By Archpriest George Mitrofanov
In
the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
This
Sunday, dear brothers and sisters, is called Antipascha or Thomas
Sunday. There is something very profound in the fact that on this
Sunday following Bright Week, a time when we have simply rejoiced and
sought respite from our Lenten labors, the Church again sternly
reminds us – I emphasize, sternly – reminds us
of the need for the struggle of faith. We also remember the Holy
Apostle Thomas. Unfortunately, the memory of this Holy Apostle, which
has been preserved through the centuries by the Church, has not
always conveyed to us the Church’s understanding of the meaning of
his confession of faith in Christ. We very often hear that there was
a “faithless Thomas.” When we see someone who does not believe
very deeply in God, or who does not believe very deeply in us
ourselves, we call him a “faithless Thomas.”
Yet
the Church’s understanding of this great Apostle’s ministry is
entirely different.
Yes
indeed, the Holy Apostles, for fear of the Jews, had shut
themselves up in their chamber; yes indeed, many of them were
assailed by doubts, even though their Divine Teacher, Jesus Christ,
had promised His Resurrection to them.
Christ
promised His Resurrection to them. If they had not had the doubts,
they would not have rejected or abandoned Christ, which they did
during His agony on the Cross. But now, when they were all together,
they once again prayed that their Divine Teacher might grant them at
least some sign of His Resurrection. And the Savior appeared to them
in a manner they had not anticipated. He appeared in His
transfigured, resurrected body, in the same body in which the marks
from the nails, gaping like wounds, were still present; yet it was
also the same body that had already been transfigured, not impeding
the Savior from passing through the wall of the chamber to appear to
the Apostles. It was frightful to imagine that an apparition might
have appeared to them, tempting them. But the Savior, seeing their
lack of faith, here too condescended to them by sharing a meal with
them. And when they saw that this was not a spirit, but in fact their
Divine Teacher come in the flesh – that is, that He had fulfilled
His promise to the very end – they rejoiced.
But
the Holy Apostle Thomas was not with them. When he heard about this,
he spoke words that, again, were not some grand apostolic words, but
were simple human words: that he would not believe in the Savior’s
Resurrection until he had placed his fingers into the wounds of His
body. It seems that in a simple, human way he had again begun to
doubt – but the other Apostles had doubted, too. In the words of
the Apostle Thomas there was something else along with doubt: he did
not simply want to see or hear the Risen Christ, he insisted on
boldly putting his fingers in the nail wounds.
I
recall that the many philosophers who developed a theory of knowledge
in subsequent centuries emphasized that man’s most trustworthy and
compelling means of perceiving reality is the tactile: to touch
something with one’s own hands. In fact, we all live in an age when
people believe primarily in that which we can touch with our own
hands. Indeed, the Apostle Thomas required the clearest evidence that
Christ had risen: that He had risen in the body, in the very body in
which He had been nailed to the Cross.
We
reflect on this during the festal days following Pascha, when we do
not especially feel like reflecting on anything difficult; during
days when the joy of the Paschal celebration sometimes generates in
us the illusion of our profound attachment to Christ; during days
when we have no doubts in the Risen Savior because we are not
generally inclined to exert ourselves reflecting on Him. Therefore, a
reminder of the doubting Apostle Thomas can even introduce a certain
discord into our souls. Bearing in mind the words of the
nineteenth-century Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs concerning how
they could not change anything in the Church because the guardians of
the faith are the people of God (words that sounded ambiguous coming
from the mouths of the Church’s hierarchs), we call to mind the
authentically popular designation of the Apostle Thomas as the
unfaithful Thomas. In so doing we essentially shrug off the need for
serious reflection on this passage from the Gospel. It is as if each
one of us thought of ourselves as a faithful Thomas. Meanwhile, a
thoughtful appreciation of the Gospel account reveals to us a man of
the utmost sincerity and purity. It is no accident that he was one of
the Apostles; it is no accident that he confirmed the Church of
Christ in this world by his subsequent apostolic ministry and
martyric death for Christ.
This
same Holy Apostle Thomas at some point doubted what his fellow
Apostles had told him. Why, strictly speaking, should he have
believed them unconditionally? Should he have believed the same
Apostle Peter who had declared that even if everyone else denied
Christ, he would not; but then denied Christ three times, being the
first to deny Him? Why should he have believed the other nine
Apostles, who had also abandoned Christ? Why should he have believed
himself, for he too had abandoned Christ? It is quite possible that
doubt arose in the soul of the Apostle Thomas: perhaps his fellow
Apostles, gathered for fear of the Jews, had seen an
apparition, and it only seemed to them as if Christ had risen and
visited them?
We
most often perceive the doubting of the Holy Apostle Thomas as a sign
of weakness and lack of faith. Moreover, at the end of the Gospel
reading it is stated that blessed are those who have not seen, yet
have believed. And we, of course, include ourselves in the category
of those blessed ones who, not having seen, yet believe. In that
case, for us the Apostle Thomas stands out as a striking example of
the lack of faith against the background of our own faith, the faith
of those who have not seen and, perhaps, even do not now see Christ,
because we too simply both affirm that we are Christians and refer to
ourselves as Christians.
As
such, the Apostle Thomas reminds us of the obvious truth that
Christians are obligated to doubt: to doubt themselves, to doubt
their experience of God, and to doubt their faith in God. There is
absolutely no sin in this. After all, faith is not the same thing as
credulity. When calling to mind the popular description of the
Apostle Thomas as the faithless Thomas, we should also call to mind
our own history, when our own nation, which bestowed the designation
of “faithless” on the Holy Apostle Thomas, expressed its own
faithlessness in the most frightful manner in times not long past.
The
credulity with which our nation followed those who called on it to
destroy its own Church and its own country is evidence that it did
not then have the ability to doubt those who offered it the easy
right to impiety. Thus, recent history shows us how important the
experience of the Holy Apostle Thomas is. Moreover, if we read the
Gospel more attentively, we will find the following: the Apostle
Thomas did not require anything special for himself. After all, Jesus
Christ Himself had repeatedly shown Himself to His disciples, proving
to them that He had risen by showing them His nail wounds. The
Apostle Thomas differed from his fellow Apostles only in the sense
that he, not having seen this evidence, wished for it, expected it,
and then received it from Christ.
This
is a very important theme in the spiritual life of a Christian. When
we, either out of indifference or fear, neither doubt nor ask
questions of God, then we are lying. God awaits questions from us. He
does not need pious puppets. He awaits any one of our questions and
is ready to answer them all. The more tempting and seductive, but
essentially honest, our questions to God are, the more appreciable
God’s answers will be. God is not afraid of our doubts. He is
prepared to listen to our doubts and to dispel them all.
The
Holy Apostle Thomas reminds us, during these days when the Paschal
joy has begun to wane, as do sometimes our thoughts and feelings, of
the labor awaiting us throughout all the upcoming years of our lives.
He calls on us to follow Christ, to live in Christ, and to reflect on
Christ responsibly and consciously; and not to love and believe in
Him mindlessly, as we so often do in this life in relation both to
our loved ones and to the Lord God Himself.
It
is a pity that the Apostle Thomas has not occupied his rightful place
in our tradition. I have in mind our cultural and historical
tradition, not the Church’s Tradition, which has elevated this
Apostle to such a lofty place one week after Pascha by devoting such
marked attention to this very sincere and pure man’s doubts.
Honesty of belief is the key to its authenticity; authentic faith
indeed performs miracles and can bestow on anyone, even the feeblest,
all the remaining spiritual talents. But one needs to begin precisely
with this same sincerity and honesty, the same sincerity and honesty
with which the Apostle Thomas initiated what sometimes strikes us as
an impious conversation with Christ.
Indeed,
many of us do not resolve to approach even a priest with the same
questions and doubts with which Thomas approached Christ; many of us
do not resolve to present our doubts to even our own brothers and
sisters in Christ. What would they think of us? What if they suddenly
decided that we have little or no faith? Falsehood thereby
accumulates in our souls and relationships; falsehood that, concealed
under the illusion of heartfelt, unthinking and, therefore, seemingly
firm faith, essentially turns us into people who truly know neither
ourselves nor our neighbors. And to live in illusion about ourselves
and our neighbors is, after all, a great temptation and a great
falsehood.
Therefore,
let us allow this unanticipated invasion of the Holy Apostle Thomas
into our Paschal joy not only to put us on our guard in regards to
ourselves, but also to calm us in regards to the fact that God awaits
any one of our questions. And every one of our sincerely posed
questions will receive an answer from Him, an answer that in the long
run will introduce us into authentic Paschal joy, not only in the
days following Pascha, but for all the days of our lives. Amen.
Source: http://www.pravmir.com
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen