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May only truth be spoken, and truth heard.
Amen.
While it is a week later for us, for the apostles it is the same evening as when the women find the tomb empty. In the gospel reading, we find the guys hunkered down behind a locked door, everyone except Thomas that is, who is out getting groceries for dinner or something, when Jesus shows up and says, “Peace be with you.” Thomas returns to the room, and everyone starts telling him about what happened. You can picture everyone trying to talk over each other in excitement. And, of course, Thomas doesn’t believe them and becomes forever known as Doubting Thomas.
That’s
usually where we would sit today, talking about Thomas and his doubts. But I
thought maybe we’d give poor old Thomas a break today and talk about the letter
from John, instead.
No
one knows for sure who wrote the letters from John, but with their inarguable
parallels to the 4th gospel, it is most likely that the writers were
one and the same. John’s letters are believed to have been written around year
90, about 60 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus and yet there has
been no second coming of the Messiah. Conflict and schisms are starting to
occur as the letters speak of things like deceivers, liars, false prophets, and
antichrists. It is very likely that, just as with the letters from Paul, John
is writing to doubters, people who are questioning the events that happened,
and whether or not Jesus was indeed the Messiah they had been waiting for.
Today
we heard the opening of the first of three letters that John wrote to his Johannine
community. He is writing to his community about the proclamation that the word
of life was revealed in Jesus Christ, and he does so with such certainty as he
writes,
“We declare to you
what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our
eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of
life – this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and
declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us.”
There
is a parallel here to “In the beginning…” from the Gospel of John. However, the
Gospel was referring to the beginning of time, before the heavens and the earth
were created, whereas the letter refers to the beginning of the life and
ministry of Jesus Christ, an actual human being who would be heard and seen and
touched. John is appealing to his community that what he speaks about is the
truth.
But
what is truth? Is it only things that can be heard and seen and touched?
There
are basic truths in the world that are assumed and unchanging. Things like the
sun will always rise in the East and set in the West. Or if I breathe in, I
will breathe out. Or if I touch water, my hand will get wet.
But
does something have to be heard or seen or touched to be true? In only 60 years,
the community to whom John is writing is already starting to doubt the truth of
Jesus Christ because they weren’t there to see the resurrection. But two millennia
later, Christ has been the truth to generations of Christians who never get to
hear or see or touch him except through faith. Those who were present on that
day were charged with passing along the message and it is in this same
fellowship that we belong, a fellowship that goes well beyond the walls of this
building into a world that perhaps has not heard the truth of Jesus Christ.
And
just what is that truth? The truth is that we are all in fellowship with God, Son,
and Holy Spirit and that Jesus became human in order to kickstart that fellowship.
And while his death and resurrection might feel like an ending, it is really
just the beginning. That while we were momentarily in darkness, the light of God
is seen brightest in the light of the resurrection, helping us to see clearly that
life isn’t always what it can or should be. We will most assuredly fall short
of God’s glory, but the light of God also gives us hope by enlightening our
minds and our hearts.
The
resurrection provides us with the hope that everything will be okay despite the
circumstances and challenges we face. Hope, in contrast to the darkness of
despair, holds a transformative power. It lights our path with a sense of
purpose and belonging in our world, assuring us that things will work out. This
hope empowers us to maintain a positive outlook in our personal lives and
relationships. It magnifies our well-being, even in the face of life's most
difficult challenges, inspiring us to keep moving forward one step at a time.
We
who live in fellowship with the Holy Trinity can hold off despair when things
don’t quite turn out the way we hope, when the Messiah doesn’t return as planned,
when shadows fall across our journey, because we know that we will always have an
advocate in Jesus who will walk with us and enable us to move in confidence
from shadow into light.
And
we can be thankful that “God is light and in God there is no darkness at all”
as God’s light offers the greatest source of hope, the “light that shines in
the darkness and is overcome”.
The
beginning of the first letter from John that we heard today leads us towards a
fellowship that is grounded in God’s grace by declaring that we need God in our
lives. John is telling us that God invites each and everyone one of us into community
with God and with one another. As Debra Freeman writes, “If I walk alone, then
I walk in darkness, but when we walk together with God, we walk in a light of
joy and fellowship.”
To
all the earliest Christian communities, and to our community gathered today,
John proclaims the good news of Easter. God is light, and in God, there is no
darkness at all. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
Amen.
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