Homily for the Second Sunday of Eastertide 2010
Acts 5:12-16, Rev. 1:9-13, 17-1 & John 20: 19-31
It is difficult not to have a good deal of sympathy for poor Thomas. Think of his situation. He has just gone through one of the most appalling experiences possible – he has seen his friend Jesus arrested on a trumped-up charge, forced through a kangaroo court and then publicly executed in the most barbaric way known to the Ancient world. He is now locked away with the other followers of Jesus for fear that the people who treated his friend like this will start rounding up Galileans and torturing or executing them too; after all, Pilate had done this before to others claiming to be “Messiah”, and the death-toll had run into thousands. He has left the house briefly, perhaps to get in some provisions or water, risking everything for his remaining friends in the hope that the city will still be so crowded for the feast that no one will notice him. He returns to find them talking about seeing Jesus in the room with them. Imagine what he must have thought. Had the stress just been too much for them all? Was this some sort of sick joke, a puerile attempt to lighten the atmosphere in their prison? If so, it back-fired badly. Didn’t they understand what he’d just been through for them? Couldn’t they sense how afraid he was for all of them, and now this?
Thomas’ reaction is probably just what ours would have been in the circumstances. Nothing in his previous experience has prepared him for this moment, and so he wants proof. He wants to see with his own eyes, or still more, touch the very wounds themselves to prove that it is the friend he saw die so cruelly just three days before, and that what the others are saying is true. Without that, then no go, and in many ways, who can blame him? Then Jesus returns, and with a simple gesture, a simple touch of intimacy heals Thomas’ doubt, just as the simple intimate address by name to Mary Magdalene in the garden had re-opened her eyes and her heart.
Yet Jesus’ response to Thomas’ final confession of faith seems a little double-edged. It is as if the Lord were saying to him, “Well, it’s easy for you to believe, since you have seen me and touched me. Think of all those still to come who must be brought to life, and yet do not have the advantages you have had. They are the ones who are truly blessed”. And so the story reaches us.
Perhaps those words of the risen Lord, and the example of Thomas – both his doubts and his confession of faith – are more important than ever to us today. Despite two thousand years of experience, the resurrection of Jesus is still a challenge to our faith too and yet without that we are, as St Paul says, the people most to be pitied. For our generation, the dead coming to life is the stuff of horror movies, of CGI special effects and comedy, and little more. Most people think we are fools for believing such “myths and legends”, and even respected theologians will try to down-play the significance of the resurrection – that Jesus was “alive” in the hearts and memories of his disciples but nothing more, and even that the discovery of his tomb and his bones would make no difference. After all, where is our proof? Perhaps even in our own hearts, we can find Easter difficult. After all, we all understand the mystery of childbirth and new life, which makes Christmas so accessible. We can even understand the mystery of betrayal and self-sacrifice which makes Good Friday so emotional an experience. Suffering and death in our world and amongst our families and friends are a daily experience which we can literally share with the Jesus of the Gospels, but we have never physically met someone who has returned from the grave. Where is our proof?
In some ways there is no easy answer to this question, but I would like to share two little observations that might help. The first is to apply the “Gamaliel test”. Gamaliel, you will remember, was the wise old Pharisee who suggested to the Sanhedrin that they should leave the apostles alone, since if their enterprise was merely a human invention, it would fizzle out by itself. It is a stunning insight, and indeed, world history is littered with human endeavours and dead heroes which have met just such a fate. Even the most ruthless of totalitarian regimes have not been able to escape this, despite the weapons of terror and oppression at their disposal. Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, all are gone, and with them their followers – even Che Guevara is now just a picture on tee-shirts. But something real, something concrete, something utterly extraordinary happened to the little band of Galilean fishermen who told the world about Jesus, those men whose very shadow could cure the sick in Jerusalem and made such an impact on their contemporaries, and we are still here, two thousand years later, celebrating that extraordinary fact.
The second clue is perhaps more personal. I heard confessions for about an hour and a half on Good Friday evening, a rare and singular privilege for a Housemaster. I do not think it is breaching the seal in any way to say that every single person who came to the sacrament that evening had a single desire – though expressed in many different ways. Each wanted the grace to be able to give more of themselves for others – whether for their families, for their colleagues or for God in their prayer lives. Each and every one wanted to be more truly human – not to have more, but to give more – following the example of Christ. It was a hugely powerful experience for me – to find again that in the heart of the Church, in the heart of each disciple beats the heart of the self-giving Christ, that same heart which Thomas would have felt through his wounded and glorified side.
So then, let us rejoice and be confident in our hope this Easter. We have Jesus’ own promise that our faith has made us truly blessed, even if we have not yet seen him face to face; and let us make Thomas’ words our own as we come to meet Christ himself in this sacrament today, calling out with all our hearts, “My Lord and my God.”
Fr Oswald McBride OSB