Second Sunday of Easter
TEXT:
Jesus said to [Thomas], “Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
John 20:29 (ESV)
People can acquire various nicknames for any of a number of reasons. One of the sad ironies of life is that the nicknames that are given for negative reasons are the ones that always seem to stick and to haunt the people who bear them for the longest period of time. On this Sunday after Easter the Gospel tells the story that earned the Lord’s disciple Thomas the nickname “Doubting Thomas.” Twenty centuries have come and gone and this poor fellow still hasn’t lived it down. It makes no difference that this Gospel gives us as well as Thomas indisputable proof of the Lord’s resurrection and also includes Thomas confessing the risen Christ to be not only his Lord but also his God. It doesn’t seem to matter that tradition tells us that Thomas carried the Gospel message as far away as Persia and India and died a martyr’s death in India. Despite all of this, he is and probably always will be known as “Doubting Thomas.”
Before we join the chorus of those who call Thomas by this derogatory nickname, perhaps we ought to take into consideration the fact that there is certainly a strong tendency for the people of God to be “a mixed bag,” as they say--a mixture of the good and the bad--or, as Martin Luther so aptly put it, “at the same time both saint and sinner.” Thomas’ shortcomings did not in any way disqualify him from being a disciple of Jesus any more than ours disqualify us. The truth of the matter is that Thomas isn’t a whole lot different than us. Like Thomas, we also want visible and constant reassurance that our faith in the crucified and risen Christ is well-placed. That’s why we reach as far as we possibly can to find demonstrable validation for our faith and answers to our prayers. As we consider the Gospel’s theme of “Seeing Is Believing,” we will examine this morning what means to see what Jesus has done and to believe it.
The difference between seeing and believing is really the difference between history and faith. Contrary to what many people may think, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of history. Either Jesus rose from the dead or He did not, regardless of what you or I may believe. It is not a question that can be decided on the basis of how many people believe it, nor is it something that can be real for those who believe it but only myth for those who don’t. I’ve met people who don’t believe that any of our astronauts ever landed or walked on the moon. These people will insist until their dying day that all of those moon landings of the late sixties and early seventies that were documented so thoroughly by news coverage were, in fact, nothing more than staged performances that were filmed in a studio somewhere. But what these people believe (or refuse to believe) has no bearing on what actually happened.
The same thing is true of Jesus’ resurrection. The reason why Jesus chose to appear to His disciples after His resurrection was to establish the fact that He was indeed risen from the dead. He not only appeared to them; He interacted with them, speaking with them in the same familiar terms as He had done for several years prior to His death. He invited them to handle His wounds and He ate in their presence so that they would know that He was not a ghost or a hallucination. “’See My hands and My feet,’” He told them. “’that is I Myself. Touch Me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. And while they still disbelieved it for joy and were marveling, He said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate before them (Luke 24:39-43). What they saw was not a figment of their imagination--not some illusion that was created out of what they wanted to believe. It was the risen Christ Himself. He is risen indeed! And that is history.
Faith, on the other hand, is something altogether different than history. Faith is not the mere acceptance of certain things as being historical fact; faith is what we trust in and hope for on the basis of the historical facts that we believe to be true. It is possible for a person to believe all of the historical facts of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and still not have faith because that person could believe all of those things to be historically true, yet deny that they have anything at all to do with him or her. When we say that we believe in the slain and risen Christ, we are saying a lot more than that we believe that Jesus was killed and rose again; we are saying that we believe that He was “delivered up for our trespasses and was raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25). Faith is not only the acceptance of the historical facts; it is what we trust in and hope for because of those historical facts. When Thomas became convinced that it really was the risen Jesus who was standing in front of him, he believed the fact of Jesus’ resurrection. But when he exclaimed: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28), he was confessing His faith in the risen Christ.
Genuine faith in Jesus Christ is of its very nature a living thing--a growing thing. Like love, it is more than just an emotional feeling; it is a commitment that matures as it withstands the various trials and temptations of life. It is never stagnant; it is always either growing or decaying. It’s not so much a matter that we come to faith at a particular moment in our lives and “get saved” (as some like to say) and then that’s the end of it. It is a journey with many ups and downs--a journey that Scripture refers to as “the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12)--a journey in which we must constantly struggle with the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature--a journey that begins with Baptism and doesn’t end until we fall asleep in Jesus. The theologian George Forell described this struggle well when he wrote: “We never areChristians in the sense that we have arrived and can now rest on our laurels. We are always becoming Christians” (Forell, The Ethics ofDecision, page 153).
To a great extent we are the product of our environment. No, I’m not saying that I believe in evolution, nor am I saying that we are helpless (and mindless) victims of the world that we live in or pawns of forces beyond our control. What I am saying is that in this world we are up against a formidable enemy. Satan lurks everywhere, using every good and bad thing that happens in our lives to try to lead us into doubt and thereby to drive a wedge between us and our Savior. Because of this situation we must constantly pray, like the man whose son was harassed by an evil spirit, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). The Good News is that the resurrection of the One who was crucified for us is able to overcome our unbelief, making it possible for us, with Thomas, to confess Him as our Lord and our God and to “do all things through Him who strengthens” us (Philippians 4:13).
Amen.
May the God of peace, who brought again from the dead that great Shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus, by the blood of the everlasting covenant equip you thoroughly for the doing of His will. May He work in you everything which is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.