NOTES for Joh 20:29

How are we to understand these words of the risen Lord? Are those who saw the Risen One from the dead with their own eyes not more blessed, those in whose lives this turning point clearly and irrevocably took place, the undeniable awareness that death has been conquered by the life of Jesus? And finally, why did the "other disciple," in whom we can easily recognize Jesus' beloved disciple, not enter the tomb at first, having seen only a "hint" of the unexpected victory: the face cloth? What would our faith be without the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, and what would Thomas's faith have been without his meeting with the risen Jesus? Faced with these difficult questions, we can try to reflect on the basic question of our relationship with the Risen One: the relationship between knowledge from experience, the witness of the Gospel, and faith as an incomprehensible contact with the One who conquered death.