True revelation [Easter 2; St. John 20:19-31]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

Who speaks to you today, saying,

“Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’”

There is a command we have been given, the very first one. It says, “You shall have no other gods”. This means that we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. All well and good. But immediately the questions arise: who or what is god? There are so many, which one is the right one? The command itself gives us no answer.

If we come at the question naturally, we do not find a satisfactory answer either. However, the fool can look at a tree, how wonderfully made it is, or at the world and its perfect order and conclude that there is some higher intelligence at work. Who or what that intelligence is the trees can not tell him, but having seen he can not simply believe it all fell together on its own. Someone built it.

We head closer to an answer of who or what this intelligence is when we seek it in conscience, or our sense of right and wrong. The reason we know more here is because a sense of right and wrong implies an absolute right and wrong, as in there are things that are universally right and wrong. In this way, conscience rises above the natural world, because it can not be explained by natural theory.

However, where nature was outside of ourselves, morality only points inside of ourselves and from that we only know one rule: “the might makes right” and that is hardly a benevolent or hope-filled rule. Thus, we reach two dead-ends when attempting to find this god who is above other gods and Who demands our fear, love, and trust.

St. Thomas was in the same situation, as were all the Apostles. They had grown up with a God that demanded loyalty, but had refused to show Himself for hundreds of years. Life was what a man could eke out for himself fighting against both man and nature. Finding little to no spirituality, the common man was left with the impression that there was a god, but that he was to fend for himself.

We should not be surprised, then, to find on the lips of St. Thomas and all the Apostles, the confession we heard in the Gospel today. We should not be surprised because God made it easy for them. St. Thomas had his brain, his eyes, and his fingers. He had Jesus in front of him with holes in His head, hands, feet, and side that were not bleeding. He had a locked room. He had the crucifixion. He had the Easter preaching. It would be foolish of him not to be able to put 2 and 2 together and get, “My God and my Lord.”

Good for St. Thomas. Good for St. Thomas and the rest of the 1st century world that had such weak faith as to need God walking around in the flesh in order to believe. Not that we are ones to talk, for we are still waiting for the same exact thing to happen in front of us today. We wait for God to reveal Himself to us and when He doesn’t, make up stories and pretend that HE did.

Repent! Why is He called Jesus? Because it means “The Lord saves” as in, saves His people from their sins. Which Jesus is the right Jesus? It is the Jesus Who bears the name the angels gave Him at Easter. This Jesus, The Crucified, is the real Jesus.

Why is He called the Christ? Because it means anointed or chosen. This Crucified Christ is chosen with the Holy Spirit without limit to be our Prophet, Priest, and King. The only reason you know this is because of the only true revelation of God: Holy Scriptures.

The Bible is the only true revelation of the one, true God and it is the one thing we ignore the most. “These things are written, written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” Where the trees are silent, Scripture speaks out. Where conscience is cloudy, the Word is clear. But it is not just to ink and page that we fully trust in, but the word of God inscribed in blood and engraved in the Body that St. Thomas handled.

Jesus the Christ is the true and ultimate revelation of God. The God of nature is the God of the cross. The God of right and wrong is the God of the resurrection. We do not follow cleverly devised myths or old wives tales. We do not create fantasies about Red Seas or Passover Lambs. We are people of the Word made flesh Who dwells among us still today.

In these last days that we live in, God has spoken to us through His Son and He has spoken to us directly the words of faith and salvation. There is no need for us to blindly walk through life wondering which god is which or even doubting whether or not God is worthy of our fear, love, and trust, for He has shown us His fear, His Love, and His trust in Jesus.

In Jesus, the first Commandment stands fulfill and completed. Jesus has perfectly and completely feared God, loved Him, and trusted Him on our behalf. And with the Resurrection of Jesus the Christ, the Word has revealed to St. Thomas that, because St. Thomas is in Christ, he too has fulfilled the first commandment. Not just the 1^st, but any and all commands from God. And not just commands from God, but life has been fulfilled as well, that he would not see death.

Meaning, now St. Thomas has found that his natural life, which he had been living, is now, and really has been, a supernatural life in the Word. And what bursts out of his lips is not his own doing, but that of the Holy spirit. The same Sprit that anointed Jesus and chose Him to be the Savior of the world since before the beginning.

So, the only way to find this true God of nature and intelligence, is to work backwards from the resurrection. Who was resurrected? Jesus, Who claimed to be God. What is this God like? He healed the sick, cared for the poor, raised the dead. He grew up like us and was born of a virgin.

He lead His people into and out of exile and still took care of them. He literally dwelt with His people in the Temple, gave them pastors, and gave the Commandments through Moses. He rescued Joseph, Isaac, and Noah. He redeemed His wayward children and created an entire universe for them.

You want the one, true God of this universe? You have to go to Jesus. You want to experience Him? You have to go to His Word and Sacraments. Do you find forgiveness, life, light, and salvation there? The Church cries out with St. Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”