Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen.
Today is Thomas Sunday. And you heard why? You
heard the gospel account. Thomas was not in the
right place at the right time. But you are. You're
here at the right place, on the right day, at
the right time. So we glorify God. Isn't it interesting?
You know, the Gospel says things very simply.
What's the word? Laconic? Just a few words to
describe something incredible. Notice, in the
Gospel of St. John, The disciples were in a room.
The doors were locked. They were afraid. Their
master had been crucified. If they have done
this unto me, they will do this unto you. Jesus
warned them about the suffering to come. And
they were afraid. But then we get the epistle
today, which tells us about the life of the early
church. Now, it's after Pentecost, of course,
which we haven't celebrated yet. to get a sense
of the boldness and the spiritual life of the
Christians, that reading and the readings from
Acts are given to us. Notice, they're preaching,
they get arrested, an angel comes to release
them, and the angel says, go to the temple, stand
in the midst of the temple, and preach all the
words of this life. It's interesting, too, that
the gospel ends with the phrase that you may
believe so that you will have life. What is this
life? The life of the resurrection. The Christian
life is not about something just in the future.
Yes, we await the redemption of the children
of God, and all of creation is groaning, says
St. Paul, for that day. But we live the life
of the resurrection. Now, our participation in
Holy Week and Pascha is a participation in the
life of the resurrection. We carried candles.
We followed the life giver Christ who, it says
in that prayer, that wonderful sermon of St.
John Chrysostom. Hell, Hades, Hades, death, the
grave, the evil one took a body, And met God.
It encountered what it saw. But crumbled before
what it did not see. That is the power of God.
The Lord releases the prisoners. This is our
life. So we followed him on Pascha. Out of the
grave. Out of the tombs. Out of sin. With our
candles. And we entered into paradise. The lights
blazing on Pascha. The love of God pouring out
upon us and all creation. The Lord of the living
and even those in the grave. Which is why we
say, death, where is thy sting? Oh, Hades, where
is thy victory? For Christ is risen and the demons
are overthrown. And not one dead remains in the
grave. So we have lived through Pascha. That's
the whole point of all of that. To make us participants
in that event, the life of the resurrection,
the life that the angel says to the apostles,
go speak all the words of that life. And we believe
so that we may have life eternal. That's what
this gospel is about today. Isn't it also incredible
that the church, On Pascha Day, and I mention
this on Pascha, gives us a gospel that ends with
the words of Thomas. The gospel ends with these
words. Unless I see, I won't believe. The choir
sings, Glory to thee, O God, glory to thee. And
we move on with the service. But today, we hear
the rest of the story. You see, during the week,
we have to fill in what that means to believe.
This is our task. I'm not talking about doubts
and all of that stuff. No, I'm talking about
commitment to Christ. Being in the right place
at the right time helps. Thomas had a very bad
week. The apostles met Christ first. Christ comes
to them and says, peace be unto you. And it says
in the gospel, the disciples were glad when they
saw the Lord. Glad, they rejoiced. They were
speechless. The dead Christ, completely beat
up by the Romans and crucified and laid in the
grave. They didn't know that he was working his
glory to save those in Hades. He appeared to
them and they were glad. And he said, peace be
unto you. Do you know, any time a priest comes
out and says, peace be to all, those are the
words of Christ. I don't have any peace to give
you. This is not from me. This is from the Lord,
which is why we say his words. And that peace
is filled with content if we but open our hearts
to it. I'll give you an example. There was a
man in our parish long ago. I'd say 90 % of you
wouldn't have known him. And he was a catechumen
for a while, a long time. And he was baptized.
And then not long after his baptism, the bishop
came. The bishop came out with his tree curry
and tea curry. I didn't do a very good job catechizing
him. And he's very kind of straightforward by
the book, not emotional, just regular person.
Bishop comes out with the tree creed and the
decree, those three candles and the two candles,
and blessed the congregation. And when he turned
to this side where my friend was standing, my
friend said to me later, I saw, not with my eyes,
streams of light come right to us from those
candles. And I thought, yeah, we don't see that
because he had recently been baptized because
our eyes are covered with sin and noise. Noise.
Yes, eyes and noise. I know it's a mixed metaphor,
but it's true. if you want to hang on to the
glory of Pascha, the intensity of Holy Week and
Lent, don't immerse yourself in the noise of
this world. The peace be unto all is a real thing.
The Lord said that to the apostles. They were
glad, and he had to say it again. They were so
shocked. And then he said unto them, Whosoever
sins, You forgive, they're forgiven. Whosoever
sins you retain, they're retained. He breathed
on them and gave them the Holy Spirit. This glorious
moment is the record of the institution of the
holy mystery of confession. When we go to confession,
just like you hear the words of Christ, peace
be unto all, it's Christ. When you go to confession,
when we stand before that icon and that cross
and that gospel, we are with Christ. It's not
a legal transaction taking place. It's not something
that you have to do so that you can stay orthodox.
It's something you want to do because the Lord
is there. And he says those words through us.
Your sins are forgiven, brother and sister. That
moment on the first day of the week, what riches
we've been given there. But Thomas was not there.
And then eight days later, today, the eighth
day, the day after, the week after Pascha, Thomas
comes. And Jesus comes into the room. Once again.
And says peace be to you. And he knows what Thomas
is thinking. He knows what Thomas has said. After
Thomas' miserable awful week. And Thomas. How
did he react? He says. St. Gregory the great
says. He saw one thing with his eyes, Christ,
the risen Lord, physically risen from the dead,
but he perceived another with his soul. And he
said, my Lord and my God. First off, we don't
call Thomas Doubting Thomas. We call him Believing
Thomas. The doubt that led to belief. We don't
take a snapshot of a person at their weakest
moment. At their sinful moment. And define a
person like that. We take a picture. We understand
that person at the end of their life. You want
a good example? The thief on the cross with the
Lord. You want another example? The Apostle Paul,
who is executing Christians. What about the Apostle
Peter, who denied the Lord three times? Who even
said earlier, when Jesus spoke about the cross,
No, Lord. This is not going to work. You're the
Messiah. Messiahs don't get crucified. Get behind
me, Satan. Moses the Black. Augustine of Hippo.
On and on, brothers and sisters. You and me,
too. We don't take a snapshot of that dreadful
time in our life. We wait until the fullness
of time. And so we have Thomas, the great apostle
to India. The great apostle, the fearless one.
We might wonder now why the Lord doesn't appear
just to everybody the way he appeared to Thomas.
No man has seen God at any time, says St. John,
the theologian. So no, he's not in outer space,
as Yuri Gagarin said. I couldn't see God when
I went up there. It sounds like a cliche. But
the Lord speaks to us in the inner space of a
person. Where we now see Christ, since his glorious
ascension, where? We perceive him in the poor,
in the least of these, my brethren. We perceive
him in prayer. We perceive him in the icons and
the lives of the saints. And those righteous
people that you meet. We perceive him in the
Eucharist. We perceive him in confession. We
perceive him in the scriptures. We meet him there
where he speaks to us. Unfortunately, a Pew Research
poll from a few years ago tells us that only
29 % of Orthodox Christians read the scripture
once a week. And that's a high. Faith is in the
heart. This is why God doesn't appear into the
temple. Here I am, I'm risen. It's plain to us
that faith is the evidence of those things that
are invisible, said St. Gregory of Rome. For
things that are visible do not result in faith,
but in knowledge. God invites. He comes to the
heart of a person. The Savior approaches each
one. We know how to receive Christ. All those
things that I just listed. He doesn't advertise
himself to the mass of humanity via social media
or the news. Oh, I missed the news. Did you see
that about that Jesus? No. Jesus is not a celebrity
with followers. He is the Lord of heaven and
earth. The God -man who entered death and rose
again. Everything has changed since that day.
This day has given to us the peace, the forgiveness,
the incredible confession of faith of Thomas
the Apostle. It takes 21 chapters of the Gospel
of John until someone says, my Lord and my God.
Ten chapters of three years of Jesus' life. Ten
chapters of one week. And finally at the end,
someone says, my Lord and my God, and peace be
with you. The ending of the gospel on Pascha
Day, unless I see and I will not believe, and
the conclusion of the story today with Thomas'
confession, are the means. the church gives us
today to deal with our own doubts about the faith.
And I hope our parish is healthy enough to provide
a loving space for those who question wrestling
with God. These are opportunities for discovering
something deeper, without which, if we do not
struggle, then when resistance comes to us, in
the form of the world, the flesh, that is impulses
within us that are not godly, and the devil,
we will be pushed around and float downstream
for a long time, and it's very hard to come back
up. So this is an opportunity today to strengthen
our faith. I'll end with these words of the elder.
and St. Lee Emilianos of Mount Athos. I've read
this book, I don't know, a dozen times, and every
time I read it, there's something new. In his
current state of blindness, man clings to various
visions of the future. In his doubt and disbelief,
he believes in the promise of tomorrow, when
he hopes to attain all that he longs for. longing
for a future that never comes. Apart from God,
man is dead, blind, without breath, without life.
He can only grow up for God in the darkness,
and because God knows this, he presents himself
living to the apostles so that they can bear
witness, they bear witness that God is risen
from the dead and lives. And when I receive Christ,
when I see him, in all those ways that I mentioned,
I feast my eyes on the living God and rejoice
in him, even in my state of spiritual darkness
and decay, even in my sin, into the abyss which
I've fallen, the dark cloud that overshadows
me sometimes, in my midnights. I can still remember
that the apostles have assured me that they saw
the living Christ. Thus Christ lives. He who
is my life lives. And at any moment, and with
one, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy
on me, that life can become mine. And dead as
I was, I am filled to bursting with life. Christ
is risen.