Yes, God has entered our world to become one of us. Yes, Jesus shared our joys and sorrows. Yes, he had close friends and some of his closest deserted him when he needed them the most. Yes, he suffered and shared what is inevitable for each of us, death. Yes, he rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples — like those in our gospel today, locked up and afraid that what happened to him would happen to them as well. Yes, there is much in our faith that brings us up close to God — our face to Jesus’ face.
Still, let’s not forget the other side. With all our images of Christ and words we risk losing our sense of the mystery of God, which exceeds our feeble and limited understanding. We moderns have so much access to information at the tap of our computer keys that we can mistakenly think that we can approach God and learn how God is thinking and whose side of God is on.
So here is an argument for wonder and awe — also known as “fear of the Lord.” God lives in unapproachable light and even on this day, when Jesus visits his fearful disciples and invites Thomas to touch his wounds, we need to remind ourselves something our Jewish sisters and brothers have taught us.
In their prayers, especially in the Psalms, they cry out to God in their need and speak to God as longtime friends. Yet, even with that familiarity, they also maintain awe of the God whose name they would not even pronounce. So, for example, in the Temple they had an inner sanctuary, the holy of holies, an empty room and an empty throne, looked over by two golden cherubim. The high priest alone could enter that room and, just once a year on the day of atonement, utter the name of God — Yahweh. No one else was ever allowed to utter the sacred name.
Into that religious world Jesus was born, lived and died. God uttered the divine Word into flesh for our sake. Now, because of Jesus, we can know and can call upon the name of God that Jesus taught us, Abba — “Father,” or better, “daddy.” While it is a name of intimacy, it still carries a note of reverence and awe. We are tiny children in the arms of an all-protecting, parent God.
Today’s gospel is the third scene in John’s initial Easter narrative. It began with Mary’s finding the empty tomb and rushing to report it to the disciples. Peter and the “other disciple” run to the tomb and also find it empty. Today Jesus comes to the disciples locked behind closed doors. Now the appearances begin. But they were preceded by emptiness and silence. Barbara Brown Taylor (“The Easter Sermon,” in Journal for Preachers, Easter, 1995) calls our attention to that emptiness and says:
“This is how Easter dawns in the human heart. He is not here. We do not know where he is. The tomb is as empty as the throne of the holy of holies and the sound of God’s name is the sound of our ragged breath” (page 13).
At Easter, she suggests greater reverence and silence before the awesome power and “privacy of God.” Even our best words cannot plumb the resurrection; yet we try to keep expressing what God has done. We preachers and faithful will pray and struggle to put words to these mysteries. But as we try, we will do well to also keep Brown’s advice before us:
“We approach the Almighty like investigative reporters, speculating about things we can never know…. Like whose side God is on and when the world will end and why terrible things happen to faithful people. We have misplaced our sense of awe, our appropriate fear, of a God of enormous privacy”
It’s that sense of awe and reverence before the infinite that touched me in our second reading from the Book of Revelation. The book was probably written by an early Jewish Christian prophet named John. He says he received visions while exiled on the island of Patmos for preaching about Jesus (1:9). The book is a record of visions and voices that came to John, usually by an angel. It’s an apocalyptic book because of its visions and predictions of future events. The visionary is even allowed to enter the heavenly courts and so we journey in with John. Reading Revelation can inspire awe and wonder in us.
The original readers of the book did not see it as a description of the end times. Like earlier prophets, the author wanted his book to be understood as a message from God through him to the people of God. Revelation challenged the failures of the community to keep the covenant and offered comfort, originally to afflicted faithful in the churches of Asia minor — and now to us.
Today’s passage from Revelation is an initial vision for the first cycle of visions (1:9-11:19). John opens with a description of what he knows and has shared with his readers as a member of the Christian life — “distress” (persecution or tribulation) and the “assurance” we have because of our faith in Christ.
The vision begins: it is the Lord’s day and he was “caught up in the spirit.” He’s in some kind of trance and hears a trumpet-like voice. He receives instructions to write down what he sees and to tell the seven churches the message. His vision has features reminiscent of the Old Testament apocalyptic writings. The “Son of Man” refers to Daniel’s vision of a human figure with heavenly appearance to whom God, seated on the throne, gives authorization over other nations (Dan 7:13-14). This heavenly figure is dressed in the manner of the Temple priests in Jerusalem.
Feel the awe and wonder of the scene. John reacts the way we would if we were privileged with such a vision: he falls down “at his feet as though dead.” But the figure comforts John and reveals himself to be the resurrected Christ.
What comfort might we derive from this vision of the risen Christ? When he appeared to the disciples behind locked doors he greeted them with words offering them peace. His wounds signify the continuity between the crucified, earthly Jesus and the resurrected one who speaks a word of peace and reconciliation, “Peace be with you.” He then sends his disciples on a mission of mercy and forgiveness. (An appropriate reminder on this “Divine Mercy Sunday.”)
The disciples do go forth to preach the message of mercy they heard from the resurrected Christ and, years later, one of their descendants in faith, John, is exiled in Patmos because he “proclaimed God’s word” and gave testimony to Jesus. In his vision John doesn’t see the Christ with wounds, but risen, triumphant and proclaiming sovereign over all. “I am the first and the last, the one who lives. Once I was dead, but now I am alive for ever and ever. I hold the keys to death and the netherworld.” Christ is the master over life and death.
In modern slang, if we had John’s inspiring vision, we might describe it as “jaw- dropping.” It is awe inspiring. He’s addressing local churches suffering hard times. His vision reminds them and us — who might also be experiencing our own limits, hurts and exclusions because of our faith — that the one in whom we have placed our faith now holds great power. In hard times we can do what John did in prayer and, “fall down at his feet.” Christ offers us a powerful word of strength and encouragement, “Do not be afraid.”
We may not be facing the hostile Roman Empire that persecuted the readers of Revelation. Unlike the Romans, our society doesn’t consider religion a serious threat to its domination. Our pain comes in other ways. More and more people are leaving our church, many profess feeling disillusioned with recent scandals and claim the church is hopelessly out of touch with our times.
While devout Christians may not be suffering the pains of torture for our faith, we certainly feel the stress. We take heart in Christ’s message to John the Seer that he is our “first and the last.” He is firm for us, from beginning to end with a presence that will never fail us. We hear Christ’s encouragement to stand firm and not be afraid. He is with us and will fulfill the promises he has made: he will prevail, evil will not.