John 20:19–31
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 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. 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.” 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.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 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.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
Commentary
There are many themes in today’s gospel. Let us focus on peace and faith. Jesus shows that he is the peace in our fears and doubts. It is true that both feelings diminish our faith.
When we fear we naturally focus our mind on the fear. And as a result we give energy to the fear. The more we focus on our fear, the more fear that we will be. It happened to the disciples after Jesus’ death. They became a band of people without a leader. Peter, who had yet to be redeemed by the Risen Lord, was only a leader in name and was without substance. After their master’s death, they thought that the Jews would come after them in the next move. How fear they were? They locked themselves up in a room. They did not know what to do. Both the closed did not offer them the security that that they wanted. Instead, it rather reinforced their fear.
It is very often that we are in the similar situation. We allow fear to feed our fear. We forget how we have been looked after by God. We don’t know to whom we should turn to in such situations.
But at this difficult time, as when the disciples were on board a boat in the stormy sea without Jesus, Jesus suddenly appeared to them in person and said: “Peace be with you.” We can imagine the joy that the disciples had when they saw their master coming alive to them. Meanwhile, can we feel Jesus offering us his peace when we are in fear? Jesus’ appearing to the disciples also invites us to have faith in him. We can only have faith when we are in peace. St Ignatius of Loyola reminds that people should not make decision or change the decision previously made when they are in fear, or in the technical term of Ignatian spirituality, desolation. He insists that decision and change can only be made when are in peace and joy, or again, to use technical term of Ignatian spirituality, consolation.
Next, we turn to the doubt of Thomas in today’s gospel. One way to read this narrative is that Thomas did not have faith. He wanted proof, some even say, scientific proof. However, in my view, all these are not what John the Evangelist wants to say.
The message that John the Evangelist wanted to convey in Thomas’ doubt is that we cannot separate resurrection from the cross. The five wounds on Jesus always remind us this. For us Christians today, this cannot be more important to our faith. We begin gradually to loss the salt and light of being a Christian. We prefer the joy rather the suffering, the life rather than death in our faith.
It is again, St. Ignatius of Loyola reminds us: “Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.
“And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man and that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created.
“From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him on to his end, and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him as to it.
“For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things in all that is allowed to the choice of our free will and is not prohibited to it; so that, on our part, we want not health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, long rather than short life, and so in all the rest; desiring and choosing only what is most conducive for us to the end for which we are created.” (from Principle and Foundation in the Spiritual Exercises)
May we insist that the Jesus we follow is the true Jesus, the one whose risen body bears the wounds of Calvary. Amen.