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Acts 5,12-16 The Jerusalem Church
Revelations 1, 9-11a, 12-13.17-19 The Promise of the Risen Lord
John 20,19-31 Doubting Thomas

The resurrection of Jesus happened centuries ago, but today’s three readings remind us it’s a mystery still unfolding even now. Jesus is the “first fruits,” others must still follow him to share in his life. His resurrection gave birth to a church, which must still reach out to a doubting humanity symbolized in the apostle Thomas for its growth. All creation is still “groaning” till it reach its completion when  God’s kingdom comes.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem to face death, he used the familiar figure of the seed to describe the mystery before him. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

Like the seed the mystery of the resurrection grows to bear much fruit.

Our gospel reading, Jesus appearance to Thomas, reminds us that the Lord still reaches out to a humanity whose faith is imperfect, like Thomas, like Nicodemus, like the crowds whom he feeds with the loaves and the fish in Galilee, like his own disciples at the Last Supper. He still draws into this great mystery people with imperfect faith, slow to believe, like us.

The church he brought into being was a small seed at first in Jerusalem,  but it’s spreading its branches throughout the world, despite the thorns and hard ground that resists its growth. And creation itself despite fears about its future is makings its way to a completion beyond what we know now.

The Risen Jesus remains with us . “There is nothing to fear,” he says to his disciple on the Lord’s day, “ I am the First and the Last and the One who lives. Once I was dead, now I live–forever and ever. I hold the keys of death and the nether world. Write down, therefore, whatever you see in visions-what you see now and what you will see in time to come.” (Revelations 1.17-19)

We see him now by faith, in time to come face to face.