Resurrection Week Wednesday

23 hours ago
3 min read

We are at the midway place in this week which I have called, Resurrection Week. Let’s take a minute to listen again to the words of the hymn from which we are being fed.

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear!

It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds and drives away his fear.

It makes the wounded spirit whole and calms the troubled breast;

‘Tis manna to the hungry soul and to the weary, rest.

We now continue with this hymn, as we receive more about what the Sweet Name of Jesus does to the believer.

The Sweet Name of Jesus drives away all fear.

Believers, disciples of Jesus, who once knew the sweetness of His Name among them, are presently living in fear. They know fear as they have never known before, without their Loving, Caring and Protecting Jesus.

It is the evening of Jesus’ Resurrection, but they are yet ignorant to the sweet joys of this Good News. Have a close look at this scene. The disciples are all together, assembled in a room with locked doors, because they are afraid of the Jews. They are truly afraid that having killed Jesus, their Master, they will hunt them down, Jesus’ followers, to harm them also. It is in this thick, dark, impenetrable cloud of fear that Jesus enters. He enters and spreads peace with His Sweet Presence and Sweet Words. Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, Peace be with you. John 20: 19b.

What a difference! What a radical change has been wrought in all these believers, no exceptions. I dare you to defy this living truth that Jesus is His Peace and His Peace is Jesus. The Sweet Name of Jesus is Peace.

Believer! Whatever is your fear that has you living in clouds of darkness, think the Sweet Name of Jesus. He will drive away your every fear.

The Sweet Name of Jesus makes the wounded spirit whole

We tend to look at Thomas, also known as Didymus and only see him as the doubting disciple, branding him with that title. However, if you are a believer as he, the first one to arouse and marshal the disciples to follow Jesus to His death, then you must see how deeply Thomas really did love Jesus. Indeed, when Jesus announced that He was returning to Judea, the disciples said to Him, Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again? John 11: 8. Jesus would not be deterred by their concerned words and said that He was going anyway. This is what is reported. Then Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with Him. John 11: 16. This is the same Thomas, now wounded to the core of his heart and spirit, with the crucifixion of Jesus. He just cannot be comforted nor reconciled to the fact that people, his dear friends even, are telling him that Jesus is alive. His wounds are too deep. His pain is too great. He must see his beloved Lord himself.

The Risen Jesus has been visiting His people, with many convincing proofs that He is alive. He returns to the disciples, but this time Thomas is present. Jesus specifically addresses him, no other disciple, but Thomas and says to him, Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing. And Thomas answered and said to Him, My Lord and my God! John 20: 27b – 28. Jesus meets Thomas where he is, with his unhealed spirit and Thomas is so brought to truth, so confronted by life that he can only exclaim, My Lord and my God! Sweet to the utmost!

Jesus is his Lord and when he gives Jesus His title of Lord, is he not naming Jesus? Very true, Jesus is his Lord, but this is even more telling and most wonderful to me. Faith allows us to see Thomas as being taken even further on in his now, new uplifted spirit, with such divine, heavenly ecstasy, as it were, an ecstatic joy, as he acknowledges his Lord as God. Jesus is his God! Can’t you see Thomas, as he is taken beyond himself even, to the sweet Name of Jesus, as Lord and God?