Scripture: John 20:19-31; Hebrews 11:1; Luke 23:42-43; 1 John 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Series: Easter
An Easter-season (Second Sunday) sermon on John 20:19-31 reframing Thomas not as a failure but as a model: the disciples who saw and believed are no different from us, and Jesus pronounces a greater blessing on those who believe without seeing. Drawing on Hebrews 11, the thief on the cross, and 1 John, the preacher argues that faith is conviction of the unseen, yet honors Thomas’s ‘concrete faith’ that needs to touch the scars. The risen body still bears the wounds of Good Friday; we touch those scars today by serving our neighbors, seeing Jesus’ face and wounds in them. The call is to be resurrection people who, comforted in affliction (2 Corinthians 1), comfort others.
Illustrations: terminator-nude-arrival, celebrity-dinner-party, peter-john-foot-race, time-machine-to-jesus
April 7
The Concrete Faith of Thomas
John 20:19-31
”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.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 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.” 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.” Then 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.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 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.“ John 20:19-31 NRSV
The story of Thomas the Apostle is the story of us today. Jesus is talking to us. It’s a question of faith. In Hebrews, faith is defined as the assurance of things looked for, the conviction of things unseen. Faith is something you do not see. You cannot see it. You cannot touch it. Hold it. You believe in something in this fashion. The thief on the cross believed in this fashion. He said, “Jesus, remember me. When you come into your kingdom.” Jesus responded, “Truly, today you shall be with me in paradise.” But when it was all over, Joseph of Arimithea got the body of Jesus and the thieves, both the good thief and the one who mocked Jesus, their bodies were thrown into a mass grave. Three days later, the tomb was empty At what precise time did it become empty? This is one of those questions to which the Bible never give us a good answer. When did the tomb become empty? It’s hard to say. No witnesses were inside the tomb when it took place. It was most likely early on that morning of the first day of the week. The body which had been dead and buried, got up and walked away. The same body, the wounded body of Jesus, the body of Jesus that had been whipped, that had been nailed, that had been stabbed, this same body got up and walked away. Jesus could have been naked at this moment. I could imagine it, in some kind of sense, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator movies. When he comes back from the future timeline, he is tastefully shot and nude and the first thing he does is he goes is looks for some clothes. I don’t think Jesus went and stole the clothes off the back of the people like the Terminator, but it doesn’t seem like he was wearing clothes when he died. The Bible says that the guards stripped him and split up his clothes by lot. Artists put a loin cloth on him for decency’s sake, but they probably took it off when he was taken down from the cross. He’s got no more use for it. They wrapped him in the linen that Joseph had. What does he need underwear for now? Instead of going into the mass grave like the two thieves, Jesus is taken to a nearby tomb in a garden on the hill and a stone is placed in front of him. They don’t complete the burial that day because it’s the day of preparation and the Sabbath is coming and they just don’t have the time, but they get him in the ground as soon as possible following Jewish custom. Then he gets up and walks away. In the gospel of John, during the resurrection account, there’s this great moment of this foot race between Peter and John. John is always coy and calls himself the beloved disciple. Needless to say, he wins the foot race in the gospel where he calls himself the beloved disciple..
John’s Gospel is the only one that has any of the disciples eagerly going to check on the tomb. It is also the only Gospel with this scene about Thomas. Thomas gets both a fair wrap and an unfair wrap. I’ll start with the unfair wrap. I mean, it’s not fair that Thomas missed one dinner and Jesus happened to show up that night. It’s like if you have a regular dinner party with friends and Tom Brady or Beyonce or Taylor Swift show up the one night you don’t make it. You’re like, “Guys, why didn’t you text me? I would have come.” I mean, they didn’t have text messages for Thomas, but I think if they did, he would’ve had that similar reaction. Like, “Guys, text me next time. If Jesus is showing up, I’m dropping what I’m doing and coming to see Jesus.” And then all the other disciples are like, “So what you missed it, why don’t you believe us? Yeah. We saw Jesus. You trust us, right? Thomas is unsure.
And again, as if you had a regular dinner party with friends and this big celebrity came, you might be a little cautious towards credulity when your friends first mention it. So the next week, Thomas is with him this time, and Jesus shows up again. And here’s where Thomas gets a fair wrap. Here’s where the doubting Thomas really comes in. It’s not during that first encounter. It’s the second one. It’s the second one when he sees Jesus. He sees Jesus, but that’s not good enough. He needs to touch the scars of Jesus. Only then, will he believe. Thomas does so, and then he bows down. Jesus says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
This is where Jesus is talking about us. You didn’t know you were in the Bible. You are right here because the other disciples saw and believed; they’re in the same boat as Thomas. There’s nothing different. Jesus showed up and they believed. We are the ones who have the chance to not see and believe. And there is a greater blessing offered for us. Hard to believe, but that’s what Jesus says. Maybe some of you have had the thought, at one point in your life, “I wish I could just see this Jesus guy, then believing in him would be a lot easier.” Or, you know, “I wish I could just take my kids in a time machine to see him, and then they would definitely believe in him.”
Jesus, instead, shows us that faith, the believing and not seeing, is something of deep value to God and is offered to us.
As well, there is space for Thomas in our world today. Not the other disciples, who are kind of snooty about things. No, for Thomas, for someone who is credulous about it, someone who needs to touch the scars. Someone who believes in the scars, believes in the resurrected possibility of the scars. Someone who has scars themselves. One of the miracles of this moment in John is that we see that the resurrected body of Christ still bears scars. The scars of Good Friday are not erased. The scars of the cross, the scars of the spear, the scars of the whip, are not erased. Some people need to touch Jesus before they believe. John even talks about this in his first letter where he says “We announce to you what existed from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have seen and our hands handled, about the word of life.” And this is my word of encouragement for all of us, whether we’re doubting or not, we touch Jesus by serving our neighbors. There’s this amazing transmutation that takes place through the power of the Holy Spirit, that we see the face of Jesus, we touch the hands of Jesus in our neighbors. We touch the scars of Jesus and the wounds of Jesus in our neighbors. And that can seem intimate. That can seem vulnerable. That can seem uncomfortable. But we do not do it alone. We do it together.
Conclusion
My brothers and sisters, in this Easter season, may we be willing to live out resurrection in new ways. May we have confidence that Jesus was talking about us that day, that we who believe without seeing have more of God through that faith. Faith is not simply the capacity to understand. It goes beyond that. It is this assurance, this assurance we receive by believing when we don’t see, and yet still, may we seek the concrete faith of Thomas that still seeks to touch Jesus. That still seeks to put our hands in the scars. It takes faith to touch the scars today. We may feel like our scars aren’t scar enough, but as Paul says in Second Corinthians,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.
We have a purpose. Let us be this kind of resurrection people. Let us seek out the hands inside of Jesus. Let us touch the scars.
Let us pray, Heavenly Father, you make us glad with the weekly remembrance of the glorious resurrection of your Son our Lord: Give us this day such blessing through our worship of you, that the week to come may be spent in your favor; In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.