This is a translation of the homily for the Second Sunday of Easter (year III) in Uskedal Church in Kvinnherad, Norway, Sunday 27th April, 2025. This service was also a service of confirmation. The readings are as follows: Acts 1:1-5; 1 Peter 1:3-9; and John 20:24-31. When quoting Scripture, I will use the Revised Standard Version (RSV), unless otherwise noted.
Collect of the day (translated by yours truly):
Let us Pray:
Risen Saviour, Jesus Christ, you reach out to us when we doubt. We pray: Give us faith when we do not understand, so that we may live in the light of your resurrection and forgive our own and others’ betrayals, you who with your Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one true God, world without end. Amen.
Today we have come to confirmation, but it is also the last day of what we call the Easter Octave. In music, and octave is “an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other,” according to Wikipedia. It comes from the Latin word octavus, which means “eighth.” And today is the eighth day of Easter. And in today’s Gospel we meet St. Thomas, one of the remaining eleven apostles. Earlier in the chapter, Jesus met with the other ten, but St. Thomas was not there. And when he met them again, they said: “We have seen the Lord.” But he did not believe them unless he could see the nail markings in Christ’s hand, place his fingers in in markings, and place his hand in His side. Then it saus that Christ once again came to the apostles
eight days later. A small digression: in the text, it says “eight days later.” I do not think that is a good translation. Yes, that is what it says in Greek but it was the custom to count the day you were already in. So eight days later was actually a week, the eight day. A better translation would be “on the eight day” or simply “a week later,” as a translation should aim to translate not just words but meanings. And this feature exists now. When we say a “fortnight” (or simply “fourteen days” here in Norway), French speakers say quinze jours, which means “fifteen days.” But back to the gospel reading.
Jesus returns and he gives St. Thomas the opportunity to do what he wanted: “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.” It does not say if he did or not but what he get from the mouth of St. Thomas is one of the most central confessions of Christ: “My Lord and my God!” Yes, he doubted, but when the doubt disappeared, he gave us one of the most concrete confessions in the New Testament. He said that Jesus is Lord and God, he worshipped Jesus as God. And following upon that, Jesus gives words of comfort, not primarily to him but to us: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
Unlike the apostles, we have not heard Jesus directly, seen Him, or touched Him. He is the one mediator, as we see in 1 Timothy 2:5, but He must be mediated to us. To us, the revelation of Christ comes, so to speak, veiled – in Scripture, in the sacraments, and through other people who can testify about Him, as we read in 1 John 1:1-3:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
As Jesus tells us today, via His words to St. Thomas the Apostle: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
And we see something similar with the two Emmaus wanderers in Luke 24. They meet Jesus but they do not recognise Him. He reveals Himself to them in Scripture and they finally recognise Him when He broke bread with them, when He celebrated the Eucharist. But then He suddenly vanished from their sight. They then say: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?” They thus got to see Jesus, first through the preached word, before they saw him in the Eucharist. When they returned to the other disciples, they told them that “he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.” According to the Scriptures, then, we see the risen Christ first and foremost in His gifts, in the word and the sacraments, and not directly. But why?1
It is precisely because we, as physical beings, need such a revelation. And Christ had to return to his Father to lift us up, something we can return to on Ascension Day. We need thos because we cannot experience God directly. In Isaiah 45:5, it says: “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God.” And we find something similar in Mark 12, but even more radical. After Christ has recited the Shema, one of the scribes says: “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that he is one, and there is no other but he.” I have often though that what this verse means is that there is no other Lord: “there is no other Lord but he.” And that is correct. There is no other Lord. But the text is more radical than that: “he is one, and there is no other but he.” God is the only one who is, absolutely. I do not exist in myself, I am not one with myself. I only exist to the extent that God sustains me. Creation as a whole exists only because it participates in God, that it participates in His existence.2 Without God, we are nothing. There is an absolute difference between God and creation. But it is precisely because God is so radically different from us that He can be so present. Because when we realise this, we also realise that if God had been a very large and powerful version of ourselves, He would have been much further away. But He is not in competition with us. We often say that He is always greater, but that Hhe is also always near. That is true but He is not “greater” in a way that can be measured. Martin Luther put it like this, with a string of paradoxes: “Nothing is so small that God is not even smaller and nothing so big that God is not even bigger. Nothing is so short that God is not even shorter, nothing so long that God is not even longer. Nothing is so wide that God is not even wider, nothing so narrow that God is not even narrower – and so on.”3 God is not within our categories, but precisely because of that, because He is not in competition with us, He is completely present to us. Everything in creation is in direct relationship with God. He is always present. And he meets us through creation. He reveals Himself to us through things we can understand, things we can see, hear, taste. He uses creation, but He has promised to meet us especially through the Bible, baptism, and the Eucharist.
God always comes to us through symbols and words that truly carry the realities they give us. God does not want us to imagine a kind of “spiritual sphere” and run away from the material world. No, he wants everything, including creation in all its physicality, to be renewed in Christ. Because we are not “spirits”; we are corporeal beings. God, who is unchangeable, we cannot understand. He is beyond all thoughts we can think. And the only way we can partake of him is precisely through concrete things we can see, hear, taste, feel, and smell. When God became man, creation shared in God in a very special way. And through the means of grace, especially the word, Baptism, and the Eucharost, we meet Him, right where we are.
Through these quite everyday things – written words, preached words, water, bread and wine – we partake of what God wants to give us, here and now, through what we can grasp, not primarily intellectually, but spiritually, communicated to us physically. For God is not comprehensible or graspable in Himself, but He has given us His gifts and in Jesus He has become man. We partake of Christ himself, the fullness of God, in very concrete things. And today it is baptism that is the most central of these. About 15 years ago, you who are now confirmands came into the world and eventually you were also baptised. And now you are ready to be confirmed. And these are all connected, for confirmation is inextricably linked to baptism. After I baptise a person, I tell him or her: “The almighty God has now given you his Holy Spirit, made you one of his children and accepted you into the fellowship of his faithful people. May God strengthen you with his grace to eternal life. Peace be with you.”4 And this is what will be confirmed today. It will be confirmed that you, as a confirmand, became a child of God, that you received the Holy Spirit who strengthens you.
The word “confirmation” comes from the Latin word confirmare. And yes, it means to “confirm.” What is confirmed is your baptismal covenant. God confirms that He will still be your Father, and He holds you fast in His grace. God will not cast you away.
We find the background for confirmation in Acts 8:14-17:
Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samar′ia had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit; for it had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
The apostles, who were both bishops and priests, laid hands on Christians who had already been baptised, so that they would receive the Holy Spirit. The point was not that these Christians should themselves confirm that they were Christians, but that God confirmed it by sending his Spirit. And he did this through his apostles, who were his emissaries. Through this, we are strengthened. For the Latin word confirmare comes from another Latin word, firmare, which means to strengthen. Through this ritual, you are not only confirmed, you are also strengthened. Therefore, when I pray for the individual confirmand, that God may confirm him or her, it is also a prayer that He may strengthen him or her, through the Holy Spirit. We believe that something is actually happening. We may not be able to feel it, but faith is not dependent on our feelings at that moment. But in faith we can grasp this. It is not we who confirm our baptism, but God who confirms us in our baptismal covenant.
Confirmation is therefore the gift of the Holy Spirit and it is in a way a completion of baptism. We do not believe that the Christians in Samaria had received an inadequate baptism, but that when they were confirmed, they received the Holy Spirit in a special way. God confirms that the promises are still true. Confirmation is not a demonstration of knowledge, or a ceremony where we become “adults.” No, it is simply a prayer to God to confirm the confirmand in the promises of baptism. It is a divine act in which God confirms the confirmand and upholds His promises by giving the confirmand the Holy Spirit. For in baptism we received the faith by which we are saved. Confirmation is a prayer that this applies now and that it will apply forever more.
Prayer and praise, then, are at the centre, and we see that in today’s Gospel. Encountering Jesus, St. Thomas cries out in praise: “My Lord and my God!” And so will we. We will sing hymns to God, we will praise Him. And one of those hymns is the hymn we will sing before the prayers. It may be unknown to many here, but we have used it throughout the year, especially at confirmation camp. There, we sing about our longing we have for God and for all the good things He gives us.5
For we are all created for fellowship with God, and he meets us all, in concrete things. One who has written on this, is St. Augustine. In a prayer to God, in his Confessions, he emphasises who great God is, and how insignificant we are, as creatures: “For You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”6
Yes, the meaning of life is to have fellowship with God. St. Augustine learned this the hard way. He lived a turbulent life. He lived in North Africa in the 4th and 5th centuries, and grew up in a home where his mother, Monica, was Christian. But as a youth he rebelled. He converted to another religion, and also lived a sexually promiscuous life as a young man. But after several years he returned to God, partly because his mother, Monica, had continuously prayed for him. So this may also be something to think about for those who are parents or grandparents, or perhaps uncles or aunts (and really everyone else, for that matter). Never stop praying for those you love. St. Augustin wrote Confessions to underscore how we, as humans, are completely dependent onn God. He opens up about his life. And his main message is this, that you are created for fellowship with God, and that your heart will remain restless until you find rest in Him. This is the key. You need God, and you need to take care of yourself, as it says in Proverbs 4:23: “Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life.” Because it does not matter how popular you are, how good you are at singing, dancing, magic, or making money, if you lose yourself. Jesus asks, in Mark 8:36: “For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” The most important thing to remember is this: Keep your heart with all vigilance. For you are more important to God than all wealth, honour and fame. If you are the smartest chemist in the world, the best trumpet player in the world, the best soccer player, the best singer, the best actor, the best cross-country skier, the most popular on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube, or something else, that is probably really nice. But God wants you first and foremost, as you are. He wants you before he wants your talent. And this is what you were created for. As a human being, you were created to be with God. And this is what St. Augustine writes about. He was called back by God, through his mother Monica, and through his experiences. And St. Augustine recognised that he had not lived up to the call Jesus gave us to love God and our fellow man. He sought God everywhere else, but did not find Him. But God was still with him, and led him forward, or back, to the truth, as St. Augustine expresses it in another prayer to God. This prayer may be long, and a bit pompous, but I think it puts this into words:
Too late did I love You, O Fairness, so ancient, and yet so new! Too late did I love You! For behold, You were within, and I without, and there did I seek You; I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty You made. You were with me, but I was not with You. Those things kept me far from You, which, unless they were in You, were not. You called, and cried aloud, and forced open my deafness. You gleamed and shine, and chase away my blindness. You exhaled odours, and I drew in my breath and do pant after You. I tasted, and do hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace.7
What St. Augustine understood, after living without God, is precisely that all the things that can keep you away from God, no matter how good or beautiful they are, would not have existed if it were not for God. And he learned to seek God, in prayer, in the Bible, in the Eucharist, etc.. What you have to remember is that you have to seek Jesus, and take care of yourself. And that is actually the central point of the Christian life. God is completely beyond existence as we understand it, he is completely beyond our categories. But at the same time, He is close because He, who is completely different, can be as close as He wants. Yes, He is close to all His creation. We all have a part in God, no matter who we are and what we are. God is no closer to you than He is to your dog. And he is no closer to the angels than He is to us. But he is close to us all where we are, according to our capacity. God is the One, the singular point we cannot understand, but on which we depend, and we are the others, those who only exist because we share in God. We cannot comprehend what God is, but we can know who He is, for He has been made known for us in Jesus. And we can marvel at his works and cry out in thanksgiving and praise. And praise is the key to the Christian life. Our faith is first and foremost a praise, a worship of God. It does not mean we understand God, but that we can thank Him for His work. Yes, worship is simply an expression of the faith, the trust we have in God, the One who created us, saved us, and lifted us up. We acknowledge that He is God, that we are His fallen creatures, and that we need His help. That is simply the essence of the gospel. God is God, we are His creatures, and He calls us into a community with Him and with each other where we are called to live in trust and faithfulness. So then we can, together with St. Thomas the Apostle, throw ourselves down before Jesus and cry out: “My Lord and my God!”
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, who was, is, and will remain, one true God, world without end. Amen.
This is partly based on my discussion in Kjetil Kringlebotten, Liturgy, Theurgy, and Active Participation: On Theurgic Participation in God (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023), 150-154.
I do not have access to the English translation of Luther’s Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper (1528), so this is my translation of the Norwegian translation, trans., Sigurd Hjelde, in Martin Luther, Verker i utvalg, vol. V, ed., Sigurd Hjelde, Inge Lønning, and Tarald Rasmussen (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1982), 61-239 (here: 115). Original translation: “Intet er så smått at ikke Gud er enda mindre og intet så stort at ikke Gud er enda større. Intet er så kort at ikke Gud er enda kortere, intet så langt at ikke Gud er enda lengre. Intet er så bredt at ikke Gud er endå bredere, intet så smalt at ikke Gud er enda smalere – og så videre.”
For the liturgies, with translations, see this web page from the Church of Norway. Original: “Den allmektige Gud har no gjeve deg sin Heilage Ande, gjort deg til sitt barn og teke deg inn i sin truande kyrkjelyd. Gud styrkje deg med sin nåde til det evige livet. Fred vere med deg.”
“There is a longing in our hearts” by Anne Quigley (1955), in Norsk Salmebok 2013 (Stavanger: Eide forlag, 2013), no. 708.
St. Augustine, Confessions, trans. J.G. Pilkington, book 1, chapter 1.
St. Augustine, Confessions, trans. J.G. Pilkington, book 10, chapter 27.
I always enjoy reading your things.