John 20.19-31 — Andy James

a sermon on John 20:19-31
preached on April 12, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

What do you do after a big party? Hosting a big party is always a bit of a chore to begin with—the host always ends up doing the dishes, cleaning up the random messes, and getting the house back in some sense of order—but whether you’re hosting or attending a big celebration, there’s the way everything seems to go downhill a bit when it is over, how the exhilaration of expectation and festivity shift back into the routine of the everyday, how the excitement of the party eases down into something much more normal. Even when there is a general sense of relief that the celebration is over, I for one am a little sad, too, and end up counting the days until the next time something like that will happen—even though I know that the strange blend of busyness and exhaustion and exhilaration and relief will only leave me feeling like something is missing yet again after the next party, too.

As much as I feel this way in my own life and in the life of the church after a celebration such as we shared last Sunday for Easter, I can only imagine how much more strongly the disciples felt this in their own lives after their first encounter with the resurrected Jesus. The gospel according to John gives us a little sense of this, showing us an exhilarating first Easter day, when Mary and Peter both encounter the risen Jesus, and a slightly quieter first Easter evening, set in a locked room where the disciples had gathered to take in everything that they had experienced. The core group gathered there was two fewer than it had been before: Judas had killed himself due to his guilt over betraying Jesus, and Thomas wasn’t there with them for some unexplained reason.

It seems that they gathered amidst an overall air of confusion and uncertainty. Only a few of their number had encountered Jesus in person, and so the tales of resurrection were not yet backed up by personal encounters quite yet for most of them. And fear was still very much in their minds, not just fear of the kind of radical change that naturally comes when the certainties of death are broken, even by someone you like, but also fear of the authorities who had arrested and executed Jesus and who most certainly would not be excited to hear that his body was missing, let alone had been resurrected.

So amidst all their fears and uncertainties, inside locked doors, alongside their varied experiences of the risen Jesus, the disciples gathered, not quite knowing what to expect after the party—and then Jesus showed up. Somehow he made it through those tightly-locked doors and even-more-tightly-closed hearts and appeared in their midst. He offered them a word of peace and showed them his hands and his side, and then they rejoiced. He concluded his visit with them on that first Easter evening by breathing the Holy Spirit on them and sending them out to continue his work and ministry.

After that first party, the disciples kept up their gatherings. As they got ready for another Sunday evening meeting, they told the absent Thomas what they had experienced on that Easter evening, and like them he said that he would not—maybe even could not—believe it until he experienced it for himself. So when they gathered again the next Sunday, when Thomas was with the disciples in that locked room, Jesus again appeared among them. Thomas’ uncertainties were resolved when Jesus not only appeared there but offered up his wounds for Thomas to touch, and they again found that the experience they shared together made the resurrection all the more real for them along the way as they moved on from that initial moment back into the everyday.

As we too recover from the celebration of Easter and move back into the everyday, I think we can learn a few things from the disciples as we figure out what comes next after the party. First of all, the disciples remind us how important it is to keep getting together. In those first days of the resurrection, when they were uncertain or unsure what was going on, they kept gathering with one another, trusting that something special would happen in that time. In the same way, we find greater strength for our walks of faith when we walk together. When we gather with others to practice our faith, we are reminded that we are not alone in this journey. When we come together with fellow Christians for worship, prayer, study, and conversation, we are strengthened for those moments when we are unsure or uncertain, for the faith of others can help fill in the gaps that seem so easy to leave wide open. And when we share this pathway with others, we can open our eyes more clearly to the risen Jesus, for he always appeared to the risen disciples after that first morning not one by one but when they gathered together.

Beyond this, John’s story of these resurrection encounters reminds us of the importance of sticking with those who might want to ask some questions along the way. We don’t know why Thomas wasn’t there on that first Easter evening when Jesus appeared to the disciples, and we don’t know why he demanded to see the risen Jesus with his own eyes as he did, but we do know that they encouraged him and welcomed him back into their midst the next week, where his doubts were resolved by an incredible experience of his risen Lord.

In the same way, we are called to exercise a similar measure of generosity and grace with our sisters and brothers in the faith who have questions and express their doubts along the way. It is far too easy to become the kind of Christian community focused on determining who is in or who is out based on beliefs and systems and structures and visible practices, but when we do, we miss the deep reality that all this comes to us as God’s gift, with grace, mercy, and peace beyond all human measure, that we are given only to share with everyone, not to take away from anyone. Just as the disciples welcomed Thomas into their midst when he was uncertain, we too are called to offer a place of welcome to those who are looking to encounter God in the world, trusting that those who may not understand things so perfectly now will grow in faith, hope, and love through God’s own provision and in God’s own time, for they too will one day encounter the resurrected Jesus and join Thomas and so many others in proclaiming, “My Lord and my God!”

Finally, John’s story of the resurrection encounters remind us of one last thing to do after the party: keep singing. Whenever the disciples encountered the resurrected Jesus, they rejoiced and shared their rejoicing along the way. In the same way, we too are called to keep up our praise for what we have encountered along the way, and I know no better way to do that than to sing. Now some of you will likely quietly object to this, thinking that your singing voice isn’t good enough or finding some other reason for why you should be excused from singing praise for the wonder of the resurrection. However, I won’t accept that excuse, and I don’t think Jesus would, either. The beauty of your voice—or lack thereof—is no good reason not to use it!

When it comes to giving praise to God for the resurrection, we are called to raise our voices loud and clear, to set aside our doubts and uncertainties that our voices are good enough, to stop worrying whether or not we can carry a tune in a bucket, for God’s power revealed in the resurrection is so wondrous and surprising and transformative that it can change our mourning into dancing, our cries of lament into songs of joyous praise, and even our most out-of-tune singing into beautiful melodies that lift up the wonder of God’s love.

So as we journey into these weeks after the party, may we join the disciples in their Easter joy, continuing to come together to experience the presence of the resurrected Jesus, making space for those who are still looking for him to appear in our midst, and singing joyous songs of praise to our risen Lord until he comes again in glory to make all things new.

Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

a sermon on John 20:19-31
preached on April 14, 2013*, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Poor doubting Thomas. For centuries, Thomas has borne the brunt of contempt in the church. Just because he was out doing something else the first time the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples, just because he insisted that he wanted to see Jesus for himself, he’s been labeled “doubting” for all time. And not only that, his story shows up in the lectionary every year on the first Sunday after Easter—it’s as if we have to keep rubbing salt in his wounds over and over again, constantly reminding ourselves about Thomas’ inability to believe without seeing things for himself just in case we are tempted to do the same.

But the story is not quite so simple. As the gospel of John tells it, Thomas wasn’t the first person to doubt the resurrection of Jesus. The two disciples who first went to the tomb saw that Jesus’ body was missing, but they didn’t understand or believe the resurrection until they themselves met up with Jesus later. And even Mary wept outside the tomb because she was so sad that Jesus’ body had been stolen—until she realized that the gardener who was comforting her was no less than Jesus himself. It was only after Jesus started appearing to the disciples that the believers began outnumbering the doubters, so they started closing ranks against those who didn’t understand it or wanted to see it before they believed it. Their own experience of the resurrection made it difficult for them to think that anyone else wouldn’t believe it!

So when Thomas missed out on Jesus’ appearance to the disciples on that first Easter evening, when he stood adamant that he would not believe them unless he saw “the mark of the nails in his hands and put [his] finger in the mark of the nails and [his] hand in [Jesus’] side,” he was destined to be shunned and set apart. There was a clear divide: Those who had seen the risen Jesus believed, but those who had not did not.

Even amidst this divide in the disciples’ experiences, everyone came together again the following Sunday evening, just as they had done on that first Easter night. They gathered in the house and closed the doors— but somehow Jesus still came and stood among them. He spoke to them right away: “Peace be with you,” hoping to calm their hearts and minds and make his presence clear and real. But he knew that they were looking for more than his peace—at least some of them were looking for proof that he was who they said he was. So he immediately invited Thomas to do exactly what he wanted and needed to do: “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

That invitation seemed to be all that Thomas needed. John doesn’t tell us that Thomas actually did any of this, but he does record an immediate response: “My Lord and my God!” Jesus then spoke up again, practically turning away from the disciples and addressing those of us who read the gospel later: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Here Jesus doesn’t criticize Thomas for his doubting tendencies, and he certainly doesn’t single him out for this attention, because even most of the disciples didn’t believe his resurrection until they had seen it for themselves! Still, these words give a bit of extra encouragement to those of us who might be reading this story a bit later and so haven’t had seen the risen Christ with our own eyes.

Thomas was certainly not the last person of faith to harbor doubts. It is not a requirement of the Christian faith to never ask questions. Our welcome into the Christian life at baptism does not require us to have everything about our belief sorted out. And if we required everyone who presented themselves at the Lord’s Table to fully understand and explain what happens there, I myself would not be welcome! So I think Thomas was actually onto something when he questioned the resurrection of Jesus because had not experienced it for himself. We remember him because of his doubts, but that should be a good thing for us. As much as we might try to convince ourselves otherwise, doubts are a natural part of the life of faith. Presbyterian minister and writer Frederick Buechner put it nicely, I think:

Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. (Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC)

Stories of people like Thomas help us to be more comfortable in asking good questions, in acknowledging the depth of our struggles, in helping us consider our doubts in such a way that they give us space for deeper faith, in allowing our belief to emerge and enlarge over time as we grow deeper in our experience of God. Ultimately, the reality is that faith and doubt are not opposites. When we come to believe something, our questions are not so much put aside as they are honestly answered. When we take up faith, we allow God to step in and fill in the blanks on our doubts. We recognize that we do not have all the answers and trust God enough to fill in the rest. We place our trust not in our own understanding of what God has done and is doing but in the depth and breadth of God’s life among us. Doubt gives us the space we need amidst the certainties of our world so that faith can step in. So ultimately I think Thomas’ doubt was not his problem but rather the very thing that gave him the space to believe.

Now don’t get me wrong—I’m not even beginning to suggest that you ought to start doubting something if your faith is strong. But what is clear to me from this strange and wonderful story about poor doubting Thomas is that God is big enough to put up with our doubts. Ultimately, Jesus didn’t ostracize Thomas because he doubted but in fact gave him everything that he needed to set his doubts aside. In the same way, we are called to honestly engage and confront our own doubts so that we can come to deeper faith, for ultimately our experiences of God in our lives show us the things we need to believe and hope and trust in God’s work in our world just as Thomas’ experience of the risen Christ enabled him to believe the strange and wonderful story of the resurrection.

So as this Easter season continues, may we encounter the risen Christ in our lives just as Thomas did, so that we can engage our moments of doubt, experience the new life of Christ in our world, and deepen our faith and trust in all that God is doing to make the whole creation new through Jesus Christ our risen Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen.

*While this is not the text for the day, I am preaching from a slightly adjusted lectionary schedule after Easter this year.

After the Party

Poor Doubting Thomas