Homily 683 – Thomas Sunday
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
April 19, 2026
Epistle:  (14) – Acts 5:12-20
Gospel:  (65) – John 20:19-31

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Christ is risen!

One of the most critical aspects of understanding scripture is to place yourself in the passage.  This means that sometimes we are the object, sometimes we are part of the crowd.  Sometimes we are multiple characters.

For today’s passage, it may be easier because of the familiarity with the passage.  Consider though that familiarity can cause us to bypass what God is offering us.  We move too quickly to the familiar.

We are prone, I suspect, to want to be anyone but Thomas.  We don’t want to be seen as a doubting.  And, in addition, in our day, in our time, we need proof, don’t we?  Evidence!  That is what the modern human demands.

The problem here is that proof doesn’t require faith.  There is nothing to believe when there is proof.  Thomas wanted proof, and to see that proof with his own eyes.  Touch that proof with his own hands.  And Christ indulged Thomas, and then, Thomas believed

What Christ tells us here is that we, who don’t have the same personal experience as Thomas, are even more blessed than Thomas when we believe.

Now, this isn’t to say we are better than Thomas – only that our belief results in our blessing.  But the other thing that this tells us is that God desires us.  He wants us!  What an amazing shift in our thinking!

We are hunted – we are not the hunter.  That is to say, we are being pursued, hunted, by God.  So often we believe that it is we who seek God.  But my dear brothers and sisters, that is not true.  God seeks us.

Let me say that again – God seeks us.  This is an absolutely radical transformation from western and protestant idea that we have offended God and God is disgusted with us and wants us to either go away or somehow make right this offense.

With this new knowledge comes a different way to read scripture.  We need to see scripture not as a way to uncover God, but instead, a way that God reaches out to us.  The entirety of scripture becomes parable.

Parables, if we understand them, is taking history and making it applicable to us.  The entirety of Scripture, read correctly, becomes parable – even in the midst of it being historical.  Because we are really not that interested in history.  We at least should not be as concerned with accuracy or detail.

What we are interested in, and what God is trying to do, is reach to us through the medium of Scripture.  He does this by making all of scripture a parable.  It is not a moral lesson to be learned from history, but a moral or spiritual lesson to be learned from parable.

God is speaking not to Thomas.  Not to the Apostles.  God is speaking to us.  Christ is speaking to us.  We are the ones who can put our hands in the print of the nails and the wound at His side.  We are the ones who can by faith do what Thomas did physically.

This isn’t just history.  The Scriptures are alive, and they are Christ Himself speaking to us.

More appropriately, Christ Himself speaks to you, and to me.  We have a danger in thinking that was Christ tells us through a particular passage he also says to our brother or sister or unbeliever.  The question is not “what is Christ saying to the community of Christians.”  The question is “what is Christ telling me.”

And how am I to respond?  What am I to do?  We don’t

Now I don’t want to be Pollyanna about this.  Some passages are difficult, indeed.  We need to struggle with the lessons Christ is giving us.  Yet, in the midst of the struggle, we can barely identify what the message is for us, so there is no way I can say what the message is to someone else.

This is part of the grace of the priesthood.  To assist you in understanding what God is offering you.  It is important, in this day of internet priesthood and internet Orthodoxy to note that this grace for you, individually, is given to your priest, and not to a priest that doesn’t know you.

Orthodoxy is personal.  It is corporate in the sense that the Truth is the same for us all.  How that truth is applied, and how we struggle with seeing ourselves in Scripture, becomes our focus.

The focus changes – importantly and subtlety.  We are no longer trying to understand Scripture.  We are instead trying to understand ourselves.  We are trying to change ourselves, or rather allow ourselves to be changed by God, through Scripture.

We are learning how to live.  We are learning how to be human.

We learn how to reflect God – His love, and his mercy.

We learn that God Himself – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is all about love and mercy.  Judgement and vengeance fade, even evaporate.  We understand that it is our ego getting in the way of the experience of God.

Because what we experience as judgement and vengeance is actually our own ego getting in the way, lying to us about what we are experience.  We find sadness, pain, punishment, when the reality is that we are experiencing love, and growth, and restoration.

When I was growing up, I experienced what we called growing pains.  It is the same with the Christian path.  But the pain is cause for rejoicing and celebration.  It means we are shedding our old man, our old flesh – the ego which is holding us back from becoming what God desires us to be.  The ego which keeps us immature and childish.

So allow the change.  Find yourself in the Scriptures.  Believe.  As Christ is risen from the dead, and we are resurrect with Him.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Christ is risen!