Sunday 30th March 2008EASTER II
Fr David Cherry
Acts 2 : 14a & 22 – 32 ; 1 Peter 1 : 3 – 9 ; John 20 : 19 – 31
The words of Our Lord Jesus Christ to Thomas, and to you and me : “….and be not faithless, but believing.”
Thomas must be brought to see that he is part of a plan of salvation that is greater than he could imagine.
Thomas encounters his beloved friend in the gospel; and he is
invited to believe something beyond his imagining: Jesus who was dead,
is alive; and this Jesus is God.
From where Thomas is coming from - by any human reckoning - Jesus was a
failure. Rather than answering violence with more violence -
which is natural, Jesus submitted to human violence and willingly
became a victim of it. Jesus was supposed to bring an end to
Roman occupation. Instead he walked willingly into the trap. So
Thomas is wondering : what is going on here? This is what
his honest doubt is like. “How could one who seemed so
powerless against the violence actually be the one who is saving us
from it?” What sort of plan for salvation is
this? His mind is set on earthly things.
Alexander Studholme in a recent article in the Independent on Sunday
wrote about the incomprehension of China of the Tibetan people.
They have brought so much advancement and progress to Tibet. They
simply can’t comprehend that Tibetan people are still religious,
that they actually want to meditate and pray, build temples and
monasteries: and still regard reincarnated lamas as having authority
over them. The Chinese authorities cannot understand how this
kind of primitive belief and backward way of life persists.
He goes on to remark : though one can’t draw direct comparisons
with our Western materialist, empiricist atheists (who don’t
torture teenage nuns and so forth) there is a similar incomprehension
among them that Christianity persists; that we still want more and
believe more than what we can see and touch. We believe in a
Creator God who made the world out of love and it belongs to
him. And we can’t get round this.
For Thomas, for you and I, the command to “be not faithless but
believing” is an exhortation to conversion : to see your life in
a different perspective according to a revealed truth. As St Paul
would later say : ‘Be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind’ (Romans 12 : 2)
Billy Eliot’s father is stuck in a certain kind of belief
system. “Men don’t do ballet.” But late at
night a friend of the father tells him that Billy is dancing in the
club hall and tells Billy’s father to go and look. He
stands there – with rage, I think, at first. But then
he changes. He sees and believes. He sees in a different
way. He is converted, his mind is renewed. And he sets off
immediately to Billy’s dance teacher to find out how to get an
audition for Billy to ballet school.
Thomas must undergo the same experience: the renewal of his mind, a
conversion, a different perspective. He must be brought to see
that he is part of a plan of salvation that is greater than he could
imagine. So must you and I if we wish to be brought to a real and
living faith in the Risen Jesus.
God has entered into his life and he must find his place in God’s life.
What might this be like?
Jesus comes to those who are in hiding, hiding in shame, guilt and
fear. They ran away. They were confused. They lost their
faith in him; they lost their faith in the Scriptures which said this
was going to happen.
Jesus enters the room. There is not a word of
recrimination. Anyone else would have given these fair-weather
followers the sack. Not a bit of it: “Peace be unto
you.” (Billy’s father never asks
forgiveness and Billy never says to his father ‘I forgive
you’. They just get on living the new life that they have
discovered.)
If you want to know what this is like you need to be able to see
yourself among those disciples; you need to be able to see that you and
I are like them: faithless, even betrayers, here for the good times,
not that bothered about church life much or that concerned about our
Baptismal promises or their implications. Faith on our own terms
– just enough of what we want or think we can cope with.
And yet, he calls you and me still; and he sends you and me :
“just as my Father sent me – even so I’m sending
you.” And he calls, not the good – remember he
called Saul who persecuted the Church. Being disciples is not
about knowing how much better you are; it is about knowing how wrong
you are and how much you have been forgiven.
And the disciples, Thomas, included, discovers that this is what the
job description is about : those who are being forgiven, being released
into a new life, a new perspective of hope and joy at being
forgiven. And being sent out as forgivers: those who, like their
Lord, are engaged in the extraordinary enterprise of establishing a new
culture of grace by non-retaliation, non-violence, overcoming the world
by suffering its hatred and cruelty for the love of him who did it
before them.
The Acts of the Apostles are all about the apostles being changed,
discovering the truth of Christ as they go about the ministry, as they
open their mouths to speak and finding the truth dawning on them: that
Christ has forgiven them and forgiven those who put him to death.
And Peter has to change his mind and see in a different perspective
later on as he makes his way to the gentile Centurion to baptise him
and his household.
Here in our midst is the Risen Christ. “Behold the Lamb of
God” the priest says, “who takes away the sin of the world.
Blessed are those who are called to his supper / banquet.”
And we all respond as true disciples – in the words of the
Centurion, as those who are being brought into a new mind, the
realisation of what we are : forgiven: “Lord I am not
worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak the word, and
my soul shall be healed.”
And so we come to Easter Holy Communion this morning, God’s gift
to us, the Sacrament of forgiveness and healing, the Sacrament which
binds us, unites us with God. The Risen Christ is truly present
as he was in that Upper Room. May we no longer be faithless, but
believing.
Amen