“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.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his
side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus
said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me,
so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them
and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive
the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of
any, they are retained.”
Let me meet you on the water, Lord,
But
Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with
them when Jesus came. 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.”
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.” 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.” Thomas answered
him, “My Lord and my God!” 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.”
Now
Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which
are not written in this book. 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.
There
is a lot going on in this passage of scripture prescribed by the
lectionary for the first Sunday after Easter! It is a continuation of
the resurrection story of last week – this astounding turn of
events in the lives of the disciples, Jesus is alive? Have you heard
that Mary SAW him and spoke with him? Jesus is alive? The followers
of Jesus were reeling. It has been an incredible week from the high
of the parade in Jerusalem with Jesus riding on the back of a donkey
and the people raising their voices and waving palm branches to the
unbelievable betrayal of Judas and that mockery of a trial? And when
Pilate gave the people an opportunity to set Jesus free as his token
of respect for the Passover...the people picked Barabbas, a known
murderer? It was only a few days ago that the disciples had suffered
through the horror of Friday...watching their teacher, leader and
friend nailed to a cross and hung between two common criminals to
die. The disciples saw the sky grow dark and when Jesus breathed his
last – the curtain in the temple tore in two! Incredible stories of
tombs opening up and the dead being raised and walking around the
holy city. Yes...this has been an incredible week for the followers
of Jesus. And just when they are beginning to wrap their heads around
the death of Jesus...now Mary says that she has seen Jesus and he is
alive. I think we all would be feeling some doubt. That evening –
answers arrive.
Jesus
drops by. And he drops by with style...he appears among them in a
locked room. Shazam. These are folks on edge. They are behind locked
doors for a very good reason – the Jewish leaders are to be feared.
There is no reason to believe that the disciples aren't going to be
next – clearly the establishment is planning to eradicate this
rebellion. Suddenly, Jesus is THERE. And he shows them his hands and
side – they don't even have to ask! And they are exuberant. I can
only imagine. This is amazing. And I'm sure they were freaked out!
The first thing Jesus says is “peace be with you.”
Peace?
Impossible! But Jesus isn't calling for quiet – he's calming and
reassuring the followers that this is real. They aren't
hallucinating, he is really there with them. And John tells us that
Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on them. And he gave them an
instruction - If
you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain
the sins of any, they are retained.
And before they get to ask him “what do you mean when you say
that?” - in John's gospel, he is gone.
And
later, Thomas shows up and is treated to the most incredible news.
The rumors are true, Jesus is alive – he was here! Thomas wants
proof. This is too much...it isn't possible according to all of the
human laws of physics and logic. Thomas has seen miracles performed
by Jesus that defy those scientific realities. He was there at the
feeding of the 5000. He's been part of Jesus' posse for a couple
years – astounding is kind of what Jesus did. But Thomas and the
other followers have had their world shattered.
In
the space of a week things have turned upside down. And now folks are
trying to tell Thomas that it really is ok...Jesus is risen from the
dead. Thomas can't shift gears that fast. I totally relate. Even when
there is good news at the end of a tough situation it is difficult
for me to shake off the dark stuff and embrace the light. Lost my key
last week and even after it turned up, the evening felt broken. I
understand that it is human nature and that I'm apparently responding
to years of evolution of the human experience. This tendency to focus
on the negative is part of what kept our ancestors alive. Watching
out for predators and dangers was once key to survival. Somebody
needs to inform my reptilian brain that I'm not likely to be attacked
in the wilds of Madison Heights.
I
relate to Thomas more than just his inability to rapidly embrace new
information. I completely relate to the doubt. And Thomas and I
aren't alone. Thomas may be the most famous doubter – but he's just
an example of all our humanity. We doubt. We ask for proof. Sometimes
we demand it. We feel entitled to uncover “the truth” - we want
the whole story. Show me.
Thomas
says, “Unless I see the nail holes in his hands, put my finger in
the nail holes, and stick my hand in his side, I won’t believe it.”
And a week passes by and the disciples are again together locked away
behind closed doors. Jesus appears. And again he calmly reassures the
group by saying, “Peace be with you.” Then he focuses on Thomas.
“Put your finger here and see
my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but
believe.”
Thomas
didn't even have to ask. Jesus knew. Look carefully at how Jesus
treats Thomas. John does not report that Jesus was angry. He
encourages Thomas to seek the assurance that he seeks. And the dam in
Thomas bursts and he declares immediately, “My Lord and my God.”
The doubt is washed away. Can you feel the relief of knowing
that Thomas experienced?
Then
Jesus simply says, “Have you come to believe because you've seen
me? It would have been even better if you had believed without
proof.” Eugene Peterson's The Message phrases that part of verse 29
as “Even better blessings are in store for those who believe
without seeing.” Nowhere does it say there is punishment for doubt
– it says “even better” if you believe without demanding proof.
Jesus understood Thomas and he understands us.
I
think that I am fortunate to teach the youth Sunday School class at
Centenary. They are an energetic bunch of middle and high schoolers
who are in the first Sunday school class where the teacher says on a
regular basis “I don't have all the answers.” (Truth be told, I
don't even have all the questions!) Encouraging them to explore what
their faith means to them as individuals is a tricky transition from
the “reading bible stories and coloring pictures of Jesus”
Christian education to “what does this mean for ME today?” One of
those youth asked me one day if I ever had any doubts about whether
all this is real or something somebody made up.
Ever?
Oh yes honey...yes...and I'm not alone.
Mother
Teresa of Calcutta, now Saint Teresa, was known for dedicating her
life to the poor, sick and dying in India. When people are asked
about modern day saints – she is the example that more people point
to than any other 20th century figure. Even though she has been dead for a little over 20
years, most of us can picture her stooped figure. Her faith is so
celebrated that the Catholic church canonized her in 2016 (that is,
declared her a saint). So there were some that were stunned when a
book of her letters was published in 2007. Because those letters
revealed a side of Mother Teresa that only her closest confidants
knew...she felt doubt.
A
few excerpts from those letters reveal a heart that I understand. In
September 1979 she wrote to a friend, “Jesus
has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the
emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not
hear.”
Even soon after she began the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 she
wrote “Please
pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord
may show Himself — for there is such terrible darkness within me,
as if everything was dead,” “It has been like this more or less
from the time I started ‘the work.’”
At times she even found it hard to pray. “I
utter words of community prayers — and try my utmost to get out of
every word the sweetness it has to give — but my prayer of union is
not there any longer — I no longer pray.”
There
were some who found these dark letters disturbing and wished the
publishers had not included them in the collection. I'm glad they are
there.
They
give ME immeasurable comfort. Finally a saint I can relate to!
Because I relate to Thomas and Teresa – I have times of doubt.
Because this isn't logical! I have one friend that I see when I visit
the Outer Banks who is agnostic. We've spent SO many hours debating
the existence of God that I have lost track. He has said many times,
“you are one of the most intelligent people I know. How can you
believe in something so unbelievable?” We've gone through the whole
Bible as literary device supported by other writings of the early
church and Eusebius and Pliny the Elder and Josephus... but it always
comes back to the question of belief in absence of proof. “Why
wouldn't a God make it more clear that he exists...write it in the
sky?”
Well,
Thomas...because that is the easy way. As Jesus said to him, “how
much better it would be if you believed without seeing.” Jesus knew
the early church was going to have to dig down and rely on their
faith during the coming times – it was going to be tested and he
needed it to be stronger than just believing what you can see, what
you can prove. Because that is fleeting, depending on your level of
trust in the proofs. How much better it is to be able to believe when
you can't see. That takes trust. Jesus was encouraging his followers
to hang tough in the face of a world that was already questioning if
he was truly the Messiah or just another prophet. They were going to
need faith.
But
here's the thing – we've come to equate doubt with a lack of faith.
And that's not accurate. Paul Tillich, German-American theologian and
philosopher said, “Doubt
is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.” Doubt is
an element of faith? The dictionary defines doubt as “to be
uncertain about something” and it defines faith as “belief that
is not based on proof.” How is doubt PART of faith? Well, ask
yourself, “what do Doubting Thomas, Doubting Teresa and Doubting
Chris all have in common?”
They
kept showing up.
The
scripture from John says that it is a week after Jesus first appeared
to Mary, the followers on the road to Emmaus and the group in the
locked room. Plenty of time for Thomas to get out of town before the
Jewish leadership decide it is time for more of Jesus' crowd to die.
After all, they are already having to deal with these rumors that he
has returned from the dead – in Matthew's account the chief priests
have paid off a contingent of the Roman guard. Matthew 28:11-15 from
The Message, “Meanwhile,
the guards had scattered, but a few of them went into the city and
told the high priests everything that had happened. They called a
meeting of the religious leaders and came up with a plan: They took a
large sum of money and gave it to the soldiers, bribing them to say,
“His disciples came in the night and stole the body while we were
sleeping.” They assured them, “If the governor hears about your
sleeping on duty, we will make sure you don’t get blamed.” The
soldiers took the bribe and did as they were told. That story, cooked
up in the Jewish High Council, is still going around.”
But
even a week after Thomas declares he doesn't believe it unless he
sees it...he's there. Why?
Because
Thomas was faithful. Despite the lack of tangible proof, he's there.
Even though Mother Teresa couldn't always feel the presence of
God...she showed up. And she continued to serve the God that she
believed in – despite the doubt...because that is where faith kicks
in.
It
isn't hard to believe in the stuff that is right there in front of
our eyes – belief in the face of doubt is where the rubber hits the
road. Are we in this for the long haul or are we just going to fall
away when confronted with the challenges of the world? Because the
world is always going to challenge our belief – going to encourage
our doubts...are we going to show up for God anyway?
There
is a website that I discovered during my study and preparation for
this message – roomfordoubt.com – which has a section called
Stories of Doubt. I really resonated with a story from Bob about his
journey. Bob grew
up in an inner city neighborhood. In junior high he attended church
with an uncle and soon accepted Christ. He was in a racially charged
junior high and high school, with a riot closing his high school a
month before graduation.
During that time he relied on God and was in constant prayer. Then he
went to a Bible college. And the environment changed and he said
without the imminent dangers he found himself with the “luxury of
doubt” and his mind was soon asking serious questions about
Christianity. (1)
Is God even there? (2) If there is a God, why should I believe the
Bible? (3) If there is a God, why should I believe God really cares
about me?
And
it took time and effort but Bob continued to seek answers. He talked
with professors and read a lot of books and came to these conclusions
with that period of growth: “By
then I had decided that God is real. I had decided that the Bible is
reliable. I had discovered that great intellectuals believed, and I
had decided that the evidence was strong enough that I must also
believe. But I still wondered about my own place before God. Then I
read Francis Schaeffer’s True
Spirituality.
There I decided that God cares personally about me because God says
so. I remember crossing the threshold to decide to take God at God’s
word. In the face of demanding evidence, I chose to believe and to
reinforce the decision of surrender I had made years earlier. I
believe that the Holy Spirit is always working with all of us, either
from the outside or from within. I believe that even then God was
leading me through times of question and encounter, always giving me
opportunity to draw closer, but also leaving me the option to go the
other direction. God’s grace protected me, led me, and stimulated
me, allowing attacks and doubts to give me opportunity to choose to
believe. To God be the glory!”
John
completes Chapter 20 by revealing why he wrote the gospel - Now
Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which
are not written in this book.
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.
Have
you come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah? Are you willing to
follow even when you don't have all the answers? There are a lot of
people, including professing Christians, who do have doubts about God
and the identity of Jesus. One option is just to tell them to stop
doubting, because it’s totally incompatible with having “true
faith” and therefore wrong.
Another
option is to give them an opportunity to talk about their questions
and doubts and help them work through it. I've decided to practice
what Jude commands in Jude 1:22 “And
have mercy on some, who are doubting.”
Because this isn't a sprint – it is a marathon. We've got to keep
showing up, making an impact on a hurting world and through the
journey we find these kindred souls all struggling with
something...also continuing to show up.
And
in those periods of time when we feel like we have all the answers –
let us be humbled to recognize that Jesus meets us where we are. On
the journey, not just at the destination.
I'll
close with a poem I discovered by Norman Shirk of the Dallas
Theological Society -
DOUBT
Let me
meet you on the mountain, Lord,
Just once.
You wouldn't have to burn a whole bush.
Just a few smoking branches
And I would surely be ...your Moses.
Just once.
You wouldn't have to burn a whole bush.
Just a few smoking branches
And I would surely be ...your Moses.
Let me meet you on the water, Lord,
Just once.
It wouldn't have to be on White Rock Lake.
Just on a puddle after the annual Dallas rain
And I would surely be...your Peter.
It wouldn't have to be on White Rock Lake.
Just on a puddle after the annual Dallas rain
And I would surely be...your Peter.
Let me
meet you on the road, Lord,
Just once.
You wouldn't have to blind me on North Central Expressway.
Just a few bright lights on the way to chapel
And I would surely be...your Paul.
Just once.
You wouldn't have to blind me on North Central Expressway.
Just a few bright lights on the way to chapel
And I would surely be...your Paul.
Let
me meet you, Lord,
Just once.
Anywhere. Anytime.
Just meeting you in the Word is so hard sometimes
Must I always be...your Thomas?
Just once.
Anywhere. Anytime.
Just meeting you in the Word is so hard sometimes
Must I always be...your Thomas?
Yes,
we all go through times of doubt and questioning just like Thomas. If
we didn't have any doubts, we would have nothing but an empty hollow
faith. Embrace these chances to grow in faith. It's when we overcome
those doubts and see God's grace that we truly learn to believe.
