A sermon based on John 20. 19-31. There are lots of sayings about proof and believing aren’t there. ‘Seeing is believing’, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’. And quite often faith and proof are seen as opposite ends of a spectrum. You have the things you can prove over here, and right over here you have the things you have faith about. It comes across in another saying that’s widely used, ‘a leap of faith’. That sounds much more uncertain than those earlier sayings. Our Gospel reading today is all about faith and doubt. Belief and questioning. And again we can see each of those as opposite ends of a spectrum, faith is over here, and doubt is over here, belief is here, but questioning is over here. But actually these things are far closer than we think, far more muddled up together than we may think, much as proof, belief and faith are all tied up together. Mary Magdalene has just encountered the risen Jesus outside the tomb and has raced back to tell the disciples and to deliver the message he gave her. And she has done so, and we now move on to that evening, and suddenly Jesus appears in the room with them, despite it being locked. He appears to them, offers them his peace, the deep peace they need to calm their fearful souls, and, as evidence it truly is him, shows them his hands and his side. Then he breathes the Holy Spirit on them, we’ll circle back to that at Pentecost, and then he’s gone, and it’s at this point that we discover that one of the disciples wasn’t present, Thomas. Now in my opinion Thomas get’s a bad rap. We encounter him a number of times in the Gospels, and yet this is the incident most people associate him with. He’s a symbol of doubt. And yet that’s not the whole picture of who he is. He speaks on two other occasions in John. Firstly when Jesus is set to return to Judea, as Lazarus is sick, and has now died, and his disciples warn him against it, reminding him that he was almost killed there and that’s why they left. Seeing that Jesus is resolved to go to Judea to see Lazarus (whom he will shortly raise from the dead) Thomas says ‘let us also go, that we may die with him’. He’s a courageous, devoted guy. And again later in John when Jesus is speaking of heaven; how his Father’s house has many rooms and how he is going to prepare a place for them and that they know the way. It’s Thomas who pipes up that actually, they don’t know where he’s going, so how can they know the way. He’s plucky, and draws Jesus to say one of his most profound sayings ‘I am the way, and the truth and the life’. So he’s devoted, courageous, but also practical, pragmatic. And so when he comes back to the upper room, perhaps from doing the shopping, getting in supplies for their continued hiding. He gets there, the 10 announce they have seen the Lord and he’s filled with a wave of emotions. The language he uses here is emotional language, he’s upset that he’s missed it, perhaps angry that Jesus showed up whilst he had popped out, perhaps he is doubtful that it happened, he did after all see his friend dragged off to be executed by a force known for their brutality and efficiency in killing. He's awash with emotions, confusion, anger, doubt, sadness, regret. And out of this he cries, I want what you had, I want to see him, I want to meet Jesus again. And I want more, I want to put my hand in his side and in his hands, I want proof. It’s coming from a place of deep hurt, deep anguish. His friend was killed and yet he’s apparently alive, his friends saw him, he didn’t. Friday and Sunday are washing over him in waves. So often that is the case with us, or how we try and approach others with faith, we need to present more evidence to believe, we need to overcome their doubts or our doubts, but it’s often far more complicated, belief, proof, faith all tangled up together. Sometimes we don’t believe not because we lack evidence, but because we simply don’t want to because we fear the implications of it being true. And often doubt isn’t about lack of belief, so much as wanting to believe but fearing that it might not be true. We’re not as rational as we often think ourselves to be. We’re much more complex than we attribute to ourselves. It's a week later, Sunday again, the day of resurrection and Jesus appears to them again, despite the locked doors, and this time Thomas is with them. And once again Jesus offers them his peace, the peace to calm their anxious souls, the peace Thomas needs to still the storms within. And then he turns to Thomas, and what does he say. Does he rebuke Thomas, tell him off for not believing the others. Rebuke him for his lack of faith. Tell him off for letting his emotions have the better of him. Does he say ‘come on Thomas, try a bit harder to believe’? No. Jesus turns to Thomas and offers him exactly what he said he needed. Jesus wasn’t there when Thomas made those demands, and yet he knows what was said. And so he offers it, ‘place your finger in my hands and see, place your hand in my side’. He’s gentle, he’s kind, he’s compassionate. ‘Don’t doubt, but believe’. And that’s not a command, ‘bury your doubt, push out more belief’, ‘try harder’. It’s an invitation, akin to the one to place his hands in his hand and side, just as he invites Thomas to reach out and touch, so he invites Thomas to reach out and believe. And what happens? Thomas doesn’t need to touch, he realises he doesn’t need to place his hand in the wounds. Instead he simply responds with the most profound declaration of faith in the Gospels ‘My Lord, and my God’. Simply encountering the risen Jesus is enough, not just to make him believe that Jesus is alive again, but to realise that he has been walking side by side these last few years not just with his Lord and master, but with God himself. And this is the point John wraps up his Gospel, before the Epilogue was added on. As Jesus declares that blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe, John summarises the purpose of his Gospel, that in reading we may come to believe too, come to that same profound declaration of Thomas, and in believing have life in Jesus’ name. So what is it to believe? If it’s not the opposite of doubt, or the opposite of proof and is instead tangled up with all those things, what is it? Let me tell you a short parable which I've borrowed from Glen Scrivener. Dutiful Derek is told by his parents, "We're going to visit the Swiss Alps. When you see the view you'll be in awe." "Must I be in awe?" asks Derek. "You're a funny lad, Derek, we mean that the view *will* take your breath away." "As you wish", he sighs. Some years later Derek's father says, "One day you'll meet a beautiful woman and you'll fall in love." Derek says, "Must I fall in love?" Dad says, "Strange boy, I just mean that when you see her, you'll be smitten." "If I must," says Derek. Then Derek goes to church and sees a preacher climb into the pulpit to pray, "Lord, show us the glory of Christ, that we might put our faith in him." "I'll do my best", says Derek under his breath. As he listens, he tries to muster up the requisite belief. But Derek really doesn't get it. The view/woman/Saviour calls forth awe/love/trust all by themselves. Faith is not pushed out of us by our willpower. It's pulled out of us by a captivating glory. Of course you ought to believe. But the ought is not fundamentally about your duty, it's about his beauty. That’s what causes the profound declaration of faith in Thomas, he see’s the risen Jesus, he encounters him, and faith is drawn out of him. And likewise in John’s Gospel, and indeed in all of Scripture, we encounter the risen Jesus, and faith is drawn out of us. It’s why we should pray before we read, why I pray before I preach. We want this to be a place of encounter, a place where we behold Jesus, and in doing so, faith is drawn out of us. So let us pray that in this Easter Season, our doubts would not cause us to feel guilty, to beat ourselves up. That our struggles would not cause us to run from God. But instead to run towards him, that we would see his encounter with Thomas and know that he longs to do the same for us, for us to behold and believe. Let’s pray that in Church and at home, in Scripture and in prayer we would encounter him, and in doing so come to believe, and have life in his name. Amen.
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AuthorAn Anglican Curate in my 20's I was raised in an Anglican Church, went to a Youth Club run by an Evangelical Church, attended a Baptist Church while at Uni and was a member of a New Monastic Community after graduating. As such my faith has been influenced by these experiences and traditions into what I hope is a more rounded viewpoint. Archives
September 2022
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