The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John. (20:19-31)
The reading given to us on this the first Sunday after Pascha is a reminder of what was experienced by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They went into hiding and were terrified by the events of the Lord’s arrest and crucifixion. He was killed as a common criminal and an enemy of the Roman state. The disciples were not simply scared, they were paralyzed with fear. There was absolutely no thought of the resurrection in their minds. Although our Lord had warned them, it was too much for them to grasp mentally and emotionally during the turmoil that surrounded them. They trembled in fear as they hid themselves away, hoping that they would be forgotten, and praying that they would be spared.
Yet, according to the gospels this wasn’t the end of the story. More was to come. The Lord appeared to the disciples when they had lost all hope. He appeared to them in their darkest hour and from that moment on, their lives were completely changed. Nothing prepared them for the resurrection of Jesus. Nothing could ever change them after they had experienced it. Their lives from that moment forward, are a testimony and a witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact we get this word martyr precisely from the witness. And nearly every single disciple of the Lord Jesus became a martyr as they witnessed to the truth of His divinity and resurrection from the dead.
If you have seen someone rise from the dead after you have seen him killed, that sticks with you. That changes you. That makes you see life differently. This gave their lives a different purpose. They became single minded in their focus towards preaching the good news of the coming of God in the flesh. They became focused on teaching that we should repent and that God would indeed forgive us if we took our repentance seriously. They became focused on the need to build up the riches of the soul by communing with God instead of building up and storing the riches here in our earthly life. They became singularly focused on the need to introduce as many people as possible to the living God, the God who is love. The God who is truth and life. They knew this to be totally, completely and utterly true because they had witnessed a dead man rise from the dead three days later.
They were so convinced of this that they preached it and taught it everywhere and they were willing to give their lives for this belief without hesitation. This is the power of the resurrection that they observed and experienced.
In the course of this gospel reading we come across a couple of theological hot button issues. The first deals with forgiveness of sins. A common refrain from our protestant evangelical brethren is that one does not need to confess to a man, one can simply go straight to God. Yet here we see that Our Lord Jesus Christ, as one of His first acts after the resurrection is establishing good order and practice among His disciples. He breathes on them and says “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” By this the Lord clearly shows that there is a proper order to the spiritual life. God uses men who are given this specific task and the corresponding gift in order to heal men of their sins and to remove the wall that stands between them and God so that they can flourish and commune with the living God. It is noted here for our sakes, not for the disciples sakes.
Another interesting feature of this passage is a specific reference to Jesus as “God”. Many outsides and those who have not properly studied the New Testament, from atheists to Muslims to Jehovah’s witnesses to Mormons believe that Jesus is not God and they claim that He is never called God anywhere in the New Testament. Yet, we clearly see that this is not the case in John 20:28. Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and my God!” But it doesn’t end there, for that might not be a solid proof in and of itself but we have to see how Our Lord Jesus Christ responds to this exclamation. Here is His reply “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Had Thomas done something wrong, Our Lord would have surely corrected Him for the record and left that as a memorial to future generations. But He doesn’t. Instead He doubles down on Thomas’ claim and He comforts us who have not seen the Lord in the flesh. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
The resurrection of the Son of God is one of the very key elements of our Christian faith. It is a non-negotiable. Without it, our faith would fall apart and as St. Paul says, it would be “in vain.” But far from being in vain, we see the fact of the resurrection forever shaping the history of the world through the saints and martyrs who bravely and valiantly stand up for the truth of our teaching and proclaim it boldly everywhere in order to bring others this magnificent light and in order that those who receive the light may themselves become radiant bearers of light.
I see this when I turn around at Pascha when I bring out the lit candle from the altar. This light is the good news, the love of Christ being shared from one person to another. This light is a symbol of the light that completely eliminates the darkness of evil and sin in the world from one person to another. I love to see this light as it makes your faces shine and the joy washes across the church. You who have been baptized have received this light in truth and this is the light of Christ existing perfectly in divinity and humanity, the light of His resurrection! And it is this resurrection that we partake of and commune with when we receive the body and blood of Christ every week. Christ was and is our very life, not only of the body but also of the soul!
I leave you with a quote from Fr. Alexander Schmemann, he writes,
“Thus on Easter we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection as something that happened and still happens to us. For each one of us received the gift of that new life and the power to accept it and to live by it. It is a gift which radically alters our attitude toward everything in this world, including death. It makes it possible for us joyfully to affirm: “Death is no more!” Oh, death is still there, to be sure and we still face it and someday it will come and take us. But it is our whole faith that by His own death Christ changed the very nature of death, made it a passage—a “passover,” a “Pascha”—into the Kingdom of God, transforming the tragedy of tragedies into the ultimate victory. “Trampling down death by death,” He made us partakes of His Resurrection. This is why at the end of the Paschal Matins we say: “Christ is risen and life reigneth! Christ is risen and not one dead remains in the grave!”
― Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent: Journey to Pascha
Source: Sermons