Second Sunday of Easter
April 7, 2024
We have spent 40 days working to grow as we prayed, fasted, and gave alms. The hope is that we are changed by the experience.
Our first reading from the book of acts tells of a community which is changed by the experience of resurrection.
“The community of believers was of one heart and mind,
and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own,
but they had everything in common.”
We contrast this picture with the 12 disciples hiding in an upper room. They are full of fear after the resurrection. They seem to be the same as they were before the crucifixion. They are still full of fear and hiding out. Thomas takes a look at this crowd, and he is full of doubts, not in the resurrection, but in the status of the disciples. The resurrection is to have an effect on those who were the closet to Jesus.
These men are cowering in an upper room, (is it the same room as the last supper?), meanwhile it is the women who stood at the foot of the cross, it is the women who found the empty tomb on Easter morning. It is the women who are proclaiming the resurrection rather than hiding away in an upper room.
Where was Thomas the first time the resurrected Christ walked through the door of the upper room? Maybe Thomas was out looking for Christ or the woman who saw the empty tomb. Thomas was not cowering, he was active.
Luke in his gospel and his companion volume Acts of the Apostles is giving an example of what resurrection is all about. Thomas has doubts in the disciples, so he doubts their reports of the meeting of the resurrected Christ. Their actions do not match reports of seeing Christ. They don’t exhibit a new life due to the resurrection.
The goal of the resurrection is the image we found in the reading from Acts, unity. The disciples are united, but not as a community. They are united in fear. Soon the holy spirit will come and take away that fear. In the meantime, Thomas is there to challenge the disciples to proclaim the words “My Lord and my God.”.