There is a common theme running through all 3 of today’s
readings.
That theme is belief; belief
that God raised Jesus from the dead; belief that his resurrection reveals Jesus
to be the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one.
This belief is a hard call, isn’t
it? In our common human experience, people who are dead - really dead, not just
in a coma - stay dead. They don’t come back to life, walk about and talk to us.
But that is what the Gospels tell us Jesus did. It seems impossible. Yet this
belief is the very heart and centre of the faith that brings us all together
here today.
Can we really believe it? Let’s
look a little more closely at the readings to explore the question.
First we turn to the reading from John’s Gospel (John 20:19-31) about the
apostle Thomas.
Thomas is nobody’s fool, he
doesn’t take anything on somebody else’s say so, he thinks for himself. I like
that! He is one of my heroes.
Thomas isn’t there when Jesus
appears to the other disciples on the day of his resurrection, so when they
tell him their extraordinary news “We
have seen the Lord!” he doesn’t believe them. He says “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.” But a week
later Thomas is there when Jesus appears again. Jesus talks directly to him,
and invites him to touch his wounds. Thomas responds immediately, saying “My Lord and my God!” For all his initial scepticism,
Thomas is convinced by his own senses that Jesus has risen from the dead.
Yet there is something
odd about John’s story - as there is about all the stories of Jesus after the
resurrection. The risen Jesus is not the same as he was before. Neither Mary
Magdalen nor the disciples on the road to Emmaus recognise him at first. And in
today’s reading Jesus seems to appear out of nowhere, even though the doors are
locked. It is clear to me that we can’t imagine the risen Jesus as just the
re-animated corpse of the man Jesus who died on the cross. There’s more to it
than that!
So what are we to make of it all? If there is any truth in
the Gospel accounts, the disciples experienced something mysterious but quite
extraordinary. They described it as meeting Jesus the risen Christ: “We have seen the Lord” they say. It would be
futile to try to explain what they experienced scientifically – there just
isn’t enough evidence. But that doesn’t mean that whatever it was contradicts
what we have learned through science about the way God’s creation works.
The first point I hope you will take away today is this:
We can believe both in the truth of
science and in the disciples’ experience. We can believe both and accept the
mystery. And we can choose to call their experience what they called it –
meeting Jesus the risen Christ.
Now let’s turn to the reading from the Acts of the
Apostles (Acts 2:14a, 22-32).
The scene is set at 9 am on the day of Pentecost; 6 weeks after Thomas declared
his belief, and 7 weeks after the resurrection. The twelve have just received
the promised gift of the Holy Spirit, and begun to speak in all manner of
foreign tongues, attracting a crowd. Peter, acting as spokesman, starts to make
a speech.
For the first time in public,
Peter boldly declares his belief, and that of the other disciples, that God has
raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, “This
Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses” he says. And he quotes Psalm 16 to show his Jewish
listeners that King David had prophesied the resurrection of the Messiah:
"He
was not abandoned to Hades,
nor did his flesh experience corruption."
nor did his flesh experience corruption."
These days we can’t argue
convincingly from biblical prophecy, because it doesn’t fit in with how our
scientific culture understands the way the universe works. But people did then,
and his words were very persuasive - we are told he persuaded 3000 new disciples
to be baptised that day!
What really impresses me is the
change that has come over Peter - he has become a different man. This is the
man that only seven weeks ago denied that he knew Jesus three times and ran
away, because he was afraid of what might happen to him. Yet now this ordinary
fisherman is inspired to stand up in public and preach to a crowd, testifying
to his belief that God raised Jesus from the dead. Peter is completely changed.
He kick-starts the process that has led to countless people sharing his belief.
And Peter isn’t the only one
changed. As we read on in the book of Acts, we see how the disciples pass on
their belief to others; how they start to organise themselves into a Church;
how they seem to be propelled by some irresistible force to go out and make
disciples of all nations, just as Jesus asked them to do.
The 2nd point I want
you to take away is this:
The experience of meeting the risen
Christ, and receiving the Spirit he promised, utterly transforms his disciples.
What a powerful force for change it is!
Finally we turn to the 1st Letter of Peter (1Peter 1:3-9)
The author gives us a glimpse of
how Peter and Thomas and the other apostles passed on their belief to new
generations. “Although you have not seen
(Jesus), you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in
him”. Notice how this echoes what Jesus
said to Thomas: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are
those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Those who heard the Apostles
testify to their belief accepted it on faith, AS their faith. And that faith has
been passed on from generation to generation, until we ourselves received it.
And we in turn will pass it on to our own children and grandchildren, by the
grace of God.
The 3rd point to take
away is tis
We should see our faith in Jesus the
risen Christ, and our capacity to believe it, as like a magnificent gift from
God - a gift which will utterly transform us if we let it, just as it did the
first disciples. I think it is what allows us to be truly human. We are blessed
by it.
Let us thank God for the gift of faith, handed down to us
from Thomas and Peter and the first disciples!
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