How the feast of Saint Thomas prepares us for a Nicene Christmas
The Church's Christological confession has been fundamentally shaped by the Johannine witness. As the Gospel reading for Saint John the Evangelist's Day declares:
This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true (John 21:24).
What is this testimony? The Gospel of the feast of Saint Thomas draws us to its heart:
Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God (John 20:28).
Saint Thomas saw - and perhaps touched - the Lord's flesh. Flesh that grew in the womb of "the Virgin Mary his mother" (the Christmas preface). Humanity that, without ceasing to be fully and truly human, was also fully and truly Lord and God. In this vivid proclamation of the true humanity and true divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Gospel of Saint Thomas' Day embodies the Church's Nicene Faith:
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance with the Father, By whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man.
In the days before Christmas this feast affirms the Nicene confession as rooted in Holy Scripture, as the faithful account of the person of Jesus Christ. It prepares us, then, to receive the Gospel of the Lord's Nativity and to confess the Nicene Faith of He who "as at this time" was born for us.
Having heard the confession of Saint Thomas on 21st December, we are prepared to grasp the meaning of the proclamation of the Christmas Gospel:
And the Word was made flesh ... and we beheld his glory (John 1:14).
The One whom Saint Thomas beheld after the Resurrection is the One whom we behold at Christmas in the crib, the One of whom we confess on the feast of the Nativity that He is both "God of God" and "made man". Saint Thomas, in other words, has prepared us to joyfully affirm Nicene Faith before crib, of the One whom the crib holds.
On Saint John the Evangelist's Day, the Epistle echoes the feast of Saint Thomas, continuing to sustain us in Nicene Faith during our Christmas celebrations. As Wheatly notes, it was "chosen upon account of its being an attendant upon the preceding more solemn festival":
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it ... ).
Just as the feast of Saint Thomas vividly prepares us for the celebration of the "mystery of thy holy Incarnation" (the Litany), so Saint John the Evangelist's Day vividly ('heard, seen, handled') continues to set before us the drama of Nicene Faith.
To remove Saint Thomas from the closing days of Advent is to lose a dramatic presentation of the Church's Christological confession just as we prepare to enter into Christmastide, a dramatic presentation reinforced after Christmas Day with Saint John the Evangelist's Day. To again quote Wheatly, it is "a fit preparative to our Lord's Nativity":
For unless we believe with St. Thomas, that the same Jesus, whose birth we immediately afterwards commemorate, is the very Christ, our Lord and our God; neither his Birth, Death, nor Resurrection will avail us anything.
It might, of course, be suggested that very few lay Anglicans indeed would be present for Office or Holy Communion if Saint Thomas was celebrated on 21st December. This is entirely understandable. We should not expect different amidst the domestic, commercial, and social obligations which mark these last few days before Christmas Day.
That said, mindful of Cranmer's insistence that the Daily Office has a particular significance for "especially such as were Ministers in the congregation", and that the Ante-Communion should be said "Upon the Sundays and other Holy-days" even when none of the faithful are present to receive the Sacrament, celebrating Saint Thomas on 21st December prepares presbyters and deacons who are preaching during Christmastide. It sets before them the fullness of Nicene Faith proclaimed in the confession of Saint Thomas, a means of shaping their preaching of the Incarnation. In the words of the Homily of the Nativity:
We are evidently taught in the Scriptures, that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ consisteth of two several natures; if his manhood, being thereby perfect man; and of his Godhood, being thereby perfect God. It is written, 'The Word', that is to say, the second person in Trinity, 'became flesh' ... These be plain places for the proof and declaration of both natures united and knit together in one Christ.
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