Homily
by Sr. Rebecca
Holy Wisdom Church
Today’s Gospel focuses on 2 appearances
of the Risen Lord Jesus. The second one,
which describes the disbelief of Thomas, seems to me to take precedence over
other important aspects of what is celebrated in todays Gospel. What first and foremost holds my attention
are the words of Jesus to his disciples, when, after breathing upon them the
Holy Spirit, he says to them in a most frequently quoted English translation:
“If you forgive the sins of any, they are
they are forgiven; if you retain them they are retained.”
Now, Sandra Schneider, [1]well
known and credible biblical scholar offers an alternative translation: Of whomever you forgive sins, they (=the
sins) are forgiven to them; whomever you hold fast (or embrace) they (the
persons) are held fast. What Jesus
is really saying and emphasizing: it is the
PERSONS who are held fast, not their sins. It is not conceivable that Jesus, who is sent
by the Father to take away the sin of the world, would tell his disciples to
perpetuate sin by the refusal of forgiveness, that is by retaining of sins.
With this in mind we can segue now to 8
days later during the exchange between Jesus and Thomas. Jesus’ encounter with Thomas manifests Jesus
holding Thomas fast through his struggle, and painful doubt to faith.
What the Risen Lord is implying: ‘your
betrayal, your disloyalty, I do not hold this against you. It is gone. It is no more…I give you peace of
mind, body, heart.
And
secondly, I hold you and have been holding you even before, during and after
you sin. I have gone to the space of
your alienation, your anguish, your fears, your misguided thoughts and
desires…I pierce the abyss and bring you New Life, and Light of who you really
are from the very beginning. Your deepest reality is goodness, you are
beautiful, and you are my beloved’.
This is a 180 degrees turnabout – from the
disciples closing themselves off identifying themselves as sinners, alienated
ones, to shifting their identity to a deeper soul identity that Jesus is
manifesting to them and to all: ‘Do not
stay imprisoned in your small selves, go beyond your thoughts, your feelings
that keep you there confined; go to who you really are. And as you are aware of being embraced, held
by God you will also do likewise to others.’
In
the second part of this gospel, Thomas’ dilemma is his own holding fast to his own self-reliance on his imagined need
to see, to touch Jesus’ wounds. But
Jesus manifests his own ‘holding fast’ to Thomas’ true identity-not just
his thoughts and feelings. He knows
Thomas’ deepest heart, his overwhelming sorrow, disorientation at what has
happened and that he is stuck in his own brain wrestling with his
thoughts. Jesus calls Thomas to himself
: ‘here, you want to see with your own eyes, and touch me with your own fingers
my wounds, my side…’
From Thomas’ depths he exclaims: “My Lord and my God”. There is no indication that this moment of
deep soul understanding of God’s presence comes from having really tangibly
touched or seen Jesus as he thought he must. It is a kairos moment, a God’s time
moment. The stone was removed from his
heart, he perceives from enlightened innermost eyes. In experiencing the compassion of Christ,
whose own deep open wounds swallow up the deep chasms of Thomas’ doubt in love,
Thomas experiences the presence of God in the Risen Christ.
In all the appearances of the Risen Lord,
Jesus is reiterating in his own person what he has taught from the very
beginning: ‘I want to show you the
Astonishing Light of your own being’ – this is what defines us. The Light that God has put in us never goes
out even when we try to put it out. We
cannot undo our own goodness. We
need to see the Risen Lord, not with our physical eyes and touch…but from the
ground of our own being. It is looking
within that we perceive Him.
I’d like to end with a passage from the
poet Rumi who eloquently expresses this reality:
“The
light that shines in the eye is really the light of the heart.
The
light that fills the heart is the light of God, which is pure and separate from
the light of the intellect and senses.”
[1] Cf. Sandra Schneider’s conference on “The Lamb of God
and the forgiveness of sin”
