Day 50 - Wednesday, April 19
Jesus Appears to His Disciples in Jerusalem
Scripture: John 20:19-23
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And 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 withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Poetry:
"From Behind Closed Doors"
by Marie J. Post
(John 20: 19)
His healing hands that blessed,
caressed,
are torn beyond all balm
and we could see
by the wound in His side
that he was no different from any man.

Were baptism sight and sound,
mountaintop experience,
vast hillside picnics,
tempest stillings
only hallucinations?

and what about the answers
to “Who do you say I am?”
the claims to “raise this temple
in three days,”
or “I and My Father are one”?
Certainly those were more than hyperbole.

“Follow Me,” He said.
But those footsteps on Galilean dust
lead only to a cross.
and yet...

LIKE THE MASTER

When I reflect on the role of the Holy Spirit, I’m prone to consider, perhaps, the more public and spectacular manifestations of his power.  I think of Christ’s baptism and of Pentecost with the tongues of fire.  The traditions of iconography surrounding these moments led to a somewhat skewed perception of the Spirit on my part.  It was easy to think of the Holy Spirit as “on-call divine assistance” for the accomplishment of great spiritual feats.  The Spirit is often linked to experiences of the ecstatic and miraculous healing.  Yet the passage from John brings a critical supplement to these moments and ministries by emphasizing the role of the Spirit in Christ’s journey to the cross.

When Jesus appears to his disciples, he shows them the wounds in his side and his hands not just to dispel incredulity or satisfy curiosity, but in order that they might understand that the resurrection of their Lord and his mastery over death cannot be divorced from his broken body.  Indeed, his kingdom, teaching, and ministry had always pointed toward the cross in ways that the disciples chronically resisted.

It is this vision of the Spirit at work through the hands of Christ that begins Posts’s poem: “His healing hands that blessed, / caressed.”  The enjambment and end rhyme of the first two lines emphasize the kindness and healing power of Christ’s ministry; the softness of the sibilant rhyme gestures toward the softness of his hands.  But the rhyme and softness are broken in the next line: “torn beyond all balm.” The stark juxtaposition of these images reminds us of the terrible disparity between Jesus’ love and the sin that compelled him to the cross.

To follow Christ, to be sent of the Father, and to receive the Holy Spirit are to commit ourselves to this same disparity.  Post’s lines “those footsteps on Galilean dust / lead only to a cross” admit what I am often unwilling to confess—that I want the blessings and power of God provided they don’t cost me anything.  Post concludes with what seems like a half-finished thought: “And yet…” as if inviting us to see what Duccio di Buoninsegna so carefully renders in his icon.  Jesus must leave his disciples; and though they are weary, beleaguered, and on the run, they have begun, at last, to look like their master.

I cannot satisfy the call of Christ upon my life if I refuse to follow the Spirit.  And the way of the Spirit leads me to the cross—to self-denial and sacrifice; to seasons of solitude and uncertainty.  I must learn to trust that He will give me the help I need to endure these difficulties with grace.  I must learn to obey his call with the same joy and contentment that come so naturally when the Spirit leads me into seasons of affirmation and blessing.  But more, to follow the Spirit is to embrace the unsurpassable privilege of being transformed into the image and character of our Lord that we, with Katie Meyler, may sing to the dying.          

PRAYER
O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what You would have us to do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord,
Amen.

Phillip Aijian
PhD Candidate
English Department, UC Irvine