Revd. Canon Leonard Doolan in St Paul’s Athens
Being Easter Christians means not standing still. Any serious reading of the resurrection narratives in the gospels shows that we are to be people on the move – on the move for our risen Lord.
The last few chapters of each gospel are full of movement, of journeys, of personal change and development. ‘Go into Galilee’, ‘Go into all the nations and baptize’, ‘While they were walking to a place called Emmaus’, ‘Peace be with you, as the Father sent me, so I am sending you’, all of these imply a physical movement, travelling with the risen Christ and in the power of the risen Christ.
The journey can also be a journey in and of faith – an interior journey. ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe’. Jesus said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands’. ‘Thomas answered him “My Lord and my God’.
Thomas makes a personal journey of faith a journey of doubt to belief.
St. John’s gospel begins with the Word of God being en-fleshed, of being incarnate, and the association is immediately that this Word made flesh is Jesus of Nazareth. St. John, through his gospel account, presents Jesus as the one who is sent by God, who performs signs and wonders, who says, ‘I am the way, the truth, the life’, ‘I am the bread of life’, ‘I am the vine’, I am the Good Shepherd’ and so on. In his final chapters St. John’s intentions are crystallized in the words of St. Thomas.
This is the highest point of St. John’s gospel. Not only is Jesus Lord – he is God!
There is a strong tendency towards Thomas’s doubt in all of us. The slightest small incident, or even a great tragedy can throw us off course. It might be as simple as a word mis-placed by someone else in the Christian household, or it might be a catastrophic tragedy like the pointless innocent deaths in Sri Lanka.
If I am to be certain about my belief in God how can I find my way through these terrible things, performed by twisted and distorted humans in God’s name.
St. Thomas’s journey is not always an easy journey, it is not always a straight road into deeper faith. Without the evidence that was shown to Thomas we have to take a step of faith. The risen Lord prepares us for this. ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe’.
We believe without the certainty presented to Thomas and the first disciples. Yet we will do well to reflect on the words of a former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, who said this: the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.
So we journey on in faithful hope and hopeful faith in the life of the resurrection. It will always be challenging. ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side’. The risen Lord brought his wounds of crucifixion with him when walked from the tomb. He did not leave the marks of cruelty and injustice, pain and heartache behind him. Easter Christians don’t believe in a Lord who was never crucified. The Easter faith is about the mystery of the cross.
We may not be able to put our finger into the wounds, or see his hands ripped apart by nails, but when we put our hands forward to receive our Holy Communion, we are receiving the bread of the wounded Christ, and the cup of the wounded Christ, and as we receive with outstretched hands the sacraments of our Lord we receive in communion with our sisters and brothers, wounded and dead in Sri Lanka, and with all the martyrs and faithful down through the Christian epochs.
