The presence of the resurrected Jesus changes everything. On the dawn of the first day of forever – the day Jesus rose from the dead – Mary Magdalene’s sorrow was transformed into joy by an encounter with the risen Christ (John 20:1-18). In the next two stories, the presence of the resurrected Jesus will transform fear into courage and disbelief into belief (John 20:19-31).
From Fear to Joy
On the evening of the same day that Jesus appeared to Mary, Jesus’ disciples were gathered together behind locked doors for fear of religious and political authorities. In spite of Peter and John’s experience of examining the curious grave linens at Jesus’ tomb, and in spite of Mary’s announcement of having seen the risen Jesus, the disciples remained petrified. Their response raises questions: Why didn’t they believe Mary? How did Peter and John react to her story (they had seen some evidence)? Did they support it, confirm it, question it, or remain silent?
Regardless, the disciples’ response is understandable. They must have been traumatized by the crucifixion. In spite of Jesus’ warnings, it was the last thing they had expected! Their loving leader had become a religious and political criminal and paid for it with his life. Would the authorities come for them next? Hiding behind locked doors appeared to be their only option until the buzz died down, and they could resume their lives. It may have seemed like a coward’s way out, but what else could they do?
Suddenly – in spite of the locked doors – the risen Jesus appears in their midst and says, “Peace be with you.” He then communicates without words by showing the marks of his crucifixion to them – wounds on his hands and his side.
This revelation changes everything! The disciples erupt in joy.
Imagine the emotions in this room. The disciples experience sorrow, disgust, anger, fear, shock, relief, and then joy. What a rollercoaster ride!
Jesus responds to their joy with another word of peace and a commission (which we will consider in detail below). At this point, the amazing thing to note about Jesus’ words and actions is the complete absence of accusations, anger, bitterness, or blame. Jesus holds no grudge against his disciples. He does not lash out in frustration. He is not disgusted by their complete failure. Indeed, before they are able to do anything he offers them peace and reassurance. He does not even wait for contrition, repentance, or even a simple apology. He deeply loves his disciples. The wounds he bears are wounds of love on their behalf. The peace he invites them to share is his own.
From Doubt to Faith
For some reason, Thomas was not with the other disciples on Easter. We are given no reason for his absence. Perhaps he is to blame for not being with the disciples and thus missing out on Jesus’ first appearance. Perhaps he was the only one not cowering in fear behind locked doors. Perhaps he had decided to move on with his life. We simply do not know.
But we can be certain that the disciples told him about seeing the risen Jesus. Thomas interpreted their excitement and joy as madness. From his perspective, they had finally “lost it.” Just as Mary in the previous story (John 20:1-18), Thomas was not inclined to believe in resurrection. His experience was sure – people do not rise from the dead!
We must not be too hard on Thomas. When Jesus appears to him, he does not criticize or berate him. Perhaps his refusal to believe stemmed from his deep love for Jesus. At one time, he had been ready to die for Jesus (John 11:6). His heart had been broken once – and once was enough. He could not go through the same loss again.
One week after Jesus’ first appearance to the disciples, they meet again in the same house, this time with Thomas present. Again, the shut doors do not prevent Jesus from appearing in their midst. His first words are the same as before, “Peace be with you.” Though the others had experienced this before, Thomas must have been baffled. Just exactly what or who was he dealing with here? Who was this strange man who passes through shut doors and appears out of nowhere?
The answer is simple: Jesus. The same Jesus he walked with, learned from, and loved. And yet, strangely different. The marks of the nails in his hands and the wound in his side prove that the one before him is the same one crucified just over a week prior. Jesus invites Thomas to touch his wounds and then challenges him, “Do not doubt but believe.”
Jesus’ personal revelation to his beloved Thomas provokes the greatest and most profound confession in the entire Gospel of John: “My Lord and my God!”
Thomas’ climactic confession takes us all the way back to the beginning of John’s Gospel. As a prologue to his story, John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, full of grace and truth, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth… No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (John 1:1, 14, 18).
As stated in the prologue, Jesus has fully and completely revealed the heart of God. Thomas’ confession is not an exclamation of disbelief like “Oh, my God!” Such language would be considered blasphemous in ancient culture. Instead, it is a confession that the deepest meaning of the resurrection is that it reveals once and for all that Jesus is Lord and God, worthy of worship, giver of life.[1]
Jesus responds to Thomas’ confession with a question and a blessing. The question is for Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me?” Then the risen Jesus breaks from the story, turns to us, and offers us – the readers – a blessing: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Some movies and plays “break the fourth wall” by directly addressing the audience. This acknowledgment can have a jarring effect to an audience who has come to consciously or unconsciously accept the unseen fourth wall that distances them from the action. At this point, John’s Gospel is “breaking the fourth wall.” It is as if Jesus is addressing Thomas, and then looks straight at us (as if he knew we were there all along), and blesses us. The beatitude is for us. Jesus tells us that we who dare to believe without the benefit of seeing are blessed along with the chosen few eyewitnesses. In a mysterious way only explicable by God’s Spirit, the scriptures are intended to manifest the person of Christ and make him available to us by faith.[2]
At this point, the narrator, John, also breaks the fourth wall and directly addresses us. Indeed, he lays it all on the line and invites us 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” (John 20:30-31).
John directly addresses us and says, “I wrote this so you would share my joy and believe in Jesus. I want you to participate in his resurrection life, in new creation, in the power of the Spirit, in the peace of Jesus. If by now you don’t believe that Jesus is Messiah, the Son of God, then my efforts have been wasted. You’ve missed my point.”
From Cowardly to Courageous
Those who believe share in the life, love, joy, and fellowship of God as mediated by Jesus. Through Jesus, they participate in the communion of Father, Son, and Spirit.
But this is not all – believers are also called and equipped to share God’s mission. For this, we return to Jesus’ commissioning and empowering in 20:21-23.
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). Repeatedly, John reminds us that the Father sent Jesus into the world to fulfill his mission of redemptive love. Now, this divine mission continues in the disciples. Just as God so loved the world that he sent his Son, so now the Son so loves the world that he sends his disciples (cf., John 3:16; 17:18). Like Jesus, the disciples are called to embody God’s love to others. They are to be witnesses of the divine communion of Father and Son.
How can they fulfill such a staggering commission? Just moments before receiving this commission, they were shaking in fear in a locked room hiding from authorities. What could possibly transform this cowardly bunch of failures into a bold, courageous group?
The answer: the Holy Spirit of God. Jesus doesn’t just commission the disciples, he empowers them. The text reads: “When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). God’s gift of the Spirit, given through Jesus, is ultimately for the purpose of fulfilling God’s mission.[3] Tom Wright says it well,
The point of receiving the holy spirit, it’s clear, is not to give the disciples new ‘spiritual experiences’, though to be sure they will have plenty. Nor is it to set them apart from ordinary people, a sort of holier-than-thou club – though to be sure they are called to live the rich, full life of devotion and dedication that is modeled on Jesus’ own. The point is so that they can do, in and for the whole world, what Jesus had been doing in Israel. ‘As the father has sent me, so I’m sending you’ (verse 21).[4]
The disciples participate in new creation through the Word made flesh. John’s theme of retelling the creation story in respect to Jesus continues as Jesus’ actions follow the pattern established in the Garden of Eden. Just as God breathed the spirit into the first human, giving him life, now Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into fallen humans and creates in them new life. As bearers of God’s Spirit, the disciples become agents of new creation – instruments through which God’s love is manifest. This is the beginning of the new creation in Christ – the new life of the Spirit, fulfilling God’s mission, and mediated through God’s Son, Jesus.[5]
Put simply, Jesus brings life from death. He transforms all that he touches. To this day, new creation continues to erupt from old as resurrection life is released into the world through the Word made flesh.
One unique way God’s Spirit-empowered “sent ones” will represent God is by living lives of forgiving love.[6] Only through mutual forgiveness of one another can they know love, unity, and truly manifest God’s heart to others. This posture of forgiveness toward others demonstrates love of the highest order, for nothing will be allowed to extinguish their love.[7] Like Jesus, the disciples must be committed to radical forgiveness and reconciliation.
As strange as Jesus’ plan may have seemed to the disciples, we know that, through the Spirit, their witness was a success. We stand as benefactors of their corporate witness. According to tradition, we know that this pathetic group of cowards became a force to be reckoned with, giving their lives in suffering love (patterned after their Lord), and – with the exception of John – ending their days as martyrs.
Significance
The risen Jesus is still at work in our world. His divine presence is mediated through his Spirit and is still capable of transforming us. In the two stories we studied, Jesus transforms fears into joy and disbelief into belief.
Take time to reflect upon your fears and doubts. What are your fears? How do they hold you back? In what way have they imprisoned you – locked you up behind closed doors? How can “living the resurrection” transform your fears?
Likewise, what are your doubts? In what areas does your faith struggle? Keep in mind that in John, the greatest expression of doubt leads to the greatest confession of belief. Faith is not the same thing as certainty. Doubt can be a means to a much stronger faith. Remember, the opposite of faith is not doubt, but a demand to control all things. Doubt is faith taking itself seriously. And God always rewards those who do this.
[1] “‘Messiah, son of god’ is to carry both the meaning ‘Israel’s true anointed king’ and the meaning ‘the Word incarnate, the kyrios, the human being of whom the word theos, God, may be predicated by faithful Jewish monotheists’.” N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2003), 673.
[2] “First, this passage suggests that the authority and ‘truth’ of Scripture is not to be secured by debates about verbal inerrancy and critically verified ‘facts.’ Rather, the truth of Scripture lies in its power to make the presence of God in Jesus available to the faith community in each successive generation… Second, by identifying the locus of revelation in the Gospel narrative, by ascribing a soteriological purpose to the things that “are written,” these verses call the Christian community to reexamine its identity as a people shaped by the biblical texts. These verses suggest that an engagement with the biblical text, with its offer and interpretation of God, is vital to the life of faith. In preaching and teaching these texts, in meditating on them in prayer, it is, indeed, possible to believe without having seen.” Gail R. O’Day, The New Interpreter’s Bible: Luke – John (Volume 9) (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1995), 853.
[3] Notice the Trinitarian structure. The Father sends the Son who gives the Spirit. Salvation is from the Triune God and to the Triune God.
[4] Tom Wright, John for Everyone: Part 2, Chapters 11-21 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2002), 149.
[5] Note the explicit linking of the three divine names, Father, Son, and Spirit.
[6] “This can only mean that one of the primary effects of true Christian love is the willingness to forgive others who may have hurt us in any way… Sometimes I think that the only question that we will be asked at the last judgment will be, quite simply, Did you let me people go? In other words, Was the overall effect of your presence in the world to liberate or to hold in bondage?” Demetrius R. Dumm, A Mystical Portrait of Jesus: New Perspectives on John’s Gospel (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2001), 40-41.
[7] This paragraph is a summary of Lamar Williamson’s profound comments: “if members of the community forgive one another their sins, those sins are forgiven and the community is living from and in the Spirit of Jesus; but if members of the community harbor grudges and resentment toward other members who have sinned against them, then those sins remain to spoil the bond of unity, and the Spirit of Jesus is no longer resident in the community.” Lamar Williamson, Preaching the Gospel of John: Proclaiming the Living Word (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 283.
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© Richard J. Vincent, 2006
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