April 13: A Bright Monday
♫ Music:
Day 48 - Monday, April 13
BRIGHT MONDAY
Scripture: John 20:19-29
So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send 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, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.” But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”
Poetry:
St. Thomas the Apostle
by Malcolm Guite
“We do not know… how can we know the way?”
Courageous master of the awkward question,
You spoke the words the others dared not say
And cut through their evasion and abstraction.
Oh doubting Thomas, father of my faith,
You put your finger on the nub of things
We cannot love some disembodied wraith,
But flesh and blood must be our king of kings.
Your teaching is to touch, embrace, anoint,
Feel after Him and find Him in the flesh.
Because He loved your awkward counter-point
The Word has heard and granted you your wish.
Oh place my hands with yours, help me divine
The wounded God whose wounds are healing mine.
A BRIGHT MONDAY
I am very fond of the apostle Thomas. “The twin” he is called by John, and I wonder how his family dynamics influenced the creation of his non-effusive, doubting self. Was he the surviving twin growing up in the shadow of death, expecting catastrophe? Or was he always the second, the spare? Or maybe he was the responsible first twin, ponderous and careful?
“Let’s go with Him that we may die with Him,” he says in his Eeyore/Puddleglum voice to the other disciples as Jesus heads off to Jerusalem.
You can just hear the glum resolve in his faithful tones.
I’m thankful for Thomas’ search for concrete specificity and assurance though, because that’s the reason we have those glorious words from Jesus responding Thomas’ question in John 14. Thomas says, “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus replied. “No one comes to the Father but by Me.”
Jesus welcomed Thomas and his questions.
Our diptych of Moses and Thomas (an unlikely pair! What was the artist thinking?) gives us the broad covenantal overview of God’s condescension to us. We see God’s Word being physically delivered to God’s people: first to Moses on the stone tablets and then to Thomas’ questing hands reaching in to Jesus’ body. Our God is a God who stoops low and comes close to be known by His people. Indeed, He insists upon being known by us, one way or the other.
Jesus is so patient with this friend of His—bending Himself to Thomas’ need to “be sure.” Hear the intimacy of this invitation from the Word-made-flesh in today’s passage: “Stick your hand into my innards! Feel for yourself, Thomas! See for yourself! Smell for yourself!”
This makes my breath stick in my throat—the intimacy of it, the earthiness.
Yet, is His invitation to us any less intimate at the Eucharist? At the communion table? Jesus knows how tied we are to our sensory reality, and so He has instituted the Lord’s Supper where again and again across our lifetime, we remember His physical body broken for us and His blood shed for us. “Remember Me,” He says. “Remember Me by tasting this, drinking this, touching and smelling this!” We touch, we ingest bread and wine and we remember the holy mystery of our salvation—“The wounded God whose wounds are healing mine,” says Malcolm Guite in his poem.
Our God is not intimacy-resistant. His human body was formed in a woman’s body. If we belong to Him, He has come and made His home in us. His Spirit has become one with our spirit. And the character of Jesus is being formed in us by that Spirit. We are being redeemed. We are becoming true believers, no longer doubting but convinced and converted into faithful ones by our risen Lord. Hallelujah!
As we come to know Him, we are met, like Thomas, in our limitations and our stubbornness. He mercifully inclines Himself to us, He does all the heavy-lifting on behalf of our faith. Jesus comes to us in our doubt. He shows up. He comes near.
And see how our passage ends? It ends with Jesus talking about us! “Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet believe,” says our Savior, our Friend, our Brother, our Lord.
By all accounts, faith-filled Thomas went on to evangelize the whole subcontinent of India, where the church thrives to this day. May we be like Thomas, complete with questions!
It is a Bright Monday indeed!
Prayer:
Lord, we have not seen you, and yet we believe. Increase our faith. May we daily grow in love and obedience until that Day, when we see you face-to-face. Keep us, Savior. Save us thoroughly.
Amen.
Betsy Barber, PsyD
Associate Director of the Institute for Spiritual Formation
Associate Professor of Spirituality and Psychology
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, poetry, and devotional writer selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab
About the Art:
Moses Receiving the Ten Commandments
The Doubting Thomas
Late 10th - early 11th c.
Ivory diptych
Each panel: 9 5/8 x 4 in
Bode, Staatliche Museen
Berlin, Germany
This 10th-century Ottonian ivory diptych, which may have served as book covers for some part of the Bible, pairs the subjects of the Doubting Thomas with Moses receiving the Law in order to relate the two direct ways that God has revealed himself to humanity, through scripture and the Incarnation. Pairing these two scenes also serves to contrast the Law, which we are unable to keep thus resulting in separation from God, with the Grace that Jesus Christ extends, making reconciliation with God possible. The artist uses the thin vertical format of the panels to full expressive effect by compressing the figures into narrow niches to squeeze as much action into each scene. This intensifies the sense of intimacy in order to excite each meeting between humanity and the divine. While Moses reaches up to receive the tablets of the Law from the hand of God, Thomas strains as he stretches upward in response to Jesus’ invitation to physically witness that Jesus is truly alive and in the flesh. Significantly, the halo inscribed around the hand of God is cruciform and identifies the giver as Christ, the Word, even as Thomas reaches his hand to touch Christ, the Word-made-flesh.
About the Art:
Unknown Artist
About the Music:
“Thy Mercy, My God” from the album The Builder and the Architect
The Lyrics:
Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song,
The joy of my heart. and the boast of my tongue;
Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last,
Hath won my affections, and bound my soul fast.
Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here;
Sin would reduce me to utter despair;
But, through Thy free goodness, my spirits revive,
And He that first made me still keeps me alive.
Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,
Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart;
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy I’ve found.
Great Father of mercies, Thy goodness I own,
And the covenant love of Thy crucified Son;
All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine
Seals mercy, and pardon, and righteousness mine.
About the Lyricist:
Today’s hymn was originally written by John Stocker in 1776. Little is known about this hymn writer except that he was born at Honiton, Devonshire, England. He is considered a friend of A. M. Toplady (who wrote “Rock of Ages”) who lived for a while near to Honiton. John Stocker contributed nine hymns to “The Gospel Magazine” in 1776-1777. Sandra McCracken discovered the hymn on the pages of a Gadsby’s Hymnal about ten years ago. She recalls that, “I wrote a new melody to his four stanzas that afternoon, and these words have been an arresting companion for me in many changing seasons since that day.”
https://hymnary.org/person/Stocker_J
https://bibletruthpublishers.com/john-stocker/adrian-roach/the-little-flock-hymn-book-its-history-and-hymn-writers/a-roach/la105012
http://hymnbook.igracemusic.com/hymns/thy-mercy-my-god
About the Composer/Performer:
Sandra McCracken’s (b. 1977) prolific contributions as a songwriter, modern-day hymn writer, and record producer have brought grace and clarity to her soulful, folk-gospel sound. Whether in a theater or in a chapel, she is a dynamic performer who blurs the lines of what church music sounds like, captivating and inviting audiences to sing along. While many of her songs like “We Will Feast In The House Of Zion” and “Thy Mercy My God” have settled into regular rotation in Christian worship services internationally, she has also had songs recorded by All Sons And Daughters, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, Audrey Assad, A Rocha Compilation, Bifrost Arts, Caedmon’s Call and others. She is a founding member of Indelible Grace Music and Rain For Roots (children’s music) and has been a guest writer for Art House America, She Reads Truth, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, RELEVANT Magazine and more.
http://www.sandramccracken.com/
About the Poet:
Malcolm Guite (b. 1957) is a poet, author, Anglican priest, teacher, and singer/songwriter based in Cambridge, England. He has published six collections of poetry: Saying the Names, The Magic Apple Tree, Sounding the Seasons: Poetry for the Christian Year, The Singing Bowl, and Waiting on the Word, and the recently released Parable and Paradox: Sonnets on the Sayings of Jesus and Other Poems. Rowan Williams and Luci Shaw have both acclaimed his writing and his Antiphons appeared in Penguin’s Best Spiritual Writing, 2013. Malcolm’s theological works include What Do Christians Believe? and Faith, Hope, and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination. He has just released a new book, Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is an authoritative and accessible biography of Coleridge told through his most famous poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Guite is a scholar of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the British poets, and serves as the Bye-Fellow and chaplain at Girton College at the University Cambridge, while supervising students in English and theology. He lectures widely in England and the USA and in 2015 he was the CCCA Visionary-in-Residence at Biola University. Guite plays in the Cambridge rock band Mystery Train and his albums include The Green Man and Dancing through the Fire.
https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Guite
About the Devotion Writer:
Betsy Barber, PsyD
Associate Director of the Institute for Spiritual Formation
Associate Professor of Spirituality and Psychology
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University
Dr. Betsy Barber has a clinical practice with specialization in the soul care and mental health of Christian workers. She teaches courses in spiritual formation, soul care, missions, maturity, and marital relationships. She has particular interest in spiritual formation and supervision of students in spiritual direction and mentoring. She has worked with her husband as a missionary in Bible translation and counseling ministries for 24 years. In addition to being a licensed clinical psychologist, she has background and training in spiritual direction.