The Nazareth Page -A gospel meditation for your home

April 27, 2025 – Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy), John 20:19-31

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:
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The gospels do not begin with the phrase “once upon a time.” Literature that begins with these words warns the reader that what follows is simply a story or a fable that has no solid historical basis. We sometimes call these accounts fiction or “make believe.”

While there may be some parts of the Bible based on narratives that may lack historical rootedness, I believe that todays’ gospel describing the meeting between the Risen Jesus and “Doubting Thomas” is included in the post-Easter gospels to say that this really happened! And it also implies that the risen Christ is also the Jesus who was recently crucified.

I suspect that Thomas truly wondered about this connection. We are told that he was absent when Jesus first appeared to his disciples. He was likely sceptical and wanted tangible evidence that what happened before the actual death of Jesus on the cross, was followed by Jesus still existing as risen. That he really came back to life.

His need for more evidence is shown by his request to physically touch the wounded places in the body of Jesus that had contributed to his terrible execution. In other words, he wanted to know if there was a connection between what happens before death and after death. Was he facing a fuller reality about Jesus whom he knew before his death and that present moment? Did the past, so sorrowful, really connect with the present moment, so glorious?

Of course, they were deeply connected. Past and present and future were connected in the life of Jesus. And this is the same for us. In some miraculous way in God’s plan there exists a similar path in our lives. When we accept the full and deeper meaning of the Resurrection of Christ, we are also given a description of our own passage from birth into life, through death into eternal life.

We too will carry into our own risen state the joys and sorrows, successes and failures, and the wounds we experience day after day, year after year. This is what it means to believe in the resurrection of Jesus and our own future life as well. Of course, assuredly this is only a fraction of the great mystery of existence that accompanies us. As St. Paul wrote, we see the full meaning of our lives only partially, like through a dark glass. So much more awaits us.        

David M. Thomas, PhD