other disciples…said unto him, we have seen the Lord,” treated them exactly as Peter, John, Matthew, (Thomas) and the rest had treated the blessed Saint Mary Magdalene on Easter morning when she told them all the same thing—and the very words from The Word Resurrected. They too disbelieved.
Sinful man wants empirical proof, so-called scientific verification, hands-on show me the evidence demand and satisfaction. You treat not just God’s representatives this way, but God Himself, when you are confronted with disaster (usually death or great illness) and faith-testing ordeals and trials. But also, when times, for you, seem to going swimmingly well, and then the whole “Gospel story” and Christ Crucified message, just recedes a bit into the background of your busy life.
Repent and believe.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” [Heb. 11.1]. Surely Saint Thomas hoped for Christ not to be dead…but he would not believe the Gospel message as it was shared and preached, to him. Paul to the Romans: “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by The Word of God” [Rom. 10.17]. Thomas did not believe their words.
Earlier, during His ministry Christ had said to Thomas and the other Eleven, “He that heareth you heareth Me.” By refusing to hear the Words of the Disciples Thomas shut his ears and heart to The Words of The God/Man.
Thomas would have been lost for all time, like the great unwashed, unfed, and rejecting mass of unbelieving pagan humanity, had he been left to rely on his own reason, will, vision, and unrealistic demands to “see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side.”
But Didymus was not lost. The Christ Saved Him by the same way He saves all—by coming to him, choosing him, and forgiving him with His Words of absolution and with His Body and Blood of absolution.
Thomas had been given the “sincere milk of the Word” as a newborn babe—He had been + Baptized, He had been catechized. But “after eight days again” he is given the meat of The Word; he is invited, commanded, entreated, and constrained to touch The Savior’s wounded hands and to thrust his hand into God’s riven side. That is concrete: Christ Crucified for the forgiveness of sins!
So, it would have been wonderful, awesome, gracious, and supernal for you to have been in Thomas’ position that second Sunday evening. But note what Christ says, not so much to Thomas, but to you and all who have come after His visible Ascension away from discerning eyeballs and discovering fingertips: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed!” God says YOU are blessed this very day for you hear with your ears His Word, His Only-Begotten Son’s Peace, Mercy, and Love. You indeed place your fingers in the Lord’s nail-prints when His Body is placed on your tongue. You indeed thrust your hand in His Holy Side as He pours His very blood, blood from the heart of God, into your mouth.
Start a new habit this morning. Today and every Lord’s day, when I elevate The Consecrated Host and Blood of Jesus, say with me, under your breath, or softly, “my Lord and my God.”
“These things are written, [and this day SPOKEN], that ye might believe that Jesus is The Christ, The Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through His + Name.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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