2004-04-11 Easter 2C From Doubt to Faith.lwp - Page 1 of 3
John 20:19-31
19 When 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.
21
Jesus 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.
23
If
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.
25
So 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.’
26 A 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.
31
But 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.
I have a rather long list of “used-to-thinks.” I will only tell you 2 or 3 of them today. One is this:
I used to think it must have been easier for Jesus’ disciples (men and women alike) to believe in
resurrection than it is for people like us who live in the 21st century. After all, some of them got to see
the resurrected Jesus during those forty days after Easter before he ascended into heaven. And even the
ones who didn’t could talk to someone who actually had seen him.
I thought those must have been some really good times when Jesus appeared in all kinds of
human and yet miraculous ways: standing among his disciples after walking through the walls; strolling
along the road to Emmaus with two disciples who didn’t even recognize him until later and remembered
how their hearts burned when they were with him; eating a piece of broiled fish; and - the one I really
like - cooking breakfast for his disciples on the shore of Lake Galilee. Wouldn’t you like to have been
there for at least one of those times?
That’s a “used-to-think.” Now I’m not so sure. I don’t know if it was any easier then than it is
now. In fact, as I read the gospel accounts of the post-resurrection appearances, it seems that there
must have been a lot of confused minds - along with those burning hearts - as those disciples, each one
of them for himself or herself - struggled to answer the same question that each of us struggles with: do I
dare to believe in resurrection?
Unfortunately, some Christian communities - and I grew up in one of them - are pretty
uncomfortable about talking about doubts and struggles with faith. Maybe it’s because some folks have
been told when they were children: “Don’t be like Thomas - have faith! Don’t doubt.” And so all too
often people struggle by themselves with deep questions, good questions that deserve to be worked
 |
 |
 |