Easter 2 – John 20:19-31
Many people today believe in life after death and in ghosts. The increasing number of popular ghost-story and ghost-hunting shows on television testifies to this – as does the common notion that the souls of dead loved ones remain with their family members, and watch over them.
Many people find comfort in this belief. Is this, in essence, what the story of Easter is about?
After Jesus’ suffering and death, were his disciples comforted by the idea that their Master, though physically gone, was still with them in spirit, and was watching over them? Well, no. That is not what this is about.
The story of Easter is not a sanctified version of ghost hunting. And the events recorded in today’s Gospel from St. John, with Jesus communicating and interacting with his disciples, were not seances.
The story of Easter is, rather, the first-hand, inspired account of the risen Christ, appearing bodily to his disciples, showing them the nail marks in his hands, and even eating with them.
The resurrection of Jesus is not just a story about life after death. It is a story about life – God’s life, and God’s power in life – overcoming death, and conquering death.
Many or most people in Jesus’ time believed in ghosts, or “phantasms.”
St. Matthew reports that when the disciples, on one occasion, saw Jesus walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”
And that is very similar to what Jesus said when he appeared to his disciples after his resurrection. We read in St. Luke’s Gospel that
“Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you!’ But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.”
Jesus was not a spirit or a ghost. And Jesus is still not a ghost. He is still, in every sense of the term, alive.
As God and man – the eternal Son of the Father and also our brother according to the flesh – Jesus is alive. In soul and body, in spirit and in the flesh, he is fully alive.
He is alive in the universe, filling all things. He is alive in the world, governing the forces of nature and the affairs of men for the benefit of his kingdom.
He is alive in his church: speaking and teaching through his called ministers; judging sin and forgiving the penitent in law and gospel; nurturing and sustaining his people through the means of grace.
And, if you are a Christian, he is alive in you, mystically united to your spirit, filling your life with his love and grace.
During the time of his earthly ministry, when Jesus was in “the form of a servant,” those who knew him interacted with him as someone who was physically in only one place at a time. But the resurrection of Jesus, and the exaltation of Christ that has come along with it, have now opened up to him a vast array of options for how and where he appears, to and among his people.
Today’s Gospel reports two of our Lord’s bodily appearances. The Book of Acts tells us of the time when Stephen the deacon, just before his death, “gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”
We are also told in the Book of Acts of the appearance of Jesus to Saul of Tarsus, on the road to Damascus, when Jesus was surrounded by a brilliant light, and spoke to Saul from within that light.
And the Book of Revelation describes what John saw and heard, in the extraordinary encounter with Christ that he had while he was on the Island of Patmos. John saw
“One like a son of man clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. … His face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore…’”
It is not impossible for the risen and glorified Christ to appear bodily in these various extraordinary kinds of ways also today. This doesn’t mean that we would automatically believe every claim that such a thing has happened.
The dubious accounts of Joseph Smith in the nineteenth century, and of Oral Roberts in the twentieth, come most readily to mind as claims that we would be inclined to reject.
In any case, we know that on the last day – when we will all be raised from our graves – yet another bodily appearance of Christ definitely will happen.
On that fearsome day, “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.” That’s also from the Book of Revelation.
But usually, as we await the end of this world, the risen Christ comes among us in ways that are very real, but that are also very invisible. There’s an example of that also in today’s Gospel.
Jesus was invisibly present and listening, when Thomas was first told by his friends that they had seen the Lord and that Jesus was alive. Thomas responded by saying:
“Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
Now, Jesus heard him say that, even though Jesus was not visibly present in the room when he said that. We know this, because when Jesus appeared again – to Thomas – a week later, the first thing he said to him was,
“Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
Jesus basically ran down the checklist of the things Thomas had said would be necessary, for him to be willing to believe. But in his encounter with the risen Christ, Thomas – instead of doing all those empirical things – immediately forgot about his checklist, and exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”
At that moment, Thomas knew that Jesus was alive. He knew that Jesus was divine. He knew these things on Jesus’ terms. And, he knew that Jesus knew a whole lot more about him than he had ever realized.
That is one aspect of the resurrection of Christ, that the old Adam in you does not want to think about or acknowledge. We are not unsettled in the days leading up to Christmas when we hear children sing of Santa Claus:
“He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake!”
But everything that is said here of Santa Claus, is really true of Jesus.
Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden used to say: “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
But Jesus is always watching – and listening.
What does he see in the private moments of your life, when you think no one is watching? What does he hear, when you think no one is listening?
We are told in the Book of Job that God’s eyes “are on the ways of a man, and he sees all his steps. There is no gloom or deep darkness where evildoers may hide themselves.”
God, in Christ, was watching, and listening to, Thomas, when Thomas listed all the physical proofs he would require. And he is watching you and is listening to you, today.
Jesus is not a ghost who comes and goes, who appears and disappears. He is always where you are, wherever that is. And his eyes and ears are always open.
There is no secret indecency, no personal dishonesty, and no private cruelty that is hidden from him. There is no disgrace, no shame, and no embarrassment that he is not already aware of.
You cannot hide anything from the risen Christ. He is alive, and he is around.
When I was a child, I used to chuckle at the catchphrase of a certain French-Canadian cartoon mouse: “Savoir-Faire eez everywhere.” But Jesus really is everywhere.
For habitual transgressors like us, when we embrace sin and turn away from righteousness, the fact that Jesus knows all about it, is unsettling to us – or at least it should be.
But the presence of the living Christ – with us, and in us – is a matter of rejoicing, to every penitent and believing Christian.
When you let go of your sins, and cling to Christ instead, you have life rather than death, hope rather than despair, direction and purpose rather than aimlessness and meaninglessness, and salvation rather than damnation.
A ghost cannot give you any of that, or change your heart and mind in these ways. But a living divine-human Savior can. And a living divine-human Savior does.
When Christ’s inscripturated message of pardon and peace is spoken in his name today, he is speaking. When his words of forgiveness and reconciliation are declared to you by his authority today, he is forgiving you before God, and he is reconciling you to God.
When Jesus appeared visibly to Thomas, he blessed him with a renewed, deepened, and refocused faith. And he said to him:
“Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
You are blessed when you, without seeing, nevertheless believe: when you believe that Jesus is really alive; and that he is really here.
The resurrection does indeed make possible the various ways in which Jesus now comes to people: both the extraordinary ways and the ordinary ways.
But even when we believe that Jesus is with us in one of the ordinary ways – by means of his preached or sacramental Word – the miracle of the resurrection is still very much at the heart and center of what we are believing.
The Lord’s Supper, as Jesus instituted it, simply could not exist for us today, if Jesus had not been raised from the grave after his death. His sacred body was given into death to redeem us from our slavery to sin, and his precious blood was shed to wash away the guilt of sin.
But the body and blood of Jesus are no longer dead – disintegrated at the molecular level into the soil of Jerusalem. His body and blood are alive, because he is alive.
And Jesus’ living and life-giving body and blood are truly present, and are accessible to us, when and where Jesus’ words of institution cause them to be present and accessible.
They are in the consecrated bread and wine of the sacrament. And, they are in us, and bring it about that Jesus is in us, when we, in faith, partake of this mystery.
Dear friends, Jesus is not a ghost. When he warns you about your sins, and reminds you of God’s judgment against those who turn their back on him and rebel against him, he is not a ghost.
When, through the lips of his called servant, he absolves you, and assures you of God’s mercy on account of his saving work, he is not a ghost. And when he comes to you in his sacred Supper, and supernaturally feeds you with his real body and blood, he is not a ghost.
We close with this warm exhortation from Psalm 105:
“Sing to [the Lord], sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!” Amen.