Mercy Breaks through Our Hardness
Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 4:32–35 / Psalm 118:1 / 1 John 5:1–6 / John 20:19–31
<< Back to LECTIONARY RESOURCES
Reflecting on the Word
By Dr. Karla J. Bellinger
Imagine you are at the table that evening. Thomas has set his face like stone, “Um, yeah, and how exactly did Jesus come through the room’s rock wall last week when the door was locked? And how can you say that he just stood here among you? We all know that he died. We saw him. Not breathing. Water and blood flowed from his side where they stabbed him. Gone. Jesus is dead.” He wonders, “Whatever made me hang out with these guys anyway?”
Andrew is ecstatic. “No, he’s not dead! Alive! Yes, he stood right there, next to where you are sitting now. Jesus is alive! He breathed the Holy Spirit upon us. I feel different. I am not afraid. I am so excited.”
Thomas looks over at the sandstone wall and shakes his head. That doesn’t make any sense. Andrew, always the first to believe, the one who drags everybody else into things . . .
Peter knows what he saw. But he doesn’t know how to respond to Thomas’s disbelief. The big fisherman stands up and pounds on the rock of the wall. “He was here. I don’t know how he came through, but he was here. It was Jesus. Real. Real as you and me. He was looking for you. And he wanted to see the other one, too.” (Nobody would say aloud the name of Judas the betrayer.)
Nathaniel quietly lowers his cup from his lips and says, “But still . . . not the same, Peter; not the same; not the same as you and me. . . ” He thought back to the reviving of Martha’s brother Lazarus, and the smell. “It is different. Lazarus came back with the same body he had before. Jesus was entirely and totally changed, as though his body were a new material. It is hard to describe. Thomas, you just had to be here.”
And then suddenly, there he was.
Consider/Discuss
- The hardness of the stone wall did not stop Jesus. The hardness in Thomas’ heart did not stop Jesus. Our own hardness does not stop Jesus. His divine mercy is greater than any hardness. His divine presence is greater than our disbelief. How do we too call out, “My Lord and my God!” when we have been shown mercy?
- The apostles lived closely with each other when they walked with Jesus. He was the glue for their camaraderie. When he was no longer there—he who had held them together—it was gone. What happened to their unity? What happens to the unity of the people of God today, if/when Jesus is no longer the center of our connectedness?
Living and Praying with the Word
Lord, you hear our wrangling about “what I believe” and “what I think” and “what group I belong to.” There is the blaring noise of those who yell at us to believe. There is the mocking noise of those who do not believe. So much hardness surrounds Christianity. And then . . . you come through the wall. You tenderly tap us on the shoulder and say, “I am here.” You show up in our lives when we least expect. Help us to refocus on you, for you come through walls in every age.