KAALAGAD Gospel Reflection – April 19, 2020
2nd Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday)
John 20:19-31
19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (NIV)
The Life of St. Thomas is an Anti-Climax
To begin, the clue to understanding this passage is found at the beginning of the chapter.
8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 For until now, they still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.
Despite all that they already knew of Jesus, the disciples still had not reckoned with the fact of Jesus’ death and much less with His resurrection. None of them believed that anyone could rise from the dead.
When Jesus died, everything they ever believed about Jesus died too.
Death had the final say.
If you had one word to describe the problem of the world today, the problem of the pandemic, and everything else that is horrible, the word to describe all of them would be, “death”.
It was death that Jesus conquered on the cross. And we know He did because he resurrected.
Jesus went out to conquer and to establish God’s Kingdom. He did not kill the evil people around him. The Jewish rulers and the Romans who crucified him were not the enemy. The enemy is not flesh and blood but spiritual, invisible rulers, powers and principalities in the air. He came to save the lost and that included everyone, including the centurion, the disciples, Pilate, Herod, Judas, Trump and Putin.
The enemies of Jesus were very clear to him, Satan, sin and death. The last one to be destroyed is death. At his resurrection, Jesus declared victory over death.
The implication of this fact is terrifying too, that for us to conquer, we need to die. We cannot beat people on the head if they don’t believe. We are the only army in the world that goes out to war not to win but to die.
This is what the dear Pope Francis meant when he said we must launch a revolution of tenderness.
When we quarrel with our wives, we know that our enemy is not our wife. When we quarrel with those who defraud us, our enemy is not the cheats.
We cannot kill our enemies. Even our enemies also need to be saved. God loved the world that he gave his only son. It is the whole world he is after.
We cannot kill the drug addicts or how else will they be saved if they are already dead.
For Christians to win, we need to die on the cross like Jesus.
For St Thomas the past days had been a series of bewildering events, and the past years a barrage of lightning explosions, a storm of revelations that could easily overwhelm anyone.
The disciples had just witnessed Jesus die a horrible death.
It signaled the end of all their dreams.
Even the ruling Jews and the Romans were disappointed. They had braced for a long bitter fight and were disappointed that nothing happened. The crowd who welcomed him with shouts of Hosanna, called him, Son of David, which means, king of the Jews. But the vaunted Messiah, just simply died.
When we enter the life of St Thomas in this passage, we are quickly confronted with an enigma, who is Jesus? Who are you really?
On the one hand, Jesus was a profound teacher who taught us how we could truly live. He was a scary prophet who revealed to us who we truly are. On being confronted so, Peter dropped to the ground, trembling and in tears. He cried out: depart from me for I am a sinful man. Jesus finally revealed himself as the Messiah, the long-awaited savior who would restore the Kingdom and kick the ass of the Romans.
On the other hand, Jesus was the Son of Man, the real Adam who showed us how men and women should have lived, had Adam and Eve not sinned. He was also the Son of David the rightful heir to the throne, sending shivers to the Jewish rulers. Jesus was the King of the Jews; that was the charge against him. Finally, while dying on the cross, a Roman Centurion watching him cried, “This man was truly the Son of God!”
It was admittedly bewildering so that at one time Jesus had to clear the confusion. He asked the disciples, who do people say that I am? But you, who do you say I am?
Even his closest associate, John the Baptist who had the inside info from heaven itself, was not sure anymore. Are you really the Messiah or should we wait for another one?
These are too much for an ordinary person to grasp.
And on top of that, the rumor was going around, Jesus had resurrected and walked through solid walls and locked doors.
St Thomas knew like everyone else that no one comes back from the dead. Not even those who told him, “we have seen the Lord” really believed.
If indeed they saw him, what they saw was His ghost, and not the flesh and blood Jesus. Only a ghost can walk through solid walls and closed doors.
The burden of Jesus’ death was too heavy. They had so much hopes for the Messiah and these hopes were dashed on the rocks when Jesus died.
Jesus accommodated Thomas, and gave in to this requirement.
Anyone so overwhelmed at this point, needs all the help he can get. The evidence will have to be given that Jesus really came back to life, alive, in the flesh, and not a ghost.
History showed that the epicenter of the battle for the faith is really this: did Jesus really come back to life. Can you prove it?
Thousands of apologetics have been written on this one topic alone.
Just like the conspiracy theory that said the Americans never really landed on the moon, that it was just doctored photographs to boost the US space program in their fierce competition with the Russians to conquer outer space, so also many conspiracy theories abound about whether Jesus really rose from the dead.
St Paul expressed the whole dilemma. If Jesus was not raised back to life, our faith is useless.
St Thomas was actually standing at this moment at the threshold of history that would determine the destiny of the entire Christian faith.
Everyone was afraid to ask, who are you?
Only St Thomas dared.
“Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
Thomas never doubted. His problem was, he never believed! Thomas like everyone else did not believe anyone could resurrect from the dead.
So, Jesus said to him, please stop NOT BELIEVING. Believe now. Jesus did not say, please stop doubting already. The word used is apisteo (not believe), instead of distazo (to doubt).
Just like when water and blood came out of the body of Christ on the cross that proved beyond doubt that he was really dead, so now, the final and winning evidence to show Jesus had really come back to life, not as a ghost but really alive, was here. Jesus knew this was the moment of truth.
Without Thomas, we would continue to doubt today.
St Thomas’ touching the wounds of Jesus proved finally that Jesus resurrected in the flesh.
After St Thomas had touched Jesus’ wounds, he cried out, My Lord and My God.
Not everything ends well. In fact, not many things end well in real life.
There is something very anticlimactic here.
Jesus downplayed the response of Thomas. We don’t sense the surge of energy that we sensed when Peter threw himself on the ground on realizing who Jesus was.
St Thomas’ realization was short of all our expectations. He did not tremble or cry or throw himself on the ground upon realizing who Jesus was. He just stood there.
And we know Jesus downplayed his realization because he said,
“uh huh, so you believe because you have seen. But even more blessed are those who believe even though they have not seen.”
We don’t see Jesus appreciating what St Thomas had seen.
The proof Jesus gave to St Thomas was just for that particular moment in history. Faith would not stand on proofs alone.
The greatest display of miracles in the history of mankind happened at the liberation of the Israelites from the Egyptians during Moses’ time. But it did not grow faith in the people.
Of the more than 3 million who witnessed the terrible and supernatural works of God, only 2 people were able to enter the Promised Land. Only 2 people believed despite all the proofs given.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews, later on, wrote: now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things NOT SEEN.
Faith is the evidence of the reality of our salvation brought about by Jesus dying on the cross. Faith is the evidence of the cosmic plan of redemption to reconcile all of mankind to God through Jesus.
Faith does not ask for evidence; faith is itself the evidence.
Faith does not ask for evidence; faith is itself the evidence.
Blessed are those who believe even though they did not see.
Faith is not looking for proofs. Faith is not about being convinced that Jesus came back from death. Faith is more than that. The essence of faith was actually contained in the words that St Thomas blurted out: My Lord and my God, but which he did not quite fully understand then.
Faith is looking for someone worthy to worship. It is in search of the true God.
Faith seeks someone we can follow, to whom we surrender everything, who will be our Lord.
Faith wants to worship Jesus our God before whom we tremble and fall on our knees.
Not all the 11 apostles believed. We see them at the last moment before Jesus ascended to heaven, when Jesus gathered them one final time:
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.
Years had to intervene before the faith of Thomas finally solidified.
In the months following Jesus’ ascension, we don’t see in St Thomas the blazing faith we see in Peter or in John or in James, whose faith clearly showed they had conquered death. St. Thomas is nowhere to be found nor heard.
But years later, slowly, we hear that St Thomas finally got it, maybe not as dramatically, but still it came as fully as it did with Peter and with John and with James.
Not all of us are Peters. Most of us are Thomases, slow but in the end, sure.
I visited the tomb of St Thomas in Chennai in 2008. Tradition has it that St Thomas founded the first church in India which then lay outside the Roman Empire. He walked 7 thousand kilometers from Jerusalem to Kerala. Along the way, it is said he also preached the gospel in Syria and China.
I did a little research on the Christian churches in India. The Syriac Orthodox church I visited in Chennai is more than 1,300 years old and is still passionately evangelizing and planting churches.
Christ is still alive to them until now. And their faith is said to come from St Thomas.
I think on the day of his martyrdom, St Thomas, old and at peace, could finally face death with the assurance of Christ’s resurrection in his own life. It might have come late, it might have come slowly, but it came.
All’s well that ends well.
Companion with the Poor Inc.
