Brennan, Andrei S. P.

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 26Issue 2 Apocalyptic Article 811-1-2000Seeing is believingAndrei S. P. BrennanFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Sermons is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationBrennan, Andrei S. P. (2000) "Seeing is believing," Consensus: Vol. 26 : Iss. 2 , Article 8.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol26/iss2/8Seeing is Believing'Andrei S. P. Brennan/\rchbishop. The Orthodox Church of CanadaKitchener, OntarioText: John 20:19-31IntroductionO n Thomas Sunday, the Sunday following Orthodox Easter,in the Spring of 1985, a young Canadian peacekeeper sta-tioned in the Golan Heights heard today’s Gospel passageintoned while attending the Divine Liturgy at an Orthodox Church. Thepeacekeeper stood nervously in his dress-green uniform, occasionallyfingering the gunbelt he was ordered to wear. At that time, United Na-tions peacekeeping forces were stationed in this small volatile region ofIsrael, extending between the Northeastern bank of the Sea of Galilee tothe Syrian border. Israeli forces and Arab-lslamic terrorist factions werefrequently engaged in skirmishes, and often the local Arabic OrthodoxChristian communities were caught in the crossfire. Despite the jubilantfeeling of the worshippers, the tension in the air was unmistakable.The Liturgy ends. The young peacekeeper departs the church, don-ning his crisp-new, powder-blue CJ.N. beret. Suddenly there are screamsfrom the crowd of Christian congregants, gathered in fellowship in frontof the church. He hears the characteristic “pop-pop-pop” of small armsfire. Feeling fear and excitement boiling up in his stomach, thepeacekeeper moves quickly through the jostling crowd, stepping overwounded casualties lying still or writhing in agony on the cobblestones.He cannot quite believe what he is seeing. The gunshots continue theirstaccato barking, as the wails of pain and terror increase. The air is thickwith the acrid smells of gunsmoke, blood, and human fear, obscenelyprofaning the lingering sweet fragrance of incense.98 ConsensusFinally, the peacekeeper breaks through the frantically-escaping massof people, and draws his pistol from its decorative white-leather holster.What he sees shocks him, and causes him to hesitate: two young boys,dressed in the clothing of Palestinian Moslems, perhaps thirteen and fif-teen years of age, are the attackers. Each is firing an AK-47 into thethrong of Palestinian Christians - their ethnic cousins - later it would bereported that eleven had been killed and thirty-four wounded in this sense-less act of violence.The peacekeeper holds up his left hand and points his pistol with hisright, yelling at the boys to stop. The elder boy aims his rifle at thesoldier, and fires a single shot. The peacekeeper feels a burning thudstrike his upheld wrist - without thinking, he fires his pistol at the teen,killing him instantly with a shot to the head. The younger boy, his brotherby appearances, loses his courage and drops his rifle. For a brief mo-ment, the man and the boy stare at each other - the man’s face filledwith pain and anger, the boy’s face crumpling with grief and fright. Theyoung officer lowers his weapon, and the boy, glancing mournfully at theruined face of his brother, turns and runs.The peacekeeper, shock building within him, turns to tend thewounded. His blood mingles with theirs on the churchyard cobblestones.Shrieking sirens signal the arrival of help - the peacekeeper’s throbbing,broken wrist is quickly bandaged. He is whisked from the site of themassacre back to the G.N. compound, where he is locked alone in asecure trailer. Already the Islamic terrorist authorities have put a price onhis head. As he sits in the locked trailer awaiting evacuation, fearing forhis life and suffering waves of nearly-unbearable pain, all he can see inhis mind’s eye is the face of the young boy whose brother he has killed.Mindful of the sacramental body and blood of Christ still in his stomach,the peacekeeper wonders if God will ever forgive him for taking the life ofa child. His fear and guilt motivate him to look for a sign of God’s grace,so that he might be at peace. Seeing is believing, and our young soldier,trapped in his locked room, sees no way to escape the horror of this day.Trouble in the TextIn the wake of the horror of the crucifixion, Jesus’ disciples were alsolocked in a room in great fear. Fear for their lives, since the authoritiesmay have sought to round up the followers of the troublemaking Nazarene.Seeing is Believing 99Filled with guilt for having run in the hour of Jesus’ need. In their mind’seye is the face of their Teacher, lost to them.The chamber is quiet, as they speak in subdued voices. The sunpeeks through the cracks in the shuttered windows, illuminating the dustmotes in the dim, dark room. The heat is oppressive, and the placesmells of sweat and fear. None of the disciples can bring themselves to' look one another in the eyes. The gloom casts its shadow on all in theiroom, as they bleakly ponder what the future may hold for them. Then,suddenly, despite the locked doors and shuttered windows, the roombrightens. Jesus stands in their midst, calling them to peace. He hasrisen!Thomas wasn’t there that day. You remember Thomas, ever thei practical pessimist. Even before the Lord came into Jerusalem, ThomasIsaw the writing on the wall. When Jesus and his disciples went to BethanyIto mourn the death of Lazarus, Thomas was there. Remember how he|jgrumpily said, “Let us go and die with him.”IThomas wasn’t too happy with Jesus. First of all, Jesus had ap-i pointed that thief Judas as treasurer; knowing that Judas was embez-zling funds. Sure enough, Judas had shown his true colours when hebetrayed Jesus for money. Secondly, the “new kingdom” that Jesus had;promised certainly wasn’t going to happen now. Thomas had hoped toibe a cabinet minister, or gain some position for himself in the new re-;gime. All his life people just called him “the twin” - by some unluckyjtwist of fate, his elder brother, born only minutes before Thomas, got hisIown name and was heir to what little their parents owned. Thomas grew:up in someone else’s shadow - someone who looked just like him, buthad everything, while Thomas was just “the twin”.So, when Thomas met Jesus, he saw his chance. Perhaps he couldmake a name for himself with this new movement. But now it was allover - Jesus had been executed as a criminal, and Thomas had to goback to being a nobody.Now these other crazy followers of Jesus were trying to tell Thomasthat their Lord was alive, that he had risen from his tomb. “Right!” saysIThomas. He was nobody’s fool. “Unless 1 can see him and touch hisI wounds, forget about it.” For Thomas, seeing is believing.100 ConsensusTrouble in Our World“Seeing is believing” is a common enough viewpoint. Many modemtheologians say basically the same thing when they deny the bodily res-urrection of Christ. Nothing in our visible experience of life permits us tobelieve that an organism, once dead, can become alive again. Some ofthese theologians, wanting to maintain their Christian faith, posit thatthe Risen Christ was a “spook”, a ghostly apparition. Others try to con-vince us that the New Testament community “felt Jesus in their hearts”,and made up the resurrection accounts to symbolically explain some-thing that they all believed to be true at a “deeper” level.Today’s lection plainly shows that the disciples were not all so credu-lous. Thomas is the voice of our empirical age - he demands physicalproof. For him, seeing is believing, but he wants tactile evidence as well- he needs to touch his Lord’s identifying wounds to believe that it isreally Jesus. Clearly the experience of the Risen Christ transformed thedisciples from living in fear in a locked room, to become the apostoliccommunity, preaching the Good News throughout the known world andbeyond. It was the experience of the Risen Christ that mattered to them,not the theory of how he could have risen in the first place. For thedisciples, seeing the Risen Christ was believing in him.The experience of the Risen Christ is not always so easy for us to seein the world today. 1 think of Kosovo last Eastertide, when NATO wasbombing Yugoslavia back into the Stone Age. At that time, certain nomi-nal Christians were deporting and killing Moslems, while certain nominalMoslems were burning and destroying churches and monasteries, killinganyone who resisted. In the midst of all this chaos, faithful Christianswere trying to celebrate the Feast of Christ’s Resurrection, while fire raineddown upon them from the heavens. For these Christians, locked in theirchurches, who could not see the face of the Risen Christ clearly throughthe smoke and pain of war, belief was solely based on what others hadseen. This belief gave them hope that Christ would come and bringthem peace. “Blessed are those who do not see, and yet believe.”Grace in the TextAgain, we find our community of early Christians gathered togetherin a locked room. This time Thomas is with them, certainly skeptical.Seeing is Believing 101but likely hopeful at some level that he might be proved wrong in hisdoubts. Suddenly, Jesus is again in their midst, calling them to peace. Aweek prior he had exhaled upon them the gift of his Holy Breath - only aliving being has breath - and ordained them for God’s mission of healingthe broken world. Now they are gathered in expectant anticipation - theroom is no longer gloomy, even if the disciples still fear arrest. All ofthem are staring at Thomas; hoping, praying...o;////ng him to believe.Thomas stands agape - he sees, but his mind cannot process theimage. Jesus gives him one of those looks that Thomas remembers sowell - a look filled with love, understanding, patience and gentle determi-nation. Seeing is believing, and impossibly, Jesus stands before him.Jesus knows Thomas’ doubts, his desire to believe, his lack of purpose-ful identity. Jesus sees all that and believes in Thomas. Jesus gesturesto him; invites Thomas to touch his hands, his side, “Be not unbeliev-ing, but believing,” Jesus says.All Thomas’ doubts fade away. His lack of personal purpose nowseems trite and self-centred. Before him is the miracle of his Teacher, hisleader, his friend - still bearing the marks of death, yet living. Thomas’shame and pessimism dissolve into awe and wonder. He falls to hisknees, his lips move and he confesses, “My Lord and my God!” The twinhas found his name, his inheritance, his purpose in the person of theRisen Christ. Seeing is believing! Thomas sees, and his belief trans-forms him. Christ reveals himself to Thomas, and Thomas is fulfilled.Jesus tells him, “You believe because you see, blessed are those who donot see and yet believe.” The disciples are now empowered by theirFaith to witness to the Resurrection of the Lord. The Church is born;new life from death, new hope from despair, new belief from doubt.Grace in our WorldSome misguided pastors of the Church have attacked doubt as a sinagainst God. Yet, Thomas’ doubt laid the groundwork for a lively, trans-forming faith - a Faith that would lead Thomas to evangelize India andobtain a martyr’s crown. Our doubt awakens us from dogmatic slum-bers, and motivates us to look for the presence of the living Christ in theworld. It was in Christ’s woundedness that he revealed himself to Tho-mas, and it is in the woundedness of others that we can often experienceChrist in our midst.102 ConsensusAt the Paschal Vigil last Spring, while our Christian brothers and sis-ters in Yugoslavia cringed in their churches as fire was rained down uponthem, a different kind of fire was being kindled in Jerusalem. There, inthe great church of the Holy Sepulchre, built by Emperor Constantinethe Great in the fourth century, thousands of expectant Christian faithful,interspersed with dozens of curious Moslem onlookers, awaited the tollof midnight.The church is in near-darkness; all of the oil lamps and candles re-main unlit. As the sacred time approaches, the elderly Orthodox Patri-arch of Jerusalem, clad resplendently in his shining vestments, slowlydescends into the tomb of Christ. A few hushed moments later, anotherworldly glow is sparked in the depths of the tomb. Its green-whiterays fire out into the dark church, illuminating the glorious frescos. Thecrowd’s breath is caught in awe. Suddenly, the Holy Fire is seen movinglike glowing fireflies, playfully dancing out of the tomb, lighting the oillamps over the iconostasis and the candles in everyone’s hands. Withinmoments, the whole church is ablaze with brilliant radiance, and thepeople exultantly chant the ancient Pascal hymn:Christ is Risen from the dead! Having trampled death by death!And unto those in the tombs, having life bestowed!Christians and Moslems stand together, laughing and marvelling atthe unexpected grace of God. Seeing is believing, and despite theirdoubts and differences, the faithful in the Church of the Holy Sepulchreexperience the peace of the Risen Christ.ConclusionRemember our young peacekeeper? Well, a year passes for him,and he finds himself working as an ambulance attendant in Toronto.Each morning he awakens in a cold sweat, seeing before him the accus-ing face of the young boy whose brother he has killed. He has driftedfrom his church, despairing of God’s forgiveness. Then, one morning inthe Easter season, he is called to the scene of a traffic accident. A youngboy has been struck by a car. On arrival, the young paramedic bendsover the boy to examine his wounds. He looks at the boy’s face, and hisheart catches. It cannot be! The boy’s eyes flicker open momentarily.The two stare at each other in fear and mutual recognition. The boy’sexpression changes from troubled and terror-stricken to pain-filled andSeeing is Believing 103pleading. In shock and wonder, the paramedic falls to his knees, his lipsmoving soundlessly: ‘My Lord and my God!” In treating the wounds ofthe boy he had wounded, the young man feels God’s grace again. See-ing is believing. Seeing is believing, and for our young soldier-cum-healer, the presence of the Risen Christ is revealed in the innocent faceof a wounded enemy.We too can experience the Risen Christ in the woundedness of oth-ers. God raises us from the tombs of guilt and despair. Christ offers ushis Risen presence in the faces of the hurting. Seeing is believing, andwe see the Resurrected Lord all around us. He breathes on us and or-dains us for God’s mission to heal the broken world. When we touchand tend the physical, spiritual, and emotional wounds of the needy -the young, the poor, the sick, the old - Christ reveals himself to us. Ourresponse is that of Thomas and the young paramedic: “My Lord and myGod!” And like them, we are empowered by the Risen Lord to bring theGood News of healing to others. Therefore, when we see someone whois hurting, see Christ in the woundedness. Seeing is believing.Note^ This sermon was prepared by Archbishop Andrei in the autumn of 1999 whilehe was a graduate student in theology at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. Thesermon was a requirement for a preaching course taught by Dr. David S.Jacobsen, Assistant Professor of Homiletics at WLS, and follows loosely thehomiletical model presented by Paul Scott Wilson in The Four Pages of theSermon: A Guide to Biblical Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999).

Seeing is believing

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Seeing is believing

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