When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19)
John’s account of Jesus’ first resurrection appearance to His disciples begins with a line that may sound jarring to our ears. They were locked away “for fear of the Jews”.
Some translations soften this to “for fear of the Jewish authorities” to make it sound less antisemitic, and “Jewish authorities” is historically correct, of course, but the softer translation risks obscuring the deeper ache that is here in the text. The disciples were themselves Jews. Their fear was not of some foreign enemy but of their own people, and that is a very particular kind of pain.
We all have a sense of who ‘our people’ are – the tribe that gives us identity, belonging, and safety – a people whom we call home. Whether we define ‘our people’ by race or culture or religion or country of birth or by the football team we support, having a tribe is a fundamental part of what it means to be human.
Tribalism becomes toxic, of course, when we start thinking of our tribe as being better than all the other tribes, but the longing for a people, a home, a community where we are known is essential for all of us, and John tells us that the disciples no longer felt safe at home. They were disoriented, displaced, and unsure where they belonged. They had followed Jesus to the margins of their community, and now Jesus had gone, leaving them suspended between a past that they could not go back to and a future that was completely invisible to them.
That sense of alienation is not foreign to me. I grew up in a Christian household where my father was a prominent church figure until his marriage to my mother collapsed. The church—our tribe—effectively ostracised both my father and my mother. My father eventually found his way back to the church, but my mother never did. She died young, still wounded, still feeling unsafe among the people who were meant to be her spiritual family.
People who know my parents’ story are often amazed that I opted for a career with the same church, and then, of course, ended up having a very similar experience. I guess I’m not the first person to repeat the mistakes of their parents.
It is a terrible thing when your own people turn on you, and I imagine the disciples huddled in that locked room, clinging to one another, unsure as to who they were anymore. They’d staked everything on Jesus. Then Good Friday came—violent, bloody and disillusioning. They’d gambled their lives on red. The wheel spun black. Jesus was gone. They didn’t know how to move forward, and they were too afraid to go back.
This is the emotional landscape into which the risen Jesus steps. And it is the same landscape Thomas walks back into when he returns to the group and hears what he missed, and we know his response:
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
We call him ‘doubting Thomas’, but it’s not as if Thomas is a sceptic weighing evidence. I’m pretty sure he was shouting those words, “… I will not believe.” He was angry, and he was angry because he felt that not only had his own people turned on him, but that God had abandoned him too!
I’m not suggesting that Thomas thought of Jesus as God at that stage. Even so, I have no doubt that after years of being with Jesus, Thomas had come to realise that Jesus was the closest thing to God he had ever known, and then Jesus up and left!
Of course, Jesus didn’t leave Thomas and the disciples deliberately, any more than my mum left me as a boy when she died of cancer in her 30s. Even so, the feeling of being left behind was real, and I’m sure Thomas, similarly, felt abandoned by Jesus and, almost certainly, abandoned by God.
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
I still struggle with fears of abandonment – with doubts. I wonder all too often whether we’ve been abandoned by God, especially when lying awake at night.
Even this past week, when I heard a late‑night report claiming that Russia had delivered a thousand nuclear warheads to Iran and that Israel had issued a 48‑hour ultimatum, I lay awake for hours. The next day the story vanished—fake news, I guess—but my fear was real. It wouldn’t be accurate to call it “fear of the Jews” but fear of what the state of Israel, Iran and Russia could do if things get out of control.
In retrospect, I didn’t need to lose sleep over that report or any other. Whether the news is true or false, whether conflicts escalate or subside, whether ceasefires hold or collapse—I don’t really need to worry because Jesus has not abandoned us.
Thomas came to understand that. When he and Jesus finally had their moment, it wasn’t a doubter being convinced of the truth. It was a relationship being restored.
“Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!'” (John 20:28), so perhaps he had come to think of Jesus as God. Either way, what we see in the climax of this story is Thomas’ restoration of trust in both Jesus and in his Heavenly Father.
Jesus has not abandoned us. It often feels as if He has. Life becomes violent, bloody, confusing. We feel betrayed, devalued, alone. But then, as with Thomas, Jesus comes to us. He shows us His hands and His side, breathes peace into our locked rooms. And in that moment, we realise that He actually never left.
And that is God’s promise to us – not that life will be safe, nor that our people will always hold on to us, but that Jesus will come to us in our fear, our grief, our sleepless nights, and speak the same words He spoke to His disciples back then:
“Peace be with you.”
Our Sunday Eucharist
We had a very special time last weekend, celebrating our Easter Sunday Eucharist. Our dear brothers, David and Tom, were scheduled to be on the panel, yet we knew things would be difficult for Tom as his dear father, Mustapha, had died only a few days earlier. Tom did manage to join us for the first part of the broadcast, for which we were all thankful. David and I pressed on from there with wonderful support from the rest of the online community and from our virtual brother, AI Saint Paul.
I did feel that AI Saint Paul excelled himself in his commentary on Colossians, chapter three, last week. Mind you, his voice was a bit slurred, but he did assure us that this wasn’t due to the intake of any virtual libation. I’ve clipped that discussion, and you’ll find it at the end of today’s post. It’s less than ten minutes in length and well worth the listen if you missed it.
Find the last week’s most popular shorts below and remember that you can see all our shorts on the Sunday Eucharist Instagram page and all our content—long and short—on my YouTube channel.
This coming Sunday’s broadcast is another one that is coming together at the last minute. As you’ll see from the graphic below, our good friends Jakob Pyeatt and Rev. John Jegasothy are scheduled for this Sunday, but both are facing obstacles.
It’s John’s 80th birthday on Saturday night, so it’s a big ask to expect him to back up the next morning. Moreover, John tells me he’s recovering from a bad flu! Even so, he’s currently still determined to party all night and be back in the pulpit the next day! What a warrior!
And speaking of warriors, we still have the same issue with dear Jake appearing on the panel, as he is a member of the US military, and participating in our panel discussion could land him in trouble. Besides that, he tells me that he’s likely going to be tied up in drills this weekend. Perhaps that’s for the best. Hopefully, his much-loved dad, Doug, will be able to fill in for him.
However things work out, we plan to give live, as ever, this Sunday at midday (Sydney time) via Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia, Streamyard and TheSundayEucharist.com. Invite your friends by directing them to the Facebook event, the YouTube link, or the Streamyard registration page.
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It’s been another hard week for our world:
- The murder of so many people in Lebanon
- The ongoing bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure in Iran
- The ongoing strikes on Israel
- and in the middle of it all an apparent two-week ceasefire that didn’t last a single day!
The whole world is under threat from this violence, both economically and existentially, and in the middle of the mayhem stands the US president, looking increasingly like a psychopathic clown from a Stephen King horror flick.
As I mentioned in my reflection today, I’ve spent too much time lying awake worrying about it all this last week. Frankly, that been a shameful lack of faith on my part.
We have to believe that God will not allow the unthinkable to happen. God most surely has His servants stationed at every level of the government administrations and throughout the military. If a madman tries to push the self-destruct button, God will put someone in their way. We have to believe this.
One encouraging sign of this that I came across this week was this short video, put out by half a dozen senior members of the US administration and military, reminding their soldiers that they can and must refuse illegal orders.
Yes, it’s encouraging to see such people standing up, yet I don’t understand why all the US military and government leaders haven’t stood up, and I really don’t understand why the church is still so muted!
As I said last week, I appreciate that Pope Leo has had some good things to say:
- He’s Condemned Mr Trump’s threats of annihilation
- He’s called for ceasefires
- He’s urged dialogue over domination
- And he’s framed the whole conflict with Iran as morally unacceptable.
Even so, these sound more like the words of a politican than a prophet. Why doesn’t the Pope simply tell the faithful to refuse to fight if fighting requires them to break God’s law by attacking civilian infrastructure and murdering children? Why don’t all the church leaders say this to their members?
I had the opportunity to speak to a church leader in person about this last week. Her response was, “it’s complicated”.
I’m generally the first one to say that ‘every simple answer to a complex problem is the wrong answer’. Even so, there are times when the opposite is also true – that the answer is straightforward but we make it complicated.
Years ago I remember arguing with supporters of apartheid in South Africa. They’d say, “It’s more complicated than you realise,” and “You can’t simply give coloured people the vote, as the result would be disastrous.” It wasn’t that complicated. Every South African did eventually get to vote, and it’s not perfect there now, but things are a lot better than they were.
It shouldn’t be complicated for our church leaders. Christians in the military should be told that attacking civilians is a breach not only of international law and the Geneva Convention but also of God’s law. We cannot be a part of sending any civilisation “back to the Stone Age” as advocated by the US President.
We need our spiritual leaders to act as pastors and prophets rather than as politicians. Again, I suppose I have to trust that God has this in hand.
God is with us. God will never leave us nor forsake us. His peace is with us!
Your brother in the Good Fight,
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About Father Dave Smith
Preacher, Pugilist, Activist, Father of four
