Sermon: Seeing Is Believing

Rev. Jennifer Whipple
Seeing Is Believing
John 20:19-31

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, oh Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.  Amen.

            Thomas…Thomas…Thomas…  I mean really.  Jesus manages to get into the Upper Room through a closed and locked door, and Thomas needs proof that it is really him.  What kind of discipleship is that?  And where was he when Jesus performed miracles like raising people from the dead?  Perhaps he was lying down on the job or thinking about something else during Jesus’ miracles 101 course…or perhaps he wasn’t.

            You see no matter where Thomas’ ministry had taken him and what he had done, the moment when Thomas refused to believe the other disciples about Jesus’ return is the moment for which he is most remembered.  We all know about those kinds of moments.  I definitely have some of “those moments” in my past.  The moments that people remember even though we wish they wouldn’t.  Perhaps, for most of us, the moment when Thomas doubted is the only time we remember hearing about Thomas outside of a run through of the list of disciples.  And for that moment, that one moment, he has been remembered.  Thomas is not remembered for his courageous faith earlier in the gospel of John when he talks the disciples into following Jesus into Judea despite some apparent life-threatening dangers.  Instead he is remembered for his doubt, his unbelief.  And if Thomas were alive today he would probably realize that it wasn’t his most shining moment the first time he heard a skeptic called “Doubting Thomas.”  Although he has a phrase named after his actions so long ago, I am not sure that Thomas would be proud to hear it.  But was Thomas really all that bad?  Or really all that different from the other disciples?  Or from us?

            Now Thomas is mysteriously absent from the account of Jesus’ first appearance in today’s scripture.  Jesus appears and offers a greeting of peace to the rest of the disciples.  And the scripture reads, “After he [greeted them] he showed them his hands and his side.  Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”  If we look at how this account takes place we see that even though the disciples did not say they doubted outright, it took Jesus showing them his scars for them to acknowledge the fact that it was Jesus standing in front of them.  It took them the same evidence it took our good old doubting Thomas.  And yet Thomas gets the bad rap.

            Why did all of the disciples need such evidence?  After all this was Jesus, the man they had learned from, lived with, and worked very closely with for three years.  They had even heard of Jesus’ promise that where two or three were gathered in his name he would be among them.  However, I don’t think they were ready for Jesus to be physically among them in the locked Upper Room.  After all, they had witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion and had seen his dead body carried away to the tomb.  So, we can imagine that they were a bit taken aback when Jesus appeared.  And perhaps what made it all the more difficult for them to believe was the fact that Jesus was not a ghost or a spirit in John’s account of his post-resurrection appearance.  Jesus was the man they knew and loved during their time with him, and he was physically in their presence. 

            One of the interesting things about the Gospel of John is that it places a good deal of emphasis on the incarnation, on Jesus Christ as a person, a man who came and walked the earth.  A person who did all of the things that people do.  He ate, drank, laughed, cried, and he sensed.  He tasted, heard, touched, smelled, and saw.  And yet the Gospel of John stresses the importance of Jesus being more than just a man, of being in a unique relationship with God.  For John, Jesus reveals to us what God is all about and what God wants us to be.  Jesus is the Word in the beginning with God, and Jesus is part of God. 

            Needless to say, our belief in Jesus and his relationship with God is complicated and can be confusing.  And I will not pretend to have all of the answers.  I do continue have many of the questions, however.  And I do need many of the things the disciples needed in order to believe in the reality that surrounds me.  I need some sort of proof or evidence, even if that proof is just the word of someone I trust.  I need to be able to smell, taste, hear, feel, and/or see something in order to believe.  And usually not only do I need to experience something through my own senses, but I also need someone to confirm what I have experienced.  How many times have I said to someone, “Did you see that too?” or “This tastes pretty bad…taste it!” looking for reassurance or back up.  I would venture a guess that many of you need the same.  Even at the end of this story in the Gospel of John, it says that the signs in the book of John were written so that we might come to believe…they are given as proof.  We may not have seen them, but we know about them.  And so we gather on Sunday mornings and at other points during the week as believers.  As people who have come to believe in God, in Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit.  We may never have met Jesus face to face, and yet we believe.  So what does that say about our friend Thomas?

            I think we can learn a good deal from Thomas’s not so shining moment.

            First, we learn that the disciples, the beginning and the pillars of the church, were not perfect.  In the gospel of Matthew Jesus says, “Be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect.”  And considering that is a pretty tall order biblical scholars have long questioned what Jesus really meant.  One possibility is that it means to be whole, to be balanced, to know and do what is important and not to worry so much about the other things of life, to love.  Just because the disciples made mistakes did not mean that they were not perfect in this sense.  And this leaves hope for us as well.  Even though Thomas doubted he still worked to bring about God’s will in the world during his time and continues to influence us to this day.  Jesus did not blame Thomas for his disbelief, for not being perfect either.  As much as God challenges us, often through the words of Jesus Christ, God does not blame us when we make a mistake.  Instead, God prompts us to acknowledge our mistake, to ask for forgiveness, and to rectify it.  God forgives us even though we are not perfect.

            Second, this story shows us that there is hope.  Jesus’ resurrection shows us that there is hope for people, even those who are suffering.  The disciples were afraid in the days after Jesus’ death.  They were afraid that they might also be persecuted because they were so close to Jesus and because they were to continue his ministry.  In the story of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples in the days after his resurrection he not only commissioned them to go out and share the good news with other people, he also gave them the Holy Spirit to guide them.  And perhaps the fact that Thomas was not present the first time Jesus came to the disciples after his resurrection was not really so mysterious or so much of a mistake. Rather it was to provide hope for the disciples and for us that unbelief can be turned to belief and that doubt can be transformed into faith.  In that way, this story is a call to the disciples to share the word with all people, no matter how much they might doubt initially.  It is also a call to all people, to us, to be people of faith, to open our minds and perhaps our eyes to see the amazing things that God has done through Jesus Christ.

            And third, this story is about the presence and grace of God for all. Seeing might mean believing…apparently that was the case for the disciples and often remains the case for us today.  And Jesus words “Blessed are those who have not seen but come to believe” are not disparaging words for the disciples. After all their faith in God was based on what they had seen in Jesus’ work and life.  And that faith, a faith by sight, was what Jesus commissioned the disciples to share with people all over the world, and what has been passed on to this day.  However, what Jesus’ words do point to is the fact that those of us who have not seen Jesus firsthand are still counted among the faithful…that having been there to witness the miracles that Jesus performed, to have shared in a meal with him, to have witnessed his crucifixion and resurrection are not prerequisites for faith and for receiving the grace of God.  Instead, the grace and presence of God in our lives is a gift, perhaps the greatest gift of all.  As one author writes, “[The story of Doubting Thomas] is a story of hope and promise, not judgment and reprimand.  It stands as a pledge and promise to later generations that they, too, will experience the grace of God in Jesus…[and that just as Jesus cared enough for Thomas to allow him to touch his wounds and see in order to believe] Jesus’ care for the faith of those who come after Thomas is equally without limit and measure.”

            Perhaps the most convincing argument we have for taking back our modern day reprimand of Thomas is the fact that he has the line in this gospel, what has been called the most powerful line in the gospel of John.  Thomas is the one who gets to identify and declare Jesus as “My Lord and My God!”  And he exclaims it.  He does not merely say it under his breath or mumble it.  Instead he exclaims it with certainty.  “My Lord and My God!”  In doing so he identifies Jesus not just as the man who walked on the earth, performed miracles, and died on the cross.  But he also identified Jesus as God, as the Word that John speaks about in the first chapter of the gospel when he writes, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  He identifies Jesus as the Lord whose story did not end in the tomb, but instead who was raised from the dead for the forgiveness of sins.  And there is something to be said for Thomas’s integrity, even if it has gotten him in a bit of trouble.  He was not afraid to share who he really was and where he really was with his belief when the other disciples approached him with a story he truly did not believe.  And yet he was willing to admit that he was wrong in his doubt and return to his faith.

            And so our doubt in Thomas’s ability to be a true disciple of God can turn to faith in that same ability.  And our Thomas…Thomas…Thomas…can turn to a “Yeah, Thomas!” or “Go, Thomas!”  We can realize that being human means questioning and doubting and needing proof.  But it can also mean being perfect in a way that is possible only by God’s grace.  It means faith and hope and seeking for the answers to our questions and doubts, and finding out a lot about ourselves, others, and God along the way.  And it means opening our minds, our eyes, and our hearts to the ways in which God comes to us in our own lives.

On this Sunday after Easter we once again proclaim that Christ has risen.  The stone has been rolled away.  Doubt and sadness have turned to new life.  Alleluia!  Amen.