St. John's Resurrection Orphans

NEXT SUNDAY’S GOSPEL: JOHN 20: 19-31
SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER
USCCB Link to all three readings
 
On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, "Peace be with you."
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
"Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained."

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, "We have seen the Lord."
But he said to them,
"Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands
and put my finger into the nail marks
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."

Now a week later his disciples were again inside
and Thomas was with them.
Jesus came, although the doors were locked,
and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you."
Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe."
Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
Jesus said to him, "Have you come to believe because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."

Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples
that are not written in this book.
But these are written that you may come to believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that through this belief you may have life in his name.
 
Matthew’s Resurrection narrative, even with its drama, is relatively brief, and this year the Church Lectionary draws from the considerably longer post-Resurrection accounts from St. John. Personally, I took great pleasure this morning in retrieving from my library the venerable commentary on John’s Gospel by Father Raymond Brown in the famed Anchor Bible series. Father Brown’s commentary was written 47 years ago and much scholarship has supplanted his work, but the text remains venerable to those of us who work with the bible. I do take note of the Amazon reviewer, though, who correctly observed that “Nobody said this would be easy.”
 
There is also a feeling of “going home” to a Gospel text familiar to most Catholics, with its inclusion of Doubting Thomas. You probably would not be surprised to learn that I was specifically named after Thomas the Apostle, the “doubter.” I don’t know what I did in my first two weeks of life to earn baptismal fellowship with the Gospel’s true recovered agnostic, though legend has it that after overcoming his doubts Thomas undertook heroic missionary work in India.
 
Biblical scholarship in 1970 was quite technical, for the most part, an effort to discover the precise understanding of words and the organization of the texts from their oral predecessors. Father Brown notices details that many of us might miss. For example, the opening of Sunday’s text begins with the disciples behind locked doors when “Jesus came and stood in their midst.” Implied here is that the post-Resurrection Jesus “had marvelous, non-physical powers.” On the other hand, Jesus shows his hands and his side, the wounds of his crucifixion. This continuity of corporeality with divine glory hints at the afterlife circumstances of all who die in the Lord—i.e. we will retain our identities in the afterlife.
 
It is hard to overstate the importance of the word “peace” in the Bible, the same word Jesus addresses to his disciples after the Resurrection. Generally, peace has meaning for the present and the future. My own sense of the word is “God’s comfort.” In the Psalms, we read “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem,” which suggests there is an eschatological or future-oriented sense of the word. In John’s Last Supper discourse Jesus says to the disciples “Peace is my farewell to you. My peace is my gift to you, and I do not give it to you as the world gives it.” The disciples at the Last Supper were fearful about the future, with the imminent departure of Jesus. In Sunday’s specific context, Jesus repeats the word twice, and then breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
 
John has melded three significant themes in very few words. Again, beginning with the Biblical, John has explained what this longed for “peace” is about: the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, the “Comforter” in Catholic liturgy and prayer. Second, Jesus’ breathing upon the disciples is John’s Pentecost moment with the disciples. (This is a second Pentecost moment for John, who records Jesus’ “handing over his spirit” at his death on Good Friday.) And third, John connects this Pentecost moment in the upper room with God’s power to forgive sin.
 
It is helpful here to catch our breaths and consider what scholars call the sitz-im-leben or circumstances of the writing of a biblical text. John’s Gospel was composed very late in the New Testament era, possibly as late as 110 A.D. The entire Gospel of John contains themes of importance to a well-established Christian Church. We know from outside sources that the earliest heresies in Christian experience involved the very nature and identity of Jesus Christ—some denying his humanity, some his divinity. Other Scriptural works attributed to John or his influence, such as the three Epistles of John, plead for unity {“Little children, love one another”) suggesting fragmentation, perhaps in reference to Jews or to Christians among themselves. It is also known from outside sources that the Church at the turn of the century was organizing around stronger bishops and developing a teaching hierarchy and structure of authority.
 
Thus, in the upper room John is careful to depict Jesus in both his human and divine natures. John reminds his readers that Jesus is the source of the peace of God through his Holy Spirit, a peace that should affect unity and tamp down fears and angers. The association of Pentecost with forgiveness of sin serves multiple theological purposes: it underscores the seriousness of disunion between believers and it establishes that a power reserved to God has now been shared with the disciples, and presumably their successors. In short, there is a statement here of Church authority, that Church leaders have been empowered to impart the forgiveness of God.
 
John’s Resurrection narrative teaches a great deal about the impact of the risen and glorified Christ upon the Church, and in its original time of composition, the message was particularly pertinent to Christians of whom none were alive to hear the original Apostolic preaching. These were Christians “orphaned by time,” one might put it. [Luke addresses something of this problem in his Gospel, Luke 24: 13-35​, how does the Risen Lord interact with the Christians of a later age?]  For these “orphaned souls,” enter the great doubter, Thomas. Father Brown writes that there is no other mention of Thomas’s crisis of faith in the New Testament. This episode is unique to John, because this evangelist is facing a growing crisis that his predecessors did not.
 
There is no indication that Thomas’s absence from the upper room on Easter Sunday night was deliberate, or some sort of boycott or abandonment. On the contrary, it is only when Thomas returns that problems begin. His brothers tell him they have seen the Lord (divine term); Thomas replies that unless he sees the human Jesus raised to life—the scars of the crucifixion—he would not believe. His demand is to see that Jesus of Nazareth is the Kurios of Lord of life.
 
Jesus returns with his salutation of “Peace.” He is not angry with Thomas—quite the opposite of Mark’s 16: 9-19 account​. He then invites Thomas to place his fingers inside his wounds. There is much conjecture that since Jesus told Mary Magdalene not to touch him, “for I have not yet ascended to my Father,” but invites Thomas (and the other disciples?) to do so, Thomas is beholding the full divinity and humanity of Jesus when he makes his famous profession, “My Lord and My God.” In the original Greek both terms connote divinity. Jesus’ response should be read sympathetically. Jesus concedes that Thomas’s act of faith was appropriate for a man who has seen what Thomas has seen with his eyes and his disposition of faith. But he goes on to commend those who have not seen but have believed.
 
Who are “those who have not seen but have believed?” John’s turn of the century community, to be sure, but the author understands his audience to be much bigger than that. John writes that not every sign of Jesus has been passed along, but those that have are intended to rouse faith in Jesus the Lord throughout history. Christians can trust their Spirit-filled leaders to pass on the truth. John’s signs are recorded so that every age may know “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.”