Homily for 2d Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
2d Sunday of Easter
May 1, 2011
John 20: 19-31
St. Augustine, Larchmont

“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked where the disciples were…, Jesus came and stood in their midst” (John 20: 19).

In her liturgy all this week the Church has been celebrating one long Easter day. Our gospel reading this evening, like several that we read during the week, tells us of events that happened at dawn at the empty tomb or on the afternoon and evening of that 1st Easter Day when Jesus rose from the dead. Today’s gospel follows up with the events of one week later as we hear about “Doubting Thomas.”

The 1st verse of the gospel reading tells us that the disciples—presumably not only the apostles but others as well, like our Blessed Mother and the other faithful women—have locked themselves up in hiding. The place is the so-called Upper Room where 3 nites earlier they’d had their last supper with Jesus. Altho the doors are locked, Jesus suddenly materializes in their midst—Jesus who’d been crucified and buried 2 days earlier, showing all the physical signs of his torture and agonizing death, including the lance wound in his side that in itself would have been fatal if he weren’t already dead on the cross. “He showed them his hands and his side” (20:20).

Doubting Thomas, by Duccio di Buoninsegna

The doors are locked, but Jesus comes thru anyway. There’s symbolism here: death hasn’t been able to bind Jesus, to lock him up in a tomb. No physical limits can hold him any longer. The limits of space and time that we experience in our present mortal life no longer rule him. The life he has, the peace he offers, can’t be contained, but are freely given to anyone anywhere who will accept them.

We’re accustomed to say—in figurative language—that the death and resurrection of Jesus opened the gates of heaven to us sinners. Doors and gates can’t block the reach of God’s love. Jesus reaches even to us on a far continent almost 21 centuries later. He’s just as present to us, e.g. in the holy Scriptures, in the sacraments of the Church, as he was to the 1st disciples in his mysterious resurrection appearances.

The 2d thing to note in the reading is that Jesus’ peace is linked to the gift of the Holy Spirit, the life breath of God: “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (20:22). In Greek the same word, pneuma, means both “breath” and “spirit”—a nice word-play, but one with real substance. And that spiritual gift of peace and divine life includes the forgiveness of sins. The reason for Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection is forgiveness, reconciliation between God and human beings. The Holy Spirit of God now binds us to Jesus and to the Father. All our sins are forgiven, and we’re healed, made whole, restored to God’s family.

The 3d thing to note is that Jesus sends his disciples out to convey this peace, to bestow this forgiveness: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (20:21). The disciples of Jesus empowered by the Holy Spirit, i.e., the Church, are the vehicle, the means, by which peace and reconciliation are preached and delivered to the human race. To the disciples, to the Church, Jesus gives the power and the divine privilege of forgiving sins (20:23).

The Church in practice does this thru the sacraments: thru Baptism, and after Baptism thru Reconciliation (Penance, “confession”). This Sunday, widely celebrated as Divine Mercy Sunday, we note God’s ever present mercy offered to us thru the sacraments of forgiveness, thru the constant availability of the Holy Spirit to those who come to Jesus in faith, to those who live out what he said to Thomas: “Blessed are those who have not seen [my wounds] and have believed” (20:29) that I am, indeed, living and giving to you my Father’s peace, giving to you eternal life thru my Holy Spirit.