Recognition and Trust
Second Sunday of Easter
John 20.19-31
'As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.' John 20.21
There is something absolutely unequivocal in the way that Thomas addresses Jesus: 'My Lord and my God.' That seems to have a directness about it that doesn't figure elsewhere in the New Testament. Sure there are lots of places where he's called Son of God, Word of God, or a divine attribute is associated with him - but here he is simply, directly, called 'God.'
We catch a glimpse of just how important this is in the way the word is commonly abused now. 'My God!' expresses some deep emotion - some splendour of the natural world; on hearing bad news; on being involved in a mishap - 'My God' - a momentary exclamation to convey feelings of surprise, terror, or awe. No other expression seems to do. A deep, heartfelt response, but of the moment. But in John's gospel there’s nothing momentary about the response of Thomas. No, here it’s devotion, it is Thomas' soul being touched by the sublime. This is a response that will change his life, direct his life. It is the response of recognition.
Virginia Ironside is a British journalist and agony aunty whose written words seem to have been familiar to me my whole adult life. What I didn't know until recently, however, is that her personal life has been mark by much tragedy, particularly in how many of the people very close to her have been chronic alcoholics, and that she herself is victim to recurrent severe bouts of clinical depression. She has mentioned this in broadcast interviews. When asked whether counselling has made any difference, her reply has been that it hasn't brought her any miraculous cure, but it has enabled her to recognize what was going on inside herself and that is a key to recovery. Recognition is absolutely important. I’m certain she’s right, not just about our personal psyche, but in every area of life. When we recognize some truth, we cannot unrecognize it. It’s a part of us. Even if it is a painful truth, the discovery of someone’s deceit or a fact that destroys previous convictions, it remains a part of us. There is no going back. And so it is with Thomas, but for him the recognition arouses great joy, and the gospel writer wants us to be very clear about that, indeed to experience it for ourselves. John the writer gives us the framework to make it our own.
This is Sunday that John is describing. The day that will be marked in the coming centuries as a memorial to a resurrection. The doors are locked, but nothing can keep out this experience. The community of faith are met together. It’s in a group that beliefs are nurtured. So much in our modern outlook tries to deny that, but it remains true. Our faith is shaped by the phrasing of the liturgy ... by the resonance of hymns ... by the example of Christian people whose convictions and encouragement remain part of our memories. That’s how it works, thank God. But there’s a danger, of course. The danger is that we might, even in our culture, unquestioningly accept the norms of the group and conform to its pattern. But John the gospel writer will have none of that. Thomas retains his individuality crowned by his exclamation of personal faith as he cries, 'MY Lord and MY God!'
We are part of a group. We belong to a living tradition. We are dependent on each other, but we cannot live on the faith of someone else - not for long anyway. We have to see for ourselves. And that is what Thomas does. He sees in the wounds of Christ the love of the living God.
Thomas usually described as a doubter, but that does him less than justice. Doubt isn't the opposite of faith, rather certainty is the opposite of faith. Thomas is a person of perception - in some ways he sees things clearer than the others. Do you remember that when Jesus, in response to a woman’s call for help on behalf of her brother, decides to go to Bethany in Judaea, an area of increasing hostility, it is Thomas who say, 'Let us go that we might die with him.' Thomas is quite clear, in a way that the others are not, that discipleship calls for a willingness to be vulnerable to the point of sacrifice. He knows that the glory of God is expressed in the frailty of human flesh, in service, in dying. Today in the closed room Thomas’ exclamation expresses this recognition of the eternal nature of God - a God who loves.
And having recognized that, Thomas doesn’t stay there on his knees. He doesn’t turn Jesus into an idol, or his discovery into a cult. Already there is a movement at work, and another giving of the Spirit is described. Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.' Here is an echo of the Genesis story where God takes the clay of the ground, dead soil, and breathes life into it. Those disciples were like dead people, locked in their tomb of regret, until they too share in the spirit of Christ. Now Thomas was going to join them to become the continuing instrument of God in the world and to play his part in bearing the wounds of sacrificial love.
In this hundredth year since the beginning of the First World War a story Professor A. J. Gossip, one time professor of Christian ethics at Glasgow University, used to tell of that conflict gets to the point. He served in in the war alongside a young soldier who disgraced himself. The young man failed, as it turned out, through sickness, in the face of the enemy. He was court-martialled and punished. But his colonel said to Gossip, 'We must show that we still trust him.' The young man's failure was never again mentioned and the earlier warm friendliness continued. Returning to trench warfare horrors, he showed immense courage, won honour upon honour and received promotion. When congratulated he said, 'What else could I do? I failed him; and he trusted me.'
Christ's disciples received very similar, but even greater trust from their Lord, whom they had forsaken on Good Friday. Ten of them are locked in that Upper Room; terrified, ashamed and bewildered. Jesus reassures them by offering his peace and showing his wounds. His greeting - 'Peace be with you' - is the conventional Jewish one, but rich in meaning, really saying, 'May you be entirely whole.' It is in this that Thomas is leaping ahead of his friends.
This is the context of Christ commissioning them all: 'As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.' The commission was to them in their 'togetherness,' as his community of faith, but it has to be recognized and owned by each one of them for them to be a continuing part of that missionary community. Their mission was an extension of Christ's. God's saving work comes first in the life of Jesus and continues through the risen life of Jesus present in his faithful followers. It was all one and the same work - the Father's offer of transforming grace. This we have to recognize. This astonishing commission is entrusted today into our unworthy hands. But with the task came the empowering. He breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'
Yes, we are commissioned. But all is within that quality of God-love that Thomas so forcefully recognizes. This community that is the church is at its truest when it expresses that love. Let the recognition that was Thomas’ be ours, 'My Lord and my God.' We are trusted.
There is something absolutely unequivocal in the way that Thomas addresses Jesus: 'My Lord and my God.' That seems to have a directness about it that doesn't figure elsewhere in the New Testament. Sure there are lots of places where he's called Son of God, Word of God, or a divine attribute is associated with him - but here he is simply, directly, called 'God.'
We catch a glimpse of just how important this is in the way the word is commonly abused now. 'My God!' expresses some deep emotion - some splendour of the natural world; on hearing bad news; on being involved in a mishap - 'My God' - a momentary exclamation to convey feelings of surprise, terror, or awe. No other expression seems to do. A deep, heartfelt response, but of the moment. But in John's gospel there’s nothing momentary about the response of Thomas. No, here it’s devotion, it is Thomas' soul being touched by the sublime. This is a response that will change his life, direct his life. It is the response of recognition.
Virginia Ironside is a British journalist and agony aunty whose written words seem to have been familiar to me my whole adult life. What I didn't know until recently, however, is that her personal life has been mark by much tragedy, particularly in how many of the people very close to her have been chronic alcoholics, and that she herself is victim to recurrent severe bouts of clinical depression. She has mentioned this in broadcast interviews. When asked whether counselling has made any difference, her reply has been that it hasn't brought her any miraculous cure, but it has enabled her to recognize what was going on inside herself and that is a key to recovery. Recognition is absolutely important. I’m certain she’s right, not just about our personal psyche, but in every area of life. When we recognize some truth, we cannot unrecognize it. It’s a part of us. Even if it is a painful truth, the discovery of someone’s deceit or a fact that destroys previous convictions, it remains a part of us. There is no going back. And so it is with Thomas, but for him the recognition arouses great joy, and the gospel writer wants us to be very clear about that, indeed to experience it for ourselves. John the writer gives us the framework to make it our own.
This is Sunday that John is describing. The day that will be marked in the coming centuries as a memorial to a resurrection. The doors are locked, but nothing can keep out this experience. The community of faith are met together. It’s in a group that beliefs are nurtured. So much in our modern outlook tries to deny that, but it remains true. Our faith is shaped by the phrasing of the liturgy ... by the resonance of hymns ... by the example of Christian people whose convictions and encouragement remain part of our memories. That’s how it works, thank God. But there’s a danger, of course. The danger is that we might, even in our culture, unquestioningly accept the norms of the group and conform to its pattern. But John the gospel writer will have none of that. Thomas retains his individuality crowned by his exclamation of personal faith as he cries, 'MY Lord and MY God!'
We are part of a group. We belong to a living tradition. We are dependent on each other, but we cannot live on the faith of someone else - not for long anyway. We have to see for ourselves. And that is what Thomas does. He sees in the wounds of Christ the love of the living God.
Thomas usually described as a doubter, but that does him less than justice. Doubt isn't the opposite of faith, rather certainty is the opposite of faith. Thomas is a person of perception - in some ways he sees things clearer than the others. Do you remember that when Jesus, in response to a woman’s call for help on behalf of her brother, decides to go to Bethany in Judaea, an area of increasing hostility, it is Thomas who say, 'Let us go that we might die with him.' Thomas is quite clear, in a way that the others are not, that discipleship calls for a willingness to be vulnerable to the point of sacrifice. He knows that the glory of God is expressed in the frailty of human flesh, in service, in dying. Today in the closed room Thomas’ exclamation expresses this recognition of the eternal nature of God - a God who loves.
And having recognized that, Thomas doesn’t stay there on his knees. He doesn’t turn Jesus into an idol, or his discovery into a cult. Already there is a movement at work, and another giving of the Spirit is described. Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.' Here is an echo of the Genesis story where God takes the clay of the ground, dead soil, and breathes life into it. Those disciples were like dead people, locked in their tomb of regret, until they too share in the spirit of Christ. Now Thomas was going to join them to become the continuing instrument of God in the world and to play his part in bearing the wounds of sacrificial love.
In this hundredth year since the beginning of the First World War a story Professor A. J. Gossip, one time professor of Christian ethics at Glasgow University, used to tell of that conflict gets to the point. He served in in the war alongside a young soldier who disgraced himself. The young man failed, as it turned out, through sickness, in the face of the enemy. He was court-martialled and punished. But his colonel said to Gossip, 'We must show that we still trust him.' The young man's failure was never again mentioned and the earlier warm friendliness continued. Returning to trench warfare horrors, he showed immense courage, won honour upon honour and received promotion. When congratulated he said, 'What else could I do? I failed him; and he trusted me.'
Christ's disciples received very similar, but even greater trust from their Lord, whom they had forsaken on Good Friday. Ten of them are locked in that Upper Room; terrified, ashamed and bewildered. Jesus reassures them by offering his peace and showing his wounds. His greeting - 'Peace be with you' - is the conventional Jewish one, but rich in meaning, really saying, 'May you be entirely whole.' It is in this that Thomas is leaping ahead of his friends.
This is the context of Christ commissioning them all: 'As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.' The commission was to them in their 'togetherness,' as his community of faith, but it has to be recognized and owned by each one of them for them to be a continuing part of that missionary community. Their mission was an extension of Christ's. God's saving work comes first in the life of Jesus and continues through the risen life of Jesus present in his faithful followers. It was all one and the same work - the Father's offer of transforming grace. This we have to recognize. This astonishing commission is entrusted today into our unworthy hands. But with the task came the empowering. He breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'
Yes, we are commissioned. But all is within that quality of God-love that Thomas so forcefully recognizes. This community that is the church is at its truest when it expresses that love. Let the recognition that was Thomas’ be ours, 'My Lord and my God.' We are trusted.