Experiencing God - Has He Risen In Your Heart 43

Jesus said to Thomas: “you believe because you see, blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”.
Gospel of John

Last Sunday I ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen for many years. His name is Joe. Joe is a musician currently living in Cape Breton. I’ve known him since my late twenties. Back then, he had quite an influence on me. You see Joe was a young man who I saw as giving his life to the Lord. Everything he did was for the Lord. I was willing to make a contribution to this, but was holding back a reserve for myself in case things didn’t work out. Joe challenged me in this by the way he lived. He wrote a selection of songs on the passion of Christ, and with a slide presentation, he would sing a very moving performance of the passion of Christ using the slides. I saw this presentation many times. The refrain to one of the songs that he sang goes like this:

Has he risen in your heart?
Have you let Him be free? 
Do you show Him the lock on your door,
or do you give Him the key.
  
Has He risen in your heart? Do you know the joy of the resurrection?

I love the gospel stories from scripture that follow the crucifixion of Christ. They are the stories that so vividly describe the changes that had taken place in the apostles and in the followers of Jesus after a turbulent time. We have Peter, who during Christ’s passion, denied Him three times. He wanted nothing to do with Christ’s sufferings, and was very much afraid of being drawn into the anger and hostility of both the Jewish and Roman authorities. Yet, in the readings from "Acts", we see Peter, boldly proclaiming the Lordship of Christ, even to his opponents, and healing others in Christ’s name. He is no longer concerned with the reaction of those around him.  

As a result of this new found courage, many were drawn to faith in the early church. Jesus had truly risen in his heart. And because of that, many were drawn to that same faith in Christ.

And then, in the Gospel of John, we have the story of Thomas, the last apostle to meet the resurrected Christ. Thomas was the last holdout among the apostles. He was, in a sense, a natural sceptic, as many of us are at times. He is the one who openly admitted: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and feet, unless I see the hole in His side, I will not believe.” It’s very surprising that after being with Jesus for three years that he did not have a better understanding of what Jesus taught. It was as if his mind was closed to the message that Jesus was trying to convey to his disciples. I don’t think there is any question that Thomas deeply loved Jesus, that he listened to Jesus, but it seemed that, up to this time, he was only able to understand and to know Him at a physical level. Jesus’ death, to Thomas, would mean that He was gone. And obviously, he didn’t want to be fooled into thinking anything different.

In a way, do we not live in a society that is largely stuck in a similar framework of understanding? On one hand, we have a growing knowledge about all that we can physical see, hear and touch, but have distanced ourselves from those areas that we cannot be rationally understood, but can only be understood from a faith perspective. And despite the fact that we may have a lot of intellectual knowledge about religions and principals of faith, we often remain quite unchanged by it. This was probably a bit of what Thomas was experiencing.

But when Thomas did eventually encounter the Risen Jesus, examined the marks on his body, his response revealed a traumatic change of heart. “My Lord and my God”, was his response. Jesus had risen in his heart. He now believed by faith. Jesus’ response to him: “you believe because you see, blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”.

I recall the time as well when I too made that transition from just understanding a lot of stuff about Jesus to experiencing the presence of Christ by faith.  

It would probably be safe to say that I may have even thought myself a little wise from what I had learned; the vocabulary, the philosophy, even some prayer practices. Yet, all of this cannot compare to what I would eventually experience by this gift that comes from Christ. It was as if the lights had come on. Before, it was like I was in a room with all the doors and windows closed and the blinds pulled. And after, it was as if the windows and doors were swung opened and I walked outside into the bright sunlight. Thomas, in his encounter with the risen Christ, was moved from doubt to a new realization of God’s presence and a new understanding of His teaching. Before he was immobilized by uncertainty and confusion; after he became an ardent evangelizer for Christ to all he met. Thomas himself spent the rest of his life preaching the gospel in places from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, and eventually reached India where he was martyred for the faith.

Today, as much as in any other time, we need this change of heart. We need hearts that are open to re-discover and possess the power and the refreshment of the risen Christ.  

Like Thomas, the only way to get unstuck from doubt is to be lifted up and outward by the Spirit. Jesus’ rising encompasses this mystery, that even though we may find ourselves in the uncertain state of confusion and sinfulness, we are invited to believe, to be transformed, and to be a part of this sublime mystery.

Has He risen in your hearts? Have you let him be free? Do you show Him the lock on your door, or do you give Him the Key.  

By giving Christ the key to our hearts, we come to the knowledge and the belief that, through Christ, we are acceptable before God, we are forgiven, we are liberated, we are saved. He calls us to a way of life that is beyond our rational understanding, but a way that enables us to be His creative expression in the world, and to all those with hearts that are open to listen.