In the name of the Living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
To be a wit-ness is to see something, to observe something or come to know something.
It usually means you saw or heard something happen, and the testimony of your eyes or your ears is important to establish the truth. The four Gospel’s, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John can be thought of as collections of eye witness accounts of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
They are all slightly different, with different perspectives, but the similarities are remarkable. These so-called stories, are actually gathered accounts of what people saw, accounts of what people thought and felt and believed in response to a most extraordinary event and the Christian faith has trusted in these witness accounts as a means of revelation.
The earliest Gospel of Mark, was written around 30-40 years after the events we have remembered this past week, written down for future generations as those who had been first hand witnesses to the life of Jesus were beginning to disappear. As St John says- these things were written down so that others may come to believe.
We hear today of what happened a week later when the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples.What happened after the risen Jesus stood among his disciples came and stood among them and said ‘Peace be with you’.
After the Resurrection, the question for those disciples, would have been What do we do now? “what happens next?” Where do we go from here? We have been witnesses to these things- but what difference does this make to us?
The resurrection event was so real to them, that they didn’t just write it down, they had other priorities- it had a profound impact upon their whole lives which took on a completely different direction from that day forward, everything changed, things couldn’t go back to how they were.
And that one event, changed history as we know it and we are here precisely because of what those disciples did next.
The disciples formed a community, we hear about this community in the Acts of the Apostles which begins to provide an account of what happened in the weeks, months and years following the Resurrection of Jesus.
Together the disciples shared all they had, they gave away what they didn’t need, they prayed and worshipped together and broke bread, and they did all this as a testimony, as part of their witness to what had happened. One of the most important testimonies to the resurrection of Jesus, is the effect it had on those who witnessed it.
They lived out this new truth each and everyday. In the twinkling of an eye, they were all changed forever. Their world was changed forever. They took amazing risks to tell others what they had seen and heard. They gave away everything to live out this truth and share their testimony further.
Thomas, and the other disciples who had known Jesus for three years or more, were so sure that they had also seen him after he was raised from the dead that they all eventually went to death or exile rather than deny that conviction. Some travelled the world, stepped out into unknown lands to bear witness to this truth….. quite a turnaround, for a bunch of men who initially sat behind closed doors in fear. Their witness was the seed of the Church of Christ which we are part of today. As we know, some of the disciples became martyrs, a greek word which actually means ‘witness’. They died for what they believed to be true.
According to tradition Thomas went to Syria and then on to India. There he died bearing witness to his faith. The one who wanted to touch the wounds of Jesus with his own hands, received his own mortal wounds, but his faith, his witness, his life, was built on what he saw that day in the upper room -and as soon as he said those immortal words ‘my Lord and my God’ his life would never be the same again.
Today, our faith, is built on the witness of those disciples. Our faith is built on their testimony. We trust their eye witness accounts given to us in the Gospels. At the end of John’s gospel it says:
Now Jesus did many other things 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,
Our faith is also built upon our own witness of the risen Christ who we see and hear in the holy scriptures, the risen Christ we receive in bread and wine at the eucharist, the risen Christ who is with us as we sing and worship, and gather together in prayer whether actually or virtually, the risen Christ who we witness in the lives of other Christians who have followed him through the centuries and the risen Christ who is found in the church and in the world of today, the risen Christ we see all around us, in every moment, in every detail of our lives, in our homes and among our families and in the face of friend and stranger. There are signs of resurrection all around if we able to open our eyes and our hearts to the reality of the risen Christ.
As time goes on, there is more evidence, not less, that Christ rose from the dead. The evidence accumulates in the world because of the witness of those who have not seen and yet have come to believe, those whose lives have changed because of their belief.
The moment we witness the living Lord for ourselves, the moment we see and hear and touch Jesus Christ, and say, as Thomas said, ‘My Lord and my God’, our lives will never be the same again.
If we have witnessed the resurrection, if the risen Christ is part of our testimony as Easter people, the important thing for each one of us, is what we do next. What do we do a week later? How has this changed our life? The doors of our homes may be locked, but are the doors of our hearts open?
After the Resurrection, the question for those disciples, would have been “what happens next?” What do we do now? We are witnesses to these things- but what difference does this make to us and the world we live in?
We might ask ourselves those same questions today as people who have come to believe in the one and only living God, and been given life in his name.
Alleluia, Christ is risen, he is risen indeed. Alleluia.
On Voice 
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