​John 20: 24 -31.
 
How could Someone who claimed to be the Son of God be grossly humiliated and tortured, and finally put to death as a common criminal? Jesus’ disciples and followers were undeniably traumatized at His gruesome crucifixion. It was a profound disappointment that went to the heart of challenging His message that they had heard for the past three years or so. In fact, nobody was expecting His resurrection. The disciples were so fearful of a Jewish persecutory backlash that they got together and locked themselves in a safe house following His death. On the evening of the third day after the Passover (the Jewish day started at sunset), Jesus literally walked through the door of the house, suddenly shocking everyone inside, and spoke with His disciples, but Thomas was not among them.
 
Doubting Thomas! Could anyone blame Thomas for doubting given the circumstances of their Saviour’s demise? As a good Jew, he had wholeheartedly chosen to embrace the Gospel message of Jesus, leaving Judaism behind, but like all His followers, their worldview did not encompass a crucified Messiah. How could Someone who claimed to be divine be killed? For a whole week after Christ’s first appearance, the disciples attempted to convince Thomas of their Saviour’s reappearance. They turned over repeatedly all the inscrutable sayings of Jesus that they had heard but never really understood. Peter and John, and the women’s testimonies of an empty tomb, with angelic beings, and Mary Magdalene’s meeting with the Lord, were recounted ad nauseam, for Thomas’ sake. Evidence from the two on their way to Emmaus were further verified. He was not a gullible person nor one with little faith (c.f., John 11:12-16), as he sought for concrete evidence that the Lord whom his fellow disciples said was alive, is the same Person who was crucified and died. No amount of persuasion would convince him! Invariably, doubts and excitement intermingled with uncertainty and fears of unbelief. But did Thomas for a single moment struggle inwardly as a result of the overwhelming evidence proffered by his compatriots and fellow-disciples? 
 
On the eighth day, perhaps in the same house with its doors shut, Jesus again reappeared before His disciples, and on this occasion, Thomas was present. After greeting them, as if the Lord was cognizant of what transpired after His last visit, He turned immediately to Thomas and said, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side…” It was exactly what Thomas had categorically stipulated earlier when he challenged the disciples’ claims of the Lord’s return: “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.” Thomas reached out to corroborate the evidence personally. A palpable sense of regret overwhelmed him as his confidence in himself totally collapsed. He fell to his knees and confessed, “My Lord and My God.” The sudden realization of divinity standing right before him shook Thomas to his very core. 
 
In the context of the resurrection, when Jesus said to Thomas, ”do not be unbelieving, but believing,” did He mean the basis for his faith was to believe despite incredulous testimony or an absence of evidence? Faith is certainly not established on the origin of one’s subjective personal choice (c.f., 1 Cor 15:1-19) nor expressed in a vacuum. In Scripture, it is always predicated on the authenticity and trustworthiness of the object of one’s faith, as having confidence in a truth, or in this instant, trusting in a Person. It is a learning process, challenging our sin and rebellion, our moral blindness and self-centredness, to abandon ourselves to trust God in whatever He had said or proscribed in His Word (c.f., Rom 10:17). Scripture, the ‘living word’ (Heb 4:12), encapsulates the witness of historical Biblical events, including the monumental redemptive incidents of the crucifixion, the resurrection and the ascension of Christ, that God had chosen to disclose Himself. Hence, the intent of these space-time testimonial records is so that “you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have faith in His name” (John 20:30-31). Consequently, the Apostle Luke can conclude that there is no longer any excuse when God declared to all men that all people everywhere should repent (Acts 17:30).

​Isaiah 61.
 
A part of this well-known Messianic passage from the Book of Isaiah was quoted by Jesus at the commencement of His public ministry in a Galilean synagogue (Isa 6:1-2; Luke 4:17-21). Purposefully chosen, it was indicative of God’s lovingkindness towards Jewish society’s disadvantaged in the year of Jubilee (i.e., every 50th year of the Jewish calendar), where historically, all debts were to be forgiven and all servants and slaves set free (Lev 25). The basis for a new beginning in this prophetic interlude in Isaiah was due largely to the prevalence of man’s sinfulness alluded to by the Prophet and Yahweh’s undeniable desire for reconciliation with man. To grasp a sense of God’s broken heart is to appreciate the lengths He went to in responding with unfathomable compassion over humanity’s suffering, whether they be on a corporate or national level, in a community or a personal situation, encompassing physical, social, economic, or emotional despair. And in the midst of inevitable judgment, lavish grace and mercy are to be extended to those who belong to Him (Isa 61:1-3). God would justify the righteous, He calls them ‘His ministers,’ transforming them as His witnesses to the nations. Their ruined cities will be rebuilt. Strangers and foreigners will gratefully labour for them. Poverty and humiliation will no longer haunt them. And like a couple to be married, the occasion will be filled with joy, gladness, praises, and glory (Isa 61:4-11). 
 
In the context of Isaiah’s prophetic utterances, it is the Messiah who is going to accomplish the restoration of God’s creation (c.f., Eph 1:8-10), where He is variously portrayed as ‘the Righteous Davidic King,’ ‘the Servant’ and ‘the Saviour’ (Isa 11; Isa 42; Isa 49; Isa 50). However, it was as a ‘Suffering Servant’ that His nondescript self-characterisation on earth remained the most poignant and compelling in our recollection (Isa 53); as Someone who had “no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him” (Isa 53:2). God’s unostentatious self-effacing personalisation as a carpenter’s son was intentional - to immediately identify with the ordinary in human society, where His divine credibility, unhindered by wealth, status or appearance, is totally dependent on His hidden wisdom and spirituality. And like anything that has to do with God, it is His Spirit that elucidates spiritual discernment to those who seek after Him (c.f., 1 Cor 2:10-13). Isaiah described this ‘Servant’ posture aptly, when he clarified that God’s substitutionary purpose was to fill His people with His inward beauty and strength as He took on their sinful ugliness at the cross (Isa 53:3-12), where He exchanged a garland for ashes, the oil of gladness for mourning, the mantle of praise for a spirit of fainting (Isa 61:3). Jesus’ objective in the Galilean synagogue was to declare that He was the fulfilment of that prophecy, inaugurating a new era in the earthly realm, where we can make a clean break with our past by choosing to follow Him. The process of recovering God’s creation had begun, but its completion will be when Jesus Christ comes again.
 
The Suffering Servant is the Servant King, and He seeks our response! Isaiah proffered a seminal reaction throughout this segment of his prophetic narrative. When the Good News is fully embraced with our submission to Him in salvation (c.f., Matt 16:25-27), the transformation by the Spirit of Christ will awaken us to God’s ultimate redemptive purpose for His people. His gracious forgiveness and restoration is reflective of the joy and blessing during the Year of Jubilee not restricted to within the community but will one day extend to international reconciliation when He comes again (Isa 61:4-11). Come, Lord Jesus, Come.