"Do not be unbelieving but believe"
John 20: 19-31
This year is the 50th anniversary of the first maned
lunar landing on July 20, 1969. If you’re old enough to remember that summer
day when Neil Armstrong, the first human being to ever walk on the moon,
stepped foot out of the lunar lander on to the surface of the moon more than
250,000 miles from planet earth, such an accomplishment boggles the mind.
I love history, how things happened and who the key players
were, so a new book by Douglas Brinkley entitled American Moonshot on President Kennedy and the space race I’m
currently reading. We have come a very
long way in the advance of technology and science over the last 100 years. More than at any time in human history and
there seems to be no stop to it. Yet, apparently despite its convincing wonder
there are some who question whether this amazing feat ever really happened!
Such claims may seem a bit ridiculous and sound like such
people probably also belong to the “flat earth society “or deny the existence
of the Holocaust but such a scientific advancement seems almost super-human,
miraculous, or outside the realm of possibility. I need some proof, some
personal experience that will convince me this is true. Although none of us were physically present with the astronauts for
the moonshot 50 years ago we saw it on television, we heard of it constantly
through the news and we knew America was in a race with the Soviet Union to be
first. But we came to believe nonetheless.
“I believe it even though I haven’t seen” is the essence of faith.
This second Sunday of our joyful Easter season still contains
echoes from last weekend’s Easter celebration.
We heard “Alleluias” for this first time after more than 40 days of
silence and the joyfulness of the music was tangible. But what were we celebrating? A first century prophetic teacher and wonder
worker named Jesus from ancient Nazareth in Israel who died in agony and cruel
torture by the occupying Roman powers on a cross near the city of Jerusalem
whose followers claimed that he rose from the dead three days after his
humiliating death. They even went so far
as to actually claim that he is the Son of God and proposed for all that we
believe in him. What could be more
fantastic than that? It makes belief in the moonshot a “no problem” fact. In the Gospel this Sunday we hear Jesus say:
“Blessed are those who have not seen and
have believed.”
For the Apostle Thomas as he confronted his own fellow
disciples with what seems to be reasonable skepticism, “I will not believe” unless I see him and touch him, that incredulity
considering the claim by the others seems logical; maybe too logical when we
walk in the realm of faith. After all,
wouldn’t any of the other Apostles have the same doubt if they had not been
there? Why would he appear to you and
not to me, Thomas may wonder. But,
Thomas becomes a reflection of all of us and the call to live by faith and not
by sight.
Our Gospel story is a powerful reminder that faith which
demands proof as it did in the case of Thomas the absent Apostle, must go
beyond merely what our hands have touched. Our Lord comes to his fearful inner
circle of friends not in resentment or to shame them but rather he addresses
them: “Peace be with you.” Jesus’
mercy is extended to his Apostles, hidden in fear for good reason, as he
suddenly appears to them in his risen form.
He breathes on them and says “receive the Holy Spirit.” He entrusts them with the power to
forgive sin in his name and we come to know that the fundamental call for them
and for us is to become his missionary disciples. To be Christian is to have a
sense of mission. This is mercy as only God can extend. But, don’t we need
something to hold on to or some reassuring proof that convinces us that what we
have come to know about Jesus is indeed worth living and dying for? We see the
answer in the infant Christian communities.
Our beautiful first reading is a testimony of the early
Christian experience in Jerusalem during those first years after the Ascension
of Jesus. The disciples gathered in an
area of the Temple on the eastern side near the court of the Gentiles where Jesus
had preached and miracles had been worked, “Solomon’s Portico.” Here we are
told that great wonders were worked through the ministry of the Apostles, that
the early Jewish community found many members embracing this new Way shown to
them through the convincing preaching and transformed lives of the Apostles and
others around them. There is something
more going on that is beyond human control. Such events and its continuation
down through the centuries are indeed tangible proof that our faith today is no
less convincing.
So, we hear in the Gospel how Jesus spoke his words of peace to
the fearful Apostles and to Thomas even a week later. Those words transformed these men to become
radically different from who they were.
It changed their fear into trust and confidence and is the essential
message of the Easter season and of this Divine Mercy Sunday. Although life is a struggle sometimes, not
always an easy road and we all have our fears and doubts including those about
the faith. To know that we are not alone
in such times of fear and doubt. That
God is with us if we look for him. That
faith in Christ is like an anchor for a ship; even though we may drift we will
never go too far if we stay on that ship of Christ’s Church.
We live in incredible times whether it’s a flight to the moon,
Mars or who knows where. The bottom line is that God is ever present with a
genius and a power beyond anything we may develop. He is both mystery and mercy and he is our
Lord and God.
God of everlasting mercy,
who in the very recurrence of the paschal feast
kindle the faith of the people you have made your own,
increase the grace you have bestowed,
that all may grasp and rightly understand
in what font they have been washed,
by whose Spirit they have been reborn,
by whose Blood they have been redeemed.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
(Roman Missal: Collect of Mass)
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