Trusting Thomas

Jesus and Thomas painted by a Christian group in Cameroon.  www.jesusmafa.com

April 12, 2015

John 20:19-31

¹⁹When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

²⁴But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

²⁶A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹But 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.

Sermon: “Trusting Thomas”

Late have I loved thee, beauty so ancient and so fresh.

Late have I loved thee.

Behold, you were within and I was outside,

and I was seeking you there.

I, deformed, was pursuing you in the beautifully

formed things that you made.

You were with me, but I was not with you.

Those things held me far away from you,

things that would not exist if they were not in you.

You called and clamored and shattered my deafness;

you flashed and gleamed and banished my blindness;

you were fragrant and I drew in breath and now pant for you.

I tasted and now I hunger and thirst for you;

you touched me and I have been set ablaze

with longing for your peace.

This confession of Augustine, the 4^th century Christian theologian, sounds to me like it could have been written by Thomas. 

Thomas, the one who needed proof.

Thomas, the one who needed to see, to touch.

Thomas, the one who missed the resurrection party the first time.

Thomas, the one whom Jesus returned for, inviting him to see,

to touch.

Thomas, who has been labeled the “doubter”, but who might better be called the rationalist, the scientist, or the skeptic wanting evidence.

We’ve always been afraid of doubts in the church, which is perhaps why Thomas has been kept at arms-length.

We label him “doubter” and distance ourselves from him for a very simple reason: he reminds us too much of ourselves.  We, too, want to place our hands in the wounds of Jesus and know he is alive.  Or, perhaps more honestly, we want Jesus to place his hands in our wounds, to know we are still alive. 

We can talk about faith and hope and peace and love, but if they are not embodied, given real flesh-and-blood, the words fall empty.  Perhaps this is why Christ-followers so cling to the incarnation – God with us.  We don’t need an idea.  We don’t even need a dream.  We need proof.

We are Thomas. 

But let’s look at this Thomas character again.  Who was Tom, really?

Like Augustine’s words, Tom might have loved late.  But when he did love, it was all-consuming.  When his beloved friend Lazarus died, the other disciples told Jesus to not go to see his body.  Those who locked themselves away in a room for fear of the Jews after the resurrection were often driven by fear.  Jesus would have to go near to those who called him an enemy to see Lazarus’ body.  They urged him to stay away from Jerusalem, to play it safe. 

Not so with Tom.  He cried out, “Let us go also, that we may die with him!”

He loved late, but he loved completely.  Jesus listened to Tom, and they went to Jerusalem, where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  New life followed after Tom’s powerful words of honesty.

And then later, when Jesus told his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.”  Tom, the rationalist, needed more information.

“But, we don’t know where you’re going!  We don’t know the way!” he cried.   Once again, new life followed after Tom’s powerful words of honesty.  Do you remember what Jesus said in response?  “I am the way, the truth and the life.” 

And so, by the time we get to this scene of Tom needing proof of the resurrection, we see that perhaps it’s not because he’s less faithful than the other disciples.  Perhaps it’s because he takes these things more seriously than any of them.  For those other disciples didn’t believe the resurrection when Mary Magdalene told them she had seen the Lord.  They were still locked away in a room for fear of the Jews.  And then, after the risen Jesus appeared to them, speaking words of peace, showing them his wounds, they didn’t change their behavior.  They didn’t run and tell, but they continued to stay locked in a room, playing it safe.

Tom knew he needed proof – and wasn’t afraid to say it.  And Jesus didn’t rebuke his need for proof.  Jesus didn’t tell him he was faithless. 

Jesus came just for him and said, without Tom even asking, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”  Jesus welcomed his skepticism, and offered his very body as proof.  He invited Tom to touch him.  But here’s the intriguing thing (at least to this preacher lady):

Does our text say Thomas touched Jesus?  Actually, no.  Our text just says Jesus invited him to.  And that invitation was all the proof Tom needed.  He then cried, “My Lord and my God!”  And one more time, new life followed after Tom’s powerful words of honesty. 

Thomas loved late.  He believed begrudgingly.  His faith was as much his mind as his heart.  But that didn’t mean he was less a witness to the resurrection.  If anything, it means it meant more to him.  Yes, Jesus did say to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”   The word ‘blessed’ Jesus uses is also happy.  Happy are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.  Happy are those for whom faith comes easily.  For that is a lighter journey than the one of rational proof.

Faith did not come easily to Tom.  It might not come easy to some of us.  There might be times that the resurrection seems like a pie-in-the-sky idea until we ourselves experience God bringing us out of darkness and despair.  There might be times that the resurrection sounds like a fairy tale unless we finally get good news from the doctor.  There might be times Easter seems utterly irrelevant to our lives unless we see proof it matters. 

This is not the happy journey of faith.  But it is the serious, difficult way of Thomas, a faith realized through wounds and doubts.

Maybe we should trust Tom.  Jesus did.  Jesus didn’t label Tom a threat to his truth.  Jesus invited him to touch his wounds, and that invitation was enough for Tom.  Touching these wounds is not happy work.  When we touch the wounds of Jesus in the news of mass murders in Kenya, in racial tension in our country boiling over, in our own bodies that begin to let us down, it is painful.  Maybe that’s why Jesus said “happy are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 

But like Tom, we do see his wounds.  They are also our wounds.  And when faced with such violence, we reply out of the aches of our souls, “My Lord and my God!”

Like Augustine, we say to our risen, wounded Lord:

You called and clamored and shattered my deafness;

 you flashed and gleamed and banished my blindness;

you were fragrant and I drew in breath and now pant for you.

I tasted and now I hunger and thirst for you;

you touched me and I have been set ablaze with longing for your peace.

And that same risen Lord answers us with those words he spoke over and over again, that they might sink into all the wounds of this world like a healing balm.  He says, “Peace be with you.”  Alleluia!  Amen.