Lent always seems drenched with thick symbols (meals, foot-washing, the cross). The Easter season seems populated with big words, with words that carry with them a rich and complex history—words like “doubt” and “belief” and “trust”; words like “breath,” “spirit,” “forgiveness,” and “peace.”
I’m kind of obsessed with etymology, so a season so packed with richly-storied words becomes a treasure-trove. Those words I just noted, for example, punctuate key moments in what some scholars call the “mystical Gospel according to John.” The word “mystical” in this case I take to mean the endlessly mysterious presence of God in us, in other animals, in our shared creaturely flesh, in every ecosystem, in Earth herself—a presence that animates everything with divine life.
John and his community of believers could be described as a group of first-century Jewish mystics, deeply rooted in the traditions of ancient Israel, and who loved reading the wider world of God’s creation in the light of the risen Christ, and even more, always doing so while gathered around the Eucharistic Table.
This past Sunday—the second Sunday of Easter, which is always devoted to the familiar story of Thomas (John 20:19-31)—offered at least three “mystical moments” worth considering for a world in need of healing—and how a wordy history might help.
The first moment occurs in what can easily be overlooked as a random detail in the story. The risen Jesus appears to his closest friends, but of course Thomas wasn’t there at the time. He shows up again about “a week later”—or that’s what most of our translations indicate, about a “week.” The original Greek is much more specific: the risen Jesus appeared among them again eight days later.
For ancient Israelites, this is not a random detail. It evokes a way of thinking about the Sabbath, especially among the later Hebrew prophets, weary of war, longing for justice, laboring hard for peace. For them, the Sabbath is not merely for rest; the purpose of Sabbath is to inspire and anticipate that great day when all work will be finished at last and brought to its completion—that’s the “Eighth Day.”
John points toward that great hope with Jesus on the cross; he dies there, John says, on the day of Preparation for the Sabbath—and not just any Sabbath, but one of “great solemnity.” Anticipating that final Sabbath when all work shall at last be completed, John’s gospel is the only one in which Jesus dies by declaring “It is finished.”
John seems to underscore this point when Jesus blesses his friends with peace—not once, not twice, but three times in the Thomas story. Much more than only “peace,” the Hebrew word shalom means more richly wholeness, coming to fruition, completion.
The second mystical moment comes to us on a gentle breath of soft wind. The Greek word pneuma can mean both breath and spirit; that pun also works in Hebrew. The Spirit is the breath that God blows into the first human’s mouth in Genesis, giving life to that creature made from the mud of a garden.
In John, Jesus is buried and rises in a garden; he then breathes on his friends, not only with the Spirit of life but also of forgiveness.
I’m grateful to be using the First Nations Version of the New Testament in worship this Easter season. That indigenous translation renders the notion of sin as “bad hearts and broken ways.” In that sense, forgiveness is actually a path toward healing and wholeness, and not only for individuals but communities.
That path shed some surprising (for me) light on an otherwise familiar section of that passage from John. I’m accustomed to hearing the risen Jesus warn his friends about retaining the sins of others, because then they will be retained (20:23). Sins aren’t actually mentioned in that Greek phrase at all. The original Greek suggests instead that “whomever you hold, hold fast.” When you forgive someone, in other words, hold on to that person, keep them close in the community, where they and you belong together.
For the third mystical moment from this story, we might recall that the verbs for “seeing” and “knowing” are directly related in Hebrew. In the third chapter of Genesis, the serpent tempts Eve to see in order to know, and so she reaches out to take the forbidden fruit that looks so delightful.
In John’s account of the Gospel, Thomas demands to see the wounds of Jesus in order to believe. But John’s Jesus invites Thomas into an even greater intimacy. “Reach out and touch the wounds,” he says. Put your hand here—or as the Greek word more directly means, thrust your hand into my side, Jesus says, and then believe.
That old saying “seeing is believing” has its origins in this story about Thomas. More accurately, however, Thomas is invited to “reach out and touch to believe.”
This is underscored more than once in what the lectionary provided from the first letter of John this past Sunday: We saw the risen Jesus with our own eyes, he says. Even more, we touched him with our own hands; we touched the One who is life—not just any life but the unending life of “beauty and harmony,” as the First Nations Version describes it (1 John 1:1-2).
These powerful words and images are addressed to John’s future readers, like us, the ones who were not in that upper room with the disciples. Just as Jesus urges Thomas to reach out and to touch, so also Christians gathered around the Eucharistic Table are invited to reach out, and to touch, and then still more, to take, and to eat—just like Adam and Eve did in the garden, but we do it for life, not death.
I love the story of Thomas. I love John’s account of the Gospel and John’s letters. I love these ancient texts because they show us it looks like and how it feels to live as a community of believers with some wonderfully rich words. Believing is the operative word in this case, which is not the same thing as knowing.
Faith is not knowledge, and certainly not certainty; faith is a posture of trust not only toward the infinite mystery of the living God, but also each other. And that’s what makes belief so invigorating and sometimes terrifying.
The verb “to believe” comes from an old Germanic phrase to indicate the “giving of one’s heart to another.” If I say, “I believe in you,” I don’t mean merely that I know something about you; I mean quite brashly and beautifully that I’m willing to give my heart to you in trust.
The figure of Thomas in John’s gospel stands not as a cautionary tale about doubt—all of the disciples doubted at some point and in some fashion. No, Thomas stands as a reliable spiritual guide, reassuring us that risks are worth taking for a life of trust; I may just need to get that tattooed on my body somewhere where I can read it every day. Trust has never been easy for me—and maybe it’s not ever easy for anyone.
Surely this is what makes John’s mystical Gospel a matter of some urgency in the world today, a world experiencing a profound crisis of trust on so many levels.
Would it matter in such a world for a community of believers to risk giving their hearts to each other, to show a world in pain what trust looks like? I believe so, not because the church does this perfectly or even well but because that’s the only path I can see—and touch—toward healing.
