Standing Under the Scriptures
April 6, 2008

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this week are, with some variation from the lectionary,

Acts 2.14a, 36-41: Peter speaks to the crowd following the Pentecost commotion, a portion of the first post-resurrection proclamation of the gospel.

Luke 24.13-35: Two disciples encounter the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus: the resurrection account that we can most readily relate to.

I have spoken of the purpose of our class as imbuement with the Scriptures, to the point where images from them arise spontaneously in our minds in the situations that confront us. Our aim is perhaps even better put as entering into a living relationship with the Scriptures. This means that they will be not just a document that we study but alive for us. It means also that they will enliven us, individually collectively, in the body of the church.

Regarding last week’s readings, one cannot but remark on the gem-like quality of Peter 1.3-9 in its brevity. Or in musical terms, it states its major theme, namely the effects of the resurrection for us. Then it introduces the counter-theme of the persistence of trials in our lives. Finally, through the validation of our faith by these very trials, it achieves its resolution, namely our salvation.

Our main concern, however, was with John 20.19-31, our other passage. I have spoken of how our consideration of other Johannine passages during Lent---the Samaritan woman, the man born blind, the raising of Lazarus--- brought my understanding of John to a new depth. But the end was not yet. For I now see, as I have not before, this passage as the climax and conclusion of his Gospel, the culmination of what went before in the transition from Jesus’ earthly ministry to the church. What obscured the point for me was the existence of a further chapter: 21. To be sure, I was aware that this fitted somewhat oddly with our passage. The reversion of the disciples to fishing which it relates is not what our passage points to. But in my mind I tended to gloss over the difficulty, something that in our study of the Scriptures we should never do. What brought the distinction home to me was the existence in the Greek of chapter 21 of a number of words, 28 by the account of one commentator, that appear nowhere else in John’s Gospel. Together with the discontinuity (we saw how carefully John wove together the rest of his Gospel), this points almost certainly to its being an addition by another, later hand. This is not to deny its value; it is of vital importance. But it ought not to obscure the functioning of our passage as the climax of John’s Gospel.

We may note to begin with the manner of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples as the risen and ascended Christ. He enters the room through a closed door, signifying his ability to be present in all places, and at all times too. But immediately he shows them his pierced hands and his wounded side, emphasizing his continuity with his earthly humiliation and suffering, and with ours too. Then he proceeds to commission his disciples: “As my Father sent me, so I send you.” Tom Wright, the leading British New Testament scholar, in his lectures in Baltimore in February, interpreted this to mean that as God sent Jesus to Israel, so Jesus sends his disciples into the world---and not only his disciples but all his followers, including us. And he empowers them for this commission, breathing the Holy Spirit on them. We may be hesitant about taking up our commission, feeling that we have not been properly empowered. But the Pentecost event as described by Luke in Acts 2 comes to our aid here. (Our passage is John’s equivalent of the Lucan Pentecost.) For we may consider that the disciples discovered the power of the gospel, and the power that had been given to them as its bearers, actually in the bystanding crowd’s powerful response to their proclamation of it. (I owe this insight by David Stanley’s father some 45 years ago at Virginia Seminary.) So also as we dare to carry out Jesus’ commission of proclamation we may discover that we have in fact been empowered to do so.

In the commissioning of the disciples Thomas is included also; verses 24 to 29 are devoted to the way in which this came about. He was absent when Jesus made his first appearance. When the other disciples told him of it, he said that without tangible evidence---the marks of the nails and the wound---he would not believe. When a week later Jesus repeats his appearance Thomas is present and confesses him as Lord and God. This is relevant to us in the concern that we have urged for intellectual rigor in biblical study. Is Thomas not being only scientific? And does not Jesus reprove him for this in saying to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me?” And so is he not reproving also us for our concern for intellectual rigor?

I think not. For the ancient Greek manuscripts contained no punctuation marks; these are only supplied by the editors and translators. So Jesus’ response can equally, and perhaps better, be taken as declarative: “You believe because you have seen me”---as did the other disciples as well. And when Jesus goes on to say, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe,” the reference is to those who came later, as around the turn of the first century, when John’s Gospel appears to have been written. On this basis the intention may be seen as affirming them in their blessedness (which as non-witnesses they may have been unsure of) rather than putting Thomas down.

Verses 30 and 31 state John’s purpose in writing what he has written: “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” This is a most fitting conclusion to his Gospel. And in the “you,” we must see ourselves as included.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted