A Felt Interior Knowledge

Homily for Sunday, April 27, 2025
The Second Sunday of Easter
John 20:19-31

This morning, I am going to tell you the point of my homily first, and then I am going to go back and make it.  The point of my homily is this:  If we ask and are truly open to receiving an experience of the risen Christ, Jesus will in due time make himself known to us in 1) a way that we can comprehend, 2) in a way that he knows we need, and 3) in a way that communicates his love for us, specifically for us, the unique person that Jesus has made us.  

Now, let me go back and make this point…

Twenty years ago, shortly after I was ordained, an older colleague told me of an experience she had of Jesus as a young woman.  She was twenty years old, had gone to church her whole life, and now as a college sophomore was ready to make her own choices, including whether or not to continue to go to church.  At the beginning of Lent that year she prayed, “Jesus, for twenty years I’ve been going to church every Sunday and every Wednesday.  And,” she said, “frankly, I have better things to do with my time.  So if by Easter I don’t see some sign that you actually exist, that’s it.  I quit, I’m done.”  That Lent, she diligently went to church every Sunday and every Wednesday, and… nothing.  Until… on Good Friday, during the silence after the reading of the Passion Gospel, just before the Solemn Collects, she felt someone approach and sit down next to her in the pew.  “Without looking up,” she said, “I knew who it was.  And my first thought was, ‘Oh, I have to keep going to church.”   But then, she said, “I was so overcome with a feeling of love – how much he loved me, how he had forgiven me, and how much he wanted me to follow – that I couldn’t say ‘No.’ He’s been with me ever since.”  

In this morning’s Gospel lesson Thomas, “one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.”

So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.”  But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”  A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them.  Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Do not doubt but believe.”

My colleague and Thomas are fortunate in that, when they asked for proof that Jesus was alive, they received it.  And perhaps some of us have similar stories,asking Jesus for some kind of proof and then receiving it.  But what about the rest of us who maybe haven’t received such a revelation?

I remember wishing, when my colleague shared her story, that I had had or would have a similar experience.  “Jesus,” I remember saying, “How long have I been going to church?  When in such a tangible and conclusive way are you going to appear to me?”  But the way in which Jesus appeared to my colleague, and the way in which Jesus appeared to Thomas, is not something I have experienced.  

Yet as I look back over the past twenty years, how often and in how many ways has Jesus been there for me?  Jesus has been there for me in big ways, such as when my mother died or when I was going through a divorce.  Jesus wasn’t there such that I could say, “He came and sat down next to me in such and such a place, at such and such a time;”nor did Jesus come and show me his hands and feet and tell me to “Reach out your hand and put it in my side.”   But Jesus was there nonetheless, quietly, powerfully, giving me the strength he knew I needed.  

And Jesus has been there for me in countless little ways as well.  Those on Vestry, where we begin each meeting by sharing how God has been active in our lives since we last met, have heard me share how Jesus showed up for me,say:  during the choir anthem at Communion, or in a special moment with one of my kids, or in a satisfying meeting with my colleagues, or at the Wednesday evening chorister rehearsal, or in a recent homily from the Bishop, or in the quiet of the early morning, or in one of the many seemingly miraculous moments at my beehives – the list could goon…  Though I have not had an experience of Jesus as did my colleague, and though I have not had an experience of Jesus as did Thomas in today’s Gospel lesson, yet I know Jesus has shown up for me and continues to show up for me.  Perhaps not in the way I expected or at the time that I wanted, but in a way and at a time he knew that I needed.  

Jesus is always working on our behalf and for our good.  And if we ask him and are truly open to receiving him, Jesus will – in a way he knows is good for us and at the time he knows is best for us – [Jesus] will show up.  

Though the apostle Paul had an extraordinary vision of Christ (which he describes in his letter to the Galatians), it was most often not in the extraordinary but in the ordinary that Paul experienced Jesus’ presence.  As,for example, when he experienced Jesus’ consolation at the opening of 2 Corinthians (1:3-4), or when in Romans chapter 1 he expressed gratitude for the Romans’ faith (1:8), or when he rejoiced over the Philippians (e.g., 4:1) or in the tenderness he expresses in Philemon.  For us, too, most of our experiences of Jesus will most likely not be extraordinary but rather ordinary,in moments of gratitude or joys, of tenderness and consolation, given to us by Jesus in a way that we can comprehend, in a way that we need, and in such a way that lets us know his love for us, the unique individual that God created us to be.

To borrow a phrase from St. Ignatius of Loyola, Jesus wants us to have a “felt, interior knowledge” of his love for us.  If we ask him and are truly open to it, Jesus will in due time make himself known in 1) a way that we can comprehend, in 2) a way that he knows we need, in 3) a way that communicates to us his great love for us individually, our unique person that he has made us.  Why not, if you would like to better know the risen Lord, ask Jesus for the grace of a “felt, interior knowledge” of his love for you?  And then pay attention, because a “felt, interior knowledge” of his love is just what Jesus would like to give us.