“Unless I see … I will not Believe” - Easter 2
“Unless I see … I will not believe” John 20:25
The great Paschal narrative, found in chapter twenty of St John’s gospel, is so beautifully crafted to draw us into the living reality of Christ’s resurrection. St Mary Magdalene and St Thomas the Twin are the two protagonists the Evangelist uses to touch our mind and soul. Belief and un-belief personified. Not good and evil, but rather two sides of a faith-coin; male and female; optimist and sceptic; disciple and disciple. One is not better than the other; indeed, both are apostles if we follow St Thomas Aquinas’ description of Mary as apostolorum apostola or apostle of the apostles.
Today our gospel reading invites us to turn our reflections on St Thomas the Twin. For many of us, as for many of the first-century hearers of the gospel, his doubts are our doubts; his un-belief is our un-belief. Unless I see, I will not believe. This is not apostasy but rather a natural human impulse to which we all are prone, those of faith as much as those without faith. It is an internal move of the human spirit that even the apostles experienced, as St John the Evangelist portrays so well.
Paul Tillich, in his Systematic Theology draws the dichotomy rather between “unbelief” and “un-faith”. “If there were such a word as ‘un-faith’”, he writes, “it should be used instead of the word ‘unbelief’ …. Unbelief is the disruption of [human] cognitive participation in God. It should not be called the ‘denial’ of God” (II, XIV, p.54).
Ultimately it is not our “cognitive participation in God”, our belief or unbelief, which brings about salvation, or hinders it. Thomas’ unbelief is not a sin. It is in fact the means by which he comes to make one of greatest statements of faith. When the risen Christ appears a second time to the disciples in the locked house, and Thomas is finally given the gift of sight and touch, his unbelief is powerfully transformed into belief. “My Lord and my God!” is his exclamation; and perhaps it is ours also.
I must confess that I have been through times of unbelief recently. The current pandemic has taken many of us, I suspect, into places where our “cognitive participation in God” has been disrupted. “Dear God”, has certainly been my prayer, “how can you allow the church doors to be shut on a Sunday … on Easter Day?” Throughout my faith journey, in times of crisis, grief, hurt, and division, I have found myself in that Thomistic place of unbelief. Where is the promise of God? Is this really God’s will? It is so dark, so empty, so meaningless. Where is the path to reconciliation with self, with neighbour, with God? I can’t see it. Show me God!
The answer to this existential faith-angst lies not in the force of self-will: legalism, asceticism, or even mysticism. These disciplines all contain good, but in themselves they cannot save. Self-salvation is not true salvation. Again, turning to Tillich, he writes: “For Augustine the union between God and [humanity] is re-established by the mystical powers of grace through the mediation of the church and its sacraments. Grace, as the infusion of love, is the power which overcomes estrangement” (II, XIV, p. 55).
In these challenging times, these Thomistic times of unbelief, it is only the infusion of love that can truly heal and save:
· the sacred Easter home-altars that have popped up in the homes of the faithful
· the innumerable heart-felt “how are you?” phone calls, zoom conversations and e-mails
· the self-sacrificial distribution of meals to the homeless and the suddenly unemployed
· the carefully chosen Thought for the Day
· the irrepressible cycle of worship, devotion, and song, through which we now reach out to one another and to God in new ways, through fibre-optic cable and wifi rather than in person.
Belief and unbelief; Mary Magdalene and Thomas the Twin; two sides of the apostolic faith-coin; two sides of resurrection truth; two human realities, bound together in love. George Herbert captures this synthesis, this Easter truth, so well.
Love (III) by George Herbert (1593-1633)
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.
"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.