An abundance of riches today from the Scriptures, so worthy of devout attention! Where to begin? We begin where Peter and the apostles began, actually where the Christian faith truly began, when with the great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
It helps us to know this beginning since apart from Easter morn, the cross would spread no shadow. Apart from Easter morn, the life, teaching, ministry, mission and holy obedience of Jesus would have been lost in the dustbin of history, Jesus forgotten like so many other Jews of his time crushed by cruel Roman crucifixion. Apart from Easter morn, then, there would be no power let loose in the world for living together in the true community of these first Christians, sharing their all with one another. Apart from Easter morn, we would not be gathered here today or on any other Sunday, the day of his resurrection and the dawning of our new creation. Apart from Easter morn, we could not know nor could we trust that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we could not trust God in this knowledge of the Easter faith, we would lack orientation and empowerment for living as children of the light in a world still so full of darkness – darkness, which would otherwise easily overcome us.
Indeed, we know from later in the Book of Acts that the early Christian community life was disrupted in fact by the penetration into it of the darkness of our world. There we read about religious hucksters who tried to buy the power of the Spirit and how greed and deceit subverted the sharing of goods in the community. In other words, as the community lived in the world shining as light in the darkness, the darkness struck back, assailed and penetrated it, corrupting it. In the world but not of the world, community in Christ found itself then and ever since on the very battle line between the God of the gospel and the forces of darkness.
That is why we have the striking back-and-forth today in the lesson from the first epistle of John. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. So far so good. But John immediately adds: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. You might wonder about this. Presumably you have not cussed out your parents today, not murdered nor committed adultery, not robbed a bank. Perhaps you coveted but you managed to keep your envy secret and under cover. So how is it that upright Christians like me and you can be called liars if we say that I have no sin? Alas, I am linked by my body to the structures of this world of darkness where malice and injustice prevail. I participate in them inevitably, whether I like it or not. I am thusly caught up in the tragic conflicts of the world where there is no exit, no escape. Indeed in this conflicted world I am partisan of some faction of contending forces and so I become complicit in its rivalries in malice and injustice. Whether or not I have personally committed a crime, I have certainly failed to love God with my all and to love all his creatures in and under God. I have omitted to do much good that I could. Thus I have sin.
But John continues: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Because we are walking in the light, we see ourselves in its light and thus discover the darkness not only around us but also still within us. This was our painful Lenten self-examination which reveals our continuing need of a Savior even as we now live as blessed, beloved enlightened children of God. So John concludes this back-and-forth discussion with his purpose statement: My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. The Savior whom we need daily is Jesus Christ, the one righteous man in all our human history, he who loved God above all by loving us, even sinners living in darkmess, to the end. Just so he is the expiation -- that means the One who innocently bore the sin of the world to bury it all in his tomb, death of death and hell’s destruction. This is the great wonder of the resurrection of the crucified Jesus, how our creator sought and found the way to us in our true need in the amazing divine solidarity of creative love for all our tragically conflicted world. We may therefore take great comfort every Sunday when we sang the Agnus Dei at the end of the Eucharistic prayer. As we contemplate the sinfulness of our human world, seeing the darkness in the light of God, and even our complicities in it, we also see how profoundly this God of light has not abandoned nor forsaken us, neither our enemies. Our risen Jesus is advocate with the Father who perpetually intercedes for us one and all.
And so we come to a paradigmatic intercession of the risen Jesus in the well-known story of doubting Thomas – but also how it is so frequently misunderstood, as if what Thomas doubted was news of a miracle, whether a wonder like a corpse coming back to life can really happen. That is not what Thomas doubts. Thomas does not doubt that his fellow disciples have seen something. Thomas does not doubt that in general miracles can happen. What Thomas doubts is that the figure who wondrously appeared to the other disciples was in fact the same Jesus who was crucified. Thomas doubts the identity of Jesus who was crucified with the apparition his fellow disciples claimed to have beheld.
Why should he doubt just this? The world is full of pseudo-prophets and false messiahs who can do wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect of God. The world is full of apparitions and hallucinations, even if nowadays we imagine exotic visitors from deep space or secret conspirators surveilling us, pulling the algorithm levers to beguile us. That is why Thomas demands to see the scars marking the crucifixion: to confirm that the risen one who had appeared is in fact the same Jesus, the crucified one.
Perhaps you have heard of the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas. While some scholars think it contains material that goes back to Jesus, this book in fact represents a deviant form of early Christianity that disputed the identity of Jesus who was crucified with the risen Christ. They in fact taught that Christ only seemed to be human and was in reality an invulnerable spirit who could not suffer crucifixion but had only used the body of Jesus temporarily as a mouthpiece to deliver oracles privately to a selected few. No wonder this Gospel of Thomas was excluded from the New Testament! It is perhaps the case, however, that the Gospel of John’s concluding story of doubting Thomas is written as a rebuttal to this form of early Christianity which in the name of Thomas denied that Jesus had come in the flesh. So in reply to that, the Gospel of John concludes with Thomas kneeling down before the crucified but the risen Jesus, one and the same person, confessing my Lord and my God! – the very picture of true Easter faith.
The identity of Jesus who is risen with Jesus who was crucified is the linchpin of our salvation. What we need to be saved from is the sin of the whole world of which we are part. What we need to pass through safely is the righteous judgment of God upon the sin of the world which ruins his good creation. What we need to be saved for is the beloved community of God in which sins are forgiven, light shines in the darkness, so that in principle and in power we share our all with one another in love for God above all and all creatures in and under God. This sharing is already the foretaste of eternal life and the fullness of salvation. Christ is risen! Hallelujah!