John 20:19-31 (NRSV Updated Edition)
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.” 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 that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
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"In these verses, the emphasis is on “Peace be with you. As the Father sends me...” This sums up the resurrection, which is the experience of suddenly being impelled to do what he did. My life is no longer my own. He lives in me. The experience of the resurrection is twofold. First part: The Christic impulse is in me. I feel compelled to do what he did.
"The second part: “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.” The Holy Spirit is synonymous with the Paraclete. The Paraclete is the defender of victims. How do we defend victims? [Pope] Urban II had a way of defending victims: go and slaughter the victimizers. We know where that leads. How does the Paraclete defend victims? Forgiveness, even forgiveness of the victimizers.
"From our sacrificial point of view, we read this as a stern God who says, ‘You get to go out there and decide who's going to go to hell and who's not.’ Rather, the part about retaining sins is an urging to the disciples to get out there and get busy forgiving people's sins, because if they don't do it, it won't get done. Unless people experience forgiveness from them, they won't be forgiven. [...] It's not some pious thing that says, ‘Ah, you're O.K.’ It's tremendously dynamic – and hard to pull off. People today will pay hundreds of dollars an hour trying to be forgiven.
"Rowan Williams wrote: “There is no hope of understanding the Resurrection outside the process of renewing humanity in forgiveness. We are all agreed that the empty tomb proves nothing. We need to add that no amount of apparitions, however well authenticated, would mean anything either, apart from the testimony of forgiven lives communicating forgiveness.”
"The resurrection was an experience of forgiveness. The disciples had all abandoned Jesus, becoming complicit with his murderers. The fact that the resurrection was happening to them was an experience of forgiveness for them."
- from notes by Paul J. Nuechterlein on Gil Bailie's “The Gospel of John” audio tape series, tape #12
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"I want to put the first appearance, the last Sunday evening appearance, in the background a second, bring out what's going on with Thomas. Thomas, if you like, is the other side of the diptych with Mary Magdalene. Do you remember last week her first reaction was: “They have taken him away and we don't know where they have placed him.” First, she says that to the other disciples who of course haven't got the faintest idea, then she says it to the two angels, and then finally she says it to the gardener. The gardener of course is Jesus, [who] turns around and says to her: “Mary.” And she recognizes who she is in his voice, and so she says: “Rabbuni!” He says: “Don't touch me, don't grasp onto me, I'm going to my father and your father, I haven't yet ascended to heaven.”
"So what's very interesting is that her longing is being answered, her longing to know what they have done with him, where have they placed him, is being answered. But it's being answered in a way that's actually a slight deviation from a straightforward answer. He's saying: “Yeah, I'm gonna show myself to you but in a way you can't grasp. Don't grasp me yet because I'm going to be so much more for you than what you could imagine if you would have grasped me.” I think that's very very important first move on this part. Who is the crucified risen Lord? What does it look like for him to appear to us? Well the first thing is it's going to shake up all our stories of that which we can grasp. It's a new story that we're beginning to discover ourselves on the inside of and we don't know where it's going.
"Flash ahead a week and we get Thomas who last week had turned up after the party and refused to believe. He said: I want evidence. He wants something firmer. And please notice that this second time Jesus is doing to Thomas exactly what he did to Mary Magdalene, saying: “Yeah, I get what your notion of what you want is. You want something that you could recognise, that you can deal with. That's fine, okay, I'm gonna give you the chance. But actually, it's not going to be what you think.” So he shows him the marks of his hand and the marks of his side, and he invites Thomas to come up and put his fingers in the marks, and his hand on the side.
"I hope you will excuse me if I indulge in one of my favourite pieces of scriptural allusions here: the Ark of the Covenant was carried by staves that were stuck through rings that were called 'fingerholds'. And one of the [reasons] that this was done was to prevent people from touching its side, which is where the Covenant was supposed to be, because that would be sacred and would kill them.
"So here Jesus is actually inviting Thomas to come up to him, to stand in front of him and be a mirror image, if you like, which is why I think probably the word 'Twin' became the nickname. “Be my mirror, stand in front of me, touch my hands, touch my side. You are now going to be me. And you are going to be the bearer of the Ark of the Covenant. Actually, it's easier for those who haven't seen me because the those who haven't seen me, I'm not an object that's in the way of them becoming me.”
"In other words, Jesus is doing the same to Thomas as he's doing to Mary: “Yeah, I really want to help you move on. I recognize, I affirm your longing for something that makes sense to you. But even the thing that apparently makes sense to you is actually going to take you off on an adventure of becoming yourself, that which you think I am. That's why I gave myself to you. I ran the risk of you making of me what you are going to make of me. You are going to bear the Covenant, you are going to be the one.”
"So those two wonderful moments, if you like, of personal generosity, those appearances to help us get out of fixed stories and into unending adventure. And then in the midst, the absolute central part, [...] Jesus on the evening appears in the room that was locked “for fear of the Jews” - and that's clearly an ironic way of referring to the Holy of Holies of the old temple, which any reasonable Jewish person would be frightened to go into, only the High Priest could do that. But this has become a secular thing now, reality has escaped the cultic world.
"And here is Jesus in their midst, showing them his hands and sides, breathing peace on them. It's no longer a terrifying figure, there is no longer a mysterious and tremendous sacred. Having breathed, having given peace to them, they start to rejoice. They recognize him. Then he breathes into them - our translation says 'breathed on' but the Greek is 'breathed in' because it's the same verb as the one in Genesis, where the Lord breathes into the nostrils of Adam to make him a new creation. So here in fact Jesus's breathing into their nostrils, and making them the creation. This is the account of creation in the New Testament.
"He is also saying to them that any sins you forgive are forgiven, and what you hold back are held back. And of course, our first temptation is to think about that in a moralistic way: we are given super powers to forgive sins. No, something vastly more important than that: he's opening up creation. He's saying: “Listen, now because I have gone to where I've gone, you are going to be the openers up of creation. It's going to be your responsibility, in as far as you allow yourselves to be forgiven and forgive other people. You're going to open things up, you're gonna take us to new places, and you'll get to discover who are you in ways that you never knew before. That's gonna be the whole dimension of creation from now on. Not a frightened holding onto a collapsing order but a daring move into a quite new story of who you're becoming, how you're learning to love, how you're learning to become a new 'we' with other people. And it's gonna be entirely up to you: in as far as you do it, it will happen; in as far as you don't do it, it won't happen. But you are now the ministers, the heirs, the firstborn of creation. Please, where are you going to take it?”
"For me, what's so exciting about these Easter stories, they are not a happy ending, if you like. They're a really very weird and tantalizing beginning. “Where are you gonna take this, it's gonna be up to you. It's not gonna fit into old stories, it's going to become something entirely different. Please take me with you.”"
- James Alison, from video "Homily: Second Sunday of Easter 2020 A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOXiVnpdhGo)
[Source of Paul Nuechterlein notes, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/easter2a/]
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