The Second Sunday of Easter | 27 April 2025 | John 20:19-91 | Paul Bieber |

John 20:19-31 Revised Standard Version

¹⁹ On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” ²² And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

²⁴ Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵ So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

²⁶ Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.” ²⁸ Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

³⁰ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; ³¹ but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

also

Acts 5:27-32

Psalm 118:14-29

Revelation 1:4-8

MY LORD AND MY GOD

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

“Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Thomas espouses a very practical worldview. We saw it already back in chapter 11, when Jesus announced that he was returning to Judea to awaken Lazarus from the sleep of death. The other apostles are fearful. Thomas also foresees a bad end, but he is willing to face disaster bravely; he says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

It is not so much that Thomas doubts, but that he is cautious and seeks verification. There is something very modern in his insistence on tactile proof. He is not about to trust good news, because disappointment is very likely. He is not a skeptic, but a rather pessimistic realist. In chapter 11 he foresaw the stark realities facing Jesus. Now he simply voices the common practical wisdom of all humanity: the dead stay dead.

Even some serious religious people believe this, and they believe that it is dangerous to go around talking about people being raised from the dead. That is why the religious and political leaders of Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin, strictly order Peter and John not to teach in the name of Jesus. This is now the second time that the apostles have been brought before this council. The first time was in Acts 4 after the healing of the lame man who used to beg at the “beautiful gate” of the temple. The second is when the apostles, arrested again but miraculously released, are again found teaching in the temple.

Their response to the reminder that this is forbidden is the thematic statement of this section of the Acts of the Apostles, and perhaps the “bottom line” of our whole Christian life: “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” The old Revised Standard Version puts it more pithily: “We must obey God rather than men.” God raised the crucified Jesus from the dead to give repentance and forgiveness. This is the apostolic preaching in a nutshell. And the apostles say that they are witnesses to these things.

Actually, only the beloved disciple hung around to witness Jesus’ death on the cross, but today’s gospel tells us how they became witnesses of the resurrection. The appearances of the risen Christ mark the beginning of the church. On that first Easter evening—even though Mary Magdalene had told the disciples on Easter morning, “I have seen the Lord,” and the beloved disciple had believed when he looked into the tomb and saw the folded grave clothes—the disciples are still huddled behind the locked doors of the upper room where they had eaten the last supper on the night Jesus was betrayed and they scattered.

The risen Jesus came and stood among them. Jesus’ first words to the fearful and hiding disciples, “Peace be with you,” are more than just the traditional greeting, Shalom. Back in chapter 14, in the farewell discourse, Jesus had said that peace was his farewell gift to his disciples, and that this gift is not peace such as the world gives. The “peace” that the world gives is cold comfort to the fearful who feel that they are driven to hide. What can bring peace to our fearful hearts?

Peace comes to fearful hearts when Jesus shows the wounds of his crucifixion. Central to our Christian faith is that the very Man of Sorrows who, for love of fearful sinners, went to the cross, is the risen, glorified Christ. The One sent by his Father into this world to save the world commissions the fearful to go out into the world, not fearing human authority. Breathing the Holy Spirit on them, he sends his followers to continue his mission to bring his life, light, and truth, and his peace, to those who did not have the opportunity to know him in his earthly walk, to offer them his forgiveness.

And then there’s Thomas. Absent on Easter evening, no doubt grieving in silent solitude as some do, he doesn’t believe the disciples’ “We have seen the Lord” any more than they had believed Mary Magdalene. But they do not put him out of the community of faith, and he does show up the next Sunday, only to be challenged by Jesus to carry out his program of verification, and so to raise his practical pessimism to trusting faith. And that brings the greatest Christological confession in the whole New Testament, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus looks ahead to all those generations of Christians who have not had the opportunity to see, to know, to touch him in the way Thomas and the other disciples did—to us, who walk by faith and not by sight, to whom the disciples and their successors throughout the generations have been sent to witness, to teach and heal in Jesus’ name. Hearing again the story of the cross and rising of Jesus breaks through the surface of everyday life and its practical caution to discover hidden depths of meaning in the dying and rising of our own lives, the mystery that grounds and gives meaning to us, so that we can respond in faith to the Easter message as a present reality in our lives, especially in the Eucharist, when he blesses us with his sacramental presence even now as we remember his death until that day when every eye will see him in his glory: the faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, ruler of the kings of earth, our Lord and our God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber, STS

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net