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19 On the evening of that day, the first of the week, while the doors of the place where the disciples were for fear of the Jews were closed, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them, "Peace be with you!" 20 Having said this, he showed them his hands and side. And the disciples rejoiced to see the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, so I send you." 22 Having said this, he blew and said to them: «Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven; those whom you do not forgive, they will not be forgiven." 24 Thomas, one of the Twelve, named Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25The other disciples said to him: "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail mark in his hand and put my finger into the nail mark and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."
26 Eight days later the disciples were back in the house and Thomas was with them. Jesus came behind closed doors, stood in the middle and said: «Peace be with you!». 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at my hands; reach out your hand and put it in my side; and do not be incredulous, but a believer!”. 28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and have believed!». 30 Jesus, in the presence of his disciples, did many other signs which are not written in this book. 31But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so that, by believing, you may have life in his name.
In this passage, one of the stories of apparitions, but it would perhaps be better to say of the experience of the Risen One, we are told of the joy (and the effort) that that experience entails and the transformation it arouses in the life of the disciples. Jesus comes and stands in the midst of the disciples, in the midst of the community of brothers. Give the promised peace, the shalom , the anticipation of messianic peace and give, indeed "breath in" (like God at the moment of Adam's creation) his Holy Spirit, who is the life-giving Spirit, who communicates to us his life of resurrected.
The paschal experience is called to become paschal existence. Easy to say but very difficult to practice, we know. So let us ask ourselves, as we already did in Lent (after all, Lent and the Easter season are intimately linked in the one mystery): what can give a decisive turning point to our lives as men and believers? What can convert us to the newness of life that the Lord gives us? According to the evangelist John, the answer is above all one: contemplating the naked truth of God's love revealed in Jesus can convert us. There is no other possibility of conversion than "turning our gaze to him whom we have pierced" (Zech 12:10; Jn 19:37), as Scripture says.
In our scene at the end, the evangelist does nothing but tell us again the scene already narrated at the moment of Jesus' death. blood and water flowed (cf. Jn 19,34-37), a symbol of his life given and of the Spirit delivered to the believers (cf. Jn 7,39). Here Jesus, now raised as risen, reveals the glory hidden in his ignominious death and again draws fearful gazes to his wounds, to his pierced side, and again (this time verbally and explicitly) gives the Spirit, infuses it into believers, so that they may see in those wounds inflicted by human sin the sign of his love and forgiveness.
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The disciples, the moment they see the signs that remind them of their sin (they too had abandoned the Lord at his death) see themselves embraced by God's love. This is a true conversion! In it, precisely the awareness of having wounded, "pierced" the love of God wounds us, pierces us, but it is a wound that does not kill, rather it gives life, and opens up to joy. This is what the Christian tradition calls "compunction" (i.e. piercing), one of the few true (Easter) saving experiences that we are given here on earth to have.
Jesus was on the cross, so in his resurrection, draws to himself. But this attraction doesn't seduce, it doesn't sequester from life, but rather free, it communicates life. He communicates his peace, his joy, and his Spirit, who breaks down our closed doors and makes us pass "from death to life" (Jn 5:24; 1 Jn 3:14) by adhering to his life.
The paschal journey of conversion does not leave us in a paralyzing and timeless marvel: as at the Ascension, here it is not a matter of "standing and gazing at the sky" (cf. Acts 1:11) where Jesus was lifted up, but of doing treasure of the gaze transformed by that vision to turn it on the brothers with renewed trust and mercy.
In fact, here too Jesus refers us to the brothers: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you" (v. 21), a verse which in its very structure recalls the new commandment: "As I have loved you, so you also love your one another" (Jn 13:34). And we know that in John the Son was sent into the world precisely to reveal the love of the Father (cf. 1Jn 1:18; 13:16). Only the love and mercy we show to others can show the Spirit of the Risen One infused in us.
“Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain, they are not forgiven” (v. 23). The Spirit makes love and mercy practicable, but it remains in us to the extent that we actually practice them. If our love cools down or becomes evanescent, the Spirit infused in us, which is also fire, also cools down and becomes evanescent. We can continuously receive it as a gift to the extent that we give it back to others, as love, and as forgiveness.
