April 11, 2021 – John 20:19-31
John 20:19-31
To Forgive and Hold Fast
Second Sunday of Easter – Easter 2B – April 11, 2021
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
You can visit many of Thomas’s fingers out in the world today – if you could travel, that is.
Since we can’t, come with me on a little trip in your mind.
First stop: the Mar Mattai monstery built into a rugged hillside near Mosul in Iraq.
The reliquary there contains Thomas’s full index finger!
Second stop: Rome! Haven’t you always wanted to visit Rome!
If we enter the Holy Cross of Jerusalem basilica there,
you can find another full index finger belonging to Thomas.
Third stop on our whirlwind tour: Ortona, Italy and the St. Thomas the Apostle basilica.
The reliquary there contains a third index finger belonging to Thomas! A miracle!
(Thank you Peter Marty!)
That is a lot of index fingers – too many perhaps.
But they do speak to a powerful need: the desire to experience something that touched Jesus,
Thomas himself had a need for that experience of Jesus, that physical experience of Jesus –
and that likely makes him a very relatable figure.
He is mocked for that need, as if it is somehow a shortcoming, but come on:
he is only asking for what the other disciples have already received:
an experience of the risen Jesus.
I mean, Mary Magdalene told them she had seen the risen Lord on Easter Sunday morning,
but clearly that is not enough for them:
they are cowering behind locked doors on Sunday evening,
when Jesus graciously shows up.
You can see this in other places in John’s Gospel too:
when the woman at the well tells the Samaritan townspeople she has met the messiah,
they don’t totally trust what she says until
Jesus shows up and spends time with them.
Even in the very first chapter of John, Philip says to Nathaniel, “We have found the one about
Whom Moses and all of scripture foretold,” and Nathaniel’s reply is,
“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Hahahahah!
Philip just says, “Come and see.”
Sure enough, Jesus shows up, and within a couple of verses Nathaniel is declaring that
Jesus is the Son of God and the King of Israel.
The point is that Jesus shows up where we need Jesus to.
The point is that Jesus holds us fast through everything we go through.
The point is this need for an experience of Jesus is not a shortcoming:
it’s a part of the journey to fullness of faith.
In John’s Gospel, faith is about having a relationship with Jesus.
And like all relationships, you’re either growing closer or you’re growing further apart.
John wants us to grow closer to Jesus.
Jesus wants us to grow closer to Jesus.
To grow closer to Jesus is, John tells us at the end, why he writes his Gospel:
It’s true that Jesus is no longer physically present the way he once was.
But we can still come to know Jesus, through the things he has written,
and through the followers Jesus sends.
For Jesus gives his followers today a very important gift: the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus breathes his spirit, his loving energy into the disciples,
so that they can bear his presence to others.
As the Father sent me, Jesus says, so I send you – in love.
When you love, others will experience my love, and they will know me.
Then he says this: when you forgive anyone, their sins are forgiven.
What he doesn’t say next is this: if you retain the sins of any they are retained.
Why would Jesus say this? His whole mission is to take away the sin of the world, not retain it!
Literally what he says is, “Whomever you hold fast, they are held fast.”
So: it’s not the sins that are held onto – it’s the person!
(See Mary Hinkle at Commentary on John 20:19-31 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary)
That’s what people need – that’s what the world needs: to be forgiven and held fast.
Held fast through all that we go through.
That’s what Jesus does – he holds fast to people.
He holds fast to Nathaniel, to the Samaritan townspeople, to the disciples in fear, to Thomas.
And that is what he charges his followers to do: to forgive and hold people fast.
Embrace them – and don’t let go.
When you do that, they will experience the risen Jesus,
whose Spirit abides still in the community of the church.
That’s a lot of index fingers – a whole lotta hands – that will feel the risen Jesus.
To forgive and hold fast – that is the very simple mission Jesus entrusts us with.
It’s tough, these days, to feel the risen Jesus when
we are prevented from physically gathering together as we desire.
For there is something very essential about the gathered, physical community of Christians.
And it’s tough to feel the risen Jesus when we cannot embrace one another
the way we would like.
Probably the hardest part of in-person worship these days is not embracing one another
when it comes time to share the peace.
And I am sure that has been one of the hardest things for people living in isolation this past year.
For the physical transmits the holy: bodies, bread, wine, water – and words.
We are left, largely, with words just now, and that is no bad thing.
It is not complete – but it will do.
And if ever we needed John’s closing words, we need them now: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to be in loving relationship with Jesus. For these stories are written so that you may come to entrust yourself and the way you live to Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through that entrusting you may experience the fullness of life you were made for.”
This is the word of God. This is the word of life.
May you be blessed in these words.
May you come to know yourself to be forgiven and held fast in a great, great love.
May you come to trust Jesus and the life he calls you to more and more through them.
May you forgive, and may you hold others fast.
And in that may you come to experience the fullness of life you were made for.
Amen.
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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