Easter 2B 2006 John 20:19-31

“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” In the Gospel according to Saint John, these are the words which Jesus spoke to Thomas the Doubter – and with which he challenges us across the centuries until he comes again. He challenges us to seek him however we can – and to accept him however he chooses to reveal himself to each of us, and to rise to the demands that he places upon us.

Just as I was beginning to catch my breath a little bit this past week after the pell mell tumbling one after another events of Holy Week and Easter, I took the time to read our April 17 issue of US News & World Report. The front page caught my attention: Jesus bleeding face on the way to Golgotha taken from the painting, Ecce Homo – Behold the man – by Juande Juanes, now in the Prado Museum, Madrid.

The headline was equally eye-catching: “Christ’s Mission: New debate about the role of Jesus in the world.” And even more alluring headlines inside on the table of contents: “What did Jesus do? An alternative story of the birth of Christianity includes Jesus’s quite worldly dynastic ambitions. But is it true?”

And leading into the article proper: “The Kingdom of Christ: A bold new take on the historical Jesus raises questions about a centuries-long quest.” Sounds almost like Saint Thomas the Doubter revived again, doesn’t it.

All the fanfare was a result of the newly publicized Gospel of Judas, first rediscovered in Egypt some thirty odd years ago. Some of you may have seen the National Geographic Special about this old manuscript during Holy Week – on Good Friday, I think it was. Obviously there are echoes of Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code in all the hoopla – the movie of which is coming out soon if it hasn’t already.

In the accompanying National Geographic book by Herbert Krosney, and American scholar is quoted as saying that the Gospel of Thomas “could create a crisis of faith.” It could, but only if we lost our sense of perspective and were overly susceptible to uninformed doubt.

Remember Jesus challenge to Thomas and to us: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” We are the ones who have not seen the physical evidence proper. But we do have the Gospel accounts – the canonical gospel accounts that is: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is important to remember that as fictionalized and unorthodox gospels proliferated in the centuries after the First Century AD, the councils of the Church followed an essential basic rule: the accounts closest to the human life of Christ on earth were the standard by which subsequent ones would be judged. AS people in the Second Century and onward began to invent their own versions of Christianity, the two great Councils of Nicea in 325 AD and Chalcedon 451 AD. [remainder lost electronically]

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Wicomico Church, Virginia 22579