Evening of that Day: John 20:18-29
Second Sunday of Easter
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the
disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these
things to her.
19 When it was evening on that day, the first
day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear
of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said
this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when
they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be
with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 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
them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of
the twelve, 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
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.”
26 A week later
his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the
doors were shut, 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. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not
doubt but believe.” 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 have come to believe.” (NRSVue)
When I was in Jerusalem last
year, I had the opportunity to visit the Basilica of the Agony—also called the
Church of All Nations. It sits right
next to the Garden of Gethsemane on a hill overlooking one of the many
graveyards that surround the city itself.
It’s a striking building; in comparison to the squat and ancient olive
trees, the front has four bright columns topped by statues of each of the
gospel writers. Above them is a large
mosaic of grieving humans and angels surrounding Jesus as He kneels in
supplication to an enthroned, golden God.
Even
more striking, though, is the interior.
The ceiling is deep blue and gold, studded with the emblems of the
nations who donated to have the place built in the 1920s—hence the nickname. The windows that ring the large room are
violet-dyed alabaster with small circles of blue and purple glass.[1] This means it is never fully daylight in that
church; the sun never streams but rather trickles in slowly in indigo droplets
that slink over the marbled floor. It is
perpetually just before the sunrise, never fully day. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the
church is beautiful. It is the richness
of an emperor’s cloak, the wonder of the Northern Lights, the deep breath
before stepping into a new unknown. It
is, in its own sorrowful way, a much gentler holy place than some of the grand
prismatic cathedrals whose ceilings reach for the heavens and remind you that
you are not anywhere close to being the center of the universe.
“When
it was evening on that day.” Last week
we celebrated the wonder and triumph of Easter, but in the wheel of the
Christian year Easter is a whole season rather than a day. We have 50 days to unpack this miracle called
resurrection, which is great because it’s very weird. Whether we have heard the story of Jesus’ defeat
of the grave once or one hundred times, part of our calling as people of faith
is never to lose our intense wonder at such a story. Jesus was dead; really most sincerely dead,
as the munchkins would say, and yet Mark tells us of an empty tomb and John
gives a conversation with Mary and Someone so much more than a gardener. We who are old hats at the lilies and
trumpets of Easter Sunday may have left worship last week for a delightful afternoon
dinner and thought nothing more of the reality that yes, we are Christians, we
worship on the resurrection day, but for the disciples, the pain-hope-marvel of
it was still completely new.
“When
it was evening on that day.” It is such
a gift that John’s account of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples is the very
same day. Mary had come running back
with a tale of a risen Lord in the warmth of the dawn but here, not 20 hours
later, the disciples are huddled in a locked room not in joy but in fear—fear of
the Jews, John says, and we who live in an era of Christian nationalism need to
remind ourselves that there is no place for us to read this as “the entirety of
Jews.” John wrote in a time of religious
factions vying for the definition of themselves, a time of knowing that claiming
the same faith name does not mean carrying the same values. Our tongues are saturated with the phrase “not
like those Christians,” so we can easily recognize John’s tale of these
very Jewish disciples fearing the wrath of their fellow faithful. There is no footing to read anti-Semitism
into this tale of hope.
“When
it was evening;” the disciples have the news of the resurrection and yet they
are still afraid, these disciples who seem to keep running at the first sign of
any danger. They abandoned Jesus in the
garden, abandoned Him at the cross, and now they have abandoned even the
possibility of Him in the graveyard; what terrible disciples they are!
And
yet. “When it was evening on that day…
Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’” He gives them the Holy Spirit—a much
different gift than the one we usually celebrate in Acts on Pentecost—and the
ability to forgive sins. He invites them
into ministry, these fearful and fickle disciples, and says peace, grace,
love. Like the strangely purpled
light of the basilica, Jesus’ arrival on the very day of His resurrection is
soft enough to reassure and renew the people with whom He entrusts such an
incredible story while also being strange enough to call them to pay attention.
“But
Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when
Jesus came.”
I
can’t even imagine how heartbreaking and infuriating it must have been for
Thomas to return from whatever his errand was and realize that not only had he
missed the risen Christ at the graveyard with the Marys but now a second time
at the room with everyone else. He is
the lone outsider, now; he is the one who does not have the Spirit, who does
not have the reassurance, who does not have anything but the promises of his
friends and the memory of a cross jutting up into a sunless sky. It is absolutely unsurprising that his response
is anger fueled by grief—“give me the physical body, the feeling of Him against
my fingertips, or I won’t believe.”
Professor Jaime Clark-Soles translates it as “I absolutely will not
believe,” leaning into the emphatic negative that holds up the verb in the
Greek. Thomas digs in his heels and
demands that Jesus return for him, too; that Jesus love him, too.[2]
Have
you ever needed proof of God, Church?
Have you ever listened to a friend talk about how their prayers were
answered, their loved one’s illness healed, their financial situation stabilized,
their own uncertainty in their faith answered by an airy cathedral and a
mountaintop experience and been furious that it wasn’t yours? I would be a liar and a terrible pastor if I
said I hadn’t; I know exactly where Thomas and his jealousy are. I know in my bones what it’s like to feel
like Jesus’ reassurance was for everyone but me. We call him Doubting Thomas but he, too, lived
in the evening of that day; unlike the others, though, he would meet the next
sunrise with nothing more than a wild story and an empty tomb.
And
then another sunrise. And another. A whole week of them, waiting. I can only imagine how exhausting that week
must have been—how many times the disciples would have had to remind and encourage
each other in their fear and grief and joy, how each relieved smile they shared
would have twisted the knife deeper into Thomas’ heart. A full week of being on the outside but
belonging nowhere else; a full week of wondering if Jesus was ever going to
come back or if the morning and evening of that day were the end of it, the
quota of appearances.
Once
again, Jesus arrives. “Peace be with
you,” He says again. “Then he said to
Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it
in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’”
It
is beyond gruesome that Jesus invites Thomas to stick his hands into Jesus’
wounds, but He knows Thomas needs it.
Resurrection is lovely but death is familiar; pain is a known quantity,
scars a recognizable companion. Thomas
is not ready for the sunlit cathedral because he is still in the twilight basilica,
still seeing not his friend and teacher but the blood on the ground, the tears
in the moonlit garden. Only the breath
expanding the ribs under the hole in Jesus’ side is intense enough for Thomas
to overwrite the stillness of a chest caved in on itself against the wood of
the cross.
“Good
news does not erase fear,” writes Professor Joy Moore. “Good news, incredible news, can ignite hope,
but even hope does not eliminate genuine fear…What does the resurrection mean?
It means God still shows up…The wonder of this moment is Jesus’ willingness to
meet Thomas exactly where Thomas names he needs meeting…Jesus appears, nail
scars and all. His offering of peace is followed by a demonstration of
forgiveness—no condemnation for Thomas’ request—a simple invitation. The
disciples rejoiced, but Thomas’ response is praise. There is a difference.”[3]
“My
Lord and my God!” breathes Thomas. Does
he reach out to take Jesus up on His offer to touch? Maybe; the text doesn’t say. But the fact that Jesus offered it—offered His
body that had already had so many hands on it, had already been so badly torn
apart by Rome’s cruelty and his friends’ betrayals, just as He offered His body
at a supper several days and a lifetime before that we remember in our own
echoes, is incredible. It is meeting
Thomas in the twilight sanctuary because dawn is too much and never once
shaming him for that. It is recognizing that
Thomas wanted—that we all want—to be included in the promise and loving him
through it. It is God’s kindness, in the
truest sense of the word, in coming to Thomas with the very physical reality
that this is a living being, that the cross is not the end of the story.
But
such reassurance is not without redirection, because Jesus is kind but He’s not
spineless. “Jesus said to him, ‘Have you
believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet
have come to believe.’” That’s us,
Church; blessed are we who live in the purple-patterned basilicas and the
shadows of angel statues. Blessed are we
who are learning to undo centuries of a whitewashed Jesus because we have not
seen but have confused power with holiness.
Blessed are we who have gone to one or one hundred Easter services and
get up the next week to go again even if it’s the last thing we want to
do. Blessed are we who have yet believed
not because we are better, stronger, or holier than Thomas and the disciples
but because we have accepted the invitation to refuse hiding behind a locked door. Blessed are we who keep coming back to the
impossible and glorious story of a God Who loves gently, fiercely, wholly, even
and especially on the days when such a faith is not lilies and dawn but gaping
wounds in the amethyst sunset.
Happy
Easter, Church. It’s a season; it’s a
faith statement; it’s a theological foundation; it’s a God Who never, ever
walks away. Perhaps it is evening for
you, and the morning seems like a dream you cannot believe—but do not think
that this is something for everyone but you.
Resurrection is a strange and mysterious thing; yet we gather here, in
this season, with words that are thousands of years old to say the Lord is
with you; and also with you. Let it
be true. Let it be overwhelming. Let us believe, even when we have not seen. Amen.
[1]
Descriptions are from my own photographs; details of construction and timing
are from the Church
of All Nations - Wikipedia page.
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