The Second Sunday of Easter: Seen and Unseen

Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31

The "Old Testament" lesson (see previous cliched complaints of the absence of OT readings in the Easter season) and the Psalm have in the main to do with the unity of believers. As one might expect, this was something of a big deal especially in the early going, when Israel--and, later, the Church--was fighting to keep itself intact against the various intrusions of the wider society. And I'm going to refuse to get into the pseudo-communistic implications of Acts 4. The small "c" should be taken note of. It may be that this little passage in Acts 4 is a description of ideality, not reality, since immediately following upon it is one of those "scare into compliance" stories, with Ananias and Sapphira holding back some of the money from their property sale and saying that they brought everything. Nevertheless, the idea of harmony among the believing community is a good thing, even if stories like Acts 5 with its penalties for noncompliance are not especially helpful. As for the Psalm, it stays more on the ideal level without threats of violence against those who are not in the fold, or not completely in the fold.

The two passages from John--setting aside the fact that they're not from the same author, and probably not from the Apostle John--strike a different note from the unity of the believers, and a slightly different note from one another. Actually, one of the arguments in favor of common authorship for the Gospel and Epistles of John is their common concern for having seen and bearing witness to what has been seen. This emphasis comes out in the two passages today. In the Gospel text, "Doubting Thomas" is upbraided for only confessing faith in Christ when he sees the wounds in his hands. This lends us to the interpretation that we shouldn't ever doubt what is told us by God's authorized representatives, a kind of clerical triumphalism. It also ignores the fact that, earlier in the passage, the other disciples do not rejoice until AFTER they have seen the nail prints and the spear wound. It is rather easy, furthermore, to extract a general principle from Jesus' last statement, "Blessed are those who have not yet seen, and yet have come to believe." For that matter, this makes us better not only than "Doubting Thomas," but also of the rest of the disciples, for they didn't rejoice until after they had seen either. Something to think about.

But, then again, is it really the point that we be "better" than the disciples, who only rejoiced when they saw? Paul later called himself an eyewitness of the resurrection, although he himself and no one else actually saw it, except perhaps for the Roman soldiers, who weren't going to say anything for fear of having their heads lopped off anyway. So it was a big deal for the early Christians to trust the testimony of those who had seen. For that matter, both the Gospel and the First Epistle of John commend their readers to the testimony of "John" in whose name they are written. We know that his testimony is true, asserts the Gospel. We speak to you of the things we have seen, says the Epistle. There is certainly something to that.

But Jesus says in the Gospel text that those who have not seen are blessed when they come to believe. The Gospel of John has lots of healings of blind people, and for that matter begins its presentation talking about hoe the Logos was the light of the world, and how John (the Baptist, not the Apostle) came to bear witness to the light. In speaking this way, John (the Apostle, not the Baptist) bears his own testimony to that which he has seen and heard, looked at and touched with his hands, concerning the word of life. So, then, even though they probably do not go back to the same author and even though neither one probably go back to the Apostle John, nevertheless they are both concerned with vision and witness and testimony. Because "John" has seen, his testimony is true. Because we have not seen, our testimony is true. Therefore, whether seeing or unseeing, the key is bearing witness, living in unity, keeping from sin, and waiting for the Day when all things shall be seen. Amen.