A WORD FOR TODAY, April 7, 2021
Peggy Hoppes
We pray you have been blessed by this daily devotion. If you received it from a friend, you can see other devotions and studies by visiting our website at www.awordfortoday.org.
Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, April 7, 2021
Scriptures for April 11, 2021, Second Sunday of Easter: Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 148; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31
“With great power, the apostles gave their testimony of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Great grace was on them all.” Acts 4:33, WEB
We know about the twelve days of Christmas, but few even realize that Easter continues for eight days. It is called the Octave of Easter and ends this Sunday. Though the holy day is over and our lives are getting back to normal, it would do us well to remember that the disciples were still confused and uncertain about what was happening for them. Jesus had appeared before them, but were they ready to truly believe? Were they ready to go forth into the world telling others about Jesus? We do not hear a true confession of faith until the eighth day when Thomas says, “My Lord and my God.” The eggs may be found, the chocolate eaten and the lilies fading, but Easter continues.
According to the scriptures, Jesus made twelve appearances after the Resurrection. He appeared to Mary (Mark 16:9; John 20:10-18), the women returning from the tomb (Matthew 28:9-10), the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-32; Mark 16:12-13), Peter in Jerusalem. (Luke 24:34; 1 Corinthians 15:5), His disciples except Thomas in the Upper Room (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-23), Thomas and the disciples in the Upper Room (John 20:24-29), seven of His disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (John 21:1-24), five hundred believers at one time (1 Corinthians 15:6), James (1 Corinthians 15:7), eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee (Matthew 28:18-20), along the road to Bethany, on the Mount of Olives before He ascended into Heaven (Luke 24:50-53), and Paul on the road to Damascus. (Acts 9:3-6; 1 Corinthians 15:8). We also know that in the forty days between the Resurrection and Ascension, Jesus spent time with the disciples, augmenting the knowledge He had given them before His death. It is worthwhile reading these texts to see that the witness of these disciples and followers is true. They were witnesses, not only of the great work Jesus did before His death, but of the reality that Jesus didn’t stay dead. He is alive, and those hundreds of people saw it for themselves.
I must confess that I enjoy watching some of the paranormal shows on television. I don’t like them all because they can become overly dramatic. I enjoy the ones that use science to prove, or more often to disprove, the claims in the place they are investigating. The investigators do not go in with preconceived expectations. They really want to find reasonable explanations for the paranormal events. They often have real world skills like plumbing and electrical expertise which helps the client see mechanical or technological answers to some of their questions. Sometimes a cold spot is just a draft. Sometimes a door opening is caused by bad latches and the vacuum affect when another door is opened. Sometimes the creepy feelings are brought on by high electrical fields. Sometimes the faucet is broken and the water really does just turn on by itself. Odd lights and shadows can be caused by passing cars.
Not everything has a reasonable explanation, however. Clients take the investigators around the home or building to tell the stories and show the hot spots. The stories often include tales of full body apparitions and shadow figures. People hear voices and footsteps. Objects move and lights turn on. There are often feelings of dread and sometimes people feel sick. Some people even report being physically touched as if something has pushed them, pulled their hair or breathed on their neck. Some of these reports can be easily explained away. Sometimes they can’t.
The investigators occasionally find evidence of paranormal activity. Even then, they rarely call a place haunted. Some paranormal activity is simply that: not normal. Not all paranormal activity is a spiritual entity. Sometimes it is just energy that has manifested in an unusual way. Sometimes it is simply the imagination of an overactive mind. When we can’t identify something as normal, we are quick to identify it as abnormal and frightening. The claims of paranormal activity in some of these buildings cause fear to the point that people refuse enter certain rooms or are unwilling to live or work in that space.
Despite the times Jesus told His disciples that He had to die so that He could be raised again, and despite the fact that Mary (in John’s version of the story) told them what she had seen and heard at the tomb, the disciples were frightened when Jesus appeared. It was not normal for a dead man to walk again. They appear to be familiar with paranormal activity because they thought Jesus was a ghost, but it never occurred to them that He might actually be alive.
N.T. Wright once wrote, “But ‘resurrection’ to 1st-century Jews wasn’t about ‘going to Heaven’: it was about the physically dead being physically alive again. Some Jews (not all) believed that God would do this for all people in the end. Nobody, including Jesus’ followers, was expecting one person to be bodily raised from the dead in the middle of history. The stories of the Resurrection are certainly not ‘wish-fulfilments’ or the result of what dodgy social science calls ‘cognitive dissonance’. First-century Jews who followed would-be messiahs knew that if your leader got killed by the authorities, it meant you had backed the wrong man. You then had a choice: give up the revolution or get yourself a new leader. Going around saying that he’d been raised from the dead wasn’t an option.”
There was only one answer to the question of what they were seeing that first night in the upper room: Jesus was alive. But it didn’t make sense to them right away. They were afraid because what they were seeing could not be real. Jesus answered their fear and gave them the proof they needed to know that it was true. Jesus was alive! Unfortunately, Thomas was not with them when Jesus appeared. So, just as the paranormal investigators do not believe until they see and experience it for themselves, Thomas could not believe until he received the same proof as the other disciples.
Thomas did not believe when he heard from the other disciples that Jesus had appeared bodily before them. He needed to see the risen Christ for himself. From that moment, Thomas was pinned with the name “Doubting Thomas” because he doubted what they saw. Perhaps he should have believed, after all there were plenty of reasons given to the disciples before that moment when Jesus came to them in the upper room. Jesus’ own words should have given them peace in the aftermath of the crucifixion. It took them time to fully grasp the reality of their experience with Jesus. As a matter of fact, even after appearing to them in the flesh, Jesus stayed among them for forty days to continue to teach them all they needed to know to go into the world and do the work He was calling them to do. These lessons were reruns; He’d been teaching them for three years but the lessons had new meaning after His Resurrection. The faithful and faith-filled life does not happen overnight. It is an ongoing life of growing and maturing.
And while “Doubting Thomas” was not willing to believe until he had physical proof, he is also “Confessing Thomas” because as soon as he saw Jesus he cried, “My Lord and my God.” He not only believed that Jesus was alive, but he also believed that Jesus was who and what He said He was. Jesus was not only their friend and teacher. He was not simply a man who lived and died like all other men. He was Lord and God. Man and God. Human and Divine. This is an important confession of faith and the foundation of all we believe as Christians.
Peter gave a similar confession before the crucifixion when he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus replied that this was not something that Peter could know on his own. It was by the power of the Holy Spirit that he could confess this faith. Thomas has been long been characterized by his doubt, but rarely remembered for his confession. I suppose that it is Jesus’ reply to Thomas’ doubt that makes us think that way. After all, when Jesus saw Thomas during that second appearance, He said, “Be not faithless, but believing.” But, Jesus still showed Thomas His hands and side. Jesus understands our doubts and He reaches out to us so that we might see the truth. Thomas did see the truth and said so. He needed Jesus to shine the light on his doubt to make it faith.
Where would we be without light? God created light, the sun and the moon and the stars, and our bodies were designed to live according to those lights. We rise with the sun and we rest in the darkness. Yet, in this modern age we have the advantage of electricity and the light bulb. We have extended the time we have to accomplish our work. In some ways this is not an advantage; instead of going to bed when it is dark, we stay up late into the night. We’ve extended our day which used to be limited by the daylight. Stores can be open 24/7. There is no darkness, which for our human bodies means that there is not enough time to rest. In an article from the Washington post by Rob Stein, Najib T. Ayas of the University of British Columbia was quoted as saying, “We’re shifting to a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week society, and as a result we’re increasingly not sleeping like we used to. We’re really only now starting to understand how that is affecting health, and it appears to be significant.”
The light bulb “tricks” us into believing that we do not have to sleep. There is light, so we must have time to continue our work, to enjoy our hobbies, to read a good book. The light bulb “tricks” us in other ways, too. A well placed light will provide a certain atmosphere and create an emotional response that other lighting might not be able to produce. Lighting can draw the eye to a certain person or object. This is especially apparent in theater or film, where lighting is used to both emphasize something the directors want you to see and hide the things they do not want you to see. I’ve noticed, also, that lighting is used to make things look better to our eye. Take, for instance, the produce department of your local grocery store. Have you ever noticed the special lighting hanging above the fruits and vegetables? Those lights are designed to make the fruit look better, riper and more delicious. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been disappointed by tomatoes that looked great in the store, but not so great when I got them home.
This is not to say that man made light is a bad thing. I’m certainly not against the light bulb! I’m as guilty as everyone else of using too many hours in every day, working into the night. I paint better at night. I probably wouldn’t read as much if I didn’t do so before I went to sleep. But we fool ourselves if we think that the light we create is miraculous. Our life is not necessarily better than it was hundreds of years ago, before the advent of modern conveniences. It is better in many ways, but what have we lost in the process? I wonder if we’ve lost a sense of the darkness because we have conquered it by our own hands. Do we really understand Jesus as the Light of the world, whose light is real and not tricky or manipulative? Or do we rely on our own ability to create light, both physical light and spiritual?
The light which is Christ is different than the man made light bulbs. It is different even than the natural light of the sun. Christ is the light that overcomes the darkness of the spirit, the darkness of sin and grief. His light is the light the bears all truth. His light reveals all that is good and provides true hope to those who are lost. In His light we see the reality of our life and the world, but we also see the reality of His grace. We see how the created world was meant to be. God did not create the world, or our lives, to be bad. He said, “It is good.” Yet, we have gotten lost in the darkness, not only that which is without light, but in the false light we create. In His light we see the truth, confess our sins and receive the forgiveness which He offers. There, in that Light, we will truly have rest and peace and hope.
The light continues to shine through the church, beginning with Thomas’ confession of faith. We have the record of Jesus’ life and ministry. We have the apostolic witness. Since those first days the Church has passed on the knowledge and experience of Christ and His light in the world. We have the scriptures and the traditions of the Church. We have the lives of the Saints who’ve been set aside for great acts of faithfulness and the saints who have taught us all we know about Jesus. We have our own experiences of God touching our lives with His grace. We have all this to help us know that Jesus is real and that His grace is transforming our lives and the world. Jesus shines His light in and through these things so that we can know it is true.
Those first disciples were given the opportunity to touch Him, to feel His wounds, to share in the reality of the resurrection. We are not blessed in that way, but Jesus tells us that we are blessed even more than those who saw and believed. “Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed.” We walk in faith, continuing the work Jesus began on that first Resurrection Day. We have the greatest advantage: we have the Holy Spirit.
He gives us the faith to believe based on their witness and His Word rather than on proof. Though we cannot experience the flesh of Jesus as they did, we can believe their words. The Resurrection was real, physical and according to the scriptures. To reduce it to something less diminishes the witness of Peter and the others. It also diminishes Jesus because He fulfilled everything that was promised by God through the Old Testament prophets. It all may seem ridiculous and impossible, but the story of Jesus’ ministry, Good Friday, Easter, and Eternity is as God intended. Jesus lived, died and rose again by God’s hand and for God’s plan so that we will live in joy forever.
It is very important to John that we understand his reason for writing. John was there. He saw the risen Lord, he heard His voice. He listened as Jesus reminded them of everything that He taught throughout the three years. John was there when Jesus appeared out of nowhere and breathed on the disciples. He was there to experience the joy of knowing that Jesus fulfilled all His promises. The joy he felt on that first day was a joy that needed to be shared. We don’t believe in Jesus for a personal, private faith, we believe in Jesus with an active, public faith so that the light of God will shine to the world. John wrote so that others would believe and would join in the fellowship of the faithful. We are sent into the world to continue this work. This is the life that God has promised us. This is the life that begins today.
Have you ever wondered why the four Gospels do not line up perfectly? I have a wonderful resource that shows the Gospel parallels, but no matter how many texts agree, there are many things that each of the evangelists thought was important enough to add to the story that the others did not. John’s Gospel is the most different, but he writes from distinct point of view. While it seems to be entirely different, you still find enough the same to see that they are really telling the same story. Matthew and Mark are the closest, but even they have unique passages.
The four Evangelists were each unique people. Matthew was a tax collector, a Hebrew and his purpose was to prove that Jesus was the Messiah for which they were waiting. Mark was not one of the twelve, but it is likely that his Gospel is from Peter’s point of view. Luke was a doctor and a Gentile; he tells us that he is putting forth an accurate record of Jesus’ life and ministry. John was the youngest of the Apostles and writes so that we will see that Jesus is the Son of God. Despite these different points of view, experts insist that there is just the right amount of agreement between the four Gospels to prove that they tell one true and real story.
John tells us that “many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.” There was no way for one man to record the whole life and ministry of Jesus. There was no way for the disciples to write down everything Jesus did for us to read. By their words, however, we know that we’ve been given just a glimmer of His life and the Light. They were blessed to live with Him, to work with Him, to learn under His teaching. We have what they were able to pass down, but we don’t have a physical Jesus who can come into our homes or walk with us on our path. It is no wonder, then, that there are those in our world today who doubt. Jesus says, “don’t be without faith, believe.” It is hard, but we can help by being the witnesses God has called to share His grace with those who need more than words. In our lives, in our actions, in our faith, they will see His shining light and believe that He lives.
Sunday, April 11th is the eighth day; it is the first day of the rest of our lives. By faith we dwell in the eighth day always. While the earth still turns and the sun still rises, we no longer live in darkness. It isn’t the light bulb that has overcome the dark; we live in the light because the Light is Christ. He lives so that we might have life. He shines through us to overcome the darkness of sin and death; we no longer need to fear because Jesus overcame them both for our sake. We dwell in eternity in the here and now even while we wait for eternity in the future.
This life does not come to us by physical proofs, but from the faith that God is faithful to His promises. As we dwell in this reality, we are called to continue sharing our faith with others in word and in deed. We are called together to be the body of Christ in the here and now as we wait until the day when we will all be joined in eternal praise and thanksgiving to the God who is victorious over even our sin.
We can live in the joy of the eighth day for the rest of our lives. We are Easter people, and every day is a day of joy. The psalmist knew that even though we experience the most terrifying things of the earth and the most mundane aspects of life, we have reason to praise God and given Him thanks. “He has lifted up the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near to him. Praise Yah!”
I often wonder where Thomas was when Jesus appeared to the disciples the first time. He was outside of their fellowship. The rest of the disciples received an incredible promise when Jesus breathed on them. They were given the Holy Spirit and the assurance that Jesus would never leave them alone. Thomas probably felt very alone when he was not with the rest of Jesus’ disciples. Together they prayed. Together they talked. Together they grieved. Thomas did it alone. Together the disciples saw the risen Jesus in flesh and blood. Isn’t it interesting that even together in the presence of Jesus Christ, none of the disciples made the clear confession of faith? We learn from the passage from acts that as the community of faith grew, the Christians leaned on one another. No one was left alone, not by Jesus or by His body the Church.
Thomas was blessed with a physical, real encounter with the living Christ, but Jesus told him that many would believe in a better way. He said, “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed.” We are those about whom Jesus was talking. We believe not because we have touched His wounds or seen His face. We have received His light through the witnesses who have faith. Jesus breaths on us through their testimony and we believe because they shine His light. We need them, and they need us to continue sharing the Good News to those who will encounter Jesus through our testimony.
Our scriptures for this week make it clear that Jesus lived, died and rose again not only in Spirit but in flesh. He was a man and He was God. We now, thanks to the body of believers who have come before us, can also say with faith, “My Lord and my God” because Jesus is in the midst of our fellowship. Outside that fellowship is nothing but darkness, but together as Easter people we will have His power to shine His light and we will experience His great grace upon us all and dwell in His true presence forever.
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