This morning we gather to celebrate what is called ‘Low Sunday’. While some have said it is Low Sunday because the attendance is low after the large crowds of Easter, the real reason for this name is that it is the end of the first week of Easter and while Easter is the High Holiday beginning of the week, this is the Low Sunday that ends the 8 day celebration.
Even the scriptures chosen for this day seem a little low. After the enthusiasm of last Sunday, we step back from all the festivities to recollect our thoughts, to step back into reality, to wonder, ‘Just what did happen last week?’, ‘Was it real?’, ‘Did we just imagine it?’ and ‘What do we do now?’
Part of us wonders: ‘Can anyone really be raised from the dead?’, ‘Was Jesus really dead when he was taken down from the cross or had he merely fainted?’, ‘Was he even real at all or was he just a spirit that seemed real?’
The disciples lived with Jesus for three years and still did not understand what was happening while it was happening. Even the disciples had trouble believing the implications of the empty tomb. Peter and the beloved disciple didn’t believe it when Mary Magdalene comes to them with the news. When they enter the empty tomb, they didn’t believe in resurrection, but only in a missing body.
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John, the writer of both the Gospel of John and the Epistle of 1 John, has apparently encountered many people in the life of the young church who wonder at and question these very same things.
In our gospel lesson for this morning, we heard the double story of the risen Jesus appearing to the disciples. We hear the story of Doubting Thomas in this story, but there is more here. The first portion of that text occurs on Easter evening. The disciples are gathered together and the doors are locked for fear of the Jews. For them, there may be questions about the empty tomb, but there is no joy or sense of victory for them as they gather.
Suddenly, the risen Lord appears in their midst and says ‘Shalom, Peace be with you’ and he breathes onto them the Holy Spirit, the breath of God. Now they know the truth and believe the joy of the resurrection.
Thomas is not with them when the Lord appeared. When he arrives, the other disciples tell him what they have seen and heard, but Thomas is still as incredulous as they had been. They may be convinced, but not him. He says, ‘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.’ He cannot believe in what he has not seen – neither did the disciples.
A week later – on Low Sunday – the disciples are again gathered together and Thomas is with them. The doors are not locked, but they are closed – an odd occurrence in the first century, perhaps a sign that the disciples are still afraid.
The Lord appears and again greets them with, ‘Shalom, Peace be with you’. Jesus offers his risen body to Thomas and invites him to touch his hands and side. Rather than chastise Thomas for unbelief, Jesus willingly offers himself for physical inspection. It’s important that the disciples not just hear and see, but touch with their own hands. The reality of the resurrection is the final reality of the truth of Jesus’ claims and the risen yet not yet ascended Christ is still humbling offering to do whatever it takes to being people to faith.
Thomas sees and hears and touches - and believes. He falls to his knees and declares, ‘My Lord and my God.’ Here Jesus gives us a foretaste of what we who have followed in the faith have come to know and rely on: ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’
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Now we fast forward to the epistle of 1 John. We don’t know much about the community to whom this letter is addressed, but we do know several important things that make this letter relevant to us in the 21st century. We know that they are already Christians. We know that John knew them personally and cared for them very much. And we know that they are facing a threat from false teaching.
It has now been some years since Jesus Ascended to Heaven. Many who were alive at the time of Christ have now died. Many of those who had heard Jesus speak, who had seen him perform miracles or who had touched his hand or the hem of his garment are gone.
Many believers have begun to rationalize the experience of those earlier believers: perhaps they were deluded or fooled by some trick of magic. Certainly God who is Spirit could not take on the flesh and blood of humanity. Human beings who die on a cross and are laid in a tomb cannot escape the corruption of death to be raised again.
Perhaps, they reason, Jesus was not really a person after all, but just an apparition, not flesh and blood but a spirit. Perhaps he did not really die because he was never really alive. Maybe redemption and forgiveness and new life in Christ really aren’t for everybody but just for a select few who have the right knowledge and the right actions, the right pedigree and the right politics.
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John starts his letter to them by reminding them that the things he is about to write are not the imaginings of someone who is trying to rationalize a story of long ago and far away, but the story of someone who has first hand knowledge of the facts. What he has heard, what he has seen with his eyes, what he has looked at and touched with his hands, concerning the word of life, Jesus the Christ.
He writes these things so that they may also know and believe and have fellowship with the Father and with God’s Son Jesus Christ. He writes to that his joy may be complete.
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God is light, he says. We have heard it before. Light was the first thing God called forth at the creation of the cosmos. Jesus is revealed to us as the light of the world – and God there is no darkness. There is nothing hidden. There are no secrets.
We who follow after the way of Christ ought also to walk in the light of Christ. John assures us that if we do, we have fellowship with one another and with the risen Christ himself – and the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin.
This is an important point that we do well not to run past in this little book: to walk with Jesus is to live in the light. It is to open our hearts, our thoughts and our deeds to examination by the Holy One of God.
It requires that we act according to what we say we believe. We cannot say we believe one thing and act as though we believe another. We know that in reality nothing is hidden from the mind of God. But many times, we life as if it were. We claim to walk in light, but our deeds are done in darkness, we claim to live good and sinless lives before God, but in reality we just try to hide our sinful deeds in the closets of our souls.
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In doing so, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we think that we can say one thing and act in another, we are liars – and we make God out to be a liar as well. We live in insincerity and hypocrisy and we claim the same thing about God.
John says, we are just as insincere, hypocritical and self-deluging when we say we do not sin. We may be saved by the grace of God, but we are still only saved sinners. To think of ourselves more highly than we ought is to put ourselves on a pedestal we no not deserve. To think of ourselves as better or even different simply because we have accepted the hand of God’s grace is to be petty and prideful and pompous.
Saved sinners still sin. Saved sinners are not perfect. Saved sinners still stand before the throne of God in need of God’s grace – and by the power of God, by the atoning work of Jesus Christ – we have an advocate, a legal defense lawyer to plead our case, to intercede for us, and one who even pays the price.
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John invites us to come and join him in his belief. He invites us to share it with our friends and to shout it from the rooftops – not because he is – or that we need to be - afraid of punishment - but so that his joy, that our joy may be complete. The unfolding story of redemption and the reality of the empty tomb is, for John, the euangellion, the good news: God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
John’s little letter reminds us that ‘from the beginning’ God had a plan: We can walk in the light of Christ. From the beginning, God looked through the veil of time and saw the completion of all things. From the beginning, God wanted to have full, close, intimate fellowship with creation – to walk with us. From the beginning, God has reached out the Holy Hand to lead us to faith, to protect us from ourselves, to show us, by word and deed who God is and how much we are loved, to break down the barriers of law, tradition, and quilt, to offer us the hand of friendship and fellowship, to talk with us, to walk with us along the journey of life.
In these last days, God has shown us the Holy Self by sending the Son. By taking on human form and living among us – and God showed us that even death cannot separate us from the love of God.
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The season of Easter was not over when our dinner guests left the dinner table last week with full stomachs and empty plates. The season of Easter began with the reality of the Easter resurrection, and it continues in the lives of every person who says they love God and have faith in Jesus.
This is the Good news that was from the beginning, the Good news that continues today and will continue to be the Good news until the end of the age. John, speaking through the power of the Holy Spirit, invites us to walk in the light of Christ, to confess that we sin, to accept the atoning sacrifice of Christ and live as redeemed and forgiven people.
Because this has been the plan and the Good news – from the beginning. Hear the words of good news from John: walk in the light, have fellowship with one another, confess sin, accept the forgiveness of God. It has been God’s plan – from the beginning. Amen.
