​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.

​Matthew 27: 27 – 66; John 20: 24 – 31.
 
A cursory reading of the four Gospels gives us an unusual telescopic perspective of the extraordinary divinely appointed events that unfolded in the Near East. Quite apart from presenting the historical facts on our Creator’s preordained intervention into human history, the writers injected ironic details of this unique Christological journey in their respective accounts. We will just take two narratives from the Gospels of Matthew and John as an illustration. 
 
Matthew delineated the human genealogy of Jesus that traversed the royal Davidic kingship line in his introduction, which curiously led Pilate to subsequently question, “Are You the King of the Jews?” Jesus’ neutral reply, “You said this!” was ironic. A few moments later, the Praetorium guards made Him the butt of their derision. They stripped Him and then cloaked Him in a royal scarlet robe, with a twisted crown of thorns on His head. As if that wasn’t sufficient humiliation, they thrusted a reed, symbolising a scepter, into His hand. Then mockingly kneeling before Him, they spat at Him and struck Him on the head. Curiously, ‘the king’ in Pilate’s and his soldiers’ thinking was very different from the divinely designated ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’ (c.f., Rev 19:16). He was much more than being an earthly King of the Jews, as His appointed authority was not derived from any human agency (Matt 27:37; Matt 28:18; c.f., Isa 9:6-7; Isa 52:13-15). 
 
After His resurrection, there was a stark difference in His portrayal of His kingdom: it was certainly not politically inspired to be a kingdom free from Roman hegemony, far from the expectations of His disciples and everyone else. Its focus was on servanthood and dying to self (Matt 20:25-28). In Jesus’ kingdom, the mere possession of power did not entitle one to flaunt or abuse it, as delegated authority is accompanied with a responsibility to serve in the way our Lord did. A Servant-King being put through the human mill as a common criminal turned out to be their Creator! (Col 1:15-20).
 
The crucifixion was a gory interlude. While the two convicts’ shin bones were broken to hasten their asphyxiation and eventual death, Jesus’ bones remained intact as prophesied (Ps 34: 20); as He had already expired earlier on. Prior to that, onlookers were mocking Him, “You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt 27:38-43). In the Jewish context, any allusions threatening the destruction of the temple was adjudicated to be treasonous and punishable by death (Matt 26: 59-63; John 2:18-22). The ‘temple’ that Jesus cited was His own body, quite different from the perception of the Jewish High Priest and the Jews. Three days after His burial, His resurrection reconciled forgiven humanity back to God (1Cor 12:27; Eph 1:7-14; Col 1:13-14; Col 1:19-20). A helpless Saviour condemned on His cross, who could not save Himself, ironically culminated in eternally saving those who were doomed to eternal damnation (c.f., Matt 1:21; Matt 26:51-56; Luke 23:39-43). No one appreciated it! The torn temple veil before the Holy of Holies was symbolic of the hiddenness of a Holy God being made accessible to forgiven mankind through Jesus’ sacrifice (Matt 27:51).
 
None believed that a dead person could be resurrected, not Jesus’ disciples and His followers, nor the Chief Priest and the Pharisees. In fact, the Jewish religious elite believed that the Lord’s body would be stolen soon after His death in a mischievous cover-up for His resurrection (Matt 27:62-66). Despite Jesus’ appearance to over 500 believers (1Cor 15:4-8; John 20:1-25; Luke 24:13-35), Thomas’ apparent pragmatism proved impregnable over Jesus’ resurrection. After all, He died. He is history! But on the second Sunday after His initial appearance to His disciples, Jesus appeared again to them, and on this occasion, Thomas was present (John 20:26-29; c.f., Luke 24:36-43). This poignant scenario included our Lord acceding to Thomas’ incredulous request to feel His wounds for himself. Suddenly finding himself standing in the presence of the resurrected Christ, shook him into an immediate acknowledgement, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus replied, “Because you have seen Me, you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed.” Thomas’ reaction is not uncommon. We are certainly not meant to be gullible, but our conditioned rationality can become a stumbling block to faith. The outcome of a suspension of faith is an underestimation of God’s sovereign capability in His limitless ways at Self-Expression. The eye of faith trusts God to be God. 
 
It remains our responsibility to recognize what Jesus had accomplished on the cross, suffering for our sake to enable us to put all our faith in Him, as He is able to forgive our sins. That’s what we must have to be reconciled to God, with joy and thankfulness and mystery and adoration and awe, we are able to articulate “My Lord and my God!”

​Hebrews 3: 1 – 4: 13
 
The writer to the Hebrews in this segment of his Epistle employed Psalm 95 in two modes: a moral tone dealt with the perils of unbelief, and a typology pointing to the believers’ rest in Christ. Psalm 95 is one of many that uses narrative from Israel’s history to draw pertinent lessons for their Jewish readers. In summary, the psalmist’s exuberance over Yahweh’s Personhood broke out into glorifying worship and he encouraged his readers to do likewise. Then the account suddenly changed, and God spoke in the first-person pronoun; He warned them not repeat the Meribah and Massah incidents where the Israelites tested and rebelled against Him and were punished with forty years wandering in the wilderness.   
 
Moses was introduced as a faithful servant to the household of God in Egypt, but now Jesus was the more honorable faithful Son over the church, His Body, of which all believers are a part of, and He remains our hope to the end of days. He then quoted at length Psalm 95, by prefacing that his readers are to persevere in obeying the Voice of God (Heb 3:6-7). Focusing throughout on the word ‘today,’ he repeated the historical context of the Israelite rebellion in the Sinai and cautioned his current readers to endure to the end in their trials and not repeat the same error as their predecessors. God intentionally saved the Hebrews from their Egyptian overlords, but their personal or spiritual salvation remained highly questionable; it is the differentiation between the head and the heart which likewise catches us out repeatedly in our obedience to God (Heb 4:2). 
 
Although the content of Psalm 95 may appear initially as a moral instruction, the writer read into it a typology pointing to the person of Christ (Heb 3:12-19). Being a partaker of Christ in eternal life invariably implies a conviction of holding “fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm in Him until the end” (c.f., Heb 3:1-6, 14). The Apostle Paul was emphatic when he mentioned the depth and repercussions of our reconciliation to God: “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach – if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister” (Col 1:21-23). The implication is that if, by His grace, we do persevere to the end, it is itself evidentiary that God has been at work in our life; “to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13); to bring forth fruit worthy of His name (Matt 7:16). Hence, the critical importance of holding fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end is by becoming partakers of Christ (Heb 3:14) or simply being in Christ.
 
In the next chapter, the writer introduced us into entering God’s rest. What does His rest look like? The nuance concerning this ‘rest’ is not indicative of tiredness from one’s labours, but a ceasing from one’s strivings. The premise of the Hebrew writer as he developed this theme from time immemorial (from the 7th day of creation to the Sabbath rest to resting in the Promised Land after its conquest) is that our final rest is in Christ when we cease from our own individualistic works apart from Christ (Heb 3:9-11; Matt 11:28-30). He concludes with a caveat that grasping the intent of the Word of God is critical in our enduring endeavor to come to terms with what He has beforehand prepared for us in accomplishing His will. The alternative would be to keep striving in our own strength and capacity. His Living Word encapsulates His aspirations for a humanity that expresses unequivocally the fulness of His Son, life-giving in every way, with its characteristic rest in God. The Word is, therefore, alive and discerning, as God is omniscient and omnipresent (Heb 3:12-13).