Do You Believe Now? - John 20:24-31 (April 10)
How many of you would believe me if I told you that there was
a ballgame a week ago yesterday in which a player scored with only his
fingertips touching home plate? What if,
I told you that his fingertips were the only part of his body touching the
ground when he came across home plate?
Some things have to be seen to be believed. That was the deal for Thomas.
Easter evening, as ten of the disciples gathered together in
hiding, for fear that they might be arrested for being a follower of Jesus,
Jesus came and appeared to them. He
spoke words of peace to them. He showed
them His hands and His side. Realizing
their unexpected guest was the risen Messiah, the ten were amazed and excited. Jesus commissioned the disciples to go out
and breathed on them His Spirit.
You notice I mentioned there were ten disciples there. One was missing. Thomas.
There had been twelve, Judas Iscariot hung himself out of remorse for
having betrayed Christ. There were only
eleven, and Thomas was not at the gathering.
We don't know why, we just know he wasn’t among them…and because of
that, he has gained a bad reputation.
The ten were so excited to have seen Jesus they sought out
Thomas and told him, “We have seen the Lord.”
Thomas didn’t bite.
“Didn’t we go through this already. Mary came and told us this morning that
Jesus’ body was missing. Peter, you and John went and looked, and sure enough
the body wasn’t there. A little while
later, she came back saying that she had seen Jesus. None of us bought it then. When knew He was dead, we knew someone had to
have taken the body. The dead don’t just
get up and walk out of a tomb. And now
y’all are joining Mary in her delusion. Jesus appeared to y’all. Yeah, right!
I’ll believe it when I can see those marks in his hands…and touch those
wounds in his hands and side, I’m not falling for it.”
This attitude has earned the Thomas the moniker “Doubting
Thomas.” There are asset least three
reasons we might want to break the tradition of making this the story of
doubting Thomas.
The first is that to make this the story of “Doubting Thomas,”
is to suggest that it was only Thomas among the eleven that struggled to
believe the Jesus had risen from the dead.
The trouble with that understanding is that it stands in stark contest
to what the Gospel of John had told us. Mary had gone to the tomb early in the
morning that Sunday after Jesus had been crucified. She found the stone moved.
She found the tomb empty. Her belief?
She ran to tell the disciples someone had moved the body. She ran and told this to the eleven. Peter
and John raced to the tomb. They found it empty and believed Mary. Somebody had taken the body of Jesus. They didn't believe He had been raised. John
makes that clear: “Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also
went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the
scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to
their homes.”[i] It was not until Jesus Himself spoke Mary's
name that she believed. It wasn’t until
Jesus appeared to the ten and showed then His hands and side that they
believed. It wasn't just Thomas who struggled to believe, it was everybody. To make
this the story of Doubting Thomas is to make him the scapegoat for something of
which everyone was guilty.
The second problem is that if we were to offer a literal
translation of the Greek, we would not get, “Do not doubt but believe,” it
would read “Do not be unbelieving but believing.” It is less about Thomas being a skeptic, but
more about Jesus appealing to Thomas to move from a position in which he does
not believe the resurrection took place to a position of embracing the good
news of the Risen Christ.
The
final problem with making this a story about “Doubting Thomas” is to make
Thomas the central figure of this story.
The trouble is, for the Gospel of John, there is only one central figure
in any story, Jesus is the only central figure for this Gospel.
So
if Jesus is the center all figure in this story, and not Thomas, what is this
story about? The key is found in verse
31: “…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.” This story also becomes almost a
matching bookend to the beginning of the Gospel.
Jesus
was calling his first disciples. He had called Phillip. Phillip found his friend Nathanael and
started telling him about finding Jesus (though it was actually Jesus finding
them). When Philip tells him that Jesus
is from Nazareth, Nathanael questions whether anything good could come out of
Nazareth. Being from the town of
Nazareth, you see, was like being from the other side of the tracks. Phillip invited Nathanael to come and see
Jesus. On cue Jesus appears and greets
them identifying Nathanael as “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael wanted to know how Jesus could know
anything about him, since he had never met Jesus. Jesus replied, “Nathanael, I saw you sitting
under a fig tree before Philip even spoke to you.” Nathanael’s response, “Rabbi, you are the Son
of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus replied, “Do you believe because I told
you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You will see greater things than these.”
[ii]
Jesus
begins his ministry and concludes his ministry by offering evidence that brings
someone to believe and strongly declare who He is—Nathaniel responds, “Rabbi,
you are the Son of God…the King of Israel!” Thomas, when Jesus appears before
him and presents Thomas with His hands and side, declares, “My Lord and my
God!” Everything that the Gospel of John
offers in between is an effort to bring those who read to the point of making
that confession—that Jesus is the Son of God, actually God Himself…that Jesus
is the King of Israel…that Jesus is Lord…that Jesus is the Messiah. Every teaching, every miracle, that Jesus
offers and performs is to bring folks to believe, to bring folks to faith—Jesus,
Himself, says this, “…The works that the Father has given me to complete, the
very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”[iii] Jesus desires that all might come into a
relationship with Himself that they might come into a true relationship with
God, their Creator…so Jesus readily offers evidence, offers proof that He is
who He claims to be, so that those around Him might come to believe.
God’s
desire has always been to offer proof that people might come to believe. He offered it as He called Moses by changing
his rod into a snake and then back again and turning his hand leprous and then
healing it. He tried to bring Pharaoh to
believe through the plagues, though Pharaoh refused. He responded to Gideon’s request for
confirmation of God’s Will by first keeping the ground dry and causing the
fleece to be wet and then by causing the ground to be wet and the fleece to be
dry. He brought sailors to believe
through Jonah. He offered proof of His
power through Elijah’s sacrifice showdown with the priests of Ba’al. More could be offered, but the point is God
has constantly offered folks opportunities to come to believe in Him—He did
this the fullest in and through Jesus Christ, and then Christ, in his ministry
continued to offer proof that folks needed in order to come to believe.
The
thing is, we are not a lot unlike, the sailors or the people watching Elijah,
Moses or Gideon, Nathanael or Thomas, or any of the other disciples. We want proof. Many of us may not admit it out loud, but we
struggle. We are like the father in the
Gospel of Mark who cried out to Jesus, “I believe, help my unbelief.”[iv]
What
does that mean for us? Where is God
going to offer us the proof that He offered to those we read in Scripture? Jesus says to Thomas, “You have believed
because you have seen Me. Blessed are
those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” In other words, Jesus tells Thomas, “You
believe because you have been with me, you have walked with me, and now you
have seen me resurrected. Others will be
blessed, for they will come to believe without having the benefit that you have
had.”
We
come to believe because those that walked with Jesus, those who were blessed
enough to have been with Him day in and day out, those who were privileged to
have encountered the resurrected Christ, shared that good news…they shared His
message, they shared His love, they shared His forgiveness, they shared His
compassion with those who were struggling.
They shared it through their lives, through their teaching, through their
words, as John offers as reason for His very writing of the Gospel message. Yet
God doesn’t stop there as He offers those of us struggling to believe with
proof of His presence in our lives and the hope that can be found in Christ. Where do we see it today? Where are God’s proving miracles in our time?
We
see confirmation of the presence of God in our lives and His love for us in the
sunrise over the horizon each day; in the dolphins swimming along the shore at
the beach; in the clouds hanging like crowns upon a mountain; in the cooing of
a newborn baby; in a couple walking hand in hand; in children of different ethnicities playing together on the playground or worshiping together in
church; we see it in the embrace of a fireman’s arms around a rescue victim; we
see it when someone chooses to forgive instead of getting even; we see it when
someone walks away instead of striking back; we see it when generosity is
offered rather than hording or seeking more for oneself; we see it when folks
gather about a family in their grief; we see it when acceptance is offered
rather than judgment; we see it in every act of love throughout the world.
Through
each of these God continues to offer the reality of His presence in our lives
and through our lives—so that those who have not walked with Jesus as Thomas
and Nathanael did, may come to find the blessing of belief.
In
the Name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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