Scripture John 20:19-31 (NRSV)
19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace ube with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
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The art is ‘The Doubt of St. Thomas’ by He Qi, China/USA.
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As you all know, I was at the Annual Gathering of the Christian Church in Northern California and Nevada for the last few days along with Jordan and Kathleen. I was asked to bring you greetings from Rosario Ibarra of the Board of Church Extension, whom some of you met when she was here a few months back, and also from Monica Joy Cross, Regional Minister of Women’s Ministries who will be preaching here next Sunday. As with all of our denominational Gatherings and Assemblies, there was plenty of preaching and praying and singing, communion and offerings, and workshops. Not as much shopping this time as usual, but plenty of informational booths. We were kept busy pretty much every minute, which is also normal for these events. Yesterday afternoon I was talking with another preacher, and we agreed that at some point words would happen for this morning’s message. Neither of us were sure what those words would be, but we did agree that there would be words, and that they would be our own words, which would come to us with the help of the Holy Spirit (and books. Lots of books. And maybe even some internet research.)
It is the week after Easter. And all the disciples were gathered together again in the same place where Jesus had appeared to them a week earlier, on the day of his resurrection. On that day, Jesus had somehow entered the locked room and stood among them, which is a great mystery all by itself. Then he showed them the wounds he had received from the Roman soldiers, he breathed on them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit, and he gave them the power to forgive sins - or not. Afterwards they rejoiced and they shared this news with everyone who wasn’t there, including Thomas, known as the Twin. And Thomas didn’t believe them. Until he saw Jesus with his own eyes and touched the wounds to be certain they were real, he said, he would not be convinced.
We all sort of shake our heads at Thomas. Doubting Thomas, we call him. We think that he should have simply believed what everyone else told him without question. And yet . . . Last week, on Easter, we heard that after Mary Magdalene and the other women reported the empty tomb to the disciples, Peter had to run back and see for himself. He was not about to believe that this impossible thing had happened until he saw it with his own eyes. And his disbelief may have been because they were women, but it also may have been because it simply wasn’t possible. Yes, he had seen Jesus perform many healings and casting out of demons. He had seen Jesus somehow multiply the loaves and fishes to feed a multitude, and change water into wine. He had even seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the grave! Yet for some reason, the empty tomb needed to be verified. Even though Jesus had told them and tried to prepare them for this very thing to happen, Peter, like Thomas, had to see it for himself.
Nevertheless, we criticize Thomas for his lack of belief. And I’m not sure why we do that. I mean, we are kind of serious about teaching our children not to believe everything they hear, right? We teach them to investigate things, and look for the facts, do some research. Hopefully we even teach them that Google and YouTube are not the ultimate sources for complete and accurate information. (Gasp! I know, right?) We believe in the scientific method of testing things, proving things, before we are willing to say “Yes, this is a true thing.” Even our children’s stories, those wonderful tales many of us grew up with, warn us against believing the impossible. “Alice (of Wonderland fame) laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can’t believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll).
And even Christians are not expected to simply believe everything they are told. One of the reasons I found my home in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is because I was told that I was not to simply accept what the preacher said just because she said it. Rather I was to study and ask questions and test what I was taught. According to Martin Marty, “Christians are not to be trained to be gullible, regarded as suckers, blinded by naivete. They are to hear and study, “testing the spirits”. They are to compare testimonies.” (Feasting on the Word: Year C Vol. 2: Westminster John Knox: 2009, pg. 400)
So why are we so hard on Thomas?
Here is a thought. What if Jesus wasn’t chastising Thomas when he said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” What if he was speaking to a new, future reality? Thomas, Peter and all of the others had followed Jesus, the living human person, all over Galilee and Judah and Samaria. They had watched him do all these things. They had listened to him preach in person. They had sat around a fire at night with him and gained wisdom. But a time was coming when those who had seen him would no longer be around. A time was coming when belief would come not from the seeing, and not even from hearing the stories directly from those who had been there. A time was coming when people would believe in Jesus, Lord and Savior, because they heard about him. Because people spoke of him and wrote about him and sang songs about him. A time was coming when people would not see, and even so would come to believe. What if, instead of chastising Thomas, Jesus was prophesying the future - talking about all the generations between the death of the last of his disciples and today - and about all of the nations who would receive the word from missionaries and evangelists who had never seen him with their own eyes.
Sometimes people will ask me how I can believe in something I cannot see. God cannot be seen, so why do I believe? And you know, sometimes I go with the “well, you can’t see the wind, but you believe it is there because you can feel it, and you can see its affects on the things it touches.” And that is logical. Most people will agree the wind is real, but many will still have trouble believing in a God they cannot see or touch or hear. They will not believe just because they hear the words we say, or the songs we song. They will not be convinced by the most eloquent Christian writers. But they can be convinced by Christ’s impact on people.
And therein lies our challenge. Because people can be convinced of the reality of God and Christ by the way people who profess belief behave, if they see people who proclaim Jesus as their Lord and Savior and preach hate, and profess an exclusionary religion, people might wonder what is so wonderful about Christ? Or rather, what is so great about Christianity? Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” I heard an interview yesterday with the founder of the Satanic Temple* who spoke of how hateful Christians are - of how Christianity is best known for what it is against, rather than what it is for. And how many who rejected the Christianity of their youth because of this - as he did - have instead joined other organizations which do those things Christians are supposed to do. I’m sorry, but if Christians seem hateful to the founder of the Satanic Temple, we have a serious problem! If we seem hateful, if the effect that Jesus has on us, on Christians, is such that we are seen as actively promoting that which is not love, we have a serious problem. If people are to hear and believe, we need to act more loudly, because they cannot hear us. If they hear only rejection and condemnation and judgment from Christians, then we are doing something very wrong.
We are to proclaim the Good News of God’s Kingdom. We are to proclaim the Good News of God’s love and forgiveness. We are to proclaim a living Christ - who lives among us, who guides our lives, who teaches us how to live, who commands us to go out and heal the world! He commands us to go out and love one another, as God loves us. For God loves us so much he sent his only son to heal the world, all the world, to bring peace into every heart, to bring hope into every situation. Listen! Hear and Believe. Christ is Risen! and lives among us. Let us see him in every face, in every voice, in every heart.
Let us go out from this place, and preach Christ’s love - and if we need to, we may use words. Amen.
*(The Satanic Temple is a nontheistic religious and political activist group based in Salem, Massachusetts. The Temple is recognized as a church for the purposes of tax exemption, with chapters in 13 states and Canada. The group uses Satanic imagery to promote egalitarianism, social justice, and the separation of church and state. Their stated mission is "to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people". Wikipedia)
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