In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God, Amen.

Christ is risen!

How do we know that Christ is risen? We Christians believe in the Resurrection as a certainty, as a fact, but how can we be sure? It is because of the faithfulness of Thomas—not Doubting Thomas as he is known by some of our brothers and sisters in other traditions, but Faithful Thomas.

At Pascha the women discovered first about the Resurrection but when they went to tell the Disciples they were dismissed as telling “idle tales” as recorded by Luke (24:11). But not Thomas. When he heard the news of the Resurrection he did not dismiss it, we heard today “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.” This is not doubt, this is seeking clarity. In other words, my dear brothers and sisters, he said “When I see for myself then I will believe.”

This word is for us today. We may come to the Lord because of other people. We read in Scripture that Andrew brought Simon, Philip brought Nathaniel, many came to the Lord because of the preaching of the Apostles, but unless they each experience the Lord for themselves they will not believe.

My dear ones, beloved in the Lord, pray today that you experience the risen Lord and by this experience your lives be transformed. And in this transformation, this transfiguration, you may recognise along with the Holy Apostle Thomas that Jesus is our Lord and our God: with all that entails, with all that demands of us—if Christ is our Lord and God then we are his servants and handmaids—with our own Cross, our own Golgotha, our own Resurrection.

Christ is risen!

To our risen Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ be all glory, honour and might, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Amen.