Each of us, like the disciples, faces on a daily basis uncertainties and fears about our lives and faith. The disciples were afraid of what they authorities might do to them and this is a reality for many of us today. For instance, we have been reading recently in our local press from Christians today who are convinced that our government wants to prevent Christians from speaking openly about our faith. I don’t subscribe to that view myself but for some people that is how they perceive reality. For others of our congregation, their fear of the authorities has been to do with the way in which their asylum case will be dealt with. These are just some of the reasons why we might feel fear.
Thomas was not afraid instead he was uncertain. He knew that Jesus had died so, despite all that the other disciples told him about Jesus’ resurrection, how could Jesus now be alive? Again, we will have many reasons for uncertainty ourselves. Unlike the disciples, we cannot see Jesus physically and therefore we wonder is he real and am I just making all this up? We can also feel the same uncertainty about decisions we have made about our future – are we in the right job, living in the right area, are our children going to the right school, and so on and so on?
What the disciples felt in these stories is what we all feel ourselves much of the time – different situations, different reasons but the same feeling, concerns and worries!
Now the change that occurs - the transformation that happens to them, this personal resurrection that comes for each one - is not a change in their circumstances but a change in themselves. What happens is that they become aware of Jesus with them and receive his Spirit. They are still in danger from the authorities and they will spend the remainder of their lives not seeing Jesus physically but because they know Jesus with them and receive his Spirit they are able to come out of hiding, face the dangers and begin to do and say the things that Jesus did and said in their own lives.
The point about the disciples being behind locked doors and Jesus appearing to them may not be so much to do with the sense that Jesus was no longer restricted by space and time (although that is significant) and more to do with the disciples becoming aware that he was now always with them wherever they were, if they acknowledge and receive him. Isn’t that what Jesus is saying to Thomas, “happy are those who believe without seeing me.”
Michael Frost has written:
“We have locked God into the so-called sacred realms of church and healings and miracles and marvels … We seem to be trying so hard to “bring down fire from heaven” in our worship services while all along God’s favour is to be found in sunshine on our faces, the sea lapping at our toes, picking our children up at school, or a note from a caring friend.”
As we go about our daily lives are we aware that Jesus is with us in the ordinary things we see and do or do we only expect to meet with Jesus when we are in church or at some other super-charged spiritual occasion. The point about the resurrection experiences of the disciples is that Jesus is with them where they are if they recognise him. Often, the stories tell us, that they don’t recognise him initially. Mary mistakes him for the gardener and the disciples on the Emmaus Road don’t recognise him until he breaks the bread. Jesus is with us where we are, wherever we are, but often we do not recognise him.
How can we recognise him? We recognise him through his Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control. Where we see these things in ourselves, in others and in the world, we can be certain that Jesus is there.
If you watch the TV News and read the newspapers regularly you can easily be convinced that love, joy, peace etc. do not exist within our world. There is a story of bad news that is frequently being told but underneath, hidden and obscured by that bad news story is a different story of good news that doesn’t make the headlines but is the reality of our lives, our church and our faith. This is what we read about in Acts 4: 32-35 – people who are one in heart and mind, who share with one another everything they have, who witness to the resurrection of Jesus and who distribute money according to need. As a church we seek to demonstrate the Spirit of Jesus to our community through our community involvements and through all that goes on in the St John’s
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World Wide Message Tribe (WWMT) - Revolution.
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