Opening Verse of Scripture 1 Peter 1:3

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray

Almighty Father, you have given your only Son to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification: grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth; through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Risen Christ, for whom no door is locked, no entrance barred: open the doors of our hearts, that we may seek the good of others and walk the joyful road of sacrifice and peace, to the praise of God the Father.

First Bible Reading  Acts 2.14a,22–32

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.

‘You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know— this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. For David says concerning him, "I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover, my flesh will live in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One experience corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.” ‘Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne. Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, “He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.”This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. NRSV

Second Reading 1 Peter 1.3–9

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. NRSV

Gospel Reading John 20.19–31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘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.’ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. NRSV

Post Communion Prayer

Lord God our Father, through our Saviour Jesus Christ you have assured your children of eternal life and in baptism have made us one with him:
deliver us from the death of sin and raise us to new life in your love, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Commentary - Low Sunday

 Jesus was crucified on the Friday—Good Friday. On Saturday nothing happened apart from mourning. Then on Sunday morning Mary Magdalene found the tomb empty. She told the disciples, and Peter and another disciple ran and found the tomb just as she had said. Later that same day she met the risen Jesus, though at first she mistook him for the gardener. It is after all these events—after the empty tomb, after Mary’s testimony, after the first whisper of resurrection hope—that we find the disciples hiding in a locked room. John tells us plainly that they were frightened of the Jewish leaders.

The disciples are gathered together, they have been told Jesus is alive. But they are not celebrating, they are not planning the future, they are not even praying, they are hiding. The doors are locked, fear has taken over.

 

If we are honest, this is a scene that feels strangely familiar. We live in a world where many people feel as though they are living behind locked doors. Not always physical ones—though in recent years we have known those too—but emotional, psychological, and spiritual ones. Doors we close because the world feels unsafe. Doors we close because we are overwhelmed. Doors we close because we are not sure what we believe anymore. The disciples’ fear was real. They had seen Jesus executed in a brutal miscarriage of justice. They had watched the machinery of power crush the innocent. And they knew that when systems go bad, ordinary people are not safe. We see this today in different forms:

• In the continuing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East
• In the rise of political extremism and the erosion of trust in institutions
• In the quiet anxiety many feel about the future—economically, socially, environmentally

 

People retreat behind locked doors when the world feels too heavy. The Good News of Easter is that into that room—into that fear—Jesus comes.

• Not with judgement
• Not with a lecture
• Not with a list of demands
• But with a blessing: “Peace be with you.”

 

Three times in this passage Jesus speaks peace. It is as though he knows how slowly peace sinks in. How easily fear returns. How fragile hope can be. Jesus does not hide his own scars. He shows them. He lets the disciples see that resurrection does not erase suffering; it transforms it. The risen Christ still carries the marks of the cross. This is important for us today. Jesus shows us that wounds are not signs of failure. They are part of our story—part of what God redeems. Christians are not supposed to be those without scars. We all carry with us the wounds of life. And we are told that then Jesus breathes on them. The same breath that hovered over the waters at creation now fills frightened disciples in a locked room. “Receive the Holy Spirit.” It is a moment of new creation.

 

Thomas is a very honest disciple. He missed out on this encounter. So a week later what happens? The disciples are gathered again behind locked doors. Why were the doors locked a week later, when the disciples had received the reassuring words from Jesus himself? They had received the Holy Spirit and still they were in hiding. It seems that even the presence of the Holy Spirit is not a gurantee of spiritual confidence.  We often make an example of Thomas for lack of belief, but think of those other disciples who were still in hiding even after meeting the risen Jesus face to face. If anybody pretends to you that faith should be easy, remind yourself of those first disciples who struggled even after seeing Jesus with their own eyes, and even after receiving the Holy Spirit.

 

Once again Jesus does not challenge them. He understands that Thomas is not unbelieving—he is wounded. He is grieving. He is perhaps also trying to protect himself from disappointment. Jesus does not shame him for that. Jesus does not say, “How dare you doubt.” This week later, Jesus meets Thomas where he is on his journey of faith and says, “Put your finger here… Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas responds with the most profound confession in the Gospel:  “My Lord and my God.”

 

Most of us sometimes feel a bit like Thomas. Some people always feel a bit like Thomas.

• Some of us are unsure what we believe
• Some of us are carrying wounds we don’t want to speak about
• Some of us—perhaps most of us—are overwhelmed by the state of the world
• Some of us are simply tired

This passage tells us something astonishing: Jesus entrusts his mission to people who are afraid, uncertain, imperfect and weary.

Jesus says to these dispirited ordinary men and women “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

• Not once they are confident
• Not once they have sorted themselves out
• Not once they have stopped doubting

But now. As they are.

 

We all have our own locked doors which hold our faith back—our doubts, our fears, our lack of confidence, our sense of hopelessness. We can be overwhelmed by the size of the task ahead. And at the moment, who wouldn’t be overwhelmed? I have to admit that when I look at the world I see hopelessness all over the place. I probably have never felt so lacking in optimism. We have all been cheered by the success of the Artemis II mission and how it did what it did. I should feel hugely encouraged, but I wonder why we can find the resources, investment, and skill to achieve that remarkable mission, and yet millions starve across the world, lacking basic medicine and clean water. People in a rich country like our own reliant on food banks.

 

When I look at the church, I sometimes feel as though I am behind locked doors because I see leaders living in fantasy land. Those who speak about revival, about young people flooding back, about everything being fine. Meanwhile I see decline, churches struggling financially, and a failure to acknowledge that drastic action is needed before it is too late. With deep weariness I can almost predict the next ‘big initiative,’ as though a new programme with a catchy slogan will magically reverse decades of cultural change. I am not being cynical, I am just honestly acknowledging church shrinkage, budgets tightening, church volunteers burning out and leaders who are living in a spiritual cloud cuckoo land.   

I am also embarrassed to be a part of a wider Christian community which prays for unity but remains firmly committed to remaining inside their own denominational ghettos. We speak beautiful words about being one in Christ, but so often we live as though our own tradition, our own structures, our own way of doing things is the only safe place to stand. Today we are reminded that the risen Christ does not build walls; he walks through them.

 

So I need to be reminded that into all these seemingly desperate places Jesus still comes.

• Not limited by walls
• Not hindered by our fear
• Not put off by our doubt
• He comes with peace
• He comes with wounds that speak of love
• He comes with breath that brings life
• He comes with a calling: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
• A blessing for the weary

Jesus ends with a blessing for us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is not a rebuke. It is a reassurance.

A reminder that faith is not certainty. Faith is trust. Faith is relationship. Faith is taking the next step even when the path is dimly lit. So on this Low Sunday—this quieter, gentler Sunday after the drama of Easter—we hear a Gospel that speaks directly into our world:

• A world of locked doors
• A world of fear and confusion
• A world longing for peace

And we hear a Christ who steps into the middle of it all and says, “Peace be with you.” May that peace find us in our locked rooms. May it breathe new life into our tired spirits. And may it send us out—slowly, gently, courageously—into God’s world.

 

Meditation

The passages of the Acts of the Apostles are full of good news about what happened following the preaching and teaching of the Apostles. If we were to continue the first reading from today we would find the words ‘Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.’ What preacher would not read those words with envy and perhaps be disillusioned that today it is difficult to break through the complacency which is so prevalent. Yet we should take heart, it was not all easy and plain sailing. The disciples themselves found belief hard. We read in Matthew 28:16 

'The eleven disciples made their way to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to meet him. When they saw him, they fell prostrate before him, though some were doubtful.’

The passage from John also must have been quite embarrassing for the church to record but they were honest enough to do so. Here was one of the Apostles who failed to accept what had been told to him and Jesus appeared to him personally. So the words of Jesus come to us today 

"Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." 

We should be encouraged because Jesus knows that belief is not easy. However we do not believe without reward, as we trust in the risen Christ, so we are blessed, - belief has its rewards. Perhaps one of the lessons which we as a church need to receive, concerns how the early Christians treated those who found belief difficult. Struggling with doubt was not a reason to be thrown out. When Jesus appeared, Thomas was with the disciples behind locked doors. He had not been thrown out of the church because he wavered. The early Christians were confident enough in what they believed that they were not threatened by those whose faith was weak and uncertain.

The church today must equally embrace those who have doubts and difficulties with their faith. There may be many reasons why we find faith hard at different times of life. Sometimes it is personal tragedy, although more often Christians find their faith to be even more assured in times of difficulty. Whatever the cause, a strong church must welcome within it those who seek the presence of the risen Lord. Of course those who do find themselves searching for truth with a weak faith must recognise that they are not unique or special. The church has always provided shelter from the storm to those who struggled with their belief. No individual has all the answers and that is why we belong to a community of faith, we share in our faith and sometimes we have to accept the testimony of others and assert it for ourselves. It is as we do this that we meet with the risen Christ and find his presence among us. 

Hymns

• Crown him with many crowns
• Come on and celebrate
• This is the day
• Low in the grave he lay
• Christ is alive! 
• Let all the world
• Be still and know
• Praise him on the trumpet
• Now the green blade riseth
• Led like a lamb
• At the name of Jesus 

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

Preserve us, O God, in the faith of your saints, a faith both tried and trusted. May we enjoy both now and for ever the eternal love of the Father, the abiding love of the Son and the indwelling of love of the Holy Spirit, one God in glory and majesty, world without end. Amen

Hilary of Poitiers, 315-367

Lord, make my life a window for Your light to shine through and a mirror to reflect Your love to all I meet. Amen. 

Risen Lord Jesus, you come to us in the most surprising - and the most ordinary - ways. Just when we begin to forget or doubt you, when we begin to live our lives as if you don't matter, you come - speaking to us, feeding us, encouraging us. You never forget us or fail us. Without you we are weak and fail often but with you we are strong. May we be made deeply aware of your presence this day.

God of the prophets, you fulfilled your promise that Christ would suffer and rise to glory. Open our minds to understand the scriptures that we may be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity, of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

Additional Material

Commentary

After the great high of Easter we come back down to earth with a bump and so today has been called Low Sunday. There is also that old funny name 'Quasimodo Sunday'. The character from Victor Hugo was named Quasimodo because he was found in church on this Sunday in which the Antiphon at Mass began with the words from 1 Peter 2 :2 

‘Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.’

Quasi modo geniti infantes, rationabile, sine dolo lac concupiscite ut in eo crescatis in salutem 

si gustastis quoniam dulcis Dominus. 

However today is anything but an anti-climax, for we read of the visit of the risen Lord Jesus to his disciples and we hear words of comfort, encouragement and commission. 

Reading the passage in John today it is clear that there are reasons for concern among the disciples. They had seen Jesus killed in a most brutal and unjust fashion. The powers of the mighty Roman state had combined with the Jewish religious leaders in an unholy and unjust alliance. With corrupt authorities acting in such a way nobody was safe. We see this all over the world still today, when the established powers of the state have gone bad, then nobody is safe and individuals feel themselves to be powerless victims, vulnerable with no appeal to a higher authority. As well as the obvious fear, the disciples were also bewildered. They had not joined up the dots to reveal who Jesus was, the events were still a confusing puzzle. Mary had reported seeing an empty tomb and Peter and others had found the grave cloths. Later Mary had claimed to have actually seen Jesus alive, but why was it that she failed to recognise him until he spoke her name? Why had he seemed to her like the gardener?

So it was that as some of them gathered in the evening, they made sure that the door behind them was securely locked. We would all have done the same, terrified that the next knock might be from another groups of soldiers sent by Jewish authorities. The future was frightening, who might be arrested and killed next? Even if Jesus had been raised from the dead what did this mean? Was Jesus a ghost? Why had he come back? Was Jesus going to punish them for having denied him and abandoned him in his hour of need?

Little wonder then that when the risen body of Jesus appears in their midst in spite of closed doors, the first words which Jesus utters are 'peace be with you' or in Hebrew ‘Salom alekem’. ‘Shalom’ as we say, was a common greeting and yet in this case it is now a supreme greeting and it is seen used as a greeting in every epistle of Paul in the New Testament. Jesus is shown to say theses words three times in this passage, twice on this first appearance and one a week later when the disciples are again meeting behind locked doors and Jesus make a reappearance for the sake of Thomas. On both visits Jesus shows his wounded hands and his side. The disciples have no doubt that this is the crucified Jesus and they respond with joy! Not sufficient joy to enable them to overcome their fear and stop locking the doors behind them, but nevertheless the response to the presence of Jesus is one not of fear but relief, thanksgiving and happiness. 

We would all have acted like the disciples, locked ourselves away in fear behind closed doors and refused to believe Jesus unless we saw him for ourselves. We would have had a complete lack of confidence and be full of guilt at what we had done in letting Jesus down. In some ways not a lot has changed and this often the situation in which we find ourselves today. As a Church we can be fearful of events taking place around us which knock our confidence and cause us to lose faith and trust in God, perhaps event to question whether God is really there at all, or whether we are all just making it up. We might be like those first disciples and be paralysed by a sense of our own failure and inadequacy. Yet we see that it is to such people that Jesus entrusts his work. Jesus does not ask for superficiality and pretence, he meets us in our doubts and difficulties and encourages us to move forward with him. 

I don’t know about you but I have much higher regard for somebody who struggles with their faith and is aware of their own inadequacies than somebody who thinks they know it all and so sure of themselves. The poet William Austen (d1634) wrote

‘He that never doubted scarce ever well believed ‘ 

Remember the servants of God who with their honesty were conscious of their own inadequacies which s seem a prerequisite for those whose seek to serve God. Think of Moses, I cannot do this God, I cannot speak. Think of Jeremiah, struggling with deep depression, in that deep dark pit of despair which is only known by those who have been in it. Think of Peter who had a life which seemed characterised by dreadful times of failure, which led him to deny Jesus three times. 

It is also often the most honest, thoughtful and deep thinking Christians who have fears and doubts. We can be utterly naïve and think that the moon is made of blue cheese, but that is not the kind of faith which we should encourage. As children we see things in easy blacks and whites, as we get older we see more shades of grey. God is bigger than the measure of our minds, we cannot contain God within our imagination or understanding, inevitably there will be much we do not understand, and God is all the more to be worshipped for that. It is with this in mind that it is sometimes said that the role of the preacher is 'to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.' Charles Royden 

Commentary

In the Gospel reading this morning we are confronted with the issue of faith. Thomas had a problem believing his fellow disciples when they said that Jesus had appeared to them in a locked room. In fairly forceful terms, Thomas said that unless he could see it for himself he wasn't going to believe a word of it. 

Thomas is the forerunner of all good scientists who have to prove things for themselves in order to believe them. But Thomas did us all a favour because he asks the questions we might want to ask. Was the Risen Jesus a ghost, or perhaps a fantasy conjured up by the people that missed Jesus so much that they imagined they saw him? No, because Thomas proved that Jesus was a physical person with a wound in his side. He had a nasty squashy hole in him, which could be touched.

Now we don't know how, but we know from the example of Lazarus that Jesus could do such things. Jesus could overcome the laws of the physical universe as we now understand them. Humans, in our arrogance, assume that the truth as we know it is the only truth and the only answer.

Technologically advanced as we are, we know so little about the things that matter. Religious belief belongs to a category of knowledge which is difficult to measure or touch. It isn't susceptible to concrete proofs. The children will be helping us this morning with experiments. How do you know that the wind is there, you can't see it, smell it or taste it? You can't hold it in your hand, but you can feel it on your skin or watch it move things. We can't see the wind itself, but we can see what it does. Faith is like that. In the same way as we can infer the presence of the wind by its action of the wind on a balloon, we can see the impact of faith on the lives of those who are blessed with it.

Church tradition suggests that Thomas was profoundly affected by his experience of seeing and touching the Risen Lord. It is thought that he went off to tell the story of Jesus to the people of ancient Babylon, near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, where Iraq is today. He travelled to Persia, present-day Iran, and continued to win disciples to the Christian faith.

Tradition suggests that he sailed south to Malabar on the west coast of India in 52 AD. He preached, established churches, and won to Christ high caste Brahmins, as well as others. When the Portuguese landed in India in the early 1600s, they founded a group of Christians there -- the Mar Thoma Church established through Thomas' preaching a millennium and a half before.

Finally, Thomas travelled to the east coast of India. He was martyred about 72 AD, near present-day Madras. In Thomas' life we see a powerful example of the effects of faith, a practical application of Jesus' commands to evangelise the world. Joan Crossley 

Meditation

This day is known in some churches as "Quasimodo Sunday" from the first two words of the opening Antiphon at Mass that speak especially to those baptized at Easter:   I Peter 2:2 

Quasi modo geniti infantes, rationabile, sine dolo lac concupiscite ut in eo crescatis in salutem si gustastis quoniam dulcis Dominus. 

As newborn babes, alleluia, desire the rational milk without guile, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Rejoice to God our helper. Sing aloud to the God of Jacob. 

The name of this Feast is the origin of the name of the hunchback, Quasimodo, in Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Poor Quasimodo was a foundling who was discovered at the cathedral on Low Sunday and so was named for the Feast. He is introduced in Hugo's book like this:

The first Sunday after Easter, is traditionally known, primarily in France and other parts of Europe, as "Quasimodo Sunday" because of the beginning words of the Introit which come from 1 Peter 2:2,3: Quasi modo geniti infantes, rationabile, sine dolo lac concupiscite ut in eo crescatis in salutem si gustastis quoniam dulcis Dominus, which in English is: As newborn babes, desire the rational milk without guile, that thereby you may grow unto salvation: If so be you have tasted that the Lord is sweet. It is used in the context of this particular Sunday to refer to the newly baptized at Easter as well as applying generally to all of us. (...) 

Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame

"Sixteen years previous to the epoch when this story takes place, one fine morning, on Quasimodo Sunday, a living creature had been deposited, after mass, in the church of Notre- Dame, on the wooden bed securely fixed in the vestibule on the left, opposite that great image of Saint Christopher, which the figure of Messire Antoine des Essarts, chevalier, carved in stone, had been gazing at on his knees since 1413, when they took it into their heads to overthrow the saint and the faithful follower. Upon this bed of wood it was customary to expose foundlings for public charity. Whoever cared to take them did so. In front of the wooden bed was a copper basin for alms. The sort of living being which lay upon that plank on the morning of Quasimodo, in the year of the Lord, 1467, appeared to excite to a high degree, the curiosity of the numerous group which had congregated about the wooden bed."  -4th Book, Chapter 1.