Second Sunday of Easter, April 11, 2021 – Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31

“Ring around the rosie, pockets full of posies, ashes, ashes, all fall down.” When we were little kids, we used to play that game. I don’t think it’s much fun after you get past the age of six. But I can remember, still, a bunch of us holding hands and circling like crazy around one person in the middle until we got dizzy and then we all fell down. And then it was someone else’s turn to be in the middle, we did it again, until we’d exhausted ourselves. I don’t know if children play that game anymore, but we never knew, when we played the game, what a grim origin that little poem had.

It’s really “Ring around a rosey” is what begins it. It refers to the bubonic plague that decimated London in the sixteenth century. It begins as red blotches all over your skin. That’s the rosey. Now a little ring appears around it and it begins to fester, and smells terrible. That’s why the “pocket full of posies” - people put flowers in every pocket they had to try to offset the stench, until it became unbearable. And then, they “all fell down” - they were dead. And because so many were dying at the same time, all the public officials could do was put the bodies dreadful in big heaps and burn them, to try to stop the infection.

Very often, stories change from their original meaning to another meaning. In this case it went from a grim reality to a funny little kids’ game. Sometimes it switches and goes the other way.

There are many stories of the resurrection appearances in the four gospels, but they all begin almost twenty years earlier. In the first letter to the Corinthians, this is what Paul writes, “I handed on to you what I myself received, that Jesus appeared to Cepheus (that’s Peter) and then to the twelve, and after that He appeared to more than five hundred of the brethren, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. After that, He appeared to James and then to all of the apostles.” St. Paul wrote these words around the year fifty, but he was referring to what he was taught when he was entering the faith, which was in the late thirties. That means that the stories he was told then, were genuine eyewitness experiences of the risen Lord that were passed onto him. Each of those appearances gets taken up into one or other of the gospel accounts of the appearances of the risen Jesus. And, no matter which gospel you read, the stories break themselves down into several component parts. The first is that, somehow or other, Jesus’ really humanity is verified. He eats with His disciples, or they touch Him, or something else that guarantees that this a genuine person who’s in front of them. Then Jesus interprets the meaning and purpose of His crucifixion and resurrection, and then in some way He commissions the listeners to spread the word in His name. Those are the three components. You find them everywhere.

In Matthew’s gospel, it takes place on a mountain top In Galilee. In Luke’s gospel, the one we read last Sunday, it takes place right in the city of Jerusalem. Two disciples walk from Jerusalem to a very nearby suburb called Emmaus. They experience the risen Jesus. They go back to Jerusalem to tell what happened to them, and they find out it happened to everybody else as well. And then Jesus appears right in the middle of them (that’s the story we’ll hear next Sunday) and commissions them. In John’s gospel, we have two different versions. That’s why I asked you to decide whether you heard one or two stories. The first story is the one we had this morning, which takes place in Jerusalem. And then that story ends by the gospel writer, John, telling us what it meant. That’s supposed to be the end of the story. But then he wrote a second ending, like a director’s cut, in which Jesus appears, not in Jerusalem, but in Galilee, at the lakeshore. There’s a miraculous catch of fish. Jesus makes breakfast for everybody, challenges Peter about his denial, and then commissions him to “feed my sheep.” The structure’s there in both of them.

So was this morning’s story one or two? We have all been taught, and rightly so, that this is the place where we find the root of the sacrament of reconciliation, the sacrament of penance. But confession, as we know it, did not begin until the late third or early fourth century. At the beginning, the forgiveness of sins was included in baptism. And was presumed that people who were baptized would never commit a grave sin after that. It was only when people began committing grave sins after that, that the church had to decide how to bestow Christ’s forgiveness again. But because we have been taught that the root of the sacrament of penance is here, we hear that story as complete in itself. And then, because we have been taught that the appearance to Thomas is a lesson in faith for us, that’s how we hear the story. But originally the whole thing, from Jesus first entering the upper room until the very end where Thomas says, “My Lord and my God,” is all one story. And the story has the same structure as all the other stories.

When Jesus appears to Thomas, it’s not because Jesus needs to prove something to Thomas, it’s because a dreadful sin has been committed by Thomas. He has broken the brotherhood. He says to those who are supposed to be his closest friends, he says to the other ten, “I don’t believe you. And I refuse to believe you unless I get something that’s impossible to get.” The hurt and resulting anger of that confrontation between this one man and all the others needs to be resolved in some way. And so Jesus reappears and does what He did the first time for Thomas’ sake. “Peace be with you.” The action of forgiveness of the risen Jesus to those who had abandoned and betrayed him. Then he offers Thomas the opportunity to do what they had been able to do. To touch Jesus. To see His wounds. To recognize that He is a real human being. The proof of Thomas’ forgiveness is that it elicits from him a tremendous statement of faith - “My Lord and my God.”

Why does St. John tell the story this way? Because in his community, at the end of the first century, there was a great need for forgiveness. Two opinions had erupted among the Christian communities in the first century that were damaging and threatening to destroy the Church. One, was that Jesus couldn’t possibly really be God. The other was that Jesus couldn’t possibly really be a human being. And so, the story has the disciples first test Jesus genuine humanity, and then be convinced of his divinity. And Thomas sums it all up in the phrase, “My Lord and my God.”

It probably shouldn’t be translated “my Lord.” It probably should be translated “my Master.” The word, in Latin and Greek, means either one or the other. My Lord - the genuine human being who is over me - and my God - the second person in the Blessed Trinity. And so, what the story is telling us, is about the need for forgiveness, so that the community that is divided can be reunited by accepting, at the same time, both Jesus’ genuine humanity and Jesus’ divinity. And, by doing that, they can begin to do what Jesus wants them to do, and that is to tell the story, in its correct form, to other people.

How is this important to us? Because we live in a community, we live in a world that is severely divided. Zero sum, cancel culture, hashtag this, hashtag that, this group matters, that group matters, tearing us apart. It requires that we be willing to forgive the other side. Not to forget what they have done. Not to suddenly agree that their opinion is the right opinion. But rather to forgive, and to be ready to be forgiven. Because, most of us find it easier to forgive, hard as it may be, than to accept the forgiveness of others. But it is essential for us to move forward. That’s why John ends his gospel by saying, “These have been written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ (human being) and Son of God (divine second person), so that you, too, may be about the business of forgiving. Because if you forgive people’s sins, then they are forgiven. But if you hold tight to them, then they are still bound.”