NOTES for Joh 20:29

This verse is often mentioned, when discussions begin about how was the one who saw the Passions of Jesus Christ. He's usually perceived as comforting for us, who have never seen Christ alive: we haven't seen, but all the same we believe, although our faith has fewer bases, than that of the apostles who saw the personification of the living God. Having read the descriptions of the Passions in all evidence, it is unnecessary to watch the movie itself, in order to acknowledge that the death of Jesus was painful and awful. And so "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" means completely a different thing. "Blessed" not because the faith of those who haven't seen makes them directly holy; we are blessed, which means happy, because we didn't see the Crucifixion. It is easier for us to believe that Jesus is risen, since we didn't see His death, we didn't see in which degree it was genuine, we could never imagine in fact that our God was a corpse, that there is hope no more. All the same, the Passion Week is already dedicated in our lives by the light of the forthcoming resurrection - and that is our happiness, our blissfulness. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to feel the most profoundly possible the pain of the crucifixion; some succeed to feel it with almost the same power, with which the Mother of God felt it, to some are given stigmas, but they are also given faith , such that no pain can obstruct to believe the resurrection.