Sermon: Thomas the Believer (2022)

Delivered at Travelers Rest United Methodist Church in Travelers Rest, South Carolina on April 24, 2022, the Second Sunday in Eastertide

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Thomas the Believer

Audio Version

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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)

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 Frederick Buechner's novel The Final Beast – which, I assure you, is not nearly as apocalyptic as it might sound – a pastor named Theodore Nicolet suddenly leaves town in search of a parishioner named Rooney Vail, who has also left town suddenly.  Throughout the story, Nicolet agonizes over the sermon he'll deliver at his church on the Sunday morning after he returns.  Rooney once confessed to him, “There's just one reason, you know, why I come dragging in there every Sunday.  I want to find out if the whole thing's true.”¹  In other words, she returns to church Sunday after Sunday just because she wants to know if the great claims of the Christian faith really are true.

At one point in the story, Nicolet starts to wonder if his other parishioners are wrestling with the same questions and doubts as Rooney, so he considers stepping up to the pulpit on Sunday morning and saying, “Yes.  It's true, all of it.”²  At the same time, he does not want to deny the ugliness that is so evident in the world, so he considers also saying,
Beloved, don't believe I preach the best without knowing the worst...  But the worst isn't the last thing about the world.  It's the next to the last thing.  The last thing is the best.  It's the power from on high that comes down into the world, that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring.  Can you believe it?  The last, best thing is the laughing deep in the hearts of the saints, sometimes our hearts even.  Yes.  You are terribly loved and forgiven.  Yes.  You are healed.  All is well.³
From these words, which were scrapped from a fictional sermon in a rather obscure Christian novel, we get the declaration of hope we love to say at my church, that “the worst thing is never the last thing.”⁴

I mention this story today, because I wonder how many of us sit in these pews week after week, wondering, like Rooney, “if the whole thing's true.”

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The Disciples have seen a lot in the last three years.  They were all called away from their normal lives by the traveling teacher and healer named Jesus, who, they believed, was their long-awaited Messiah.  They watched Him teach crowds, befriend the friendless, and clash with religious leaders.  They watched Him miraculously feed hungry multitudes, heal the sick, and even raise the dead.

Just one week ago, the Disciples watched Jesus ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, like He was a king at peacetime, as the crowd waved palm branches and shouted, “Hosanna!”⁵  A few days later, when they gathered together for dinner, for some reason Jesus knelt down and started washing their feet.⁶  The mood then became somber when He started to talk about things like betrayal, denial, and going somewhere the Disciples cannot yet follow.⁷  When they all went out after dinner, the unthinkable happened.  Judas Iscariot, one of their own, quite literally sold Jesus out and led the authorities to Him so that they could arrest Him.⁸  The next morning, Jesus was sentenced to death by crucifixion.  Hours later, He was dead.⁹

It is now Sunday evening.  The Disciples are hunkered down in the place where they gathered with Jesus just a few days earlier, and the door is locked.¹⁰  That morning, Mary Magdalene, another friend and follower of Jesus, showed up in a panic and told them that Jesus' body was missing from the tomb.  Two of the Disciples ran to the tomb and found that the body was indeed gone.  When the local authorities discover that Jesus' body has been stolen, the Disciples will be in deep trouble, hence the locked door.  Later in the day, Mary came back and made the delusional claim that she had just seen Jesus alive.¹¹

While the Disciples are sitting in their meeting place, afraid, confused, and unsure of what to think, they suddenly hear a voice say, “Peace be with you.”  They turn to look, and they see Jesus standing in the room with them, alive and well, just as Mary Magdalene had told them.  He shows them the scars where the nails pierced His hands and where the spear pierced His side, and they rejoice that their Lord and teacher is with them once again.  Jesus commissions the Disciples to carry on the work He started, saying, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  He then breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”¹²  The Disciples' fear and sadness have given way to profound joy.  The worst thing truly is not the last thing.

Unfortunately, one of the Disciples is not with the others when Jesus appears to them.¹³

The Gospels don't tell us very much about the disciple named Thomas.  In fact, in three of the Gospels, he is merely listed with the other eleven.¹⁴  Everything we know about Thomas, besides the fact that he is one of the Twelve, we glean from the Gospel of John.  It seems to me that Thomas can be a bit sarcastic at times.  When Lazarus died, prompting Jesus to return to Judea where He previously escaped being stoned to death, Thomas turned to the other disciples and said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”¹⁵  It's also evident that Thomas isn't afraid to ask questions.  When Jesus told the Disciples that He was going to prepare a place for them and assured them that they already knew the way to where He was going, Thomas asked, “Lord, we don't know where you are going.  How can we know the way?”  Of course, Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”¹⁶

The ten disciples who have seen Jesus alive enthusiastically go out to find Thomas.  When they tell him the good news, that their Lord is alive and well, he says 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.”¹⁷

We do not know why Thomas doubts that his fellow disciples have seen the Risen Christ.  Maybe the idea that Jesus has been resurrected simply seems implausible to him, even though he has borne witness to numerous implausible events as one of the Disciples, including Jesus' raising a man from the dead.  Maybe Thomas thinks that his fellow disciples have been so overtaken with grief that they have become delusional, seeing what they desperately want to see.  Maybe he reasons that, if the news sounds too good to be true, then it must be too good to be true.  Maybe, after the tragic events of the last few days, he just doesn't want to get his hopes up.

Thomas's response to the other disciples' news that Jesus has been resurrected from the dead will make Saint Thomas the Apostle the most famous doubter in all of human history.  His response will posthumously earn him the nickname “Doubting Thomas,” a name that is also used to deride people who express doubts.

Three times we read in the Gospel of John that Thomas is also known as “Didymus” or “the Twin.”¹⁸  What the writer does not tell us is whose twin Thomas is.  It has been suggested by a number of people that Thomas's twin is none other than the reader.  In other words, perhaps we are the doubting disciples to whom Thomas's story was written.  Whether or not we want to admit the fact, we all wrestle with doubt as Thomas did.

As Christians, we tend to believe that there are 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 more conservative Christian circles, doubt can be somewhat of a boogeyman, while, in more progressive settings, doubt might almost seem to be en vogue.  Truth be told, some of the things we have been taught by the Church are rightfully doubted.  No church's teachings are perfect, and neither is anyone's theology or interpretation of the Bible.  When the Church gets it wrong, doubt can lead us into a greater understanding of the truth.  Where would we be without the great reformers who dared to doubt certain things the Church was teaching in their day?

Still, there are times when we struggle to believe things we might actually want to believe.  Like the doubting, desperate father who brought his sick son to Jesus, we might find ourselves crying out, “I believe; help my unbelief!”¹⁹  Like Rooney in Buechner's novel, we might drag ourselves into church every Sunday just “to find out if the whole thing's true.”  Maybe, like Thomas, you've doubted the Resurrection.  Maybe you've doubted something else the Gospels tell us about Jesus.  Maybe you've doubted that God's grace really is enough.  Maybe you've doubted that you're cut out to do what you believe God has called you to do.  Maybe at some point your circumstances have caused you to wonder if God really loves you.  Maybe you've lain awake at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering if there is really anyone out there listening to your prayers.  Maybe, if your experience has been anything like mine, the conflicting messages you've heard about God have led you to doubt not the existence of God but rather the goodness, mercy, and love of God.

To people who are called to believe, doubt can seem like a spiritual failure or a betrayal of one's faith.  I would like to suggest that faith and doubt are not opposites as we might tend to think.  I would go so far as to say that doubt is actually a part of faith.  If one has no doubt, then one has certainty, and, if one has certainty, then one has no need for faith.  The writer of Hebrews tells us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for” and “the conviction of things not seen.”²⁰  Faith then has nothing to do with certainties or things that can be proven, because faith, by its very nature, requires a measure of uncertainty.  Saint Paul writes in one of his letters that “we walk by faith, not by sight.”²¹  We might also say that “we walk by faith, not by certainty.”

I think that the story of Thomas and his doubt will show us that doubt does not have to be the undoing of our faith but can be instead a pathway to deeper faith.  Philip Yancey writes in his book Reaching for the Invisible God, “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.”²²  To borrow an image from the Book of Ezekiel, maybe the seemingly dry bones of doubt are the perfect place for new and living faith to grow.  Yancey continues, “Reading the biographies of great people of faith, I must search to find one whose faith did not grow on a skeleton of doubt, and indeed grow so that the skeleton eventually became hidden.”²³   The great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick once suggested that “no [one] really possesses Christian faith until [one] has fought for it.”  He went on to suggest that “the great believers” “went honestly through with their disbeliefs until at last they began to doubt their doubts.”²⁴

Some people criticize Thomas for expressing his doubts, but I would like to suggest that Thomas can serve as a role model for other doubting disciples.  Hear again what he says when the other disciples tell him that they have seen Jesus: “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.”  I think that there are at least a couple of things worth noting about Thomas's response.  First, Thomas is honest and even unapologetic about his doubt.  He does not pretend to believe what he does not believe just to make his fellow disciples happy.  Second, Thomas is actually open to believing what the other disciples have told him.  He has not flat-out refused to believe that Jesus has been resurrected; he has only said that he will not believe unless he can see Jesus and touch His scars.  Thomas only wants for himself what the other disciples claim they've had; he wants his own encounter with the Risen Christ.

When you find yourself trudging through a season of doubt, be honest about it, as Thomas was.  Do not feign belief just to make other people happy.  Repressing or denying your doubts will not make them go away.  Repression is actually dangerous because the things we repress have a way of making themselves known in our lives in some undesirable ways.  For example, if you have ever confessed your doubts to people who responded with anger, those people likely have their own doubts they are refusing to acknowledge.  While you're sitting with your doubt, take another cue from Thomas and be open to an encounter with the Risen Christ, whatever form that might take.  There is a world of difference between wrestling with your faith and slamming the door on it.

A week passes after ten of the Disciples see the Risen Christ, and once again they are gathered in their meeting place.  This time, Thomas is with them.²⁵  Please do not fail to notice that, even though Thomas and the other disciples are clearly not on the same page regarding the Resurrection of Christ, he is still with them.  Thomas has not left the other disciples just because he doesn't believe everything they believe.  The other disciples have not rejected Thomas just because he doesn't believe what they've told him.  They have not dismissed him as a heretic or treated him like he is a threat to their faith.  On the contrary, they've made space for him and his doubts.  Thomas and the other disciples might not see eye-to-eye at the moment, but they are still brothers.  They have been through too much together in the last three years to part ways over something like doubt.

If you are going through a season of doubt, please do not be too quick to leave the Church.  Your church is still your family even if you are not quite sure you believe everything your church believes.  Bring your doubts to church with you and allow your family of faith to believe on your behalf for a while.  If you are not going through a season of doubt, make space for the people who are wrestling with doubt.  The skeptics among you are still your brothers and sisters, even if they are not quite on the same page as you.

Once again, while the Disciples are gathered, they hear a voice say, “Peace be with you.”  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.”²⁶  Thomas issued a challenge, and now Jesus is meeting that challenge directly.  In the same way that the shepherd in Jesus' parable didn't content himself with ninety-nine sheep but instead went back to find the one that was missing,²⁷ Jesus does not content himself with ten believing disciples but rather comes back for the one who doubts.

Thomas dared to doubt what his fellow disciples told him about the Resurrection of Christ, yet he stayed with them and remained open to his own encounter with the Risen Christ.  The Risen Christ has now returned to meet Thomas where he is, in his doubt, and, by God's grace, Thomas's doubt is growing into living faith.  When Thomas sees Christ's hands and side, he exclaims, “My Lord and my God!”²⁸  This, my friends, is the response we should forever associate with Saint Thomas.  For this response, we should remember him not as “Doubting Thomas” but as “Thomas the Believer.”  This sarcastic skeptic will do great things as an apostle of Christ.  According to Church tradition, Thomas will take the Gospel message outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire.  To this day, the Saint Thomas Christians in India trace their roots back to him.²⁹

Ultimately, the story of Thomas is a story about the grace of God and the willingness of Christ to meet us where we are, even in our doubt.  It teaches us that God will not abandon us to our doubts and that, by God's grace, our seeds of doubt can grow into living faith.

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I think that the story of Thomas might have another message for the Church at this present moment, when it seems like so many people are walking away from the Christian faith.  Notice that it was not enough for the other disciples to tell Thomas that Christ was resurrected.  Thomas had to see the Resurrection for himself.  Maybe it is not enough for the Church to simply tell people what to believe.  I wonder if the reason that so many people are losing their faith and leaving the Church right now, is that, like Thomas, they have not seen any evidence of resurrection.  The Sermon on the Mount teaches us that Christians are called to be collectively a light to the world and a shining city on a hill, drawing people to God through their actions.³⁰  Sadly, it seems that a lot of us have not been living up to our calling, for a lot of people have not been drawn to God but have been repulsed by the actions of Christians.

Philosopher Peter Rollins once spoke at Calvin College where he apparently raised some eyebrows.  Someone in attendance found it necessary to ask him if he denied the Resurrection of Christ.  Rollins replied,
I do deny the Resurrection, every time I do not serve my neighbor, every time I walk away from people who are poor.  I deny the Resurrection every time I participate in an unjust system.  And I affirm the Resurrection every now and again when I stand up for those who are on their knees.  I affirm the Resurrection when I cry out for those people who have had their tongues torn out, when I weep for those people who have no more tears to shed.³¹
Rollins was essentially saying that, regardless of what we claim to believe about the Resurrection of Christ, we either affirm it or deny it by the way we live in response to it.  We affirm the Resurrection when we live resurrected lives.

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we must embody what we claim to believe.  What good is it, my friends, if we preach Christ crucified but refuse to deny ourselves and take up our own crosses as Christ has called us?³²  What good is it if we proclaim that “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death”³³ but are not being raised with Him from our spiritual deadness?

Hemant Mehta, who is known to many as “the Friendly Atheist,” once sold his soul on eBay.  He wanted to learn more about religions other than the Jainism practiced by his family, so he auctioned off the opportunity to make him attend religious gatherings.  For every ten dollars the auction brought in, he would attend one gathering at a place of worship of the winner's choosing.  The winning bidder happened to be a former pastor named Jim Henderson, who, at the time, sought to help churches by showing them how they are perceived by people outside the Christian faith.  Hemant agreed to attend services at the churches Jim chose for him and then write about his experiences on Jim's blog.³⁴

One of Hemant's more positive experiences was at Mars Hill Bible Church, a nondenominational megachurch in Grandville, Michigan.³⁵  One Sunday, just before the evening service, he sat down for a conversation with the church's founding pastor Rob Bell.  Rob did not try to use Bible verses, doctrine, or apologetics to win Hemant over.  Instead, he simply shared stories of people in his congregation – stories of transformation, stories of people who share God's love with others.  Such stories are, according to Rob, the best evidence that “somewhere there's a tomb that's empty.”³⁶

When Jesus appeared to the Disciples, He said to them, “As the Father has sent Me, so I send you.”  He then breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  The Church is the Body of Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry on the work Christ started.  Nowadays, people who long to see resurrection in their midst cannot look at the scarred hands and feet of Christ as Thomas and his fellow disciples did, because, in the words of Saint Teresa of Ávila,
Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ is to look out on a hurting world.  Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.  Yours are the hands with which he is to bless now.³⁷
If the Church at its worst has been a reason for people to doubt, then maybe the Church at its best can be a reason for people to believe.

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There are probably plenty of people who would urge you not to be doubtful like Thomas.  I would never encourage you to doubt for the sake of doubting, but I would encourage you to be like Thomas if you are struggling with doubt.  Be honest about your doubts, but stay with your family of faith.  Be open to an encounter with the Risen Christ, for Christ has a way of meeting us where we are, even in our doubt.  Doubt is not the enemy of faith, for, by God's grace, our seeds of doubt can grow into living faith.  If you are not currently struggling with doubt, provide those who are doubting a safe space to voice their doubts and offer them a listening ear free of judgment.  May we all remember who we are called to be as the Body of Christ, so that we may offer people a living, breathing reason to believe.

Amen.


Notes:

1. Frederick Buechner.  The Final Beast.  1965, Harper and Row.  p. 28
2. Buechner, pp. 173-174
3. Buechner, pp. 174-175
4. This saying was made popular among United Methodists by prominent pastor Adam Hamilton.
5. John 12:12-15
6. John 13:3-5
7. John 13:21, 36-38
8. John 18:1-12
9. John 18:28-19:30
10. John 20:19
11. John 20:1-18
12. John 20:19-22 (NRSV)
13. John 20:24
14. Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15
15. John 11:14-16 (NRSV)
16. John 14:2-6
17. John 20:25
18. John 11:16; 20:24; 21:2
19. Mark 9:24 (NRSV)
20. Hebrews 11:1 (NRSV)
21. 2 Corinthians 5:7 (NRSV)
22. Philip Yancey.  Reaching for the Invisible God: What Can We Expect to Find?  2002, Zondervan.  p. 41
23. Yancey, p. 42
24. Harry Emerson Fosdick.  “The Importance of Doubting Our Doubts.”
25. John 20:26
26. John 20:26-27 (NRSV)
27. Luke 15:4-7
28. John 20:28 (NRSV)
29. Wikipedia: “Thomas the Apostle”
30. Matthew 5:14-16
31. Peter Rollins.  “I Deny the Resurrection.”
32. Matthew 16:24
33. From the Paschal troparion used by the Eastern Orthodox Church
34. Hehment Mehta.  I Sold My Soul on eBay: Viewing Faith Through an Atheist's Eyes.  2007, Water Brook.  pp. 13-21
35. Mehta, pp. 117-123
36. Rob Bell shares this part of the story in the second sermon in the series Jesus Wants to Save Christians.
37. This is the version of the quote that appears in The Walk to Emmaus Worship Booklet for Pilgrims, Third Edition.  2008, Upper Room Books.

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