It's not primarily about doubt

on John 20.19-31
by Scott Homer

History has been hard on St. Thomas. We have just read a passage from the Gospel of St. John known as the “doubting Thomas” passage. The stock teaching on this passage says that while the other disciples were faithful, Thomas struggled with his faith but that is that really what is going on here? Well, not exactly. The truth is that not just Thomas, but all the disciples, struggled to believe. And that is understandable isn’t it? Isn’t it a little difficult to believe that Jesus died on Good Friday and was alive three days later? I have never seen anything like that happen have you? And so the disciples doubt their own eyes. They all doubt that it is actually Jesus they are seeing until Jesus shows them his wounds. And then, once they see his wounds St. John tells us that, “the disciples saw the Lord and were glad.” So, the Gospel this morning is not really about doubting. It is really about God’s blessing—about how God’s blessing will be administered to the world and how God’s blessing will be received by the world. What I am saying is that, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” God’s blessing depends upon belief, and belief is accepting that something is true, sight unseen. We think “seeing is believing.” We have been taught to trust our own eyes. Jesus teaches us to “believe without seeing,” that the blessing comes when we trust in what we have been told. And so, the fact is that none of us have seen Jesus firsthand but we have been blessed by believing the testimony of Peter and James and John, of Mark and Matthew and Luke. As the old children’s song says, “Jesus loves me this I know, cause the Bible tells me so.”

Now in our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus, good to his word, had come to visit with his disciples. He had told them, and apparently they didn’t believe him, that he would rise again from the dead on the third day. So, good to his word, he comes to them on the third day and stands in their midst, alive. Jesus has conquered death. He is master life and death no longer hold any power over him (or over his followers). And Jesus’ first words to his disciples are, “Peace be with you.”

I don’t suppose any of the disciples would have understood the immense importance of those first words spoken by Jesus, “Peace be with you.” Jesus was not exchanging a greeting with them. Jesus was declaring the new facts of life. The Peace that Jesus was declaring was the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. Jesus declares to his followers that there is no longer any hostility between God and man. The war is over. The victory is won and peace has been restored. The sins of the world that had left humanity distant and isolated from the love of God, the sins of the world that had forced us all to live under a curse, destined to die, destined to eternal separation from God, the sins of the world were no more—they had been atoned for. They had been forgiven and forgotten. The punishment that God had declared on mankind had been meted out and all the prisoners set free. Jesus paid for our sins on the cross. We were now at peace with God, free to be his beloved children, free to live out our lives with joy. Peace with God is the greatest gift the world could have ever received. It is the gift that Jesus gave us on the cross. And equally great is the gift that we received on Easter morning, when Jesus proved to have power even over death itself. As his followers we can know freedom from God’s judgment and freedom from eternal death. And so, when Jesus says to the disciples, “peace be with you” it is the confirmation that they have received the greatest gift ever given—peace with God.

Now we spend so much time beating up on Thomas for his doubting that we usually miss what Jesus says to his disciples in this passage. After he says, “Peace be with you, he says “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” The Father sent Jesus to establish peace, to proclaim peace, and to reconcile the world to himself. Jesus says he is sending his followers out to do the same. Jesus is not interested in his disciples living their lives afraid, locked up in their private little rooms. Jesus never intended for us to be hunkered down in our little churches every Sunday morning. Jesus wants us to go out into the world. In the same way that Jesus was sent into the world, his followers are now being sent into the world. This is not the first time that Jesus sends his followers out to do kingdom work. It won’t be the last either. Jesus is always directing us to go out into the world and to witness to the power of the resurrection, to care for the poor, to heal the sick, and to bring blessing in Jesus’ name. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus; very last words to his followers is to, “Go out, and make disciples of the whole world.” Jesus’ message of peace with God is too good to keep to ourselves. It is a message that has to be shared with other sinners. It is a word that is not just intended for us here in this place. It is the hope of the world. It is intended for people everywhere who are suffering, alone, and downtrodden. It is for the rich and the poor. It is for the young and the old. It is for blacks and whites and Asians. It is not just for Christians. It is a message that needs to be spoken to Muslims, and Jews, and Buddhists, and Hindus, and Agnostics, and Atheists. Because true peace is peace with God, and true peace only comes through the resurrected life of Jesus. It is only when a person belongs to Jesus that the war ends and peace is restored—and that means that Jesus is always sending his followers out, always asking us to tell the story, always insisting that we witness to his power and always asking others to join us as his followers.

He is sending us out…and praise God we are responding. We have begun to go out. We have begun to invite family and friends, neighbors and coworkers. We have begun to share lunch with people we do not know, to have friendships with people different than us. We have begun to invite people on weekend trips with us. We have begun to go out, in small ways, and we will be seeking new ways of going out, away from this cloistered little building, ways to get our congregation out into the midst of the community around us where the message of God’s love can be heard by others—where Christ’s transforming power can be experienced first hand. I want to ask you to help us envision it. What would it look like? How would we begin to obey Jesus’ call to “go forth into the whole world?” Will you pray and ask God about it?

You see, that is the whole point of this story about Thomas. There is nothing unique about Thomas’ doubts. We all have doubts. The punch line of the whole story comes when Jesus says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” The world is full of people who have never actually seen the Risen Christ, and they never will in this lifetime. Jesus says, a person doesn’t have to be able to see him, and to place their hands in his wounds in order to be blessed by him. In fact, the best blessing is reserved for those who do not see and yet believe. It isn’t just a handful of first century followers that get the blessing. It is the millions of people from countries around the world, people who lived in the Middle Ages, and people alive today. The blessing is for all of us who believe even though we have never received documentary evidence. When we believe in the miracle, when we trust in Jesus, sight unseen, we are the ones who receive God’s blessing.

But how will those who have not seen the resurrected Jesus ever come to believe if nobody tells them? This town is full of young people that have never really heard about Jesus. And you don’t have to go out to the “less fortunates” for that to be true. There are grandchildren of people in this parish who are growing up without ever hearing the Christian story. America is no longer a Christian nation, and even we in the church, even us who call ourselves Christians are woefully uninformed about what it means to be a Christian or what it is that Christians actually believe. We seem to think we can make it up any way we personally want it to be. That is why we have all this wacky theology these days. We need to get smart about our faith. We need to be able to tell the story—all of us, not just a select few—we all need to be able and willing to tell the story if we ever hope to win America back for the Lord. Jesus is always sending his followers out, out to tell the story, out to witness to the power and to ask others to join us as his followers. How will those who have not seen the resurrected Jesus ever come to believe if we do not tell them?

This is the real message about Doubting Thomas. It is the story written by St. John the Evangelist who came by his name honestly. He has written the story with a purpose. And he tells us what that purpose is, right at the end of our reading this morning. He says, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”

We have been blessed because we have believed, even though we have not seen. And interestingly enough, when we believe without seeing, the power of Christ really does enter into our lives and transform us and our circumstances. When we step forward in faith and believe what we have not seen, God moves in tangible and concrete ways in our lives and so we are not left without our own testimony. We are being saved through the power of Christ, and as God’s redeemed people we are being called to go out and tell the world about the greatest gift the world has ever received, so that they too may know the immense joy and the tremendous privilege of being Christ’s own forever. Amen.