Fr Marco Lazzaron
n today’s Gospel Jesus appeared among his disciples entering behind closed doors (in fact, they were bolted!) How beautiful to see that closed doors do not stop the Lord, disbelief does not stop God’s desire to meet us. Our closures do not stop the Risen One! His love is stronger than our fears. I imagine they expected a reproach, after all, they had abandoned and betrayed him but Jesus does not hold a grudge. The first words of the Risen One are a gift of happiness: “Peace be with you”.
It might be hard to understand and believe in the Resurrection, but we are on a journey of faith and our first companion is Thomas. He appears as the one who did not believe in the Apostles but, in fact, he was not afraid of going out of the Cenacle, of being seen around. When going to Lazarus to resurrect him, the disciples were scared because they were returning to Judea where they were trying to kill Jesus and Thomas will be the only one to have the courage to say “Let’s go and die with him too”. Thomas was called “the Didymus”, Jesus’ twin, the one who resembled him. But Thomas is also our twin, he is “one of the twelve”, a prototype of discipleship. After all, we are all like Thomas, who, to believe, is not satisfied with listening but wants to touch.
Thomas doesn’t believe his friends because they weren’t credible. How could he believe those who had fled under the cross, who had left the master only in the moment of anguish? They had been hypocrites. How could he believe Peter who had denied him three times! But Thomas does not abandon the group and after eight days he is still there. If you delay in opening the door of your heart to him, he returns, he has patience, and he doesn’t get tired. And he comes looking for you and me. As always, he goes in search of the lost sheep.
This meeting takes place within the community, he does not visit him at his home. It is comforting to know that the encounter with the Risen One does not take place in an ideal and perfect community, but in the one in which you live, the one with which the Risen One has called you to walk. It is where we live that the Risen Lord wants to meet us.
Jesus tells Thomas to put his finger in the holes in his hands and his side, but Thomas is careful not to do so. On the contrary, he pronounces the highest profession of faith of all the Gospels: “My Lord and my God!” What is the proof of Jesus’ resurrection? The wounds of the Risen One become wounds of love. And then here is our beatitude: “Blessed are those who believe without having seen”. We are the ones Jesus talks about, we who every eight days, after two thousand years, continue to gather in his name even if we have not seen him.
John, at the end of his Gospel, leaves us with a stimulus: the experience of the Risen One is personal. God is an experience: you have to “touch” him, see him, and meet him. It is an experience that produces true knowledge because experience is the knowledge of the heart.
The good news this Sunday? No matter how many failures, He is there! No matter how many weaknesses, He is there! No matter how many betrayals, He is there.