Stop Doubting and Be Believing - John 20: 19-31

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel lesson, John 20.

It’s Easter evening. That morning, Peter and John rushed to the empty tomb and rushed back to tell the others that Jesus was risen, as He said. Mary has encountered both the heavenly angel with his message of resurrection and Jesus Himself, alive and better-than-well. The Emmaus disciples welcomed the unknown traveler who was revealed as Jesus, only after He broke bread with them. They, too, ran back to Jerusalem with the news. Over and over, the evidence and the message were clear: Jesus is alive! He has risen as He said!

But for 10 men in the upper room, there is a disconnect between what they witnessed and heard and what they were feeling. It’s interesting to me that John doesn’t say anything new about their faith at this point. I suspect that having noted that they believed Jesus’ resurrection at the empty tomb in the morning, we must assume that they were still believing, though still not understanding. Thus, do not think they are hiding because they are afraid Jesus was faking it, or somehow dead again. They were behind locked doors, “for fear of the Jews.” A better way to understand the depth of their fear is “terrified,” thinking “as went our Master, so will we go.” If the Jewish and social leaders colluded to put Jesus, the Christ, to death, how much more at risk are we? The Ten imagined their posters to be on every post office wall throughout Jerusalem: Wanted, dead or alive.

You can imagine that when Jesus appears, they about jumped out of their robes and sandals. That’s why His message is clear, simple and to the point. He speaks one word: peace. We talked about this a few weeks ago, that we often think of peace as absence of conflict. That’s true, but that is a definition from the negative: what something is not. Instead, think of peace from the positive: what it is. Peace is restoration, wholeness, reunion. When Jesus declared peace, He is proclaiming that the wholeness that once perfectly existed between God and Man, before it was destroyed by sin, has been restored. God’s wrath is appeased; His pleasure is restored. The relationship between God and Man is, well, at peace.  

When Jesus proclaims a message, the words deliver exactly what the words say. “Peace be with you.” When He speaks peace, that message also brings restoration of peacefulness to the Ten. Without adding any extra words, it’s as if Jesus was saying, “…and stop letting fear drive you.”

Jesus then commissions the disciples to be deliverers of the peace they have received. Proclaiming forgiveness is the distribution of peace, proclaiming that sins that caused separation have been paid for by Christ’s death. With that very saving act fresh in their minds, the proclamation would have been visual as well as verbal: we saw it; we hear it; now, we speak it to others.

Unfortunately, Thomas Didymus was absent. One wonders where he was. Perhaps he was hiding on his own, not trusting anyone – remember, one of his friends, Judas, had betrayed Jesus. Perhaps he was with other friends, listening for the inevitable clank of armor and swords at the door of their home. Wherever he was, he was filled with angst, worry, fear. He was without peace. He was not yet restored. So, later, when the others told him of the news of seeing Jesus, he was in denial. “Unless I see and touch, I refuse to believe.”

Poor guy. He gets an unfair brand, don’t you think? We don’t call Peter “The Denier.” We don’t call Matthew “The Crook.” We don’t call James “The One Who Mocked His Brother, Jesus.” Only Thomas gets stuck with the Scarlet Name of Doubter.

I resonate with Thomas. Faith is not one of my spiritual gifts. Hand-wringing and chin rubbing, unfortunately, are. The irony is that worry is the allusion that our selfish actions can impact the outcome. Worry is faith inside-out, clinging to the trouble, where faith focused on Christ surrenders to the good and gracious will of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. I know that, I teach that, I preach that, yet I struggle with it. I know I am not alone. To be honest, I admire and almost covet – not sure whether that’s a 9^th or 10^th Commandment issue - “envy” (to use the term) those with great faith who can cling to the love of God when it seems everything is backwards. So, in moments when my already minimal faith is shaken and shaking, I cling to two things:

The first is this promise of God through Isaiah (42:3): “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” Even though my faith is weak, that does not disparage me in the eyes of God for the sake of Christ Jesus.

The second thing I cling to is with Thomas, himself – or, to be more specific, with Jesus’ interaction with Thomas. Listen again to the interaction: 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!” Then 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.”

Notice that Jesus does not scold Thomas. He doesn’t chastise Thomas for his doubts or his insistence on seeing and touching Jesus. Instead, Jesus speaks that same word of peace to Thomas. He doesn’t mock Thomas’ need to see and touch. Instead, Jesus invites him to touch and see. And when Thomas finally proclaims, “My Lord and my God!,” Jesus simply tells him to stop being a disbeliever and to believe, and fills him with the peace of belief.

John 20:27-28 - Full of Eyes
Used with permission

That’s what faith does. It clings to the promises of God that are unseen. Thomas hadn’t seen the resurrected Christ, so he refused to believe. When he stopped refusing to believe, the Spirit rushed in with faith to cling to the One who grants faith in the first place.

A moment ago, I admitted I struggle with faith and I said I suspect some of you do as well. I say that based on a lot of years of hearing people talk about the struggle of living under the cross, this side of heaven. It’s one thing to hear, listen and believe here, in the sanctuary, in this house of God, but sometimes “out there,” where faith crashes against the pavement and life comes hard, sometimes faith is shaken. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve heard people say, “I wish I could see Jesus like the disciples did.” To an extent, I can understand that. But, when I hear that sentiment, I remind them that even when the disciples saw Jesus, when they touched Him, when they broke bread with Him, they still struggled with faith as well. Consider Thomas. So, when I hear that – or when I feel it myself – I lean back into these words of blessing from Jesus Himself:

Then Jesus told [Thomas], “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Listen to that second sentence again: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Remember, how Jesus words deliver what they say? For you, and for me, who have not yet seen Jesus with these eyes, Jesus blesses us with the very faith necessary to have faith in Him, whose faith is made perfect for us. And, to make sure that faith continues to grow – Jesus is not content to leave us with minute, miniscule faith; He continues to strengthen and magnify that faith – to make sure that faith continues to grow, He gives us His very Word in Scripture. “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” If you feel your faith isn’t even up to a bruised reed or hardly has a spark left in the wick of faith, open the Scriptures and let the blessing of Jesus flow from His words to you and be strengthened and energized as that same Spirit, blown upon the disciples in the upper room on Easter evening, He comes to us in Baptism, in the Word, at the Table of the Lord to create, strengthen, and enliven faith in Him.

Sir Robert Browning, the English poet, once penned a sonnet called “Bishop Blougram's Apology.” It’s a dialogue between Bishop Blougram and a journalist. After listening to the journalist go off on the foolishness of faith, Blougram said:

You call for faith:
I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.
The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,
If faith o'ercomes doubt.

I learned those lines a long time ago. Faith isn’t given in a vacuum; it’s given and strengthened when tested against doubt.

Unfortunately, Thomas mostly disappears from the pages of Scripture after this. We know very little of the one who has unfairly been branded “Doubter.” But, according to legend, Thomas’ doubts were so assuaged that he became an evangelist and apostle to what is now the area in and around India. As Paul was to Europe, Thomas was to southern Asia. To this day, he is considered the greatest Christian missionary ever to that part of the world.  

I don’t know that I’ll ever have my doubts assuaged to that level, but I continue to cling to the One who’s faith is perfect, and who’s weakness is greater than any possible strength of mine could be.

If you are like me, then stop doubting. In fact, repent of the doubts and the clinging to worry as if you can control things, and instead begin believing. Turn to the pages of Scripture where that faith, battered and broken it may be, is bound up and fanned into flame that burns brightly with the love of God, through Christ Jesus our Lord.