Homily on Thomas Sunday (St. Justin Popovich)

Homily on Thomas Sunday 

(John 20:19–31)

By St. Justin Popovich

(Delivered in 1965 in the Monastery of Ćelije)

...¹

“Christ is risen!”—and to all of us He gave meaning to life and showed what God is and what man is. The Lord Christ showed us that man without God remains in death, is entirely dead, entirely mortal. And He, the God-man, behold, rose from the dead, conquered death for our sake; by His Resurrection He secured immortality for man, to the human being He gave what no one has given. His Resurrection indeed is the most important event in the history of all worlds. The Resurrection of the Lord Christ is the most important event in the history of the human race. That is the most important event both for me and for you in the history of my life and in the history of your life.

What would the history of my life be if the Lord had not risen? A short path from cradle to grave, a path full of thorns, full of sufferings and horrors. But with Him, the Risen One, everything changes. Both I and you change; suddenly we become immortal people, immortal beings, beings that are stronger than death. Behold, man has become stronger than death! That is victory—the only true victory in this world. And the Lord is therefore the only True Victor in all worlds because He conquered death. If the Lord had not risen, everything would be in vain. What use are suns, what use heavens, when I and you end with death, when our last station is the grave! If the Lord Christ did not rise, says the Holy Apostle, “our preaching is in vain, in vain also our Gospel, in vain also our faith”².

For, by what did the Lord Christ differ from men, from other powerful ones of this world, from emperors, from kings, from victors? By what was He distinguished, by what would He be greater, and why would we believe in Him? If He had not given us victory over death, if He had not risen from the dead, we would not believe in Christ. Death would be stronger both than me, and than Him, and than you, and than every human being. Everything would be filled with stench and pus. Why not believe in Him, since He has given us more than any self-proclaimed philosopher, or Plato, or Socrates, or some scientist, or some general, or some hero. His Resurrection indeed is that which makes us an exceptional being in all human worlds, and it is and shows that He is truly the True God, because He is stronger than death, and therefore stronger than sin, stronger than the devil. That is He—and no one else except Him.

And therefore, if He has not risen, “in vain is our faith”³, in vain is our prayer, in vain is our love—what is all that to us if it ends with the grave and death? Because He has risen and by His Resurrection secured immortality for us humans—behold, for that reason we believe in Him even today after two thousand years and we will believe always through all ages and worlds into Eternity. Behold His power, power stronger than all His enemies, than all fighters against Christ, than all the godless. In vain do men rush against that which is stronger than death. And today’s godless rush against Him, new fighters against Christ, new Pilates, new Judases. These are attacks of countless shadows—shadows against the Sun!

Behold, today we celebrate the glorious and fearless Apostle Thomas. He did not lightly believe in the Lord Christ, in His Resurrection. All of them doubted the Risen Lord Christ; at the beginning no one believed. When the holy Myrrh-bearers announced that the Lord had risen, it says in the Gospel, “they did not believe”⁴. When two disciples went on the road to Emmaus and the Lord appeared to them, neither were they believed⁵. No one was believed. But since the Lord appeared for forty days after His Resurrection continually to His disciples and convinced them: “It is I Myself; touch My hands and My feet; I am not a spirit”⁶, the Apostle Thomas, when the Eleven told him that the Lord had appeared, that He had risen, that He is alive, said: “I will not believe until I put my finger into the wound of the nails, and until I put my hand into His ribs—I will not believe”⁷. No, I am not blind, and I want to verify.

After eight days the Lord appears again, in the same way He enters through closed doors, stands among the disciples and says: “Peace to you!” Then He turns to Thomas and says: “Bring here your finger and see My hands. Bring here your hand and put it into My side, and do not be unbelieving but believing.” Thomas did this and cried out: “My Lord and my God”⁸. The greatest proof that the Lord has risen. Behold, even unbelieving Thomas touched the Risen Lord Christ, was convinced that He is truly the same One Who was with them before the crucifixion and before the burial, and cried out the cry of faith: “My Lord and my God!”

That miracle the Lord showed to the Apostle Thomas and convinced him of His Resurrection; that miracle exists precisely for that — that the Apostle Thomas might be convinced that He is God, nothing less than that, that He is Lord. For if He is not Lord, could He have conquered death?! And what is it that anyone else could have given us? Therefore the Holy Evangelist John says: “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name”⁹. Behold, that is what the Lord brings us by His Resurrection, He shows how He is God, the Son of God; and our faith in Him, the Risen One, behold, gives us Eternal Life, gives us Immortality.

Man, you are no longer under the power of death! You are an immortal being, stronger than death. That is the gift of the Lord Christ, the greatest gift that He could give to the human race. The Apostle Thomas, having seen, believed: “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believed”¹⁰. For something important is at stake for man — and the most important: your immortality is at stake and mine; Eternal Life both mine and yours. "Believe! Would I lie to you? I, the Lord and God! I Who became man for your sake. Have faith in Me, that is faith in the True God. Blessed are those who did not see and believed."

When the Lord Christ became man and came into this world, lived in the world thirty-three and a half years — if He had not died and risen, He would have remained just an ordinary teacher of the human race, and this world would have remained a vast tomb, a tomb in which for man is nothing else but corpse to corpse, corpse to corpse, corpse to corpse… What kind of freedom is it to be a man without Christ? He has given Resurrection (and Eternal Life)…¹¹ That is what He brought to the world, the most important and the most new and eternal. It is written in the Holy Gospel that the Son of God came and gave us understanding “that we may know the True God and that we may be in His True Son Jesus Christ”¹². “He is the True God and Eternal Life”¹³. The God-man Christ is the Only True God and Eternal Life. Eternal Life both mine and yours, because only in Him can we have Immortal and Eternal Life in the True God. None of the false gods can give me Eternal Life and Immortality. That belongs only to God and is given only by God.

Therefore the Lord Christ is irreplaceable for every human being in this world, for the human race. Him we cannot replace with anything or anyone. Without Him everything is horror, everything terror, everything death! Behind death — the devil, the creator of death, the creator of sin — the devil! He rules man through sin, through deaths he ruled the human race, through sins, through countless deaths — until the Resurrection of the Lord Christ he was ruler of all, emperor of all. The Lord by His Resurrection destroyed the dominion of death, destroyed hades, destroyed death, destroyed sin — that power of death, for sin when it ripens gives birth to death, it is said in the Holy Gospel¹⁴.

And we humans, only in the Lord Christ become true humans. Christianity, my dear brothers, is nothing else but testimony of the Risen Lord, of the Ever-Living Lord, and of my immortality and yours. The Lord did not rise for His own sake, but for us humans, for our salvation. For everything that is His, He, having become man, gave to us humans. For what? For our salvation from sin, from death, from the devil. A Christian in this world is nothing else but a constant witness of the Ever-Living Lord Christ, the Conqueror of death.

We Christians — all of us — are personal witnesses of the Resurrection of Christ. Both here in this world on earth, before we pass through the gate of death, and in that world — we live by the Risen Lord Christ and we testify that He truly has risen and that we are immortal. How? How do we testify — you and I — that we are truly immortal, that we are truly Christ’s, that we are truly servants of the Risen Lord? We testify by this: that by the power of Christ we conquer sin — for sin, every sin, is a producer of death, every sin is a small grave; and when you, by the power of Christ, by the power of faith in the Risen Lord, conquer some sin in yourself — malice, evil, envy — you conquer death, you resurrect yourself from the grave, from countless graves. How do you testify to people that you are truly an immortal being, stronger than sin, stronger than death, stronger than the devil — you, and I, and every human being who follows Him? By faith. Oh, if there is no faith, that man is unfinished, incomplete; he began to become a man — and perished, and died without faith in the Risen Lord Christ.

A great wise man, a holy wise man and holy philosopher, Isaac the Syrian, when he wanted to say what the greatest sin in our earthly world is, said: “Sin is insensitivity to the Risen Lord!” Insensitivity of man to the Risen Lord… If a man does not feel the Resurrection of the Lord Christ, that He truly has risen, he commits sin — the all-sin, the sin in which are all deaths. Such a man does not feel his immortality, does not feel himself immortal. When you feel that the Lord Christ has truly risen and believe in Him, at that same moment you feel that you are immortal, that you are eternal, that death is conquered also for you. The philanthropic Lord conquered death — all deaths — for you too.

Therefore faith in the Resurrection of the Lord Christ is the most important thing for a human being in this world. Without it, man is mortal, entirely mortal, entirely dead! And faith in the Risen Lord Christ, behold, raises him from all deaths, resurrects him from all graves. And we Christians, we are not afraid of any deaths that men or devils can inflict on us in this world. For we are stronger, stronger than every death, than every devil, through the Risen Lord Christ. By Him we conquer all deaths, all sins, and all devils! Therefore there is no power in hell, much less on earth, “that can separate us from the love of Christ”¹⁵.

To Him, the Wondrous One, the Risen Lord, the Conqueror of all our deaths, all our demons, all our sins — be eternal glory and honor.

“Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!”

Notes:

1 — The beginning of the homily was not recorded on tape — editor’s note
2 — 1 Corinthians 15:14 (“our preaching is in vain…”)
3 — 1 Corinthians 15:17 (“your faith is in vain…”)
4 — Matthew 28:17
5 — Luke 24:13–33
6 — Luke 24:39
7 — John 20:25
8 — John 20:26–28
9 — John 20:30–31
10 — John 20:29
11 — Words in parentheses supplied due to inaudible recording — editor’s note
12 — 1 John 5:20
13 — 1 John 5:11
14 — James 1:15
15 — Romans 8:35

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.