I want to extend a special welcome to those here today who have questions, who have doubts about some or all of the things that have gone on so far in today’s gathering.
You see, most of what happens in a worship service, at any church, is really for the already-convinced. We sing songs that strongly affirm the reality of God, the goodness of God.
But for someone who is not convinced, a worship service can be a weird place to be. We can feel like an outsider, a bit like an alien on a planet with people whose language we barely understand.
So today’s message is in part for those who, like myself at one point, were very seriously unconvinced about anything to do with the Christian faith.
And the point of this message is not to convince you or convict you - that’s the job of the Holy Spirit of God. The point of this message is to show, through the experience of a fellow who knew Jesus personally, a bit of the process of doubting and how sometimes doubt can move beyond itself, and in so doing can lead to important discoveries and a new way of living.
And I think Thomas, ‘Doubting Thomas’ as he is sometimes referred to, is a good person to consider when we think about looking at faith from the outside. He’s a good fella to spend time with when we’re struggling with what we believe, if we believe, how much we believe and what does it matter if I believe or not.
So...can we spend time with a man who for a time was unconvinced? Can we spend time with Thomas? Let’s do that.
Family...We’ve just been through Easter, of course...Resurrection Sunday. And today’s passage follows the events of that first resurrection day 2000-odd years ago.
Now, we looked at this passage last week as Pastor Lee gave an excellent message on “Awaiting Our Orders” from Jesus. But to frame the time we’re going to spend with Thomas today, let’s begin at verse 19 of chapter 20 of the Gospel of St. John.
This passage records the event right after Mary discovered the empty tomb where Jesus had lain, and after Peter and John witnessed as well the absence of Jesus from the tomb. Let’s begin our reading in verse 19 of the 20th chapter of John.
John 20:19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side.The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” 24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So 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.”
Now the first thing I notice about Thomas in today’s reading so far is...where’s Thomas...he is nowhere to be found...when Jesus appears to His disciples. Thomas is nowhere to be found.
Something is amiss. One of the disciples is missing. Thomas had always been with the disciples. Even though we don’t hear much from Thomas during the public ministry of Jesus, he was always to be found with Jesus, always located with his Rabbi.
And he had always been honest with the rest of the disciples and with Jesus.
There’s a moment recorded in John chapter 14 when Jesus is comforting and encouraging the disciples after He has just spoken of His coming death;
when Jesus talks about preparing a place in His father’s house for believers and then says: “You know the way to the place where I am going”.
I can imagine the disciples sitting around Jesus on that day, all of them completely clueless about what Jesus was talking about, some of them thinking to themselves - ‘I should probably look like I know the answer to that question”. Awkward pause. And then out of the silence Thomas pipes up: “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Thank God for Thomas. If he hadn’t asked that question, we might never have heard Jesus’ answer. And what was His answer?: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Thomas, always honest with his questions - honest and sincerely wishing to know the truth - got his answer from Jesus - for Himself and for actually for everyone who’s considered following Jesus since.
He got his answer from Jesus at THIS moment...but lurch forward to AFTER the crucifixion of Jesus…and Thomas is nowhere to be found. No longer among the disciples. Missing.
Why was He missing? Why do any of us ever go missing? It’s an odd bit of human nature, but when we’re hurting the most, when we most need support and the comfort of others, that’s often when we retreat.
When encouragement and sometimes the answers to our questions are found by simply being with others on the journey, sometimes that’s when we go AWOL.
Thomas goes missing. Why does Thomas go missing? [Ask congregation]
Well, Thomas is crushed. That’s why he goes missing.
Thomas has placed his whole life in Jesus hands, all his trust…and Jesus is gone.
Dead. Buried. And not only that, but Thomas, like all the disciples, with the exception of St. John, had abandoned Jesus is His greatest moment of need.
Thomas has this weight on his heart. This guilt in his belly. This grief that is swirling around in his heart and mind and body.
And you know when you’ve got so much going on on the inside, the outside can’t sit still. The outside has to move.
And so Thomas is absent from the disciples, separate from his brothers.
He would take solace and comfort from Jesus the Christ back in John 14, but he couldn’t take it from his brethren.
He saw no point in hanging out with the people that, like him, had left everything, joined Jesus on the road, participated in miracles and saw awesome wonders happen at the hand of Jesus...
He saw no point in hanging with those same guys...after Jesus was deceased. Passed. No more.
Thomas was beaten down, HE’D fallen short. His Rabbi Jesus had been horribly beaten and brutalized and hung up on a tree to die in the wind. There was no point.
There was nothing good to be found going back to the disciples, going back to his friends, going back home.
‘Thomas. Where are you Thomas? Why aren’t you with us? We’re here, waiting. The doors are locked ‘cause we’re afraid. They came for Jesus.
‘We’ve gotta watch our backs because those same religious leaders prob’ly wanna rub us out too. Thomas. Where are you, brother?’
The disciples, as John records, are together. They’re waiting for something. Peter and John and Mary had seen something. There was some anticipation.
They are together, waiting. And the Scripture says: “Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”, showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”.
So the disciples, minus Thomas, meet Jesus, after Jesus is dead. And after Jesus is crucified He talks to them. He who was dead isn’t dead anymore. Fantastic news.
Eventually the others find Thomas, We’re not told how or how long it took to find him. But find him they did.
And what do they say: “We have seen the Lord!”
Amazing news! Awesome news! Jesus - alive? Hope that died a brutal death is alive...again? Incredible news. Good, good news, Gospel news.
But to the crushed, the problem is that the news is too good. If it looks impossible, sounds impossible and feels impossible...it’s probably impossible, right? Thomas had been crushed.
He is still crushed. He’s not having any of it. He’s an empiracalist. He is only interested in the provable, the verifiable - that which can be known by experience or experiment.
Before the scientific method existed, Thomas...wounded, crushed, broken Thomas, unwilling to be hoaxed or tricked or deceived or caught up in some group hallucination.
Skeptical, questioning, doubtful...yes, doubting Thomas stops the disciples who have just said: “We have seen the Lord!”
[Hand up to stop 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.”
‘I will not believe. I will not believe. Unless there’s evidence, unless...not only that there’s evidence that I see with my eyes, but unless I can put my finger, my pointer into the nail holes in His hands AND unless I put my hand INTO His side, the side where He was stabbed while still on the cross [I can feel the image just causing Thomas to shudder]...Unless I can do that, I WILL NOT BELIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE!’
The disciples, I imagine, must’ve just shook their shoulders. “Ok. If that’s how you feel. We can’t make you believe what we’re saying. Obviously your hurting...and we get that. No pressure, friend”.
There’s nothing more said. What could they say? Thomas had laid down his conditions. Perhaps in doing that he partly explained why he wasn’t to be found among the disciples at Jesus’ appearance to them.
Before, when he walked with Jesus and the disciples, he had believed. He’d seen Jesus miracles and believed Jesus displayed the power and splendour of God as He healed the sick, the lame and the leper.
He had believed when Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount and taught about the Kingdom of God.
He had believed, HAD been a believer. All based on evidence in front of his eyes.
You have to credit those who saw Jesus miracles and understood them as evidence of His divine power. Most of the religious leaders saw Jesus miracles and understood them as evidence that Jesus was demon-possessed, that He needed to die.
That was their best thinking! That was their best thinking BECAUSE their minds were clouded, because they were threatened by Jesus.
Those whose interpretations of Jesus were not clouded, but based on ‘what you see is what you get’, were inclined to take Jesus on His own terms.
But the story doesn’t end at Thomas shouting: “I WILL NOT BELIEVE!”
Family of God...Perhaps it was because Thomas was reached out to by those who had been witnesses of Jesus. Perhaps it was because they didn’t, as the record indicates, come down on him for refusing them.
But for a reason of his own Thomas had found his way back to the disciples 7 days later. And there he was, despite his burdens, still bearing his grief over the loss of Jesus, in the house with the disciples again. We pick up our reading:
26 A 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!”
Can you feel, can you see Thomas’ jaw dropping? His mind conflicted, his heart racing. The doors of the house are locked, just like Thomas’ mind is set. Nothing could get in or out.
Fear kept them locked up. Fear of persecution, imprisonment, torture and death for the disciples. Fear of the impossible breaking into further disturb his disquieted, disappointed and disillusioned heart, for Thomas.
The doors of the house are locked. They don’t know it, but Jesus is on the other side of the door, waiting for the right moment.
Jesus. Jesus the rabbi. Jesus the gentle and powerful. Jesus the wise. Jesus the innocent. Jesus the misunderstood. Jesus the falsely accused, falsely convicted. Jesus the beaten. Jesus the tortured. Jesus the humiliated. Jesus the crucified.
Jesus the dead. Jesus the corpse.
Jesus the One who had been falsely accused of breaking the Sabbath, breaking God’s law. Jesus now actually, finally, does break the law.
It’s against the law of nature for a man’s skin and bone and corpulsal, his flesh and organs and his full body to enter a room when the door is locked. Highly irregular. Highly, highly impossible. Deeply upsetting to the natural mind.
But Jesus, though the doors are locked, enters the room. And to the disciples, understandably disturbed by this impossible entrance, AND TO Thomas, the most disturbed and panicked of them all at His appearance, He gives this kind, needed greeting: “Peace be with you!”
Then Jesus does something else that is kind. Very kind. He initiates the conversation with the flabbergasted Thomas. “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side”.
Jesus doesn’t scold Thomas. Not even a little. He simply invites Thomas to exercise his own stated criterion for believing that Jesus was risen from the dead. ‘You need evidence? You need a concrete experience to help you know that you know that you know that I conquered death, that I truly have risen from the grave?’
‘Sure. Put your finger here. Touch and see. Look at my hands, see the markers that remain from the nails that pierced me. Extend your arm. Put it here, in my side. I’m happy to oblige you, my friend, my brother, dear Thomas’.
I can imagine Thomas just staring at Jesus. Hearing the invitation to put his finger into the wounds in Jesus’ hand. Hearing, but maybe not hearing. Thomas’ set mind, like the locked doors, had been breached by Jesus.
Thomas’ grief...his profound sadness, his anger over Jesus’ death, his broken heart and his pummeled faith...Thomas’ grief was melting away.
His reasons for not believing were vanishing. His heart that he had carefully protected from false hope and from, he must have assumed, a pointless, empty hallucination that the disciples had shared...
Thomas’ heart was thawing out. It was beating again. Faith that had died was rising in his spirit, just as Jesus had risen in the flesh.
Jesus then says: “Stop doubting and believe.”
What do you think? Is Thomas ready to believe, or does he need more proof, or more time to process what he’s been witnessing? I think he’s good. He’s ready.
So without following through on what he said were the only conditions under which he would believe, by simply being in the presence of the living, risen Christ, by hearing His voice, seeing Him with His own eyes in the flesh, Thomas says to Jesus: My Lord and my God.
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
The peace that Jesus had greeted all the disciples with, is now resting on Thomas.
He had doubted. Boy, did he doubt. He questioned. He suspected. He laid out his own rational conditions for
ever coming to believe. He set his mind like flint, his heart like stone.
And then, every...last...doubt was dealt with by simply being in the presence of Jesus. Thomas’ words here were not just a simple acknowledgement that Jesus was there, present and obvious to everyone. His words go deeper than that. His response to learning of the risen Christ is to worship Him.
It’s to worship Him and to make that worship very personal, powerful and to bring it close enough that he could be changed by it. Thomas declared that Jesus is HIS Lord. HIS God. This truth was not just objective fact.
It was something that Thomas was going to let in; he was going to let Jesus be the Lord of his life. He was going to acknowledge that Jesus is God in the flesh. It was VERY personal for Thomas.
Thomas’ confession of faith in Jesus would eventually lead him to take the good news of Jesus to India, as church tradition indicates.
Thomas’ faith in Christ would have a monumental domino effect, leading to many thousands upon thousands of others placing their faith in Jesus due to Thomas’ message of the gospel that came from own very personal experience of Christ.
Perhaps that’s why Jesus’ last words in the Gospel of John are this: 29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Maybe that was about the people in India whose lives were transformed by coming to know Jesus.
Maybe those words are about you and me who hear the testimony of witnesses like Thomas speak through the Scriptures, choose to place our trust in Jesus and then experience the abundant life that Jesus brings.
Family of God...I said at the beginning of this message that the message is in part for those who are as yet unconvinced, so that together we could perhaps experience some of Thomas’ process in coming to faith in Jesus. But it’s only partly that.
It’s also for us who have believed for some time, for us for whom the gospel is not a thing of untested faith, but rather for whom it is tested and proved knowledge. We know that God is faithful.
We’ve seen Him at work in our lives for a long time. We’ve gone through our ups and downs with God, and we’ve realized that though we have failed and been faithless perhaps at times to God, He has always been faithful and true to us.
To those folks among us, of whom I would count myself, the challenge for us is this. It’s a quote from a pastor that a friend told me this week.
He said: “There are people waiting on the other side of your calling - people who will never hear and never see demonstrated the gospel of Jesus UNLESS you walk the path, and listen, and obey”. Let me repeat that...[repeat]
So may those among us who doubt and question and remain perhaps on the fence between trusting Jesus and walking away from Him, may you, like Thomas, grow to doubt your doubts about Jesus as you think and feel your way through the Scriptures and as you reflect on your and others’ experience of Jesus.
And may we who have already decided to follow Jesus…may we live lives that honour our Saviour who willingly died for our sins, who defeated death and rose from the grace. May we do so in a way that points others to Jesus, that lights the path to the risen One. Amen.
