Posted by Low Sunday
Over the past week during the Easter Octave (the eight day celebration of the Christian Passover from sin and death) we have been reading the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection appearances to his disciples. Today is called Low Sunday because on this day those who had been baptised at Easter took off their baptismal garments for the first time. Today we hear of Jesus’ resurrection appearance to the Apostle Thomas, who was not with the other disciples in the Upper Room the week before. He is often called Doubting Thomas because he doubted Jesus’ resurrection, and asked for evidence that it had really happened. “And when the disciples told him: “We have seen the Lord”, he said to them: “Until I have seen the mark of the nails on his hands, until I have put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, you will never make me believe”(John 20:25). When Jesus appeared to Thomas eight days later he said to him, “Thou hast learned to believe, Thomas, because thou hast seen me. Blessed are those who have not seen, but have learned to believe” (John 20:29).
The Gospel accounts of the Resurrection all have the same characteristic, whether they are accounts of appearances to an individual or to a group. The disciples are orphaned, whether by the lakeside in Galilee, in a room in Jerusalem, on the road to Emmaus, on a mountain in Galilee. Suddenly, unaccountably they see Christ present among them. At first they do not recognise him, then they recognise that it is indeed him. Then he vanishes from their sight.
The Risen Christ who appeared to the Apostle Thomas still bore the scars of the crucifixion on his glorified and resurrected body. It is a reminder that love is inseparable from suffering. C. S. Lewis said that we can either remain detached and uninvolved, or we can love and be involved, and that will involve suffering. This contrasts with the ancient Stoics who prided themselves on viewing the world with detachment born of indifference to the world of pain and suffering. Likewise, the classic images of the Buddha show a figure serene and detached from this world, for to attain nirvana is to cease to care about the pain and suffering of human life. By contrast, the message of the Cross is one of redemption through suffering, a message very different from the impassive serenity of the Buddha. St. John (in today’s epistle) speaks of Christ who came by water and by blood, the blood and water that flowed from his side pierced by the soldiers at his crucifixion. Our hope is in the resurrection of the body and in the ultimate healing of our own wounds, not the dissolution of our personalities into some impersonal absolute.
The existence of sin and suffering showed a world that was not in harmony with its creator, and so in Jesus Christ the Creator himself was at work in reconciling the world to himself. He did not provide an answer to the problem of evil and suffering in this world at the level of theory. Rather he actually in his life healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, made the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. When the final clash with the powers that be in this world inevitably came, he took the evil of the world’s hatred upon himself and somehow subsumed it into good. He rose from the dead, triumphing over death by death and so became the first fruits of them that slept. As St. Paul put it to the Corinthians, this faith was the tradition that he received, the faith in which the Church alone stands, that Christ died for our sins and that he rose again from the dead, appearing to his disciples and last of all to St. Paul himself, as a man born out of due time. But whether it is I or they, St. Paul continued, so we preach and so we have believed.
The Risen Christ whose glorified body still bore the wounds of the crucifixion in his hands and side said to his disciples “I came upon an errand from my Father, and now I am sending you out in my turn”. With that he breathed on them and said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit; when you forgive men’s sins they are forgiven, when you hold them bound, they are held bound” (John 20: 21-23). As Christ proclaimed the forgiveness of sins in the name of Father, so the Church, his Body on earth, proclaims the forgiveness of sins in the name of the Son. It is this that distinguishes Christianity from other religions. The teachings of the Buddha or Confucius give good advice, but not good news. Mohammed claimed the authority of a prophet, but not that of a Saviour who forgives sins. By contrast, the Christian faith gives not only good advice, but good news, the good news of salvation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man has also come the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:20-22).