Sermon Title: Dear Thomas: Sometimes doubting is part of believing
Sermon Text: John 20:19-29
Sermon Date:
The
Minister’s Council conference “Wait on the Lord” was incredible. Outstanding preaching by Dr. John Kinney of
Union Theologial Seminary and Dr. Roy Medley, our General Secretary. Powerful bible study by Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles
of
I have returned with a new appreciation for the Gospel of John. Jaime Clark-Soles is a gifted and challenging teacher of New Testament and she has a passion for the Gospel of John, one that I have not shared. And while I have a heightened appreciation, I don’t have her passion yet. I admit that my favorite gospel is Luke, but I also realize that some of my favorite passages come from John, especially the passages surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection.
There is power in the story of Mary Magdalene and Peter and the empty tomb. There is mystery when the disciples are huddled in the locked upper room, waiting for what they do not know…..then Jesus comes and they believe.
But Thomas was not there. He asks for proof.
READ John 20:19-29
19On the evening of that first
day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for
fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with
you!" 20After he said this, he showed them his
hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21Again Jesus said, "Peace be
with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22And
with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do
not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
24Now Thomas (called Didymus),
one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So
the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the
nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand
into his side, I will not believe it."
26A week later his disciples were in
the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus
came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my
hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and
believe."
28Thomas said to him, "My Lord
and my God!"
29Then Jesus told him, "Because
you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and
yet have believed."
30Jesus did many other miraculous
signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may[a] believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
I suspect that if we were to conduct a survey and ask people what it means to be a “doubting Thomas,” they would say it is someone who always needs proof to believe. They might not know where the words come from, but still, the phrase is part of our vocabulary today.
Before we get to doubting Thomas, let’s look at the passages surrounding today’s text. We have Mary Magdalene finding an empty tomb, then running to Peter and John. She later finds Jesus, but mistakes him for the gardener and asks for his body.
Peter and John too then run to the tomb, find it empty and return to the other disciples to tell them. The beloved disciple we believe to be John is said to be the first to comprehend what is happening, even without having been told that the Hebrew Scriptures said that Jesus would return to life.
Now, even believing that Jesus had returned to life, the disciples are huddled behind a locked door because they are fearful of the Jewish leaders. They don’t know what to expect when Jesus appears and he offered proof. He shows them his hands and his side, apparently without them asking for any evidence.
John hasn’t let us in on the fact that not all of the disciples are
there so Thomas’ absence isn’t explained.
But a week later, again behind another locked door, Jesus came in and
offered Thomas the proof he was seeking.
And Thomas believes. And in that
moment he is transformed. He
acknowledges that this is Jesus, his Lord and God. He has seen Jesus, he has seen the scars and
he believes.
Of course Jesus would have preferred not to have had to show the evidence, but the very fact that he gives Thomas what he needed to believe shows us that God can deal with our doubts too.
Doubting is sometimes part of believing.
I don’t recall having ever seriously doubted God’s existence. But believe me I still struggle with doubts. I have my doubts as to how God works. And I get questions about how God works all the time. Let me just explain that while I took systematic theology in seminary there is no course that flatly explains how and why God works in the world today. At least not one that is a satisfactory answer to everyone in seminary everywhere.
I wonder how prayer works even though I believe in the depths of my heart that it does.
I wonder why some have to bear so many crosses in life and others seem to have to bear so few. I wonder why some have so much and others have so little.
I wonder why slavery and holocausts have happened. I wonder if this notion of free will was such a good idea because we don’t often do very well with it.
I have plenty of doubts. And had I been in Thomas’ shoes, I would have doubted too. Even with ten others standing there in front of me trying to convince me that this was true, I probably would have doubted and wanted the proof.
Maybe he doubted because he couldn’t bear to believe it. Maybe it was just too good to be true. But the thought of laying himself open to more pain and disappointment was too much to risk. I understand Thomas and I imagine most of you do too.
We all have doubts. I’m not talking about doubts about humanity or doubts about what we hear on the news. PLEASE, HAVE DOUBTS. I am talking about doubts about our own faith and belief system. We sometimes wonder if what we believe is true or right. Or if it even makes sense to believe. We wonder how so many of us can be Christians and believe differently.
Perhaps the most famous doubting Thomas of recent history was C. S. Lewis. For many years of his life he didn’t believe in a god at all.
Then he began struggling with the notion of believing in a God. He says in his book, “Surprised by Joy,” “the oddest thing was that before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears to be a moment of wholly free choice. In a sense. I was going up Headington Hill on the top of a bus. Without words and (I think) almost without images, a fact about myself was somehow presented to me. I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. …..I felt myself being, there and then, given a free choice. I could open a door or keep it shut…..Neither choice was presented as a duty, no threat or promise was attached to either…..I was moved by no desires or fears.
“Remember, I had always wanted, above all things, not be “interfered with.” I had always wanted to “call my soul my own.” I had been far more anxious to avoid suffering than to achieve delight.
“Now you must picture me alone …night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity term of 1929 I gave in and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing: the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms.” (“Surprised by Joy,” pp. 224-229)
It would be a year before, at the age of 40, he embraced Christianity and since has become known to us as one of the most powerful writers of any time. He gave us “The Chronicles of Narnia” for the child in all of us. Books like “The Great Divorce,” “The Screwtape Letters,” “A Grief Observed,” “Mere Christianity” and numerous other books…all because in many ways, once a believer, he had to tell what he believed.
Last week I said that we know about the resurrection only because the disciples shared the story. Once convinced they could not keep it in anymore than C.S. Lewis could have.
They shared their stories because of a God who allowed them room to doubt and room to grow.
Sometimes doubting can be part of
believing all because we have this assurance Jesus can handle our doubts. Jesus believes in us even when we do not
believe in him. And as Lewis reminds
us…can accept a convert who comes kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God.
Like Gideon and Thomas and all the
others, having doubts is part of living and breathing. Jesus said to Thomas that those who believe
without seeing are blessed. But those
who need to see to believe are also blessed.
If that were not true, then Jesus would not have offered Thomas the
proof he needed to believe. God would not
have given Gideon the proof he needed to be assured.
If today is the day when you want to
work on surrendering your doubts and walk the path with Jesus, I invite you to
come as we sing our invitational hymn “They will know we are Christians by our
love.”
This
song reminds us that we aren’t known as Christians because we attend church but
because we believe and because in our beliefs, we act. And because others can see the belief in us,
they too can believe.
Prayer:
Thank you, Jesus, for being with us in our doubts and
even our unbelief. Strengthen our
beliefs that we might show others how you can change our lives. Amen.