Second Sunday Easter - 2002

Jesus said to [Thomas], "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."

Blessed be St. Thomas for his difficult path to belief in the Resurrection of Jesus. Thomas the doubter turned believer is the response of the Church to all the sceptics down through history, and never more so than in our own day. And yet we also know that he is not alone in this August company of apostles in his scepticism. All but two of the eleven are shown to be doubters in their own right, for they are said to have dismissed the testimony of Mary Magdalene on Easter morning as womanish religious hysteria, and the testimony of the disciples who ran back from Emmaus on Easter afternoon in much the same way. But still Thomas seems singled out for the depth of his scepticism which demands physical proof up front before he will believe - he must actually probe the wounds by touch to make sure it is not a ghost and is the same man who died on Calvary from those horrible body wounds.

Thomas is a modern man in many ways, the kind of man today who will accept as historical fact only what can be demonstrated by empirical means. He is a kind of prototype of the modern historical critic who wants historically validating testimony that is equivalent to empirical evidence that can be physically validated, reproduced in some way like a photograph. And yet what is this demand except a narrowing of the very meaning of historical event, and a confusion of historical evidence with the evidence proper to the natural sciences?

But is the historical event really just what can be reproduced, or caught in a photo or on an audio tape, even when they are most authentic and honest? Can man really understand history just by studying photos and listening to the recorded words of the people involved, or is there much more context and testimony that is necessary to understand what was really "happening" in that history? And if this is true of history in general, how much truer it must be for history that involves the Lord of history and the historical events that include realities that transcend history and creation even when part of them?

Jesus rose from the dead. That is what Thomas, and the others, and so many men today have trouble even considering as truth, as something that is possible in reality, let alone believing it as the truth, a fact that changes all the rest of human history.

What does it mean for a man to rise from the dead, as Jesus is testified to have risen? Is it the same as what it meant when Jesus raised others, like Lazarus, from the dead. But then his apostles had witnessed that, and understood it, as it was, simply a restoration to biological life of those who were biologically dead. But that was surely not a full explanation of what "to rise from the dead" meant when it came to Easter and Jesus' resurrection. Mark records that the three apostles, who had witnessed the transfiguration and afterwards were told by Jesus not to speak about it until he was raised from the dead, "kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant." [Mark 9:10] They had seen other resurrections, Jairus' daughter, the widow's son, and yet they sensed that this rising Jesus spoke of meant something more, since he would be the one raised. And John says something similar in his account of Peter and John at the tomb on Easter: For they did not yet understand the scripture that he had to rise from the dead.[John 20:9]

It would make no sense here if John were merely saying that John and Peter did not understand the mere fact of the resurrection, for that would imply that they understood the meaning of the resurrection ahead of time, but simply did not know that the Scriptures foretold it would happen to Jesus. That is ruled out by the quote from Mark's ending of the Transfiguration, and by theological common sense. The way the apostles react to the resurrection, especially Thomas, by their unbelief, followed by some empirical evidence which leads them to faith suggests that this event of Jesus' resurrection is not the same as the other resurrections he caused for others. At no point are we told that the Apostles saw and believed in those events, but only that they saw them. These were merely empirical events, limited historical events that can be verified (or denied) by purely empirical means as being factual or false, but they are not objects of faith for the witnesses themselves. Yet we are told that Thomas, and the other apostles, saw and believed.

In those two words "saw" and "believed" we have captured the transempirical or transcendent event of the resurrection of Jesus, which is only partially an empirical or mere historical event, but much more, an event which is not only true historically but a transcendent historical event which becomes the truth of history. Thomas and the other disciples who become witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus not only saw the Risen Lord, had an empirically validated experience of his risen humanity, but they also believed in his resurrection.

How can one truly see and believe at the same time in the same event? This is possible only if that event is both history and meta-history, empirical event and transcendent, supernatural event all rolled into one. Thomas in that defining moment of his existence both sees and believes. He is provided with the empirical evidence to satisfy his human scepticism that Jesus is really alive again, but this would mean nothing unless he also believed in this same event. The truth of the resurrection reaches beyond the empirical and merely historical truth of event, to the truth which defines all of human history, the truth that Jesus is raised not merely as he raised others, but as the fulness of the new humanity, the glorified risen Lord who has become the source of divine life for all who become joined to his risen, glorified humanity by faith and sacrament. Note that Thomas at the end does not say I believe you are risen, but "My Lord and my God."

Jesus' resurrection is the object of faith that defines our whole existence as man. His resurrection is at once a certification of the Father's

favor that ratifies forever his statement earlier at his Baptism: "And a voice came from the heavens, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." [Mat 3:17] and the final testimony that Jesus is truly at once Lord and God, Lord of history and God from God. His resurrection, moreover, is not only the Father's testimony, but the very source of the new life that man is given in Jesus, and precisely through his risen body and blood, soul and divinity, present till the end of time in the mystery of the Eucharist. Thus did the early Fathers always connect the mystery of his resurrection and his gift of the Eucharist to his Church.

That is why we should thank Thomas for his witness above all, because his doubt and faith lead us deeper into this mystery, and closer to our own destiny in him. Our faith in his resurrection, if living, is the defining moment in our life as well as his. Life, history, Church, sacrament, all is changed for us once we really believe in the Risen Lord. May we be one with Thomas and all who have followed him in faith in rejoicing in this mystery forever Amen.