Sermon: Thomas the Believer (2015)

Delivered at Bethel United Methodist Church in West Greenville, South Carolina on April 12, 2015.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

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Thomas the Believer

Audio Version

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."

John 20:19-29 (NRSV)

Believing what I can't see

Has never come naturally to me

And I've got questions

But I am certain of a love

Strong enough to hold me when I'm doubting

You'll never let go of my hand

From "Can Anybody Hear Me?" by Meredith Andrews

In 2012, my Bible study group spent nearly twenty weeks studying the Letter to the Romans.  This epistle, which is probably the most famous of St. Paul's writings, is foundational to many Christians' theology, and it has been inspirational to many Christians over the centuries, including Martin Luther, who was instrumental in the Protestant Reformation.  If you're familiar with the history of the Methodist movement, then you know that John Wesley, while going through a particularly difficult time marked with failure and frustration, was dragged to a Moravian gathering on Aldersgate Street, where he heard a reading of Luther's commentary on Romans.  It was during that evening that Wesley felt his heart "strangely warmed" as he came to understand what God's grace meant for him personally.¹

Sometimes I take it upon myself to be the troublemaker of my Bible study group, theologically speaking.  Sometime after we concluded our study on Romans, I suggested that we also study the Letter of James which, at first glance, seemingly contradicts Romans.  St. Paul, throughout his writings, stresses that Salvation is not something to be earned but rather a free gift from God that is received by faith alone.  St. James, on the other hand, argues that a faith that is not embodied in a person's actions is basically worthless, going so far as to say that "faith without works is dead."²  Martin Luther might have cherished the Letter to the Romans, but he lovingly referred to the Letter of James as "the epistle of straw."  Naturally, I thought that a study on James would be the perfect followup to our study on Romans.

In early 2013, as I began my preparation to lead a study on the Letter of James, I came across a passage I've always found troubling.  St. James writes,
If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.  But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.³
With all due respect to the brother of Jesus, I don't think that St. James's exhortation would be very helpful for a person who is struggling through a time of doubt.

And I don't think these words would be very comforting to a disciple named Thomas.

---

It's Sunday evening, and the Disciples are hunkered down in their meeting place with the door locked.  The past week has been nothing short of a whirlwind.  Just one week earlier, they accompanied Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, to waving palm branches and shouts of "Hosanna!"  A few days later, on Thursday, they had a rather somber dinner together, during which Jesus spoke about things like betrayal, denial, and going to where they could not yet follow.  Afterward, when they went out with Jesus to pray, the unthinkable happened: Judas Iscariot, one of their own, sold Jesus out and led the local authorities to Him so that they could arrest Him.  By late afternoon on Friday, the man they had been following for the last three years was dead.⁴

That morning, Mary Magdalene, another friend and follower of Jesus, showed up in a panic and reported that Jesus' body was missing from the tomb.  Two of the Disciples ran to the tomb and found that the body was indeed gone.  If the local authorities discovered that Jesus' body had been stolen, the Disciples would be in big trouble, hence the locked door.  Later that day, Mary came back and made the delusional claim that she had just seen Jesus alive.⁵

The Disciples are sitting in their meeting place, afraid and confused, when, all of a sudden, they hear a voice say, "Peace be with you."  They turn to look and see Jesus standing in the room with them, alive and well, just as Mary had said.  He shows them the scars from his crucifixion, and they rejoice that their rabbi is with them once again.  He commissions them to carry on the work He has started, and He breathes on them, like God breathing life into a human being newly formed out of clay, and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit."

Unfortunately, the disciple Thomas is not with the others when Jesus appears to them.  Thomas has always been the cynical smart aleck of the group.  When Jesus' friend Lazarus died and Jesus decided to go back to Judea where He had previously escaped stoning, Thomas sarcastically said to the others, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him."⁶  The ten who have seen Jesus alive enthusiastically find Thomas and tell Him the good news, but he responds, "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."

It is because of this story that the disciple Thomas is probably the most famous doubter in all of human history.  It is this story that earned him the nickname "Doubting Thomas," a name we also use to deride a person who expresses doubts.

We tend to believe that there are just some thoughts we are not supposed to think and some feelings we are not supposed to feel, and, for many of us, doubt falls into such a category.  In some Christian circles, doubt is a taboo or a problem that needs to be solved, while, in other settings, doubting and questioning almost seem to be en vogue.  Whether or not we want to admit it, I suspect that we all go through seasons of doubt in our lives.  Perhaps you've doubted yourself or doubted your calling in life.  Perhaps you've doubted your salvation or doubted that your faith is strong enough.  Maybe you've doubted some Church doctrine or doubted something you've read in the Bible.  Maybe you've even lain awake at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering if there really is anyone up there listening to your prayers.  Maybe - God bless you! - you've been exposed to so much bad theology and "hellfire and brimstone" preaching over the years that you've doubted not the existence of God, but rather the goodness of God.

Maybe you've done your best to force thoughts of doubt out of your mind because you believe that doubt is sinful.  To people who are called to believe, doubt can seem like a spiritual failure or a betrayal to one's faith.  To be perfectly honest, I don't think it really matters whether or not it's permissible to doubt: if a person is going through a time of doubt, then no amount of denial or repression will make it go away.  I would go so far to say that repressing one's doubts is actually more harmful than expressing them, because whatever one represses will inevitably find a way to manifest itself in one's life.  I would not advise a person to doubt simply for the sake of doubting, but I would advise a person to be honest about his or her doubts.  Honest doubts must be acknowledged, and honest questions must be raised.

Perhaps faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive of each other.  It has been said that "the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty."⁷  After all, if a person is certain about something, then he or she doesn't really need faith, for faith is, according to the Bible, "the assurance of things hoped for" and "the conviction of things not seen."⁸  If the biblical definition of faith actually incorporates a measure of uncertainty, then maybe faith has nothing to do with certainties or things that can be proven.  Perhaps doubt is just a natural part of the journey of faith.  In the eloquent words of Philip Yancey,
Doubt is the skeleton in the closet of faith, and I know no better way to treat a skeleton than to bring it into the open and expose it for what it is: not something to hide or fear, but a hard structure on which living tissue may grow.⁹
If this is true, then just maybe our seeds of doubt can actually sprout and grow into living faith.

In some sense, St. James's harsh statement about people who doubt is a no-brainer.  If a person prays to God about something but has already made up his mind that God isn't going to answer his prayer, then he shouldn't expect to receive an answer to prayer, because he probably wouldn't notice it even if it walked up to him and slapped him in the face.  I don't think that James's words necessarily apply to Thomas's doubt.  I think that Thomas might actually be showing us a better way to doubt.  I once heard a preacher say,
Faith without doubt is no faith at all.  Ask your questions and have your doubts.  That's a great thing.  Just include God in on the conversation.  If you do that honestly, the day will dawn when you question your questions and doubt your doubts.¹⁰
Thomas has not totally refused to believe that Jesus has risen: he has only said that he would not believe unless he could first see and touch Jesus' scars.  He is open to believing, but he first needs a reason to believe.  Wrestling with God is not the same as slamming the door on God.

C.S. Lewis suggests that people who seemingly resent the happiness of others might actually be closer to happiness than people who mistakenly think they've already found it.¹¹  Their resentment just might be a symptom of a painfully unfulfilled desire that is has somehow been numbed by people who think they're happy.  Maybe the same principle applies to matters of faith and doubt.  I have heard it suggested that maybe Thomas's doubt isn't really something intellectual but rather a result of disappointment that he missed out on what was surely a profound experience for the other disciples.¹²  Perhaps Thomas's refusal to believe actually reveals a desire to believe.

In the Gospels we read a story about a desperate father who came to Jesus, seeking help for his son.  Ever since early childhood, the boy had suffered from a condition that caused mutism and violent seizures.  Sometimes the seizures would put his life in danger by causing him to fall into fire or water.  In Jesus' day, the boy's condition was attributed to an evil spirit, but nowadays, the boy might be diagnosed with epilepsy.  When the desperate father asked Jesus to heal his son, Jesus said, "All things can be done for the one who believes."  The man replied, "I believe; help my unbelief!"¹³

Yes, you read that correctly: in the very same breath, the man professed his belief in Jesus and then confessed his unbelief.  Was that not a very honest and very human thing to say?  Are we not all full of contradictions?  I think that maybe he was trying to say, "I want to believe so badly, but I've been disappointed so many times in my life, I just don't know if I can!"  Though he struggled to believe, he wanted to believe with all his heart.

Maybe, somewhere beneath the demand for proof, Thomas actually wants to believe the other disciples.  Thomas is doubting, but just maybe, like the desperate father, he is doubting with an open heart.

One week later, the Disciples are gathered at their meeting place once again, but, this time, Thomas is there with the others.  Once again, they hear a voice say, "Peace be with you," and, once again, when they turn to look, they see Jesus standing in their midst, even though the door is closed.  Jesus turns to Thomas and says, "Put your finger here and see My hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in My side.  Do not doubt but believe."  Jesus once compared Himself to a shepherd who does not content himself with the ninety-nine sheep that are safe in the pen but rather goes out of his way to find the one that is missing.¹⁴  True to form, Jesus does not content Himself with the ten believing disciples, but returns for the one who is doubting.

This story is just one example of the grace God extends to people who doubt.

Elsewhere in the Gospels, we read a story of a dark and stormy night when the Disciples attempted to cross the Sea of Galilee.  As the boat was tossed around by the waves, the Disciples saw what appeared to be a person walking toward them on the surface of the water.  At first, they thought they were seeing a ghost, but soon they realized the person walking on the water was Jesus.  The disciple Peter, always eager to follow in his Rabbi's footsteps, asked Jesus if he could join Him on the water, and, with Jesus' permission, Peter got out of the boat and began walking on the water toward Jesus.  When Peter saw the waves and felt the strong wind blowing against him, he suddenly remembered that human beings cannot walk on liquid water, and he began to sink.  When Peter doubted, Jesus did not leave him thrashing in the water: Jesus picked him up and walked with him back to the boat.¹⁵

In the Book of Judges we read about a dark time when the Israelites suffered under the oppression of the Midianites.  God called a young man named Gideon to lead the Israelite troops against the Midianites and liberate his people from oppression.  Gideon had seen how massive and powerful the Midianite army was, so naturally he had some anxiety and some doubt that they could actually defeat the Midianites.  He asked for a sign that God would be with him to give him the victory – not once, not twice, but three times.  Each time Gideon asked God for a sign, God gave him exactly what he needed, and, when He still wasn't convinced that God would give him the victory, God offered him a fourth sign.¹⁶

Thomas doubted and dared to challenge what the other disciples told him, and Christ meets his challenge directly by giving him exactly what he needs.  Thomas's experience with the Risen Christ affects him profoundly.  When Jesus shows Thomas his hands and his side, Thomas exclaims, "My Lord and my God!" and, for this reason, he is known by many not as "Doubting Thomas," but as "Thomas the Believer."  According to church tradition, this doubting cynic goes on to become a great missionary who takes the Gospel outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire.  In fact, the Saint Thomas Christians in India trace their roots all the way back to him.¹⁷

The story of Thomas shows us God's grace for those of us who are wrestling with doubt, but I think the story of Thomas also teaches something to those of us who are not doubting.  Notice that it was not enough for the other disciples to simply tell Thomas that Christ had been raised from the dead.  Thomas needed a Christ he could see with his own eyes and touch with his own hands.  Likewise, it is not enough for us to tell people what to believe: we must embody what we believe with our lives.  What good is it to believe in the Resurrection of Christ if we are not living as resurrected people?  We can tell people the story of Salvation, but it would be much more effective and meaningful to show people the story of Salvation with our lives.

In the book I Sold My Soul on eBay, Hemant Mehta, known to many as "the Friendly Atheist," reflects on his experiences at various Christian churches he has visited.  One of his more positive experiences was at Mars Hill Bible Church, a large nondenominational church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.¹⁸  One Sunday, just before the evening service, Hemant sat down for a conversation with the church's founding pastor Rob Bell.  Rob did not try to use Bible verses, apologetics, or other arguments to win him over.  Instead, he simply shared stories of people in his congregation - stories of redemption, stories of people who share God's love with others.  To Rob Bell, such stories are the best evidence that "somewhere there's a tomb that's empty."¹⁹

When Jesus first appeared to the Disciples, he commissioned them to continue the work he started, saying, "As the Father has sent Me, so I send you."  St. Paul describes the worldwide community of followers of Jesus as the Body of Christ.  Nowadays, Christ is not bodily in the world in the same way he was two thousand years ago, so now we show Christ to the world through our lives.  In the words of St. Teresa of Ávila, "Christ has no body now on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours."  We are not called to carry on the work of Christ all by ourselves, for Christ has breathed into us the Holy Spirit to enable us to do the work we have been called to do.  As the Body of Christ, empowered by the Spirit, we can offer people a living, breathing reason to believe.

God gives a lot of grace to people who doubt.  If you are personally going through a season of doubt, do not be afraid to admit your doubts and ask your questions.  When we doubt, we question; when we question, we learn; and, when we learn, we grow.  If you are not personally wrestling with doubt, you might know someone who is wrestling with doubt.  Remember God's grace for those who doubt, and seek to be a channel of that grace.  Offer others a safe place for to voice their doubts and raise their questions and give them a listening ear, free of judgment.  Give people a reason to believe, not with well-rehearsed answers or arguments, but by showing people what it means to be a follower of Christ.

Doubt is not the enemy, for, by God's grace, seeds of doubt can grow into living faith.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.


Notes:

1. Wikipedia: Aldersgate
2. James 2:26
3. James 1:5-8 (NRSV)
4. See John 12-19.
5. John 20:1-18
6. John 11:7-16 (NRSV)
7. This insight is often attributed to writer Anne Lamott, but she has attributed it to others.
8. Quoted phrases are taken from Hebrews 11:1 (NRSV) (ephasis added).
9. Philip Yancey.  Reaching for the Invisible God: What Can We Expect to Find?  2002, Zondervan.
10. Chris Brooks.  "Cloudy Faith."  2009, Wayfarer.
11. C.S. Lewis.  The Great Divorce.  ch. 9
12. Dave Rhodes.  "Love Lockdown."  2009, Wayfarer.
13. Mark 9:14-29 (NRSV)
14. Luke 15:3-7
15. Matthew 14:22-33
16. Judges 6-7
17. Wikipedia: Thomas the Apostle
18. Hehment Mehta.  I Sold My Soul on eBay: Viewing Faith Through an Atheist's Eyes.  2007, Water Brook.
19. Rob Bell shares this part of the story in the second sermon in the series Jesus Wants to Save Christians.

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas was painted by Caravaggio in the early seventeenth century.