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| "The Disbelief of Saint Thomas," by J. Tissot. Brooklyn Museum / Public Domain. |
The Second Sunday of Easter
Last Sunday’s Gospel showed the Risen Lord outside his tomb
meeting at daybreak the women who came to fulfill what was not done at his
quick burial.
In today’s Gospel, the Risen Lord showed himself twice to
his followers.
He first went to them in the evening following his
Resurrection, and standing before them he did three things.
First: he showed them his BODY
with open wounds in his hands and side— his real BODY
raised from the dead.
Second: he BREATHED
on them and said: Receive the Holy SPIRIT.
Third: he said, Whose SINS you
FORGIVE are forgiven them, and whose SINS you retain are retained.
Three great things: the BODY;
the BREATH or SPIRIT
of God; the FORGIVENESS OF SINS.
These three also showed up in the earliest days of our race:
BODY, BREATH
and SIN.
The Word of the Lord in the Book of Genesis shows God
shaping our BODY out of earth.
In today’s Gospel our BODY
was the first great sign from the Risen Lord.
He showed his real BODY—
no longer dead but raised and glorified.
In the Book of Genesis, after God shaped our body from
earth, he BREATHED into it his own BREATH, the SPIRIT of Life.
In today’s Gospel, God’s BREATH,
God’s SPIRIT was the second great
sign and gift from the Risen Lord.
The Risen Lord BREATHED
out the SPIRIT of God upon his
disciples, his Church, his BODY—
just as in Genesis God had BREATHED
his SPIRIT into our earthen BODY.
In the beginning, after God shaped our BODY
and BREATHED into it his SPIRIT,
we went on to SIN against him.
And so, in today’s Gospel the Lord who rose from the dead in
his BODY upheld his Body the Church to FORGIVE
SINS.
Whose
SINS you FORGIVE are forgiven them, and whose SINS you retain are retained.
So, on the day he rose from the dead he remade humankind in
a new way: the BODY, the BREATH or SPIRIT
of God and the FORGIVENESS OF SINS.
Christ risen from the dead BODILY
is the new beginning of our race.
The apostle Thomas saw the new beginning a week later than
the others.
But he was the FIRST person in the Gospels to say that Christ is
himself GOD: My
Lord and my GOD!
The weird token for Thomas that he was looking at GOD was the truth of the DEADLY WOUNDS
in Christ’s body.
God bearing bodily the marks of suffering and death is weird
and a scandal.
That true God was born a true man is a scandal.
That God died a human death as a criminal is a worse
scandal.
That Christ is truly God who died on the cross, and rose
bodily from the dead is a further scandal.
All those scandals are the same as the one here at the altar
of the Eucharist.
The will of God the Father, the words of God the Son, and
the power of God the Holy Spirit are one in changing bread and wine into the
Body and Blood of Christ:
the
Body and Blood born at Bethlehem;
the
Body and Blood offered on the Cross for us as the new and eternal covenant for
the forgiveness of sins;
the
Body and Blood risen from the dead and shown to the apostles;
the
risen Body and Blood for Thomas to feel with his own hands.
The Lord gave these scandals to his Church.
We go on making them known through the Gospel and the
Eucharist.
We tell of Christ crucified and risen.
We call the world to believe and uphold with us the oath: My Lord and my God!
To own that faith and to undergo Baptism is to have God take
us up and into the truth and life of the Risen Christ.
It is to live and move and be IN
CHRIST.
Baptism takes our BODIES,
our souls, our whole being into the promise and beginning of rising from the
dead.
Because of Baptism, God the SPIRIT
is BREATHING within us.
Baptism is DIVINE MERCY,
the FORGIVENESS OF SINS.
As we shall all swear in a little while: I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and I
look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
In Baptism, in all the sacraments, in the Eucharist, the
life of the world to come has already begun.
We the baptized no longer descend from Adam.
We now descend from Christ the Son of God.
His Eucharistic Body and Blood bear within them the end of
the world, and give us God’s kingdom, the new heavens, and the new earth.
The world of bread and wine ENDS
in the Eucharist where there is really present the true Body and Blood of
Christ.
In his Eucharistic Body and Blood, he hands over to
believers the DIVINE MERCY
of his death for SIN and of his resurrection.
In his Eucharist, the Risen Lord still stands among his
disciples as truly as he did among his first apostles.
With the apostles it is OUR OWN
calling now to tell the world what the Word of the Lord says in the First Letter
of Saint John [1:1-4].
That
which was from the beginning,
which
WE have heard,
which
WE have looked upon
and
touched with OUR hands,
concerning
the word of life—
the
life was made manifest,
and
WE saw it,
and
testify to it,
and
proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father
and
was made manifest to US—
that
which WE have seen and heard
WE
proclaim also to you,
so
that you may have communion with US;
and
OUR communion IS with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
Turn. Love.
Repeat.
