My Lord and my God!

In today's Gospel, John 20:19-31,  the apostles have locked themselves in a building, fearful of the Jews finding them, imprisoning them and putting them to death as they did Jesus. "...Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, 'Peace be with you.'"  Recall the times Jesus said to them: Fear not those who can physically harm the body. Fear those who can harm you spiritually.   In a sense Jesus is reminding them of that fact. "Be at peace! The Jews cannot harm you. Look at me. I am risen from the dead.  The Jews could not harm me and they will harm you neither. Fear not physical death. Follow me! Proclaim my resurrection. You, too, will one day be raised with me." And later when Jesus is about to ascend to His Father and theirs, He tells them that they cannot follow Him at that moment. It's like He said to them: "You cannot come with me now, but you will join Me later. Where I am, you will also be," referring to His eternal Kingdom.

At this meeting, Jesus commissioned them:  "'As the Father has sent me, so I send you.' And when he had said this, he breathed over them, and said to them 'Receive the Holy Spirit...'"  In the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, we, too, received the Holy Spirit.  Though we do to see Jesus with our naked eyes but with eyes of faith, we believe. In today's Gospel, Thomas was not with the apostles when Jesus appeared.  When the apostles told them that they had seen the Lord, Thomas said: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hand and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." A week later, Jesus appears to the apostles again. This time Thomas is with them and Jesus says to him:   "Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe."  Thomas responds: "My Lord and my God."

Notice that Jesus does not condemn Thomas but is very gentle and affirming. He meets Thomas where he is at! He does the same for us!  If we are at a point of disbelief or unbelief and proclaim: "I will not believe unless.......(fill in the blank)," Jesus will invite us at the right moment to a position where, like Thomas, we say: "My Lord and my God."  Jesus is willing to wait as long as it takes for us to open our hearts to His Love.

Questioning Jesus; Questioning God

When the people  heard Jesus say “before Abraham came to be, I AM “, they  picked up stones to throw at Him. How can Jesus claim to be I AM, to have existed before Abraham came into being, as He was not even 50 years of age. They were also sure that Jesus was possessed when he said: “[W]hoever keeps my word will never see death.”  How can Jesus say that people who keep His word will never see death, when Abraham is deceased, as were Isaac, Jacob and David and so many other ancestors of their faith? 

   

How easy it is to condemn people, to react strongly towards them when we, or I,  do not understand about what they are talking.  Hearers of Jesus’ claims thought he was crazy, a possessed man, a dangerous man. “We’ve got to stop Him, they argued, and took action to kill Him by attempting to stone Him to death.  At whom am I throwing stones by my bitter words or rebellious behaviors? Or at whom do I want stones thrown? And have you or I ever uttered the words “we’ve got to stop” them/him/her?

 Without eyes of faith, we do not see God at work. Without faith, we do not realize that any and every reality—the good or the bad, the beautiful and the ugly—is  clay in the hands of God.  The Divine Potter is always at work transforming  people and all of creation into the person and the reality that God designed it to be.   Like Peter who rebuked Jesus when He said that “the Son of man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the third day,” we, too, often reject that which we do not understand. “It can’t be!  We’ve got to stop it! The weeds must be pulled out! That child has got to be aborted. We can’t handle the difficulties he/she will present” and on and on!

What attitudes in me need to change to be brought into harmony with God’s plan of salvation, especially when things are not the way I think they should be in the world of today, especially when we are on the way to Jerusalem “to be put to death, and to be raised up” in Christ Jesus as a new reality, a new person?