My Lord And My God!
A Reflection On John 20:19-31
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in His side, I will not believe.”
Eight days later, His disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see My hands; and put out your hand, and place it in My side; do not be faithless, but believing.” Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and My God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name.
John 20:19-31
Christ is Risen!
Here we are, finally in the period of the Resurrection. We have proclaimed, “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the grave He is bestowing life.” Truly, the Resurrection is potent in our hearts and minds, and the Church keeps this reality prominent as we continue in this new liturgical season.
Last Sunday, at the beginning of the Liturgy, we welcomed this new liturgical season with the reading of John 1, which proclaimed who Christ is as the Logos, tying together everything we had celebrated during Holy Week. Due to my lack of energy, we did not have a reflection on this reading; however, by the grace of God, there will always be next year.
For now, what we need to take away from last week’s Gospel is that we have begun a new period of reflection through our Scripture readings, which reveal how the Resurrection transforms our lives and our understanding of who the Risen Lord is.
In this week’s reading, we hear of Christ’s appearance to His apostles after His Resurrection and Thomas’s declaration when he sees the Risen Lord for the first time. This Sunday, called Thomas Sunday, emphasizes Christ’s presence and authority, inviting us to reflect on how doubt can lead to a stronger faith when met with Christ’s grace.
The passage begins by telling us that while the disciples are locked away, with the doors shut out of fear of the Jews, “Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’”
With this appearance of Christ, we see a marked characteristic of Christ post-Resurrection: He is identifiable, yet different in an indescribable way. The doors are shut, yet He appears to the disciples, and sensing their fear, He proclaims peace to them. Remember, God is the source of peace, so this statement of shalom has a profound meaning. It is more than a simple greeting; it is the embodiment of God’s peace.
Another characteristic of the Resurrection is that Christ shows His hands and side to them. Seeing His scars, we are reminded that our own brokenness is being transformed. If Christ rises to reveal the fullness of who He is while retaining the marks of His Passion, then we know that the markings of our passions are not defects; rather, they are being made perfect by the only Perfect One—God.
This tells us what we are to receive in our own resurrection, for we too will retain the markings of the life we have lived. Yet, when all is said and done, we will stand in Christ’s presence as the fullness of who we are intended by God to be.
Adding the words, “As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you,” reminds us that in meeting the Risen Lord, we receive His peace and are called to embody it, sharing His life and peace with others. This inspires a sense of purpose and responsibility, emphasizing that a Christian’s life is one of service.
During this interaction, Christ leaves them with one final command. We read: “And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’”
By breathing on them and sending the Holy Spirit, we see a parallel to Genesis, when the Logos breathed life into humanity. As we have mentioned before, a spirit is an animating force; thus, God’s Holy Spirit is the very source of life Himself. What we see, then, is that God offers us renewed life, and in doing so, the power to forgive sins enters into the equation.
The reason for this is that sin, by definition, is missing the mark—Christ. If we miss Christ, we flee from life; yet if we draw near to the life Christ offers, we experience newness of life. The key, then, is to focus on the remission of sin that comes from allowing God’s presence into our lives, rather than on the power of the apostles. Any authority they possess comes from God’s presence and power.
In summary, the presence of the Risen Lord leaves the apostles with authority, life, and a call to share the gifts they have received, imitating their Lord all the while. Yet we are told that Thomas was not with them when Jesus came. When he is told, “We have seen the Lord,” Thomas replies, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in His side, I will not believe.”
Thomas is not yet prepared to receive the news of the Resurrection. Yet eight days later, Christ once again appears to them in the upper room, proclaiming peace. Then, seeing Thomas, He tells him, “Put your finger here, and see My hands; and put out your hand, and place it in My side; do not be faithless, but believing.”
Knowing what Thomas had requested reveals to us God’s presence in every moment. He knows what is in our hearts and reveals Himself to us when we need Him most. In His command to Thomas, we see that He works with us in our weakness and struggle. Thomas, in the West, is often called “Doubting Thomas,” yet his doubt is not presented as a purely negative trait. Rather, it is through his encounter with Christ that he proclaims Him to be, “My Lord and my God!”
Thomas is the first person in John’s Gospel to proclaim explicitly that Jesus is God, and this proclamation comes through his doubt. Yet we are left with Christ telling Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” This statement is for all of us, for we are those who believe without seeing. Rather than a rebuke of Thomas, it serves as encouragement for us in our own struggle toward Christ.
Concluding this reading, we are told that Jesus did many signs, “but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” The point of the Gospel is to reveal to us who Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is, and the life He offers to us through His loving and saving presence.
In this narrative, we see how Christ meets us through the apostles as the fullness of who He is. He reveals Himself as God by offering His life-giving Spirit. He brings with Him the peace of God, and with authority He sends them forth.
In being sent, we come to see that we encounter the Risen Lord in all whom we meet, for we have been given His Holy Spirit, who animates and calls us toward new life in His presence. We embody Christ by living as He lived, and as we do so in loving service, we share the image of God with all.
In this, we see that Christ is truly God, yet He retains the scars of His Passion. What this means for us is that, in the Resurrection, we do not become something entirely different; rather, we become fully who we are intended to be in God’s presence. It is through brokenness that the transfigurative reality of the Resurrection takes place. It is through transfigured brokenness that Christ gives His followers His life and sends them out to share that gift with all.
We must remember that it is also through transfigured brokenness that Thomas proclaims Christ to be, “My Lord and my God!”
God works within our distorted reality to bring about, through His Resurrection, the reality He always intended. What God is so great as our God, who meets us in our brokenness and uses it to guide us toward the path of life He has always intended for us? Thus, if God serves us in this way, we see the model for how we are called to relate to ourselves and to others.
However our brokenness may present itself, Christ is making us perfect in the midst of the struggle. As we live by the Spirit He has given us, our wounds and scars are transformed, so that the fullness of who we are is realized in His presence. There is no Resurrection without the Passion, and in our struggle to believe, we strive to have the openness of heart of Thomas, recognizing Christ and all He offers us as “My Lord and my God!”
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